Penalties, Damage, and Drain

[pika626]

OK, so recently in one of my games, the rules on penalties, damage, and drain have come into question and I was hoping for a clarification on the matter.

1: Penalties stack on top of each other correct? Looking up the Penalty description on the SRD states, "Penalties are numerical values that are subtracted from a check or statistical score. Penalties do not have a type and most penalties stack with one another." This leads me to believe that penalties DO stack, but, as with certain spells such as Ray of Enfeeblement, the penalty from this spell cannot stack with others of it's kind. I get that much. But it leads me to my next question.

2: If penalties do stack, can they stack on top of damage and drain as well?

I'll give an example of some of the issues I need clarification on. Correct me on anything that I get wrong.

Say a team of adventurers are fighting a band of goblins. One goblin is in particular is in trouble. He has been shot by numerous poisoned arrows arrows and has taken 4 str damage from the poison. The sorcerer of the group has summoned a Grig who has used Pyrotechnics to surround it in the choking smoke. Failing the Fort save, the goblin now has a -8 str, -4 damage plus a -4 penalty. The sorcerer then follows this up with a Ray of Enfeeblement. The unlucky goblin then takes another 5 str damage. This would total his str loss to a total 13. Now, assuming this goblin is above average in terms of str, let's say he has a 16 str, he is not knocked out just yet. On the goblin's turn, he attempts to make a fort save against the poison, fails, and loses another 1 str, total of -14 so far. Unable to fully leave the cloud this round because of factors preventing him from escaping the 40ft range, he must now make another fort save verses the smoke because he is still within the cloud. Failing once again, he takes one last point of str to a grand total of -15 str, due to the fact that penalties to ability scores cannot reduce it below 1.

Have I gotten this right? Or are there additional mechanics that I am missing?

[Ravingdork]

You track each one separately and they stack. For example, if your goblin is taking 3 points of ability damage and 3 points of ability penalty, he is taking a -2 penalty to said ability score's related functions (or at least those mentioned under the damage/penalty rules).

Like temporary hit points, ability damage and penalties are tracked separately and count up. They don't actually reduce your score.

Ability drain on the other hand, however DOES actually reduce your score.

It's also worth noting that many penalties cannot cause you to fall unconscious or die (if it helps, treat it like it can't reduce your score to less than 1). In your example, that ray of enfeeblement couldn't have reduced your goblin's strength to 0 (or, well, at all) even if he was already suffering from other maladies.