nature of evil in 3.5

[robertbevan]

hello everyone.

i'm interested in making an evil npc character for the pc's to encounter, and i'm trying to explore the nature of evil in the game.

the character in my mind is a cleric that is a few levels higher than the pc's... not the sort of guy they'd want to tangle with. but despite his evil, he's actually a pretty nice guy. he's not a puppy-kicking sort of dude. he's just inherently selfish.

they'll probably encounter him sitting on his front porch, and he'll aim a big-ass crossbow at them as they approach and demand to know what they're doing on his property, but once he sees they aren't a threat, he'll invite them up, and maybe offer them a glass of lemonade or something. how does that jive with him being evil? i'm thinking even evil old guys appreciate some company.

so what, exactly, makes him evil? that's just the way he's aligned. he'll have zombies working in his garden, but they aren't necessarily even people he killed. maybe they died of a pox or something, and he just animated their bodies because 'hey, free laborers!'

he isn't the sort of guy who would attack someone for no reason, but he also wouldn't waste a bucket of water by throwing it on someone who was on fire.


was this all leading up to a question?

yes. does the above description fall in line with "evil" in a d&d 3.5 world?

[Yuki Akuma]

You can be evil without being a murderous psychopath, yes.

[robertbevan]

You can be evil without being a murderous psychopath, yes.

yes. but is the character i described actually evil? i ran it by a couple of my friends, and they said he sounded neutral on that axis.

the whole purpose of this exercise is to play around with the meaning of alignments.

so is the character i described in line with the 3.5 version of "evil"? even if he's not the best example of it, would the fact that his alignment is "evil" be a problem?

[Bouregard]

hello everyone.

i'm interested in making an evil npc character for the pc's to encounter, and i'm trying to explore the nature of evil in the game.

the character in my mind is a cleric that is a few levels higher than the pc's... not the sort of guy they'd want to tangle with. but despite his evil, he's actually a pretty nice guy. he's not a puppy-kicking sort of dude. he's just inherently selfish.

they'll probably encounter him sitting on his front porch, and he'll aim a big-ass crossbow at them as they approach and demand to know what they're doing on his property, but once he sees they aren't a threat, he'll invite them up, and maybe offer them a glass of lemonade or something. how does that jive with him being evil? i'm thinking even evil old guys appreciate some company.

so what, exactly, makes him evil? that's just the way he's aligned. he'll have zombies working in his garden, but they aren't necessarily even people he killed. maybe they died of a pox or something, and he just animated their bodies because 'hey, free laborers!'

he isn't the sort of guy who would attack someone for no reason, but he also wouldn't waste a bucket of water by throwing it on someone who was on fire.


was this all leading up to a question?

yes. does the above description fall in line with "evil" in a d&d 3.5 world?

By RAW, disturbing the peace of the dead is an evil act as far as I know. The rules don't care for the reasons but doing it because you don't want to mow the lawn will definitly count as evil in my book. But I would really like to play such aa necromancer. Not the gloomy guy, no he's all nice right up to the point you'll find the skeletons in closet and suddenly it is all clear why he's always carrying a shovel around.

To add a bit evil to it to make him PC-logic-proof:

Maybe make him a petty, revengeful old man. He's all nice to the PC's because they never met him before and he would like some company.

Those skeletal laborers? Yes most of them where just randomly dug up because they happened to be buried close to the road, except one. This "special" skeleton, that's most of the time busy cleaning the latrine, was a peddler in live who short-changed him by accident.

If they keep him company for a few days he may tell this story in a very proud way.

[share and enjoy]

from what you've said he sounds more neutral than evil, you can be nice and also evil but if he's not working towards an evil goal and he doesn't have evil motivations then I don't think you can really call him evil.

if you're just going for subverting what's expected of alignments then off the top of my head I suppose you could go for a chaotic evil NPC that frees slaves or something and also does bad things like burning down villages or something or from the other direction a Lawful good slave owner could work.

if you want something like that cleric but evil remember selfishness doesn't make him evil anyone can be selfish, you could have him pointedly not helping with problems of people around him but he'd have to be going out of his way to not help them like if he owned fields or crops or something and during a blight magiced it away from his crops but centring the spell so it missed a neighbours crops when it wouldn't have hindered him at all to just place it so it got both.

[Wookie-ranger]

There is not enough information to know if he is evil, neutral, or good. Its only a single encounter and if he is living alone in the wild it is only natural to point a crossbow at someone that he never meat.

Some people would say that the skeletons/zombies are a sign that he is evil. By raw, yes (sort of); but by raw neutral Dread Necromancers can exist, so this is not a dead give away (pun intended). it only means that he is most likely not good.
I my games Skeletons and Zombies are Neutral (even though the spell is still evil). In the MM it says that they are mindless, and can only do as commanded by their maker; therefore they are no more evil then the sword used to kill someone innocent.


What i can see so far is that he is not Chaotic Evil or stupid. With the encounter described above he could be NN, LN, NE, or LE. (may be CN)

If you want to make him evil, he would need to be LE. That way a smart npc would know to first gather information about whoever approaches first and not just go all out crazy and try to chop the head of everyone that come up the road.
He might still want to use their bodies for animation, sell their souls to his deity, or use their skills as adventurers in retrieving magical items from "evil" tombs (that aren't actually evil).



btw:
I always disliked the idea that Evil means you need to attack everything at first sight, and that Good means that you always work together and give money to the poor.
Evil is a matter of perspective:

There are many good people, that can act evil, but think they are good. Here is an example of a Campaign that a played in a few years ago:
King A is convinced that his neighbor (King B)is evil (and vice versa) because of a long time feud over land rights and a river, both sides depend on this land and many soldiers have been slain by both sides. Add a few Ork raids that both sides think were planed by the other (what if one side knew about an upcoming raid but simply decided not to tell the other or interfere?) ; a questionable alliance with a dragon of two ; a bit misguided (but well meant) involvement of certain PCs and you have a really big problem deciding if some one is really evil.
A good examples of evil helping the people (at least for a time) is Desther from Neverwinter Nights. He helped out by providing healing and stuff until his plan come to conclusion.
Not D&D but in the TV show supernatural the leviathans wanted to cure cancer and kill all other monsters. Sounds all good, until you realize they only want humans as herd animals. (something that the leviathans thought was a good thing)

Edit:
Would it be evil to animate a few skeletons to work the fields during a famine; or would it be the 'good' thing to not cast the evil spell of animate dead and have people starve?

destroying souls is a very evil act. but what if you destroy the soul of a being that want to end all existence and can only be killed that way?

[KillianHawkeye]

Selfishness is not evil (see quote in sig).

[Hiro Protagonest]

This is why you should just use the color wheel and call him Black.

As for "evil intentions", a lot of evil isn't very self-aware. As for "look out for number one while crushing number two", does that mean that when you and your best friend since childhood succeed at taking over the world, you stb your friend in the heart? See "Emotional Responses" in the Gaming section on te sidebar.

[zlefin]

he sounds more neutral than evil to me; though a few tweaks could put him into evil land well enough.
He can certainly be evil while still being amiable, just look up affably evil on tvtropes for other examples.
It partially depends on your interpretation of necromancy; different DMs and game worlds have different interpretations of how inherently evil necromancy is; under some, he'd be evil from that alone pretty much; otherwise more neutralish.
Emphasizing the not gonna save anyone part could push him into evil territory, if it's only a trivial action for him to save people. Though why he doesn't just save them for a small fee is a question.
Of course different game worlds classify what counts as evil differently, so there's some leeway there; he still sounds more neutral to me though under any interpretation.

[NineThePuma]

This is why you should just use the color wheel and call him Black.

None of his behavior strikes me as Black. I'd call him White Green.



On Subject: he seems Neutral. Probably a Lawful Neutral cleric of Wee Jas, IMHO. I'd go drinking with him.

[Lord_Gareth]

None of his behavior strikes me as Black. I'd call him White Green.



On Subject: he seems Neutral. Probably a Lawful Neutral cleric of Wee Jas, IMHO. I'd go drinking with him.

Nah, Black. "Selfish" is one of Black's defining traits, and isolationism runs counter to White.

Neutral seems okay, but consider this: he may have had an evil past that he doesn't feel repentant for. In D&D that's enough to qualify you as evil. Sure, he's retired and nice /now/, but he might've been a pirate, or a murderer, or anything, really.

[Asheram]

btw:
I always disliked the idea that Evil means you need to attack everything at first sight, and that Good means that you always work together and give money to the poor.
Evil is a matter of perspective:


I've always imagined D&D Evil as the very absense of morality.

A good person might do an evil act, and he'll feel guilt and feel really bad for it.
A neutral person might do an evil act and feel bad, but hey, this is how the world is.
A evil person might do an evil act and feel absolutely nothing.

[KillianHawkeye]

As for "evil intentions", a lot of evil isn't very self-aware. As for "look out for number one while crushing number two", does that mean that when you and your best friend since childhood succeed at taking over the world, you stb your friend in the heart? See "Emotional Responses" in the Gaming section on te sidebar.

Possibly, but they'd have to be SO evil that they don't really have any friends at all for that to happen. Anyway, I'm sure there were several other people who were crushed on the way to taking over the world to make the best friend issue moot. You don't have to crush everyone to be evil.

But if you're motivated enough to try taking over the world, fulfilling selfish desires are probably not your only goals. People who want to rule the world are generally those who want to make it better or those who want to oppress everyone. The whole point of the quote in my sig is that selfishness doesn't lead to evil until you start hurting others to feed your self.

[NineThePuma]

So, what, all people who don't have friends are evil?

[KillianHawkeye]

I didn't say that. :smallconfused:

[NineThePuma]

Possibly, but they'd have to be SO evil that they don't really have any friends at all for that to happen.

Flipside: People without friends are evil by default, as they don't have someone to go "Hey, dude, wow. This is going too far."

[Randomguy]

I'd say that evil isn't necessarily "mean", but "cruel". Tarquin is a great example: He's perfectly nice to his allies, but has no qualms about enslaving, murdering and torturing if it's more convenient. Being nice to strangers, feeding kittens and petting dogs could also be evil, if they enjoy torturing and killing people to get their way. Another example of this would be if Belkar was nice, for example (during OOTS 439), and asked to take the donkey from the gnomes cart, and then killed the gnome to get the donkey when he refused.

[robertbevan]

let me try again.

i don't need to know whether or not the description i gave confirms his evil alignment. i'm more interested in whether or not the description disqualifies him from being evil.

like, if you were the DM, running a game in which the players routinely did things like sit on the porch and drink lemonade, and this player had "evil" written in the alignment box on his character sheet, would you reprimand him for not playing his alignment properly?

i was kind of drunk when i wrote the original post last night, and for some reason i thought it would be a good idea to try to deceive you good people. this isn't actually for a game i'm running or anything. this is for a sequel to my comic fantasy novel which is set in the equivalent of a d&d 3.5 world.

and in response to what someone said in one of the posts above, yes, what i'm trying to do is subvert the expectations of an evil alignment.

thank you everyone for your replies so far.

[NineThePuma]

I'd say no. The description given does not rule him out from being evil. He's definitely Non-good.

If one of my players had evil written on their sheet and acted like this, I wouldn't punish or reprimand them. Not all evil wants to rule the world. Some evil is fine with running a cheap inn in the middle of the woods and murdering adventurers in their sleep with a scythe for cheap gear.

[VGLordR2]

In my opinion, the character that you have described could definitely be evil. In fact, the setup is perfect for the best kind of evil. I'm imagining him as a person who thinks that his evil acts are good. He has rationalized that everything he is doing is for the benefit of mankind. For example, he could have set up a system that eliminates those with disabilities, in order to strengthen humanity as a whole. He could otherwise be a very kind person, happy to have tea with strangers. The things that he does are evil, but he thinks himself a good person.

That's just my 2 cp on how I think this guy could be developed.

[KillianHawkeye]

Flipside: People without friends are evil by default, as they don't have someone to go "Hey, dude, wow. This is going too far."

Sorry, it doesn't work that way. You can't just invert my statement and claim that that's implied by what I said. Not all statements are transitive.

In reality, there are all kinds of reasons why one might not have friends. Being a heartless SOB is only one of them.

Also, way to completely miss my point. :smallannoyed: