Good casters and the Gate spell

[Otterscrubber]

One of the uses of Gate is to call an outsider(s) to fight for you. If you are a good caster you are probably summoning a good outsider, since summoning an evil creature is an evil act that can mess up your alignment. My question is how do others roleplay this? Are the outsiders that show up cheerful about helping out? As this use of the spell costs 1000xp with 3.5 (a good call if you ask me) you are most likely using it to pull your bacon out of the fire in a close fight, so you are basically summoning some good creature and immediately putting it in harms way. One would think that this would upset and anger anyone, especiallyon a repeat basis. But that kinda makes it a not attractive spell to use from a roleplaying standpoint, which sucks especially now that it costs a nice chunk of xp to use. Not only are you running the risk of upsetting the creature you summon, but one can argue that grabbing a neutral (I'm not referring to alignment here) 3rd party and throwing them to the wolves constitues an evil act.

I am asking this as we are about to get this spell in our campaign and I'd like to head off some questions before we see them in game. Thanks for any input.

 

[Epametheus]

For summoning evil creatures, it's a basis of "who cares what they want? They're demons!"

As for good creatures.. I could see celestial warriors deliberately putting themselves "on call" for Gate spells (or being asked to do so by their master, in the case of divine servants).

The alignment restrictors are there to "type" the spells for the sake of divine casters, not to indicate alignment repercussions. Summoning a vrock through a Monster Summoning spell isn't an evil act, even if the spell is typed Chaotic Evil when you summon a Vrock.

 

[Hypersmurf]

The alignment restrictors are there to "type" the spells for the sake of divine casters, not to indicate alignment repercussions. Summoning a vrock through a Monster Summoning spell isn't an evil act, even if the spell is typed Chaotic Evil when you summon a Vrock.

I'm away from my PHB, and I can't find the line in the SRD, but I'm sure that there's a line somewhere that states "casting a spell with the [Evil] descriptor is an Evil act, and casting a spell with the [Good] descriptor is a Good act".

Maybe it's in Defenders of the Faith?

Anyone remember?

-Hyp.

 

[nimisgod]

Book of Vile Darkness I believe

 

[Otterscrubber]

Anyone else care to weigh in? I was hoping for some more input from the crowd here.

 

[the Jester]

First off, for the record, casting an [evil] spell is an evil act.

As to using gate in a fight- well, I've found that the epic-level group I'm running tends to use gate like a planar ally, in advance of an adventure. They do sometimes use it as a desperate last measure- like last night, when the high-level wizard used it to summon "anything" from the positive energy plane. (Got seven xag-ya, for the record, and they proved very helpful.)

I've generally assumed that called creatures are 'on the summoning bench' waiting for the call. Sure they have other things going on, but there are 'rules' that require they answer calling spells. They might not strictly want to, but they are obliged to.

I don't think summoning neutral creatures to aid you is an evil act; summoning them and then attacking them, on the other hand, would be.

 

[Bishop2113]

So is it the same creature's every time then?
What if the Cleric has a change of Ali.?
Also does level change who or how many are coming through?
Does anyone in the party have to worry that the "good" gate creatures are going to attack them, like they would with the evil ones?

 

[Epametheus]

So is it the same creature's every time then?
What if the Cleric has a change of Ali.?
Also does level change who or how many are coming through?
Does anyone in the party have to worry that the "good" gate creatures are going to attack them, like they would with the evil ones?

1. It can be. That's up to the DM.
2. That'll only make a difference if the new Ali puts the cleric in conflict with the boss.
3. If I remember right, the caster's level determines how much HD worth of critter he can control, so yes.
4. If the party is evil, sure. Granted, an irate planetar is more likely to talk things over than an irate balor (unless the planetar's from Ysgard).

Monster Summoning spells actually counting as Evil or Good acts strikes me as incredibly dumb. A chaotic evil wizard isn't going to turn good simply because he likes smooshing things with celestial elephants!

 

[rkanodia]

Agreed. I think that pitting good creatures against each other should be doubly evil.

 

[Otterscrubber]

Monster Summoning spells actually counting as Evil or Good acts strikes me as incredibly dumb. A chaotic evil wizard isn't going to turn good simply because he likes smooshing things with celestial elephants!

I think this is supposed to be a nod towards an ancient concept called "role-playing". The existence of this concept has been acknowledged by many, but ignored by most. Like any spice used when cooking, add as desired; if others don't like it they can eat elsewhere.