I bought the game today and greatly enjoyed Obsidian's previous D&D rpgs in the past. Is there a melee class that has a life drain feature to it? Such as a Shadowknight from Everquest, Reaver from Dark Age of Camelot, etc. ?

 

Appreciate any helpful answers.

I don't know what the life drain in those examples were exactly, as I never played them, but there are several weapons with life leech (drain 20% of endurance from every hit), the first can be found reasonably quickly. 

No there's no such thing as draining life in this game, if by which you mean you can go on for perpetuity draining back the life you took as damage.

 

Draining endurance doesn't move your life (Health) at all. Your Health only goes one way, and that's down (unless you take a talent that restores a small amount per rest)

barbarian can carnage AOE drain endurance .. Health still depletes normally and forces resting to replenish ..

Thanks for the answers, guys.   Doesn't sound like there is one in the game. Oh well, maybe there's an anti paladin somewhere.

you have to hit very hard to get significant life drain back. 

 

Fighters *regenerate* health at a decent rate.  A fighter with a life drain weapon is very hard to kill if he has taken some of the tanking talents/traits.  

 

Life drain can kill the user.  If your endurance never drops but your *health* does, you can find yourself still fighting (instead of knocked out) and dying when being knocked out *may* have saved your life.   For this reason life drain on say a rogue can be more dangerous than beneficial depending on how well set up your party is. 

As said life drains on weapons. Works very well with fighters and paladins.

 

Bleak walker paladin is an anti paladin. The game has what you want

If you go wizard, you can use Parasitic Staff. It essentially equips you with a staff made from energy and each hit restores a small amount of your endurance.