Reincarnate help

[tim01300]

Two quick questions about reincarnate.

1) How do non physical abilities get affected. For example an elf's ability to get to roll against secret doors, say the elf dies and comes back as a human. Is that gone?

2) Last night our drow wizard died, and was reincarnated as a half-elf. How does the -2 level adjustment for the drow get handled? The players were arguing that he wasn't a drow anymore he should have the -2. Basically going from 8, up to 9. (he lost one for dying). But it seemed a little dumb for him to actually gain stuff, feats, hp, spells, for dying?

[ranagrande]

Two quick questions about reincarnate.

1) How do non physical abilities get affected. For example an elf's ability to get to roll against secret doors, say the elf dies and comes back as a human. Is that gone?

2) Last night our drow wizard died, and was reincarnated as a half-elf. How does the -2 level adjustment for the drow get handled? The players were arguing that he wasn't a drow anymore he should have the -2. Basically going from 8, up to 9. (he lost one for dying). But it seemed a little dumb for him to actually gain stuff, feats, hp, spells, for dying?

1. Yes, that ability is gone.

2. Yes, he loses the +2 level adjustment. However, that does not mean that he gains a level. He would go from level 8, ECL 10, to level 7, ECL 7. Because his effective character level is so much lower now, he should be able to gain experience more quickly and help close the gap.

[Crake]

I don't believe that he actually would lose the LA, the same way that someone getting reincarnated as something with LA doesn't gain that LA either. You only gain/lose the things stated in the reincarnate spell, and none of them include LA.

[torrasque666]

I don't believe that he actually would lose the LA, the same way that someone getting reincarnated as something with LA doesn't gain that LA either. You only gain/lose the things stated in the reincarnate spell, and none of them include LA.
Eh. One could argue that because LA is (supposedly) based off of the abilities of the creature, which you do gain/lose, that when gaining the new abilities/losing them you would adjust the LA as required. One of my favorite ways of smacking polymorphing casters in the face. (Oh, you changed into a form with a ****ton of LA? Just gonna recalculate the XP earned based on that then.)