It has been a long time since I looked at this so I might be completely off base, but I seem to remember a problem that level drain worked with gloves but not bracers (or possibly the other way around, though I think not). Try it with no gloves or bracers on at all, and if it starts working you'll know that what you're seeing is probably this issue.
Technical details: if I'm remembering correctly, the problem was that PRC couldn't add the necessary OnHit property to bracers, but it could to gloves.