Protection from Evil curiosity

[Spatula]

Just as an aside, I'm curious:

How many DMs in here, given the following situation, how would you interpret it?

Character leaves the party, and casts Protection from evil on himself, and wades into a pool of water to see what he can see.

While there, an aboleth dominates him.

Do you allow it, or not?


What does your instinct tell you?

What's the question here? It sounds like you're asking whether to play by the rules, or to suddenly change the rules in order to screw the player.

All I'll say is, the spell is not named correctly. Protection from evil should provide defenses against evil, and only evil creatures. Period. Rename the freaking spell if it's going to do more than that.

Does the spell protect against evil creatures? Yes. It also has some useful side effects. But you know, the spell has had the same name and the same general effects for over 20 years now, across multiple editions.

 

[hong]

Well, you know, I for one would pay good money to get protection from evil curiosity. Because curiosity killed the cat, you know.


Hong "needs a new avatar, BADLY" Ooi

 

[Hypersmurf]

They can bypass protection from good/law/chaos, but not evil.

Actually from looking over each of the spells it seems as though neutral creatures cannot bypass any of them, that doesnt make any sense but hey, I dont write the rules.

They screwed up when they didn't bother to spell out PfG, PfC, and PfL in full.

The intent, presumably, was that Protection from Law works exactly like Protection from Evil, except replacing all instances of "evil" with "lawful" and all instances of "good" with "chaotic".

That's not what they wrote, though.

Protection from Evil: Third, the spell prevents bodily contact by summoned 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 summoned creatures are immune to this effect.

Protection from Good: This spell functions like protection from evil, except that the deflection and resistance bonuses apply to attacks from good creatures, and good summoned creatures cannot touch the subject.

Protection from Law: This spell functions like protection from evil, except that the deflection and resistance bonuses apply to attacks from lawful creatures, and lawful summoned creatures cannot touch the subject.

Protection from Chaos: This spell functions like protection from evil, except that the deflection and resistance bonuses apply to attacks from chaotic creatures, and chaotic summoned creatures cannot touch the subject.

-----

So for Protection from Evil: All summoned creatures are warded, but Good creatures are immune to this effect.

Expected result: All but Good are warded.
Actual result: All but Good are warded.

For Protection from Good: As Protection from Evil (All summoned creatures are warded, but Good creatures are immune to this effect), except that Good summoned creatures cannot touch the subject.

Expected result: All but Evil are warded.
Actual result: All are warded.

For Protection from Law: As Protection from Evil (All summoned creatures are warded, but Good creatures are immune to this effect), except that Lawful summoned creatures cannot touch the subject.

Expected result: All but Chaotic are warded.
Actual result: All but Good are warded.

For Protection from Chaos: As Protection from Evil (All summoned creatures are warded, but Good creatures are immune to this effect), except that Chaotic summoned creatures cannot touch the subject.

Expected result: All but Lawful are warded.
Actual result: All but Good are warded.

-----

Badly written. Protection from Good is more powerful than the other three spells, and PfL and PfC don't act as expected.

Now, as a DM, I have no hesitation about rewriting PfC, PfL, and PfG so they make sense.

I didn't have any problem with the wording of Protection from Evil in 3E (where it blocked "attempts to exercise mental control over the creature (as by a vampire's supernatural domination ability)"), but I must admit, I'm not keen on the same passage in 3.5: "or to exercise mental control over the creature (including enchantment (charm) effects and enchantment (compulsion) effects that grant the caster ongoing control over the subject, such as dominate person)".

Does is mean "charm effects that grant ongoing control and compulsion effects that grant ongoing control", or "compulsion effects that grant ongoing control, and all charm effects"?

The 3E FAQ didn't seem to make much sense - it considered Charm Person to be "mental control", but not Lesser Geas... where Charm Person only influences attitude, but Lesser Geas compels behaviour.

I'd prefer mental control to refer to only those effects where the controller actually dictates behaviour; I can't agree with the FAQ that Charm Person qualifies as "control".

-Hyp.

 

[Greyline]

Take comfort die_kluge, if nothing else, you've enabled some useful debate.

As a related question to the matter at hand, are evil and [Evil] the same thing? That is, when a spell description states the spell works against evil creatures, does that mean any creature of lawful evil, neutral evil, or chaotic evil alignment? Or does that mean creatures with the [Evil] descriptor? Or both? I know people have house ruled this one way or the other, but is there an official stance?

I almost feel that the [Chaos], [Evil], [Good], and [Law] descriptors have complicated the issue of alignment, which was (possibly) originally meant to serve as a tool for playing in character, and knowing what a given character would do in any given situation.

I guess the question becomes, is an alignment a personality trait, or an innate physical characteristic?

Greyline

 

[Hypersmurf]

As a related question to the matter at hand, are evil and [Evil] the same thing? That is, when a spell description states the spell works against evil creatures, does that mean any creature of lawful evil, neutral evil, or chaotic evil alignment? Or does that mean creatures with the [Evil] descriptor?

Don't forget to consider Holy weapons and Robes of the Archmagi, etc.

If you consider "evil creature" or "evil character" to mean "creature/character with the Evil descriptor", then a Chaotic Evil wizard can wear White Robes of the Archmagi and carry a Holy Quarterstaff with no ill effects, since the negative levels only apply to evil creatures.

Also think about what it means to a cleric casting Holy Word. It has adverse effects on "creatures who are not good".

If "good creature" in a spell description means "creature with the [Good]descriptor", then Holy Word affects all "creatures without the [Good] descriptor"... which includes most good-aligned Clr-15s. So in general, a good-aligned cleric can't cast Holy Word without deafening himself.

Does that really sound right?

-Hyp.

 

[Pielorinho]

die_kluge, in the example you just gave, I don't think there's any question but that PfE would provide temporary protection against the domination effect. The complications come in as follows:

* You as the DM are perfectly free to change a monster's abilities at any time, and are under no obligation to have any of them work as described in the MM, except when those monsters are summoned or otherwise under the control of the PCs. When the monsters are fully under DM control, then they're fully under DM control. It's perfectly fair to rule that an aboleth is neutral, that its abilities are psionic, etc.
* If a player doesn't realize there's a problem with a ruling by the beginning of the next session, then there's no problem with the ruling. Players don't get to keep a log of all rulings since the campaign's beginning and ask for redress at any point for any ruling. Willingness to retcon back one session is already very generous and somewhat dangerous to continuity.
* The DM may decide on the properties of any magic item not created by the PCs. Be careful with identify; in this case, since the player didn't understand the properties of PfE when the identify was cast, however, you didn't mislead the player at all.
* You were both working from the same mistaken assumptions about the ring's powers; therefore the player can't claim that you changed the rules under him. He understood perfectly well which rules you were using, even if those rules were different from the PhB rules.
* The ring, as I stated before, is wayyyyy too powerful for an 8K treasure and should be considered more of a 43K treasure.

I don't think you sound like a bad DM at all; on the contrary, the player sounds like a whiner to me, who needs to chalk the whole thing up to a learning experience.

Daniel

 

[Voadam]

Well, I certainly didn't intend this thread to be a "bash die_kluge and his bad GM calls", but so be it.

All I'll say is, the spell is not named correctly. Protection from evil should provide defenses against evil, and only evil creatures. Period. Rename the freaking spell if it's going to do more than that.

And I agree that there is a *need* for a low-level protection against domination effects. Just don't squeeze it into the middle of a spell that has no correlation to it. Create a new spell and have it work against everyone.

I still contend that the spell (and all its sister spells) are just poorly designed.

Nor is detect evil properly named (it detects undead regardless of alignment including neutral skeletons and good liches in the Forgotten Realms, and only HD or spell level matter for level of evil not how bad they actually are).

I think it is a poor spell because of the vagueness of the description of the mental protection. If it had said it blocks mind-affecting abilities or even charms and compulsions these terms are clearly defined in the rules. As it stands there are ambiguities about its applicability on many abilities.

 

[jessemock]

Protection from Law: This spell functions like protection from evil, except that the deflection and resistance bonuses apply to attacks from lawful creatures, and lawful summoned creatures cannot touch the subject.

Protection from Chaos: This spell functions like protection from evil, except that the deflection and resistance bonuses apply to attacks from chaotic creatures, and chaotic summoned creatures cannot touch the subject.

-----

So for Protection from Evil: All summoned creatures are warded, but Good creatures are immune to this effect.

Expected result: All but Good are warded.
Actual result: All but Good are warded.

For Protection from Good: As Protection from Evil (All summoned creatures are warded, but Good creatures are immune to this effect), except that Good summoned creatures cannot touch the subject.

Expected result: All but Evil are warded.
Actual result: All are warded.

For Protection from Law: As Protection from Evil (All summoned creatures are warded, but Good creatures are immune to this effect), except that Lawful summoned creatures cannot touch the subject.

Expected result: All but Chaotic are warded.
Actual result: All but Good are warded.

For Protection from Chaos: As Protection from Evil (All summoned creatures are warded, but Good creatures are immune to this effect), except that Chaotic summoned creatures cannot touch the subject.

Expected result: All but Lawful are warded.
Actual result: All but Good are warded.

-----

-Hyp.

Shouldn't the last two read:

Actual result: All but non-lawful Good are warded.

Actual result: All but non-chaotic Good are warded.

 

[Vurt]

Nor is detect evil properly named (it detects undead regardless of alignment including neutral skeletons and good liches in the Forgotten Realms, and only HD or spell level matter for level of evil not how bad they actually are).

Incidentally, I was shocked to discover just the other day that skeletons are now "always neutral evil" in the 3.5 MM and SRD!

Cheers,
Vurt

 

[Shadow145]

Related Topic

I was just reading through this, since it directly impacts my campaign. I have a player taking the Faith Scion prestige class from Artifacts of the Ages (by the Game Mechanics) to use the "Divine Star", a sword that gains power as they gain levels in the class. Anyway one of the first abilities it gives is "Protection from Evil" while weilded. This is an artifact item, which a player has to devote a prestige class to use. Now I rule that "while weilded" means it has to be drawn and in hand, but this is a handy ability. I'll be interested in seeing how it impacts play, we've only been using it for about one adventure now. Really helped against the undead, didn't do much good against the centipedes.

FYI my personal ruling on the spell is that all three effects just apply to creatures of the specified alignment, I just like it that way and think it makes sense.

Is the ring too powerful, don't know, but I only allow published stuff in my games, after I review it. I like to make sure things have been playtested. I swear I read another thread discussing this, and the price they came up with was calculated by pricing each effect individually.

Just throwing that out a few facts for discussion. Back to your regularly scheduled debate...

(edited for typos...how embarrassing)