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  1. - Top - End - #61
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    Default Re: Remember when Xykon killed a bunch of self-righteous Paladins...

    Quote Originally Posted by Theshipening View Post
    Sure, but Vampires are explicitly free-willed too and yet they are inherently Evil.
    Hey look, a lawful good vampire! And would you look at that, an undead doctor making sure people don't endanger themselves!
    Quote Originally Posted by Theshipening View Post
    Because they, like Liches and other undeads, are quite literally made of Evil Stuff (Hell, when Good Durkon takes over Greg, he “c'n feel tha negative energy squrimin' around.” and knows it probably won’t last long).
    Negative energy isn't evil, they're different things in D&D cosmology, the Negative Energy Plane has nothing to do with alignment.
    Quote Originally Posted by Theshipening View Post
    I personally believe that vampires and liches are free-willed the same way a Fiend or Celestial (or a God even) is. They can make their own choices and all, but within certain limitations, because they’re still fundamentally Good or Evil or whatever, since they are made of Good/Evil/whatever stuff.
    They're not free-willed. They can't help but do the morally right/wrong thing. Unlike the undead.
    Last edited by Fyraltari; 2020-08-29 at 08:08 AM.
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  2. - Top - End - #62
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    Default Re: Remember when Xykon killed a bunch of self-righteous Paladins...

    Quote Originally Posted by Fyraltari View Post
    They're not free-willed. They can't help but do the morally right/wrong thing. Unlike the undead.
    They actually are free willed - there are cases of angels turning evil and demons turning good in DnD.

    This is common enough that the rules of creature types address it:
    Evil Subtype
    A subtype usually applied only to outsiders native to the evil-aligned Outer Planes. Evil outsiders are also called fiends. Most creatures that have this subtype also have evil alignments; however, if their alignments change, they still retain the subtype. Any effect that depends on alignment affects a creature with this subtype as if the creature has an evil alignment, no matter what its alignment actually is. The creature also suffers effects according to its actual alignment. A creature with the evil subtype overcomes damage reduction as if its natural weapons and any weapons it wields were evil-aligned (see Damage Reduction, above).
    http://www.d20srd.org/srd/typesSubtypes.htm#evilSubtype

    So yes you can literally be made of evil and still be a good person.

  3. - Top - End - #63
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    Default Re: Remember when Xykon killed a bunch of self-righteous Paladins...

    Quote Originally Posted by dancrilis View Post
    They actually are free willed - there are cases of angels turning evil and demons turning good in DnD.

    This is common enough that the rules of creature types address it:

    http://www.d20srd.org/srd/typesSubtypes.htm#evilSubtype

    So yes you can literally be made of evil and still be a good person.
    Indeed. The Giant even acknowledged the possibility of A Good vampire in Stickworld, but didn't really care because that's not going to be in the story.

    As for liches, it's surely possible, but given that the act of becoming a lich is unspeakably evil and is willingly undertaken, all creatures who become liches are almost certainly evil at that time. While they may become better after time, Xykon certainly wasn't, and the Sapphire Guard had Roy to attest to that as well as their own scrying. They had every twin to believe that Xykon was coming to destroy them and zero reason to believe he wanted to negotiate (and even if he did, they had zero concessions to make to him).
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  4. - Top - End - #64
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    Default Re: Remember when Xykon killed a bunch of self-righteous Paladins...

    Quote Originally Posted by Peelee View Post
    As for liches, it's surely possible, but given that the act of becoming a lich is unspeakably evil ...
    I am a bit dubious about this in the world of The OOTS.

    Spoiler: SOD
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    Solely because I have difficulty imagining what unspeakable evil Xykon (and Redcloak) could have gotten up to in the situation where Xykon became a Lich - as such I find it possible that the ritual might have been more like one of the non-evil lich varients that occassionally pop up.

  5. - Top - End - #65
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    Default Re: Remember when Xykon killed a bunch of self-righteous Paladins...

    Quote Originally Posted by dancrilis View Post
    I am a bit dubious about this in the world of The OOTS.

    Spoiler: SOD
    Show

    Solely because I have difficulty imagining what unspeakable evil Xykon (and Redcloak) could have gotten up to in the situation where Xykon became a Lich - as such I find it possible that the ritual might have been more like one of the non-evil lich varients that occassionally pop up.
    Five gold says "destroying your humanity/dwarfinity/goblinity/et al in order to willingly become an undead abomination" counts as 'unspeakably evil'. Of course, unless you want to ask The Giant through his patron Q&A or something, I doubt the vet will ever be resolved, but that's my guess.

    Backup guess, we're not shown so as to keep the comic PG-13.
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  6. - Top - End - #66
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    Default Re: Remember when Xykon killed a bunch of self-righteous Paladins...

    Quote Originally Posted by dancrilis View Post
    I am a bit dubious about this in the world of The OOTS.

    Spoiler: SOD
    Show

    Solely because I have difficulty imagining what unspeakable evil Xykon (and Redcloak) could have gotten up to in the situation where Xykon became a Lich - as such I find it possible that the ritual might have been more like one of the non-evil lich varients that occassionally pop up.
    Xykon would beg to disagree.
    Spoiler: SoD, p. 109
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    (To Redcloak, after Right-Eye's death:)„It's not just about raw power, it's also about how far you're willing to debase yourself before feeling bad. And me? I ripped off my own living flesh so that I wouldn't have to admit weakness. You're strictly little league compared to that.”

  7. - Top - End - #67
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    Default Re: Remember when Xykon killed a bunch of self-righteous Paladins...

    The 3.5 Monster Manual: "The process of becoming a lich is unspeakably evil and can be undertaken only by a willing character."
    The alignment entry for the lich template says "Any Evil".
    Liches are pretty much all evil by the rules.
    Last edited by Jason; 2020-08-29 at 09:50 AM. Reason: Typo

  8. - Top - End - #68
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    Default Re: Remember when Xykon killed a bunch of self-righteous Paladins...

    Libris Mortis, and Monsters of Faerun, both have good aligned lich variants - but they are variants, all different to at least some degree from the regular Lich.

    "Any evil" or Always evil (any) templates are also nearly always fudgeable - Half-Fiend springs to mind.
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  9. - Top - End - #69
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    Default Re: Remember when Xykon killed a bunch of self-righteous Paladins...

    The good lich variant in Libris Mortis even says it is "conceptionally an oxymoron." In other words, it acknowledges that the basic concept of a lich includes "evil" as a defining trait of lichdom.

  10. - Top - End - #70
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    Default Re: Remember when Xykon killed a bunch of self-righteous Paladins...

    To be fair, "all liches are evil" was more a 3e-ism. Past editions had plenty of good liches - 3e changed things- so (at least in MoF) variants were created to accommodate the old characters.
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  11. - Top - End - #71
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    Default Re: Remember when Xykon killed a bunch of self-righteous Paladins...

    Quote Originally Posted by Jason View Post
    The good lich variant in Libris Mortis even says it is "conceptionally an oxymoron." In other words, it acknowledges that the basic concept of a lich includes "evil" as a defining trait of lichdom.
    Also, I can't quite see how these variant liches are relevant to the discussion at hand, since, again, SoD clearly establishes (twice, in fact) that
    Spoiler: SoD, p. 60
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    „[s]uch a path (…) lead[s] to an irreedemable state of utter depravity”
    as far as Xykon is concerned.

    (Aand finally, there's a new Orc in the Playground.)
    Last edited by Metastachydium; 2020-08-29 at 10:24 AM.

  12. - Top - End - #72
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    Default Re: Remember when Xykon killed a bunch of self-righteous Paladins...

    Quote Originally Posted by Jason View Post
    The 3.5 Monster Manual: "The process of becoming a lich is unspeakably evil and can be undertaken only by a willing character."
    The alignment entry for the lich template says "Any Evil".
    Liches are pretty much all evil by the rules.
    Personally I take that just as a requisite to qualify for the template in the first place, not as a subsequent restriction (the way druids, paladins or bards have alignment restrictions). The Libris Mortis might say that a non-Evil lich is a conceptual oxymoron, but it still says they can exist, which is all that matters here, since nobody is saying they're common or likely, just that they're possible.
    Last edited by hroţila; 2020-08-29 at 10:41 AM.
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  13. - Top - End - #73
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    Default Re: Remember when Xykon killed a bunch of self-righteous Paladins...

    Quote Originally Posted by hroţila View Post
    Personally I take that just as a requisite to qualify for the template in the first place, not as a subsequent restriction (the way druids, paladins or bards have alignment restrictions). The Libris Mortis might say that a non-Evil lich is a conceptual oxymoron, but it still says they can exist, which is all that matters here, since nobody is saying they're common or likely, just that they're possible.
    The way it's written is not really "these guys totally exist in your standard D&D world," it's more like "If you the DM really really want a good lich, despite the fact that it shouldn't be possible here's a way you could do it."

    Edit: Libris Mortis also contains another reason why creating undead is an evil act. All undead are powered by the negative energy plane, but they are also a sort of minor gateway to that plane that siphons off energy from the prime. So every undead you create permanently drains a small quantity of energy from the world and hastens the effects of entropy in it. Creating lots of undead, or allowing lots of undead to continue to exist measurably shortens the life span of the prime material plane.
    Last edited by Jason; 2020-08-29 at 12:56 PM.

  14. - Top - End - #74
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    Default Re: Remember when Xykon killed a bunch of self-righteous Paladins...

    I mean I know it’s irrelevant but the elves of Aerenal on Eberron have non evil liches, sustained by positive energy.
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    Use your smite bite to fight the plight right. Fill the site with light and give fright to wights as a knight of the night, teeth white; mission forthright, evil in flight. Despite the blight within, you perform the rite, ignore any contrite slight, fangs alight, soul bright.

    That sight is dynamite.

  15. - Top - End - #75
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    Default Re: Remember when Xykon killed a bunch of self-righteous Paladins...

    Quote Originally Posted by Jason View Post
    The paladins weren't all self-righteous either. O-Chul certainly isn't, and he was there.
    O’Chul is totally righteous. And totally tubular, too.
    Last edited by Dion; 2020-08-29 at 05:44 PM.

  16. - Top - End - #76
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    Default Re: Remember when Xykon killed a bunch of self-righteous Paladins...

    Quote Originally Posted by Dion View Post
    O’Chul is totally righteous. And totally tubular, too.
    Ah but we're talking about O-Chul, not his Irish cousin.
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  17. - Top - End - #77
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    Default Re: Remember when Xykon killed a bunch of self-righteous Paladins...

    Quote Originally Posted by Worldsong View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by dancrilis View Post
    It is possible that there was no 8th level spell and he simply bluffed them.
    Sorcerer Lich secretly makes the most epic Bluff check in the history of the setting and convinces paladins that they're homicidal lunatics now.
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  18. - Top - End - #78
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    Default Re: Remember when Xykon killed a bunch of self-righteous Paladins...

    Quote Originally Posted by Squire Doodad View Post
    Can I sig this
    Fine with me (for my part at least).

  19. - Top - End - #79
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    Default Re: Remember when Xykon killed a bunch of self-righteous Paladins...

    Quote Originally Posted by Cazero View Post
    Xykon told a whooping three paladins he scribbled a symbol of insanity, then the fifty who didn't hear a thing of what he just said started killing each other. The bluff hyothesis isn't plausible.
    +1

    Quote Originally Posted by Tvtyrant View Post
    The only reason the world isn't gone now is their founder helped save it, and they are devoted to keeping the mechanism by which it was saved from being used to destroy the world or slaughter the gods. Whatever you think of their methods, their goals are literally the most lawful good you can get.
    There are a goodly number of people who post on GiTP, both in comic discussions and in discussions about the game on the edition forums, who have a real chip on their shoulders about paladins. It's a bit disconcerting to see it manifest sometimes.
    Rich had / has an attitude about Paladins, but he figured out what can make a good paladin, as well as what can make a poor one, and in examining that he has given us multiple examples of both.

    Good ones include Lien, O-Chul, Hinjo, and Soon.
    Poor ones include Miko and the leader in one of the prequels. (Gin Jun?)

    So rather than just kvetch about paladins, he's looked into what makes a Paladin unique and has explored it with some skill.
    Last edited by KorvinStarmast; 2020-08-31 at 08:28 AM.
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  20. - Top - End - #80
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    Default Re: Remember when Xykon killed a bunch of self-righteous Paladins...

    I have a soft spot for the Paladins, though I have to agree with the adjective :p

  21. - Top - End - #81
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    Default Re: Remember when Xykon killed a bunch of self-righteous Paladins...

    Quote Originally Posted by dancrilis View Post
    Gravity - it kills because it hates.
    Nope. Gravity is neutral. Gravity simply is. To ascribe to gravity emotion is a fundamental error. (Spent a few years as a flight instructor trying to teach people about how gravity cares little about their excuses).
    Quote Originally Posted by Jason View Post
    The 3.5 Monster Manual: "The process of becoming a lich is unspeakably evil and can be undertaken only by a willing character."
    The alignment entry for the lich template says "Any Evil".
    Liches are pretty much all evil by the rules.
    That is not unique to 3.x edition. That you had to explain/revisit this suggests to me that this discussion has lost the plot.
    Avatar by linklele. How Teleport Works
    a. Malifice (paraphrased):
    Rulings are not 'House Rules.' Rulings are a DM doing what DMs are supposed to do.
    b. greenstone (paraphrased):
    Agency means that they {players} control their character's actions; you control the world's reactions to the character's actions.
    Gosh, 2D8HP, you are so very correct!
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  22. - Top - End - #82

  23. - Top - End - #83
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    Default Re: Remember when Xykon killed a bunch of self-righteous Paladins...

    I loved the idea of the bluff "you're all insane now".

    It is not really inconsistent with the setting (Haley made a guard believe he was a frog, AFAIR) and it is incredible consistent with what is said about hypnosis irl: you can't force a person to shot another one directly, but if you convince that person that the other one is a dangerous murderer who needs to be stopped immediately, he will shot anyway.
    X in this scenario didn't say directly: "Hey, kill each other", but "Hey, you all are affected by a symbol of insanity, have fun!"

    Of course, it is not what happened in the story, but who came up with the idea has won the internet, that day.

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