Shadows and Bull's strength


Rules Questions


Can the end of a bull's strength spell kill a character if a shadow has damaged his STR for 13 when he had STR 14 with the spell?

From shadow Strength Damage ability: "A shadow's touch deals 1d6 points of Strength damage to a living creature. This is a negative energy effect. A creature dies if this Strength damage equals or exceeds its actual Strength score"
I think the intention of the ability death effect is just in the moment of the touch, but seems rather open as to admit a delayed effect interpretation, as when the STR drops to 10, the damage is higher than the actual STR making true the death condition.
Related question coming to my head. What if the character had STR damage from other source before the encounter? Is that account for the death condition? What if that other source damage comes hours after the Shadow encounter?

Other rules to consider: Temporary ability bonus and damage sections under Appendix 1


Str doesn't kill as far as I know. You just pass out.

"A character with a Strength score of 0 is too weak to move in any way and is unconscious."


Yes, but taking into account the Shadow ability, does the character become a Shadow in 1d4 turns or is he unconcious but alive?


OH, guess I should read the full question, haha.
I think there are two parts one is "actual Strength score" does that mean before the temp boost from bull's str?

Other than that I say they just go unconscious. The damage the shadow did wasn't enough to kill. So now the character just has generic str damage. That's how I think it would work.


To answer the question: "can the end of a bull's str spell kill someone who has taken a lot of str damage."

Generically:

Yes.

If the character in question is at 1 str, then it starts taking con damage instead. If the end of the bull's str spell occurs when the character is at 4 or fewer con then the missing damage will catch up and kill them.

Vs a Shadow:

Debatable, strictly speaking the damage came from the shadow's touch attack and so the character should die. More generously the shadow's touch did not deal the "lethal" damage to the character; the end of the spell did, so it would proceed under the "generic" scenario above (which could still kill them but would not make them rise in 1d4 rounds as a shadow).

Personally I'd go with the more lenient ruling for the players here, and say that for the shadow's touch ability to kill someone the touch has to be the immediate source of the lethal damage.

EDIT: CommandoDude has a better RAW reading.


The spell doesn't factor in at all. Temporary bonuses don't count to your actual strength score, so you would go down at STR -10 regardless.


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This illustrates the difference between a permanent and temporary strength bonus. For a temporary bonus, your actual score remains static. 10 Str is 10 Str so it would take 10 Str damage to drop you whether or not you had Bull's Strength. Since Shadow's str damage has an added effect, that would come into play as well (normally, you'd just be unconscious but for a Shadow's Str damage, if it meets or exceeds your Str score, you die outright). Now, if you had a Belt of Giant Strength (for more than 24 hours), that'd be a different story. That would work as you suggest; if you have 10 base Str, +4 from the belt, and suffer 10 Str damage from a Shadow, you'd still be sitting on an effective 4 Str. However, if you removed the belt, you'd suddenly drop dead and, in 1d4 rounds, you'd be a shadow of your former self.


I can't agree. From Ability Score Bonuses in Appendix 1:
"Ability score increases with a duration of 1 day or less give only temporary bonuses. For every two points of increase to a single ability, apply +1 bonus to..." it actually asumes an ability score increase exists, it states "ability score increases", and it does not state anywhere that there is no STR increase. By that sentence if there is no increase, then there is no statistics bonuses, be them temporary or permanent. This entry in the rules have been discussed before and shall be understood as a guide and a mechanic to speed up things, and a barrier to daily uses temporary gain. You can read the resulting FAQ here:
paizo.com/paizo/faq/v5748nruor1fm#v5748eaic9quz


Balacertar wrote:

I can't agree. From Ability Score Bonuses in Appendix 1:

"Ability score increases with a duration of 1 day or less give only temporary bonuses. For every two points of increase to a single ability, apply +1 bonus to..." it actually asumes an ability score increase exists, it states "ability score increases", and it does not state anywhere that there is no STR increase. By that sentence if there is no increase, then there is no statistics bonuses, be them temporary or permanent. This entry in the rules have been discussed before and shall be understood as a guide and a mechanic to speed up things, and a barrier to daily uses temporary gain. You can read the resulting FAQ here:
paizo.com/paizo/faq/v5748nruor1fm#v5748eaic9quz

Witha temporary stat bonus you get the modifier BUT your actual score does not increase until 24 hours have passed. The shadow drains your actual(permanent) ability stat so bulls strength won't help. That rule is to prevent switching out stat boosting items at will.


The negative energy is still coursing through your system until that strength damage is healed. When the spell goes down you die.

If you take strength damage from another source that would be different. You would need to take shadow damage equal to your str to die.

As you can tell I'm of the view that a strength increase is a strength increase whether temporary or otherwise. I can see nothing to indicate otherwise. While it might interact slightly differently with the rules (intelligence and skills being the most obvious example)it still counts at it's increased level. Mostly because of this little bit

Quote:
for every two points of increase...


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Balacertar wrote:
...For every two points of increase to a single ability, apply +1 bonus to..." it actually asumes an ability score increase exists, it states "ability score increases", and it does not state anywhere that there is no STR increase...
PRD wrote:
Permanent Bonuses: Ability bonuses with a duration greater than 1 day actually increase the relevant ability score after 24 hours. Modify all skills and statistics related to that ability. This might cause you to gain skill points, hit points, and other bonuses. These bonuses should be noted separately in case they are removed.

If a Permanent Bonus "actually increases the relevant ability", the only way that statement can make sense is if the Temporary bonus doesn't "actually" increase the relevant ability. Therefore, the Temporary bonus doesn't "actually" increase the relevant ability. You have 10 Str with a +0 Str modifier and a +4 temporary bonus gives you 10 Str and you "count as" having a +2 Str modifier. In both cases, 10 Str damage would drop you.


I agree with everything Kazaan said.

If the character had 10 strength, and took 10 strength damage from the shadow then that character is dead. The spell (being a temporary effect) doesn't affect anything.

The character should be dead. And also a shadow, which prevents most ressureciton magic from working on it since it is undead and most of the low level revival methods such as raise dead and reincarnation don't work if someone has been turned into an undead.

Grand Lodge RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

There's a relatively new FAQ that changes all our prior understandings about the difference between temporary and permanent bonuses, and is relevant to this topic:

FAQ wrote:


Temporary Ability Score Increases vs. Permanent Ability Score Increases: Why do temporary bonuses only apply to some things?

Temporary ability bonuses should apply to anything relating to that ability score, just as permanent ability score bonuses do. The section in the glossary was very tight on space and it was not possible to list every single ability score-related game effect that an ability score bones would affect.

The purpose of the temporary ability score ruling is to make it so you don't have to rebuild your character every time you get a bull's strength or similar spell; it just summarizes the most common game effects relative to that ability score.

For example, most of the time when you get bull's strength, you're using it for combat, so the glossary mentions Strength-based skill checks, melee attack rolls, Strength-based weapon damage rolls, CMB, and CMD. It doesn't call out melee attack rolls that use Dex instead of Str (such as when using Weapon Finesse) or situations where your applied Str bonus should be halved or multiplied (such as whith off-hand or two-handed weapons). You're usually not using the spell for a 1 min./level increase in your carrying capacity, so that isn't mentioned there, but the bonus should still apply to that, as well as to Strength checks to break down doors.

Think of it in the same way that a simple template has "quick rules" and "rebuild rules;" they're supposed to create monsters which are roughly equivalent in terms of stats, but the quick rules are a short cut that misses some details compared to using the rebuild rules. Likewise, the temporary ability score rule is intended as a short cut to speed up gameplay, not as the most precise way of applying the bonus.

A temporary ability score bonus should affect all of the same stats and rolls that a permanent ability score bonus does.

LINK

As you can see, the current stance is that a temporary and a permanent bonus function identically. I'm not so sure this was always the intent, but it's pretty clear that it is now, despite how so many of us were used to playing. There's not really another way to interpret "just as permanent ability score bonuses" than that they're identical.


Well, in that case as soon as the spell wears off the character still dies, unless the strength damage is healed first.


Kazaan wrote:


PRD wrote:
Permanent Bonuses: Ability bonuses with a duration greater than 1 day actually increase the relevant ability score after 24 hours. Modify all skills and statistics related to that ability. This might cause you to gain skill points, hit points, and other bonuses. These bonuses should be noted separately in case they are removed.

It means Permanent Bonus do not increase the ability untill 24 hours have past with the effect on you. That works different from Temporary Bonus which enters into effect automatically, and it has the purpose of avoiding ability score item switching as others have already pointed out.

Temporary effect: instant increase
Permanent effect: increase after 24h


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Now that the STR increase and temporary vs permanent bonus have been discussed, I would like to focus in the main motivation of my question. I feel confused by the following sentence of the Shadow's Strength damage ability:

PRD wrote:
A creature dies if this Strength damage equals or exceeds its actual Strength score.

1) What is the meaning of "actual" here, as it stands in "real Strength score" or as it does in "current Strength score"?
2) Does "this Strength damage" refer to the just dealt 1d6 or does it refer to the accumulated damage dealt by all Strength damage attacks from shadow sources?
3) In case answer for 2 is "accumulated", shall the death effect be applied immediately, or it remains dormant until an Strength damage change or all damage is healed?

Just for simplicity I guess answers are "current" and "1d6", but I will appreciate an official answer as most posters seem to differ completely from that view. This already happened in my game and might arise again. Thanks in advance.

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