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Does death ward protect against ability drain?
The spell does say so and ability drain isn't energy drain nor a negative energy effects.
Unlike The Shadow's Strength Damage The Wraith's Constitution Drain isn't listed as a negative energy effect.
Is there an official answer somewhere?
The text of the spell, from the CRD (I have bolded part):
The subject gains a +4 morale bonus on saves against all death spells and magical death effects. The subject is granted a save to negate such effects even if one is not normally allowed. The subject is immune to energy drain and any negative energy effects, including channeled negative energy.
This spell does not remove negative levels that the subject has already gained, but it does the penalties from negative levels for the duration of the effect.
Death ward does not protect against other sorts of attacks, even if those attacks might be lethal.
So, no. If a wraith's Con drain is not a negative energy effect, Death Ward offers absolutely no protection.
Master Arminas
Personally, I believe that a Wraith's Con drain should be negative energy--but in the description it is not. Energy drain is a very different beast than Ability Drain. Energy drain bestows negative levels, while Ability Drain reduces ability scores. For example, a vampire's Con drain is not a negative energy attack--and it shouldn't be, since it is blood drain. I am not arguing that the Wraith's Con drain should not be negative energy, and I would support any errata that put that in the description. But as it stands, it isn't. And Death Ward offers no protection from the Con drain, but it does provide complete immunity to the negative energy damage of the incorporeal touch. Which opens another can of worms: does the drain work if the incorporeal touch attack hits--but deals no damage? Perhaps it shouldn't, but I can't find anything that says it doesn't.
Master Arminas
If the ability drain was a rider affect then it would work, but it is not described as a rider affect. As written it is one attack with two ways to hurt you. I actually see the ability drain as the primary attack since the small amount of hp damage it does will almost never be the primary threat.
I believe it should be included as the Con drain is part of the incorporeal touch attack which deals negative energy damage
Melee incorporeal touch +6 (1d6 negative energy plus 1d6 Con drain)
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I think it was a case of a writer thinking that
(1d6 negative energy plus 1d6 Con drain)
was better English, and less space-consuming than
(1d6 negative energy damage plus 1d6 negative energy Con drain)
or
(1d6 negative energy damage plus 1d6 Con drain (negative energy))
and assumed everyone would interpret it the same way he did.
Look at what's causing the Con drain: getting touched by a critter made up pretty much entirely of negative energy. There's no other explanation given for the Con drain, so negative energy is the only suspect. As opposed to the vampire, which is much more fleshy and actually physically drains blood.
I think it was a case of a writer thinking that
(1d6 negative energy plus 1d6 Con drain)was better English, and less space-consuming than
(1d6 negative energy damage plus 1d6 negative energy Con drain)or
(1d6 negative energy damage plus 1d6 Con drain (negative energy))and assumed everyone would interpret it the same way he did.
Look at what's causing the Con drain: getting touched by a critter made up pretty much entirely of negative energy. There's no other explanation given for the Con drain, so negative energy is the only suspect. As opposed to the vampire, which is much more fleshy and actually physically drains blood.
Perhaps, though if the wraith is composed entirely of negative energy why doesn't it drain levels ? Thematically constitution drain feels like energy drain though, enough so that it is hard to explain the difference between the two in character. I kind of feel like constitution drain is a more sensible version of energy drain.
I will just press FAQ and see what the developers thoughts are on the subject, perhaps the creature was actually meant to bypass death ward as a design choice to bypass some common defenses.
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Shadows don't drain levels either. Not everything with negative energy does.
But the Con drain is a rider on negative energy damage, with no other explanation offered about what could have caused that Con drain.
Keep in mind that a Wraith is CR 5; Death Ward is a level 4 spell so not fully available until cleric level 7, and even then not enough to cover everyone all the time. We've fought a wraith with a level 7 party; it nearly killed someone on the first round of combat because it achieved surprise+best initiative for two consecutive attacks on a flat-footed PC. They're quite scary.
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Did anyone ever get a clarification on this? We just came up against this issue last night and almost got a TPK. Can we get this clarified please.A Wraith's CON Drain is ABSOLUTELY a negative energy effect, and YES, Death Ward ABSOLUTELY protects you.
I doubt he is still waiting for a reply for a 2012 TPK.
And it isn't a negative energy effect, as it doesn't say it is a negative energy effect.Ability Damage and Drain (Ex or Su)
Source Bestiary 6 pg. 290, Pathfinder RPG Bestiary pg. 298, Bestiary 2 pg. 294, Bestiary 3 pg. 292, Bestiary 4 pg. 290, Bestiary 5 pg. 290
Some attacks or special abilities cause ability damage or drain. While ability damage can be healed naturally, ability drain is permanent and can be restored only through magic.Format: 1d4 Str drain
Location: Special Attacks and individual attacks.
Drain isn't automatically a negative energy effect, you need to check the monster entry.
Constitution Drain (Su) Creatures hit by a wraith’s touch attack must succeed on a DC 17 Fortitude save or take 1d6 points of Constitution drain. On each successful attack, the wraith gains 5 temporary hit points. The save DC is Charisma-based.
And the monster entry leave it undefined, so it isn't a negative energy effect.
I don't know that there's a clear 'RAW' answer to this, but here's what I'd say.
Typically, if the damage from an attack is negated (by DR, for example), the 'rider' effects (poison, bleed, etc.) are also negated. Death ward prevents all of the negative energy damage, and the Con drain is listed as a 'plus' effect on the attack, so I would expect it to fall under that and thus the Con drain would not happen. Not because it's negative energy, but because it's a rider to an attack that didn't do anything.
Whenever damage reduction completely negates the damage from an attack, it also negates most special effects that accompany the attack, such as injury poison, a monk’s stunning, and injury-based disease. Damage reduction does not negate touch attacks, energy damage dealt along with an attack, or energy drains. Nor does it affect poisons or diseases delivered by inhalation, ingestion, or contact.
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I don't know that there's a clear 'RAW' answer to this, but here's what I'd say.
Typically, if the damage from an attack is negated (by DR, for example), the 'rider' effects (poison, bleed, etc.) are also negated. Death ward prevents all of the negative energy damage, and the Con drain is listed as a 'plus' effect on the attack, so I would expect it to fall under that and thus the Con drain would not happen. Not because it's negative energy, but because it's a rider to an attack that didn't do anything.
Whenever damage reduction completely negates the damage from an attack, it also negates most special effects that accompany the attack, such as injury poison, a monk’s stunning, and injury-based disease. Damage reduction does not negate touch attacks, energy damage dealt along with an attack, or energy drains. Nor does it affect poisons or diseases delivered by inhalation, ingestion, or contact.
Death ward is not DR.
it might not be DR. but the idea that negating an attack's damage negate everything that ride on isn't limited to dr.
see this faq about deflecting arrows etc.
it call out that deflecting is not the same as making it a 'miss', but since it negate the damage it negate everything that ride on that attack. even charged spells do not discharge.
But there is the crux right there, negating the entirety of the negative energy damage isn't making the hit no longer a hit. Thus someone protected by death ward is still a creature "hit by a wraith's touch attack" and needs to save against con damage.
This isn't like a poison where the creature needs to actually injure you to apply the poison, the wraith still passes his ghost hand through you when you have death ward up, it just doesn't deal the negative energy damage, but it isn't protected from other parts of the attack. Even if the wraith decided not to deal the negative energy damage for some reason, it could still independently do the con damage (and vice versa).
i was just pointing out that what Foeclan said about how he would house-rule that 'riding effects do not happen if the main attack deal no damage' can happen in more cases then just DR. i don't realy care why it dealt no damage.
heck when a caster with a charged spell touch the monk and get deflected he did touch the monk (or vice versa) no one question that, yet the deflected attack which should discharge with any kind of touch to said charged hand, do not discharge in this case.
how is that any different then the undead touching the warded creature?
what were doing here is finding the common theme of these rules.
-you got a rule that say that when DR block all damage it also block riding effects.
and
-you got a FAQ about a deflecting ability, which negate the attack's damage, is ruled to also negate all riding effects.
house-ruling that any other ability that negate an attack's damage will also negate any of that attack riding effects is not that far fetched.
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If you want to follow that line of thought, the negative damage isn't blocked, it doesn't do anything to the protected creature because the creature is immune to negative energy.
DR works if the damage dealt minus the protection has a result of 0. Here there is no minus part. The creature is immune to the negative energy.
Let's make a different example: I hit your character that has a DR of 10/adamantium thanks to Stoneskin with my shocking longsword. I deal 8 points of weapon damage and 3 points of electricity damage. Your DR blocks all the weapon damage, but the electricity damage is dealt to you as you don't have energy resistance.
As precision damage, what is rider damage isn't well defined in the rules, it all depends if you think that the ability drain is a "special effects that accompany the attack" (the text of the DR rule) or it is a separate effect that doesn't depend from the negative damage dealt by the touch.
As i said that is for house rules.
if i wanted to find something against it i would have just pointed out that the DR rules that were quoted specifically call out to not help against touch attacks, energy drain etc.
"Whenever damage reduction completely negates the damage from an attack, it also negates most special effects that accompany the attack, such as injury poison, a monk’s stunning, and injury-based disease. Damage reduction does not negate touch attacks, energy damage dealt along with an attack, or energy drains. Nor does it affect poisons or diseases delivered by inhalation, ingestion, or contact."