[3.5] Monsters / Effects that do HP Drain? How do we fix this madness?!

[Maginomicon]

There is this thing called HP Drain. It's not like Constitution damage or drain, which you can heal with the right tool, but is a permanent unfixable-by-RAW drain to your maximum HP.

So far, I've seen two monsters that have it.

Lavawight (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/monsters/lavawight.htm) (CR 23)
Myrlochar (CR 4; Monsters of Faerun, page 66)


Are there any other creatures/effects that have this d***-move ability?

I'm open to hearing suggestions for what effects should be house-ruled to recover HP drain. Keep in mind, it should be tougher to remove than Constitution Drain.

[AuraTwilight]

Greater Restoration?

[Alex12]

Two ways spring to mind offhand.
The first way is to treat it like Vile damage- doesn't heal naturally, or through fast healing or regeneration, nor does normal magical healing work. However, magical healing within a holy area (consecrated or something similar) does heal it. For negative-energy users, you could instead require an unholy area with the appropriate energy type.

The other way involves planar travel. Go to the plane of positive energy, and once you hit, say, 150% of your normal max health, you start healing the unhealing damage. (use the appropriate plane for those who heal using other energy types)

Or you could have it be eliminated on level-up.

[molten_dragon]

There is this thing called HP Drain. It's not like Constitution damage or drain, which you can heal with the right tool, but is a permanent unfixable-by-RAW drain to your maximum HP.

So far, I've seen two monsters that have it.

Lavawight (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/monsters/lavawight.htm) (CR 23)
Myrlochar (CR 4; Monsters of Faerun, page 66)


Are there any other creatures/effects that have this d***-move ability?

I'm open to hearing suggestions for what effects should be house-ruled to recover HP drain. Keep in mind, it should be tougher to remove than Constitution Drain.

I don't know of any other monsters that can do that.

I'd probably rule that Heal, Greater Restoration, and Wish/Miracle can heal permanent hit point drain.

[TuggyNE]

Wish and miracle certainly; greater restoration and heal, and possibly even panacea, might also be candidates.

[Douglas]

I'm running a module that will eventually have the players encounter some lavawights. It happens in an area with ready access to slightly homebrewed Philospher's Stones, with a house rule that the Stones can be used to heal the hp drain (1d6 per stone, but they'll have an effectively unlimited supply on-site only).

[ksbsnowowl]

I was just dealing with this issue over at the minmaxboards (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=11201.0).

The Shape of Fire epic monster also does this type of damage.

[The Viscount]

Vassal of Bahamut deals hit point drain to any evil creature with the dragon type, though interestingly enough it does give a way to undo the damage, wish or miracle.

[Maginomicon]

The Book of Blood (Magic of Faerun page 155) drains 1 HP from its wielder when the wielder uses its finger of death ability.

[137beth]

If it only shows up at high levels, then Wish/Miracle is a good way to do it.

A CR 4 monster? I don't have Monsters of Faerun, but that sounds ridiculous:smalleek:

[NichG]

I'm of the opinion that it shouldn't be possible to undo. In general, it should always be easier to do things than to reverse them so that choices and events can have lasting meaning.

It'd be one thing if this were relatively common or if, e.g., there were a spell that just did this that could be made common by tactical choices - then you have the situation that pretty much everyone is going to run afoul of it and be death-spiralled down to nothing by it over the course of their careers. But when its just an epic creature and an obscure Faerunian creature, then its just a weird thing that helps distinguish them from all the other creatures and makes them particularly feared/distinctive.

[Thanatosia]

If it only shows up at high levels, then Wish/Miracle is a good way to do it.
I'm pretty sure the ability discription explicitly states that not even Wish/Miracle can reverse the effect.

Personally, I just dont use those monsters in my campaigns, and think very poorly of any DM who does use them as written. They are bad for the game, and IMO, poorly considered. At the very least Wish or Miracle should be able to heal the damage.

I'm of the opinion that it shouldn't be possible to undo. In general, it should always be easier to do things than to reverse them so that choices and events can have lasting meaning.
Easier to do then to reverse is not the same as irreversable.

[NichG]

Easier to do then to reverse is not the same as irreversable.

Well I don't think 'irreversable' is really a bad thing, especially for something that in general is a 'small blip' by the time it comes online. An epic character will generally have at least 200-300hp, so losing 4hp permanently is scary in principle, but not really crippling. Characters who have not already maxed out their Con boosts from Wish can basically cover five of these effects with two castings of Wish.

Edit: Okay, with the multi-round thing its quite a bit nastier than just 4hp.

The real problem is that Wish is pre-epic, so it isn't 'harder to reverse' by any real standard. By epic levels, the XP cost of Wish is pretty easy to dodge or mitigate, so its pretty trivial.

If you want something that is actually 'hard' for an epic character, there's not much left. Probably it'd have to be something like direct, in-person deific intervention by a deity with such and such salient divine ability then (Hand of Life might be appropriate).

If you had a well-constructed epic spellcasting system (e.g. that avoided the problems with mitigation) then you could conceivably say 'okay, I'll make an epic spell effect that reverses this that requires you to be somewhere around Lv30 to fix this'.

Or you just make it a 'quest for the solution' kind of thing without a go-to mechanical fix for it.

[DeltaEmil]

The Lavawight and the Myrlochar are 3.0 monsters, where new rules were made up time and time again, and the idea of fairness and balance wasn't even a thing at all. Just say that yes, in 3.5, Greater Restoration does heal it, and be done with it.

[Zombimode]

There is this thing called HP Drain. It's not like Constitution damage or drain, which you can heal with the right tool, but is a permanent unfixable-by-RAW drain to your maximum HP.

So far, I've seen two monsters that have it.

Lavawight (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/monsters/lavawight.htm) (CR 23)
Myrlochar (CR 4; Monsters of Faerun, page 66)


Are there any other creatures/effects that have this d***-move ability?

I'm open to hearing suggestions for what effects should be house-ruled to recover HP drain. Keep in mind, it should be tougher to remove than Constitution Drain.

These abilities work exactly like intended. If you make the drain non-permanent, you defeat the point of the ability.

You can of course make houserules as you see fit, but there is no "madness" involved here.
The ability is incredibly rare. As a DM you are not slapped in the face with it. You're not forced to use those monster ever, since both are fairly obscure and non-iconic creatures.

Also, if you are worried about the loss of a single HP, your mind is playing tricks on you by blowing the loss out of proportion because of its permanency. Losing a single hit point will not impact the power of your character.