Non-spelllike abilities and temporary ability score boosts / damage


Rules Questions


The rules concerning temporary bonuses and penalties to ability scores appear to be in need of some clarification. All spells have their DCs affected by any temporary or permanent ability score boosts or damage, that's pretty universal. However, RAW states that a cleric who gets a boost to their Charisma, such as from Eagle's Splendor, gets a boost to the DC of their Channel Energy ability, despite it being supernatural in nature. The rules do NOT state that the same thing applies with other classes' supernatural or extraordinary abilities, such as the DCs of alchemist bombs, gunslinger deeds, or oracle revelations. It's not just the DC of some of these abilities that could be impacted either; some of them might last longer or affect more targets based on the relevant ability score modifier. Why, then, is only Channel Energy impacted by temporary modifications to an ability score? This seems like an oversight, as per the rules:

Quote:
For every two points of increase to a single ability, apply a +1 bonus to the skills and statistics listed with the relevant ability. (emphasis mine)

Does 'listed' here just mean what's on the given list under ability score modifications? Or does it refer to anything listed in Pathfinder game material that is based on a characters DEX, INT, WIS or other ability score modifier? The discrepancy is really bugging me. I'm pretty sure most people would think that temporary bonuses or penalties would apply to these other type of DCs, my own group seems to think so. However, I've seen enough disagreements here on the board that have gotten me to wondering what everyone else thinks.

Also, please note that I don't have my books on me at the moment, so I'm drawing this from the PFSRD.


According to the rules as they are written, you wouldn't alter the DCs of anything other than spells and channel energy.

However, there have been developer posts suggesting that other DCs (and other similar statistics) should be altered as well (which is the way most people would expect it to work, and the way most people run it), but the rules are written the way they are to prevent things like "3+CHA/day"-abilities to be altered by temporary ability boosts.


Are wrote:

According to the rules as they are written, you wouldn't alter the DCs of anything other than spells and channel energy.

However, there have been developer posts suggesting that other DCs (and other similar statistics) should be altered as well (which is the way most people would expect it to work, and the way most people run it), but the rules are written the way they are to prevent things like "3+CHA/day"-abilities to be altered by temporary ability boosts.

Good point, but it'd seem to be easy enough to lump the 'X number of uses per day' thing into the 'no additional spells per day' category of things that aren't affected except by permanent ability bonuses / drain. Or am I missing something about the number or complexity of things that are dependent on ability score modifiers?

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