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If you believe The Key of Solomon, summoning demons is an explicitly Good act.
Heh, but any demon caller would. It's sort of necessary unless you already have a pact with the demon you call. Lest they rip you a new one the moment they arrive.(Well, circle of PfE)
Leeeeeeeeeet's avoid bringing real world religions into alignment debates, shall we?
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Heh, but any demon caller would. It's sort of necessary unless you already have a pact with the demon you call. Lest they rip you a new one the moment they arrive.(Well, circle of PfE)My deal, is that if you have devils fighting demons or a lich that if they use spells that are normally effective against their enemies. Like align weapon to bypass DR or protection from evil since their enemies are evil, and suddenly, you have good guys fighting good guys?...
A succubus wants to target an evil wizard and the evil wizard knows about this. if they take counter measures, suddenly there's no more evil.
yeah, not fond of this as it realistically shifts people towards good and probably lawful. I see evil fighting evil as more probable than good fighting good, and I see chaos fighting chaos more than law fighting law. suddenly, only new borns are evil since they are evil at birth.
The creatures you mentioned would not do this then specifically to avoid such scenarios.
I've also never heard of scenarios of one set of Fiends casting PfE on themselves when going up against other Fiends.
True, but the alignment repercussions casting PfE (Good spell) is immediately nullified by summoning a demon (Evil spell).
Which goes off your words on Morality, I'm casting a Good Spell in order to summon a Demon.
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True, but the alignment repercussions casting PfE (Good spell) is immediately nullified by summoning a demon (Evil spell).
Which goes off your words on Morality, I'm casting a Good Spell in order to summon a Demon.
Here is a big conflict with the Horror Adventures aligned casting rules people have(along with how many casts cause an alignment switch). There, it states performing an evil act with good intentions is still an evil act. Thus, casting a good spell for an evil reason is a good act. Actions trump intent.
Now, it is true that they would cancel out. But this doesn't include casting PfE on yourself just in case the creature does break out. Or casting it on your meat shield. Especially any demon with mind control powers. Two to one casts of good and evil spells would lead you to be good and would make much sense for any summoner of evil creatures.
This leads me to believe the protection spells should not have any alignment, not that aligned casting is bad in general. If only because it harms a staple of fantasy stories. Evil casters calling evil outsiders to guard their lairs.
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Here is the biggest conflict with Horror Adventures. There, it states performing an evil act with good intentions is still an evil act. Thus, casting a good spell for an evil reason is a good act. Actions trump intent.
Now, it is true that they would cancel out. But this doesn't include casting PfE on yourself just in case the creature does break out. Or casting it on your meat shield. Especially any demon with mind control powers. Two to one casts of good and evil spells would lead you to be good and would make much sense for any summoner of evil creatures.
This leads me to believe the protection spells should not have any alignment, not that aligned casting is bad in general. If only because it harms a staple of fantasy stories. Evil casters calling evil outsiders to guard their lairs.
*nods*
This is the main reason I almost never used Protection From... spells in, well ever.
Leeeeeeeeeet's avoid bringing real world religions into alignment debates, shall we?If you believe The Key of Solomon, summoning demons is an explicitly Good act.
Heh, but any demon caller would. It's sort of necessary unless you already have a pact with the demon you call. Lest they rip you a new one the moment they arrive.(Well, circle of PfE)
Not to offend, but it gets a little hard to talk about magic, demons, angels, and comparing real-world morality including them without having at least vague references to real world religions...
...but you do have a vile but valid point, Succubus.
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Leeeeeeeeeet's avoid bringing real world religions into alignment debates, shall we?If you believe The Key of Solomon, summoning demons is an explicitly Good act.
Heh, but any demon caller would. It's sort of necessary unless you already have a pact with the demon you call. Lest they rip you a new one the moment they arrive.(Well, circle of PfE)Not to offend, but it gets a little hard to talk about magic, demons, angels, and comparing real-world morality including them without having at least vague references to real world religions...
...but you do have a vile but valid point, Succubus.
No, no, it's actually very easy to avoid talking about them at all when talking about a fantasy setting and game rules.
Evil people do not use Protection from Evil when they fight with other evil people.Sure they do.
Surely they do not.
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Here is a big conflict with the Horror Adventures aligned casting rules people have(along with how many casts cause an alignment switch). There, it states performing an evil act with good intentions is still an evil act. Thus, casting a good spell for an evil reason is a good act. Actions trump intent.
I think this is just a symptom of the disconnect between the idea in the setting of "good and evil are elemental forces" and the common language understanding of those terms.
Since absent discussion of any sort of reward after you die, or some sort of "undone by your own malfeasance" ironic narrative, if you cast evil spells with good intent and in-doing-so create good outcomes, then who cares that the spell was evil to begin with?
If intent doesn't matter, and outcome doesn't matter, and the only thing making the spells evil is "what kind of energy they use" it's essentially the GM dangling "if you do this, bad things are going to happen to you someday" over your head. Personally I'd advocate just throwing away the notions of "good and evil are elemental forces" or at least making the metaphysics more ambiguous. The simplest fix I think is to recontextualize the energy associated with fiends/angels to be the way it is because of how fiends/angels are, rather than the other way around.
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Evil people do not use Protection from Evil when they fight with other evil people.Sure they do.Surely they do not.
That which can be asserted without evidence etc.
Any such NPC I run that is aware of an enemy alignment would invest in protection from such.
Especially if said opposition was known to use mental control effects.
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High level demons should definitely be holding on to +1 Holy weapons for the occasional intramural squabble. A Marilith should view those as a prime acquisition, negative level is totally worth it.
Evil people do not use Protection from Evil when they fight with other evil people.Sure they do.Surely they do not.
You think no one ever used PfE in a Hell's Vengeance campaign?
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Here is a big conflict with the Horror Adventures aligned casting rules people have(along with how many casts cause an alignment switch). There, it states performing an evil act with good intentions is still an evil act. Thus, casting a good spell for an evil reason is a good act. Actions trump intent.
That's a fallacy. If you cast a good spell for an evil reason, it's still evil, which is why HA doesn't make your claim. Surely you can think of at least one spell with a [good] descriptor that can be used with deliberate non-good evil intent... and thus would be evil. Actions do not always trump intent.
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The real evil individual is the game designer who created infernal healing in the first place.
There's no way they were unaware of the ramifications of creating a more efficient healing option, then declaring it evil.
I can just imagine the author wringing his hands in evil glee at the temptation and turmoil he has brought into the world.
Along with the creator of Celestial Healing, he basically codified that Evil is Efficient and Good is Garbage. On top of that, it sealed the concept that Good and Evil are abstract, alien concepts in Pathfinder.
If someone casts Infernal Healing to help someone recover from a field accident or Create Infernal Food and Drink to feed the starving on Fiendish Boar or Daemon Physiology to cure a leper, he's a bad guy. A good guy, however, would balk at helping these people due to the ramifications.
In another example, if you have a choice to drink a Protection from Good potion to keep someone from killing an orphan, you should refuse to drink the Protection from Good potion since doing so is evil and the orphan's fate isn't on you, per se.
Maybe they should have spelled out that it's evil and kinda shady... oh wait: "You anoint a wounded creature with devil’s blood or unholy water, giving it fast healing 1. This ability cannot repair damage caused by silver weapons, good-aligned weapons, or spells or effects with the good descriptor. The target detects as an evil creature for the duration of the spell and can sense the evil of the magic, though this has no long-term effect on the target’s alignment."
Please. Stop whining. It was by design, and I believe James Jacobs mentioned many times that asymmetry between good and evil is not necessarily a bad thing. It's what makes heroes what they are: the stoic refusal to take the moral shortcuts in life and refuse wealth, power and a harem of sex slaves, so as to stay pure or at least credible / inspirational to those who long to throw off the shackles of oppression.
Now proceed to tear my post apart. Thanks! :)
Evil people do not use Protection from Evil when they fight with other evil people.Sure they do.Surely they do not.
That which can be asserted without evidence etc.
Any such NPC I run that is aware of an enemy alignment would invest in protection from such.
Especially if said opposition was known to use mental control effects.
I replied with the same effort.
You can invest in protection from mind control. Hell, there are myriad of ways to do that, who knows how many printed. But using Protection from Evil to do it is the wrong call.
Because it breaks the internal logic behind the alignment system. Which of course has to be read between the lines, making it partial interpretation.
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Here is a big conflict with the Horror Adventures aligned casting rules people have(along with how many casts cause an alignment switch). There, it states performing an evil act with good intentions is still an evil act. Thus, casting a good spell for an evil reason is a good act. Actions trump intent.That's a fallacy. If you cast a good spell for an evil reason, it's still evil, which is why HA doesn't make your claim. Surely you can think of at least one spell with a [good] descriptor that can be used with deliberate non-good intent... and thus would be evil. Actions do not always trump intent.
In that case I would say the action is simultaneously good and evil. Casting the evil spell is evil, regardless. If done for the purpose of good, then it is also good. The problem is that we have a codified rule for how evil it is to cast the spell, while it's up to the GM to determine how good the reasons were in comparison.
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High level demons should definitely be holding on to +1 Holy weapons for the occasional intramural squabble. A Marilith should view those as a prime acquisition, negative level is totally worth it.
You think no one ever used PfE in a Hell's Vengeance campaign?Evil people do not use Protection from Evil when they fight with other evil people.Sure they do.Surely they do not.
The players use it all the time in my campaign. Reason: evil does not mean stupid. Lots (most) enemies on the random encounter tables are evil as French seals.
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You can invest in protection from mind control. Hell, there are myriad of ways to do that, who knows how many printed. But using Protection from Evil to do it is the wrong call.
Because it breaks the internal logic behind the alignment system. Which of course has to be read between the lines, making it partial interpretation.
It's absolutely the right call, as it is the same effort as Protection From Good and actually works.
It doesn't break any logic, because that's just how the rules function.
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It's absolutely the right call, as it is the same effort as Protection From Good and actually works.It doesn't break any logic, because that's just how the rules function.
The system is more than its rules.
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Thirded. Necromancy (healing) is what it should be...I miss Healing being in the Necromancy school...Seconded forever.
This. So much this.
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The real evil individual is the game designer who created infernal healing in the first place.
There's no way they were unaware of the ramifications of creating a more efficient healing option, then declaring it evil.
I can just imagine the author wringing his hands in evil glee at the temptation and turmoil he has brought into the world.
Yeah, have to agree with this and the OP: so many debates and problems would have been avoided if they'd just kept this spell unaligned, like the 3.x spell that inspired it was.
No, no, it's actually very easy to avoid talking about them at all when talking about a fantasy setting and game rules.
Not to offend, but it gets a little hard to talk about magic, demons, angels, and comparing real-world morality including them without having at least vague references to real world religions...
...but you do have a vile but valid point, Succubus.
If you pay attention, you'll notice that Pathfinder doesn't attach an alignment to consorting with Demons and Devils. It's not particularly Evil to accept help from them unless it's called out as [Evil]. It's works of literature (such as the ones I referenced before) that set the precedence of the morality of those actions.
For less written-about religions, posters tend to refer directly to the religion as to how the Gods and Creatures act.
Now, I'll respect that you don't want me to make references to literature that reference religions, but you're being disingenuous or willfully ignoring references to other fiction if you're claiming that it's very, very easy to avoid doing so.
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I agree that healing spells should be under Necromancy and I did not even play 2.e I just like the flavour better that way.
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I agree that healing spells should be under Necromancy and I did not even play 2.e I just like the flavour better that way.
Necromancy is control over life and death.
Nothing does this more than healing.
Dipping into the forces of evil in order to try to do good never working out well is one of the oldest tropes in the genre.So is, "If you kill him, you'll become just like him." But Pathfinder seems to have avoided that one.
See, this is Pathfinder- not human vs human in the for realz world.
Interesting that religion should be brought up in this debate, I mean all these weirdo demon things come from religion. Heck the majority of D&D based ideas and concepts come from religion and religious concepts. Spells, monsters, gods- it's all from somewhere. In D&D you can have a pagan jewish folklore monster fight a modern day christan demon. Or you can have a buddhist magical beast fight a hindu chaotic outsider.
And people are like "alignment?? Phooey! Balderdash! Nonsense! No place in the game"
That said, all this talk of 'mechanicalizing' alignment through aligned spells and acts just smacks of the usual pathfinder bloat that comes from trying to make rules for every single little thing. It should entirely be up to the GM fiat because there are just so many variables as we can see by this threads discussion.
Something something Succubi...
I've seen this said several times on these boards.
What's the source? What does it mean?
Something something Succubi...I've seen this said several times on these boards.
What's the source? What does it mean?
It's a way of saying there's an implied joke in what came before, but you either haven't thought it through enough to come up with a coherent version, or the joke is somewhat inappropriate so you want to leave it implied rather than stated.
The preceding statement included the phrase "dipping into the forces of evil," so Rysky was implying a joke about "dipping into" a Succubus but leaving it as innuendo.
As far as a source I'd say the show Archer has made this sort of thing a popular gambit, although on there it take the form of "wait, I had something for this."
I think Infernal healing is a great spell, and I really wish that it's flavor wasn't watered down in PFS with the whole "evil spells aren't really evil" ruling that they have.
Half of the point of the spell is that there is possible corruption involved in it's use, but it's so very effective... and cheap, that the temptation is there for everyone to use it.
Actually, I think that's the entire point of the spell...
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Actually, I think that's the entire point of the spell...I think Infernal healing is a great spell, and I really wish that it's flavor wasn't watered down in PFS with the whole "evil spells aren't really evil" ruling that they have.
Half of the point of the spell is that there is possible corruption involved in it's use, but it's so very effective... and cheap, that the temptation is there for everyone to use it.
I think if they wanted real temptation, then it'd be a spell that does superior damage for its level. As it is, it's mostly just really efficient out of combat healing, which is practical but also boring. Boring things aren't usually your first pick for temptation.
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Here is a big conflict with the Horror Adventures aligned casting rules people have(along with how many casts cause an alignment switch). There, it states performing an evil act with good intentions is still an evil act. Thus, casting a good spell for an evil reason is a good act. Actions trump intent.
Performing an evil act for good means is still an evil act, but the reverse is not true.
Honestly, it's pretty simple:
It's easier to be evil than to be good
Intent matters, but the ends do not justify the means.
Evil means, evil intent: Evil action.
Evil means, good intent: Evil action.
Good means, evil intent: Evil action.
Good means, good intent: Good action.
Being good is supposed to be an uphill battle... just like in the real world.
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I think if they wanted real temptation, then it'd be a spell that does superior damage for its level. As it is, it's mostly just really efficient out of combat healing, which is good but also boring. Boring things aren't usually your first pick for temptation.Actually, I think that's the entire point of the spell...I think Infernal healing is a great spell, and I really wish that it's flavor wasn't watered down in PFS with the whole "evil spells aren't really evil" ruling that they have.
Half of the point of the spell is that there is possible corruption involved in it's use, but it's so very effective... and cheap, that the temptation is there for everyone to use it.
Ahh... the banality of evil. Asmodeus smiles.
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I love how threads about infernal healing always become a morality debate.
Because of that I'd say the spell has more out of game consquences than in game :)
The existence of the spell is intended to be a morality conundrum. At least, that's how I use it in my games!
Asmodeus released that spell into the world to corrupt mortals. Given how much the spell is used (and the board debates about it), I think it's working!
IMO, a better solution to this problem in the long term is to adapt D&D 5E's short/long rest rules to Pathfinder. There are other ways to create money sinks than gating sustainable progress. Healing woes and wand management have slowed the party I'm running through Reign of Winter to a crawl.
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Here's a thought experiment.
Let's say we have a character whose only evil acts have been casting Infernal Healing to save lives. This is the only evil spell that they know. This character has never hurt anyone, and is in fact a pacifist. They've never cheated, lied, stolen, or done any other evil act. Committing these acts just feels wrong to them. But they are now objectively evil because the only way for them to save friends on the verge of death was to use Infernal Healing.
How is their evilness expressed in the game?
Any number of ways, but for the sake of the experiment, let's say they're 1st-Level Sorcerer.
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Why did such a supposed saint learn infernal healing in the first place?
Because it's more healing for his spell slot and works on more creatures. Or he's a class that doesn't get cure spells but gets this and he wanted to heal up HP wounds.
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Here's a thought experiment.
Let's say we have a character whose only evil acts have been casting Infernal Healing to save lives. This is the only evil spell that they know. This character has never hurt anyone, and is in fact a pacifist. They've never cheated, lied, stolen, or done any other evil act. Committing these acts just feels wrong to them. But they are now objectively evil because the only way for them to save friends on the verge of death was to use Infernal Healing.
How is their evilness expressed in the game?
Where is this saint getting all of his Devil blood to annoint people with? What is he giving the Devil who provides it in return for his supply?
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No, no, it's actually very easy to avoid talking about them at all when talking about a fantasy setting and game rules.
Not to offend, but it gets a little hard to talk about magic, demons, angels, and comparing real-world morality including them without having at least vague references to real world religions...
...but you do have a vile but valid point, Succubus.
** spoiler omitted **
As for literature setting the precedent for dealing with Fiends, again, a non-sequitur. Dealing with Fiends is covered the same way dealing with everything else is covered in Pathfinder. Talking with a Devil is not an Evil act. A Daemon giving you a sandwich is not an Evil act.
So to repeat, it is beyond easy, in that it takes no effort, to not bring real world religion into discussions about the Pathfinder setting and rules system. You actively brought it in, you're the only one pushing it.
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Where is this saint getting all of his Devil blood to annoint people with?Eschew Materials.
Or the false focus feat can work too for it if you say it has a cost and eschew materials doesn't work.
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Where is this saint getting all of his Devil blood to annoint people with? What is he giving the Devil who provides it in return for his supply?Here's a thought experiment.
Let's say we have a character whose only evil acts have been casting Infernal Healing to save lives. This is the only evil spell that they know. This character has never hurt anyone, and is in fact a pacifist. They've never cheated, lied, stolen, or done any other evil act. Committing these acts just feels wrong to them. But they are now objectively evil because the only way for them to save friends on the verge of death was to use Infernal Healing.
How is their evilness expressed in the game?
From the local apothecary that sells Spell Component Pouches. You know, the same merchant who sells butter, bat poop, and every other spell component without a listed cost.
Along with the creator of Celestial Healing, he basically codified that Evil is Efficient and Good is Garbage. On top of that, it sealed the concept that Good and Evil are abstract, alien concepts in Pathfinder.
If someone casts Infernal Healing to help someone recover from a field accident or Create Infernal Food and Drink to feed the starving on Fiendish Boar or Daemon Physiology to cure a leper, he's a bad guy. A good guy, however, would balk at helping these people due to the ramifications.
In another example, if you have a choice to drink a Protection from Good potion to keep someone from killing an orphan, you should refuse to drink the Protection from Good potion since doing so is evil and the orphan's fate isn't on you, per se.
This reasoning is utterly laughable
Casting infernal healing to save someone is a compounded action: Casting Infernal Healing (Evil) and Saving a life (Good). Now, the good of saving a person outweights the evil of casting a level 1 spell itself, so at net you have a good action.
The severity of Infernal Healing in a vacuum is more akin to punching a passerby in the face rather than murder
Same for the other silly stuff like drinking a potion of protection from good