Is it inherently evil to summon up a demon?

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

yeah, never have a demon do research for you, that's just not smart.

Make him or her guard some tomb for forever and ever sure, but never compell him or her to do your homework.

And I was explaining a precedent, not something I would be into myself. I know my magic ain't enough to keep a demon down. Heck, 'my magic' is barely adequate to summoning and binding gin and tequila.

But if your King Solomon or one of the various other exalted of the earth you should be ok.

I do, however, think that that reasoning against summoning celestial creatures is pretty strong.

Summon Nature's Ally is the only moral conjuring spell. Badger gets to go back to doing badger things with no risk of injury.

 

[Mallus]

I think you're asking the wrong question...

The question should be "What benefits my campaign/story more; ruling that demon summoning is inherently evil or ruling that its not?"

The first question should always be "What makes my game more enjoyable, for the players as well as the DM.

I wholeheartedly second reading Sepulchrave's Story Hour about Eadric the Paladin and Co. It won't answer the question, but it certainly demonstrates how leaving the absolute answer to that question open {well, for a long time} and having the players make tough choices can produce a marvellous gaming experience.

Maybe that's not the kind of game you want to play. But its hard to deny it sounds good.

 

[Celebrim]

"As to the other problems, just make sure to give it instructions (you didn't summon a demon without being able to speak Abyssal or otherwise communicate with it did you?) Instruct it specifically how you want it to attack, and what to do each round. Talking is a free action."

And what makes you think it is possible to give anything but evil instructions in Abyssal? Just what do you think the vocabulary of that language is like?

"Instruct it to respond to your questions fully and truthfully. "Respond to my questions with the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth" should cover most such situations."

I'd be willing to bet that not only does the word 'truth' not exist in infernal, but the meaning of the word as you use it cannot be explained to a Vrock because it is too foriegn of a concept and moreover that it would be impossible for a Vrock to follow your instructions even if it did understand them. It would be like commanding someone not to breath - it would only work for so long. Higher imperatives would eventually take over.

If you assume that fiends are people too and have the behavior and motivations of people, and don't assume that the are utterly alien incarnations of evil then of course it is possible to assume that not only is summoning up a demon not evil, but that demons aren't evil in the first place. But what I'm trying to tell you is that demons are utterly alien incarnations of evil by definition, and summoning them up is evil by definition.

 

[green slime]

You cannot summon a Pit Fiend using the Monster Summoning spells. The most powerful demon you can summon would be a Vrock.[/B]

Well, terribly sorry I didn't actually look up the power of the spell, like that has a LOT to do with my point of demons misinterpreting the commands of their summoner.

As to the other problems, just make sure to give it instructions (you didn't summon a demon without being able to speak Abyssal or otherwise communicate with it did you?) Instruct it specifically how you want it to attack, and what to do each round. Talking is a free action. [/B]

Of course it is... Assuming that you can always maintain line of sight, are more or less concentrating what it is up to that very instant. It too can communicate with you, your party members, and the opposition, sowing the greatest amount of anarchy and destruction. Making snide comments as to the prowess of the fighter, revealing that certain party members did vile deeds with the opposition's mother (causing them to concentrate their attacks on a certain party member), Talking about what your sister was doing with whom, while you were digging gold from the dragon's lair...

Of course that method of communicating will be severly limited in a silence... Giving ample opportunity for "misinterpretation" of original commands...

Instruct it to respond to your questions fully and truthfully. "Respond to my questions with the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth" should cover most such situations.

Dealing with fiends is difficult, but not impossible. [/B]

Truth can be such a subjective, elusive and expansive area, that the "whole truth" would leave the demon babbling for twenty minutes trying to explain ALL the details, to a far greater degree than you desired, with the effect that you learn nothing of what you desired to know, and much that is harmful for your sanity.

If 20 people witness an accident, their will be 20 different versions of what exactly happened, each convinced that it ws the truth. Which one is? Are you going to rely on what the Demon regards as the truth in this matter?

20 people examine a painting. ½ of them think the painting is tripe, ½ think it is a masterpiece. Is the artist a great artist or a disgrace to the artistic world?

So many of our words are value-loaded that it becomes almost impossible to talk about truth.

It is also possible for the Demon to blather and distract you from your true line of questioning. Giving answers that lead the questions away from what you really seek. Giving the truth, just slightly bent...

Demons are really not worth dealing with, IMC, You can guarantee they are trying to get you to to trip, trying to set you up, in a myriad of ways. From stroking your ego, to deflating your friends, undermining your alliances, all the while giving you exactly what you asked for...

 

[Umbran]

As to the other problems, just make sure to give it instructions (you didn't summon a demon without being able to speak Abyssal or otherwise communicate with it did you?) Instruct it specifically how you want it to attack, and what to do each round. Talking is a free action.

Making fairly short statements is a free action. The combat round is a whopping six seconds. You can't give very detailed instructions in that time, especially if you're trying to do so such that it doesn't interfere with your other actions. Certainly not detailed enough to preclude an expert word-twister like a demon or devil from doing something nasty if it wants to.

 

[Oni]

Mmm, opengamingfoundation.org seems to be down, otherwise I'd search the SRD. But even if it wasn't explicitly written down, IMO it's a safe assumption anyway.

I wouldn't waste too much time looking, I don't think you'll find it.

I can't remember any single instance in D&D, and very few in fantasy in general, where raising undead and summoning demons aren't considered intrinsically evil acts..

One instance immediately comes to mine, in Monsters of Faerun animate dead is one of the powers of good liches.

Besides, an [evil] spell detects as evil with Detect Evil, so it's evil. That is, unless you're going to argue that Detect Evil doesn't, in fact, detect evil, but that would get a little too far-fetched.

The spell radiates an evil aura, that is what detect evil detects. It however doesn't assign any morality to the use of the spell. When I spoke of logic earlier this is precisely what I was talking about. You turn to the rules to say that and casting a spell with the evil descriptor is an evil action, if we use your reading of the rules across the board that would mean that casting any spell with the good descriptor would have to be a good action.

Logic? I didn't talk about logic. Well, I did, but the sentence was "[D&D morals] trascend logic". In other words, the fact that summoning fiends is an evil act in itself isn't logical, and I don't care about it, it's still evil. The gods say so. The gods are the source of morality. So it's evil. That's how religion-based morality works even IRL.

If, instead, you're talking about my attempt to logically explain why summoning fiends is evil, then you should also notice that I wasn't talking about celestials and goodness.

See above what I meant about your logic. The minute you start talking about the rules you have a hard and fast base that your working from and it will apply equally across the board, you can't just say it applies here, but not here simply because it doesn't suit you. The symmetrical nature of the dnd ruleset pretty much demands that when you speak of one extreme your also making a ruling at the opposite end of the spectrum.

If you want to divorce your views from the rules that is all well in good, but in that case you are no longer strictly speaking in terms of D&D as it is put forward in the rule books. So I would say that is not at all clear in D&D terms. Perhaps in terms of your own campaign, or personal views but not by the common rules that we all share.

 

[Zappo]

My logic, my logic... what I'm saying is that there is no logic. There are actions that are morally defined only because an external force said so. This external force could be the gods, but it could also be Good (or Evil) itself. Absolute morality brings contradictions and illogical results, but that's what D&D has. Like it often happens with religious dogmas, considering demon summoning as evil is correct in 99% of the cases, and clearly that's enough for the divine legislators.

And yeah, calling a celestial is likely considered a good action too. Before you tell me about the necromancer who summons celestials hawks again, let me repeat that it doesn't have to make sense. To make a further example, Star Wars d20 is chock full of this kind of things. There are a bunch of dark side powers that have lots of uses beside doing bad stuff, but you still get corrupted at least a bit if you use them, no matter what.

Some supernatural effects use evil (/good/lawful/chaos) energies and using them means bringing more of those energies into the world.

 

[dreaded_beast]

in my opinion, i do not believe that summoning demons itself is an evil act, although the spell itself radiates as being "evil".

if say an evil spellcaster continually summoned up celestials and did business with them or constantly casted "good" spells, would that spellcaster be in danger of becoming "good"?

if summoning fiends is evil, because the spell has the "evil" descriptor, than any spell that has the "evil" descriptor is considered to be an "evil" act. if this is true, than any spell that has the "good" descriptor and is considered to be a "good" act.

take protection from evil. this spell is considered "good" because of the descriptor. now, in my opinion, evil spellcasters would probably cast this sepll quite a few times, since they probably have to protect themselves from evil baddies as much as anyone else.

now, if the belief that casting "evil" spells make someone turn closer to evil, then it should hold true that the evil spellcaster casting "good" spells would start turning closer to "good".

if that was the case, then too many castings of certain spells would be an evil characters quick way to redemption. hmm, i don't want to be evil anymore, let me cast protection from evil a bunch of times so i can become good.

this sounds silly to me, so that is why i don't think that casting spells with the "evil" or "good" descriptor makes it an evil or good act, just the type of spell it is.

another example is if a "good" character is wielding an unholy sword. i believe that wielding an unholy sword does not make a character evil since the rules do not state that. the rules do state that a good character wielding an unholy sword suffers a -1 negative level but not a change in alignment. you need a special magical item to change your alignment. the unholy sword will radiate evil under the detect evil spell, but beyond the -1 negative level, there is no rule that says using it is an evil act and will start changing your alignment to evil.

 

[dreaded_beast]

And yeah, calling a celestial is likely considered a good action too. Before you tell me about the necromancer who summons celestials hawks again, let me repeat that it doesn't have to make sense. To make a further example, Star Wars d20 is chock full of this kind of things. There are a bunch of dark side powers that have lots of uses beside doing bad stuff, but you still get corrupted at least a bit if you use them, no matter what.

i think what we are looking for are actual game mechanics that are covered in the rules. i have only skimmed over star wars d20, but i believe there are rules that cover using dark side powers and becoming corrupted by them. however, in regular dnd, i am unable to find rules that define cast spells with the "evil" descriptor as an evil act.

i believe that star wars d20, is based on the star wars mythology, which states that using darkside powers is an evil act. therefore rules were created to handle the use of darkside powers. this is campaign specific and rules were created accordingly.

however, in regular generic dnd, all that was given was an "evil" descriptor to determine what type of spell it was. i believe if that such a spell was considered to be an "evil" act, it would have been stated explicitly like it is in star wars d20 when darkside powers are used (if i remember correctly)

i believe that determining if casting a spell with the "evil" descriptor is an "evil act" is actually campaign specific (dependant on what type of game the dm plays, his house rules, etc.) and that there are no actual rules that state that casting such a spell is an "evil act".

if there is such a rule in the core books, could someone point it out to me. on my own, i have not found such a rule.

 

[Zappo]

I doubt there is such a rule or specification, because there are no mechanics about morality in D&D. It wouldn't be mechanically important. The best you can get is the definition of what Detect Evil (which "detects the presence of evil") sees.