Summons and how they affect alignment.

[maiaera]

I was wondering something...

The Death Domain provides the ability to summon something from the negative plane. Most sourcebooks imply that shadow-types are evil, and therefore if your character is good and summons this creature, they are not good. Yet Shadowdancers have the same ability and are any alignment. What is everyone's thoughts?

Of course, there are also those who believe that shadow-types reflect the alignment of the summoner. Most people are 90% certain that a good-aligned mage or cleric would not summon a fiend, but how do you feel about shadow-types? Like shadows and shadow mastiffs?


Food for thought. I was testing the Death Domain in Singleplayer with a good-aligned cleric of Jergal and it came to mind; in addition, I also have a similar-aligned character of the deity. If anything, I would assume the person believes it is a servant of the deity and therefore, they would not be (at least wittingly) summoning something evil. How would FRC handle this?


I take alignment seriously mainly for the fact I know of DMs in other servers who would: shift the alignment regardless of intent and context; some servers accept the belief that alignment is a personal preference for the particular person shifting the alignment.

Either way, even though good and evil is generally black and white, there are some gray areas that need looking over. >.< I just need to make sure this will not affect my PC for while her deity takes any lawful, this could affect her relations with those with the detect alignment spell.

[soulfien]

well, the wizard shadow spells summon shadow creatures, but Bioware made those creatures Chaotic Neutral instead of evil. I don't know what alignment the shadows are that Shadowdancers summon, but if they are evil then I agree with you that they shouldn't be summoned.

Disclaimer: only my opinion that doesn't count for much.

there is a wizard on this server who's good aligned and has an evil hellhound for a familiar, but it's rp'ed well.

[maiaera]

Well I know with Shadowdancers, the shadow they summon is the exact alignment as the dancer. Would you say it is safe to say that a cleric with the death domain who summons a shadow creature would have the same thing applied to them? I am just wondering how I should roleplay this out. Almost any other shadow, my character will be wary about...but if they serve her god, she cannot say it is of a malicious nature.

Is it wrong for me to roleplay it out that the creature is a servant of her deity, considering that he does have a few "purposeful" undead under him? Not all undead are malicious (though most are).

Like I said, I am just not sure how I should roleplay it out, or if I should not summon the being at all due to the alignment issues and /or the staff views it evil to summon any shadow. It is one of those gray areas.


~Maiaera

[Munroe]

By the Monster Manual entry for shadows, shadows are always chaotic evil.

By the Dungeon Master's Guide entry for shadowdancers, a shadowdancer's shadow is the exception and it matches her alignment, whatever the shadowdancer's alignment may be.

Bioware screwed this up and even made the shadowdancer's shadow always Chaotic Evil. Since no one other than the shadowdancer and DMs can actually see the shadowdancer's shadow's alignment, I would still treat the shadowdancer's shadow as matching the shadowdancer's alignment.

Since only the shadowdancer knows for sure whether her shadow is evil (we don't have Detect Evil implemented), even the shadowdancer's shadow would likely be treated as an evil shadow in RP. Since we don't have Detect Evil implemented, the shadowdancer herself/himself may or may not be evil.

All shadows not belonging to a shadowdancer, unless noted in the source material, should be treated as evil.

A shadow is an incorporeal undead.

A shadow mastiff is a medium outsider, and a different creature altogether. By the Monster Manual a shadow mastiff is always Neutral Evil.

[maiaera]

Alright, I will no longer summon my shadow then. Even though not all undead are malicious, I can understand the need to keep to the Monster Manual's on this one. Thanks!

As for Bioware glitches...do not get me started on them, LOL. I found quite a few flaws in how they did things in their game system and even some things in single-player mode. I.e., elves of Toril are as tall as humans, just smaller-boned and lighter...they did not provide enough domains for clerics...amongst other things.


On a note, I kind of wish they used something similar to v. 3.5 for the Death Domain, where it just lets you use Death Touch 1/day...it is not such a polarized spell and not as malicious as summoning an evil being.

Maybe some of these things will be fixed in NWN 2...and hopefully more Domains will be available and the things they polarized, will not be as polarized.

[maiaera]

Though I am wondering...


I hate to bring this up again, but what if the summoning shadow is not a spell itself, but the ability granted by the Death Domain? In that case, wouldn't that be summoning a servant of the deity and not necessarily the normal summoning spell?

Like I said, I can stop using the ability, just it very much gets rid of the "flavor" from the Domain bar maybe the few spells it grants access to.

[Munroe]

Wizards of the Coast themselves realized the Death domain didn't really work well for Jergal and Kelemvor, being that they aren't evil-aligned. In Faiths and Pantheons (page 220), Jergal, Kelemvor, Osiris, and Urogalan get the newer Repose domain instead of the Death domain.

Repose domain still grants the Death Touch 1/day but doesn't grant any spells that create or summon undead. It grants Speak with Dead, and Undeath to Death, which are still in the same theme but without the evil.

My answer would still be that Death domain in NWN summons an evil undead, and if you are good-aligned, you shouldn't use that ability. Jergal sometimes uses (or has used in the past) undead as heralds, and some of his clerics become undead and/or necromancers but Jergal is not good-aligned, he is lawful neutral. A lawful good cleric of a lawful neutral god doesn't stay lawful good for long if she measures herself by what her god would do or allow.

[maiaera]

In this case, I am willing to have her not use the Death Domain powers provided by Bioware considering the problems just mentioned. Thank you again on the clarification of the ruling.

As for the whole undead under Jergal, yes...he does believe some undead have a purpose. My PC herself only believes in the existance of the benevolent (baelnorn-type) spirit types, and even they must eventually rest. Of course, some might not even consider those undead.

[Munroe]

I like the Deathless in the Book of Exalted Deeds myself. They look like undead, they smell like undead, but they aren't undead. I never did buy that book though I always wanted to.

[maiaera]

I should look into that book. The only book I have is Libris Mortis and it has mostly bad deaders, but it does have a PrC for undead that does not require them to be evil, just non-chaotic. At any rate, I hope NWN2 includes the Repose Domain or the 3.5 edition Death Domain (which has the 1 deathtouch/day thing you just mentioned). I am glad that Wizards of the Coast is cutting down on the polarization they did with some of these things.

Otherwise, unless someone somehow in-characterly makes a contract of sort with an "exception" to these planars and undead and the staff allows the summons to be those "exceptions", I too would probably rule that they are summoning an evil creature. Those are exceptional cases though and we are speaking of generalities.

PS: The Hellhound familiar sounds like an interesting story. I think though familiars are different from summons.

[dajuke]

about shadows, i just realized today today that my chaotic good gnome illusionist is learning all his illusion spells, and the shadow is evil. So i tried to rp that it creeped him out and he isn't planning on summoning one anymore, but i was just wondering if summong the shadow has made me take an alignment hit. I remember a post once about how evil summons will make a bump toward evil, and i'm not planning to rp a fall to the dark side. Too bad though, the couple times i used it it was really useful .

[Gabusta]

Why not? More evil gnomes! That would rock!