Consequences for a "good" wizard summoning fiends (looking for ideas)

[dfa514]

I've encountered the apparently-not-too-uncommon situation of a supposedly lawful-good wizard using his Summon Monster spells to summon Fiendish creatures and even outright demons (mostly dretches). His only motive for doing so is because he did a side-by-side stat comparison and decided they were more powerful. I questioned his in-character decision to summon evil creatures as a good wizard, and he cheerfully pointed out that as an ARCANE caster, there's no restriction against casting evil spells. Which seems to be true.

I browsed around for a while but most attempts to address this issue seem to get bogged down arguments over whether or not such a wizard should have an enforced alignment change imposed on them and that doesn't sound particularly fun.

I don't want to PUNISH my player. I don't want to kneecap him mechanically or mess with his ability to play his character. But a morally upstanding person carelessly summoning demons and just kinda assuming they have everything under control is on of those situations that has to have consequences. Ideally in-game story-driven consequences that make the game as a whole more interesting rather than less.

Any ideas?

[Jonagel]

Few random ideas!

1) a more powerful demon learns this mortal keeps pulling lessor demons and fiendish thing to the prime material plane and either decides this wizard should be recruited, killed, taught a lesson for not making proper arrangements with the ‘powers that be’, or is someone that more powerful demon thinks could be corrupted/swindled or otherwise ripped off in a negotiation (I’ll augment your summons but if you summon me ever you owe me your soul or 10 minutes of torture at any point before you die (like V kind of)... demon just stays polymorphed into a stretch after that and eventually he could be summoned (they demon doesn’t die of old age, so whatever?)

2) a paladin, cleric, temple, etc. try to rectify the issue. Maybe a good god tells his cleric that there is a wizard who is bringing fiends into the world, and must clearly be a demonologist in disguise. He’s amassing wealth, gaining levels, and has a posse of people who fight along side him! Crusade time against the PCs!

[Segev]

Emphasizing this, but don't punish him for playing optimally unless it's unbalancing your game. If it's unbalancing, address it OOC as a balance issue, not as an alignment issue or anything of the sort. It sounds, from your description, like it's more a fluff and flavor issue for you.

Therefore, handle it by fluff and flavor in game.

Your reaction to an LG character binding a CE demon is revulsion. Imagine how the world of good- and lawful-aligned people in most PC-frequented civilized areas will react to the disgusting, painfully evil creature. Have NPCs question his choices, or even assume he's of a more questionable alignment, based on his minions. Just...have people react to a DEMON following this guy around.

Additionally, RP out one or two of the bindings. What does the wizard offer? How does he browbeat it into submission? How does he bribe it? DOES he do either? What is the specific task to which he sets the demon? Or does he bind it for 1 day/CL as a generic servant? Use that to shape a relationship between wizard and minion. Treat the Dretches like characters. Yes, they're bound. They must obey, and maybe must even obey without resorting to malicious compliance. But are they willing or grudging? Are they looking for excuses or seeking to please their master out of apparent fear? Do they try to do favors to gain favor, only for their assumptions of what a master wants to be...concerning...when performed for the LG wizard?

They may also attempt to corrupt him. Small temptations, easy solutions, offering to do things in ways that he knows are wrong but "what harm will it do?" or "it's justified THIS time."

[RFLS]

Instead of looking for ways to inhibit this behavior, instead consider the following: instead of placing Good creatures in harm's way, he's opting to treat Evil creatures as expendable (even if, in either case, they're simply returning to their home plane). I'd honestly argue that using Evil creatures as cannon fodder is more morally acceptable, if you've already decided that enforced servitude is acceptable.

[legomaster00156]

I played a fiend-summoning wizard prodigy who legitimately wanted to be a good person. My GM was quite lax, and I roleplayed up the conflict of being a good person and using evil beings, so I never suffered any consequences mechanically, other than being stuck at True Neutral due to the tug-of-war between good actions and [evil] spells. As far as character, he was a normally meek person, but he grew into a forceful summoner who demanded respect from his summons, and saw little problem sacrificing beings of pure evil for tactical gain.

[redwizard007]

Few random ideas!

1) a more powerful demon learns this mortal keeps pulling lessor demons and fiendish thing to the prime material plane and either decides this wizard should be recruited, killed, taught a lesson for not making proper arrangements with the ‘powers that be’, or is someone that more powerful demon thinks could be corrupted/swindled or otherwise ripped off in a negotiation (I’ll augment your summons but if you summon me ever you owe me your soul or 10 minutes of torture at any point before you die (like V kind of)... demon just stays polymorphed into a stretch after that and eventually he could be summoned (they demon doesn’t die of old age, so whatever?)

2) a paladin, cleric, temple, etc. try to rectify the issue. Maybe a good god tells his cleric that there is a wizard who is bringing fiends into the world, and must clearly be a demonologist in disguise. He’s amassing wealth, gaining levels, and has a posse of people who fight along side him! Crusade time against the PCs!

Fluff based solution to a fluff based problem. Looks pretty good to me

[Anymage]

If we're just talking the Summon Monster line and calling up a dretch to fight for you instead of a celestial beagle, just let him have it. It's not a Good act, but calling up an evil thing to fight other evil things isn't the worst thing. Especially in a situation where all that your evil thing will be doing is trading a few blows and then disappearing.

If the idea really bugs you then you could make a refluffed celestial alternative. Same stats, nicer flavor. But in this specific case, the situation is controlled and small scale enough that you should just let it be.

Of course, if the player does graduate to spells like Planar Binding, all that goes out the window. You can have fiends the party meets offer the character a deal, since he's at least open to the idea of working with naughty things. But so long as it's just about the utility of what to call with the Summon Monster line, it's not worth making into a thing.

[Feantar]

First of all, and this is important. Summoning is not calling. Summoning brings a, well, sort of an astral projection (closest analogy) of a being for a few seconds to a few minutes, to defend and serve the caster. Now, if a caster has taken reasonable precautions, this is actually safe - yes it is considered an evil spell but that assertion does not even make sense. For example, IIRC, a killed summoned creature takes 24 hours to reform on its home plane. Which means that you just disabled a demon for 24 hours instead of something that would not be as vile (or disabling a celestial being instead).

Now, a way to legitimately mess with your player without making things unfair is to enforce the rule that summons act of their own accord in defending their summoner if they are not instructed otherwise, and to instruct them otherwise you need to be able to communicate with them (know abyssal, infernal etc). If they've learned the language cool, if not, well, the summon acts according to its nature excluding the part about defending its master. Maybe also make them a bit excessive in their violence, to give a disturbing feel - especially when fighting other humanoids that the player might empathise with? Finally, if you want to be really mean, pull out the taint rules. Let me make clear that that feels like a really bad idea, but it would make your player think again before using evil summons.

If your player starts calling demons and devils on the other hand, then you are free to demonstrate the consequences - and there should be consequences.

PS: Note that, if you wish to take the ambiguity out the window and remove the evil tag, just say that summoning does something similar to astral construct - shape "magic"(in this case) into the form of a being, and that's essentially a construct that has no ethical dimension.

[dfa514]

Honestly, it's not really a problem that needs addressing. He's not overpowered; maybe the opposite - I suspect he'd be a lot more effective if he could cast Fly or Fireball instead of messing around with CR 2 minions that only last 5 rounds. I'm not trying to prevent him from doing it, I just feel like I should do something interesting in story terms. If I don't, I'd view it as a missed opportunity rather than an unfixed problem. Just to be clear : )

(I like the idea of a good spellcaster who finds it more moral to use evil creatures as cannon fodder than good ones; that's an intriguing character concept. Using it as an aspect of character growth is cool too. But I don't think that's what my guy is doing? He's just kinda ignoring the fact that his summons are evil. It's not a core part of his character concept or anything, the rest of his spells are just a random grab bag of whatever he thinks is useful.)

The lack of communication is an interesting angle (he doesn't speak abyssal or infernal) and the fact that evil creatures are essentially being left to their own devices for a few rounds to help him as they see fit. I hadn't thought of that.

I like the idea of a big demon popping up and going "Hey you!". Maybe next time he tries to summon a dretch, he unexpectedly gets something bigger that says something like: "Okay look. You've been borrowing OUR minions to fight for the cause of good, which is to say directly against our own interests. That's fine and all, but we need to see some profit out of this." And it asks that he desecrate the bodies of his defeated foes in such a way as to specifically dedicate them as profane sacrifices so that it'd get their souls or something like that. It could even offer to send him stronger minions as long as he acts in its profit (like Augment Summoning, but only applied to fiends since those are the ones it has jurisdiction over), or give him some other kind of signing bonus.

Cool. Thanks for the input!

[Mechalich]

One thing mechanically to remember here is damage reduction. Outsiders have alignment based DR. That means they are good at harming opposed alignments but not good at harming each other. Dretch vs. Dretch combat is really, really pathetic looking since most of the time their attacks will deal no damage. So the choice of summoning that can actually hurt the presumably evil-aligned summons of one's enemies versus something that's going to get into the equivalent of a slap fight is tactically significant. There are scenarios you could produce that take advantage of this.

[Florian]

Besides sliding in alignment towards TN for using C and E spells repeatedly with an LG character?
Ok, there's the issue with damage reduction. Evil outsiders are quite bad at fighting evil outsiders, which should be a common activity for a good aligned party.

Fluff-based, it´s pretty yucky, same as stuff dealing with undead. If word makes the round, people will begin to treat the character like some vile demonologist or infernalist based on what they saw the character do. Consorting with the lower planes it not something that can be talked away with a "fight fire with fire" argument in an alignment-based universe.

[Dalinale]

Fiends now view the player as someone of interest, if they are sufficiently powerful; if they are not, one way of nipping the bud by having one appear in a very public place while the PC is otherwise separated from the party and be apparently amiable to the PC. If there's no chance of recruiting the party member, the presence of a, say, a Nalfeshnee or something obviously fiendish appearing in a city market and appearing to desire to offer the PC a book or something to induce horror, disgust and fear to muddle they're reputation and public image is just as useful; degrading the reputation agents of Good is often just as useful as actually preforming a evil act in some case.

[JeenLeen]

Since (at least in D&D 3.5) casting an Evil spell is an Evil action, regardless of the logic behind how the spell works or your motivation/end result for using it, it (I would presume) does do something to the caster each time they cast a spell. I'd reckon some subtle twisting or taint. Note, though, that as these are low-level spells, the corruption is probably very minor and easily off-set by casting Good spells or just doing good deeds. (I don't think I read anywhere that casting a level 1 Evil spell is less evil than a level 9... but it seems to make sense.) Maybe it's a neutral net change to the soul to summon Evil demons to accomplish a Good deed.
This all seems a logical extrapolation from the RAW, but if you start to enforce it, I'd recommend talking OOC first.

If 3.5, the Malconvoker (sp?) class might be interesting. I forget if it's cleric-only, but it's focused on Good folk summoning evil beings. At the least, it's fluff might give some insight into handling summoning infernal beings.



The lack of communication is an interesting angle (he doesn't speak abyssal or infernal) and the fact that evil creatures are essentially being left to their own devices for a few rounds to help him as they see fit. I hadn't thought of that.

I like the idea of a big demon popping up and going "Hey you!". Maybe next time he tries to summon a dretch, he unexpectedly gets something bigger that says something like: "Okay look. You've been borrowing OUR minions to fight for the cause of good, which is to say directly against our own interests. That's fine and all, but we need to see some profit out of this." And it asks that he desecrate the bodies of his defeated foes in such a way as to specifically dedicate them as profane sacrifices so that it'd get their souls or something like that. It could even offer to send him stronger minions as long as he acts in its profit (like Augment Summoning, but only applied to fiends since those are the ones it has jurisdiction over), or give him some other kind of signing bonus.


If you change how you've been doing things in-game (via communication), I recommend talking to the player OOC first. Otherwise, it's not fair to change expectations of how the game works in-combat.

I could see the latter, especially if the bigger demon helps out like the dretch would, then talks. For extra fun, it could be a bigger demon shapeshifted as and pretending to be a dretch, who then shifts to its true form when the battle is over. Probably best to do that if the fight is something minor with no relevant NPCs nearby.

[Segev]

...wait, I misparsed. He's using summon monster, not planar binding? Pff. Don't worry about it. Just let him do it. If you really feel strongly about it, count this as a habit that leans him towards CE, in a similar fashion to how you'd count an LG person occasionally shoplifting or picking pockets. If that's all he's doing, it is a bit hypocritical and icky in terms of behavior, but by itself probably won't make him ping as anything but LG as long as he lives up to the alignment in most other ways.

[Darth Ultron]

You might want to just expand the summon list. The rules themselves do expand the list beyond the Core Rules. Lots of books add to the list.

For Summon Monster three you could get a Bauriaur, Coure Eladrin, or a Musteval Guardinal. All good creatures in the Book of Exalted Deeds.

[ericgrau]

He summoned an actual demon over. The demon doesn't really die when killed by enemies, but other than that it came from where it was to where it was summoned.

As far as I can tell the summon must obey the summoner and/or attack his enemies. But after that it might report back what it witnessed. Perhaps forward that information to relevant enemies of the PCs if it furthers the purposes of the demons or evil in general. This could have fun consequences on the plot. Besides that I would let the wizard have his way.

While he can't communicate with the summons, the spell does say that the summon attacks the caster's enemies to the best of their ability. But the lack of communication means they can't coordinate the attack well, and just run in swinging.

[Xuc Xac]

The lack of communication is an interesting angle (he doesn't speak abyssal or infernal) and the fact that evil creatures are essentially being left to their own devices for a few rounds to help him as they see fit. I hadn't thought of that.

You know who does speak abyssal and infernal ? That evil cult leader the PCs are fighting. The dretch can't talk to the summoner, so he just attacks the summoner's enemies. But the whole time it's smacking cultists and tearing them apart, it's shouting all kinds of useful information at the cult leader (and maybe writing some nasty graffiti with the cultists' blood that can be deciphered to cut years off the cult's demonic R&D program).

Summoning a demon is basically free labor, in the same way that a KGB/FSB agent would gladly work for free as a "paper shredder" in the Pentagon.

[EccentricCircle]

Traditionally fiends will try to use being summoned to their own ends. They will twist the intent of their instructions and try to betray or corrupt their master. There's a fine line between letting the player do what they want to do, and setting up consequences for it though, so I'd suggest playing it subtly. Don't have the Demons go rogue and try to kill them. Instead have them inveigle their way into the party's affections.

Have the demons start "helping" above and beyond the instructions they were given when summoned. Have them make suggestions, or propose courses of action. Have them be really keen to aid the PC, or offer to stick around to do some scouting or guard the camp etc. Make the Demons NPCs in their own right, rather than a set of stats to be pulled out in the middle of a fight, have them interact with the party, and become recurring characters, with their own personality and ticks.

And then gradually make their "reasonable" suggestions slightly less reasonable. Have the PC slowly persuaded towards darkness, because the ends justify the means, or the Demon's way is faster. See how long you can keep this up, and how far you can push them away from their ostensibly good alignment before they realise that their "friend" is trying to corrupt them.

It can be cool is the rest of the party catch on faster, but the wizard doesn't want to give up their power, but that relies on your players embracing the storyline and running with it. Trying to convince your good aligned teammates that demon summoning is the right thing to do can be hilarious.

I remember a Tomb of Horrors game a year or so ago when the wizard in the party wanted to use summoned creatures to trigger traps ahead of us. My paladin protested that this was just cruel and wrong, and that we shouldn't sacrifice spirit creatures to make our lives easier. His response was to say "Alright, what if I summon a demon then." We grudgingly admitted that sending a creature which was a personification of evil into the tomb ahead of us was ok. Its the only time my paladin has ever said: "Fine, you can summon a demon, but only if its really evil..."

[Davrix]

There is nothing bad with this per-say though i would argue that this is more a neutral good view wizard. But granted I could argue that evil things such are these are meant to be used as nothing more then slaves for the cause of good or some such.

Whatever the reason aside you have a goldmine of ways of plot hooks and ways to interact with the player.

As others have said

Local church gets wind and Paladins and clerics show up to lecture him, go from there and expand.
The demons start to think they can corrupt this guy and start being more helpful and eager to please as they offer friendly "Suggestions."
A higher demon takes notice and starts to use it for his own ends to further his goals, take it from their and expand.

The only real question is how the player will respond. If he is a good role-player he will love this... if not well... he really should not be lawful good and doing this TO much, once in awhile probably fine but if this is a constant thing he does because OP STATS, yes well yank the chain a little.

[Mastikator]

Buff the good options so that mechanically they are the same.

You could even ask him for advice on how they should be buffed since he has already put in the effort of analyzing them.

[Calthropstu]

One thing mechanically to remember here is damage reduction. Outsiders have alignment based DR. That means they are good at harming opposed alignments but not good at harming each other. Dretch vs. Dretch combat is really, really pathetic looking since most of the time their attacks will deal no damage. So the choice of summoning that can actually hurt the presumably evil-aligned summons of one's enemies versus something that's going to get into the equivalent of a slap fight is tactically significant. There are scenarios you could produce that take advantage of this.

Dr/good is bypassed by both good creatures as well as those with dr/good. Like dr bypasses like.
I personally houserule that dr bypasses an amount of dr equal to the amount it has. For instance a creature with dr 5/ magic would cut through 5 points of dr/magic bringing dr/15 to dr/10.
But your argument is incorrect.

[hamishspence]

Dr/good is bypassed by both good creatures as well as those with dr/good. Like dr bypasses like.

Strictly, only having an alignment subtype, grants the ability to bypass appropriate DR.

A golem, with DR/adamantine, does not count as having "adamantine" natural attacks. A demon does not count as having cold iron attacks - it needs to get a cold iron weapon if it wants to damage another demon easily. And so forth.

The main "DR/overcoming" traits are Alignment, Magic, and Epic. A creature with DR/magic gains Magic Strike. a creature with DR/epic gains Epic Strike. A creature with the appropriate alignment subtype gains Aligned Strike.

[Knaight]

But a morally upstanding person carelessly summoning demons and just kinda assuming they have everything under control is on of those situations that has to have consequences. Ideally in-game story-driven consequences that make the game as a whole more interesting rather than less.

The thing is that they actually do have everything under control. Plus, if you're going to summon a bunch of disposable minions to die for you they might as well deserve it.

Now, you could draw attention to this, but given how incredibly sketchy summoning starts sounding in general when you look at it that's worth putting some time into considering whether or not you want to pull that thread.

I'm not saying don't do it - just be aware that it's the sort of thing that can easily become a major campaign focus, and that really deserves that level of attention if it's going to be done properly. Have a bunch of summoned demons come back later, intent on revenge for having been summoned to advance an agenda they're hostile to. Hint at the emergence of a Coalition of the Summoned developing in various planes, intent on heading to the material (among other things) to end summoners and summoning. Have that Coalition emerge into a significant power, with the PCs caught up in it to at least some extent - that can look like a lot of things depending on how they interact with them, from occasional Coalition strikes at the PCs to the PCs deciding to ally with or overthrow the Coalition.

[LibraryOgre]

For the Summon Monster line of spells, I wouldn't worry about it. If he does it in populated areas, he might wind up having people look at him sideways, and it might make Good Clerics or Paladins he travels with deeply uncomfortable, but the Summon Monster line of spells isn't entering into a long-term relationship... it's speed-dating.

On the more powerful end, if he starts using long-term binding spells on demons to be his buddies? Yeah, they're going to start trying to corrupt him. Might not work, but even "Visciously carrying out his orders" is going to start weighing on him if he lets it happen.

[Lord Torath]

If the idea really bugs you then you could make a refluffed celestial alternative. Same stats, nicer flavor. But in this specific case, the situation is controlled and small scale enough that you should just let it be.

Of course, if the player does graduate to spells like Planar Binding, all that goes out the window. You can have fiends the party meets offer the character a deal, since he's at least open to the idea of working with naughty things. But so long as it's just about the utility of what to call with the Summon Monster line, it's not worth making into a thing.I was going to post to say this. If he just wants the most powerful summons available, create an Upper Planes version of the Dretch, and let him summon that.

Talk to the player out of character, and ask if he wants to explore the implications of a Good wizard summoning Evil beings to do his chores for him. If yes, great! Go with some of the other ideas here. If he isn't interested in that, then just provide the Upper Planes version of the Dretch for him to summon.


One thing mechanically to remember here is damage reduction. Outsiders have alignment based DR. That means they are good at harming opposed alignments but not good at harming each other. Dretch vs. Dretch combat is really, really pathetic looking since most of the time their attacks will deal no damage. Huh. I suppose this explains why the Blood War has gone on so long? :smallconfused:

[Kaptin Keen]

My ideas for consequences:

1) None.

How could it possibly be evil to kill someone by demon, but good to kill them by angel? Or, even more so, by fiendish badger vs celestial corgie?

It's a lot more meaningful to say that 'summoning a being - any being, without exception - to fight for you against it's will, is evil. Don't do it!' But then, almost all magic users really should be evil. They don't do much of anything that can actually qualify as good. Maybe abjurers?

[Xuc Xac]

Or, even more so, by fiendish badger vs celestial corgie?

What's the difference between torching a forest to defoliate it for a couple seasons and spraying it with Agent Orange that will poison the land for 400 years? Dead trees either way, right?

A lot of people who support execution by lethal injection would be opposed to death by stoning or burning at the stake.

Maybe when celestial corgies die for you, they evaporate into a pleasant potpourri but fiendish badgers dissolve into a puddle of toxic sludge.

[Kaptin Keen]

What's the difference between torching a forest to defoliate it for a couple seasons and spraying it with Agent Orange that will poison the land for 400 years? Dead trees either way, right?

A lot of people who support execution by lethal injection would be opposed to death by stoning or burning at the stake.

Maybe when celestial corgies die for you, they evaporate into a pleasant potpourri but fiendish badgers dissolve into a puddle of toxic sludge.

That's not even close to being the same thing.

If you know anything about cheese cutters, you'll know that there are, basically, two: The correct, danish cheese slicer - and the other one (which happens to be swedish).

That's the difference. That is correctly analogous. The cheese doesn't care, the tools serve identical purposes except that the swedish one works less well.

Whether it's a fiendish or celestial creature has precisely zero effect on anything. No poisoned land for 400 years. It's there to fight for rounds per level, and nothing more.

[RazorChain]

"Hi I'm Yaztromo the kind, I'm here to rescue you......wait a second Conjuro te daemonium inferni detractos in abyssum irent

Poof! A huge demon appears and tears the bad guys to pieces.

"Wasn't that nice...now you're free. How about a cup of tea?"


The princess runs screaming away.


You see when you dabble with demons you'll kinda build up bad reputation. You might even get a nice monicker....like Demonologist?

[jhonny]

Why dont you give him +1 point towards evil in alignment (should be a good way to do things);

Should be possible to to make things like in Baldur`s Gate when you summon an elemental you should roll the dice to try controll it and low dice the summon will go frenzy.

[hamishspence]

Why dont you give him +1 point towards evil in alignment (should be a good way to do things);

3.5 (BoVD, FC2) takes a similar approach - that casting an [evil] spell is an evil act (FC2 calls it a 1 pt Corrupt act, and characters who accumulate Corruption are in danger of going to Baator if they are Lawful-aligned.

A case could be made that Corruption does not guarantee alignment change - it only controls Afterlife Destination.