Draining (brand)

Version 0.13: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

A truly terrible weapon, it drains the life of those it strikes.

The draining brand adds a draining effect to a melee weapon's attacks against most enemies. Each of your attacks has a 66% chance of doing all of the following:

• Deal an additional +1% to +50% of the physical damage dealt as negative energy damage.
• Reduce enemy's max HP by 1 + 1d3, and do that much negative energy damage.
• 20% chance: Reduce the enemy's HD by 1 permanently. This reduces their magic resistance, spell power, and experience value, and will kill them instantly if they hit 0 HD.

In enemy hands it has a very different effect, dealing additional negative energy damage and inflicting the drain status effect. This lowers all of your skills by an amount that increases as you take more and more draining damage, and which only diminishes as you gain experience. This effect can be very dangerous, especially in prolonged battles.

Negative energy resistance greatly reduces the effect of draining branded weapons. Each rank of rN+ you possess reduces both the chance and impact of the draining by 1/3, and reduces the additional damage taken by 50% at rN+, 75% at rN++, and 100% at rN+++. Monsters with resistance take differently scaled reduced damage (rN+: 1/3 off, rN++: 1/2 off, rN+++: 3/5 off), and each rank gives an additional 33.3% chance of negating the HD- and max HP-reducing effects. All undead and demonic monsters completely ignore the brand's effects.

Tips & Tricks

• Reducing the HD of shapeshifters reduces the HD (and thus the threat) of any forms they may change into.
• Draining is an evil brand. Good gods will not approve of using a draining branded weapon in combat.
• Don't be afraid of overusing a draining weapon! While it's true that drained opponents are worth less XP, the reduction isn't terribly drastic; in most cases it's on par with or better than the penalties for fighting with the aid of summoned allies. Draining is a very useful brand in areas with living opponents, and survival is more important than maximizing XP.

History

Prior to 0.13, draining weapons used against the player had no impact on your skills. Instead, it permanently reduced your experience, potentially causing you to lose experience levels.