Neutral character using spells from BOVD?

[IIzak]

The title kinda says it all. Could a true neutral PC use a spell from BOVD that isn't a corrupt spell and still be fine?I'm in a discussion with my dm about spells I can have access to for item creation and scroll creation purposes. Trying to get him to let me make a wand of Stop Heart. Need arguments as to why it would be okay. Follow up question, is this a spell I should even waste my time over. I mean, It looks pretty nasty, but I've been known to see the effects of a spell and be like "Wow that's awesome" and then come to find out later that its not as good as I thought it was.

(Just as background info, my character is a lvl 10 Warforged Artificer, focus on crafting stuff, is true neutral, and I took wand mastery a little bit ago, so i do have that going for me)

[Starmage21]

The neutral character would be fine using spells with the [Evil] descriptor if he wanted to. The alignment tags restrict only clerics from casting those spells. If the spell isnt tagged at all, then its just another spell, that happened to appear in the BoVD.

[eggynack]

Technically speaking, even a good caster that isn't alignment restricted in their casting can toss out corrupt spells, though it might impact your alignment. Sanctified spells explicitly can't be cast by evil characters, though they can be cast by neutral characters, and corrupt spells lack even that restriction. Some spells in the BoVD, like spider hand, aren't even evil. You be in the clear.

[Kazudo]

Channeling hatred and spite, the caster calls upon dark power...
Necromancy [Evil]
Drug Component: Baccaran


Not looking good.



Initial effect: 1d4 points of STR
Secondary effect: 1d4+1 enhancement to Wis
Side effects: -4 circumstance to saving throws involving illusions for 2d4 hours
If more than 1 dose is taken in a 24-hour period, take 2d6 points of damage and the side effect is doubled


You'd have to use 50 uses of Baccaran to make a wand of this. Have fun with that. The rest of it I don't really see as a problem, though it being an [Evil] spell could cause problems with your DM.

[Phelix-Mu]

I seem to recall BoVD saying that use of [Evil] spells is an evil act, however, and if you do enough evil, you will cease to be true neutral.

A TN druid of mine just kept track of the number and levels of which alignment-tagged spells she cast and the general scope of their effect, and tried to balance them out, along with considering the effects, alignment, and scope of her other, more mundane efforts (and the effects of her non-aligned spellcasting). TN is not a cakewalk designed to make alignment irrelevant. If it's important to your character to stay TN, then it's worth the effort to make up for any biased behavior by a little bit (or perhaps a lot) of the opposite.

Granted, this can alienate other characters and may end up with some strange bedfellows. Such is the nature of being devoted to the Middle Path.

[Twilightwyrm]

Define "be fine". Casting evil spells ism according to the book you are pulling it from, an evil act. Its not evil on a significant scale though. So will you be fine? On the one hand, you probably wont bring down the wrath of heaven on your head, or catch the notice a good aligned organization, or otherwise bring significant harm on yourself. On the other hand, repeated use of evil spells would be an evil act, so yes, it could slowly move you towards neutral evil on the alignment spectrum. If you are fine with this, go to town. If you are not, try and restrict your use of such spells for bringing about good ends, and not in this case selfish ones. Then you can at least take the "ends justify the means" approach, and break even or better.

[Starmage21]

Define "be fine". Casting evil spells ism according to the book you are pulling it from, an evil act. Its not evil on a significant scale though. So will you be fine? On the one hand, you probably wont bring down the wrath of heaven on your head, or catch the notice a good aligned organization, or otherwise bring significant harm on yourself. On the other hand, repeated use of evil spells would be an evil act, so yes, it could slowly move you towards neutral evil on the alignment spectrum. If you are fine with this, go to town. If you are not, try and restrict your use of such spells for bringing about good ends, and not in this case selfish ones. Then you can at least take the "ends justify the means" approach, and break even or better.

According to the SRD definition of the alignments for 3/3.5, your definition is not necessarily 100% correct.



Neutral, "Undecided"
A neutral character does what seems to be a good idea. She doesn’t feel strongly one way or the other when it comes to good vs. evil or law vs. chaos. Most neutral characters exhibit a lack of conviction or bias rather than a commitment to neutrality. Such a character thinks of good as better than evil—after all, she would rather have good neighbors and rulers than evil ones. Still, she’s not personally committed to upholding good in any abstract or universal way.

Some neutral characters, on the other hand, commit themselves philosophically to neutrality. They see good, evil, law, and chaos as prejudices and dangerous extremes. They advocate the middle way of neutrality as the best, most balanced road in the long run.

Neutral is the best alignment you can be because it means you act naturally, without prejudice or compulsion.

[Jeff the Green]

Not looking good.



You'd have to use 50 uses of Baccaran to make a wand of this. Have fun with that. The rest of it I don't really see as a problem, though it being an [Evil] spell could cause problems with your DM.

You don't actually need to use them, just expend them. Otherwise there'd never be a wand of identify.

[Angelalex242]

A character who saves an orphanage one day, and then burns the orphanage in the next town isn't true neutral.

He's evil. Remember that.

[eggynack]

A character who saves an orphanage one day, and then burns the orphanage in the next town isn't true neutral.

He's evil. Remember that.
What if he saved the first orphanage in secret, and never told anyone about it, did the same a second time, and then burned down a third orphanage? Doesn't seem like a perfectly black and white thing, I think, especially if you set fire to the orphanage to keep a bunch of homeless folks who are freezing to death warm. It helps that a good number of corrupt/evil spells are pretty much that way arbitrarily, and that you could change the flavor around the effect without anyone blinking. I'm somewhat doubtful, for example, that getting nifty claws that rend iron rates as high as orphanage burning.

[Phelix-Mu]

A character who saves an orphanage one day, and then burns the orphanage in the next town isn't true neutral.

He's evil. Remember that.

I definitely agree that it takes way more good to offset evil than the other way around, but the game does set neutral up to exist inside some (morally fictional) space between good and evil. The very concept of balance is that the world exists with both good and evil being active forces, and that there is some ideal calibration between the two that allows for [insert mysterious goals of neutrality] to succeed.

Thus, in service to "the balance" or some neutral god or force, one could very well go around doing both good and evil. Again, the amounts of each are hard to calibrate, because evil lends itself to a kind of creep effect or slippery slope that goodness doesn't. Still, since there is no metric given in the game for how to balance the two, if the character follows a kind of equal exchange principle, one orphanage saved might make up for one burnt down. Wouldn't fly at my table, but the game largely leaves the precise alignment ramifications of multiple, opposed actions up to the DM.

[Anlashok]

A character who saves an orphanage one day, and then burns the orphanage in the next town isn't true neutral.

He's evil. Remember that.

In real life, yes. In D&D? Good and Evil is some sort of arbitrarily defined equation.

Besides, no one in this thread mentioned burning down an orphanage. They mentioned casting evil spells.

Here's a better one: If someone saves children from a burning orphanage by raising a bunch of skeletons to help him carry the children out of the inferno, he's committed an evil act and, by D&D rules, it's more evil to do that than to just walk by the orphanage and do nothing.

[Slipperychicken]

It's kind of like asking "can a Neutral character murder someone and stay neutral?". Or like asking "Can I run toward the west for a few minutes and remain in New York?".

You can totally cast them. It'll just move your alignment toward evil, that's all.

[Kazudo]

You don't actually need to use them, just expend them. Otherwise there'd never be a wand of identify.

Or there's an identify wand crafters anonymous.

50 goblets of wine? Hah.

[Angelalex242]

True Neutral, in the case of orphanages, is more 'I walk by the heroes saving Orphanage A, doing nothing. I walk by the villains blowing up Orphanage B, again doing nothing.' True neutral is passive, mostly. The True Neutral Druid acts 'as nature intended', which means they try to live by the animal mindset.

[Phelix-Mu]

True Neutral, in the case of orphanages, is more 'I walk by the heroes saving Orphanage A, doing nothing. I walk by the villains blowing up Orphanage B, again doing nothing.' True neutral is passive, mostly. The True Neutral Druid acts 'as nature intended', which means they try to live by the animal mindset.

Emphasis mine.

That is certainly one interpretation of the druid mindset. But the simple fact is that the RAW of druid behavior is left very, very wide open. Terrorist TN druid? Sure, just temper your chaos with some law-abiding, in the manner of anyone else trying to stay TN. Corruptor druid? Sure, just temper your corruption with some good deeds, in the manner of anyone else that wants to walk the broad grey between the two poles of morality. It may take more good deeds to cancel out evil deeds, but it can be done (especially since the degree is largely determined by whoever it is that is gauging morality...there is no objective measure for this). It's very easy to sprinkle a bit of ecological flavor on top of almost any character concept and turn up with something that is plausibly druid.

[Jeff the Green]

Emphasis mine.

That is certainly one interpretation of the druid mindset. But the simple fact is that the RAW of druid behavior is left very, very wide open. Terrorist TN druid? Sure, just temper your chaos with some law-abiding, in the manner of anyone else trying to stay TN. Corruptor druid? Sure, just temper your corruption with some good deeds, in the manner of anyone else that wants to walk the broad grey between the two poles of morality. It may take more good deeds to cancel out evil deeds, but it can be done (especially since the degree is largely determined by whoever it is that is gauging morality...there is no objective measure for this). It's very easy to sprinkle a bit of ecological flavor on top of almost any character concept and turn up with something that is plausibly druid.

Expanding on this, Heroes of Horror explicitly says that Evil actions in pursuit of Good outcomes can result in a Neutral character. A good example is someone who tortures a captive to rescue hostages.

[Phelix-Mu]

Expanding on this, Heroes of Horror explicitly says that Evil actions in pursuit of Good outcomes can result in a Neutral character. A good example is someone who tortures a captive to rescue hostages.

The only caveat I'd put to this is that someone should always consider efficacy. If the situation repeats, and the go-to method is once again torture, even if it maybe won't work this time, then one is forming a habit of choosing the evil option. Definitely puts one on the slippery slope toward not thinking and just doing that thing that worked before, and acting without regard to consequences is evil on an entirely different set of counts.

As long as one is mindful of the impacts and consequences, and accepts the cost of evil on behalf of the good outcome, then I think one can land in neutral. If one thinks "hey, we'll torture this guy, save the day, and everything will be fine," that's more problematic.

[Twilightwyrm]

According to the SRD definition of the alignments for 3/3.5, your definition is not necessarily 100% correct.

True, though I'm using "alignment as a spectrum" as an extrapolation of the alignment system to judge the relative alignment effect of a given action (in this case, the use of Stop Heart). Using the strict alignment definition, as a true neutral character you could probably get away with using [Evil] magic under extraordinary circumstances a couple times (since you have no particular onus to uphold the principles of good), but doing so consistently for personal gain pushes you into neutral evil.