Evil Champions dealing good damage


Rules Discussion


Blessed One Archetype is takable by evil Champions giving them Lay on Hands and feats such as Ampliying Touch (deal good damage on melee hits).

According to the RAW this is acceptable. The Tenets of Evil only prevent casting good spells or using good items. These are feats, and Lay on Hands lacks the good descriptor. Select evil alignment Champion Causes prevent entirely good acts, but I don't think murdering random people with good damage is an entirely good act.

Evil deities can grant healing. However, I think Champions are a special case, and I think maybe somtething somewhere is missing a restriction.

https://2e.aonprd.com/Archetypes.aspx?ID=51

https://2e.aonprd.com/Tenets.aspx?ID=2

As a GM I would not allow this combination.

Grand Lodge

2 people marked this as a favorite.

You mix up alignment (good, evil, lawful, chaotic) with living/undead (positive and negative).

Lay on hands is not doing good damage - it is doing positive.

Yes - an evil champion with these treats can harm undead. But he can’t harm any other living creatures with it.


Lamashtu is perfectly capable of granting her servants both positive and negative channeling at the same time - if it's okay for her Clerics with Versatile Font I don't see why it wouldn't be okay here.


Thod wrote:

You mix up alignment (good, evil, lawful, chaotic) with living/undead (positive and negative).

Lay on hands is not doing good damage - it is doing positive.

Yes - an evil champion with these treats can harm undead. But he can’t harm any other living creatures with it.

Amplifying Touch is good damage.

https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=1683


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Dr A Gon wrote:

Blessed One Archetype is takable by evil Champions giving them Lay on Hands and feats such as Ampliying Touch (deal good damage on melee hits).

According to the RAW this is acceptable. The Tenets of Evil only prevent casting good spells or using good items. These are feats, and Lay on Hands lacks the good descriptor. Select evil alignment Champion Causes prevent entirely good acts, but I don't think murdering random people with good damage is an entirely good act.

Evil deities can grant healing. However, I think Champions are a special case, and I think maybe somtething somewhere is missing a restriction.

https://2e.aonprd.com/Archetypes.aspx?ID=51

https://2e.aonprd.com/Tenets.aspx?ID=2

As a GM I would not allow this combination.

You are right, both as a GM, and within the rules.

Effects which deal certain damage types usually incorporate their respective traits. If they didn't you could have fire bombs explode underwater, or fire swords work in space if the relevant traits did not apply to their attacks.

Same concept here: The effect deals Good damage, so it should have the Good trait on it, as the GM and rules fairly adjudicate. Furthermore, all focus spells are still spells and require the Cast a Spell activity. Which means that indeed, the character is casting a Good Spell, defined as a Spell with the Good trait attached, which is Anathema to their tenets.

Positive is not Good though, so standard Lay On Hands usage to heal living or damage undead is fair game, but this ability to deal Good damage to enemies is Anathema to Evil Champions.


You might be able to argue that casting Amplifying Touch for use on someone else wouldn't violate Tenets of Evil, since you aren't the one getting to use Good damage and can still be Evil while assisting in the destruction of other Evil beings. But I do think things already work as they should overall, and that the above interpretation (where AT being cast is anathema) holds up despite the feat itself not having the Good trait.

Blessed One flavor suggests a source not necessarily picked by you or easily taken away, anyway -- perhaps a god covertly working on redeeming you, one who gave the blessing before you fell to Evil, or even an Evil god like Lamashtu -- and that provides an interesting twist on Champions of Evil, not a rules violation.


Alfa/Polaris wrote:

You might be able to argue that casting Amplifying Touch for use on someone else wouldn't violate Tenets of Evil, since you aren't the one getting to use Good damage and can still be Evil while assisting in the destruction of other Evil beings. But I do think things already work as they should overall, and that the above interpretation (where AT being cast is anathema) holds up despite the feat itself not having the Good trait.

Blessed One flavor suggests a source not necessarily picked by you or easily taken away, anyway -- perhaps a god covertly working on redeeming you, one who gave the blessing before you fell to Evil, or even an Evil god like Lamashtu -- and that provides an interesting twist on Champions of Evil, not a rules violation.

As far as the act itself, it still does. It's the same argument as using Animate Dead to construct an orphanage, just from an opposite standpoint. Alignment traits outweigh effect intentions.

But yes, blessings don't have to be from a Good source, only that the deity can provide Positive energy as a font. I'd even allow a Cursed One archetype, where you get Touch of Corruption and those relevant feats to choose from, but that's homebrew.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

This thread made me want to roll up a Desecrator of Arazni who takes the Blessed One archetype to represent that Arazni is primarily evil because she's been hurt badly and is inclined to lash out, but part of her still wants to do good and primarily her enemies are themselves evil (and undead!)

So my related question is, if I get Lay on Hands through the archetype can I select Mercy feats with champion feats (thus get the level discount) rather than archetype feats? All the Mercies require Lay on Hands, not the tenets of good.


Arazni doesn't have healing font so she can't grant Blessed One. The only Evil deities that can are Lamashtu, Baphomet, Treerazer, Ragadahn, The Green Mother, Dhalavei, Diomazul, and Raumya... which is a much larger list than I thought I'd get when I started making it.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

You don't need to specify the deity that's granting you Blessed One as far as I read it, it could be an entirely anonymous benefactor (like Iomedae meddling with one of Arazni's chosen in overture to make amends to her predecessor as Aroden's Herald.)

Like if any deity can support a Champion wildly changing alignment through their arc, it's Arazni (if we get neutral champions ever, you could be five different kinds!)


I don't see why you couldn't pick up Mercies from Champion. As you said, they just require Lay on Hands.

Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder Second Edition / Rules Discussion / Evil Champions dealing good damage All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.