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Revering nature does not mean never sacrificing animals so that he or others may gain.
meaningful sacrifice? sure, as I mentioned sending an animal to it's death so the party can run and live, cool. Sending an animal to it's death because the party is being lazy and won't take the time to search for traps? Big no no for me. I'd ok with sending the animal through the traps was the only option, like being chased by a big nasty into a hallway of traps. But if the time is there to search then no.
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Revering nature does not mean never sacrificing animals so that he or others may gain.meaningful sacrifice? sure, as I mentioned sending an animal to it's death so the party can run and live, cool. Sending an animal to it's death because the party is being lazy and won't take the time to search for traps? Big no no for me. I'd ok with sending the animal through the traps was the only option, like being chased by a big nasty into a hallway of traps. But if the time is there to search then no.
I don't think the party being lazy is the only situation where I could foresee a group using a summoned animal as a trap buster. What if they're in a hurry? What if there are just a ton of traps and they know they can't waste time taking 20 on each one?
Furthermore, revering nature doesn't actually require that you revere the specific animals you summon! That might sound crazy, but there is a reason that there are neutral evil druids out there. They could revere nature for its power and its pitiless, amoral and indifferent relationship to its subjects.
Evil druid: revering nature for the power that it gives him, and the abilities that he gains. Evil druid: using the tools he has been blessed with to avoid succumbing to the traps of this lair.
I'm not saying he's a nice guy for throwing the puppy in first. But he's no less a druid.
Furthermore, revering nature doesn't actually require that you revere the specific animals you summon! That might sound crazy, but there is a reason that there are neutral evil druids out there. They could revere nature for its power and its pitiless, amoral and indifferent relationship to its subjects.
Actually, if you are a wolf shaman druid, you might hate cats :P
Evil druid: revering nature for the power that it gives him, and the abilities that he gains. Evil druid: using the tools he has been blessed with to avoid succumbing to the traps of this lair.
I'm not saying he's a nice guy for throwing the puppy in first. But he's no less a druid.
Blight Druids don't lose their powers either. And what they do is way worse than sending summoned monsters to die.
Because animals have no concept of death where humans do. Both acts are evil, but throwing humans in more so because they understand fully what is going to happen.
Trying to be as inoffensive as possible, but with that line of reasoning; would it be less evil to use babies than people fully aware of the concept of life and death?
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I cannot imagine a game, involving this level of morality on every action a player makes being even playable. A philosophical discussion sure, but when friends meet to play in a fantasy game that literally requires killing. No, this is just too ungodly of a crapfest for anyone to actually implement. There is no RAW or RAI any where in sight any more. This is borderline PETA propaganda. This does not belong here.
This is a rules forum.
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Because animals have no concept of death where humans do. Both acts are evil, but throwing humans in more so because they understand fully what is going to happen.Trying to be as inoffensive as possible, but with that line of reasoning; would it be less evil to use babies than people fully aware of the concept of life and death?
With that line of reasoning, it's possible. I don't really like that line of reasoning, but there you have it.
Wow. This thread is crazy. It's unclear if summoned animals are real and even if they are they recover from all damage within 24 hours. So how can it be unethical to have them face the trap instead of the party? Especially if the party does not have a rogue or is in a hurry. I mean if a party member went down that hall he might die the summoned animal can't so no issue.
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So, who has any comments on the RAW or RAI of the rules here?
By RAW a druid must revere nature, so the morality aspect is relevant depending on your definition of reverence. If you let the druid create his own way of revering nature however, then the morality aspect becomes less relevant to RAW.
As for the summoned mount, by RAW it shows up to be a mount, but it is still an animal, and animals are able to be controlled with the Handle Animal skill.
Furthermore, an animal trained for riding should by RAW know the tricks heel, come, and stay. There's no doubt that a character with ranks in Handle Animal could certainly also push a summoned mount to go forward to spring possible traps.
As for the cannot be summoned for 24 hours if it dies aspect, conjuration never forces you to summon the exact creature you summoned last time, so that's irrelevant. For the same reason, you can have more than one summoned creature at a time, even if they're the same animal.
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Moral discussions aside, if i saw a druid sending summoned animals down trap filled corridors/pits ect they'd lose their druidic powers pretty damn quickly, they are supposed to be protectors and servants of nature.
Again, not real animals. Magical effects. Druid is not affected since the magical nature spirits are helping him to survive long enough to be an effective defender of nature.
So, who has any comments on the RAW or RAI of the rules here?
Covered it already. Nobody cares.
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I like using my wand of humanoid summoning to detect traps. Semievolved monkeys are so gullible, I tell them there's nachos or magic cards at the end of corridors or in rooms and off they go to get horribly mauled. But don't worry the horrific deaths are only temporary. I'm sure they're just fine after being returned to whatever horrible plane they come from.
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OK, let me be clear. I wasn't saying that RD was defending animal abuse in the real world. I was saying he was defending animal abuse in game.
Which he WASN'T he was defending using SUMMONED CREATURES, i.e. a magical effect, as a utility to prevent harm to players in game.
Summoned creatures, like say a celestial eagle, come from a different plan of existence and GO BACK THERE WHEN THEY DIE or the spell duration ends.
As far as that summoned creature is concerned, sending it into a pit to die is just as bad as throwing it at the sharpened stick held by an enemy. When you summon it you have exerted your mental control over it, ENSLAVED IT if you will, and any behavior you force it to perform is against its will and an EVIL act.
You are trying to enact some sort of moral grey area on a game which does not have any. It's a failure of the system, I agree, but what you propose is really an arbitrary house rule to punish players for playing smart.
So, really, you have two choices:
1)All summon spells are EVIL descriptor, since it removes the free will of the creature summoned and, in all likelihood, leads to its painful albeit brief death.
2)Throwing a summoned horse down a spiked pit repeatedly is A-OK because it was a magic horse and you wouldn't do that to a REAL horse, like, ever. (Not even a real-to-the-game horse).
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Attempting to avoid the derail of this thread, and answering the original question:
My suggestion for an alternative use of the mount spell is Implant Bomb. At levels 11 or so, there is a long enough duration to make around 20 exploding ponies ready to charge at your enemies.
To me, it comes down to this.
What is the intent when they're doing these things?
The party has no rogue, but has to get to the bottom of the dungeon in a hurry to stop the BBEG from summoning the BBEG Demon? Ok, it's not exactly warm and fuzzy, but yeah, sending summoned animals that they know will not be permanently harmed probably seen as the best way to make sure something worse doesn't happen.
The party rogue using a wand of Mount or SNA I to summon creatures so he can watch them explode as they set off traps, and the party betting on how far each one makes it down the trap filled corridor before it turns into a bloody streak? Rapidly descending into chaos, and toward evil eventually.
A druid who's summoning animals to watch them go splat would lose his powers pretty quick (he's no longer revering nature), or he'd need to switch to a blight druid. If his alignment switched to CE or something, he'd lose his druid powers anyway (non neutral).
Right. We're done here. Just removed more posts than I care to address individually. Baiting other posters is wrong. Please revisit the messageboard rules.