Question about a Cleric and a Succubus?

[fableblade]

I'm going to be having a character run a Succubus in my game. (long story as to why), The Succubus will be CN. I have a Cleric of Lathander from the forgotten realms (NG deity), The question I have is would the cleric have any trouble with a CN demon (Healing, etc...) and would Lathander punish his cleric for helping a Succubus?

Any thoughts on this please.

 

[Animal]

i think that if you as a DM have no problem with a succubus being a non-evil PC, than your players shouldn't care that much either.
dawnbringers are supposed to hate all evil, and demons ARE always evil. but if you've got a neutral demon... i dunno, as a lathanderite i wouldn't turn on a non-evil creature, but neutral demon would be kind of an immersion breaker for me.
but if it floats your boat guys, then it's all good.

edit: and welcome to the forums.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Will the Succubus refrain from ever using its energy drain attack? Because, IMO, that is rooted completly in evil, and I don't see a good cleric EVER condoning its use.

 

[irdeggman]

IMO there is a difference between "alignment" and "type".

The succubus can't shake it's type (evil) but it can shake it's alignment.

The problem would be with spells and effects that have a certain effect on the evil type.

 

[fableblade]

The cleric is an NPC and I wanted to make sure I didn't treat the player unfairly if the cleric had trouble with the Succubus. The Cleric has only been in the group a couple of game sessions and haven't got the feel of him quite yet. The person playing the Succubus likes to play CN so they can say it's not evil if I do it because of my aligment, So I will be watching to see how abilities and powers get used, just because the Succubus is CN and doesn't see it as evil or good doesn't mean the rest of the group will see it that way. If the Succubus does an evil act and the cleric knows about it and then has to heal the Succubus later would he be punished by his deity or would his prayers not be answered in the first place?

 

[freyar]

Welcome to EN World!

Lathander is all about new beginnings, so I'd think the cleric should be willing to give the succubus a second chance if she is "demonstrably" neutral. But I think it depends on how your player plays CN. If it's balancing big evil acts vs big good acts, that might be a problem. But if it's neutral by keeping most actions to the middle, then a Lathanderite would probably be ok with it.

 

[Animal]

If the Succubus does an evil act and the cleric knows about it and then has to heal the Succubus later would he be punished by his deity or would his prayers not be answered in the first place?

probably yes. but i think you shouldn't punish your player for your own mistake. you were the one who let him play a demon after all. so now you have to come up with some solution to this.
for example the cleric might receive a vision of his deity giving him a holy quest - to convert the fiend to good's cause.
of course demons are prone to evil so if succubbus does evil acts his alignment might quickly shift back to evil. if you warn the player about it, i think he'll act accordingly and you won't have any problem here.

 

[s-dub]

I'm worried that the CN player will intentionally cheese off the cleric and you'll have to choose between an NPC and a PC. At that point it's really up to the party who they side with but if I were a PC in that group I'd take the cleric over the Succubus almost any day (from a party usefulness perspective, plus I'm wary of any CN PC)

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

...plus I'm wary of any CN PC)

CN isn't inherently potential for trouble. It's when a player uses it as a cover to play an evil character in a non-evil game as a way of skirting that restriction that the horror emerges.

That said, the player is choosing a very evil (even has the subtype!) race for his CN PC, so I guess the OP should be wary. Maybe the player really does want to play a non-evil succubus and it'll work out ok. But you should definitely question him about it before the game starts. Just straight ask, "Are you only doing a CN character because evil wasn't allowed?" perhaps in a more diplomatic manner than how I posed it. Ask him his views of the character's personality and background, philosophical outlook would be great to get a rough idea of, too. If you sense he really wants to play an evil PC under your nose and you (and the other players*) are against that kind of game, nip it in the bud from the start.

*If it turns out the majority of the players do want an evil game, the campaign idea is the thing that might need changing.

I know, I'm assuming that you stated a rule of a non-evil party, but considering you're giving them an NPC cleric of a goody two-shoes deity, it seemed a safe assumption.

 

[akbearfoot]

If it's established in your game world that creatures commonly do not match their inherent racial alignments then I can see something like this happening. If red dragons have saved villages from the ravages of tyrranical golds, and demons patrol the roads to keep travelers safe from the evil bandits...If this is not the case, than any attempt to do something like this would probably ruin a game for me(as a player). I don't think I could reconcile allying with a demon, since they are ALWAYS evil by the core rules...evil literally runs through their veins and gives them the evil subtype. For the briefest of time I can see remaining unfriendly towards one, say if they wanted to kill the same group of bad guys as us....even though they would be killing for power and greed and to furthur some evil agenda, while we would be fighting to save the prisoners etc...But the second the battle ended I would be ready to turn on the demon at the slightest hint of aggression.

In a world like ebberron where its established that pretty much all creatures can have varying alignments I could see it working. Otherwise, no way. Either the good characters would have to breach their alignment 'codes', or the succubus would have to go. In the clerics case, you'd be right to revoke his spells until he made ammends. This is especially true if anyone outside of the group found out they were traveling with a demon and word got out. Even if the PCs could find a way to rationalize a way to travel with critters that generally enjoy tormenting and torturing the weak and destroying all that is good in the world, the rest of the world likely can't.