Wands of Cure Light? Bah!

[Infiniti2000]

First off, you've mentioned three others who support your position, but there's at least as many of us, perhaps more, who disagree. So, I'm not sure why you're name-dropping.

And in worrying about the differences in the fly vs. slave vs. elemental, you're both missing my intended point based on the differences of flyswatter vs. tweezers or the differences of North vs. South....
Am I being clearer as to my intended meaning with the use of my typed words?

Nice long description without actually being explanatory. The problem with your position is that you start off begging the question. You and others come out of the block saying it's twisted, evil, and whatnot and then look to that for your answer. You then drum up an invalid analogy that proves nothing, except that it's an invalid analogy.

We're starting off without the same false assumption, i.e. that the usage of a spell effect is not intrinsically aligned (aside from the possibility of the spell itself being aligned). Note, don't confuse this with the usage of a spell effect to commit evil/good, but what the caster does to his own spell effect.

To help you out, the proper analogy would be to compare the case in point to the caster conjuring a glass of water and then dumping it into the magical Fire of Healing that has the same net effect as the case in point. Both conjure something to be destroyed and grant healing to the caster. Both spell effects are eliminated in the process. Now, prove that one spell effect feels pain or is evil in some way without going off the base assumption that "killing" (or causing to be "killed") your spell effect is evil. As far as I'm concerned, that wolf is identical in concept to the glass of water.

The one caveat to this is if you take out the gain. Even then I may not argue. I see a sort of ease in ruling summoning not unlike the holodeck of the later Star Trek shows. We'll summon whatever you want, for whatever purpose, because it's not real anyway. You can't be punished for doing whatever you want to do in an empty room, can you? Nothing and absolutely no one gets harmed and nothing and no one else is even involved. How could that possibly be evil?

Now, have I helped you to understand how others think?

 

[Jack Simth]

First off, you've mentioned three others who support your position, but there's at least as many of us, perhaps more, who disagree. So, I'm not sure why you're name-dropping.

I was using multiple points of reference to show that a difference of fundamental assumptions exist. I thought I said that; I must be mistaken. Query: Where did I say they were the majority, or anything of that nature? You appear to be reading more than what I type.

Nice long description without actually being explanatory. The problem with your position is that you start off begging the question. You and others come out of the block saying it's twisted, evil, and whatnot and then look to that for your answer. You then drum up an invalid analogy that proves nothing, except that it's an invalid analogy.

No matter what ethos you use, you have certain fundamental building blocks involved. Even the most logic-bound of them (Kant) ends up with fundamental assumptions - his definition of "person" that the good is to be sought after, that a "person" is inherently valuable, and so forth. These fundamental assumptions are fundamentally inarguable. You will not convince a Catholic that it's a sin to eat beef any more than you'll be able to convince a Hindu (in the religious sense) that it isn't. Both have fundamental assumptions involved - that being their choice of scripture. These fundamental assumptions are unavoidable.

Or to put it another way: Can you prove you're not a brain in a box hooked up to an elaborate simulation to make you think you're in a fleshy body? Proper science will reject this hypothesis outright without first getting concrete proof - for the simple reason that modern science has a fundamental assumption that observations are valid, which (for most purposes) a "Matrix" hypothesis contradicts.

I say we have a difference in fundamental opinion. In fact, there have already been one or two people in this thread that have actually said why they consider it evil.

We're starting off without the same false assumption, i.e. that the usage of a spell effect is not intrinsically aligned (aside from the possibility of the spell itself being aligned). Note, don't confuse this with the usage of a spell effect to commit evil/good, but what the caster does to his own spell effect.

To help you out, the proper analogy would be to compare the case in point to the caster conjuring a glass of water and then dumping it into the magical Fire of Healing that has the same net effect as the case in point. Both conjure something to be destroyed and grant healing to the caster. Both spell effects are eliminated in the process. Now, prove that one spell effect feels pain or is evil in some way without going off the base assumption that "killing" (or causing to be "killed") your spell effect is evil.

Oh, heh - look! I've got you thinking in terms of base assumptions! You're on the right track! Why, you've even listed your own, in an area where it makes an actual difference!

As far as I'm concerned, that wolf is identical in concept to the glass of water.

The one caveat to this is if you take out the gain. Even then I may not argue. I see a sort of ease in ruling summoning not unlike the holodeck of the later Star Trek shows. We'll summon whatever you want, for whatever purpose, because it's not real anyway. You can't be punished for doing whatever you want to do in an empty room, can you? Nothing and absolutely no one gets harmed and nothing and no one else is even involved. How could that possibly be evil?

It's also a house rule, not the rules as they are written:

Summoning: A summoning spell instantly brings a creature or object to a place you designate. When the spell ends or is dispelled, a summoned creature is instantly sent back to where it came from, but a summoned object is not sent back unless the spell description specifically indicates this. 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.

When the spell that summoned a creature ends and the creature disappears, all the spells it has cast expire. A summoned creature cannot use any innate summoning abilities it may have, and it refuses to cast any spells that would cost it XP, or to use any spell-like abilities that would cost XP if they were spells.

(Emphasis added)

I don't have a quote on hand for you, but by default, a Summon spell gets a generic creature, typical for its kind. Specific creatures are a variant, not the norm, so the 24 hour thing has no mechanical impact on the caster.


They're not killed, but by RAW, they're real creatures, who are inconvenienced by what you're doing. Even if you ignore the pain while they're Summoned, those killed are definitively missing out on a day of life after they've been "killed". The Summon Elemental vampiric healer is going to "kill" a LOT elementals in a day. The guy distracting the Balor is going to "kill" a handful. There's a distinct difference in magnitude there.

When you add to that the little issue that the tactic isn't actually too much more efficient compared to methods that do not have that niggly bit built into the rules as they are written (over the course of levels 9-20, it's only about half or a third the cost of Wands of Lesser Vigor, depending on your assumptions about party damage per encounter and encounters per level).

Tell me: What's the difference between kidnapping someone for information and convincing them to give it to you willingly by paying them for it? In either case, you get the same info (in theory, anyway). In one, the pain of another is fairly high. In the other, it's not. In one, you expend resources (payment). In the other, you don't (just time).

Of course, as I've done an analysis of morality and ethics that notes that there is a fundamental arbitrariness to them, I don't actually need an explanation for an individual call to remain self-consistent.

Now, have I helped you to understand how others think?

After a fashion. Considering that there's been quite a few people pointing out it isn't really an efficient method, and at least one has called it "violence for violence's sake" (eamon). One would almost think you hadn't read beyond the first page and the post you're responding to.

 

[hornedturtle]

About the suggested alignment shift for repeted use. Isn't alignment based as much on intent as results? So isn't summuning something with the intent to kill it is diffrent from summining something into a situation where it's death is likely? Just beacause it dosen't actually die is besides the point, the dagger dosen't work with subdural damage it has to be leathal damage. The same problem would occour when sending something summoned into a trap. The intent is to have the effects of the trap effect it rather than the party. In the end it is up to a DM to decide if the intent of a character, over a series of actions, is enough to cause an alignment change.

 

[Voadam]

Of course you don't. Chances are, you never will. It would take rather extreme effort to point out to you what is so obvious to me - because we've got a differing set of fundamental assumptions; we have different value chains. This is why I included the second example of the disconnect between north and south in the civil war. In the case of North/South, time, distance, and the extremity of the case have conspired to make it a fairly simple matter to point out where to find the disconnect between the two. It's not quite so clear-cut here. It is, however, demonstratable that there is one - you can't figure out how it's any eviler than the more common usage. Jhulae and Artoomis both said it should cause an alignment shift towards evil. Eamon used "particularly twisted" and "murder" when describing it. I'll let clearly opposing positions stand as evidence that the disconnect exists. I'll leave it as a growth exercise for you to locate it. If you can, you will likely find your ability to convince other people will improve, as it will increase your ability to understand how other's think.

Saying it is obvious to you but that of course I can't see it and chances are I probably never will comes off to me as condescending and presumptuous. Being able to see how others could think from a different point of view is not that hard a skill, its one I use in D&D all the time.

I'm trying to understand if there is a rational basis for what looks like a visceral but irrational distinction.

I can see neither summoning for combat nor vampiric dagger use being considered evil. I can see both being considered evil.

I can see people feeling that summoning for use with vampiric daggers are icky while summoning combatants is not, but not being able to articulate an actual moral distinction.

I can see multiple different reasons one might consider the two uses of summoning morally distinctive.

Distinctions between summoning for fighting and summoning to use a vampiric weapon on them can be articulated and the moral distinctions evaluated.

I feel confident that if you could articulate an actual moral distinction between summoning for fighting and sacrifice I could then see it even if I disagreed with it.

I'm accepting your assumption here that it is evil to use the vampiric dagger on the summoned creatures.

I'm asking why under that assumption it is not also evil to send these summoned creatures off to fight your battles.

Taking your north south slave/property analogy, fine the creatures are sentient morally autonomous beings deserving of rights and respect as sentient autonomous beings.

Why is summoning them, binding them to your command, and sending them into danger not also morally bad? Because you are not inflicting the harm yourself and are just sending them into harm's way? Because they might not suffer any harm, just risk harm, compared to intentionally inflicting pain? There are multiple reasons that could be articulated each with different implications.

Remember these are not just celestial allies who volunteered to be part of a caster's god's army and work under the command of the god's divine champion, these include wizard summoned beings with no alignment requirements or divine connection.

There is more room between these cases where different lines could be drawn based on different values as well. Is it evil to send the summoned critters off to set off a known trap? To test for a trap so you don't have to? To fight with you being different than for you such as in a gladiatorial event. Does it matter what the nature of the summoning is (are they magical constructs created on the spot, astral projections of creatures from other planes, individual creatures actually here who become magically reborn later if killed during the summoning, etc.)

Saying its obvious to you, that you believe I will never be able to do so, others believe similarly to you and leaving as an exercise for me to figure out does not answer my question to you of what is the basis of your distinction. It is merely bailing on providing an explanation.

 

[Voadam]

About the suggested alignment shift for repeted use. Isn't alignment based as much on intent as results? So isn't summuning something with the intent to kill it is diffrent from summining something into a situation where it's death is likely? Just beacause it dosen't actually die is besides the point, the dagger dosen't work with subdural damage it has to be leathal damage. The same problem would occour when sending something summoned into a trap. The intent is to have the effects of the trap effect it rather than the party. In the end it is up to a DM to decide if the intent of a character, over a series of actions, is enough to cause an alignment change.

There is an arguable difference between summoning something to kill it and summoning something to send it into danger. This seems to me to place sending them in to trigger traps that might be deadly on the same moral side as sending them in to fight dangerous foes.


If intent is what matters and you know that summoned things don't actually die when they are killed but just go away for 24 hours, then your intent with summoned creatures is not to kill them but to use them after which they will reform unharmed and alive in 24 hours. The lethality of the daggers when used on non summoned creatures seems irrelevant, the intent and result here are both that the summoned creature does not become dead from the summoner/dagger wielder's efforts.

 

[Voadam]

No matter what ethos you use, you have certain fundamental building blocks involved. Even the most logic-bound of them (Kant) ends up with fundamental assumptions - his definition of "person" that the good is to be sought after, that a "person" is inherently valuable, and so forth. These fundamental assumptions are fundamentally inarguable. You will not convince a Catholic that it's a sin to eat beef any more than you'll be able to convince a Hindu (in the religious sense) that it isn't. Both have fundamental assumptions involved - that being their choice of scripture. These fundamental assumptions are unavoidable.

They are also explicable. People can articulate and understand the basis for differing hindu/kosher/halal/catholic religious food restrictions even if they think some of them are based on flawed bases.

They're not killed, but by RAW, they're real creatures, who are inconvenienced by what you're doing. Even if you ignore the pain while they're Summoned, those killed are definitively missing out on a day of life after they've been "killed". The Summon Elemental vampiric healer is going to "kill" a LOT elementals in a day. The guy distracting the Balor is going to "kill" a handful. There's a distinct difference in magnitude there.

Unless he uses something like summon swarm against the balor, then it is a day in the life of a ton of short lived creatures instead of a day in a life of a lot of immortal elementals.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think you are seriously arguing that going from taking a day in the life of five immortal creatures to fifty immortal creatures turns it from always morally fine to always evil.

 

[Jack Simth]

Saying it is obvious to you but that of course I can't see it and chances are I probably never will comes off to me as condescending and presumptuous. Being able to see how others could think from a different point of view is not that hard a skill, its one I use in D&D all the time.

And yet, the peices are all in place, and you continue to not see.

I'm trying to understand if there is a rational basis for what looks like a visceral but irrational distinction.

Exercise for you:
Prove that logic and/or reason are the basis of ethics/morality. Kant couldn't. When it came down to it, he simply defended it with a question, that amounted to "what else?"

When it came down to it, Aristotle was attempting to build a logical "why?" behind existing, in-place behavior and judgement. His arguments were generally supported by observations of what people were already calling "good" or "bad". He was doing observational ethics.

When people evaluate a ethical system, they almost always end up comparing it's results to some pre-existing notions (which usually amount to gut instinct).

You're requiring reason on a question of ethics, when reason as the foundation of ethics has never been actually proven. You dismiss gut reaction as irrational out of hand, when it is demonstrable that any given system of ethics has foundational tokens of things that cannot be logically proven. This is one aspect of why you are unlikely to see the other side.

I can see neither summoning for combat nor vampiric dagger use being considered evil. I can see both being considered evil.

There are fundamental tokens involved in the call. I don't know you well. It would take extreme lengths to get there. You appear to be approaching things primarily from an "ends" view. I gave examples where the ends are the same, but the methods different, and one is considered "bad" and the other, not ... and you don't see the why, or how it does properly relate. And the fundamental tokens are such that I can't straight-out tell you (I have), as it simply won't work (it didn't).

I can see people feeling that summoning for use with vampiric daggers are icky while summoning combatants is not, but not being able to articulate an actual moral distinction.

I can see multiple different reasons one might consider the two uses of summoning morally distinctive.

Distinctions between summoning for fighting and summoning to use a vampiric weapon on them can be articulated and the moral distinctions evaluated.

I feel confident that if you could articulate an actual moral distinction between summoning for fighting and sacrifice I could then see it even if I disagreed with it.

I'm accepting your assumption here that it is evil to use the vampiric dagger on the summoned creatures.

I'm asking why under that assumption it is not also evil to send these summoned creatures off to fight your battles.

Compare the king who occasionally sends a thousand conscripted peasants to defensive wars every few years, getting them killed in the defense of the country, to the king who feeds a thousand peasants a year to demons as part of a defense pact, rendering defensive wars unneeded. One's evil, the other's neutral, possibly good.

The king who occasionally sends the conscripts is weighing options that aren't good, and picking the one that does the least damage. He's neutral, possibly good.

The king who feeds demonic armies is weighing options that aren't good, and picking the one that makes him the strongest, even if he isn't all that much stronger for it, despite pain inflicted on others. He's evil.

In both cases, the peasants have negligible choice in the matter (neither conscripts nor sacrifices have a the option to say "no" in a way that matters).

Using Summon Elemental sacrifices by way of a Vampric Dagger, you're probably going to end up temporarily killing dozens of them on any given adventuring day if you're investing in this method of healing. The elementals are not given any chance to defend themselves against the thing that's going to make them missing for a full day rather than a handful of rounds. And for all that, you're only saving a small amount of cash over a rather long period of time (depending on your assumptions, wands of lesser vigor are maybe double the cost of sacrificing elementals to a vampiric dagger over the course of 10 levels). This is the option of the most pain for others, for fairly small gain compared to other existing options.

The combat summons, on the other hand, are generally going to be limited to a relative handful - the game is designed around four encounters per day, and battles don't last long enough for summoning much more than that. Likewise, there's very little that will do the job of a combat summon. Additionally, the combat summons have the opportunity to fight back against the thing that going to arrange for them to be missing for a full day rather than a handful of rounds.

If nothing else, there's a pretty steep magnitude difference between the two.

This has been pointed out in less verbose terms by other people in this thread. Are you only reading a portion of the thread? It's not too bad - only four pages long at this point. You primarily want eamon's post in response to Infinity2000 on page 2 - look for "violence for violence's sake".

Taking your north south slave/property analogy, fine the creatures are sentient morally autonomous beings deserving of rights and respect as sentient autonomous beings.

... and you're still missing the why of the usage of that particular example, even when I've specifically pointed it out.

Are we speaking the same language here?

Why is summoning them, binding them to your command, and sending them into danger not also morally bad? Because you are not inflicting the harm yourself and are just sending them into harm's way? Because they might not suffer any harm, just risk harm, compared to intentionally inflicting pain? There are multiple reasons that could be articulated each with different implications.

Remember these are not just celestial allies who volunteered to be part of a caster's god's army and work under the command of the god's divine champion, these include wizard summoned beings with no alignment requirements or divine connection.

There is more room between these cases where different lines could be drawn based on different values as well. Is it evil to send the summoned critters off to set off a known trap? To test for a trap so you don't have to? To fight with you being different than for you such as in a gladiatorial event. Does it matter what the nature of the summoning is (are they magical constructs created on the spot, astral projections of creatures from other planes, individual creatures actually here who become magically reborn later if killed during the summoning, etc.)

Saying its obvious to you, that you believe I will never be able to do so, others believe similarly to you and leaving as an exercise for me to figure out does not answer my question to you of what is the basis of your distinction. It is merely bailing on providing an explanation.

It's not bailing out. It's a statement that I don't want to put in as much work as you'll require to make you comprehend due to the nature of the differences involved.

They are also explicable. People can articulate and understand the basis for differing hindu/kosher/halal/catholic religious food restrictions even if they think some of them are based on flawed bases.

That's because I'm taking obvious ones for the purposes of demonstrating the basic principle. It can take a very long time to determine where such things are hiding when you don't know the full background of the other person. "Extreme effort" as I mentioned earlier. Shucks - I even pointed at this aspect of it earlier - "In the case of North/South, time, distance, and the extremity of the case have conspired to make it a fairly simple matter to point out where to find the disconnect between the two. It's not quite so clear-cut here. It is, however, demonstratable that there is one" in response to one of your posts. Are you not reading what I type?

Unless he uses something like summon swarm against the balor, then it is a day in the life of a ton of short lived creatures instead of a day in a life of a lot of immortal elementals.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think you are seriously arguing that going from taking a day in the life of five immortal creatures to fifty immortal creatures turns it from always morally fine to always evil.

Not in and of itself, no. There are other factors involved, which I've already pointed out, as have others.

... and you, or someone like you, will probably come right back with more questions and attempted contradictions. Because it takes an absurd amount of typing for such instances of disagreement on fundamental assumptions when they're not highly specific differences to begin with.