Wizards and Positive Energy

[gfunk]

The Negative Energy Plane is not just "space."

From the MoTP:

"It is the blackest night. It is the heart of darkness. It is the hunger that devours souls."

"... it is a needy, greedy plane, sucking the life out of anything that is vulnerable."

I don't know about you but "the hunger that devours souls" is not a term used to describe a netural entitiy IMO.
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[tleilaxu]

the positive energy plane is just as deadly....

 

[Sejs]

I personally have no problem with arcane casters using positive energy. In the games I'm in we fully allow for say a wizard to research healing spells, but with one major difference: arcane curing spells do not get the +1 per caster level, max of +X to the value healed. This makes divne caster still better healers.. not even getting into good/neutral clerics venting pre-mem'd spells for spontaeneous cure spells.. but if you say wanted to have a Healer concept Sorcerer, or a non-evil Necromancer type that wanted to study the soul and mend the body.. you can.

Edit(additional): the Negative Material Plane isn't evil. It doesn't care about you one way or another, in the exact same way that the Positive Material Plane isn't good. The Neg plane will suck the life out of the worst tyrant in history just as quickly as it will the most peaceful saint. The Abyss on the other hand -is- evil. It doesn't like you. Not one bit. And it wants bad things to happen to you.

 

[s/LaSH]

I agree that positive/negative is a different axis to good/evil or order/chaos. (How many dimensions do you need to describe this now, anyway? I haven't even mentioned the two elemental axes!)

I see no good reason that wizards shouldn't channel positive energy beyond the fact that wizards like blowing stuff up, and positive energy takes slightly longer to do that. It's a case of specialisation. Similarly, a cleric could restore you to a state of existance where you are immune to disease and poison and have certain other advantages, but it requires killing you first and turning you into an undead, which is a bit of a waste of energy when you could just channel positive energy.

That said, in my homebrew system I've set it up so that there's no distinction between wizards and clerics (in fact, there are no classes at all, just people who are better at different types of magic). So yeah, I think wizards should be able to fire off positive energy if they put their minds to it... but not as well as clerics, who have more practice.

 

[Jarval]

In my game, I give wizards and sorcerers access to healing spells at one level above the Druid level. So Cure Light Wounds becomes a 2nd level arcane spell, Heal becomes an 8th level spell and so on. OTOH, I don't give them access to Raise Dead or similar, as that really does seem the domain of priests.

 

[green slime]

How about this for a thesis?:

The negative and the positive energy planes are neither evil nor good in and of themselves. In fact they are both necessary for the existance of life. Should one or the other cease to exist, all life itself on the Material planes would soon be snuffed out.

The presence of negative energy on the Primary Plane dampers the positive and allows flora and fauna to achieve a "natural" growth/death/decay/regrowth cycle.

All good and well.

The MANIPULATION of the Negative Energy Plane is what makes these spells evil. This due to what uses those energies are put to: The creation of Undead, the suppression of life, and so on. Thus the plane itself is Non-Evil, Non-Aligned, as are all the Elemental planes. But creating undead, channeling Negative Energy to command undead.

It may very well be possible to create non-evil spells that manipulate Negative Energy, but it seems that it is rather difficult to do so, or that it is easier to use Positive Energy for these purposes.

Thus it may also be possible to create undead with a connection to the Positive Energy Plane, but that this is a very difficult and almost impossible task. Doing so would still be an Evil act.

 

[Zappo]

Thus it may also be possible to create undead with a connection to the Positive Energy Plane, but that this is a very difficult and almost impossible task. Doing so would still be an Evil act.

Indeed, I had an adventure based around this. The wizard in question was attempting to make himself a positive lich. There actually were several versions of the creature. Each expressed the positive energy in a different way, whether physical or psychological. The early experiments were mindless humanoid creatures shining with energy whose touch could stun while the wizard himself managed to less or more retain his sanity but had his body permanently covered in all sort of vermin and growths. Not a pretty sight.

Some time after, a college of wizards created a posilich which worked fairly well; the subject gained abilities similar to the lich, though twisted towards positive energy. He also had a somewhat shining complexion which made him markedly innatural; everything about him looked more colorful and everyone near him looked pale and dead in comparison. Psychologically, he became extremely hyperactive, always doing something, and he found that other living beings were always wasting time and getting on his nerves. He quickly became evil after the transformation for this reason, much like a lich.

I've also had the same college experiment with liches bound to other elements, with varying degrees of success.