[3.5] Hellbred Paladin + Fell Animate Question

[babus]

What happens when a Hellbred Paladin casts Animate Dead (Sword of the Arcane Order for the how he got it)? Does he Fall or does the Evil Exception ability that lets you cast evil spells or wield evil weapons without violating your Code of Conduct prevent you from losing your class features?

On the same note, does the Fell Animate Metamagic allow a Paladin of a different race to animate a zombie without Falling, given that the feat does not add an [Evil] descriptor to the spell its applied to?

[tyckspoon]

Evil Exception specifically does *not* shield you from breaking Code of Conduct. A Hellbred Paladin is thematic as all heck, but does not stand to get a lot of use of that particular feature for that reason- he still falls if he actually does something evil (so he could, for example, wear a suit of Demon Armor without suffering the negative level, but he falls if he actually uses its Contagion ability, because that's an [Evil] spell and hence an evil act.)

Fell Animate.. You would probably get away with taking the feat and even using it (assuming you can find a damaging Paladin spell that can afford to hold 3 levels worth of metamagic adjustment. Good luck.) but the prospective necromancing Paladin would then rapidly get into trouble for creating and commanding an Always Evil creature - it directly and flagrantly violates the association clauses of the code. That is, assuming you could sell your DM on the very strictly legalistic approach required to make it possible for creating any form of undead to be a (mechanically, anyways) non-evil act.

[babus]

Fell Animate.. You would probably get away with taking the feat and even using it (assuming you can find a damaging Paladin spell that can afford to hold 3 levels worth of metamagic adjustment. Good luck.) but the prospective necromancing Paladin would then rapidly get into trouble for creating and commanding an Always Evil creature - it directly and flagrantly violates the association clauses of the code. That is, assuming you could sell your DM on the very strictly legalistic approach required to make it possible for creating any form of undead to be a (mechanically, anyways) non-evil act.

Yeah, I was thinking Easy Metamagic and Metamagic School Focus (requires a Spell Focus) along with using the Illumian race to pick up their 2/day Divine Meta Magic. With Flaws, that means I can can pick up Sword of the Arcane Order at level 6.

Only issue is that it's terribly unoptimal and Paladins are already pretty low-tier, but it could be workable in a more relaxed group.


Evil Exception specifically does *not* shield you from breaking Code of Conduct. A Hellbred Paladin is thematic as all heck, but does not stand to get a lot of use of that particular feature for that reason- he still falls if he actually does something evil (so he could, for example, wear a suit of Demon Armor without suffering the negative level, but he falls if he actually uses its Contagion ability, because that's an [Evil] spell and hence an evil act.)
Ah, point. I had thought that using an evil sword might fall under the same business as casting an evil spell, but oh well.

[Cog]

Yeah, I was thinking Easy Metamagic and Metamagic School Focus (requires a Spell Focus) along with using the Illumian race to pick up their 2/day Divine Meta Magic. With Flaws, that means I can can pick up Sword of the Arcane Order at level 6.

If you become a Hellbred, you're no longer an Illumian, and so lose that advantage.

[babus]

If you become a Hellbred, you're no longer an Illumian, and so lose that advantage.

That's a good point, though Evil Exception won't be needed if the Fell Animate trick bypasses the Evil Spell issue on its own.


but the prospective necromancing Paladin would then rapidly get into trouble for creating and commanding an Always Evil creature - it directly and flagrantly violates the association clauses of the code.

I've heard good arguments for the the committing of an Evil act being the only thing that results in a Fall, with the rest being roleplay guidelines. Now, granted, a continuous violation of ones own code will rapidly result in a change of alignment (with the same result), but that's less of an issue than the automatic drop. There's also the fact that the undead raised are not people, but mindless tools who commit only as much evil as the Paladin instructs them to, which unless he desires to Fall, is none. I mean, while Undead ping as evil, they don't have the Evil creature type, and negative energy itself isn't evil, nor is the spell that makes them (in my particular case) evil, so if I switch Detect Evil out for Detect Magic using the Golden Lion ACF, the only evidence he'll have that the mindless creature in front of him secretly wants to kick puppies is the fact that the grass seems to turn yellow when they stand on it, which is a negative energy thing, not an evil thing.