Ray of Enfeeblement + Shadows

[Silva Stormrage]

What would happen if a target has lets say 8 strength and is hit with a ray of enfeeblement that gives him a penalty of 6 strength. Then he is hit with a shadow's touch for 6 strength damage. Is the target dead?

[deuxhero]

Strength drain renders you paralyzed (the other 4 stats effectively do as well IIRC), con drain and level drain kill you

[Keld Denar]

That is...a matter of pretty high contention, actually.

I'd personally say no, since you'd apply the negative effects in preferential order (6 Str damage THEN the RoE).

Other interpretations I've seen include emphasis on the line: "The subject’s Strength score cannot drop below 1." and interpret that as meaning "The subject's Str score cannot drop below 1 FOR ANY REASON." That means that a character under the influence of RoE is effectively immune to death via shadow. Its silly, but technically a valid reading of RAW.

So yea. Consult your DM, YMMV.

EDIT:

Strength drain renders you paralyzed (the other 4 stats effectively do as well IIRC), con drain and level drain kill you
Except for Shadows (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/shadow.htm), which have a caveat in their description that says "anyone drained to 0 Str dies". Thats how baby shadows are made.


Create Spawn (Su)

Any humanoid reduced to Strength 0 by a shadow becomes a shadow under the control of its killer within 1d4 rounds.

[ericgrau]

The wording on the ray is rather odd "The subject’s Strength score cannot drop below 1." Technically this protects the target from ever going below 1 strength.

But I think the intention is that the ray cannot make them go below 1, and other effects still can bring the target to 0. So in the example the shadow would need to hit him for 8 strength damage to bring him to 0, not 2. Some might say that effects applied after the strength penalty could stack with the penalty and bring the target to 0, but I don't think so: It's a penalty not damage or drain, so it's a continuous effect and the limitation should be checked continuously.

In any case you don't die at strength 0. You lose your ability to exert force on the outside world, go limp and collapse to the ground. AFAIK you can still talk and blink and so on. RAW says "A character with Strength 0 falls to the ground and is helpless".

[deuxhero]

Except for Shadows (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/shadow.htm), which have a caveat in their description that says "anyone drained to 0 Str dies". Thats how baby shadows are made.


I was thinking of Wrights, sorry.

[BillyBobJoe]

In any case you don't die at strength 0. You lose your ability to exert force on the outside world, go limp and collapse to the ground. AFAIK you can still talk and blink and so on. RAW says "A character with Strength 0 falls to the ground and is helpless".

No. As mentioned before, the shadows drain kills you. Sorry if I come off rude, it's just, my first and favorite character got killed by shadows, and then killed the rest of the party because they didn't know shadows created spawn.

[ericgrau]

Oops missed that. In fairness the clarification edit was at the same time as the last edit of my own post.

[Silva Stormrage]

Okay so it's more "up to the DM" than a solid RAW ruling. Also that bit about the ray of enfeeblement is pretty weird ruling. I never even CONSIDERED that when I read the spell

[ShneekeyTheLost]

RoE applies a penalty to your current Str score. Thus a Str 8 individual hit by one for 6 would have an effective strength of 2, until the penalty wore off.

If that person then got hit by a Shadow's Strength Drain for 6 points, the new calculation would be: current Str: 2 -6 (minimum 1) = 1.

Only if the Shadow did more than 7 strength drain would the individual die.