Ability damage/drain and enhancement

[El Ravager]

Okay, I have a question about how ability drain and damage works when the victim is wearing an item that enhances that ability. Some players in my group are under the belief that these items prevent you from ever actually reaching 0. For instance, if a PC is hit with some spells and looses all his str, the str score is reduced to 0. If the PC is wearing a belt of strength +2, the item provides a constant bonus so the net strength score can't go below 2.

This arises since ability damage cannot go below 0. So under their interpretation, the 'natural' score of the victim reaches 0 and cannot go any lower and the item continues to provides the +2 bonus. Since you cannot go any lower than 0, you cannot ever go below the net that the item provides.

I don't think this is a correct interpretation. I would be willing to say that a PC wearing such an item and had the ability reduced to 0 would regain the bonus by taking off the item and putting it back on. Since they don't go below zero when they take the item off, putting it back on would then provide the bonus again -- the damage would not be 'remembered'.

We have not reached a consensus on this and I am curious if this issue has ever come up in any other games? Has the Sage ever addressed this issue?

 

[Pax]

I'd say that the ability is drained to 0, and then propped back up to 2, 4, or 6 by the enhancement. You cannot damage the attribute below zero, and the effect isn't damaging the ENHANCEMENT BONUS.

So if you have a strength of 10, and are wearing a girdle of giant strength (+4) ... well, when you get whacked with ... oh, lets just go ludicrously overboard ... 5,000,000,000,000,000,000 points of strength drain ... you have a strength of 0, which is being enhanced up to a strength of 4.

No need to take the item off and "re-activate it". However, the enhancement does NOT act like "ablative armor" against ability damage. Another example, same character - if you get hit with only 2 points of ability drain, you go down to an 8 strength, which is enhanced up to 12. But if you take the belt off, you go to an 8 strength ... not a 10!

That'd probbly have the side effect of making those enhancement items VERY desireable to the extremely ELDERLY rich of the world. But, a poorly-placed antimagic field, in hte middle of a nursing home, could kill SWATHES of old folks relying on their Amulets of Health (+2), and so on, just to stay alive ... ^_^ (think "pacemaker and a small EMP", heh)

 

[Camarath]

IMO if bonuses do not count as part of your ability score for the purposes of being damaged then they do not count as part of your ability score for the purposes of determining whether or not your ability score equals 0 (and the effects there of).

 

[CRGreathouse]

I agree with Camaroth. Wasn't this cleared up somewhere?

 

[James McMurray]

Allowing abilities to be unkillable whilea +2 enhacement is in effect leads to some eriously silly things, and should be avoided. Monsters which drain ability scores have their CRs because they can hurt you, in a world where ability scores cannot be dropped to 0, ability damage attacks become a joke.

Characters do not have an ability score and a bonus, they have atotal ability score, which includes their rolled stat, plus racial modifiers,plus enhancement bonuses. It is that score that is damaged.

 

[Pax]

Then you have to allow scores to be damaged to less than 0. For the very reason that you will have someone say "jeeze, the cleric's down with a 0 strength ... help me take his belt of giant strength off of him ... he'll still have only a 0 strength, and when we put it back on him, he'll have a 4 again".

IF you had a 14 strength (18 with aforementioned belt), and get drained for 14 points ... trhat's penalty enough IMO. You've gone from +4 to hit adn damage, to -3 to hit adn damage (a 7 poitn difference), and you might not be strong enough to lift your armor anymore.

 

[James McMurray]

I would rather have someone's ability damaged to 0 and have their item taken off and replaced than have them unable to be damaged to 0 because they spent 4000gp on an item.

 

[hong]

Allowing abilities to be unkillable whilea +2 enhacement is in effect leads to some eriously silly things, and should be avoided. Monsters which drain ability scores have their CRs because they can hurt you, in a world where ability scores cannot be dropped to 0, ability damage attacks become a joke.

Characters do not have an ability score and a bonus, they have atotal ability score, which includes their rolled stat, plus racial modifiers,plus enhancement bonuses. It is that score that is damaged.

Amulet of Con = instant anti-wraith defense!

 

[Hypersmurf]

Then you have to allow scores to be damaged to less than 0.

Not at all.

For the very reason that you will have someone say "jeeze, the cleric's down with a 0 strength ... help me take his belt of giant strength off of him ... he'll still have only a 0 strength, and when we put it back on him, he'll have a 4 again".

Absolutely. That's exactly how it works, by my reading... where's the problem?

Gauntlets of Ogre Power shouldn't let someone stroll through an army of Shadows unconcerned. That's what Ray of Enfeeblement's for.

-Hyp.

 

[Darklone]

Simply consider it as damage and don't care for the actual stat. But if the damage is equal or higher than the modified score, be it in wildshape or with enhancement bonuses, the players dead. Where's the problem?