Divine Lance Question

[Torgrin Deepsmith]

I searched for this but didn't see anything, so maybe it really is this simple. If I'm reading this correctly, Divine Lance would not be able to be used by a cleric with a true Neutral diety? That would be a shame as device doesn't have a lot, or any? cantrip combat options.

[Ched Greyfell]

Correct. If they worship a true Neutral god, it's a no-go.

[Sibelius Eos Owm]

This is true, and likewise true neutral characters cannot be harmed by Divine Lance. I personally found this somewhat unsatisfying and didn't like the potential for a Good divine Lance to detect evil (or any other Lance for any other alignment) so for my home games I'm working out a bit with the alignment damage variants so that neutral deities can channel divine energy and all creatures can be harmed by it, potentially with the only exception of creatures which strongly follow the caster's anathema

[Mellored]

Divine lance does not damage most creatures.

So your not missing out on as much as you might think.

Also, all classes can reasonably use weapons.

[Captain Morgan]

Mellored wrote:

Divine lance does not damage most creatures.

So your not missing out on as much as you might think.

Also, all classes can reasonably use weapons.

I mean, if you worship a good God and fight mostly evil enemies it will usually work. And if that enemy is a fiend with a weakness to good damage it can hurt them quite a bit. Conversely, you're a lot more likely to take alignment damage yourself.

I still maintain Oracles should have a way of dealing every kind of alignment damage, though.

[rcrx7279]

I both love and hate the minutia of 2e. I get the alignment based damage only affects opposite alignment creatures. Fine. But to say that clerics of Pharasma Goddess of Death can't even cast it because she is TN is dumb. The first sentence of the spell says - You unleash a beam of divine energy... So I channel the awesome divinity of DEATH and get...nothing.

Make it Negative energy, it won't work on the undead, or 'death' energy which only works on things that can actually die (which would exclude most dimensional beings since their soul juice just returns to their native plane).

[HammerJack]

Pharasma granting a Divine Lance that can't harm undead would be much less fitting than Pharasma just not granting a Divine Lance.

[YuriP]

In fact the divine lance is strange and IMO poorly made cantrip. It's just like it was build thinking in good/bad deity clerics only and it isn't clear how it works for divine non-cleric casters. It's far from be a good attack cantrip, is way limited and situational and can be exploited to avoid the uncommon restriction to alignment detection spells.

The main sensation is that the designer don't think a lot how this cantrip work as a divine tradition spell is just like a "let's give some alignment damage cantrip for the clerics".

To be honest I don't know how to do with it in many cases. I just recommend to my players to choose any other similar attack cantrip from other tradition based in their power source or use the power source alignment (for sorcerer bloodlines) or choose a deity like clerics (without anathemas) as base to allowed divine lance alignments.

Mellored wrote:

Also, all classes can reasonably use weapons.

Weapons isn't a good option for many builds that don't rely on str/dex and don't progress well for casters.

rcrx7279 wrote:

I both love and hate the minutia of 2e. I get the alignment based damage only affects opposite alignment creatures. Fine. But to say that clerics of Pharasma Goddess of Death can't even cast it because she is TN is dumb. The first sentence of the spell says - You unleash a beam of divine energy... So I channel the awesome divinity of DEATH and get...nothing.

Make it Negative energy, it won't work on the undead, or 'death' energy which only works on things that can actually die (which would exclude most dimensional beings since their soul juice just returns to their native plane).

Pharasma isn't a death goddess in traditional way. It's more a goddess that protects the natural life cycle of the universe. For Pharasma tenets animated deads is unnatural and breaks that cycle. For living beings including those with extreme alignments like angels and demons she is completely neutral to them. She simply don't care about good/evil/order or chaos she is not even agains the negative energy only undead reanimations and soul manipulation is an anathema for her.

And for Pharasma followers we have Disrupt Undead to do the job against undeads.

[Tender Tendrils]

In addition to disrupt undead Pharasma followers also have Chill Touch - against living targets, this channels the power of death to do negative damage, and against undead it disorients them and makes them flee.

(It's actually a deceptively strong cantrip - at the very least it applies flat-footed, and on a crit and a failed wisdom save it applies fleeing, which basically means the undead loses its entire turn, then loses the next turn trying to get back into combat - and I don't think fleeing counts as forced movement? Your not being forced to move, you are being forced to use your actions to move, so I think this triggers reactions)

[Squiggit]

Not a huge fan of the cantrip. Weirdly situational. Can't hit a lot of things. Not a fan that it doesn't interact with unaligned deities... or that alignment damage in general can be 'gamed' by trying to stay one step more neutral than your deity so you have more offensive options than weaknesses.

Just in general feels awkwrd.

YuriP wrote:

In fact the divine lance is strange and IMO poorly made cantrip. It's just like it was build thinking in good/bad deity clerics only and it isn't clear how it works for divine non-cleric casters.

I don't think it's unclear, though it is a little goofy that a sorcerer's divine lance has nothing to do with the actual source of their power.

[Ascalaphus]

I rather like it. Most of the enemies that we have to fight are evil - neutral ones can often be talked down (people, animals) or avoided (just don't trigger the golem's activation protocols).

[Lucas Yew]

Wasn't there something about abusing Divine Lance as a crude alignment detector?

[Ascalaphus]

Lucas Yew wrote:

Wasn't there something about abusing Divine Lance as a crude alignment detector?

Well you could, until you start thinking about how Good it really is to cause injury to someone who may have bad thoughts and counts as Evil, but who hasn't actually committed any evil deeds. I'm not sure how long you can stay Good if you start doing that.

[Tender Tendrils]

Ascalaphus wrote:

Lucas Yew wrote:

Wasn't there something about abusing Divine Lance as a crude alignment detector?

Well you could, until you start thinking about how Good it really is to cause injury to someone who may have bad thoughts and counts as Evil, but who hasn't actually committed any evil deeds. I'm not sure how long you can stay Good if you start doing that.

Yeah, that's largely my take on it. Using divine lance to detect alignment is useless to a good aligned character because you can't really justify acting on that information - you need them to actually do something evil (or have actual evidence that intend to do something evil) before you take any action against them, and once they do that, knowing their alignment is redundant.

[Ravingdork]

Ascalaphus wrote:

Lucas Yew wrote:

Wasn't there something about abusing Divine Lance as a crude alignment detector?

Well you could, until you start thinking about how Good it really is to cause injury to someone who may have bad thoughts and counts as Evil, but who hasn't actually committed any evil deeds. I'm not sure how long you can stay Good if you start doing that.

I've had to shut this down in more than one game.

GM: Randomly shooting people in the streets with divine lance to determine their alignment is not behavior I want to encourage at my table, so doing so in my games will be considered an evil act.

PCs: But it only hurts evil people. Are you really saying hunting evil people is evil?

GM: I'm saying more than half the campaign world is evil, even though most aren't overt about it, and that using this spell as an alignment detector is a hot ticket to a prison cell for assaulting an innocent civilian.

[HumbleGamer]

If you don't harm anyone, you are definitely fine ( others might find yourself annoying, or dangerous if they know what spell you are casting ) in terms of "mechanics".

Keep just in mind that being evil is not a crime, while doing evil deeds is.

And Evil person not committing a crime are innocents like they were good or neutral. They'd obviously be prone to commit evil deeds, but until then they are not guilty.

Edicts and Anathema shouldn't give you issues if you want to pew pew your divine lance on the townies but when it comes to tennets, as a champion, those actions might have consequences ( unless you are going to do stuff for a good reason ).

Quote:

For instance, as a paladin, if an evil king asked you if you’re hiding refugees so he could execute them, you could lie to him, since the tenet against lying is less important than preventing harm to innocents.

The provided example under the tenets section makes things clear enough

Obviously there could be some specific extra rule ( like in baldur's gate II, whene you were forbidden from casting spells in city ), but overall I think it's just a matter of commonsense.

[AlastarOG]

You could say most selfish people who never consider their neighbour's point of view and are passive agressive about fencing between reside ces, for exemple, are evil.

They never did an evil act per say, but they're kinda dicks....

[Rysky]

AlastarOG wrote:

You could say most selfish people who never consider their neighbour's point of view and are passive agressive about fencing between reside ces, for exemple, are evil.

They never did an evil act per say, but they're kinda dicks....

The HOA totally ping as Evil.

[breithauptclan]

Lucas Yew wrote:

Wasn't there something about abusing Divine Lance as a crude alignment detector?

Just because I am a bad guy, doesn't mean I am a bad guy.

There is also the trope of a good person forced to be the villain in order to survive, or to save someone, or to prevent worse destruction. Even champions now have a priority order to their tenets.

[Guntermench]

I feel like using something that's still effectively attack magic on people would be illegal in the majority of reasonable places.

[Elicoor]

Using Divine Lance as an alignment detector is completely an evil act: you cast offensive spells at people who didn't attack you (and might be completely innocent, but of an opposing alignment by nature).

Would you find it ok to cast Produce Flame at random people, considering some might have innate Fire Resistance, just to detect those who don't ?

[Rysky]

Yep, you’re assaulting people. Just cause it might not do damage or you can heal them after doesn’t absolve that.

It’s no different than the fighter going around stabbing everyone and handing them a potion after. You’re still friggin stabbing people.

[HumbleGamer]

Rysky wrote:

Yep, you’re assaulting people. Just cause it might not do damage or you can heal them after doesn’t absolve that.

It’s no different than the fighter going around stabbing everyone and handing them a potion after. You’re still friggin stabbing people.

That's quite different.

On the one hand we have a creature not harmed ( probably didn't even realize what happened ), and on the other harm we have a harmed creature, who's been offering a healing potion.

You are still assaulting people though.

They'd be equal if you were hurling daggers and spamming ray of frost on paesans, healing them after that.

[Tender Tendrils]

There's also a bunch of issues for people who won't take damage from the spell - people aren't generally physically harmed by things like body scanners, but many consider it an invasion of privacy, and in a world where magic exists you would certainly have people who have objections to magic in general who don't want spells of any kind cast on them - especially when you don't necessarily know what the spell they cast on you is. I think the natural reaction to divine lance being cast on you and not having an effect would be "what the hell insidious magic stuff did they just do to me? Am I cursed? Will I die tomorrow? Did they erase a memory? Did they render me infertile?" followed by either hostility or fear. The recipient of a spell that has no effect doesn't know for sure it had no effect, and has a lot of reason to fear the worst.

When someone starts waving their hands at you and speaking in tongues, you don't know until they finish the spell what it is going to do to you, and I think it could be understandable in many situations to actually outright attack the mage to try and stop them finishing the spell - there would probably be a whole cultural etiquette over spellcasting given how dangerous spells are and that you have to be a pretty well trained individual to identify which spells are the harmful ones.

Players often forget that most spellcasting is very obviously spellcasting to anyone watching - you don't just snap your fingers and a ball of fire appears, you wave your arms around making glowing symbols appear while muttering in a weird language. Outside of the turn based action economy I think most spellcasters would actually get themselves tackled before they finish casting if they casually try to cast in the middle of a marketplace, especially with all of the superstition and fear that would naturally surround magic.

Spellcasters are the equivalent of a person walking around town with an assault rifle, a belt full of grenades, a mind control device and an invisibility cloak that can't be confiscated from them and can't be identified as being on their person until it is too late to stop them, so I think the best way for a mediaeval village or town to treat them is with extreme suspicion and a "stop them first, ask them what spell it was later" approach.

I think even a trusted person (like a priest or paladin) would still probably only cast spells on people (outside of an emergency like combat) with permission or in certain contexts where people know what to expect (like in a church where the priest blesses people as they approach the altar)

[HumbleGamer]

Since we are also talking about alignment other than divine lance, how do you think would work the alignment shift in a scenario like a dinner with crime.

Imagine that a good guy is put under an absurd amount of pressure, and because of that, at some point, he goes berserk and pushes the other person, killing it ( accidental kill ).

Would you consider his alignment still Good?
Would that person be revealed by divine lance or Sense evil?

[Tender Tendrils]

You generally can't generalise what someone's alignment is based on one action - you can determine if an action is probably evil or good, but for the person you basically need the context of their entire life. Alignment shifts are unlikely to happen due to just one incident though - it's pretty much exclusively down to the GM.

Your example also depends on the philosophy of the GM (in this case, whether intent or results are what matters).

It also matters how they react to what they did. Whether they feel guilty for accidentally killing someone probably tells you more about their alignment than the action itself.

[Ravingdork]

Casting an unknown spell on someone without their permission is akin running up and jabbing a syringe of unknown substance in someone's arm in real life. Even if the contents are benign, it's a heighnous assault.

And that's if you don't kill them. If you zap Ebineezer Scrooge, and he dies, it's straight up murder. Good luck convincing the town guards that the old man was guilty of any crimes deserving of death, much less that he posed any real danger to anyone.

[YuriP]

I imagine the divine lance being used as alignment detector in many scenarios like:

A town or a temple constantly attacked by disguised fiends or evil fairies using the divine lança has radical solution to prevent theses evil creatures to enter. Even risky to harm other non-fiend people "just" becouse they are evil:
- Halt! Only those who pass in the test (receiving a divine lance) is allowed to enter! If you really want to enter you have to pass the test, if your heart is not corrupted nothing harm will happen, but if not a divine punishment will harm you and you will be banished from this place.

I imagine this situation using "receive a divine lance" as a test in many distopic scenários, I even imagine this with players only allow a company of a NPC if this NPC accept to take this test.

Giving divine lance as an option makes a grey area if this is an evil act or not. Especially if this is done as an option to those will be tested (but depending of the urgent condition of those who being tested like hungry or diseased evil people try entering in a city can create a very interesting cenário for serious and grey aligned adventures).

[thenobledrake]

The problem with the idea of divine lance as an alignment detector is that it only works long-term if evil creatures are using it to detect good creatures, because the very core of the idea that it's okay to inflict an invasion of privacy, summary judgement of one's character, and enact treatment/benefits based on that judgement is evil.

You don't get to keep the favor of a good-aligned deity while behaving as though "they're on the other team, so we can do whatever we want to them." is a true statement.

[Cyouni]

Here's my comparison: you pick up a gun and start firing at random people. You have no idea if any given shot will be a blank or a bullet.

I think the vast majority of people (and governments) would have a problem with that.

[Rysky]

HumbleGamer wrote:

Rysky wrote:

Yep, you’re assaulting people. Just cause it might not do damage or you can heal them after doesn’t absolve that.

It’s no different than the fighter going around stabbing everyone and handing them a potion after. You’re still friggin stabbing people.

That's quite different.

On the one hand we have a creature not harmed ( probably didn't even realize what happened ), and on the other harm we have a harmed creature, who's been offering a healing potion.

You are still assaulting people though.

They'd be equal if you were hurling daggers and spamming ray of frost on paesans, healing them after that.

It’s not different at all.

Blasting someone with a damaging spell is assault, them not taking damage doesn’t make it okay.

Heck in this case them DO taking damage doesn’t make it okay. Just because someone “might” be Evil doesn’t mean it’s okay to blast them just for whatever their alignment is alone since your character has nothing else to go on.

[Ravingdork]

Rysky wrote:

Blasting someone with a damaging spell is assault, them not taking damage doesn’t make it okay.

Unless of course everyone involved is a consenting adult.

[HumbleGamer]

Rysky wrote:

HumbleGamer wrote:

Rysky wrote:

Yep, you’re assaulting people. Just cause it might not do damage or you can heal them after doesn’t absolve that.

It’s no different than the fighter going around stabbing everyone and handing them a potion after. You’re still friggin stabbing people.

That's quite different.

On the one hand we have a creature not harmed ( probably didn't even realize what happened ), and on the other harm we have a harmed creature, who's been offering a healing potion.

You are still assaulting people though.

They'd be equal if you were hurling daggers and spamming ray of frost on paesans, healing them after that.

It’s not different at all.

Blasting someone with a damaging spell is assault, them not taking damage doesn’t make it okay.

Heck in this case them DO taking damage doesn’t make it okay. Just because someone “might” be Evil doesn’t mean it’s okay to blast them just for whatever their alignment is alone since your character has nothing else to go on.

Not saying that it does make it okay, but that it's pretty different.

Consider guards or other people looking at the scene, if you shot and don't deal damage, they can be alerted, while if you shot and hurt somebody making him bleed on the floor, the guards will probably charge you probably to kill you unless you surrender.

[The Raven Black]

I would fire any guard that does not immediately take down anyone who shoots at another person.

[HumbleGamer]

The Raven Black wrote:

I would fire any guard that does not immediately take down anyone who shoots at another person.

Indeed.

Though it doesn't change the fact that you'll suffer a way, way harder punishmnent if you harm or kill somebody ( like in real life ).

[Rysky]

That doesn’t, and shouldn’t change the guard’s reactions.

Blasting a random stranger with an aggressive spell? Stop them. Legalese punishment after the fact is just splitting hairs for the sake of an argument.

[voideternal]

HumbleGamer wrote:

On the one hand we have a creature not harmed ( probably didn't even realize what happened ), and on the other harm we have a harmed creature, who's been offering a healing potion.

Potion usage assumes the divine lance'd NPC doesn't straight up die from the attack - NPCs don't follow the dying rules.

[AnimatedPaper]

As Rysky says.

The difference between “do no real damage after all” is a distinction for criminal charges. In the moment, if they realized what you were doing, guards would certainly treat the threat you pose as, you know, a threat. And would end it.

As for the comparison to real life…I REALLY don’t think you want to go there if you’re American. So let’s just not.

[HammerJack]

Yeah, Divine Lance as Detect Evil it an idea that comes up frequently. It's never actually been a good idea. I don't see either of these things changing.

People will continue to think of the possibility. It will continue to be a bad idea.

Arguments of "it can only hurt evil people so it can't be evil to walk around shooting people" will continue to be made. Those arguments will continue to be utterly baseless and wrong, and summarily dismissed by anyone thinking halfway reasonably.

[Gortle]

It is a bad idea. But sometimes they are fun.

[pixierose]

I've had people use Divine Lance Mid-combat, and if it does nothing they tend to ask the other party members to actively use non-lethal. I've also had an npc actively request a pc to use their divine lance on them to show them they held no ill-will towards the party( it was a forest witch whose had a twin sister who was quite villainous.

But Just blasting civilian non-combatants thats just silly(silly as in a silly use of a game mechanic, in game and roleplay wise its an awful thing to do)

[Cyouni]

pixierose wrote:

I've had people use Divine Lance Mid-combat, and if it does nothing they tend to ask the other party members to actively use non-lethal. I've also had an npc actively request a pc to use their divine lance on them to show them they held no ill-will towards the party( it was a forest witch whose had a twin sister who was quite villainous.

But Just blasting civilian non-combatants thats just silly(silly as in a silly use of a game mechanic, in game and roleplay wise its an awful thing to do)

That's a handy trick for me to remember. Easy method to instantly check for mind-controlled or blackmailed opposition.

[breithauptclan]

Considering how nerf'ed Detect Alignment has become, I don't see how anyone thinks that it is intended to allow it as a Cantrip.

[Tender Tendrils]

pixierose wrote:

I've had people use Divine Lance Mid-combat, and if it does nothing they tend to ask the other party members to actively use non-lethal. I've also had an npc actively request a pc to use their divine lance on them to show them they held no ill-will towards the party( it was a forest witch whose had a twin sister who was quite villainous.

But Just blasting civilian non-combatants thats just silly(silly as in a silly use of a game mechanic, in game and roleplay wise its an awful thing to do)

A person can be non evil and still have ill will or villainous intent towards the party - intending to carry out one evil act doesn't mean your whole alignment is evil. Good people sometimes do bad things, and evil people sometimes do good things.

There's also heaps of reasons that a good aligned character might intend to harm a party that make it not an evil act to harm the party - they might think the party are criminals (more often than not a party of PCs are criminals in one way or the other) or a threat or that a prophecy predicts that the party dying is the only way to stop the death of thousands and so on.

Basically, detecting alignment does not reliably detect whether someone intends to harm the party, and it is actually dangerous to rely on it for that as you can end up giving an enemy a pass (like when people volunteer to take a polygraph to exclude themself from the suspect list because they know how easy it is to fool a polygraph)

The earliest you can really detect a person's intentions is with a 3rd level spell, Mind Reading (it does say that you only detect surface thoughts, but try not thinking about the answer to a question someone asks you and you will realise that surface thoughts are pretty sufficient in most cases)

[YogoZuno]

As much as I hate to add this to the discussion...Evil divine casters would likely have no problem at all casting Evil Divine Lances at everyone walking in the castle/cathedral gates to weed out the good townsfolk...And an evil nation or government (*cough*Cheliax) could easily be seen to have laws permitting their agents to fire divine lances into a crowd to find the troublemakers responsible for some heinous act or other.

[pixierose]

Tender Tendrils wrote:

pixierose wrote:

I've had people use Divine Lance Mid-combat, and if it does nothing they tend to ask the other party members to actively use non-lethal. I've also had an npc actively request a pc to use their divine lance on them to show them they held no ill-will towards the party( it was a forest witch whose had a twin sister who was quite villainous.

But Just blasting civilian non-combatants thats just silly(silly as in a silly use of a game mechanic, in game and roleplay wise its an awful thing to do)

A person can be non evil and still have ill will or villainous intent towards the party - intending to carry out one evil act doesn't mean your whole alignment is evil. Good people sometimes do bad things, and evil people sometimes do good things.

There's also heaps of reasons that a good aligned character might intend to harm a party that make it not an evil act to harm the party - they might think the party are criminals (more often than not a party of PCs are criminals in one way or the other) or a threat or that a prophecy predicts that the party dying is the only way to stop the death of thousands and so on.

Basically, detecting alignment does not reliably detect whether someone intends to harm the party, and it is actually dangerous to rely on it for that as you can end up giving an enemy a pass (like when people volunteer to take a polygraph to exclude themself from the suspect list because they know how easy it is to fool a polygraph)

The earliest you can really detect a person's intentions is with a 3rd level spell, Mind Reading (it does say that you only detect surface thoughts, but try not thinking about the answer to a question someone asks you and you will realise that surface thoughts are pretty sufficient in most cases)

1) I never said that alignment=no ill will, nor did I say it was mind reading. It was something the party does to gather information and in a specific situation an npc requested them of it.

The party already had information regarding the two sisters and even after they did the test, the party was still wary of the woman. But they had two choices stay in her home or be left to the creatures that were chasing them through the forest.

2) While alignment is not an indicator of intention or personal relationship, people may fall back on it, if they are let's say less experienced and find themselves in a much more dire situation then they would expect. People are allowed to be flawed in judgement and play their characters as such.

3) I mentioned the specificity moments that I did because those were rp moments that were built around the spell. Of course there maybe reasons why good aligned people may come to blow.

But once again the narrative with the woman was she had a twin sister, they had different relationships with wanderers of the forest, one liked to eat them and was particularly cruel and the other liked to helped guide lost individuals and in general was kind. Sensing the distrust in the young party members she requested something of the party to try and gain their trust because she knew it meant life or death for these inexperienced youths. She could at least gain their trust further if they were safe inside her abode.

My point wasn't that divine lance was a perfect intention detector, it was a quick messy request from an individual who needed the party to trust them quickly(and who the party still didn't 100% trust afterwards anywaya).

[HumbleGamer]

pixierose wrote:

But once again the narrative with the woman was she had a twin sister, they had different relationships with wanderers of the forest, one liked to eat them and was particularly cruel and the other liked to helped guide lost individuals and in general was kind. Sensing the distrust in the young party members she requested something of the party to try and gain their trust because she knew it meant life or death for these inexperienced youths. She could at least gain their trust further if they were safe inside her abode.

Seems a logical reasoning to me, given the situation ( and, eventually, being cold blooded enough to think about this, if was her first time using this method )

Plot Twist: The party Cleric was a Norgorber one, pretending to be a Shelyn priest. "My friends, she's definitely guilty!"

[HumbleGamer]

Rysky wrote:

That doesn’t, and shouldn’t change the guard’s reactions.

Blasting a random stranger with an aggressive spell? Stop them. Legalese punishment after the fact is just splitting hairs for the sake of an argument.

It was not about splitting hairs.

All started because you compared two different situations, and I just wanted to underline the difference between them.

Guards would react the same, we all agree, but in one of those situation the outcome would always be the same, since regarless the target, that person would be 100% harmed or killed.

leaving apart that for the purpose of using divine lance as an alignment detector the party ( or character ) would probably have some goal to achieve.

Like find a murder they are tracking, and because so they would probably know something about it, in order to "drastically" reduce the suspects.

A scenario which sees a priest spamming divine lance because reasons, if not a chaotic one with a deathwish, is probably something which doesn't exist at all.

[AnimatedPaper]

"We're trying to stop the murderer by indiscriminately murdering random people" is not the great defense you seem to think it is.

And Rysky's point was that "no lasting harm done in the end" is not a good defense either. So in the sense of "no lasting harm done", her example of stab then potion does seem similar enough to be an appropriate comparison. Focusing on the differences instead of the point of similarity brought up is indeed splitting hairs.

[HumbleGamer]

AnimatedPaper wrote:

"We're trying to stop the murderer by indiscriminately murdering random people" is not the great defense you seem to think it is.

And Rysky's point was that "no lasting harm done in the end" is not a good defense either. So in the sense of "no lasting harm done", her example of stab then potion does seem similar enough to be an appropriate comparison. Focusing on the differences instead of the point of similarity brought up is indeed splitting hairs.

My point wasn't that.

Rysky example was

"Random shooting with divine lance is like stabbing people on the road and offering them a potion if they are hurt".

It's not the same thing, though either example involes guards and jail ( eventually a trial ), as I agreed on in more than one of my previously posts.

And I aslo said that randomly shooting divine lance without a goal would lead to nothing even if, under specific circumstances, it might come in handy ( pixierose shared an example of what happened in a play, and so did I mentioning a murder in a close door scenario with X suspects ).

Seems the issue is, apart from taking examples to the extreme ( random stabbing or divine lancing people because reasons ), that being allowed to use a harmful spell in order to get info about a creature's alignment would be somehow gamebreaking and because so forbidden in any situation ( not to ruin the plot, for example ).

I prefer to differ ( which means that given a specific situation, I might understand a character willingly using divine lance to confirm a fact ), even if I agree that the law will be against anything harmful and dangerous, regardless it does not harm, harms or kill somebody ( thought the punishment would be extremely different ).