Beyond Morality Arcane Discovery & Harrowing Spell

[shaxberd]

I'm not sure how these two things interact with one another. Do you pick 9 cards and decide what alignment to be treated as after the spell is cast or do you choose when you use each given bonus? Or does this spell somehow not let you choose? I couldn't find any existing threads on this subject. How should this combination work?

Beyond Morality:

Spoiler:

Beyond Morality: As long as you are neutral, you may choose to be treated as the most favorable alignment when affected by spells whose effects vary based on alignment (such as holy word). If you are neutral in relation to evil and good, you may choose to be treated as good or evil. If you are neutral in relation to chaos and law, you may choose to be treated as lawful or chaotic. You may only choose to be treated as one alignment type along a single axis at a time (for instance, if you were within the area of both a magic circle against evil spell and an unholy blight spell, you would have to choose to be either evil, good, or neutral for the purpose of determining the spells' effects).

Harrowing:

Spoiler:

School divination; Level bard 3, shaman 3, sorcerer/wizard 3, witch 3
Casting Time 10 minutes
Components V, S, F (a Harrow deck)
Range touch
Target one creature
Duration 1 day/level or until fulfilled

You use a Harrow deck to tell a fortune for yourself or someone else. If you cast harrowing on another creature, you must remain adjacent to the target for the duration of the casting time. A harrowing must describe one set of events or course of action (for example, “hunting down the pirate king,” or “traveling to Viperwall to search for a magic sword”) that the target of the spell intends to undertake at some point during the spell’s duration. If you have access to a Harrow deck, draw nine cards when this spell is cast. If you do not have a Harrow deck, you can simulate the draws by rolling a d6 and a d10 for each of the nine cards.

Record the ability score and alignment associated with each card. Each of these cards grants a luck bonus or a penalty on a specific type of d20 check; the magnitude of the penalty or bonus depends upon how closely that particular card’s alignment matches the target creature’s alignment. If the card and target’s alignments are identical, that card provides a +2 luck bonus on the associated suit’s check. If the card and target’s alignments are of the opposite alignment (see below), the card inflicts a –1 penalty on that associated check. If the card has any other alignment, it provides a +1 luck bonus on the associated suit’s check.

While penalties persist on all associated checks for as long as the harrowing persists, the bonuses are one-use bonuses that the harrowed character can “spend” at any time to modify that card’s associated check. You can spend a bonus to modify an appropriate roll after the die is rolled, but cannot spend the bonus once you know the result of the roll. Since all of the bonuses granted by a harrowing are luck bonuses, they do not stack with each other. Penalties, on the other hand, do stack. Once you spend all of the bonuses granted by a harrowing, or once the spell’s duration ends, the spell ends and the penalties are removed.

A single creature can only be under the effects of one harrowing at a time. If it is subjected to a second harrowing while a previous harrowing is still in effect, the new harrowing automatically fails.

[Diego Rossi]

It is a single spell, so I wouldn't allow you to switch alignment multiple times to get the maximum effect from all the cards.
I would say that you draw the cards, read the spread and then choose what is your alignment for that read.

So if you get 2 of CE, 1 LE, 2 N, 1 NG, 1 LN and 3 LG you can chose to be:
LG for 3 +2, 4 +1 and 2 -1
or
NG for 1 +2 and 7 +1
and so on.

[shaxberd]

I play with an actual Harrow deck so when I cast the spell, I play the card when I use its associated bonus. Makes sense to me since the deck is the focus for casting the spell, but maybe that's why this had me thinking that you choose your alignment each time you apply a bonus since that's when it affects you? What you've laid out is what I would do to determine what the accumulated penalties would be for that casting since that's determined at the time of casting and applies throughout the duration, but for bonuses, you would get to choose again when you decide to use that bonus?

I'm concerned because the duration of this spell is in days. Based on the spell description, and using your example, if I picked LG, then I would be stuck treating myself as LG for the entire duration of the spell, such that I would be unable to shift it if someone cast Chaos Hammer at me during this time since I can only have one alignment at a time when simultaneously under the effect of multiple spells. To use another example, what happens if someone casts Detect Evil on me, and I choose to detect as evil for purposes of bluffing or something? Detect Evil has a duration so can I no longer choose until the duration of that spell ends? This seems like an unworkable limitation.

[djones]

The bonuses are applied at the point of casting and last for X days regardless of if you use Beyond Morality again; this spell shouldn't lock your discovery up and make it useless for days at a time.

[shaxberd]

I agree that it shouldn't, but the example cited in Beyond Morality seems to suggest otherwise. Magic Circle against Evil has a duration so it seems to suggest that if another alignment spell, such as Unholy Blight, while I'm being affected by someone else's Magic Circle against Evil, I have to choose what alignment I'm going to be at that time. Meh. It's just very confusing. Not trying to get away with anything, just looking for a clear RAW interpretation.