Vow of Peace - Final Solutions

[Malapterus]

The Vow of Peace comes with a lot of restrictions, but I don't know that the vow-holder is expected to permanently watch over every single foe he encounters. What can he do that will permanently put an end to his foe's rampage of evil that won't violate his vow?

*Keep in mind, these actions also need to not violate the Lawful Good alignment that should be associated with sacred vows.

Obviously, turning them over to the authorities is the first choice, but there are many situations where that's not an option.

Do you guys feel that the Imprisonment spell violates the vow? I don't, since it does no damage and is reversible.

I think banishing someone to the plane of their god is just like killing them but skipping a step so that doesn't work.

What about Flesh to Stone? Again, no inherent damage & fully reversible.

Baleful Polymorph isn't very nice, but giving someone a second chance to have an honest life as an earthworm could be an acceptable alternative to killing them.

If you could make a minor enough change with Polymorph Any Object that it is permanent, but sufficient to end whatever evil ends they had, would that be OK? Example: Polymoprhing a genocidal Elf wizard into an Orc of average Orc intelligence.

What about using Geas/Quest or Lesser Geas to force them to knock it off? While not exactly permanent, if they need to complete their ritual to summon their demon on the blood moon that only comes by every thousand years and you Geas them for 10 days so they miss it, that could deal with them. The problem is these spells have the capacity to do ability damage or actual damage so that could be a big problem.

How about casting a spell to give you a massive skill bonus and hitting them with an epic level Diplomacy check @w@

What about using a Miracle to change their alignment, or erase their memory of their evil desires? I understand a lot of people find that sort of thing to be pretty harsh.

Anything else? How would you peacefully end someone's capacity for evil without killing them? Nobody say 'friendship', I don't have time to roleplay that.

P.S. I know none of these are 'permanent' in the scope of the game, but neither is death, and I honestly think it's be easier to find your old master's rotting remains than it would be to find the earthworm he was turned into.

[Jowgen]

This seems like the exact kind of scenario for which I wrote my handbook on THE REDEEMERYTM (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?410846-The-Redeemery-Saving-Souls-for-Good-and-Profit-Work-in-Progress)

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Have a party member or cohort who can legally give every opponent a trial, sentence, and when necessary an execution on the spot, similar to Judge Dredd. Every opponent you defeat is captured, given a fair trial under the law, and given a just sentence according to that character's judgement. Typically that judgement will include the attempted murder of the judge, which carries a death sentence. This fulfills both Vow of Peace and Vow of Nonviolence.

[Venger]

The Vow of Peace comes with a lot of restrictions, but I don't know that the vow-holder is expected to permanently watch over every single foe he encounters. What can he do that will permanently put an end to his foe's rampage of evil that won't violate his vow?
Anything and everything that isn't a spell or weapon that deals lethal damage or ability damage.


Do you guys feel that the Imprisonment spell violates the vow? I don't, since it does no damage and is reversible.
Nope


I think banishing someone to the plane of their god is just like killing them but skipping a step so that doesn't work.
Uh, what? No it isn't. That's totally fine.


What about Flesh to Stone? Again, no inherent damage & fully reversible.
yeah that's fine. no lethal damage, no ability damage, you're good


Baleful Polymorph isn't very nice, but giving someone a second chance to have an honest life as an earthworm could be an acceptable alternative to killing them.
that's fine


If you could make a minor enough change with Polymorph Any Object that it is permanent, but sufficient to end whatever evil ends they had, would that be OK? Example: Polymoprhing a genocidal Elf wizard into an Orc of average Orc intelligence.
that's fine


What about using Geas/Quest or Lesser Geas to force them to knock it off? While not exactly permanent, if they need to complete their ritual to summon their demon on the blood moon that only comes by every thousand years and you Geas them for 10 days so they miss it, that could deal with them. The problem is these spells have the capacity to do ability damage or actual damage so that could be a big problem.
lesser geas is always fine

geas/quest is technically fine, but like in your other thread, if your gm's in a mood to pick on you, he might pretend it breaks your vow. like casting a wall of fire that your enemy then stupidly runs into, the gm might claim that by your enemy choosing to disobey you and causing damage to himself, you are causing damage to him by a spell. this is wrong, but it's something to keep in mind.


How about casting a spell to give you a massive skill bonus and hitting them with an epic level Diplomacy check @w@
of course this isn't breaking your vow


What about using a Miracle to change their alignment, or erase their memory of their evil desires? I understand a lot of people find that sort of thing to be pretty harsh.
Good ≠ good. reprogramming your enemies minds to turn them into your slaves is super duper extra Good even though it's horrible and grotesque. this is fine by your vows.


Anything else? How would you peacefully end someone's capacity for evil without killing them? Nobody say 'friendship', I don't have time to roleplay that.
the possibilities are pretty much limitless, but exalted characters really like mind control. what is your character's build, so I don't just name random effects. stuff like feeblemind, charm, dominate, monstrous thrall, etc is all good for cudgeling your enemies into doing what you want.

[Malapterus]

Oh, I forgot about Bestow Curse & Greater Bestow Curse. Is hitting up anything with the Necromancy descriptor going to backfire on me?

The character is a Lawful Good Unarmored Warforged Cleric/Artificer/Monk gestalt

I know Artificer and Vow of Poverty might not seem to mesh, but when you're a Warforged you can do all kinds of stuff to yourself without violating the vow, and you can buff up your allies' weapons and armor much better than a cleric or wizard.

I'll eventually be able to turn my unarmed strikes into Brilliant Energy weapons @w@ and I'll be taking the Subdual Substitution feat (DM approved 3.0 version) along with the Fire domain to rain down nonlethal damage upon my enemies.

Haven't decided on the other domain.

[Venger]

Oh, I forgot about Bestow Curse & Greater Bestow Curse. Is hitting up anything with the Necromancy descriptor going to backfire on me?
decrease ≠ ability damage. you're fine
there is no restriction against necromancy, and bestow curse is not an [Evil] spell, so you're fine

other fun spells from the cleric list for your character
addiction
affliction
ray of dizziness
cloak of hate
any kind of summons. you can command the big ones to grapple, pin, deal nonlethal, etc and hold enemies still so you can wiffle bat them into submission
control sand
curse of ill fortune & mass
dancing web
hold person
ice slick
manifest death
peacebond
wall of x

[Doctor Awkward]

The Vow of Peace comes with a lot of restrictions, but I don't know that the vow-holder is expected to permanently watch over every single foe he encounters. What can he do that will permanently put an end to his foe's rampage of evil that won't violate his vow?

Redeem them.



...No, seriously.
Read the Vow of Peace feat again. And a third time for good measure. Then read the introduction to the Book of Exalted Deeds and see if you can't figure out the issue on your own...


If you elect to take the Vow of Peace feat, you are playing not only an exalted character-- one that embodies the highest principles of good and righteousness-- but also pacifist character.


pac·i·fist
noun
1. a person who believes that war and violence are unjustifiable.


A character who has taken a Vow of Peace believes that there is never a legitimate reason for behaving violently towards another living thing. Period. He considers any situation in which he is involved that descends into violence to be a personal failure on his part. "The standards expected of good characters in D&D, especially those who lay claim to exalted status, bear much more similarity to modern sensibilities about justice, equality, and respect for life than to the actual medieval world that D&D is loosely based on, and that is quite intentional." (Book of Exalted Deeds, pg. 11). Good and evil are absolute principles in the universe of D&D, and are often entirely independent from the principles of law and order. A city might exist in which torturing convicted criminals as a form of penance is legal, but it is still an unquestionably evil act, and a good character who turns over a criminal to such an authority knowing that will happen is complicit in that evil.

Virtually every single action you've listed, while fulfilling the technicalities of the Vow of Peace to exacting precision, very much threatens to go against the nature of an exalted character. The whole point of playing an exalted character is to address issues of morality in a D&D campaign that most adventuring groups would normally gloss over: Is it okay to slaughter every drow you see and sell their goods on the open market? How do you wrest information from enemy prisoners without compromising your alignment? Is there any hope for the orc children in the stronghold, or should you just slaughter them, too?

That's the reason most people recommend you steer clear of material in this book, and the reason the book is labeled "For mature audiences only". Playing an exalted character requires examining a D&D campaign from an angle that most players find detracts from their roleplaying experience.

If you are pulling material from that book for the explicit purpose of gaming the system to accrue the benefits of exalted status while paying lip-service to the extremely stringent requirements for gaining them, then you're doing it wrong. For an exalted character, the ends never justify the means, and any result that is achieved from an act of evil has tipped the cosmic scale towards evil, no matter how good it might seem on the surface.

I would never allow such a character in a game I run, and I would advise any prospective DM against it as well.

[ViperMagnum357]

Oh, I forgot about Bestow Curse & Greater Bestow Curse. Is hitting up anything with the Necromancy descriptor going to backfire on me?

No-in fact, there are Exalted spells with the Necromancy descriptor. The school itself is a perfectly neutral branch of magic, with unfortunate associations in-universe due to many of its potential effects and uses-similar to Enchantment.

Just be careful what you are using spells for.

[Malapterus]

If you are pulling material from that book for the explicit purpose of gaming the system to accrue the benefits of exalted status while paying lip-service to the extremely stringent requirements for gaining them, then you're doing it wrong.

You seem to be under the impression that I am on here looking for loopholes, but I'm really just trying to get a feel for what I'm getting into before I commit to it.

Of course the game mechanic is attractive & a major reason why I want to do it, but as many people have said, Vow of Poverty is inferior to regular WBL and Vow of Peace cuts you out of a great deal of options.

Unfortunately, when I first joined this campaign I got a little carried away with the DM's custom gestalt rules and ended up building a character that was essentially just a flying greatsword. It had no dexterity to speak of and limited skills and only served the party and the story by instantly annihilating any enemy we came across.

After a few sessions it became clear that this character was not going to be fun for anyone. The DM was either going to have to screw me out of using my skills or toss in enemies that could challenge me but would be way out of the league of the other party members. I decided to retire this one and write up something else.

Regarding usefulness I decided to come up with something fun. After finding a random picture and jokingly asking the DM if it could be my new character, he said yes, and so I built it. Spontaneous arcane casting plus dexterity-based swordplay & skillpoints out the ass.

Eventually it became clear that the DM straight up did not like this character and was not interested in letting its antics advance the plot in any way. This one was actually a very well-made gish with lots of useful powers, and was able to contribute in most situations - but the DM didn't like it and that's just the way it goes.

After that I whipped out the Excel spreadsheet and took to building an epic magic user under the custom rules. This one was actually great; the DM liked it and the party liked it. The only problem was, the DM's favored enemy to use are spellcasters and he set their mental stats & saves so high I could virtually never land a spell on one of them. It was pretty ****ty and very frustrating to have a character that was well on her way to being a self-sufficient demidiety in terms of spontaneous casting, only to be reduced to casting Fireball over and over again because it was impossible to land a spell with a will save.

During this whole thing most of the player base had faded away leaving me with just two people whom I did not game well with. After being involved in a plan of action that made spellcasting useless (had to make a concentration check every round because we were riding on the back of a flying party member) and then post-combat the party deciding to not only spare the evil enemy but trust them, I just quit.

Until recently I've not been planning to go back, but I've liked the idea of re-tooling the original character with a better understanding of the rules. Also, one of the other characters can turn into a nigh invincible 20 foot tall dragon man & so my flying greatsword isn't so bad in comparison. I went ahead and re-did the character, but I also became curious about another build I had often thought of - the warforged artificer.

Most of the time I prefer direct combat characters but after some screwing around and comparing it to other ideas I have liked in the past, I got on the track of the Vow-heavy Warforged, created without the sins of the flesh, here to explore what can be gained without taking from anyone else & how some can live without others dying. In game terms its a very very dedicated support character, but in character terms it's an interesting thing to explore.

Besides the fact that it's not a murder machine, the party is very big on sparing our enemies for stupid reasons and the DM likes that, so the Vow of Peace should fit in nicely. The Calm Emotions aura could even help with interrogations.

After talking to the DM I've found I can build this character very easily under the existing rules and will only need to ask for one or two custom things - like a Feat that lets me convert cleric spells into Repair spells spontaneously. I've got a bad habit of coming up with overcomplicated custom gear to ask for, and the Vow of Poverty will help me with that distraction quite nicely.

Since the Vow-based character is so restrictive, I think I am going to ask to put in both of them. Our setting revolves around a burgeoning guild hall that takes jobs and assigns them to adventurers, and so the DM or rest of the party could decide on a per-mission basis if they want the flying greatsword or hugbot.

So, really, this is not an effort to minmax. I want to play something new and interesting. I just want to get a good feel for what is expected of me so I can go into the game with something in my arsenal besides hugs. I'm not sure why you think the majority of what I've suggested falls under 'war' or 'violence', or how most of it is different than putting someone in jail until they can be dealt with in a more civil manner. Maybe you should read my post again? And a third time for good measure? Here are some handy references to help you out.




war
/wôr/
noun: war; plural noun: wars
1.
a state of armed conflict between different nations or states or different groups within a nation or state.




vi·o·lence
/ˈvī(ə)ləns/
noun: violence
behavior involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something.




read
/rēd/
verb: read; 3rd person present: reads; past tense: read; past participle: read; gerund or present participle: reading
1.
look at and comprehend the meaning of (written or printed matter) by mentally interpreting the characters or symbols of which it is composed.

[Doctor Awkward]

*sigh*

Sure. Let's go through them step by step:


Do you guys feel that the Imprisonment spell violates the vow? I don't, since it does no damage and is reversible.

Depends entirely on the criminal and the circumstances of his crime. This spell permanently robs the target of their personal liberty until it is undone.

This is a fitting punishment for a primordial force that exists only to kill and destroy all other life that it can.
Against virtually anything else, it's just petty.


I think banishing someone to the plane of their god is just like killing them but skipping a step so that doesn't work.
This is the only allowable solution for outsiders that cannot be redeemed because evil is part of the nature of their being.

Banishing someone to a random plane where they might not have any defense against the native residents or even the effects of the plane itself is as good as killing them.


What about Flesh to Stone? Again, no inherent damage & fully reversible.

Another utter violation of someone's civil liberty. As they are effectively your prisoner, you are now responsible for their safety and well-being. Stone statues are very easy to damage, and doing so explicitly causes harm to the victim.


Baleful Polymorph isn't very nice, but giving someone a second chance to have an honest life as an earthworm could be an acceptable alternative to killing them.
Do you know who does this in virtually every fairy tale ever? The evil witch.
In The Dresden Files, this is a violation of one of the laws of magic, because turning someone into another form against their will destroys their mind.


If you could make a minor enough change with Polymorph Any Object that it is permanent, but sufficient to end whatever evil ends they had, would that be OK? Example: Polymoprhing a genocidal Elf wizard into an Orc of average Orc intelligence.
See Baleful Polymorph.


What about using Geas/Quest or Lesser Geas to force them to knock it off? While not exactly permanent, if they need to complete their ritual to summon their demon on the blood moon that only comes by every thousand years and you Geas them for 10 days so they miss it, that could deal with them. The problem is these spells have the capacity to do ability damage or actual damage so that could be a big problem.
I'm pretty sure you just answered your own question.


How about casting a spell to give you a massive skill bonus and hitting them with an epic level Diplomacy check @w@
Probably the first unquestionably good idea you've had, across all three of your threads.


What about using a Miracle to change their alignment, or erase their memory of their evil desires? I understand a lot of people find that sort of thing to be pretty harsh.
There's another 9th-level spell that does exactly this.
It's called Mindrape, and it's in the Book of Vile Darkness.

...Care to hazard a guess what kind of an act it is?



I just want to get a good feel for what is expected of me so I can go into the game with something in my arsenal besides hugs.

If you are playing a Vow of Peace character this is exactly what is expected of you. You cannot harm, or through your actions allow harm to come to, another living being, regardless of who they are or what they have done or have promised to continue doing. The Vow of Nonviolence prerequisite extends this to anything that would cause "suffering" as well. All of these requirements are extremely broad, and not always well-defined in the rules of the game (an Elf that gets turned into an Orc and retains enough awareness to know what he has lost is probably "suffering"). A character with Vow of Peace genuinely believes that no one is beyond redemption, and that coexistence is possible between all creatures of the world. They are not a hard-nosed, pragmatic paladin who puts their own purity and sanctity on the line to achieve the best possible results, and who considers such things a worthy sacrifice to ensure the "triumph" of good. An exalted character knows that if good has to become evil to fight evil, then evil wins.

The conflict that faces an exalted character in a D&D game is never about whether or not they can overcome the obstacles in front of them. It's about whether or not they are doing the right thing.

[Venger]

Depends entirely on the criminal and the circumstances of his crime. This spell permanently robs the target of their personal liberty until it is undone.

This is a fitting punishment for a primordial force that exists only to kill and destroy all other life that it can.
Against virtually anything else, it's just petty.
Was there some reprint of imprisonment where it deals lethal damage and/or ability damage? No? Then it's not a violation



This is the only allowable solution for outsiders that cannot be redeemed because evil is part of the nature of their being.

Banishing someone to a random plane where they might not have any defense against the native residents or even the effects of the plane itself is as good as killing them.
No it's not.



Another utter violation of someone's civil liberty. As they are effectively your prisoner, you are now responsible for their safety and well-being. Stone statues are very easy to damage, and doing so explicitly causes harm to the victim.
Not against the rules of vow of peace.



Do you know who does this in virtually every fairy tale ever? The evil witch.
In The Dresden Files, this is a violation of one of the laws of magic, because turning someone into another form against their will destroys their mind.
Well, since he's not playing the dresden files rpg, I'm not really sure what that has to do with anything.


There's another 9th-level spell that does exactly this.
It's called Mindrape, and it's in the Book of Vile Darkness.

...Care to hazard a guess what kind of an act it is?
that's a funny way of spelling sanctify the wicked, a [good] spell that is cast by exalted characters when they want to reprogram their enemies' brains

[skunk3]

I cannot understand why anyone would want VoP or most of the other vows. It's even worse than having a damn Paladin in your party. I just like to pretend that VoP doesn't exist at all because it causes wayyyy too many headaches.

[Venger]

I cannot understand why anyone would want VoP or most of the other vows. It's even worse than having a damn Paladin in your party. I just like to pretend that VoP doesn't exist at all because it causes wayyyy too many headaches.

you're not missing anything. there's no way they put you ahead of the curve powerwise. some people just have fun playing the game with a handicap to make it more challenging, or try out a new playstyle.

at least it's better than vow of abstinence, which literally never benefits you. if you consume adult beverages or similar on purpose, you lose your feat. if someone roofies you, you also lose your feat. at least you don't get bitten by a hippopotamus.

[lylsyly]

On my phone and just scanned the thread but I saw Lawful Good mentioned. You do realize that Good is really what counts for Exalted Feats. Lawful or Chaotic isn't in the mix.

[Psyren]

Obviously, turning them over to the authorities is the first choice, but there are many situations where that's not an option.

Honest answer - if your GM is not willing to make this an option most of the time, then you probably just shouldn't play a Vow of Peace character at all (and I would argue against being Exalted at all.) Because not having the option to turn them in to a friendly NPC authority to take offscreen is going to either require you to babysit every orc/drow/etc you come across until they individually change their ways, or else force you to find increasingly creative and cheesy ways to "kill" them all without violating your vow. Already in your opening post you've suggested sticking them in a hole in the ground for eternity, brainwashing them, and even removing their sapient forms entirely - you may not be opening their veins up in the street, but you're doing the next best thing.

[Malapterus]

On my phone and just scanned the thread but I saw Lawful Good mentioned. You do realize that Good is really what counts for Exalted Feats. Lawful or Chaotic isn't in the mix.

It's odd, but none of the vows explicitly require you to be of Good alignment. Presumably one should be, but it's not written in the feats - unless it's a generic requirement for exalted feats which I have missed.

While they don't explicitly require you to be Lawful, logically, I think you'd have to be. You've sworn to live your life by a very strict set of rules - something difficult for a Neutral character and anathema to a Chaotic character.

I mean, I understand that even a chaotic character can have some guidelines. Being chaotic doesn't mean you have to be open to the option of cannibalism or incest or other extreme acts, & that there can be things that you will never, ever willingly do - but swearing a vow to someone else to behave a certain way does not seem suited to the chaotic alignment.


Sanctify the Wicked

I looked this spell up & man is it badly written. I think they threw in one or two too many details. It seems like a huge investment to basically put your enemy inside an egg you have to safeguard for a year, and then if they get out they automatically become bent on killing you, and it costs 10,000 gp and a character level? It seems like they could take some of that out.

[Venger]

It's odd, but none of the vows explicitly require you to be of Good alignment. Presumably one should be, but it's not written in the feats - unless it's a generic requirement for exalted feats which I have missed.

While they don't explicitly require you to be Lawful, logically, I think you'd have to be. You've sworn to live your life by a very strict set of rules - something difficult for a Neutral character and anathema to a Chaotic character.

I mean, I understand that even a chaotic character can have some guidelines. Being chaotic doesn't mean you have to be open to the option of cannibalism or incest or other extreme acts, & that there can be things that you will never, ever willingly do - but swearing a vow to someone else to behave a certain way does not seem suited to the chaotic alignment.



I looked this spell up & man is it badly written. I think they threw in one or two too many details. It seems like a huge investment to basically put your enemy inside an egg you have to safeguard for a year, and then if they get out they automatically become bent on killing you, and it costs 10,000 gp and a character level? It seems like they could take some of that out.

Yeah they do. The rules are just stupidly in a different place and not in the prereq category. any feat in the [exalted] category requires a good alignment. it says so at the beginning of the feat category. they do not necessitate a lawful alignment.

yeah sanctify the wicked is horrible, evil garbage, it's perfect for exalted characters. just use programmed amnesia instead, like a normal person.

[Doctor Awkward]

Was there some reprint of imprisonment where it deals lethal damage and/or ability damage? No? Then it's not a violation


No it's not.


Not against the rules of vow of peace.


Well, since he's not playing the dresden files rpg, I'm not really sure what that has to do with anything.




The utter avoidance of evil,
however, doesn’t make a character good—solidly neutral, perhaps,
but not good.
Being good requires a certain quality of temperament, the
presence of virtues that spur a character, not just to avoid evil
or its appearance, but to actively promote good. As expressed
in the Player’s Handbook, “‘Good’ implies altruism, respect for
life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings. Good
characters make personal sacrifices to help others.”
Good is not nice, polite, well mannered, prudish, self-righteous,
or naïve, though good-aligned characters might be some
of those things. Good is the awesome holy energy that radiates
from the celestial planes and crushes evil. Good is selfless, just,
hopeful, benevolent, and righteous.

There is nothing just about throwing an evil creature in a hole forever.

There is nothing benevolent about turning someone into an animal forever.

There is nothing righteous about "technically not breaking the rules".

"Not being evil" is not enough to be an exalted character.



that's a funny way of spelling sanctify the wicked, a [good] spell that is cast by exalted characters when they want to reprogram their enemies' brains

Huh, that's weird. I don't recall the OP asking if there existed a specific mechanic for safely redeeming evil characters that didn't involve extensive RP...

In fact, I could have sworn he instead wrote exactly the spell description of something that is found in the book that contains the opposite of what exalted characters are allowed to do.

...Maybe you should have led with that instead of trying to suggest that, "reprogramming your enemies minds to turn them into your slaves" definitely jives with the absolute morality scale upon which the D&D universe functions.

[Venger]

There is nothing just about throwing an evil creature in a hole forever.

There is nothing benevolent about turning someone into an animal forever.

There is nothing righteous about "technically not breaking the rules".

"Not being evil" is not enough to be an exalted character.
There's nothing just about imprisoning them in a diamond for a year to brainwash them into espousing your beliefs either. this isn't about what's just, it's about what's [good]


Huh, that's weird. I don't recall the OP asking if there existed a specific mechanic for safely redeeming evil characters that didn't involve extensive RP...

In fact, I could have sworn he instead wrote exactly the spell description of something that is found in the book that contains the opposite of what exalted characters are allowed to do.

...Maybe you should have led with that instead of trying to suggest that, "reprogramming your enemies minds to turn them into your slaves" definitely jives with the absolute morality scale upon which the D&D universe functions.

It does, though? Are you not familiar with sanctify the wicked, or emissary of barachiel? that's what exalted characters do.

[Zaq]

BoED is one of the worst-written books in the 3.5 canon.

Venger's right about the RAW, and while his conclusions drawn from what the book presents as being actively capital-G Good and righteous (e.g., Sanctify the Wicked) are a bit snarky, they're honestly not entirely unjustified based on the text itself. The book does present some awful things as being Good and righteous and laudable. The fact that this seems to directly contradict the early chapters about respect for the dignity of other creatures and all that is part of the problem and part of what makes the book so horribly written. It's a total minefield. When we consider how disruptive the Vows (particularly Nonviolence and Peace) can be to a group that doesn't all think the same way, it's understandable that we might not want to make them worse than they already are just by the bare text alone.

Tonymitsu's idealistic perspective about the intent is still valuable. I'm inclined to agree that the intent of the sacred vows is usually reasonably clear on the surface, and the book does explicitly say that they aren't to be treated like other feats that are fully self-contained with no implications about the prereqs. There's an implication that you're supposed to be a genuinely good person and not simply following a checklist of "do this, don't do that" in order to maintain the blessing of Goodness to an Exalted degree. There's value to that. I think where arguments like Venger's come into play is that the book tells you that you're supposed to be genuinely good, then it outlines a bunch of things that explicitly have the stamp of Goodness on them that seem to contradict the vague pronouncements about what "genuinely good" means, so the book's concept of "genuinely good" isn't something that is as worthy of respect as we might hope. The book DOES spell out by RAW what you are and aren't allowed to do with each sacred vow, so it's understandable if that is simply treated as the only set of hard rules when we consider that the vague rules at the beginning are contradicted by the unfortunate implications of the content later in the book.

Like everything else in BoED, it's not something that is going to have an opinion-free answer, and therefore trying to nail down too many nitty-gritty specifics without involving your actual group and/or (more importantly) your actual GM is probably going to be a bit unsatisfying. I can totally understand the perspective of a GM who idealistically feels like any attempt to subvert the restrictions of the Vows is justification to question if the character in question really deserves the Vows at all; they are intended to be challenging and special dedications that require one to go above and beyond, and they are meant to be ideals to strive for rather than restrictions to be subverted or worked around. I can also totally understand the perspective of a GM who cynically feels like the BoED's morality guidelines are inconsistent and problematic and the Vows themselves are kind of disruptive, so finding whatever advantage is necessary while still sticking to the hard RAW is no worse than anything else in the book and probably should be encouraged. The tones of these two games might be somewhat different, but that doesn't mean that I'd declare one or the other to be inherently problematic based on this alone.

As for how I'd rule or how I'd like to see it done, it basically depends on the attitude of the player and the attitude of the group. If a player really wanted to be that idealistic champion of Goodness who really wants to explore what it means to always take the hard way out of a moral dilemma, as long as the rest of the group is willing to engage with that and wouldn't just view that character as being needlessly disruptive, I could support that, but if a player isn't willing to really play that up to the hilt but still wants to mess around with the Vows, I could also support treating the restrictions and benefits of the Vows as being more morally neutral and simply go with the RAW checklist mentality. You get out of such a character what you put into it.

I don't think that someone who's constantly working around the Vows and who's trying to circumvent the restrictions rather than acting like someone who really believes in those restrictions is necessarily going to be treated the same way in-game as the alternative, but that's not a bad thing. In fact, that's probably a good thing.

[Venger]

BoED is one of the worst-written books in the 3.5 canon.

Venger's right about the RAW, and while his conclusions drawn from what the book presents as being actively capital-G Good and righteous (e.g., Sanctify the Wicked) are a bit snarky, they're honestly not entirely unjustified based on the text itself. The book does present some awful things as being Good and righteous and laudable. The fact that this seems to directly contradict the early chapters about respect for the dignity of other creatures and all that is part of the problem and part of what makes the book so horribly written. It's a total minefield. When we consider how disruptive the Vows (particularly Nonviolence and Peace) can be to a group that doesn't all think the same way, it's understandable that we might not want to make them worse than they already are just by the bare text alone.
I appreciate that you're appealing to common ground between me and Tonymitsu, but how is one supposed to talk about gross stuff like sanctify the wicked and emissary of barachiel without being at least a little irritated?


Tonymitsu's idealistic perspective about the intent is still valuable. I'm inclined to agree that the intent of the sacred vows is usually reasonably clear on the surface, and the book does explicitly say that they aren't to be treated like other feats that are fully self-contained with no implications about the prereqs. There's an implication that you're supposed to be a genuinely good person and not simply following a checklist of "do this, don't do that" in order to maintain the blessing of Goodness to an Exalted degree. There's value to that. I think where arguments like Venger's come into play is that the book tells you that you're supposed to be genuinely good, then it outlines a bunch of things that explicitly have the stamp of Goodness on them that seem to contradict the vague pronouncements about what "genuinely good" means, so the book's concept of "genuinely good" isn't something that is as worthy of respect as we might hope. The book DOES spell out by RAW what you are and aren't allowed to do with each sacred vow, so it's understandable if that is simply treated as the only set of hard rules when we consider that the vague rules at the beginning are contradicted by the unfortunate implications of the content later in the book.
Yeah, this is a good summary. Like normal feats, it gives you a short list of prereqs (don't hurt or kill anyone except filthy undead and constructs, who aren't people) but then there's that nebulous "y'know, act good" stuff. since Good is in many ways the opposite of good, you have a variety of options such as sanctify the wicked that are obviously horrible, but don't break your vow by actual RAW. the vow of x feats are already so bad that you really don't need an extra set of rules lurking in the shadows ready to hamstring you. that's why I feel like the position you outline is the most conducive to good play


Like everything else in BoED, it's not something that is going to have an opinion-free answer, and therefore trying to nail down too many nitty-gritty specifics without involving your actual group and/or (more importantly) your actual GM is probably going to be a bit unsatisfying. I can totally understand the perspective of a GM who idealistically feels like any attempt to subvert the restrictions of the Vows is justification to question if the character in question really deserves the Vows at all; they are intended to be challenging and special dedications that require one to go above and beyond, and they are meant to be ideals to strive for rather than restrictions to be subverted or worked around. I can also totally understand the perspective of a GM who cynically feels like the BoED's morality guidelines are inconsistent and problematic and the Vows themselves are kind of disruptive, so finding whatever advantage is necessary while still sticking to the hard RAW is no worse than anything else in the book and probably should be encouraged. The tones of these two games might be somewhat different, but that doesn't mean that I'd declare one or the other to be inherently problematic based on this alone.
The problem with alignment threads in general is that people will confuse good and Good. I completely agree extrajudicially imprisoning people and brainwashing them isn't good, but it's just factually Good by RAW. If an exalted character with the vows can't hurt or kill people like a normal D&D character and can't use exalted spells to brainwash his enemies into doing what he wants, then you might as well ban the feat outright, which is a totally reasonable decision that a lot of people do.


As for how I'd rule or how I'd like to see it done, it basically depends on the attitude of the player and the attitude of the group. If a player really wanted to be that idealistic champion of Goodness who really wants to explore what it means to always take the hard way out of a moral dilemma, as long as the rest of the group is willing to engage with that and wouldn't just view that character as being needlessly disruptive, I could support that, but if a player isn't willing to really play that up to the hilt but still wants to mess around with the Vows, I could also support treating the restrictions and benefits of the Vows as being more morally neutral and simply go with the RAW checklist mentality. You get out of such a character what you put into it.
I definitely agree it's important that the other players need to agree to lugging around a babysitter and it's not something you should spring on them at the last minute, but one aspect I don't think is discussed enough with exalted characters is the gm.

the campaign the gm wants to run needs to be conducive to the playstyle of an exalted character. If I show up ready to run red hand of doom or eyes of the lich queen, and some joker shows up with an apostle of peace, none of us are going to end up having a good time. (not that I think Malapterus is doing this, the context is clear that his gm is prepared and supportive of this type of character)


I don't think that someone who's constantly working around the Vows and who's trying to circumvent the restrictions rather than acting like someone who really believes in those restrictions is necessarily going to be treated the same way in-game as the alternative, but that's not a bad thing. In fact, that's probably a good thing.
here's the other thing about these vows

people who adhere to Tonymitsu's views on them talk about finding clever ways to circumvent the (nominal) spirit of their rules as though it's badwrongfun. why? they're just feats like anything else. the whole reason people still play 3.5 is so you can take a feat or a prc or something like that and use it in an interesting or unexpected way. Something wants to daze you after you use it? Okay, become immune to dazing and use it anyway. Vow of whatever wants to stop you from playing the game? okay, how can we ignore that?

this is how exalted characters act by raw anyway. again, just read any of the ones in boed, such as emissary of barachiel. locking your enemy in your basement for a week and brainwashing him is A-OK. being Good has nothing to do with being good.

[Zaq]

I agree with you overall, Venger. I think that the morality presented in BoED falls apart under any meaningful scrutiny, and I think that accepting that "this horrifying thing that we're calling Good has to be treated as being Good" is awful.

I do, however, think that there is room to focus on the parts that aren't so horrifying and play those up as being central to the message. It's explicitly cherry-picking and explicitly ignoring some parts of RAW that we don't like, but let's be honest, most of us who have a problem with this sort of thing don't like StW and the doublespeak on ravages and Emissary of Barachiel and the persistent double standards and all of that. We don't like it at all. It doesn't mesh with what we think goodness really means. And yeah, you can only get so far talking about this game without dealing with the rules as written, but even if the result turned out to be horrifying, BoED was written for a reason, and the fact that the BoED that actually got published contains a lot of unfortunate implications and morally repugnant stuff doesn't mean that the desire to play really, really capital-G Good characters isn't a thing and that there isn't room in the game to deal with what Goodness means.

To be clear, I'm not accusing you of saying that BoED's awfulness means that we shouldn't deal with Goodness or anything like that. But what I am saying is that it's not always productive to draw this distinction about "Good acts that aren't good acts." Maybe it's more conducive to fun to say that not everything that BoED presents as being Good is actually Good. Maybe BoED got an awful lot of the specific examples really, really, really wrong, but the parts about avoiding suffering, respecting dignity, bringing hope, and all of that can still inform the decisions that we make and that our characters make. While this isn't appropriate for every group, maybe it's worth using the book as a starting point to have a nontrivial contemplation about what it means to be a capital-G Good character but feeling free to reject the text in the book when it contradicts what we really feel is Good.

I'm as willing to stick to RAW as the next guy most of the time, but I don't think that I like your RAW interpretation that awful crap like StW is [Good]. I can read the RAW just like you can and I see that tag on the spell, but that doesn't mean that I want it in my game. You are not wrong and I don't want to imply that I don't agree with you, because honestly, I really think we see eye to eye. But I'm more comfortable saying that I reject the text about certain abhorrent things being Good than I am saying that certain abhorrent things are [Good] but not good.

(I could totally see an interesting campaign written by a really thoughtful GM that's centered around opposing things that are stamped as being [Good] but that really are anything but, but it would take a darned skilled GM to make that feel meaningful from start to finish.)

[Venger]

I agree with you overall, Venger. I think that the morality presented in BoED falls apart under any meaningful scrutiny, and I think that accepting that "this horrifying thing that we're calling Good has to be treated as being Good" is awful.

I do, however, think that there is room to focus on the parts that aren't so horrifying and play those up as being central to the message. It's explicitly cherry-picking and explicitly ignoring some parts of RAW that we don't like, but let's be honest, most of us who have a problem with this sort of thing don't like StW and the doublespeak on ravages and Emissary of Barachiel and the persistent double standards and all of that. We don't like it at all. It doesn't mesh with what we think goodness really means. And yeah, you can only get so far talking about this game without dealing with the rules as written, but even if the result turned out to be horrifying, BoED was written for a reason, and the fact that the BoED that actually got published contains a lot of unfortunate implications and morally repugnant stuff doesn't mean that the desire to play really, really capital-G Good characters isn't a thing and that there isn't room in the game to deal with what Goodness means.
I think we're pretty much on the same page too.

I don't have a problem with people wanting to play really nice, good, upstanding characters in D&D. My point is they shouldn't look to boed or exalted tools in order to help build that character. It will take you away from the concept you want to play.


To be clear, I'm not accusing you of saying that BoED's awfulness means that we shouldn't deal with Goodness or anything like that. But what I am saying is that it's not always productive to draw this distinction about "Good acts that aren't good acts." Maybe it's more conducive to fun to say that not everything that BoED presents as being Good is actually Good. Maybe BoED got an awful lot of the specific examples really, really, really wrong, but the parts about avoiding suffering, respecting dignity, bringing hope, and all of that can still inform the decisions that we make and that our characters make. While this isn't appropriate for every group, maybe it's worth using the book as a starting point to have a nontrivial contemplation about what it means to be a capital-G Good character but feeling free to reject the text in the book when it contradicts what we really feel is Good.
uh, right, because that's not what I'm saying.

I got a little lost, there. The reason I go with Good (good as in alignment by raw) [good] (good alignment descriptor for spells, such as sanctify the wicked) and good (normal human english) isn't to be pedantic, but because these terms are disparate and in many circumstances contradict each other.

"Good acts that aren't good acts" and "not everything BoED presents as Good are actually Good" don't seem to be contradictions to me. I assume in the second statement, you're using "Good" to mean the normal definition and not raw alignment? I won't tell you what terms to use, I just want to make sure we're not talking past each other .
I don't have a problem with any of the things you describe. That's a fun way to play D&D too.


I'm as willing to stick to RAW as the next guy most of the time, but I don't think that I like your RAW interpretation that awful crap like StW is [Good]. I can read the RAW just like you can and I see that tag on the spell, but that doesn't mean that I want it in my game. You are not wrong and I don't want to imply that I don't agree with you, because honestly, I really think we see eye to eye. But I'm more comfortable saying that I reject the text about certain abhorrent things being Good (alignment) than I am saying that certain abhorrent things are [Good] (descriptor) but not good (common english).
(emphasis mine, so I can double check we're using the same terms and I'm not misrepresenting your points. if my assumption is wrong please correct me)

I'm a little confused. What interpretation? That's what sanctify the wicked does: I find someone who's different from me, rip out his soul, disintegrate his body, lock him in my tennis bracelet for a year, brainwash him into espousing my beliefs, and then maybe I can let him out (or just keep him in there forever)

I don't think it's good (normal english) either, but it's got the [Good] descriptor. raw, it's a Good (alignment) act, like casting [Evil] spells like deathwatch is an Evil act. that's all I've been saying.

I don't want it in my game either; it's grotesque and weirdly underpowered. it's a pretty bad trap for new players. I also think we see eye to eye here.

I think that's our difference of opinion. If I understand you correctly, you don't want to create 3 striations for the word "good" in the game and want to mentally conflate [Good] and good?

If I have that right, that's interesting. Why is that? Like ryu said upthread, [Good] is just another arbitrary descriptor, like [Fire], it's got nothing to do with whether the spell is a naughty or nice thing for your character to do.


(I could totally see an interesting campaign written by a really thoughtful GM that's centered around opposing things that are stamped as being [Good] but that really are anything but, but it would take a darned skilled GM to make that feel meaningful from start to finish.)
check out eberron, the silver flame is tailored for this kind of thing. I'm sure there's a module or two where you can kick some of their [Good] heads in

[Doctor Awkward]

BoED is one of the worst-written books in the 3.5 canon.

In terms of mechanics... there are some that are bad

In terms of examination of the subject matter, it isn't even in the bottom ten.

The book flat-out tells you in the introduction that the material within is not appropriate for all tables or all games. Playing characters with exalted status are supposed to be a completely different experience than a normal game, and that's why it tells you to discuss the nature of the material in the book with everyone that will be playing before just running with it.
Different is not the same thing as bad.



Venger's right about the RAW,

No.
No they're not.

They are ignoring and obscuring intent and fluff and examining only end result and then assuming that the processes must be identical.

Assuming that the experience one endures while undergoing the process of that spell must be the same is exactly the same as a spell that is tagged [Evil] simply because they produce the same results is both naive and willfully ignorant. Sanctify the Wicked explicitly does not cause pain and suffering, simply by virtue of being tagged as a [Good] spell. You are, mechanically, making a personal sacrifice (of one of your own levels) to help redeem another creature. It's all but outright stated that the creature of the spell chooses to become good after being forced to confront on their own nature. Assuming that Sanctify the Wicked is the mechanically the same as brainwashing someone with Mindrape is wrong because those are two completely different methods that can achieve the same result.

Just because the rules for good and evil are occasionally vague does not mean those rules don't exist. Nor is that vagueness license to ignore obvious distinctions between different methods for achieving the same outcome. In more than one place in BoED, it tells you explicitly that the results of your actions are not nearly as important as the motives behind them. All of these things are included in rules for what it means to be good. Following the Rules As Written means all of the rules, not just the ones that support your preconceptions.

Exalted characters are not just good. They are paragons of good. They are held by the powers-that-be to the highest standards because they are supposed to serve as examples to inspire others to follow in their footsteps. You cannot be an exalted character merely following the letter of the law. And if you are not an exalted character, you do not get exalted feats.

The requirements of the individual feats are in addition to the exacting standards placed upon the character, and all of them are rules text that must be followed when playing with the Sacred Vow feats. By being an exalted character, morality and intent become RAW.

[Malapterus]

How DO you become immune to being dazed, anyway?


Huh, that's weird. I don't recall the OP asking if there existed a specific mechanic for safely redeeming evil characters that didn't involve extensive RP...

What did you think this thread was about? I am confuse.

So from what I am seeing here, there seems to be a large degree of individual interpretation to be had about what is and is not okay. We've gotten lots of voicing of the two extreme ends of the spectrum.

We've got Venger, who says it's a lot like real-life religion and law; If you read all the words and do what they say, you're fine.

Then Tonymatsu refers to a more real-life version of XXX and Justice - where everything trickles down to something else and to be completely free from evil you're not allowed to do anything but sit around and eat rocks.

Since the game is not real life & I doubt the authors meant to make their own book unplayable, I'm leaning more toward Venger's thoughts on the matter, but what I've really gleaned from this discussion is - you can't ask anyone. Every DM is going to have their own idea of how this works & it's going to be unique to that game. The only one who knows what is and is not okay is the creator of the world you're doing it in.

On the subject of spells that are evil & spells that are not, I've always thought Fireball was pretty cruel. In the list of things you can and cannot do to someone, 'incinerate them and everything around them' seems like it made the wrong side of the list.

[AnimeTheCat]

How DO you become immune to being dazed, anyway?



What did you think this thread was about? I am confuse.

So from what I am seeing here, there seems to be a large degree of individual interpretation to be had about what is and is not okay. We've gotten lots of voicing of the two extreme ends of the spectrum.

We've got Venger, who says it's a lot like real-life religion and law; If you read all the words and do what they say, you're fine.

Then Tonymatsu refers to a more real-life version of XXX and Justice - where everything trickles down to something else and to be completely free from evil you're not allowed to do anything but sit around and eat rocks.

Since the game is not real life & I doubt the authors meant to make their own book unplayable, I'm leaning more toward Venger's thoughts on the matter, but what I've really gleaned from this discussion is - you can't ask anyone. Every DM is going to have their own idea of how this works & it's going to be unique to that game. The only one who knows what is and is not okay is the creator of the world you're doing it in.

On the subject of spells that are evil & spells that are not, I've always thought Fireball was pretty cruel. In the list of things you can and cannot do to someone, 'incinerate them and everything around them' seems like it made the wrong side of the list.

Based on all of that, the only people who's opinions matter in this are yours and your DMs and those two should be your focus.

When I run for exalted characters, I don't look in absolutes. There isn't a single "good" path or a single "exalted" path. All deities have differing priorities and expectations for those whom they grant exalted status. Those expectations and priorities should be made based on deity and player. And that is when you will find all of the answers to all of the questions you're asking.

[Venger]

In terms of mechanics... there are some that are bad

In terms of examination of the subject matter, it isn't even in the bottom ten.
name 10 books worse than boed


Different is not the same thing as bad.
tell that to exalted characters



No.
No they're not.
Dazzling argument


They are ignoring and obscuring intent and fluff and examining only end result and then assuming that the processes must be identical.
Male pronouns are fine.

Man, what an idiot I was for saying two spells do the same thing just because they do the same thing.



Assuming that the experience one endures while undergoing the process of that spell must be the same is exactly the same as a spell that is tagged [Evil] simply because they produce the same results is both naive and willfully ignorant. Sanctify the Wicked explicitly does not cause pain and suffering, simply by virtue of being tagged as a [Good] spell. You are, mechanically, making a personal sacrifice (of one of your own levels) to help redeem another creature. It's all but outright stated that the creature of the spell chooses to become good after being forced to confront on their own nature. Assuming that Sanctify the Wicked is the mechanically the same as brainwashing someone with Mindrape is wrong because those are two completely different methods that can achieve the same result.
I don't need to assume anything. All I need to do is read sanctify the wicked.

There is no such rule that [good] spells can't inflict pain or suffering. Look at any of the other spells in boed. Opalescent glare even kills. Stop making things up and pretending they're rules.

All but outright stated = not stated

Oh, so the problem is that you literally don't undertand consent. No wonder you like exalted characters so much.

You see how the target of sanctify the wicked doesn't say "willing creature"?
You see how they get a will save to protect themselves from you?
That's because they don't want to be imprisoned for a year (or more, depending on how exalted you feel) have their body destroyed, and be brainwashed into your alignment

Do you think the stuff you force your enemies to do after you charm and dominate them is consensual too?

You know what else the white council forbids? Making people into your slaves by brainwashing them and forcing them to espouse your beliefs. Funny how you only bring up irrelevant rules from other rpgs when it bolsters your houserules.


Just because the rules for good and evil are occasionally vague does not mean those rules don't exist. Nor is that vagueness license to ignore obvious distinctions between different methods for achieving the same outcome. In more than one place in BoED, it tells you explicitly that the results of your actions are not nearly as important as the motives behind them. All of these things are included in rules for what it means to be good. Following the Rules As Written means all of the rules, not just the ones that support your preconceptions.
Yeah, because that's been my point the whole time. That these rules I've been trying to educate you on aren't real.

Because people who do bad things but have good intentions are good, apparently. Wow.


Exalted characters are not just good. They are paragons of good. They are held by the powers-that-be to the highest standards because they are supposed to serve as examples to inspire others to follow in their footsteps. You cannot be an exalted character merely following the letter of the law. And if you are not an exalted character, you do not get exalted feats.

The requirements of the individual feats are in addition to the exacting standards placed upon the character, and all of them are rules text that must be followed when playing with the Sacred Vow feats. By being an exalted character, morality and intent become RAW.
fluff ≠raw

If you think brainwashing your enemies into espousing your ideals isn't exalted, go read emissary of barachiel. You'll love it. it's all about locking people in your basement for weeks on end and forcing them to adopt your alignment. This is what exalted characters do. Exalted characters are Good, but they're not good.


How DO you become immune to being dazed, anyway?

What did you think this thread was about? I am confuse.

So from what I am seeing here, there seems to be a large degree of individual interpretation to be had about what is and is not okay. We've gotten lots of voicing of the two extreme ends of the spectrum.

We've got Venger, who says it's a lot like real-life religion and law; If you read all the words and do what they say, you're fine.

Then Tonymatsu refers to a more real-life version of XXX and Justice - where everything trickles down to something else and to be completely free from evil you're not allowed to do anything but sit around and eat rocks.

Since the game is not real life & I doubt the authors meant to make their own book unplayable, I'm leaning more toward Venger's thoughts on the matter, but what I've really gleaned from this discussion is - you can't ask anyone. Every DM is going to have their own idea of how this works & it's going to be unique to that game. The only one who knows what is and is not okay is the creator of the world you're doing it in.

On the subject of spells that are evil & spells that are not, I've always thought Fireball was pretty cruel. In the list of things you can and cannot do to someone, 'incinerate them and everything around them' seems like it made the wrong side of the list.
there's a bunch of different ways. mark of the dauntless is good, as is a third eye conceal (though it's limited times/day) and for full coverage, change your type to something immune to dazing, such as undead.

Glad to be of assistance.

I'd love to know what he thinks this thread is about.

Funny you mention fireball. In the fluff section Tonymitsu touts so highly, it's actually the example boed uses for a spell that's totally not evil at all. While you could do bad stuff with it, what's more important is how you use it because it's just a tool.

[Malapterus]

Since we're all here what do you think of this idea for a feat?


--------
Tough Love
Prerequisites: Sacred Vow, Vow of Nonviolence, Knowledge(Religon) 10 ranks, Wis 17

Through study, experience, and enlightenment, you have learned when and how to apply more forceful techniques to disable an enemy without killing them. Your patron trusts you with these more severe methods.

Benefit: You may use effects that inflict ability damage to Strength and Dexterity scores, for the purpose of disabling creatures without killing them. When you do so, this does not violate your Vow of Nonviolence or your Vow of Peace.
Any effect that would normally inflict great pain or other torturous effects does not do so when used by a character with this feat, however, the mechanical effect of the effect is not changed.

Special: Normally, the Vow of Nonviolence and the Vow of Peace ban ability damage of any kind.
--------

As always, I don't really understand why Str and Dex damage are a problem. A person with 0 Str or 0 Dex is just disabled, just like someone whose Nonlethal Damage exceeds their Current Hit Points. Additionally, this person remains awake & not covered in bruises, simply having had their strength sapped away as opposed to having being beaten into submission. I know poison is evil by default, but there are lots of things that are not poison that do this.

I might want to up this to anything besides Con damage, because mental attributes falling to zero just renders you unconscious. The reason I would make this addition is because the spell Awaken Sin, which is otherwise perfect for a Vow of Nonviolence character, can potentially cause Wisdom damage if it renders the victim unconscious.

A quick search for 'Sin' on dnd tools picks up two more sin-based spells, one from BoED and oone from Complete Champion; Wages of Sin and Weight of Sin, neither of which could be used by the nonviolent character. Mark of Sin seems to be pretty cruel, but doesn't violate any of the vow's written mechanics.

I wonder if any DM out there would rule that Awaken Sin, Wages of Sin, and Weight of Sin don't count as YOU doing the ability damage or HP damage, since it's all theoretically based on things the target has done - although Wages of Sin is more about your target being different than you than it is about them actually having done anything. "What? That guy's Chaotic Neutral??" *zap zap zap* "He is a frog now, as it should be." The fact that Weight of Sin can be used by evil characters against good ones is really messed up, or maybe it's a nice echo that good and evil are more like salt and pepper in D&D than they are actual variable concepts.

[Venger]

Since we're all here what do you think of this idea for a feat?


--------
Tough Love
Prerequisites: Sacred Vow, Vow of Nonviolence, Knowledge(Religon) 10 ranks, Wis 17

Through study, experience, and enlightenment, you have learned when and how to apply more forceful techniques to disable an enemy without killing them. Your patron trusts you with these more severe methods.

Benefit: You may use effects that inflict ability damage to Strength and Dexterity scores, for the purpose of disabling creatures without killing them. When you do so, this does not violate your Vow of Nonviolence or your Vow of Peace.
Any effect that would normally inflict great pain or other torturous effects does not do so when used by a character with this feat, however, the mechanical effect of the effect is not changed.

Special: Normally, the Vow of Nonviolence and the Vow of Peace ban ability damage of any kind.
--------
I like it.

I think your instinct is correct and you should allow all non-con damage (think about drain too, but go ahead and see how just allowing damage works first if you want)


As always, I don't really understand why Str and Dex damage are a problem. A person with 0 Str or 0 Dex is just disabled, just like someone whose Nonlethal Damage exceeds their Current Hit Points. Additionally, this person remains awake & not covered in bruises, simply having had their strength sapped away as opposed to having being beaten into submission. I know poison is evil by default, but there are lots of things that are not poison that do this.

I might want to up this to anything besides Con damage, because mental attributes falling to zero just renders you unconscious. The reason I would make this addition is because the spell Awaken Sin, which is otherwise perfect for a Vow of Nonviolence character, can potentially cause Wisdom damage if it renders the victim unconscious.

A quick search for 'Sin' on dnd tools picks up two more sin-based spells, one from BoED and oone from Complete Champion; Wages of Sin and Weight of Sin, neither of which could be used by the nonviolent character. Mark of Sin seems to be pretty cruel, but doesn't violate any of the vow's written mechanics.

I wonder if any DM out there would rule that Awaken Sin, Wages of Sin, and Weight of Sin don't count as YOU doing the ability damage or HP damage, since it's all theoretically based on things the target has done - although Wages of Sin is more about your target being different than you than it is about them actually having done anything. "What? That guy's Chaotic Neutral??" *zap zap zap* "He is a frog now, as it should be." The fact that Weight of Sin can be used by evil characters against good ones is really messed up, or maybe it's a nice echo that good and evil are more like salt and pepper in D&D than they are actual variable concepts.
while RAW, using poison is arbitrarily lumped in as an Evil act (unless you call them ravages, then it's Good, obviously) you are correct in that there's no harm done if it's not a con poison.

wages of sin doesn't do hp damage or ability damage. you're fine. it's even a [Good] spell

unfortunately, not even I can come to your aid with weight of sin. it's just like holy word/dictum/blasphemy/etc, you're blasting people to victimize them for the crime of being different from you and directly dealing hp damage. cool spell for an exalted character, but a clear violation of vow of peace

mark of sin is hysterical, and no, there's no violation there. in the same vein, check out "cloak of hate," mentioned upthread.

awaken sin's pretty cool, but assuming Tough Love isn't in play, it would be a violation if you koed your victim and accidentally dealt some wisdom damage. I'd suggest you keep an eye on their exact hp totals with deathwatch but obviously, that's not an option.

as mentioned, since you're playing D&D and not dresden files rpg, you can turn people into frogs all you like without jeopardizing your vow as long as you don't step on them afterwards (how are you contriving access to polymorph effects? transformation domain? it's a favorite of mine on warforged characters for obvious reasons)

I mean Evil characters get their own version of holy word and detect evil and stuff too, they deserve to have nice things as well. Yeah, that's what Good and Evil are in D&D, it's why people of all stripes can cast atonement as well, they're just arbitrary distinctions; now you're getting it.

I'd mention inner beauty (dig that physiognomy, D&D) but I know your character doesn't have access to the bard list. either way, check it out, it's pretty funny too.

since you've got cleric access, another spell on this theme of berating people for their transgressions against you and penalizing them but not dealing ability damage or hp damage is heroes of horror's pronouncement of fate: you read from a scroll and excoriate them for stealing your parking space or whatever, they take -4 to everything and have a 50% chance of losing their action. great stuff.

[Doctor Awkward]

name 10 books worse than boed

Complete Psionics, Dungeon Survival Guide, Weapons of Legacy, Dragon Compendium, Deities and Demigods, Planar Handbook, Miniatures Handbook, Tome of Magic, Power of Faerun, Explorer's Handbook



There is no such rule that [good] spells can't inflict pain or suffering.


Spells have the good descriptor because they do one or more of the following
things:
• Good spells call upon good deities or energies.
• Good spells summon or improve celestials or other good
creatures.
• Good spells involve a personal sacrifice to help another.
• Good spells inspire hope, joy, or similar positive emotions,
or they alleviate suffering.



Oh, so the problem is that you literally don't undertand consent. No wonder you like exalted characters so much.
Stay classy.

[Venger]

Complete Psionics, Dungeon Survival Guide, Weapons of Legacy, Dragon Compendium, Deities and Demigods, Planar Handbook, Miniatures Handbook, Tome of Magic, Power of Faerun, Explorer's Handbook
Oh, so you just have terrible taste in books. Ok.

You know, most of the time, when someone quotes a rulebook, it's because it supports their argument. I'm not really sure what that quote has to do with anything, but a rule saying "[good] spells cannot inflict pain or suffering" is notably absent.

[Doctor Awkward]

Oh, so you just have terrible taste in books. Ok.



https://www.logicalfallacies.info/presumption/subjectivist/

[Psyren]

Er... I think maybe y'all should take a deep breath and step back from the keyboards for a bit.

Anyway, for myself - BoED is a heavily flawed book, but I do appreciate WotC's attempt/intent to make something that says "you probably shouldn't run around beheading every orc you see even if they're evil, and even every demon might be tricky." The book has some pretty stupid stuff in it, but it has some very useful bits too., even in the fluff-heavy sections.

[Venger]

https://www.logicalfallacies.info/presumption/subjectivist/

Ah, you've reached the point of linking to random pages defining basic rhetorical terms rather than post on-topic because you know you're wrong. No response to how you were lying about [good] spells not being able to inflict pain or suffering? Well at least you've conceded gracefully.

[ZamielVanWeber]

Anyway, for myself - BoED is a heavily flawed book, but I do appreciate WotC's attempt/intent to make something that says "you probably shouldn't run around beheading every orc you see even if they're evil, and even every demon might be tricky." The book has some pretty stupid stuff in it, but it has some very useful bits too., even in the fluff-heavy sections.

I like it a lot. Yes, it has some very strange issues (poisons are bad because suffering so here are poisons BUT ONLY FOR EVIL PEOPLE that cause suffering, which is good*) but if over six millenia of wise and educated people cannot solve the ultimate question for good and evil a bunch of game designers sure are not going to but it is fashionable to fault them anyways, especially when their personal view of morality conflict with what is in the book. A major one is people constantly assign consent to good. On a fundamental level it is not: consider devils operate heavily on consent and demons do not. Further: why does it take the consent of the criminal to punish them? It is a complex issue, even in DnD, but I appreciate the effort put in and the gift of a baseline to start useful discussions on these things.

*Thus annoys me because to proscription on poisons and diseases and the existence of ravages and afflictions could have been easily justified but the DEVS lost their marbles a bit. Consider: posioms, and especially diseases, are imprecise tools. A poisoned cup of wine could kill the innocent taster and if I use a disease to wipe out an evil town one enterprising bad man could escape to a trading village and suddenly there goes 1/3 the world's population. Ravages and afflictions do not do that: they cannot harm those who are not evil. If I use an affliction to destroy an evil fortress and a man escapes it is likely that where he goes the affliction will not spread further, maybe only affecting one or two who affecting re also evil, but that is it. A ravage cannot kill the taster unless they have also been sampling some less savory fare...

[Venger]

I like it a lot. Yes, it has some very strange issues (poisons are bad because suffering so here are poisons BUT ONLY FOR EVIL PEOPLE that cause suffering, which is good*) but if over six millenia of wise and educated people cannot solve the ultimate question for good and evil a bunch of game designers sure are not going to but it is fashionable to fault them anyways, especially when their personal view of morality conflict with what is in the book. A major one is people constantly assign consent to good. On a fundamental level it is not: consider devils operate heavily on consent and demons do not. Further: why does it take the consent of the criminal to punish them? It is a complex issue, even in DnD, but I appreciate the effort put in and the gift of a baseline to start useful discussions on these things.
Who's assigning consent to Good? I think we've established pretty clearly Good doesn't care about that.


*Thus annoys me because to proscription on poisons and diseases and the existence of ravages and afflictions could have been easily justified but the DEVS lost their marbles a bit. Consider: posioms, and especially diseases, are imprecise tools. A poisoned cup of wine could kill the innocent taster and if I use a disease to wipe out an evil town one enterprising bad man could escape to a trading village and suddenly there goes 1/3 the world's population. Ravages and afflictions do not do that: they cannot harm those who are not evil. If I use an affliction to destroy an evil fortress and a man escapes it is likely that where he goes the affliction will not spread further, maybe only affecting one or two who affecting re also evil, but that is it. A ravage cannot kill the taster unless they have also been sampling some less savory fare...
due to the lack of degree in the alignment system, it's possible the taster just cast deathwatch 9 times, or some similar innocuous activity, and can still be accidentally killed by you. ravages may only be able to target evil-aligned people, but all the same issues with poison are still present.

[ZamielVanWeber]

Who's assigning consent to Good? I think we've established pretty clearly Good doesn't care about that.
Not Good, good. Please do not strawman with information that is not there. And to answer the actual question: you. In this thread. Post 4.



due to the lack of degree in the alignment system, it's possible the taster just cast deathwatch 9 times, or some similar innocuous activity, and can still be accidentally killed by you. ravages may only be able to target evil-aligned people, but all the same issues with poison are still present.

That does nothing to negate what I said. The person did an evil thing and is now vulnerable to an anti-evil weapon. Unless you would have a paladin fall for smiting that person? You are correct that DnD alignment lacks degrees but this is not the real world, it is Dungeons and Dragons. If you want to have a game that maps more closely to real world morality go play real life as there exists no game that can adequately map itself to that quagmire.

[Venger]

Not Good, good. Please do not strawman with information that is not there. And to answer the actual question: you. In this thread. Post 4.
If you're going to name random rhetorical fallacies, it might be helpful to learn what they mean.

Right. And like I said upthread, to avoid any confusion, I've been consistently using the terms
[Good]= spell descriptor
Good= alignment
good= normal use of the word

since they have discrete definitions and often contradict each other.

post 4 is saying the exact opposite of that, because Good doesn't care about consent, which is why we have stuff like sanctify the wicked

Good ≠ good. reprogramming your enemies minds to turn them into your slaves is super duper extra Good even though it's horrible and grotesque. this is fine by your vows.


That does nothing to negate what I said. The person did an evil thing and is now vulnerable to an anti-evil weapon. Unless you would have a paladin fall for smiting that person? You are correct that DnD alignment lacks degrees but this is not the real world, it is Dungeons and Dragons. If you want to have a game that maps more closely to real world morality go play real life as there exists no game that can adequately map itself to that quagmire.
so do you think paladins should go out and do hate crimes against everyone who pings with an Evil alignment, or not? Your earlier post seemed to imply you didn't, but now it seems like you do. I don't want to misunderstand your points.

[Doctor Awkward]

I like it a lot. Yes, it has some very strange issues (poisons are bad because suffering so here are poisons BUT ONLY FOR EVIL PEOPLE that cause suffering, which is good*) but if over six millenia of wise and educated people cannot solve the ultimate question for good and evil a bunch of game designers sure are not going to but it is fashionable to fault them anyways, especially when their personal view of morality conflict with what is in the book. A major one is people constantly assign consent to good. On a fundamental level it is not: consider devils operate heavily on consent and demons do not. Further: why does it take the consent of the criminal to punish them? It is a complex issue, even in DnD, but I appreciate the effort put in and the gift of a baseline to start useful discussions on these things.

*Thus annoys me because to proscription on poisons and diseases and the existence of ravages and afflictions could have been easily justified but the DEVS lost their marbles a bit. Consider: posioms, and especially diseases, are imprecise tools. A poisoned cup of wine could kill the innocent taster and if I use a disease to wipe out an evil town one enterprising bad man could escape to a trading village and suddenly there goes 1/3 the world's population. Ravages and afflictions do not do that: they cannot harm those who are not evil. If I use an affliction to destroy an evil fortress and a man escapes it is likely that where he goes the affliction will not spread further, maybe only affecting one or two who affecting re also evil, but that is it. A ravage cannot kill the taster unless they have also been sampling some less savory fare...

This is sort of the entire point of the book, and why, as I already mentioned, it is labeled as, "For mature audiences only". Morality in the face of unrelenting evil is a very complex issue, and there is not always a binary answer. Playing a game with an exalted characters is supposed to represent a completely different kind of challenge than normal groups face: can you defeat the evil in front of you without sacrificing your own sanctity to it?

I've found that the biggest problems a lot of folks have with the book stems from assigning their own sense of morality to the topics presented within it. They completely forget that D&D operates on an absolute moral scale. Category A is always good, and Category B is always evil. And when considering things that do not fall squarely into those two categories your motives and intent matter when adjudicating their acceptability.

For instance, you don't like the idea of ravages and afflictions because they serve the same mechanical function as poisons and diseases. Except the book explicitly tells you they aren't the same, and you could end with the fact that they only function on evil creatures. Poisons and diseases are horrific and painful experiences. Ravages and afflictions aren't. Simply suffering damage to an ability score does not mean you experience pain and discomfort while it happens. The fact that all ravages and afflictions are supernatural in nature (pg. 35) is license to assume that they work differently without any further fluff explanation.

In exactly the same way that the mechanics of Shadow Adept do not function if you are in a campaign world that doesn't differentiate between the Weave and the Shadow Weave, most of the mechanics in BoED don't effectively function if you ignore the rules on how character behavior should influence alignment. It should come as no surprise that most of the people people who believe this is one of the worst books also think alignment should be done away with entirely.

[ZamielVanWeber]

For instance, you don't like the idea of ravages and afflictions because they serve the same mechanical function as poisons and diseases. Except the book explicitly tells you they aren't the same, and you could end with the fact that they only function on evil creatures. Poisons and diseases are horrific and painful experiences. Ravages and afflictions aren't. Simply suffering damage to an ability score does not mean you experience pain and discomfort while it happens. The fact that all ravages and afflictions are supernatural in nature (pg. 35) is license to assume that they work differently without any further fluff explanation.

No, not at all. I don't like ravages and afflictions as presented because they say poisons and diseases are bad for a reason and then immediate design replacements that follow that reason. It is the inconsistency in the span of a page that annoys me, especially since a perfectly good and valid reason exists that does not violate their logic.

Edit: To be plain: my issue with their disparaging poisons and diseases is the whiplash inconsistency with their logic, not the concept itself.

[ZamielVanWeber]

If you're going to name random rhetorical fallacies, it might be helpful to learn what they mean.
I never said Good in my entire post. You began arguing about what I said about Good. You assigned consent to good and then used that as an example of why Good was bad, which is what I said. You ignored that to refute me, stating that "whose assigning consent to Good."


Right. And like I said upthread, to avoid any confusion, I've been consistently using the terms
[Good]= spell descriptor
Good= alignment
good= normal use of the word
Except, as I just showed, when it inconveniences you.

since they have discrete definitions and often contradict each other.


post 4 is saying the exact opposite of that, because Good doesn't care about consent, which is why we have stuff like sanctify the wicked
And again, where it inconveniences you. Consent is not a categorical imperative by any stretch.



so do you think paladins should go out and do hate crimes against everyone who pings with an Evil alignment, or not?
How is dispensing lawful justice derived from an absolute, objective, and demonstrably extant authority against someone who has provably committed wicked acts a hate crime? You will need to back up the statement.


Your earlier post seemed to imply you didn't, but now it seems like you do. I don't want to misunderstand your points.
You have misconstrued parts of every statement I have made in this thread to your own benefit. You also clearly intentionally misconstrued someone statement to justify insulting him for providing evidence you were unwilling to.

[Venger]

I never said Good in my entire post. You began arguing about what I said about Good. You assigned consent to good and then used that as an example of why Good was bad, which is what I said. You ignored that to refute me, stating that "whose assigning consent to Good."
Stop lying:

A major one is people constantly assign consent to good.
(emphasis mine)

I assigned consent to good (not Good: as quoted I said the exact opposite, by boed's own rules, Good characters do not care about consent) because, unlike Tonymitsu, I think consent is important, and if you ignore it, you're a bad person.



Except, as I just showed, when it inconveniences you.

again, stop lying.


And again, where it inconveniences you. Consent is not a categorical imperative by any stretch.
I think you're confused. Bakkan was the one advocating the categorical imperative. I disagreed with him, since it's not a sound, valid moral system.



How is dispensing lawful justice derived from an absolute, objective, and demonstrably extant authority against someone who has provably committed wicked acts a hate crime? You will need to back up the statement.
Because 1/3 of the population will have an Evil alignment through the performance of innocuous tasks and do not deserve to be murdered in the street. You may feel otherwise, but at the very least, have the decency to own up to it like Tonymitsu


You have misconstrued parts of every statement I have made in this thread to your own benefit. You also clearly intentionally misconstrued someone statement to justify insulting him for providing evidence you were unwilling to.

you know, if both Tonymitsu and I, who have opposite views on alignment, can't seem to get the true meaning of your posts, maybe the problem isn't on our end.

Yeah, he really put me in my place quoting those dresden files rpg rules.

[Doctor Awkward]

Because 1/3 of the population will have an Evil alignment through the performance of innocuous tasks and do not deserve to be murdered in the street.

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/the-gamblers-fallacy

[Venger]

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/the-gamblers-fallacy
that's not what the gambler's fallacy is. I can link to random logical fallacies too (https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/the-fallacy-fallacy)

You and ZamielVanWeber's views on murdering people in the street is actually a better example: if the last two people you murdered in the street for the crime of setting off your detect evil didn't deserve it, then the next person probably does.

[ZamielVanWeber]

{{scrubbed}}

[Doctor Awkward]

that's not what the gambler's fallacy is. I can link to random logical fallacies too (https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/the-fallacy-fallacy)

You assumed that, because exactly 1/3 of the possible alignments are evil, then precisely 1/3 the population of any given Material Plane would also be evil. You assumed this independent of any other possible mitigating factors.

That's exactly what the gambler's fallacy is.

EDIT: And as an aside, you dismissed my position over the books I listed earlier as inconsequential on the (false) grounds that a) it was a subjective opinion at all, and b) that it was an opinion capable of rendering my position invalid.
So I should probably to add a dash of ad hominem in there as well.


You and ZamielVanWeber's views on murdering people in the street is actually a better example: if the last two people you murdered in the street for the crime of setting off your detect evil didn't deserve it, then the next person probably does.

That's not how good works.
BoED states several times that indiscriminately punishing evil is not the same thing as being good. That you are unaware of this actually goes a long way to explain your attitude towards the book.

[Venger]

You assumed that, because exactly 1/3 of the possible alignments are evil, then precisely 1/3 the population of any given Material Plane would also be evil. You assumed this independent of any other possible mitigating factors.

That's exactly what the gambler's fallacy is.
The link you irrelevantly provided has a perfectly good example of what the gambler's fallacy is. It has nothing to do with what you're talking about


That's not how good works.
BoED states several times that indiscriminately punishing evil is not the same thing as being good. That you are unaware of this actually goes a long way to explain your attitude towards the book.
not how good works, no, but that's what being Good is all about according to you and ZamielVanWeber. you ping on detect evil? well, I guess you deserve to die.

boed may well say that in some places, but it contradicts that many times over with exalted behavior. I've provided exhaustive examples counter to this.


EDIT: And as an aside, you dismissed my position over the books I listed earlier as inconsequential on the (false) grounds that a) it was a subjective opinion at all, and b) that it was an opinion capable of rendering my position invalid.
So I should probably to add a dash of ad hominem in there as well.
Whoa, your opinion on splatbooks' quality is objective fact? That'll save a lot of time. Tell us which ones are good and which ones are bad, that way we won't have to use our non-objective opinions to try to figure it out on our own.

Your position is unsound and invalid on its own lack of merits. Your taste in splatbooks has no bearing on it. Oh, so because you don't like how my position is stated since it's different from yours, you imply it's fallacious? (https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/the-fallacy-fallacy)

[Doctor Awkward]

boed may well say that in some places, but it contradicts that many times over with exalted behavior. I've provided exhaustive examples counter to this. by now I know it's futile to ask you to back up your opinion with quotes from the book.

I could post quotes, but I'd certainly exceed the character limit allowed for a forum post.

You should probably start with the section titled "Mercy" on page 7, followed by the "Redeeming Evil" section on the next page. Then follow that up with the section titled "Violence" on the page after that (I particularly enjoy the part when it talks about just cause, and also says, "Violence against evil is acceptable when it is directed at stopping or preventing evil acts from being done."). Then there's the whole section of "Crime and Punishment" that's relevant to this point.

It might also be worth noting that the "Righteous Crusader" example character-- the archetype you seem to be so hung up on-- is the only sample character that has zero Exalted feats.
...or maybe that's a little too subtle...

What else...

Ooh, under "Bringing Good out of Evil" on page 22 it says, "As agents of good, many heroes find themselves in the situation of bringing good out of evil. This is grim work, and even the most exalted characters loathe the idea that all they can do is clean up the messes caused by evil.", almost like it's not okay to just indiscriminately kill everything you see that pings as evil.
That's another good section in general to read through.

That's probably about it for Chapter 1.
Do I really need to keep going?



Whoa, your opinion on splatbooks' quality is objective fact? That'll save a lot of time. Tell us which ones are good and which ones are bad, that way we won't have to use our non-objective opinions to try to figure it out on our own.

Your position is unsound and invalid on its own lack of merits. Your taste in splatbooks has no bearing on it. Oh, so because you don't like how my position is stated since it's different from yours, you imply it's fallacious? (https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/the-fallacy-fallacy)

There you go again declaring it an opinion.
The books I listed, in particular Complete Psionics and the Dungeon Survival Guide, are objectively terrible books for a variety of reasons. More than a few of which have little to do with mechanics.
Magic of Incarnum is my favorite subsystem in D&D, but that book also has awful writing and editing as well. Just not as bad as the others on my list.

[Malapterus]

I don't think we're counting 3.0 books, but if we are, the Arms & Equipment guide is atrocious

[Venger]

There you go again declaring it an opinion.
The books I listed, in particular Complete Psionics and the Dungeon Survival Guide, are objectively terrible books for a variety of reasons. More than a few of which have little to do with mechanics.
Magic of Incarnum is my favorite subsystem in D&D, but that book also has awful writing and editing as well. Just not as bad as the others on my list.
So, you don't know what the word "opinion" means. You disliking a book's fluff doesn't somehow make your opinion objective.

Incarnum's my favorite subsystem too.

I don't think we're counting 3.0 books, but if we are, the Arms & Equipment guide is atrocious

We can if you want. What's your beef with AEG? I don't commonly see it listed amongst books people hate.

[Psyren]

There are far worse 3.0 books. Savage Species? ELH? Heck, I remember there was a whole forum game around just reading entries from MM2 verbatim.

[Venger]

Was that the one where they were assigned different crs, or was it a different one?

[Malapterus]

What's your beef with AEG? I don't commonly see it listed amongst books people hate.

It's got some really, really stupid and badly written ideas in it. Like, the longspear that has two blades pointing backwards halfway down the haft so you can reach around someone in 5 ft range and stab them in the back, thus making a weapon that has both reach and regular range.

Now, I've got no problem with the idea of the mechanic, but the execution is ridiculous. Then there's Wolverine claws so spellcasters can have their hands free but still stab people. There's a rock that you can ricochet off multiple targets. One of them is actually a shotput. They have throat needles, which not only can be used as fast as any other thrown weapon, but can be spat out three at a time. The mercurial swords are pretty imaginative. The spinning javelin is a creative way to lose a finger. The Maul is the two-handed battle hammer oddly missing from the original weapons list, but instead of being the no-frills 2d8 smasher it should be, it's just a greatclub with more critical damage. The fullblade is just a size-too-big greatsword, but instead of being a 16 pound greatsword that does 3d6 (per the book's own rules) it's a 32 pound weapon that does 2d8, versus the 2d6 of a greatsword, and costs a feat to use. They have the Sai and the 'Triple Dagger' both introduced, even though they are the exact same thing, just one is smaller for some reason. The Manti is one I'm not even going to get into and I should not even mention the Stump Knife.

Also it's missing one of the weapons graphics so we can't see what half this madness looks like.

I'm all for crazy exotic weapons that do unusual things, but this book was written like a fever dream.

'Baatorian Green Steel' gives you a +1 enhancement to damage (that does not stack with other enhancement bonuses) for the same price as a +1/+1 magical enhancement, with the benefit that it doesn't have to be masterwork - so you can waste 2,000 GP to save 300.

For 1,000 GP you can buy a giant leaf that grows roots into your skin, taking up your Armor slot for a +1 Armor bonus.

You can also have a beetle that lives on your arm as a shield, which I guess is cute. I'd make it my familiar.

Dastana (wonder woman bracers) are exceptionally exploitable; they can be worn with light armor and with a shield, provide an Armor bonus, but that bonus stacks with your worn armor. RaW, enhancements on it would also stack with your worn enhanced armor. They require only light armor proficiency to use. Slip a +5 pair of these on under your +5 chain shirt & then double up on armor enhancements!

You also get rules on how to make your armor out of interesting things, such as wood, seashells, wicker, and rocks.

Out of the Arms and into the Equipment, you can get:
-a container to make prison beer in
-a citronella candle that does not work on any vermin that are actually dangerous
-a five-pound wooden mold to make your own candles (even fighters need a hobby)
--(I'm going to make an Orc Barbarian with Profession and Craft skills and his own line of scented candles for a side income)
---(Elf Blood over Orchids, Steel in the Moonlight, Glory of the Horde)
-a rope ladder made of two grappling hooks
-a Mission Impossible harness that gives you +1 to two useful burglary skills and -2 to six other ones.
-a virtually useless magnet
-portable bean grinder
-a quiver you can hide your dagger in in case the enemy takes away your other dagger but not your arrows
-screaming rock
-a bunsen-burner lighter that can light a torch faster but breaks after 10 uses
-a holy water sprayer
-a wall you can wad up into a ball and throw it so people run into it
-a 20-person tent (for impromptu victory parties?)
-a leather helmet with fake elf ears on it for +1 to listen checks
-old-timey suitcase with pop-out legs for selling crap on the street
-a beekeeper's outfit

I am too tired to keep scrolling through, but this book is just madness.

[Malapterus]

P.S. Brain Dust

[Venger]

Well, that's certainly a very detailed answer. (Reads more like an endorsement to me)

Personally, I found the exuberant stupidity of stuff like that in 3.0 books, like the stump knife, or the hamster ball a paladin climbs in to take a gelatinous cube as his special mount funny and whimsical, but I can see why they'd be off-putting if your conception of the game world is more serious.

[Malapterus]

I do like my silliness and exploration of unusual ideas. The best character I've ever made under legitimate core rules was a gnomish barbarian named Sugarcookie Skullcrusher.

I guess I just like a little sense in my silliness. The Duom spear's mechanic is good, but the description is just poorly made. A warhammer with a long spike on the end of a zweihander with a handle-loop could do the same thing without the awkward visuals of backward-gfacing blades.

I appreciate the ideas the book has tried to make & the completionism of all sorts of stuff you might care about carrying around, and there are some good things in there. The scope to your crossbow that treats targets to be two threat ranges closer is a great nonmagical upgrade and well-balanced, for as much use as I've ever had sniping in a D&D game. The exhaustive lists of dried fruits and vegetables are nice, though I'm not sure of the pricing on them.

I guess I feel a silly idea and a bad idea are not the same thing.

[ZamielVanWeber]

All that AEG stuff and you missed out on the ~11k item that gives you polymorph self at will with a 7 HD cap. I love the book for a few reasons but it definitely has some... exciting ideas about how to go about things. Sometimes you have to fail forward.

[Venger]

I do like my silliness and exploration of unusual ideas. The best character I've ever made under legitimate core rules was a gnomish barbarian named Sugarcookie Skullcrusher.

I guess I just like a little sense in my silliness. The Duom spear's mechanic is good, but the description is just poorly made. A warhammer with a long spike on the end of a zweihander with a handle-loop could do the same thing without the awkward visuals of backward-gfacing blades.

I appreciate the ideas the book has tried to make & the completionism of all sorts of stuff you might care about carrying around, and there are some good things in there. The scope to your crossbow that treats targets to be two threat ranges closer is a great nonmagical upgrade and well-balanced, for as much use as I've ever had sniping in a D&D game. The exhaustive lists of dried fruits and vegetables are nice, though I'm not sure of the pricing on them.

I guess I feel a silly idea and a bad idea are not the same thing.
Fair enough. When it comes to exotic weapons, I feel like they got bored describing stuff like real weapons, that's just a knife, sword, or spear or some variation thereof and decided to get weird and draw goofy bat'leh looking things.

I love AEG for little bonuses to stuff too, and for providing a bunch of cool stuff for shax's haversack, but occasionally there's this little twinge of, I'm not sure if the board has an agreed-upon term for it, but a "choice tax" as it were.

e.g. if you wanted to use your whip to wrap around a branch and then climb up it prior to complete scoundrel, I feel like most people would just let you do it. now that this option exists, a lot of people feel like if you want to do that, you need to make people buy whip climber to do it, or else the people who paid for it are being cheated.

I will occasionally feel this way when I read something like bolt cutters or fish hooks. if garlic weren't statted, I feel like most of the time you could say "samwise reaches into his bag of fixin's and takes garlic from the spice pouch" but now that it's extant, you've got to check if you remembered to write it down and spend the silver piece on it.

yeah I agree. I'll take silly any day


All that AEG stuff and you missed out on the ~11k item that gives you polymorph self at will with a 7 HD cap. I love the book for a few reasons but it definitely has some... exciting ideas about how to go about things. Sometimes you have to fail forward.
phylactery of change is pretty nuts.

[Psyren]

Was that the one where they were assigned different crs, or was it a different one?

It was just a "Let's Read" - though I remember the thread you're talking about too. (Let's be frank, the CR system was borked even after MM2.)