I'd just like a little clarification on this if anyone has the knowledge.
Suppose I'm a 20th-level ninja with both the capstone ability "hidden master" as well as the ninja trick "pressure points". It says in the text of hidden master that...
"whenever the ninja deals sneak attack damage, she can sacrifice additional damage dice to apply a penalty to one ability score of the target equal to the number of dice sacrificed for 1 minute. This penalty does not stack with itself and cannot reduce an ability score below 1."
Pressure points says...
"Whenever the ninja deals sneak attack damage, she also deals 1 point of Strength or Dexterity damage, decided by the ninja. Unlike normal ability damage, this damage can be healed by a DC 15 Heal check. Each successful check heals 1 point of damage caused by this trick."
At first blush, it seems as though if I were to strike a foe who had, let's say 13 Dex, for SA damage, sacrificing all 10d6 SA dice to apply a 10-point penalty to his dex, as well as using PP to drop his dex by one more point, thus dropping his dex 11 points on the first attack. Then I proceed to attack twice more, getting SA twice more, again choosing to do 1 point of dex damage on each attack.
It would seem that I have reduced his Dex to zero using the combination of HM and PP. I actually don't think this is right. I think it works like this......
From HM I've given him a "penalty" and that's the key word to his Dex score. PP actually gives him "ability damage". So in the end his "Effective Dex" is 0, meaning no bonus to AC, nor ranged attacks, etc, but his "Actual Dex" is still 10, because the 10 points is just a temporary penalty to the bonus given by dex.
I'd actually have to hit him 10 more times with PP to really reduce him to zero dex, resulting in helplessness.
Am I right? What do you all think?
