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I haven't worried about this much because I have not had an in-game issue come up where ability scores were drained and an enhancement bonus was keeping them up.
An enhancement bonus is not an actual attribute, one of the reasons why an enhancement to intelligence does not give an increase in skill points. It is an enhancement to an already inherent attribute.
You could play this a couple ways. The easiest is just to let the player keep functioning until their enhanced attribute is reduced to zero. Then if they have someone there who can pull of their item and put it back on, they can get up again since it is assumed that the item was not drained. I think this is best supported by the rules.
A second way would be to allow ability draining creatures to damage the magic items in question, draining them of their enhancement bonus. It takes the same amount of time for them to regain their ability scores as it does for a person. They could use either the player's save or their own save for recovery if a save is necessary. This might change the nature of magic items a bit, but it might be an interesting way to run ability drains. Make ability drain creatures a little more cruel.
A third way would be to view the enhancement bonus and the inherent attribute as separate. If the inherent attribute is reduced to zero, then you suffer whatever effects reducetion to a zero attribute occurs aka paralysis for zero strength. The enhancement bonus is still functioning, but because you are paralyzed you cannot take advantage of the enhancement bonus. I kind of like this particular view because it seems like the way an enhancement bonus would really work. It would enhance the inherent attribute, but not necessarily defend against creatures who drain the inherent attribute. Makes ability draining creatures a bit strongers since they only need to drain your inherent attribute rather than your enhanced attribute.
Any one of the three ways would work. It's really only a matter of how you want to look at the abstract ability drain mechanic working against enhancement items.
I haven't worried about this much because I have not had an in-game issue come up where ability scores were drained and an enhancement bonus was keeping them up.
An enhancement bonus is not an actual attribute, one of the reasons why an enhancement to intelligence does not give an increase in skill points. It is an enhancement to an already inherent attribute.
You could play this a couple ways. The easiest is just to let the player keep functioning until their enhanced attribute is reduced to zero. Then if they have someone there who can pull of their item and put it back on, they can get up again since it is assumed that the item was not drained. I think this is best supported by the rules.
A second way would be to allow ability draining creatures to damage the magic items in question, draining them of their enhancement bonus. It takes the same amount of time for them to regain their ability scores as it does for a person. They could use either the player's save or their own save for recovery if a save is necessary. This might change the nature of magic items a bit, but it might be an interesting way to run ability drains. Make ability drain creatures a little more cruel.
A third way would be to view the enhancement bonus and the inherent attribute as separate. If the inherent attribute is reduced to zero, then you suffer whatever effects reducetion to a zero attribute occurs aka paralysis for zero strength. The enhancement bonus is still functioning, but because you are paralyzed you cannot take advantage of the enhancement bonus. I kind of like this particular view because it seems like the way an enhancement bonus would really work. It would enhance the inherent attribute, but not necessarily defend against creatures who drain the inherent attribute. Makes ability draining creatures a bit strongers since they only need to drain your inherent attribute rather than your enhanced attribute.
Any one of the three ways would work. It's really only a matter of how you want to look at the abstract ability drain mechanic working against enhancement items.
