Balancing - Void Touched


Homebrew and House Rules

Liberty's Edge

I need help from outside sources about how balanced this ability would be either on a weapon/race/item/etc.

Benefit:
Person becomes immune to level drain, ability drain, and ability damage.

Negative:
All healing spells are only half as effective, rounded down, to a minimum of 1.

Let me know. Benefit too strong? Negative too weak? Flipside?


Misery wrote:

Benefit:

Person becomes immune to level drain, ability drain, and ability damage.

On a race, this is insane. This is the better part of Death Ward, a fourth-level spell, so at the earliest this might be an 8th-level ability. The "negative" is something that the Warforged gained right off the bat, if I remember correctly (books are packed for the move). It wasn't crippling, but was inconvenient. Not enough to warrant such a benefit. A flat bonus (or even scaling bonus) would be a better way to go.

On an item, it might not be as bad, as there are ways of removing or suppressing an item. Heck, it could get stolen in the night. Again, if given around 8th level or higher, it's just a continuous effect of a 4th level spell. Since the spell is 1 round/ level, a continuous effect is strong, but depending on your game that may not be a deal-breaker.


I've been spending a lot of time lately trying to balance undead and constructs as playable races, and this has been the primary issue of concern.

Level drain is a bit less of an issue, since there aren't many effects that do it at lower levels, and there's a spell answer at higher ones. Ability damage is the real beast, because it's everywhere in the bestiary (primarily in the form of poison), not to mention spells and class abilities.

As a racial ability, the balance for that immunity has to be extreme - we're talking about complete immunity to healing magic at minimum, and probably other effects as appropriate for the race's particular flavor.

As an item, Parka has the right of it - it's much more workable. Without drawback, I'd make it a neck slot item with CL 9 that costs ~150k gp. It'd an auto-acquire item for nearly every class, so it should cost a fortune.

Liberty's Edge

Ok thanks to the both of you for this.

I might kick ability damage so it doesn't work with poisons, but keep it with ability drain (shadows and such).

And as you said, keep it an item and still make it cost a fortune. Maybe 100K without the ability damage?

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