gaining new levels stack with restored permanet level lost from negative level

[elykkai]

as a DM and player,i recently been finding myself in a big gray area where rules say it is possiable and could be concidered being abused.
My ? is if EX. my character losses a level through a failed negative level check or temporary negative level. do gaining levels during that time stack with levels later restored or recovered from that drain, and or even restored by a restoration spell for permanent level loss.

the rules state that a permanent level lost will leave in in the middle of the previous level to next level in xp. a level restored by restoration give just enough xp to restore that level lost....allittle shorted paragragh.

the rule seem to be fine but i can see a bit of an issue arrising in low level characters gaining levels real fast and some experience players in epic using it to short come the huge gap in xp. so i would like some opinions on this or some best ways to deal with this, should be allowed or limited. right now my DM allows this cause there is nothing specific to stop.
i mean that was a well deserved class level lost or few levels. but all that xp boosted me to the next level, so would it be fair or unfair to have those levels restored later on. or should we just get that XP for those levels lost added to the characters and see what would increase


another question a permanent level lost results in a horrable reduction in skill point, HP in the case of my sorcerer and ETC.
should i just go by the actual lose or by the coresponding character level lost... EXAMPLE.a fighter could beneift more from a level lost of 5HP and later gaining a new level with 10HP. but the sorcerer with only 4HP max hits hard with the -5HP. and the skill points could destroys even characters like rogues.

i bring up these questions cause one of our clerics got targeted most by the undead and lost 15 levels, the result of those negative levels cause a permanent lose of levels, but fighting with us still( requiring tons of help and skill) she gains enough XP for about seven levels. but upon returning to her church she received a restoration spell to receive those levels back. so now 6 lvs higher than the rest should this be ok. right now no one complaining but here in the epic levels one player started to notices the beneifits of that in multiclassing faster for example.

[Galvin]

So your situation is... your cleric got permanently reduced 15 levels, then gained 7 in this reduced state, because lower level players gain levels quicker, and then got a restoration, and now is higher than all of ya.

While this might seem broken, I can see nothing in the rules that actually makes this not OK. This is just one of those things that WOTC must've overlooked.

[haplessvictim]

my character losses a level through a failed negative level check or temporary negative level. do gaining levels during that time stack with levels later restored or recovered from that drain, and or even restored by a restoration spell for permanent level loss.

I think the essence of your confusion is that characters gain experience points, not levels. So, any XP gained after level drain and before restoration will be kept by the PC but will probably no longer be sufficient to level them up as far after restoration as it did before.

For example, Cecil the cleric is 10th level, and is level drained back to 5th. He now has 12500 xp (midway between 5th and 6th). Cecil works hard and stays alive and gains 9000 xp, putting him just over 7th level. He then has his drained levels restored, which restores him to 45000 xp (the bare minimum to be 10th level), but he also carries with him the 9000 xp he gaines while weakened, putting him at 54000 xp, not enough to get to 11th.

Edit: I am wrong; I thought this was RAW but no: see below.

[OldTrees1]

dispels negative levels and restores one experience level to a creature who has had a level drained. The drained level is restored only if the time since the creature lost the level is equal to or less than one day per caster level. A character who has a level restored by restoration has exactly the minimum number of experience points necessary to restore him or her to his or her previous level.

So no, all the xp earned while level drained is wasted.
Level loss from negative levels actually reduces your xp total to the level you were reduced to + half the cost to gain the next level. Restoration restores your xp to the minimum xp to qualify as the level you were before the negative levels.

I would suggest that you be willing to bend this rule so that that xp is not wasted. (aka follow haplessvictim's suggested rules fix)

[elykkai]

thanks for that fast advise and future advice i would love to continue to hear more opinions.

@OldTrees1-im not so worried about the partial XP mostly as the
EX- Selena(10 lv) permanently losing say 4 levels after the 24 hours, continue to campaign and gain 2 levels with that new XP. so now she is lv 8. after three days(in gameplay) she comes across a temple that offers to heal her, so now she is in theory lv 12.

i've been trying to decide something like @haplessvictim says. but most of are characters are multiclass already, so playing with all the partial XP lost and gained then returning to minimum at the original plus the xp gain could result in the lose of another level.it is tricky
clarification some have used the difference to reclass or multiclass into other classes(from single class cleric to multiclass with druid) and later tried to regain those lost classes in the previous cleric class.

@ Galvin - that is the truth, it could be beneficial to help a suffering character and/ or be used to boost characters so fast it could over run certain areas

i would love to hear how everyone would play this situation.with the level loss and any beneficial situation or criticism if u think its cheating

[OldTrees1]

thanks for that fast advise and future advice i would love to continue to hear more opinions.

@OldTrees1-im not so worried about the partial XP mostly as the
EX- Selena(10 lv) permanently losing say 4 levels after the 24 hours, continue to campaign and gain 2 levels with that new XP. so now she is lv 8. after three days(in gameplay) she comes across a temple that offers to heal her, so now she is in theory lv 12.

By Raw she would be lv 10.
However I think haplessvictim's suggestion is a better way to handle the situation.
Let her carry the 13000xp she earned forward when restored to lvl 10. That would put her 3000xp past 11th level. Which is, in theory, only slightly ahead* of where she would have been if she had not lost the levels in the first place.
*due to lower level characters earning more xp from encounters.

[Segev]

If you need to justify it in character, call it a "rebound" effect from being so faithful during the cleric's time of hardship. You can fluff the same rebound for any class, really.


The stickiest question would arise if, say, your cleric decided, after being level-drained, to pick up levels of wizard.

[Khedrac]

Something else to bear in mind - when a character fails the save and goes from "having 1 negative level" and "being one level lower" you do not keep the effects of a "negative level".
At the point where the level loss becomes permanent the character no longer has that negative level so is no longer down 5hp, -1 to all attacks and saves etc. Instead one recalculates what the stats are for the one level lower character.

With the exception of spell casters in specific circumstances, the effects of a negative level are almost always worse than being one level lower.

[molten_dragon]

dispels negative levels and restores one experience level to a creature who has had a level drained. The drained level is restored only if the time since the creature lost the level is equal to or less than one day per caster level. A character who has a level restored by restoration has exactly the minimum number of experience points necessary to restore him or her to his or her previous level.


So no, all the xp earned while level drained is wasted.
Level loss from negative levels actually reduces your xp total to the level you were reduced to + half the cost to gain the next level. Restoration restores your xp to the minimum xp to qualify as the level you were before the negative levels.

I would suggest that you be willing to bend this rule so that that xp is not wasted. (aka follow haplessvictim's suggested rules fix)

Keep in mind though that the wording allows Restoration to be abused in another way too. It can basically give you a bunch of free XP for casting spells with an XP component, or crafting items.

Right after you level and you're just above the threshold for that level still, find a monster with level drain, and have it drain a level from you. You basically lose half a level's worth of XP. Then you spend the other half a level's worth of XP on crafting or spells with an XP cost. Then you get a restoration, and you're back where you started, basically getting all the XP costs paid for free.