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Ability damage whether through poisons, energy drains, feats or other effects is fairly common in D&D3 and it's close relatives. In fact as hit point totals grow I've found that the easiest way to make the players concerned about the ability of an enemy to damage them is to break out an ability-damaging critter, taking them back to worrying about a total which is likely in the teens to start with rather than the tens.
Monte Cooke's Arcana Unearthed (and revision for 3.5, Arcana Evolved) deliberately make healing harder to come by. For HP damage the lower level healing spells either cure less (fast and with no side effects) or cure more but at a cost to the caster.
After diligent searching I found the following options for ability damage:
#Iamblind #rightundermynose
The Restoration spell is a Complex, Positive Energy (specifically accessible by certain classes / feats), level 5 spell. It requires the target have a Truename to be effective. Diminished (cast using a 4th level spell slot) it removes all temporary damage to one ability score and dispels negative levels; cast normally it dispels negative levels, restores one drained level, removes all temporary ability damage and one point drained from a single ability score, and heightened (cast using a 6th level slot) it restores all lost levels and all points drained from a single ability score. At best you need to be a 9th level caster before you get access to this spell in any form, 11th to use it heightened.
For comparison the 3.x spell Lesser Restoration cures 1d4 points of ability damage and is 2nd level (3rd level caster), Restoration dispels negative levels, restores one drained level, cures all temporary damage, restores all points drained from a single ability score and is a 4th level spell (7th level caster)
Other options appear to be:
- The heightened version of Transfer Wounds (Total) (Simple, Positive Energy, using an 8th level spell slot) in addition to healing all hit point damage removes all temporary ability damage, applying half of that damage to the caster as per usual for the Transfer Wounds spells.
- Perfect Health (9th level, Simple, Positive Energy, requires Truename) removes all temporary ability damage but explicitly does not remove drain.
- Heightened Neutralise Poison (Complex, Positive energy, 5th level slot) heals damage inflicted by poisons within the past hour.
- Heightened Remove Disease (Complex, Positive energy, 4th level slot) heals any damage inflicted by diseases in the last week.
- Remove Malady (Complex, Positive energy, requires Truename, 5th level slot) can take away (among other things) a poison or disease affecting a character, but it is not clear if this will restore ability damage. Comparing it to the levels of the previous two I would say not; this spell instead has the flexibility of being effective against a wide variety of conditions.
- the Runethane (class) Rune of Rest doubles the rate of healing while during rest, presumably including ability damage.
The lack of lower level magic for addressing ability damage is clearly a deliberate design decision but it's a bit problematic when a series of horrendous FORT saves leaves your low-to-mid-levels group mostly incapacitated by a few spiders. By the rules it also makes ability healing items (eg potions) prohibitively expensive at lower levels. Google has not revealed unto me any existing house rules for this out there, so here are a couple of ways I see to address this while still keeping the availability of healing a bit more scare.
1. Easily within the rules Lesser Restoration can be brought in as an exotic spell. I would probably make it 3rd level, Positive Energy, restoring 1d4+1 points of damage to one ability score, diminished restoring 2 points but at a cost to the caster of 1 point (ala Transfer Wounds), heightened restoring all points of damage to one ability score.
2. The Lesser and Greater Transfer Wounds spells could be modified such that the heightened version additionally / instead restores some amount of ability damage at the usual cost of transferring half the damage to the caster (effectively having half the effect if cast on oneself). If I were taking this route I would probably make the amount 1d4+1 points to one ability score for LTW and all points to one ability score for GTW (heightened is a 5th level spell so Restoration may be available, but GTW is a Simple spell and doesn't require a Truename).
As a side note even with multiple applications of these spells there would always be one point left /somewhere/ which has to recover naturally #math.
3. The Lesser and Greater Battle Healing spells could be similarly modified. These are already a level higher than their Transfer counterparts which seems reasonable for the utility. Restoration is still preferable if it is available if only because it now uses a lower level slot (heightened GBW uses a 6th level slot to achieve what Restoration does using a 4th level slot).
My preference would probably be to use both 2 and 3 but for the stingier DM introducing an NPC who has spent the feat for or an Amulet of Spell Knowledge containing the first option might be more palatable.
Monte Cooke's Arcana Unearthed (and revision for 3.5, Arcana Evolved) deliberately make healing harder to come by. For HP damage the lower level healing spells either cure less (fast and with no side effects) or cure more but at a cost to the caster.
After diligent searching I found the following options for ability damage:
#Iamblind #rightundermynose
The Restoration spell is a Complex, Positive Energy (specifically accessible by certain classes / feats), level 5 spell. It requires the target have a Truename to be effective. Diminished (cast using a 4th level spell slot) it removes all temporary damage to one ability score and dispels negative levels; cast normally it dispels negative levels, restores one drained level, removes all temporary ability damage and one point drained from a single ability score, and heightened (cast using a 6th level slot) it restores all lost levels and all points drained from a single ability score. At best you need to be a 9th level caster before you get access to this spell in any form, 11th to use it heightened.
For comparison the 3.x spell Lesser Restoration cures 1d4 points of ability damage and is 2nd level (3rd level caster), Restoration dispels negative levels, restores one drained level, cures all temporary damage, restores all points drained from a single ability score and is a 4th level spell (7th level caster)
Other options appear to be:
- The heightened version of Transfer Wounds (Total) (Simple, Positive Energy, using an 8th level spell slot) in addition to healing all hit point damage removes all temporary ability damage, applying half of that damage to the caster as per usual for the Transfer Wounds spells.
- Perfect Health (9th level, Simple, Positive Energy, requires Truename) removes all temporary ability damage but explicitly does not remove drain.
- Heightened Neutralise Poison (Complex, Positive energy, 5th level slot) heals damage inflicted by poisons within the past hour.
- Heightened Remove Disease (Complex, Positive energy, 4th level slot) heals any damage inflicted by diseases in the last week.
- Remove Malady (Complex, Positive energy, requires Truename, 5th level slot) can take away (among other things) a poison or disease affecting a character, but it is not clear if this will restore ability damage. Comparing it to the levels of the previous two I would say not; this spell instead has the flexibility of being effective against a wide variety of conditions.
- the Runethane (class) Rune of Rest doubles the rate of healing while during rest, presumably including ability damage.
The lack of lower level magic for addressing ability damage is clearly a deliberate design decision but it's a bit problematic when a series of horrendous FORT saves leaves your low-to-mid-levels group mostly incapacitated by a few spiders. By the rules it also makes ability healing items (eg potions) prohibitively expensive at lower levels. Google has not revealed unto me any existing house rules for this out there, so here are a couple of ways I see to address this while still keeping the availability of healing a bit more scare.
1. Easily within the rules Lesser Restoration can be brought in as an exotic spell. I would probably make it 3rd level, Positive Energy, restoring 1d4+1 points of damage to one ability score, diminished restoring 2 points but at a cost to the caster of 1 point (ala Transfer Wounds), heightened restoring all points of damage to one ability score.
2. The Lesser and Greater Transfer Wounds spells could be modified such that the heightened version additionally / instead restores some amount of ability damage at the usual cost of transferring half the damage to the caster (effectively having half the effect if cast on oneself). If I were taking this route I would probably make the amount 1d4+1 points to one ability score for LTW and all points to one ability score for GTW (heightened is a 5th level spell so Restoration may be available, but GTW is a Simple spell and doesn't require a Truename).
As a side note even with multiple applications of these spells there would always be one point left /somewhere/ which has to recover naturally #math.
3. The Lesser and Greater Battle Healing spells could be similarly modified. These are already a level higher than their Transfer counterparts which seems reasonable for the utility. Restoration is still preferable if it is available if only because it now uses a lower level slot (heightened GBW uses a 6th level slot to achieve what Restoration does using a 4th level slot).
My preference would probably be to use both 2 and 3 but for the stingier DM introducing an NPC who has spent the feat for or an Amulet of Spell Knowledge containing the first option might be more palatable.
