Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Saeviomagy" data-source="post: 1653087" data-attributes="member: 5890">See that's the thing - somehow a preference for [evil] spells 'invariable corrupts', but a preference for [good] spells only 'helps purify his soul'.It sounds very much like using the slightest bit of [evil] makes you not good, but it takes a significant use of [good] to make you not evil... It assumes that somehow being good is a harder state to achieve than evil, and that the entire alignment system is skewed for that exact purpose. That's usually why I disagree intensely with people who take your stance - they want their cake (ie - to be good you must be truely good to the core in every action, word and deed), but eat it (but to be evil it just takes the slightest bit of a slip, and no, killing evil monsters because it's the easiest solution isn't a slip).So why eyebite?Protection from GoodMagic Circle against GoodAnimate DeadContagionNightmareSymbol of PainCreate UndeadEyebiteCreate Greater UndeadBlasphemyCurse WaterDeath KnellDeathwatchDesecrateDispel GoodUnhallowUnholy AuraUnholy BlightSummon monsterPlanar bindingare all the evil spells in the core rules. Of those, all except symbol of pain, contagion, eyebite and nightmare have direct and obvious impacts upon ones alignment - their sole uses are the combating of good, the increase of your personal power at the expense of the life force of another, association with evil creatures or the creation of undead (who's automatic evil alignment - even when mindless and therefore incapable of making any form of moral decision - I disagree with entirely, but I'll leave it for now).Symbol of pain, contagion, eyebite and nightmare all have non-evil analogues which are at least as bad, if not worse. Symbol of pain, eyebite and contagion cause debilitation for a while. Bestow curse , feeblemind, or blindness/deafness however can cause a lifetime long disability. Other symbol spells (punishing for disturbing an object) which maim and kill escape the [evil] tag.Nightmare kills people (not necessarily good or evil people) in their sleep from a distance. In this manner, it's objectively not any more evil than just fireballing them in bed. In fact the spell 'demand' could potentially have the same effect, yet it escapes the alignment tag. Additionally, demand can't really have any use except to force someone to comply with your wishes over a long distance.Finally - deathwatch is just absurd. Because the flavour text describes seeing the life forces as people in an evil way, the spell is obviously [evil], despite having equally good and evil uses.Next up: good spellsProtection from EvilMagic Circle against EvilBless WaterConsecrateDispel EvilHallowHoly AuraHoly SmiteHoly SwordHoly WordSummon monsterPlanar bindingHmm, every single one of them deals with... fighting evil. Well, except for the two which summon good creatures and then compel them to do the will of the caster.So - apparently sending evil people bad dreams is evil, but having some good-aligned 3rd party fight your battles for you is not.Because the casters are dedicating themselves to a higher level of devotion to a cause than mere alignment?Because the gods have alliances that mean that they will mutually not oppose each other within certain spheres (ie - the spreading of good, law, chaos or evil).Because they're inscrutable?Because it's a balancing factor? Because it contributes flavour?Who knows? Explain how you will. It doesn't really matter. I've shown above that the distinction between good spells and evil spells isn't really as simple as "this one does bad stuff and this one does good stuff" - therefore applying moral consequences on the basis of the [evil] or [good] tags seems more than a little off.Because almost all of the spells mean that you're allying with evil creatures (prohibited in his code) or acting dishonorably (weakening a creature through magic is presumably at the same level as using poison, and attacking someone in their sleep is not an honorable tactic).edit: I'd expect the paladin to oppose certain uses of the [good] and nonaligned spells too, but when measured up to the code, all the [evil] spells fail the test.However the paladin's code is NOT the normal standard for a good alignment.</blockquote>

Verification