Fluff Vs. Crunch: The Grudge Match [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

Waker

2013-10-14, 08:04 PM

We've all had issues in the past where the mechanics of the game have come into conflict with flavor. Whether you're talking about Stormwind Fallacy when creating a character or having some issues with justifying how the ruler of a nation can be anything other than a T1-2 class. This thread is mostly aimed at pointing out issues with D&D, gripes about specific mechanics and ways that you try to reconcile these inconsistencies.
One of my pet peeves is seeing feats/classes that require a certain race or alignment to use, but don't actually use any aspect of that requirement. There are plenty of classes that require Dwarf if you make armor/weapons or wear heavy armor, Elves if you are vaguely associated with archery or mixing magic/sword. Similarly Paladins require you to be Lawful Good, even though none of their class abilities really has anything to do with Law.
I have no issues if you are talking about say being a Warforged Juggernaut which makes you more construct-ish and interacts with your plating or requiring a Radiant Servant of Pelor to have Turn Undead. That stuff actually makes a bit of sense to me.

Snowbluff

2013-10-14, 08:09 PM

All of the settings I've used or played in have been homebrew. I don't need your stinkin' regional fluff.:smalltongue:

Callin

2013-10-14, 08:12 PM

Im pretty much in the belief that all Crunch can be re-Fluffed as needed with approval of the DM. (Since I am usually the DM for 1 group I play with that usually isnt an issue lol)

limejuicepowder

2013-10-14, 08:27 PM

Psyren

2013-10-14, 08:31 PM

I dislike PrCs with racial requirements, but most of the good ones have race-neutral Adaptation sections anyway.

Actually, Adaptations in general are a good counter for this sort of thing.

Rubik

2013-10-14, 08:38 PM

It basically goes without saying, but alignment requirements....how I hate thee. Not a single class that I can think of off the top of my head has an alignment requirement that makes sense. The most egregious is probably assassin and warlock, but they all stink.This. It also goes for most feats and spells, as well. What's evil about being overweight? Underweight? Pinkie Pie-level crazy? What's inherently evil about the spell Mindrape, other than the name? Sure, there are plenty of people who are mentally ill that perform horrible misdeeds to others, but many others are victims who need help. And Mindrape has lots of perfectly neutral, and even good, uses. Even poison isn't evil, else snakes and spiders and sea anemones would have slicked-down mustaches to twirl evilly. I can honestly say I've never seen one do so.

ryu

2013-10-14, 08:44 PM

This. It also goes for most feats and spells, as well. What's evil about being overweight? Underweight? Pinkie Pie-level crazy? What's inherently evil about the spell Mindrape, other than the name? Sure, there are plenty of people who are mentally ill that perform horrible misdeeds to others, but many others are victims who need help. And Mindrape has lots of perfectly neutral, and even good, uses. Even poison isn't evil, else snakes and spiders and sea anemones would have slicked-down mustaches to twirl evilly. I can honestly say I've never seen one do so.

And so you have sparked my next life magic experiment. I hope you are proud of yourself.

The Glyphstone

2013-10-14, 08:46 PM

Soul Eater? The only way I can see that PrC being argued as non-Evil is if it's only used to destroy Evil people/creatures, and I didn't buy that line when BoED used it either.

SciChronic

2013-10-14, 08:48 PM

Even poison isn't evil, else snakes and spiders and sea anemones would have slicked-down mustaches to twirl evilly. I can honestly say I've never seen one do so.

You clearly haven't seen the snakes where I live.

some of the racial requirements make sense. Such as Champion of Correllon Larethian. Correllon Larethian is the god of elves, thus the elf/half-elf requirement.

Snowbluff

2013-10-14, 08:55 PM

Soul Eater? The only way I can see that PrC being argued as non-Evil is if it's only used to destroy Evil people/creatures, and I didn't buy that line when BoED used it either.

It's not that evil. The people (er... "monstrous people") in that class have been taken advantage of. I always imagine it as a Tainted Warrior done right if used for good.

JoshuaZ

2013-10-14, 08:56 PM

Soul Eater? The only way I can see that PrC being argued as non-Evil is if it's only used to destroy Evil people/creatures, and I didn't buy that line when BoED used it either.

Consider a knowledgeable sage who guides his people. People know that the sage has far more knowledge and skill than anyone else. So some tribe members voluntarily sacrifice themselves to help keep the sage alive. That said, I agree that's definitely stretching it.

Psyren

2013-10-14, 09:11 PM

137beth

2013-10-14, 09:16 PM

A character who follows traditions and lives a traditional life would be more likely to be lawful, by the alignment descriptions.

There is one core class that is essentially built around having an old-fashioned traditional lifestyle...and it is barred from using its main class feature if it has a lawful alignment:smallamused:

Rubik

2013-10-14, 09:17 PM

herrhauptmann

2013-10-14, 09:20 PM

What I hate most is regional requirements.

I can understand racial requirements for a feat/prc when it's appropriate. But regional? The humans from this region are more fierce and scary than normal humans, so they get Dreadful Wrath. But they look exactly like all other humans.

The Glyphstone

2013-10-14, 09:23 PM

Yeah, that's another bone I have to pick - alignment requirements. A lot of the "evil PrCs" just aren't; Ur-Priest doesn't do anything except thumb his nose at the establishment. Tainted Scholar is squicky and can do some nasty things if he goes crazy but there isn't really anything evil there either. Ditto Subverted Psion. Assassin - even putting aside the April Fool's joke - doesn't even have to kill his targets. And Anima Mage isn't really doing anything wrong either.

That said, there are some truly nasty PrCs out there, like Body Leech and Thrallherd.

Body Leech, sure. There's nothing really inherently evil about Thrallherd, though, unless you take the angle that the Thrallherd effect itself is deliberately propagated. It's cheesy as heck, but really not that much different than the Leadership feat it emulates.

Scow2

2013-10-14, 09:24 PM

Where I have Fluff trump/affect Crunch in not-RAW places is largely in Spell effects and casting. A fireball isn't merely Xd6 damage in a large radius - it's a great ball of fire!. A lot of people overlook the "Sets flammable objects alight" clause in that spell. Stinking Cloud is largely discouraged because although it's absolutely revolting within the radius... it still smells like skunk outside it (Just not direct-spray skunky), and it clings to everything. And, 'flavor text' interacts with the world, and is considered "Common Language" rules.

Psyren

2013-10-14, 09:44 PM

Body Leech, sure. There's nothing really inherently evil about Thrallherd, though, unless you take the angle that the Thrallherd effect itself is deliberately propagated. It's cheesy as heck, but really not that much different than the Leadership feat it emulates.

It's very different from Leadership. If you are a bad/sacrificial Leader, eventually your score will drop to the nethers and you will get no more followers. The Thrallherd meanwhile constantly gets fanatic replacements... none of them consciously aware why, just forced to go along with your every whim, always at war with Eurasia.

Rubik

2013-10-14, 09:48 PM

TheIronGolem

2013-10-14, 10:51 PM

The Viscount

2013-10-15, 01:38 PM

hamishspence

2013-10-15, 01:48 PM

Soul Eater? The only way I can see that PrC being argued as non-Evil is if it's only used to destroy Evil people/creatures, and I didn't buy that line when BoED used it either.

When did BoED ever suggest soul-destruction was non-Evil? If anything it's the source most prone to say things like "Torture is evil- even when used on villains".

tyckspoon

2013-10-15, 02:00 PM

When did BoED ever suggest soul-destruction was non-Evil? If anything it's the source most prone to say things like "Torture is evil- even when used on villains".

He might have meant in reference to Afflictions and Ravages; BoED does say that using poison and disease as weapons is Evil, no matter who you use it on, and then immediately turns around and introduces not-poison and not-diseases that are totally ok to use because they only work on Evil things.

Prime32

2013-10-15, 02:06 PM

What's inherently evil about the spell Mindrape, other than the name? Sure, there are plenty of people who are mentally ill that perform horrible misdeeds to others, but many others are victims who need help. And Mindrape has lots of perfectly neutral, and even good, uses. There's programmed amnesia, which is pretty much the same but non-evil.

hamishspence

2013-10-15, 02:09 PM

He might have meant in reference to Afflictions and Ravages; BoED does say that using poison and disease as weapons is Evil, no matter who you use it on, and then immediately turns around and introduces not-poison and not-diseases that are totally ok to use because they only work on Evil things.

Yes- that one is a bit odd. It's hard to justify them as "causing less suffering than poison or disease" given the way they're worded.

Afflictions may be an attempt to allow Good gods in D&D to create disease-like effects without falling afoul of "using disease as a weapon is evil"

137beth

2013-10-15, 02:27 PM

Usually, I pay little or no attention to whatever fluff the rulebooks offer for anything other than the setting. I look at the crunch and decide if it fits with what I'm trying to accomplish with my character build. If it does, then I use it, and if the existing fluff doesn't match then I make my own.

Classes, feats, skills, etc...these things are the bricks from which a character is built. If you find a brick that fits but isn't the right color, paint the damned thing.

I do the opposite. From a purely gaming perspective, I don't really like 3.X that much--the strategy isn't that complicated, but the rules are extremely complex. When I want a game, there are plenty of boardgames I can enjoy more.
I view the rules primarily as a tool to enhance the group storytelling. If the rules aren't helping, then those rules shouldn't be used.
Now, I could throw out every single rule and run free-form RPs, but I made the decision that I prefer having a rules system to help me.
When someone suggests using the crunch exactly as written but "refluffing", frequently what they are suggesting is to play the mechanical game by RAW, entirely separated from the storytelling.
Unfortunately, that means that the crunch no longer supports the story. It means you are really playing two separate games: one a war-game style combat and the other a fantasy narrative. Which is fine, except that I don't really like the crunch-game side of 3.5 as a game, I only use it to support the story (and for the most part I think it does a good job in that respect, with some modifications). So if the rules aren't being used to prop up the story, I might as well go play a free-form game.

Instead, what I do when there is a conflict between existing rules and the story my group wants to tell, is I change the rules. If a rule isn't helping the game, then it isn't a good rule for the game, and should be either thrown out or rewritten.

Snowbluff

2013-10-15, 02:31 PM

So what you're are saying is that it's fine for fluff written by no one at the table to ruin a game, but rules that do so get cut anyway.

137beth

2013-10-15, 02:40 PM

So what you're are saying is that it's fine for fluff written by no one at the table to ruin a game, but rules that do so get cut anyway.

:smallconfused:
No, it is not fine for anything to ruin a game, regardless of who wrote it, that's sort of obvious.

Of course if it was written by someone at the table, it may be harder to get rid of while keeping everyone happy than it would be if the problematic content was written by TSR/WotC, since no one I game with worries about hurting WotC's feelings by scrapping stuff they write (no one minds if I scrap "orcs are evil!!!", and none** of my players were upset when I ditched the mechanics of the truenamer).

**EDIT: the 'none' originally said 'one', which is wrong.

hamishspence

2013-10-15, 02:44 PM

137beth

2013-10-15, 03:05 PM

Seeing as they were only ever "Often CE" in 3.5ed anyway, and "often" alignments tend to be much heavier on the "cultural" than the "inborn" side, it really isn't stretching it much, to remove the "inborn" bit entirely.

Yea, maybe I should have used dragons as an example instead of orcs...

WoTC does actually encourage refluffing in a few of its splatbooks.
Indeed they do:smallsmile:
They also encourage re-crunching in core, and in some other splatbooks.
But again, WotC doesn't get to decide how my group plays.

The Glyphstone

2013-10-15, 04:53 PM

It's very different from Leadership. If you are a bad/sacrificial Leader, eventually your score will drop to the nethers and you will get no more followers. The Thrallherd meanwhile constantly gets fanatic replacements... none of them consciously aware why, just forced to go along with your every whim, always at war with Eurasia.

But if you're a Good (or Neutral) thrallherd, or you're evil and still care for those who follow you, you can be good leader, and your actions aren't evil.

For instance, Zuko in this story (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5398503/1/Embers) draws followers like moths to a literal flame. He doesn't mean to, but it's his nature. It's up to him what he does with them, just like with anyone else.

Exactly. The potential for abuse does not make something innately evil. And amusingly enough, Leadership doesn't work like that either...the only penalty that stacks is for multiple dead cohorts. "Caused The Death of Other Followers' is just a flat -1...you can feed one of your followers into a sausage grinder every day in front of the rest for amusement and your Leadership score will never drop more than once. Great Renown is actually worth a +2, the same as 'Cruelty' for -2, so if you are world-famous as the guy who makes his servants into sausages if they fail him or if he's bored, that comes out as a net +0. Logical? Heck no. RAW? Yes.

He might have meant in reference to Afflictions and Ravages; BoED does say that using poison and disease as weapons is Evil, no matter who you use it on, and then immediately turns around and introduces not-poison and not-diseases that are totally ok to use because they only work on Evil things.

Yeah, that's what I was talking about. BoED's blatant hypocrisy when it came to 'do evil unto evil' undermines any argument along those lines for me.

hamishspence

2013-10-15, 04:59 PM

Yeah, that's what I was talking about. BoED's blatant hypocrisy when it came to 'do evil unto evil' undermines any argument along those lines for me.

It has its flaws- but the basic concept- that the Forces of Good should at least make some effort to redeem their enemies, to cause the minimum amount of suffering necessary, and so forth, was a good one.

Snowbluff

2013-10-15, 05:12 PM

:smallconfused:
No, it is not fine for anything to ruin a game, regardless of who wrote it, that's sort of obvious. *nods* Good...

Of course if it was written by someone at the table, it may be harder to get rid of while keeping everyone happy than it would be if the problematic content was written by TSR/WotC, since no one I game with worries about hurting WotC's feelings by scrapping stuff they write (no one minds if I scrap "orcs are evil!!!", and one of my players were upset when I ditched the mechanics of the truenamer).
I encourage people doing their own fluff. Usually what a reasonable table of like minded gamers comes up for character fluff is better than the mish mash you are bound to get trying to coordinate using written material. It has many advantages over the chains in the books.

Psyren

2013-10-15, 05:22 PM

Follower deaths don't stack up but Cohort deaths do. Thralls and Believers meanwhile have no penalty either way, so you can feed them all to the sausage grinder without repercussions.

I consider it evil because, even with Leadership, you have to persuade your followers/cohorts to do what you want them to - i.e. they still have their own minds. Thralls don't - it's right there in the name even. And there's no save, no "against their nature" or any other chance for them to escape.

The XPH does them no favors either:

Thrallherds manipulate the minds of others as if they were clay in the hands of a sculptor. Some creatures are more susceptible than others to the thrallherd’s unconscious, but continual, call to service. And so they come, eager to be led, happy to follow, and completely under the thrallherd’s control. In this way, thrallherds keep a minor menagerie of enthralled servants that are anxious to do their will.

NPC thrallherds are perfect villains or valuable lieutenants because of each one’s ability to hold the minds of several underlings simultaneously, and without needing to actively recruit new believers to replace those that perish while executing their assigned duties.

To me that is far more evil than many of the things that D&D actually pins the label on, like necromancy.

Rubik

2013-10-15, 05:28 PM

Psyren

2013-10-15, 05:43 PM

And that explains why Charm Person, Dominate Person, Suggestion, and bardic music all have the [Evil] descriptor.

The thread is about fluff/crunch disconnect, and alignment descriptor problems are part of that. I would say that Dominate Person is easily more evil than, say, Deathwatch or Animate Dead.

EDIT: Uh, bardic music? What?

Rubik

2013-10-15, 05:51 PM

EDIT: Uh, bardic music? What?It contains Suggestion and Fascinate, both of which are mind-controlling effects that can be used to harm innocents greatly.

Also, Fireball, Lightning Bolt, Prismatic Sphere, Telekinesis, Magic Missile, and Polymorph Any Object, Cure X Wounds, Harm, and Heal can all be used to harm others, and so they should have the [Evil] tag as well.

Honestly, they all depend entirely on what you do with them, as do Leadership and thrallherd. They can all be used for Good, Neutral, Evil, Lawful, and Chaotic purposes, and thus should remain unaligned.

Jade_Tarem

2013-10-15, 05:53 PM

I was always under the impression that some of the alignment descriptors tossed on to various things were sociopolitically motivated. There was a time when D&D was under heavy fire because some people with way too much time on their hands (but apparently not enough time to actually read the books) thought it was all about devil worship and whatnot, so the Evil tag got added to anything traditionally considered shady or morally ambiguous so that WotC could point at it and say, "See? Only the BAD GUYS do that. Your children won't be playing Necromancers or Assassins, no sirree!"

I could be way off base, though, and I can't look it up at the moment...

Psyren

2013-10-15, 05:54 PM

Also, Fireball, Lightning Bolt, Prismatic Sphere, Telekinesis, Magic Missile, and Polymorph Any Object, Cure X Wounds, Harm, and Heal can all be used to harm others, and so they should have the [Evil] tag as well.

A very well-constructed straw man, but it doesn't address my point at all. I'll repeat it for you:

I would say that Dominate Person is easily more evil than, say, Deathwatch or Animate Dead.

And I never said anywhere that Leadership is evil.

EDIT: This is from the DMPC thread, but Talya summed up the difference between Leadership and Thrallherd quite well there.

Cohorts are not controlled by players. They are NPCs. They may owe allegiance to the player, but the player does not get to dictate exactly what they do or say. The DM speaks for them, the DM acts for them. That action is likely obeying whatever the PC asks them to do, but they are autonomous characters. They are not telepathically linked to their PC in some way that lets the player control them like a puppet.

navar100

2013-10-15, 05:58 PM

You clearly haven't seen the snakes where I live.

Do you live in the plains?
:smallbiggrin:

Frozen_Feet

2013-10-15, 06:00 PM

The line between "fluff" and "crunch" is arbitrary. At the end of day, the real distinquishing line is rules that are enforced, versus rules that aren't.

For me, Assassins actually killing their targets for profit (which is Evil in context of alignment, mind you) is far more important than the stated mechanics, so if one has to go, it's the crunch. Case in point, I have personally rewritten majority of core feats, core base classes and salient divine abilities in a big fit of "re-crunching".

Though it's all just homebrewing, whether you are making new "fluff" or new "crunch". The latter is just artificially held on a pedestal because it is supposedly "harder to make".

137beth

2013-10-15, 07:12 PM

Wow, seeing your quote made me notice a horrific typo in my original post that totally changed the meaning:smallredface:

*nods* Good...

I encourage people doing their own fluff. Usually what a reasonable table of like minded gamers comes up for character fluff is better than the mish mash you are bound to get trying to coordinate using written material. It has many advantages over the chains in the books.
Indeed. And I encourage people doing their own crunch. Usually what a reasonable table of like minded gamers comes up for character crunch is better than the mish mash you are bound to get trying to coordinate using written material. It has many advantages over the chains in the books.

Though it's all just homebrewing, whether you are making new "fluff" or new "crunch". The latter is just artificially held on a pedestal because it is supposedly "harder to make".
Indeed, there are cases where I find it much easier to make 'crunch'. In particular, once I have the fluff and desired CR for a monster, I find it relatively straightforwards to give it stats (unless it is extremely unusual...or demigod/deity level).

Snowbluff

2013-10-15, 07:22 PM

Indeed. And I encourage people doing their own crunch. Usually what a reasonable table of like minded gamers comes up for character crunch is better than the mish mash you are bound to get trying to coordinate using written material. It has many advantages over the chains in the books.

I see your argument is lacking. Why are you playing 3.5 if not for the rules?

It's really quite simple. If you don't like the rules, there is a forum for other games. A lot of people outright ignore the fluff of games anyway, since they are making characters with their fluff, and using the much more difficult to replace rules for the crunch.

TuggyNE

2013-10-15, 07:37 PM

The thread is about fluff/crunch disconnect, and alignment descriptor problems are part of that. I would say that Dominate Person is easily more evil than, say, Deathwatch or Animate Dead.

Anything is more evil than deathwatch. Even hallow. :smalltongue:

As far as animate dead, I figure that since it prevents resurrection, it must be doing some really naughty stuff with the person's soul, which is enough to get the [evil] tag in all cases. The very method it uses is inherently powered by evil.

Dominate person, while trivial to misuse to evil ends, is not itself powered by evil in the same way.

Rubik

2013-10-15, 07:42 PM

The very method it uses is inherently powered by evil.You mean negative energy, which is obviously evil due to being channeled from the entirely neutral Negative Energy Plane?

Scow2

2013-10-15, 07:42 PM

Yes- that one is a bit odd. It's hard to justify them as "causing less suffering than poison or disease" given the way they're worded.

Afflictions may be an attempt to allow Good gods in D&D to create disease-like effects without falling afoul of "using disease as a weapon is evil"Ravages don't cause any suffering. All they do is aggravate the evil within the person hit by them and turn their own vile nature against them. It's their own fault for being Evil - if they weren't Evil, the 'ravage' would have no effect whatsoever.

And yeah... Animate Dead, while it's observable ends aren't necessarily seen as evil. Well... it's completely ****ing with someone's soul and body, and creating a gaping channel for pure Antilife Energy to come into the world. Undead are Evil. Even "Good" undead are a blight on the world, and should move on to their well-deserved, final rest (Seriously - it's better for them up there anyway.)

You mean negative energy, which is obviously evil due to being channeled from the entirely neutral Negative Energy Plane?Negative Energy is so bad not even Primal Evil wants to touch that stuff.

ryu

2013-10-15, 07:52 PM

Ravages don't cause any suffering. All they do is aggravate the evil within the person hit by them and turn their own vile nature against them. It's their own fault for being Evil - if they weren't Evil, the 'ravage' would have no effect whatsoever.

And yeah... Animate Dead, while it's observable ends aren't necessarily seen as evil. Well... it's completely ****ing with someone's soul and body, and creating a gaping channel for pure Antilife Energy to come into the world. Undead are Evil. Even "Good" undead are a blight on the world, and should move on to their well-deserved, final rest (Seriously - it's better for them up there anyway.)
Negative Energy is so bad not even Primal Evil wants to touch that stuff.

Oh right. They DESERVE it, because they're evil? From the book that explicitly and regularly states that bringing unnecessary suffering against even villains is an evil act? That's so clearly sincere and lacking in any possible hypocrisy. I deny the qualifications of anyone who can't at least come up with an internally consistent system to arbitrate morality for ANY system.

137beth

2013-10-15, 08:10 PM

I see your argument is lacking. Why are you playing 3.5 if not for the rules?

It's really quite simple. If you don't like the rules, there is a forum for other games. A lot of people outright ignore the fluff of games anyway, since they are making characters with their fluff, and using the much more difficult to replace rules for the crunch.

I do use the rules. I don't use all the rules.
I use a vast majority of the core system rules. I usually use the standard rules for races. And I sometimes use non-core classes with relatively little mechanical tweaking. I rarely, however, use a core class exactly as written, although I normally use a published class as a starting point. You can think of it as (almost) everyone getting a homebrewed archetype/ACF, specifically to support their character concept.
Why do I use 3.5? Because I really like the general mechanics of the system. I just don't particularly like some aspects of individual classes. Or the lack of support for certain styles.
And, most of the time, I find 3.5 easier to adjust to my tastes than many other systems. It's not as flexible as, say, GURPS, but you only need to look at all the various independent subsystems in the game (MoI, ToB, binders, warlocks...) to see how easy it is to fit new mechanics into the game.
The DMG II sort of encourages this (very indirectly) in its advice on PrC design: it says you shouldn't require specific base classes (that's why arcane trickster requires "sneak attack +2d6", not "rogue level 3".) I don't need to use the specific default classes as written for it to still essentially be 3.5.

Now, I suppose you could argue that the distinction between the "central" rules of the system (BAB, ability scores, skills, etc) and stuff like classes is entirely arbitrary. But then, the distinction you are making between "crunch" and "fluff" is also very arbitrary, and both can affect the game (if a ruling noble of the country you are in has a "fluff"-related reason for hating your PC, that can have a meaningful impact on the campaign at low levels). So ultimately, you, too, have drawn an arbitrary line in the sand, distinguishing what you consider essential about the system, and thrown out stuff on the other side of that line. I've also drawn an equally arbitrary line, and my line happens not to be the same as your line. We're both still using 3.5, just not all of it.

Anything is more evil than deathwatch. Even hallow. :smalltongue:

As far as animate dead, I figure that since it prevents resurrection, it must be doing some really naughty stuff with the person's soul, which is enough to get the [evil] tag in all cases. The very method it uses is inherently powered by evil.

Dominate person, while trivial to misuse to evil ends, is not itself powered by evil in the same way.

Hmm, perhaps Dominate Person is powered by energy from the Enslaving-demiplane?

You mean negative energy, which is obviously evil due to being channeled from the entirely neutral Negative Energy Plane?

WotC consistently got confused over whether negative energy had an alignment. I mean, good clerics can't channel negative energy, so surely negative energy spells are [Evil]? So negative-energy powered Animate Dead is [Evil], while negative-energy powered Enervation is...oh, wait:smallbiggrin:
Paizo's had even more trouble. The PF bestiary specifies that the only creatures with fixed alignments are mindless creatures and outsiders. Since intelligent undead aren't either of those, that would normally mean undead aren't inherently evil.
Then they decided that in Golarion, undead really are truly evil, as much or more than fiends, and therefore there are no non-[Evil] spells to create undead allowed in Golarion.

Then, they released, in a Golarion specific book, this thing (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/s/skeleton-crew):smallsmile:

Snowbluff

2013-10-15, 08:27 PM

So you were lying to me while you were parroting my argument? :smallconfused:

137beth

2013-10-15, 08:36 PM

So you were lying to me while you were parroting my argument? :smallconfused:

How? :smallconfused:

Snowbluff

2013-10-15, 08:51 PM

How? :smallconfused:

I must draw the line on 'not using the fluff' to an extreme, because I use next to none of it. Even the crunchy fluffs are mushed, like regional feat requirements being waived. If you'red still using any of the crunch, you are using way more of it than the fluff I've been using. If anyone does what I do to the fluff, you're literally playing WoD and not d20. :smalltongue:

GoodbyeSoberDay

2013-10-15, 09:08 PM

RE: Classes where alignment requirements are sensible:

Incarnate.

That is all.

Silva Stormrage

2013-10-15, 09:14 PM

Anything is more evil than deathwatch. Even hallow. :smalltongue:

As far as animate dead, I figure that since it prevents resurrection, it must be doing some really naughty stuff with the person's soul, which is enough to get the [evil] tag in all cases. The very method it uses is inherently powered by evil.

Dominate person, while trivial to misuse to evil ends, is not itself powered by evil in the same way.

I think I am going to back Psyren here. Dominate person is probably more evil than animate dead or deathwatch (I swear I have no idea why thats [evil]) but there is a big difference between dominate person and the thrallherd class. The thrallherd has no precision whatsoever.

There is nothing in the Thrallherd class that states you can choose to call particular people, you kinda just call believers nearby who arrive in 24 hours. Based on leadership you might be able to try and call particular people but its not 100%. You can't choose to only call evil creatures to make them do good. And even then just being evil isn't a crime worthy enough of having your mind enslaved for all eternity. Also by RAW you can not STOP calling your thralls and believers, they show up every day after 24 hours. So if you lose a thrall or believer someone else in the world automatically loses their free will for the rest of their life.

So yes dominate person and the like can be used to stop a crime or in non evil acts. However, thrallherd has the decent chance of mind controlling good aligned people permanently. I don't care if the thrallherd then uses them to do good, thats still an evil act and is at BEST neutral.

Psyren

2013-10-15, 09:20 PM

RE: Classes where alignment requirements are sensible:

Incarnate.

That is all.

Even that screwed up, by making Chaos Incarnates have a ranged theme but not giving them a ranged weapon.

TuggyNE

2013-10-15, 09:29 PM

You mean negative energy, which is obviously evil due to being channeled from the entirely neutral Negative Energy Plane?

No. I meant the method I had just mentioned: harnessing a soul against its will and perverting it to unnatural ends. The use of negative energy is not in general evil, but the use of it in a way that is inseparable from soul abuse is.

WotC consistently got confused over whether negative energy had an alignment. I mean, good clerics can't channel negative energy, so surely negative energy spells are [Evil]?

They did indeed get confused, but not nearly that badly. (Especially since good clerics are merely unable to spontaneously cast inflict X wounds; they can still prepare them just fine.) And, as I said above, animate dead and undead in general aren't [evil] because of negative energy, but because they're Powered By A Forsaken Child (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PoweredByAForsakenChild).

Silva Stormrage

2013-10-15, 09:34 PM

They did indeed get confused, but not nearly that badly. (Especially since good clerics are merely unable to spontaneously cast inflict X wounds; they can still prepare them just fine.) And, as I said above, animate dead and undead in general aren't [evil] because of negative energy, but because they're Powered By A Forsaken Child (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PoweredByAForsakenChild).

Ya except that there is no evidence that undead are powered by a forsaken child. They are powered only by negative energy, which isn't evil as its from a neutral aligned plane.

You could make arguments for certain undead like liches who have to preform evil acts to become a lich (Except for the good aligned liches). But undead in general aren't powered by anything evil.

137beth

2013-10-15, 09:37 PM

=They did indeed get confused, but not nearly that badly. (Especially since good clerics are merely unable to spontaneously cast inflict X wounds; they can still prepare them just fine.) And, as I said above, animate dead and undead in general aren't [evil] because of negative energy, but because they're Powered By A Forsaken Child (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PoweredByAForsakenChild).
As I said above, Paizo got it even more confused with the Channel Negative Energy (which you actually can't do unless you are evil or neutral). WotC sort of had it with rebuke/command undead, but Paizo really has trouble understanding alignments.
Okay, okay, so they got rid of the [Evil] descriptor on Death Watch, so that's something...

Psyren

2013-10-15, 09:38 PM

My favored explanation for why animating dead is evil is that it Weakens The Veil - every undead creature you create makes it easier for uncontrolled spirits to slip through from the NEP, possess a body of their own (or simply stay incorporeal) and wreak havoc. And you wouldn't necessarily know where they'd come out. So necromancy would be irresponsible at best, like running a nuclear power plant and dumping the waste into some river somewhere.

Both Libris Mortis and Heroes of Horror hint at this possibility.

ryu

2013-10-15, 09:40 PM

Psyren

2013-10-15, 09:44 PM

So what you're telling me is that we just need to do all of our reanimating on a plane that doesn't also come with other people? Fine. Just do it all from the personal demiplane.

In that theory, the presence of the undead matter as much as the act of animating itself - so even if you raise them elsewhere and then take them back home with you, you'd still be damaging the veil because they continue to maintain an active link to the NEP.

Also, few necromancers will have access to a private demiplane (one containing corpses, no less) when they first start out.

EDIT: Here's one passage from Libris Mortis that supports the theory:

The very existence of even the weakest undead produces a constant drain on the energies of the Material Plane, which accounts for sensations of cold often attributed to the unliving. As part of the enchantment of their creation, undead “siphon” a bit of the energy flowing from the Material Plane toward the Negative Energy Plane. This “stolen” energy serves to power their ongoing existence.

Note that the drain is "constant" and powers their "ongoing" existence - so it continues beyond the moment of animation itself.

GoodbyeSoberDay

2013-10-15, 09:44 PM

Even that screwed up, by making Chaos Incarnates have a ranged theme but not giving them a ranged weapon.1. The only mechanic suggesting a ranged theme for Chaos Incarnates is their avatar; incarnates have plenty of other good melds to shape.
2. They do have proficiency in simple weapons, and like all incarnates have access to dissolving spittle. I agree they should have proficiency in martial weapons, including fun things like mighty composite bows, but this is a mechanical quibble IMO. I was just talking about the alignment requirements.

TuggyNE

2013-10-15, 11:40 PM

Ya except that there is no evidence that undead are powered by a forsaken child. They are powered only by negative energy, which isn't evil as its from a neutral aligned plane.

An undead made from the corpse of a given creature prevents that creature from being raised or resurrected by any effect at all, even those that can create replacement bodies out of nothing, until that undead is destroyed. That's the argument I was using earlier for assuming that they're powered by the perversion of the soul: why else would they block it that way?

ryu

2013-10-15, 11:47 PM

TuggyNE

2013-10-16, 12:17 AM

Because the gods who invented those resurrection spells directly and purposefully hate the undead as a part of life? Pelor the burning hate type shenanigans all up in this system?

That seems very strange, since as far as I know a) wish works the same way; b) no particular deity necessarily invented them; c) few or no deities, even those that like or tolerate undead, fail to grant (true) resurrection spells.

I mean, sure, you can invent some odd ill-fitting conspiracy theory if you want to, but the simplest explanation is the one I gave.

ryu

2013-10-16, 12:22 AM

That seems very strange, since as far as I know a) wish works the same way; b) no particular deity necessarily invented them; c) few or no deities, even those that like or tolerate undead, fail to grant (true) resurrection spells.

I mean, sure, you can invent some odd ill-fitting conspiracy theory if you want to, but the simplest explanation is the one I gave.

Well think about it. The gods have the power to bring back people whose souls have been utterly destroyed if they so choose so this clearly isn't a power issue. Based on that who benefits from spells openly demanding the death of undead to bring certain people back? Further liking or even tolerating a group doesn't always mean risking going out of ones way with risks in godly politics for them.

Psyren

2013-10-16, 12:42 AM

Oddly enough (well, not that oddly) Miracle is not subject to the no-undead raising restriction. And deities can cast Miracles of their own to accomplish effects even beyond the limits of their divine salient abilities by RAW.

TuggyNE

2013-10-16, 01:04 AM

Well think about it. The gods have the power to bring back people whose souls have been utterly destroyed if they so choose so this clearly isn't a power issue. Based on that who benefits from spells openly demanding the death of undead to bring certain people back? Further liking or even tolerating a group doesn't always mean risking going out of ones way with risks in godly politics for them.

Heh. Good old conspiracy theory language right there in the underlined. :smalltongue:

Anyway, it is a power issue, because otherwise all divine spells would be of nigh-infinite effectiveness, whatever the level; some things, clearly, are not for mortals to accomplish routinely, and proportional effort accomplishes roughly proportional ends.

The main point is, though, that most deities are not really opposed to undead; some hate them, but they're a minority, and by no means maintain any kind of monopoly on resurrection or healing power. As such, the ones that don't really care, or that actually rather support undead, would easily be able to go around the haters with minimal effort and deploy their own variant. What's Pelor going to do, revoke your resurrection-granting license?

And, of course, implementing such a restriction into the spell is not trivial to do: you have to check across planes and potentially into divination-blocked or antimagic areas to see if there's an undead around somewhere that matches this tag. That's far too potent an effect, even in a weird niche like this.

No, Occam's Razor applies here; the simplest explanation is that the reason for the restriction is inherent in the existence of the undead themselves, and therefore all resurrection does is check "if (afterlife.contains(soul) { return soul; } else { throw new UndeadMustBeDestroyedException(soul); }"* or the equivalent.

Oddly enough (well, not that oddly) Miracle is not subject to the no-undead raising restriction. And deities can cast Miracles of their own to accomplish effects even beyond the limits of their divine salient abilities by RAW.

I assume you mean "raising fallen allies to continue fighting"? The wording suggests that only really applies in context of a given battle or encounter, and it's only a rough example anyway. But hey, if your ally is killed and undeadified in a battle, maybe you can bring them back anyway. (In such a case, I'd adjudicate it as requiring the undead in question to fail a Will save against miracle's DC to be dusted and then the body revived from there. But that's just me.)

*Yeah, it would really want to be implemented more generally to include thinaun and so forth. Still.

Psyren

2013-10-16, 08:21 AM

I assume you mean "raising fallen allies to continue fighting"?

Possibly. The thing is, unlike Wish, Miracle can really do anything. Or rather, both of them can, but if a Miracle goes out of bounds, you simply get a "no" with no negative ramifications. You have nothing to lose by asking.

So your Miracle request would simply be for your deity to use their Miracle to revive your undead friend sight-unseen. DaD:

DEITIES AND SPELLCASTING

As characters of around 60th level, deities can freely pay even huge XP costs. Consider that a deity has a safe cushion of around 30,000 XP it can use every week for creating magic items and casting spells with experience point costs.

What happens when a deity casts miracle? Rather than imploring another deity to perform some task, the deity simply draws from its own divine power. It pays the experience point cost with hardly a second thought, and creates the effect it desires.

This is not to say I disagree with your interpretation of undead animation - it's pretty plausible. I simply prefer the idea that not being rezzable should be relegated to intelligent undead, as Libris Mortis specifies those trap the soul within the corpse and twist it. I mean, it makes no sense to me that if you are dead, and someone animates your skeleton and sticks it within an entire legion of skeletons, that a deity's hands would be tied until they find the exact skeleton that used to be you. I think the restriction should only apply to intelligent undead.

Silva Stormrage

2013-10-16, 11:34 AM

An undead made from the corpse of a given creature prevents that creature from being raised or resurrected by any effect at all, even those that can create replacement bodies out of nothing, until that undead is destroyed. That's the argument I was using earlier for assuming that they're powered by the perversion of the soul: why else would they block it that way?

Ya but its not actually evidence for undead to mess with the soul in any way that could be deemed evil. For example, maybe the undead fuel themselves by siphoning a non lethal amount of energy from the soul of the creature, which only causes them to be slightly lethargic in the afterlife but this link causes resurrection spells to believe the subject is already raised.

There isn't any more evidence of non intelligent undead trapping the soul of those who were animated or anything along those lines. Though Psyren's posts on undead causing a continuous link to the negative energy plane are interesting I will need to read more libris mortis fluff.

TuggyNE

2013-10-16, 05:08 PM

Ya but its not actually evidence for undead to mess with the soul in any way that could be deemed evil. For example, maybe the undead fuel themselves by siphoning a non lethal amount of energy from the soul of the creature, which only causes them to be slightly lethargic in the afterlife but this link causes resurrection spells to believe the subject is already raised.

Hmm. That still seems kind of evil, honestly: stealing energy in a way that fools certain healing spells into not working? Uncool.

And, of course, given an explanation that justifies why raising undead is evil, and given the fact that raising undead demonstrably is marked evil, well, it seems like a sensible enough solution to me. Assume minimal competence, or whatever.

Silva Stormrage

2013-10-16, 05:30 PM

Hmm. That still seems kind of evil, honestly: stealing energy in a way that fools certain healing spells into not working? Uncool.

And, of course, given an explanation that justifies why raising undead is evil, and given the fact that raising undead demonstrably is marked evil, well, it seems like a sensible enough solution to me. Assume minimal competence, or whatever.

Oh ya you could very easily come up for a reason why animating undead is evil and even say it was intended for any particular game. I just feel like WoTC just went and said "Undead is evil" and didn't really explain why that was.

TuggyNE

2013-10-16, 05:44 PM

Oh ya you could very easily come up for a reason why animating undead is evil and even say it was intended for any particular game. I just feel like WoTC just went and said "Undead is evil" and didn't really explain why that was.

Well, I think they left enough clues in to give some idea of their thought process. I do agree they should have published a more thorough explanation though, instead of making us sift through a bunch of different sources.

Alberic Strein

2013-10-16, 08:11 PM

Or they didn't have any general consensus and decided to not dwell on it further. The "rule" was there, if a DM disagrees with said rule then rule zero applies.

An apostate of Anubis contacting soon to be executed criminals and promising them to get them to the realm of the dead in exchange for a few centuries of servitude as undead guards for a Pharaoh's necropolis doesn't strike me as evil.

But we're leaving core.

However, Wee Jas has explicitely no issue with undead being created with the consent of the "victim". A dying guardian just might agree to have his young necromancer protegee reanimate him so he could keep protecting her.

Or a knight who took the oath to throw the one true ring of yada yada into the active volcano of bleak yada yada, but died because of the extreme heat, may not be that averse to be brought back as a burning skeleton and actually fulfill his oath.

Neither examples strike me as particularly evil.

Undead creating spells are used 99.9% of the time for nefarious purposes, but don't strike me as intrinsically evil. It's just the way they are used.

TuggyNE

2013-10-16, 09:09 PM

However, Wee Jas has explicitely no issue with undead being created with the consent of the "victim". A dying guardian just might agree to have his young necromancer protegee reanimate him so he could keep protecting her.

Or a knight who took the oath to throw the one true ring of yada yada into the active volcano of bleak yada yada, but died because of the extreme heat, may not be that averse to be brought back as a burning skeleton and actually fulfill his oath.

Neither examples strike me as particularly evil.

In both cases, there's no theft of soul energies, since the undead in question volunteered for it. So those wouldn't count, no.

Animate dead and friends, though, have no save and do not require a willing target, so in their conventional usage they are illicitly using souls (and bodies, for what that's worth, which is probably not much). A spell that acted like raise dead in its willing-only specification would arguably not be [evil].

Rubik

2013-10-16, 09:24 PM

In both cases, there's no theft of soul energies, since the undead in question volunteered for it. So those wouldn't count, no.

Animate dead and friends, though, have no save and do not require a willing target, so in their conventional usage they are illicitly using souls (and bodies, for what that's worth, which is probably not much). A spell that acted like raise dead in its willing-only specification would arguably not be [evil].But if you always seek permission from the dead prior to animation, there's no reason why Animate Dead would have the [Evil] tag, either.

Thus, it's not always evil to use, and therefor should not require the tag.

Scow2

2013-10-16, 09:28 PM

Oh right. They DESERVE it, because they're evil? From the book that explicitly and regularly states that bringing unnecessary suffering against even villains is an evil act? That's so clearly sincere and lacking in any possible hypocrisy. I deny the qualifications of anyone who can't at least come up with an internally consistent system to arbitrate morality for ANY system.The suffering isn't unnecessary. And being Evil is not something incidental, like skin color or choice of outfit. It's the result of a particularly malevolent outlook and actions, and deserving of swift rectification. If you didn't deserve it, you aren't vulnerable to it. It is wrong to inflict unnecessary suffering... but turning the suffering they inflict on others back upon themselves isn't unnecessary, nor Evil. And, given that it's not always lethal, it could be the wake-up call they need to put their lives back on track. Yes, it IS Good to 'dictate how others should live their lives' when the extent of that dictation is "Don't be Evil (And all that entails)".

Evil is, by its nature and definition, an intolerable state of mind, actions, and affarirs.

13_CBS

2013-10-16, 09:31 PM

ryu

2013-10-16, 09:42 PM

The suffering isn't unnecessary. And being Evil is not something incidental, like skin color or choice of outfit. It's the result of a particularly malevolent outlook and actions, and deserving of swift rectification. If you didn't deserve it, you aren't vulnerable to it. It is wrong to inflict unnecessary suffering... but turning the suffering they inflict on others back upon themselves isn't unnecessary, nor Evil. And, given that it's not always lethal, it could be the wake-up call they need to put their lives back on track. Yes, it IS Good to 'dictate how others should live their lives' when the extent of that dictation is "Don't be Evil (And all that entails)".

Evil is, by its nature and definition, an intolerable state of mind, actions, and affarirs.

Notice how whenever the book makes a copy of something it calls horrible in its own right to use on evil people it ALWAYS says the act is necessary. Notice how the act of bringing similar pain is never called necessary when the suffering isn't from exalted? Torture and evil unto evil are called improper acts for a good character in the same book. It doesn't MATTER if it only works on ''evil'' people. That's supposedly 1/3 of all DnD humans roughly. While not of pleasant disposition many of that third are also harmless peasants by virtue of math alone who've never done anything significant to ANYONE. If bringing torture is evil regardless of target ravages are still evil by definition. Exalted is a hypocrite on a basic level, and I refuse any morality system put forward in such ill faith.

Raven777

2013-10-16, 09:47 PM

Evil is, by its nature and definition, an intolerable state of mind, actions, and affarirs.

Says Good.

ryu

2013-10-16, 09:57 PM

Says Good.

And against a third of the worlds population, most of which are incapable of actually hurting people by virtue of being commoners, no less. This is the book that said needless violence against people was wrong regardless of alignment. What a crock that is with arguments like this supporting things like ravages.

TuggyNE

2013-10-16, 11:39 PM

But if you always seek permission from the dead prior to animation, there's no reason why Animate Dead would have the [Evil] tag, either.

Thus, it's not always evil to use, and therefor should not require the tag.

That is, to my mind, too niche to worry about; just make a variant spell for that purpose and call it good.

If it didn't have the tag, it wouldn't be obvious to a casual glance what 99% or more of its usages entail.

Rubik

2013-10-16, 11:43 PM

That is, to my mind, too niche to worry about; just make a variant spell for that purpose and call it good.

If it didn't have the tag, it wouldn't be obvious to a casual glance what 99% or more of its usages entail.So if the mage who invented Fireball used it to burn down orphanages, would Fireball need the [Evil] tag? After all, the only things it'd ever been used for were burninating children.

TuggyNE

2013-10-17, 07:58 AM

So if the mage who invented Fireball used it to burn down orphanages, would Fireball need the [Evil] tag? After all, the only things it'd ever been used for were burninating children.

No, because it is extremely trivial to not use it for that, since there are innumerable perfectly valid places to put fireballs that are not in and around an orphanage. If fireball was powered by setting random orphanages on fire and then somehow mimicking those flames on and around the target area, I would feel perfectly comfortable slapping [evil] on it, even if the caster made a set of empty orphanages for the sole purpose of burning down with the spell.

It's all the difference between incidental ends, and inherent means. The ends neither justify, nor condemn, the means used.

Scow2

2013-10-17, 10:24 AM

Though, this gets complicated depending on whether or not Evil Outsiders (so mostly Fiends) can choose to be evil...Choice has nothing to do with it. And they can choose, but they won't (And they find non-evil choices to be abhorrent, morally, to them). To lack Free Will means something separate from the entity in question has control over it's actions.

Undead are better off dispatched to their final rest, regardless of who they are - if they have Important Business that is truly good, they'll come back as Deathless. If they're generically good, it allows them to go to finally get to Paradise.

Outsiders are a special case, because they are Evil... but whether the non-evil ones should exist (Outside of Planescape, which decided to make even Evil Outsiders nothing more than funny-looking people) is a different moral quandry. The existence of that Succubus Paladin makes the job of every other truly malevolent demon much easier, because they can deceive those who'd otherwise know better that "I'm trying to reform! Honest!", against those who are most prone to giving others the benefit of the doubt. The knowledge that Fiends are truly nonredeemable used to be the best tool Good had against their machinations, but with Redeemed-through-their-own-power Fiends, it casts that into doubt. Extending them the benefit of the doubt normally wouldn't be a problem to any other species (Even other evil Outsiders, like Efreet or Rakshasa), but being made of Primal Evil means the vast, VAST majority (Not 95%. 99.9999% at best) are antithetical to Good, and must be removed.

The balance of Good and Evil isn't through the extremes being intolerable to life (As in the case of Law vs. Chaos), but through True Good being impossible to attain and empowering Evil, and Absolute Evil being so abhorrent that every single thing Nope!s the hell away from it.

hamishspence

2013-10-17, 11:29 AM

Raven777

2013-10-17, 01:30 PM

Undead are better off dispatched to their final rest, regardless of who they are - if they have Important Business that is truly good, they'll come back as Deathless. If they're generically good, it allows them to go to finally get to Paradise.

As a heroic Vampire who willingly quite enjoys endless existence to read every book, hear every song, watch every play and see every place, my character finds your point morally disturbing, considering you seem to imply you know what's best for me.

hamishspence

2013-10-17, 01:32 PM

The knowledge that Fiends are truly nonredeemable used to be the best tool Good had against their machinations, but with Redeemed-through-their-own-power Fiends, it casts that into doubt.

What source says that?

It's worth remembering that many Fiends used to be celestials- archdevils, the older erinyes devils, and possibly some demon lords.

Raven777

2013-10-17, 01:33 PM

What source says that?

Eludecia (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fc/20050824a) says it.

hamishspence

2013-10-17, 01:36 PM

I can't find the whole "used to be the greatest tool Good had" bit - or anything about her existence making the job of other fiends easier.

She was also far from the first redeemed fiend in D&D.

Raven777

2013-10-17, 01:40 PM

I can't find the whole "used to be the greatest tool Good had" bit - or anything about her existence making the job of other fiends easier.

She was also far from the first redeemed fiend in D&D.

I think he's bummed because that means he doesn't get a free pass to smite fiends on sight anymore?

hamishspence

2013-10-17, 01:53 PM

I think he's bummed because that means he doesn't get a free pass to smite fiends on sight anymore?That was one of the things I liked least about BoVD- the argument that "sparing a fiend's life is always evil".

Maybe it was a holdover from 1e.

Scow2

2013-10-17, 02:43 PM

I think he's bummed because that means he doesn't get a free pass to smite fiends on sight anymore?Fiends are the very incarnations of Evil, and permitting their existence prohibits the spread of Cosmic Good. Anything you do for a fiend can and will be used against you, and trying to treat them as a wronged group will only end in tragedy.

The most moral solution isn't to destroy fiends willy-nilly, though. It's to erase the possibility of them from existence. Something to keep in mind is that, although Oppression is Evil, Unrestrained Free Will is not Good unless Evil Acts never fall within the considered or potential choices a person can choose to make (And they can't be artificially restricted, either - there literally can be no possibility of Evil).

That was one of the things I liked least about BoVD- the argument that "sparing a fiend's life is always evil".

Maybe it was a holdover from 1e.It's a "holdover" from the very definition of Fiend. Alignment-subtyped outsiders are the exception to the protections and benefits Good gives to all other races.

As a heroic Vampire who willingly quite enjoys endless existence to read every book, hear every song, watch every play and see every place, my character finds your point morally disturbing, considering you seem to imply you know what's best for me.You can do that from Elysium, Arcadia, Arboria, Ysgard, and Celestia too! And more! You're already in the Outer Planes, and there are a lot more around to visit.

The only differences are you will
A.) Not be at risk of sudden destruction from the Sun or Running Water or other things
B.) You will lack the constant (if suppressed) urge to drain the blood of the living. Also, your type turns to Outsider[Good] or Deathless instead of Undead.
C.) You will not suffer from the wants and needs that drive living and undead lives to committing evil acts in desperation.
D.) You will not be a wandering font of antilife in the world.

People have an irrational fear of death, and overestimate the value of life in the transient, material world. Eternity Awaits!

hamishspence

2013-10-17, 02:46 PM

It's a "holdover" from the very definition of Fiend. Alignment-subtyped outsiders are the exception to the protections and benefits Good gives to all other races.

In 3.0 BOVD, yes. In 2e Planescape - not so much. Not sure what the rule was in 1e.

ryu

2013-10-17, 03:05 PM

Fiends are the very incarnations of Evil, and permitting their existence prohibits the spread of Cosmic Good. Anything you do for a fiend can and will be used against you, and trying to treat them as a wronged group will only end in tragedy.

The most moral solution isn't to destroy fiends willy-nilly, though. It's to erase the possibility of them from existence. Something to keep in mind is that, although Oppression is Evil, Unrestrained Free Will is not Good unless Evil Acts never fall within the considered or potential choices a person can choose to make (And they can't be artificially restricted, either - there literally can be no possibility of Evil).
It's a "holdover" from the very definition of Fiend. Alignment-subtyped outsiders are the exception to the protections and benefits Good gives to all other races.
You can do that from Elysium, Arcadia, Arboria, Ysgard, and Celestia too! And more! You're already in the Outer Planes, and there are a lot more around to visit.

The only differences are you will
A.) Not be at risk of sudden destruction from the Sun or Running Water or other things
B.) You will lack the constant (if suppressed) urge to drain the blood of the living. Also, your type turns to Outsider[Good] or Deathless instead of Undead.
C.) You will not suffer from the wants and needs that drive living and undead lives to committing evil acts in desperation.
D.) You will not be a wandering font of antilife in the world.

People have an irrational fear of death, and overestimate the value of life in the transient, material world. Eternity Awaits!

Positions like this are unhealthy. If you can legitimately think you're doing someone a favor by ending their (un)life against their will why haven't you done the same for your friends? Family? Random peasants that detect as good and are bound for good afterlives? See this is what happens when you use absolutist logic like that. Taken to its logical ending point you get arguments for actions we should all hope any good person would scoff at if not be outwardly disgusted by.

Alberic Strein

2013-10-17, 03:30 PM

I think he's bummed because that means he doesn't get a free pass to smite fiends on sight anymore?

But... But we even instaured the "Smite fiends into redemption week" so the transition could pass uneventfully !

Raven777

2013-10-17, 03:32 PM

The only differences are you will
A.) Not be at risk of sudden destruction from the Sun or Running Water or other things
B.) You will lack the constant (if suppressed) urge to drain the blood of the living. Also, your type turns to Outsider[Good] or Deathless instead of Undead.
C.) You will not suffer from the wants and needs that drive living and undead lives to committing evil acts in desperation.
D.) You will not be a wandering font of antilife in the world.

People have an irrational fear of death, and overestimate the value of life in the transient, material world. Eternity Awaits!

Your brochure forgets to mention :

E.) I will have no class features and no power, until I am cannibalized by the plane itself to be mixed with a bunch of other souls to pop a new Celestial.

Alberic Strein

2013-10-17, 03:41 PM

Rijan_Sai

2013-10-17, 03:45 PM

Totaly late to the party, and (sadly) don't have much to contribute to the conversation that hasn't been said, but:

There is nothing in the Thrallherd class that states you can choose to call particular people, you kinda just call believers nearby who arrive in 24 hours. Based on leadership you might be able to try and call particular people but its not 100%. You can't choose to only call evil creatures to make them do good. And even then just being evil isn't a crime worthy enough of having your mind enslaved for all eternity. Also by RAW you can not STOP calling your thralls and believers, they show up every day after 24 hours. So if you lose a thrall or believer someone else in the world automatically loses their free will for the rest of their life.

I am so doing this with a vampire BBEG! :smallamused:
'Water?!? You there, Pallbearers!"
"So, who's my snack for the night?"

Scow2

2013-10-17, 04:05 PM

The whole "Die to get to heaven, where it's plain better than here FOREVER" had me convince a cleric to slaughter every good person alive so they don't take the risk to fall.

Oh and babies too, because babies are innocent.

Good times.That is very short-term thinking.

Positions like this are unhealthy. If you can legitimately think you're doing someone a favor by ending their (un)life against their will why haven't you done the same for your friends? Family? Random peasants that detect as good and are bound for good afterlives? See this is what happens when you use absolutist logic like that. Taken to its logical ending point you get arguments for actions we should all hope any good person would scoff at if not be outwardly disgusted by.
The whole "Die to get to heaven, where it's plain better than here FOREVER" had me convince a cleric to slaughter every good person alive so they don't take the risk to fall.

Oh and babies too, because babies are innocent.

Good times. Without Good on the Material Plane, the Good on the Outer Planes would cease to exist. Cosmic Turtling doesn't work as a strategy - the Material Plane is the battleground of the Good Fight, and it needs people of Good Alignment living and spreading Good Doctrine on it to stop the advance of Evil, and eventually purge Evil from the world entirely. Calling everyone who's already earned a spot in the Good-aligned outer planes back would be abandoning the world, and leaving the Fiends and Evil free to advance on the Upper Planes... and then there's no paradise for anyone.

The thing about Undead is that they're past their expiration date, and, by their nature, are Inherently Evil - counterbalancing the Good they do because of the curse on their form. You're hurting more than helping.

In 3.0 BOVD, yes. In 2e Planescape - not so much. Not sure what the rule was in 1e."If it's not a Dwarf, Elf, Halfling, or Human, kill it for its stuff"... If I remember correctly. But that might be OD&D.

Your brochure forgets to mention :

E.) I will have no class features and no power, until I am cannibalized by the plane itself to be mixed with a bunch of other souls to pop a new Celestial.If you're that' attached to the world, you can try the Deathless program, free of charge, no strings attached (Unlike the Undead programs offered from the other side of the disk) to continue doing what you want while keeping your powers and class features intact... but most people, upon entering Paradise, realize that the Material Plane isn't worth holding onto past their time - there are others down there to continue the fight while you make sure you get their reservations up in the celestial planes ready for them (And encourage them to follow up on and remain qualified for said reservations - and get others in on the deal too!).

Your class features and other powers are waiting on-call if you ever need them again, but in the Upper Planes, carrying them around is as necessary as driving around the local cinema in an M1A2 Abrams for self-defense.

Once you feel you've done everything you wanted in paradise, you get the option of signing up with a bunch of other guys to Voltron into a celestial being.

Frozen_Feet

2013-10-17, 04:18 PM

@Ryu: such attitude might be unhealthy in real life. In context of D&D, it's the logical conclusion of the rules used, which is nothing to fret about, because it is a fictional game. Neither fiends or undead exist in our world.

Also, incompleteness theory states that every logical system has questions it can't properly answer. This includes all moral systems. All of them, even whatever system you adhere to.

So there will always be cases where application of stated rules leads to absurd conclusions. The good thing of it being a game is that you can just shrug and follow those conclusions, because it is fiction and no-one really gets harmed by it. :smallwink:

ryu

2013-10-17, 04:19 PM

Jade_Tarem

2013-10-17, 04:23 PM

The thing about Undead is that they're past their expiration date, and, by their nature, are Inherently Evil - counterbalancing the Good they do because of the curse on their form. You're hurting more than helping.

If you're that' attached to the world, you can try the Deathless program, free of charge, no strings attached (Unlike the Undead programs offered from the other side of the disk) to continue doing what you want while keeping your powers and class features intact...

If I was a mostly benign vampire, I'd be less than impressed by a lofty explanation of transplanar mechanics that concludes that I have to be impaled because I'm the wrong kind of walking dead guy, especially if I'm actively avoiding hurting people and trying to do good. To someone without a ton of ranks in Knowledge: The Planes, it's going to sound less like necessity and more like a thin justification for some kind of weird necrolurgic racism.

Frozen_Feet

2013-10-17, 05:16 PM

Well, my pet theory is that the fact that RAW alignment can lead to such absurd and counter-intuitive sounding results, is the reason why there are other than good-aligned people in the first place.:smallwink:

"I reject your reality and substitute my own.":smallamused:

Scow2

2013-10-17, 05:16 PM

There is no such thing as a universal true paradise. By the very nature of what you're talking about it would require reaching perfection. Naturally every intelligent being living or nonliving in existence holds a different definition of paradise. You're literally incapable of pleasing everyone, and quite frankly I wouldn't want to live in a world where such a person succeeded. Such a world would be stagnant, and unchanging for the rest of time as none would have reason to do anything important. It's the same thing as a world of memories, all finished and completed almost like a book. You could hardly call that life.Ah... but that's where the beauty of the planar system comes into play! If there was only ONE layer on ONE good plane everyone's dumped on, there would be a problem. But there aren't. The Good planes are Infinite on Seven Good-aligned Planes. Somewhere there is a true paradise for you on the outer planes, whether its in the peaceful and orderly Arcadia, any of the seven heavens of Celestia, either of the Twin Paradises of Bytopia, any of four layers of Elysium, the happy hunting grounds of the Wilderness of the Beastlands, the ever-changing lands of Arborea, or on the glorious battlefields and mead halls of Ysgard. Each one of the layers of each plane is infinite, so somewhere there is a paradise for anyone of virtue. And, to some twisted individuals the Lower planes are a different type of paradise as well, for exemplifying their virtues.

The other world good people go to after death? By nature of its reliance on the real world to simply exist it's simply not a stable end goal. Planes will fall over time let alone mere planets. Want to try to change that just to keep the floating dream bubble up rather than adapting to the world as it changes over time? And you say undead are unnatural. It's reliant on the balance of the entire cosmos to exist. The Prime Material planes are the "No Man's Land"/Gatehouse between the Upper and Lower planes. If they fall to Evil because Good withdraws into the upper planes, then Evil will be able to overrun it unimpeded, and destroy Good entirely.

Frozen: Failure to properly create a system of morals that doesn't contradict itself or otherwise lead to horrible conclusions doesn't mean you grimace and bare it. The healthy path is to admit that all morals are subjectively based in situations, and experiences. From there concluding that all situations must be analyzed individually rather than stamped with arbitrary absolute standards.Good is inherently self-contradictory and impossible to hold up by living mortals and all the vices that hold them back (Most of them tied to physical needs). That's why it hasn't won yet - Free Will is that includes Evil actions in the sphere of possibility is intolerable to Good, but Oppression is Evil. Bigotry is evil, but Fiends, Undead, and Other Specific Monsters Are Inherently Evil and Vile is an immutable, cosmic truth.

If I was a mostly benign vampire, I'd be less than impressed by a lofty explanation of transplanar mechanics that concludes that I have to be impaled because I'm the wrong kind of walking dead guy, especially if I'm actively avoiding hurting people and trying to do good. To someone without a ton of ranks in Knowledge: The Planes, it's going to sound less like necessity and more like a thin justification for some kind of weird necrolurgic racism.And you end up like "Typhoid" Mary Mallon: You're doing your best to be good (Feeding the hungry, healing injuries and trying to cure diseases as a nurse), but you're carrying a deadly disease that poisons the very world around you. You may not see the justice of it... but that's because you're blind to the damage you're causing everything just by existing as an abomination against life. We're not destroying you because we hate you - in fact, we wish the very best. Unfortunately, as an Undead, your very presence saps life from the world.

ryu

2013-10-17, 05:28 PM

A true and thus perfect and unchanging paradise was also covered. Not everyone fits neatly into your hopelessly limited alignment system.

Scow2

2013-10-17, 05:39 PM

A true and thus perfect and unchanging paradise was also covered. Not everyone fits neatly into your hopelessly limited alignment system.Well, you just merely want to be a miserable git, who'd rather have others suffer for your amusement (According to your stance). Perfection has been achieved on the Outer Planes, and for those who reach them. They aren't unchanging, though, and there is always more to see over the next hill and around the next bend. There's always adventure and fun to be had. The only reason you don't consider it "life" is because it lacks the misery and suffering (Of other people) required for "Interesting Drama" to occur.

ryu

2013-10-17, 05:44 PM

Well, you just merely want to be a miserable git, who'd rather have others suffer for your amusement (According to your stance). Perfection has been achieved on the Outer Planes, and for those who reach them. They aren't unchanging, though, and there is always more to see over the next hill and around the next bend. There's always adventure and fun to be had. The only reason you don't consider it "life" is because it lacks the misery and suffering (Of other people) required for "Interesting Drama" to occur.

In a sense that's true actually. Sadness is as necessary a human emotion as any other. It gives the human mind context, and allows us to better appreciate the good moments. Eternal happiness is actually kinda demonstrably boring. There is no such thing as an emotion that doesn't serve some purpose.

Alberic Strein

2013-10-17, 05:58 PM

A true and thus perfect and unchanging paradise was also covered. Not everyone fits neatly into your hopelessly limited alignment system.

Of course you do ! That's called being chaotic.

Ortesk

2013-10-17, 05:59 PM

ryu

2013-10-17, 06:03 PM

Of course you do ! That's called being chaotic.

Nah. The very concepts of law and chaos are no more than simple words with no real meaning created by simple-minded humans in an attempt to find patterns in an unfathomably huge universe that probably doesn't even register their existence.

Scow2

2013-10-17, 06:10 PM

In a sense that's true actually. Sadness is as necessary a human emotion as any other. It gives the human mind context, and allows us to better appreciate the good moments. Eternal happiness is actually kinda demonstrably boring. There is no such thing as an emotion that doesn't serve some purpose.Serve some purpose in an imperfect and limited world, maybe. But "Eternal happiness" isn't boring by any stretch to those 'afflicted'. And if/when someone does get bored with their particular paradise, they can go to a new one... and if they exhaust those, they can decide to get back involved in the rest of the world - Join the Lantern Archon Corps today! Infinite Flight! Infinite Lasers! See the world! Save the world! If you get destroyed after being summoned, that's okay! You respawn, and are ready to go again. If a globe of light's not your thing - either through alignment or sense of self-worth, there are bigger, more effective forms to become a Celestial and be awesome in.

You might start losing your "Sense of identity" - but that's not a loss of self as much as an awareness of everything else. You don't become part of the world - the world becomes part of you.

137beth

2013-10-17, 06:10 PM

Also, incompleteness theory states that every logical system has questions it can't properly answer. This includes all moral systems. All of them, even whatever system you adhere to.
Nope. The closest true statement to what you are saying that I can think of is Godel's first incompleteness theorem, which states that any consistent axiom system which can prove the Peano axioms contains true statements which are formally undecidable.
Other axiom systems exist which are completely decidable and consistent, though they cannot also support Peano arithmetic.
EDIT: Although I suppose if someone wants his/her/its 'alignment system' to be consistent and complete then he/she/it may have trouble calculating attack bonuses and modifiers:smallamused:

ryu

2013-10-17, 06:18 PM

Serve some purpose in an imperfect and limited world, maybe. But "Eternal happiness" isn't boring by any stretch to those 'afflicted'. And if/when someone does get bored with their particular paradise, they can go to a new one... and if they exhaust those, they can decide to get back involved in the rest of the world - Join the Lantern Archon Corps today! Infinite Flight! Infinite Lasers! See the world! Save the world! If you get destroyed after being summoned, that's okay! You respawn, and are ready to go again. If a globe of light's not your thing - either through alignment or sense of self-worth, there are bigger, more effective forms to become a Celestial and be awesome in.

You might start losing your "Sense of identity" - but that's not a loss of self as much as an awareness of everything else. You don't become part of the world - the world becomes part of you.

Bah. Just stay on the world that's openly malleable to begin with, and change it on a whim. This also adds the unpredictable fun of competent rivals who may or may not have a completely different and unpredictable vision.

Scow2

2013-10-17, 06:18 PM

This is true, pain shows us that there is something wrong with a part of the body and we need fix it. Hate shows us that there are actions to which we would not wish on another soul, and by hating someone we come to see what we shall not do. DnD allignment system is silly and should not be obeyed. In my world, If a guy knew of a threat to the country and i needed to know it, i would torture him and be dubbed a hero. In dnd i am evilThat's because you are. More likely, you'll be fed false information and sent to the wrong place/thing, framed for the crime, AND hit with the charge of torture while the threat to the country is carried out with you managing to do nothing successful, and breaking far more than you tried to fix.

Bah. Just stay on the world that's openly malleable to begin with, and change it on a whim. This also adds the unpredictable fun of competent rivals who may or may not have a completely different and unpredictable vision.That works, and is an option, as well!

Alberic Strein

2013-10-17, 06:23 PM

Rivals which will try to shape the world as they see fit.

So of course you remake the world as YOU would like it better.

And this, children, is how wars are made.

ryu

2013-10-17, 06:24 PM

See here's the thing: Step one of the plan was not leaving my own plane to begin with by whatever means are available. That's sure to piss off clerics of several different sects and of course druids. Kinda puts me on the opposite side of anyone attempting to defend ''the natural order.'' Well that and the fact that there is no guarantee I won't randomly make all precipitation gravy for a month just to see what happens.

Edit: More like incredibly high stakes skirmishes. Do you have any idea how different the world as a whole would be if there were nation sized groups as powerful as my high level wizards?

Scow2

2013-10-17, 06:27 PM

Rivals which will try to shape the world as they see fit.

So of course you remake the world as YOU would like it better.

And this, children, is how wars are made.Note that the morphable worlds are on the Chaotic end of the spectrum, and the "Chaotic-Good Neutral" plane is Ysgard, where such wars are welcome, fun, and awesome.

ryu

2013-10-17, 06:31 PM

Note that the morphable worlds are on the Chaotic end of the spectrum, and the "Chaotic-Good Neutral" plane is Ysgard, where such wars are welcome, fun, and awesome.

Except ''wars'' only happen occasionally when the wizard is bored and someone else on his level either likes the last incarnation or wants a different one. Most of the rest of the time it's a whole flux of other shenanigans.

Raven777

2013-10-17, 06:45 PM

Except as far as I remember, souls lose their class features, so tough luck conducting awesome wizardry in Ysgard, or anywhere.

TuggyNE

2013-10-17, 07:09 PM

If I was a mostly benign vampire, I'd be less than impressed by a lofty explanation of transplanar mechanics that concludes that I have to be impaled because I'm the wrong kind of walking dead guy, especially if I'm actively avoiding hurting people and trying to do good. To someone without a ton of ranks in Knowledge: The Planes, it's going to sound less like necessity and more like a thin justification for some kind of weird necrolurgic racism.

Entirely understandable, of course, but in such a case the correct course is to explain the K:The Planes lore sufficient to get the vampire to understand, not to just say "oh my bad, your feelings based on a misunderstanding are more valid than the actual situation, I'll just move along".

The actual truth matters. I think I'm addicted to saying "X matters". Help!

ryu

2013-10-17, 07:16 PM

Entirely understandable, of course, but in such a case the correct course is to explain the K:The Planes lore sufficient to get the vampire to understand, not to just say "oh my bad, your feelings based on a misunderstanding are more valid than the actual situation, I'll just move along".

The actual truth matters. I think I'm addicted to saying "X matters". Help!

And a sensible person is expected to just stand there idly while you explain why exactly you want it dead despite it not actively threatening anyone? Good luck with that paladin Jim.

137beth

2013-10-17, 07:38 PM

Except as far as I remember, souls lose their class features, so tough luck conducting awesome wizardry in Ysgard, or anywhere.
Not if they got to Ysgard by casting Plane Shift.

ryu

2013-10-17, 07:41 PM

Not if they got to Ysgard by casting Plane Shift.

If you're still alive just do that on the prime. There's no shortage of people interested in forcing their own will on it.

Scow2

2013-10-17, 07:48 PM

And a sensible person is expected to just stand there idly while you explain why exactly you want it dead despite it not actively threatening anyone? Good luck with that paladin Jim.First off, he doesn't want the vampire dead. The vampire is already dead. Not alive. Undeath is not eternal life. Libris Mortis makes this very clear. He wants the vampire be set to rest, and move on to paradise. The ONLY sort of situation in which a Vampire or Other Undead should not be set to rest is if they are actively combating a much greater evil, such as trying to avert the destruction of the world by consumption by the Snarl.

And while he's not actively threatening anyone, by his nature of being an Undead he's bringing negative energy into the world ambiently... which is killing things off - like Typhoid Mary. Sure, she just wanted to be a cook and didn't want to hurt anyone (And her fate - death in isolation over three decades of neglect - certainly wasn't Good or deserved), but his very presence is worsening the world. Fortunately, he'd find that getting Destroyed isn't so much like being shut down/tortured/what have you, as much as being woken up from a nightmare, and bring with it a better sense of completeness. Trying to get a Vampire to accept its destruction is like trying to get a child to swallow Robitussen, or get a vaccination.

13_CBS

2013-10-17, 07:55 PM

And while he's not actively threatening anyone, by his nature of being an Undead he's bringing negative energy into the world ambiently... which is killing things off

*snip*

but his very presence is worsening the world.

In what way is the negative energy he's bringing into the world directly harming someone? Do vampires leak Negative Energy that harms living beings?

ryu

2013-10-17, 07:56 PM

First off, he doesn't want the vampire dead. The vampire is already dead. Not alive. Undeath is not eternal life. Libris Mortis makes this very clear. He wants the vampire be set to rest, and move on to paradise. The ONLY sort of situation in which a Vampire or Other Undead should not be set to rest is if they are actively combating a much greater evil, such as trying to avert the destruction of the world by consumption by the Snarl.

And while he's not actively threatening anyone, by his nature of being an Undead he's bringing negative energy into the world ambiently... which is killing things off - like Typhoid Mary. Sure, she just wanted to be a cook and didn't want to hurt anyone (And her fate - death in isolation over three decades of neglect - certainly wasn't Good or deserved), but his very presence is worsening the world. Fortunately, he'd find that getting Destroyed isn't so much like being shut down/tortured/what have you, as much as being woken up from a nightmare, and bring with it a better sense of completeness. Trying to get a Vampire to accept its destruction is like trying to get a child to swallow Robitussen, or get a vaccination.

Says you paladin Jim. You think the vampire has any actual reason to care for your justifications as to why you want it dead(er)? Quite frankly he has the same reason to hate positive energy plane seeping in than you do the negative, and he hasn't tried to hunt you for it yet. One of the two parties is pretty demonstrably acting more civilized in the given scenario.

137beth

2013-10-17, 08:04 PM

In what way is the negative energy he's bringing into the world directly harming someone? Do vampires leak Negative Energy that harms living beings?

That explains why enervation and every other spell that uses negative energy has the [Evil] descriptor.

Scow2

2013-10-17, 08:06 PM

In what way is the negative energy he's bringing into the world directly harming someone? Do vampires leak Negative Energy that harms living beings?Yes, every Undead does, but the effect is not noticable or concentrated enough to be reflected mechanically.

Says you paladin Jim. You think the vampire has any actual reason to care for your justifications as to why you want it dead(er)? Quite frankly he has the same reason to hate positive energy plane seeping in than you do the negative, and he hasn't tried to hunt you for it yet. One of the two parties is pretty demonstrably acting more civilized in the given scenario.Except, being an Undead, he's in the wrong, because he's not alive, and has no right to life - it's past time for him to go to the 'final rest' (Which isn't so final in D&D). Free Will isn't virtuous, though oppression is usually evil. But it's not evil to destroy an undead in 90% of D&D settings (There are a few oddball ones), because it's righting a wrong. The vampire's just incapable of seeing the bigger picture. Cosmic Good is telling the vampire to get his affairs in order and straightened out, then GO THE **** TO SLEEP!

Valuing one's life in the world is all well and good - but valuing it to the point where you're clinging on to unlife is going too far.

That explains why enervation and every other spell that uses negative energy has the [Evil] descriptor.It's not [Evil], but it is anti-life.

Raven777

2013-10-17, 08:10 PM

Ok Scow we're done talking. That would be about the point where your Paladin is kindly shown the door and told to leave or Fireballs.

ryu

2013-10-17, 08:11 PM

Yes, every Undead does, but the effect is not noticable or concentrated enough to be reflected mechanically.

Except, being an Undead, he's in the wrong, because he's not alive, and has no right to life - it's past time for him to go to the 'final rest' (Which isn't so final in D&D). Free Will isn't virtuous, though oppression is usually evil. But it's not evil to destroy an undead in 90% of D&D settings (There are a few oddball ones), because it's righting a wrong. The vampire's just incapable of seeing the bigger picture. Cosmic Good is telling the vampire to get his affairs in order and straightened out, then GO THE **** TO SLEEP!

Valuing one's life in the world is all well and good - but valuing it to the point where you're clinging on to unlife is going too far.

The vampire responds that rights are determined by how hard one is willing to fight for one's freedoms, and that if you continue to persist in trying to kill it you'll be shown just how much of a right to life you still have after ignoring fair warning. The vamp is luckily merciful enough to still be willing to kill you cleanly so you can reach your eternal reward sooner.

137beth

2013-10-17, 08:13 PM

Yes, every Undead does, but the effect is not noticable or concentrated enough to be reflected mechanically.

Source?:smallconfused:

13_CBS

2013-10-17, 08:15 PM

because it's righting a wrong.

Well, then I suppose the question becomes: why is it wrong?

Alberic Strein

2013-10-17, 08:23 PM

Because negative energy, for a good character, is wrong, it seems.

ryu

2013-10-17, 08:26 PM

Because negative energy, for a good character, is wrong, it seems.

Enervation isn't tagged as such. If the universe doesn't care about a huge burst of negative energy released on purpose why the hell should it care about undead for that reason? It makes none of the sense.

Alberic Strein

2013-10-17, 08:29 PM

Because you can't smite a spell into redemption.

137beth

2013-10-17, 08:32 PM

Because you can't smite a spell into redemption.

So is it evil to cast enervation or not?

ryu

2013-10-17, 08:33 PM

Because you can't smite a spell into redemption.

Casting it isn't even an evil act though. A dude who prepares and uses that spell an arbitrarily large number of times during the year committed no evil act in the process.

Alberic Strein

2013-10-17, 08:44 PM

137beth

2013-10-17, 08:51 PM

Yes, and this is why paladins leave wizards who cast enervation alone.
(That and because wizards can do things to them. THINGS.)

But a negative-energy reliant being ? A necrotic fueled creature ?

That's physical ! That's smitable !

The wizard who casts enervation is also smitable, though!

And COME OOON it has "negative" in it's description, it HAS to have a negative consequence ! Negative consequences are evil. EVIL I tell you. So we're justified in our smiting, right ? Riiiiiiiiight ?
But Enervation has Negative in its descriptor!

ryu

2013-10-17, 08:52 PM

Yes, and this is why paladins leave wizards who cast enervation alone.
(That and because wizards can do things to them. THINGS.)

But a negative-energy reliant being ? A necrotic fueled creature ?

That's physical ! That's smitable !

And COME OOON it has "negative" in it's description, it HAS to have a negative consequence ! Negative consequences are evil. EVIL I tell you. So we're justified in our smiting, right ? Riiiiiiiiight ?

Bigoted paladin orders are the only reason the entire world of DnD hasn't collectively forced itself into first world living with mindless undead performing the menial tasks to give those living time to focus on higher order tasks. The spells for creating basic undead servants are incredibly low level with the only reason they aren't everywhere being the stigma attached to them. The sheer number of deaths prevented through advancement, and more time to study practical magics for the common folk speak for themselves. Don't even get me started on the various ways these stigmas are the only things keeping families from towns too poor to afford resurrection magic from reuniting through creation of intelligent undead. All of it no less evil or harmful than the wizard casting enervation no less.

Scow2

2013-10-17, 08:59 PM

Bigoted paladin orders are the only reason the entire world of DnD hasn't collectively forced itself into first world living with mindless undead performing the menial tasks to give those living time to focus on higher order tasks. The spells for creating basic undead servants are incredibly low level with the only reason they aren't everywhere being the stigma attached to them. The sheer number of deaths prevented through advancement, and more time to study practical magics for the common folk speak for themselves. Don't even get me started on the various ways these stigmas are the only things keeping families from towns too poor to afford resurrection magic from reuniting through creation of intelligent undead. All of it no less evil or harmful than the wizard casting enervation no less.Actually, re-animating a corpse shoves its soul back into it, ****ing it up in the process. However, that soul is forced to serve as nothing more than a basic 'motor', having no freedom or ability to 'think' beyond basic processing of orders, much like the Elemental Soul that powers Golems. All forms of undead animation are [Evil].

ryu

2013-10-17, 09:05 PM

Actually, re-animating a corpse shoves its soul back into it, ****ing it up in the process. However, that soul is forced to serve as nothing more than a basic 'motor', having no freedom or ability to 'think' beyond basic processing of orders, much like the Elemental Soul that powers Golems. All forms of undead animation are [Evil].

Rings a bit hollow coming from the one advocating that free will wasn't good. Besides have all subjects be voluntary via selling the right to their corpse in much the same way humans do with donating for scientific or medical purposes. Hell even have it be based on years before the undead is contractually obligated to be destroyed if the volunteer is particular on the score. Point is that should be THEIR choice, not some silly short-sighted order of paladins bent on keeping the world in the dark ages.

Alberic Strein

2013-10-17, 09:08 PM

@Ben : What ?! No ! First thing about being a paladin : See that wizard ? That wizard can tear a hole into reality and under your feet and have you fall on the banquet table of a high demon before you can finish listing all his wrongs ! Never mess with a wizard as a paladin !

@Ryu : Hrrrrm... Not sure about that. Would work with the egyptian pantheon (hey, this would make a nice campaign point/idea) but in classic D&D... Mindless undead are... Mindless. They can follow you or they can stay in place and attack whatever you want it to. Some degree of intellect or supervision is needed for them to "farm" I believe. Also, I think it was established earlier in the thread that you are doing something not quite nice with the soul of the undead while it's under your control. It can be ok if it is willing but... Really ? "Hey, go do the most BOOOOOOORING WORK EVER FOREVER, ok?" Who would ever say yes ? Of course, the beautiful thing with animate dead is that you don't NEED them to agree. But then you're back at enslaving souls and remains against their will. A bit on the evil end of the street, even for me.

HOWEVER, if the egyptian pantheon is allowed, then yeah, sure, it would work. Or better, at the very least. The afterlife is for the "good" in their religion, if you aren't then your fate is to be eaten by Sobek. Odds are, in D&D your soul wouldn't be destroyed, you would get digested for all eternity. Suddenly, ANYTHING but that seems an enviable alternative. Even eternity as a blue-collar.

Scow2

2013-10-17, 09:17 PM

Rings a bit hollow coming from the one advocating that free will wasn't good. Besides have all subjects be voluntary via selling the right to their corpse in much the same way humans do with donating for scientific or medical purposes. Hell even have it be based on years before the undead is contractually obligated to be destroyed if the volunteer is particular on the score. Point is that should be THEIR choice, not some silly short-sighted order of paladins bent on keeping the world in the dark ages.Free will isn't Good, but Deprivation of it is straight up Evil. So is enslavement of the soul. And even being "Voluntary", unless you're using more Pharonic Undead, doesn't really work for the Mindless undead - There's no amount of consent that can prepare a mind or soul for just how horrific and tortuous the process of becoming an unintelligent Undead is (It's straight up "I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream").

Libris Mortis goes into much more detail in what makes the undead such abominations (First off - they're stuck in the thought patterns they had upon animation).

ryu

2013-10-17, 09:21 PM

Alberic Strein

2013-10-17, 09:21 PM

Free will isn't Good, but Deprivation of it is straight up Evil. So is enslavement of the soul. And even being "Voluntary", unless you're using more Pharonic Undead, doesn't really work for the Mindless undead - There's no amount of consent that can prepare a mind or soul for just how horrific and tortuous the process of becoming an unintelligent Undead is (It's straight up "I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream").

"I am in Sobek's digestive's track and I must scream"

Consent, here I come !

@Ryu : Heh, you know "man". They would love the idea for their whole life... Then get cold feet.

Scow2

2013-10-17, 09:24 PM

"I am in Sobek's digestive's track and I must scream"

Consent, here I come !

@Ryu : Heh, you know "man". They would love the idea for their whole life... Then get cold feet.Well, they weren't Good, and they knew the rules. Their fate is on them. The best the undead could hope for is "Neutral" in that sense.

ryu

2013-10-17, 09:25 PM

"I am in Sobek's digestive's track and I must scream"

Consent, here I come !

@Ryu : Heh, you know "man". They would love the idea for their whole life... Then get cold feet.

Dead people have no force to break contracts. Besides it's not going to be permanent. Just a relatively short time predesignated in the agreement. Payment is payed ahead of time based on the length of agreed upon time.

plastickle

2013-10-17, 09:26 PM

Bigoted paladin orders are the only reason the entire world of DnD hasn't collectively forced itself into first world living with mindless undead performing the menial tasks to give those living time to focus on higher order tasks.
The reason the entire world of DnD isn't a paradise is because of tremendous evil forces actively and continuously causing harm. It would be trivial for good-aligned epic & epic+ characters to fix the world if they weren't distracted.

Also, it's rather comical that you think of lack of undead servants should be the first problem fixed, rather than, say, lack of clean water, food, shelter, clothing, etc.

Also, I'm not seeing why you single out paladins to blame for any of this. They aren't the ones who wrote the DnD literature denouncing production of undead. It's part of the structure of the universe they live in.

Alberic Strein

2013-10-17, 09:27 PM

Still evil. Lawful evil all the way, but still evil.

They won't know how much they will hate the process till it happens to them. They can understand the pros, but not the cons.

So yeah, doable, but evil enough to get most paladins on your butt.

ryu

2013-10-17, 09:32 PM

The reason the entire world of DnD isn't a paradise is because of tremendous evil forces actively and continuously causing harm. It would be trivial for good-aligned epic & epic+ characters to fix the world if they weren't distracted.

Also, it's rather comical that you think of lack of undead servants should be the first problem fixed, rather than, say, lack of clean water, food, shelter, clothing, etc.

Also, I'm not seeing why you single out paladins to blame for any of this. They aren't the ones who wrote the DnD literature denouncing production of undead. It's part of the structure of the universe they live in.

There isn't nearly enough of a population for those to be the first order problems. Seriously those are only an issue in the real world because we're stupid overpopulated. Actually saving labor so that people can do things in general and magic divine and arcane can more rapidly spread is going to drastically speed world development.

Paladins are the poster-child of always following the word of RAW good to the letter even when it's stupid and impractical. Especially when it's stupid and impractical. The only other in-game explanation would be extremely active push from clerics of undead hating gods, and the odd druid.

Edit: Still less horrible for them than dealing with commoner life for an average of twenty years, if they're lucky, before dying of some slow, painful disease.

Alberic Strein

2013-10-17, 09:34 PM

[Quotes Ryu claiming that bigoted paladin orders are the reason DnD is not a paradise]
The reason the entire world of DnD isn't a paradise is because of tremendous evil forces actively and continuously causing harm.

Soooooo... Did I just imagine that or does it sound like... Bigoted Paladins are a force of evil?!

More seriously, your (pretty valid) point means paladins have better things to do than bother ascetic vampires and undead workers. Gotta fight the big fight.

More seriously-er, the world of DnD is not a living paradise because else it would make no sense to start adventures.

More more seriously-er, the world of DnD is not a living paradise because it's filled with adventurers whose first reaction upon meeting a problem is adding fire.

(Okay, maybe that was less serious)

Edit: Dunno. During those twenty years they meet people... Women. Women whom like women. Women whom like women and men. They do very pleasant things, have the joy of raising children, learn every step of the way. Sure, things WILL suck, but hey, there is some good too! (and some adventurers ready to cleanse their cave of giant rats and then refuse the reward)

That's why I like the egyptian approach, way clearer xD

ryu

2013-10-17, 09:37 PM

Soooooo... Did I just imagine that or does it sound like... Bigoted Paladins are a force of evil?!

More seriously, your (pretty valid) point means paladins have better things to do than bother ascetic vampires and undead workers. Gotta fight the big fight.

More seriously-er, the world of DnD is not a living paradise because else it would make no sense to start adventures.

More more seriously-er, the world of DnD is not a living paradise because it's filled with adventurers whose first reaction upon meeting a problem is adding fire.

(Okay, maybe that was less serious)

This isn't even a paradise we're talking about. It's comparing first to third world civilization. Granted that's a HUGE step up, but it barely achieves parity with what we have now before you account for all the monsters and shiz.

Arcanist

2013-10-17, 09:39 PM

Actually, re-animating a corpse shoves its soul back into it, ****ing it up in the process. However, that soul is forced to serve as nothing more than a basic 'motor', having no freedom or ability to 'think' beyond basic processing of orders, much like the Elemental Soul that powers Golems. All forms of undead animation are [Evil].

The BoVD states that it is evil because it brings negative energy into the world. A statement that I contest since Negative Energy is not inherently evil and saying contrary to that would be the equivalent of saying that black is inherently evil. Neither are evil, they are strictly the opposite of a means. It seems that you are still holding to the dark age philosophy that black and darkness means "Evil", where it originally was used as to symbolize the unknown and not knowing and while I agree that ignorance is indeed evil, I contest your hypothesis that such creatures are inherently evil strictly for existing. Such ideals are behind some of the most destructive displays of genocide and destruction in our own species history.

I'm curious where you got that a soul tethered to an undead body is evil. Do you have a quote?

13_CBS

2013-10-17, 09:41 PM

I have to ask: what makes Negative Energy so evil?

Alberic Strein

2013-10-17, 09:42 PM

Niiiiiiiiiiiiiice Arcanist! Did not see things from that angle!

Sure, Animating the Dead can be evil (and is, in 99% of the time) but it does NOT mean the product of that evil act is automatically evil!

plastickle

2013-10-17, 09:43 PM

There isn't nearly enough of a population for those to be the first order problems. Seriously those are only an issue in the real world because we're stupid overpopulated. Actually saving labor so that people can do things in general and magic divine and arcane can more rapidly spread is going to drastically speed world development.
What labour are you saving? Isn't it the labour that goes into procuring clean water, and growing food and building shelter?

Raising undead to perform the tasks that solve these problems is unnecessarily complex, when you could simply solve the problems with magic directly.

Paladins are the poster-child of always following the word of RAW good to the letter even when it's stupid and impractical. Especially when it's stupid and impractical. The only other in-game explanation would be extremely active push from clerics of undead hating gods, and the odd druid.
The easiest in-game explanation is that the literature is correct, and that raising undead really is evil. There doesn't have to be a conspiracy.

But your other explanation, that the Gods pass the info about evil undead to the masses through their clerics, is much, much more reasonable than blaming paladins.

ryu

2013-10-17, 09:43 PM

I have to ask: what makes Negative Energy so evil?

It's not. The freaking negative energy plane is called out as neutral. It's also technically slightly less deadly than the positive energy plane due to easy to use defenses. Wrap your head around that.

Edit: The literature is repeatedly self contradicting and muddled on this one. How self contradicting and muddled? Well lets continue pointing out all the silly little points the books disagree with themselves if you aren't satisfied with some of the classics so far.

Alberic Strein

2013-10-17, 09:48 PM

Well, animating undead is magic, so you ARE directly adressing those problems.

However, creating food/water takes one casting/use

Creating an undead to physically produce food and water is one casting/forever.

Any commoner that does not have to spend his life working arduously could then use it to get some clericness going, learning how to create food for himself and his family in the process, while the fields are still worked.

Or become a merchant, or any job that nets you some nice money. And doesn't kill you while doing it.

Picture a greek citizen.

Edit/Ps : By the way, and not that we care, and not that we should, the undead approach would make the food markets jump way less abruptly, which in real life would have some pretty hellish consequences.

13_CBS

2013-10-17, 09:48 PM

It's not. The freaking negative energy plane is called out as neutral. It's also technically slightly less deadly than the positive energy plane due to easy to use defenses. Wrap your head around that.

Of course, and I agree: I'm mostly directing the question against Scow2, who seems to be arguing that Negative Energy is inherently evil.

Raven777

2013-10-17, 09:50 PM

Also, Undead point at the Positive Energy plane and laugh. Because the "blow-you-up" effect it has on living creature? It does nothing to them. Wrap your head around that.

Alberic Strein

2013-10-17, 09:52 PM

I have to ask: what makes Negative Energy so evil?

Because it's the energy that those damn fiends use to pull their shenanigans in our world ?

(not a quip, it's a bit trolley but a real question)

Arcanist

2013-10-17, 10:00 PM

I have to ask: what makes Negative Energy so evil?

Nothing to my knowledge, however I will confess that it is easier to use it for evil means, but likewise it is also easy to use positive energy for evil means. My personal favorite being resurrecting the Evil or casting Raise Outsider on Devils and Demons... Mostly Devils since Tana'ri are about as likely to tear you in half as they are to serve you. At least a Baatezu will just try to enslave your soul... Which you CAN get out of if your smart enough.

In D&D morals are often painted in the image of absolutes where certain acts are obviously evil and others are obviously good. With out modern ideals we are applying our (for the most of us) 1st world philosophy to a people whom know no such comfort. For D&D characters, killing something for having more or less scales than you is perfectly acceptable. However with our modern philosophy we do not view it as such and doing the exact same thing is totally unacceptable in our world (and if I had my say, I would totally have that as actual alignment rules in D&D if not for PC's automatically falling to Evil). I'd also like to point out that one of the ironic aspects of being good is holding "Ahead of your times" ideals and at the same time it endorses the idea of performing genocide upon a people simply for being born the wrong skin color or having too many scales or having a different moral belief in the world.

13_CBS

2013-10-17, 10:04 PM

In D&D morals are often painted in the image of absolutes where certain acts are obviously evil and others are obviously good. With out modern ideals we are applying our (for the most of us) 1st world philosophy to a people whom know no such comfort. For D&D characters, killing something for having more or less scales than you is perfectly acceptable. However with our modern philosophy we do not view it as such and doing the exact same thing is totally unacceptable in our world (and if I had my say, I would totally have that as actual alignment rules in D&D if not for PC's automatically falling to Evil). I'd also like to point out that one of the ironic aspects of being good is holding "Ahead of your times" ideals and at the same time it endorses the idea of performing genocide upon a people simply for being born the wrong skin color or having too many scales or having a different moral belief in the world.

Indeed, a lot of the Alignment headaches arise due to the fact that D&D morality draws heavily from traditional Western European morality, which in turn has its roots in Western European culture (including religion and so forth); when this collides with modern notions of morality and ethics, Alignment headaches and confusion arise.

Again, my question was largely pointed at Scow2: why is Negative Energy evil? Why is being powered by Negative Energy evil? Why is spreading Negative Energy in non-harmful amounts into the Material Plane evil? Who decided Negative Energy is evil? Etc.

plastickle

2013-10-17, 10:07 PM

I have to ask: what makes Negative Energy so evil?It's not. The freaking negative energy plane is called out as neutral. It's also technically slightly less deadly than the positive energy plane due to easy to use defenses. Wrap your head around that.
I wouldn't argue for a specific explanation, because I agree that the whole thing was put together haphazardly; however, it is actually pretty easy to wrap my head around the idea that negative energy can be neutral over in a negative energy plane, but disastrously harmful when brought over to our plane, where it does fun stuff like enervating people.

That line of thought points to the very useful subtlety that negative energy doesn't have to be evil for a spell that creates a permanent negative energy effect in our world to be evil.

ryu

2013-10-17, 10:10 PM

I wouldn't argue for a specific explanation, because I agree that the whole thing was put together haphazardly; however, it is actually pretty easy to wrap my head around the idea that negative energy can be neutral over in a negative energy plane, but disastrously harmful when brought over to our plane, where it does fun stuff like enervating people.

That line of thought points to the very useful subtlety that negative energy doesn't have to be evil for a spell that creates a permanent negative energy effect in our world to be evil.

Accept the plane itself is literally neutral. It is the source of all negative energy in existence from near and far, and it isn't even aligned evil. Hell has devils and it's evil. The abyss has demons and it's evil. The source of all undead juices? Neutral.

Alberic Strein

2013-10-17, 10:12 PM

Nothing to my knowledge, however I will confess that it is easier to use it for evil means, but likewise it is also easy to use positive energy for evil means. My personal favorite being resurrecting the Evil or casting Raise Outsider on Devils and Demons... Mostly Devils since Tana'ri are about as likely to tear you in half as they are to serve you. At least a Baatezu will just try to enslave your soul... Which you CAN get out of if your smart enough.

In D&D morals are often painted in the image of absolutes where certain acts are obviously evil and others are obviously good. With out modern ideals we are applying our (for the most of us) 1st world philosophy to a people whom know no such comfort. For D&D characters, killing something for having more or less scales than you is perfectly acceptable. However with our modern philosophy we do not view it as such and doing the exact same thing is totally unacceptable in our world (and if I had my say, I would totally have that as actual alignment rules in D&D if not for PC's automatically falling to Evil). I'd also like to point out that one of the ironic aspects of being good is holding "Ahead of your times" ideals and at the same time it endorses the idea of performing genocide upon a people simply for being born the wrong skin color or having too many scales or having a different moral belief in the world.

Aren't the rules "absolute" and a lot black/white to give a strong guideline, which will inevitably get blurred by rule zero ?

---------------

So do evil outsiders use negative energy (the ambiant negative energy ?) to manifest and pull their crap on our plane ? Or makes their job easier /powers stronger/more easily accessed ?

13_CBS

2013-10-17, 10:13 PM

I wouldn't argue for a specific explanation, because I agree that the whole thing was put together haphazardly; however, it is actually pretty easy to wrap my head around the idea that negative energy can be neutral over in a negative energy plane, but disastrously harmful when brought over to our plane, where it does fun stuff like enervating people.

That line of thought points to the very useful subtlety that negative energy doesn't have to be evil for a spell that creates a permanent negative energy effect in our world to be evil.

But that seems to indicate Negative Energy is merely extremely dangerous for a certain subset of existence (Material Plane living beings). Is fire evil, since it's also dangerous for a certain subset of existence (creatures without fire resistance/immunity)?

plastickle

2013-10-17, 10:15 PM

Accept the plane itself is literally neutral. It is the source of all negative energy in existence from near and far, and it isn't even aligned evil. Hell has devils and it's evil. The abyss has demons and it's evil. The source of all undead juices? Neutral.
Negative energy doesn't have to be evil for a spell that creates a permanent negative energy effect in our world to be evil.

ryu

2013-10-17, 10:20 PM

Negative energy doesn't have to be evil for a spell that creates a permanent negative energy effect in our world to be evil.

Yes it does. The only reason freeing demons in our world is evil is because A: They're evil, and B: doing so causes directly viewable negative consequences even when done for benign purposes. Demons are forced to stay home for a century after being killed here if not brought back after all. Negative energy does neither of those things.

Alberic Strein

2013-10-17, 10:21 PM

Negative energy doesn't have to be evil for a spell that creates a permanent negative energy effect in our world to be evil.

The whole "LET'S SMITE THE UNDEAAAAAAAAAAD" thing stems from the fact that they radiate negative energy. It's not about the spells. If negative energy in itself is not evil, then let those shut-in vampires be spared.

Ps : And so is fire.

plastickle

2013-10-17, 10:34 PM

However, creating food/water takes one casting/use

Creating an undead to physically produce food and water is one casting/forever.
Remember that ryu has suggested 3-year terms of undead labour, so it's one casting/3 years/every farm in the world. Changes things more than slightly.

How many animated dead does it take to provide enough clean water to run a city? How many decanters of endless water does it take? Magic can solve the problem more directly and effectively than by using the intermediate step of creating undead labourers.

Also, there are serious scale issues with the proposal. There aren't enough casters to control enough undead to replace an entire world's labour.

ryu

2013-10-17, 10:40 PM

Remember that ryu has suggested 3-year terms of undead labour, so it's one casting/3 years/every farm in the world. Changes things more than slightly.

How many animated dead does it take to provide enough clean water to run a city? How many decanters of endless water does it take? Magic can solve the problem more directly and effectively than by using the intermediate step of creating undead labourers.

Also, there are serious scale issues with the proposal. There aren't enough casters to control enough undead to replace an entire world's labour.

Three years is a moderately short but applicable term of service yes. Some will volunteer for more, and some less.

Again water was never the problem. In medieval times it was what we did with it. People didn't have the knowledge that bathing, doing laundry, and releasing... waste in the local water supply was a horrible horrible thing. That's either down to educating the populace or having a freaking second well dug.

Further all the undead really have to be used for is tending the farms, and helping build structures. The work cleared from that alone frees up considerably more people to become casters in their own right.

Arcanist

2013-10-17, 10:47 PM

Remember that ryu has suggested 3-year terms of undead labour, so it's one casting/3 years/every farm in the world. Changes things more than slightly.

I believe you are talking about a single, end all spell that would solve the worlds problems. If such is the case then my money is on Wish... To wish for a repeating trap of Wish.

plastickle

2013-10-17, 10:52 PM

But that seems to indicate Negative Energy is merely extremely dangerous for a certain subset of existence (Material Plane living beings).
You literally just quoted me saying that Negative Energy doesn't have to be evil for negative energy spells to be evil. How can you read that statement, and quote that statement, and still ask me questions as though I am calling Negative Energy evil?

Negative energy doesn't have to be evil for a spell that creates a permanent negative energy effect in our world to be evil.Yes it does.
No, it doesn't. A sword doesn't have to be evil for certain actions using a sword (murdering people) to be evil. Neither does negative energy have to be evil for casting negative energy spells on our plane to be evil. It's really that simple.

The whole "LET'S SMITE THE UNDEAAAAAAAAAAD" thing stems from the fact that they radiate negative energy. It's not about the spells. If negative energy in itself is not evil, then let those shut-in vampires be spared.

Ps : And so is fire.
If a fire elemental showed up in your town, and was accidentally setting houses on fire because he radiates fire, your argument suggests that you would leave it alone, because fire in itself is not evil. I repeat, again, that negative energy doesn't have to be evil for a spell that creates a permanent negative energy effect in our world to be evil.

plastickle

2013-10-17, 11:01 PM

Again water was never the problem. In medieval times it was what we did with it. People didn't have the knowledge that bathing, doing laundry, and releasing... waste in the local water supply was a horrible horrible thing. That's either down to educating the populace or having a freaking second well dug.
I brought up lack of clean water as a problem. This paragraph tells me that it is not a problem, and also that it was a horrible, horrible problem. I don't really know how to react - you are not making sense.

13_CBS

2013-10-17, 11:01 PM

You literally just quoted me saying that Negative Energy doesn't have to be evil for negative energy spells to be evil. How can you read that statement, and quote that statement, and still ask me questions as though I am calling Negative Energy evil?

Because you appeared to be arguing that the usage of Negative Energy can be evil if you bring it into the Material Plane because it is especially dangerous. I figure, does that make the usage of fire or acid evil? Fire and acid are pretty dangerous on the material plane.

Raven777

2013-10-17, 11:01 PM

Is a spell that creates a permanent fire effect in our world evil?

Tavar

2013-10-17, 11:04 PM

They aren't really permanent, but even then there are effects which do that(Planar Binding), and those aren't evil.

ryu

2013-10-17, 11:05 PM

I brought up lack of clean water as a problem. This paragraph tells me that it is not a problem, and also that it was a horrible, horrible problem. I don't really know how to react - you are not making sense.

There was plenty of water! The stuff was almost literally everywhere! The only obstacle was that we were incredibly stupid with its use and management back then. If people don't perform the various misconducts mentioned in the same post you just responded to in your setting clean water is literally everywhere.

Arcanist

2013-10-17, 11:06 PM

If a fire elemental showed up in your town, and was accidentally setting houses on fire because he radiates fire, your argument suggests that you would leave it alone, because fire in itself is not evil. I repeat, again, that negative energy doesn't have to be evil for a spell that creates a permanent negative energy effect in our world to be evil.

That is a well made, soundly created false dichotomy. Good job.

The more proper example would be that if the Fire Elemental is obviously acting with violent intent to harm you (for reasons known only to itself), you have the right to defend yourself. However if the Fire Elemental does this entirely by accident you do NOT have the right to exterminate it and would be best to tell it to leave town, lock it up or tell it to control itself.

However in this specific case it is something that they can control vs something they can't control. The only thing you can do to control the exposure of negative energy is to exterminate the undead, the way to control the exposure of fire is to tell the Fire elemental causing it to control their flame.

Alberic Strein

2013-10-17, 11:17 PM

You just ignored the valid point raised in my post to react on the stupid quip/rolling gag about fire being nocive?!

Because fire is very, very nice for us.

So, and I say this with no enmity, Plastickle, do you want to close the subject ?

Because we've been running in circles for a while and your example shows it.

An undead, unlike a fire elemental, does not radiate harmful levels of energy. You can get full body massages at the beauty parlor by skeletons (solves a lot of issues) for years without getting a single point of damage, or a decrease in fertility. The negative energy released by the undead only ever matters (slightly) in some grand extraplanar level. Ergo, it does nothing for us, but for the forces of good, less undead = better. According to Scow2, I am myself waaaay over my competence zone.

So, if by some sort of dm fiat an uber lich appeared that would make crops wither and die in a 10km radius around it, I would be of the mind to, first, take it 11km away from our crops, then point it in the direction of the closest desert. Refusal to comply would have me hire the biggest, baddest, most adventure starved tier 1 adventurers and get rid of it ASAP.

A fire elemental would get the same treatment.

If the same lich tips slightly the scales of the powers that be towards the negative plane but leaves my crops alone, then yes, I don't give a single damn.

Same for the fire elemental again. If it can contain itself to not actually harmful temperatures, then the only thing I would do is start planting tomatoes.

Your argument seems to have shifted towards :

Accepting negative energy as not evil means we are not seeing evil negative energy based spells as evil, which is a problem.

Earlier in this thread, we came to the conclusion that under special circumstances, a good spell could actually be evil and an evil spell not actually be evil. Ryu argues that we could standardize the circumstances making the evil spell animate dead not evil and use it for the greater good.

I, for one, never argued for all evil spells stop being classified as such.

Which doesn't mean ignoring that "evil" spells can be casted without it being an evil action.

But most of the discussion is not about "evil" spells, it's about undead brought back with those evil spells.

Ok, the evil spell was used, now there is an undead. it's automatically typed "evil" and Scow2 is of the mind to slaughter each and every one of them, regardless of how they are evil themselves or not, for the greater good. And that it's right.

Most our points were that, no, those undeads are not necessarily evil and slaughtering each and every one of them "For paradise!" is not necessarily good.

We simply stopped speaking of the same thing a little while ago.

Waker

2013-10-17, 11:50 PM

georgie_leech

2013-10-18, 12:03 AM

Wow, four pages since I checked the thread this morning? And it seems to center around Undead and their naughty negative energy. Always a point of contention amongst people. I would like to remind people however that the point of this topic is the disconnect between story and game mechanics, so if you could try to shift the discussion a bit that would be swell.

Undead is a Story-Gameplay issue, in both directions. On the one hand, undead are considered evil (story). On the other, there's nothing mechanical reinforcing this (gameplay)... except for having the [evil] tag (gameplay), commonly argued being due to the spread of Negative Energy (story?), despite other Negative Energy Spells not being [evil] (gameplay) and the Negative Energy Plane itself being Neutral (gameplay and story). This often explained by saying that Negative Energy itself isn't evil, but it is on the Material Plane because it is harmful to life (gameplay), to which the counter argument is often some variation of "So is fire, unless you're immune to fire somehow." (gameplay). The next common path of argument is to point out that fire has constructive/beneficial uses (gameplay) and is seen in a more positive light (story) where Negative Energy doesn't (gameplay). Strangely enough, this one has already been pre-empted this time by pointing out that Undead can be used for cheap labour, increasing food supplies and luxury time (story).

So in short, the status of Undead being Evil is gameplay disagreeing with story, story disagreeing with gameplay, gameplay disagreeing with gameplay, story disagreeing with story... It's hard to find a bigger disconnect between fluff and crunch, though I will nominate one shadow-themed PRC/Class (whose name I can't recall, curse my lack of google-fu) that recommends points being put into WIS to prevent insanity, despite no such mechanic actually existing in the class as written. Perhaps it was a feature that was cut or something.

Alberic Strein

2013-10-18, 12:16 AM

Aaaaaaand Georgie just won this whole thread.

Damn.

My astucious plan foiled... Again !

plastickle

2013-10-18, 12:42 AM

Because you appeared to be arguing that the usage of Negative Energy can be evil if you bring it into the Material Plane because it is especially dangerous. I figure, does that make the usage of fire or acid evil? Fire and acid are pretty dangerous on the material plane.
The argument is about whether the fluff of the plane of negative energy being neutral is compatible with the fluff of certain spells that use negative energy being evil. I am saying that if it is especially dangerous/damaging to bring negative energy to the material plane, then it is a good explanation for why negative energy is neutral while using it in the material plane is evil. And as the explanation is plausible, the fluff is compatible.

Regarding using the comparison to fire - it is not the case that bringing fire to the material plane is inherently dangerous. Dangerous things can be done with fire, but it is not inherently damaging. It might be the case that doing so with negative energy is inherently damaging. That would one plausible explanation for certain spells being inherently evil.

That is a well made, soundly created false dichotomy. Good job.
The flaw in my comparison arises from the flaw in comparing fire to negative energy. I was trying to exaggerate the fire example to be a better model for the negative energy example.

As you explain, the fire elemental can restrain itself, so there are more than two choices, and the dichotomy was false. In the case of the undead, as you also explain, the dichotomy isn't false. And that's the point the example was aimed toward emphasizing.

You just ignored the valid point raised in my post to react on the stupid quip/rolling gag about fire being nocive?!
I didn't ignore the point. You suggested that if negative energy is not evil, we should leave vampires alone. I directly answered that with the example of a being that radiated fire - if fire isn't inherently evil, shouldn't we leave it alone? The answer is "not if the being's presence causes damage".

An undead, unlike a fire elemental, does not radiate harmful levels of energy. You can get full body massages at the beauty parlor by skeletons (solves a lot of issues) for years without getting a single point of damage, or a decrease in fertility. The negative energy released by the undead only ever matters (slightly) in some grand extraplanar level.
I find the phrase "some grand extraplanar level" to be insanely menacing. If casting negative energy spells on the material plane has a negative effect on "some grand extraplanar level", then using those spells is evil, much more evil than if they merely caused HP damage to innocent bystanders.

If the same lich tips slightly the scales of the powers that be towards the negative plane but leaves my crops alone, then yes, I don't give a single damn.
Assuming we're talking about damns given from within the world context, you should be giving a whole lotta damns. So should every being on the plane. And if the Gods give a damn, and instruct their clerics and paladins to give a damn, then they are probably completely in the right to do so.

Your argument seems to have shifted towards :

Accepting negative energy as not evil means we are not seeing evil negative energy based spells as evil, which is a problem.
My argument hasn't shifted. ryu's argument is that the fluff of certain spells being evil doesn't make sense. My answer is that it does make sense. He claims that the neutrality of the negative plane invalidates the spell labels. I have described why it doesn't.

Earlier in this thread, we came to the conclusion that under special circumstances, a good spell could actually be evil and an evil spell not actually be evil. Ryu argues that we could standardize the circumstances making the evil spell animate dead not evil and use it for the greater good.
If a spell is defined as evil, then it is evil. If your character is damaging the entire material plane by using it, then he is not using it for the greater good, no matter what it looks like from your character's perspective. And if paladins and clerics track down the undead to keep the plane secure, they are doing the right thing.

If you want to alter the rules so that the spells don't have to be evil, that's absolutely your call. I expect I would be exactly as happy in either kind of game. But we're talking about whether the fluff is contradictory, and it isn't.

Tavar

2013-10-18, 01:00 AM

TuggyNE

2013-10-18, 01:28 AM

plastickle

2013-10-18, 01:38 AM

Alberic Strein

2013-10-18, 08:22 AM

I like how one side is basically arguing that the fluff/mechanics are inconsistent on their own, and thus don't make sense, while the other side is saying that the fluff and mechanics do make sense as long as you assume they are unstated rules which justify them all. This seems like a discussion that has never, ever happened before.

Sarcasm sense... Tingling!

@Plastickle: Ok, evil spells are always evil, good spells are always good. So, whatever we do with each spell is completely unrelated with the spells themselves, so Resurrecting an ancient and powerful evil/fiend, is good. You're bringing more positive energy into this world!

The thing is, it seems negative energy, on some grand, grand scale, is bad. But how much? Let's take that example of the working dead again. By having an undead workforce, we allow a higher education for a lot of people, so, having 16 undead worth of negative energy could mean a dozen, or half a dozen more positive energy channeling clerics in the world.

How are the scales tipped? We don't know.

You say that using negative energy damages the mortal plane. Besides asking for the source, there is also another question that I feel I need to ask.

How much?

Isn't that "damage" healed by positive energy?

Isn't positive energy as nocive on our plane as negative? Why?

The negative energy brought into this world by creating undead, what is it's worth? How much is it compared to the others? What of positive energy being brought up into the material plane? How much is it? How much is needed to regain equilibrium? What does an excess of negative energy in our world?

We don't know any of that, consequently, claiming evil spells can NOT be used in a non-evil fashion because of some plane damage is wrong.

Really, what kind of damage does a level3 spell cause on the plane?
Prolly the kind that can be healed with another level3 spell.

Also, I call B-S on the whole "the inconsistency is universal or it's not an inconsistency."

No. Just no. A theory is right until an example proving it wrong arises, at which point it is right up and until those examples. If ONE example is inconsistent with another, then it is inconsistent. Not the other way around.

Also, back to the working dead, your dismissal of the proposition was that using magic can do everything it does way more simply. Actually, the two approaches are compatible.

Both spells need the cleric to be level 5, which means that with a high enough wisdom score, he can create 20 undead, or feed 30 persons per day.

He can create two undead with 1HD per day, which means he will reach his control limit in ten days. Any subsequent days, he can feed ten persons a day through his direct magic, while the undead keep the fields worked. If it's not needed, then they can build stuff, since stone wall, the spell that would do it, is of a higher level.

Animating the dead takes one casting, maybe not one casting/forever*every farm, but even only one casting/3year*every farm is a good deal, and better than one casting/each day*15 people.

It also allows flexibility, after the initial 10 days have passed, the cleric is free to do whatever he wants with his level3 spells. He can feed people if needed, or he can fill a need that suddenly arose. While if his level3 spells are the only form of nutrition they have, he can never, ever, use them for something else, which might be dearly needed.

Ps: Also, about the shut-in vampire hunting, really paladins have no reason to go after them. They radiate a non-harmful level of negative energy. Ok, that's a reason. But so do an untold number of undead. Undead that can use their abilities to put even more negative energy in the plane, actually do evil, and be waaaay more significant in the whole grand scheme of things. Leave the damn shut-ins alone until you finish slaughtering all the nocive ones. A big issue needs to be treated faster than a small issue.

Scow2

2013-10-18, 08:50 AM

I have to ask: what makes Negative Energy so evil?It's anti-life. It's kinda like radiation. In a world without life (Such as the negative energy plane), it's harmless. Likewise, out in space away from anyone else, Lethal Gamma Radiation is harmless. However, not properly disposing of Nuclear Waste IS harmful to the world. There is a reason the True Good plane is mildly infused with Positive Energy, and the True Evil plane is mildly infused with Negative Energy.

Enervation is, to use the analogy, like shooting a single, concentrated beam of gamma rays at someone to kill/harm them. The energy is used, but is confined simply to the target and has no lasting repercussions. Creating an undead is like driving a forklift with Uranium/Plutonium hubcaps.

I'm curious where you got that a soul tethered to an undead body is evil. Do you have a quote?Are you saying it's NOT evil to force a sapient, formerly-human soul to serve in its body as a mindless, will-less slave? Golems are slightly different in that the elemental spirit used isn't sapient. Skeletons and Zombies are Undead, not Constructs - and a person turned into an Undead creature (Even a Skeleton or Zombie!) cannot be Raised even if the corpse is destroyed, and cannot be Resurrected (Which only requires the Soul of the person) until the undead is destroyed (Freeing the soul)

Well, animating undead is magic, so you ARE directly adressing those problems.

However, creating food/water takes one casting/use

Creating an undead to physically produce food and water is one casting/forever.And a self-reseting trap of Create Food and Water is cheaper than the skeletal workforce required to do the same. And the existence of Undead and other Evils prevents true Good from triumphing on the material plane and giving everyone functional Immortality, so people don't need to eat and suffer. And, creating an Undead Workforce would have the same effect as Automation has had in our world - Yeah, productivity is up, but we still have poverty and misery despite more than enough food to go around. The people with the most money would be the Necromancers.

Any commoner that does not have to spend his life working arduously could then use it to get some clericness going, learning how to create food for himself and his family in the process, while the fields are still worked.

Or become a merchant, or any job that nets you some nice money. And doesn't kill you while doing it.

Picture a greek citizen.

Edit/Ps : By the way, and not that we care, and not that we should, the undead approach would make the food markets jump way less abruptly, which in real life would have some pretty hellish consequences.Except, since they radiate negative energy (A nearly imperceptible amount in isolated cases), the undead working the fields are also slowly killing them. D&D doesn't have Crunch for this effect (Though the Fluff states it in several points) because most undead don't come in large enough numbers with enough regularity in vibrant enough areas to be worth modeling in 3.5's rule system.

Alberic Strein

2013-10-18, 09:04 AM

In your examples, negative energy is more ultraviolet rays and less gamma radiation.

The self resetting trap of create food and water seems a tiny little bit to be some stinky stinky cheese.

About the undead workforce slowly killing them, why wouldn't consecration, or some other positive energy channeling spells/beings solve that issue?

Again, we don't know how nocive the negative energy radiated by the undead is, if a casting of cure superficial wounds/day is sufficient to get the radiation level low enough to not have any lasting effects, then it's a non-issue.

About the whole "forcing a soul into a mindless slave being evil" it seriously depends on your afterlife and the desires of the soul.

And let's face it, True Good won't win over the material plane. Ever. Good can't annihilate Evil, Evil can't annihilate Good. Since the victory of True Good is never coming, we can do with some undead existing.

Tavar

2013-10-18, 12:04 PM

I would point out that there isn't anything that suggests souls are needed for non-intelligent undead. In fact, I would say that given the way some spells interact, the opposite is shown.

Arcanist

2013-10-18, 12:54 PM

There is a reason the True Good plane is mildly infused with Positive Energy, and the True Evil plane is mildly infused with Negative Energy.

This is maliciously false. Thanatos is mildly negative energy because it fits with Orcus' portfolio as the Demon Prince of Undeath. There is not a single layer of the Nine Hells that possess the negative energy trait, mildly or otherwise.

Enervation is, to use the analogy, like shooting a single, concentrated beam of gamma rays at someone to kill/harm them. The energy is used, but is confined simply to the target and has no lasting repercussions. Creating an undead is like driving a forklift with Uranium/Plutonium hubcaps.

Your analogy is inherently false because the very presence of an Undead has no mechanical side effects of harming anyone where as being around radioactive material would very well have mechanic side effects (notably rad poisoning for those of you who enjoy your stroll through the Mojave).

Are you saying it's NOT evil to force a sapient, formerly-human soul to serve in its body as a mindless, will-less slave? Golems are slightly different in that the elemental spirit used isn't sapient. Skeletons and Zombies are Undead, not Constructs - and a person turned into an Undead creature (Even a Skeleton or Zombie!) cannot be Raised even if the corpse is destroyed, and cannot be Resurrected (Which only requires the Soul of the person) until the undead is destroyed (Freeing the soul)

Animate Dead, Create Undead and Create Greater Undead say nothing about the corpses of animated undead from being resurrected from their true form meaning that you can kill someone, animate their corpse, and cast True Resurrection (so long as the soul is not impeded, which none of those spells do) and have the resurrected person kill their old corpse.

What makes this even worse is that you are now saying the Elementals are not sentient and it is thus ethical for them to create Golems.

And a self-reseting trap of Create Food and Water is cheaper than the skeletal workforce required to do the same. And the existence of Undead and other Evils prevents true Good from triumphing on the material plane and giving everyone functional Immortality, so people don't need to eat and suffer. And, creating an Undead Workforce would have the same effect as Automation has had in our world - Yeah, productivity is up, but we still have poverty and misery despite more than enough food to go around. The people with the most money would be the Necromancers.

Fantastic. You are now against progress. Perhaps in your world, everything would be made by hand and mass production would be a thing of the past. It seems your biggest grief is Big Business.

Except, since they radiate negative energy (A nearly imperceptible amount in isolated cases), the undead working the fields are also slowly killing them. D&D doesn't have Crunch for this effect (Though the Fluff states it in several points) because most undead don't come in large enough numbers with enough regularity in vibrant enough areas to be worth modeling in 3.5's rule system.

And this is listed where? Fluff or otherwise, it merely states that the when Undead are created Negative energy is bought into the world... Just like when you cast Enervation and the Inflict series of spells and yet none of these are being decreed "Evil".

Jade_Tarem

2013-10-18, 01:35 PM

I would point out that there isn't anything that suggests souls are needed for non-intelligent undead. In fact, I would say that given the way some spells interact, the opposite is shown.

+1. Magic Jar says in no uncertain terms that only intelligent undead have, or are, souls.

NichG

2013-10-18, 04:01 PM

This discussion right now really isn't about fluff versus crunch. Its really just about how some posters would like the fluff to be versus how other posters would like the fluff to be, something that is amplified by the fact that the fluff is inconsistent with itself. Neither modern morality nor the orange and blue 'cosmic chess' picture are fundamentally 'right' or 'wrong' for a game in general, and while D&D favors the orange and blue picture with its fluff, it is full of exceptions and internal disagreements like the succubus paladin example or BoED's standards of ethics.

Of all of this undead talk, the only real example of a fluff/crunch conflict has been that Magic Jar calls for non-sentient undead to be soulless but the text of Resurrection/etc says that anyone who has been animated as undead (not sentient-undead specifically) cannot be raised. Mechanically these are just a set of rules - they're perfectly consistent: X situation allows raising, Y situation prevents it. Its when the fluff is added that the links between these things stop making very much sense.

Honestly though, my biggest problem with fluff vs crunch coming into conflict in D&D is when there are very cool ideas in the fluff that have very poor implementations in the crunch, to the point where other things do the same stuff better or one would never want to use those methods (Truenamer, I'm looking at you). That may not be the crunch and fluff explicitly disagreeing, but its sort of a default on the promises made by the fluff.

'What is anti-magic really?' is another big crunch/fluff problem though it seems to come up mostly when you press the crunch very closely to RAW (such as firing orbs of non-magical force into an anti-magic field, or the whole 'spellcasting is an Ex ability' argument). How golems work in AMFs is still arguably a problem though, even without hijinks.

This comes from a more general problem of that are just kind of 'thrown in' because someone had an idea for a neat mechanic but which have very tenuous or empty connections to other things that already exist in the system. Ideally for me the fluff should (behind the scenes) be something like 'here is how the world is, and because of that/by exploiting that fact, people can learn to do X, Y, or Z'.

So for example you could say something like 'there are four primal elements, and three ways in which those elements enter the world, and supernatural powers come about from people tapping one of those ways and elements'. It doesn't really have to be simple either - there could be thirty or forty qualitatively different paths to power, and they don't all have to be 'there's a source and you tap it' or anything like that.

The key thing though is for the crunch to be systematic about how it treats power that comes from the same place, and if something applies to multiple ways to power, there should be an underlying reason why those different paths are both affected.

Scow2

2013-10-18, 04:53 PM

This is maliciously false. Thanatos is mildly negative energy because it fits with Orcus' portfolio as the Demon Prince of Undeath. There is not a single layer of the Nine Hells that possess the negative energy trait, mildly or otherwise.Not in the Nine Hells, no, because those aren't a True Evil plane. They're the Lawful Evil plane. Likewise, the Seven Mounting Heavens of Celestia aren't positive-energy aligned. But Elysium, the True Good plane, is. The Grey Wastes of Hades, the Neutral Evil plane, however, IS negative-energy aligned.

Your analogy is inherently false because the very presence of an Undead has no mechanical side effects of harming anyone where as being around radioactive material would very well have mechanic side effects (notably rad poisoning for those of you who enjoy your stroll through the Mojave).The very presence of Undead isn't strong enough to have a notable dice-involving mechanical effect in normal gameplay.

Animate Dead, Create Undead and Create Greater Undead say nothing about the corpses of animated undead from being resurrected from their true form meaning that you can kill someone, animate their corpse, and cast True Resurrection (so long as the soul is not impeded, which none of those spells do) and have the resurrected person kill their old corpse.I'll give it to you that they aren't in the Spell Descriptions, but the spell Raise Dead cannot be used on a corpse that was turned into an Undead Creature (Even if it's left intact after the Undead is destroyed!). But the larger point you're making is false: The spells Resurrection and True Resurrection cannot resurrect someone turned into an Undead Creature until that creature has been destroyed.

What makes this even worse is that you are now saying the Elementals are not sentient and it is thus ethical for them to create Golems.The elemental spirits involved in making a Golem aren't sentient. Other elemental spirits are.

Fantastic. You are now against progress. Perhaps in your world, everything would be made by hand and mass production would be a thing of the past. It seems your biggest grief is Big Business.Nah. In my world, everything would be Post-Scarcity, like the upper planes.

Good is inherently inconsistent as long as the possibility of Evil exists, because Evil is free to troll the hell out of good:
Good wants people to be tolerant and nice to each other, and to stand against injustice, but cannot override free will. Evil, though, is free to make a race that preys on tolerance and niceness... but when Good tries to revoke its protections of tolerance from them, evil is free to make an unknown number of its Evil Species able to be redeemed, causing Good's tenets to conflict with itself.

kellbyb

2013-10-18, 05:12 PM

Waker

2013-10-18, 06:07 PM

Honestly though, my biggest problem with fluff vs crunch coming into conflict in D&D is when there are very cool ideas in the fluff that have very poor implementations in the crunch, to the point where other things do the same stuff better or one would never want to use those methods (Truenamer, I'm looking at you). That may not be the crunch and fluff explicitly disagreeing, but its sort of a default on the promises made by the fluff.
This is one I wholeheartedly agree with. I find it troubling how often the mechanics behind the classes clash with the fluff that they present. Even though Sorcerers are supposed to be just shy of inherently magic, they regularly get outclassed in that department by nerds with a backpack full of books, the overly pious, and an outdoors-man who could use a bath.
And then you have stuff like the Truenamer. When I first heard about it I thought, "Like Rhapsody from the Symphony of Ages?" And I found that no, not even sort of close. Thankfully some Homebrewers have managed to salvage Truenamer classes that I would actually play.

'What is anti-magic really?' is another big crunch/fluff problem though it seems to come up mostly when you press the crunch very closely to RAW (such as firing orbs of non-magical force into an anti-magic field, or the whole 'spellcasting is an Ex ability' argument). How golems work in AMFs is still arguably a problem though, even without hijinks.
Yeah, that is another mechanic that I've had issues with for the longest time. How is it that if I chuck a Fireball or Lightning Bolt at someone, that is a magical effect which would be blocked by AMF, but a bolt of acid is just fine. Or if rather the Fireball is an Orb of Fire, then you are set.
Tangentially, there are the rather arbitrary divisions between the spells that are available in the magic schools. Enchantment deals with all magic that interferes with the mind...except spells that spook someone, those are Necromancy cuz that is the magic school for creepy guys. Evocation is about the manipulation of energy and encompasses all magic that concerns the elements...except for the majority of Acid spells and a whole slew of other creation spells that fiddle with the other elements, those make way more sense in the Conjuration school.

plastickle

2013-10-18, 06:09 PM

@Plastickle: Ok, evil spells are always evil, good spells are always good. So, whatever we do with each spell is completely unrelated with the spells themselves, so Resurrecting an ancient and powerful evil/fiend, is good. You're bringing more positive energy into this world!
I haven't said that what we do with spells is unrelated to the spells themselves. No one in the thread has said that. So who, exactly, are you mocking? Please don't be a jerk.

You say that using negative energy damages the mortal plane.
No. I'm not. As I have said half a dozen times already, I'm arguing that the fluff is not inconsistent with itself. Negative energy damaging the material plane is one easy explanation that shows there is no contradiction. I'm not advancing it as the One True Mechanic For How Everything Works, because there is no need to do that for my argument to be sound.

How much?
Enough to make good Gods pissed at you, I guess. But the details are irrelevant, as all it takes is the broad strokes of the idea to see how easy it is to justify the "incompatible" fluff.

Isn't that "damage" healed by positive energy?
No reason to think it would. Does a good act of feeding and clothing an orphan "heal" the evil you caused him by killing his parents?

Isn't positive energy as nocive on our plane as negative? Why?
Not according to the spell descriptions. And it doesn't matter why, for the purposes of this argument. It only matters that my possible explanation is reasonable, and demonstrates that the fluff holds together fine.

We don't know any of that, consequently, claiming evil spells can NOT be used in a non-evil fashion because of some plane damage is wrong.
If you want to change the rule for your campaign, that's fine. But it's completely irrelevant to our conversation about the rules and fluff as written, and the contradiction you claim is in the rules and fluff as written.

Also, I call B-S on the whole "the inconsistency is universal or it's not an inconsistency."

No. Just no. A theory is right until an example proving it wrong arises, at which point it is right up and until those examples. If ONE example is inconsistent with another, then it is inconsistent. Not the other way around.
You have the context completely backward. The declaration being made (your "A theory") is that the negative plane being described as neutral is incompatible with certain spells being described as evil. And, as you say, it is right until an example proving it wrong arises, which is exactly what the example Scow and I have advanced does.

Also, back to the working dead, your dismissal of the proposition was that using magic can do everything it does way more simply. Actually, the two approaches are compatible.
I think you think I'm saying that undead servants would be useless. I'm not. I'm saying that trying to replace your entire labour force with undead would actually be a tremendous undertaking, and the problems it solves could be solved more efficiently in other ways. I think this would be a great conversation in another thread, but I think you haven't really considered how society-breaking magic items really are.

Ps: Also, about the shut-in vampire hunting, really paladins have no reason to go after them. They radiate a non-harmful level of negative energy. Ok, that's a reason. But so do an untold number of undead. Undead that can use their abilities to put even more negative energy in the plane, actually do evil, and be waaaay more significant in the whole grand scheme of things. Leave the damn shut-ins alone until you finish slaughtering all the nocive ones. A big issue needs to be treated faster than a small issue.
But the existence of big issues doesn't mean you ignore the small issues. You wouldn't seek out "harmless", shut-in vampires before other undead, but if you happened to know where they were, you would go destroy them.

This discussion right now really isn't about fluff versus crunch. Its really just about how some posters would like the fluff to be versus how other posters would like the fluff to be, something that is amplified by the fact that the fluff is inconsistent with itself.
I don't think this is quite right. Raising undead being evil is both crunch and fluff, and they are saying that there is no reason to use the crunch as written because it is justified by sketchy fluff. We are discussing the fluff because of the effect it has on the crunch.

Scow2

2013-10-18, 06:13 PM

I don't know where you pulled that information from, but it is completely false.Manual of the Planes, though it seems I was mistaken about the Grey Wastes being mildly Negative-Energy Dominant, though Elysium is Mildly Positive Energy-dominant (Note that all Good planes, such as the Seven Mounting Kingdoms of Celestia and Twin Paradises of Bytopia are only Mildly Good-Aligned, with the exception of Elysium)

Arcanist

2013-10-18, 06:16 PM

Not in the Nine Hells, no, because those aren't a True Evil plane. They're the Lawful Evil plane. Likewise, the Seven Mounting Heavens of Celestia aren't positive-energy aligned. But Elysium, the True Good plane, is. The Grey Wastes of Hades, the Neutral Evil plane, however, IS negative-energy aligned.

1/2 wrong. Elysium has the positive energy trait, however Hades does not have the Negative energy trait. The most you can draw from this conclusion is that Positive energy is good aligned, however it would be a massive stretch since the actual Positive Energy Plane possess no alignment.

The very presence of Undead isn't strong enough to have a notable dice-involving mechanical effect in normal gameplay.
I'll give it to you that they aren't in the Spell Descriptions, but the spell Raise Dead cannot be used on a corpse that was turned into an Undead Creature (Even if it's left intact after the Undead is destroyed!). But the larger point you're making is false: The spells Resurrection and True Resurrection cannot resurrect someone turned into an Undead Creature until that creature has been destroyed.

Quite right, but under no interpretation of the spell, however liberal, states that the soul is even affected in any way shape or form. In fact, it is far more likely that the creature is strictly animated through the negative energy plane and (in the case of sentient undead) acts like the creature normally would prior to death. The only Undead that quite clearly affects the soul, is the Lich who is required to force it into another object and even that is debatable since the original inspiration for the Lich, Koschei the Deathless, forced his Death into his phylactery and not his actual soul.

The elemental spirits involved in making a Golem aren't sentient. Other elemental spirits are.

So... What makes the Elemental spirit sentient? Better yet, are you arguing that using Bind Elemental for item creation is evil? How about Demon Mastery, is that a Good aligned feat?

Nah. In my world, everything would be Post-Scarcity, like the upper planes.

Why the hell would anyone need to adventure? Hell, most adventures are exciting because they have goals for the characters to strive for, but with absolute post-scarcity the characters don't have to worry about anything. Unless you are doing a Star Trek campaign where people simply explore for self-improvement.

Good is inherently inconsistent as long as the possibility of Evil exists, because Evil is free to troll the hell out of good:
Good wants people to be tolerant and nice to each other, and to stand against injustice, but cannot override free will. Evil, though, is free to make a race that preys on tolerance and niceness... but when Good tries to revoke its protections of tolerance from them, evil is free to make an unknown number of its Evil Species able to be redeemed, causing Good's tenets to conflict with itself.

So basically Good needs Evil and vice versa. Also, your statement is internally inconsistent. If Good is as tolerant as you say it is than it will tolerate Evil. Simply put: "I'm going to love and tolerate the **** out of you."

Good is more accurately the desire to prosper and survive in peace with your fellow sentient lifeforms. Evil however wants you to not be prosperous. It wants you to be to fight your fellow sentient lifeforms. On the Chaotic - Lawful spectrum, it would vary from forcing the other person into doing it or simply allowing them to come to the conclusion themselves.

Scow2

2013-10-18, 06:32 PM

So... What makes the Elemental spirit sentient? Better yet, are you arguing that using Bind Elemental for item creation is evil? How about Demon Mastery, is that a Good aligned feat?I'm unfamiliar with Bind Elemental. But how would Demon Mastery ever be "Good"?
Why the hell would anyone need to adventure? Hell, most adventures are exciting because they have goals for the characters to strive for, but with absolute post-scarcity the characters don't have to worry about anything. Unless you are doing a Star Trek campaign where people simply explore for self-improvement.Adventure occurs because something is wrong and needs to be righted. I guess I should have said an ideal world is Post-scarcity.

So basically Good needs Evil and vice versa. Also, your statement is internally inconsistent. If Good is as tolerant as you say it is than it will tolerate Evil. Simply put: "I'm going to love and tolerate the **** out of you."

Good is more accurately the desire to prosper and survive in peace with your fellow sentient lifeforms. Evil however wants you to not be prosperous. It wants you to be to fight your fellow sentient lifeforms. On the Chaotic - Lawful spectrum, it would vary from forcing the other person into doing it or simply allowing them to come to the conclusion themselves. Not that Good and Evil need each other - quite the opposite, actually. Well, Evil gets along better with Good much better than Good gets along with Evil, just as a Scam Artist gets along great with his victims, or a Troll gets along great with sensitive people on the internet. The thing about Good is that it cannot allow Evil and suffering to be inflicted on another. This wouldn't be a problem if Evil weren't a possibility - but it is, requiring Good to take action to prevent suffering to be inflicted on others. Good can tolerate anything that isn't incorrigible, because that means they can Stop it from inflicting suffering through redemption. However, Evil is free to create things that will exploit the forgiving and trusting nature of Good, and try to drive it insane. The best people can hope for is to be "As Good as they Can" while Evil is Possible.

Checking the Manual of the Planes... Negative Energy is so nasty that even Evil wants nothing or little to do with it! They need those souls for doing vile things too.

Cambrian

2013-10-18, 06:59 PM

Nobody actually thinks the alignment system and things concerned with it stand up in real life.

It is doubtful that anyone will ever be able to ever resolve this issue (and many similar issues) since alignment is as imaginary as magic and being able to fit it into a consistent framework is impossible.

Raven777

2013-10-18, 07:52 PM

Fluff & Crunch : Why are spells that channel energy from the Positive Energy plane [Conjuration], while those that channel energy from the Negative Energy plane [Necromancy]? Shouldn't Cure, Restoration and Resurrection spells be put back into Necromancy, the school that used to be about death and life? Is it one more deliberate instance of throwing logic out the window for the sake of "Necromancy can't be good ever"?

137beth

2013-10-18, 08:05 PM

TuggyNE

2013-10-18, 08:10 PM

137beth

2013-10-18, 08:18 PM

Well, negative energy effects conjure negative/necromantic auras, while positive energy effects Conjure positive energy, so it turns out necromancy is actually a subschool of conjuration!

EDIT: Also, conjurers need to evoke magical energy for it to work, so actually all spells in the game are evocation.

Cambrian

2013-10-18, 08:30 PM

Alberic Strein

2013-10-18, 08:38 PM

I haven't said that what we do with spells is unrelated to the spells themselves. No one in the thread has said that. So who, exactly, are you mocking? Please don't be a jerk.

Did I imagine the whole "No matter what, creating undead is evil, undead are evil, and termination is the only correct choice" ?

No. I'm not. As I have said half a dozen times already, I'm arguing that the fluff is not inconsistent with itself. Negative energy damaging the material plane is one easy explanation that shows there is no contradiction. I'm not advancing it as the One True Mechanic For How Everything Works, because there is no need to do that for my argument to be sound.

One possible argument does NOT mean your theory is sound.

Enough to make good Gods pissed at you, I guess. But the details are irrelevant, as all it takes is the broad strokes of the idea to see how easy it is to justify the "incompatible" fluff.

Last time I checked, good Gods did hunt evil necromancers... Oh, but at least one neutral god is okay with necromancy under some specifics... So you can be like... A neutral necromancer... And gods don't go after your arse! Brilliant! I don't remember any god inscribing in his dogma "Neutral necromancers are to be exterminated"

Yet again, the whole "EXTERMINAAAAATE" on a "good" god dogma...

And yet again, one "possible" justification does not make theories sound.

No reason to think it would. Does a good act of feeding and clothing an orphan "heal" the evil you caused him by killing his parents?

Would cold energy put the temperature of a soup back to bearable levels after it was heated up with fire energy ?

Why, yes !

It's not about morals, or the alignment system, not about feeding and murder (and again your example is horribly biased. If you wrongly scold a little child, realise your mistake and then buy him food and clothes, does it "heal" the evil you caused with your mistake ? Why, maybe!) it's about energy. What energy brings, an opposed energy can take back (under circumstances).

So in your possible example of negative energy hurting the material plane, either energy itself hurts it, or the negative bit does it. In which case an equal amount of opposite energy can undo the consequences.

You have the context completely backward. The declaration being made (your "A theory") is that the negative plane being described as neutral is incompatible with certain spells being described as evil. And, as you say, it is right until an example proving it wrong arises, which is exactly what the example Scow and I have advanced does.

Actually, what made me react was Scow's theory of "Kill all undead... For Good/Paradise!". As in the only thing to be done with an undead is to calmly talk to him how he is an abomination that has no right to exist and how he should rightfully be smited for his own good and the good of everyone else. Scow then put forward fluff and crunch advancing his point.

I disagree immensely with that position and hence tried to advance points which disprove this school of thought.

I absolutely do NOT care for spells being marked as "evil". I care about the whole "let's exterminate the hell out of every single undead"

This is the correct order.

I think you think I'm saying that undead servants would be useless. I'm not. I'm saying that trying to replace your entire labour force with undead would actually be a tremendous undertaking, and the problems it solves could be solved more efficiently in other ways. I think this would be a great conversation in another thread, but I think you haven't really considered how society-breaking magic items really are.

True. Though I would, yet again, argue on the whole "more efficiently". It depends on subjective views of efficiency.

But the existence of big issues doesn't mean you ignore the small issues. You wouldn't seek out "harmless", shut-in vampires before other undead, but if you happened to know where they were, you would go destroy them.

Which deities have "hunt and kill every single negative energy powered being" in their dogma by the way ?

I don't think this is quite right. Raising undead being evil is both crunch and fluff, and they are saying that there is no reason to use the crunch as written because it is justified by sketchy fluff. We are discussing the fluff because of the effect it has on the crunch.

Fluff-wise, NEUTRAL gods of death give the whole undead raising a-ok if some conditions amounting to basic decency are followed. It's not our personal interpretation.

Raven777

2013-10-18, 08:38 PM

Obviously cure spells just conjure from the plane of meat.

Healing is bacon. I knew it.

137beth

2013-10-18, 08:42 PM

Which deities have "hunt and kill every single negative energy powered being" in their dogma by the way ?

Didn't you hear? They made Scow2 an overdeity! Scow2 actually has a divine rank of 77.

TheIronGolem

2013-10-18, 08:43 PM

The notion that undead are "magically radioactive" was created relatively recently, and for one sole purpose: to retroactively justify a decades-old assumption that being or creating undead must be, a priori, an inherently evil act*.

And that's fine, if you want your campaign to have a nice and tidy black-and-white morality like a Silver Age comic. It makes things simple and straightforward. But make no mistake that it is artificial and contrived, and any argument that relies on it is an implicit admission that you need an artificial and contrived way to justify the underlying assumption about undead.

More to the point, it's a campaign-specific thing, and can't honestly be said to apply "by default". The core rules are quite rightfully silent on the matter (spell descriptors notwithstanding), and it's up to individual DM's to decide if there's any particular evil inherent to unlife (and why, if so).

Finally, I would point out that this explanation doesn't even fulfill its own purpose very well, given the holes being poked in it in this thread (and the rather weak analogies made in its defense). It's only a satisfactory explanation if you already agree with the conclusion it's supposed to support. It's a sermon written specifically for the choir.

I wouldn't use this explanation even in the kind of "undead are bad and that's that" game it's intended for - not when there are stronger ones available. Hell, just say that in your game undead can only be created by binding innocent souls into torment and call it a day.

*This assumption, itself, is probably perpetuated by WotC partly as a bulwark against any potential replay of the moral panic of the 80's, but mostly just out of habit.

137beth

2013-10-18, 08:47 PM

Healing is bacon. I knew it.

Oh, crap, I'm vegetarian, so I can't be healed :eek:

ryu

2013-10-18, 08:49 PM

Oh, crap, I'm vegetarian, so I can't be healed :eek:

Don't worry. You can still have bacon taped to you.

Waker

2013-10-18, 08:56 PM

Oh, crap, I'm vegetarian, so I can't be healed :eek:

I'm sure you can get by with Vegan Conjuration to heal you. Remember not to make your Will save though or it will be less real.

Alberic Strein

2013-10-18, 08:56 PM

Is that why we have so many variants of healing spells ?

Cure light wounds (bacon)? I just can't, I'm vegetarian! That's why I prepared lesser vigor (tofu) for you my dear!

Edit: Makes WAAAAAAY more sense to me than it should.

137beth

2013-10-18, 09:03 PM

I'm sure you can get by with Vegan Conjuration to heal you. Remember not to make your Will save though or it will be less real.

Until Tippy comes along with an optimized illusionist who can use Vegan Conjuration that is actually 120% real.

Waker

2013-10-18, 09:08 PM

Until Tippy comes along with an optimized illusionist who can use Vegan Conjuration that is actually 120% real.

Let's disregard any of Tippy's over the top optimization. I mean, if we didn't we would all be running around with an army of Sentient Tofurky Assassins with Sustained Anti-Cholesterol Fields.

ericp65

2013-10-18, 09:09 PM

Black bean & rice conjuration yields the highest quality healing for your veggie casualties :smallwink:

ryu

2013-10-18, 09:11 PM

Let's disregard any of Tippy's over the top optimization. I mean, if we didn't we would all be running around with an army of Sentient Tofurky Assassins with Sustained Anti-Cholesterol Fields.

But that sounds like the best world to live in...

Raven777

2013-10-18, 10:15 PM

To get back on topic. Binding souls is evil. The creation of fiends is evil. Binding evil souls so that hey cannot amalgamate into a new fiend is... ?

plastickle

2013-10-18, 10:21 PM

Did I imagine the whole "No matter what, creating undead is evil, undead are evil, and termination is the only correct choice" ?
That's it? You've taken the rather large leap from the book's declaration that a spell is [evil] to "what we do with spells is unrelated to the spells themselves"? I do not believe you find those to be equivalent.

One possible argument does NOT mean your theory is sound.
[...]
And yet again, one "possible" justification does not make theories sound.
[...]
I disagree immensely with that position and hence tried to advance points which disprove this school of thought.

I absolutely do NOT care for spells being marked as "evil". I care about the whole "let's exterminate the hell out of every single undead"
You've framed your arguments as a response a blanket declaration that all undead are evil, and therefore, to succeed, all you need to do is provide one example of a non-evil undead (and justify its non-evilness). I'm with you on that. I really am.

Unfortunately, my position in this conversation has been to argue with ryu's declaration that the only way a negative energy spell can be evil is if negative energy itself is evil. I said it doesn't have to be that way. He said, "yes it does". I've described an example that (in my opinion) very successfully describes a method for the spells to be evil even if the energy isn't inherently so.

So if you've been responding to my position these last few pages, and it certainly looked like you have been, as you've been quoting me, you have the context backwards. I am not advancing a theory, I am arguing that two things are not incompatible. All it takes to do that is EXACTLY "one possible argument".

But a number of people have been making it pretty clear that they consider this debate tiresome, so let's stop.

Alberic Strein

2013-10-18, 10:36 PM

Actually, we've been arguing more about our respective examples, and less about what they were trying to prove. I disagree with a lot of your examples and I don't hesitate to iterate on that.

But at the end of the day, while I'm not that hot on the whole "let's mark most necromancy and undead raising spells [evil] just because", yes I believe that you can use neutral/good energy to create an evil spell.

Fire is a neutral energy. It's awesome for us, as it provides heat so we don't die of cold, a mean to cook our food and quite possibly the first step ever so humanity could go towards being civilised. It also burns us. Which is bad.

A stream of flames, or a fireball is not evil per se, it's just the manifestation of a type of energy.

However, if a wizard researches a spell that singles out a creature corresponding to the following criterias : Good. Young. Innocent.

And proceeded to set ablaze one randomly selected hit in the research, then the spell would undoubtedly be evil. Even though fire energy is not.

I actually agree with you there. I disagree with the examples you put forward to further that point, though.

So... Did we ever get to the end of the whole "Slaughter Fiends for Good Vs Redeem Fiends for Good" debate?

Scow2

2013-10-18, 11:09 PM

Didn't you hear? They made Scow2 an overdeity! Scow2 actually has a divine rank of 77.Please, I'm embarrassed. It's only 23.

But no, they don't have "EX-TER-MI-NATE" as the policy toward Neutral Undead spellcasters - there are bigger problems in the world. Using Undeath to Good Ends is a Neutral, not Good, act. The net cosmic gain is neutral, and it's reflected in the world. The anti-undead Good Deities, when confronted by neutral Necromancers (That are neutral by using Undead and Negative Energy to achieve good ends), isn't to try and smite them where they stand. It's to sigh, facepalm, and hope the necromancer realizes that he's hurting the world as much as he's helping it, and come around to the side of Righteousness before all the bigger evils in the world are taken care of. It's a similar approach to handling Good-aligned undead - we don't want to destroy them out of spite: We want to show them that they really would be better off just letting go of the darkness and foul magics binding them to the world, and take their well-earned final rest. Forcing it on them isn't right, but letting them continue doesn't work out for the best either.

Good doesn't want to have to destroy the misguided practitioners of Evil... it just wants to remove the possibility of Evil from the world.

Scow2

2013-10-18, 11:27 PM

So... Did we ever get to the end of the whole "Slaughter Fiends for Good Vs Redeem Fiends for Good" debate?Actually... I answered it in another thread.
The big rule is Specific Trumps General.

The general rule is that Fiends are inherently evil, and must be destroyed. Tolerating them only leads to more evil down the line. HOWEVER, The BoED lists two exceptions to the rule. One is that it is a Good Act to show mercy to a Fiend that demonstrates a spark of goodness, even if that spark is not in itself enough to redeem it. The other is more involved, and discusses the handling of redeemed fiends... the complete rule is "Allowing Fiends to live is an Evil Act, unless the Fiend has a spark of good and worthy of mercy, or is is Redeemed."

Also, Fiends are 'immune' to the Redemption process lined out in the BoED - but mechanically, that process just successive will saves vs. Diplomancy Checks to resist. A determined-enough redeemer can turn anyone around (And it brings up some ugly questions about their will, since, mechanically, the redeemer makes that choice. But it's no moreso than any other diplomantic shenanigan). A Fiend can voluntarily forego its immunity if it wants to seek redemption, and likewise can auto-fail its will saves. A fiend merely happens to be so vile that it can resist any attempt to make it 'see the light' short of proto-epic magic.

Raven777

2013-10-18, 11:51 PM

So crunch wise, Eludecia willingly failed her redemption checks because she fell in love with the angel? That is... really cool, actually.

Snowbluff

2013-10-19, 12:18 AM

So crunch wise, Eludecia willingly failed her redemption checks because she fell in love with the angel? That is... really cool, actually.

D'awww. :')

That's adorable.

Rubik

2013-10-19, 12:19 AM

So crunch wise, Eludecia willingly failed her redemption checks because she fell in love with the angel? That is... really cool, actually.Little did she know that the paladins were waiting for just that thing, the bastards.

Raven777

2013-10-19, 12:21 AM

Little did she know that the paladins were waiting for just that thing, the bastards.

No, Eludecia. You are the paladins.

hamishspence

2013-10-19, 04:22 AM

The general rule is that Fiends are inherently evil, and must be destroyed. Tolerating them only leads to more evil down the line. HOWEVER, The BoED lists two exceptions to the rule. One is that it is a Good Act to show mercy to a Fiend that demonstrates a spark of goodness, even if that spark is not in itself enough to redeem it. The other is more involved, and discusses the handling of redeemed fiends... the complete rule is "Allowing Fiends to live is an Evil Act, unless the Fiend has a spark of good and worthy of mercy, or is is Redeemed."

Strictly speaking - BoED doesn't have a word-for-word statement along those lines- but it does drop hints.

"A paladin must choose between destroying evil and honoring love" (shows a paladin holding two fiends who are hand-in-hand, at sword point) - implication - "honoring love" can qualify as a justification for not "destroying evil" (possibly because being in love is proof that those fiends have a spark of goodness).

BoVD doesn't mention redeemed fiends or fiends "worthy of mercy" when it says "allowing fiends to live is always an evil act" - but it's a fairly logical extrapolation to say "except in those cases" - because of BoED, and all the sources that mention redeemed fiends.

Alberic Strein

2013-10-19, 10:18 PM

Using Undeath to Good Ends is a Neutral, not Good, act. The net cosmic gain is neutral, and it's reflected in the world.

And we were even reaching an understanding too...

[EDIT: What follows is my earnest opinion, and nothing more. I use strong words trying to establish my point, but I don't claim to be absolutely right (of course I believe I am, but I know that my stand is controversial) so, if you disagree, try to keep in mind that I don't claim you to be wrong. I percieve the following as wrong, which is quite not the same.:smallbiggrin:]

First things first : It seems absolutely logical. It is, as far as I know, represented as such crunch-wise and I even note that you formulated it in such a way that it is compatible with an undead, or evil creature, doing good, and good being good, not neutral. Which is a pleasant departure from what I understood of your precedent views.

Yet I find myself disagreeing with that proposition. Utterly, entirely, undoubtedly disagreeing with it.

I agree, once again, that it makes perfect sense. Killing your enemies, without more context, laws, etc... is neutral. It's the law of nature. Kill or be killed. Sparing your enemy is good (let's not touch the subject of fiends). Being cruel to your enemy is evil. Ok, that's simple. Now, killing your enemy so that you may eat tonight is normal, not good nor evil, it's neutral. Killing your enemy so you can selflessly feed a number of innocents utterly unrelated to you is good. Killing your enemy so that nobody besides you dines tonight, while you could share and it wouldn't trouble you much, is evil. Killing a saint with a very good reason is neutral. Mercy killing a saint is good. Killing a saint without a very good reason (you still have a reason, but it's not awesome) is evil. Of course, torturing a saint for the hell of it is evil.

So with this logic we see "increments" of the good/evil axis, which easily allows us to easily categorize each and every single action, so that we can easily verify we are not acting out of character and provides us helpful insight with the alignment system.

However, forcefully raising a cemetary's worth of undead to protect a church full of orphaned children during a goblin attack is NOT neutral.

Categorizing doing good with evil means as neutral is just wrong.

Let's take a bigger, clearer cut, example.

The Legions of Death, Destruction and Bad Music are surging, ravaging the world, raising chaos, killing, pillaging, and being discourteous and obstinate lovers.

They are on road towards a small baronny. The land cannot defeat them in the field, and cannot hold a siege for long.

The evilness of the army is undiscutable, so is the powerlessness of the baronny. Negociation is impossible, defeat means the entire population is killed. Not enslaved, killed. Every single man, woman, child, dog, and tax collectors are raised after their first execution to be killed again. The populace will have the worst kinds of evils visited upon it.

Help decided that saving the small country was impossible and decided to make its stand on the border of the next kingdom.

The hour is bleak, nothing seems to be able to save the country.

Except the Baron is Vlad III frakking Draculesti's DnD expy.*

So he chains horrendously evil act upon horrendously evil act. Scorched earth tactic, night raids, well poisoning, disease infected weapons, fields of skewered people to break enemy morale, forsaken child powered golems... Pick any evil deed useful in the situation, he did it.

And to the general surprise, the hordes of Evil back off.

The, surviving, people are saved. Because their ruler played every dirty trick in the book.

They won clearly because of the evil, despicable acts, they were not an added bonus, mistakes, failures, or a negligible part of the reason for their victory. It's almost 100%. Victory is owed to the baron looking at fiends in the face and claiming "Evil? I'll show you evil. Evil of the likes you've never seen before". And then doing it.

What the Baron did in this case cannot be argued as neutral.

You either take the acts themselves and in which case he is evil, one thousand times evil and the rule about letting fiends live being evil should apply to him.

Or you take the consequences of his actions, namely beating the forces of destruction and saving the his country as well as his people a fate worse than death and death/annihilation (not necessarily in that order) at the hands of the powers of Ruin. Which is good.

But it does NOT average.

The BoeD seems to indicate the former.

Do we have some crunch contradicting that ? Or some other fluff contradicting that ?

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* I'm not claiming the real Vlad III Draculesti was not a total and unrepenting nutjob. Nor that he was.

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Ps : This is about one action having both good and evil in itself, not the following of good and evil actions, which, depending on the severity of both, would average either at good, neutral, or evil.