Level Drain in GURPS Dungeon Fantasy

    Anyone who has played GURPS knows that GURPS doesn't have levels; at least not the traditional sense of levels. Compared to D&D, which has breakpoints for XP which grant batches of abilities, skill increases, and otherwise bonuses at once, GURPS is incremental. That makes one thing, one stupid little thing, so annoying in GURPS. Energy Drain.

    The closest thing GURPS has to levels is present in Dungeon Fantasy. The levels could be expressed by the two additional ranks of characters present in GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 15: Henchmen, being [62] and [125] point henchmen respectively. This would make our levels [62], [125], and [250]. How would you even lose that many points?

     "Wraiths are undead, similar in nature to wights, but they exist more strongly on the negative material plane. They are found only in dark and gloomy places, for they have no power in full sunlight. In addition to the chilling effect of its touch (1-6 hit points damage), a wraith drains on life energy at the rate of 1 per hit, just as a wight does. Similarly, the wraith can be struck only with silver weapons (which cause only one-half damage) or weapons which are magically enchanted (which score full damage)."

 pg. 102, Monster Manual, AD&D 1e 

    "The reverse, energy drain, draws away a life energy level (cf. such "undead" asapectre, wight, vampire). The energy drain requires the victim to be touched. " 

pg. 53, Player's Handbook, AD&D 1e

 

    I play a lot, and I mean a lot, of Dungeon Fantasy. I, as of writing this, am about to play GURPS Dungeon Fantasy for almost twenty-four hours straight. For a long time, Energy Drain haunted my sleep. I have tried a lot of things: boat-loads of cosmic tox damage, boat-loads of fat damage, and temporary ST loss. Nothing satisfied me; nothing was truly evil enough. 

    I then tried something else! Permanent HP loss. Yes, I know: extremely harsh. But that is the point. Foes that cause permanent damage that you can't just wear more armor for. The actual write up for the Energy Drain I made varies from dungeon to dungeon, monster to monster, as I tweak it further. Here is a more recent write-up which I have used.

    "On any injury, roll HT. On a failure, target loses 1 HT and their maximum HP decreases by one point. HT can be restored via casting Remove Curse on the afflicted target, but the HP loss is permanent and must be bought back using character points. Reaching max HP 0 means irreversible character death; not even Wish can save you! Lowered HP changes the major wound, unconsciousness, and death check levels; make sure to check for those changes on a hit."

    Brutal, right? Well, I think it is not as bad as losing between [62] and [125] points in one attack, which is much worse than losing a level in D&D (if we are assuming that [62] is Level 1, [125] is level 5, and [250] is Level 5). Other options which I have explored are: draining 1 to 4 points (enough to lose 1 SL) in the user's highest melee skill or a random spell, draining 1 ST permanently, and just outright making the character resist vs. death (which is something I never even used in my games, because it was ridiculous).

    Now that I have shared how I do it, I am curious to hear how others handle Energy Drain. My way is definitely one that is much harsher than most, but it provides me with something close to my expectations for a Wraith, especially considering their effect on Frodo Baggins in The Lord of the Rings, when the Fellowship is attacked at Amon Sûl by the Ring-Wraiths.