EoM: What effect does an Evoke Chaos have on a CG, CN, or CE character?

Lela · Sep 18, 2005

What effect does an Evoke Chaos have on a CG, CN, or CE character?

It doesn't seem to be in the Evoke section and I thought I had read something about this a couple months ago.

Any help would be appreciated.

genshou · Sep 18, 2005

Lela said:
What effect does an Evoke Chaos have on a CG, CN, or CE character?

It doesn't seem to be in the Evoke section and I thought I had read something about this a couple months ago.

Any help would be appreciated.

I'm responding to you here as well for the sake of the general public (who we all know just love to hear what I have to say

).

I looked this up as well and couldn't find anything. If it follows the convention the rest of EoM effect relationship does (especially among other Evoke spells) then it won't affect them (just as an Evoke Fire would not affect a Fire creature). However, this might only be the case with creatures that have the Chaos descriptor (demons, slaadi, etc.). We'll have to wait for RangerWickett to give us his word on the matter.

Lela · Sep 18, 2005

That's what I was thinking. Sure, if they have the Chaos subtype, yeah, they're fine. But being of Chaotic Alignment is far less than a subtype.

As a side question, what happens to a Law creature caught in an Evoke Chaos? Personally, I'd give them a -2 to their save but that can just make life more complicated.

Slander · Sep 18, 2005

I think only creatures with the Chaotic subtype would be unaffected. All other creatures would be affected in some way. On page 19 under the Effect Categories heading, it says most creatures count as neutral for purposes of alignment-based spells. The spells act on the Alignment Subtypes and not the creature's mindset.

On page 25 it says Evoke Alignment spells deal normal damage to creatures with opposing alignments subtypes, half damage to creatures of neutral alignment with respect to the Evoked alignment, and no damage to creatures with the same alignment subtype.

So an Evoke Chaos spell would deal half damage against a CG, CN, or CE character since normal PCs are treated as "neutral" for these purposes. The exception would be a PC who drew magical power from a lawful or chaotic god (or other source). The former would take full damage, the latter would take no damage.

That's how I read it anyway.

Verequus · Sep 18, 2005

EoMR said:
Opposed Alignments: There are five alignments used in Elements of Magic spells - Chaos, Evil, Good, Law, and Balance. When an Evoke spell or other damaging effect deals alignment-based damage, its effect depends on the alignment of the targets. Some settings may not use alignments for normal characters, and if so, either get rid of alignment damage entirely, or only have it affect outsiders with the appropriate alignment, since outsiders are considered to inherently have that alignment.

Evoke Chaos, Evil, Good, and Law do normal damage to creatures of diametrically opposed alignments, half damage to creatures that are neutral in respect to the appropriate alignment, and no damage to creatures that share the alignment.

Evoke Balance does normal damage to creatures with extreme alignments (LE, CE, LG, and CG), half damage to creatures that are neutral along one axis (NE, NG, LN, and CN), and no damage to true neutral creatures.

This text doesn't refer to subtypes - probably an oversight. I think, having a chaotic alignment and a [Law] subtype should make such being susceptible to both Evoke Chaos and Evoke Law. Compared to page 19, we have a contradiction here.

Lela · Sep 18, 2005

RuleMaster said:
This text doesn't refer to subtypes - probably an oversight. I think, having a chaotic alignment and a [Law] subtype should make such being susceptible to both Evoke Chaos and Evoke Law. Compared to page 19, we have a contradiction here.

So, you're saying that Evoke Chaos wouldn't affect characters with a Chaotic alignment?

Verequus · Sep 18, 2005

Yes, I support that alignments count as subtypes in this case.

Lela · Sep 18, 2005

I do think it would make sense. I wouldn't normally expect Good damage to affect Good characters. Chaotic should be the same.

RangerWickett · Sep 19, 2005

The intent of the rules was to have alignment-based spells function based on the target's alignment, regardless of its essential nature. Humans are not inherently good or evil, but an evil human would be hedged by Abjure Evil, and take full damage from Evoke Good. Likewise, Evoke Evil would harm a demon who had turned to good (unless the GM wanted to house rule it otherwise), and Evoke Good would not harm him.

There is an option that for games that don't use alignments with normal characters, to let alignment spells still function by letting them affect outsiders with those inherent alignment traits.