I'm interested in hearing about any parties that had PC that took the Long Shadowed trait (from the SCAP hardcover). One of the PC's in the group I am running has taken it and I really think it will be the death of him. Here is the text for the trait:
You are descended from a tribe of indigenous people who died out as a separate tribe many centuries ago. Still, this tribe’s penchant for necromantic magic runs in your blood.Benefit: You automatically stabilize if reduced to negative hit points. When you take damage from negative energy, you reduce the actual damage you take by 5 points.
Drawback: Healing magic works poorly on you. Whenever you regain hit points from magical healing, you gain 1 less point of healing per character level you possess, to a minimum of one point per die rolled.
Roleplaying Ideas: You are somewhat morbid and intrigued by death and undeath, even if these interests are purely to learn more of your enemies.
We are only up to 4th level but it has already proven to be a huge drawback. The party no longer uses Wands of Cure Light Wounds on the PC with the trait as the charges are almost useless. When you are rolling 1d8+1 and taking 4 from that number you are only going to get 1 hit point back half of the time. At best he is only getting 5 hit points back. That's barely 1 hit at 4th level.
The party has resorted to using a Wand of Lesser Vigour on him at all times. While this is good out of combat (11 hit points back every time), in combat it isn't so great. It takes 11 rounds to get those 11 hit points and nultiple spells don't stack. So if you need a lot of hit points back in a hurry then you are in trouble as wands/potions/spells of Cure XX are your only option (and they are affected by the trait).
As the PC goes up in levels the situation doesn't really change much. By the time the party is mid-level and using Cure Moderate/Serious Wounds more often the PC loses even more hit points per charge. All he is really doing is treading water.
There are a number of options to try and minimise the problem. The PC in question has gotten hold of an item that gives him DR1/- for up to 10 points of damage per day. This helps a bit but it still doesn't offset the trait.
On the other side of things, the benefits from the trait are minimal. You automatically stabilize when you hit negative HP's. This will see some use because you will find yourself frequently in the negatives! It's a bit of a false benefit though because if you didn't have the trait you probably wouldn't be in negative hit point territory in the first place!
The other benefit is that you take 5 points less damage from negative energy attacks. Those attacks come up all the time in my game. Oh wait, no they don't!
Overall I really can't see how this trait is balanced. I would think very long and hard before I decided to take this trait for my PC (and even then I probably still wouldn't take it!). I have offered to let the player in my campaign change the trait as it seems overly harsh but he has decided to keep it. He knows that the trait will probably be the reason why his PC dies but he's ok with that.
I just wonder what everyone else's experience with this trait is?
Olaf the Stout
While you are clearly using it as written, I think I would rule that that Per Level would be per spell level or caster level (essentially taking of the +1-5 on the cure light wounds, etc.).
This would still make it a drawback but not so drastic.
Sean Mahoney