dcjester's page

Inherently, Necromancy is like any other school. Its a means to an end using magic.

Asking if Necromancy is evil is like asking if Evocation, Illusion, or even Divination is evil. The schools themselves are not. Its the practitioner.

This is true for any magic, be it in a game or from cultures in our ancient past. Its all about the will focusing the magic, and not the magic itself.

The summoning of spirits is not evil. Divination can be said to summon spirits, but they arent seen. Evocation can be said to use a spirits' energy to mix with the tangible world and create destructive results; the more powerful (or number of) spirits, the bigger the devestation.

Controlling undead is not necessarily an evil thing either. If you summon zombies to do the house and yard work, how is that evil? All you have done is bring animation to a souless shell of a body.

Self-explanatory, one would think in my case ;)

Although, I dont live in DC anymore, having moved to Seattle, but I wanted to keep the name.

Something I have always done, and allowed my players to do.

Play a Paladin, choose a God to follow, and BE that Gods alignment.

In my eyes, Paladins are the epitome of what a crusader is for that specific God. They are his sword and shield, his holy fighter, the one who will, at all costs, bring his Gods name to the land without self-thought.

A Paladin lives to do his Gods work. This isnt just a Cleric, who preaches and converts the masses. This is a strongarm who shows that the God is not weak, and has men and women ready to defend that belief.

Now, I usually have the Paladin be Lawful. Its hard to follow the tenants of your God if you are not obeying them in some way.

Just my two cents.

I am not sure where to stick this post. I have a question. I have noticed over the years playing D&D in general people do not like playing clerics. Usually it is the last role to be filled in a gaming group, and the DM often has to NPC Clerics. I know that there are a handful of players who like playing clerics. I happen to be one of them. Looking from a crunch perspective, they are a pretty good deal, with their d8 hps, their medium attack bonus, their ability to use all armor, and cast spells in them. I could go on for quite a few more lines, but in short they are a pretty good deal.
So why is it that many people do not like to play clerics? What are your thoughts?

I had another cleric, she was neutral, and chose to use Inflict spells. Sure, she slotted heals, but everyone knew she was not going to be the "healing battery". Her job was to demoralize the foe, and she did it well.

A cleric can be played in many ways. Its up to the players at the table to decide in what way they want to portray themselves (and their characters beliefs in the deity). Not all of them have to be mindless healing bots that tend to end up more boring than watching reality TV...

The video this thing is based on is very funny. How many episodes have they done at this point? I think my wife peed herself when I showed her the first one. She doesn't play D&D, so sometimes she teases me for being a "gamer geek", but the guys in the video are over the top!

Again, watch and enjoy.

Oh, and if you havent seen them, watch the out takes. They are worth it.

For anyone who doesnt get the joke here, go to YouTube and search for "Fear of Girls" episode 1. Watch. Enjoy.