Ability Damage

Learn how diseases, poisons, spells, and curses inflict Ability Damage in Pathfinder: Kingmaker. Understand saving throws, recurring damage, and how to recover.

Alright, let's talk about Ability Damage in Pathfinder: Kingmaker. It sounds scary, and honestly, it can be if you're not prepared. This is damage that hits your core stats like Strength, Dexterity, or Charisma, making your character much less effective. Think of it as a debuff that really hurts your capabilities.

The most common culprits you'll run into are diseases and poisons. You know, the usual suspects like those nasty Giant Spiders love to dish out. When you get hit by something that can inflict these, you'll usually get a chance to make a Fortitude Save. If you're lucky and succeed, you'll just take the normal Hit Point damage from the attack. But if you fail that save? That's when the Ability Damage kicks in right away, and you'll also become diseased or poisoned.

Here's the really tricky part about diseases and poisons: they don't just hit you once. You'll keep taking recurring Ability Damage until you manage to succeed on another Fortitude Save. Diseases tend to be a bit slower with this recurring damage compared to poisons, but both can be a real pain. Thankfully, divine magic can help clear these up if your saves aren't cutting it. Just a heads-up, though: even if you remove the disease or poison itself, the Ability Damage it caused sticks around. You'll need to find a separate way to recover that lost ability score.

It's important to know that you won't start naturally healing Ability Damage until the source of the problem (the disease or poison) is gone. This is especially relevant for diseases, which can chip away at your stats over time. And yes, you can absolutely be hit by multiple diseases and poisons at once, making things even more complicated.

Now, while diseases and poisons are the usual suspects, some spells can also inflict Ability Damage. Often, this is temporary. For example, a spell like Ray of Enfeeblement might temporarily lower your Strength. These spells usually deal their damage all at once if you fail your saving throw, and the effect wears off when the spell's duration ends. However, if a spell mimics disease or poison effects, it might work similarly. Ability Damage from spells that isn't temporary can usually be healed with rest or restoration spells, just like normal.

Curses are a bit rarer, but they can also cause Ability Damage. If you're hit by a curse that does this, you'll need to get rid of the curse first – usually with a Remove Curse spell – before you can even start thinking about healing the Ability Damage itself.