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Well, yeah, you are right, Just cast the spell five more time and we are cool. A good thing that the spell level don't count for those rules.Protection from evil to seal an unholy pact with a devil prince?, a good act in the multiverse.I think you might be missing the point a bit here.
Effectively they are (at least) two acts. One is good and the other is evil.
The assumption that all acts are equal is false, just FYI.
I think we have a problem here with game rules vs common fantasy tropes. By the rules "trap the soul" is not evil. In most fantasy stories stealing/imprisoning souls definitely makes you the bad guy. I am only pointing this out so both parties can decide which base they are going to argue from so everyone is on the same page.
<Goes back into spectator mode>
The assumption that all acts are equal is false, just FYI.Well, yeah, you are right, Just cast the spell five more time and we are cool. A good thing that the spell level don't count for those rules.Protection from evil to seal an unholy pact with a devil prince?, a good act in the multiverse.I think you might be missing the point a bit here.
Effectively they are (at least) two acts. One is good and the other is evil.
In terms of Fluff, or yes there should be levels of evil in the game, but the way the rules are spelled out implies that all levels of evil are exactly the same. RAW, maybe not RAI, five castings of Infernal Healing is less than killing someone with Damnation four. It makes no sense, which I agree with, but that is how the rules are written, and as such they make no sense.
1) Are you people just looking for a reason to hate? This a great book with alot of useful things. Heck the advice on how to run a horror game is great for any game system.
2) Do they teach reading comprehension anymore? What do you guys think the line 'It is up the the GM' but here is some guidelines... (which admitted are stupid) means? Sure for a morally ambiguous game I would run it differently...but for a Lovecraft style game I would use the numbers they have because it fits that style. But the entire point of this sidebar is to give people a idea that evil magic corrupts.
5) Sure these rules might not work for a morally ambiguous game...but not every one runs a morally ambiguous game. Though personally for games where morale dilemmas are prevalent...than don't you need these evil choices with consequences to actually make it a dilemma?
Just want tor reply to these parts.
1. This book is a good one (nothwistanding my issues with the Archetypes, Corruption, San attributes, and this), but this thread was not designed as a reason to hate it. It's meant to point out that part of the rulebook is not designed well, can be easily abused, and does not make much sense. If people can't complain about that, should we also have not been allowed to complain about the uselessness of the Chained Rogue or the OP Chained Summoner at all? We complain because we want to see bad rules get fixed.
2&5. Personally, I've run with players that take the rulebooks as the word of god, but also it doesn't change the fact that even as a system to represent the change in morality from casting evil spells, it is still poorly designed because it doesn't differentiate based on the degree of evil, and is easily cheesable. If it's supposed to represent the corruption of evil magic, why is it so easy to just cast another five spells and be back to Good-flavored alignment again? Being Corrupted/Atoned in one day removes any weight and gravitas from alignment change Alignment Change, making it something that you can do as easily as flipping a switch, and making alignment even more meaningless in the game.
And this is what I mean. When you only care about the numbers and not about the character's mentality really. If you are good, you wouldn't want to cast evil magics or worship an evil patron. However, if we are only going off the numbers than all that matters is the numbers. Lets play spreadsheets. Compare numbers against another person's numbers, tally with the variables, and see who has the higher numbers. If yours are higher, reduce some of their numbers by a variable and do it again. role-playing games sure sound fun when you ignore the meaning behind things and solely play the system.Or... you look at the spell and see that the only thing that makes animate dead evil at all is a stupid tag that makes no sense. Same with infernal healing, aside from the tag, how is casting it "Evil"? The result is you cured someone. That's Good. The tag can go cry in the corner for being inaccurate.Seriously?
You don't see how UNHOLY water and DEVIL'S blood is evil?
So step
1: I kill a devil. Said devil can no longer terrorize innocents, power evil empires, advance through hell's legions and ultimately corrupt the world. This should net a good act.Step 2: I harvest its blood and destroy its body so that the next guy to come along can't use it to call more powerful devils. Desecrating a corpse is evil (according to the culture the game is built around), so I admit this is an evil act. Net neutral for the previous though.
Step 3: I visit a children's hospital, and go around using the devil blood to restore life and vitality to (at least 3) children. I can see how this could be considered neutral because it does use dark magic on children (in other places it is undeniably evil), but it also gets them out of a hospital fully recovered (in other places undeniably good).
Step 4: I become a moustache-twirling villain for not retroactively spent decades studying deities and objective forces of good, and fully worshipping a god and therefor I have no place trying to help people recover. After all a series of effectively neutral acts is undeniably evil.
Yeah, that isn't how the inventors of the spell (in-game, devils) use it, but it is how sensible adventurers with a sense of irony do.
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Posting this. Thanks to Benjamen Medrano for posting it originally.
This section includes a large number of evil spells. Casting an evil spell is an evil act, but for most characters simply casting such a spell once isn’t enough to change her alignment; this only occurs if the spell is used for a truly abhorrent act, or if the caster established a pattern of casting evil spells over a long period. A wizard who uses animate dead to create guardians for defenseless people won’t turn evil, but he will if he does it over and over again. The GM decides whether the character’s alignment changes, but typically casting two evil spells is enough to turn a good creature nongood, and three or more evils spells move the caster from nongood
to evil. The greater the amount of time between castings, the less likely alignment will change. Some spells require sacrificing a sentient creature, a major evil act that makes the caster evil in almost every circumstance.
Those who are forbidden from casting spells with an opposed alignment might lose their divine abilities if they circumvent that restriction (via Use Magic Device, for example), depending on how strict their deities are.
Though this advice talks about evil spells, it also applies to spells with other alignment descriptors.
Ryske's interpretation is the correct one, so not, s/he was not being dishonest. I will say that I still think that even though this allows for severity to come into play, the idea behind the evil-to-good transformation makes little sense, and that making it a two-way street makes it too easy to exploit.
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I'm surprised people haven't brought up the martial/caster disparity here.
It is now much easier for casters to become their desired alignment than non-casters.
We need some rules that allow martial characters to change alignments more easily. We need a method for barbarians to change their alignment more toward chaos if they fear they might be getting more lawful because they basically obey all of the laws in the cities they are in. Or a method for monks to become more lawful if they are worried about their chaotic drinking binges where they tip over wagons and keep everyone up all night by partying.
I therefore propose the following: (They should follow the same rules as spells about needing to do them 2 or 3 times.)
Bull rush & charge: Make you more chaotic. JUSTIFICATION: Well, you are charging madly and thus are not as in control as you would be if you were just fighting normally in place. Losing control makes you more chaotic.
Fighting defensively or total defense: Make you more lawful. JUSTIFICATION: You are maintaining absolute control of your body and playing it safe. This attention to detail makes you more lawful
Dirty Trick: Makes you more evil. JUSTIFICATION: It does say "dirty trick", right? You can just put that swirly mustache on your face right now as you do something nasty like throw dirt in their eyes or any of a number of things that a comic book villain would do. You know what? If you act like a comic book villain, you are acting evil.
Disarm: Makes you more good. JUSTIFICATION: You are just trying to be the good guy here and not kill them. You want to get their weapon out of their hands, and deal with them with the least force possible. Then you can take them to jail, where they can ponder their wrongdoings.
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I'm surprised people haven't brought up the martial/caster disparity here.
It is now much easier for casters to become their desired alignment than non-casters.
We need some rules that allow martial characters to change alignments more easily. We need a method for barbarians to change their alignment more toward chaos if they fear they might be getting more lawful because they basically obey all of the laws in the cities they are in. Or a method for monks to become more lawful if they are worried about their chaotic drinking binges where they tip over wagons and keep everyone up all night by partying.
I therefore propose the following: (They should follow the same rules as spells about needing to do them 2 or 3 times.)
Bull rush & charge: Make you more chaotic. JUSTIFICATION: Well, you are charging madly and thus are not as in control as you would be if you were just fighting normally in place. Losing control makes you more chaotic.
Fighting defensively or total defense: Make you more lawful. JUSTIFICATION: You are maintaining absolute control of your body and playing it safe. This attention to detail makes you more lawful
Dirty Trick: Makes you more evil. JUSTIFICATION: It does say "dirty trick", right? You can just put that swirly mustache on your face right now as you do something nasty like throw dirt in their eyes or any of a number of things that a comic book villain would do. You know what? If you act like a comic book villain, you are acting evil.
Disarm: Makes you more good. JUSTIFICATION: You are just trying to be the good guy here and not kill them. You want to get their weapon out of their hands, and deal with them with the least force possible. Then you can take them to jail, where they can ponder their wrongdoings.
What about Power Attacking?
I'm surprised people haven't brought up the martial/caster disparity here.
It is now much easier for casters to become their desired alignment than non-casters.
We need some rules that allow martial characters to change alignments more easily. We need a method for barbarians to change their alignment more toward chaos if they fear they might be getting more lawful because they basically obey all of the laws in the cities they are in. Or a method for monks to become more lawful if they are worried about their chaotic drinking binges where they tip over wagons and keep everyone up all night by partying.
I therefore propose the following: (They should follow the same rules as spells about needing to do them 2 or 3 times.)
Bull rush & charge: Make you more chaotic. JUSTIFICATION: Well, you are charging madly and thus are not as in control as you would be if you were just fighting normally in place. Losing control makes you more chaotic.
Fighting defensively or total defense: Make you more lawful. JUSTIFICATION: You are maintaining absolute control of your body and playing it safe. This attention to detail makes you more lawful
Dirty Trick: Makes you more evil. JUSTIFICATION: It does say "dirty trick", right? You can just put that swirly mustache on your face right now as you do something nasty like throw dirt in their eyes or any of a number of things that a comic book villain would do. You know what? If you act like a comic book villain, you are acting evil.
Disarm: Makes you more good. JUSTIFICATION: You are just trying to be the good guy here and not kill them. You want to get their weapon out of their hands, and deal with them with the least force possible. Then you can take them to jail, where they can ponder their wrongdoings.
I'm going to assume this is a joke, but I'd actually like to keep the Martial-Caster disparity out, as it is a much smaller thing then in the most recent thread it was brought up in (Insanity Rules), and also because it's just a given at this point. I don't think anybody is going to deny that the Caster-Martial disparity exists, that Paizo has not shown any interest to my knowledge in fixing it, and that we should each rely on our solution (mine is E6).
And I just realized I wasted a lot of thought on a joke post. Well-played sir!
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I think I would want to use a variant of the addiction mechanics for the simple act of casting an aligned spell. The rush of fuzzy warm Goodness, the feelings of Evil power, the assurance of Lawful order, and the freedom of Chaos. These have all got to be like a drug.
Corruptions seem to be a little bit like the addiction models as well.
Oh, I also do not buy the End justifying the Means, I have payed attention to history. The fallacy of End/Means is that it never really just ends, does it?
I think I would want to use a variant of the addiction mechanics for the simple act of casting an aligned spell. The rush of fuzzy warm Goodness, the feelings of Evil power, the assurance of Lawful order, and the freedom of Chaos. These have all got to be like a drug.
Corruptions seem to be a little bit like the addiction models as well.
Oh, I also do not buy the End justifying the Means, I have payed attention to history. The fallacy of End/Means is that it never really just ends, does it?
This is where Grey kind of comes into play. Even history has it's grey, and even fantasy has a lot of stories that are not pure black/white. one of the best examples I can think of is from the Harry Dresden novel Changes, where Harry destroys an entire race of Lawful Evil Vampires and ends a war, but has to sacrifice an innocent person to do it. That's the only one I can think of off the top of my head, will bring in some more later.
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This is a rule couched in GM decision and "typically" and people are taking it as a hard and fast rule that has no ability to adjust and adapt. Almost like people are ignoring all the weasel words designed to do allow it to adjust so they can strawman how bad this ruling is.
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I think folks like Rysky are bringing the setting along with the rules and are unable to separate them. Why are trapping souls evil? Why is letting a soul move on even important? Is denying a soul from moving on the equivalent to pissing on someone cornflakes? Why does it even matter at all?
All I'm doing is pointing out the inherently mixing of the setting that's already occurring. While you can play the game in a different setting, you can't do so without making the same assumptions as Golarion without changing the game itself. So you're either accepting Golarion-based assumption and rules or you're not already. Since the two are intertwined, it would ease so many of these debates if Paizo stopped being so stingy about setting materials in the rulebooks because the setting is already in the rulebooks even though it doesn't directly acknowledge it.
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This is a rule couched in GM decision and "typically" and people are taking it as a hard and fast rule that has no ability to adjust and adapt. Almost like people are ignoring all the weasel words designed to do allow it to adjust so they can strawman how bad this ruling is.
Every rules can be interpreted and changed by GM Decision. Each rule is also equally likely to be targeted by abuse. Just because it is GM decision is not an excuse to give precedent inside the rule for things as stupid as a lich turning to good through five Protection from Evil spells. I've seen rules get bashed for things equally as abusable, but this gets a free pass?
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I think folks like Rysky are bringing the setting along with the rules and are unable to separate them. Why are trapping souls evil? Why is letting a soul move on even important? Is denying a soul from moving on the equivalent to pissing on someone cornflakes? Why does it even matter at all?
All I'm doing is pointing out the inherently mixing of the setting that's already occurring. While you can play the game in a different setting, you can't do so without making the same assumptions as Golarion without changing the game itself. So you're either accepting Golarion-based assumption and rules or you're not already. Since the two are intertwined, it would ease so many of these debates if Paizo stopped being so stingy about setting materials in the rulebooks because the setting is already in the rulebooks even though it doesn't directly acknowledge it.
I've played in a couple of settings, can you be more specific?
In what setting is trapping a soul not evil?
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This is a rule couched in GM decision and "typically" and people are taking it as a hard and fast rule that has no ability to adjust and adapt. Almost like people are ignoring all the weasel words designed to do allow it to adjust so they can strawman how bad this ruling is.
Personally, that's a big part of why it's stupid to me.
On the one hand you have a hard and fast, completely indisputable rule: Aligned spells are aligned acts. This was established for a while.
Then they write these rules in response to the complaints that why and how these spells are evil is vague, and too subjective about HOW evil they are (instant alignment shift, can cast them indefinitely with few appreciable effects, etc.).
So they write a rule driven by complaints of too much table variance...and inherently input table variance into it, rendering the entire point moot.
It's like they kept in mind the response to that equally dumb Free actions FAQ and decided to take the worst of both worlds: somethibg which is both way too specific (three aligned acts, three Free actions a round) and flip floppy (but ask your GM though).
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I think folks like Rysky are bringing the setting along with the rules and are unable to separate them. Why are trapping souls evil? Why is letting a soul move on even important? Is denying a soul from moving on the equivalent to pissing on someone cornflakes? Why does it even matter at all?
All I'm doing is pointing out the inherently mixing of the setting that's already occurring. While you can play the game in a different setting, you can't do so without making the same assumptions as Golarion without changing the game itself. So you're either accepting Golarion-based assumption and rules or you're not already. Since the two are intertwined, it would ease so many of these debates if Paizo stopped being so stingy about setting materials in the rulebooks because the setting is already in the rulebooks even though it doesn't directly acknowledge it.
I've played in a couple of settings, can you be more specific?
In what setting is trapping a soul not evil?
Don't know if it counts as a setting, but is an option in Paths of War (Shattered Mirror manuver)
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This is a rule couched in GM decision and "typically" and people are taking it as a hard and fast rule that has no ability to adjust and adapt. Almost like people are ignoring all the weasel words designed to do allow it to adjust so they can strawman how bad this ruling is.
The weasel words just make it worse.
"Three castings of Protection from Good turns you evil" is, in my opinion, a terrible rule.
"Three castings of Protection from Good turns you evil, except your GM might decide that it doesn't, or that it only takes two castings, or anything else that takes their fancy" is, in my opinion, an even worse rule.
And I am perfectly aware that as a GM I am at liberty to ignore everything Paizo have ever printed in respect to alignment. In fact, I have been doing so for years.
Some people might not be so willing to do so - maybe they are new to the game, or they have players who insist on playing "by the book", so this might be creating problems for them where none existed before. (EDIT - or they might like the rule just fine; good for them, if that's the case!]
And Pathfinder Society players and GMs are presumably stuck with this unless or until Paizo creates an exception for organised play.
This is where the Grey kind of comes into play...
My favorite slide here. Since it is all grey, you never really have to draw a line.
Dresden's Changes. The only bad thing was having to sacrifice an innocent person. None of the entire race of vampires had any redeeming features? There were no consequences of a sudden power vacuum?
There are NO unintended or subtle consequences to evil spells. A small child healed by infernal healing could never associate the feeling of being evil with being made whole and healthy. (Look, it says no permanent alignment change from having it cast on you.)
I have this totally under control.
Pride, my favorite sin.
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There are NO unintended or subtle consequences to evil spells. A small child healed by infernal healing could never associate the feeling of being evil with being made whole and healthy. (Look, it says no permanent alignment change from having it cast on you.)
There are plenty of unintended and subtle consequences to non-aligned spells as well. Doesn't mean we need special rules for the alignment ones.
Actually, with my pet peeve, the Cloudkill spell, the unintended consequences are about as unsubtle as you can get.
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I know I will probably hate myself later for this....a couple of points...
1) Are you people just looking for a reason to hate? This a great book with alot of useful things. Heck the advice on how to run a horror game is great for any game system.
2) Do they teach reading comprehension anymore? What do you guys think the line 'It is up the the GM' but here is some guidelines... (which admitted are stupid) means? Sure for a morally ambiguous game I would run it differently...but for a Lovecraft style game I would use the numbers they have because it fits that style. But the entire point of this sidebar is to give people a idea that evil magic corrupts.
3) Also this is not a rule like Fireball does xd6 reflex save for half....how can you tell...by the line 'It is up to the GM'. How long have you guys been playing RPGs that you can not tell? All GMS should think how thing work in their game. Even pfs does it...it just does it by committee due to it's nature.
4)This on is going to have sub-points....but it makes sense that spells should have alignment descriptors even if you throw out alignments completely.
A) It is very common trope in fantasy that magic can be either Evil or Good. And that Evil Magic no matter what you use for will eventually corrupt you. Infernal Healing is not just evil because you need Devil's blood and unholy water to cast it...but because the magic you are channeling is Evil. Sure you are healing people with it...yeah Evil works that way...tempting you.
B) Some Divine Casters literally can't cast spells oppose to their alignment. Really a Good Goddess should not be granting Evil spells. And Anti Paladins don't even have Good spells on their list...and shouldn't.
5) Sure these rules might not work for a morally ambiguous game...but not every one runs a morally ambiguous game. Though personally for games where morale dilemmas are prevalent...than don't you need these evil choices with consequences to actually make it a dilemma?
THIS x1,000,000!
This is where the Grey kind of comes into play...
My favorite slide here. Since it is all grey, you never really have to draw a line.Dresden's Changes. The only bad thing was having to sacrifice an innocent person. None of the entire race of vampires had any redeeming features? There were no consequences of a sudden power vacuum?
There are NO unintended or subtle consequences to evil spells. A small child healed by infernal healing could never associate the feeling of being evil with being made whole and healthy. (Look, it says no permanent alignment chance from having it cast on you.)
I have this totally under control.
Pride, my favorite sin.
Okay, let me clarify. What Dresden did was not good nor evil. It was a choice. What Grey means is actions that no matter what the intent are both good and evil. And just because someone does morally questionable things does not mean they slide into evil. You can do things that are not purely good yet still has a code and lines you do not cross, things you do not do. Dresden didn't have pride in what he did. He knew it was a bad choice, one the would have consequences, but it was he best he believed he had give the circumstances. That is the Grey.
I've played in a couple of settings, can you be more specific?
In what setting is trapping a soul not evil?
The one I just invented. Not really, but the point stands. Even if I were to take on the work to make my own, unique setting, there is no material in the GameMastery guide or the GameMastering section of the CRB that provides any kind of unified understanding of why things are the way they are. No pron/con analysis, no theory or reason into why the Golarion setting is as it is, nothing. Just a purposefully hands off bunch of materials about various options. YET! They want to mark spells as this or that and even establish rules like "do this 5 times you evil." That's a problem.
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The one I just invented. Not really, but the point stands. Even if I were to take on the work to make my own, unique setting, there is no material in the GameMastery guide or the GameMastering section of the CRB that provides any kind of unified understanding of why things are the way they are. No pron/con analysis, no theory or reason into why the Golarion setting is as it is, nothing. Just a purposefully hand-on bunch of materials about various options. YET! They want to mark spells as this or that and even establish rules like "do this 5 times you evil." That's a problem.I've played in a couple of settings, can you be more specific?
In what setting is trapping a soul not evil?
No, players and GMs wanted them to set a numerical limit for the longest time. And they finally answered.
So you want setting flavor to be explained by a setting neutral book?
The one I just invented. Not really, but the point stands. Even if I were to take on the work to make my own, unique setting, there is no material in the GameMastery guide or the GameMastering section of the CRB that provides any kind of unified understanding of why things are the way they are. No pron/con analysis, no theory or reason into why the Golarion setting is as it is, nothing. Just a purposefully hands off bunch of materials about various options. YET! They want to mark spells as this or that and even establish rules like "do this 5 times you evil." That's a problem.I've played in a couple of settings, can you be more specific?
In what setting is trapping a soul not evil?
Yeah, I have to go agree here, it can be really arbitrary at times. I think someone brought up Cloudkill earlier, which summons a huge cloud of death to everything toxin that when you think about it should have massive consequences and cause large amounts of Enviorimental damage, but it is not evil? Better explanations are needed
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Mr. Kretzer, and to a lesser extent, his Herald.
No disagreements on a lot of your pointing out the good points of the product.
Do you really believe points 1 and 2 had a net positive effect as worded?
Are you paying attention? I have noticed that for every person locked in denial, there is at least one thinking about things. That I don't agree with all the conclusions is irrelevant.
Is it often unpleasant, dealing with change usually is.
You seem to have a good mind, try to avoid the trap of Hubris.
(I don't need more people in my neighborhood.)
I think folks like Rysky are bringing the setting along with the rules and are unable to separate them. Why are trapping souls evil? Why is letting a soul move on even important? Is denying a soul from moving on the equivalent to pissing on someone cornflakes? Why does it even matter at all?
All I'm doing is pointing out the inherently mixing of the setting that's already occurring. While you can play the game in a different setting, you can't do so without making the same assumptions as Golarion without changing the game itself. So you're either accepting Golarion-based assumption and rules or you're not already. Since the two are intertwined, it would ease so many of these debates if Paizo stopped being so stingy about setting materials in the rulebooks because the setting is already in the rulebooks even though it doesn't directly acknowledge it.
I've played in a couple of settings, can you be more specific?
In what setting is trapping a soul not evil?
...Any setting where the bad guy is sealed away because they can't finish him for good.
Because that's what Trap the Soul does, basically. Sucks them, body and soul, into a receptacle. Where they should, hopefully, stay forever.
Imprisonment is the only other spell that really comes close to this effect.
Guess what? There is this thing called adjudication. Who the hell cares what the RAW says on casting an evil spell or good spell or neutral spell or law spell, etc turns you one way or another if it doesn't fit your campaign.
I wouldn't bother with this rule, ever, frankly. Intent and cultural bias goes into casting spells like animate dead. For example, the popular d20 fantasy world Scarn from White Wolf's Sword and Sorcery line had an entire town of necromancers who were neutral called Hollowfaust. They would animate dead, and even had normal people sign contracts that the necromancers would pay their families for use of their remains as undead (usually mindless) after they shuffled off the mortal coil. The more evil necromancers who wanted to use raise undead for the usual reasons (power, lifeforce, etc) were either exiled or killed by the majority. Other examples exist, such as the 3.5 priest class that summoned evil to do good. Or in fantasy, the obvious example is Elric the Eternal Champion, who uses his soul draining sword to maintain his vitality and defeat foes for creating balance on his version of Earth. He also summons demons or elementals to aid him in his quest. Does that make him evil? Evil fighting evil is a common trope these days in fiction, where the lesser evil becomes redeemed in fighting a greater one.
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No, players and GMs wanted them to set a numerical limit for the longest time. And they finally answered.
So you want setting flavor to be explained by a setting neutral book?
I want explanations. I don't want a number of evil actions to be evil. I want to understand why something is evil. That is giving me information I need, as a GM, to decide the number. Them setting a number removes agency. Maybe they need to come off some extra cosmic lore they were holding out on. Tough s&!%. Don't publish materials that set arbitrary limits without reason why those limits were set.
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Guess what? There is this thing called adjudication.
Yah, there's adjudication, but just because I'm empowered as a GM to change or ignore a bad rule doesn't make it not a bad rule anymore.
No, players and GMs wanted them to set a numerical limit for the longest time. And they finally answered.
Were the players and GMs actually asking for such a thing? Were there issues where they had to figure out a line on how many pit fiends the wizard could summon and enslave to do his laundry before the paladin noticed?
Because to me, a number just makes things worse, due to the very premise in the thread title.
(And really, what high level Lich wouldn't be okay with giving up a couple of his weakest spell slots a day in exchange for Smite immunity?)
Guess what? There is this thing called adjudication.Yah, there's adjudication, but just because I'm empowered as a GM to change or ignore a bad rule doesn't make it not a bad rule anymore.
It is a bad rule, but if you don't use it, then it doesn't apply and discussion over it as a bad rule becomes redundant other then how to adjust it if you are going to use it. I just avoid that discussion by eliminating it and other rules I think are silly, like the soft cover rule for allies and enemies.
No, players and GMs wanted them to set a numerical limit for the longest time. And they finally answered.Were the players and GMs actually asking for such a thing? Were there issues where they had to figure out a line on how many pit fiends the wizard could summon and enslave to do his laundry before the paladin noticed?
Because to me, a number just makes things worse, due to the very premise in the thread title.
(And really, what high level Lich wouldn't be okay with giving up a couple of his weakest spell slots a day in exchange for Smite immunity?)
Oh , no, it's even worse. The insinuation is that it is true alignment that changes. So the lich won't need the Smite immunity, because by castig those spells by RAW he actually becomes a champion of good. Ponder that for a minute.
It is a bad rule, but if you don't use it, then it doesn't apply and discussion over it as a bad rule becomes redundant other then how to adjust it if you are going to use it. I just avoid that discussion by eliminating it and other rules I think are silly, like the soft cover rule for allies and enemies.Guess what? There is this thing called adjudication.Yah, there's adjudication, but just because I'm empowered as a GM to change or ignore a bad rule doesn't make it not a bad rule anymore.
My issue is that is already quite a bit of work to run a game. Having to cherry-pick what to include in my games is even more work. There's two types of home-brew, making options that do not yet exists, and having to change existing rules. I would like to think that I can trust Paizo to try and keep the amount of the second I will need to do to a minimum, but if you do not believe that to be the case that is your opinion.
It's odd to me that we're now up to nearly 200 posts in this thread and people are still looking at something that is clearly labeled as GM Advice and assuming that makes it a rule. It's not a rule. It clearly, unambiguously says that it's merely advice.
Oh , no, it's even worse. The insinuation is that it is true alignment that changes. So the lich won't need the Smite immunity, because by castig those spells by RAW he actually becomes a champion of good. Ponder that for a minute.
He need only cast until he's neutral, though. A neutral Lich may still want to do his nefarious plans if he had and still has a good reason to do them.
It's odd to me that we're now up to nearly 200 posts in this thread and people are still looking at something that is clearly labeled as GM Advice and assuming that makes it a rule. It's not a rule. It clearly, unambiguously says that it's merely advice.
Does not change the fact that this is a poorly designed rule which does not make me confident in getting other Paizo products. Even if it is optional, I would have expected at least some attempt to block it from the abuse that it can be used for, which took most people only a short time to realize. I would like good design in even the optional stuff.
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Mr. Kretzer, and to a lesser extent, his Herald.
No disagreements on a lot of your pointing out the good points of the product.
Do you really believe points 1 and 2 had a net positive effect as worded?
Are you paying attention? I have noticed that for every person locked in denial, there is at least one thinking about things. That I don't agree with all the conclusions is irrelevant.
Is it often unpleasant, dealing with change usually is.
You seem to have a good mind, try to avoid the trap of Hubris.
(I don't need more people in my neighborhood.)
OK this is my opinion and it goes like this.
This is a book that has horror as it's theme. My personal tastes when it comes to this form of fiction is that evil is EVIL, it is pernicious and unforgiving and it's a trap. I want my horror games to be like this.
Do I want all games to be like this, nope. I certainly don't want a sandbox game run like this. I don't want a Giantslayer game run like this. I don't want a Sci-Fi game like this.
But here is the rub, I also know that the very front of the book is about getting the players and the game master on the same page as for expectations for how the game will be played. If you don't like the rules, please don't use the rule. If you don't like the book of rules, please don't use the book. I have yet to see where Paizo has ever made anyone use rules from specific books.
As for whether or not points 1 or 2 had a net positive effect, I actually do. I'm certain that there are plenty of lurkers that will read his opinion and go back and read the rule with fresh eyes.
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It's odd to me that we're now up to nearly 200 posts in this thread and people are still looking at something that is clearly labeled as GM Advice and assuming that makes it a rule. It's not a rule. It clearly, unambiguously says that it's merely advice.Does not change the fact that this is a poorly designed rule which does not make me confident in getting other Paizo products. Even if it is optional, I would have expected at least some attempt to block it from the abuse that it can be used for, which took most people only a short time to realize. I would like good design in even the optional stuff.
Casting evil spells being an evil act isn't advice, it's a flat out rule. The specific number for the Alignmnet change however is advice.
It's odd to me that we're now up to nearly 200 posts in this thread and people are still looking at something that is clearly labeled as GM Advice and assuming that makes it a rule. It's not a rule. It clearly, unambiguously says that it's merely advice.
Were you here for the only 4 free actions per round faq debacle? This is that all over again.