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Message: <blockquote data-quote="wuyanei" data-source="post: 2660221" data-attributes="member: 28913">So... if we treat the enhancement bonus as a 'bonus', and 'damage' or 'drain' as a 'penality', thing become clear.In my player's case, he had 14 Str, plus +4 enhancement bonus. The Shadows imposed a total -16 'damage' penality on him, reducing him to a net Strength of 2. Once the +4 enhancement bonus is gone, he is reduced to 14 Str -16 'damage' penality which, since total strength cannot go below zero, equals to 0.If the player then get his ands on a pair of Gauntlets of Ogre Strength, he would be at 14 Str +2 enhancement bonus -16 'damage' penality which still equals to 0.Now, only two questions remain: 1) since the -16 'damage' penality does reduce the PC to 0 Str, does he now die or not? 2) He has -16 'damage' penality, but is at 0 Str. How many days (assume 1 ability point per day) will he need to naturally heal to full health?As for myself, it think the answers are: 1) No, he lives, because the 'damage penality' does not distinguish between sources. You must be brought below 0 Str by the attack of a shadow for the death effect to happen. After the attack is over, the 'damage' is just damage, no different from any other damage -- perhaps due to poison or another spell; and 2) I would rule that he is especially weak, and needs 16 days to fully recover. The game simply does not mechanically distinguish between a net negative ability score and an ability score of 0. However, the 'damage' penality goes away at 1 point per day, so a -16 'damage' penality will require 16 days to heal. However, this does raise the question of: "How far into the negatives can you go?" Can you keep feeding an unconscious person poison, so that he is so far negative that it might take him years or even decades to get back into the positive? To prevent this, I would also add a rule that 'If any ability score is reduced to 0, that ability score becomes immune to furthur ability score damage until it is increased to a minimum of 1'. But this rule does seem rather contrived.... perhaps you will have a better interpretion?Edit: Vraille Darkfang your interpretion is exactly the same as my own.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> Unless soembody comes up with something better, this is what I will use from now on.</blockquote>

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