Death by Age

[Vhaidara]

So, I was building a character and wanted to make them older. I ran into an interesting conundrum.

Death by old age is permanent. Old age reduces your physical scores. If you have a Con of 0 you die.

If someone starts life with a Con of 3, they die when they reach the Old age category (-3 to physicals, +2 mentals), because, barring a Con boosting item, they have a Con of 0.

Does this count, for the purposes of being raised, as having died of old age?

[Jeff the Green]

I don't think so. However, the only way you could raise them is reincarnate because otherwise they come back in their Con 0 body and die again immediately.

I see it sort of like dying of cancer at 50. Sure, your age contributed to your getting cancer, but it's not the aging process itself that caused it.

[heavyfuel]

The -X penalty to physical abilities is a penalty, as such, it can't reduce the ability below 1. So if you start with Con 3 you won't die because of your aging penalty.

[hamishspence]

The -X penalty to physical abilities is a penalty, as such, it can't reduce the ability below 1.

Is that the general rule for penalties?

The Aging section of the SRD does say that Aging penalties specifically can't reduce anything below 1:

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/description.htm#age

With age, a character’s physical ability scores decrease and his or her mental ability scores increase (see Table: Aging Effects). The effects of each aging step are cumulative. However, none of a character’s ability scores can be reduced below 1 in this way.

can't recall anything like that for other penalties though.

[Jeff the Green]

The -X penalty to physical abilities is a penalty, as such, it can't reduce the ability below 1. So if you start with Con 3 you won't die because of your aging penalty.

Is that a general rule? I thought that it was just that most ability penalties specifically say they can't reduce the ability below 1.

[Lord Vukodlak]

The -X penalty to physical abilities is a penalty, as such, it can't reduce the ability below 1. So if you start with Con 3 you won't die because of your aging penalty.
I thought so too.... but I went looking for the rule and couldn't find it.(in 3.5 at least). Only specific examples like ray of enfeeblement or aging

[heavyfuel]

I was mistaken, it seems that penalties can indeed make an ability reach 0 (as can be seen with the Stiffen spell). I just knew that this wasn't the case for age penalties as well as some spells like Ray of Enfeeblement.