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View Full Version : would it be crazy if i did this? (some cleric stuff)



clockwork warrior
2007-03-25, 07:44 PM
would it be crazy if fiends were treated more like undead (healed by negative energy and hurt by positive energy, and able to be turned/rebuked?)

to me it just kinda makes sense from a more theological stand point of how fiends and clerics should be, but would it change anything to badly as far as balance in concerned?

Laesin
2007-03-25, 07:54 PM
It may make sense theologically but there are already spells in the phb that allow you to control outsiders to a degree. Giving clerics even more power is probably a mistake. Might work as an improvement to the alignment domains granted abilities though.

Abjurer
2007-03-25, 07:55 PM
You mean healed by negative energy and hurt by positive energy.

And it's been done. I think V.3.0 worked this way.
If it fits your campaign, and the way you work, do it.
Besides, you're the DM. You can do it however you want.

AmberVael
2007-03-25, 08:00 PM
Nah, it wasn't that way in 3.0
Maybe an earlier version, but I don't know about that.

Perhaps the best way to do it would be to make it a feat or domain ability.

clockwork warrior
2007-03-25, 08:00 PM
You mean healed by negative energy and hurt by positive energy.

And it's been done. I think V.3.0 worked this way.
If it fits your campaign, and the way you work, do it.
Besides, you're the DM. You can do it however you want.
yeah... thats what i meant, thanks for pointing that out in a kindly fashion

kamikasei
2007-03-25, 08:02 PM
Positive energy isn't actually good-aligned, and negative energy isn't actually evil-aligned. Therefore, fiends aren't associated with one or the other.

If in your campaign you change that, then yes, it would make sense for fiends to work as you describe; but as-is positive and negative energy are their own thing, like fire, water etc., not associated with good, evil, law or chaos.

iceman
2007-03-25, 08:54 PM
While I agree with what kamikasei said, you could always make it into some kind of variant cleric class that censures evil outsiders rather than turning/rebuking undead.

kamikasei
2007-03-25, 09:08 PM
A thought: you could try granting the alignment domains the ability to turn or rebuke outsiders of the opposed alignment, as the various elemental domains grant the ability to turn or rebuke the corresponding elementals.

Thrawn183
2007-03-25, 09:21 PM
You could even take it a step further with the animal and plant domains, at least with the turning/rebuking part (not sure what correlaries there are for spells that would work in a similar fashion to positive and negative energy in relation to animals and plants. This one might be tough to implement. Though I'm sure there's someone far more creative than I who has already done it.

AmberVael
2007-03-25, 09:27 PM
Might work as an improvement to the alignment domains granted abilities though.


Perhaps the best way to do it would be to make it a feat or domain ability.


A thought: you could try granting the alignment domains the ability to turn or rebuke outsiders of the opposed alignment, as the various elemental domains grant the ability to turn or rebuke the corresponding elementals.
Hmmmm... I see a pattern in our posts...

kamikasei
2007-03-25, 09:31 PM
The basic issue is that turning or rebuking undead works by channeling positive or negative energy, respectively, which works to damage or control undead who are powered by negative energy (presumably, evil clerics could turn Deathless, and good clerics bolster or rebuke them). It makes some sense to extend this to elementals, because like the positive and negative planes, the elemental planes are "inner planes" that provide the energy that makes up the world.

Doing it by alignment, or for outsiders, makes less sense because there's no distilled "energy" of good, or law, or evil, or chaos. You could argue that a devil is powered by evil, but there's no energy to draw on to counter that in the same way that positive energy can be drawn on to counter a negative-energy-powered undead. The closest analogue is to have a good-aligned weapon.

So, yeah, the gist of all that is that you can make positive and negative energy aligned, and thus able to affect outsiders, but it's more of a change in the assumptions of the D&D default cosmology (muddled though they may be) than it might seem.

Devils_Advocate
2007-03-26, 02:25 PM
Positive energy isn't actually good-aligned, and negative energy isn't actually evil-aligned.

No, but Evil, negative energy, undeath, and poison and disease are related in an annoyingly vague, hand-waving sort of way, as are Good, positive energy, life, and healing.

Of course, violence is rather opposite healing as well, but we couldn't very well go and say (or rather, vaguely imply) that violence is inherently Evil, now could we? That would mean that you couldn't be a good guy while going around killing things and taking their stuff. That would hardly do, would it? Because that's what players characters are supposed to do, while, on the other hand, we only want the bad guys using poison and undead minions. For some reason.

Actually, "'Evil' implies hurting, opressing, and killing others" rather does suggest that violence is Evil, but that tends to get ignored moreso than other vague suggestions that particular things are Evil, because, once again, it's not conducive to a nice game of killin' bad guys who engage in dark and sinister stuff.

kamikasei
2007-03-26, 02:30 PM
No, but Evil, negative energy, undeath, and poison and disease are related in an annoyingly vague, hand-waving sort of way, as are Good, positive energy, life, and healing.

Bah, having some bizarre, tenuous, never-justified relationship in the subconscious of Wizards staff does not an alignment make.

Lord Lorac Silvanos
2007-03-26, 02:39 PM
On a slightly related note; I just thought I wanted to point out that Evil Outsiders, Fiends among others, are hurt by Holy Water just like Undead.

Fax Celestis
2007-03-26, 02:52 PM
Doing it by alignment, or for outsiders, makes less sense because there's no distilled "energy" of good, or law, or evil, or chaos. You could argue that a devil is powered by evil, but there's no energy to draw on to counter that in the same way that positive energy can be drawn on to counter a negative-energy-powered undead. The closest analogue is to have a good-aligned weapon.

Except there is, just in this case it'd be Celestia, the Abyss, Pandemonium, and Mechanus.

kamikasei
2007-03-26, 03:00 PM
Except there is, just in this case it'd be Celestia, the Abyss, Pandemonium, and Mechanus.

Firstly - wouldn't it be Elysium, Hades, Limbo and Mechanus, for the Neutral X and X Neutral planes?

Secondly: I didn't say there weren't planes for the alignments, I said there wasn't an energy for the alignments. The six inner planes each represent a type of energy, the outer planes do not.

Sam K
2007-03-26, 03:52 PM
The biggest problem with this change, as I see it, is that it would make clerics even more powerful.