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Obviously, that's the whole point of rule 0. If something becomes a problem, it's the DM's job to fix it.

But rules clarification is a good thing, because less DM's have to make those calls, and players can assume spells work a certain way much more safely.

I mean, would you want to take the time to create an interesting backstory on a reincarnated archetype druid if your DM says you lose basically everything, and ONLY get the physical stat adjustments from the new body. You don't get any of the useful things like darkvision or the ability to swim better, you're basically a human with no bonus feats and no bonus skill points, and a few extra stat points.

Personally? That stinks. Maybe I would enjoy some of the extra traits to offset the loss of my primary traits and the possibility that I will become a lot less socially viable, maybe even a liability. Who would want to be a bugbear in the middle of Dwarven lands?

Also reincarnate should NEVER stack and allow you to collect abilities. That's obvious from all sorts of angles (James Jacobs even said so). Anything that reincarnate grants, reincarnate will take away if it is used again. Anything that reincarnate does not take away, reincarnate will not grant.

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The problem is, there's no official source saying any of this. The spell is one of the more ambiguous ones I've read in a long time, and there are no FAQ blogs or developer comments (Beyond those of James Jacobs, who has stated that anything he says is how he would run it at his table, not an interpretation as a Game Designer... so unfortunately, his words can't be taken as "official" which is important to a lot of people).

Ugh. Stupid browser lost my whole reply.

There are some more things I want to say on the subject, but a few of the quick comments I can recall are:

The context does lead you to exclude the mental stats, but the wording should honestly be made a bit more explicit on that count.

They really need to FAQ this and provide examples, walking you through the spell like those old articles from WOTC.

Race Traits are actually kept despite reincarnate.

http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/advanced/advancedNewRules.html#traits

Types of Traits

...

Race Traits: Race traits are keyed to specific races or ethnicities, which your character must belong to in order to select the trait. If your race or ethnicity changes at some later point (perhaps as a result of polymorph magic or a reincarnation spell), the benefits gained by your race trait persist—only if your mind and memories change as well do you lose the benefits of a race trait.

It specifically mentions Reincarnate.

Now I'm perfectly inclined to assume that means the less restricted traits should be kept as well, but that needs to be included into the spell, honestly. Also it leads to silliness with things like the half-orc "tusked" race trait... but that's par for the course in D&D/Pathfinder. The rules can occasionally lead to things that don't make sense, that's what DM's are for.

Still doesn't mean that GMs should adjudicate EVERYTHING. A consistent set of rules is a very good thing when one is playing, and clear rules text is the first step to consistent rulings.

Should not. The words you are looking for are "Should not". Because the way the spell is currently worded? It does in fact make you stupider. There is precisely no wording or language that indicates the mental ability scores of Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma are exempt from the "racial adjustments" that you are supposed to eliminate.

I'm with you, it's stupid. I'm re-wording the spell heavily for my game because there's so many ambiguities and loopholes in it. But with the way the spell is actually written, if you follow the instructions, your dwarf will become more charismatic and less wise, your elf will get stupider, and your halflings and gnomes will become less charismatic. Re-read the sentence I quoted directly from the spell description if you don't believe me. That's literally what it says to do.

I'm sure that the spell was never intended to do that, and most people don't play it like that, but that's why the spell needs clarification via FAQ, or more appropriately an errata.

I was planning on making a reincarnated druid, and I discovered that the spell is a LOT more confusing than I originally thought it was.

With this spell, you bring back a dead creature in another body, provided that its death occurred no more than 1 week before the casting of the spell and the subject's soul is free and willing to return. If the subject's soul is not willing to return, the spell does not work; therefore, a subject that wants to return receives no saving throw.

No problems here, that's the duration of death and a rephrasing of the "Revivification against One's Will" rules in the Magic section of the PRD or Magic Chapter in the Core Rulebook.

Since the dead creature is returning in a new body, all physical ills and afflictions are repaired.

Still with you, makes sense here.

The condition of the remains is not a factor. So long as some small portion of the creature's body still exists, it can be reincarnated, but the portion receiving the spell must have been part of the creature's body at the time of death.

No issue here either.

The magic of the spell creates an entirely new young adult body for the soul to inhabit from the natural elements at hand.

Here we get a problem. Aging Effects. What happens to your bonuses to mental stats for getting older? I'll touch more on this later.

This process takes 1 hour to complete. When the body is ready, the subject is reincarnated.

No issues with this bit.

A reincarnated creature recalls the majority of its former life and form. It retains any class abilities, feats, or skill ranks it formerly possessed.

Ah, the source of another problem via Racial Traits. Humans and their bonus skill points (and honestly their bonus feat too). Do humans lose the additional bonus skill points, do they gain a "debt" of skill points without losing any? Racial Traits are not touched upon at all, and that is a SERIOUS oversight, in my opinion.

Its class, base attack bonus, base save bonuses, and hit points are unchanged.

HOLD THE PRESSES! If your Constitution score changes, so will your hit points.

Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution scores depend partly on the new body.

This part makes perfect sense, though a re-roll of stats would also make sense, as would getting an array.

First eliminate the subject's racial adjustments (since it is no longer necessarily of his previous race) and then apply the adjustments found below to its remaining ability scores.

DANGER Will Robinson! DANGER!! This says I remove ALL racial adjustments, and then apply the results from the table below, which only details physical adjustments... This is illogical and annoying.

The subject of the spell gains two permanent negative levels when it is reincarnated. If the subject is 1st level, it takes 2 points of Constitution drain instead (if this would reduce its Con to 0 or less, it can't be reincarnated). A character who died with spells prepared has a 50% chance of losing any given spell upon being reincarnated. A spellcasting creature that doesn't prepare spells (such as a sorcerer) has a 50% chance of losing any given unused spell slot as if it had been used to cast a spell.

The rest of this paragraph is unambiguous and makes perfect sense for balance and flavor reasons.

It's possible for the change in the subject's ability scores to make it difficult for it to pursue its previous character class. If this is the case, the subject is advised to become a multiclass character.

Ditto, makes sense here.

For a humanoid creature, the new incarnation is determined using the table below. For nonhumanoid creatures, a similar table of creatures of the same type should be created.

You might wish to clarify if the "GM's Choice" result should also allow you to change types or not. I've had a vindictive GM use reincarnate to turn players into rats before, and a line to the effect of "a creature can only be brought back into a new body of the same Type as its old body" would stem such abuses (and can always be house-ruled away if a particular GM doesn't like that change)

A creature that has been turned into an undead creature or killed by a death effect can't be returned to life by this spell. Constructs, elementals, outsiders, and undead creatures can't be reincarnated. The spell can bring back a creature that has died of old age.

No issues here

The reincarnated creature gains all abilities associated with its new form, including forms of movement and speeds, natural armor, natural attacks, extraordinary abilities, and the like, but it doesn't automatically speak the language of the new form.

Uh oh. Another confusing/vague/contradicting point. Does it gain Spell-like abilities? Does it gain Supernatural abilities? Does it gain Physical Racial Traits? Does it gain MENTAL Racial Traits? The spell is silent on those particular abilities/traits beyond "and the like", which is awfully vague and open to interpretations that can lead to broken and unplayable characters

A wish or a miracle spell can restore a reincarnated character to his or her original form.

That wraps up the quote of the spell from the PRD.

In summary, my questions:

Are racially granted training type abilities such as Elven Weapon Proficiency, or the Dwarven Hatred ability kept or lost on reincarnate?

Racially granted feats such as the Human bonus, or the half-elven skill focus. Are they kept? They should be because you keep all feats, but if you lose traits then they should go as well.

Do humans that reincarnate get to keep the bonus skill points they've gained? If yes, do they continue to gain new ones as they level? If no to either of the previous two questions, do they accrue some sort of skill point debt?

Are the benefits of aging kept? The penalties should (obviously) be lost, but nothing is ever said specifically about the mental stats or other purely mental abilities carrying over through reincarnate, or even aging ability score changes in general or specific.

Are racial class skills kept as class skills? Does it depend on training/physical form differences?

Do your hit points change or not? Because if your Con score changes, your HP ought to change as well, but the spell specifically says "A reincarnated creature ... hit points remain unchanged."

Do you retain your mental ability scores from race or not? The way the spell is actually worded, you don't. You are told to "eliminate the subject's racial adjustments and then apply the adjustments found below to its remaining ability scores." There are no exceptions given for the mental scores, and that leads to some mind-bending inconsistencies. If you reincarnate an elf as an elf; suddenly they become less intelligent; dwarves that reincarnate as dwarves become less wise and more charismatic, while gnomes and halflings become less charismatic if reincarnated as themselves or anything else... how does that make any sense?

Do reincarnated creatures gain the Spell-like Abilities of their new body? Supernatural traits? Anything that normally falls under "Racial traits" like the Lizardfolk's "Hold Breath", the Goblin's "Skilled" or "Fast Movement", or the Orc traits of "Weapon Familiarity" or "Ferocity"?

I'm sure there are more questions, but those are the ones I came up with myself and with a quick glance at the boards. Finding no "official" answer on the subject, I figured I should try and ask them all in one place for ease of FAQ.

James Jacobs wrote:

Reincarnate is a pretty strange and complex spell. It's certainly one of those that every GM should look at and decided exactly how he wants to run things in his game (awaken and simulacrum and miracle and wish are similar in this regard).

The way I handle reincarnation effects in adventures and sourcebooks is to follow the guidelines as guidenlines, not rules. If a human gets reincarnated as a troglodyte, they'd retain any mental human abilities, but would lose physical ones. They'd gain troglodyte physical abilities, but lose mental ones.

For this case, it's actaully pretty clear-cut.

The human, upone being reincarnated, would back out his +2 bonus to an ability score if it had been applied to Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution; if that bonus had been applied to Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma, he would not lose it. He gains the Trog's mods as listed, along with all of the troglodyte's attacks, stench, darkvision, armor, and stealth bonus for being able to shift his coloration.

He'd keep his bonus feat and extra skill ranks gained from being human since those are mental, not physical.

He'd also gain 2d8 racial Hit Dice, which means his base attack bonus, saves, and skill ranks go up. He also would gain a new feat, and depending on if that extra 2d8 HD bumped him up enough enough, a +1 bonus to an ability score of his choosing.

As for what his CR would be... if he's a player, that doesn't matter at all. CR isn't for player characters. He's now more powerful than the other characters in the party, of course, and that presents some challenges to the GM... but not so much if the other players aren't jealous and are cool about things. The GM, of course, can do what he needs to do to make the PC's new life as a troglodyte relatively rough and miserable, of course, since that kind of change would wreak havock on family and relationships and even simple trips to the grocery store.

If this is an NPC, once you rebuild all the stats, just sit down and look at it

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The problem being, reincarnate an elf as an elf and suddenly he becomes less intelligent. Dwarves that reincarnate as dwarves become less wise and more charismatic, while gnomes and halflings become less charismatic... how does that make any sense?

Sorry for the necro-post. I'm making a reincarnated druid and the particulars of how the reincarnate spell work are very important to how my character will function. Through my forum delving, I see this spell needs clarifying errata and some FAQ blogs VERY badly.

Looking over Reincarnate, it appears that it only alters physical ability scores. Just checking, but are all of these legal:

Elf reincarnated into half-elf now has a +2 Dex and +2 Int with no negative ability adjustments.

Elf reincarnated into human now has a +2 Con and +2 Int with no negative ability adjustments.

Human that placed floating racial modifier into Int reincarnated as human now gains +2 Con and retains the +2 Int.

Alongside this, all age-based adjustments to physical ability scores go away while the age-based adjustments to mental scores remain in place, correct?

Actually, no. The spell says "First eliminate the subject's racial adjustments (since it is no longer necessarily of his previous race) and then apply the adjustments found below to its remaining ability scores."

It doesn't specify anywhere that it only removes physical ability scores, or just Strength, Constitution, and Dexterity. Which means your three examples would be:

Elf reincarnated into half-elf now has a +2 Dex with no negative ability adjustments.

Elf reincarnated into human now has a +2 Con with no negative ability adjustments.

Human that placed floating racial modifier into Int reincarnated as human now gains +2 Con and loses the +2 Int.

Note: this is stupid and against how the spell is obviously intended to work, and even against the game designers stated intent in multiple places. But that is actually what the spell says to do.

There's a problem with HansiIsMyGod's interpretation.
Instantaneous does NOT mean "takes no time".
Only non-actions in D&D take absolutely 0 time to perform.

Free Action: Free actions consume a very small amount of time and effort. You can perform one or more free actions while taking another action normally. However, there are reasonable limits on what you can really do for free, as decided by the GM.

Swift Action: A swift action consumes a very small amount of time, but represents a larger expenditure of effort and energy than a free action. You can perform only a single swift action per turn.

Immediate Action: An immediate action is very similar to a swift action, but can be performed at any time—even if it's not your turn.

Not an Action: Some activities are so minor that they are not even considered free actions. They literally don't take any time at all to do and are considered an inherent part of doing something else, such as nocking an arrow as part of an attack with a bow.

Additionally from the PRD site, on the Magic page, the Conjuration subschool, Creation.

Creation: A creation spell manipulates matter to create an object or creature in the place the spellcaster designates. If the spell has a duration other than instantaneous, magic holds the creation together, and when the spell ends, the conjured creature or object vanishes without a trace. If the spell has an instantaneous duration, the created object or creature is merely assembled through magic. It lasts indefinitely and does not depend on magic for its existence.

(Emphasis mine.)

Such 'assembling' magic would be suppressed while in an anti-magic field. Just like never mixing a spoonful of baking soda with vinegar will not cause bubbles to form, or leaving a bookcase from Ikea in the box will make it so you don't have a bookcase. The magical effect will never form in an anti-magic field.

As for buffs and such, I cannot find a rationale in the Rules As Written why they would not work. Because the only exception to the AMF-magic interaction (in the spell description) is to clarify that instantaneous Conjuration: Creation effects, after being cast, are non-magical; I must conclude that while cheesy and illogical, the rules allow you to cast buffs in an AMF and have them work when the field ends.

I would houserule it, because I keep in mind that there are plenty of areas where the rules are, quite honestly, screwed up. Mounted combat doesn't work by RAW see this thread for the reasoning behind that statement.

That is why there are DMs, rule 0 exists, and there is errata/FAQ's. Rules don't always work, so you have to be flexible enough to change them on the fly. Which is one major reason I'm never going to DM or play in Pathfinder Society. You have to adhere to RAW too heavily. As much as I like abusing RAW loopholes and generally being a min-maxing bastard with occasional sojourns into munchkinville, the game becomes much less fun when the rules are nothing but a waste of paper and ink if RAW is used, or they're internally inconsistent.

After this death, I realized that slow progressions was a bit too slow for my PC's likely survival, so I switched to the medium experience progression chart, and my PC's leveled up from 3 to 5 in one fight! Hopefully from this point forward they won't be using charges in their healing wands like they're breath mints and the party has halitosis.

Name of PC: Aramils
Class/Level: Ranger 3
Adventure: Burnt Offerings, Thistletop
Catalyst: Bruthazmus

Story:

Gogmurt managed to put the Thistletop complex on alert with his animal messenger spell, and after clearing the top floor, the party decided to go downstairs. They basically walked right into Bruthazmus and Lyrie. Bruthazmus had heard their approach and readied an action to shoot the first elf to walk through the door (The party were talking on the way downstairs... silly PC's). Unluckily for the PC's, the first person to walk through the door was the elven ranger, who got a faceful of critical-strike with an elven bane arrow. He dropped to almost dead (4-5 HP), and then it was Lyrie's turn, who promptly let loose with a burning hands, taking him to -3. Skivver attacked him as well (it's an inside joke that any character played by the ranger's player in my pathfinder campaigns, is apparently catnip. Bringing him to -6.

The rest of the 10 rounds of combat were a series of me killing the ranger, him getting rules lawyer'd out of it because I forgot this or that rule, my players pointing out what a tactical dodo I was being (and I really was being a tactical klutz), them bringing the ranger to negatives, and Lyrie managing to get a succesful sleep spell off on the paladin, then knocking the rogue/sorc unconscious on her next turn. She healed Bruthazmus with her potion and his. Bruthazmus then killed the ranger with a simple attack, Lyrie tried to coup de grace the sorc/rogue... and rolled 0 for her damage, waking him up. He screamed at the top of his lungs to wake up the paladin, who then crit the bugbear, and on his next turn slaughtered Lyrie.

Name of PC: Lethreon
Class/Level: Fighter 2
Adventure: Burnt Offerings, Catacombs of Wrath
Catalyst: The Runewell of Wrath

Story:

The party was having difficulty killing Erylium, and eventually after I got bored of them bunkering down in a corner of the cathedral I used the time honored DMing phrase of "What do you do now?"

My players took the hint, I was bored and they weren't going anywhere soon with their current course of action. They realized that the runewell was magical, it had disgorged a sinspawn after all. They also remembered that
Erylium had looked distressed when the runewell dimmed. So, they marched up to the Runewell, grabbed one of their potions of cure light wounds, poured it in, and waited while nothing happened (getting stabbed a few times by "that <censored> little demon" as my players had begun to call her). They remembered that blood had dripped into the pool to summon a sinspawn just before the pool dimmed. They dispatched the sinspawn with readied actions, and no injuries to themselves, but the pool wouldn't go out completely. There weren't enough wrath points left, but they didin't know that. They then posited the fountain was connected to the pool in some way, used the empty flask and poured some water from it into the well, where it promptly froze into an icicle.

The light came on in my party's heads: they might be able to kill the little invisible flying <censored>! So the party paladin used his empty flask to grab some water out of the pool (without being particularly careful). He took the cold damage, and promptly flew into a rage!

The closest living being happened to be Lethreon, who was felled with a single critical strike from the paladin's longsword. What followed was an amusing chase sequence where the encumbered paladin tried to chase down the unencumbered ranger, failing miserably.