Can Good Wizards Cast Evil Spells?

[Li Shenron]

from Uller:

And in the description of clerics there is:

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chaotic, Evil, Good, and Lawful Spells: A cleric can't cast spells of an alignment opposed to his own or to his deity's.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There is no similar rule for Wizards(or Sorcerers or Bards or any other spell casters except Paladins who cast spells as clerics and therefore are subject to the same restriction).
----------------------------------------------------------


Don't forget Druids have the same restriction!

 

[Tom Cashel]

Argl. Magic chapter, somewhere under conjuration magic. You summon creatures of your respective alignment. You can summon evil creatures but the summoned ones will have your alignment. Something like this.

Cool...I simply could not locate that in my PHB. Much obliged.

Originally posted by MythandLore


"Can Good Wizards Cast Evil Spells?"

Blah, Blah, Blah, YES.

That's the kind of non-reply that makes you sound like, well, like kind of a jerk, Myth. I don't happen to have my PHB memorized.

Cheers,
Tom

 

[MythandLore]

That's the kind of non-reply that makes you sound like, well, like kind of a jerk, Myth. I don't happen to have my PHB memorized.

I just said "Blah, Blah, Blah, YES."
Because lots of other people already said the answer for me, Blah, Blah, Blah.
Get it Blah, Blah, Blah.
Don't take things so personal, Blah, Blah, Blah.
Page 32, PHB, Bottom Left, "Chaotic, Evil, Good, and Lawful Spells:"
Happy now?
No?
To bad, I don't care if you memorized the PHB.
You asked the question Tom, not me.
Next time you see an answer like "Blah, Blah, Blah, YES."
Think, he said, "Blah, Blah, Blah, YES."
Nothing more, nothing less.
Cheerio chap,
Me.

 

[Tom Cashel]

I just said "Blah, Blah, Blah, YES."
Because lots of other people already said the answer for me, Blah, Blah, Blah.
Get it Blah, Blah, Blah.
Don't take things so personal, Blah, Blah, Blah.
Page 32, PHB, Bottom Left, "Chaotic, Evil, Good, and Lawful Spells:"
Happy now?
No?
To bad, I don't care if you memorized the PHB.
You asked the question Tom, not me.
Next time you see an answer like "Blah, Blah, Blah, YES."
Think, he said, "Blah, Blah, Blah, YES."
Nothing more, nothing less.
Cheerio chap,
Me.

Seems like you're the one taking things personally, Myth.

If you see that the question's been answered already, why bother posting something designed to make the original question seem pointless and stupid? Desire for attention? Congrats, you've got it.

But you've answered my other uncertainty rather nicely:
You certainly ARE a jerk.

Off I go to add you to my Ignore list.

And I'm not British, jerkoff.

 

[Uller]

If you see that the question's been answered already, why bother posting something designed to make the original question seem pointless and stupid?

Post count.

 

[dcollins]

Tom: I want to emphasize one final time that by the core rules, there are NO alignment based restrictions for the spells that wizards can cast (as opposed to clerics and druids).

Frankly, I can somewhat understand why MythAndLore is unwilling to spend much time on the subject, because all the first posters answering you clearly stated that there were no restrictions, but you seem to have ignored all of us. Instead, you preferred to wait for the posts of Palskane and Darklore, who are giving you completely faulty information.

Let me assure you, the people saying there are restrictions of that type for wizards will not be able to direct you to any page or language in the PHB, because they are simply not there. A NG wizard is absolutely allowed to summon fiendish dire weasels, or anything else on the summoning list.

 

[Palskane]

My bad, dcollins. It wasn't like I was giving him false information on purpose, as you made it sound. The summoning rules in the game I play in follow alignment restrictions. I myself do not play the summoner, so had never looked up the rules for myself.

Sorry.

 

[Tom Cashel]

Thanks, folks...I truly appreciate the help. I understand that it's not the spell, but the use to which the spell is put, that may or may not have alignment consequences for the PC Wizard in question.

dcollins: I didn't mean to ignore you...just responding to further info that came up. Question answered, though.

And sorry for harshing you, Myth. Just a knee-jerk response to being harshed myself.

Thanks again.

 

[Uller]

Thanks, folks...I truly appreciate the help. I understand that it's not the spell, but the use to which the spell is put, that may or may not have alignment consequences for the PC Wizard in question.

As was said very early on...this is probably entirely up to the DM...in some campaigns, casting protection from good may be viewed as an act of evil by the powers that be...in others, it may not be. It probably depends on how absolute alignments are in the campaign...in mine, good and evil get a big "G" and "E". They are real, sentient forces that work against one another and using magic tagged with good and evil labels directly saps or boosts the strength of each. So casting Animate Dead strengthens Evil...no matter what purpose you do it for...and as such is an evil act from the POV of Good creatures.

 

[Voadam]

evil spell effects on good caster

Having certain evil spells cause a detectable (using detect evil) taint on the caster seems kind of neat and moody. For instance animating dead and summoning fiends could plausibly leave a residue on the caster that is picked up by a detect evil spell. Protection from good seems less so.

However, to apply rules, under detect evil you could give the caster the lingering aura of evil of his spell (same duration etc) or even of the creature he summoned/animated. The duration would be the lingering aura table so minutes to days.

This would have the effect of a good wizard who summonns demons detecting as evil for a short time, and major demon summoning causes greater taint.

On the other hand I probably would not apply the reverse as flavor wise evil people summoning celestial angels should not generally detect as good (although the celestial itself will). However, if aligned spells cause an alignment taint on the caster it is a good way for evil spellcasters to fake goodness.