A 1 STR for a dragon is greater than 10 lbs. You have to factor in size category to carrying capacity.

Yeah, my bad... But not the point... No matter what size you are, strength 1 is strength 1, and frankly, the bigger you are, the more it will affect you... Try and get thousands of pounds of your own body weight of the ground with the strength of a toad... Are there rules to clarify the exact effects...?

I would say that a character with a STR 1 has enough strength to move himself and a very minute amount of extra weight (the more you weigh, the more weight you can relatively carry).

I think the idea is that, even though you're at STR 1, you can still function. It's like how even when you're at 1 HP, you still function exactly the same as when you're at 60 or 100 or 300 HP. Their are combat penalties and skill-check penalties and even encumbrance penalties for the low strength, but it doesn't restrict stuff in other game terms. It's part of the abstraction that is D&D.

You could probably rule something like being at less than 3 STR restricts you to a single move or standard action (a la zombies), simply because you're that weak. Just make sure any rules apply equally to players as well as monsters.

I realize this wasn't the question you were asking, but I felt it worth pointing out... ;)

Multiple uses of ray of enfeeblement don't stack; the largest penalty simply takes precedence. Sources of bonuses or penalties don't stack with themselves unless stated otherwise.

Un-named things usually do stack, is there a specific bit that I've missed for this? The other question is, isn't it "strength damage" and therefore builds up like damage?
Even if neither of those are officially the case I'd be tempted to allow that sort of thing with attack spells; otherwise it seems like the same should (not rules wise but for fairness) apply to fireball:>

Two spells with a duration with the same name don't stack ("Combining Magical Effects"). RoE does not do strength damage.

Ray of Enfeeb grants a negative enhancement bonus. How this interacts with a regular enhancement bonus to str, i.e. Bull's Strength, I have no idea.

If you're slapped with a RoE and then a buddy Cleric slaps you with Bull's Strength, I believe it's only a temporary solution.

Kind of like a bandaid on a bullet wound.

The two don't state that they counter one another, as I recall.

It's more a matter of which spell wears off first then?

I guess, if it comes down to that.

Kind of like...a temporary solution until you get get Restoration.

But it doesn't do Str damage

Quite true, but restoration (and even lesser restoration) "dispels any magical effects reducing one of the subject’s ability scores".

Quoted from PHB:

"Lesser restoration dispels any magical effects reducing one of the subject's ability scores (such as ray of enfeeblement)..." =)

So basically Lesser Restoration will give you your Str score (sans penalty) back BEFORE the Ray of Enf. spell expires.

That's my reading, anyway.

As others have said...

Unnamed bonuses and penalties do stack, but not usually from the same source. This is in the stacking rules in the spellcasting chapter of the PHB.

And a Strength penalty is something very different in D&D than Strength damage. Damage stacks (be it ability damage or normal hit point damage); penalties sometimes don't. That's why fireball stacks with itself; it's just doing damage, it's not imposing a temporary penalty.

It is not Strength damage or Strength drain. It is a Strength penalty. It therefore goes away at the end of the spell's duration.

IMHO, anyway.

FWIW I posted this to a similar topic last week...

STR means different things to different people: its how much you can lift in addition to supporting your own weight. I checked this when I started thinking what would happen if you cast ray of Enfeeblement on a clumsy-flying Dragon: would it fall out of the air if it was just a little weaker? The answer is no, as even with a STR of 1 it can fly its tons of bulk around, it just can't fly with a rider on its back.

NB you can get a dragon down to STR 1 with Chill Touch (good luck!) as it does do strength damage wheras, like Mouseferatu says, Ray of Enfeeblement gives a negative STR enhancement (and is used as the example of overlapping spells in the Magic Overview chapter).

This is the correct response. :)

To be specific, on checking the PHB, Ray of Enfeeblement gives a "penalty" not a "negative enhancement bonus": I guess it would be silly someone for who has Bull's Strength running refusing to reduce their STR after being hit by Ray of Enfeeeblement, saying that the -5 doesn't "stack" with the +4!

And thus I shall finish reading comments before I reply!

Utterly unrelated, but that's the coolest icon ever.