Negative Levels on Fighter

[MollyMoon]

I have a level 14 half orc fighter.
For the life of me..I can not figure out why I get negative levels around the undead. One wraith battle in the Orchard dropped me to -9.
***????
Does this happen to other fighters?? Or is there something I should be doing different?
Alignment is chaotic good. I've checked and rechecked all the gear and weapons to see if there is anything goofing it up. It's only the last 2 levels taken that this has started happening.

[Oolung]

This is likely that the Wraiths are casting Enervation on you (1d4 Negative levels)

I'm fairly certain the Wraiths in the orchard cast Enervation and sometimes quite rapidly at that.

[DrenglisEU]

It's the undeald messing with you mate, not your gear or anything. They are casting neg lvl's, specially beholders.

[Angelus_dead]

Get Deathward on yourself, such as from:
Cleric/FVS hireling/player
brown holiday cake
Visor of the Flesh Render Guard

Get a Silver Flame Talisman

Reincarnate into a Warforged

[Diyon]

Unless it works different from PnP, I'm pretty sure some of them don't even cast anything, they can give neg levels just from attacking sometimes.

[MollyMoon]

Thanks!!
Was getting pretty discouraged...to the point of wanting to delete the character. I am new to the game, about a year. Got a Pally to level 20 and a FS at 17 with no issues. This had me totally stumped. Will continue to grind on....

Your replies are greatly appreciated!!

[Diyon]

Thanks!!
Was getting pretty discouraged...to the point of wanting to delete the character. I am new to the game, about a year. Got a Pally to level 20 and a FS at 17 with no issues. This had me totally stumped. Will continue to grind on....

Your replies are greatly appreciated!!

Something to note, the spell Deathward will prevent negative levels (the item ability deathblock won't however). So if you can pick up a clicky from tangleroot, UMD, or just get a cleric/fvs/pally to cast it on you if they have it.

[FlyingTurtle]

Quite a few of the cleric hirelings have Mass Deathward. You have to order them to cast it though.

[vVAnjilaVv]

Simplers' method of playing......after around CR 7-8 of an enemy...assume all casters have some kind of negative energy, life draining, or insta-death attack/spell.

Now that may be a bit extreme, but you are much better farming three pairs of Flesh Render Goggles done easily in Splinterskull and trying to keep it up at all times just for the heck of it.

Deathblock can be important too.

A lot of casters are fond of dispelling too tho.....many more than just the beholder anti-magic.

This is the problem with the DW Goggles...they are only CL 7 and easily dispelled.

Wights...not wraiths mind u...but wights have an actual energy drain attack.......it's not a spell...it's just part of their being.....DW blocks this.

[Jaid314]

Quite a few of the cleric hirelings have Mass Deathward. You have to order them to cast it though.

which many cleric hirelings would that be? i think i can recall one of them having that spell, and maybe another with regular death ward....

[vVAnjilaVv]

which many cleric hirelings would that be? i think i can recall one of them having that spell, and maybe another with regular death ward....

There are 3 clerics as far as I know with Death Ward and they all come with the mass version....

Tempys (14), Natasha (16), Heystack (18)

A more accurate statement from who you quoted would have been the are many Clerics AND FVS with DW.

There are a few FvS who have it....problem with FvS hirelings is some of them are nuke happy and a bit unreliable for healing...even in defensive mode.


Lower level there are some hirelings with Restoration......if DW is not available to you this spell will at least remove the neg levels...usually you have to command them to do so tho.

[Furare]

I find the L16 FvS hireling Althea rather good in this regard - she has Mass DW and Greater Restoration for if the DW gets dispelled and you lose levels (Greater restores all negative levels at once, so it's a really good spell for your hireling to have). She also seems to be rather placid and doesn't nuke, at least if you have her on Defensive. She doesn't have Heal as a selectable spell, but if it's just you and her that isn't much of a problem since she casts Heal on you automatically. So, yeah, you can take Tempys until you level up to 16 and then get this hireling once you get there. She's a human FvS instead of an elf cleric, so she is somewhat more survivable than Natasha (and actually better than the L17 cleric hire, as well).

Something else that may help are the Silver Flame necklaces; they have charges of "absorb negative energy", which I believe will block 5 or 10 (depending on which necklace you have) enervation attacks - though actually the charges get absorbed by any negative energy spell, so they're not a real substitute for DW. They're actually really useful for fighting beholders, though, because DW is instantly dispelled by antimagic when you're facing one of those, and your hireling probably won't be able to cast a Restoration spell on you, either - so "catching" the enervation attempts with your necklace is a good way to avoid ending up drained to death.

[MollyMoon]

I started to drag Tempys with me to hit me up with restoration...he obeys quite well and doesn't run off...the only problem I've had with him is the Beholder rare...duh. Up to nine taps now!! Yea!!
Thanks for all the great advice!!

[Shade]

Wraiths can't give you negative levels, as they generally dont cast spells and have no specials abilities to do so.
They can deal con damage on melee attacks tho, and do so at a fairly fast rate.

Wights hit ya with a negative levle when they do there special attack. (easy to spot, they jump back a bit, then lunge forward)

Vampires can cast enervate, and also deal con dmg on melee attacks.

Arcane skeletons can cast enervate, tho generally only do so on higher difficulty settings.

[vVAnjilaVv]

Wraiths can't give you negative levels, as they generally dont cast spells and have no specials abilities to do so.
They can deal con damage on melee attacks tho, and do so at a fairly fast rate.

Altho this statement is largely true...it is extremely inaccurate for one whole quest chain that I know of for sure....and I am pretty sure in sporadic places throughout other quests where wraiths appear.


The quest chain I am talking about is the Necropolis Shadow series....there are magic casting Wraith in all five of them...and they are abundant...and they are very nasty. They are also paired with often times one or a few sceptre mages. One of the things that makes them so nasty is they are very fond of dispel magic. I also did get some negs in one of the shadow tombs the other day...altho I am not sure if it was a named that gave them to me. The mages I am speaking of tho are commons.

Seeing as how this whole chain is a nice mid level XP farm it's very much worth mentioning IMO.

Aside from that....Shade is correct that it's usually the touch attack they have that hits you so hard.

[XL_Jockey]

Are there any high-level hirelings (Cleric or FvS) that have Restoration/Greater Restoration as an ability we can command? I ran Ghosts of Perdition last night and I know my hireling can cast Restoration, but she never did so we didn't last long. Since I'm taking aggro and the first in, I'm usually the one to get neg leveled first. Deathward was removed before I even hit the ground. I need to run the quest at least once more to get my sigil.

[vVAnjilaVv]

Are there any high-level hirelings (Cleric or FvS) that have Restoration/Greater Restoration as an ability we can command? I ran Ghosts of Perdition last night and I know my hireling can cast Restoration, but she never did so we didn't last long. Since I'm taking aggro and the first in, I'm usually the one to get neg leveled first. Deathward was removed before I even hit the ground. I need to run the quest at least once more to get my sigil.

The problem is that your hireling simply can't cast it most of the times because of the anti-magic field. There are a few hirelings with either restoration or greater restoration but if they are getting interrupted it's not going to help much. Plus it's near impossible to do in between falls as your hireling will not have ff on so they will just drop...sometimes you get lucky and they will stop on one of the slopes on the way down and you may get lucky and get a Greater Restoration to land while you are passing them by on the way down.

Get the Silver Flame Talisman fully charged and pick up the Mantle of the WorldShaper....altho the mantle may not neccesarily block an ennervation it may stop a couple of them.

[Shade]

Altho this statement is largely true...it is extremely inaccurate for one whole quest chain that I know of for sure....and I am pretty sure in sporadic places throughout other quests where wraiths appear.


The quest chain I am talking about is the Necropolis Shadow series

Ran that series fairly recently and don't recall a single regular wraith casting spells.

Sure named some named wraith in the chain cast spells, as do ones in other chains with special named wraiths (like Delera, Marguirite, or that jolly roger guy in the crystla cove). Named monsters tend to have all types of special abilities there regular varities do not. While named wraiths may be common in the shadow series, they aren't very common in general.

I was just refering to your general average non orange/red named wraith, or dread wraith. Which are very common enemies, and none of which can cast spells.

[vVAnjilaVv]

Ran that series fairly recently and don't recall a single regular wraith casting spells.

Sure named some named wraith in the chain cast spells, as do ones in other chains with special named wraiths (like Delera, Marguirite, or that jolly roger guy in the crystla cove). Named monsters tend to have all types of special abilities there regular varities do not. While named wraiths may be common in the shadow series, they aren't very common in general.

I was just refering to your general average non orange/red named wraith, or dread wraith. Which are very common enemies, and none of which can cast spells.

The wraith mages in the shadow series are common trash mobs....they are not named or red named...altho there are a few of those as well.

I don't know how you are missing them......their name has mage right in it...and they are indeed casters......in fact they are basically what makes the whole quest chain so hard as they love to spam dispel magic so your buffs aren't going to stay on long around them.