Why is creating undead Evil?

[Segev]

Casting protection from Good is an evil act - even though it doesn't do anything harmful, and the way it protects the mind from attack by creatures of all alignments, might make it very useful against, say, mind flayers.

Imagine you're a wizard who doesn't know Protection from Evil, who comes across a cache of scrolls of Protection from Good - and you use them, purely to protect yourself from mind-control or possession, when going up against mind-controllers or possessors. As written by BoVD, each time you cast the spell, you're committing an Evil act, regardless of the fact that the spell is not actually harming anything, and is protecting someone - you. Possibly your allies if you're using the spell on them too.

And that, right there, IS A PROBLEM. Protecting yourself from Good should require some sort of innoculating evil act. Which would be part of casting the spell.

That is all I ask for.

We should make a thread "why is protection from good evil": it is even more clear nonsense.

It invites the same discussion, yes. :)

[hamishspence]

And that, right there, IS A PROBLEM. Protecting yourself from Good should require some sort of innoculating evil act. Which would be part of casting the spell.

That is all I ask for.

And I think you're asking too much. IMO, it makes sense that "inoculating yourself with evil energy" is all it takes, done a lot of times, to make a character more inclined to behaving evilly (the alignment change).

In 3.0 to 3.5 D&D, alignments are not just about acts, but about cosmic forces. That's just the way it is.



Requiring that all evil spells have a ritual component of, say, stabbing a kitten to death, is IMO too cartoonish. Sometimes evil magic just causes evil energy to leak into the character, and that's all it takes to make the character a little bit worse of a person.

Same principle applies to the other 3. Why should "protection from Law" require an unambiguously Chaotic ritual component, or Protection from Evil require you to commit an act of self-sacrificing altruism in the process of casting the spell? It makes magic overcomplicated and convoluted, when there are times it needs to be done quickly.

[Calthropstu]

I still think the easiest way to make it work is to figure out something that is part of casting the spell that is equivalent to pulling wings off of butterflies, kicking puppies, or deliberately hurting innocent people's feelings. None of those examples feel right, but if they or something similar could be made thematic to tie into it and doable with casting without requiring extra material components, it would suit the requirements. Something that is unquestionably evil even if "justified" by a "greater good" you'll do with the undead created (and whatever level of ethical responsibility one might need to take to prevent further evil from their existence).

Like, one way to create Slaymates without actually having to have a spell to do so (since there isn't one provided by the RAW, though I think I would permit create undead to work if you found a candidate corpse) is to rely on the means by which they spontaneously arise: arrange for enough children to die from the betrayal of their guardians that statistically, some of them will spontaneously arise as Slaymates. Unquestionably evil!

You don't have to make it THAT BAD for the undead-creating spells, but by making it something that ties into an act, even of petty evil, that is actively part of the casting because of the nature of the magic you're doing, you justify the [evil] tag, ensure that no Good caster can "unwittingly" commit the evil act by never being told the spell is evil, and avoid all the "but what if I...?" questions about how to mitigate the reasons why it's evil. It also makes the target of the spell irrelevant, since the wickedness is unrelated to the target. That makes it superior to any justification based on the target being denied peace, or unable to raise from the dead, or the like, as one might get from a volunteer army who knew what they were getting into, or using it only on animal corpses, or the like.

But we're stuck with it having to be part of the casting, since preparing the spell isn't evil (so it can't be how you prepare the black onyx, for example, since that would happen when you prepare it and thus happens even if you then never cast it). This narrows down the options considerably, since it has to be something you can do in one standard action that only requires words, gestures, and black onyx. (Also, "preparing the black onyx" would mean you couldn't just pick up random black onyx - should such be available - and cast it, whereas the rules permit just that.)

I stated earlier that it basically is stealing souls and binding them to their own rotting corpse to follow your will. I literally can't think of a worse thing to do. The attacks on that statement bordered on the ridiculous (not to mention made me strongly question the alignments of those arguing against that) and I doubt any further suggestions will satisfy what you are looking for. So I will bow out. I see the evil in it, if you don't, so be it. Run it differently. Ask that the [evil] be removed from future GMs. Maybe some will see it your way, who knows. Most tables simply ban that spell for pc use in my experience so... eh?

[Calthropstu]

And that, right there, IS A PROBLEM. Protecting yourself from Good should require some sort of innoculating evil act. Which would be part of casting the spell.

That is all I ask for.



It invites the same discussion, yes. :)

Even better:
I cast protection from good. (evil)
I cast planar binding to enslave an angel to my will: good. But requires protection from good: evil. Wait what?

[hamishspence]

It requires magic circle against good, which is somewhat more powerful than protection from good - but yes - coercing a Good creature into committing a service on your behalf, requires an evil spell as well as a good spell.


So, a multiclass paladin-of-tyranny/wizard, is going to lose their paladin powers whether they're binding demons or angels.


Trapping a demon requires good magic, which demons are vulnerable to. Summoning an angel requires good magic, even through creating a trap for an angel requires evil magic.


Because protection from Evil and magic circle against Evil work on non-Good creatures, not just Evil creatures, a wizard who wishes to both summon and bind creatures, without casting any [Evil] spells and only casting [Good] or untyped spells, will have to focus on Neutral extraplanar creatures, like elementals.

Which is actually fairly logical - ultra-Good wizards should be respectful of angels, and not be trying to coerce them into anything.

[icefractal]

It can't even be indirect, because if it's something like "you're bribing evil spirits with black onyx to torture creatures you never see nor hear to make undead with their souls" or something, you could construct a scenario where somebody doesn't know they're buying an evil act. Which means it's only an evil act on your part if you know what you're really doing. (Evil does require agency. If you don't know the consequences, you lack agency wrt those consequences.)

I don't see that as a problem? Plenty of acts that D&D classes as evil you could potentially do by accident, or under the effects of an illusion. Animating the dead can be handled however you'd handle the others. Also, knowing the spell yourself might entail knowing how it works, so we're mainly just talking about people who are using undead-animating items that they didn't make themselves, and don't have Knowledge (religion).

For the same reason any spell with the [evil] tag is evil - it taps into evil energy - and that energy has a mild effect on the caster.

That doesn't mean anything in an "actions determine alignment" framework. Your "moral ledger" gets a negative mark in it because you were mentally corrupted in a way that might cause you to commit evil acts later? It only works if alignment is a destiny you're pulled toward rather than a judgement.

[Jack_Simth]

Even better:
I cast protection from good. (evil)
I cast planar binding to enslave an angel to my will: good. But requires protection from good: evil. Wait what?

It's straightforward to get around this:
Use Magic Circle Against Law or Magic Circle Against Chaos on a Neutral-Good Angel.

[hamishspence]

That doesn't mean anything in an "actions determine alignment" framework. Your "moral ledger" gets a negative mark in it because you were mentally corrupted in a way that might cause you to commit evil acts later? It only works if alignment is a destiny you're pulled toward rather than a judgement.

It's only PCs that the DM is supposed to use "actions determine alignment" primarily for. For everything else, it's the reverse - the listed alignment of a character, or monster, is a guideline as to what sort of actions the DM should have the character commit during the game.

If you cast Morality Undone on a Good NPC to turn them Evil - then they haven't done any evil actions, yet, but their new evil alignment means the DM should look to the guidelines for the new alignment, to determine what actions are appropriate for the character to commit, now.

[Segev]

And I think you're asking too much. IMO, it makes sense that "inoculating yourself with evil energy" is all it takes, done a lot of times, to make a character more inclined to behaving evilly (the alignment change).

In 3.0 to 3.5 D&D, alignments are not just about acts, but about cosmic forces. That's just the way it is.



Requiring that all evil spells have a ritual component of, say, stabbing a kitten to death, is IMO too cartoonish. Sometimes evil magic just causes evil energy to leak into the character, and that's all it takes to make the character a little bit worse of a person.

Same principle applies to the other 3. Why should "protection from Law" require an unambiguously Chaotic ritual component, or Protection from Evil require you to commit an act of self-sacrificing altruism in the process of casting the spell? It makes magic overcomplicated and convoluted, when there are times it needs to be done quickly.

See, to me, your vision of it is the cartoonish one. "It's evil because it's dark and has skulls nad metal music playing when you cast it."

Anything that allows you to have a creature whose behavior is everything you'd want from a good and virtuous person, but who casts protection from good too often is still evil, is cartoonish. It invites the really really silly alignment arguments that - with such a system - correctly label alignments as team jerseys that allow "good" villains who are still very much doing evil deeds as their primary antagonistic purpose but, because they do Good things that don't actually achieve any good ends, they count as Good. Likewise, you wind up with "evil" heroes who do nothing but good deeds but who cast [evil] spells that never hurt anybody. "Shining Sparkles" and "Edgy Shadows" are not the alignments, but "it just sheds evil energy" essentially transforms them into this.

I don't think it at all cartoonish to require that you do something awful as part of casting a spell. It's only cartoonish if you make that awful thing divorced from the narrative of what the spell does.

I stated earlier that it basically is stealing souls and binding them to their own rotting corpse to follow your will. I literally can't think of a worse thing to do. The attacks on that statement bordered on the ridiculous (not to mention made me strongly question the alignments of those arguing against that) and I doubt any further suggestions will satisfy what you are looking for. So I will bow out. I see the evil in it, if you don't, so be it. Run it differently. Ask that the [evil] be removed from future GMs. Maybe some will see it your way, who knows. Most tables simply ban that spell for pc use in my experience so... eh?

It's not that I don't see evil in it. It's that I question how it stays evil if you're animating, say, a horse skeleton. Unless you're saying "stealing living horses to ride into battle" is also evil.

Further, I think it makes the spell ironically too powerful. The spell creates mindless undead; it clearly isn't USING the whole soul. Considering that create undead, which could have better claim to stealing the soul and binding it into the rotting corpse, grants no control and is higher level, it seems to me that animate dead is somehow a more powerful spell but lower level, just because it gets a less powerful end result (but uses more power to get there).

I, personally, have posited using "fragments" of souls to re-animate corpses, but it still runs into the "why is it evil when you do it with animals?" problem. Also, this falls apart if you get volunteers ahead of time and put the corpses back to rest when their service is done. It's not "stealing" when they volunteered their souls for the mission, and it's not too horrific when they go back to their rest when their volunteered-for service is done. Sure, somebody COULD renege on this deal with the volunteers, but then it's that, not the casting of the spell, that is the evil act.

I think it's probably even harder to come up with a reason the spell is evil by focusing on the effect of the spell than it is by focusing on the deeds done in actual casting, because effects can be mitigated.

Even better:
I cast protection from good. (evil)
I cast planar binding to enslave an angel to my will: good. But requires protection from good: evil. Wait what?

Likewise, while we're at it, you need protection from evil [good] when you planar bind a Yugoloth [evil].

[hamishspence]

Anything that allows you to have a creature whose behavior is everything you'd want from a good and virtuous person, but who casts protection from good too often is still evil, is cartoonish.

Neutral alignment does exist, for people who "balance evil deeds with Good intentions".

A character who consistently does good deeds, and only does minor evil deeds (casting an [evil] spell is a minor evil deed, not a major one) and only ever for good reasons (using the aforementioned protection from good when it's the only spell available to do the job required, at the time) could quite plausibly maintain a Neutral alignment and avoid crossing the line into Evil.

Casting an [Evil] spell makes a character a slightly worse person - but it's not very major, in the grand scheme of things.

Fiendish Codex 2 provides a list of Corrupt acts, and "casting an evil spell" is at the bottom end of the scale, on a par with "humiliating an underling" and significantly less evil than "causing a being gratuitous injury".

Likewise, while we're at it, you need protection from evil [good] when you planar bind a Yugoloth [evil].

Just like with NG angels:

It's straightforward to get around this:
Use Magic Circle Against Law or Magic Circle Against Chaos on a Neutral-Good Angel.

Magic Circle against Chaos, or Magic Circle against Law, will do the job when it comes to planar binding a Yugoloth.

Magic Circle against Law:
This spell functions like magic circle against evil, except that it is similar to protection from law instead of protection from evil, and it can imprison a nonchaotic called creature.

Magic Circle against Chaos:
This spell functions like magic circle against evil, except that it is similar to protection from chaos instead of protection from evil, and it can imprison a nonlawful called creature.


Yugoloths are nonlawful, and nonchaotic - both these spells will work.

[Doctor Despair]

See, to me, your vision of it is the cartoonish one. "It's evil because it's dark and has skulls nad metal music playing when you cast it."

Anything that allows you to have a creature whose behavior is everything you'd want from a good and virtuous person, but who casts protection from good too often is still evil, is cartoonish. It invites the really really silly alignment arguments that - with such a system - correctly label alignments as team jerseys that allow "good" villains who are still very much doing evil deeds as their primary antagonistic purpose but, because they do Good things that don't actually achieve any good ends, they count as Good. Likewise, you wind up with "evil" heroes who do nothing but good deeds but who cast [evil] spells that never hurt anybody. "Shining Sparkles" and "Edgy Shadows" are not the alignments, but "it just sheds evil energy" essentially transforms them into this.

I pop in once every four or five pages to read the most recent post and just happened to catch this one. I see where you're coming from with the team jersey thing -- it's possible that doing cosmically evil acts (e.g., things designated as "Team Evil") makes you more evil, and likewise for good, and that would seem arbitrary rather than having the moral weight we normally attribute to good and evil. However, it's also possible that, alongside that, is that same moral spectrum (e.g., being more aligned with "Team Evil" makes you more inclined to perform genuinely evil acts, and likewise for good).

By that logic, a character who casts protection from good all the time categorically would not have the behavior that is everything you'd want from a good and virtuous person. Their alignment would shift, and they eventually no longer have that stirling behavior -- their fundamental nature would be "tainted." It'd be like asking "What if a Balor started to suddenly start participating in extreme altruism, feeding the hungry, saving those in danger, etc." It's an unrealistic hypothetical because, sans some magical compulsion or outside impetus, it just wouldn't happen -- it's a lawful evil creature. The roleplay element is significant. Creatures can vary in their alignment a little, so an evil character can do slightly good acts to redeem themselves, and a good character can perform evil and "fall," but their average behavior should reflect their alignment.

Using [Evil] spells would then be a little self-fulfilling. The spell makes you more aligned with "Team [Evil]", sure, but then because you are aligned that way, your behavior becomes more evil. That may be represented with perhaps the work of your normal good behavior seeming a little more tedious, the easier "evil" solutions seeming a little more attractive, the urge to do evil seeming a little more alluring, etc., until eventually you give into those impulses. A character that repeatedly uses [Evil] spells but continues to do good would experience a lot of internal conflict and inner turmoil every day, like the metaphorical "angel" on their shoulder were replaced with a second devil.

So with regard to heros who repeatedly use [Evil] spells, or villains who repeatedly use [Good] spells, both of which are at odds with their actual actions, I would suggest that, while legally these could exist, their actions would likely revert to neutral or their new alignment if they were being roleplayed correctly.

Of course, that isn't the crux of your disagreement with [Evil] spells, right? You're more disappointed with the concept of cosmic evil, if I've parsed your complaints correctly? While the roleplay and alignment system makes cosmic/team jersey evil internally consistent and eliminates the issues of "good villains" and "evil heroes," you seem to dislike the idea that a spell would have cosmic evil associated with it at all, right? That a person's alignment would be determined by anything other than their actions? I agree that it's disatisfying, but as I touched on much earlier upthread, there is a moral answer for at least the creation of undead -- the existence of Attropus, a cosmic force of evil that inevitably brings the apocalypse. By creating undead, you bring the world one measurable step closer towards destruction (and all the living creatures therein one measurable step closer towards death). That doesn't answer all the spells that don't create undead, of course, like Deathwatch, so you'd have to do some mental gymnastics to find a moral reason why those spells are bad. Maybe Deathwatch violates their right to privacy?

More realistically, I think, as others have concluded (presumably -- again, I've only been checking in every few pages for a post or two, so I've missed a lot), we are meant to be satisfied with "it makes you evil because it has the [Evil] tag." However, I am unconvinced that casting a spell with the [Evil] tag is an evil act morally (even if the game-rules tell us so in some obscure passage); even so, as I recall, using an [Evil] spell draws you closer to Team Evil (an alignment shift), and that causes you to be a more evil character (and, as byproduct, do fewer good acts and perform more evil acts).

Edit: I suppose, to put up what this answer concludes to the question of the thread:

Creating undead is an evil act because it brings the world one step closer towards destruction and brings you one step closer towards murdering every single living thing in the world. However, obviously you can offset that "evil" by performing good with the undead creature, I would assume. However, even if you create the undead creature with the intention of performing good with it later, you haven't actually committed the good acts yet, so your alignment still becomes more evil (even if it doesn't shift right away).

In addition (and entirely separately), your alignment may become more evil because you cast an Evil spell (if you used such a spell in the creation of the undead creature). If an Evil spell were cast to immediately perform a good act, I'd imagine it's DM fiat territory which one carries more immediate weight. Casting an Evil spell to save the world as an immediate result of that spell would presumably cause a net shift to good; casting an Evil spell to help an ant from one ledge to another would probably cause a net shift to evil, depending on how much your DM values the quality of life for insects.

[hamishspence]

[Good] spells don't have redemptive influence the way [Evil] spells have corruptive influence. A villain who repeatedly uses [Good] spells, will find it much easier to "maintain their villainy" than a hero who repeatedly uses [Evil] spells finds it to "maintain their Goodness or Neutrality".


A good example might be an evil dark elf who regularly uses protection from evil to protect himself from other dark elves (they have a lot of infighting). He's going to be in no danger of alignment shift, no matter how often he casts the spell.

[Doctor Despair]

[Good] spells don't have redemptive influence the way [Evil] spells have corruptive influence. A villain who repeatedly uses [Good] spells, will find it much easier to "maintain their villainy" than a hero who repeatedly uses [Evil] spells finds it to "maintain their Goodness".


A good example might be an dark elf who regularly uses protection from evil to protect himself from other drow (they have a lot of infighting). He's going to be in no danger of alignment shift, no matter how often he casts the spell.

Oh, interesting. I suppose it doesn't fundamentally change my answer, save that cosmic evil is more infectious than cosmic good for whatever reason. Some commentary on human nature that Wizards is making, maybe -- good takes active effort, but everyone is capable of evil, even otherwise "good" people, or something like that.

Edit: I suppose it eliminates the issue of a villain artificially pumping their alignment with [Good] spells, but the basic concept remains of a villain who volunteers in soup kitchens while otherwise doing evil. I'd refer back to the point about balors -- an evil character probably wouldn't do that roleplay-wise, and if they did, their alignment would probably still be evil. If they did enough good to offset the evil they were doing, they would become neutral, and would probably stop doing their villainous acts, even if they still did other evil, as neutral characters are capable of both. If they did enough good to become good, they would stop doing their villainous acts. Alignment shifts follow from actions, but actions also follow from alignment.

[hamishspence]

Using [Evil] spells would then be a little self-fulfilling. The spell makes you more aligned with "Team [Evil]", sure, but then because you are aligned that way, your behavior becomes more evil. That may be represented with perhaps the work of your normal good behavior seeming a little more tedious, the easier "evil" solutions seeming a little more attractive, the urge to do evil seeming a little more alluring, etc., until eventually you give into those impulses. A character that repeatedly uses [Evil] spells but continues to do good would experience a lot of internal conflict and inner turmoil every day, like the metaphorical "angel" on their shoulder were replaced with a second devil.

I would agree that for NPCs, this is roughly how it works.

What makes PCs different, is that the DM is not supposed to dictate their actions - not supposed to say

"Now you're Evil instead of Good, doing altruistic acts is out of character, so you can't do them any more."


An Evil, altruistic, NPC will be very rare - since DMs read the description of Evil, and of its emphasis on selfishness, and will rarely have their Evil NPCs behave in a genuinely altruistic fashion.

An Evil, altruistic PC is much more plausible - because a DM can't control a PCs actions.

[Segev]

Neutral alignment does exist, for people who "balance evil deeds with Good intentions".

A character who consistently does good deeds, and only does minor evil deeds (casting an [evil] spell is a minor evil deed, not a major one) and only ever for good reasons (using the aforementioned protection from good when it's the only spell available to do the job required, at the time) could quite plausibly maintain a Neutral alignment and avoid crossing the line into Evil.

Sure. But that's ignoring the fact that he could cast protection from good with every spare spell slot, and still be otherwise a wonderfully nice person.

If you never knew he cast protection from good, you'd think he's a shoo-in for Good alignment.

Casting an [Evil] spell makes a character a slightly worse person - but it's not very major, in the grand scheme of things.

How? How does it make them a "slightly worse person?" Is it because doing it is something that only bad people would do, or is it because casting it somehow compels them to do other bad things? The former begs questions about why that is: what is it harming for him to cast that spell? Who is it hurting? What is so evil about it? "Evil energy" is a cop-out, not an answer. Despite what people keep implying, that isn't a sign of "cosmic evil." That's a sign of Team Jerseys.

Fiendish Codex 2 provides a list of Corrupt acts, and "casting an evil spell" is at the bottom end of the scale, on a par with "humiliating an underling" and significantly less evil than "causing a being gratuitous injury".

Let's say you're a good person. You would not humiliate an underling because you have empathy for that person and wouldn't want to cause them misery. What is it about "casting an evil spell" that your conscience balks at? Is it just a taboo with no explanation behind it other than "because it's evil, now stop asking?"

Magic Circle against Law:
This spell functions like magic circle against evil, except that it is similar to protection from law instead of protection from evil, and it can imprison a nonchaotic called creature.

Magic Circle against Chaos:
This spell functions like magic circle against evil, except that it is similar to protection from chaos instead of protection from evil, and it can imprison a nonlawful called creature.


Yugoloths are nonlawful, and nonchaotic - both these spells will work.

Somehow I missed that it worked on "non-aligned," rather than requiring it to be opposite-aligned. I guess a neutral evil caster binding angels can switch between magic circle against law and magic circle against chaos to stay generally ethically neutral while staying morally evil.

Again, though, the notion that simply casting a spell that protects you from malign forces that lack a particular alignment makes you more opposite-aligned is flawed. "I'll cast protection from evil and protection from good an awful lot, which will at least keep me Neutral even if I keep stealing from people and breaking the rules."

This would be a lot easier if preparing them was an aligned act, but then we'd have to deal with sorcerers who just know them. Casting them needs to have the aligning activity in it.

I pop in once every four or five pages to read the most recent post and just happened to catch this one. I see where you're coming from with the team jersey thing -- it's possible that doing cosmically evil acts (e.g., things designated as "Team Evil") makes you more evil, and likewise for good, and that would seem arbitrary rather than having the moral weight we normally attribute to good and evil. However, it's also possible that, alongside that, is that same moral spectrum (e.g., being more aligned with "Team Evil" makes you more inclined to perform genuinely evil acts, and likewise for good).

"Along side that" is correlation. Just because spikes and chrome skull motifs are more popular with evil people than good people doesn't mean that the chrome skull spikes are inherently evil. If they ARE inherently evil, there needs to be a better reason than "others who do evil things like them a lot."

By that logic, a character who casts protection from good all the time categorically would not have the behavior that is everything you'd want from a good and virtuous person. Their alignment would shift, and they eventually no longer have that stirling behavior -- their fundamental nature would be "tainted."

Are you espousing prescriptive alignment. "Because your alignment has shifted to Neutral, you now can't rescue those orphans without getting some sort of compensation?" If not, please explain how this is not prescriptive.

I, for the record, reject prescriptive alignment outside of major elements like Helms of Opposite Alignment (which explicitly change your beliefs and behavior).

It'd be like asking "What if a Balor started to suddenly start participating in extreme altruism, feeding the hungry, saving those in danger, etc." It's an unrealistic hypothetical because, sans some magical compulsion or outside impetus, it just wouldn't happen -- it's a lawful evil creature.

::cough:: Chaotic Evil. But yes.

I've brought this up in the past: since they're literally made of [Chaos] and [Evil], if these are to have practical meaning, a Balor who engages in Lawful Good behavior is corrupting his fundamental nature, and likely won't remain a Balor. Not over a couple of good deeds, but if he's doing so much good that he's actually recognizably Not Evil, he will find his nature to be changing as his very physical makeup alters. The Good he's doing grows and the Evil he's made of shrinks as he becomes something else.

I know there exist examples of off-alignment Outsiders still retaining their type; I believe I have also seen it said that they are literally insane, to the point that either they're actually doing things in accordance with their alignment without realizing it, or they're so twisted up inside that their genuine beliefs about the world and their motivations are aligned appropriately but they don't understand what they're doing and its consequences. (Alternatively, they're bad writing by somebody who wanted to create an impossibility and just fiated one in, just like suggesting that a hypothetical god of infinite strength and infinite rock-making power can, in fact, make a rock so big he can't lift it, and can also lift it. The paradox is intentional, there, and not evidence that it's "possible" but rather than something impossible happened.)

The roleplay element is significant. Creatures can vary in their alignment a little, so an evil character can do slightly good acts to redeem themselves, and a good character can perform evil and "fall," but their average behavior should reflect their alignment.

Of course. Or rather, their alignment should reflect their average behavior. That's the problem: if your "behavior" includes casting aligned spells, but you are otherwise acting like the opposite alignment, are you "playing your character wrong," or are you neutral because of the counterbalance? If that spell you're casting doesn't really advance its aligned cause the way you use it, does it make any sense to say that Bob is Good and Charles is Neutral even though both behave exactly the same way other than Charles casting protection from good multiple times a day every day?

Using [Evil] spells would then be a little self-fulfilling. The spell makes you more aligned with "Team [Evil]", sure, but then because you are aligned that way, your behavior becomes more evil. That may be represented with perhaps the work of your normal good behavior seeming a little more tedious, the easier "evil" solutions seeming a little more attractive, the urge to do evil seeming a little more alluring, etc., until eventually you give into those impulses. A character that repeatedly uses [Evil] spells but continues to do good would experience a lot of internal conflict and inner turmoil every day, like the metaphorical "angel" on their shoulder were replaced with a second devil.

So with regard to heros who repeatedly use [Evil] spells, or villains who repeatedly use [Good] spells, both of which are at odds with their actual actions, I would suggest that, while legally these could exist, their actions would likely revert to neutral or their new alignment if they were being roleplayed correctly.

Sorry, prescriptive alignment is just bad for games. It means you don't actually have free will. No agency.

Sure, you chose to cast all those protection from evil spells, but that shouldn't mean you are now compelled to help orphans who are in need when you'd rather steal their lunch money to buy some booze.

Of course, that isn't the crux of your disagreement with [Evil] spells, right? You're more disappointed with the concept of cosmic evil, if I've parsed your complaints correctly? While the roleplay and alignment system makes cosmic/team jersey evil internally consistent and eliminates the issues of "good villains" and "evil heroes," you seem to dislike the idea that a spell would have cosmic evil associated with it at all, right? That a person's alignment would be determined by anything other than their actions? I agree that it's disatisfying, but as I touched on much earlier upthread, there is a moral answer for at least the creation of undead -- the existence of Attropus, a cosmic force of evil that inevitably brings the apocalypse. By creating undead, you bring the world one measurable step closer towards destruction (and all the living creatures therein one measurable step closer towards death). That doesn't answer all the spells that don't create undead, of course, like Deathwatch, so you'd have to do some mental gymnastics to find a moral reason why those spells are bad. Maybe Deathwatch violates their right to privacy?

Incorrect. I'm fine with cosmic good and evil, order and chaos. What I want is for them to naturally comport with the classical meanings of the terms. Cosmic evil is strengthened by evil acts, rather than evil acts being compelled by cosmic evil. (Barring literal mind-control magic designed to do that.)

My problem with it is that it's like saying you can keep a car from ever running out of gas by forcing its gas gauge needle to always point to "F." You don't become more evil because you're tainted by cosmic evil; you are tainted by cosmic evil because you have become evil by your evil acts.

You don't redeem yourself of your villainous ways by putting on angel wings and a halo. You earn angel wings and a halo by redeeming yourself of your villainous ways and striving to help others.

This is why I feel like animate dead being [evil] by making you more "filled with cosmic evil" and thus unable to choose to selflessly help those orphans because they tug at your heartstrings is bad design. An aligned act should taint you with cosmic alignment because the act actually comports with the alignment in a meaningful fashion. And no, "Wearing the team jersey" is not meaningful comportment. Somebody putting on a Cardinals jersey and going public to call the team horrible and trying to help prove they're rotten or even sabotaging them wherever possible isn't comporting with the behavior of a Cardinals fan just because he's wearing their jersey. And no matter how long he wears it, he's not compelled to actually want to help the Cardinals win or earn more fans. On the other hand, if, in order to put one on, he had to actively participate in promotional campaigns and get rated "good" by the Cardinals for the positive work he does for them before he could put it on, that would make him, if not a "true" fan, then at least somebody who was doing fan-like deeds.

More realistically, I think, as others have concluded (presumably -- again, I've only been checking in every few pages for a post or two, so I've missed a lot), we are meant to be satisfied with "it makes you evil because it has the [Evil] tag." However, I am unconvinced that casting a spell with the [Evil] tag is an evil act morally (even if the game-rules tell us so in some obscure passage); even so, as I recall, using an [Evil] spell draws you closer to Team Evil (an alignment shift), and that causes you to be a more evil character (and, as byproduct, do fewer good acts and perform more evil acts).

What I want is for it to draw you closer to Team Evil because part of casting it involves something that only Team Evil would be truly comfortable with, so you have to do something that pricks your conscience if you're not an evil person already. And it would make anybody who is non-evil look askance at you to see you doing it, because it's something they find at least distastefully mean.

[Doctor Despair]

I would agree that for NPCs, this is roughly how it works.

What makes PCs different, is that the DM is not supposed to dictate their actions - not supposed to say

"Now you're Evil instead of Good, doing altruistic acts is out of character, so you can't do them any more."


An Evil, altruistic, NPC will be very rare - since DMs read the description of Evil, and of its emphasis on selfishness, and will rarely have their Evil NPCs behave in a genuinely altruistic fashion.

An Evil, altruistic PC is much more plausible - because a DM can't control a PCs actions.

You're right that the PC has agency to have their evil PC start performing altruistic acts. The DM is capable of declaring that their alignment shifts, however, so their evil PC could become neutral if their actions become unrealistic for an evil PC to perform. If the PC keeps being altruistic instead of evil, they could become good, or if they start performing evil again because they didn't like the shift, certainly they could become evil. If their alignment starts shifting a lot because of their erratic actions, they might become chaotic (and be accused of bad role-playing, too, if the chaos wasn't intentional). An evil character who only performs altruistic acts wouldn't be evil for very long, so it isn't a flaw to that reading of the system, I think.

With that said, and focusing on that last coy comment, just because a PC has the agency to act in a way that completely disagrees with their alignment doesn't mean that they should. If a good NPC casting [Evil] spells feels more tempted to do evil, so should a good PC -- even if the player chooses not to act on it. A good character whose alignment shifts all the way to [Evil] solely through use of Evil spells but continues to do good acts could probably be considered a failure to roleplay the character correctly. The player is not the PC, even if the player determines what the PC thinks and does. After all, a Helm of Opposite Alignment is supposed to be a cursed item with mechanical consequences, not an item that has literally no effect on the character's actions whatsoever apart from changing two letters on their character sheet. Such a character would probably end up neutral, and that's an acceptable state of affairs, I think. PCs are exceptional in other respects, so why not their actions with regard to their alignment, I suppose.

[hamishspence]

I know there exist examples of off-alignment Outsiders still retaining their type; I believe I have also seen it said that they are literally insane, to the point that either they're actually doing things in accordance with their alignment without realizing it, or they're so twisted up inside that their genuine beliefs about the world and their motivations are aligned appropriately but they don't understand what they're doing and its consequences. (Alternatively, they're bad writing by somebody who wanted to create an impossibility and just fiated one in...)

None of the examples I've read about have had "they're insane" in their description.

You're right that the PC has agency to have their evil PC start performing altruistic acts. The DM is capable of declaring that their alignment shifts, however, so their evil PC could become neutral if their actions become unrealistic for an evil PC to perform. If the PC keeps being altruistic instead of evil, they could become good, or if they start performing evil again because they didn't like the shift, certainly they could become evil. If their alignment starts shifting a lot because of their erratic actions, they might become chaotic (and be accused of bad role-playing, too, if the chaos wasn't intentional). An evil character who only performs altruistic acts wouldn't be evil for very long, so it isn't a flaw to that reading of the system, I think.

It tends to depend on the acts themselves. Some acts are minor, some major. Major evil acts and minor good ones, make for an Evil character rather than a Neutral one.

The classic example being an ultra-cruel vigilante, who tortures every criminal he gets his hands on - but who will make personal sacrifices to help the victims of criminals. Since torture is so extremely evil, it outweighs the "acts of personal sacrifice".

[Segev]

None of the examples I've read about have had "they're insane" in their description.

The only example I can think of is Fall From Grace, who my understanding of is that she's quite mad, though it's a subtle madness.

Regardless, the rest of my point stands even if the madness angle doesn't hold water: they're as deliberate an impossibility paradox as declaring there to be "dry water" or "a rock made by the god of strength and rocks that is so big he can't lift it, but which he can lift because he can lift rocks that are so big he can't lift them."

[hamishspence]

The only example I can think of is Fall From Grace, who my understanding of is that she's quite mad, though it's a subtle madness.

I didn't get that impression from her description. And the later "Eludocia the Succubus Paladin" was redeemed, not mad.

The inverse, an Evil angel who has not yet lost the Good subtype, was in Elder Evils. They were malevolent, but not especially crazy.

they're as deliberate an impossibility paradox as declaring there to be "dry water"

Not really. These beings are only partly made of aligned energies, after all. And the MM did discuss how subtype does not have to match alignment.

They're not "impossibility paradoxes" - they're rarities.

[Segev]

I didn't get that impression from her description. And the later "Eludocia the Succubus Paladin" was redeemed, not mad.

The inverse, an Evil angel who has not yet lost the Good subtype, was in Elder Evils. They were malevolent, but not especially crazy.



Not really. These beings are only partly made of aligned energies, after all. And the MM did discuss how subtype does not have to match alignment.

They're not "impossibility paradoxes" - they're rarities.

If they're not made up of the alignment material in sufficient portion to have it impact their nature, then obviously those things work, but they also aren't proof that cosmic alignment stuff makes any impact on who you are. If you're advocating for the "team jersey" take on it, I still say that's bad design.

[Doctor Despair]

Sure. But that's ignoring the fact that he could cast protection from good with every spare spell slot, and still be otherwise a wonderfully nice person.

If you never knew he cast protection from good, you'd think he's a shoo-in for Good alignment.

Cosmic evil is a pervasive thing.

How? How does it make them a "slightly worse person?" Is it because doing it is something that only bad people would do, or is it because casting it somehow compels them to do other bad things? The former begs questions about why that is: what is it harming for him to cast that spell? Who is it hurting? What is so evil about it? "Evil energy" is a cop-out, not an answer. Despite what people keep implying, that isn't a sign of "cosmic evil." That's a sign of Team Jerseys.

Let's say you're a good person. You would not humiliate an underling because you have empathy for that person and wouldn't want to cause them misery. What is it about "casting an evil spell" that your conscience balks at? Is it just a taboo with no explanation behind it other than "because it's evil, now stop asking?"

How? Cosmic evil. Casting it makes your alignment shift a little more evil, which makes you more likely to do other bad things. It's not a cop-out; it's a mechanic effect of having a more evil alignment. Team Jerseys is another name for cosmic evil, but having the evil team jersey literally makes you a worse person. To say "he's on Team Evil, but he's a good guy!" isn't possible, because he's not a good guy. If he does only good acts, he's acting out of alignment, but it certainly is possible -- but he would soon be Team Neutral, not Team Evil.

"Along side that" is correlation. Just because spikes and chrome skull motifs are more popular with evil people than good people doesn't mean that the chrome skull spikes are inherently evil. If they ARE inherently evil, there needs to be a better reason than "others who do evil things like them a lot."

You're trivializing my argument, and it's not really a discussion in good faith if you do that. You're right that skull motifs aren't inherently evil. [Evil] spells are inherently evil, however, and evil actions are inherently evil. I offered an explanation: being aligned with Team Evil makes you more likely to do evil things. Being aligned with Team Good makes you more likely to do good things.

Are you espousing prescriptive alignment. "Because your alignment has shifted to Neutral, you now can't rescue those orphans without getting some sort of compensation?" If not, please explain how this is not prescriptive.

I, for the record, reject prescriptive alignment outside of major elements like Helms of Opposite Alignment (which explicitly change your beliefs and behavior).

I am not suggesting either of those, but if you misread my argument to be in favor of prescriptive alignment, I can see why you'd be inclined to argue with it. I'm suggesting that a character's actions can change their alignment, which is descriptive, but also that magical effects (such as donning a Helm of Opposite Alignment, or casting an [Evil] spell) can change your alignment, and that a forcible change to your alignment should be reflected in your actions (which is prescriptive), and a change in your actions should be reflected in your alignment.

Evil characters mostly do evil things, and probably don't do a lot of good things. If they do a lot of good things, they become neutral, and probably don't do as many evil things. If they keep doing both, they stay neutral (or lean towards whichever one they do more often/whichever actions are "stronger"). If they do enough good to be good, they probably stop doing most evil things (if any). If they keep doing evil things, they would become neutral.

Good characters mostly do good things, and probably don't do a lot of evil things. If they do a lot of evil things, they become neutral, and probably don't do as many good things. If they keep doing both, they stay neutral (or lean towards whichever one they do more often/whichever actions are "stronger"). If they do enough evil to be evil, they probably stop doing most good things (if any). If they keep doing good things, they would become neutral.

Casting an [Evil] spell makes your alignment more evil. If you are otherwise a good character, this should have a mechanical effect on an otherwise descriptive alignment system -- you should be more tempted to do evil things, and more reluctant to do good things, albeit to a marginal degree for just one casting. Repeated castings would have a miniature effect of the Helm of Opposite Alignment. However, as I said, I'm not advocating for a purely prescriptive system. A good character who uses a lot of [Evil] spells and becomes neutral can still strive to redeem themselves by doing good, and possibly even remain good if they try hard enough (or at least break even while neutral). However, the more evil the character's alignment has become, the less likely it is that the character decides to do this (as they would be less likely to want to do it). It's not impossible, and PCs are certainly welcome to be in that X% that still try to redeem themselves.

::cough:: Chaotic Evil. But yes.

I've brought this up in the past: since they're literally made of [Chaos] and [Evil], if these are to have practical meaning, a Balor who engages in Lawful Good behavior is corrupting his fundamental nature, and likely won't remain a Balor. Not over a couple of good deeds, but if he's doing so much good that he's actually recognizably Not Evil, he will find his nature to be changing as his very physical makeup alters. The Good he's doing grows and the Evil he's made of shrinks as he becomes something else.

I know there exist examples of off-alignment Outsiders still retaining their type; I believe I have also seen it said that they are literally insane, to the point that either they're actually doing things in accordance with their alignment without realizing it, or they're so twisted up inside that their genuine beliefs about the world and their motivations are aligned appropriately but they don't understand what they're doing and its consequences. (Alternatively, they're bad writing by somebody who wanted to create an impossibility and just fiated one in, just like suggesting that a hypothetical god of infinite strength and infinite rock-making power can, in fact, make a rock so big he can't lift it, and can also lift it. The paradox is intentional, there, and not evidence that it's "possible" but rather than something impossible happened.)

Precisely as you said, a character that acts completely opposite to their alignment is bad writing (or roleplaying), but not impossible for various niche reasons. PCs may be among those exceptional characters that do so, but most NPCs (and most PCs, if the players are good roleplayers) won't. The system is descriptive, but alignment is supposed to represent the character's current nature. If their nature has become evil through corruption by using [Evil] spells, then they probably won't want to do good. If they do a lot of good, they can redeem themselves, because it is ultimately also a descriptive system. Most characters don't defy their nature, but some do.

Of course. Or rather, their alignment should reflect their average behavior. That's the problem: if your "behavior" includes casting aligned spells, but you are otherwise acting like the opposite alignment, are you "playing your character wrong," or are you neutral because of the counterbalance? If that spell you're casting doesn't really advance its aligned cause the way you use it, does it make any sense to say that Bob is Good and Charles is Neutral even though both behave exactly the same way other than Charles casting protection from good multiple times a day every day?

Yes, it would make sense, because casting an [Evil] spell corrupts your alignment with raw Evil, as I said above. You can reject it and call it "Team Jerseys" all you want, but "Team Jerseys" doesn't mean the system can't also be descriptive. With that said, if Bob is doing enough good to be on Team Good, then he probably would be good despite casting the [Evil] spells; as others have pointed out, [Evil] spells are the lowest on the totem pole in terms of evil corruption. The case is that Bob is more likely to be neutral than Charles because Bob is less likely to want to do good than Charles, and Charles will be slightly more good than Bob so long as they do the same amount of good each day. They have free will - they can give into darker impulses, or resist them. A character casting [Evil] spells just makes those darker impulses louder, and their conscience quieter, as their alignment dictates.

Sorry, prescriptive alignment is just bad for games. It means you don't actually have free will. No agency.

Sure, you chose to cast all those protection from evil spells, but that shouldn't mean you are now compelled to help orphans who are in need when you'd rather steal their lunch money to buy some booze.

That's not true at all. As others have said, [Good] spells don't actually shift your alignment, so this example doesn't actually work, but let's set that aside for the moment. A character who was on Team Good (regardless of how they got there) wouldn't rather steal their lunch money -- that's where our disagreement is. However, just because they wouldn't rather steal the lunch money doesn't mean they can't steal it. They have free will. They're just unlikely to.

These artificial alignment changes from Good and Evil spells presumably result in characters who are more likely to act out of alignment than those that got there naturally, of course, either out of habit or circumstance. However, I would say that the Bob who became evil through aligned spells is more likely to steal the lunch money than the Bob who remained good. The good Bob may want the money, which is a temptation, but their conscience is strong enough that they have no mental urge to take it. The evil Bob may have no or little conscience anymore, so would be more likely to take it, but could choose not to because they remember it was wrong and don't want to be evil (or some other reason). A character that doesn't want to be evil has the free will to redeem themselves through much internal conflict, but is less likely to do the good acts and avoid evil acts than a character who is already good.

Incorrect. I'm fine with cosmic good and evil, order and chaos. What I want is for them to naturally comport with the classical meanings of the terms. Cosmic evil is strengthened by evil acts, rather than evil acts being compelled by cosmic evil. (Barring literal mind-control magic designed to do that.)

My problem with it is that it's like saying you can keep a car from ever running out of gas by forcing its gas gauge needle to always point to "F." You don't become more evil because you're tainted by cosmic evil; you are tainted by cosmic evil because you have become evil by your evil acts.

You don't redeem yourself of your villainous ways by putting on angel wings and a halo. You earn angel wings and a halo by redeeming yourself of your villainous ways and striving to help others.

This is why I feel like animate dead being [evil] by making you more "filled with cosmic evil" and thus unable to choose to selflessly help those orphans because they tug at your heartstrings is bad design. An aligned act should taint you with cosmic alignment because the act actually comports with the alignment in a meaningful fashion. And no, "Wearing the team jersey" is not meaningful comportment. Somebody putting on a Cardinals jersey and going public to call the team horrible and trying to help prove they're rotten or even sabotaging them wherever possible isn't comporting with the behavior of a Cardinals fan just because he's wearing their jersey. And no matter how long he wears it, he's not compelled to actually want to help the Cardinals win or earn more fans. On the other hand, if, in order to put one on, he had to actively participate in promotional campaigns and get rated "good" by the Cardinals for the positive work he does for them before he could put it on, that would make him, if not a "true" fan, then at least somebody who was doing fan-like deeds.

You are not unable to choose to selflessly help those orphans because your alignment is evil. You are less likely to do so because your heartstrings are mechanically less tugged, and your urge to take their lunch money feels stronger, and your revulsion at the idea of leaving them or taking their money is weaker. In spite of all that, you can still choose to do the good thing and avoid the evil thing. However, on average (across the population of all dnd characters), because it less likely, many characters (greater than 50%) will choose to act in-alignment. You have the free will to act out of alignment, but your alignment will slowly change to match your actions, as you've said above. However, if you artifically become evil, your likelihood to do evil will increase (and to do good will decrease) based on the urges your character feels. There is no will save to act out of alignment, so it's entirely a roleplay thing. It is probably bad roleplay for an evil character to ALWAYS act good, but it isn't impossible, because they have free will, and that character wouldn't be evil for very long at all, so the issue would solve itself.

The car analogy is flawed, because you can definitely keep your alignment as evil by casting ENOUGH aligned spells, and you can still do good while fully evil, but your character will be less likely to fight their urges the more evil they are. The angel wings/halo example is poor because [Good] spells don't change your alignment. The cardinals jersey example is poor because putting on the jersey doesn't change your mental state the same way that alignment does, and if you started calling the team horrible over and over (acting out of alignment), no one replaces your jersey with the correct one in the same way that you alignment changes.

Drugs are probably a better parallel for alignment shifts. You can take the "Evil" drug that elimiantes your conscience and makes harming others and acting selfishly seem much more attractive and desirable. You can still choose not to do that -- that's a common trope in movies/TV/literature where a character afflicted with some bloodlust or evil curse fights their urges when appealed to by another character. However, if you take that drug, you are much more likely to do evil than if you had not taken the drug -- and much less likely to do good than if you had not taken the drug. Even the drug metaphor is flawed, because doing enough good doesn't get a drug out of your system, but for the sake of the analogy, let's say that doing good somehow flushed the drug out of your system (maybe your vomit it up after doing enough good somehow -- it's a flawed analogy). You can keep taking the drug if you want (in this case, casting [Evil] spells]), and each time you're less likely to do good than if you had not taken the drug, but you still can, and you can still eject the drug with enough good deeds -- each time fighting against your "nature" at the time. It's not prescriptive, because you still have the free will to do or not do evil, but most creatures tend to act in accordance with the urges they feel (their alignment/nature).

What I want is for it to draw you closer to Team Evil because part of casting it involves something that only Team Evil would be truly comfortable with, so you have to do something that pricks your conscience if you're not an evil person already. And it would make anybody who is non-evil look askance at you to see you doing it, because it's something they find at least distastefully mean.

I know that's what you want, and I already gave a reason for why creating undead creatures is an evil act, but I think the coherent answer for the dnd universe is that [Evil] spells taint your soul (alignment) with evil, shifting you further towards evil. Since [Good] spells don't shift your alignment towards good, I think it might suggest that Good, in the dnd universe, is the absence of evil on a character's soul (alignment), hence why neutral characters often do both. However, that's all speculation. The RAW we have is that [Evil] spells make you evil. I agree with you that most [Evil] spells don't have a functional reason why they would be morally evil acts, so I think the most accurate answer for why they make you more evil is that DnD uses a mix of prescriptive and descriptive alignment, as I described above with the Evil Drug analogy.

[Segev]

Sorry, "doing this taints your soul because, uh, we say it does" when there's no reason why anybody doing it who is a very nice and good person should feel the slightest twinge of "wait, there's something wrong here" since there's nothing to cause guilt in it is trivializing evil.

I disdain it as "team jerseys" because it does, indeed, make your alignment a prescriptive proclivity rather than a descriptive consequence.

To put it another way, when the Helm of Opposite Alignment says that you switch alignments and should role play accordingly, it IS using prescriptive language, but the reason it works in a descriptive mechanic is that it's using that as short hand for the magic fundamentally changing your worldview. The helm is a magic item that does alter your desires, beliefs, and principles. Nothing in "casting evil spells" says that. In fact, the actual language used, I believe, is that "good people just won't do it often." Which is, again a cop-out. A just-so story. "It's that way because it is."

Descriptive alignment with cosmic chaos, evil, good, and order has the cosmic "energy" be a consequence of aligned action, rather than a cause thereof. At best, you might argue that cosmic alignment energies enable, enhance, or empower the ability to do more things that promote that alignment. Which, I suppose, could be what "evil spells" are doing that makes them so evil: they're making others who want to do evil have more resources to do it with. I still find that grossly unsatisfying. Especially since you can just play the game with the system balance, then, and make sure to create more "good points" than you do "evil points" to wipe it out.

The most esoteric I would be comfortable with - and this actually does work, for me, for the protection spells - would be something like casting the spell requiring a certain mindset. Casting protection from evil might require a genuine altruistic, selfless embrace of desire to help others, or an outright rejection of specific evil concepts, and the magic takes that and uses it to create a barrier through which evil cannot cross. Protection from law might similarly require a rejection of the validity of rules, or a rebellion in the soul against limits and restrictions. Protection from good might require an abject disgust at the notion of others as being worth caring about except as tools, while protection from chaos might require strict ordering of one's thoughts and principles in a defensive matrix of rules that the magic can use to filter out nonlawful cosmic energies.

This works for the protection spells due to the nature of those spells as things that represent antitheses to that which they hedge out. It works less well for animate dead, though, because a "mindset" has little to do with making corpses get up and mow your lawn. (Sure, you can argue that mindset is behind any spell, but I'm talking about a specific mindset being fundamental to the way the spell itself is enacted or empowered. A part of the casting, rather than something that is arguably underlying the motivation for casting it.)

[Doctor Despair]

Sorry, "doing this taints your soul because, uh, we say it does" when there's no reason why anybody doing it who is a very nice and good person should feel the slightest twinge of "wait, there's something wrong here" since there's nothing to cause guilt in it is trivializing evil.

Evil is a cosmic force. Knowingly tainting your soul with Evil should cause a twinge of "wait, there's something wrong here," and presumably having enough knowledge to cast the spell involves having knowledge of how the spell works (and therefore knowledge that it is about to taint your soul with evil). Blindly activating a magic item is the only scenario where you might run into an issue, but you wouldn't get a twinge about doing good if it were a [Good] spell, either, since you by definition have no knowledge about what is in the item. It doesn't trivialize evil; it acknowledges it as a cosmic force as well as a descriptive word for alignment.

I disdain it as "team jerseys" because it does, indeed, make your alignment a prescriptive proclivity rather than a descriptive consequence.

Alignment can be be a descriptive system where your actions dictate your position on the spectrum, while ALSO acting as a prescriptive system when magic forcibly and unnaturally alters your alignment. It is not the false choice you are presenting it as. The reason why it's taken this many pages to debate is because you are set on this false choice, when the reality is, as far as I can tell, squarely in the middle of the two.

To put it another way, when the Helm of Opposite Alignment says that you switch alignments and should role play accordingly, it IS using prescriptive language, but the reason it works in a descriptive mechanic is that it's using that as short hand for the magic fundamentally changing your worldview. The helm is a magic item that does alter your desires, beliefs, and principles. Nothing in "casting evil spells" says that. In fact, the actual language used, I believe, is that "good people just won't do it often." Which is, again a cop-out. A just-so story. "It's that way because it is."

You can call it a cop-out, but good people choose not to taint their souls with evil because they know it will make them more likely to do evil things. That makes sense. The Helm of Opposite Alignment is not unique in how it changes your worldview; it may be just describing the process of what happens when your alignment is forcibly changed by magic instead of naturally/gradually based on your actions.

Descriptive alignment with cosmic chaos, evil, good, and order has the cosmic "energy" be a consequence of aligned action, rather than a cause thereof. At best, you might argue that cosmic alignment energies enable, enhance, or empower the ability to do more things that promote that alignment. Which, I suppose, could be what "evil spells" are doing that makes them so evil: they're making others who want to do evil have more resources to do it with. I still find that grossly unsatisfying. Especially since you can just play the game with the system balance, then, and make sure to create more "good points" than you do "evil points" to wipe it out.

That's an alternate system that I never touched on, but to be fair, even if casting Evil spells just taints your soul with Evil, you can definitely undo it with enough genuinely good acts. If you call it "good points" vs "evil points," that's fine. I never made a claim about the ultimate cosmic power of those fundamental forces being strengthened or weakened however; it's not necessary for this reading, but enhancing it.

The most esoteric I would be comfortable with - and this actually does work, for me, for the protection spells - would be something like casting the spell requiring a certain mindset. Casting protection from evil might require a genuine altruistic, selfless embrace of desire to help others, or an outright rejection of specific evil concepts, and the magic takes that and uses it to create a barrier through which evil cannot cross. Protection from law might similarly require a rejection of the validity of rules, or a rebellion in the soul against limits and restrictions. Protection from good might require an abject disgust at the notion of others as being worth caring about except as tools, while protection from chaos might require strict ordering of one's thoughts and principles in a defensive matrix of rules that the magic can use to filter out nonlawful cosmic energies.

Funnily enough, I'm not very comfortable with the protection spells functioning in that way. The spell doesn't require a mindset as a prerequisite to cast it in the spell, so that, as far as I can tell, would entirely go against the rulestext.

This works for the protection spells due to the nature of those spells as things that represent antitheses to that which they hedge out. It works less well for animate dead, though, because a "mindset" has little to do with making corpses get up and mow your lawn. (Sure, you can argue that mindset is behind any spell, but I'm talking about a specific mindset being fundamental to the way the spell itself is enacted or empowered. A part of the casting, rather than something that is arguably underlying the motivation for casting it.)

As I said, Animate Dead is morally wrong because of Attropus, but setting that aside, you could certainly justify it with a "mindset" the same way that you did for protection from X. You have to fill yourself with the malicious intent to bind Evil into a corpse to animate it, whereas other means of creating undead may only be evil by merit of Attropus (as other spells/abilities to create undead don't always have the [Evil] tag). If we're inventing the "mindset" rules, we can apply it to any [Evil] spell we want with enough creativity.

As I said, I'm not a fan of that however, because it's not in the rules text. [Evil] spells making you evil is in the rules text. The alignment system is normally descriptive, but becomes loosely prescriptive when there is a forcible alignment change by something other than the character's actions; a character can, in spite of it, still act in the way they choose to, but may not choose to given their new alignment. See "Helm of Opposite Aligment" for how this is meant to function. However, since the change from casting [Evil] spells is so much smaller and more gradual than donning the helm, it is much easier to maintain the alignment you actually want while spamming [Evil] spells than it is to climb all the way back to your actual alignment manually after donning the helm (although even that isn't impossible).

[hamishspence]

The actual language in BoVD for evil spells is:


"Sometimes a nonevil spellcaster can get away with casting a few evil spells, as long as he or she does not do so for an evil purpose. But the path of evil magic leads quickly to corruption and destruction."


A bit harsher than "good people just won't do it often".

[Doctor Despair]

The actual language in BoVD for evil spells is:


"Sometimes a nonevil spellcaster can get away with casting a few evil spells, as long as he or she does not do so for an evil purpose. But the path of evil magic leads quickly to corruption and destruction."


A bit harsher than "good people just won't do it often".

That supports the idea of cosmic Evil shifting your alignment even moreso, I think, and the idea that you can outweigh it with enough good acts. There is a percentage chance that your character chooses to fight against the evil urges they experience due to their alignment shifting slightly towards evil with every casting; there is also a percentage chance that they give into their new alignment and settle into their new neutral or evil self. "Sometimes" a nonevil spellcaster gets away with a few spells. The more you repeat that experiment, the more likely it becomes that they give into evil, as they only have to give in once to the effects of the evil magic to not recover, but need to fight against their nature every time to successfully negate its influence.

[ShurikVch]

"What if a Balor started to suddenly start participating in extreme altruism, feeding the hungry, saving those in danger, etc."

It reminding me about the adventure where a Bebilith ate Deva's "celestial spark", started to have some Good urges, and was greatly distressed because of it...

The only example I can think of is Fall From Grace, who my understanding of is that she's quite mad, though it's a subtle madness.

Also:
Archimedes (Hellbound: The Blood War) - N Aasimon
Cirily (Uncaged: Faces of Sigil) - CN Firre Eladrin
Gog and Kubriel (Uncaged: Faces of Sigil) - LN Sword Archons
Felthis ap Jerran, the Philosopher King of Ecstasy - NG Ultroloth
K'rand Vahlix (Faces of Evil: The Fiends) - LG Hamatula
Nalura (Planes of Conflict) - non-Evil Erinyes
Nordom Whistleklik
Trias the Betrayer

Ah, my bad on the memory of that one. I guess necropolitan paladin is out then because if you hang around anywhere for a couple days it's spreading evil.

There were some examples...

The great paladin Ralgorax, the "Sword of Tyr," in the dead of night roused the sleeping northern village where he had been born, riding his charger down its streets and banging his great sword against his shield. He warned of an oncoming orc horde - and slew its boldest scouts as the villagers scrambled to gather their belongings and flee.
The next day, after the paladin's blade had slain many an orc, the full light of day revealed that Ralgorax's flesh was withered. He bore old death wounds, and the horse beneath him was also carrion. He smiled sadly at their revulsion, saluted, and rode away - into the horde.

Maybe something to do with belief? Belief influences reality per the outer planes and gods, maybe enough believe it evil so it then is? Not satisfying and leads to a super slippery slope, but at least tangentially possible in universe. Ages of belief shaped reality like it shaped the gods, or visa versa. Something something divine mechanations keep it that way.

Actually, it may work: Wizards deluding themselves about something and suffering consequences of it is a known possibility in the fiction - such as Harry Dresden with his "Murphionic field", which is messing with technology... But - it's only when Harry really pays attention to the aforementioned technology


Also, for the RAW example of non-Evil Undead creation, - Jakandor:

The "Broken People" are the Charonti, a culture of wizard-priests who called Jakandor their home long before the Knorr fell upon their shores. To the Charonti, duty and justice are what makes a person human, fueled by a deep religious devotion to their creator, the God of Life and Death. Driven to advance knowledge and understanding, they consider necromancy to be not a blasphemy, as in some cultures, but the epitome of their creator's blessings. Through this magic, the ancestors can return to walk at the sides of their descendants, serving the community even after life has fled by offering strong, unyielding efforts at manual labor, freeing up the living to focus on learning and thinking.

Thousands of years ago, the Charonti held a mighty empire that stretched well beyond Jakandor, but a terrible sickness known as the Wasting Plague that fed on magic to sustain itself devastated their lands. Only now, over five thousand years after their empire fell, are the Charonti truly trying to rebuild. That is not made easy by the presence of the Knorrmen, who ever since their arrival over 150 years ago have dedicated themselves to destroying the sacred undead of the Charonti, killing those Charonti who still live, and pillaging and/or destroying the remnants of Charonti culture.

Long story short? Barbarians made by blending Vikings and Native Americans (with a dash of Celts) invade the island of a post-apocalyptic magocracy of Aztec-Japanese necromancers and declare a holy war on the natives, who're equally determined to wipe out the foreign invaders. Bloodbaths ensue.

Neither of Charonti spells for creating Undead are described as Evil in any shape or form

Their main spell there is Rend the Dead - 1st-level spell which allow to create Serathi (special kind of Zombie), Serataar (special kind of Skeleton), and - on higher level - Shaddoc (a talking skull). And no "... casting of this spell is not a good act ..." clause.

The other spell is the Galvanize Dead: it creates a temporary Human Zombie which would collapse into charred dust at the end of the spell, and can't be Turned (Verbal component: "It's alive!")

And before you will say "They're all Evil!" - statistics for two Necromancer I found lists them both as Lawful Neutral - including even the 13th-level Esnathon, who're, likely, created hundreds (if not thousands) of Undead, and famed for perfecting the Transmigration spell (i. e. the spell don't allow a saving throw anymore), which works kinda like "Reincarnate into Charonti", except targeted soul would be reborn in "natural way", and wouldn't keep any memories (but retains their ability scores)

[Segev]

Funnily enough, I'm not very comfortable with the protection spells functioning in that way. The spell doesn't require a mindset as a prerequisite to cast it in the spell, so that, as far as I can tell, would entirely go against the rulestext.

I mean, it doesn't NOT require a mindset, either. This falls into the unspecified zone, because it doesn't take having any particular extra components on hand that aren't described. It's just a fluff description of how the spell does what it does. And it's a reasonable one, to me, because the notion that you're too pure for evil to sink its hooks in is actually fairly standard as a trope, and this just exploits that and amplifies it with a spell effect.

[Y]ou could certainly justify [animate dead] with a "mindset" the same way that you did for protection from X. You have to fill yourself with the malicious intent to bind Evil into a corpse to animate it.

That doesn't really fit the spell, though. That would also make casting fireball evil because you have to "put yourself in the mindset of burning people alive." The reason the mindset thing works with protection spells is as I outlined above. It's something that can be a basis for the spell's function, the way the Patronus Charm defends against Dementors, for example.

Animate dead needs something that ties in thematically and narratively with animating corpses, and that seems to me to call more for something visceral.

As I said, I'm not a fan of that however, because it's not in the rules text. [Evil] spells making you evil is in the rules text.

I'm sorry, if this is your position, I don't think we'll ever see eye to eye on this. I agree with you on what the rules text says; my position is that it's insufficient, but I want to add fluff that doesn't have direct mechanical impact to make animate dead actually require evil beyond donning the team jersey while casting the spell. If adding fluff about how the protection spells achieve their ends is going too far outside the rules for you, then I don't think we have much to discuss, unfortunately.

[Doctor Despair]

I'm sorry, if this is your position, I don't think we'll ever see eye to eye on this. I agree with you on what the rules text says; my position is that it's insufficient, but I want to add fluff that doesn't have direct mechanical impact to make animate dead actually require evil beyond donning the team jersey while casting the spell. If adding fluff about how the protection spells achieve their ends is going too far outside the rules for you, then I don't think we have much to discuss, unfortunately.

I wrote on this a lot more, but for some reason you chose not to reply to it; odd. We've been over the cosmic evil explanation. It entirely satisfactorily explains why Evil spells make you evil.

You protested that Evil spells making you Evil is disatisfying because it implies that you can have otherwise good characters whose only flaw is using the Evil spell.

The text itself describes that otherwise good characters can "get away" with using Evil spells, but using too many leads to corruption. The Evil Drug metaphor describes how a character who corrupts their alignment to shift from good to neutral, or neutral to evil, will be more inclined to do evil acts or avoid good acts. Their urges may be stronger; their conscience and empathy may be weaker.

You protested that being corrupted by using Evil spells mandates a prescriptive alignment system, and that such a system eliminates free will.

The Evil Drug metaphor aptly explains how one can be artificially drawn towards committing evil acts or avoiding good acts without removing free will; free will includes the freedom to choose to go against one's nature. However, such a good character may not "get away" forever, as every character is capable of weakness or falling, and repeatedly tempting fate by changing your nature to become more evil repeatedly will, probability states, eventually result in you failing to choose to correct your alignment. However, there is a statistical chance that a character will always correct their alignment; PCs may be such exceptional characters. Free will exists. Characters that don't exercise their free will to act in a way that disagrees with their new nature will succumb to the evil they invited into their souls through spamming the [Evil] spells.

Now, on to the meat of what you decided to reply to regarding adding fluff.

You are insisting that there be a moral reason why casting an [Evil] spell is an evil act. I don't think that there is a moral reason unless, as you are suggesting, you invent a fluffy one for your headcanon. I can imagine any number of explanations that may be satisfactory or unsatisfactory, but we should acknowledge that such moral reasons are not required for [Evil] spells to make us more evil. Cosmic evil seems like the plainest answer, and it doesn't eliminate free will as you repeatedly suggest for characters to be drawn (but not compelled) to act in a way that is in accordance with their new alignment (or new team, as you keep referring to it).

Let's say you still wanted to add fluff regarding how the cosmic evil was involved though. We should proceed to acknowledge that not every spell requires a specific mindset. We can already note that hundreds of spells in existence fail to describe a required mindset; we are adding unrequired fluff to make the spells seem more satisfying in how they work in-character. We should start from there; saying we require a specific mindset to cast Animate Dead doesn't mean it also requires a specific mindset to cast Fireball. Spells with the [Evil] descriptor involve using cosmic evil; spells with the [Fire] descriptor do not. Binding Evil to a corpse to trap necromantic energy and animate it involves using evil, and may taint you; binding Fire to a fireball may not.

Let's circle back to mindsets, however, because I think I may have one that would be more satisfactory to you. You may have to use a "specific mindset" in order to work with the cosmic evil at all. Perhaps you need to, even if only for a brief moment, really immerse yourself in the most evil mindset you can in order to harness the cosmic evil into the mechanics of the spell. I doing so, you find you empathize a little more with evil characters and further cement certain evil patterns of thought a little more into your mind. You understand evil a little more, and in doing so, you become a little more evil. If you fail to immerse yourself in that evil mindset, don't fully commit to looking at the world in as evil a way as you can in that moment, you fail to cast the spell. That would cover all [Evil] spells, wouldn't it?

[Satinavian]

A good character whose alignment shifts all the way to [Evil] solely through use of Evil spells but continues to do good acts could probably be considered a failure to roleplay the character correctly.

Now that is utterly rubbish.

You don't play an alignment. You play a character who does things X and behaves in the way of Y and then you say that character the alignment that fits X and Y best from all the nine options. And X = "regularly casting evil spells" and Y = "generally behaving altruistic, helping people etc" are totally viable options. If you can't fit that to the 9 boxes, then the system is lackluster not the character played wrongfully.


I mean i have had such characters mself starting out with evil alignment solely because of regularly casting evil spells without any other evil deeds but otherwise quite heroic behavior. Such character concepts are not wrong only because they show how silly the alignment system is.

The text itself describes that otherwise good characters can "get away" with using Evil spells, but using too many leads to corruption. The Evil Drug metaphor describes how a character who corrupts their alignment to shift from good to neutral, or neutral to evil, will be more inclined to do evil acts or avoid good acts. Their urges may be stronger; their conscience and empathy may be weaker.

The "getting away" only implies "does not count as evil". There is nothing in the text that forces "does now count as evil because too many evil spells cast" comes with any additional urges or behavioral modification.

Just the opposite : If regularly casting evil spells and otherwise behaving good is enough to shift your alignment to evil, then continuing the same behavior is appropriate for an evil elignment. because it was judged as overall evil.



I think the easiest way to handle evil spells is just saying that those channel evil energy which leaves a residue that interacts with alignment specific magic but otherwise has no effect. And that actual moral deeds have far less connection to the alignment energies due to being mostly mundane and need to be significant more impactful for gathering alignment energy just because they vaguely are associated with alignment energies.

This way the mechanical alignment is both a measure of moral behavior and of which kind of magic you interact with. Whis is why a neutral cleric of an evil god still gets an evil aura stronger than some evil mundane mass murderer.




TL,DR : If you can be evil bei bein a ****ty person or by casting evil spells, then being evil just means you are a ****ty person or you have cast a lot of evil spells.

[icefractal]

I think the easiest way to handle evil spells is just saying that those channel evil energy which leaves a residue that interacts with alignment specific magic but otherwise has no effect. And that actual moral deeds have far less connection to the alignment energies due to being mostly mundane and need to be significant more impactful for gathering alignment energy just because they vaguely are associated with alignment energies.

I think this does work well for aligned spells where that alignment is somewhat arbitrary, like Magic Circle vs X, Deathwatch, etc.

It's already known that Detect spells can be fooled that way, so really it's just extending that to alignment-effecting magic as a whole. Holy Smite doesn't target evil people, it targets people with an evil aura. Which evil people (or creatures with the [Evil] subtype) produce naturally, but can also be artificially induced by carrying a powerful evil item or casting a lot of evil spells.

That does mean there'd be a true alignment that casting Deathwatch doesn't affect; you might even want to track alignment and alignment aura separately. Possible that higher-level divinations would reveal this, or that outsiders like Psychopomps would be able to.

I don't think it works well for something that you want to actually be morally questionable, like characters should have a good reason for being wary about it. Which in a lot of settings, animating the dead is. So I think for that one, it's still better if there's a concrete reason.

It entirely satisfactorily explains why Evil spells make you evil.

Entirely satisfactory for you! Tastes do vary - would you do this with food?
"I don't like clam chowder."
"Yes you do. Look at these five star reviews people have given it."
"But I don't like it; I don't like the flavor."
"The flavor is great, so yes, you like it. Stop pretending otherwise."