Murael's page

You are familiar with the concept of role-playing, yes?

...this is an instance where the consequences for how you BEHAVE and how you ROLE-PLAY appear to be getting muddled.

Can we maybe agree to leave ad hominem attacks out of this? I'm trying to point out a legitimate concern here, not start fights... there's no reason for aggression. That said, if I have misinterpreted you, I apologize.

Some concepts are appropriate to play in a given setting, other concepts aren't, and some come with big "kick me" signs on them. You'll still be able to do some undead-raising stuff, you just won't be able to wander the market sipping Perrier and shopping for a new tablecloth with your undead posse...

1) Is it really that difficult to conceive of a town that supports necromancy?

2) I restate: the no Rep loss portion of the heinous flag applies to those with bad *character behavior* a mechanic primarily implemented to punish bad *player behavior*. It blurs the line between the two, which I think is not only unfair but a poor precedent to set.

Edit: formatting fail

Entirely aside from the fact that if a necromancer uses his spells with any frequency, he will pick up Villain, which makes it open-season on him long-term. That would be like any other wizard getting to cast 10 fireballs before being labeled an arsonist and becoming fair game for anybody of any power level for the next day.

I don't necessarily want to SUMMON them in front of a paladin.

But if I'm looking at fighting one, I'm sure as crap going to want my minions in whom I invested my training (at the opportunity cost of, say, skill in swords or fireballs) by my side.

But if I have them by my side, the paladin suffers no consequences for ganking me, regardless of how much more powerful than me he is, because I will by definition have the heinous flag for having undead under my control.

Minutes, maybe even only seconds, not days.

For undead, it's likely to just be the time it takes to summon the undead (maybe plus a little bit if the summoning time is really quick). By the time you can be like, "What? THESE undead, Mr. Paladin? I got these as a bequest from my grandfather. A terrible act, of course, but it seems like wasting them would be an even greater crime!" then the opponent is on shakier moral ground.

It'd probably vary for other stuff, and it's up for debate regardless. Guiding rule would probably be if you're clearly in the process of doing something awful and any LG court in the world would consider it open and shut, then you'd get it, but if you've put any reasonable doubt in between you and the act, you only have to worry about it if you did it somewhere where it also got you the Criminal flag.

The problem here that I still don't see addressed:

Undead-using necromancers are going to be flagged heinous 100% of the time that they're actually using the abilities they acquired in accordance with game mechanics. At least according to the blog, which says that you will retain the flag for as long as the evil act lasts (using raising undead specifically as an example) + the normal duration of the flag. Which means that anyone who chooses that particular character path will be a free kill with no rep loss.

As I see it, this is a problem from two positions.

First, it really sounds like it is going to be literally impossible to be a necromancer with a high reputation, which seems thematically absurd to me as many of the most notorious villains tend to be undead/associate with necromancy--Sauron and Count Strahd von Zarovich come to mind.

Second, the mechanical effect is going to treat an entire class (I know the game isn't class-based, but you know what I mean) as second-class players, giving them ALWAYS-ACTIVE (as long as they're actually using their abilities) punishments equivalent to a PKer or griefer. This is effectively conflating ROLEPLAYING an evil bastard (ripping imaginary souls from their rest) to BEING an a+#$!+! (griefing lower-power players, making the game unenjoyable for others).

I don't have a problem with (in-character) plumbing the depths of evil. Thematically, I recognize that all of the gods and most of the (unenlightened! ;) ) people will loathe me for it. But being a wicked necromancer should not make me an automatic kill-on-sight for everybody ever. If I am reading the blog correctly, this is an instance where the consequences for how you BEHAVE and how you ROLE-PLAY appear to be getting muddled.

Again, this all assumes that necromancers aren't ridiculously overpowered to make up for the fact that they're going to have to fight off every Tom, Dick, and Harry that they come across.

Neutral should be the default alignment. If you don't want to be Neutral then you should be working towards a cause.

Agreed. All characters should default back to True Neutral over time unless they partake in consistent behaviors that push them toward another alignment. Part of what makes paladins awesome is they go out and promote good and justice. They don't just simply not do evil/chaotic actions. A rock doesn't do chaotic or evil things and they aren't lawful good. Inanimate objects are true neutral just like sentient beings that don't do anything aligned to an axis.

I agree with this, too. Maybe a system wherein a lawful character is required to, say, help the guards enforce laws against criminals when crime happens nearby? Or at least quest givers that offer onerous and otherwise-unattractive quests, but which reward you with +law. Or protecting attacked from attacker in the wild. I don't know, there are lots of possibilities for reforming this, but it just doesn't sit right that doing nothing is LG.

"Anyone may kill a Heinous character without fearing >>REPUTATION<< or alignment loss."

Wat.

So I'm basically treated the same a a griefer just for using the undead. Necromancy better be GROSSLY OP if this is going to make it into live... -_-

I can understand not suffering alignment loss (toward evil) for killing a necromancer. But not suffering reputation loss? As someone else said, sounds like this unfairly and unnecessarily targets one playstyle.