do ability penalties, damage, and drain stack? :-)
Basically, yes.
Penalties apply a penalty to the effective score for calculating the ability score bonus. They tend to be short term reductions.
Drain actually reduces the ability score long term.
Damage applies a penalty to checks derived from the ability score.
Basically, yes.
Penalties apply a penalty to the effective score for calculating the ability score bonus. They tend to be short term reductions.
Drain actually reduces the ability score long term.
Damage applies a penalty to checks derived from the ability score.
Nitpick: Penalties do not stack; only the highest one applies.
do ability penalties, damage, and drain stack? :-)
Penalties and damage do not reduce your stats in any way, while ability drain does. So there isn't anything for ability drain to stack with - it works differently.
As for penalties and damage stacking, I would say yes. Ability penalties and ability damage have the exact same effects. The only difference is that a penalty has a duration and so goes away after a duration, while ability damage must be healed. With the exception that a penalty can not cause you to fall unconscious or die. So any ability damage should be applied to the score first, then add in the ability penalty.
Some spells and abilities cause you to take an ability penalty for a limited amount of time. While in effect, these penalties function just like ability damage, but they cannot cause you to fall unconscious or die. In essence, penalties cannot decrease your ability score to less than 1.
Nitpick: Penalties do not stack; only the highest one applies.
Incorrect. Penalties do stack.
Penalty: Penalties are numerical values that are subtracted from a check or statistical score. Penalties do not have a type and most penalties stack with one another.
Nitpick: Penalties do not stack; only the highest one applies.Incorrect. Penalties do stack.
Penalty: Penalties are numerical values that are subtracted from a check or statistical score. Penalties do not have a type and most penalties stack with one another.
Interesting. By jove, you're right. I was going to go to the old standby, Ray of Enfeeblement and point out that penalties do not stack. It would seem that this spell specifically does not stack, but it's called out as an exception. The rules for penalties do indeed say that they stack.
I stand corrected. Thanks!
follow-up questions:
1. why are there so many different ways to reduce ability scores?
2. doesn't this make the game too complicated, confusing, and frustrating?
3. what problems might be caused by simplifying things by making reductions to ability scores all stack with each other?
follow-up questions:
1. why are there so many different ways to reduce ability scores?
2. doesn't this make the game too complicated, confusing, and frustrating?
3. what problems might be caused by simplifying things by making reductions to ability scores all stack with each other?
1. There aren't, there are just three, and each do different things so they are all needed.
2/3. It depends on which aspects are important to you. Changing all your derived modifiers on the fly can be simpler... unless you have a computer doing it for you, in which case changing the base stat can actually be easier. You also would have to deal with complications such as number of abilities useable per day when they key on a stat (like domain powers based on Wisdom), Or what happens when an effect drops someone to 0 in a stat when it wasn't intended to totally disable/kill the person.
- Historical cruft.
- Yes. But Ability Score damage/drain/demotion is a good way of bringing a creature to its knees (if any). On the one hand you want to be able to inflict this kind of violence, but on the other hand you don't want to die without much of a chance yourself. So: different kinds of damage, and more rules.
- Dead PCs.
