Question on Belkar + Owl's Wisdom + Atonement

[Yogi]

Consider this scenario.


V Casts Owl's Wisdom on Belkar.
Belkar turns into Good Belkar because of the increase in Wisdom. However, Owl's Wisdom is in itself not a magical compulsion effect.
Drukon casts Atonement. Good Belkar expresses a desire to change and becomes Good.
Owl's Wisdom wears off.What happens?

[Basalock]

Belkar kills V for tricking him, then kills Durkon for agreeing to cast the spell.:smallcool:

[JMalone]

I think that Belker needs a Periapt of Wisdom spot-welded to his chest for him to go good permanently. Perhaps a headband of intelligence, as well. From what I've seen in the comic, it's his intellect (or lack thereof) that contributes to his sociopathic tendencies or whatever it is that makes him CE.

So even if that trick worked, and V and Durkon weren't gutted like fish immediately, chances are good Belker would turn back within a week. He'd kill a goblin or something in defense, then relish in the bloodshed, and we're back to comedy gold. Hence the need for permanent solutions.

[Yeril]

5. Hinjo's undying love for miko results in him selling his junk for a true resserection. They get married and have four kids.

6. Three of which become high ranking memebers of the renewed sapphire gaurd, one became a bard.

[delguidance]

... And that bard travels back in time...

[Yeril]

And married soon kim.

[prufock]

5. Belkar is now good. He'll still be his pissed-off, violent, bad-tempered self. He'd just be a little more discriminating in who gets targeted.

Owl's wisdom doesn't affect alignment. If anything, Belkar's wisdom boost made him aware of the consequences of his rage, and more sensitive to the subjects of those consequences. Owl's wisdom wears off, he loses that awareness and sensitivity, but is now good, so he doesn't lash out indiscriminately.

[Fighteer]

Consider this scenario.


V Casts Owl's Wisdom on Belkar.
Belkar turns into Good Belkar because of the increase in Wisdom. However, Owl's Wisdom is in itself not a magical compulsion effect.
Drukon casts Atonement. Good Belkar expresses a desire to change and becomes Good.
Owl's Wisdom wears off.What happens?
2. Wisdom increases do not have an effect on alignment, no matter what that comic said. If that were true, then it would be impossible to have a cleric of an evil deity. The strip that everyone is basing so much speculation on is a joke.
3. The subject of an atonement spell cannot be magically coerced into atoning, the above notwithstanding.

That said, increased Wisdom might moderate some of Belkar's sociopathic tendencies, since a high Wisdom score implies an awareness of things and people around you and their relationships. A good example of a high-wisdom, Evil character would be Redcloak. He knows exactly what he's doing and why, and is willing to admit mistakes and learn from them. He is simply committed to his course of action, whether from personal motives or as a result of a bargain with his deity or both.

[Baalzebub]

Consider this scenario.


V Casts Owl's Wisdom on Belkar.
Belkar turns into Good Belkar because of the increase in Wisdom. However, Owl's Wisdom is in itself not a magical compulsion effect.
Drukon casts Atonement. Good Belkar expresses a desire to change and becomes Good.
Owl's Wisdom wears off.What happens?

What Happens? Durkon and V just wasted their spells. Besides, the Atonement spell does not turn you good just like that, you need to complete a quest first.

[PePe QuiCoSE]

speculation like these are the ones that really kills the point that strip tried to give. :-)
Don't think too much, the strip simply put that belkar acted like he does because he simply can't fathom there are other ways of dealing with things. As Rich is a pretty good comic writer thus far, he did it in a histericaly funny way.
"that only means i can hit him with both at the same time" XD

[Twilight Jack]

Atonement doesn't require you to complete a quest, it's just that many clerics require one before they'll cast it for you, since it costs them XP and they don't want to cast it for someone who hasn't proven serious about redemption.

[jamroar]

What Happens? Durkon and V just wasted their spells. Besides, the Atonement spell does not turn you good just like that, you need to complete a quest first.

The Quest/Geas portion is entirely optional, but is usually included in the "Restore Class Ability" version for the recipient to demonstrate he is worthy of redemption, and to prevent the caster himself from incurring the displeasure of his deity for arbitarily handing out gratitious pardons.

The spell may work, but I think he would start regressing back to his old sociopathic alignment very quickly once the wisdom boost wears off and he loses his newly found sense of empathy.

[David Argall]

Everybody looks at the new and improved Belkar and says "Yawn, what a boring character" and start to wander away, but a blue bolt from above suddenly strikes Belkar and he returns to normal, attacking all within reach.

[Fighteer]

Atonement doesn't require you to complete a quest, it's just that many clerics require one before they'll cast it for you, since it costs them XP and they don't want to cast it for someone who hasn't proven serious about redemption.
Yes, and since you can't cause someone to change alignment against their will, it's basically worthless in Belkar's case.


The spell may work, but I think he would start regressing back to his old sociopathic alignment very quickly once the wisdom boost wears off and he loses his newly found sense of empathy.
Please, folks, can we get over this whole idea that a Wisdom boost improves your moral outlook? Strip #58 (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0058.html) WAS A JOKE.

[silvadel]

It depends -- in belkar's case he had simply never had those abilities before -- never felt positive energy flowing through him -- nor had the ability to understand things... He is a sociopath by the definition of the word and the spell gave him the ability to work past that and understand the feelings of others...

Big difference between low wisdom evil and high wisdom evil and one doesnt always lead to the other in the face of a wisdom boost.

The only problem is that owls wisdom doesnt add enough points to be dramatic enough and has led to all kinds of speculation over belkar's wisdom making people give him a minimum of 10 from the mechanics of the scrolls... I do not think it is vaguely possible that he has 10... Maybe 5 or 6 but not 10.

That he could use the scrolls with the spell was at the power of plot, not due to any specific wisdom number... Maybe something odd came into play and that spell granted 8 or 10 wisdom rather than just 4. Or they took the potential headband of wisdom off the unconscious durkon and were using that as well during the period.

-----

What would be funny would be if belkar were a kobald permently polymophed into the form of a halfling and he forgot his prior form as the old rules polymorph worked.

[Gundato]

Yes, and since you can't cause someone to change alignment against their will, it's basically worthless in Belkar's case.


Please, folks, can we get over this whole idea that a Wisdom boost improves your moral outlook? Strip #58 (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0058.html) WAS A JOKE.

You must be new here. The raison d'etre of this forum is for everyone to take every minute detail and generate their own convoluted theory (usually involving Miko...) that generally ignores common sense (and shows why any PnP rule is a suggested guideline, and not a law).

[gooddragon1]

Periapt of wisdom until a tome of understanding +3 can be purchased.

[Fighteer]

You must be new here. The raison d'etre of this forum is for everyone to take every minute detail and generate their own convoluted theory (usually involving Miko...) that generally ignores common sense (and shows why any PnP rule is a suggested guideline, and not a law).
That doesn't make it logical or sensible. Oh, well.

[Keldin]

I would argue that in some cases a low Wisdom could be the cause of evil behaviour. I mean, Belkar is from a race that is generally good, and he has no evil agenda other than to be a violent thug. In the strip under discussion, once his Wisdom was raised, his natural antisocial tendencies flittered away and he was able to see that there was more to life than being a killer. If that feeling were strong enough and he asked for and got an atonement spell that made him change, inherently, to good, he would still be good at the end of the Owl's Wisdom spell and would likely start putting skill points into Wisdom based skills, and at the next level divisible by 4 he would raise his Wisdom score rather than his Strength or Dexterity. That's my take, anyhow.

[Gundato]

One could also argue that Belkar is not truly evil. Yes, he is confirmed to have an alignment of CE. However, it may be a simple case of his actions dictating his alignment, and not his alignment dictating his actions. His anti-social behavior merely causes him to believe that murder is not wrong, so he partakes in it quite often. All those kills are a sure-fired way to change alignment.

A counter-part would be Thog, who may or may not actually be evil.

Or, you know, it could have been a joke. One or the other.

[evileeyore]

Please, folks, can we get over this whole idea that a Wisdom boost improves your moral outlook? Strip #58 (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0058.html) WAS A JOKE.Firstly, no. As the Wisdon boost did indeed improve Belkar's usefullness and behavior.

Secondly, a better arguement is that Atonement would prove useless as the Wisdom increase would have already altered Belkar's Alignment to Good. So the change will only last as long as the wisdom boost did (a point which has been made by several other posters, just without the explicit mention of Atonement being useless).

Thirdly your obviously wrong. Wisdom boosts have all sorts of ancillary benefits, it changes Alignment, causes hair growth, improves sexual capacity, cures athlete's foot, brings the rain, tastes great and is less filling.

[evileeyore]

A counter-part would be Thog, who may or may not actually be evil.I'm willing to bet Thog's problem is not low Wisdom, but low Intelligence. He needs the spell that boost Int. The name of which escapes me right now....

[PaladinFreak]

That would be Fox's Cunning. But seriously people, increased scores have no effect on alignment. If high Int made you good, there would be no evil Wizards, and if high Wis made you good, there would be no evil Clerics.

I agree that it is just a joke that and Owl's Wisdom changed Belkar's alignment.

[kirbsys]

Yeah Id be willing to bet Belkar is evil soley y his acts and by the fact he cares ofr no one else, now if you had a 10 int, going to fifteen would take you from considerate to others, to being able to see why people do what they do, but for Belkar whos wisdoms probably like 6 or 7 thats going from me me me! to, hey wait a sec, maybe they have feelings too. So yeah, if Belkar had any permanent wisdom increase, it could be possible he'd be good. But as for the spell combo, I doubt it, because although his alignment would go straight to good, once again he'd start killing things for fun soley because he would lose that compassion.

Kirbsys

[Kreistor]

What happens is entirely up to the Giant. Adding Wisdom does not make you Good, despite the Gaint's portrayal of such.

Evil Clerics have Wisdom as their casting stat, too. They're high Wis and still evil.

[Hiest, monkey]

I'm willing to say, that as a DM, since Belkar is truly only evil because he can not relate to the pain of others, and alighnment is not a straightjacket, I must say that while the rules officially state that it only boosts scores, belkar is evil because he has low scores, not because he is a jerk like that. In any campaign I run, I would allow a Belkar like character to become good if the realized that the world was not the place he saw it as. Also to people that say that he must have a score of at least 9, two fireballs from a supposed (at the time 12th) level wizard can't kill a chimera, in OOTS spells are more destructive and/or powerful, after all, Plot>rules.

[Scientivore]

That would be Fox's Cunning. But seriously people, increased scores have no effect on alignment. If high Int made you good, there would be no evil Wizards, and if high Wis made you good, there would be no evil Clerics.

I agree that it is just a joke that and Owl's Wisdom changed Belkar's alignment.

Belkar changed Belkar's alignment, using his newfound insight as the instrument for that change. The spell didn't make him good; his own nature did.

Doubtless there are also some kind, generous fools who are only selfless due to poor judgement, not their deepest nature. Given the tool of higher wisdom, such people might very well change themselves to evil.

It was funny. It was a joke. It was not necessarily just a joke.

[Bogardan_Mage]

2. Wisdom increases do not have an effect on alignment, no matter what that comic said. If that were true, then it would be impossible to have a cleric of an evil deity. The strip that everyone is basing so much speculation on is a joke.
Just because in Belkar's case higher wisdom makes him more "good" doesn't mean that's a universal thing. It's simply that in Belkar's case, his evil is a result of his own limited perception of the world. In other words, Belkar is roleplaying above and beyond the call of duty.

[Vva70]

Belkar changed Belkar's alignment, using his newfound insight as the instrument for that change. The spell didn't make him good; his own nature did.

Doubtless there are also some kind, generous fools who are only selfless due to poor judgement, not their deepest nature. Given the tool of higher wisdom, such people might very well change themselves to evil.

It was funny. It was a joke. It was not necessarily just a joke.

This is more or less how I see it. I agree with everyone who said that ability score changes do not offer a direct change to alignment. But mental ability score changes almost by definition change personality. And an altered personality can (though does not necessarily) change alignment. In Belkar's specific case, his personality at a higher level of wisdom differs in alignment from his normal personality, but this is almost certainly not true of everyone.

Now, if someone used a Detect Evil on Belkar immediately after the Owl's Wisdom, he would register as evil, due to his long list of prior bad acts. Basically, since actions and not thoughts determine alignment, he would still be technically evil. If he somehow spent an extended duration under the Owl's Wisdom effect (most likely on the order of weeks at the least), he would eventually drift to neutral, and possibly all the way to good, due to his new actions building up to counter his old ones.

The Atonement spell would basically rewrite his alignment to match his new personality (or rather, to match Durkon's alignment at the behest of his new personality). As the spell description says, it "removes the burden of evil acts or misdeeds from the subject." In a sense, Atonement is a shortcut to the normal process of gradual alignment shift. How exactly this would interact with Owl's Wisdom running out is anyone's guess.

My personal guess is that Belkar would retain his new atoned alignment, and behave in a manner consistent with both it and his revisited low wisdom, at least at first. His sincere repentance, administered through the Atonement spell, would drive him to put some effort into retaining his new morality, even when he loses his new outlook. Whether he would eventually shift back or not depends largely on whether or not he finds this new way of life fulfilling at a low wisdom score.