[OOC] Return to the Rusty Rat

[DM Surranó]

Re PF ruling of ability penalty / damage / drain: interesting, especially why ToI is an exception. I believe that in our PF game I said that I would like to play damage and penalty affecting things outside pure ability mods, like carrying capacity, AC modifier, hit point modifier, and yes, prerequisites to feats and spellcasting. I will think about it. It just makes sooo much sense that someone with so much strength damage would collapse under the sheer weight of his own equipment, or the rogue suffering from poisonous fumes (con damage) breaks into a coughing fit.

Concerning 3.5, though, I cannot see such difference. The wording in my copy of 3.5 DMG is: (no idea whether there's an errata)

Various attacks cause ability score loss, either ability damage or ability drain.
(...)
Some spells or abilities impose an effective ability score reduction, which is different from ability score loss. Any such reduction disappears at the end of the spell’s or ability’s duration, and the ability score immediately returns to its former value.
If a character’s Constitution score drops, then he loses 1 hit point per Hit Die for every point by which his Constitution modifier drops.
(...)

Nowhere does the text imply that the reduction would apply only to this aspect of an ability score or the other (modifier, carrying capacity, or feat prerequisites). On the contrary, it explicitly mentions that the score itself (and not some derivative of the score) returns at the end of the effect, and that reduction in constitution affects HP. (fun fact: it does not state whether it's current hp damage or max hp reduction but we can safely assume that both values are reduced at this point)

On the other hand, when you receive a negative level, it's not one level of your everything that's removed. E.g. you lose 5hp regardless whether you are a wizard or a barbarian and independently from your constitution or your last hit die roll. (in 2E there were no negative levels only level DRAINS, dreaded things, and for this purpose we always kept track of all our rolled hit dice. Suffering a single hit from a wight or a spectre was practically end of your career and a trivial reload condition in most computer games.)