DeathWatch: Why is it evil?

[kirinke]

I have a major problem with the first level cleric spell Deathwatch. On the surface, it looks like an incredibly useful spell for a cleric. It clearly identifies who is living, who is about to die and who is undead/dead. Now, I can agree that it is necromatic, but evil? I can't see the harm in it. So. Here is a revision to it.

DeathWatch
Necromancy
Level: Clr 1
Components: V,S
Casting Time: 1 standard Action
Range: 30ft
Area: Cone Shaped emanation
Duration: 10 min/level
Saving throw: None
Spell Resistance: No

Using the sight granted by the powers of life itself, you can determine the condition of creatures near death within the spell's range. You instantly know whether each creature within the area is dead, fragil (alive and wounded with three or fewer hit points left), fighting off death (four or more hit points), undead or neither alive nor dead (such as a construct, mummies, wraiths etc). Deathwatch sees through any spell or ability that allows creatures to feign death.

 

[Altamont Ravenard]

I'd simply remove the first part of the first sentence, and begin the description with "You can determine the condition..."

Why do you put undead and constructs in the same category?

AR

 

[kirinke]

Undead are neither living nor dead. but something else.
Constructs are neither living nor dead but something else.
The powers that animate undead and constructs are different though.

And I did change up the first sentence which establishes it as evil into something neutral.

 

[Quickleaf]

Here is how Deathwatch worked in my campaign...
You can tell if something is living, the extent of its wounds (at 75% hp=scrapped up, at 50%=wounded, at 25% or less=fragile), whether it was ever living at some point, whether it has died, whether it's soul was judged in the underworld and whether the judgment was in its favor or not, and whether it is dying. Thus looking at a construct one would learn: it is not living, was never living, and was had never died. Looking at an undead, one would learn: it was once living, it died, and it's soul never reached judgment in the underworld.


It always made more sense to me that death deities were essentially guardians of humanity rather than evil beings thirsting after souls. So, here is the modified death domain...

GOOD DEATH DOMAIN
Granted Power: Putting to Rest: 1/day you can call upon one of these effects: (1) gentle repose, (2) any dead creature that was slain by undead does not rise as undead.
1. Deathwatch (revised)
2. Consecrate
3. Speak with Dead
4. Death Ward
5. Raise Dead
6. Undeath to Death
7. Resurrection
8. Retribution of Life*
9. True Resurrection

Retribution of Life (from Scott Bennie's Old Empires pdf)
NECROMANCY
Level: Clr 8
Range: Touch, Special
Components: V,S,M
Duration: 1 hour/level
Casting Time: 1 action
Targets: One creature
Saving Throw: No
Spell Resistance: No
This spell transforms a curse into a blessing. Similar but more powerful than a Greater Restoration, this spell not only dispels all Negative levels gained, but each creature that drained a level from the character must make a Fort Save against the caster’s DC or be destroyed, and even if they succeed, they will take 4d8 hit points damage. Furthermore, every creature destroyed in the retribution adds 10 temporary hit points to the target, which fade after an hour. The material component for this spell is an ankh.

 

[Scion]

It is evil because the makers of d&d like to randomly assign things to be evil. Kindof like how some unintelligent creatures are undead, even though by the rules they cannot have an alignment. Crazyness.

Go for whatever change you like, but I see no reason for a spell that tells you if people are alive or dead to be evil.

 

[kirinke]

I agree Scion. Tis crazy, cuz the spell itself is harmless. All you need to do is change the language a bit and viola. No more ebil-natured spell. Well for some cases anyway. Evard's black tentacles is still a way nasty spell no matter how you look at it.

 

[Dogface]

I agree with the agreement of agreeing that it's just plain silly for this spell to be "evil". Of course, in Candide's world (so to speak), all DMs would have time to go through and sort out "good" and "evil" for their own campaigns' flavor, but some spells are pretty obviously mis-labeled. I'm sure an extremely Gygaxian convolution could be invented for it, but that doesn't mean that the "official" word is necessarily the only way to run things.

 

[Ryan Koppenhaver]

I agree as well. There's no reason it needs to be that way. In my homebrew campaign world, I've left the spell alone, but included a variant death domain for non-evil clerics. The domain's granted ability, is similar to deathwatch, except that it's a divination spell-like ability and not evil.

If a cleric in my current game (not set in that world) wanted to research an equivalent spell, I'd definitely allow it.

 

[Pure Puppet]

Ahem. If I might weigh in?

Thank you. Personally, I agree that it doesn't make sense that Deathwatch is an evil spell, but I actually know why it was made that way. Allow me to quote.

"Tapping into evil power is an evil act in and of itself, no matter what the effects or the reason for using the power might be. By this definition, as a variant rule, the following spells from the Player's Handbook should be considered evil and have the evil descriptor: contagion, deathwatch, desecrate, doom, and trap the soul." -Monte Cook, Book Of Vile Darkness Chapter Six, page 77

Obviously, with 3.5 it's no longer a variant rule. Which kinda upsets me, because I read this nifty Dragon article about pirate-themed magic items which had this cool skull-and-bones gold earring that provided you with a constant deathwatch effect.

If I ever manage to start up a campaign, there's no way I'm gonna call deathwatch an evil spell.

Huh. This is probably my grand debut on EN World. Weird.

 

[Raitaro]

It's evil because of the same reason darkness is now slightly darkerness, the 3.5e designers made a less than stellar choice.