Prot. from Good/Evil and Neutral creatures

[jaded]

Firstly I apologise if this is a well tread topic, but alas, no search.

My Question: Does Protection from Good/Evil/Law/Chaos protect you from ALL summoned creatures, even neutral ones?

The description of the protection from evil doesn't explicitly state that it prevents only evil summoned creatures from touching the warded creature.

However, under Protection from Good it reads "As Protection from Evil... only prevents... good summoned and conjured creatures"

This is all in relation to a neutral summoned creature (an astral construct) attempting to hit a orc-mage with a protection from good active.

So what's the story? My personal opinion is that the intent of the spell is that it protects you from EVIL, not anything or "anything but good". But if this is the case, then neutral summoned creatures can't be protected against?!? The wording of Prot. from Evil can also be interpreted to mean that it protects against summoned creatures of any alignment... grr!

help?

 

[Deadguy]

There's some debate about whether Protection from evil really is different from the other Protection from Alignment spells. My own feeling is that they're all meant to act the same as [/i]Protection from Evil[/i] and that the shorthand modification to the effect is slightly mis-stated.

Regardless, the relevant text of Protevtion from Evil is (emphasis mine):

Third, the spell prevents bodily contact by summoned or conjured creatures. This causes the natural weapon attacks of such creatures to fail and the creatures to recoil if such attacks require touching the warded creature. Good elementals and outsiders are immune to this effect. The protection against contact by summoned or conjured creatures ends if the warded creature makes an attack against or tries to force the barrier against the blocked creature. Spell resistance can allow a creature to overcome this protection and touch the warded creature.

Note that the spell gives a specific exclusion (i.e. Good summoned/conjred creatures are excluded from the Third effect), so we should infer that both Evil and Neutral creatures are not excluded. Therefore I would assert that neutral summoned or conjured entities are indeed warded away by this spell until it expires or the warded individual violates the restriction against attacking said entities.

 

[Nareau]

And a second question...

Good elementals and outsiders are immune to this effect

Does that mean, "Good elementals and good outsiders are immune to this effect"? Or, "Good elementals and all outsiders are immune to this effect"?
Sometimes I wish the PHB were written in a more precise language than english...

 

[Pielorinho]

Santa Claus, we know, brings gifts to all good little boys and girls.

By which I mean to say, all girls get gifts, but only the good little boys get gifts.

Generally in a construction like this one, the adjective is assumed to apply to the entire noun phrase if such an application makes sense.

Given the spell's spirit, I think we can assume that's how it works here.

Daniel

 

[kreynolds]

LOL Wow, Pielorinho! That was slick! And harsh! LOL

 

[jaded]

Note that the spell gives a specific exclusion (i.e. Good summoned/conjred creatures are excluded from the Third effect), so we should infer that both Evil and Neutral creatures are not excluded.

accepting this, and taking the other protection spells as written, then the spell should probably be named Protection from Evil & Neutral

My problem is i think you are right by the letter of the spell, but i have a problem with the consistency of it. Do all the other Protection from XXX spells protect vs. neutrality as well? or just this one?

If they all do then an entire magic attack form (summoned creatures) can be nullified by a single 1st level spell and you dont even have to have the right *alignment* protection spell! Protection from Chaos would protect vs. lawful summoned creatures, and that simply can't be right?!?

But if they all ward vs neutrality, then the above is also true, though only for (true) neutral creatures... who then get wroughted by the system.

I personally have a major problem with one version of this spell being different from its counterparts (why would the evil version ward vs neutrality as well when the others don't?).

From a non-rules POV, it seems (to me at least) that the spell is called Protection from Evil and therefore should protect you from Evil things, not anything that other spells dont happen to cover