Since the magus would not longer be capable of knowing arcane spells, they would be unable to cast arcane spells and would not longer qualify for the Arcane Strike feat. They should lose access to Arcane Strike until their intelligence recovers.
On the other hand, this rule has been ignored in official Pathfinder material, such as the Orc Witch Doctor, which has effectively 14 intelligence for the sake of learning witch spells, but knows a 5th level spell.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Ability damage (or ability penalties) doesn't reduce your ability score in any way. It just gives penalties.
Diseases, poisons, spells, and other abilities can all deal damage directly to your ability scores. This damage does not actually reduce an ability, but it does apply a penalty to the skills and statistics that are based on that ability.
So a character with 16 Intelligence that has taken 6 points of Intelligence damage still has a 16 Intelligence. He also takes a -3 penalty on all Intelligence-based checks. But he still has 16 Intelligence, so would still qualify for all feats and other things he did before and could still use them.
Ability drain, on the other hand, can reduce your score. It is also far less common.
|
How about if the Magus was the target of touch of idiocy? Would they still keep Arcane Strike, or lose the feat in addition to their spellcasting?
How about if the Magus was the target of touch of idiocy? Would they still keep Arcane Strike, or lose the feat in addition to their spellcasting?
Touch of idiocy is a penalty. Penalties don't change your score.
The spell is badly written, because it assumes penalties do reduce your score. It worked like that in 3.5 D&D (where Pathfinder copied the spell from) put Pathfinder changes how penalties/ability damage works. It looks like they didn't change the spell to account for those changes.
|
The general rule is that you need Drain to undermine prerequisites:
Diseases, poisons, spells, and other abilities can all deal damage directly to your ability scores. This damage does not actually reduce an ability, but it does apply a penalty to the skills and statistics that are based on that ability.
For every 2 points of damage you take to a single ability, apply a –1 penalty to skills and statistics listed with the relevant ability. If the amount of ability damage you have taken equals or exceeds your ability score, you immediately fall unconscious until the damage is less than your ability score. The only exception to this is your Constitution score. If the damage to your Constitution is equal to or greater than your Constitution score, you die. Unless otherwise noted, damage to your ability scores is healed at the rate of 1 per day to each ability score that has been damaged. Ability damage can be healed through the use of spells, such as lesser restoration.
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.
(...)
Ability Drain: Ability drain actually reduces the relevant ability score. Modify all skills and statistics related to that ability. This might cause you to lose skill points, hit points, and other bonuses. Ability drain can be healed through the use of spells such as restoration.
However, Touch of Idiocy clearly thinks that a penalty to mental stats suffices to inhibit spellcast. While it might be a mistake in writing it, I do think it's how the spell is intended to work. Otherwise it'd be almost useless (the best you can hope is a reduction on Will saves...) So I think it's a case of this spell being Specific vs. a General rule.
In other words: Touch of Idiocy can block spellcasting because it specifically says so. Touch of Gracelessness doesn't stop you from meeting Dexterity prerequisites because it lacks such special text.