Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chaosmancer" data-source="post: 9176438" data-attributes="member: 6801228">Very true. Calm Emotions is a great example of this. However, many of those usages you point out can be self-inflicted, to innaccurately use a phrase. Taking a pill or smoking weed is something you can do in the safety of your own home, alone. Enchantment magic must be cast by another person on you, that immediately adds a complication. It is possible to safely and for good reasons give up that control, but it is also ripe for abuse.A bias that doesn't appear for other schools of magic. Sure, it is entirely possible that there are hundreds of enchantment spells that are used in the worlds of DnD that are never mentioned in any book or resource. But we can also equally assume that there are hundreds of enchantment spells that are WORSE than what we've seen. After all, we don't see spells for torture in the game, but we know that they must exist. Making any claim based on facts not in evidence, is a shaky foundation at best.Your original post: "I think that you're missing the fact that D&D is a violent game.  Of course there's going to be a whole host of violent spells in every school (except Abjuration), because that's what the game revolves around." So, are we now moving the goal-posts to be anything that could apply to adventuring? There are at least two parts here. 1) They are now under DM Control: Okay... and? Again, from the perspective of the player, who has not read the MM, how could this matter? They have no indication that the SKeletons and Zombies will start attacking people, because they are not supposed to read the MM. Also, don't forget, the Zombie and Skeleton both have statblocks in the PHB too, with no mention of this lore. So, if a player has gone about things in a different manner, or with a different intent, it would come out of nowhere for the DM to suddenly pull this with the "well, in the book I don't let you read, it says this is what happens, so you should have known better" 2) I hold no disdain for the lore and the flavor, so not sure where you are getting that from. However, such things are mutable. Especially the more you know about DnD. After all, there are undead created from positive energy in DnD. They were called the Deathless, and they are sort of back in Eberron, but not officially. So, DnD cosmology absolutely has room for this, because DnD cosmology has had this exist before. This is barely homebrew, it is just using lesser known parts of the lore and canon. And, again, it is a flavor choice. I could play a barbarian whose rage is a battle trance and is actually more of a swordsage, that's just flavor, it can be changed. So can calling upon dark and evil spirits to make bone and meat puppets. It isn't inherent in the rule text, it is an assumption placed upon the rules. You can choose to default to an assumption of evil, but when the cosmology and lore offer up alternatives all the time, including the very first adventure of the edition having a non-evil undead Banshee... it seems weird to cling to this idea like it is some immutable truth of the default.The behavior of the undead isn't described in the DMG. And, again, nothing in the spell states that they revert to any instincts. They simply stop obeying any commands you have given them. It is completely possible for them to default to their state when they have no commands, ie, do nothing except defend themselves against attack. That is a perfectly valid reading of the spell. It is only when you take the Monster Manual lore and apply it to this spell, that you assume evil spirits and assume a default state of devouring the living. But that could just be the default state of naturally occuring undead. After all, unlike the spell version, elementals found int he wild aren't defaulting to attacking every living being around them, but the spell enforces that rage where it otherwise doesn't exist. Why can't the undead spell induce calm? Please tell me you are joking? Sure, the DM could just tell the player. Okay. But let's assume the DM doesn't say "this option is evil and creates mass murder machines that are only barely held in check by your magic". How are they supposed to experiment before they get the spell? Why would they study a spell they haven't taken yet, in game, to look for downsides that don't exist in the rules text? I've never had my character take a study action to make sure that Lightning Bolt doesn't have a 5% chance of backblasting through me and dealing all the damage to my character instead of the enemies. Could happen, theoritically, but if you look at the rules, that isn't a possibility. Same with using a Divination spell. What, Augury is going to look 30 minutes into the future and see this spells hidden downsides before you level up? No? It cannot do that. And let's say the player does figure it out... and then they remember that they can alter any spell and how it works via the rules in Tasha's, as long as they don't change the rules text. And they know about the Deathless. Can't they just... not use evil spirits to make undead? Isn't that blatantly an option for them? It alters none of the rules text, it is just the flavor of the spell listed in a seperate book from the spell itself, which they have full control over. What does the real world have to do with the PHB not mentioning evil spirits and ravenous undead, and the Monster Manual saying that's how undead work? That has nothing to  do with the real world. 1) Temporary in that most undead summoned are destroyed in the fight they are summoned. 2) Show me in the PHB where it states that the Undead created by necrotic energy? It doesn't state that. It does say "foul mimicry of life" but that's a fairly vague statement. Water can be fouled by putting plants in it, but that doesn't make plants evil. 3) Undead are not associated with the Nine Hells (That's Devils), the Abyss (that's Demons) or Hades (that's fiends, usually Yugoloths). You are simply adding lore where it doesn't exist. Or maybe there is a non-evil way to create undead? Why is that not an option? Especially since non-evil undead EXIST. They exist. They are in the game. Why is that lore not good enough to count? Okay, riddle me this. What is the default assumption of Goblins? I'll even go a step more specific. Is the default assumption of DnD that Goblins are humanoid descended from the Feywild, or not? Do they have fey ancestry? The Monster Manual says no. The Player option says yes. Which one is the default? How about the default assumption for the Drow? Do they all worship Lolth? The Monster Manual says yes. The PHB says no. Which is the default? You are essentially saying that the Monster Manual overrides every single other source, but only for the undead and only for the Skeletons and Zombies. That seems silly to me. The PHB doesn't forbid the existence of other types of zombies and skeletons, and other DnD lore allows it, so why must we assume the MM lore is the default? Why can't the PHB be the default?</blockquote>

Verification