WarlockLord said:
This is why I hate D&D morality. With all the 'detect evil', 'smite evil', 'evil as a supernatural force', 'evil domain', it is impossible not to know that you are evil.
So you'd rather have it that all morality in D&D be gray, with no guidelines or rules governing it, and no universal forces of good, evil, law, or chaos?
That's fine but it doesn't really evoke the kind of game that D&D tries to provide, which is heroic fantasy. And in heroic fantasy you kind of need clear-cut good and evil. Otherwise how do you act heroically, if every single damned enemy you face has to be meticulously analyzed to determine whether or not he really deserved to be slain for getting in the way of your goals?
Adventurer: "Oops, I'm sorry, I couldn't just cast Detect Evil to see if you were just being a jerk right now and not a bad guy at all, sorry I killed you Mr. Orc. So I figured that since you were getting in my way and seemed to be guarding the dragon that everyone's been having trouble with, I figured you must be his evil henchman and deserved to die. So sorry. Gee, now I feel all un-heroic for having killed a decent guy that was just trying guard the lair that he was forced to do under threat of death. I shoulda just stricken to subdue. Too bad it's hard to hit things without risking serious injury, like in the real world."
D&D has personifications of good, evil, law, and chaos. D&D has universal forces of alignment that dictate 'this is good, and that is bad, so now you know where you stand'. D&D promotes heroic fantasy rather than grim and gritty over-realistic gray morality Warhammer-Fantasy-Roleplay-esque adventuring in a world that sucks (mind you, I
like WFRP's setting, but you gotta admit that most people living in that world would think life
sucks). Tough noogies. Heroic fantasy
is D&D.
How many evil clerics have the evil domain? This is dumb. Most evil creatures don't see themselves as evil in reality, but how do you deny it in D&D?
Easy. Most people don't have access to spells that detect their alignment, and the ones who do are usually too busy to spend all their time scanning the streets for evil people and calling down the wrath of Pelor or what-have-you upon those folks. Most evil people in D&D won't know that they're 'evil' and will generally consider it a false decree or conspiracy if some random priest calls them 'evil'.
A conspiracy by the churches of the so-called good deities to oppress and villainize those who don't share their views or pay them lots of money in 'donations' to garner their 'protection'. After all, who's going to say the priest of Pelor is lying when he calls someone 'evil'? Probably no one before he gets rid of the 'evil one'. A conspiracy by the clergy, yup. That's what an evil person in a D&D setting would see it as. It's really not hard, people in the real world come up with this kind of stuff about this or that
all the time.
Then there's the whole "evil spells" thing. If a bad guy is about to burn down and orphanage, and you slay him with the evil spell darkbolt from BoVD, saving the kids, you have still committed an evil act. It doesn't matter that you saved the kids. You are still evil. Likewise, deathwatch can be used to heal, not harm, but it's still evil. Animate dead creates brainless automatons that follow the whims of their master. Who says they can't be used for good? But no. It's an evil spell.
You could have used a different spell, y'know, one that did not inherantly channel the powers of Evil, tapping into the energies of the Lower Planes or whatever. You can Scorching Ray or Disintegrate the bad guy instead, spells that just channel ordinary, natural, elemental forces or transmutive energies. But instead you chose to learn and use a spell that harnesses raw, primordial Evil, which in D&D is a force unto itself.
You could have cast Status to determine the health of nearby allies, rather than tapping into the darker energies of the world to cast Deathwatch and determine which allies death is creeping up to and which ones are healthy, just because Deathwatch is easier to cast, because the powers of darkness want to be invoked, want to get a hold on you....
You could have chosen to try Raising the Dead with their souls and wills intact, rather than desecrating their corpses by turning them into undead slaves of your will, through Animate Dead. You could have avoided calling on the powers of evil to empower those corpses and make them obey your commands as puppets on infernal strings. It doesn't matter that you just wanted to use the zombies to defend the city.
If you want to try making such zombies without calling on Evil to do it for you, you could try researching a new spell, one that most folks would not even conceive of, to channel positive energy and neutral forces to animate the dead as your servants, and simultaneously give their souls a chance to reject the animation of their former vessels, with the promise that you will only use the zombies for Good. It'll still be desecration but not too evil. And the spell would probably have to end its animation immediately if the zombies were ever given an evil order, or were about to strike an innocent person while carrying out an otherwise decent order.
Most people wouldn't even consider, though, using an army of their loved ones' or ancestors' corpses to defend the city from invasion. They would much rather you tried summoning angels or raising the dead back to life instead, to defend the city. Or at least called back their souls and asked them to cooperate with a process to turn them into positive-energy undead that could act independantly in defense of their progeny.
And summoning? Enslaving angels is a good thing?
Enslaving, no. Good thing that Summoning is not even anywhere close to enslavement. Let me quote you a line from the PHB and SRD, from the Magic chapter. Emphasis mine.
CONJURATION said:
Conjurations bring manifestations of objects, creatures, or some form of energy to you (the summoning subschool), actually transport creatures from another plane of existence to your plane (calling), heal (healing), transport creatures or objects over great distances (teleportation), or create objects or effects on the spot (creation). Creatures you conjure usually, but not always, obey your commands.
Unlike a Calling spell, a Summoning spell does not transport the actual creature to you, but sends you a manifestation of some sort that resembles that creature and is a sort of doppelganger drawn from the essence of that creature's native plane. The duplicate obeys your commands, but is not the real creature. It's an artifice of magic on the plane it is summoned from, Mount Celestia or whatever sending you a temporary ally molded after one of its own common denizens.
And as it is a Good spell when you summon an angel, that means you are harnessing powers of good at that time, so it is a 'good' act. In time enough summonings of these quasi-real angelic duplicates will make you a better person, through changing your alignment, and ultimately Good will benefit from your acts once you accept the path of righteousness yourself.
If you abuse the spell though, and don't use it very often, you may remain evil or neutral, but others may try to punish you for using manifestations of Good to commit evil acts or whatever (which will still count as evil acts or whatever, as appropriate, on your part; in fact, if you use a Good summoning to commit evil, you're really committing a bigger sin than usual, so it's likely to be counted as doubly evil for that). Mount Celestia or whatever will continue sending you these manifestations if you keep summoning them, with the expectation that you will forsake your misguided ways at some point and see the light, because it is in the nature of Good to be hopeful and try to sway you toward goodness yourself.
Keep in mind also that only arcane casters can summon creatures that have an opposing alignment; clerics can only summon stuff that isn't offensive to their alignment/faith. An arcane caster of any alignment can choose to summon fiends, angels, elementals, and other stuff with impunity, but it does not change the spells' descriptors, so casting them can still impact your alignment. And at some point an angel, fiend, deity, or deific avatar may notice your abuses and decide to set you straight or bump you off the mortal coil.
