Healing Ability Drain

[snailgosh]

Hey guys,

we encountered a Lenean Sidhe last session and my character, following a combination of unwise decisions and bad luck, ended up agreeing to a pact with her and has already used her Spell Blessing.

Casterwise, our party (ECL 9) consists of two wizards capable of 4th level spells with no banned schools between them (one of them my PC) and a druid capable of fifth level spells.

What are my options of dealing with the expected Con Drain? Both spell and item suggestions are appreciated.
Short duration spells are sadly not an option, since I wont see the drain coming. Repeatedly casting restoration would be a drain on our very limited resources, since we don't have the means to cast it ourselves.

I might even consider more extreme measures like templates, since I might need a long term solution, but they'd have to be applicable to Outsiders.

Killing the Sidhe is currently not an option, due to plot reasons. I already negotiated with her to only drain one point every three days or so, but she is unlikely to let me off the hook completely.

[ATHATH]

Dip Binder 1 and bind Naberius every day.

Naberius synergizes with a ton of other stuff that has ability damage and/or drain as a drawback, like symbionts and Hellfire Warlock.

Shape Soulmeld (Strongheart Vest) might work as well, although I don't remember if it/that blocks ability drain in addition to ability damage.

[snailgosh]

Dip Binder 1 and bind Naberius every day.

Naberius synergizes with a ton of other stuff that has ability damage and/or drain as a drawback, like symbionts and Hellfire Warlock.

Shape Soulmeld (Strongheart Vest) might work as well, although I don't remember if it/that blocks ability drain in addition to ability damage.
While binding Naberius would work, I don't want to lose a caster level as I'm already one level behind progression. Also, striking a bargain with an entity to mitigate the effects of a different bargain is not what I see my character doing right now.

Regarding meldshaping I think I'd have to bind the Vitality Belt to my Waist Chakra to deal with drain, which would require two feats and Character Level 18 (and possibly an argument whether the open chakra feats enable binding in the first place). This is out of reach for now.

Anyone know of any magic items that help healing the drain?

[Thurbane]

Item wise, there's the Rod of Bodily Restoration (MIC p.173), that can heal up to 12 points of Con damage per day. 3,100gp each.

Just re-read OP. Ability drain? Not sure the rod will work.

[snailgosh]

Item wise, there's the Rod of Bodily Restoration (MIC p.173), that can heal up to 12 points of Con damage per day. 3,100gp each.

Just re-read OP. Ability drain? Not sure the rod will work.
Pretty sure it wont, sadly :(

[Douglas]

How much can you afford to spend on this? The only suitable permanent magic items I found in a quick search through Magic Item Compendium cost around 20000 gp.

[snailgosh]

How much can you afford to spend on this? The only suitable permanent magic items I found in a quick search through Magic Item Compendium cost around 20000 gp.
We have almost no resources at the moment, but are close to finishing a quest rewarding us with at least 40k per person. Needless to say I'd prefer not to spend all of it on insurance.
I'm interested in hearing of the items you found.

[Thurbane]

Bone Ring (MIC p.75): Immunity of up to 3 points of ability drain per day. 20,000gp.

Talisman of Undying Fortitude (MIC p.188): Immunity to ability drain 2 day, 3 rounds at a time. Swift activation (which may be too late). 8,000gp.

[Celestia]

While binding Naberius would work, I don't want to lose a caster level as I'm already one level behind progression. Also, striking a bargain with an entity to mitigate the effects of a different bargain is not what I see my character doing right now.

Regarding meldshaping I think I'd have to bind the Vitality Belt to my Waist Chakra to deal with drain, which would require two feats and Character Level 18 (and possibly an argument whether the open chakra feats enable binding in the first place). This is out of reach for now.

Anyone know of any magic items that help healing the drain?
You can get the Bind Vestige feat to grab up Naberius without lost caster levels.

[Thurbane]

A one-level dip into Impure Prince will add Restoration (among other things) to a character's spell list, but it costs a caster level.

Two levels of Wyrm Wizard would also do the trick, again costing a caster level.

[Crake]

A bed of restoration from stronghold builder's guide goes for 38,000gp, but it constantly restores you every 3 rounds (great for fun times with a succubus :smalltongue:). For a 1/day version, you could ask your DM to drop the price to 1/5th as per the DMG guidelines, as well as reducing the additional cost of the material component by half (it's 10,000gp for unlimited uses per day, and 5000gp if it has some daily limit.

So the base 28,000gp cost would drop to 5,600, and the 10,000gp additional material cost would drop to 5,000gp, making a 1/day bed of restoration cost 10,600gp. Note that this is a bed, and thus is priced by the stronghold builders guide as "wondrous architecture", which is half the base cost of a wondrous item. If you wanted say, a bedroll of restoration, then the base cost would double back to the standard wondrous item costs, which would be 11,200gp base, plus 5000gp additional materials, resulting in a total price of 16,200gp for a 1/day bedroll of restoration.

Again, if your GM allows it. There is a precedence, and you're really just modifying an existing item to suit your needs, so it shouldn't be that big a deal.

That said, the sidhe can only actually drain you if you use the blessing. If you don't want to be drained, just don't use the blessing to restore spell slots, and she cannot drain you even if she wanted to.

[Thurbane]

You can get the Bind Vestige feat to grab up Naberius without lost caster levels.

With the Binding feat(s), you only get Naberius’s Skills and the Silver Tongue abilities, and not Faster Ability Healing.

[Celestia]

With the Binding feat(s), you only get Naberius’s Skills and the Silver Tongue abilities, and not Faster Ability Healing.
Well that's unfortunate.

[snailgosh]

Thank you for your replies. The bed of restoration might be the perfect solution, since we recently acquired a base and were granted the landlord feat for free by our DM.

I did not know it was an "equal exchange" type of deal with the Sidhe. Good to know. We'll see if my Wizard learns about it in his research. (His initial knowledge roll wasn't high enough)

[ExLibrisMortis]

The Necropolitan template will make you immune to ability drain (and removes your Constitution score altogether). It's not cheap, as you'll lose a level, but it's managable, and if your Constitution was low to begin with, you'll come out ahead on survivability. If your wisdom score is high enough, you can add the Spell-Stitched template to get some additional SLAs for cheap.

Edit: Apologies, missed the "must be applicable to an outsider" bit of your post. I think that leaves only Lichfiend. If you're some kind of planetouched, it's possible that Human Heritage qualifies you for Necropolitan, but that's a stretch.


Death ward might work (Life Drain is not technically energy drain, but...), sheltered vitality definitely works (1 min/level duration, sadly). Those are 5th- and 4th-level druid spells respectively.


Alternatively, any effect that prevents the Leanan Sidhe from taking standard actions works just fine.


I think you're better off not using the blessing. If you're spending 10 000+ gp on restoring a point of Constitution drain to regain up to 6 spell levels, you should probably just buy an extra pearl of power, instead.

[Darrin]

The Absorbing (Ghostwalk) or Buffering (A&EG) property might work here. It'll cost at least 16000 GP (it's a +3 enhancement), but you can ignore 1 point of ability drain per day.

I think she can use her mythic ability 3/day, so... don't tick her off?

[Douglas]

We have almost no resources at the moment, but are close to finishing a quest rewarding us with at least 40k per person. Needless to say I'd prefer not to spend all of it on insurance.
I'm interested in hearing of the items you found.
Thurbane already mentioned the Bone Ring. The other is the Wraith's Woe item set, Magic Item Compendium pages 215-216. The total cost of all three items together is 24k, and if you equip the whole set you get a 1/day ability to heal all ability drain to one ability score, as well as all ability damage to all ability scores. Each item also has its own benefit, and the set has an anti-undead theme.

[ottdmk]

Regarding meldshaping I think I'd have to bind the Vitality Belt to my Waist Chakra to deal with drain, which would require two feats and Character Level 18 (and possibly an argument whether the open chakra feats enable binding in the first place). This is out of reach for now.Yeah, unfortunately Meldshaping isn't going to help. The Meld that helps with Ability Damage is the Strongheart Vest. It only prevents Ability Drain if you bind it... and the Chakra for the Vest is the Heart Chakra. Putting aside the arguments over the Open Chakra feats (for the record, I actually agree with CustServ; the Open Chakra feats don't give you a bind slot, they just let you use existing bind slots on more Chakras) the Open Heart Chakra feat is an Epic Feat.

[Thurbane]

Thurbane already mentioned the Bone Ring. The other is the Wraith's Woe item set, Magic Item Compendium pages 215-216. The total cost of all three items together is 24k, and if you equip the whole set you get a 1/day ability to heal all ability drain to one ability score, as well as all ability damage to all ability scores. Each item also has its own benefit, and the set has an anti-undead theme.

Ooh, good catch. I'd missed them. Have to remember that one for the future. There are an annoying small number of ways to heal ability drain in 3.5, as I have discovered. The game assumes access to Restoration, I suppose.