what happened to Death Ward

[Tin_Dragon]

Yeah, so with the Orchard out there, DW has become even more of a staple spell. IIRC it used to protect against stat damage from the wraiths, spectres, etc, it no longer does. These undead use these touches as a death effect. Here is the Dexcription of Death Ward from the SrD.

Death Ward
Necromancy
Level: Clr 4, Death 4, Drd 5, Pal 4
Components: V, S, DF
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Touch
Target: Living creature touched
Duration: 1 min./level
Saving Throw: Will negates (harmless)
Spell Resistance: Yes (harmless)

The subject is immune to all death spells, magical death effects, energy drain, and any negative energy effects.
This spell doesn’t remove negative levels that the subject has already gained, nor does it affect the saving throw necessary 24 hours after gaining a negative level.

Death ward does not protect against other sorts of attacks even if those attacks might be lethal.


So, why doesn't the spell protect this stuff any more? We have characters taking level damage with DW up, this is clearly an energy drain attack:

from SrD
Energy Drain And Negative Levels
Some horrible creatures, especially undead monsters, possess a fearsome supernatural ability to drain levels from those they strike in combat. The creature making an energy drain attack draws a portion of its victim’s life force from her. Most energy drain attacks require a successful melee attack roll—mere physical contact is not enough. Each successful energy drain bestows one or more negative levels (the creature’s description specifies how many). If an attack that includes an energy drain scores a critical hit, it drains twice the given amount. A creature gains 5 temporary hit points (10 on a critical hit) for each negative level it bestows (though not if the negative level is caused by a spell or similar effect). These temporary hit points last for a maximum of 1 hour.

A creature takes the following penalties for each negative level it has gained:

-1 on all skill checks and ability checks.
-1 on attack rolls and saving throws.
-5 hit points.
-1 effective level (whenever the creature’s level is used in a die roll or calculation, reduce it by one for each negative level).
If the victim casts spells, she loses access to one spell as if she had cast her highest-level, currently available spell. (If she has more than one spell at her highest level, she chooses which she loses.) In addition, when she next prepares spells or regains spell slots, she gets one less spell slot at her highest spell level.


So why is it yesterday I was clericing a Tap run, and every 2 mins (after i put DW on everone in party, and they confirmed it) I was RESTORING NEGATIVE LEVELS?!


It seems somewhere along the way, someone decided to just take away our only defense against these effects. Is that the only way you can make things challenging? To break the rules in your favor? Maybe I missed a thread where this was addressed, plz point me to it if this is the case. Ad I cant wait for it to open as a pally spell (4th). I wont need to run TR fopr an 18th time on my pally to get the visor! (yes 17 runs on 1 toon, no visor).

[BlueLightBandit]

Death Ward works more like a resistance against the stat damage... it's never made one immune to it. The mobs at higher levels can bypass that resistance more often than the ones at lower levels.

[MrCow]

IIRC it used to protect against stat damage from the wraiths, spectres, etc, it no longer does.


The subject is immune to all death spells, magical death effects, energy drain, and any negative energy effects.

No where does it say that deathward prevents ability damage or ability drain (otherwise it would protect against poison stat damage and whatnot). However, it should be protecting against negative level loss. Any clue what monster would be bypassing the deathward's level drain protection?

[issiana]

cant say i can veryify that at all.

I run with the silver flame amulet on whenever i go near undead. in vol tonight on elite we all had deathward on and NOONE suffered neg lvls or stat drains. deathward should stop negative enegy attacks like shadows str drains, and lvl drains.

however it has being discussed before that a wraiths con drain is not a negative energy effect so deathward will not block it. its a physical part of there physical attack and can be resisted against (fort save i think)

[ChaosTheEternal]

This has been asked/discussed twice before:
http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=123437
http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=125320

Death Ward only prevents ability score damage if it is caused by a negative energy effect, and the Constitution Drain ability of a Wraith (and the Blood Drain ability of a Vampire) are not negative energy effects.

And, as noted in the second link:

Now, if people want a spell like Death Ward that stops Constitution Drain from Wraiths and Vampires, they want Life's Grace (Spell Compendium, page 131).





However, [Death Ward] should be protecting against negative level loss. Any clue what monster would be bypassing the deathward's level drain protection?I don't believe anything bypasses it, but I do know the Blood Drain ability of Vampires in DDO has the same animation on players as a negative level effect (like from Enervation). It can be fairly confusing when it happens.

[Shade]

Deathward does prevent all forms of negative levels including enervation and wights special melee attack.

If your party members were complaining of them, they were either dispelled - which does happen occasionally in the orchard, or were simply confused and mixed up the stat dmg from wraiths as negative levels.

[BlueLightBandit]

Deathward does prevent all forms of negative levels including enervation and wights special melee attack.

If your party members were complaining of them, they were either dispelled - which does happen occasionally in the orchard, or were simply confused and mixed up the stat dmg from wraiths as negative levels.

Um... no. The wights special attack is different, I will look for the post by a dev, but I'm sure someone will beat me to it.

[Ghoste]

Um... no. The wights special attack is different, I will look for the post by a dev, but I'm sure someone will beat me to it.
No, he's right about the wights, I think you're getting them confused with wraiths. The wight special ability is an energy drain, which is blocked by deathward.

Here is the SRD link to wights (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/wight.htm) where it sepcifically calls that attack an energy drain, and here is the link to death ward (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/deathWard.htm)where is specifically says energy drains are blocked.


The subject is immune to all death spells, magical death effects, energy drain, and any negative energy effects.

Energy Drain (Su)

Living creatures hit by a wight’s slam attack gain one negative level.

[redoubt]

If not already available can one of you smart guys get us a sticky set up in the game guides on this?

I.e.

Deathblock - def...
Works against: ....

Deathward - def
Works against: ...

Then maybe some pratical application/other related information.

:)

[Perceval418]

Ive had the Wights in the Necropolis effect me with Negative Levels while wearing a Deathblock Robe and using my Deathblock Clickie. I never swap out my robe for anything so its not possible i didnt have it on. But its not a magical attack like enervation its from being physically hit by them but its still a Negative Energy effect weather im being punched or zapped.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

Ive had the Wights in the Necropolis effect me with Negative Levels while wearing a Deathblock Robe and using my Deathblock Clickie. I never swap out my robe for anything so its not possible i didnt have it on. But its not a magical attack like enervation its from being physically hit by them but its still a Negative Energy effect weather im being punched or zapped.

Death Block only stops death effects, it does nothing for negative enegry. Death Ward is for negative energy.

[Lizardgrad89]

Death Block only stops death effects, it does nothing for negative enegry. Death Ward is for negative energy.

So then is Death Ward the same as Death Block PLUS negative energy effects, or do they cover different things that would require using both?

[Mad_Bombardier]

So then is Death Ward the same as Death Block PLUS negative energy effects, or do they cover different things that would require using both?Saem stuff. Deathward is Deathblock+, but dispellable. The only good thing about Deathblock is that like all item resistances it cannot be dispelled.

[captain1z]

Saem stuff. Deathward is Deathblock+, but dispellable. The only good thing about Deathblock is that like all item resistances it cannot be dispelled.

Deathblock did not stop me from being de-leveled by a beholder. I was very dissappionted by that cus I bought the armor
so I could solo the threnal arena.....but it didnt work at all. Sold it right after. My silver flame necklace works but only has 5 charges
I would like to get ahold of a Death locket and try that.

The spell works fine but gets dispelled.....vs undead tho DW is a must and has always worked for me. those con draining wraiths
thats never happened to me......if there is a save vs it that would explain why its never happened i guess.

[Osharan_Tregarth]

Deathblock did not stop me from being de-leveled by a beholder. I was very dissappionted by that cus I bought the armor
so I could solo the threnal arena.....but it didnt work at all. Sold it right after. My silver flame necklace works but only has 5 charges
I would like to get ahold of a Death locket and try that.

The spell works fine but gets dispelled.....vs undead tho DW is a must and has always worked for me. those con draining wraiths
thats never happened to me......if there is a save vs it that would explain why its never happened i guess.

The deathblock isn't for the beholder's level drain attacks. It's for the beholders "insta-death" attacks.

[Boulderun]

This seems to be a good place to bring up (yet again) that negative levels applied by enervate, vamp/wight energy drain, etc are inflicting double the penalty for saves (-2 per neg lvl) and a strange penalty to HP (it interacts oddly with false life items equipped). Negative levels from an opposing-alignment weapon (axiomatic on chaotic, etc) work properly.

[BlueLightBandit]

Saem stuff. Deathward is Deathblock+, but dispellable. The only good thing about Deathblock is that like all item resistances it cannot be dispelled.

Um... Deathblock (as in on an item) does not protect against negative energy drains, only instant death spells.

Deathward protects against both instant death spells and negative energy drain.

[Ghoste]

Um... Deathblock (as in on an item) does not protect against negative energy drains, only instant death spells.

Deathward protects against both instant death spells and negative energy drain.
Um...that's what he meant by the "+".

You know...deathblock plus some other protections on top of that.

[Kaldais]

Deathblock stops instant death effects like PK, Finger of death, Slay Living, Destruction, and will most likely also stop Symbol of Death, Trap the Soul and Wail of Banshee. That's all it does!

Deathward stops instant death effects as well as negative energy type of attacks such as Energy Drain, Eneveration, Ghoul's Touch, cleric's inflict wounds line of spells, Harm, also all of undead's special attacks that are defined as negative energy attacks. It however does not stop Con damage from Wraith which is not considered as a negative energy attack, Con damage from Poison, Con damage from CloudKill, ability damage from Disease.

Neutralize Poison will stop all ability damage caused by poison, such as those from the Poison, CloudKill Spell or attacks from Spiders and Scorpians.

Remove Disease + Restoration is need to remove damage done from disease source.

You need to do a remove curse and then followed by a remove disease in order to recover from a Mummy's Rot.




Did I miss anything?

[MrWizard]

Yeah, so with the Orchard out there, DW has become even more of a staple spell. IIRC it used to protect against stat damage from the wraiths, spectres, etc, it no longer does. These undead use these touches as a death effect. Here is the Dexcription of Death Ward from the SrD.


Remember that time we did tempest spine and you said 'look at sorjeck, he just sits there and waits for us all to buff and attack him..he never moves"....


and then out of the blue he runs at the whole group takes one swing, kills all the casters and knocks you off the mountain?


awesome...

[WestiesMA]

So why is it yesterday I was clericing a Tap run, and every 2 mins (after i put DW on everone in party, and they confirmed it) I was RESTORING NEGATIVE LEVELS?!

There are several baddies in the Orchard that debuff. Tell your party to keep an eye on their buffs and make sure that they keep DW up.