Temple Termagant
Posts: 11
Joined: Monday, 9th May 2011, 10:45
Draining weapon
+0 short sword against ogre, effective damage at skill levels 0; 13; 27
Flame: 2.86; 7.71; 11.15
Vorpal: 2.65; 7.22; 10.28
Draining: 2.57; 6.98; 10.19
And damage is the thing that matters in most situations. The HD reduction with draining doesn't happen often and is not really noticeable even if it does, and max HP reduction only matters if you let the enemy regenerate to full for some reason. I suppose it could be useful hit-and-run, but if you really can't kill a monster in one try, the prudent thing is to leave it off for later, and even if you manage to drain it down, the exp reward is greatly reduced.
For this mediocre damage, you lose exp depending on how many times the draining went off, reducing the enemy's HD and max HP, two primary factors that determine enemy exp worth. If you are using a heavy beefy weapon that does a lot of damage per hit and you have high weapon skill, you'll lose less exp since it'll take less hits to kill the enemy. Something like +0 knife of draining will lose you like 80% of exp with low skill levels. There doesn't seem to be any cap on the experience drained, since it is possible to get 1 exp after killing a monster by making their HD reach 0 (though you have to really try to achieve this). I tried in wizmode killing several Margeries with a +0 katana of draining at 27 skill, and the exp loss worked out to about 35%. Also tried killing several Sigmunds, which died on one or two hits each, and ended up with about 10% exp loss.
And in game flavor-wise, I don't know why draining makes the character gain not as much experience. It's as if draining brand gives the character ADD. It's odd, because the more trouble the character has with the enemy (taking more hits to kill him, maybe running away and come back to finish him later), the less experience he obtains.