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Why?Because it takes so little of my time, and almost no energy to do so. And if the person is genuinely offended, my apology actually means something to them, and more often than not, that simple act leaves them feeling better... If the person was just looking to be offended, I'm out what, a few seconds of my time??
What if someone finds your religious beliefs offensive? Or your sexuality? Or your favorite color? Would you apologize for any of those? What if someone is offended by the fact that someone else is offended?
I'll always (Welll... Often. Sometimes I just don't care) try understand why people are feeling offended, but I won't apologize if I didn't do anything wrong. Nor will I change my behavior merely based on what other people dislike.
And yes, the spirit of the rules is that using Good spells is doing good and will slowly change your alignment.
Of course, if you use Good Spells to Evil ends, it does nothing for you.I've repeatedly noted that the change to the target is a psychological one, which means 'not covered by rules'.
Under that spirit of the rules with psychological effects argument casting a [Good] spell for an evil end obviously is doing something good for you. It is not necessarily enough for the whole action to be net good but it is not doing nothing.
Compare casting an [Evil] spell for an evil end, an unaligned spell for an evil end, and a [Good] spell for an evil end.
The [Evil] spell is a compounding evil act with psychological effects towards evil that make it more evil than doing the evil with an unaligned spell.
The [Good] spell is a good act with psychological effects affecting the caster towards goodness. This can be outweighed by the evil of the act, but it has actual differences for you compared to just doing evil or doing evil with [Evil].
This is why under this spirit of the rules interpretation the choice of whether to use protection from evil versus protection from law versus protection from good have different alignment implications when dealing with a fallen archon or a risen devil.
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Apologizing for making a a logical argument is not a good thing. It's not healthy for you, since you're becoming a doormat, and it's not healthy for the other person, because at some point they need to grow up and realize that, yes, their opinion is NOT the only one that matters, and other people can rightly argue against it.
Am I infallible? No. I more often than not, fall obscenely short of that mark, but I strive on a daily basis to improve my walk with Christ... And that does not make me a doormat!
And my question still stands. Why is there a difference between how a creature's alignment subtypes work and how a spell's alignment subtypes work?
Actually, scratch that. Where does it even say that they operate differently? Book, chapter, page number, paragraph, if you please. Because I looked and didn't find it.
Don't say it's obvious. Because what's obvious is that the walking embodiment of Law and Evil is lawful evil, exactly like he registers according to the Detect Alignment spells.
And what is actually the case is another thing entirely. His actual alignment has only a one-in-nine chance of being LE.
He's using the power of Evil just to stand up straight, and his alignment is entirely independent of this.
Yet we don't take any more look at what Infernal Healing does other than to determine what energy is used for it.
So I want to know why. And I want to know where this is even established.
Cleric aura class feature works a little like outsider alignment subtype as well. A neutral cleric one step from their aligned god will have an alignment aura that is detectable with detect X spells that corresponds to their god's alignment.
Intelligent weapons though cannot be a different alignment than any alignment of their special features. But it is debatable whether you can have a nonintelligent weapon of balance that applies conflicting alignments to the weapon (holy/unholy, anarchic/axiomatic).
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What if someone finds your religious beliefs offensive?
It would seem that I was a little too vague...
An apology does not have to compromise who you are (such as myself being a Christian)...
Alignment is the GMs prerogative. So this whole flame war is silly... depending on your individual GMs we are ALL wrong or (since everyone seems to have their own take on it) likely only right in one case only, much like a stopped clock.
Apologizing for making a a logical argument is not a good thing. It's not healthy for you, since you're becoming a doormat, and it's not healthy for the other person, because at some point they need to grow up and realize that, yes, their opinion is NOT the only one that matters, and other people can rightly argue against it.** spoiler omitted **
An apology, by itsvery definition, is a "regretful acknowledgement of an offense or failure".
If you have said nothing offensive, and you have said nothing wrong, you have no reason to apologize. If you're saying "I'm sorry", with only the intent to placate someone, and not true regret, it's not actually an apology, merely a deflection.
Falsely apologizing isn't showing your love, it's essentially a LIE. If you don't truly regret, don't apologize. And if you have no REASON to regret, then don't pretend to be sorry.
In my experience people like people who are sincere, even if they're sometimes abrasive, rather than someone who's so afraid of offending someone that every other word out of their mouth is "sorry". It just makes you seem either shifty, or milquetoast.
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And what if he apologized as a gesture of courtesy?
It might sound the same and even use the same words, but it carries a different meaning. In DE's case I wouldn't classify it as an apology. But even a pseudo-apology is enough to perpetuate the victimazion culture and douchebags' sense of entitlement, so I'm against it on principle that no one should apologize for doing something that is not wrong or for stuff that is not their fault. Not even with a pseudo-apology.
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Apologizing for making a a logical argument is not a good thing. It's not healthy for you, since you're becoming a doormat, and it's not healthy for the other person, because at some point they need to grow up and realize that, yes, their opinion is NOT the only one that matters, and other people can rightly argue against it.** spoiler omitted **
If I inadvertently offend anyone, regardless of the setting, with my words or actions, and that person makes it known to me that I have offended them, even if I do not think I have said or done anything offensive, I will offer a genuine, sincere apology to all persons involved.
Because it takes so little of my time, and almost no energy to do so. And if the person is genuinely offended, my apology actually means something to them, and more often than not, that simple act leaves them feeling better... If the person was just looking to be offended, I'm out what, a few seconds of my time??
As a rule I will not devalue my apologies by making them lightly. If I apologize to someone it will not be merely to be an apologist but because I am sincere and truly apologetic. If I make apologies for trivial things unworthy of an apology regularly, then when I apologize to someone for something that may have truly been offensive it will carry all the less weight and be seen as a hollow gesture, much like the value of your word diminishes through lying.
Like Lemmy, and Rynjin, I believe that routinely apologizing for nothing does the receiver of the apology no service at all. I truly believe that whatever small gratification they get from the hollow apology is far outweighed by the damage it does to them in the long run due to training bad social behavior through improper positive or negative reinforcement.
Jesus was not much of an apologist either, DigitalElf. He certainly did not seem so when he drove the money changers from the temple, even when doing so became one of the "reasons" he was tortured and murdered. He most certainly was good about forgiving the trespasses of others though, for even when he was being tortured he prayed for the forgiveness of his torturers, not once pleading for an apology, nor did he apologize to his persecutors, even when doing so may have eased their wrath and thus his own burdens.
However I am not Jesus (I'm just a simple person) and I did apologize to you back in my second post, for I examined what you claimed I was doing, and I clarified for you three times what I was actually doing so that you could be at peace, in keeping with the definition of apology:
apology
[uh-pol-uh-jee]Synonyms
Examples
Word Originnoun, plural apologies.
1.a written or spoken expression of one's regret, remorse, or sorrow for having insulted, failed, injured, or wronged another:
He demanded an apology from me for calling him a crook.
2.a defense, excuse, or justification in speech or writing, as for a cause or doctrine.
I most certainly explained that I was not attacking your opinion, or even your argument, and that your indignation was misplaced. Three times I did, if not more. To my disappointment, you did not offer any reason as to why you should still be indignant, but rather just kept driving the same nail and repeating "opinion" as if I had clarified nothing at all - yet offered no explanation for why the clarification was incorrect if it was. I was saddened still when you devalued your opinion by insisting that your opinions needed no grounds or basis, and in doing so made your opinion as meaningful as random words uttered for random sounds. Truly, that made me sad, but I got over it.
Though I'd like to go into a more detailed discussion about the damage that hollow apologies and the professional victimhood of people in today's societies causes to our culture and our individuals as people, now is not the time to do so, so I will save that for another time, or private messages should anyone be actively interested in that sort of heavy conversation.
Good day to you sir or madam. May you have the strength to not stumble on the stones as you walk with your lord, that you might scale the mountains when the times come.
Sincerely, Ashiel
Back to the Point
Many people do not understand why many other people have such a distaste for having an alignment system in the game even when they more or less agree with the definitions of those alignments.
Again I point towards DigitalElf and Lemmy. Here are two people who play the same game. They are both gamers. All things being equal, they should be able to go to a local Pathfinder game and sit down and play and assuming both were courteous to one-another as we should be, both should be able to resolve issues that arise by referencing the rules of the game.
However, neither could agree on what alignment meant for a character put into question. We can all generally agree on what it means when you have a +5 Initiative, or what a +3 to hit means, and so on. Yet there is weight given to a mechanic that apparently serves no great purpose in the game other than to create discord and arguments between players and GMs. It appears most frequently used to say that someone is roleplaying their character incorrectly, moreso than any other reason that I've been able to spot on the boards.
I've compiled a list of justifications for Alignment that I've found over the years on the boards, and I have also compiled a list of reasons I think the justifications are faulty, and as a result why many people have little patience for alignment as a game mechanic while being okay with most other aspects of the game.
The format:
#: The justification for alignment.
R: The rebuttal.
Reasons for Alignment
1: Alignment is a tool to understand a character's personality, especially for GMs running NPCs.
R: Alignment does little to actually tell you anything about the character beyond whether they are very altruistic or routinely cause others to suffer. More frequently, the descriptions given of important NPCs in published books already give you everything that you need to roleplay the NPC and in greater detail. In some cases their alignment may not even match their narrative descriptions.
2: Alignment is a game mechanic that is important because of magic and effects based on alignment.
R: Alignment creates confusion because there is alignment as a game mechanic, alignment as roleplaying aid, and alignment in between. The game makes a clear distinction between alignment descriptors and a character's actual alignment. Spells and effects powered by different alignments are treated as those alignments regardless of the alignment of their casters, aligned items regardless of their users, and aligned creatures regardless of their alignment. Worse yet, the last part of that sentence when I said "aligned creatures regardless of their alignment" is not an error or typo (which may explain why this gets confusing to a lot of people).
Then you have alignment as a roleplaying aid, or a character's alignment as is a reflection of their personality and actions, which is what most people mean when they say things like "my character is Neutral Good".
Then you have the in between and it really starts to get messy where the game's mechanics reference your roleplaying aid, such as with clerics and their spells, or monks, or barbarians, or druids, or paladins and generally leads to problems.
When spells, items, and game effects are going to reference your roleplaying aid and have a greater or lesser effect on you because of it, your roleplaying aid becomes less about a simple shorthand and needs more codifying, which reduces its use as a simple aid.
Since the roleplaying aid version of alignment is not clearly defined on how you resolve the overall alignment of any given act, mechanics like the Paladin's "commit an evil act" do not technically work (which is one of the reasons why arguments frequently ensue between GMs and Paladin-players since it almost never anything but GM discretion that the Paladin falls).
Or the cleric's spells which create oddities that make no sense, such as a Neutral Good cleric of a Neutral God being unable to prepare Protection from Good, even when their god is handing out said spells to the other 2/3rds of their followers like party favors.
Or how a druid cannot both be strongly devoted to druidic traditions (lawful) while also wanting to encourage healthy life and the benefits of others (good), to be good she must be less devoted to her druid traditions to do so, while being less devoted to her druid traditions (Neutral on Law/Chaos axis) would allow her to be Good or Evil, being very undevoted (Chaotic) would suddenly require her to be Neutral on the Good/Evil axis for...well there's not really a good reason. One could try to say "balance" but druids in the book at described as philosophical balancers, so does this mean that a druid actively tries to be less good or evil if they are more or less devoted to their philosophies and traditions? It doesn't sound like a character, it just sounds stupid. And if you disagree with me, we can both go grab the alignment rules and achieve no clear answer! S#$*ty rules.
Then you have spells that check the roleplaying aid alignment of a person or thing, or have a greater or lesser effect based on the roleplaying aid of that person or thing, while also checking the mechanical alignment and having a greater effect on a person or thing of that mechanical alignment. These spells generally punish characters for playing characters in their ideals (seriously, if you're not a class obtaining benefit from your alignment like a cleric or paladin, a good RP-alignment just means you get to eat worse effects when you're fighting evil-folk like evil clerics and evil fiends).
3: Alignment gives us a basis for what is considered good and evil.
R: Yes and no. The definitions of the alignments in the core rulebook certainly do. Alignment as a whole most certainly does not. It is full of contradictions and even the developers can't get their own ideas strait. As WPharolin points out, the original devs of 3.x were wishy-washy on it, and today's devs aren't much better. From "undead are always evil in Golarion" to "In this AP there is a non-evil undead that helps the party and wants what is best for the city of ______" to the game's very cosmological dissonance.
For example, the alignment rules mention that things lacking in Intelligence are always Neutral. An undead skeleton falls into this category. It's RP alignment is listed as Evil, but it has no alignment mechanics (eg - subtypes, etc), but it's created through and powered by a Neutral aligned energy from a Neutral aligned plane and lacks a soul or mind of its own. Meanwhile a golem is functionally identical to an undead skeleton but is created through the capture and enslavement of a sentient being (with no explanation of how to free the spirit or what happens to it post destruction of the golem) yet nobody cares about how evil those things are.
To be continued...
I need to get some breakfast. :o
It's funny you say that, because there are plenty of tropes and examples in media that defy this idea that pulling power from an evil source makes you more evil.
Ghost Rider is a superhero. Powered by Hell. Sure, you can call him an anti-hero, but he's definitely now outright EVIL as you're suggesting he should be by using his powers.
The protagonist of Blue Exorcist, Rin Okamura, is the son of Satan, and the inheritor of his powers. He's a good guy.
Riku, of Kingdom Hearts, uses spooky dark powers of eeeevil. He's unambiguously a good guy, once he realizes he was being a t%+$ and shakes off the mind control.
I coud go on, but I think this TvTropes page makes my point for me.
Beware the argument "Because tropes" because there's ALWAYS an equal and opposite trope in play as well.
Anime loves to play with the 'darkness is not evil' thing.
Ghost Rider is actually empowered by an Angel, not by Hell. You could make the argument for Son of Satan, but remember that Hell there doesn't have the (evil) subtype...and the vast, vast majority of creatures in the Marvel universe that call on hellfire are not good people. Even Strange only did it when utterly desperate and with no other recourse. Hell is also very different there...it is indeed the place where the wicked are punished in the afterlife. It is NOT the home of Lawful Evil, where adherence to LE may well be rewarded!
In Blue Exorcist, Satan is actually the King of Spirits. He's not intrinsically evil unless you're a member of the Church. There are plenty of neutral spirits, including arguably Mephisto. his power is highly destructive to mortals, but it's noteworthy that a pure hearted mortal woman was actually the only one that could serve as a host, and a pure hearted man one of the few able to contain him for even a short time. So, Satan there does not have the (Evil) subtype.
Riku calls his powers evil, but its just dark. Dark is not evil is also a trope, or Batman would be in trouble.
And I'm sure you can also reference tons of anime where people stupid enough to call on the powers of darkness are totally corrupted by them. It's also the prevelant theme in literature. Defying that change is a feat of tremendous willpower...but it is almost never a 'meh, it's a neutral choice' decision you don't have to care about.
==Aelryinth
Ashiel,
I would add some.
4 Gaming cosmology, having cosmic [Law] and [Chaos], [Good] and [Evil] as supernatural powers that can be tapped and have mechanical effects can be a neat cosmology setup.
5 Tying roleplay alignment to mechanical effects of alignment.
Being able to mechanically have to strive for moral rectitude in roleplay and have mechanical consequences for falling. I know people for who a paladin being able to fall is the point of the class. Others want to just play a super powered good guy or even just a superpowered knight.
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Ashiel,
I would add some.
4 Gaming cosmology, having cosmic [Law] and [Chaos], [Good] and [Evil] as supernatural powers that can be tapped and have mechanical effects can be a neat cosmology setup.
5 Tying roleplay alignment to mechanical effects of alignment.
Being able to mechanically have to strive for moral rectitude in roleplay and have mechanical consequences for falling. I know people for who a paladin being able to fall is the point of the class. Others want to just play a super powered good guy or even just a superpowered knight.
Thanks for your participation. In fact, #4 is why I like having alignment elements in my game even though I think alignment as-is does more harm than good. In a earlier post I mentioned how I divorced the alignment system from the problems it was creating when I was dealing with a more public RP environment.
R4: There's nothing wrong with the idea of having cosmic forces of good and evil (or law and chaos though nobody really cares about those :P) and even having those be elements that can be tapped for power. However the way alignment is set up in the game as-is, it does a very bad job of representing both personal and physical alignments.
As I noted before, if you want to just play a Good bard, you are shooting yourself in the foot. You are actively being punished for being a heroic and good character because mechanically you are immunizing yourself to enemies that you are never likely to face and making yourself far more vulnerable to enemies that you are expected to face in a heroic campaign (such as demons and evil doers). You are actively punished for being good unless your character is receiving some sort of benefit for being so.
Paladins and Clerics on the other hand who have devoted themselves to a particular alignment are generally rewarded with means of powerfully opposing their opposition. While yes Paladins do indeed suffer more damage from spells like unholy blight, Paladins are in turn armed with things like bless weapon (auto-confirms crits vs evil-folks), smite evil, magic circle against evil, and lots of other things that tip the scales back against the evil that harms them. Both these classes are also mechanically tied to the mechanical side of alignment with their Aura class features, spell limitations, and so forth (though it could be cleaner).
This is the difference between alignment as a roleplaying aid and alignment as a mechanic. When the rules are actively encouraging non-champions to shy away from being good or evil then it is discouraging character opportunity. Not preventing or eliminating but discouraging.
It also actively prevents you from using classes that in core could be used for a wide variety of character concepts in a wider variety of campaigns. Take the Paladin for example. We had to invent a whole new class - The Antipaladin - just to give options to a core class to represent some other cause than good, when with very little tweaking the class can fill far more of a role as a knight of chivalry that would fit well into campaigns even without a large emphasis on X vs Y planes/forces, such as a campaign that was a fantasy version of the Paladin's namesake, where religious or political war is a big theme.
5 Tying roleplay alignment to mechanical effects of alignment.
R5: Such things have been done in other RPGs with greater amounts of success, but they had been done with a more mechanically solid and reasonable method. I think what you mean here is essentially a purity/corruption system, where doing certain things makes you more good or more evil. However D&D/PF alignment goes to lengths to tell you to mostly ignore alignment except when not to.
Certain character classes in Classes list repercussions for those who don't adhere to a specific alignment, and some spells and magic items have different effects on targets depending on alignment, but beyond that it's generally not necessary to worry too much about whether someone is behaving differently from his stated alignment.
The whole thing is a sham. If you want some sort of corrupting influence, explain it in greater detail, set what triggers the change, explain how much it changes, and so forth. However, such a corruption/purity system has little place in the generic ruleset - the core - outside of specific campaigns that utilize it (though offering it as an optional system in whatever DMG you're publishing at the time would be helpful). Because this is what many seem to be treating the alignment rules as, but it is not what the alignment rules are, which again causes more discontent between otherwise perfectly reasonable players over the game they mutually enjoy and love.
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Aelriynth, I'm not house-ruling anything. You are. There are no rules saying that casting a spell with the [Evil] descriptor is an Evil action.
Actually...if he's playing in Golarion and you're not, you're both using the RAW with no House Rules. Technically speaking.
If you play your way in Golarion it's a House Rule. If he plays his way in other settings, it's a House Rule. In both cases, it's a pretty reasonable one, though.
Just for clarity.
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Thanks for your participation. In fact, #4 is why I like having alignment elements in my game even though I think alignment as-is does more harm than good. In a earlier post I mentioned how I divorced the alignment system from the problems it was creating when I was dealing with a more public RP environment.
I guess I should answer the OP as well since I'm participating in the thread.
In Moldvay basic and AD&D I ran it pretty straight without much tracking or worrying about it. I intervened once as a DM when a 1e CG drow ranger chose to go to the dark side in a horrific manner to match up better with the rest of the party and embrace more of his drowness. I turned him CN for his actions as he expected to happen and had his god personally strip away his ranger stuff and leave him a fighter.
In 3e and 3.5 I told everybody in my group "Put down whatever you want for alignment and I'll be fine with it. If you feel at some point it should change that's fine with me." I did a lot with cosmic alignment and even had the plane of Concordant Opposition have a property that everything in there counted as neutral for all purposes while on the plane including outsiders losing alignment based DR entirely while there.
Later I experimented with removing all alignment restrictions on classes and then taking away personal alignment but keeping cosmological alignment.
In Pathfinder I've mostly done a cosmic alignment only set up. Everyone is neutral/unaligned at base. Descriptors get an alignment including aura classes (cleric and paladin). Smites and protections are generally smite anything with descriptor enemies being the big bonus types. I removed intent from detect evil. I added evil descriptors to all undead to connect the [evil] descriptor spells and make them icky. I made uncontrolled mindless undead wandering monsters that attack on sight. I added [Chaos] to fey and [Law] to constructs. I allow paladins of any alignment and adjust powers accordingly and do not connect their supernatural alignment to their personal morality. One player chose to be a LG style moral paladin chosen by an evil god who he culturally believed he had to obey because its a god who chose him. He detected as evil but otherwise had the normal paladin powers including detect evil and smite evil.
I guess I also like the crunch of alignment, the mechanics create a lot of strange interactions and leaves room open for, ultimately, more crunch.
One of my favorite monsters is the couatl, it is lawful good and has great suite of alignment based spell interactions in it's stat block.
Or the succubus, profane gift is an excellent flavorful ability and using alignment really adds to the game for me.
I really can't remember the last disruptive argument I've had at a table over alignment, in my experience such arguments rarely had to with alignment any more than just being another tool used to bludgeon one another with when people had personality conflicts.
As with any rules if you don't have fun with them you should just remove or change them.
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I point towards DigitalElf and Lemmy. Here are two people who play the same game.
THIS, this whole part of your explanation is exactly what I meant when I kept saying that you could have made your point without leaving me feeling as though you've dragged my interpretation through the mud, regardless of whether or not that was your intent... With this, you managed to make your point clear and succinct while still using me as an example of why you do not use alignment in your games, but without my feeling as though you had dragged my view through the mud...
As to the topic at hand...
I view alignment as being a real part of who a character is, not just something he identifies with. Which is why, back in 1st edition, as well as in 2nd edition, changing alignment carried with it, stiff penalties (e.g. 1e you lost a level, 2e you stop gaining XP). My view of alignment did not change simply because the editions changed (though I did stop using 1e's rule of losing a level and adopted 2e's rule in its place when I changed from 1e to 2e).
When 3.0 and 3.5 came along, I continued to use alignment the same as I had, same thing when I started playing Pathfinder...
I disliked the change in the rules of alignment that started in 3.0, it made a character's core belief in a multiverse where core belief really mattered, seem trivial, and "wishy-washy".
Does alignment emulate real life? Partially, though not perfectly... However, it does so enough in my opinion in a game where good and evil are tangible forces that can effect everyday life; where moral choices are either black or white (though you can still have areas of morally grey as well, just to change things up now and then if you like without being inconsistent).
Can any of this be done without alignment? Yeah, most of it anyway. Though by doing so you'd loose the ramifications of changing your moral compass, and while that may appeal to many, I think, as I said earlier, having lax rules (or in the case of no alignment, no rules) cheapens the game. I mean, look at the argument about whether or not using evil spells effects alignment... I think in a world where good and evil are tangible, where whole realities are shaped by moral points of view (i.e. the Outer Planes ala the "Great Wheel"), if you play with fire, not only should you get burned, but you NEED to get burned. Having lax rules concerning alignment makes it hard to justify making good harder to maintain than evil, I think the same would be true if there were no alignments at all; especially if you think that there should be consequences for changing your moral point of view...
I know without a doubt, that my views on alignment, and in many areas, the game as a whole, are in the minority (I mean, I went back to playing 2nd edition AD&D as my goto game of choice). But I fully embrace that, as well as the fact that it would potentially limit my pool of possible players. But, as I have said many time on these boards: I am a card carrying, "You kids get off my lawn!" grognard.
Though, I do have to say (tooting my own horn here), that as strictly as I adhere to alignment, especial harsh (you stop gaining XP) "old school" alignment, I have yet to have a problem or true argument over it (and that's essentially using the same rules for alignment for over 30 years)... :-)
A point of curiosity directed at Aelryinth:
If I recall from the previous thread which got consumed by the IH debate, you stated that using an [evil] spell often enough would shift the caster (and the recipient?) toward Evil over time. I take this to mean that in your games, such a caster would find themselves having more and more selfish thoughts, and would eventually begin acting on those thoughts.
If so, I can see how this is easily acted out from your side of the screen: You control the NPCs, so they act as you deem appropriate. And when you explain how [evil] spells affect a caster to your players, most of them are probably more or less willing to either avoid casting [evil] spells while playing non-Evil characters or to act out the alignment shift. My question is: Have you ever had a player who decided that "I don't care if using IH makes my character hear voices; Evil is a choice, and my character continues making Good ones"?
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My question is: Have you ever had a player who decided that "I don't care if using IH makes my character hear voices; Evil is a choice, and my character continues making Good ones"?
Obviously I am not Aelryinth, but I have a similar view that casting spells such as IH gradually shift one's alignment towards evil...
I have not had such a player as the one in your example, but in my games, evil can be a choice, a good character that continues to play with evil, especially willingly so, no longer has a say about retaining his good alignment. I am NOT NOT NOT saying that one simple casting of an evil aligned spell will change a good character's alignment, but what I am saying is that if a good character continues to make conscious evil choices again and again, his alignment will not just shift, but will eventually change. Such a character could then start to make good choices that mattered (for starters, by discontinuing the use of evil aligned spells), and be able start back up the path towards good.
This is all predicated on the fact that I do not view evil and good as being equal, that it is much harder to maintain goodness than it is to do evil - so one cannot steal one day, and give to the poor the next and expect their "moral account" to be balanced out...
My question is: Have you ever had a player who decided that "I don't care if using IH makes my character hear voices; Evil is a choice, and my character continues making Good ones"?Obviously I am not Aelryinth, but I have a similar view that casting spells such as IH gradually shift one's alignment towards evil...
I have not had such a player as the one in your example, but in my games, evil can be a choice, a good character that continues to play with evil, especially willingly so, no longer has a say about retaining his good alignment. I am NOT NOT NOT saying that one simple casting of an evil aligned spell will change a good character's alignment, but what I am saying is that if a good character continues to make conscious evil choices again and again, his alignment will not just shift, but will eventually change. Such a character could then start to make good choices (for starters, by discontinuing the use of evil aligned spells), and start back up the path towards good.
This is all predicated on the fact that I do not view evil and good as being equal, that it is much harder to maintain goodness than it is to do evil - so one cannot steal one day, and give to the poor the next and expect their "moral account" to be balanced out...
Thanks for your thoughts, Digitalelf.
So from your comments, it sounds like you'd be happy with an Evil PC in your campaign who, other than casting a lot of [evil] spells, was in every other way heroic and Good by your reckoning. Would such a character eventually provoke the 'PCs who turn Evil become NPCs' clause from the 2e DMG*, or would they remain PCs so long as they remained 'Heroic Evil'?
*Don't recall if this ever carried over into 3.x...
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Well there weren't specifically [Evil] spells in 2E. For example, animate dead notes that it's not an especially good spell and that good clerics generally will want a good reason to cast it, but your lawful good cleric can absolutely cast animate dead in 2E.
It wasn't until 3.5 that the mindless undead created with it were suddenly slapped with EVIL. Even then, feedback at the time suggested that it was less because of a real reason and more so Paladins could smite them (which is dumb as they could have just made smite work on all non-good undead or something).
Spoiler:THIS, this whole part of your explanation is exactly what I meant when I kept saying that you could have made your point without leaving me feeling as though you've dragged my interpretation through the mud, regardless of whether or not that was your intent... With this, you managed to make your point clear and succinct while still using me as an example of why you do not use alignment in your games, but without my feeling as though you had dragged my view through the mud...
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Would such a character eventually provoke the 'PCs who turn Evil become NPCs' clause from the 2e DMG*, or would they remain PCs so long as they remained 'Heroic Evil'?
I don't know about being "happy" about such a character... ;-)
But, in most cases, yeah, I'd let the player continue playing the character, so long as he genuinely strived towards returning his character's alignment back to being good. I don't allow player's to play evil characters as a general rule, so if a player, after having a character change alignment, embraces the new evil alignment, then that character does become an NPC under my control (which usually means that character goes off into the shadows never to be seen or heard from again).
However, I could see with some players where I would just instantly make the character an NPC, because I would know the player, and thus know that he would not play the character any differently than before the change, thus perpetuating the problem (thankfully, as I said, I have not encountered such a player personally).
However, depending upon the dynamic of the group such a player was in, a now-evil character may pose other additional problems, so I would probable suggest that this "journey of personal redemption" be done as a venture away from the group as a whole.
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your lawful good cleric can absolutely cast animate dead in 2E.
Not in my games (and that's not even a house-rule or an optional rule, it is RAW, because 2nd edition tells the DM that he does not have to grant any spell to a cleric he feels is inappropriate)!
While there were no spells specifically labeled evil, there were plenty of spells that had an evil taint to them, much like the aforementioned Pathfinder spell Infernal Healing carries with it (at least in my opinion it does); spells such as the various reverse versions of the cure spells (PHB even says, good clerics need to watch out for the reverse of some spells because it may conflict with their deity's views)... Like I said, 2nd edition specifically states that the DM has the right to withhold and not grant whatever spells the character prays for that he deems are inappropriate (for the character, for the campaign, whatever)... Sure that power can be abused, but a good DM will have valid reasons for not granting certain spells.
Regardless, even though skeletons and zombies are neutral in 2nd edition, there is only one official source (that I recall) in which they are used in a non-evil fashion, and that is in the Jakandor trilogy of rule-books, and not only is that barely a campaign setting (it's better classifieds as a "mini-setting"), it was not supported past those initial three books.
Everywhere else you look it's a variation of the same thing: The town's LG priest approaches the low level party of adventurers and says; "Please help us! Skeletons and zombies have infested the local grave-yard. You must destroy this blight upon our beloved community, for only then can I can re-consecrate the grave-yard and properly lay the souls of the dearly-departed to rest once again..."
Then there's my favorite setting: Ravenloft! Where casting Animate Dead (and other seemingly harmless necromantic spells like Raise Dead) prompts your character to make a "Ravenloft Power's Check", where if he fails, he gains somewhat useful "perks", which get better and better with each failure, and if he fails a total of 5 of them, it's instant NPC for that character (because at that point, there is NO possibility for redemption, as that character has now become an integral part of the campaign setting and can never leave it, or his newly formed domain/prison cell created especially for him)...
your lawful good cleric can absolutely cast animate dead in 2E.Not in my games (and that's not even a house-rule or an optional rule, it is RAW, because 2nd edition tells the DM that he does not have to grant any spell to a cleric he feels is inappropriate)!
Good for you DE. Good for you. :)
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A point of curiosity directed at Aelryinth:
If I recall from the previous thread which got consumed by the IH debate, you stated that using an [evil] spell often enough would shift the caster (and the recipient?) toward Evil over time. I take this to mean that in your games, such a caster would find themselves having more and more selfish thoughts, and would eventually begin acting on those thoughts.
If so, I can see how this is easily acted out from your side of the screen: You control the NPCs, so they act as you deem appropriate. And when you explain how [evil] spells affect a caster to your players, most of them are probably more or less willing to either avoid casting [evil] spells while playing non-Evil characters or to act out the alignment shift. My question is: Have you ever had a player who decided that "I don't care if using IH makes my character hear voices; Evil is a choice, and my character continues making Good ones"?
He's deluding himself.
Casting IH is making an evil choice. He's a hypocrite. He can continue to think he's making good choices, but where it really matters, i.e. wanting healing, he stoops to using Evil because it's better and more convenient.
He could say whatever he wanted...his actions would speak for him, and soon enough he'd start popping the paladin's detect-o-meter, which has been a kind of 'oh s$%~' moment for some people when it happens. Of course there's the one guy who tried to make it seem like I was singling him out personally, but he's the same guy who thought he could stay CG while using Evil magic to good ends. I warned him, he learned otherwise. And since I don't allow Evil PC's when I GM, he had a choice of taking drastic action to reclaim his destiny, or becoming an NPC. I ended up with his character sheet, and he started someone new.
What happened to the new NPC after that was interesting, but that's a separate story.
==Aelryinth
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That has to be one of the most dickish GM things I've ever seen.
"Yah I know you do Good in everything else but f!!* you for using this healing spell a lot. Say bye-bye to your character."
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I'm shocked he ended up staying at your table and playing another character at all instead of leaving. That's one of the most awful things I've ever heard of a GM doing to a player. Wow.
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Yeah... That a real dick move. I don't usually disagree this strongly with Aelryinth, but... Holy s#*! on crack! That would have made me walk away from the table at the very same instant!
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Uh, huh. Keep up with the judgmental crap you know nothing about, guys.
He'd happily Summon anything from across the alignment spectrum, based on whatever was most powerful for the level...which were usually fiendish animals or evil outsiders. Not the least being because DR/Good is much better then DR/Evil when you're fighting evil stuff. But he never used them against good people, of course.
Happily try to pull the Calling abuse check thing, but that didn't last long once the churches found out about it. He did try to get away with the Succubus profane gift by petrifying it and using non-detection, however...only for the best of reasons!
He'd happily make undead out of his enemies and throw them into fights, then keep the nice ones around to use for the next fight. Never used them against good people, of course.
he'd happily dominate enemies and keep them under thralldom until their usefulness was done, and then see to it they got killed fighting. Never have them fight good people of course. And they usually made good undead, too.
He could justify each and every single spell he cast as being for the greater good, and for good ends.
In reality, he was powergaming. The same tactics used against the party by enemies were horrible, nasty things, but not so when he used them. After all, he was CG...turning the power of evil against itself was just fair play, right?
Just look at the codes for LE and NE. Having a code where you don't do evil against a specific set of people doesn't hide the Evil of your actions. He used evil magic regularly and to his own benefit and power, and basically thought he could do so without consequence. His actions belied all his words.
And just like you, he claimed I was personally ruling against his almighty effective character to take it out of the game, when I had warned him multiple times about consequences of using evil magic.
he didn't want to play the character any other way, so he gave him up.
he made a great bad guy. The rest of the party was mostly neutrals, and the character didn't have any problem picking on Neutrals. So, once they 'kicked him out' for using Evil magic and 'besmirching their rep' (the justification for his new NPC status), he had no compunctions against using his tactics against them, and training any and all other mages to do the same thing. And that, of course, went south exactly as you might expect it to. I must have used his advancement template another dozen times over that campaign. Do you know that NPC wizards are awesome bad guys even if they have lower Wealth by Level? Because it is all about class levels and spells, not bling.
Man, they grew to hate the powergaming wizards that guy trained up. Charm spells, undead hordes, summoned and Called creatures galore, teleporting away at the first sign of danger only to come back with more minions to throw at them, all healed up. Yeah, they really grew to hate that NPC...who of course knew them really well and never bothered to fight them directly.
So, yeah, the character was a dick, and got what was coming to him. And when he started treating the PC's like they treated everyone else, and the neutral powers that be didn't give a damn for their actions coming back to bite them...yeah, that made an interesting campaign development.
It was pretty memorable. That NPC is still around, they never managed to track him down and kill him (hard to do for a wizard), but man, they sure wanted to. His tactics have spread into widespread use by many, many wizards. I imagine it's something like facing Ashiel's spellcasters, who'll use what is the best thing to use. Evil received quite the how=to leg up from that guy!
And their own fallen PC started it all.
So, you guys weren't there, you didn't know what was going on, and it was basically him saying I couldn't do this, when I warned him repeatedly I could and would, and I stuck by my guns. there was no 'suddenly' about it. He walked into it believing I wouldn't do it, and I did.
Kinda like the first time I actually killed a PC, way back when, but that's a different story.
Having the same tactics turned on them, with his new improvements, was quite the eye-opener, too.
They still talk about it. And when I start talking about Evil magic and the like, they all pay attention now. He thought he was an exception, and he wasn't. I play a bit grimmer and grittier campaign then you people do, I guess, and he thought he was going to be an exception to the rules. He wasn't.
And that's how it was. You should have seen the expression on his face when they got into one dungeon, only to find the remains of several old monster zombies, more denizens of the dungeon who'd obviously been killed twice (once charmed and once as undead), and all the loot gone and the wizard mark of his old character at the end of the dungeon...with all the animated undead left behind for them to deal with as a bonus...which is exactly what he did most of the time when they were clearing a dungeon.
==Aelryinth
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None of that makes it better. In fact it makes it worse, since not only did you NPC his character you gave his character a personality shift away from who he actually was in an attempt to justify it. It's just... I'm really shocked by this. I guess in part because you'd admit it in a public place and expect acceptance for screwing with one of your players like that. It's like poster child abusive GM material.
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I'm not seeing anything there that would justify an alignment shift any further than Neutral.
Those actions are, for the most part, only Evil because you have labeled them as evil. It's circular logic.
Who gives a flying f++* if he uses Animate Dead, or Dominate Person, or whatever other spell effectively in the service of whatever good cause you're pursuing?
You went out of your way, at each stage, to specify he didn't use them against good people, and I presume not innocents either.
So the worst thing he did was Dominate a person into getting killed (as opposed to killing him outright), and raise his corpse afterwards (who cares? He's already dead.).
And for that, you basically said "Make a new character, I'm tired of you" and then used his newly minted "NPC" (which, quite honestly, was just an adversarial revenge GMPC) to try and kill the party, since YOU had determined, arbitrarily, that he was both now evil, and homicidal, despite the fact that you, again, went out of your way to specify he wasn't harming good people when he was playing him, so you actually changed the character to "prove" he was evil.
No, I think I'm being judgmental about something I understand VERY well from the information I've been given.
And seriously? It's not like you haven't been acting like you're the grand moral authority during this whole thread, so don't cry to me about ME being judgmental to YOU. That's just hypocritical. Which, ironically, is something you claim to dislike in your little story there.
casting evil spells to do good, is a neutral action, no alignment shift created. casting evil spells to do neutral tasks, that is a evil action. evil spell - evil tasks, evil evil.
ANYWAY, on the question of something like "have you ever became evil on purpose by casting these spells". no not really, usually if i'm evil, i stay evil, and i don't generally fall.
also, on alignment. I use a much more liberal reading of alignment than I think most people. the specific stuff that alignment says in the book, is just an example and is not exclusive. you can be lawful good, by doing things not specifically called out by pathfinder as being a lawful good action.
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What's the definition of judgmental? Because I tend to analyze and evaluate stuff based on the information I have. And that's exactly what I did.
Considering all the information given... I still define it as "a dick move that would make me walk away from the table". In fact, taking the second post into consideration, I'd call it "even more of a dick move than I expected".
You can play however you want, of course, and if it works for you and your friends, that's awesome! More power to you! But me? I wouldn't have stayed another minute in that table. At least not in game sessions with the GM who did it.
Well... I suppose I'd try to talk to the GM first, but if that didn't help, or worse, if he refused to listen, I wouldn't give another try. That's the sort of red flag that I simply can't ignore.
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I see.
He's using Evil magic, which I repeatedly warned him would have consequences (because, you know, I love profound alignments!). But because he was only using Evil magic against non-good things, he gets a pass by his reasoning. In other words, he's trying to cover his ass with a thin veneer of gratuity.
No. That's not how it works anywhere. You guys are the ones with the double standard, not me. He used Evil magic, it wasn't for good ends, it was because it was the most efficient and powerful thing for him to do. There was no sacrifice involved, no moral trauma. He made the choice to use Evil magic, believing there would be no consequences in the face of my telling him otherwise.
Dominating intelligent beings, getting them killed, then animating them to do the same thing. Yeah, no, that's not good, and it's a big step past neutral. If you see otherwise, that's your judgment. Pharasma and Pathfinder agree with me.
Maybe you're more forgiving of the extremely pragmatic, I'm-beyond-alignment style of play. But there's alignments in my campaign, and if you want to act like someone who can ignore them, that doesn't mean they ignore you. The alignments are bigger then you are.
If you're crying about why I don't allow Evil people...that's because I've too much experience with people using Evil as an excuse to do whatever they want. He was using Evil magic as an excuse to do whatever he wanted, trying to loophole things by not using it against Good people. It's a classic denier strategy, I warned him on it, and he still went ahead and did it.
And kindly note, I gave the guy a choice...go for redemption, doing what it took, or become an NPC.
It's my campaign, I set the rules, he tried to flaunt them, and I didn't let him. I wasn't going to change them for him.
My alternative was to scrape the campaign just so he could cater to his powergamer build and ruthless, pragmatic PC mentality. I didn't. The campaign went on.
And you being outside looking in means you are getting a highly unknowing view of what went on. It wasn't your campaign, your campaign world, and I didn't spring anything on anyone. You literally have nothing to argue from, aye?
There's a PC in 3.5 called the Malconvoker. It's absolutely the best summoning PC in the game. The whole shtick of it is a Good character summoning evil creatures to fight for them, instead of using Good creatures to do so.
There's another PC called the Grey Guardian, which is basically a Paladin that can ignore the moral code to do whatever they feel can be justified in the name of Good, and get an Atonement and soldier on. NO drawbacks.
I didn't allow either class, ever, because the fundamental alignment infractions of each invalidate the whole idea of alignment.
I take alignments seriously in my games. I love the idea of them. If you don't, well, that's a different game, and I'll play differently in your games then I would in mine.
But that's the context you have to keep in mind. I treat alignments seriously, he didn't, thought I would let him slide, and I didn't. Then he started to see what I was talking about when the same tactics got used repeatedly against the party, by mages exactly as pragmatic and ruthless as his old character. Ruthless, pragmatic and efficient are all hallmarks of Evil, as is justification for their use.
it was good times! They sure got to hate having to fight summoned celestials under the command of mages who didn't care about Summoned monsters of any kind...
:)
==Aelryinth
All my +1s belong to Rynjin, Aratrok, and Lemmy. :o
And you being outside looking in means you are getting a highly unknowing view of what went on. It wasn't your campaign, your campaign world, and I didn't spring anything on anyone. You literally have nothing to argue from, aye?
This means you're bowing out of the conversation correct?
Because if you continue to comment on our posts, you are also "outside looking in" and "have nothing to argue from".
Aye?
I'll take your next post in this thread as confirmation that you are, in fact, a hypocrite.
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So why did becoming evil make the character an NPC. Is it some sort of arbitrary no evil PCs rule. That would make the anecdote relevant as that is another example of why the alignment system is terrible.
What I find most disturbing was the utter disregard for the character the PC had constructed. The character's ways were so much an ingrained part of the character that the PC would rather make an entirely new character that was conceptually different rather than change him, and then Aelyrinth took the character, made him his own NPC, and then began changing him in front of the player to boot.
If I was even going to consider using a former PC as an NPC in a similar fashion, I'd get the express permission of the player in question an run any changes and directions past the player beforehand because it's not my character, I'm not invested in it like (s)he would be.
Ugh...I have no words.
No Wait...Words! (Edit): I mean, you have a character that was clearly using evil (in your world) things for good reasons. That's pretty much Neutrality at its finest. But you insisted that he was evil when he was in every instance using his power to further the benefit of those who were good, punish the wicked, and intentionally held his hand for he could have easily used such dark magic to extort the weak and innocent and yet he used it to defend them.
So you made him evil, arbitrarily, when at worst he was both evil and good (Neutral). Then you took his PC and changed his whole persona to be more evil and...ugh...now I've run out of words again...
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No. That's not how it works anywhere.
Actually, it is. There is no rule saying that using [Evil] spells is evil. And in my games, it works just fine. Your actions are defined by their consequences and the motivations behind them, not what tool or fuel they used.
So, yeah... That's obviously how it works in some places.
You seem to be under impression that our views on alignment, whatever, they may be, are somehow less valid than yours, which you obviously see as the one true interpretation.
Again, you're free to play however you want. The way I see it, as long as the players (GM included) are having fun, all is well. I'm just glad my GM doesn't share your GMing style.
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Okay, I'd like to clarify something.
Aelrynith, was the character in question actually doing anything Good? At all? Ever? Was he saving people, helping the downtrodden, defending the innocent, or just being generally nice, anything like that?
Because I think a lot of people objecting to treating the player and character as you did are assuming he was doing stuff like that, but that's not the impression I'm getting from your posts. So...was he? Or was he being a self-serving mercenary type even aside from the spells thing.
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there that would justify an alignment shift any further than Neutral
I can agree with part of what you say here, in that in a gradual shift towards evil (from Lawful Good anyway), the first stop so to speak on the alignment train to evil, is neutrality (Lawful Neutral in the case of a Lawful Good character moving towards evil). But being neutral does not give a character free reign to continue to willing do evil... So the journey towards evil would continue from that new, neutral alignment (at least that is how things work in my games).
As for actions being evil because the GM makes them evil, I think that is wholly within the GM's purview to do, especially in the case of deeming evil spells having an effect on alignment, and deeming that one cannot achieve good through acts of evil... It's very clear that Aelryinth makes that call as a GM. That's part and parcel of what house-rules are about.
Making a PC an NPC is irrelevant to the above, so I have no comment on that specifically...
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As for actions being evil because the GM makes them evil, I think that is wholly within the GM's purview to do, especially in the case of deeming evil spells having an effect on alignment, and deeming that one cannot achieve good through acts of evil... It's very clear that Aelryinth makes that call as a GM. That's part and parcel of what house-rules are about.
Yeah. Everything is within the GM's purview. The GM is free rule whatever he wants however he wants. That doesn't mean he should do it. Or that doing that whatever isn't a dick move.
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On a side note, why does Aelryinth even mention power gaming? What does power gaming have to do with alignment? If he wanted to power game he would just be Neutral rather than trying to be Good initially (I mean why would you be Good as a wizard when you would be all the stronger against more foes by being Neutral)?
Ael himself makes it sound like it was spiteful more than not. On a side note, nothing he mentioned sounds like powergaming (beyond just using spells to do exactly what they are supposed to do).
You're using mind control to turn enemies into allies, you dirty evil powergamer.
You're using summoning spells to summon beneficial things, you dirty evil powergamer.
You're using animate dead to make undead minions, you dirty evil powergamer.
In the words of pineapple-buttplug-Hitler (Little Nicky movie): "You're snerious?"
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What's the definition of judgmental? Because I tend to analyze and evaluate stuff based on the information I have. And that's exactly what I did.
Considering all the information given... I still define it as "a dick move that would make me walk away from the table". In fact, taking the second post into consideration, I'd call it "even more of a dick move than I expected".
You can play however you want, of course, and if it works for you and your friends, that's awesome! More power to you! But me? I wouldn't have stayed another minute in that table. At least not in game sessions with the GM who did it.
Well... I suppose I'd try to talk to the GM first, but if that didn't help, or worse, if he refused to listen, I wouldn't give another try. That's the sort of red flag that I simply can't ignore.
If I warned you repeatedly ahead of time that using Evil magic and using the kind of tactics you used are going to have alignment consequences, and you refused to stop, who is at fault here, Lemmy? Me, for delivering on what I told you, or you, for saying that I wouldn't?
I told you I warned him repeatedly. I didn't tell him not to do it...I warned him there would be consequences. He ignored it, using his justifications, despite my warning him in spite of his justifications.
he didn't determine the alignments in my campaign. He was using Evil magic and ruthless tactics that would instantly be called Evil if and when they were used against the party, but thought that as a PC he could get away with it.
He basically walked into it with his eyes wide shut, and then had a decision to make when he thought he was calling my bluff.
As I said, if I gave in, the game was over. I'd have folded up everything, and started anew. I wasn't going to back down. I gave him the rope, he hung himself, and then he challenged my authority to pull it tight. I didn't make him make the decisions, I just warned him of the road he was walking down, and he ignored me until it came up and bit him in the arse. He was selling, and I wasn't buying, hadn't been buying, and he thought he could make me buy, and I didn't, repeatedly.
That was the situation.
Oh, and yes, this was not the only indication that things were going south on him, given the rep of a fiend summoner, undead-making necromancer who regularly enslaved monstrous creatures, and then animated them as undead if they died.
Like I said, it wasn't a surprise. You, Lemmy, might make the choice to realize I'm firm on alignments and consequences of your actions, keep the character, and start on the road to redemption. He didn't want to, and started a new PC, since the personality of the character was established and he didn't want to ruin it with a heel-face turn.
It wasn't hostile, there was no gnashing of the teeth. He was a little surprised I stood by my guns, but he made his choice, and stuck by the choice not to change the character. We had to talk out the circumstances to the party and decide how and why the character was leaving, but in truth they were tired of his little armies of undead and summoned creatures, the Good churches slamming their doors in their faces, people pulling into homes and buildings when they went by, etc.
==Aelryinth
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That doesn't mean he should do it. Or that doing that whatever isn't a dick move.
I agree that there are a lot of things that a GM could do that would cause others to call him some sort of phallic symbol, but I do not agree that making evil spells effect alignment, or saying that good can never be achieved through evil acts, is cause for such...
there that would justify an alignment shift any further than NeutralI can agree with part of what you say here, in that in a gradual shift towards evil (from Lawful Good anyway), the first stop so to speak on the alignment train to evil, is neutrality (Lawful Neutral in the case of a Lawful Good character moving towards evil). But being neutral does not give a character free reign to continue to willing do evil... So the journey towards evil would continue from that new, neutral alignment (at least that is how things work in my games).
As for actions being evil because the GM makes them evil, I think that is wholly within the GM's purview to do, especially in the case of deeming evil spells having an effect on alignment, and deeming that one cannot achieve good through acts of evil... It's very clear that Aelryinth makes that call as a GM. That's part and parcel of what house-rules are about.
Making a PC an NPC is irrelevant to the above, so I have no comment on that specifically...
I still say evil used by someone truely only using it for good, is someone who can get away with neutral, but they have to be paladin levels or good when using evil magic. I like the idea of like witchslayers or demon hunters fighting fire with fire so to speak.
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Okay, I'd like to clarify something.
Aelrynith, was the character in question actually doing anything Good? At all? Ever? Was he saving people, helping the downtrodden, defending the innocent, or just being generally nice, anything like that?
Because I think a lot of people objecting to treating the player and character as you did are assuming he was doing stuff like that, but that's not the impression I'm getting from your posts. So...was he? Or was he being a self-serving mercenary type even aside from the spells thing.
He was a mercenary. CG is a very flexible alignment, you can justify just about anything for it. Getting paid to 'do good' is certainly inside that paradigm.
Did he go out of his way to do 'good things' of his own volition? Like, charity and such? no. He'd rescue things if he was paid to rescue things...happily. If that involved carrying decrepit miners out on the shoulders of an undead ogre, c'est la vies. If the enemy had loot, that was even better. If there was a size L creature to charm with strength, reach and good hit points to turn into an undead minion after it killed his enemies for him and got killed, even better!
i.e. he didn't play like some saintly guy who just happened to use evil magic. He played like a ruthlessly intelligent, pragmatic wizard who had no compunction against breaking the wills of sentient creatures, using them against their own kin and kind, animating their remains when they were killed, and dealing with creatures of the Lower Planes for more power...because it was mechanically the best thing to do, and he could justify it in his own mind as being without consequence.
He simply didn't use the tactics against local governments and 'good people'. Because that would get him into instant trouble, and he knew it.
And Ashiel, you're ignoring alignment descriptors again, which I know you do in your campaign, but not in mine. Summoning Evil creatures is indeed an Evil spell. It was the best choice, it was taken because it was the best choice, and no other reason. He didn't care that it was Evil magic, because he thought he could justify it away. Just Summoning any old thing? sure, good tactic. But he made the choice for Evil creatures because it was the most powerful choice to make, ignoring the consequences.
And yes, it was powergaming. You don't use Locate Creature to locate hydras to turn into zombies for any other reason then that they keep all their attacks even when undead. I was perfectly aware of it, and rolled my eyes when he told me. I don't call someone a power gamer lightly, he was doing it.
==Aelryinth