A Feebleminded Question

[Scorponok]

So, a PC decided to Febblemind an annoying evil city administrator.

It says his INT and CHA both drop to 1 and they cannot use Intelligence or Charisma based skills, cast spells, understand language, or communicate coherently.

His friends wonder what happened to him, and after a few spellcraft checks, eventually find out someone had used the spell Feeblemind.

So they go to their rich uncle and find a Ring of +3 CHA and a Ring of +3 INT and put it on him. They then get a local mage to cast Eagle's Splendor and Fox's Cunning on him, bringing up his INT and CHA to 7s.

Question is, can this person now cast spells, understand language, and communicate coherently? I think the answer is yes, but a player says no.

[Ralcos]

So, a PC decided to Febblemind an annoying evil city administrator.

It says his INT and CHA both drop to 1 and they cannot use Intelligence or Charisma based skills, cast spells, understand language, or communicate coherently.

His friends wonder what happened to him, and after a few spellcraft checks, eventually find out someone had used the spell Feeblemind.

So they go to their rich uncle and find a Ring of +3 CHA and a Ring of +3 INT and put it on him. They then get a local mage to cast Eagle's Splendor and Fox's Cunning on him, bringing up his INT and CHA to 7s.

Question is, can this person now cast spells, understand language, and communicate coherently? I think the answer is yes, but a player says no.

Sadly, 7s can't cast any spells, nor can they manifest powers.
Look at the PHB, or look at the Ability Score table http://www.d20srd.org/srd/theBasics.htm#theAbilities (here).

[Kid Jake]

Also, I'm pretty sure that the bonuses from items wouldn't stack with Fox's Cunning/Eagle Splendor due to them both being enhancement bonuses.

[Seclora]

I'm going to go with the player on this one. The spell states that the effects are removed by Heal, Limited Wish, Wish, and Miracle. Simply raising the ability scores will only make them a very intelligent lizard, and would be a fascinating Mad Science project I'm sure, but will not restore their ability to 1)use Int or Cha based skills 2) cast spells 3) understand language 4) communicate coherently. Functionally, the person is alive, but without much of a sense of self or ability to reason beyond 'I'm hungry' and 'This food tastes like shoe'.
Strange spell really, I prefer Baleful Polymorph for turning my enemies into puppies, but we all make do with what we have.

[Namfuak]

I'm going to go with the player on this one. The spell states that the effects are removed by Heal, Limited Wish, Wish, and Miracle. Simply raising the ability scores will only make them a very intelligent lizard, and would be a fascinating Mad Science project I'm sure, but will not restore their ability to 1)use Int or Cha based skills 2) cast spells 3) understand language 4) communicate coherently. Functionally, the person is alive, but without much of a sense of self or ability to reason beyond 'I'm hungry' and 'This food tastes like shoe'.
Strange spell really, I prefer Baleful Polymorph for turning my enemies into puppies, but we all make do with what we have.

I agree with this analysis. A creature which has 1 intelligence or 1 charisma naturally is not forbidden from making checks using those skills normally, so it follows that the whole section is additional, specific-trumping-general rules. Thus, even if you used stacking bonuses (say, tome+5 and +6 enhancement items) to bring it to 12, you would be restricted by all the effects the spell has, but numeric effects based on those scores (will saving throws, for example) would still receive their numeric bonus from ability score.

[Jeraa]

In this case, the ability to cast spells has nothing to do with the lowered ability scores. It is another effect of the spell itself.

Note that the "unable to cast spells" part would apply to all casters, including divine casters that use Wisdom. Even though their wisdom would be untouched by the spell, they still can't cast spells while feebleminded.

[LooseCannoneer]

Also, the removal of language, spells is redundant. If it did not declare that it removed those, boosting the INT and CHA would restore those abilities. Those abilities are dependent on the INT and CHA stats, but the penalties to language, skill use, etc are independent from the stat loss.

[Necroticplague]

So, a PC decided to Febblemind an annoying evil city administrator.

It says his INT and CHA both drop to 1 and they cannot use Intelligence or Charisma based skills, cast spells, understand language, or communicate coherently.

His friends wonder what happened to him, and after a few spellcraft checks, eventually find out someone had used the spell Feeblemind.

So they go to their rich uncle and find a Ring of +3 CHA and a Ring of +3 INT and put it on him. They then get a local mage to cast Eagle's Splendor and Fox's Cunning on him, bringing up his INT and CHA to 7s.

Question is, can this person now cast spells, understand language, and communicate coherently? I think the answer is yes, but a player says no.

Nope. The player is right. The part about dropping your INT and CHA and making you unable to case, understand language, or communicate are entirely unrelated.

Also, the Rings and stat boosting spells wouldn't normally stack, since such item are usually enhancement boni, the same as the spells.

Also, its kinda questionable if spellcraft lets you identify someone has been effected by Feeblemind like that. Because Feeblemind is Instantaneous, there isn't a spell in place or in effect on the target. It makes about as much sense as using Spellcraft to say that someone is under the effects of a fireball.

[Sam K]

Also, its kinda questionable if spellcraft lets you identify someone has been effected by Feeblemind like that. Because Feeblemind is Instantaneous, there isn't a spell in place or in effect on the target. It makes about as much sense as using Spellcraft to say that someone is under the effects of a fireball.

Spellcraft could probably be used to determine that there exist a spell that could cause the effect the victim is suffering from, and that said spell is (relatively) common. Combine it with a heal check (to determine there's no medical cause for this) and you could have a diagnosis that is about as secure as modern medical science allows (not very).

Bonuses wouldn't stack, and even if you could get the guy up to normal int/cha through different bonuses, he would still suffer from the other effects of the spell. So he might be intelligent, but he's unable to gather his mind to anything constructive (no int skills), and can't use language or communicate. Ironically he might be able to work at tasks that do not require int (profession, for example) as long as they do not require a language...

Ofcourse, if you're the DM you could have it work any way you want, but according to RAW, raising his int/cha won't "cure" him.