RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The vast proportion of the entire alignment system is fluff. There a few small mechanical effects for some class, magic items, and spells, but it's mostly fluff. A spell with the Evil descriptor only has fluff penalties. It's completely up to the GMs discretion how to apply or ignore that fluff. PFS has chosen to ignore it. In my games, casting Evil spells makes the world a worse place, even if used for good ends.
Mr Sin, if you want to rewrite fireball to have the Evil descriptor in your games I can't stop you. It seems perfectly reasonable to me to say that casting Fire spells shifts the elemental balance of the prime material plane towards fire ever so slightly. But as published, fireball doesn't have the Evil descriptor, and infernal healing does. So, as published, casting infernal healing is an evil thing to do. Somehow. It's up to individual groups and GMs to decide how, or whether they even care.
Good aligned characters should not want to cast Evil spells, even for good ends. "The ends justify the means" is not really a Good credo. In PFS, my good characters will refuse to use wands of infernal healing on their party members. I don't think you are actually playing a good alignment if you are blase about using evil to accomplish your goals. Then again, I won't boot a player from my games if his or her alignment slips to evil either. I belong to the "your alignment describes, it does not restrict" camp.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Yes, you belong to the "alignment describes, not restricts". So what happens when your Chaotic Good paragon of righteousness, defender of the downtrodden slips to Evil because he wanted to heal his friends?
Are you really going to make him play a CE, moral defunct character because he cast a spell to heal people?
If yes, then congratulations you've ruined this guy's character over a stupid rule. If not, then it's not even "describing" him in the slightest, and there's no point in having done it in the first place.
Alignment based spells are stupid. Period. They add NOTHING, absolutely NOTHING of value to the game.
I belong to the "your alignment describes, it does not restrict" camp.
But you let it restrict you from casting a spell that heals people...
Anyways, your allowing published material to influence you. Your not making the choice about what's evil or not, and your actually making up reasons to justify them rather than accepting that the game has no given reason why infernal healing is evil.
The vast proportion of the entire alignment system is fluff. There a few small mechanical effects for some class, magic items, and spells, but it's mostly fluff. A spell with the Evil descriptor only has fluff penalties. It's completely up to the GMs discretion how to apply or ignore that fluff. PFS has chosen to ignore it. In my games, casting Evil spells makes the world a worse place, even if used for good ends.
Mr Sin, if you want to rewrite fireball to have the Evil descriptor in your games I can't stop you. It seems perfectly reasonable to me to say that casting Fire spells shifts the elemental balance of the prime material plane towards fire ever so slightly. But as published, fireball doesn't have the Evil descriptor, and infernal healing does. So, as published, casting infernal healing is an evil thing to do. Somehow. It's up to individual groups and GMs to decide how, or whether they even care.
Good aligned characters should not want to cast Evil spells, even for good ends. "The ends justify the means" is not really a Good credo. In PFS, my good characters will refuse to use wands of infernal healing on their party members. I don't think you are actually playing a good alignment if you are blase about using evil to accomplish your goals. Then again, I won't boot a player from my games if his or her alignment slips to evil either. I belong to the "your alignment describes, it does not restrict" camp.
It would be easier to assume the [Evil] descriptor is a typo than to rationalize this spell in relation to the rest of the alignment and magic systems.
Read the spell description people! Infernal healing has no effect on alignment!
Damn...
Read the spell description people! Infernal healing has no effect on alignment!
Damn...
Read the rest of the thread (even the OP alone would be fine!) Spells with the Evil descriptor count as Evil acts done by the caster.
Damn...
Lol, that was a bit of a necro (another evil act, right? =p), but not too bad.
There's some grey area, sure. If I was GMing I'd have the gods maybe overlook an infernal healing used to save a life, if it was the only way. But in my experience, that has happened exactly never.
You're choosing to use Infernal Healing over the other means of HP recovery that are already available to you. And you're making that decision for the sole reason that Infernal Healing is cheaper and easier than say, cure light wounds.
It might not seem like much to you, but that is the very essence of evil at work there, taking the path you know you should not, because it's easier than taking the righteous path.
if it is trivial, it ain't evil!
And Asmodeus smiled...
I've also run into confusion about where the spell comes from. I've had GMs who believed it was only available to worshippers of Asmodeus, because they assumed it came from the Cheliax book. It's in the inner sea guide (and an older book, I think).
I'm sure it started out that way, but information wants to be free.
Even adding the [Evil] tag as DRM won't keep the spell secret.
Oops! Sorry everyone, I forgot to check the dates! D= I thought the spell stated the caster's alignment was fine. My mistake!