Level Drain

[L]

Is there any way to get the game to retain your spells selected (etc) when levels are restored. I don't want them to be immediately available, I just find it tedious to have to reselect every time - though I don't actually have an issue with the temporary loss of level.

If that isn't possible, is there anything to completely disable the effect from the game, so unavailable to both enemies and my own casters.

[T2Bruno]

... don't get level drained.

[Paracelsi]

I seem to remember that Greater Restoration also has that effect. Or maybe it was from a mod.

[Marceror]

A few ways to deal with Level Drain:

-Berserker rage protects against it, so send in your beserker(s) if you have any to deal with vampires.
-The mace of disruption makes you immune to it.
-The Amulet of Power makes you immune, it can be obtain by Aran Linvail in chapter 3
-The cleric spell negative plan protection makes you immune

I'm not aware of any way of disabling this effect. It's sort of a primary attack of vampires. I haven't heard of any mods that do this either, but you could always do some checking on that.

[dmc]

Only the upgraded mace of disruption (not the regular one) makes you immune to level drain in SOA. The amulet is good, the spell doesn't last long enough, and I am not sure how many rages you can do. Basically, I know of no way to stop the annoying spell memorization erasure you are talking about other than keeping my spellcasters from being drained, which isn't really what you were asking.

[Ishad Nha]

Undead Hunters are always immune to it. If you have one in your party have him/her stand in front of every one else.

[Marceror]

Another practical thing you can do is try to avoid running around Athkatla at night. This is when "random" vampire encounters are going to occur.

Originally Posted by dmc

Only the upgraded mace of disruption (not the regular one) makes you immune to level drain in SOA.

This can be obtained relatively early by doing the Unseeing Eye quest, and continuing with the subsequent quests offered by the temples to obtain pure Illithium. I always give Sir Sarles the Illithium alloy, and keep the pure stuff for the mace.

The amulet is good, the spell doesn't last long enough

Yes, the spell has a short duration (5 rounds only), but it's also relatively quick to cast. The idea is to avoid casting it until you're sure you're going to need it. I've always found it worth my while to have at least a couple of these spells prepared.

and I am not sure how many rages you can do.

Well, when you get surprised by a group of vampires even 1 is probably going to do the trick. As I recall you get 1 rage at level 1, and another every 4 levels thereafter, so you can quickly accumulate 2 or 3 of these.

I commonly like to switch Minsc over to a single class Berserker, and play a dual class Berserker/Mage as the protagonist. I've found Berserker rage to be a godsend when it comes to dealing with vampires.

With these 2 characters raging, you already have a nice wall between vampires and the rest of your casters/party.

Put the amulet of power on Nalia or another caster and you're in even better shape. Put the improved mace of disruption on Anomen, and you're doing really well.

I also commonly switch Jaheria to a multiclass ranger/cleric, so both her and Anomen can cast negative plan protection, so in a pinch I can quickly get my final 2 party members protected from level drain.

Even for longer vampire battles, I find that the 5 rounds for negative plane protection is generally long enough to bring the battle under control and get certain party members out of harm's way.

There is, as far as I'm aware, no avoiding level drain attacks outright, so the best that can be offered are some of the tactics to help manage these attacks when they occur. Worst case scenario, as has been suggested, put your melee guys up front, and have your casters run, run, run if being pursued by vampires. At least you can avoid or minimize your casters getting drained and having to rememorize spells. Yes, this is annoying when it happens.

[L]

Cheers for the advice.

Actually had my main character as a Beserker, carried through from a BG1 game I started long before this thread. Korgan had also joined by the time I made this thread. With beserker rage these two could cut through any expected vampires without too much difficulty. It's only with this that I've realised how little damage vampires actually do beyond the level drain.

Only had a couple of times when my spellcasters have been affected, usually because of the forced talk/walk into position which occurs at certain points. Still annoying, but thankfully nowhere near as bad as it has been on previous playthroughs.

Viconia has the amulet of power, and Keldon doesn't cast spells, so that only leaves two spellcasters, who usually can manage to stay out of harms way.

[Marceror]

Glad you managed to get yourself sorted on this L (talk about an easy name to type). Yeah, having a couple of Berserkers in your party really makes life a lot easier. The items and spells you can get later only make vampires easier still.

[Paracelsi]

I'm starting to play BG2 regularly again and I noticed that level-drained characters who die sometimes retain their spells when revived. Maybe the vampires simply didn't drain enough levels to affect my casters but has anyone else noticed something similar?

I've had no success recreating it (intentionally setting off a level drain trap and then killing the NPC).

[SlickRCBD]

This is possibly because of how the computer processes and resolves combat. If you have the "show attack rolls" or whatever it's called in BG2, you'll see that often several hits are shown before the message showing damage dealt or other effects appears.

It's quite possible that the damage that killed the character was put into place, the character was marked as dead, and any further effects in the queue are then ignored since the guy is dead and trying to apply them would be beating a dead man.