Quote Originally Posted by Lorddenorstrus View Post
I suppose? But it seems questionable to think of it that way. Considering the ability has ways to negate it such as just actually wearing armor. I would hope in my mind, if I was the game dev by adding the negatable lines that if a rando player for some reason decided to make a monk with Bad wis they'd just wear armor to negate the -2 or something. Although "(if any)" or a number that isnt 0. For bonus makes me think if the modifier was negative it'd still apply so long as not wearing armor tbh. Of course this becomes an English debate of can a bonus be negative which I'm not sure on. *shrug* I really think this just shows.. that wording of abilities should've been uniform across classes for a specific reason to prevent future problems.

(trying to google negative bonus out of curiosity brought up random legal stuff n bank related things so idk)
These are common D&D terms. Pathfinder is an update on 3.5. Whatever they didn't specifically mention (like defining what a modifier actually is) you can expect to be the same as it was in 3.5. You can question the validity to it, but ability damage and drain does exist which can drive your modifier negative to become a penalty and you won't always have the time to get into armor to take an armor check penalty to AB and negate the wisdom penalty. Personally I think the game is more nuanced than you think it is.