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So now we have Horror Adventures, and we also have rules text that tells us if we cast an evil spell twice, we get a step closer to evil.
No justification, no "it was for a good reason", it's just you cast it enough and you become evil. And this works inversely as well; you can be completely evil, cast pro from evil 3 times, and you're good again. So there's no grey area or anything, which feels even more odd for a horror book to be so black and white about alignment changes.A wizard who uses animate dead to create guardians for defenseless people won’t turn evil, but he will if he does it over and over again. The GM decides whether the character’s alignment changes, but typically casting two evil spells is enough to turn a good creature nongood, and three or more evils spells move the caster from nongood
to evil.Though this advice talks about evil spells, it also applies to spells with other alignment descriptors.
There is no text support for reciprocal inverseness. It is far far easier to slip towards evil than to climb towards good. A truly good wizard doesn't use animate dead as a first resort, nor even typically as last measure, but as a once in a lifetime desperation move.
And it's really up to campaigns and DM's to set up a desired level of "grayness" and nuance. After all in the Earth of Living Death, even casting a cure light wounds spell can open you up to Taint.
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I'd buy that self help book.
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Even in a short page count supplement I would expect greater nuance to it than this.
*le sigh*
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"Okay, Bob, once you animate all those monsters we just whacked on that descrated ground, be sure to drop a protection from evil on everyone. Otherwise, the Paladin's gonna hafta smite you when he gets back from his cigar break."
Bob: "Thus the benefit of purchasing that wand continues to prove its worth."
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Yeah, but the 'typically' might be the kicker here. This is particularly true since this quote opens with an important piece of information: context. The text also gives the GM a lot of discretion.
In the quote, the context was the use of an evil spell for a good purpose. That served as a mitigating factor for the alignment change, since they wanted to protect defenseless people. But the person still turned evil from repeated use since many evil spells often have particularly odious acts associated with them (in the example, it was the creation of undead, which is often seen as a grave sin against that dead person; you are basically robbing peter to pay paul here; the dead are rather defenseless too).
The mitigating factor in the use of 'protection from evil' is that you are casting it for selfish reasons. In this case, you are trying to get a 'get out of hell free!' card without actually repenting at all. At the very least, it had better be a major good spell, like something that cures blind beggars, rather than 'I am just going to use my remaining slots for the day to cast spells on myself until I turn good'.
The thing about being evil is that it is about the 'easy way out'- the option where you don't care about whether you actions cause pain and suffering to others as long as you meet your own goals. So it is easy to turn evil. But being good- caring about other people- that is hard. You have to consider the needs and suffering of others, and to act upon that.
Thus, while I can see the 'turn evil because you constantly used evil spells' as appropriate for evil, I more approve of the ultimate campaign rules for alignment as appropriate for whether a person turns 'good'. That is both appropriate from the perspective of morality... and honestly, it is better from making a functioning gameplay perspective. I mean... when devils fight demons, they want to use protection from evil too. But such a fight seems more...sum 0 morally. Or at least a chaos/order thing.
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I'd be fine with what lemeres is bringing up if the book didn't straight out say 'X amount of spells = alignment change.' You want to say casting evil spells makes you more susceptible to evil, or that casting good spells makes you understand the plights of others better? Fine. Really that seems more like of a divine spellcasting thing, but whatever.
Giving an approximate 'you get X evil spells before growing your mustache and twirling it' was poor form, and really took away from the grey morality which the book seems to have wanted to foster.
I'd be fine with what lemeres is bringing up if the book didn't straight out say 'X amount of spells = alignment change.' You want to say casting evil spells makes you more susceptible to evil, or that casting good spells makes you understand the plights of others better? Fine. Really that seems more like of a divine spellcasting thing, but whatever.
Giving an approximate 'you get X evil spells before growing your mustache and twirling it' was poor form, and really took away from the grey morality which the book seems to have wanted to foster.
But there is the simple fact that there is another, different system for switching alignments. Again- the ultimate campaign system, where you have 9 levels and you work your way up with various good deeds.
Thus, I leave it more to the discretion noted by the phrases 'GM decides' and 'typically'. That leaves A LOT of wiggle room, particularly when you have entirely alternate alignment systems available that are equally valid, and far, far more fleshed out.
Now, personally- I would, as a GM, simply say that all of the protection spells are too minor in their effect to cause any serious change in alignment (although being in situations where you NEED protection from good typically means you are doing things like murdering angels and the like- not helping your case). I would mostly keep it for spells with larger effects with more implications- such as animate dead.
Conversely, if there was a good spell that you could use to go around helping blind deaf orphans and the like, then yes- that spell could have the '2 or 3 to alignment change' style of effect, because you are doing explicitly good deeds.
Either casting aligned spells is an inherently aligned act and affects your alignment equally or it doesn't.
The reason 'why' you cast the spells is a different metric and can slow or speed up the process, but if your motive was the sole metric then casting aligned spells wouldn't affect your alignment, your motives would be the only vector for alignment change.
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Thinking about it...summoning can be grey... honestly, I might allow it for summoning archons randomly, if only because they take one look at you (with their constant detect evil), and then they start giving you 'disappointed grandmother' level rants disciplining you. Repeatedly subjecting yourself to that means you must be really dedicated to not being evil.
Either casting aligned spells is an inherently aligned act and affects your alignment equally or it doesn't.
The reason 'why' you cast the spells is a different metric and can slow or speed up the process, but if your motive was the sole metric then casting aligned spells wouldn't affect your alignment, your motives would be the only vector for alignment change.
Not necessarily. They could have just said 'evil spells are inherently aligned, because they taint and warp your soul'. Honestly, they probably should have just done that. It would make this discussion a lot easier, since this system kinda conflicts with the big, highly detailed system from ultimate campaign used for redemption.
It doesn't even take spell level into account?
Wow. Super evil level 9 spell? That's fine I got protection from evil.
If it was me I would have worded it something like the following:
"In a horror genre game casting spells with the evil descriptor risks allowing the powers of evil to influence you and warp your mind. There is no little evil in such a game, while most people can justify a single casting of an evil spell each subsequent casting moves your alignment away from good by one step."
I would have followed up with:
"A caster can resist this effect with a will save DC equal to the DC for the spell they cast +1 for every evil spell they have ever cast."
So greater willpower can still risk it but it is obviously not a good thing in the long term. Probably would have finished with:
"If a spell caster receives an atonement spell they can attempt to shake off some of the evil they have allowed in their mind. During the casting of the spell the caster may make a special save throw DC 10+1/2 their level + their casting stat modifier + the number of evil spells they have cast. If they succeed The count of evil spells cast for the purposes of resisting alignment change drops by 1d6 per 5 caster levels they have. This roll should generally be made in secret by the GM."
This leaves room for atoning but even that doesn't guarantee you'll be clean, leaving that uncertainty that is part of the hallmark of good horror.
BTW feel free to use this if you like, I'll put it all together in a spoiler:
If a spell caster receives an atonement spell they can attempt to shake off some of the evil they have allowed in their mind. During the casting of the spell the caster may make a special save throw DC 10+1/2 their level + their casting stat modifier + the number of evil spells they have cast. If they succeed The count of evil spells cast for the purposes of resisting alignment change drops by 1d6 per 5 caster levels they have. This roll should generally be made in secret by the GM.
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Lich: "Dude you can't smite me! I cast 9 protection from evil spells this morning and a maximized summon monster 6 to summon 5 lantern archons."
Paladin: "That doesn't count! The protection from evil spells were for your delivery boys from your vampires and you are literally having the lantern archons assault me!"
Lich: "Dude they are only shooting in self defense! And totally counts! That's 10 good spells I'm literally goodness cubed!"
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How about we get the full text in the sidebar rather than a misleading portion, shall we?
This section includes a large number of evil spells. Casting an evil spell is an evil act, but for most characters simply casting such a spell once isn’t enough to change her alignment; this only occurs if the spell is used for a truly abhorrent act, or if the caster established a pattern of casting evil spells over a long period. A wizard who uses animate dead to create guardians for defenseless people won’t turn evil, but he will if he does it over and over again. The GM decides whether the character’s alignment changes, but typically casting two evil spells is enough to turn a good creature nongood, and three or more evils spells move the caster from nongood
to evil. The greater the amount of time between castings, the less likely alignment will change. Some spells require sacrificing a sentient creature, a major evil act that makes the caster evil in almost every circumstance.
Those who are forbidden from casting spells with an opposed alignment might lose their divine abilities if they circumvent that restriction (via Use Magic Device, for example), depending on how strict their deities are.
Though this advice talks about evil spells, it also applies to spells with other alignment descriptors.
Now, some people will take a hardline stance on this. Others will view it as guidelines. The latter is what I view it as. If a character casts evil spells simply because it's easier/better (I'm looking at infernal healing), I'd make them fall. If they're casting an evil spell just to go evil (protection from good, for instance) or a good aligned spell just to keep from falling, I wouldn't let it work. Just my opinion, of course.
How about we get the full text in the sidebar rather than a misleading portion, shall we?
Now, some people will take a hardline stance on this. Others will view it as guidelines. The latter is what I view it as. If a character casts evil spells simply because it's easier/better (I'm looking at infernal healing), I'd make them fall. If they're casting an evil spell just to go evil (protection from good, for instance) or a good aligned spell just to keep from falling, I wouldn't let it work. Just my opinion, of course.
This section includes a large number of evil spells. Casting an evil spell is an evil act, but for most characters simply casting such a spell once isn’t enough to change her alignment; this only occurs if the spell is used for a truly abhorrent act, or if the caster established a pattern of casting evil spells over a long period. A wizard who uses animate dead to create guardians for defenseless people won’t turn evil, but he will if he does it over and over again. The GM decides whether the character’s alignment changes, but typically casting two evil spells is enough to turn a good creature nongood, and three or more evils spells move the caster from nongood
to evil. The greater the amount of time between castings, the less likely alignment will change. Some spells require sacrificing a sentient creature, a major evil act that makes the caster evil in almost every circumstance.
Those who are forbidden from casting spells with an opposed alignment might lose their divine abilities if they circumvent that restriction (via Use Magic Device, for example), depending on how strict their deities are.
Though this advice talks about evil spells, it also applies to spells with other alignment descriptors.
This situation literally has a caster using evil for good (animating to defend the defenseless, and yet doing it three times is still enough to make the caster evil.
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Some people seem to be taking from this quote that an evil caster can cast protection from evil three times, and become good. That is totally and completely false.
It takes five castings.
On a slightly more serious note, suppose an evil sorcerer is working on a hideous plan to sacrifice 200 innocent children to gain their souls' power as his own. A paladin comes along to stop him. In order to give the paladin a 'fun' moral dilemma, the sorcerer summons several angels and forces the paladin to fight them. By the above rule, the sorcerer is now Good.
This is helm of opposite alignment territory here. The sorcerer hasn't just started wearing a Good hat instead of an Evil hat. The sorcerer now Good. His world view, and his goals, will have changed. He won't want to sacrifice 200 innocent children, or even one, in order to gain power. The forces of Good have prevailed! Hooray!
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First people want to know how many castings of an evil spell makes them evil. Now that you have it, you're angry. There is no satisfying you people.
Actually that isn't accurate. We wanted to know how alignment descriptors for spells interacted with a character's actual alignment. Reductio ad absurdum has graced us with a "three strikes you're evil" rule.
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This situation literally has a caster using evil for good (animating to defend the defenseless, and yet doing it three times is still enough to make the caster evil.
And it says, in the sidebar, it won't cause him to turn evil unless he does it over and over again. And that the longer between casting (which I have to assume are done out of desperation), the less likely his alignment will change. All of these say 'typically', 'pattern', 'likely'...all of these are written in a way that they aren't hard-set rules, unlike what people are intending. This is a sidebar full of advice, and says 'The GM decides', which is a glaring point in favor of this.
Personally, I think this is their response to people who claim casting an Evil spell has no affect on a character's alignment. Fortunately for me, I haven't had to deal with many players who wanted to, and the one player who wanted to play a necromancer in my games accepted it when I told him that I refuse to GM for evil characters or allow PVP, and his character would be disruptive in the game I was running.
There is no text support for reciprocal inverseness. It is far far easier to slip towards evil than to climb towards good. A truly good wizard doesn't use animate dead as a first resort, nor even typically as last measure, but as a once in a lifetime desperation move.
And it's really up to campaigns and DM's to set up a desired level of "grayness" and nuance. After all in the Earth of Living Death, even casting a cure light wounds spell can open you up to Taint.
I wish character choices could be made this ephemerally in the game. Unfortunately, choice made are usually set in stone including spells. It's kinda useless to pick a spell you might plan to use literally once in a hundred years.
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Some people seem to be taking from this quote that an evil caster can cast protection from evil three times, and become good. That is totally and completely false.
It takes five castings.
On a slightly more serious note, suppose an evil sorcerer is working on a hideous plan to sacrifice 200 innocent children to gain their souls' power as his own. A paladin comes along to stop him. In order to give the paladin a 'fun' moral dilemma, the sorcerer summons several angels and forces the paladin to fight them. By the above rule, the sorcerer is now Good.
This is helm of opposite alignment territory here. The sorcerer hasn't just started wearing a Good hat instead of an Evil hat. The sorcerer now Good. His world view, and his goals, will have changed. He won't want to sacrifice 200 innocent children, or even one, in order to gain power. The forces of Good have prevailed! Hooray!
THIS. SO MUCH.
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I'm not sure why people are mad.
The alignment descriptors were always stupid.
At least now it's a defined level of stupid.
If anything I'd imagine the people who'd be mad are the "This isn't a video game!" crowd because this shit is just like Fallout 3's karma meter.
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Yes, the wording is problematic, but it does put an end to the constant lawyering.
(There is a reason popular folklore puts all the lawyers in Hell.)
Does anyone seriously thinks that animating dead to protect defenseless people balances out? Animating that corpse damages the soul/spirit of that dead person. He cannot be reincarnated or raised, and can only be brought back by a full resurrection. That Reincarnation or Raise Dead is unlikely is irrelevant. You are still forcing the soul to go into the afterlife damaged, and you have no right to do so. However you want to spin it, it is still evil.
If you want a game where you can talk your way out of any consequence, cool, try not to get ....hurt when not everyone agrees with you.
People like to make up the whole "Animate Dead damages the corpse" thing, but it's not actually stated or even hinted at in the books that the undead animated by Animate Dead are anything more than corpses reanimated by negative energy.
That, honestly, would have been a better thing to flesh out in Horror Adventures. Not some silly karma meter, but WHY some of the most common [Evil] spells are Evil.
Given nobody is talking about it though, doesn't seem they took the time.
Whelp. I guess basically all my wizards and sorcerers are evil now. Serves me right for being the wrong class for helping orphans recover from injuries. I mean, its not like I am actively killing devils and then using the blood to restore the forces of good or anything. Oh, wait a minute, I am. (And for the record, my characters who use the spell make a point of killing devils and specifically collecting the blood instead of relying on spell component pouches/eschew materials).
Another interesting implication of this, Balanced Summons just got better (now I am committing aggressively neutral acts by summoning hound archons and hellhounds), and Enslaving Angels makes you become good, but only in large quantities.
Just another reason to not refer to alignment for me.
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This is helm of opposite alignment territory here. The sorcerer hasn't just started wearing a Good hat instead of an Evil hat. The sorcerer now Good. His world view, and his goals, will have changed. He won't want to sacrifice 200 innocent children, or even one, in order to gain power. The forces of Good have prevailed! Hooray!
Evil Sorcerer Mentor: There is nothing quite as exhilarating as falling to evil. I always ensure to change my alignment to good before every horrific sacrifice to my dark patron, even if I don't strictly need to. It's like making every time your first time, and yes I meant to phrase it that way.
Does anyone seriously thinks that animating dead to protect defenseless people balances out?
Raises hand; it's never been an inherently evil act at my table.
Animating that corpse damages the soul/spirit of that dead person.
No it doesn't. Nowhere has anything ever said that.
He cannot be reincarnated or raised, and can only be brought back by a full resurrection
Equally true of any effect that causes damage to a corpse, including burning the body (which would generally be considered an acceptable non-evil method of disposing of the corpses of your deceased enemies). Regular Resurrection will still work if the undead creature is destroyed or a piece of the body was removed before it was raised as an undead creature. The soul is just fine, it's the vessel that needs repairing.
Hm.. I can see the argument for it being 5 total to go to evil, but that wording is really shoddy for indicating that. As it is currently worded 2 is nongood and 3 or more is grounds for going to evil. it doesn't say an additional 3 or more just 3 or more castings of evil spells.
Now again I like your point in the discussion more because it lends a bit more leeway but still this is a mess of a sidebar.
animating dead was just an example. Casting protection from good, an evil spell, has the same effects and rules as the animate dead spell has.
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And this is what I mean. When you only care about the numbers and not about the character's mentality really. If you are good, you wouldn't want to cast evil magics or worship an evil patron. However, if we are only going off the numbers than all that matters is the numbers. Lets play spreadsheets. Compare numbers against another person's numbers, tally with the variables, and see who has the higher numbers. If yours are higher, reduce some of their numbers by a variable and do it again. role-playing games sure sound fun when you ignore the meaning behind things and solely play the system.
Or... you look at the spell and see that the only thing that makes animate dead evil at all is a stupid tag that makes no sense. Same with infernal healing, aside from the tag, how is casting it "Evil"? The result is you cured someone. That's Good. The tag can go cry in the corner for being inaccurate.
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And this is what I mean. When you only care about the numbers and not about the character's mentality really. If you are good, you wouldn't want to cast evil magics or worship an evil patron. However, if we are only going off the numbers than all that matters is the numbers. Lets play spreadsheets. Compare numbers against another person's numbers, tally with the variables, and see who has the higher numbers. If yours are higher, reduce some of their numbers by a variable and do it again. role-playing games sure sound fun when you ignore the meaning behind things and solely play the system.
Put another way an evil caster trying to bend evil outsiders to his will using magic circle of protection from evil when binding them has to be careful not to cast it too many times or risk suddenly being good.
The evil caster has good reason role playwise to use magic circle of protection from evil and that can turn him neutral and then good.
To quote firefly, "Does that seem right to you?"
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And this is what I mean. When you only care about the numbers and not about the character's mentality really. If you are good, you wouldn't want to cast evil magics or worship an evil patron. However, if we are only going off the numbers than all that matters is the numbers. Lets play spreadsheets. Compare numbers against another person's numbers, tally with the variables, and see who has the higher numbers. If yours are higher, reduce some of their numbers by a variable and do it again. role-playing games sure sound fun when you ignore the meaning behind things and solely play the system.
If it resulted in good ends, a good character may well use evil magics. Some might not. That's up to the character in question.
The problem is this rule opens a can of stupid that cares more about means than the ends. Which can be valid for certain monstrous acts and such, but when you start having people who save many lives and protecting people pinging evil because they made corpse robot defenders for people, or started healing them or called up some angels to help you, your morality system starts to break down in it's validity.
But hey, when your heroes are immune to the bad guys trick cus they are also "evil" I don't think anyone is gonna complain :p. It's just gonna mean you'll need a new alignment catagory for actual bad guys. Maybe M, for mustache.
I guess I am one of those people who make things up, Sundakan.
From Animate Dead:
This spell turns corpses into **undead** skeletons or zombies that obey your spoken commands.
(I starred the word undead because I have heard the argument that animated is not undead)
From Reincarnate:
A creature that has been turned into an undead creature or killed by a death effect can't be returned to life by this spell.
From Raise Dead:
A creature who has been turned into an undead creature or killed by a death effect can't be raised by this spell.
If you don't like or agree with this, cool. Saying it is all made up is demonstrably untrue.
It is also rude, and diminishes your own reputation.
Do I like it as written? No, not really
Do I feel that it is a valid attempt to address an issue that really aught to be addressed?
Yes, I do, I have had to sit through a lot of really specious arguments as a GM and even as a player. I have even had a player trying to justify a paladin walking through a scene of rape and torture as being OK because he didn't actually rape and torture the victims himself.
EDIT. I forgot to add, yes, I agree that the ends can help to mitigate the means, but certainly do not erase them.