Using Summoned Creatures to gain an AoO

[Abraxas]

Alignment is not written in stone...but it also isn't as simple as some might want it to be.

Yes, it is simple as we want it to be.

Three little words for all the "its evil" crowd.

In your world.

Very simple. In other gameworlds, it isn't evil, in yours it is. This has absolutely nothing to do with the rules. None what-so-ever.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

Yes, it is simple as we want it to be.

Three little words for all the "its evil" crowd.

In your world.

Very simple. In other gameworlds, it isn't evil, in yours it is. This has absolutely nothing to do with the rules. None what-so-ever.

It doesn't? May I quote:

Good characters and creatures protect innocent life. Evil characters and creatures debase or destroy innocent life, whether for fun or profit.
“Good” implies altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings. Good characters make personal sacrifices to help others. “Evil” implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others. Some evil creatures simply have no compassion for others and kill without qualms if doing so is convenient. Others actively pursue evil, killing for sport or out of duty to some evil deity or master.

PHB 3.0, p. 88/PHB 3.5, p. 104, emphasis added by me to point out those parts of the rules that apply to the discussed situation.

Hope that closes the "it's nothing to do with the rules" discussion. It has, and it is evil. By the rules. For the simple fact that D&D assumes an overlying blanket morality that judges all actions by the same standards given in the description for alignments. Now if we keep it simple, the whole Summon monster AoO+Cleave tactics as used throughout this thread is simply evil. If you want to differentiate, you have to go into deeper detail.

And by the way, this thread is not a "rules discussion" thread. For that, I may refer you to the thread that started this here. This thread was started to get our opinions on the whole matter, not just if it's allowable by th rules, or who has house ruled it away in his game. It's just funny to notice that the simple fact that a tactic described to show the possible abuse of the AoO+Cleave combo, and hence it's "brokenness", is, in most of it's descriptions, an evil act, apparently seems to be an uncomfortable thought. The easiest solution is to play neutral characters, and to not use that tactic too often if you don't like to have "Evil" in your alignment somewhere.

 

[Storm Raven]

The morality issue is totally moot. Not one quote from the books or the FAQ has been used to support the morality issue, just people's opinions. That doesn't count in a rules forum.

Well, except for the people citing the rules that define what "godd" and "evil" mean from the SRD. But I guess that since that material doesn't support your argument you don't think it counts?

 

[KarinsDad]

Well, except for the people citing the rules that define what "godd" and "evil" mean from the SRD. But I guess that since that material doesn't support your argument you don't think it counts?

It doesn't count if it is not applicable.

It is not applicable because there are specific summoning rules that supercede the generic alignment rules:

1) "A summoned creature also goes away if it is killed or if its hit points drop to 0 or lower. It is not really dead. It takes 24 hours for the creature to reform, during which time it can’t be summoned again."

2) "In any case, they suffer no lasting effect (for good or ill) from any summoning episode."


Actions are not good or evil. The reason for the actions is what is good or evil. You conveniently forget that.

PCs kill opponents all of the time. PCs loot the bodies of opponents all of the time.

If the REASON for the actions is not what defines good and evil, then EVERY PC in EVERY campaign that ever killed an opponent or looted a body is responsible for Murder and/or Theft.

You cannot have it both ways. Either the actions are evil and all PCs are evil, or the reasons for the actions are evil or good.


But doing something to an ally which incapacitates (not kills) that ally (specifically in the case when the ally is effectively already a slave and at the beck and call of the caster) cannot in and of itself be inherently evil. The reason for incapacitating the ally determines if the act is evil, good, or somewhere in between.

The mere act of summoning an ally who must do what you tell it to do (i.e. is a slave) is evil if the reason is not important.


So again, the morality issue of this action is moot and situational dependent.

 

[Abraxas]

Good characters make personal sacrifices to help others

I'll just quote this little section from the PHB.

In some game worlds the summoned creatures show up with this already in mind. This allows them to be used for a whole slew of tasks that a lot of people who say being attacked by an ally is evil have probably already been using them for. In all the games I have played in, this is hardwired into summoned creatures, they are absolutely ready to sacrifice themselves to defeat the enemy. If that means gang-piling on the BBEG while we fireball the lot, so be it. If that means sacrificing themslves in direct combat, so be it. If that means taking an attack of opportunity from the BBEG to rescue a fallen PC, so be it. They do it. Thats as simple as it gets. What this means is that in these games, being used for AoO fodder isn't evil. I also hope this closes the little "It is evil" discussion. It isn't, and has never been, evil by the rules.

And by the way, this thread is not a "rules discussion" thread.

Then it shouldn't be in the rules forum

It's just funny to notice that the simple fact that a tactic described to show the possible abuse of the AoO+Cleave combo, and hence it's "brokenness", is, in most of it's descriptions, an evil act, apparently seems to be an uncomfortable thought.

I'm pretty sure most of us that don't allow AoO/Cleave to be used don't think its broken - we just don't think its reasonable/stylistically acceptable. It is only an evil act if you set up your game world so that it is an evil act. I find it much more humorous that those who would allow AoO/Cleave have to jump on the "its evil and good character's wouldn't do it" bandwagon to prevent its so called abuse.

 

[Storm Raven]

It doesn't count if it is not applicable.

It is not applicable because there are specific summoning rules that supercede the generic alignment rules:

Except, despite your twisting and weaving to avoid the moral implications (and the concrete rules concerning morality in D&D) they don't.

1) "A summoned creature also goes away if it is killed or if its hit points drop to 0 or lower. It is not really dead. It takes 24 hours for the creature to reform, during which time it can’t be summoned again."

2) "In any case, they suffer no lasting effect (for good or ill) from any summoning episode."

Actions are not good or evil. The reason for the actions is what is good or evil. You conveniently forget that.

Um, no. In D&D, actions can be objectively good or evil. Summoning a fiendish creature is an evil act, no amount of intent wipes that away. Perhaps you are unused to dealing with the idea of an objective morality system such as the base rules of D&D put forth, and hence, don't understand this simple fact.

PCs kill opponents all of the time. PCs loot the bodies of opponents all of the time.

Yes, opponents who, if they are good, presumably mean them and others around them harm and woe, or as is allowable in a system of absolute morality, are objectively evil.

If the REASON for the actions is not what defines good and evil, then EVERY PC in EVERY campaign that ever killed an opponent or looted a body is responsible for Murder and/or Theft.

No, you just don't understand D&D morality, and for that matter, you seem to have very little grasp on real world morality either. Killing or harming a celestial creature is an evil act, by its very nature. Summoning a fiendish creature is an evil act, by its very nature.

Further compounding your evil act by placing it in an evil context (i.e. summoning a creature solely for the purpose of inflicting harm upon it, which is evil no matter how much you try and dodge the issue) doesn't help your case.

You cannot have it both ways. Either the actions are evil and all PCs are evil, or the reasons for the actions are evil or good.

Except you can have it both ways (since we have a system of absolute morality in the rules of the game), and both ways direct the "summong to kill" maneuver as evil. You can house rule the morality system of alignments away, but then you're playing a variant, not those who find that killing summoned creatures intentionally to be an evil act.

So, your attempt to declare the issue "moot" just dodges the rules, and is a convenient workaround you have come up with to justify abuse of a particular part of the game.

 

[Storm Raven]

In all the games I have played in, this is hardwired into summoned creatures, they are absolutely ready to sacrifice themselves to defeat the enemy. If that means gang-piling on the BBEG while we fireball the lot, so be it. If that means sacrificing themslves in direct combat, so be it. If that means taking an attack of opportunity from the BBEG to rescue a fallen PC, so be it. They do it. Thats as simple as it gets. What this means is that in these games, being used for AoO fodder isn't evil. I also hope this closes the little "It is evil" discussion. It isn't, and has never been, evil by the rules.

Except we are not talking about the morality of the summoned creatures, but the morality of the uses to which they may be put. That they are self-sacrificing is not in question, but whether it is moral for someone summoning them to use their selfless nature for their own personal convenience. I think virtually all people would agree that manipulating someone's good nature for your personal benefit would not be a good act, and most would define it as evil.

Basically it works like this: if you treat summoned creatures as slaves, then you are acting in an evil fashion. If you treat them as allies, then you are not.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

Actions are not good or evil. The reason for the actions is what is good or evil. You conveniently forget that.

PCs kill opponents all of the time. PCs loot the bodies of opponents all of the time.

If the REASON for the actions is not what defines good and evil, then EVERY PC in EVERY campaign that ever killed an opponent or looted a body is responsible for Murder and/or Theft.

You cannot have it both ways. Either the actions are evil and all PCs are evil, or the reasons for the actions are evil or good.

Heh, finally the only real answer to the alignment discussion...that it always depends on the situation, and the intention/motivation for a certain action how it reflects on the character's alignment. It's still not as simple as you make it out, as certain actions can still be considered evil even if the motivations for them are good, but overall, this is the right point. Took some time, though.

But doing something to an ally which incapacitates (not kills) that ally (specifically in the case when the ally is effectively already a slave and at the beck and call of the caster) cannot in and of itself be inherently evil. The reason for incapacitating the ally determines if the act is evil, good, or somewhere in between.

I guess we'll simply have to agree to differ on what constitutes incapacitation and what constitutes death. All the relevant pieces of text clearly state that a summoned creature can be killed, i.e. it is dead afterwards. The fact that it is returned to it's point of origin and it's body is reformed after 24 hours doesn't negate the fact that the creature has been killed before. If you prefer to refer to a creature that has been reduced to -10 or lower as incapacitated, and not as killed..*shrugs*...as I said, we'll have to agree to differ.

Just as a kicker...if the creature is not killed when it reaches -10 HP, but simply vanishes in a puff...sorry, but the fighter won't get any Cleave out of this. No kill, no Cleave.

The mere act of summoning an ally who must do what you tell it to do (i.e. is a slave) is evil if the reason is not important.

We could start a whole new thread from this alone, because the spell description doesn't state that the summoned creature is "a slave". The creature arrives, and either immediately attacks the caster's enemy, or it can be directed by the caster to do other things. Nowhere is it said it does so because it is forced or coerced...it's Conjuration (Summoning), not Enchantment (Compulsion). I could easily claim that the creatures do what they're told from their own free will, because good creatures will automatically view a good caster as a trusted ally, evil creatures will see a neutral caster as a potential corruption victim and such obey, and an evil caster as authority whom they have to obey anyway.

So again, the morality issue of this action is moot and situational dependent.

Not moot...only situationally dependent. But that heavily. Which is why I said that alignment adjudication is not as easy as people would like it to have. I thought that was already clear by the slew of paladin problem threads that exist.

 

[KarinsDad]

Um, no. In D&D, actions can be objectively good or evil. Summoning a fiendish creature is an evil act, no amount of intent wipes that away. Perhaps you are unused to dealing with the idea of an objective morality system such as the base rules of D&D put forth, and hence, don't understand this simple fact.

Please. You have no conception of what I can understand, so don't even try the backhanded insult. You are not very good at it.

No, you just don't understand D&D morality, and for that matter, you seem to have very little grasp on real world morality either. Killing or harming a celestial creature is an evil act, by its very nature. Summoning a fiendish creature is an evil act, by its very nature.

1) You do NOT kill the celestial creature. Why is this basic rule beyond you? You keep mistakenly bring this up.

2) Quote a rule that harming a celestial creature is an evil act. Otherwise, you are making up your own objective system.

3) Summoning a fiendish creature is NOT an evil act, by its very nature.

"When you use a summoning spell to summon an air, chaotic, earth, evil, fire, good, lawful, or water creature, it is a spell of that type."

"A cleric casts divine spells, which are drawn from the cleric spell list. However, his alignment may restrict him from casting certain spells opposed to his moral or ethical beliefs; see Chaotic, Evil, Good, and Lawful Spells, below."

Where in the rules does it state that casting a spell of a given type is that type of action?

Just because a Cleric is restricted from casting spells of that type does NOT mean that casting that type (e.g. evil) of spell is that type (e.g. evil) of action.

"Spells associated with particular alignments are indicated by the chaos, evil, good, and law descriptors in their spell descriptions."

This does not state that casting an evil spell is an evil action.

In fact, the opposite is stated:

"The descriptors are acid, air, chaotic, cold, darkness, death, earth, electricity, evil, fear, fire, force, good, language-dependent, lawful, light, mind-affecting, sonic, and water.

Most of these descriptors have no game effect by themselves, but they govern how the spell interacts with other spells, with special abilities, with unusual creatures, with alignment, and so on."

Since the alignment section does not state that it is evil to cast an evil spell, it isn't. Alignment here is for things like targets of spells.

Quote the rules. Don't just make stuff up.

Further compounding your evil act by placing it in an evil context (i.e. summoning a creature solely for the purpose of inflicting harm upon it, which is evil no matter how much you try and dodge the issue) doesn't help your case.

Wrong again.

You are summoning it for the express purpose of harming the BBEG.

The greater good.

Wipe out 50 people with a disease so that 5 million do not get it and die.

If you cannot understand this, you cannot understand morality.

So, your attempt to declare the issue "moot" just dodges the rules, and is a convenient workaround you have come up with to justify abuse of a particular part of the game.

I am waiting for your rules which indicate differently.

You have yet to quote them.

Your assumptions above are mistaken.


It is still moot until you can back up your opinion here with rules quotes.

Prove your point with rules quotes that support your position.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

In some game worlds the summoned creatures show up with this already in mind. This allows them to be used for a whole slew of tasks that a lot of people who say being attacked by an ally is evil have probably already been using them for. In all the games I have played in, this is hardwired into summoned creatures, they are absolutely ready to sacrifice themselves to defeat the enemy. If that means gang-piling on the BBEG while we fireball the lot, so be it. If that means sacrificing themslves in direct combat, so be it. If that means taking an attack of opportunity from the BBEG to rescue a fallen PC, so be it. They do it. Thats as simple as it gets. What this means is that in these games, being used for AoO fodder isn't evil. I also hope this closes the little "It is evil" discussion. It isn't, and has never been, evil by the rules.

Uhm, excuse me, but how is it any argument to bury one the one example we are talking about under a heap of other examples, some of which could be easily identified as evil as the present discussion topic, and then claiming "If all those aren't evil, the last one isn't either!"? Especially as you're talking about the games you played in. That is nice and good if we were discussing about the games you played in...but we're not. We're talking about the morality of a certain situation from the point of view of the D&D core rules.
I'm sorry, but so far there haven't been any helpful arguments towards that topic, only a heap of examples that are not really comparable to the situation discussed, and a claim without arguments.

Then it shouldn't be in the rules forum

Wasn't me placing it here, I'm just responding to the original question of the thread creator, namely voicing my opinion and the action discussed, and defending it with the appropriate arguments until somebody finds a way to invalidate them. If you think this is the wrong forum for it, you could ask an admin to move it?

I'm pretty sure most of us that don't allow AoO/Cleave to be used don't think its broken - we just don't think its reasonable/stylistically acceptable. It is only an evil act if you set up your game world so that it is an evil act. I find it much more humorous that those who would allow AoO/Cleave have to jump on the "its evil and good character's wouldn't do it" bandwagon to prevent its so called abuse.

I'm not out to "prevent" any abuse, I'm just stating my opinion on what the tactic described can do to a character's alignment. That's no bandwagon, that's a DM's train of thought...I don't have to jump it, I'm sitting at the controls. And I'm not trying to use alignment to prevent the AoO+Cleave combo from being used...I'm only stating that the maneuver of heedlessly attacking an ally with the intent to kill him to gain a personal advantage is, in most cases, an evil act, at least in my opinion derived from the core rules. I've also stated more than once that I'd allow that maneuver, and that there are a lot of situations in which that act might be considered not evil. See above for my point on the relevance of intentions on the alignment consequences of actions.