Morality of LG spellcasting

[Grithfang]

In the coarse of my campaign our party has, in the face of great evil, all come to worship Heironeous. Since none of us have much history of playing lawful good characters, it has developed into some interesting discussions.

The most recent of which are, what spells would be forbidden (or limited) to spell casters (arcane and divine). With the exception of use in warfare, or within the legal framework of a LG community.

This is a list my group came up with of (core) spells which would be forbidden:

Animate Dead, Bane, Binding, Blasphemy, Choas Hammer, Circle of Death, Cloak of Chaos, Contagion, Create (Greater) Undead, Crushing Despair, Curse Water, Death Knell, Deathwatch, Demand, Desecrate, Destruction, Dispel Good, Dispel Law, Eyebite, Finger of Death, Harm, Insanity, Magic Circle against Good, Magic Circle against Law, Mind Fog, Nightmare, Phantasmal Killer, Protection from Good, Protection from Law, Slay Living, Symbol of Death, Symbol of Insanity, Symbol of Pain, Unhallow, Unholy Aura, Unholy Blight, Wail of the Banshee, Word of Chaos.

These spells were chosen because they were either evil, choatic, inflicted pain or suffering, or desecrated the dead.

Mind altering spell would be illegal except against evil or during a "Crisis of Faith" (a period of persecution of large numbers of church members for their faith). Even during this period their use are only allowed when they would save lives or hide the identities of church members from hostile factions.

Charm Person, Charm Monster, Detect Thoughts, Dominate Monster, Dominate Person, Modify Memory, Speak with Dead.

Speak with dead is considered desecrating a corpse. In our opinion, Contact other plane would be preferred (except if it would require contacting an evil outsider). Why ask a corpse when you can talk to the soul?

I was wondering what the community's take on this is, and if they would have any suggestions or comments to share.

 

[Nifft]

Animate Dead, Bane, Binding, Blasphemy, Choas Hammer, Circle of Death, Cloak of Chaos, Contagion, Create (Greater) Undead, Crushing Despair, Curse Water, Death Knell, Deathwatch, Demand, Desecrate, Destruction, Dispel Good, Dispel Law, Eyebite, Finger of Death, Harm, Insanity, Magic Circle against Good, Magic Circle against Law, Mind Fog, Nightmare, Phantasmal Killer, Protection from Good, Protection from Law, Slay Living, Symbol of Death, Symbol of Insanity, Symbol of Pain, Unhallow, Unholy Aura, Unholy Blight, Wail of the Banshee, Word of Chaos.

I was wondering what the community's take on this is, and if they would have any suggestions or comments to share.

I've crossed out the ones which IMHO are neither evil nor chaotic.

Cheers, -- N

 

[shilsen]

I've crossed out the ones which IMHO are neither evil nor chaotic.

Cheers, -- N

What the penguin herder said. If Fireballing someone and hitting them with a sword is acceptable, a lot of the spells you guys took out should be too.

 

[WayneLigon]

I think that's a pretty fair list, though the Symbols might not really apply. This is one reason I was really hoping we'd have spell templates in 4E: in something like Arcana Unearthed, you can take a feat that lets you turn the damage from a spell into non-lethal damage. Perfect for dealing huge amounts of knockout damage in an area, yet not killing innocent people.

 

[Wik]

Yeah, I'd be careful of getting rid of spell access simply because it's unpleasant. You have clerics of Heironeous, a god of war. Sure, Contagion might be a bad, nasty spell, but it's a useful weapon in a fight, and is really no more evil than a siege (since, really, the point of a siege is to prevent supplies from reaching a place, and letting disease fester in a community) - and we all know how Heironeans see a siege, right?

(that being said, there could be a problem if PCs use Contagion every fight.... it is, after all, an evil spell. But I think you should just follow the RAW, and let PCs' alignments slip if they insist on using the spell too often).

As for Dispel Good? Why shouldn't they be able to dispel good? I mean, what if a Pelorite does something that really irks you? Getting rid of a good spell isn't evil, after all.

Getting rid of spells for good guys goes back to the old 1e model, where many players would say "Chaotic evil is the best alignment, because you can do anything". Putting a limitation on the PCs abilities simply because they chose to accept the moral boundaries of a good alignment is probably not the way to go, in my humble opinion.

 

[Voadam]

Clerics could not use the [Evil] or [Chaotic] spells anyway whether they wanted to or not as they are too far from the god and the cleric's alignments.

Chaotic, Evil, Good, and Lawful Spells

A cleric can’t cast spells of an alignment opposed to his own or his deity’s (if he has one). Spells associated with particular alignments are indicated by the chaos, evil, good, and law descriptors in their spell descriptions.

For the mage spells I see the god of paladins frowning on undead spells and a lot of necromancy and charms. Charms I can see being used to interrogate prisoners though. Nightmare and insanity are more like curses than paladin approved battle mage spells as well I could see.

Binding however is something I can see a paladin themed party questing around specifically to use on bad guys.

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

Try this for size ...

The old Death Spell, in 1st edition, was a 6th level spell. It Autokilled a lot of foes. It was a specifically life-destroying magic of some sort.
In 2E, it got better. Now, those slain by Death Spell could not be Raised or Resurrected. Only a Wish spell could return them.

Let's say that this spell is neither Good nor Evil, for the purpose of this post. Let's say it's just another magic (albeit a nasty one.)

Now, let's say that another version of Death Spell exists. And this other version does all the nifty things that Death Spell does, but this alternate version is 3RD LEVEL.
Yep. 3rd level. So, your 5th level wizard can cast a Death Spell.
There is only one problem. The spell draws upon the Power of Evil to enforce it's effect. Without Pure Evil in the mix, the magic cannot function. Only Evil and Magic mixed can effect a Death Spell at 3rd level.
Thus, this is a Vile Spell. Casting it is an evil act. Casting it is drawing upon the very stuff of Primordial Evil.

Now your players have a real problem.
The wizards serving Hextor, those who are Vile, will be running around with 3rd level Death Spells, but your good wizards can't do that (and neither can neutral wizards and even some evil wizards who are not wholly depraved.) Perhaps, they will win the War against the good guys, because they can use the destructive spells and the good guys cannot!

Well, there's an answer to this, too.
Spell Turning is normally a neutral spell, neither Good nor Evil. It was, however, reasonably good at turning spells (such as Death Spells) back on their casters.
If the good guys concentrate on such defensive magics, perhaps in this case Spell Turning was originally invented by them, and for *them* it is a 4TH LEVEL spell, not the 7th level spell available to everyone else (their foes included.)

Thus, the eager young evil wizard fires his 3rd level Death Spell at the older, wiser good wizard. The good wizard Spellturns it back, and it slays the evil wizard.

Make it pay to be Good, Neutral, or Evil. Put some rules behind the alignments, alter the mechanics so that ethos pays, make it really important to stand behind certain actions of light or darkness.
That way, when the wizard decides not to kill the orc children, she has a tangible reward to show for it (along with a headache when those orc children grow up into orcs, and cause more havoc and chaos.)

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

Animate Dead, Bane, Binding, Blasphemy, Choas Hammer, Circle of Death, Cloak of Chaos, Contagion, Create (Greater) Undead, Crushing Despair, Curse Water, Death Knell, Deathwatch, Demand, Desecrate, Destruction, Dispel Good, Dispel Law, Eyebite, Finger of Death, Harm, Insanity, Magic Circle against Good, Magic Circle against Law, Mind Fog, Nightmare, Phantasmal Killer, Protection from Good, Protection from Law, Slay Living, Symbol of Death, Symbol of Insanity, Symbol of Pain, Unhallow, Unholy Aura, Unholy Blight, Wail of the Banshee, Word of Chaos.
Charm Person, Charm Monster, Detect Thoughts, Dominate Monster, Dominate Person, Modify Memory, Speak with Dead.

Make all of these spells 3 levels (or whatever amount you want) lower for evil characters, and have them remain standard level for everyone else (which means, the higher level ones will never have a chance to get used anyways in most cases.)

Now, make a list of spells that are 3 levels lower for good characters.

Or, alternately, make all of the spells above 3 levels HIGHER for good characters (thus, putting many permanently out of reach, since they would be beyond 9th level), and keep the levels normal for everyone else.
Then create a handicapped list (3 levels higher) for the evil characters.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Make all of these spells 3 levels (or whatever amount you want) lower for evil characters...

Because everyone loves 5th level clerics who can cast Harm, or 1st level sorcerers with Phantasmal Killer!

-Hyp.

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

And the old Harm at that, the broken one!

Obviously, adjusting spells 3 levels one way or another is a drastic idea and over the top. But the suggestion got the point across, no?

How about this?
For good characters, Charm Person (or any spell in that list) is 1 level higher, or in the case of really nasty spells like Create Undead, 2 levels higher.

So, Charm Person was 1st level? Now it's 2nd level.
Animate Dead was, what, 3rd level? Now it's 5th level.
Wail of the Banshee is now 10th level, meaning it can never be cast by a good character.

In this version, there is only nerfing of magic, never any strengthening of magic. But the problem of the 'bad guys being better at killing' is still a problem, so the 'good guys' must have a countering list. It must still pay to be good, as well as evil.