Drain Recovery
Level draining is one of the worst consequences that a character can suffer. The loss of Levels and the accompanying Experience Points drain of the creature by a force or monster can be difficult to recover from.
How to Restore
Restoration is a 7th level spell so it needs a 14th level Priest who has an Intuition of 18 or higher. 14th level Priests get one 7th level spell per day. Going with the minimum requirement you will have 13 days to find such a person and convince them to cast the spell for you. Each time the spell is cast it ages the Priest two years. Each casting restores one level.
During ThirdTimeIsTradition a couple characters were drained of levels. This page is for discussing how and if to restore the lost levels in general and specific to the situation at hand.
7/11 John
As characters, Lord Tiberius would be the most likely to be restored. He is a wealth noble even if he is an NPC.
Hoffman as a character is not significantly changed. He lost few hits point permanently and can be expected to be even stronger as he gains levels back the hard way. His THACO is only affected in a way that makes every attack seem like a called shot. His goals and motivation are unchanged and he really did not want follower anyways.
As a player, in this campaign more so than other campaigns, it is all about the XP. Sure it took a lot of time to build them up. There are some things I will not be able to due for a long time, if ever again in this campaign.
If you think it suck for me as a player, then what about TMO. Not only did he just retire a character and lose a bunch of XP and now get drained to even fewer XP, his story makes him least likely to be restored and there was already discussion of if the character fits into the group and he might take yet another hit to create a new character.
But if we play THIS game, in THIS campaign for some end goal and not the journey, the story, then maybe we are playing the wrong game. I am actually considering retiring Hoffman, or setting him aside for a while. At this point I would lose the least amount of XP, but that is going to take a lot more thought.
Experience Point Math:
| Fighter | Paladin/Ranger/Berserker | |||||
| Level | Hit Dice | XP to reach | Level | Hit Dice | XP to reach | |
| 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | |
| 2 | 2 | 2,000 | 2 | 2 | 2,250 | |
| 3 | 3 | 4,000 | 3 | 3 | 4,500 | |
| 4 | 4 | 8,000 | 4 | 4 | 9,000 | |
| 5 | 5 | 16,000 | 5 | 5 | 18,000 | |
| 6 | 6 | 32,000 | 6 | 6 | 36,000 | |
| 7 | 7 | 64,000 | 7 | 7 | 75,000 | |
| 8 | 8 | 125,000 | 8 | 8 | 150,000 | |
| 9 | 9 | 250,000 | 9 | 9 | 300,000 | |
| 10 | +3hp | 500,000 | 10 | +3hp | 600,000 | |
So using Tiberius as an example (not saying he should be given special treatment, the debate of Branwyn's husband versus NPC should be looked at):
- Started at 9th level with over 250,000 XP
- Drained two levels - each level drain takes you to the mid-point of the XP between levels
- Now at 7th level and at 94,500 XP currently
NOTE: Restoration bring a character up to the minimum number of XP for the next higher level
I will leave it to the players to discuss and come up with ideas how to best exploit those number.
7/11 Carissa
To me, whether or not we want to pursue restoring is up to the players who were affected. TMO is my main concern simply because he doesn't know if Brer Nicholas will be around. If he gets retired, does that mean he'd have to create a 4th level character? Then again, do we pay the price to bring Brer back up a few levels only for him to be set aside? Or is restoring levels something he'd feel indebted to us for helping him do and therefore gives him a reason to stick around?
As for Tiberius, it depends on the cost. I don't think gold will be enough. Bringing him back from the dead meant traveling to the forest and being pulled into an Elven battle. But raising dead doesn't age the caster. Depending on who you are asking to restore, can you really measure two years of life in gold? I would expect a quest of some sort or an oath or something worth far more than gold. Would it be worth it just for him to gain those levels back? He still hits hard, but I've not played a fighter to know if what he lost will be worth whatever we would need to pay to get it back.
Again, never played a fighter, so less opinion on Hoffman than the other three. If it doesn't affect him taking over Skull Church, how much will it matter to gain them back now versus later (or never)?
In terms of trying to find someone to cast restore, I think we'd have better luck finding someone where two years cost much less to them to give up. In other words, someone not human. Not easy considering we only have a little less than two weeks, and as far as I know, our best bet would be Loosend for maybe finding a priest/ess of another race. I'm not sure how much work we'd have to do to find them, either. To be able to cast restore, they must have major access to the Necromancy sphere of magic. That's god/dess specific. Hopefully at most we'd only get a bit of run around to find them, but that's another potential barrier we'd need to overcome.
7-11 BOB
The key for Hoffman's level is that Fighters at 9th level gain followers if they establish a stronghold. Branwyn can grant Skull Church to Hoffman if he was 1st level. He just would not gain any automatic followers.
That does not preclude John from playing Hoffman in running the place for Branwyn, but the Queen would not grant him any rights to the place as John originally envisioned.
If John were to decide to retire Hoffman Lisa could still have Branwyn grant Hoffman Skull Church and it would be much like how Ilero is running the Tieran Guild in Foriso Town. Or TMO could have Brer settle in Skull Church as it matches his religion and would give him a reason to stay around. He would have issues with his Oath with the Order of Brotherhood to solve.
7-11 TMO
I built Brer with the idea that he *most likely* wouldn't be a permanent member of the group. That's not a guarantee, and 'not permanent' does NOT mean 'leaving ASAP'. He can still be with the group for a long time without being a permanent member. That also means that taking a second hit on XP to build a third character is an expected cost of the character. The loss of 2 XP levels is annoying, and I don't like the game mechanic, but I'm not going to let it ruin the game for me. :)
As a note, when Brer lost his first level, Bob told me it took him down to the bottom of the XP level, not the middle. Can we tell which is correct?
- The correct math is down goes to halfway between levels and up goes to the minimum of the next level
There's still a lot of Brer's story that hasn't been told. Truth is, significant parts of it may never be told. ;)
So, final bit, would I like to have Brer's levels back? Yes. Do I honestly expect to get them restored? Not really. Brer lost some very useful Turning power with that first level, and I'll need to read the books to see if he lost anything with the second. But on reading the notes above for Restoration, I figure they're most likely gone and have to be re-earned the hard way.
7-11 Lisa
I'll post thoughts tomorrow but I just wanted to check how bad the damage was. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Tiberius was 10th level and lost 2 so now 8th level.
Brer Necholas was 9th level (8th - TMO) and lost 3 (2 - TMO) so now 6th level.
Hoffman was 9th level and lost four so now 5th. (John Updated)
7/12 Carissa
@TMO: Ahh, communication error (aka I misunderstood). That makes me feel better. I interpreted it exactly as you just clarified and worried he was leaving after this after such a short time with us! Good. I need to know more of his story so he needs to stick around (and if/when he leaves, I hope those untold parts are still somehow told in another manner!).
@John: Also glad to hear you still have a vision for Hoffman. I didn't think about the follower issue, though. But that's something for you and Lisa to decide upon since it's either restore Hoffman so the queen grants him the church or have Branwyn be proxy (or however we want to word it).
The only other thought I'll currently toss out (more pending Lisa's thoughts and a better idea of damage done) is that it might still be worth looking into restoring at least one character's level once if only so we have an idea of cost if (hope not when) it happens again.
7-12 BOB
Historically the cost of a Raise Dead has been 9,000 GP at a minimum. Which is a 5th level spell able to be cast by a 9th level Priest.
7/12 Lisa
BOB - What level was Tiberius anyway? If he was over 10th level maybe he was at 11 and is now at 9? See below
From chat: Formatted
[Branwyn (Lisa)] (and Tiberius is 10 lvl or higher right?)
Shurkural (TMO)] (his block says Level 8)
[Master] Yes he is over 10th level
[Master] I just left the 8 there for a long time
I agree with Carissa, that any Restoration efforts should be up to affected players and like the idea of a non-human priest if possible so that the age drain would not be so noticeable and might potentially reduce the cost versus asking a human priest for so much life energy.
My opinion though? I wouldn’t do the spells, but will go with what the players want without objection.
Tiberius is high enough level that he still has his mastery bonuses and decent hps. He is an NPC and we shouldn’t be spending the ungodly amount of cash and favors that would be required on that. I don’t recommend it at all.
Hoffman just kills me to see at 5th level, but with only 8K XP to get to 6th (which would restore his mastery bonuses I believe) I think he will get there as soon as we close this adventure section. Objectively, it seems to be a large cost for relatively little XP to be restored for the first 2 levels needed and then to get to where it really makes a difference (the next two) the price will take out most of the funds we had allocated for renovating Skull Church. It is up to John and I’ll go with it.
Brer looks like it would take 100K in XP to get him to 8th which will take longer to earn or 2 spells to get back. Again, I don’t think it will take long to get Brer to 7th, it’s that long haul to get fully restored against the cost for the two spells necessary to get to the leap over the harder level to restore. I’ll go with whatever TMO wants to do.
Tangential to the level drain issue was the issue of Uncle Foto that John mentioned in OOC. BOB has not responded, but I know that with Johan, I am basically running him now and he is not a henchman. Bob has enough characters to run, it just kind of transferred over so I pick his spells, talk for him, etc. I never agreed to take him as a henchman. I would be surprised if Bob just took Foto away from you completely but maybe he will answer today.
7-12 BOB
It definitely needs to be a discussion about Foto, Hoffman and who John will play, etc. It does not work that suddenly Foto would be the main character and Hoffman would be a henchman, that does not make any sense roleplay wise. That does not preclude John from playing both as Lisa pointed out with Johan.
For Tiberius I will double check his levels, it is either 8 or 9 right now after the drains.
