Abilitiy penalties

[ragartan]

Hello everyone,

are penalties to abilities (e.g. a strength penalty) applied to the ability score or to the modifier itself?

I'm no native speaker, so maybe I'm missing something obvious here.

For example, there is an entry in Table 5-5: Greater Corruption:
1or lower - A sliver of soul energy is claimed by a demon lord. Character experiences unearthly pain, suffering 3d6
damage, a permanent -2 penalty to all ability scores, and an additional -2 penalty to Luck.

This says explicitly "ability scores". Does this mean all penalties to abilites are applied to the score?

Kind regards,
Alex

[ragartan]

I.e. are these penalties treated like any other ability loss, e.g. it is possible to regenerate penalties via Restore Vitality spell (as long as the penalty is related to something "restorable")?

[Raven_Crowking]

Those are penalties to the score, not the modifier.