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Again, I encourage the usage of bang notation. If [good] means made of good-energy bits the same way that a fire giant is made of fire-energy bits, then there's no reason you can't have an evil [good] creature. It just means that you need new terms for moral and immoral, or for...

As you have said, using the spell is Evil. It's just that you can turn around and use the results of the spell for a great deal of Good trivially. If you believe in Good effects that, when used in certain circumstances, produce Evil results, then it follows that you can have Evil effects that...

OK, so casting Holy Word is planar!good, regardless of targets, and Animate Dead is planar!evil, regardless of targets. This has never been in dispute. But, if a society or cosmology cares more about the planar!alignment of an effect then whether it happens to be saving babies or slaying them...

Hussar, allow me to introduce you to an internet neologism called bang notation. It's very useful for clarifying the use of terms of art during discussion. Let's say that I'm in a discussion about the role of deities in a D&D universe, and that the discussion has wandered from FR to Eberron to...

More hard numbers (along the lines of average damage output, AC to HP to special defense proportions, a way of balancing forced movement versus extra damage versus various status conditions) and the like would be awesome. Numbers like attack bonus and damage per attack are useless if you don't...

Robert's First Law of Functional Aesthetic: The effort you spend looking awesome and kicking ass ensures that the person who spent all of their effort on learning how to kick ass will kick your ass. You can be consoled by knowing that you will die looking awesome.

Imagine a circle of radius 1 centered on the origin. Imagine that the X axis represents "consistent and accurate world", and the Y axis represents "fun tactical game". If your sole measure of product is a fun tactical game, then you want products that are graphed close to 0,1. If you weigh...

Videogamey is, to me, mechanics that exist without regard for how the world has been previously described as working, for the obvious purpose of bringing about a (specific) fun game experience. Two basic examples are Terror-Wall of Stone and NPC invulerability. In the first example, an effect...

Err...OK. You know, for reference, when discussing on a forum dedicated to a particular topic, when using a word that has a specific definition as a term of art in reference to said topic, it's often helpful to specify that you are using the world differently. In D&D, there is objective...

4E is consistent like an action movie is consistent; within the bounds of what is presented. It produces consistent, versimillistic action, and does so better than many (cough Revenge of the Sith and Order 66) movies. Character can do certain things, and they do them extremely consistently; if...

Yes. We are in agreement. Animating dead is evil. Evil can trivially turned towards harmlessness and be beneficial for all sentient life. Holy Word is good. Good can be trivially turned toward the callous murder of innocents. Ergo, the planar energies of good and evil do not necessarily...

Dunno if I see it as a flaw, myself. The world of Yellow: HP are totally, 100% physical toughness. If you have the HP of a stone block, then it is expected that you react to non-precision damage in about the same way a stone block does. The good: Describing high-level defenders stop the...

I'm...not really seeing the point of the discussion here. The point of my example is that when you have a system that says "Taking this action which kills babies but involves blue, shiny energy is Good." and "Taking this other action that saves babies but involves scary black energy is Evil."...

If the characters have no expectation of power effects, then they have even less justification for tactical play. Again, if Bob does not have good reason to assume that he can use his daily to push the displacer beast off the cliff, then Bob has no reason to charge the displacer beast. Bob may...

Let us hypothesize a daily ability that pushes an opponent back a long ways, and another daily that resists forced movement. Let us also hypothesize a monster that can force movement, and a Pit of Evil the monster is attempting to force PCs into. If all a character knows is that the...

That blue guy has a power source of Plot, though. The things that Thrawn is described as doing simply don't make any sense as a function of tactics, any more than Superman picking up an oil tanker and not having it collapse and crunch in his (human-sized) hands makes sense as a function of pure...

I am curious what was meant to be accomplished by not archiving the default gods in one place. It's not like A:) there won't be Initiate of (Evil God Here) feats in additional supplements or B:) PCs that really dig the Miltonian theme won't either write down Asmodeus on their character sheet...

It declares that certain spells use moral energies, just like other spells use elemental energies. Let us consider the hypothesis that we can determine the morality of casting a spell based on its descriptors as opposed to its effects and circumstances. Let us consider casting Holy Word in an...

That's an interesting proposal. Would you care to post a critique of one of the example builds and note the weaknesses in their capacities and defenses? Pointe the first: it's that bonus multiplier that's the killer. Multipliers are scarce in 4E, but flat damage bonuses aren't; this...

So? ... No! Bad Robert! No Hongifying! To elaborate, yes, it does matter. When I refer to what the rules say, I am referring to what the rules say, not what I think they mean. "The rules say..." is a different statement than "The rules should say..." Oooh, the passive voice. And you were...