| 3 people marked this as FAQ candidate. |
hi, i was wondering, the best creatures (sometimes the only ones) you can summon with a SM spell are demon/devils, that is considered an evil act? because if it is so, an evil summoner is way more powerful than a good one
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
hi, i was wondering, the best creatures (sometimes the only ones) you can summon with a SM spell are demon/devils, that is considered an evil act? because if it is so, an evil summoner is way more powerful than a good one
Bah, alignment is a tool. It's what you do with the summoned creatures that defines the act of summoning. In a vacuum, if you simply summon evil critters for conversation, tea, and advice, yeah, not such a good thing. If you summon evil creatures to save the orphanage, not such a bad thing, no?
|
hi, i was wondering, the best creatures (sometimes the only ones) you can summon with a SM spell are demon/devils, that is considered an evil act? because if it is so, an evil summoner is way more powerful than a good oneBah, alignment is a tool. It's what you do with the summoned creatures that defines the act of summoning. In a vacuum, if you simply summon evil critters for conversation, tea, and advice, yeah, not such a good thing. If you summon evil creatures to save the orphanage, not such a bad thing, no?
No.
|
Admittedly this gets really squirrely when you have people using Planar Binding to imprison fiends in oubliettes or to bind celestials so you can torture and/or sacrifice them.
Hell, even when used with pure intentions I can't help but imagine celestials viewing mortals using that spell as something akin to telemarketers.
I've often thought that summoning a monster to fight and die for you doesn't sound like the act of a good person. I know its not really dwelt upon, its just a spell. They appear and fight for you.
Presumably they come from somewhere, and they are real. At least for the purposes of an imaginery game they're real creatures of whatever type. It would seem an incredibly callous thing to magically teleport in a creature from wherever and whatever it was doing to fight and die for you. If it beats your opponent or survives the encounter it magically reappears whereve it last was wondering what the heck just happened.
Why isn't there humans on the summon monster list. Or just simply a Summon Human or Summon Elven Mage. It doesn't seem any more or less callous than Summon Monster.
I've often thought that summoning a monster to fight and die for you doesn't sound like the act of a good person. I know its not really dwelt upon, its just a spell. They appear and fight for you.
Presumably they come from somewhere, and they are real. At least for the purposes of an imaginery game they're real creatures of whatever type. It would seem an incredibly callous thing to magically teleport in a creature from wherever and whatever it was doing to fight and die for you. If it beats your opponent or survives the encounter it magically reappears whereve it last was wondering what the heck just happened.
Why isn't there humans on the summon monster list. Or just simply a Summon Human or Summon Elven Mage. It doesn't seem any more or less callous than Summon Monster.
Summoned Critters don't actually die when reduced to 0 hp or lower.
CRB page 210, Summoning:
"A summoned creature also goes away if it is killed or if its hit points drop to 0 or lower, but it is not really dead. It takes 24 hours for the creature to reform, during which time it can't be summoned again."
|
|
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
The way a number of folks have rationalized it:
Planar beings have a "switch" of sorts that can be turned on willingly or unwillingly that makes them eligible for standard quick summoning.
They could do it themselves because they want to help(celestials, they could do it for sport(genies), they could do it for the opportunity to stir up trouble(fiends).
They might have it turned on by their masters as punishment(a lot of fiends, neutral types) or because they let their Secret Something get out to the public that makes them summon bait.
Cleric: Thanks for your help!
Hound Archon: No prob. Mind if I add you to my Friends list?
Cleric: Nah! Go right ahead!
Hound Archon: <3
FIVE LEVELS LATER
Cleric: Wait what.
BIG D@WG-$3V3N H34V3NZ PACK: Yo. This is my clan. Mind if they join?
Tha Gr8t Dane-$3V3N H34V3NZ PACK: MEDIC!
Tha Gr8t Dane-$3V3N H34V3NZ PACK: MEDIC!
Kheigh999999999-$3V3N H34V3NZ PACK: how do i select awp
Tha Gr8t Dane-$3V3N H34V3NZ PACK: MEDIC!
BIG D@WG-$3V3N H34V3NZ PACK: He's right there man, stop spamming the server.
Tha Gr8t Dane-$3V3N H34V3NZ PACK: MEDIC!
Paladin: ...why is that one crouching over the heads of our fallen enemies?
Tha Gr8t Dane-$3V3N H34V3NZ PACK: MEDIC!
hi, i was wondering, the best creatures (sometimes the only ones) you can summon with a SM spell are demon/devils, that is considered an evil act? because if it is so, an evil summoner is way more powerful than a good oneNo it's not an evil act, but it is casting a spell with the [evil] descriptor which means that clerics of good deities or of good alignment cannot pray to their deities to grant them to them.
A good number of people confuse [evil] descriptor with an evil act. It's one of those places where the name muddies the waters in D&D.
-James
Except devs have stated that casting an evil spell is an evil action.
In a vacuum, if you simply summon evil critters for conversation, tea, and advice, yeah, not such a good thing.
What? What on earth is evil about summoning some demons to have tea with?
On the main topic of the thread, I'm with James in that casting spells with the [evil] descriptor should not be an evil act, and that the descriptor really just denotes what sorts of forces are at work in the spell.
But as some others have pointed out, the some devs have disagreed with that stance, and have pretty bluntly said that [evil] means casting the spell is an evil act.
I kinda wonder sometimes why D&D never ended up with any good aligned demons. Its not really a stretch. I mean, in the real world, once upon a yesteryear, we totally believed that demons could be either good or evil. Whatever humans could be morally, so could a demon. Solomon had both good and evil demons working for him and Socrates was believed to have been protected by some pretty nice ones. Zoroastrianism was the first religion to polarize Good and Evil gods (and demons and angels with them). And I realize that D&D has pretty much adopted a distorted version of the Abrahamic concept of demons, but given D&D's history of stealing ideas from anywhere and everywhere, you would think that somewhere down the line a few good aligned demons would make their way into a monster manual.
I think good "demons", mythologically speaking, would be represented in D&D by some of the celestials and genies, and maybe some other non-evil outsiders like azers.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Bringing Evil creatures into your home plane... Is that Evil?
Yes.
Will that make you lose your alignment?
No.
Will it cause Paladins and good clerics to fall?
Probably.
I kinda wonder sometimes why D&D never ended up with any good aligned demons. Its not really a stretch. I mean, in the real world, once upon a yesteryear, we totally believed that demons could be either good or evil. Whatever humans could be morally, so could a demon. Solomon had both good and evil demons working for him and Socrates was believed to have been protected by some pretty nice ones. Zoroastrianism was the first religion to polarize Good and Evil gods (and demons and angels with them). And I realize that D&D has pretty much adopted a distorted version of the Abrahamic concept of demons, but given D&D's history of stealing ideas from anywhere and everywhere, you would think that somewhere down the line a few good aligned demons would make their way into a monster manual.
Demons used to mean supernatural entity.
In D&D it refers specificially to chaotic evil outsiders. So you have good demons in the old sense in monster manual all the time - they are just refered to as celestials.
|
these spells provide plenty of options for good-aligned creatures of similar power and ability.
Yeah, check out all the good outsiders you can summon with summon monster VI, VII and VII!
Good guys don't blight the earth to save it when they don't need to.
Yes, in a game using your house rule, that would be an issue.
OTOH, having a free plant growth side-effect must be cool for the clerics, sorcerers and wizards capable of summoning up a lantern archon to hover over their garden daily.
Do angels of death or fiends of corrupt creation and fertility (such as succubi, or Lamashtu) also have these oddly flavor-reversed auras of life-enhancement / withering? It's not like life is inherently good (see, Ebola, Darth Vader, Hannibal Lector) or death is inherently evil...
|
This argument pops up frequently, but I think one of the posters had it right...it's what you do with the creature that makes it evil or not. Pathfinder has removed ALL references to casting evil spells as being evil acts.
If casting a spell with the [evil] descriptor makes you lean towards evil, then conversely every time you cast a [good] spell you should start to lean back towards good. Is there some karmic scoreboard that the Powers That Be keep every time a sorcerer casts Protection from Good? I guess I could just summon a few celestial dogs in the morning to get things back to neutral, like a daily vitamin.
Usually the proponents of the [evil] spells as evil acts (reflexively, without thought as to how the creatures are used) are capricious DMs who like to use alignment as a hammer against their good-aligned PCs.
I think that consorting with Demons for power (as opposed to pursuing less dangerous, but less powerful means) is definitely on its way strait to being evil.
I mean, you're telling me it was the only way to save an orphanage? No good creatures you could have called on instead? Or Heaven forbid, you had pursued something other than Demon Summoning which might have helped...
Its the Dark Side. Demons are the easy, quick route to power. Trying to rationalize the ends-justifies-the-means really goes to add to that IMO.
How you do a thing is important.
Note: thats not to say if its your only option left you shouldn't summon demons to do a 'good' thing. Doing a thing once is not a trend, and shouldn't change your alignment. But when you make a habit of it?
Then its starting to sound like "It was the only way!" is pretty hollow...
|
|
I see nothing wrong with a DM having NPCs distrust or even condemn a PC casting [evil] descriptor spells, but I do fault a DM that wants to see alignment as a brainless tally sheet.
-James
+1 to everything you said, James.
To add, usually those DMs only see the tally sheet move one way, regardless of what the PC does before or after the 'evil' act.
Each to their own, personally I think summoning [evil] creatures should at least be distasteful to good aligned creatures.
Summoning an archon to bring rightful justice upon your foes is quite acceptable, summoning a demon to do the same sounds rather hollow especially if the demon disembowels your foes and strangles them with their own intestines.
* I assume the following, which are all more or less houserules.. but then isnt alignment always a houserule
1) the summoner is responsible for what his/her summons do
2) the summoner can tell them what to do if he/she can communicate with them, but they are free to act within the confines of their orders and might choose to interpret it in a less favorable way or accomplish it in a way not intended by the summoner
3) summoning or creating [evil] creatures is a mildly evil act in itself, someone using such spells without (much)constraint will at best be neutral aligned
Stuff like this is why I wrote actual consequences into my home setting. Bad guys don't summon angels and stuff because summoning angels lets the associated gods see more clearly into the mortal plane there. Likewise, summoning devils and demons alerts the darker powers to your location and activities. It's even worse with undead. Even good undead (which can exist) are unwitting eyes and ears for the Lord of the Undead and may be host to his avatar (no save) at any time. Srs evulz.
hi, i was wondering, the best creatures (sometimes the only ones) you can summon with a SM spell are demon/devils, that is considered an evil act? because if it is so, an evil summoner is way more powerful than a good one
Once upon a time there was this article on how summoning spelllists could be reworked. Essentially looking at CR alone.
1) cr >1
2) CR 1
3) CR 2
4) CR 3-4
5) CR 5-6
6) CR 7-8
7) CR 9-10
8) CR 11-12
9) CR 13-14
This opens up angels and the like in a whole new way n addition to allowing new monsters... aswell as fiendish creativity within summoning rules :D
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I don't see much wrong with evil spells putting you on a path to evil, but conversely a good spell not putting you on a path to good.
Which some see as blatantly one way traffic.
For starters its a simplification so that every action doesn't get bogged down into some philosophical argument of whats good, whats evil, and turns the game into Lawyer Roleplaying.
To summon something evil to fight evil is stooping to their level - which is generally not taken to be a Good Thing, and depending who you ask is tantamount to becoming the monster yourself. On the other hand summoning something good ( to do an evil deed ), doesn't give you good karma just because its a good spell.
One of the differences between good and evil is that good ( in general terms ) tends to hold to its principles whilst evil will do whatever best serves its own purposes - even within a chaos and law framework ( for instance a good person is highly unlikely to kill an innocent, an evil person more likely ). Selfless vs Selfish. Hence its harder to stick to a doctrine of good than it is of evil. One is self imposed restrictive and the other is no holds barred expansive.
If a person murders a single person, but has cared for their mother for the ten years before it, in the eyes of society are they a murderer or a dedicated carer ?
Its easy to fall, its far harder to ascend. Easy to get dirty, harder to get clean. Hence for sake of simplification the slope tends to be one way, evil actions weigh more heavily than good ones, evil spells can make you slip a little down the slope, good ones don't register.
At least thats how I see it. If you want to be good, you have to maintain an example. Summoning demons does not maintain that standard. A chaotic good, you might argue would be less prone to worry about the niceties, and as a GM I would give some leeway, but misguided good intentions pave the way to hell. If summoning demons is your modus operandi, the dirt is going to rub off on you. And I think the simplified evil and good mechanic summarises that nicely.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
It could be worse. They could be Republicans.Well, consorting with fiends is usually frowned upon...
What? What on earth is evil about summoning some demons to have tea with?
What's wrong with Republicans?
They didn't in the books.And frankly which devs?
People who like to tow this line see a correlation between [evil] and evil but not for any of the other alignments as it becomes plainly clear how false and silly it is there.
The evil wizard summons celestials to slaughter villages isn't in danger of becoming good aligned, yet that's really what we're talking about here.
Alignment is not a point system that comprises of a list saying 'naughty' and 'nice' rather it's the whole of the character, how they act, feel and believe.
I see nothing wrong with a DM having NPCs distrust or even condemn a PC casting [evil] descriptor spells, but I do fault a DM that wants to see alignment as a brainless tally sheet.
-James
Ask and you shall receive! :P
I understand. If you use evil to get what you need or want, you are evil in the eyes of observers. Even if you did it for a good cause, you are still evil in a different way.Doesn't work that way in Pathfinder.
Evil and good in the game are actual quantifiable things. It doesn't matter if you think your'e doing something good even if it's an evil act. It's still an evil act.
The sketchy part comes in via the GM, because what one GM might call "evil" is not what another might call "evil."
To everybody who says: "it's a minor thing, homerule it and be happy !" - yes, but what about PFS ?PFS uses the core rules. Animate dead is evil, and animating dead is evil, and undead are evil. They're more or less off limits for PCs to play with as a result.
Kevin is on the spot (as usual). I really don't like the "undead = EEEEVIIIL !" route of D&D and I am sad that Paizo goes this way as well. It's killing several nice character ideas - I was always fond of "fight fire with fire, but watch out lest you burn your soul away" vibe of Neutral Necromancers, Malconvokers and others. SKR's "a skeleton is more evil than a 3rd world rapist drug-dealing warlord because skeletons exist to extinguish life" is silly.Where did I make a *qualitative* judgement about the relative evil-ness of X vs. Y? I did not. I stated that the negative energy used to create undead is evil. I didn't say it was *more evil* than what an intelligent evil human could come up with... I just said it's *inherently* evil.
It makes you crazy, and the type of player that would [make][sic] my GM alignment shift toward evil.So if I summon celestial creatures all the time and make them do evil things, or summon fiendish creatures and make them do good things, does that cancel out and make me neutral?
Does summonining elementals and other neutral creatures considered a neutral act? And will summoning such creatures enough eventually make me neutral?
Spells with the Evil descriptor are evil; that's why they have that descriptor. Same goes for Good or Lawful or Chaotic. That means that certain classes can't really cast them at all (divine classes of different alignments), but that other classes (arcane spellcasters, for the most part) can cast them as much as they like. But casting alignment spells a lot will and should turn the caster toward that alignment, unless the GM doesn't care about alignment and doesn't enforce such changes, in which case the GM should let EVERY player at the table know that alignment doesn't impact the game so that players who do play as if it does have a chance to adjust their play styles as appropriate. Removing the alignment types of certain spells has implications, though, and before you do so make sure that no one in your group is planning on building a character who uses the alignemnt descriptors in their character build! [url=http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoPublishing/olderProducts/pathfinderRPGBeta/generalPrerelease/doesCastingASpellWithTheEvilDescriptorTurnYouEvil&page=1#24][LINK][/ur]
One small evil act will not switch your Al, but if you repeat the same act, over and over and over it will.
The spells are evil, Just how big an impact using them has is the realm of your GM.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Here are the arguments I've seen so far for why summoning demons (or casting other [evil] spells) should be an evil act. I'm going to respond to each of them.
1. People frown on demon summoning. Let them frown! Just because people don't like what you're doing doesn't mean what you're doing is evil.
2. (from the devs) It says evil right there in the descriptor, how could it possibly not be an evil act!?! Because it's just a spell descriptor, and nowhere in the rules does it say that the spell descriptor makes the act evil. It says that a good cleric isn't going to be allowed by his God to summon demons, but it doesn't say that a paladin is going to lose his class features if he does the same.
3. Well in my home games I make evil spells have negative consequences. Good for you. They don't have inherent negative consequences in the actual game.
4. The means are evil so it doesn't matter if the ends are evil or not. I just want to clear something up. "Ends justify means" is not about whether consequences are more important than the actual actions. It's about whether certain consequences trump other consequences. For instance, if I pull a lever, and the consequences of that are that a train gets diverted from its original path (which would have killed hundreds) and instead barrels over a small child, we would have to have an ends justify means discussion to figure out the morality of the situation.
The ends justify means conversation would not be about whether the inherent evilness of lever-pulling is outweighed by the total consequences. It's about whether the negative, unwanted consequences (killing the small child) outweigh the positive, wanted consequences (saving the group of people). Ends justify means is about whether the good consequences override the evil consequences. In the rules, there are no evil consequences for summoning a demon to have tea with. Nothing bad happens as a result of your summoning, so ends justify means is not even relevant - there's no evil consequence to justify.
5. It's like the dark side of the force, and it corrupts you. That's not in the rules.
6. Demons are a quick and easy method for power. There's nothing evil about power, quickness, or easyness. In fact, if I'm fighting off a madman with hostages and it's a close fight, I might want to use the quickest, easiest, and most powerful combat option I have to stop him from harming them, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. A good person would not use the slower, harder, and less powerful option out of some twisted sense of duty to avoid quick and easy power. Unless of course you have some houserules in place that make quick and easy power have a corrupting effect ala the dark side, in which case see #3 and #5.
Interestingly, he says evil casting good is liable to become good aligned:
Spells with the Evil descriptor are evil; that's why they have that descriptor. Same goes for Good or Lawful or Chaotic. That means that certain classes can't really cast them at all (divine classes of different alignments), but that other classes (arcane spellcasters, for the most part) can cast them as much as they like. But casting alignment spells a lot will and should turn the caster toward that alignment
Relevant text: "Same goes for Good or Lawful or Chaotic.... But casting alignment spells a lot will and should turn the caster toward that alignment"
So if a evil spellcaster has some fun summoning celestials to make them do stuff like fight his good enemies: he will slowly become good.
Good is apparrently just as corrupting (in a good way) as evil.
I've often thought that summoning a monster to fight and die for you doesn't sound like the act of a good person. I know its not really dwelt upon, its just a spell. They appear and fight for you.
Presumably they come from somewhere, and they are real. At least for the purposes of an imaginery game they're real creatures of whatever type. It would seem an incredibly callous thing to magically teleport in a creature from wherever and whatever it was doing to fight and die for you. If it beats your opponent or survives the encounter it magically reappears whereve it last was wondering what the heck just happened.
Why isn't there humans on the summon monster list. Or just simply a Summon Human or Summon Elven Mage. It doesn't seem any more or less callous than Summon Monster.
Summoned Critters don't actually die when reduced to 0 hp or lower.
CRB page 210, Summoning:
"A summoned creature also goes away if it is killed or if its hit points drop to 0 or lower, but it is not really dead. It takes 24 hours for the creature to reform, during which time it can't be summoned again."
That;s certainly true by the RAW. Although, one does have to wonder at the morality of continually summoning a creature to fight, get injured and get killed. They don't die but they definately have been killed.
I just accept it as one of those things you can't look to closely at
as far as im concerned summon monstrs are just more shadows coming from the perfect example and endlessly copied as needed. Summoning thus tapping into this knowledge of the infinite precursor, and how to bring a copy into existance for a short while.
So, here's how it is:
If you summon an evil creature (which is never the only choice for any summon monster spell, by the way), the spell gets the [Evil] descriptor, which makes casting it an evil action. Yes, merely casting it is evil, there really is an overlap.
However, this evil isn't quantified. Not all evil actions are equally evil, after all. Stealing a cheap trinket just because you can is evil, but it's not as evil as raping children to death. Not by a long shot.
Summoning an evil creature is evil, but not much more evil than stealing that trinket. A minor speck on the wall of your soul. The actions following that summoning, i.e. what you tell the critter to do, might be the real evil - or you might do so much good that the speck doesn't even matter.
The part where it really matters is when a cleric or other divine caster is casting the spell. They just cannot cast it to summon a critter that is not compatible with their alignment. Good clerics cannot get devils.
That is because their magic comes from their divine patron. If you're a cleric of Iomedae, she'll send some of her own followers to you. And she doesn't have any devils.
Problem here...Paladins and Good Clerics are mechanically forbidden from casting spells with the [evil] descriptor, so it can't happen.Will it cause Paladins and good clerics to fall?
Probably.
Wasn't sure if they could find wands or 'other' ways of using the spell. If they look for loopholes to cast things that their god says no to... I'd hit them pretty hard ;)
Summoning an evil creature is evil, but not much more evil than stealing that trinket.
But you think that theft is evil. So we can't really come to terms with your adjudication here. Though I appreciate your sentiment about levels of evil, that's how I always imagine things, but there's really no rules about this stuff it's all down to the DM, ya know?
Alignment threads. Gotta love 'em right?
Thing is that there is no absolute good/evil right/wrong in real life OR in PF/D&D. The rules on alignment are paper thin and poorly worded.
Is being good simply choosing the less evil of two options? Is being evil just the reverse? Is being good not giving into temptation? Do you have to be kind-hearted and altruistic to be good, or do actions speak louder than words?
An old DM, who was particularly strict, seemed to think that good/evil was confluence of actions and intent. It's not a good act unless both the intentions and outcome were good, but evil is if either the intention or result were evil. Also allowing evil to go unpunished was evil, as was ignoring the pleas of the innocents. It was really hard to be good in his games.
To me summoning is ass backwards. A conjuration(summon) spell forcibly calls a creature to you and puts it under your direct command without so much as a saving throw. Summon monster is essentially a teleport or plane shift effect followed by a short duration dominate monster. If anything, summoning celestial creatures should have the [Evil] descriptor since you are taking away their freedom of choice and enslaving them to your will. Logically summoning a demon shouldn't have a descriptor at all. Good casters choose to summon demons rather than celestial because they don't care about a demon's free will or about interrupting the demon's day. They do care about a celestial beings free will however and would be loath to summon them in all but the most dire of circumstances.