The blog Straits of Anian has a very interesting option to replace Energy Drain. Its highly flavorful, with great roleplay opportunities and easily appropriated to other settings.

Soul Loss: Similar to the "life energy drain" of other milieus, soul loss represents significant spiritual damage inflicted by enemies wherein the soul or a part thereof is stolen or driven away by hostile spirits. This has a variety of possible effects, none of which are immediately fatal, though the condition has deep associations with suicide among the Straitsmen.

In each instance where a character would normally lose a level due to "energy drain", the referee may instead roll a d6 on the table below to determine what was stolen:

1        Language. Character can no longer speak language, nor can they read or write. They may still moan & holler unintelligibly if desired.
2        Civilization. Character can no longer use tools or weapons and must perform all actions directly, with the body.
3        Skill. Character's effective level is reduced to 1 for the purposes of calculating the potency of all abilities, and they lose access to any bonuses derived from background or assumed proficiency.
4        Passion. Character becomes depressed and lethargic, unable to perform any significant actions in campaign downtime between sessions. During sessions, any action that takes a turn (10 minutes) or longer of continuous concentration to perform requires a Wisdom check to complete.
5        Humanity. Character becomes perceptibly but indescribably inhuman, reducing their effective Charisma score to 3. Animals growl or otherwise act hostile in their presence, and hirelings will not follow them. Even old friends must save or make new reaction rolls with the altered modifier.
6        Spirit Ally. An attendant spirit was stolen from the character. Sorcerous familiars, intelligences residing in weapons or other items, guardian spirits, and relationships or connections with divine or mystical patrons are all at risk.

Any result for which there is nothing left to steal must be rerolled. When there are no eligible results of types 1-5 remaining, the character is no more.

Though the body may live, there is no spirit left to salvage, and death will surely follow shortly thereafter. That is, unless another will moves in to take the soul's place...


Check out the blog for more discussion about Soul Loss in his setting, but hot damn, I love how "soul loss" is less mechanically focused like "Lose a Level", but opens itself for some great stories as PCs much now live "altered" or quest to recover that part of themselves.

This is an effing cool idea. There's potential for a whole table of such soul loss conditions, or keeping it small to better match a campaign's themes.

Ooh ideas flowing...

Interesting death spiral, but level drain is likely easier. Those disadvantages are crippling, some dysfunctionally so, and needs a table with more experienced players, I think. I know quite a few (mostly new) players who would get easily frustrated and just shut down, retiring their character early because they don't know what to do from there, essentially turning that soul attack into a save v. death.

Reason why level drain instills fear is because its cure is so readily available that there is little excuse to crumpling in the face of it besides "I hate time-outs." Some people really can't figure out how to move on from certain disadvantages, as we've already discussed before on fora in everything from morality meters to attribute values. But everyone can figure out how to get more XP — they are just balking at the time investment to do so again.

Useful stuff, yet needs the right players who can handle that difficulty. Not much of a level-drain substitute in my eyes, though.

We went with exhaustion instead of level drain for most.

Or a possible madness from the options section of the DMG.

Make no mistake, I think the ideas are awesome for an OSR grindhouse campaign, a la LotFP or DCC. Straits of Anián blog has great ideas for warrior societies, a form of fighter archetypes, and sorcery available to non-magic-users like rituals (some restricted as more esoteric mysteries). But in such gloriously metal campaigns I wouldn't hesitate to run both level-drain and soul damage, as game premise expectations alone should clear out all but the most invested in delightfully grizzly games.

Quote from: Opaopajr;830105Those disadvantages are crippling, some dysfunctionally so, and needs a table with more experienced players, I think.

Agreed. What I like about soul loss is how the other PCs have impetus to quest to help their friend because HOT DAMN those disads are nasty. Unlike level drain where its just "suck it up and earn some more XP" and the rest of the group isn't involved.

I like it.  Very creative, and much more immersive than just "lose 1 level".