Are demons/devils living creatures?

[jvdburgt]

The obvious answer may seem "yes", but here's my dilemma.

I'm playing an Apostle of Peace (BOeD) in my current campaign, and one of the required feats for this PrC is "Vow of Peace" (VoP). The description of the feat is as follows:

"Copyright protected"

Clear enough. However, one of the granted abilities of an Apostle of Peace (4th level) is that of "censure fiends". It basically states that you can turn fiends as you can normally turn undead. BUT, and this is a big "BUT", turn undead (and also censure fiends) deals lethal damage!

According to the required Vow of Peace you may not deal lethal damage to living creatures, so I'd say that this should implicate that fiends are (at least from the perspective of the Apostle of Peace) not considered as living creatures.

Although this may come of as strange, it makes sense from a certain perspective. The whole idea of an Apostle of Peace is that his life's mission is to banish violence, and that the Apostle is driven to redeem creatures of violent (evil) nature towards the good (BOeD). Evil outsiders, however (as per description in BOeD) can never be redeemed (and thus will spread evil and violence as long as they live). Now, in an demon-ridden campaign, is the Apostle really supposed to try and capture every single demon he meets and hand them over to the authorities to be locked up? Although it's a nice roleplaying challenge somehow I would say that this is not the true idea of this PrC (how many prisons are equipped to imprison a Baalor anyway?).

In other words: would it be okay if my Apostle would support and contribute to the destruction of demons (as he does with for instance undead and constructs) or is he still supposed to try to prevent violence and bodily harm even against unredeemable demons and devils? And in case of the latter, how does this rhyme with the (lethal) turning damage he deals with his "censure fiends" ability?

I'd love to hear your ideas on this question before I take it up with my DM.

 

[Dozen]

O-kaay, you've missed several things.

First, I think you might have violated at least one copyright law just now. Don't quote stuff from books, man. BoED is not part of the SRD, nor it is published under the OGL.
Secondly, and I can't believe someone actually thinks this is not the case, Turn Undead doesn't deal damage. You may use up your turn attempts to deal damage if you take certain feats, but by basis, it's just either destroying them outright(Censure Fiend can't do that) or scaring the hell out of them. The result of the check after the Turning/Censure check(referred to as 'turning/censure damage' check) is the HD of creatures that can be affected. I don't know if you're using different rules in your campaign(class variants, alternative features, etc.), but the Apostle of Peace entry assumes you're playing under normal rules, and dealing damage to live creatures in any way does break the Vow of Peace, hence why none of his abilites deal damage. You or your DM have made a gigantic misunderstanding at some point.

To answer the question at hand, yes, they are alive, though with the above, this info's sorta irrelevant.

 

[Yora]

By the rules, everything with a Constitution score is alive. Anything without one is not.

 

[kitcik]

EDIT: never mind

 

[jvdburgt]

Thnx! Removed the quote from the book.

I misinterpretated"turning damage" (never played a cleric before), so problem solved. Peaceful approach to demons it is

 

[Greenfield]

So if it isn't a living creature, you can't Disintegrate it, which means it's made out of wood, so it floats, which means it weighs the same as a duck?

I think we have a new way to detect Demons, folks!

 

[Sekhmet]

So if it isn't a living creature, you can't Disintegrate it, which means it's made out of wood, so it floats, which means it weighs the same as a duck?

I think we have a new way to detect Demons, folks!

Brilliant.
[MENTION=6673052]jvdburgt[/MENTION] Yes, they're alive. No, Censure doesn't work like that. Dozen laid it out perfectly well.

Regarding copyright law, sharing among friends for a not-for-profit purpose, while crediting the works and not using it in it's majority or entirety is quite legally alright.

 

[the Jester]

First, I think you might have violated at least one copyright law just now. Don't quote stuff from books, man.

It's okay to reproduce small excerpts, such as a feat's text, for purposes of discussion.

 

[Dandu]

I think we should have a discussion on everything WotC has put out.

 

[Greenfield]

Not quite right. Profit has nothing to do with it.

Sharing among friends isn't an exception. You want to show a friend your book? Cool. You want to show that friend a photocopy of your book? Not so cool.

You can republish excerpts for review purposes. You can cite sections in discussion to support research. You can make all the copies you want, if you own a legitimate copy and the others are for your personal use.

If you sell or give away the original, you have to lose those "personal use" copies. You no longer have the right to make or possess those copies. That right went with the original.

If you make the "personal use" copies available others, you're breaking the law. Loan out your original, if you like, but not the copies.

Copyright is literally the right to copy. If you don't have it, don't do it.