Great moments of being evil.

[Lord Vukodlak]

I thought I'd share this story because it was so funny. So I'm a sixth level lawful evil cleric in a otherwise neutral to good party. We need to go clearing out this sewer in winter which means stomping through icey water.
I prepared the spell waterwalk so I could walk over the water instead of through it. Upon noticing the spell effected multiple targets I declared to the party.
"Who wants to walk over the sewage instead of through it?" Naturally they all chimed in "I do" as what character would choose to walk through icy sewage when given the option to walk on the surface? I then said. "ten gold each" the whole group erupted in laughter.

[umbergod]

I thought I'd share this story because it was so funny. So I'm a sixth level lawful evil cleric in a otherwise neutral to good party. We need to go clearing out this sewer in winter which means stomping through icey water.
I prepared the spell waterwalk so I could walk over the water instead of through it. Upon noticing the spell effected multiple targets I declared to the party.
"Who wants to walk over the sewage instead of through it?" Naturally they all chimed in "I do" as what character would choose to walk through icy sewage when given the option to walk on the surface? I then said. "ten gold each" the whole group erupted in laughter.

evil and extorting the party? I applaud you good sir

[Lord Vukodlak]

evil and extorting the party? I applaud you good sir

Its the best kind of extorting the party. You know they'll pay the money but denying the service doesn't really hurt them.

[KillianHawkeye]

You don't need to be Evil to be a greedy mercenary. :smallconfused:

[umbergod]

Its the best kind of extorting the party. You know they'll pay the money but denying the service doesn't really hurt them.

reminds me of 90% of my star wars characters. I once hi-jacked the group's ship because I spotted Darth Vader spearheading an army headed towards us XD

[Lord Vukodlak]

You don't need to be Evil to be a greedy mercenary. :smallconfused:

Evil isn't always about murder, torture and death. Selfishness and greed are the corner stone of evil. I'm going to cast water walking so I don't have to walk through sewage. Choosing to effect the whole party in costs me nothing extra. Charging the party to benefit from a spell I was going to cast regardless is an evil act.

[umbergod]

Evil isn't always about murder, torture and death. Selfishness and greed are the corner stone of evil. I'm going to cast water walking so I don't have to walk through sewage. Choosing to effect the whole party in costs me nothing extra. Charging the party to benefit from a spell I was going to cast regardless is an evil act.

yup. I prefer the finer points of playing evil. Though sometimes it is fun playing a raving psychotic mass murderer XD

[Medic!]

Our group's first campaign (with a lot of new players to the game in general and some returning long-ago-veterans) was an evil campaign by popular vote. Half way through the 2nd or 3rd dungeon (we were...level 5-ish I believe?) we encounter a mega-badass like 16th level sorcerer vampire meant to scare the party away. The Cleric of Hextor instead decides to (pun intended) roll the dice and make a deal with the vampire in a scramble for the short path to power, the CE Wizard eagerly jumps on board with the plot.

The vampire, in tl;dr format, says he'll give us vampirism in return for bringing him his brother, who sent us to kill him. One natural 20 on a bluff check later, human brother in tow, the party returns to the "now cleared of evil vampires" castle. Vampire says thank you politely and massacres his brother, then says "Ok...if you REALLY want to be vampires, kill your friends." The cleric and wizard kill the rogue, ranger and barbarian.....then the vampire says "HA HA Just kidding, I'm CE too!"

Dismayed we flee for our lives, only to later find a pack of vampires consisting of...you guessed it! A rogue, ranger and barbarian chasing us down for revenge.

The Truely Evil part:
The cleric and wizard send off a massive wave of messages to the nearest official order of vampire-slayers (consisting of paladins, clerics, rangers etc) and march to war at the head of the holy musketeers, straight to the lair of the original (and subsequent) vampires.

[Hiro Protagonest]

reminds me of 90% of my star wars characters. I once hi-jacked the group's ship because I spotted Darth Vader spearheading an army headed towards us XD

Was this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6MYLtqL9T8&feature=youtube_gdata_player) playing when Vader appeared?

[kardar233]

Of course. No proper GM would play a Star Wars campaign without egregious (*chug*) use of John Williams.

I remember one time I was playing a Warhammer campaign when through a combination of daemon-summoning, assassin-hiring, good acting, a fair bit of magic and a lot of imagination I managed to kill nearly every important person in the High Elves and take all their stuff. Damn but there were a lot of artifacts in there.

I remember the other time where the party cleric researched a spell to keep people alive and conscious even when their internal organs had been removed. And then promptly used it to cut strips off of prisoners' hearts, modify their vocal cords to only make the appropriate note and made a violin with their heart strings. And then played When You're Evil (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTuhuon1j6U) on it.

[KillianHawkeye]

Evil isn't always about murder, torture and death. Selfishness and greed are the corner stone of evil. I'm going to cast water walking so I don't have to walk through sewage. Choosing to effect the whole party in costs me nothing extra. Charging the party to benefit from a spell I was going to cast regardless is an evil act.

Let's just say that I disagree. (See the quote in my sig.)

Selfishness and greed are human nature, therefore neutral. You can want to have more without hurting anyone.

I would also argue that charging for spellcasting services is just good business sense for a character with a mercenary mindset. And for the record, being a mercenary is not necessarily Evil.

[JackRackham]

Our group's first campaign (with a lot of new players to the game in general and some returning long-ago-veterans) was an evil campaign by popular vote. Half way through the 2nd or 3rd dungeon (we were...level 5-ish I believe?) we encounter a mega-badass like 16th level sorcerer vampire meant to scare the party away. The Cleric of Hextor instead decides to (pun intended) roll the dice and make a deal with the vampire in a scramble for the short path to power, the CE Wizard eagerly jumps on board with the plot.

The vampire, in tl;dr format, says he'll give us vampirism in return for bringing him his brother, who sent us to kill him. One natural 20 on a bluff check later, human brother in tow, the party returns to the "now cleared of evil vampires" castle. Vampire says thank you politely and massacres his brother, then says "Ok...if you REALLY want to be vampires, kill your friends." The cleric and wizard kill the rogue, ranger and barbarian.....then the vampire says "HA HA Just kidding, I'm CE too!"

Dismayed we flee for our lives, only to later find a pack of vampires consisting of...you guessed it! A rogue, ranger and barbarian chasing us down for revenge.

The Truely Evil part:
The cleric and wizard send off a massive wave of messages to the nearest official order of vampire-slayers (consisting of paladins, clerics, rangers etc) and march to war at the head of the holy musketeers, straight to the lair of the original (and subsequent) vampires.
This whole sequence is awesome. You win the thread, sir. Have as many internets as you can use.

[Medic!]

The capstone to that campaign was the epic last battle, which I've mentioned elsewhere on these forums...somewhere.

The cleric and wizard (level...11? 12? at this point) decide to sneak into the earlier mentioned holy order's temple while the goodie-two-shoes are out playing war with evil. After dispatching the waitstaff and redshirts left behind to keep the fire places lit, we camp out in the throne room/audience hall type room of the structure. The leader of the order (a 20th lvl paladin) comes in, weary but victorious, with a small vanguard behind him of 10th to 15th-ish lvl misc melee-types. By this time the cleric and wizard have a pretty wide-spread reputation for being rotten little turds, and the paladin decides it's time to serve up some piping hot just deserts.

The paladin orders his vanguard to stand down and comes striding up to the dais and BAM fails a very important will save. The vanguard, seeing something amiss, rushes up to assist their leader against his previously stated wishes, and he proceeds to serve up some piping hot just deserts....on those rotten sniveling worms that dared to disobey his direct orders!!! The cleric landed Morality Undone from BoVD, and the paladin become a LE SoB-machine long enough to facilitate a well placed fireball from the wizard being the end of his order.

PS - I kept his armor, and alter self is nothing short of good clean fun.

[Elboxo]

One of my favourites was during my first campaign I played in, a CE Sorcerer, I had a thing for fire....

A city we had previously made camp in had become destroyed since we had last visited it and was being demolished by things akin to War-forged Juggernauts, the population mostly living underground, a selection of the survivors in our previously made underground secret base.

So we went down into our secret base and found these people hiding down there, they were out of food and weren't exactly enjoying their city being destroyed.
So naturally I asked them if they were cold.

They said they were.

"Make a man a fire and you keep him warm for a night, set a man on fire and you keep him warm for the rest of his life."

[Necroticplague]

Was playing in an epic evil gestalt campaign, and we went up against a generic, if suitable enemy: a lich using some epic spell to level the town. Of course, his casting it was interrupted by me ripping off his head (really just did so many damage using bbc that he died second round). So, with his head in hand, I begin to lecture him on "If your going to take a whole day to cast a spell, it better not level just the city, but completely decimate the city and the surrounding countryside so bad it is permanently becomes a wasteland incapable of supporting any life. *sigh* If you want something evil done, looks like you got to do it yourself." Then, I cast girralion arms so I could hold a few metamagic wands, and blew them on this:Fell Drain, Fell Animating, Maximized, Explosive, Widened, Empowered Apocalypse from the Sky.

[Elboxo]

Was playing in an epic evil gestalt campaign, and we went up against a generic, if suitable enemy: a lich using some epic spell to level the town. Of course, his casting it was interrupted by me ripping off his head (really just did so many damage using bbc that he died second round). So, with his head in hand, I begin to lecture him on "If your going to take a whole day to cast a spell, it better not level just the city, but completely decimate the city and the surrounding countryside so bad it is permanently becomes a wasteland incapable of supporting any life. *sigh* If you want something evil done, looks like you got to do it yourself." Then, I cast girralion arms so I could hold a few metamagic wands, and blew them on this:Fell Drain, Fell Animating, Maximized, Explosive, Widened, Empowered Apocalypse from the Sky.

Now THAT is what we call impressive work

[Diefje]

I'm not allowed to go Evil unless the whole party does it, so I just discuss OOG how to kill other PCs and important plot NPCs, how to justify it to the rest of the party, how to get away with it, and all the new shinies I'd get... I mean we'd get.... *sigh*

And it all started after I made my first Paladin. Man that screwed me up. LG sucks.

[Hiro Protagonest]

And it all started after I made my first Paladin. Man that screwed me up. LG sucks.

Are you kidding? Lawful good's great! Paladin code of honor sucks.

[Socratov]

no, lawful stupid good is fun, but only when the rest of the party is chaotic... then the trolling starts :smallamused:

[Gullintanni]

Evil isn't always about murder, torture and death. Selfishness and greed are the corner stone of evil. I'm going to cast water walking so I don't have to walk through sewage. Choosing to effect the whole party in costs me nothing extra. Charging the party to benefit from a spell I was going to cast regardless is an evil act.

I disagree with this. Choosing to effect everybody would be a good act. Choosing to effect just yourself is clearly a selfish, but not malicious act. If the party wants in on the spell, and you request payment, then technically they're asking for the services of a spellcaster and the relevant prices are in the PHB. You're an opportunistic profiteering jerk, and you may be sitting on the southern borders of neutral, but you're not necessarily doing evil.

Now, if the waters were filled with diseased piranha, then failing to provide said water walking except for a cost would cross the threshold from jerk into evil. Bonus style points if you divined the trip ahead of time and put the piranha there yourself :smallwink:

[Gensh]

I disagree with this. Choosing to effect everybody would be a good act. Choosing to effect just yourself is clearly a selfish, but not malicious act. If the party wants in on the spell, and you request payment, then technically they're asking for the services of a spellcaster and the relevant prices are in the PHB. You're an opportunistic profiteering jerk, and you may be sitting on the southern borders of neutral, but you're not necessarily doing evil.

Untrue. A character who favors efficiency over all else - thus being strictly LN - would most certainly choose to grant the benefits to the entire party. Charging for a service that would rationally be given freely and would be expected to be given freely is inherently malicious. It's petty, certainly, but you'd definitely get something like 2 dark side points in a video game for it.

As far as being particularly evil goes, the one time I played 4E, I was an Evil elf cleric. I know this is the 3.X forum, but the story itself could have happened in any system. Anyway, since the DM hadn't bothered to ask me what god I chose, I picked my own god of atheism so that I wouldn't have to do any research or ask the DM what god was doing what. Another thing that's important to know is that there was a ridiculous houserule in play: every time someone rolls a 7 on a d20, they get a "luck die," starting at d4 and increasing by one size each time until you spend them or get to d20, when it resets to d4. I had a tendency to keep hold of them for several sessions. Anyway, things I did:

In the second boss' manor, the first encounter was a sub-boss, his butler. While attempting to escape, the halfing warlock discovered that the windows were trapped with magically-resetting guillotines. Since the party had been doing almost no damage to the butler, I instead told the human warlord to throw him out the window. That was when we discovered that the butler was a giant praying mantis in disguise and that one trip through the guillotine wasn't enough. The warlord and I alternated shoving him back through the window until it finally killed him. I promptly took his suit. Actually, that was a big theme for the character; I always went out of my way to steal formal wear.

In one of the later rooms of the manor, we found a device that activated when the door opened. It was a mechanical system attached to two clear cells and started filling both with water once we entered. We could open one container but doing so would lock the other. In one was a single fairy; in the other was a dozen humans. When the paladin asked who we should save and how we could possibly judge lives, I basically responded that human peasants couldn't do anything for us, whereas a fairy might have some sort of magical reward. Before the paladin could do anything, the warlock agreed with me and threw the switch. The two of us would forever regret that decision, however, as the fairy was a malicious prankster who stalked us for the remainder of the game.

When we actually got to the owner of the manor, we discovered that he'd made his fortune in black market trading, including humanoid trafficking. When we entered, he made a comment about how my perfectly-shaped ears would be worth a pretty penny. After killing him, I used hedge clippers from his garden (my only weapon until I later got a cursed sword) to cut his ears off. The warlock later mounted them on our wall.

Later, the DM had intended for us to buy a plot-relevant mansion but had forgotten that we had nowhere near enough money for it. When he had an NPC accidentally drop the cash we needed, I insisted we buy a boat instead, leading him to have the NPC notice he'd lost a small fortune.

While in town, the warlock and I were attacked by cultist assassins with horrible powers and a magic sword that could cut through reality and temporarily let loose elder evils. After killing them, the DM insisted that the sword was evil beyond belief and had it damage me when I tried to pick it up. I still don't know what exactly he was going to do with it, but since leaving it for just anyone to find was dumb, I took it anyway and used it for decoration.

When we finally got the mansion (when the warlock killed its owner and stole the deed), I went next door to introduce myself to the neighbors. Upon realizing it was a single old woman, I stabbed her with an artifact of unfathomable evil I'd stolen from a cult, turning her into a horrible abomination and then removed it again, killing her. I hid the body and then moved all of our extra things into our second house. I did this a few other times, and eventually, the DM just had a demon permanently implant the artifact into my cleric - to no effect because he was by default more evil than he would be as a mindless monster.

Eventually, we reached the final boss - the consort of Vecna. Throughout the game, I'd avoided using 4E's lackluster Core combat mechanics by figuring out other solutions to things. In particular, I'd maxed Diplomacy and gave impromptu sermons IRL whenever I rolled the dice. I'd been able to convert and simultaneously hire some of the sub-bosses earlier, but the DM had stated that it wouldn't work on real bosses. Unfortunately, two players had dropped and one had to leave early, so it was just the warlock and myself in the final fight - and the warlock had gotten trapped by something or other. We'd both lost like half our HP, and the warlock had gotten nearly minimum rolls on his daily and encounter powers. Even with my healing, we knew we were going to lose because we had no way to really damage her. So I decided to roll Diplomacy. I gave the most in-depth fire-and-brimstone speech of the campaign. The DM kind of humored me and told me to go ahead and roll, so I rolled not just the d20 but also the dozen or so luck dice I'd saved up but everyone had forgotten about, getting something like 70 total. The DM saw that we couldn't win and didn't really want to break suspension of disbelief by having such an obscenely high check fail, so he basically said that suddenly realizing that her lover was a charlatan broke her mind and we now had to escape from the collapsing mausoleum. Since I could move faster than the halfling warlock anyway, I took her body with us in the hopes of "rehabilitating" her as part of our ever-growing mansion staff, which included a giant chameleon maid, her lizardmen children (we suspect they came from the warlock) as bodyguards, a giant spider janitor/maintenance man/tailor, and a small army of feral zombies in an interdimensional dungeon in the basement that we decided wouldn't be worth the XP to clear.

[Gullintanni]

Untrue. A character who favors efficiency over all else - thus being strictly LN - would most certainly choose to grant the benefits to the entire party. Charging for a service that would rationally be given freely and would be expected to be given freely is inherently malicious. It's petty, certainly, but you'd definitely get something like 2 dark side points in a video game for it.


Except that why would I give something away for free when I could make money off of it? From a strictly utilitarian perspective, profit IS my rational reason for not giving away conveniences freely. And that's what we're talking about here...convenience. I'm going to help you walk on water so you don't have to get your feet wet.

This is mechanically no different than saying, "Hey I noticed you're all wet. I'll dry your clothes for 10gp with this handy spell I've got", except that in the former case, drying your clothes is pre-emptive, and in the second case it's reactive.

In the former case of water walk...you have more than you need so you sell the excess. That's just capitalism. Enterprise at work. If you elect not to share, then someone might suffer a minor inconvenience. Big freakin' deal. Very evil :smalltongue:

[Zonugal]

I have, on several occasions, flawed off an npc's skin and worn it to grant myself an impromptu disguise.

It has, on several occasions, worked...

Oh yeah evil!

[Hazzardevil]

I've come up with party mottos when I'm evil before, like an apple a day keeps the paladins a way and catch it, kill it, reanimate it. I also had my alingment changed from nuetrel to chaotic evil when a group of drow guards said that my party were enemy's when they didn't recognize our party.

And then there was the accident involving my cleric casting produce flame in a dwarven mine when all the torches went out.
We had a rocks fall and everybody dies moment and the DM didn't even want it.

[PotatoNinja]

Evil isn't always about murder, torture and death. Selfishness and greed are the corner stone of evil. I'm going to cast water walking so I don't have to walk through sewage. Choosing to effect the whole party in costs me nothing extra. Charging the party to benefit from a spell I was going to cast regardless is an evil act.

Bolded for emphasis. Ayn Rand would slap the **** out of you. That is all :smalltongue:



Except that why would I give something away for free when I could make money off of it? From a strictly utilitarian perspective, profit IS my rational reason for not giving away conveniences freely. And that's what we're talking about here...convenience. I'm going to help you walk on water so you don't have to get your feet wet.

This is mechanically no different than saying, "Hey I noticed you're all wet. I'll dry your clothes for 10gp with this handy spell I've got", except that in the former case, drying your clothes is pre-emptive, and in the second case it's reactive.

In the former case of water walk...you have more than you need so you sell the excess. That's just capitalism. Enterprise at work. If you elect not to share, then someone might suffer a minor inconvenience. Big freakin' deal. Very evil :smalltongue:

John Stuart mill might like to have a word with you. Utilitarianism does promote doing something because it brings you happyness/goodness, it promotes the general good/happyness. As such, doing something just because it brings you happiness is not a utilitarian train of thought, but maybe an egoistic one.

post edit because i glimpsed a utilitarian comment!:smallannoyed:

[MesiDoomstalker]

My own personal story of evil maliciousness. Quick sidenote: I rarely play anything but LN as I quickly become Stupid Good/Chaotic or waaaaaaay to nice for Evil anything. But this was the exception as I was playing a LE Neko (homebrewed cat/human race) in a custom setting. The world was similar to Skies of Arcadia with floating continent and airships. We started on one continent and were going to go outside our cotinent but we never got there. Our group was hired by the Emperor of one of the countries as mercernaries to help start and fight a war invovling the whole continent. Now for my part, spoilored to avoid wall of text.

Neko's had about a 99% female population so males were rather rare and usually had seats of power simply for this fact. An oddly patriarchal society with a predominatly female population. When they intermated with other humanoids, it was a 50/50 chance of producing a Neko or whatever the father was. The Neko race was predominat in the oldest country on the continent making, almost exclusivly all of the nobility. The country was setup similar to medival Japan with 13 houses of nobles, and the head of the house was part of a council of 13. The council functioned like a legislature and high court and appointed the monarchy when the bloodline was in question. I'm playing a LE Neko Ninja (this was before I realized what optimization meant) with noble blood. Specifically, my mother and father, boht Neko's, were minor members of 2 different houses and married without their parents consent. After some hostility, my mom's house, House Doomstalker (guess were I got my account name from?), folded them into the house. My dad's house felt betrayed that a male married outside the house without permission.

Long historical and political explanation done, I'll tell you where I come in. I was born as a faternal twin, son and daughter to 2 high ranking nobles of the Doomstalker House. Fearing that I'd be targted by nobles of other houses or jealous cousins, my parents secreted me away to a secret school for the Nightsond Guild (I took Nightsong Enforcer eventually) with strong ties to my father's house. Since he was dishoned, they initially rejected him, but he pulled a personal favor. They told no one, not even my twin sister. I also had an older sister who knew but she ran away and I never figured out what happend to her. They raised and trained me till I was 16, when I was legally able to challenge the matriarch of my clan. But I was kept in the dark of my bloodline and nobility. Circumstances arrized that I ran away the night before my 16th birthday. The same day I was to be escorted home to claim my place as head of the house. This is where the campaign began as I ended up in the capital city of the the country starting the continental war.

Backstory done, we adventure and start 2 simultaneous wars, fight battles, drag more countries into the war, and soon 4 of the 6 countries on the continent are working together to bring down D'Lere (the country were workgin for) and failing mainly because of us and the super advanced airship we stole on the first session. The only country not involved in the war is the Neko country (I can't remember the name) mainly because its on the opposite side of the cotinent, and an extreme isolationist country (literal wall surrounding the entire coutnry). The matriarch of my house had been sending assassains to kill me, how she found out I have no idea. Eventually we are able to catch one (they liked alchemist fire variant of cyanide tooth), and interrogat them and found out that I was a noble. I contatct my master and he explains everything. Wanting revenge for abadoning me, I go straight to the Emperor of D'lere with the following plan.

Please note: I am not trying to offend anybody, just recounting how I played my lawyer-lawful evil character. I took a page from Nazi Germany and decided to get the Neko's invovled in the escalating war. I went on a diplomatic ship to the Neko's while my party went to the border of the Neko's and another one, an icy country if I rememeber correctly. When I arrived, I reclaimed my title and pleaded with the current queen to join D'lere. She refused but quickly changed her mind when she recieved a series of sendings from outposts on along the border of the countries attacking. In reality it was the parties DN zombie army, specifically raised for this after his big bruiser keeled over, dressed in the equipment of those we slayed on the battlefield. For the non-history buffs, thats how the Nazi's started the war with Poland. She quickly reconsidered, and was delighted to have a representative that held high standing in both countries (me). After securing the alliance, I challenged the matriarch of my house, beat her in single combat (really difficult for ~10th level Ninaj/Nightsong Enforcer might I add). I assuemd control of my house and became a member of the coucil of 13.

My party reunited with me in my newly acquired mansion (on top of the fort we owned in D'lere) and planned our next move. With the aid of the party's Wizard and Sorcer, we teleported into the castle, killed the queen, disintegrated her, soul bound her, gathered the dust we promptly dumped off the edge of the continent. I then used my new found power and influence (plus plenty of Enchantment from the Mindbender Sorcerer) I was crowned king. Agreeing with the DM that I couldn't adventure and still be King, I gave my thrown to my younger sister, who had hated me the second I came home. So elated, she vowed loyalty to me. So now I had a puppet leader to play with. I more or less gave the reins over to the proper diplomat from D'lere who passed on what the emporor wanted.

So, all in all, I deposed a head of a powerful noble house, killed the queen, cheated my way to king, gave it all up to my sister who became a puppet for me and my allies.

Pretty darn Evil right?

[Gensh]

Except that why would I give something away for free when I could make money off of it? From a strictly utilitarian perspective, profit IS my rational reason for not giving away conveniences freely. And that's what we're talking about here...convenience. I'm going to help you walk on water so you don't have to get your feet wet.

PotatoNinja has got it right; from a utilitarian perspective, you'd want to emphasize the good of your companions' comfort over your ability to make a profit. Assuming that's not enough, the situation involves a calculated risk between letting your partymates traverse through below-freezing human waste, a rather significant risk of illness given the medieval-style setting, not to mention discomfort and the general hit to morale. In most games, these things won't actually come up, but since alignment needs to be resolved from an in-character perspective, those are most definitely aspects that need to be considered.

[The Boz]

In reality it was the parties DN zombie army, specifically raised for this after his big bruiser keeled over, dressed in the equipment of those we slayed on the battlefield. For the non-history buffs, thats how the Nazi's started the war with Poland.

The Nazis attacked Poland with zombies?

[Zagaroth]

Well, in my currentt evil game, we are in the Realms, and in a large dead magic zone. And we have Shadow Weave feats, so we are conjuring some good aligned outsiders, binding them up while they have no magic, and selling them as at-your-own-risk slaves.

Also, we wiped out some yuan-ti nd nagas. We have their eggs, and are goig to raise them as loyal followers.

[Othesemo]

Here're a few good stories.

So, our party includes me, a CE rogue, as well as a CE barbarian and NE dread necro. We were planeshifting, and the fallen angel we were after redirected us. We ended up in the middle of four Huge sized Xorns. Although everyone else got off a few attacks before running off to somewhere safer, the barbarian got a 3 on initiative, and was mauled by all four Corns, down to -156 health. We defeated the Xorns afterwards. Fortunately, we had several diamonds on hand for a raise dead spell. However, before we raised the barbarian, I stole all 50,000 of her gold, giving 10,000 each to the other party members as a bribe to not mention anything. When she came back from the dead, I drank a potion of glibness, and, with a +69 to bluff, I told her that one of the Xorns had eaten all of her gold. Evil enough?

Or try this. Apart from playing every week, our party roleplays conversation over email- in game, it's intended to be written correspondence (long story). Anyways, I took the liberty of editing a conversation which I had with the dread necro so that it appeared to be a conversation in which he swore to murder the barbarian, and I tried to dissuade him. I then sent it to the barbarian, and told her that for a modest fee of 10,000 gp a week, I would magically protect her from the undead that the dread necro would likely send after her. She grudgingly agreed, and since then, every in-game night I've pretended to cast a large number of spells that I made up on the spot (immunity to undead, protection from death, etcetera) on her, claiming to cast then from a wand which is actually a piece of polished wood. It's been going on for four weeks now, and neither of them has figured it out yet.

If THAT isn't evil enough, I've got a few more.

[MesiDoomstalker]

The Nazis attacked Poland with zombies?

Jokes about Nazi zombies aside, no. The Nazi had some of there soldiers dress up as Poland soldiers and attacked a German border town, then declared war.

Ok, so what I did was similiar and inspired by that, but not the exact same thing.

[Mikeavelli]

Great moment of evil...

We're running through the Temple of Elemental Evil near the end of the campaign, specifically the Inner Fane. We start playing with the Deck of Many Things.

I draw three cards, getting 50,000 xp, alignment switch, and soul imprisoned in another plane (I forget the exact name of the cards).

One of the other players was nice enough to draw some Wishes, and wish my soul back, so that turned out great. Didn't tell anyone about the alignment switch though. Prior to this, I'd been playing a Lawful Good Wizard.

I'm a blatant powergamer, but had been rolling batman style buffing up the party and throwing out control spells to keep from overshadowing them - but an extra 50k xp bumps me up 4 levels over the rest of the party.

So I talk it over with the DM, do some suggesting, "So, I'm evil now. While my soul was off in the Outer Planes, my character went mad, he now worships Tharizdun, and wants to bring him into this world. Sounds good?"

Sounds good.

I play along for the next few sessions, killing off the cult of Tharizdun for the explicit purpose of taking their place (collecting their remains in a bag of holding so I can Animate them later...) - until we get to the restored temple.

For those who haven't read ToEE, the plot involves getting one of two Orbs (Golden Death or Silvery Death) - with elemental gems inset into them, and summoning the Elemental Princes of Evil. If all of them are there, and the ritual is performed, Tharizdun is summoned, game over.

Imix, the elemental Prince of Fire is already summoned. I've brought along a few scrolls of Gate, and summon Yan-C-Bin and Ogremoch, the Elemental Princes of Air and Earth respectively.

They don't take part in the coming battle for... Some reason. I'd talked it over with the DM and we wanted them to have a chance.

See, the plan was for this to happen, I'm the final battle of the campaign. They've watched subtle hints of how I can break the game into pieces with a high-level wizard for the past few sessions, and now they've got to beat me. I make a speech....

"Don't you see? We shouldn't be afraid of the power of Tharizdun, we should use it for the good of the world! Right now he stands against the combined might of the world, and he holds strong! Imagine what we could do with that power on our side? Under our control! You know me, You know what I'm capable of, you know I can succeed in this. Join me."

----

What I expected:

- The party would say, "No way!" Fight and kill me in an epic boss battle.

What actually happened:

- Half the party joined me. The other half argued with them passionately about it until the Champion of Tharizdun snuck in and blew the horn that sounded the completion of the ritual to Summon Tharizdun.

----

With 3 princes summoned, there was a 75% chance of successfully breaking the bonds of Tharizdun's prison, freeing him, and a 25% chance of the ritual failing, the elemental princes going away, and the orb used in the ceremony crumbling to dust.

The ceremony failed. :(

With that over, me and the party members that joined me teleported away with the other Orb and the elemental gems that get attached to it as part of the ritual. Our characters are going to be the main villains in the next campaign.

[havocfett]

Well, one of my PCs (Vile) is getting the other PCs to sign Pacts Insidious, and then planning on how to get around his parts of the pact.

He's going to get one PC (Drow) to sign while being tortured, as Vile doesn't really want to tell the rest of the party where drow is being tortured, and he views this as a great opportunity. In return for the pact, Vile agrees to help Drow deal with the torture.

So he casts Mechanus Mind on him, once, when the torture starts, and then leaves the room.

He's planning on getting another PC (Mother) to sign to 'ensure that her children will not be captured by invaders from the far realms'.

He's planning on selling them to an insane warforged who will likely kill them for his experiments.

He's getting another (Psycho) to gather up slaves for one of his experiments, and is going to get Drows IC girlfriend to sign with the promise of saving Drow on his own.

He plans to do this by selling the slaves in exchange for Drow.

He's a rather effective villain, if I do say so myself. My own are going to have to work to keep up, really.

[Sith_Happens]

god of atheism

:smallconfused:

...

:confused:

...

WAT

[Gensh]

:smallconfused:WAT

Why does everyone always do that? If you assume that divine ranks represent a certain amount of spiritual energy (belief) generated by sapient creatures, then the energy generated by atheists has to go somewhere. Terry Pratchett's Discworld series posited that particularly hateful atheists are truer believers than most priests, but since that's comedy, I've chosen the alternative. That is to say that in a number of my campaigns, there is a certain CE greater deity fueled by nothing but pure hatred, spite, and feelings of abandonment. Due to not believing himself to be a deity, his native plane is the Prime Material. He doesn't have a real following of any sort because that would be contradictory but is known as a sponsor of psionicists and is himself an epic seer.

[DoctorGlock]

Doubt mine are going to compare to some of these but here goes...

Last game I was in was on the verge of going epic, about lvl 17 or so, and not particularly optimized, the DM had a fairly large session planned but only two of us showed up. The problem was it was the two most twisted players, myself, a CN Tranmutation Domain/IoSV and the CE Hellfire Warlock. As a note, it should be specified that almost all my prepped spells were polymorphs and chained baleful polymorph and similar while the warlock was packing word of changing with ability focus. Thus polymorph night was born.

Combined, until the very end, we didn't kill a single enemy. We spend the entire session polymorphing them into kittens (I chose kittens because I reasoned everyone likes kittens but the warlock chose babies because they are entirely helpless)or diplomacy-ing our way past beholders

The end of the session was to liberate a slave mine and capture a Neogi lifejammer vessel (My wizard has a fairly unhealthy obsession with space so the DM decided we were heading into space!) One chained baleful polymorph later and the entire crew was kittens, minus their pet uberharger, he got fried by a veil. The warlock decides to sulk outside while I examine the ship. He tells me he is going to free the slaves, and distracted by the shiny ship, I say "sure, whatever".

Yeah, you know where this is going. The warlock runs around the mines morphing slaves (including women and children) before chain blasting, it wasn't until he came back to the ship dripping with gore that I realized "Oh crap"

But that doesn't tell why the DM shifted my alignment to Vile. Well, I got to engine room and had no idea what it was or how it worked, this being a non spelljammer setting. So I immediately guess "the draining lived of screaming baby innocents" as a joke (note, i didn't even have the out of character knowledge of how it worked). The DM facepalms and says "yes actually". I immediately grab a dead neogi spawn and polymorph any object the thing into a live baby, figuring "it isn't a real baby, it can't be wrong"... yeah, no. The DM rules that I have just perverted the most sacred act in the multiverse, the creation of a soul, and declares me Vile. Even commoners can sense the evil.



The other crowning moment of evil was under a different DM. I was a TN Rogue airship swashbuckler who was willing to do almost anything to get by so long as no one got seriously hurt. This included being the sole supplier to a town that did some kind of made up drug for religious festivals... and whenever they felt like it. This of course pissed off the party paladin, who was lawful buzz kill. Admittedly it didn't start great, the others being a paladin and cleric of different religions who absolutely despise rogues because "rogue=thief" so i spend the first session impersonating a paladin, the last player was a ditzy child sorceress who didn't particularly care (i was skill focused, alot of bluff, this was before i discovered factotum) The moment the found out the paladin went all "STOP HAVING FUN" and appointed herself parole officer. Ugh.

For three session this went on, having her always there screaming "I am the law" type crap. Note that this is a surefire way to kill fun. Never give a player power over another player. This was turned against her when I drugged her (the character! don't worry) and she went out like a light, bluff says she just aint feeling well. We were flying over a desert when we come under fire, and not having any onboard weapons we have to descend. I chuck down a rope ladder and the sorceress and cleric go down, yelling at me to follow. I note that I am the only one who can fly the ship and say I have to land, draw the fire off until then. I mentioned my focus on bluff, right? Up comes the ladder and the ship sharp turns, leaving the party in the middle of the desert. All jaws drop. The DM asks where I am going, I respond with "nearest hive of scum and villainy" where I sell the paladin and a cargo hold of illegal hallucinogenics. Jaws drop again.

"So now what" is the general consensus. Realizing that I have a fair lump of cash now, I consult my backstory for answers. I was unofficially exiled from a small barony (aka ran the heck away) after a misunderstanding with a certain barons daughter. Absolute misunderstanding. Well, I decide that the money would be well spend on mercenaries to mount an attack on the baron's castle. That was about where the game ended, the DM declaring it unsalvageable rather than my offer to retire the character and make a new one, leaving the party with a villain they absolutely hate as a quarry.



Why does everyone always do that? If you assume that divine ranks represent a certain amount of spiritual energy (belief) generated by sapient creatures, then the energy generated by atheists has to go somewhere.

This is the same sentiment that had a DM allow me to play the god of atheism. Same DM as the first story so it wasn't a particularly serious game.

[Giant]

I myself is an Evil every moment is great.. hehe

[Gullintanni]

John Stuart mill might like to have a word with you. Utilitarianism does promote doing something because it brings you happyness/goodness, it promotes the general good/happyness. As such, doing something just because it brings you happiness is not a utilitarian train of thought, but maybe an egoistic one.

post edit because i glimpsed a utilitarian comment!:smallannoyed:


PotatoNinja has got it right; from a utilitarian perspective, you'd want to emphasize the good of your companions' comfort over your ability to make a profit. Assuming that's not enough, the situation involves a calculated risk between letting your partymates traverse through below-freezing human waste, a rather significant risk of illness given the medieval-style setting, not to mention discomfort and the general hit to morale. In most games, these things won't actually come up, but since alignment needs to be resolved from an in-character perspective, those are most definitely aspects that need to be considered.

You're both assuming capital U Utilitarianism. As in the philosophical leaning. Come back down to earth for a bit:

Utilitarian Definition:

1. Of, relating to, or in the interests of utility: utilitarian considerations in industrial design.
2. Exhibiting or stressing utility over other values; practical: plain, utilitarian kitchenware.
3. Of, characterized by, or advocating utilitarianism.

Bolded for emphasis. Maximizing profit is well within the bounds of personal, rational self-interest and it services my overall utility. I wasn't quoting Mill's philosophical perspective. :smalltongue:

Either way, for those of you who assert that profit for the sale of convenience (And that's all cold waste is to a party of heroic spellcasting adventurers, an inconvenience.) is evil, well...we'll agree to disagree. No need to derail the thread further.

[NOhara24]

the whole group erupted in laughter.

Were they laughing at you because you were charging them for something that was entirely inconsequential?

Also, that's not evil. Just being a bastard, that.

[Gnaeus]

Except that why would I give something away for free when I could make money off of it? From a strictly utilitarian perspective, profit IS my rational reason for not giving away conveniences freely. And that's what we're talking about here...convenience. I'm going to help you walk on water so you don't have to get your feet wet.

Well, rationally, you might do it because you are dealing with people who might literally be holding your life in your hands someday, and when they are standing around deciding whether to pay for a scroll of raise dead or stone to flesh, or if someone is trying to decide whether to risk his life to pick up your paralyzed body before running away or just to come back for your stuff at a better time, you want them to think of you as "our friend who we have been adventuring with" not as "that mercenary jerk who charged me 10gp to not walk through filth and who could easily be replaced by another mercenary". If you are selling the goodwill of your teammates for 50gp, thats a bad deal, regardless of alignment.

[Gullintanni]

If you are selling the goodwill of your teammates for 50gp, thats a bad deal, regardless of alignment.

Agreed. But it's still not evil. It's just being a mercenary jerk. Which really was my point from the get go. :smalltongue:

[Gnaeus]

OK. Agreed. A neutral cleric (perhaps of a god of merchants or greed) could certainly do the same thing without fear of losing alignment.

[Lord Vukodlak]

This is mechanically no different than saying, "Hey I noticed you're all wet. I'll dry your clothes for 10gp with this handy spell I've got", except that in the former case, drying your clothes is pre-emptive, and in the second case it's reactive.
It is mechanically different, its more like were both wet and I have a spell that will dry everyone in the area and I charge him for simply standing next to me.



In the former case of water walk...you have more than you need so you sell the excess. That's just capitalism. Enterprise at work. If you elect not to share, then someone might suffer a minor inconvenience. Big freakin' deal. Very evil :smalltongue:
But its not like capitalism, In the real world giving away execess's costs you something. (what your giving away). In this case giving away execesses costs me nothing, while keeping the execesses grants me nothing. The execess targets of the spell are simply lost if not used. There isn't a real world equivalent because in the real world the laws of physics are followed.


Were they laughing at you because you were charging them for something that was entirely inconsequential?

Also, that's not evil. Just being a bastard, that.

The party was laughing because it was a selfish bastard of a thing to do, BUT it wasn't over something life threatening I'm not screwing over my party which is never a great moment in being evil. Its not the reason my cleric's evil, creating undead, performing human sacrifices and selling a unicorn horn thats what makes me evil.


If you are selling the goodwill of your teammates for 50gp, thats a bad deal, regardless of alignment.

Except I'm not selling the good will of the party, I choose that amount because the 40gp I gained can still be useful for day-to-day expenses, it wouldn't be enough to really bother them. And I thought it would be funny

[QUOTE=Gnaeus;12138960]
Agreed. A neutral cleric (perhaps of a god of merchants or greed) could certainly do the same thing without fear of losing alignment.
But if a neutral character can get away with it but not a good character, then it must be an evil act. If it was a neutral act then good characters could do it fine or even a Paladin.
Just as there are minor good acts there are minor evil acts. And being a selfish bastard is an evil act even though its a minor one.

[Deophaun]

But its not like capitalism, In the real world giving away execess's costs you something. (what your giving away). In this case giving away execesses costs me nothing, while keeping the execesses grants me nothing. The execess targets of the spell are simply lost if not used. There isn't a real world equivalent because in the real world the laws of physics are followed.
Not really. The cost is the spell slot, and whether you will continue to use said spell in the future. By being able to charge your teammates for the "excess," you increase the value of the spell versus the value of memorizing another spell in its place. Basically, it all comes down to opportunity cost.

But if a neutral character can get away with it but not a good character, then it must be an evil act. If it was a neutral act then good characters could do it fine or even a Paladin.
Just as there are minor good acts there are minor evil acts. And being a selfish bastard is an evil act even though its a minor one.
Well, as already stated above, in an adventuring party, such acts are normally done for "free" under the assumption that the group will repay the act through future cooperation. All that this player has done is take a payment in gold in lieu of future cooperation. That's it. If that is evil, then the favor-barter system it has replaced is also evil, as both expect some form of payment for the service. The difference between an evil and a good character, in this respect, is the good character who demands payment in gold will also offer equal or greater payment in gold for the services he gets from party members without prompting, while the evil character will attempt to con his way out of paying for those same services.

[Lord Vukodlak]

Not really. The cost is the spell slot, and whether you will continue to use said spell in the future. By being able to charge your teammates for the "excess," you increase the value of the spell versus the value of memorizing another spell in its place. Basically, it all comes down to opportunity cost.

But I'm casting the spell anyway. I prepared it that day for myself. Had the spell effected only one target I still would have prepared it. I marked it as prepared before I even saw it effected multiple targets.

For a cleric it isn't even unreasonable that they wouldn't know the full extent of a spell until they pray for it as its granted from a divine source. So my cleric prayed for a spell that would let him walk on water so he could avoid being knee deep in sewage. And Hextor gave him something that effected multiple targets.

So the opportunity cost doesn't even apply, as the decision to prepare the spell came before I noticed it effected multiple targets. Then I decided I should charge them money.

[Strormer]

Firstly, Mikeavelli, that is the single most awesome thing ever. I would so love to have been in that group.

Secondly, my story isn't really about playing an evil character, but it is about an evil party. (I've never actually played an evil character though I do hold to the old DND addage, "Chaotic Neutral makes shooting into melee a lot more interesting.")

Here goes.
We were a party of mostly evil characters. An LE Samurai/Ronin, a CE anti-magic Barbarian, a NE Rogue/Assassin, and an evil Wizard (forgot actual AL). Then there was me. I had originally made a Neutral Greedy Ranger who became the sheriff of a small town and proceeded to slowly take control, or at least profit from, nearly every evil organization in town. He made some mistakes and got executed, so I decided to play something a little less evil.
At the same time there was one other member of the party. He was a NG Cleric of Pelor (read as heal-bot 1000). He first met my new non-evil character when I raised a zombie and ordered it to help the party fight. He tried to turn it. I bolstered it and lectured him on breaking other people's toys. I was a LN Cleric of WeeJas (Necromancer). Throughout the game I was routinely the nicest guy in the party, not counting the other Cleric. It bothered him to no end that, as a Cleric of Pelor, the necromancer was his least evil friend.
Now, here's where I was a little bit evil, but seeing as I was a particularly nice guy and neutral, I guess I balanced out. He eventually died and, as per the RAW of resurrection, he declined to be raised because the party was evil and he felt that returning to help us, even against a more evil threat, would still be aiding evil and he had already done too much against his conscience.
Me, in typical me fashion, told the party to wait and I'd fix it.
I went into another room and cast speak with dead. I argued with him a bit about the greater good and blah, blah, blah, and he still refused. Lastly, I warned him about a little policy in my homeland (btw, I was also recently gifted with Counthood by the king as a reward for my services and had my own County which I protected with a massive undead army) that all those who pass on will be conscripted into military service for a duration of ten years, which may be extended during times of war. In other words, when you die, you become my undead soldier. I told our dead cleric that he could either be raised and help us fight the big bad, or he could be raised as the walking dead, and still help us fight the big bad, but less effectively.
He shortly later cursed my name regularly, but we had a healer for the final boss.
Added funny. My character was, during the epilogue cinematic that the DM had cooked up, absorbed by an evil mage into a powerful artifact ring which absorbed the soul of a target to empower the mage. In a subsequent campaign in which I was not playing, the ring was destroyed. I happened to be sitting in on the session that the ring was destroyed in and the DM said that everyone who had ever been absorbed into the ring (the new campaign was two generations after my necromancer's life) appeared in the area of the ring's destruction completely unharmed and as if nothing had happened, but aware of what had transpired. I mentioned that my old PC had been one of those absorbed by the ring, as had my son. The DM was stunned to realize that I was now in the game and let me play for a couple sessions. My necromancer was pretty old during the epilogue, but had a ring that negated age when worn. I promptly put on my ring, flirted with the girl in the new party (literally the same age as my granddaughter in game), and then proceeded to cast speak with dead again to look up my old friend, the Cleric of Pelor (who was playing a different character in this campaign). You've never heard a more heartfelt groan of misery than he pulled out for that Cleric's dead soul. I threatened to have him raised again and he held on a nice conversation for all of two rounds. Then I promptly hired myself out to a nearby lord who found my Necromantic powers distasteful, but useful given the current wartime (a new war, not the old one continued). I eventually regained my lands under the new lord and managed to legalize necromancy on the grounds that how it's used should be governed, not whether or not it's used at all. The entire church of Pelor considered me a blight upon their cause, but I routinely dropped by the main temple to drop a coin in the collection box and generally bother the clerics.
I wasn't evil, I was just a smart ass.:smallbiggrin:

edit: forgot to spoiler the giant block of text. Sry!

[KillianHawkeye]

But if a neutral character can get away with it but not a good character, then it must be an evil act. If it was a neutral act then good characters could do it fine or even a Paladin.
Just as there are minor good acts there are minor evil acts. And being a selfish bastard is an evil act even though its a minor one.

Disagree. Even a good character could get away with charging teammates for services, because greed is neutral.

[Deophaun]

So the opportunity cost doesn't even apply, as the decision to prepare the spell came before I noticed it effected multiple targets. Then I decided I should charge them money.
It does apply, because it also informs future decisions.

Finally, whenever you can charge money, opportunity costs always apply, because, well, you had the opportunity to earn money.

[Lord Vukodlak]

Disagree. Even a good character could get away with charging teammates for services, because greed is neutral.

You really think a palain could get away with it? A regular good character can perform some evil acts here and there without becoming evil. As alignments are guidelines and not strait jackets. Just because they can do it at there alignment doesn't mean the act isn't evil. The only real bench mark is the paladin who is supposed to be a boyscout. And greed is traditionally defined as evil.


All that this player has done is take a payment in gold in lieu of future cooperation. That's it. If that is evil, then the favor-barter system it has replaced is also evil, as both expect some form of payment for the service.

That might be true if you had described the traditional system. In the traditional system you provide services to the party because your all working together for some goal. If your a good character you don't think about what you get in return for helping the party.

If you don't care about walking knee deep in sewage. Or you didn't care enough to prepare a 3rd level spell slot. then charging to prepare and cast water walk could be considered neutral. But I prepared it so I wouldn't have to walk knee deep in sewage. And then decided to exploit my own parties desire to avoid walking knee deep in sewage. Which is nothing short of being deliberately malicious.

[Deophaun]

You really think a palain could get away with it? A regular good character can perform some evil acts here and there without becoming evil. As alignments are guidelines and not strait jackets. Just because they can do it at there alignment doesn't mean the act isn't evil. The only real bench mark is the paladin who is supposed to be a boyscout.
You seem to have this view that if something is not good, then it must be evil. Not true. A block of stone isn't evil, but it's not good, either. It just is. Neutrality isn't a mix of 50% good, 50% evil.

And greed is traditionally defined as evil.True, but we aren't actually dealing with a traditional form of greed, here. Greed is more akin to hoarding. You get wealth, and then you do everything you can to hang on to wealth. It's evil because it is wasteful, as your wealth does nothing but sit.

To be greedy, it's not enough to never pass up an opportunity to extract value. You have to then sit on that value, and do nothing productive with it. That last part is not mentioned in this example (i.e. if the money was to go to the giant gold statue of the character, then there is greed. If the money is going to be spent on healing potions, given to charity, invested in a tavern, or otherwise put to use, it's not greed).

True, if you try to extract value from everything, you will not be good. But, not being good does not mean that you are evil.

But I prepared it so I wouldn't have to walk knee deep in sewage.
Really? I missed the mention of the divination spell to discover the sewer in the original post.

And then decided to exploit my own parties desire to avoid walking knee deep in sewage. Which is nothing short of being deliberately malicious.
So, if you had premeditated the payment, as in "We will be walking though sewage today, and I can earn some extra coin by preparing water walking for that occasion," you'd be fine. But since it was a spur of the moment thing, it's evil? What an odd morality.

[Lord Vukodlak]

You seem to have this view that if something is not good, then it must be evil.
You seem to have the view that there aren't any minor acts of evil. Being a selfish bastard and exploiting your own party is evil even if its only a minor evil act.



Really? I missed the mention of the divination spell to discover the sewer in the original post.
We knew a head of time we'd be cleaning monsters out of the sewer. Its a regular job in the guild to clean out the sewers of any hazards. But the monster hiding in the city park was a more pressing issue, especially when it turned out to be a Troll in the park. We did the sewer job the next day.


True, if you try to extract value from everything, you will not be good. But, not being good does not mean that you are evil.
That doesn't mean some of your acts of greed aren't evil either. Unless your following a paladin level restrictive code of conduct. You can perform acts outside your alignment here and there.



So, if you had premeditated the payment, as in "We will be walking though sewage today, and I can earn some extra coin by preparing water walking for that occasion," you'd be fine. But since it was a spur of the moment thing, it's evil? What an odd morality.

My point was to shoot down the opportunity cost argument. I was preparing water walking because I WANTED to avoid walking through sewage. The opportunity for it to effect other party members never even entered my mind until after the decision to prepare the spell was already made. When i saw it effected mulitple targets i decided to charge the remainder of the party. Not because of the cost of the spell(i was paying that anyway) but because I knew i could get money out of them.

In the premeditated example, if the party doesn't pay the money then the caster has to walk through sewage to. Because he doesn't think its worth a 3rd level spell slot so he asked for some extra money to make it worth it.

[Deophaun]

You seem to have the view that there aren't any minor acts of evil. Being a selfish bastard and exploiting your own party is evil even if its only a minor evil act.
I honestly have no idea if your character's act was selfish or not. All I know is that your character was charging money for a service. The selfish aspect would be what your character would use that money for, and whether your character would reciprocate paying for services performed by hit party members. Your example is not enough to conclude "evil."

Again, you need to state that it went to that big gold statue, instead of healing potions.

My point was to shoot down the opportunity cost argument.
Then by all means, shoot it down. I'm waiting.

I was preparing water walking because I WANTED to avoid walking through sewage. The opportunity for it to effect other party members never even entered my mind until after the decision to prepare the spell was already made.
I WANTED to attend GenCon. The opportunity to get my friends to pay for gas money never even entered my mind until after I had purchased my ticket.

The timing of the thought to charge money for the service is irrelevant. All that is relevant is the value of the service.

[Vowtz]

"Who wants to walk over the sewage instead of through it?" Naturally they all chimed in "I do" as what character would choose to walk through icy sewage when given the option to walk on the surface? I then said. "ten gold each" the whole group erupted in laughter.Then you receive the gold and cast a fake spell, and wait to see the party's fighter fall in icy crap.

[Diefje]

Let's just say that it was non-good and get on with it.

[Karoht]

Level 6 Bard. After a failed assassination attempt on a high ranking official, we decided to wait things out. Sure enough, our attempts to gather information on said official paid off. We found a nice public event he was planning on attending. And we dug up some dirt on him. And then proceeded to spill the beans, rather loudly, at said event.
As a Bard I proceeded to Facinate the crowd to let me tell the full story, complete with the typical Bardic embellishment.
One angry, unruly mob later, I pop invisibility, move through the crowd, and buff them with my music, as they proceed to curbstomp the guy. And his guards. To death. With their boots.

He was a good man. We just took a few dirty little secrets and warped them into extremely dirty big conspiracy style secrets, and let the fears of the people (and some Bardic prompting) take their natural course.


Same character, different town. We were told to pretty much wipe the town off the map. And while that would have been just fine, it would have ended in a showdown with quite a few people with access to things like Smite Evil. And yes, we were all very very evil people.
So what did we do?
Pinned all the towns problems on these guys, started some infighting between the Paladins and the Inquisitors, and rather than fight our way through a full garrison of both entrenched in a castle, we only had to face off against a mere 3 paladins and 6 Inquisitors, on open ground, with the help of yet another unruley mob. And then slaughtered the town right after.


Same combat as the above. One of the players has access to Dominate as a spell like ability via some wonky template. He uses it on a child, hands her a knife. She runs up to her dad, jumps on his back just as the combat ends. Says I love you to her dad. Then yells out "KNIFE EYE ATTACK" and stabs him in the eye. Dad crumples to the ground, child ends up undominated at this point, just starts to cry after realizing what just happened, and then she gets stuffed into a trunk and left in the middle of the bloody mess that we made of the rest of the people. Why the trunk? We were told to leave exactly 1 survivor. The player took that as a challenge, to really really 'sell it' to whoever found her that our master means business. Yeah.


The rest of the campaign has been relatively tame thus far. We've been more anti-heroes rather than evil villians.

[Morithias]

One time a DM said he would allow evil PCs in his party (on a side note he never allowed it again after this point).

So I wrote a backstory, and stored it in a sealed container.

Up until this point, we were going through Baator. And were on the 6th level of hell. Glasya's layer, the whole party was around level 30.

We reach Glasya and proceed to fight her. While she is 3 hit points away from death (In character I knew this cause I had the combat focus feat). I pull out the container and give it to the DM.

This is what it read.

"Although he has PRETENDED to be the neutral good housewife cleric of estanna she is actually the LE cleric of Glasya and will now betray the party."

And I proceed to whack the fighter who was about to kill her in the back of the head, knocking him outcold.

Funny thing, I also had made an epic spell that gives a template to a person, what template? Quasi-deity.

Needless to say Asmodeus was pissed off that his daughter's new boyfriend had made her a god.

[Lord Vukodlak]

I honestly have no idea if your character's act was selfish or not. All I know is that your character was charging money for a service. The selfish aspect would be what your character would use that money for, and whether your character would reciprocate paying for services performed by his party members. Your example is not enough to conclude "evil."

Again, you need to state that it went to that big gold statue, instead of healing potions.
The money hasn't actually been spent yet but it is intended for personal use. It will probably go towards upgrading equipment or spell research.(as non-core spells require they be researched in this campaign but its cheaper then the DMG). The most generious thing he may do with that 40gp is have it fashioned as decorations onto a belt for his wife who runs the Inn the party stays at.



I WANTED to attend GenCon. The opportunity to get my friends to pay for gas money never even entered my mind until after I had purchased my ticket.
The timing of the thought to charge money for the service is irrelevant. All that is relevant is the value of the service.
Different situation. Because your giving them a ride to GenCon. If you don't drive them they need to find there own transport. What if you had waited until you were all standing outside your car to ask for gas money? But that doesn't quite work either.

A real life comparative example would be say Jack and John are both going to the same place. Its important that they arrive together and do the job together at said place. Its pouring rain outside. Jack brought his oversized Umberla with him. Its actually designed for at least two people to stand under it and stay try. Jack decides to charge John money to stay out of the pouring rain for simply standing next to him.

[KillianHawkeye]

Disagree. Even a good character could get away with charging teammates for services, because greed is neutral.

You really think a palain could get away with it? A regular good character can perform some evil acts here and there without becoming evil. As alignments are guidelines and not strait jackets. Just because they can do it at there alignment doesn't mean the act isn't evil. The only real bench mark is the paladin who is supposed to be a boyscout. And greed is traditionally defined as evil.

Absolutely, because it's NOT evil. Greed is simply human nature, and therefore neutral in my view. Your opinion may differ, but let me offer this argument:

Greed is nothing but a motivational force. It can motivate you to take a variety of actions. Even if you do evil (by taking from those who have very little, for example), it is still your actions which are evil, not your motivations.

[Sith_Happens]

Needless to say Asmodeus was pissed off that his daughter's new boyfriend had made her a god.

And suddenly I am imagining some kind of late-night sitcom centered around Asmodeus having to deal with your shenanigans.

"I don't care if you made it into your mindless thrall, if I see a Solar within three layers of my daughter again there will be Hell to pay!"
"Hey, you're the one who wouldn't let us borrow your Ruby Rod."
"For the last time, it is an artifact of unspeakable evil fashioned by my own hand, NOT a sex toy!"

[Lord Vukodlak]

Absolutely, because it's NOT evil. Greed is simply human nature, and therefore neutral in my view. Your opinion may differ, but let me offer this argument:

Greed is nothing but a motivational force. It can motivate you to take a variety of actions. Even if you do evil (by taking from those who have very little, for example), it is still your actions which are evil, not your motivations.

Your defintion of greed is not the same as the actual one.

[KillianHawkeye]

Your defintion of greed is not the same as the actual one.

Really? :smallconfused:


greed
noun
excessive or rapacious desire, especially for wealth or possessions.

In what way is that evil, exactly? It's just desire. Excessive, yes, but not evil.

Desire doesn't hurt anyone by itself. You can satisfy greed by working super hard or by stealing from people. Greed itself isn't the problem. It's what you do about it that can be good or evil.

[Socratov]

I'm surprised none of you have mentoned intent. Minor evil acts might just as well be neutral because they are not that evil. However, the intent matters. If you go out of your way to extrot money from your party like arranging for your party to clean the sewers as a plan to extort money from your party. However, since it came up anyway and you micht just as well, it's not an evil act, though a neutral one (and a petty one at that).

[Morithias]

And suddenly I am imagining some kind of late-night sitcom centered around Asmodeus having to deal with your shenanigans.

"I don't care if you made it into your mindless thrall, if I see a Solar within three layers of my daughter again there will be Hell to pay!"
"Hey, you're the one who wouldn't let us borrow your Ruby Rod."
"For the last time, it is an artifact of unspeakable evil fashioned by my own hand, NOT a sex toy!"

I am VERY tempted to start making a webshow based on this premise. It sounds hilarious.

[Socratov]

plws link if you do, I would seriously and religiously watch it....

[Lord Vukodlak]

I'm surprised none of you have mentoned intent.

I'm sorry if the intent wasn't clear from the begining. He extorted the money from the party not for the monatary gain but for the pleasure of extorting the money.

[Diefje]

I'm sorry if the intent wasn't clear from the begining. He extorted the money from the party not for the monatary gain but for the pleasure of extorting the money.

... You mean, to raise money for the rebuilding of that orphanage that mysteriously burned down last week.

[Karoht]

I'm sorry if the intent wasn't clear from the begining. He extorted the money from the party not for the monatary gain but for the pleasure of extorting the money.So he performed a (non-good) act for the sole purpose of enjoyment experienced by performing a (non-good) act. Yeah, that sounds like an evil act. There's a left-field arguement that could push that to neutral, but the fact that it's a left-field arguement pretty much says what I think about it's plausibility.

[Username_too_lo]

Giving old toys to a children's home = Good.

Throwing toys away = Neutral.

Setting fire to toys in front of said children and mocking them = Evil.

That is all.

[Karoht]

Giving old toys to a children's home = Good.

Throwing toys away = Neutral.

Setting fire to toys in front of said children and mocking them = Evil.

That is all.

What about Throwing toys away to avoid doing good. Still neutral?

[Username_too_lo]

And oo I got upgraded! :smallbiggrin:

[Gullintanni]

What about Throwing toys away to avoid doing good. Still neutral?

Yes. Because avoiding doing good is not the same as doing evil. Doing evil is doing evil. Doing good is doing good. And doing neither is neutral.

Intent doesn't factor into the event. For example, a Paladin who's been mandated to charge for all spellcasting services in order to pay for the upkeep of his order is doing both a lawful and good act by charging you for helping you walk across water to avoid sewage, because it supports his lawful and good order.

On the other hand, if he's using the money to pay hitmen to kick puppies, then suddenly, the character charging for spellcasting is doing evil.

Except that in both cases, the collection of funds for services rendered is neutral. Giving your profits to uphold a lawful good religious order is following your code therefore, a lawful good act. Giving money to people to kick puppies is evil. Neither of those events has any bearing on the fact that initially you're just making money...which is still just neutral.

[Lord Vukodlak]

... You mean, to raise money for the rebuilding of that orphanage that mysteriously burned down last week.

Oh my cleric Kain wouldn't burn down an orphanage well not without getting paid... paid a lot. It just wouldn't be worth the headaches. And making children suffer for the sake of it is just chlidish and when he became a man he put away childish things.
Besides orphanages keep children off the street and reduce crime thus leading to a more orderly society. Now buliding a workshop to employ the children of the orphanage. That he might he do. And he'd want the orphanage around but underfunded so he wouldn't have to house them but they'd still need to work.



Intent doesn't factor into the event. For example, a Paladin who's been mandated to charge for all spellcasting services in order to pay for the upkeep of his order is doing both a lawful and good act by charging you for helping you walk across water to avoid sewage, because it supports his lawful and good order.
There is a problem with your example what if the law prevented a Paladin from performing life saving magic because the subject didn't have the ability to pay. Wouldn't it be an evil act to refuse to save his life over money?

This group is also clearing the sewer of dangerious monsters, that seems to support the cause of good and order more then a little cash. While a law mandiating the paladin charge his companions money undermines the good the group could otherwise be doing.

Paladin's are lawful because they believe in order and follow a strict code of conduct. Not because they are lawful stupid and follow them blindly regardless of the implications. Will the paladin still get an equal share of the treasure from the adventure despite charging companions for his services?

Charging gold to some guys off the street who go looking for trouble, is very different then charging gold to the guys your supposed to be helping to clear an area of monsters. You need to save your magic for when its needed.

The law you describe can very easily undermine the very reason it exists.


Now, if the waters were filled with diseased piranha, then failing to provide said water walking except for a cost would cross the threshold from jerk into evil.
Its sewage it may not have piranha but its certainly horridly diseased. Where do you think Filth fever comes from.

[The Glyphstone]

I disagree with this. Choosing to effect everybody would be a good act. Choosing to effect just yourself is clearly a selfish, but not malicious act. If the party wants in on the spell, and you request payment, then technically they're asking for the services of a spellcaster and the relevant prices are in the PHB. You're an opportunistic profiteering jerk, and you may be sitting on the southern borders of neutral, but you're not necessarily doing evil.

Now, if the waters were filled with diseased piranha, then failing to provide said water walking except for a cost would cross the threshold from jerk into evil. Bonus style points if you divined the trip ahead of time and put the piranha there yourself :smallwink:

So, wouldn't charging them 10GP each actually be a Good act then, since it's offering said service at a discount? :)

[Gnaeus]

There is a problem with your example what if the law prevented a Paladin from performing life saving magic because the subject didn't have the ability to pay. Wouldn't it be an evil act to refuse to save his life over money?

No. It simply would not be a good act. It might be an egregious violation of his order's code, or of his Deity's tenets, or it might not.

[Gullintanni]

There is a problem with your example what if the law prevented a Paladin from performing life saving magic because the subject didn't have the ability to pay. Wouldn't it be an evil act to refuse to save his life over money?



No. It simply would not be a good act. It might be an egregious violation of his order's code, or of his Deity's tenets, or it might not.

The good response here would be for the Paladin to pay for the life saving magic out of his own pocket and then discuss repayment with the person he had just revived. He could thereby preserve his code, and protect the weak.

Assuming the charges for spellcasting are going to be feeding say thousands of people...well...1 gold coin worth of food saves a lot more people from starvation than 1 gold coin worth of spellcasting saves from bleeding out. Part of being good in a realistic world means accepting that you can't save everyone...and in this case, selling your spells saves more people than giving them away for free.

Therefore letting the person bleed out is neutral.

Stabbing the afflicted repeatedly in the face while shouting "Smite Evil!" is probably the evil course of action...even if the poor dying commoner is actually evil. :smalltongue:


So, wouldn't charging them 10GP each actually be a Good act then, since it's offering said service at a discount? :)

See...I can play devil's advocate with this. A discount means that the paladin's order isn't getting full value for the spell, so the paladin is essentially ripping off the good guys. In this case, giving a discount might cause him to fall :smalltongue:

In all seriousness though, an order of Paladins offering healing would probably be offering significantly discounted spellcasting for poor souls. They'd measure their operational costs against who they could save and offer to help those most in need for the least possible amount of gold.

[TurtleKing]

Alright I have 3 all by the same character. Now so far they rest have been in a sandbox campaign for 1-2 years. Come along my character who just so happens to be LG.

1. In having bought a portal out of the Abyss I could have also bought 100-300 human slaves for bodyguards or 6 Ogres. I went with the Ogres yet 5 remained because one was eaten. I forgot to buy food.

2. Later on I was playing my character so awesomely that another character wanted to pray to my dieties for assistance. Now I am playing a race that is the embodiment of failure so praying to those dieties is to become what I am. Yea didn't like becoming an embodiment of failure to the point turned to the other side for help.

3. This is the big one as for the last 3-4 months the campaign went from sandbox to being focused about my characters backstory. Yep you heard me Thigardo stole the campaign.

Thigardo, Prinny Diety of Legend may you continue to inspire.

[Deophaun]

I'm surprised none of you have mentoned intent. Minor evil acts might just as well be neutral because they are not that evil. However, the intent matters.
It really doesn't. The greatest crimes in human history have had the perpetrators defending themselves as only having the best of intentions. Meanwhile, Jerry Lewis will tell you he does his charity work for selfish reasons. Intent doesn't make Mao good and Lewis evil.

Roads to hell and all of that.

If you go out of your way to extrot money from your party like arranging for your party to clean the sewers as a plan to extort money from your party.
Kind of like people who become doctors because the profession makes a pretty penny?

And if, after arranging for this whole sewer cleaning operation, he changes his mind about charging the party, what then? Or the modern medical student, driven by dreams of mansions and Mercedes, makes it to the real world and decides he doesn't care about the money and so opens a free clinic. The intent is still the intent. Can't travel back in time and change it (without a wish spell, at least, or some neutrinos).

No, what matters are your actual actions. If a selfish intent can get you to perform good acts, that's actually a really nice place to be.

[Karoht]

I would argue that intention is a factor, but then so is the act.

Your intention was to do a good thing, but through no fault of your own do a terrible thing. It's a factor that makes the act not necessarily evil. But due to the subjective nature of the discussion, I'm hard pressed to find a solid example of this, and I don't want to attempt to craft a hypothetical.

I tend to look at the net outcome of an act if it is good or evil. Is the net result positive to someone, or the rest of the world? Odds are it's a good act. Is the net result negative to someone, or the rest of the world? Odds are it's a negative act.

Robbing the rich to give to the poor. Man, there is an example that can get muddy in a hurry. Sure, you might be doing good by helping the poor, thereby balancing a social injustice. On the other hand, the rich person you rob may or may not have acquired that wealth through hard work and fair means. Net result is that you still feed a bunch of people who otherwise could not feed themselves, while the rich guy might not buy an extra yacht that year. But if we overanalyse this further, the rich guy not buying the extra yacht (he buys two that year instead of three) might mean less jobs or less wealth in the hands of others who also need it more than the rich man.

This is why concepts like right and wrong, good and evil, are really really open to interpretation, and in many ways are difficult to apply well in every situation. Doing good can do harm. Doing harm can do good. Intending to do good might be irrelivant if you actually cause harm. Intending to do harm might be irrelivant if you actually cause some form of good.

[Diefje]

Oh, I have a good one for muddy waters.

We're investigating a sealed off section of the local mage tower. The previous owner was suspected of actually being an Evil Bastard (we find out later he is). We find a some rooms. One of them is a slave pen. Slavery is perfectly legal in our world, but these slaves were mutilated, diseased and had their wills broken. We discuss (at length, and for a few weeks it comes up and we discuss it more) and it's pretty much me and the wizard who think we should try to save them, and the rest (including a NG cleric and paladin) thinks we should just mercy kill them. They end up killing them.

We find a dark temple with a few priests/cultists who try to talk to us, but I'm pissed off that they pretty much made us kill those poor people. I start the fight, and we dispatch of them easily.

The next room has some weird half-ghouls that are feasting on more slaves, some are still alive. We attack, and succeed. The half-ghouls turn out to not actually be undead. Very strange. This time we convince the rest of the party to spare them.


After the rest of the dungeon gets cleared, we load the mutilated, diseased, decrepit, poor slaves on a cart and drive them back to town. The rest of the party went ahead, because they didn't want to deal with it, so it's pretty much just me and the wizard. We get stopped by the guards, we explain the whole situation. They get the sheriff, sheriff takes us back to confirm our story, and sees how we killed people and even priests. We include the rest of our party and everyone gets arrested. The slaves get brought to the temple, me and the wizard insist on getting checked out too. Turns out it was the Black Plague. We get to roll Fort saves to survive (3x success in a row), we both make it, but the slaves do not. The infection spreads through the town, luckily there were some elves who were immune who could stop the spread before total annihilation.


We did't get put to death but for our crimes, probably because we were the favorites of the local Duke (and we were the heroes of the adventure), and the dubious nature of the temple and the undeadish things. But we got half our belongings taken and we were exiled. Paved with good intentions indeed.

[KillianHawkeye]

So he performed a (non-good) act for the sole purpose of enjoyment experienced by performing a (non-good) act. Yeah, that sounds like an evil act.

So, wait, non-good plus non-good equals evil? In what universe? :smallconfused:

[Karoht]

So, wait, non-good plus non-good equals evil? In what universe? :smallconfused:
Depends. Does this universe have written laws of good and evil and which constitutes which?
More over, you're implying what I said was a hard and fast rule, where as if you read my other post, I indicated that such hard and fast rules don't exist, due to the subjective nature of good and evil.
You also missed the part where I said "sounds like."

"So he performed a (non-good) act for the sole purpose of enjoyment experienced by performing a (non-good) act. Yeah, that sounds like an evil act." Because this was obviously not clear enough, lets change the parts that were in brackets. (Hint-They were in brackets for this exact reason)

"So he performed an (evil) act for the sole purpose of enjoyment experienced by performing an (evil) act. Yeah, that sounds like an evil act."
In laymans terms, he performed an evil act because he enjoys performing evil acts.
Example-He murdered some children because he particularly enjoys their screaming.
Most people would brand that as evil, or at the very least sociopathy.

[KillianHawkeye]

A. Non-good is not the same as evil (once again).

B. Alignment in D&D is actually not subjective.

C. I really don't know what "sounds like" has to do with anything. I suspect you are trying to distract me.

D. NON-GOOD IS NOT THE SAME AS EVIL!

[Elboxo]

Haven't actually done this one yet, but with this very angry and evil bard I've made ( I was annoyed my old character died due to team stupidity >:C )
well, I've got the spell puppeteer, and it says the person gets a second save to stop from killing themselves, else they fall into a coma or some such for 1d4 rounds.

The point is I plan on making the most of puppeteer and the first shop owner or person to annoy me will be under my command via puppeteer, where I will make them walk into a room with their children in it and cut their own throat, if they pass the second save, my Imp will kill/eat them infront of the family.

I plan on being rather evil and malicious for the sake of it. Also blindness. I plan on making the most of this to people who annoy me

[Gullintanni]

My party and I, well...we stole a ship. A galley all to ourselves. My Cleric devised a plan where he would begin to preach to the guards, and as part of the sermon, cast an Enthrall spell.

They listened with rapt attention as my party proceeded to climb aboard the nearby galley, and man its posts. As I concluded my sermon, and those in the crowd began considering a new faith, when they finally came to their senses, they got to watch me sail into the distance with their ship.

I insisted, of course, that the party paint the ship black and emblazon the emblem of my deity on the back of the ship (and with the help of a few spells, this wasn't particularly difficult), in accordance with the faith of my cleric who'd helped them "liberate" the ship. I worshiped Hextor.

This ensured, of course, that well after my departure from the party, they would continue to be hunted by Heironeous' paladins and my party, on meeting them, would be forced to slaughter the servants of the good god, or return the ship they had stolen and face sentencing. In short, the party, by failing their Knowledge [Religion] checks, unknowingly decorated their ship in such a way that they'd HAVE to continue doing evil just to keep their ship and remain free.

If I were to do the same today, I'd christen the ship, "The Evil that Keeps on Giving", in honour of my dear friends.