Beauty in D&D

[Primal Fury]

Something occured to me not too long ago while I was studying one of Plato's many works. In a world where wizards can call to into existence the concrete representation of anything they wish, be it death, chaos, pain, or love, is it possible for the Platonic form of something to exist? Sure a wizards can create the ideal... chair, but since they've created that chair, they can duplicate it, thereby making it just another chair. It's a very nice chair mind you, but there's bunches of others like it now.

So what I'm basically asking is... Is there an unattainable higher representation of everything? Or is is the multiverse as it is just It?

[Athaniar]

Isn't beauty in the eye of the beholder (no, not that beholder)? One wizard's ideal chair might be repulsive to another wizard.

Or have I completely misunderstood you?

[Doc Roc]

Welcome to the outer planes, berk. Ain't much that ain't in a mage's blood to see the dark of, but cant* says that there's wot out there which no man can master.



*Kant works as well as cant here. :)

[Jergmo]

Well, magic can create infatuation with Charm Person, but it can't really create love. There are spells that act as Find Object that let you find folks that you're romantically compatible with, but love is Unobtanium.

[Melamoto]

Well, magic can create infatuation with Charm Person, but it can't really create love. There are spells that act as Find Object that let you find folks that you're romantically compatible with, but love is Unobtanium.

Mindrape.

[kamikasei]

In a world where wizards can call to into existence the concrete representation of anything they wish, be it death, chaos, pain, or love...

Since when can wizards do anything of the sort?

...is it possible for the Platonic form of something to exist?

So what I'm basically asking is... Is there an unattainable higher representation of everything?

Nope. Plato was full of it. Forms are nonsense.

[Jergmo]

Mindrape.

Brainwashing =/= Love ...er, what exactly is the deal with Mindrape? I haven't seen it in the sourcebooks I have, though I haven't really looked through the spell sections of most of them extensively...

[Melamoto]

Since when can wizards do anything of the sort?

Slay Living
Insanity
Power Word: Pain
Mindrape


Alternatively:
Gate: Death Slaad
Gate: Any Slaad
Gate: Bone Devil
Gate: Succubus

Brainwashing =/= Love ...er, what exactly is the deal with Mindrape? I haven't seen it in the sourcebooks I have, though I haven't really looked through the spell sections of most of them extensively...

That depends. The spell completely changes somebodies mind in any way you want. Thus, you could change their mind so that they loved you. It's not standard brainwashing; it is literally making them love you. And not forced or conditioned love either. You can make somebody truly love you. Or anyone. Or anything .


Despite all these possibilities, Wizards use it for making Solars into their minions. Typical Nerd Wizards. They wouldn't know what to do with the girl anyway.

[Jergmo]

That depends. The spell completely changes somebodies mind in any way you want. Thus, you could change their mind so that they loved you. It's not standard brainwashing; it is literally making them love you. And not forced or conditioned love either. You can make somebody truly love you.

That's a fairly messed up spell.

Edit: They might be female Solars?

[Melamoto]

That's a fairly messed up spell.

It is [Evil]. Although Sanctify the Wicked isn't. Probably because it makes somebody become good though. This is one thing that bothers me, by the way. People say things like "You're still brainwashing them against their will, and yet it's not evil." This is because they're becoming good. You're not making them into soldiers for the good side, you're making them into nice people who don't like crime, without altering anything else.
Honestly; nobody who's good is bad. People use things like Goblins or SoD as arguments; but in the end, assuming you're using alignment right, those humans shouldn't be considered good aligned and those goblins shouldn't be considered evil aligned.

Edit: They might be female Solars?

And then they gate in a whole load more female Solars. And every single time, with an army of completely subservient Angels, what will the Wizard do? Command them to help him conquer the world.

This is why I play Sorcerers.

[Jergmo]

And then they gate in a whole load more female Solars. And every single time, with an army of completely subservient Angels, what will the Wizard do? Command them to help him conquer the world.

This is why I play Sorcerers.

Sorcerer-Five!

[Yora]

That's a fairly messed up spell.

That's why it's called Mindrape.

[Melamoto]

Sorry, I don't take Sorcerer-fives anymore after some incidents involving a smartass Prankster and Ghoul Touch.

[Primal Fury]

Welcome to the outer planes, berk. Ain't much that in a mage's blood to see the dark of, but cant* says that there's wot out there which no man can master.



*Kant works as well as cant here. :)

I honestly have no idea what you just said.

[Yora]

That's the beauty of cant. Very simple, but if you don't know it, you have no idea what it means. ^^

I think it means that there are no great secrets in the magic of experienced wizards, but common knowledge says, that there a things that no mortal can master.

[Primal Fury]

Oh on you Yora. I only meant that the outer planes vernacular confused me.

[kamikasei]

Slay Living
Insanity
Power Word: Pain
Mindrape


Alternatively:
Gate: Death Slaad
Gate: Any Slaad
Gate: Bone Devil
Gate: Succubus

I was rather assuming the OP meant something more fundamental than "a wizard can kill people" when he said "call into being the concrete representation of... death".

[Doc Roc]

It was also a joke about Mr. Kant.

[Primal Fury]

I was rather assuming the OP meant something more fundamental than "a wizard can kill people" when he said "call into being the concrete representation of... death".

Who's to say a powerful enough wizard couldn't call up the Grim Reaper for tea and scones?

[Fax Celestis]

Who's to say a powerful enough wizard couldn't call up the Grim Reaper for tea and scones?

Find me a spell that lets you do that (and no, gate doesn't count because AFAIK Death is not given a statistics block in any supplement and is therefore not a valid target for gate, as such a creature does not exist).

[ZeroNumerous]

Find me a spell that lets you do that (and no, gate doesn't count because AFAIK Death is not given a statistics block in any supplement and is therefore not a valid target for gate, as such a creature does not exist).

Pick a death god. Whichever one, honestly, who cares?

Death Ward.
Plane Shift.

Bam. Physical representation of Death.

[chiasaur11]

Who's to say a powerful enough wizard couldn't call up the Grim Reaper for tea and scones?

Well, yes, they might, but he might be feeding his cats at the time. Would be rude.

[Jergmo]

Sorry, I don't take Sorcerer-fives anymore after some incidents involving a smartass Prankster and Ghoul Touch.

Aw, you got me...

[Jair Barik]

Don't know what book MindRape's from but LoM has Morality undone. Same thing on a smaller scale

[Doc Roc]

Well, yes, they might, but he might be feeding his cats at the time. Would be rude.

There's a lesser known, but common, version of the Calling sub-school called Polite Calling, that has fallen out of favor for practical battle-field use.

You might try that.

[Fax Celestis]

Pick a death god. Whichever one, honestly, who cares?

Death Ward.
Plane Shift.

Bam. Physical representation of Death.

That's a god of death, not the ideal of death.

[Weimann]

From what I understand, a Platonic ideal is supposed to be the form after which all other items are created. The idea behind an object.

So I'm not sure why there couldn't be such a one? Wizards, after all, will summon a copy of an object, which will suffer from the usual flaws of a replica.

As for "representation of absolute [something]", it's a bit confusing. For example, are gods "perfect representations" of their domain? Or are there ideals of gods stored somewhere else? Are elementals the ideal of for example fire, or are there separate ideals of fire and a fire elemental?

The way I see it, Platonic ideals cannot take real form. In D&D, there can be representations of "pure law" or so, but it will always be mixed up with something else (most notably in most cases, life).

So I'd say, there's nothing preventing Platonic ideals to be a valid philosopy in D&D.

[Zeta Kai]

It seems that some folk around here aren't familiar with mindrape. It's a somewhat-controversial spell from the Book of Vile Darkness. It's a 9th level spell that lets you completely re-write a person's thoughts, memories, &/or personality. Nasty stuff, really, & aptly named.

[kamikasei]

Who's to say a powerful enough wizard couldn't call up the Grim Reaper for tea and scones?

You can't base an argument that says "wizards can do X; what are the implications" on a foundation of "well, maybe they can do X! how do you know?".

[Darrin]

In a world where wizards can call to into existence the concrete representation of anything they wish, be it death, chaos, pain, or love, is it possible for the Platonic form of something to exist?

There are perfect Platonic forms in D&D, but there are only five of them:

d4, d6, d8, d12, d20.

Pentagonal trapezohedrons don't get no justice.