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?
This is all correct.
You get two negative levels and loose your racial physical ability boni, so it's kind of balanced (plus you could roll a 100 which allows the DM to incarnate you as a gungan for example)
Well, wishes are supposed to be powerful. Plus you still loose your racial physical boni. Probably just asking him to raise your score would be a stronger wish (yet what you do sounds more stylish)
Interesting. IIRC, racial bonuses stack - there's a LOT of room for abuse here.
From the description of Reincarnate:
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.
They may stack in general but not when using the Reincarnate spell
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.
Edit: on a reread, I'm forced to admit that you remove racial adjustments (not the table modifiers) then apply the table modifiers for the new race. Bizarre.
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.
For simplicity's sake, it'd be far simpler to just ignore the table and swap adjustments (mental and physical) based on the races. Which is how I'll roll with this one at home.
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.
How about the simple fact that the sentence immediately preceding the statement about eliminating prior racial adjustments is "Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution scores depend partly on the new body"? I would think that that statement would mean that only the three physical ability scores are subject to any modification.
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Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution scores depend partly on the new body. 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.
Reincarnate "partly" depends on the new body. It clarifies what part from the new body is replacing which part of the old body in the next sentence, that being "racial adjustments" to the Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution scores.
The part of the old body that is still used would be the base scores. A race with 14 con (without racial modifiers) reincarnated into a human would still use that 14 con, even though a base human in the bestiary has 11 con.
Also, if intelligence were lost, you'd be losing a skill point per level. That wouldn't make sense.
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Reincarnate does not make you stupider.You're not necessarily "stupider" just because you lost your +2 bonus to Int. It does mean that you're not as quick on the uptake as you used to be. And maybe you'll have to shed some skill points to make things balance.
Which makes it a lot like Dr Who's regeneration? Not all of his incarnations are equally skilled, apparently none of the latter incarnations has incorporated the Third Doctor's skill in Savate, for example.
It is not Dr.Who.
All the Golarion stories, and NPCs that are noted as reincarnated, are not also noted as stupider, or forgetful of their previous lives.
In fact, reincarnation plays a part in Serpent's Skull, and notes the unchanged mental abilities.
Even in the spell, the context of the "eliminate the subject's racial adjustments", come right after "It retains any class abilities, feats, or skill ranks it formerly possessed. Its class, base attack bonus, base save bonuses, and hit points are unchanged. Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution scores depend partly on the new body."
This is just telling you, how to determine the new Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution.
Not change mental scores.
I'm inclined to agree with Blackbloodtroll. Your mental stats stay the same and your physical bonuses are swapped out.
Of course, if you had any feats that depended on your physical scores getting a +2 racial bump, this could become problematic.
This is part of why reincarnating from an Aasimar to another race is highly efficient. Their racial bonuses are entirely mental, so virtually anything they reincarnate into will still have the bonuses to wisdom and charisma, but with an added bonus to a physical stat.
Of course, if you had any feats that depended on your physical scores getting a +2 racial bump, this could become problematic.
Not to mention the possibility that you had racial feats/traits.
The general rule is that if you no longer meet the prerequisites of a feat, then you can't use it anymore. Though if I were GMing a game where that happened, I would probably let the player retrain any lost feats during their next bit of downtime.
I have no problem with it making sense. It's reincarnation, no resurrection, you're a new person, so you might not have absolute total recall of whom you used to be.
The price is paid in negative levels, just like raise dead. Furthermore, you're opening an entirely new can of worms on how that player's skill ranks are lost, if mental scores are replaced. Do they spontaneously lose 1 rank on several skills of their own choosing? Is one of their skills that was max-ranked now 0-ranked? Does the DM choose? The answer is the spell doesn't change mental scores and that's why it's never been a problem.
Hopefully, in any game that would use Reincarnate, would also allow retraining.
Or retirement, in the case of that poor orc who gets reincarnated into a kobold.
Really, the whole part about not recalling everything perfectly can just be associated with the negative levels gained. Memory loss is one of the ways that negative levels are described.
Very true.
It doesn't work as well in PF anymore, but still a strong point for divining the effect.
The RAW is that you simply lose all racial modifiers. This is caused by no limit being applied to the scores removed in the sentence in which they are removed. The RAI, as applied by any reasonable metric, seems to be to leave the mental scores alone. This is clearly what was intended.
Lawful Evil: sucks to be you, you lost your mental ability!
Lawful Neutral: you technically should lose your mental abilities, but the intent is arguable - a judge is required to decide.
Lawful Good: your physical scores are what change.
Neutral good: you may gain in ability scores, by technicality, but let's talk it over and see what we can do to keep the over-all fun and balance (which may or may not involve changing you ability scores)
Chaotic neutral: weeeeeeeeee~! Dice!
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Just as an aside it also cures lycanthropy.
No, the RAW must be read in context.
That's how it should be done, yes. That's not what the rules technically say.
If you do as you suggest, though, you are doing the correct thing.
And this entire discussion could've been prevented if the editor had used a , instead of a .
Yep! I love language!
Just go for a Maximized Reincarnate and pay for the GM's gas =p
Apologies for The thread necro, but what do you do for a maximized, empowered reincarnate? ;)
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Just go for a Maximized Reincarnate and pay for the GM's gas =pApologies for The thread necro, but what do you do for a maximized, empowered reincarnate? ;)
Half-elf! With the DM's choice of whatever he wants for the other half!
Only racial traits that depend upon physical form should be lost.
Contributor
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Like a lot of the other spells in the Core Rulebook (inherited from 3.0 or earlier), reincarnate seems to be written with the implicit assumption that the DM will read between the lines or make their own ruling. It almost certainly wasn't written for the modern "attorney at RAW" approach. :)