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I couldn't agree with you more on that!While I'm in the pro (evil)=Evil camp, GMs are perfectly allowed to pick and choose which "side" material is allowed in their home games. If the GM wants infernal healing to be cast without negative repercussions, and the players are having fun, they can do that thing. We can come on here and state why we think it's inadvisable, but at the end of the day their home game is thier own.
Edit: Conversely, it's not cool for the other side to come on here and tell us we're playing wrong or insulting the designers because we like to play the spell RAW and RAI as we see it.
Seconded.
This is the part where I disagree. I think if celestial healing were a spell a lot of the dramatic tension of infernal healing would evaporate - the pragmatic or tempted-by-the-dark-side characters wouldn't have a choice to make, they can just take the one fueled by angel feathers and completely sidestep an ethical quandary.
I do agree that, now that the seal has been broken, some other kind of healing should be available to wizards, but it should be different than infernal healing. Better in some ways, worse in others. Symmetry makes game design easier, but things that are not the same shouldn't have to be reflections of each other. StarCraft (with three sides with different mechanics) is a deeper...
I don't see any logical reason why it should be harder to receive celestial healing than to steal infernal healing. As for the idea that giving healing to wizards would make the game unbalanced, I disagree. For one thing, D&D is one of the few games I can think of in which wizards are not able to cast healing spells. Wizards can cast a limited number of spells, and clerics can certainly have access to better healing spells. But there is no inherent problem in saying, "You know what? Let's make all cleric spells wizard spells, too, but one level higher, and vice versa."
This is easily demonstrating by observing the number of spells that change ships in Cleric domains and Sorcerer bloodlines. The only strong reasons to segregate the spell lists are flavor ones.
And there are not that many good flavor reasons why evil wizards should have an easier time healing than good ones.
The latter spell brings nothing but imbalance to the game.
How do you come to that conclusion? If anything creating an opposite spell for the opposition is actually creating a balance. By creating something for one side and not the other it creates an imbalance. A lot of what you said was based on flavor and personal favor, rather than mechanical balance or utility.
Because IN Game use Celestial Healing becomes that no-controversy choice of wand spell for arcanists who don't want Paladins and goody goody Clerics lecturing them down. It also gives them a spell which does a better job than Cure Light Wounds without the moral quandary. If Paizo were to release that spell today, no gamer would ever by a wand of Infernal Healing again.
You have a lot of fallacies in there. I would still buy a wand of infernal healing on quiet a few of my own characters, not just the evil ones(you can also still find it as loot or use it as an NPC), and your trying to force the 'moral quandary' on others.
What's the problem with not wanting to be lectured by clerics and paladins anyway? Is there something wrong in being praised for being a good guy about things?
I'm not a believer in the idea that symmetry is a must.
But you referred to non symmetry as balance. Could be taken as a bit misleading, eh?
Nature is not symmetrical, why should our games be?
Just like "Life isn't fair" that's an excuse and isn't a real argument with pros and cons. We create and develop games, we don't have a control over nature. No ones arguing for an absolute balance where a bear can take on a squirrel or anything, but mechanical balance between weapons or player options isn't a bad thing. Trap options definitely are, and there are quiet a few options in the books few people or even none are going to use.
I'm not reading this entire post....but...I can't imagine any rationale GM having an issue with a player creating a new spell called "Celestial Healing" (using holy water or celestial blood) or even just "Fast Healing" (using Troll blood or something along those lines). If the mechanics of the spell will work exactly the same as Infernal Healing, a spell that is already in the game, it should never be an issue.
If you think infernal healing is fine power wise (both in terms of what it does and who gets it), then your group should have no problem with celestial healing or trollish vigor.
If you think infernal healing is an absolute mistake, either in terms of giving wizards healing at all or because you think that if they get healing it shouldn't be that good, ban it or make it a second level spell or something.
If you think infernal healing stretches the boundaries of what wizards should get and it's cool because of a bunch of philosophical symbolism about evil, then great, it is working as intended, and celestial healing is definitely not for you.
The great thing about tabletop games is that you can customize them to your own preference.
The great thing about tabletop games is that you can customize them to your own preference.
True, but we sort of depend on, or at least hope, that the materials we buy are of a certain quality. I can create a world on my own easily, but a few 1000 pages of mechanics, artwork, and publishing is... a bit more work. Inside of all of those pages I'd hope its fun, reasonably balanced, and playable. After all, if it wasn't then why would I or my friends buy the books?
Different groups enjoy different things in different ways. It is impossible to please all of them all the time. Sort of by nature, you pick and choose the parts of the game you like and discard those you do not.
It is quite possible for a group that doesn't like infernal healing (or any other spell, feat, or class) to never use it without having to say it is banned, just because no one else takes it, casts it, or assigns it to an NPC.
And frankly, I don't know where the devs stand on infernal healing. It has been reprinted multiple times, so someone must think it is a good idea. But it has also has only been printed in Campaign Setting and Adventure Path books, so that someone is not necessarily Jason Bulmahn.
Different groups enjoy different things in different ways. It is impossible to please all of them all the time. Sort of by nature, you pick and choose the parts of the game you like and discard those you do not.
Well you have a target genre and audience I would hope. You can of course attempt to cater to everyone by making the game modular and appear as a toolkit, and then put out setting materials on the side. That way you never force a particular thing on someone, or at least don't appear to.
It is weird to see Mr Byers comment on the actual topic instead of telling people to behave themselves
I'm getting used to it.
Well you have a target genre and audience I would hope. You can of course attempt to cater to everyone by making the game modular and appear as a toolkit, and then put out setting materials on the side. That way you never force a particular thing on someone, or at least don't appear to.
I think this thread is a perfect example of how people within the target audience can still disagree on things.
And I thought the game was modular, and nobody was being forced into anything.
And I thought the game was modular, and nobody was being forced into anything.
Its not really that modular outside of house rules. Alignment restrictions in core for example. Really you can put houserules in any game, so you want a good modular core game right?
The game can't get any more modular. You've got core rule books, additional rule books, and settings books which are all separate. The only valid complaint that anyone could make is that the modules they want might not have been built.
Well... Take paladin for example. At the moment its pretty set in stone right? Always lawful good, code of conduct, preselected auras, smite works against a small preselected set of foes. This is all core, you know, the building blocks and non setting material. We get complaints about him every once in a while and his code of conduct interfering with roleplay/gameplay and such. The code of conduct isn't there to balance the class at all, but to give it flavor and legacy appeal. He's a bit of work and I'd bore you to death by making a modular paladin, so we'll look at monks, the kung fu guy.
Lets see if we can give this character class a more open design, and some flexibility to adapt to more character concepts(and maybe buff the poor guy along the way).
Ex Monk: Just remove the block... Done. That was easy.
Ki strike: Let the monk pick an alignment within one step of his that he can change with 15 minutes of preparation. Wouldn't make sense for a chaotic monk to have lawful fist right? Hey! We just buffed the monk, but not in an overpowering way.
Perfect Self: You get DR/10 chaotic. That's the only lawful thing about this. Not really that lawful, but instead make him gain DR against the opposing alignment to the one he picked for ki strike. Your CN monk's punches are evil aligned? He gets DR/10 good. Your LG monk's chosen to make his punches lawful? DR/10 Chaotic like it was before we changed it. Still has plenty of flavor.
So hey, the monk now has nothing about him that is lawful mechanically, and he has flexibility in choosing his alignment. This opens up a lot of character concepts. You also get to pick and choose more, and he has a more open design.
If you want super modularity, you're not playing Pathfinder, and you shouldn't have bothered with D+D, you should be playing GURPS or HERO, games designed to be modular from the ground up.
Never said it was my favorite game, just refuting the fact its modular as it can be. You've also got spellcasting, lots of those spells are premade and lack variance(imagine if protection from evil/chaos/good/law were a single spell, but you chose which one it was at casting or preparation, same with elemental spells and the like). Feats are built to force you into being a certain way with prerequisites rather than built to make you better at being something else by giving bonuses(combat expertise to get any maneuver feat takes 13 intelligence, many feats have skill prereqs rather than give a skill bonus). Archetypes help the game attempt to be more modular, but variants from 3.5 were actually more modular because they took one class feature away to trade for something equivalent while pathfinder wants to change everything about you and then doesn't want you to mix and match changes, even when the changes are about flavor rather than balance. Again, like core, forcing you to be one person's vision rather than who you want to be. Cavalier are stuck with specific mounts outside of a single archetype and the edicts are premade.
I'm sure I could find other examples if I looked around.
I've played GURPS for a long time, over 20 years.
Ooops, let me rephrase that, I've ran GURPS games for over 20 years.
Hmm, let me try again, I've ran 3-4 GURPS games over the last 20 years.
There we go, that's better.
Nobody wants to play GURPS because while it's modular, it's also so dang modular. That is, it let's you do anything you want, which is great except for the part where it let's you do anything you want.
RIFTS is almost as bad. Also a level based system. And you can add in anything you want, from any genre, pick and choose whatever...
And nobody ever wants to play it either.
If you look at what games are very successful, you find the following :
World of Darkness
D&D
Pathfinder
If you look at what games are successful, you find the following :
Shadowrun
Champions
If you look at what games are not successful, you can find pretty much every thing else.
Now, my definition of 'successful' is - Heard of it, Still in Production, At least 8 in 10 gamers have heard of it if not played it, and have seen a board request or seen a poster at the FLGS with people wanting to play that system in the last 2 years.
Notice what is not on that list? GURPS AND RIFTS. Why? Because they are just too open ended, too modular, too easy to break and too hard to master.
Most people want structure in their games. They don't care what kind of structure it is. Even if they b#&@+ and moan about the structure, they want a framework. GRUPS and RIFTS and other game systems like them don't give you a structure. They give you a truck load of I-beams, a few thousand rivets, some bags of cement, a truck load of teak wood, 400 toasters, 500 pairs of shoes, 1000 handkerchiefs, 12 hard hats, 14 boxes of condoms, and a muddy rabbit named Maurice. Then you have to assemble all that into a working framework.
The only one that seems to be able to break that mold is Champions, but that's mostly because the genre itself provides the framework. Brick, Blaster, Mentalist, Speedster, Martial Artist. All of those are classes, and they all their defined 'schtick' and characters that don't fit into one of those molds usually don't go over very well with the people that play it because they want their expectations met.
If you were able to wave a magic wand and make PF/D&D as modular as GURPS, it would die a quick and painful death.
...and a muddy rabbit named Maurice.
Well, arson, murder, and jay walking, eh? I know GURPS is way too many options for most people. Its not a game I actually play, nor do I know people interested in my area.
If you were able to wave a magic wand and make PF/D&D as modular as GURPS, it would die a quick and painful death.
I don't disagree, would make it something entirely different. Its a bit of a hyperbole however, because moderation is pretty important. If I for example say I want things to be more modular, I don't mean to dive down the slippery slope on a grease covered mattress(Would that even work?), but I do mean that for what is there I think there could be more modular and retain its identity. That's why in any example of a change to make something modular I don't strip it of its identity, but instead try and give more options while making a suggestion for its legacy's sake while still giving more options to those who would want it.
I did not say that it was as modular as it could have been made.
The game can't get any more modular.
You sort of did, but you added addendum in the post where I made commentary on it.
People were no longer looking to spend hours on character creation, or even worse doing that same amount of work multiplied in order to create NPC challenges to GM them through.
There's a certain irony in saying that on a pathfinder forum. It still has people doing that. Looking through piles of options, sturgeon's law in effect, and the game still has strange requirements to create challenges on the system level such as encounters/day. Might be more streamlined since then, but I haven't got the experience with those games to know. I think it could still be a little simpler personally, but likely that's another debate and rant..
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Its not really that modular outside of house rules. Alignment restrictions in core for example. Really you can put houserules in any game, so you want a good modular core game right?
(TL;DR: This is mostly what mdt said, phrased differently.)
This is more of a general game design issue than on infernal healing specifically, but since you bring it up:
Pathfinder could be more modular. Or, to be more specific, there are games that are more modular than Pathfinder.
Savage Worlds, GURPS, the classless/generic class d20 variant from Unearthed Arcana. d20 Modern, even.
But sometimes structure is good: It gives something to build off of. You're right, Alignment is pretty baked-in compared to say, Skill Focus. But having alignment as a baseline system makes other things easier. Because now we can have spells like detect <alignment>, the assorted holy words that work off of that framework. In a completely modular system, at best, those spells are now partitioned off from the rest of the game. At worst, they just don't exist, because you can't assume the interlocking parts are there.
Likewise for things like monster challenge ratings. (Not that CR is a perfect system). The fewer constraints on player characters, the harder it is to gauge how much of a threat a monster is.
Have you tried playing any of the Warhammer 40K games from Fantasy Flight? They're crazy popular because of the setting, but they're also very modular. There are no levels, you just get an XP budget and purchase things with it. The more powerful the thing, the more points it costs. It is super-fun to build characters with because the field is so open.
It's also a monster pain to GM. Building characters takes a longer time, because there is no tree to follow. No 'I need three feats and 2 skills and some spells.' Just 'I have 10,000 XP to spend and eight book chapters of stuff to spend it on.' When you can trade a language skill for machine guns, it's very freeing, but at a certain point it is too many options.
And building encounters is very difficult - it takes lots of experience with the game system to tell if your encounter is murder or a walk in the park. It's steep learning curve to make your own adventures instead of using boxed ones.
Or a game like Savage Worlds, which claims to be capable of any genre or setting. Their core book presents generic spells, so for instance there is a generic attack spell. It does a certain amount of damage and has a certain common attack mechanic, and should be used for anything from a fireball to a black magic energy beam or whatever. Sounds great, right?
Except for the part where there are no rules for who gets this spell or how often (actually, IIRC there is a 'mana' mechanic, but there is no rule for how much you get or why.) And the text suggests adding secondary effects depending on the type of attack, like catching fire for a fireball.
So it isn't just being reskinned - it's just a loose framework for the GM to bolt stuff on to. Which means that it's every bit as arbitrary as a structed game. It's just that the guy who is making the arbitrary decisions is sitting across the table from you, not in an office in Redmond.
That's the evil secret of modular games - they sound super appealing, but they actually require more houseruling and more GM adjudication than structured games - even though the appeal is you don't need to houserule the trouble spots as much. (This is the part mdt referred to as making your own framework.)
Frankly, I think some of the appeal of modular games is for people who would basically only be happy playing a game of their own design (before anyone thinks I'm being disparaging, Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson were playing a game of their own design.) but who don't have the skill or the confidence in their skill to start from a completely blank slate.
The point of all of this isn't that modular games are bad - If you enjoy them then please play them and have fun. My point is that Pathfinder's structure is there for a reason, and that if you don't like it you can change it at your table, or play a different game, or mash multiple games together. People have been houseruling tabletop games since there WERE tabletop games.
It's like the difference between a bin of assorted legos (modular game) and a Lego Death Star kit (structured games). More can be more work but gives more options, the other has a set of directions to build something more specific. But even with the Death Star kit you can rearrange the pieces to make something different. Or add bits from the assorted bin. Or anything you want.
MDT, GURPS had a good long run and RIFTS had a substantial audience in the early years of gaming. And there were a lot of other systems like Rolemaster which had lots of numbers and crunching exercises, and diehard zealots defending each one. I had a friend of mine Robert Schroeck (whom you might remember from his Dragon 100 module) who authored several GURPS supplements, one of which, I wrote a couple of pages for.
And then over the years, the gaming market changed. People were no longer looking to spend hours on character creation, or even worse doing that same amount of work multiplied in order to create NPC challenges to GM them through. And I suspect that's why so many of them faded out of the scene one by one as older players dropped out and newer gamers passed on them entirely.
I agree completely. I loved GURPS honestly. But it's just too much work to GM for. It has the absolute best skill system in the world. But it's just too much, and too easily broken.
Honestly, I think the internet was the death knell for such systems. Before, someone could break the system, and one GM had to deal with it. With the growth of the internet, all the game breakers could trade strategies to wring the absolute most out of the system. Think of it as an arms race GMs couldn't win. D&D 3.5 got there with all the splat books, it hit a critical mass of rules and became easily breakable.
So far, Paizo is being careful to avoid that, so I have hope. I'm one of those people that wants options, but hate the arms race that comes with it. :)
It's like the difference between a bin of assorted legos (modular game) and a Lego Death Star kit (structured games). More can be more work but gives more options, the other has a set of directions to build something more specific. But even with the Death Star kit you can rearrange the pieces to make something different. Or add bits from the assorted bin. Or anything you want.
This isn't an argument someone can really win, but I thought I'd comment anyway.
So I never said I wanted something totally modular. That's something I can totally flavor and make myself. I could make it sci-fi, fantasy, low magic, high magic, whatever! In doing so I may very well give myself more work(depending on the game). I said I want something more modular however. I said houserules can be done with everything so having a good core is important.
Pathfinder has a lot of flaws in its core that I think could be beaten out. Inflexibility in spells, encounters/day, martial-caster disparity, and the hard coded classes are instances that I think could be improved upon. Those actually make my life harder as a GM and player. Unless you want to argue these are integral and make the game more fun and appealing? There's a pretty big difference in arguing about mechanical imbalance and stripping the game.
Anyways... way off topic from infernal healing at this point probably. Somehow went to talking about the core of the game, modular blah, and so on.
It has nothing to do with "good being stupid". It's just that "Evil is easier". Evil has no constraints with tampering with the proper balance or touching on that which is not meant for mortals. The Gods of Balance decried that wizards would be denied the power of healing which would be left to the servants of the gods alone. Simmilarly the powers of Evil have little constraint when it comes to respecting the boundaries between the living and the dead. They feel very little compunction into forcing the dead into a torturous form of pseudo-life. The Powers of Evil are those who believe that rules are made to be stretched if not broken. Plus if you go with the view that Arcane is always threading on the edge of evil than what Good mages become known for are their discipline and forebearance in resisting the easy paths to power. Paizo has not ever told us why they created the Infernal Healing spell. But my guess it would be something along those lines, which is why you DON't create it's celestial opposite. The latter spell brings nothing but imbalance to the game.
I specifically suggested in an earlier post that there be more [good] arcane spells but that those not be just "good twins" of the evil ones. I just want there to be [good] options at all. I find it too hard to suspend my disbelief that no arcane casters have discovered how to tap into good power, especially when there are prestige classes like Arcane Savant and Collegiate Arcanist that say "I make arcane versions of divine spells" on the box.
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Ross, minor Savage Worlds nitpick:
Pandora's I agree that there should be more exclusive (good) effects, kind of like the 3.5 Book of Exalted Deeds. I would say the BoED went a little too far, making all the (good) stuff far too powerful, but a set of unique, balanced toys for good would not be amiss. In fact I would rather they be "fun" than directly powerful - evil brings power, good brings happiness. That would also retain the temptation aesthetic - evil gets more "brute force", good gets more "interesting" options.
It's very hard to tap into "Good" power because by it's nature, it's both harder to tap into, and weaker. (That's why your world needs heroes after all) Mages can't discover what ain't there to be found.
Where are you getting this from?
Long running story traditions that date back centuries, as embodied by authors from Malory to George Lucas.
So things that don't pertain to game mechanics or fun but to your personal literary bias. Gotcha'.
It's very hard to tap into "Good" power because by it's nature, it's both harder to tap into, and weaker. (That's why your world needs heroes after all) Mages can't discover what ain't there to be found.
Citation?
If they were still evil, the smites would work. They'd just have a good aura.
A good aligned version sounds bad to me, I can see every BBEG stocking up on wands so that Paladin smites don't work on them for 10 rounds.-TimD
Fair point. Goes towards table variation on the omniscience of smite evil. Some house rules are very prevalent in certain areas and become almost their own cannon.
As others have mentioned, infernal healing is NOT in the setting neutral rules set. I think I’m in the “it’s good Golarion flavor” camp. Much like the fact that all clerics must have a god (who isn’t dead) in order to receive spells, it may not be appropriate for all campaign settings, but definitely fits Golarion, which is the default setting for Pathfinder.
RIFTS is almost as bad. Also a level based system. And you can add in anything you want, from any genre, pick and choose whatever...And nobody ever wants to play it either.
I know a lot of Rifts fans. The problem isn't that it's modular, it's that the system is crap and is pretty much impossible to balance without a LOT of GM intervention crowbarring. Actually, more of a wrecking bar than a crowbar. From a world development aspect, there are a LOT of neat things about Rifts. I’ve almost instituted house rules about everything being in crayon just to reinforce the point about the developmental level of the rules.
Though I have to say, I do like their alignment system far more than traditional DD/PF alignment. Aberrant Evil just makes me smile.This does remind me that I need to schedule the next game I’m supposed to run of my pre Dark Day campaign, though… hmmm…
I was never a fan of GURPS, though I only played it a half dozen or so times.
MrS,
You seem to be one of the folks who is annoyed about the assumption of alignment in the system. I think that may be the root of your issue with infernal healing. Part of game balance is the realization that playing good alignments is a restriction in and of itself because you are often unable to do the most expedient thing (meteor swarming orphanages, for example).
Personally, I like the alignment assumption. There are enough homogenized systems out there that I like the fact that I can sit down with people and play a game and we all have some sort of starting point about how our characters are going to interact and that we know there is cosmic good and evil and don’t have to muck our way through it while waiting to see what the GM is going to do about it.
I can only compare that to my experiences with some other games and I don’t think I can even discuss on a public forum some of the things I saw occur in CyberPunk 2013 and 1E Shadowrun games without cementing my position on DHS watch lists.
-TimD
Game Mechanics are the means to the end,not the be all and end all.Long running story traditions that date back centuries, as embodied by authors from Malory to George Lucas.So things that don't pertain to game mechanics or fun but to your personal literary bias. Gotcha'.
Okay, you made a statement. Can you back it up with logical reasoning and how it backs up your argument? Just because Malory or George Lucas did it one way doesn't mean that everyone has to. In fact there are plenty of tropes that are all about evil being hard, or the path to it being hard, or plenty of movies about evil people having a hard time or not being paid. Similarly we have gray morality, but we won't touch that with a 10 foot pole.
It's very hard to tap into "Good" power because by it's nature, it's both harder to tap into, and weaker. (That's why your world needs heroes after all) Mages can't discover what ain't there to be found.
Except that's shown to be completely untrue by the prestige classes I referenced who do exactly that. Flavor wise it is there, but it's so mechanically subpar only someone desperate as myself would even bother.
Long running story traditions that date back centuries, as embodied by authors from Malory to George Lucas. It's also why in most adventure fantasy novels, Wizards tend to play the role of villain more than hero.It's very hard to tap into "Good" power because by it's nature, it's both harder to tap into, and weaker. (That's why your world needs heroes after all) Mages can't discover what ain't there to be found.Where are you getting this from?
I would rate both of your examples in exactly the other direction. Luke Skywalker, a barely-trained Jedi, managed to defeat two Sith Lords through the power of good-heartedness. In Malory, Mordred was a weaker knight than Lancelot, who was in turn a weaker knight than Galahad. Why? Goodness is strength, to Malory. In chivalric romance, authors and readers draw a strong relationship between strength of arm and strength of spirit. Thus, Lancelot is described as unhorsing Mordred and literally burying the dude's head in the ground from the force of the blow.
In Lord of the Rings, wizards are, with one notable exception, heroes, and the villains are ghosts, demons, and corrupt aristocrats. Prydain Chronciles? The wizards are heroes; the villain is an evil cleric (or witch, or oracle. The Wizard of Oz? Hero. Shakespear's The Tempest? Prospero is a magician, and while conflicted, ultimately, a good guy. The Bible? While certain forms of witchcraft and divination are condemned, every witch or sorcerer I can think of was actually consulted by the nominal good guys. The only evil spellcasters I can think of are the Egyptian clerics.
Certainly, the evil wizard is a strong archetype. In anthropology, a "sorcerer" is usually conceived as a magician who lives outside the approved social order. Many societies have them, and they are often labeled, or categorized, according to certain taboos they break or unnatural powers they have. Conversely, socially approved magicians may be called doctors, shamans, priests, and so forth. I mention this because the transgressive sorcerer is a specific character type, and it's that character which is referenced by things like infernal healing. But it's not the only archetype. A Native American medicine man is a secular magician who, as with most historical magicians, works within the existing religious paradigms as well as other beliefs. A hoodoo from New Orleans is a sorcerer, too, one who can use their powers for good or for evil.
Bringing this back around, in the swords-and-sorcery stories of the pulp era, wizards were popular villains. But even in that genre, which strongly favored musclebound and wily protagonists and evil and insane wizards, you can find notable exceptions. The People of the Black Circle, a Conan story by Howard, features a magician who decides to ally with Conan, turn on his evil master, and run away with a nice girl (presumably into some sort of marriage or honorable concubinage arrangement, but who knows with these hippie kids?). The Grey Mouser, of Leiber's Lankhmar stories, is probably a 4th level sorcerer in Pathfinder terms, in addition to being a consummate swordsman and burglar, while the Incompleat Enchanter by de Camp is what it sounds like it is. The Warlock In Spite of Himself, A Spell for Chameleon, the Valdemar stories, all feature good-aligned magicians, prominently.
And Star Wars? The most celebrated heroes are an order eldritch knights. wielding magic swords and mesmerizing people.
"Good is hard" is definitely an issue of storytelling for your specific game group: tastes just vary so widely. And that's the flaw of infernal healing - It is too good of a healing spell for Wizards to have at first level. But because of the alignment implications, it gets sidetracked into an Alignment debate instead of a Balance debate.
Typically, to be good you give of yourself. To be evil, you give everything up but yourself. If you contrast Anakin and Obi-wan, I believe it's a very good example of exactly that.
And on the other hand, two Sith manage to take down the entire Jedi Order.
Which time and author are we talking about? I could swear that series changes depending on your medium and author. KOTOR2 pretty much every Sith was consumed by the dark side and paid for their ultimate power in body, mind, and soul to some extent. Over any medium both factions carry some battle scars and tend to work for their actions. Darth Sidius didn't just spawn with an army and power over half the universe. Both factions also had a bad habit of dying out or waxing and waning in power.
[I would rate both of your examples in exactly the other direction. Luke Skywalker, a barely-trained Jedi, managed to defeat two Sith Lords through the power of good-heartedness. In Malory, Mordred was a weaker knight than Lancelot, who was in turn a weaker knight than Galahad. Why? Goodness is strength, to Malory. In chivalric romance, authors and readers draw a strong relationship between strength of arm and strength of spirit. Thus, Lancelot is described as unhorsing Mordred and literally burying the dude's head in the ground from the force of the blow.
And on the other hand, two Sith manage to take down the entire Jedi Order.
Well, along with several thousand clone soldiers, several artillery regiments, and a Republic starfleet, sure. Except, since Yoda and Obi Wan survive, and it's probably a sure thing that at least a handful of others survived thanks to Yoda's warning. So, in the long run, the Sith actually end up numerically behind at the end of Revenge of the Sith. So, Sidiou's accomplishment is impressive, but actually much less impressive than what Luke ultimately accomplishes.
Luke doesn't win his battle with his "greater command of the Force". As you might recall he was pretty much losing it badly until he reached to his father's heart, and it was Vader who took out the Emperor and ultimately himself. In fact it was much like Shakespeare's Prospero. Luke only comes out alive because Vader like Prospero, renounces his power, and his evil master along with it.
Thus proving that Good is mightier than any mortal power. Once redeemed, Vader manages to do what he never could while in the grip of evil: defeat Sidious in personal combat, and while missing an arm, too.
And Mordred takes out Arthur the lead "good" figure of the Saga, so important that he is the one who is promised to return some day.
Arthur is not by any stretch the greatest fighter. Lancelot and Gawain are both known to be superior fighters. And when Guinevere's honor is challenged, Lancelot fighting as her champion is the only thing that could have saved her. But setting aside that Arthur is not in fact the greatest warrior of his age, but actually a guy with a magic sword whose personal heroics more or less ended with the establishment of Camelot... Mordred is able to defeat Arthur because he is the physical embodiment of Arthur's sins.
The Arthurian saga really doesn't go for the whole "Good is hard, evil is more powerful," thing. Really, the message is repeatedly that evil is synonymous with stupidity and short-sighted thinking.
I've always thought that Evil was more self delusional than anything else.
If you break it right down to the barest bones, Evil loses because it never really accepts it's own limitations and shortcomings, nor does it really view reality as it really is. When good falls, it's usually because it begins to fall prey to the same self delusions that Evil enjoys.
- Deluding ones self that one can defeat both good and other evil.
- Deluding ones self that might makes right.
- Deluding ones self that calling on the powers of evil to do good is good and not evil.
- Deluding ones self that one is good and not evil.
- Deluding ones self that one is smarter than one is.
- Deluding ones self that one is more powerful than one is.
- Deluding ones self that what one is doing is for the good of all and not the betterment of one's self.
Really, the message is repeatedly that evil is synonymous with stupidity and short-sighted thinking.
Not sure if I'm a fan of that particular message, but I haven't read it.
I've always thought that Evil was more self delusional than anything else.
Sort of, good is pretty delusional too. Depends heavily on your author and what your writing. Obviously you don't want to give the message that causing carnage, mayhem, and being someone who 9/10 people would call a bad guy is the best thing to be. That's... not something mothers would approve of.
It depends a lot on your character archetype too. You've got nutjobs out for blood(blood knight), you've got people trying to make a difference(Well intentioned extremist), in it for laughs(Evil for the lulz/complete monster), and guys with horrific backstories(Cry for the devil) all on TV tropes all about evil. You can make a bad guy with good intentions, antagonistic to the main character, and who you sympathize with. You can create a character who is extremely human and doesn't kick puppies for fun or have delusions.
All relative though, what is evil is a pretty big trope too, and nature of morality is a philosophical question.
I believe there is a flaw when you compare literature's take on evil and Golarion's take on it...
Fair warning, extensive use of TV tropes ahead:
Each writer (and I use the term loosely) is telling his own story - he is able to create his own focus, his own characters (including villains), and if necessary his own world. Thus the 'face of evil' will vary from story to story - in one he is doing it "for the evulz", in the next he's he is committing atrocities for love, and in the next story the villain is really doing what is right but he's doing it in all the wrong ways.
Evil can be seductive, destructive, terrifying, attractive, easy, hard... Evil is whatever the writer wants it to be in his story. I believe Rjgrady touched on this - in each of the references you made in your post, evil shows in a different way, and in each of the references you made evil is defined in different forms.
In contrast Golarion doesn't have the luxury of freely defining the form evil takes in its story, since Golarion is specifically written to be open enough for each group to tell their own story. That means that Evil isn't always insidious, or hard, or easy, or anything else. Instead, Golarion presents enough variations of Evil that Evil is whatever it needs to be to suit the story the group is telling together. This is why it's often harder to define Evil in Golarion than in a book or a play, since Golarion's Evil is whatever Evil needs to be. It runs the full gamut from insidious and seductive to horrendously destructive to just downright weird.
Asmodeus is the LE deity originally linked to Infernal Healing. He is actually presented as "not that bad" compared to the other deities with capital Evil alignments, and has cordial (or better) relationships with most of the other deities (note that even Iomedae makes an exception for parlaying or associating with Asmodeus, though she treats him with respect and care) in the world.
How the GM interprets the use of Infernal Healing is up to each GM, though I should note that the version of the spell I found in the Inner Sea World Guide doesn't mention anything about corruption or the like - in fact it explicitly states that the spell has no long-term effect on the target's alignment. You are of course free to ignore that.
However, before we got further sidetracked into discussing Star Wars of all things, I think Ross had a good point - this is not really a question of alignment, but one of potential power creep. I'll try to bring up the questions I find relevant, but I'm sure you can come up with some more :).
1. Is the benefit of Infernal Healing well balanced with similar first level spells such as CLW?
2. Is Infernal Healing too good as a 1st level spell available to cleric/oracle, magus, sorcerer/wizard, summoner, witch?
3. Is it a problem that neutral casters and good-aligned arcane casters can use the spell freely while good-aligned divine casters cannot?
4. If question 2 was answered with a yes, would the creation of a similar good-aligned spell like Lumiere's Celestial Healing resolve the issue?
Purely in my own opinion, here goes:
I'm choosing to ignore the witch's healing spells to keep this brief.
1. Mmmmmaybe? IH is essentially a maximized CLW spell for downtime healing, while being useless for in-combat healing. Since 1st level spell slots are used less and less frequently in combat as character level progress, the utility benefit of this spell rises with the character level. However CLW actually benefits from a higher caster level and at CL 5 heals 1d8+5 vs 10 flat from IH - an average of instantly healing 9.5 vs 10 over one minute. I'd say that's fairly well balanced.
If you buy it in wand form or the like it's a very cheap way to keep hit point pools topped up. If that's a problem for the campaigns you like to play you should consider taking steps to balance it out.
2. No, I don't think it's too good. Both divine and arcane casters have access to the spell. That means divine casters can now choose between efficiency (10 hp per cast, but takes a minute - minimal effect in combat) and potency through cxw (less healing per cast, but takes effect immediately - moderate to high effect in combat depending on the lethality of your games). On the other hand, arcane casters can use their low level spell slots to aid with downtime healing (only) which in my opinion is a good thing since it puts less pressure on the player with the divine spell list to "play the healbot", while the cleric still has by far the greater selection of healing and restoration spells.
3. Yes. The benefit of IH is significant in that it offers a new form of efficient downtime healing. Not granting that benefit to good-aligned characters is an unnecessary limitation. That and it just plain doesn't make sense - a good-aligned caster should have researched a version of IH that didn't involve 'tapping the dark side' by now.
4. Yes it would, but I'd strongly consider only letting that spell be available to divine casters (adding the spell to the paladin's spell list as well). I would probably also write a similar spell with a 'nature' theme so that druids and rangers wouldn't be left out in the cold.
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IIRC, there was a line of spells back in 3.0 for druids that granted fast healing 1/3/5 for a short while.
Kudaku, not to pick on one line out your lengthy post, but I haven't seen anyone argue that infernal healing should permanently shift the target's alignment, just the caster's. Even most people arguing that think it shouldn't be casting the spell alone that does it.
To me, using infernal healing is like a very minor version of selling your soul to the devil in order to cure a relative's cancer - sure, you're getting a positive effect from healing but surely there must be a price for an infernal bargain. I think those issue make the spell interesting. Some people don't like to play that way (evidence: this thread). Personally, good characters I play would refuse to use the spell and refuse to allow it to be cast on them, but that is a roleplaying choice I make.
I think all the non-evil alignments could use a little developer love when it comes to unique effects - most of what we have are a bunch of same-y effects like holy smite, holy word, protection from foo, magic circle against foo, holy aura, etc., where each version has all four extremes represented. It's nice to have effects like infernal healing which is a toy for one side but not the other - sadly, right now, evil gets those toys.
Maybe the fact that the boards erupt in fits over alignment stuff is why less gets developed - I don't know for sure. It sure would be nice for good, law, and chaos to have some exclusive tricks, and it would give the divine casting restriction some meaning (when was the last time an evil cleric was sad they couldn't cast holy word?)
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If you want super modularity, you're not playing Pathfinder, and you shouldn't have bothered with D+D, you should be playing GURPS or HERO, games designed to be modular from the ground up.Never said it was my favorite game, just refuting the fact its modular as it can be. You've also got spellcasting, lots of those spells are premade and lack variance(imagine if protection from evil/chaos/good/law were a single spell, but you chose which one it was at casting or preparation, same with elemental spells and the like). Feats are built to force you into being a certain way with prerequisites rather than built to make you better at being something else by giving bonuses(combat expertise to get any maneuver feat takes 13 intelligence, many feats have skill prereqs rather than give a skill bonus). Archetypes help the game attempt to be more modular, but variants from 3.5 were actually more modular because they took one class feature away to trade for something equivalent while pathfinder wants to change everything about you and then doesn't want you to mix and match changes, even when the changes are about flavor rather than balance. Again, like core, forcing you to be one person's vision rather than who you want to be. Cavalier are stuck with specific mounts outside of a single archetype and the edicts are premade.
I'm sure I could find other examples if I looked around.
Modular =/= customizable.
Lego is modular and customizable.
Ikea furniture is modular and somewhat customizable
A lot of other furniture is modular but not customizable. You can buy piece A, C and T of the pieces from A to Z, but you don't choose how the single piece is made.
Pathfinder has a core assumption and modular additional rules. Customization are your house rules.