Poison Questions I got

[Buugipopuu]

Like i like to say remove alignment form you D&D campaign and play freely, instead of within the confines of the alignment system, that just makes things complicated, questionable and one sided.

Alignment is descriptive, not proscriptive. If you think you're confined by the alignment system, you're not playing the game properly. Unless you're playing an Outsider with an alignment subtype, but then you're well out of the realm of things intended for normal play. And whether an action is good or evil is largely dependant on intent and context. Again, unless you've got alignment-based spells, since using them typically feeds powers on the Outer Planes.

 

[Ragmon]

Alignment is descriptive, not proscriptive. If you think you're confined by the alignment system, you're not playing the game properly. Unless you're playing an Outsider with an alignment subtype, but then you're well out of the realm of things intended for normal play. And whether an action is good or evil is largely dependant on intent and context. Again, unless you've got alignment-based spells, since using them typically feeds powers on the Outer Planes.

Please don't go off topic, I just wished to point out that removing alignment would solve multiple problems including the use of poisons without damaging the role-playing. (FYI Good and Evil are the same thing just viewed from a different societies point).

 

[Buugipopuu]

Please don't go off topic, I just wished to point out that removing alignment would solve multiple problems including the use of poisons without damaging the role-playing.

Just making poisons not inherently evil would suffice. You don't need to go and break all the alignment-based spells.

(FYI Good and Evil are the same thing just viewed from a different societies point).

Then how do you explain "Usually Neutral Evil" races and suchlike? Moral relativity doesn't exist in D&D. If Good and Evil were social constructs, would Detect Evil work differently depending on the culture of the person casting it?

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Where does it say poison is evil? I always understodd poison to simply be non-lawful. And even then, if you had a unique personal code of honor, came from a society with wildly different values, or were LE and able to twist around a justification for it, it was ok. From the Poison section:

"Price
The cost of one dose (one vial) of the poison. It is not possible to use or apply poison in any quantity smaller than one dose. The purchase and possession of poison is always illegal, and even in big cities it can be obtained only from specialized, less than reputable sources."

So again. It's illegal, but how does that make it evil? Poison is used by all sorts of animals, plants, and other unaligned creatures. Using an ingested poison to assassinate a king might be evil (but if he's a cruel despot murdering his own people and has so much security it's the only way to depose him, then maybe not), but slitting his throat in his sleep with your dagger would be, too...
I have never treated poison use as evil, I'm surprised by such consensus here on the matter.

 

[Buugipopuu]

Where does it say poison is evil?

Since you asked, the Book of Exalted Deeds, page 34, of course, the BoED is full of notoriously dumb fluff.

 

[emoplato]

I'm surprised by such consensus here on the matter.

I think it might be because secretly all of us love the idea of striking the BBEG with a little knick and visulaize him writhing in agony if just once.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Since you asked, the Book of Exalted Deeds, page 34, of course, the BoED is full of notoriously dumb fluff.

Didn't BoED also say that S&M sex was evil?

And I KNOW BoED was the book that introduced "not poisons" and "not diseases" that specifically afflict (heh, get it? one of them is called afflictions) suffering upon undead, evil outsiders, and others.

Since when did people take ANY alignment advice from BoED so seriously?