Why is creating undead Evil?

[Jack_Simth]

Hmm. Perhaps we should make a distinction between PC and NPCs, here. For PC's, alignment is descriptive. For NPCs, however, it is prescriptive.

Yes, I know, some folks will call that blasphemy.

So a PC is free to act however they like: The DM is not permitted to tell the players what their character would do, barring effects like Dominate Person, Suggestion, Charm Person, and whatnot.

For an NPC, however, evil spells have an actual corrupting influence. Casting Deathwatch brings a small amount of the evil mindset into their minds. One casting isn't going to ruin a good healer... but after a dozen or so, the guy using it to do triage starts to think about how little he's getting out of fixing all these soldiers up, and wouldn't it be much simpler to use their pay for black onyx and just animate the bodies? No back talk from those soldiers then... and all he has to do is let them die....

[Doctor Despair]

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 don't know that I agree that, if you have a lawful evil character, it would be good roleplaying to have them wake up and say, "I'm going to do as much good as I can today, because I'm secretly a good person under it all!" They're not -- they're lawful evil. The Helm of Opposite Alignment is supporting evidence that alignment is supposed to be meaningful, not meaningless.

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.

That's valid, because they have free will, but there should be some amount of internal conflict there that you may or may not have represented in your roleplay. Either way, it's a tabletop game, and PCs are exceptions to the rules when it comes to a lot of things, so as I've said before, PC behavior isn't really problematic here.

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.

Getting away can imply any number of things, to be fair; it isn't conclusive language. However, since we know that casting [Evil] spells shift your alignment towards evil, we can use that supporting evidence to make an inference that "getting away" does not imply "does not count as evil," as it literally does count as evil, and must mean something else.

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.

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.

This is mostly true, except we know that actual moral deeds have a larger connection to alignment changes than casting [Evil] spells. It's definitely a valid interpretation to say that being made Evil doesn't have an impact on our personality, but then we have the issue of the hypothetical Lawful Evil heroes who are only wearing the Lawful Evil team jersey by merit of the spells, as Segev would put it. I think alignment affecting your base inclination before you account for free will is a more elegant solution, personally, but to each their own.

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.

We do track alignment and alignment aura separately; certain spells will cause you to radiate a certain alignment, for example, and there are spells designed around disguising or masking your alignment aura. With that said, I disagree with the idea of having a "true alignment" that casting [Evil] spells doesn't affect. You have an alignment; casting [Evil] spells shifts you towards Evil. This whole discussion is predicated on justifying why that is so for harmless spells like Deathwatch would do so. Handwaving it with a houserule doesn't really resolve the situation.

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."

That's fair! I spoke out of turn. What I meant to convey, and what I should have said, was that it logically addresses the questions raised by [Evil] spells while addressing the concerns you (Segev) have raised thusfar. "Satisfactory," in this case, meaning sufficient, even if not ideal yet for all parties.

Hmm. Perhaps we should make a distinction between PC and NPCs, here. For PC's, alignment is descriptive. For NPCs, however, it is prescriptive.

Yes, I know, some folks will call that blasphemy.

So a PC is free to act however they like: The DM is not permitted to tell the players what their character would do, barring effects like Dominate Person, Suggestion, Charm Person, and whatnot.

For an NPC, however, evil spells have an actual corrupting influence. Casting Deathwatch brings a small amount of the evil mindset into their minds. One casting isn't going to ruin a good healer... but after a dozen or so, the guy using it to do triage starts to think about how little he's getting out of fixing all these soldiers up, and wouldn't it be much simpler to use their pay for black onyx and just animate the bodies? No back talk from those soldiers then... and all he has to do is let them die....

That's another good way to handle it. Personally, I'm not a fan of "rules for thee but not for me" when it comes to PC/NPC transparency, but it answers the mechanical issue of alignment. I still wouldn't fault the DM for having such a healer who resists the urges and continues to do good, for example, as I would also want to preserve NPC agency, but I agree that such a healer should feel urges just as you're describing.

[Segev]

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.

I did trim your post to focus on the main thing I was replying to. If you feel I've left something important out, I apologize; that wasn't my intent. But you may have noticed my posts are already getting to "final paper in high school history class" length, so I'm trying to be focused.

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.[/quote]I find the notion that doing something that in no way actually promotes wickedness other than an arbitrary "that's wicked because I said so" is a category failure. It makes "evil" lose its meaning. Things are evil because they meet certain rules. When you start having to add "is this thing" as a rule to explain why specific things are evil, then your category is bad.

You should not need to consult a look-up table of specific items to determine if something is evil; you should be able to examine it and determine it from base principles. I won't say it has to always be easy or obvious, but ultimately you should be able to explain WHY something is evil (or good, or chaotic, or lawful) without resorting to "because it's wearing the team jersey." Or, alternatively, "because somebody wrote 'evil' on it."

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.

Agreed. This is more or less the case as I see it with the existing RAW and lack-of-fluff.

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.

If evil - even cosmic evil - is divorced from morality, it is no longer evil. It is something else that may correlate with evil, but should not be labeled as such. This is my fundamental, irreconcilable disagreement with you and your argument: you insist that morality is only coincident with alignment, because somehow "cosmic alignment" is divorced from morality.

You do suggest it has a "corruptive" influence to tie it back in, but again, that is backwards from how it should be. Making cosmic good and cosmic evil cause behavior (even if it's just "you're prone to it so if you slip up in your self control you'll act that way") makes it far too easy to say "it's not his fault; he wasn't able to control himself because of cosmic energies!" And that removes the moral agency, by divorcing it from morality.

I have said it before, and I fear that repeating myself isn't making the point any clearer, but I will try again anyway: Cosmic alignment energies should be a result of actions and choices, not a cause of them. And if you can take actions that are not recognizably morally aligned save by correlation and have them generate those cosmic energies, then the "team jersey" thing is in play, and you can have the heroic super-evil guy as long as he pumps out enough "evil energy," even if his evil energy never does any actual non-cosmic evil.

Let me emphasize how ridiculous it is to separate "real evil" from "cosmic evil." But by saying morality of the act is not necessary for cosmic good or evil, you are saying that you can arrange a situation where cosmic evil is just sitting there, hurting nobody, doing nothing evil at all, but being all cosmic evil.

It's like saying somebody can be the best singer in the multiverse because he's dripping with "cosmic singing." Sure, he never actually sings a note, and there's no evidence that he even can carry a tune in a bucket, but he casts [singing] spells (which have no requirement to actually sing as any part of them, and are potentially unrelated in their use to music if he chooses not to use them to create music), but he's so full of Cosmic Singing that he's just the most singer-est person ever! He's the best idol, rock star, and opera lead anywhere despite never, ever performing in any of those roles. Because he just has this ability to use [singing] spells at will and does it all the time, but only with [singing] spells that require not a single actual note of music escape his lips nor be generated in any way. Just generating Cosmic Singing energy. Which need never make nor result from music. Sure, he has to exercise an iron will to not just slip out with songs at the drop of a hat, but he manages because he's just that disciplined. But he's the most Singing-aligned entity ever, due to all the Cosmic Singing he has.

And you can't even say he's role playing his Singing Alignment badly: he casts [singing] spells ALL THE TIME, which is defined to be behavior that somebody Singing Aligned does!

The only problem is that this very obviously sets up an issue where Singing Alignment is actually not really related to singing, except coincidentally. Because "singing" has a definition, while "cosmic singing" is defined by arbitrary labels which may or may not correspond to the definition of the word "singing."

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.

You're quite missing the point when you focus on "mindset" like this. I called it out as a possible bit of fluff for a few specific spells, not as an idea for how all spells work. I not only acknowledge that not every spell requires a specific mindset, but reject the notion that every spell should. Please note that protection from chaos/evil/good/law and the equivalent magic circle against... spells are not "every spell," and that the only spell outside that category I even brought up "mindset" wrt was animate dead...and that I did so to say it was a BAD explanation for why animate dead is [evil]. This would, in fact, be me directly giving a counter-example to the very notion that "every spell" should have any such thing.

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.

Okay.

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.

Spells with the [fire] descriptor involve Cosmic Fire. Why wouldn't binding Fire to a fireball not "taint you with fire?" Well, the answer is straightforward: that's not how elemental tags work, and I'm fine with that. They serve a different purpose.

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?

No, this doesn't satisfy me. This means you have to BE EVIL to cast them, not that you have to perform an evil act.

(emphasis added here because I think this is an important point and I want attention drawn to it as people skim the post; sorry if it comes off as shouting)
I've discussed, at length, the criteria-space and rough requirements I have for this. It amounts to there needing to be something that is morally wrong (aside from "calling on cosmic evil" or "evil pollution") that is an active part of the casting of the spell. Something that, even if you weren't casting a spell when you did it, would make a good character at least feel a twinge of guilt and moral discomfort. Maybe something the good person might do "if it were needed" or if he lost control of his temper, but would certainly regret later. Something a neutral person may or may not regret later, but would likely still need to justify to himself to avoid feeling guilty.

It needs to be part of casting the spell, and it needs to not require any additional components that could not be trivially fluffed into being on hand, even if the spellcaster is using onyx he picked up from the store two minutes ago to cast the spell.

I acknowledge this is hard; I haven't come up with a good, satisfactory idea that fits these requirements.

I don't know that I agree that, if you have a lawful evil character, it would be good roleplaying to have them wake up and say, "I'm going to do as much good as I can today, because I'm secretly a good person under it all!" They're not -- they're lawful evil. The Helm of Opposite Alignment is supporting evidence that alignment is supposed to be meaningful, not meaningless.

Nobody said alignment is supposed to be meaningless. What was said was that the character has certain behaviors, and the DM has, due to how many [evil] spells he habitually casts, determined him to be LE, but that doesn't dictate his behavior and he keeps acting in an otherwise morally upright fashion (perhaps he would be mistaken for LG by somebody who examined his actions and didn't know about the spells and didn't use a detection magic to detect his alignment). This is not the player playing the character badly. This is the player playing a character who has become LE due to the [evil] tag being on spells that in no way require him to do anything evil other than "cast the spell" to drop his alignment to Evil.

This is mostly true, except we know that actual moral deeds have a larger connection to alignment changes than casting [Evil] spells. It's definitely a valid interpretation to say that being made Evil doesn't have an impact on our personality, but then we have the issue of the hypothetical Lawful Evil heroes who are only wearing the Lawful Evil team jersey by merit of the spells, as Segev would put it. I think alignment affecting your base inclination before you account for free will is a more elegant solution, personally, but to each their own.

The most elegant solution is having there be no question about the morality of your actions aligning with your alignment. This is done most easily by making sure that actually casting [alignment] spells requires [alignment] acts, if the [alignment] tag means that casting the [alignment] spell pushes you towards [alignment].

We do track alignment and alignment aura separately; certain spells will cause you to radiate a certain alignment, for example, and there are spells designed around disguising or masking your alignment aura. With that said, I disagree with the idea of having a "true alignment" that casting [Evil] spells doesn't affect. You have an alignment; casting [Evil] spells shifts you towards Evil. This whole discussion is predicated on justifying why that is so for harmless spells like Deathwatch would do so. Handwaving it with a houserule doesn't really resolve the situation.

Agreed. (I would, though, simply advocate for deathwatch losing the tag. Not only does it fail to make sense on the spell, but it isn't even thematically appropriate to the "team jersey," and thus isn't worth trying to MAKE be sufficiently evil to warrant it. Unlike animate dead, which has nice thematic ties to the team colors, and thus would be nice to actually make truly require you to morally compromise yourself as part of the casting.)

[hamishspence]

(I would, though, simply advocate for deathwatch losing the tag. Not only does it fail to make sense on the spell, but it isn't even thematically appropriate to the "team jersey," and thus isn't worth trying to MAKE be sufficiently evil to warrant it.)

I think putting it on the spell lists of the healer "Must be Good" and the Slayer of Domiel "loses all their powers if they commit an Evil act" spell lists, is sufficient reason to believe that only Monte Cook, of 3e writers, wanted it made [Evil], with one of his contributions to the 3.5 PHB being, that change.


And that he didn't coordinate much with other writers in the changeover to 3.5 (Miniatures Handbook and BoED are very early 3.5 books).

The reason I blame him specifically, is that he wrote the late 3.0 BOVD, and in that, he recommended giving Deathwatch the [Evil] tag (it does not have the [Evil] tag in the 3.0 PHB.)

[Satinavian]

I don't know that I agree that, if you have a lawful evil character, it would be good roleplaying to have them wake up and say, "I'm going to do as much good as I can today, because I'm secretly a good person under it all!" They're not -- they're lawful evil. The Helm of Opposite Alignment is supporting evidence that alignment is supposed to be meaningful, not meaningless.

You don't have an LE person being secretly good or such nonsense. Why the secrency now ? You have a person doing what this person thinks is right which, when compared to the alignment tables, includes near exclusively good deeds except for regularly casting evil spells for some reason. Usually very specific evil spells.

Sure, you can decide that this person is LE, lawful because they pretty consistent in their behavior and there might even be some code followed. But you can't assign an alignment to that person and then complain that the behavior does no fit the alignment.

When you really think some LE person shouldn't do mostly good stuff aside from casting evil spells, then this person should not count as LE. Maybe as LN. In this case all those evil spells can't shift alignment to evil because the overall behavior including the evil spellcasting is not actually evil enough.


But regardless what alignment label you attach, the behavior does not change. The alignment label is for mapping the existing behavior to some set of categories. It is a judgement of what the character does, nothing more.

The most elegant solution is having there be no question about the morality of your actions aligning with your alignment. This is done most easily by making sure that actually casting [alignment] spells requires [alignment] acts, if the [alignment] tag means that casting the [alignment] spell pushes you towards [alignment].

It would probably better to just erase all alignment tags from spells. You can still have spells that react to alignments, but it is actually not really necessary to have the cast count as alignment specific deed. Instead you should look for what you use the spells.

[hamishspence]

Given that according to BoVD "only the foulest villains" harm or destroy their enemies' souls, then you can have a LE heroic villain whose schtick is soul-harming. Near-exclusive good deeds, except for the soul-damaging effects that they use against their adversaries.


Soul-harming, in this case, outweighs any amount of kindnesses and self-sacrificing generosity to the needy.

[mashlagoo1982]

Just my brief two cents.

I always thought of this evil as similar to the relationship between Frodo and the One Ring.
It just slowly sways the morals and eventually behavior of the target character.

[hamishspence]

That's as good an interpretation as any. Especially for NPCs.

[Eldonauran]

Just my brief two cents.

I always thought of this evil as similar to the relationship between Frodo and the One Ring.
It just slowly sways the morals and eventually behavior of the target character.

An excellent example. Wish I had thought of that myself earlier when I was adding to the discussion. That's probably one of the best examples of a cosmic level force of evil warping the alignment of the wielder through exposure to its influence.

[Segev]

An excellent example. Wish I had thought of that myself earlier when I was adding to the discussion. That's probably one of the best examples of a cosmic level force of evil warping the alignment of the wielder through exposure to its influence.

If "using evil energy" causes you to become host to a fiend who constantly whispers in your ear, that's possible, I suppose. Definitely increases the power of [evil] spells, and does so with a tangential effect, though.

[hamishspence]

I'd go with "every [evil] spell pulls a tiny fragment of the Outer Plane of Evil (Hades) into the world - with the spell shaping that fragment of outer planar matter and energy into the appropriate form."


And this fragment is leaky when pulled in - it leaks into the environment, and it leaks into the caster. Only Malconvokers (Complete Scoundrel) have discovered a way of ensuring that the fragment does not leak into them - and their way only works for [Evil] Conjuration spells.


Just as beings who migrate to the Lower Planes will eventually, if they reproduce, have fiendish creatures descending from them - due to the plane's energy suffusing the bodies of creatures on that plane over time.


If you don't have a problem with fiends being (partially) made of evil - and as such, that evil material forcing fiends to behave in an Evil fashion (with only a minuscule fraction of fiends defying this, and changing alignment to Neutral or Good) - the why have a problem with the idea that [Evil] magic is the same kind of thing - magic that makes use of "the stuff of the Lower Planes"?

[Eldonauran]

If "using evil energy" causes you to become host to a fiend who constantly whispers in your ear, that's possible, I suppose. Definitely increases the power of [evil] spells, and does so with a tangential effect, though.

I see no issue with this at all. I don't inherently desire a carefully balanced interaction between the forces of [Good] or [Evil]. [Evil] is an insidious and corruptive force. As for causing you to become 'host to a fiend', I disagree to a degree. More like a host for the cosmic force that is [Evil], one that finds expression through the actions of sentient being (and some non-sentient beings) throughout the multiverse. Perhaps there is a singular, if nearly infinite, mind behind it all but we don't know.

[Segev]

If you don't have a problem with fiends being (partially) made of evil - and as such, that evil material forcing fiends to behave in an Evil fashion (with only a minuscule fraction of fiends defying this, and changing alignment to Neutral or Good) - the why have a problem with the idea that [Evil] magic is the same kind of thing - magic that makes use of "the stuff of the Lower Planes"?

Because, again, you have the cause and effect backwards. I don't have a problem with fiends being made of [evil] and acting evil in the same way that I don't have a problem with a man who murders, rapes, and pillages and likes to kick puppies in front of orphans who've raised them just to watch them cry being evil.

That man isn't kicking puppies to watch orphans cry because he's evil; that man is evil because he's kicking puppies to watch orphans cry.

Likewise, fiends are made of evil because they are so evil that it composes them. They are so evil it composes them because they act with such great evil. The lower planes are evil places because everything there is derived from evil acts, thoughts, beliefs, and souls. Cosmic evil is created by evil and its consequences. Cosmic evil may also be a magical tool that enables more evil to be more easily done. But it is not cosmic evil that causes evil to happen where none was already extant; it just makes it easier to do evil if you were going to do it anyway.

Fiends are - at least some, if not most - the evolution of dead souls of evil people who went to the appropriate outer plane and, through actions aligned with the nature of the plane, grew fat on its cosmic energies and became powerful avatars of that plane's ideals. They are made of [evil] because they are evil, and if they ceased to be evil, they should (I acknowledge that D&D has counterexamples, which I find to be poor worldbuilding) cease to be composed of [evil]. Whether this is a slow draining of power and might because they no longer can contain and control the cosmic energies that make them up, or they are able to replace those energies with cosmic energies of a different alignment and retain their power (if not their precise form and physical nature), they should shift to being composed of the cosmic energy they do embody. Just like a city of vices in Baator that grows lax in its strict adherence to the rule of law in favor of more permissiveness towards still greater wickedness would slip eventually into Gehenna.

I see no issue with this at all. I don't inherently desire a carefully balanced interaction between the forces of [Good] or [Evil]. [Evil] is an insidious and corruptive force. As for causing you to become 'host to a fiend', I disagree to a degree. More like a host for the cosmic force that is [Evil], one that finds expression through the actions of sentient being (and some non-sentient beings) throughout the multiverse. Perhaps there is a singular, if nearly infinite, mind behind it all but we don't know.

The post you quoted didn't talk about any sort of balance. It talked about a spell having an additional mechanical effect of allowing a fiend into your head to whisper to you making spells more powerful than their text indicates and having effects that extend beyond the listed ones, mechanically.

It could be interesting if that's how [evil] spells work, but it remains unsatisfying to me, because it again feels like a cop-out. "Oh, it's just evil because you have to listen to their timeshare spiel when you get the free vacation."

[hamishspence]

Not all fiends are "the souls of mortals" though. Some fiends are a true-breeding race, that reproduces the same way mortals do.

According to FC2, Erinyes are one such. A "baby Erinyes" is still a fiend, despite not having had the chance to do anything evil.

And there are plenty of mortal species which are "born evil" - in D&D, acting that way from birth - and having that alignment from birth before they've had a chance to act.


Evil alignment, in D&D, is not just about acts, but about "the kind of personality that produces these acts".

[Doctor Despair]

Because, again, you have the cause and effect backwards. I don't have a problem with fiends being made of [evil] and acting evil in the same way that I don't have a problem with a man who murders, rapes, and pillages and likes to kick puppies in front of orphans who've raised them just to watch them cry being evil.

That man isn't kicking puppies to watch orphans cry because he's evil; that man is evil because he's kicking puppies to watch orphans cry.

Likewise, fiends are made of evil because they are so evil that it composes them. They are so evil it composes them because they act with such great evil. The lower planes are evil places because everything there is derived from evil acts, thoughts, beliefs, and souls. Cosmic evil is created by evil and its consequences. Cosmic evil may also be a magical tool that enables more evil to be more easily done. But it is not cosmic evil that causes evil to happen where none was already extant; it just makes it easier to do evil if you were going to do it anyway.

I don't see a fundamental issue with their suggesting that cosmic evil corrupts people and gives them urges to perform evil acts (or, probably more accurately, weakens their resolve to resist urges that are already present). It could be cyclical; evil actions, thoughts, beliefs, and souls create cosmic evil, and casting [Evil] spells involves pulling a fragment of that cosmic evil into your soul. In that sense, cosmic evil would be similar to distilled pain or distilled joy -- a tangible manifestation of an intangible concept. Evil actions always occur as a result of free will, but cosmic evil weakens (but doesn't eliminate) your moral resolve.

[hamishspence]

It could be cyclical; evil actions, thoughts, beliefs, and souls create cosmic evil, and casting [Evil] spells involves pulling a fragment of that cosmic evil into your soul. In that sense, cosmic evil would be similar to distilled pain or distilled joy -- a tangible manifestation of an intangible concept. Evil actions always occur as a result of free will, but cosmic evil weakens (but doesn't eliminate) your moral resolve.

The notion of evil acts tainting the environment (BoVD), would fit with that. When a character commits a great Evil act like genocide, they release a massive burst of cosmic Evil from them - and that Evil warps the world in that spot.

[mashlagoo1982]

I'm just going to leave this here...

https://i.chzbgr.com/full/4652438784...-dont-touch-it

... be careful though. One drop is enough to turn you into a hermit crab.

[hamishspence]

Time Bandits was a pretty funny movie.

[Segev]

Not all fiends are "the souls of mortals" though. Some fiends are a true-breeding race, that reproduces the same way mortals do.

According to FC2, Erinyes are one such. A "baby Erinyes" is still a fiend, despite not having had the chance to do anything evil.

And there are plenty of mortal species which are "born evil" - in D&D, acting that way from birth - and having that alignment from birth before they've had a chance to act.


Evil alignment, in D&D, is not just about acts, but about "the kind of personality that produces these acts".

Quite. Just as a drow baby - not guaranteed evil from birth, technically - is going to be raised in such a way that being good is remarkably hard for them to do. It is literally against the nature of a fiend to act non-evil.

I will posit that things "born of evil" in that way came from things that got to that state through voluntary acts. They are essentially reincarnations and recombinations of very wicked things. (I'm not going to touch on the mortal races being "born evil," as that's likely to get very sticky if we try to delve into that rabbit hole; I generally applaud the notion that this is a bad idea and any shifts away from it are positive.) But true-breeding fiends are producing offspring that are made of the same cosmic stuff that they've absorbed and grown powerful on, and somewhere in the pedigree of that "stuff" is a whole lot of evil deeds by Agents who could make free-willed choices to commit them.

If the newborn sentiences that are simply born fiends act evil "because it's their nature," that doesn't bother me so much because Agency is something you learn to exercise.

But this doesn't directly bear on the evil of casting animate dead. This does:

The notion of evil acts tainting the environment (BoVD), would fit with that. When a character commits a great Evil act like genocide, they release a massive burst of cosmic Evil from them - and that Evil warps the world in that spot.

I am all for this. What I am not for is an act of evil only being evil because it does this. That's circular reasoning. Why is the act evil? Because it taints the land around it with cosmic evil. Why does it taint the land around it with cosmic evil? Because it's an evil act!

That's right up there with the bootstrap paradox. "I went back in time and gave Shakespear a copy of Romeo and Juliet, which he then claimed credit for writing. But I got it from a publication of his works." "This sword was given to me by my future self. Now I will go back in time and give this sword to my past self, so I'll have it for all these years."

Even though I have little issue with self-fulfilling time loops, I do have issue with information or matter looping indefinitely within them or appearing ex nihlio from them. This may just be a matter of personal taste. But still, I therefore really dislike the notion that cosmic evil can exist independently of actual evil causing it, and the notion that something is so evil it will taint an area with cosmic evil only because it taints the area with cosmic evil is...really lame, to me.

...ah, maybe it's clearer if I explain it as an analog to the No True Scottsman fallacy.

I don't see a fundamental issue with their suggesting that cosmic evil corrupts people and gives them urges to perform evil acts (or, probably more accurately, weakens their resolve to resist urges that are already present). It could be cyclical; evil actions, thoughts, beliefs, and souls create cosmic evil, and casting [Evil] spells involves pulling a fragment of that cosmic evil into your soul. In that sense, cosmic evil would be similar to distilled pain or distilled joy -- a tangible manifestation of an intangible concept. Evil actions always occur as a result of free will, but cosmic evil weakens (but doesn't eliminate) your moral resolve.

Diminished Capacity is a problem for Agency.

If you get somebody drunk without their knowledge or consent (and one of the issues with getting drunk is, apparently, that you are often unaware of just how inhibited you are), and then you manipulate them into doing something (getting into a race, a fight, or bed with you), you're probably culpable and they may well not be, if they can affirmatively defend that they didn't realize they were getting drunk nor in a state to be able to make consenting decisions once they had gotten drunk.

The means that if you're only committing evil acts because cosmic evil has worn away your resolve and pumped you full of urges that make it hard to impossible for you to resist the temptations of evil, you're not really acting as a moral agent.

Yes, you can argue that willingly casting a spell that exposes you to these energies is just like willingly starting to drink: you're responsible for what you do while "high on evil." But this brings us back to the deathwatch problem: why is this spell [evil]? Because it infuses you with evil energies that will make you more likely to want to do evil things! Why does it do that? Because it's [evil]!

On the other hand, doing actually evil things - things that are evil regardless of whether there exists cosmic evil or not - does make you have an easier time doing them again. Especially if you can justify it to yourself. If there is cosmic evil, you become corrupted by cosmic evil because you perform evil acts. Evil acts taint the area, though usually not enough to notice.

That's all good! That works well for "cosmic evil." But the causal direction is crucial.

[mashlagoo1982]

I think I see a way to fulfill this cause > effect requirement for Cosmic Evil. Pardon if it was already mentioned... I lost track of everything discussed.

Perhaps Cosmic Evil is the result of evil actions that have already been committed.
Like the idea of pollution. It is just out there ready to be used but doesn't have any agenda or will of it's own.

So the requirement for there being an evil action is fulfilled.

Ex. Somebody kicks a puppy > Cosmic Evil is released > created Cosmic Evil is used to cast spells with [Evil] tag.

Without the action earlier (kicking puppy), the power source of Cosmic Evil wouldn't exist to fuel the spell with the [Evil] tag.

It's like buying clothes from a manufacturer you know treats their employees badly... maybe...
I didn't think that analogy through fully.

[Segev]

I think I see a way to fulfill this cause > effect requirement for Cosmic Evil. Pardon if it was already mentioned... I lost track of everything discussed.

Perhaps Cosmic Evil is the result of evil actions that have already been committed.
Like the idea of pollution. It is just out there ready to be used but doesn't have any agenda or will of it's own.

So the requirement for there being an evil action is fulfilled.

Ex. Somebody kicks a puppy > Cosmic Evil is released > created Cosmic Evil is used to cast spells with [Evil] tag.

Without the action earlier (kicking puppy), the power source of Cosmic Evil wouldn't exist to fuel the spell with the [Evil] tag.

It's like buying clothes from a manufacturer you know treats their employees badly... maybe...
I didn't think that analogy through fully.

That could work, but at that point the act of casting the spell isn't, itself, evil, and shouldn't shift your alignment. (The difference from your analogy of buying from an exploitative merchant being that casting the spell isn't rewarding the third-party puppy-kicker in any way.) If the alignment tags meant there had to be "sufficient cosmic [alignment] energy around" to cast the spell, that'd be fine, for consistency's sake, but "I use spells that require there to be [evil] around, but I am not doing anything evil, myself," is a logical and reasonable thing to have fall out from that.

That this would mean evil spellcasters who really like their [evil] spells would take steps to ensure there's enough cosmic evil by committing evil acts works out nicely, too.

So, it is a good solution to every point of my worldbuilding concerns save one: I actually do like the idea that [evil] spells are evil to cast. But I could give up on that (even though it's an actual rules change) for consistency, if the worldbuilding used the notion proposed.

[Doctor Despair]

Diminished Capacity is a problem for Agency.

If you get somebody drunk without their knowledge or consent (and one of the issues with getting drunk is, apparently, that you are often unaware of just how inhibited you are), and then you manipulate them into doing something (getting into a race, a fight, or bed with you), you're probably culpable and they may well not be, if they can affirmatively defend that they didn't realize they were getting drunk nor in a state to be able to make consenting decisions once they had gotten drunk.

The means that if you're only committing evil acts because cosmic evil has worn away your resolve and pumped you full of urges that make it hard to impossible for you to resist the temptations of evil, you're not really acting as a moral agent.

Yes, you can argue that willingly casting a spell that exposes you to these energies is just like willingly starting to drink: you're responsible for what you do while "high on evil."

Are you trying to suggest that dnd characters should have more agency than people in real life? People who are drunk are capable of free will and making moral decisions. Someone who gets drunk and beats their wife is not completely absolved of their evil action. As you said, they chose to cast the spell; they chose to take the drink; they take on the consequences.

But this brings us back to the deathwatch problem: why is this spell [evil]? Because it infuses you with evil energies that will make you more likely to want to do evil things! Why does it do that? Because it's [evil]!

It's not an issue. Spells don't have the [Evil] tag because the spell effect is evil; spells have the [Evil] tag because casting them involves bringing that shard of cosmic evil into your soul. Use spell research to develop a version of the spell without the tag, and it won't affect your alignment at all in and of itself.

[hamishspence]

That's IMO why non-evil undead always detect as evil to detect evil spells - because they are "coated in cosmic evil" so to speak.

[Segev]

Are you trying to suggest that dnd characters should have more agency than people in real life? People who are drunk are capable of free will and making moral decisions. Someone who gets drunk and beats their wife is not completely absolved of their evil action. As you said, they chose to cast the spell; they chose to take the drink; they take on the consequences.

I'm saying that a spell being [evil] strictly because it exposes you to cosmic evil and is like "starting on a bender" of alcohol is lame. There is no reason why deathwatch should be evil, and there is no reason why, based strictly on what the spell does as written, animate dead should be [evil]. Both simply are, by fiat, and saying "well, you're tainting yourself with cosmic evil energies" is a cop-out explanation, since you could apply the [evil] tag to literally any spell you wanted and make that equally true.

If you want [evil] spellcasting to be an evil act, it's conceptually easy enough to do: require something that is evil whether cosmic evil exists or not to be part of the spellcasting. "The somatic component of this spell is kicking an innocent puppy," as a cartoonish example.

It's not an issue. Spells don't have the [Evil] tag because the spell effect is evil; spells have the [Evil] tag because casting them involves bringing that shard of cosmic evil into your soul. Use spell research to develop a version of the spell without the tag, and it won't affect your alignment at all in and of itself.

Then the [evil] tag is just pointless. Why develop the [evil] version ever, at all? "Just develop a version that doesn't require you to kick a puppy" is equally valid. This isn't, to me, about justifying removing the [evil] tag from spells.

[Doctor Despair]

I'm saying that a spell being [evil] strictly because it exposes you to cosmic evil and is like "starting on a bender" of alcohol is lame. There is no reason why deathwatch should be evil, and there is no reason why, based strictly on what the spell does as written, animate dead should be [evil]. Both simply are, by fiat, and saying "well, you're tainting yourself with cosmic evil energies" is a cop-out explanation, since you could apply the [evil] tag to literally any spell you wanted and make that equally true.

...

Then the [evil] tag is just pointless. Why develop the [evil] version ever, at all? "Just develop a version that doesn't require you to kick a puppy" is equally valid. This isn't, to me, about justifying removing the [evil] tag from spells.

You might think it's lame, but it's internally consistent, consistent with all the texts, shows why good spellcasters choose not to do it, and maintains free will. Why do spellcasters develop the [Evil] version of spells at all? Perhaps they were developed by evil spellcasters in the first place, so they felt it was a mechanism to ensure good spellcasters didn't get to play with their toys. Perhaps they enjoy becoming more evil. Perhaps the spell requires that [Evil] tag to function at that level of potency (e.g., removing it would result in a weaker version of the spell, or a version that requires a higher spellslot), as you remove fuel for the spell or something. There's any number of reasons why the [Evil] tag would be on a spell. Spell research is by DM fiat only, so it's "ask your DM" territory whether the [Evil] tag can be applied to or removed from any given spell anyway.

[Telok]

Odd question, I'm afb today/tomorrow so can't get it myself: Are all the undead creation spells tagged evil? Of course not counting the neegative energy drain spells that auto-create undead if you kill people with them, we know those aren't aligned.

And would a caster without spellcraft know if, say Deathwatch, had the evil tag? Obviously players know, but does the no-spellcraft character know if their spells are [evil]? Because I've seen cleric characters with just concentration and healing trained. If they're in an organized church someone may tell them, but there are lots of 'concept' clerics around too without anyone else to tell them not to cast certain spells.

[mashlagoo1982]

The difference from your analogy of buying from an exploitative merchant being that casting the spell isn't rewarding the third-party puppy-kicker in any way.

Good catch. In the game world, using [Evil] spells could almost be seen as a form of recycling if casting them only uses up the Cosmic Evil.

I was actually going to add that using Cosmic Evil to cast [Evil] spells perpetuates the creation of more Cosmic Evil, but that seemed to be going a step too far. I could see it being used, but I don't like it.

EDIT: Okay, now I want a world to exist where Cosmic Evil is used as a energy source, but in highly controlled environments. Like nuclear power plants and their operators.

[hamishspence]

Odd question, I'm afb today/tomorrow so can't get it myself: Are all the undead creation spells tagged evil?

All the ones in the MM are. There might be one or two in splatbooks that aren't, but I think the splatbooks virtually always give the relevant spells the [Evil] tag.

[Segev]

You might think it's lame, but it's internally consistent, consistent with all the texts, shows why good spellcasters choose not to do it, and maintains free will. Why do spellcasters develop the [Evil] version of spells at all? Perhaps they were developed by evil spellcasters in the first place, so they felt it was a mechanism to ensure good spellcasters didn't get to play with their toys. Perhaps they enjoy becoming more evil. Perhaps the spell requires that [Evil] tag to function at that level of potency (e.g., removing it would result in a weaker version of the spell, or a version that requires a higher spellslot), as you remove fuel for the spell or something. There's any number of reasons why the [Evil] tag would be on a spell. Spell research is by DM fiat only, so it's "ask your DM" territory whether the [Evil] tag can be applied to or removed from any given spell anyway.

It's lame because it is fiat-only. There's no need for it, no theme to it other than "the DM or writer thinks the spell is icky." It's NOT 'internally consistent.' It just is a consistent excuse. Internal consistency would explain WHY a spell is [evil] without having to say "because it has the [evil] tag."

Again, if your answer to why something is evil is, "because it exposes you to cosmic evil," and the answer to why it exposes you to cosmic evil is, "because it's evil," it's not internally consistent. It's circular reasoning. It has no actual foundational basis. "Emperor Perfectman is always right and never lies. I know this because he told me so, and I can trust what he tells me because he's always right and never lies."

Good catch. In the game world, using [Evil] spells could almost be seen as a form of recycling if casting them only uses up the Cosmic Evil.

I was actually going to add that using Cosmic Evil to cast [Evil] spells perpetuates the creation of more Cosmic Evil, but that seemed to be going a step too far. I could see it being used, but I don't like it.

EDIT: Okay, now I want a world to exist where Cosmic Evil is used as a energy source, but in highly controlled environments. Like nuclear power plants and their operators.

If you want to use cosmic evil (and good, and law, and chaos) as empowering their aligned actions, you can think of them as catalysts or amplifiers or enablers rather than as fuel. If animate dead requires a certain amount of cosmic evil to be about in order to function, then it simply doesn't work if a region is too pure and good. If a region is significantly more corrupted than usual, it might have a stronger effect.

In fact, I am now prone to suggesting that this is more in line with the rest of the rules of 3.PF than the "it's evil so it makes you evil" is, given how animate dead might fail on consecrated corpses and is empowered in desecrated areas and near unholy altars.

It needn't, itself, then, be evil to use, but it sure works better if you've prepared a sufficiently evil area (which would require you to do some actual evil), and it doesn't work very well if cosmic evil is lacking (so you'd have to do some evil of your own to prime the pump, so to speak). And it needn't "use up" evil nor inherently enhance it: it just needs a certain threshold of cosmic evil energy around in order to function. Again, like a catalyst, rather than like a fuel or ingredient. The total ambient evil isn't increased or decreased by casting it, but what you do with the undead can, of course, spread more evil (as most necromancers likely intend to do).

[Doctor Despair]

It's lame because it is fiat-only. There's no need for it, no theme to it other than "the DM or writer thinks the spell is icky." It's NOT 'internally consistent.' It just is a consistent excuse. Internal consistency would explain WHY a spell is [evil] without having to say "because it has the [evil] tag."

Again, if your answer to why something is evil is, "because it exposes you to cosmic evil," and the answer to why it exposes you to cosmic evil is, "because it's evil," it's not internally consistent. It's circular reasoning. It has no actual foundational basis. "Emperor Perfectman is always right and never lies. I know this because he told me so, and I can trust what he tells me because he's always right and never lies."

You're not parsing the situation correctly.

It's not saying the spell is evil because it has the [Evil] tag, and has the [Evil] tag because it is evil.

It's saying that the spell has the [Evil] tag, and casting spells with the [Evil] tag expose your soul to evil, corrupting your alignment. In this model, Deathwatch is not evil. It has the [Evil] tag, and your alignment would be harmed by casting it because of the [Evil] tag, but not because of the spell. Animate Dead is evil (because of Attropus), has the [Evil] tag, and would hit your alignment twice. Under this model, the spell has the [Evil] tag not because it is evil, but because:

* It depends on using [Evil] to function as written
* The creator was evil, and designed it there for a personal or strategic reason

Edit: And as a corollary, spells wouldn't be evil just because they have the [Evil] tag, but will hit your alignment regardless (because you are exposing your soul to cosmic evil).