Cognatogen and the Ring of inner Fortitude

Hello,

being an avid 3.5 fan and having played it for a lot of years i recently started a Pathfinder group. Despite the similarities there's a ton of open questions to me as a DM and here's one i have a hard time deciding on:

The Mentalists Cognatogen works in many ways like the alchemists Mutagen, but it adds ability damage after the effect wears off. To me and according the the Threads i read here, this might be a balance decision, as improving your mental attributes is a big gain for a Mentalist regarding his bomb damage.

The Ring of inner Fortitude does twofold for a Mentalist: It a ) reduces the ability penalty of the Cognatogen while it is in effect and b) reduces/negates the effect of the ability damage after the effect.

From a rules perspective i think the second part is probelamtic, as to my knowledge and interpretation, items and spells that affect ability damage do not affect "spend" or self-inflicted effects to ability damage. The same argument can be made (imho) for the penalty while the cognatogen is still effective.

From a balance perspective, the Ring of inner Fortitude seems plain horrible to me. A 16th level Mentalist can obtain a whopping bonus of +8,+6,+4 to Mental ability scores via the Grand cognatogen while suffering no penalty at all by using a grand rinner of inner fortitude (42k GP), which is a rather small sum on such a level given the average wealth of a group of a 16th level character. A +8 alchemical bonus on Intellgence pushes the damage of the Mentalists bombs a good bit and affects some of his spells that can be used offensive by increasing the DC. (not a whole lot, granted) Other Spellcasters/combateers who cap out at 6th grade spells have a rather hard (are there any classes that can do this?) time to emulate such a bonus that stacks with the most common attribute bonuses.

So, what do you think of this interaction from a) a rule perspective and b) balance wise ? I realize im free to interpret the rules as a DM as i see fit, but in this case i'd like to collect some informed opinions on this matter first.

Thx in advance.

The Ring of inner Fortitude is probably more powerful than it should be, especially when used to negate beneficial effects with detrimental drawbacks.

As GM you are free to Rule 0 it as not negating any drawback of a beneficial thing until the benefit has lapsed.

You could also just let it work as written, it is a 12th level character or higher WBL item.

hm. in my book any rule is subject to being modified by a DM. That's a core thing for me in RPG's. But im pretty sure that at least in 3.5. there were some cases, where a char could spend ability points on stuff and this could explicitly not be prevented by Items that grant "damage reduction" on attributes ( im aware it's not the same). So repeating the question: How is this handled in PF ?

btw: it does mitigate the drawback before the benefit has lapsed i think? It mitigates the penalty which is applied while the cognatogen is active. Or am i mistaken on that?

ah i misunderstood you on the "rule 0" expression, that's not a common phrase to me, sorry (;

Given that, your suggestion seems plausible, the ability penalty would still remain intact while the ring offers protection from said ability damage, i can get behind that.

I didn't do a good job of explaining my points.

I was saying the GM could let it work because we are talking about Level 12+ items.

Or we could say (as a GM deciding to change things) that it doesn't negate any penalties if by gaining those penalties you are also gaining benefits.

that seem to be the options, i lean towards the second option atm.

But from a RAW perspective, there's no reason to believe that self-inflicted attribute damage or "spend" attribute points are excluded from beeing warded by a R.o.i.F ? Or is there any ambiguities in the rules regarding this?

From a rules perspective i think the second part is probelamtic, as to my knowledge and interpretation, items and spells that affect ability damage do not affect "spend" or self-inflicted effects to ability damage. The same argument can be made (imho) for the penalty while the cognatogen is still effective.

I don't think that's a specific rule anywhere in PF. It's just that most self inflicted ones tend to say that the penalty/damage/drain must be taken for the positive effect to occur or for it to remain in effect. Mutagens don't have this stipulation, so I'd say it's quite fair game.

Relating to that, there's also items that clearly break what you said such as http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/r-z/vest- of-stable-mutation . Note how that vest is inferior to the ring though. It costs a bit more, only works on mutagens (incl. cognatogen, since in my opinion they're just a sub-type of mutagen), and doesn't prevent any damage at all.
I suppose that balance-wise, you could look at that vest and state that the ring should have to cost more, but I generally disagree. I think the vest is just a huge ripoff, and the person who made it didn't price it correctly at all. It should cost like half as much in my opinion, although it is hard to price things like that due to the fact that ability points are much cheaper in value at lower levels compared to higher levels (due to the fact tat bonuses of the same type —namely enhancement— don't stack, and cost a lot more to improve)

From a balance perspective, the Ring of inner Fortitude seems plain horrible to me. A 16th level Mentalist can obtain a whopping bonus of +8,+6,+4 to Mental ability scores via the Grand cognatogen while suffering no penalty at all by using a grand rinner of inner fortitude (42k GP)

If it's so horrible, why do you think it warrants a balance discussion? By horrible you mean "really useful", or "broken-level good"? It's certainly good, but nothing crazy. You can use things like vest of surgery or boro bead lesser restoration to cure the ability damage, and enhancement bonus items to have a constant buff to str/con/dex by 2 or more instead of just negating the temporary -2 penalty.

Also note that from the way I interpreted the description, one would not need a greater ring of inner fortitude, a lesser one would cover everything. It seems to be saying that it protects each stat by 2 and 1, not a total of 2 across all of them.