PC Alignment clash with a twist

[Tom Cashel]

It is possible that the player is unaware of this. If, after being informed, the wizard does not change behavior, then it isn't a problem of like-aligned conflict. It then becomes a conflict between good characters and a character rapidly sliding towards neurality.

Oh, he knows. He was warned of this by the DM quite a long time ago. He might have to change his name to "Raistlin"...

BTW...can you cite some PHB or DMG page numbers where this question is addressed? In previous threads, no one could ever state exactly where this comes up. Lots of people said that "wizards can do what they want," and I insisted that there would be repercussions...but I haven't found anything definite about wizards and evil spells in the core rules. Thank you Umbran.

 

[MonkeyBoy]

Umbran has it right; unless you have some house-rule about it. (the universal caveat!)

Using a summoning spell to summon a creature which either has (or in the case of a templated one) would have the Evil designator, makes the spell have the Evil designator.

And casting an Evil designated spell is, well, Evil. (i.e. Mr NG shouldn't be doing it, period)

As such, the Good PCs are within their rights (and in fact in the right) to get a tad upset

We had the exact same problem IMC - we were new and in a hurry, and the conjuror simply went with what was on the summon monster x list - fiendish dire apes.

(i was DM btw)

We resolved this by saying that for that specific instance we'd ignore the problem, but that before the next session I'd put some effort into making useable creatures of the right levels available. Therefore; Celestial Dire Apes for the next session.

You might want to check the player didn't feel they had a poor choice from the table. Of course they just might be winding the others up - in which case its a clear case of race violation; thats clearly really a gnome wizard

As an aside; those summon monster tables are _really_ poor - iirc level 2 is almost all aquatic for some stupid reason. (fiendish squid; are you taking the ...?) What would have been more useful would have been a mechanism, say "take a CRy animal and apply the appropriate alignment template to get an outsider, or use a CRz creature that is already an outsider" But they don't tell us how to get y or z from x

 

[Jeremy]

That was a very severe problem at the start of my game (see the story hour thread), so we altered it a little after Velenne did a bunch of research.

First off, we made outsider templates interchangeable as long as the CR for that many HD was the same. Axiomatic, Air, Celestial, Fire, Anarchic, Fiendish... As long as the CR adjustment when used upon that creature is the same.

Of course, we play high power, brutal games where in two handed swords wielded by 18+ str characters and save or die spells backed by canny tactics and greater spell focus rule the battlefield, so being able to summon a small axiomatic viper with a DC 11 poison bite with a third level spell that could have thrown a slow or fireball spell---and takes a full round to cast---made a very well done character concept ineffectual in combat.

This was fixed by having specialized conjurer's summon from one bracket higher than the spells level. But that is *not* recommended for everyone's campaign. It works great in ours, and has proved no problem for me so far (indeed, it's made the summoner much more interesting) but that's not to say the same is true for everyone else. We just found that summoning spells on the large scale were slightly underpowered in higher powered games (as they don't scale very well with spell focus, enhanced spell casting ability, or tougher harder hitting foes).

 

[Quickbeam]

MonkeyBoy:

Nice reply. I particularly liked the "race violation" remark .

 

[MonkeyBoy]

Jeremy; one of the main uses we make of summon monster spells IMC now is to either put "fodder" in the way of the Big Bad, or to summon the critter into the opposing "flanking position" for the rogue.

Using, say, Summon Monster 2 to summon d3 Celestial Badgers around a creature is far better than one slightly better creature.

In our last session I, the DM, had a Hezrou attacking the group. Now, although a single attack was a pretty much guaranteed kill against the badgers, this was seriously reducing the attacks coming from the demon - which gave the PCs time to recover from that stench effect... (i think 1 badger hit once for 1hp of damage! they burned through about 15 badgers in the process)

They are also some of the best spells to have in wands; an endless stream of badgers will hold up pretty much anything. For a time

As you may have guessed; we've settled upon SM2 with d3 Badgers as being probably the optimal use of summon monster - 2nd level spell for up to 9 attacks, some smite evils and up to 3 rounds worth of flanking for the rogue. That's actually quite powerful

I do have the Astral Construct psi powers converted to spells ready; they are better at giving a single powerful critter at the higher levels. But that treat is yet to come...

 

[MonkeyBoy]

... gnomes rock

 

[Umbran]

BTW...can you cite some PHB or DMG page numbers where this question is addressed? In previous threads, no one could ever state exactly where this comes up. Lots of people said that "wizards can do what they want," and I insisted that there would be repercussions...but I haven't found anything definite about wizards and evil spells in the core rules.

Well, let me put it this way...

If someone casts a spell with the "fire" descriptor, there's lots of flames, and nobody ever questions that it's a fire spell. The descriptor is there because the spell makes particularly strong use of fire.

By analogy, a spell has an "evil" descriptor, then it makes particularly strong use of evil. And using evil is an evil act, now isn't it?

There are dreadfully few hard rules on alignment or alignment change, and that's as it should be. There's nothing in the rules to stop a good wizard from casting an evil spell. Nor is there anything stopping a good warrior from kicking puppies. Either act, done repeatedly, starts saying someting about the character's mindset, and thus denotes an alignment change.

It's rather simple - do evil things, you become evil. If that isn't clear without a page reference, I doubt a page reference will help

Now, one can argue that "the ends justify the means". And, in any given campaign this may hold. If the character uses evil means in order to purposefully accomplish good ends, his overall karmic balance may be on the good side. At best, though, this is a slippery slope.

 

[Tom Cashel]

Well, it's made for fun role-playing.

 

[Crutchie]

GOOD job mage crutch it up!!!!! Don't listen to any dumb clerics.

 

[Bronn Spellforger]

GOOD job mage crutch it up!!!!! Don't listen to any dumb clerics.

Yeah! Thanks Crutchie! I'll tell those clerics to keep castin' those healing spells and keep there noses out of mage business!

So if Summoning a Fiendish Dire Ape is an "evil" act... then summoning a Triton is a "neutral" act... and the same repercussions would apply (ie, he would shift to neutral).

I don't think the act of casting a spell is evil.. I think that how that spell is used determines the good or evil act.

For example, let's say a lich is being attacked by a black dragon. He casts Protection from Evil ... a GOOD spell. Does he begin the slippery slope toward good? NO!! That's ridiculous.

So there.