Death by Attribute Damage and Breath of Life.

[tchrman35]

Snowblind wrote:

Gwen Smith wrote:

You're saying my buddy still turns into a shadow?

I really, really, really doubt that is the intent of how undead making abilities that trigger when something dies should work.

I know that it is a valid interpretation by strict RAW, but by RAW a greater shadow cannot kill someone with 9 or more strength ever, because a shadow never reduces a character's strength score (barring starvation from a week of strength damage induced coma). The rules text for shadows is borked. If you are already running part of how they work by RAI, you might as well run all of their rules by RAI.

Ha! Yes, a strict ruling would say that the descriptor would have to say "cumulative shadow damage."

But I don't think anybody would ever try to suggest that's what they meant!

[thaX]

tchrman35 wrote:

Snowblind wrote:

Gwen Smith wrote:

You're saying my buddy still turns into a shadow?

I really, really, really doubt that is the intent of how undead making abilities that trigger when something dies should work.

I know that it is a valid interpretation by strict RAW, but by RAW a greater shadow cannot kill someone with 9 or more strength ever, because a shadow never reduces a character's strength score (barring starvation from a week of strength damage induced coma). The rules text for shadows is borked. If you are already running part of how they work by RAI, you might as well run all of their rules by RAI.

Ha! Yes, a strict ruling would say that the descriptor would have to say "cumulative shadow damage."

But I don't think anybody would ever try to suggest that's what they meant!

It doesn't need to be cumulative, it would kill any time it does damage and the character's STR would go to 0. You could have other creatures that did STR damage, the Shadow would get in a last hit, and the STR going to 0 would kill the character with that hit.

[_Ozy_]

Attribute damage does not change the actual attribute.

A person with an 18 str, hit with 16 points worth of strength damage, still has an 18 str. The str damage just gives penalties to attacks, damage, checks, etc...

Therefore, if the shadow str damage isn't 'accumulated', a shadow would never kill anyone that had a str >8.

Here's the text:

Quote:

Strength Damage (Su) A greater shadow's touch deals 1d8 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.

Actual Strength scores are not reduced by taking str damage.