How does reincarnate affect mental stats?

[Lamoni]

I was reading through the spell reincarnate due to another thread and I became confused as to what you are supposed to do regarding mental stats. Here is the relevant spell text...

A reincarnated creature recalls the majority of its former life and form. It retains any class abilities, feats, or skill ranks it formerly possessed. Its class, base attack bonus, base save bonuses, and hit points are unchanged. Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution scores depend partly on the new body. First eliminate the subject’s racial adjustments (since it is no longer of his previous race) and then apply the adjustments found below to its remaining ability scores.

The table only shows STR, Dex, and Con.

When it says to eliminate the subject's racial adjustments does it mean to eliminate all of them, or just the ones in STR, DEX, and CON? If you change races, it seems unfair to get a race's bonuses in their physical abilities without any penalty to their mental stats.

If a human is changed to a dwarf does the human just gain +2 Con without taking a -2 Cha penalty?

If a dwarf is changed to a human does he gain 2 Charisma along with losing 2 Con?

 

[Henrix]

You retain your mental stats without change. Only Str, Con and Dex change. Your mind is still the same, even though your body has changed. An elf reincarnated as a dwarf doesn't suddenly get sullen and grumpy.

Reincarnation isn't fair (there's no karma in D&D ), it's a lottery.

 

[Kirin'Tor]

An elf reincarnated as a dwarf doesn't suddenly get sullen and grumpy.

Well, an elf backed by a good RolePlayer _would_ get sullen and grumpy if reincarnated as a Dwarf, but not due to a change in charisma...

 

[Lamoni]

You retain your mental stats without change. Only Str, Con and Dex change. Your mind is still the same, even though your body has changed. An elf reincarnated as a dwarf doesn't suddenly get sullen and grumpy.

Reincarnation isn't fair (there's no karma in D&D ), it's a lottery.

Thanks for the reply.

Just for argument's sake, I normally consider the brain a part of the body so I can see how int could be affected. You wouldn't lose skill points, but it could be harder to grasp new concepts and learn new skills. Also the description of charisma describes that your body does affect it. Being ugly doesn't mean you have a low charisma, but standing next to a good looking person and everything else being equal, the ugly person would probably have less influence in most diplomatic situations... and could be shown by a -2 charisma. As far as wisdom goes, I can't think of a good argument for that changing.

I am happy to play by the rules... and I think it is a good lottery because the odds are that you will gain more than you lose which offsets the lost level slightly. I mostly wanted to explain why I could see it going the other way... which is why I posted the question.

good gaming everyone!

 

[likuidice]

If you don't mind the level loss, reincarnate is a good way to get extra racial abilities, start as a human, get your extra feat, and skill points, die, get reincarnated as a dwarf, gain 2 con and a whole bunch of dwarven racial traits. It depends if you consider the lost level a good trade off for the extra abilities.

 

[MerakSpielman]

I would remove racial bonuses/penalties for mental stats and apply the ones from the new race.

This could result in situations where the PC has some stats lowered and none raised. Sucks to be you. At least you're not dead.

 

[azmodean]

If you don't mind the level loss, reincarnate is a good way to get extra racial abilities, start as a human, get your extra feat, and skill points, die, get reincarnated as a dwarf, gain 2 con and a whole bunch of dwarven racial traits. It depends if you consider the lost level a good trade off for the extra abilities.

I would consider using the 3.0 or 2.0 reincarnate table to discourage this, nobody wants to come back as a horse. (happened in one of our 2.0 games)