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Post by ancientempathy on Oct 29, 2009 18:37:10 GMT -5
I've been contemplating making an illusionist that is chaotic good. I did some spell research and came across the fact that "protection from good" is inherently an evil spell? Certain spells in DnD are inherently evil, and it seems that PFG is one of them, unless I misread. The question that comes to mind is thus: If the illusionist is casting PFG on party members to protect them from his Color Sprays, is this nessecarily an evil act? To prevent unnessecary harm from towards your companions to do good, comes to mind. I'd like to hear people's insights. Please try to refrain from bloodshed  As a side thought, would the particular race matter too? Another thing to keep in mind, NwN doesn't offer "Protection from Chaos/Law", and if the character /could/ cast that, then they would. To the DM's, on their spectrum I would hope that the limited game mechanics allowed for some leeway on goodly characters using PFG, and to take things with a grain of salt. That being said you're all free to chime in and to be brutally honest. PS. There may have been an old thread on this. |
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Post by soulfien on Oct 29, 2009 18:45:29 GMT -5
I asked like this and tried to prove it wasn't and was proven horribly wrong This spell is inherently evil no matter what unless the DM's changed their minds and didn't tell anyone Once I had a person walk by me in the streets of Suzail, cast Protection from good right next to me and say "//OOC" and walk off. I didn't know what to think! |
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Post by fred on Oct 29, 2009 18:48:19 GMT -5
If the illusionist is casting PFG on party members to protect them from his Color Sprays, is this nessecarily an evil act? To prevent unnessecary harm from towards your companions to do good, comes to mind. Summoning demons is evil, using evil spells is evil, torture is evil: the motivations behind these acts may be benign, but the motivations, in fact, do not matter. The act is evil. It's all been laid out by the people who wrote the setting. Munroe can probably quote us the appropriate bit of source. I ain't got the books, myself. |
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Post by ancientempathy on Oct 29, 2009 18:52:57 GMT -5
If the illusionist is casting PFG on party members to protect them from his Color Sprays, is this nessecarily an evil act? To prevent unnessecary harm from towards your companions to do good, comes to mind. Summoning demons is evil, using evil spells is evil, torture is evil: the motivations behind these acts may be benign, but the motivations, in fact, do not matter. The act is evil. It's all been laid out by the people who wrote the setting. Munroe can probably quote us the appropriate bit of source. I ain't got the books, myself. I haven't actually researched that much into inherently evil spells in a long time, but if I were to hazard a guess it may just be within the book of vile darkness. Incase anyone out there wants a starting point to quote appropriate source stuff. Typically I concede to what source states, baring playability in mind. In my case on this particular subject, my character probably wouldn't cast* PFG, and would just aim his spell as best who could. You know, those damn gnomes are crazy I hear. |
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Post by EDM Neo on Oct 29, 2009 19:29:05 GMT -5
Yep, by the source, it's evil. To quote, uh... you...  Evil ActsCasting Evil SpellsEvil spells may create undead, inflict undue suffering, harm another's soul, or produce any of a slew of similar effects. Sometimes, a nonevil spellcaster can get away with casting a few evil spells, as long as he or she does not do so for an evil purpose. But the path of evil magic leads quickly to corruption and destruction. Spells with corruption costs are so evil that they take a physical and spiritual toll on the caster. //From the Book of Vile Darkness, pages 7-9 Casting PfG once won't make you a horrible puppy murdering person immediately, or even casting it once a week, but it's a slippery slope. If you do it regularly, I wouldn't be surprised if a DM hits you with an evil point here and there. |
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Post by ConcreteSequential on Oct 29, 2009 19:37:05 GMT -5
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Post by ancientempathy on Oct 29, 2009 19:43:42 GMT -5
Yep, by the source, it's evil. To quote, uh... you... Evil ActsCasting Evil SpellsEvil spells may create undead, inflict undue suffering, harm another's soul, or produce any of a slew of similar effects. Sometimes, a nonevil spellcaster can get away with casting a few evil spells, as long as he or she does not do so for an evil purpose. But the path of evil magic leads quickly to corruption and destruction. Spells with corruption costs are so evil that they take a physical and spiritual toll on the caster. //From the Book of Vile Darkness, pages 7-9 Casting PfG once won't make you a horrible puppy murdering person immediately, or even casting it once a week, but it's a slippery slope. If you do it regularly, I wouldn't be surprised if a DM hits you with an evil point here and there. ROFL *wonders how he forgot* |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 30, 2009 19:20:22 GMT -5
I think they really screwed up some of the "Evil" spells personally both in what is considered evil and some that are not, but it is what it is unless you want to recategorize them yourself.
That being said, I'd like to see a widget that lets you cast protection from good & turn it into protection from chaos or protection from law. I'm willing to script this myself if the powers that be would have any interest in adding it.
The basic idea would be to change the alignment that the spell affects, based on a variable set by the "protection from alignment widget" for all calls to the VersusesAlignmentEffect function. As you can see below, this function will allow you make an affect work against CHAOS/LAW instead of GOOD/EVIL.
// Set eEffect to be versus a specific alignment.
// - eEffect
// - nLawChaos: ALIGNMENT_LAWFUL/ALIGNMENT_CHAOTIC/ALIGNMENT_ALL
// - nGoodEvil: ALIGNMENT_GOOD/ALIGNMENT_EVIL/ALIGNMENT_ALL
effect VersusAlignmentEffect(effect eEffect, int nLawChaos=ALIGNMENT_ALL, int nGoodEvil=ALIGNMENT_ALL)
The spell script for protection from alignment uses VersusAlignmentEffect for each affect added (ac, saving throw, immunity to mind spells), so it'd be trivial to change those calls to use CHAOS or LAW instead:
int nAlign = ALIGNMENT_GOOD;
object oTarget = GetSpellTargetObject();
int nDuration = GetCasterLevel(OBJECT_SELF);
int nMetaMagic = GetMetaMagicFeat();
//effect eVis = EffectVisualEffect(VFX_IMP_GOOD_HELP);
effect eAC = EffectACIncrease(2, AC_DEFLECTION_BONUS);
//Change the effects so that it only applies when the target is evil
eAC = VersusAlignmentEffect(eAC, ALIGNMENT_ALL, nAlign);
effect eSave = EffectSavingThrowIncrease(SAVING_THROW_ALL, 2);
eSave = VersusAlignmentEffect(eSave,ALIGNMENT_ALL, nAlign);
effect eImmune = EffectImmunity(IMMUNITY_TYPE_MIND_SPELLS);
eImmune = VersusAlignmentEffect(eImmune,ALIGNMENT_ALL, nAlign);
effect eDur = EffectVisualEffect(VFX_DUR_PROTECTION_EVIL_MINOR);
effect eDur2 = EffectVisualEffect(VFX_DUR_CESSATE_POSITIVE);
Would become:
int nAlign = {GET CHAOS/LAW/GOOD FROM WIDGET}
int nLCAlign = ALIGNMENT_ALL;
int nGEAlign = ALIGNMENT_ALL;
if ( nAlign == ALIGNMENT_GOOD ) {
nGEAlign = ALIGNMENT_GOOD;
} else {
nLCAlign = nAlign;
}
object oTarget = GetSpellTargetObject();
int nDuration = GetCasterLevel(OBJECT_SELF);
int nMetaMagic = GetMetaMagicFeat();
//effect eVis = EffectVisualEffect(VFX_IMP_GOOD_HELP);
effect eAC = EffectACIncrease(2, AC_DEFLECTION_BONUS);
//Change the effects so that it only applies when the target is evil
eAC = VersusAlignmentEffect(eAC, nLCAlign, nGEAlign);
effect eSave = EffectSavingThrowIncrease(SAVING_THROW_ALL, 2);
eSave = VersusAlignmentEffect(eSave,nLCAlign, nGEAlign);
effect eImmune = EffectImmunity(IMMUNITY_TYPE_MIND_SPELLS);
eImmune = VersusAlignmentEffect(eImmune,nLCAlign, nGEAlign);
effect eDur = EffectVisualEffect(VFX_DUR_PROTECTION_EVIL_MINOR);
effect eDur2 = EffectVisualEffect(VFX_DUR_CESSATE_POSITIVE);
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Post by ancientempathy on Oct 30, 2009 19:21:55 GMT -5
Oh my god.  |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 1, 2009 9:52:03 GMT -5
Interesting idea.
~Sio
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Post by marquardt on Nov 3, 2009 17:02:37 GMT -5
Yep, by the source, it's evil. To quote, uh... you... Evil ActsCasting Evil SpellsEvil spells may create undead, inflict undue suffering, harm another's soul, or produce any of a slew of similar effects. Sometimes, a nonevil spellcaster can get away with casting a few evil spells, as long as he or she does not do so for an evil purpose. But the path of evil magic leads quickly to corruption and destruction. Spells with corruption costs are so evil that they take a physical and spiritual toll on the caster. //From the Book of Vile Darkness, pages 7-9 Casting PfG once won't make you a horrible puppy murdering person immediately, or even casting it once a week, but it's a slippery slope. If you do it regularly, I wouldn't be surprised if a DM hits you with an evil point here and there. With all due respect, I would not turn to a book called "Book of Vile Darkness" for an un-baised opinion of if PfG is evil or not. In my opinion, expecting Protection from good to turn a good person evil is about as sensible as expecting protection from evil to turn an evil person good. Of course, I have a lot of opinionated views regarding the whole "what is evil?" debate. In a gaming world where players are unable to create their own spells, a good-aligned wizard must rely on pfg in leu of their own customized spell to ward their teammates from their own spells. I'm assuming that since the originator of this post was using colorspray in their scenario they are reletively low-level and can't cast the higher level mind-ward spells (which we all know are not frequently used anyway). To condemn the player for warding his teammates against his own spells when he literally has no other choice given the limitations of NWN seems a little much to me. The philosophy in FRC seems to be for people to pick an alignment and then roleplay it, which is backwards from what I was tought, which is to determine how your character would act and pick the an alignment that suits those actions. When you pick an alignment first rather than flesh out your characters personality and then plug in the alignment that fit's it afterwords, you will be end up with a lot of cookie-cutter ideas regarding good and evil. Furthermore, the more you "quantify" or "measure" everything by categorizing it in to schools, spheres, alignments, ect ect, the further-removed from immersion you become. One last thing to consider: Just because a view is included in a "stock" book, doesn't mean it is appropriate in every situation or even fully accurate. I guess I've strayed a little off topic but I'd like to think it's all a little relevant. |
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Post by EDM Neo on Nov 3, 2009 17:22:56 GMT -5
I -do- think objective morality can get silly, you're completely right. But... fact of the matter is, it's an established part of the setting. I'd have few problems with just throwing it out, but it's not just something players can decide individually to ignore without the majority... or, the DM team, at least... agreeing to change the setting to be more ambiguous about magic and morality first. Otherwise, the mage who says "no, you're wrong, casting Protection from Good isn't evil, if I'm using it for a good cause" might really have good intents, but within the context of the game world, they're just plain wrong, and should draw the ire of good clerics, paladins, celestials, etc, for doing so. Who's up for a discussion on the pros and cons of objective morality and possible alternate systems?  |
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Post by soulfien on Nov 3, 2009 17:30:09 GMT -5
why do we not remove the mental protection aspect off of the spell and thus solve this whole entire discussion?
Want to ward people against mind spells cast by good people? Use Clarity, lesser mind blank, or mind blank.
Protection from Good is an evil spell and shouldn't be used to ward against good mental spells.
I know that Clarity doesn't last long and mind blank is a high lvl spell, but in reality, mental spell immunity is not easy to come by.
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Post by marquardt on Nov 3, 2009 18:12:59 GMT -5
I -do- think objective morality can get silly, you're completely right. But... fact of the matter is, it's an established part of the setting. I don't think anyone can deny that it's built in to the campaign, but that just means it's a choice we (or more accurately the staff) have made, and one that could be subject to change or review. However, I think the right path has already been taken, for the most part. I remember when the hard line was drawn between good and evil with automatic alignment shifts for pretty much everything (most notably summons), something that was ultimately reversed (unless I'm mistaken). It is much better the way it is, with the DM's using their discretion and assigning points manually where they see fit. I personally think this is a non-issue ultimately because I would be incredibly surprised to see a DM hand out evil points to a good-aligned player after seeing him protect his friends from his own spells with PFG. Perticularly since it is LITERALLY the same spell in NWN as PFE. Obviously the tough question which I'm sure has already been asked and which likely lead to having the alignment shifts removed from summons, is... Is having such a rigid and black-and-white viewpoint on automatically classifying acts as evil regardless of their application good for the server or bad for the server? In my opinion, it's bad. In pen and paper, oppositely aligned characters may unite indefinitely during a campaign and all kinds of great roleplay will unfold because they are obliged to continue playing together and are most likely friends in real life anyway. In an online environment, they'll just avoid eachother or kill eachother, effectively cutting the player base in half. Obviously the above is a fairly substantial generalization, but a fair one. These are just my thoughts. |
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Post by minion on Nov 3, 2009 18:26:17 GMT -5
"The philosophy in FRC seems to be for people to pick an alignment and then roleplay it, which is backwards from what I was tought, which is to determine how your character would act and pick the an alignment that suits those actions." -marquardt
thank you! unless i know the character's personality well enough to be comfortable with an alignment "extreme," i've always started characters at a relatively neutral point and allowed the character's decisions dictate their alignment. unfortunately, right now on FRC that basically means that they will be relatively neutral in their statistical alignment forever, barring unusual amounts of DM attention.
and very much agreed, Soulf, immunity to mental spells -should- be hard to come by, but there has to be some sort of concession to the fact that in table-top play you would not get spammed by fear affects and/or Color Spray (and Confusion, and others) over and over and over in half the dungeons you enter (and even a few outdoor areas too), particularly the low-level areas (three out of the five "dungeons" that i can think of that are accessible within the walls of Isinhold has one of these affects spammed over multiple rooms). as with most other fixes to spells, other things would have to be addressed by the build team and/or DM's and/or the community as a whole to allow for things to truly reach some measure of "balance" than simply altering one aspect of one spell's .2da file. yay for complexity (please note the pained sigh indicating sarcasm and general frustration at the necessary evils of life).
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Post by Deleted on Nov 3, 2009 19:18:14 GMT -5
why do we not remove the mental protection aspect off of the spell and thus solve this whole entire discussion? Want to ward people against mind spells cast by good people? Use Clarity, lesser mind blank, or mind blank. Protection from Good is an evil spell and shouldn't be used to ward against good mental spells. I know that Clarity doesn't last long and mind blank is a high lvl spell, but in reality, mental spell immunity is not easy to come by. Actually, if you read the spell desc from PnP, protection from alignment spells protect against mental domination regardless of the alignment of the caster of the mental dominations. For example, a good aligned character casts dominate person on a target who is protected by protection from evil (not good), and it still blocks the mental domination. |
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Post by Munroe on Nov 3, 2009 19:32:56 GMT -5
why do we not remove the mental protection aspect off of the spell and thus solve this whole entire discussion? Want to ward people against mind spells cast by good people? Use Clarity, lesser mind blank, or mind blank. Protection from Good is an evil spell and shouldn't be used to ward against good mental spells. I know that Clarity doesn't last long and mind blank is a high lvl spell, but in reality, mental spell immunity is not easy to come by. Actually, if you read the spell desc from PnP, protection from alignment spells protect against mental domination regardless of the alignment of the caster of the mental dominations. For example, a good aligned character casts dominate person on a target who is protected by protection from evil (not good), and it still blocks the mental domination. Unfortunately, the Protection from Good/Evil in NWN IS alignment-specific even as regards the mental domination. I am definitely not in support of removing the mental protection from Protection from Alignment spells. They're pretty close to source in that regard. If anything, I'd like them fixed so that they always protect against mental effects from all targets regardless of alignment (in keeping with D&D 3.5e), and I'd be cool with changing their duration from 1 hour/level to 1 turn/level too. |
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Post by marquardt on Nov 3, 2009 20:38:12 GMT -5
why do we not remove the mental protection aspect off of the spell and thus solve this whole entire discussion? Want to ward people against mind spells cast by good people? Use Clarity, lesser mind blank, or mind blank. Protection from Good is an evil spell and shouldn't be used to ward against good mental spells. I know that Clarity doesn't last long and mind blank is a high lvl spell, but in reality, mental spell immunity is not easy to come by. Actually, if you read the spell desc from PnP, protection from alignment spells protect against mental domination regardless of the alignment of the caster of the mental dominations. For example, a good aligned character casts dominate person on a target who is protected by protection from evil (not good), and it still blocks the mental domination. At first this confused me but after a bit of thought this makes perfect sense to me. If casting a necromancy/negative energy spell is an inherently evil act, It stands to reason that violating a creatures mind would also be inherently evil. |
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Post by EDM Neo on Nov 3, 2009 20:59:34 GMT -5
Actually, if you read the spell desc from PnP, protection from alignment spells protect against mental domination regardless of the alignment of the caster of the mental dominations. For example, a good aligned character casts dominate person on a target who is protected by protection from evil (not good), and it still blocks the mental domination. At first this confused me but after a bit of thought this makes perfect sense to me. If casting a necromancy/negative energy spell is an inherently evil act, It stands to reason that violating a creatures mind would also be inherently evil. Not quite... Protection from Law, Protection from Chaos, and Protection from Good all similarly block mental domination from all alignments. *shrugs* I'm not the guy who wrote the stuff, just reading it off. |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 3, 2009 21:17:02 GMT -5
At first this confused me but after a bit of thought this makes perfect sense to me. If casting a necromancy/negative energy spell is an inherently evil act, It stands to reason that violating a creatures mind would also be inherently evil. Not quite... Protection from Law, Protection from Chaos, and Protection from Good all similarly block mental domination from all alignments. *shrugs* I'm not the guy who wrote the stuff, just reading it off. Right, again, to be clear..the blocking of mental domination has nothing to do with the mind affecting spells being evil, good, or otherwise, that is just the way the spell works. It's what you do with the mind once you control it that determines whether or not it is ultimately an evil act. I think more can be gleaned on that particular subject by digging into the book of vile darkness. |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 3, 2009 22:08:51 GMT -5
Yep, by the source, it's evil. To quote, uh... you... Casting PfG once won't make you a horrible puppy murdering person immediately, or even casting it once a week, but it's a slippery slope. If you do it regularly, I wouldn't be surprised if a DM hits you with an evil point here and there. With all due respect, I would not turn to a book called "Book of Vile Darkness" for an un-baised opinion of if PfG is evil or not. In my opinion, expecting Protection from good to turn a good person evil is about as sensible as expecting protection from evil to turn an evil person good. Of course, I have a lot of opinionated views regarding the whole "what is evil?" debate. In a gaming world where players are unable to create their own spells, a good-aligned wizard must rely on pfg in leu of their own customized spell to ward their teammates from their own spells. I'm assuming that since the originator of this post was using colorspray in their scenario they are reletively low-level and can't cast the higher level mind-ward spells (which we all know are not frequently used anyway). To condemn the player for warding his teammates against his own spells when he literally has no other choice given the limitations of NWN seems a little much to me. The philosophy in FRC seems to be for people to pick an alignment and then roleplay it, which is backwards from what I was tought, which is to determine how your character would act and pick the an alignment that suits those actions. When you pick an alignment first rather than flesh out your characters personality and then plug in the alignment that fit's it afterwords, you will be end up with a lot of cookie-cutter ideas regarding good and evil. Furthermore, the more you "quantify" or "measure" everything by categorizing it in to schools, spheres, alignments, ect ect, the further-removed from immersion you become. One last thing to consider: Just because a view is included in a "stock" book, doesn't mean it is appropriate in every situation or even fully accurate. I guess I've strayed a little off topic but I'd like to think it's all a little relevant. The book of vile darkness is really pretty 'good' (muahahaha), it isn't really about trying to take anything and make it evil, it's more about clearly defining what the different paths to evil are, subtle and otherwise...along with lots of highly evil things for characters or DMs. As I have researched 'defined evil' in DnD, it is the best source for information. |
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Post by iangallowglas on Nov 3, 2009 23:02:12 GMT -5
If you decide to change protection from evil/good so it no longer stops the fear effect, then the fear effect shouldn't make you cower. Something like "shaken -2 to attack rolls, skill checks, ability checks" would be a better choice. I think that's how dragon fear works in 3.5.
I've also had characters with PFE ongoing, cower in fear of a spectral hound. I assume that's because the hounds aren't evil. I'm sure there have been other occasions, but I can't think off the top of my head what they were caused by.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 4, 2009 1:27:20 GMT -5
Agreed on changing fear effects if mind immunity was removed from those spell.
Even being knocked down or paralyzed would be better ... at least you won't randomly run over nasty traps or go hit three more spawns of enemies and cause a TPK. ;D
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Post by Lokarn on Nov 4, 2009 1:27:34 GMT -5
If you decide to change protection from evil/good so it no longer stops the fear effect, then the fear effect shouldn't make you cower. Something like "shaken -2 to attack rolls, skill checks, ability checks" would be a better choice. I think that's how dragon fear works in 3.5. I've also had characters with PFE ongoing, cower in fear of a spectral hound. I assume that's because the hounds aren't evil. I'm sure there have been other occasions, but I can't think off the top of my head what they were caused by. Yep, those hounds are not evil. |
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Post by soulfien on Nov 4, 2009 15:36:02 GMT -5
The only thing we have to fear is... fear itself! -Franklin D Roosevelt |
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Post by marquardt on Nov 4, 2009 19:14:04 GMT -5
If you decide to change protection from evil/good so it no longer stops the fear effect, then the fear effect shouldn't make you cower. Something like "shaken -2 to attack rolls, skill checks, ability checks" would be a better choice. I think that's how dragon fear works in 3.5. I've also had characters with PFE ongoing, cower in fear of a spectral hound. I assume that's because the hounds aren't evil. I'm sure there have been other occasions, but I can't think off the top of my head what they were caused by. I'd kill to see fear handled this way. Not all fear is debilitating. Perhaps the most important thing to realize is that fear will not turn you in to a moron. It is actually a built in defense mechanism. However, in NWN it is almost an instant death effect because you lose full control of your character and he just bangs in to a wall until he's beaten to death, which is more indicative of the "confusion" spell effect. Perhaps the most frustrating thing is that my character may very well have slain over 1000 mummies and 50 dragons in his life time but still, occasionally, (I'd say about 1 in 20 times =) can't cope with the terror. Now that I've gotten rolling, I have one final comment on fear, and this is more of a personal opinion. It's a radius effect which leads me to believe the fear is related to your proximity to it, further leading me to believe you're afraid not only of it's appearance (indeed you can see it while outside it's "fear" proximity and remain un-feared) but also the quite real possibility that it's going to try to kill you. I would think a seasoned warrior would have more of a chance of mustering the courage to face one of these creatures in melee combat than a frail wizard who has a "built in" bonus to resisting this fear effect by in most cases not needing to be that close to the creature anyway, but in fact, melees have a harder chance of resisting the fear affect despite having much more combat experience. The wizard, after entering the radius of the creature, has to cope with the fact that his ONE line of defense, that is the ability to cast spells, has been compromised by his proximity to melee and a dreadful critter. Let's face the facts, the prevalence of the fear effect seems to be here more to further necessitate the need for a wizard or cleric than anything else. To make a long story short, I think the fear effect is completely hooped and needs to be re-done. However, this is more "stock NWN's" fault than anything, to be completely fair. |
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Post by catmage on Nov 4, 2009 20:03:49 GMT -5
Auras in general are supernatural effects. It doesn't matter how many times you've faced a fear aura creature, or a confusion aura creature, or a creature with a Form of Madness(PnP badness, go Obyriths), because it's not about mastering nervousness, it's about a mystical effect overwhelming your senses.
With dragons, and possibly other creatures with a Frightful Presence, it's an extraordinary effect of the creature, like a rogue's evasion. Dragons have and always will be an apex predator, and intelligent enough to learn how to provoke terror in other beings. It's something as impossible to truly explain in logical terms as Improved Evasion, or any other extraordinary ability.
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Post by Lady Frost on Nov 4, 2009 20:46:25 GMT -5
I think, we should stop having the same discussion in two threads.
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Post by catmage on Nov 4, 2009 21:03:33 GMT -5
I think bananas are an excellent source of healthy tastiness. And, you're probably right.
Also, necromancy and manipulating negative energy are themselves not inherently evil. Animate Dead and certain other necromancy spells are evil. Protection from good is evil aligned because it specifically protects against the forces of good, which is why protection from evil is a good aligned spell, protection from law is chaos aligned, and protection from chaos is a Law aligned spell. There is no actual "protection from neutral", and I've always felt that, in regards to that sort of spell, it only matters for the purpose of aligned clerics being barred from certain spells. A good aligned caster may not cast it on principle, but I can't see casting protection from good as being a slippery slope, unless you are using it in an attempt to gain an unfair advantage in a fight against another good aligned being.
But since we permit evil aligned clerics to cast protection from evil, I don't see why we should penalize or stigmatize wizards of good alignment trying to protect their allies from their own effects, unless they also intend to use it to prevent those friends from being hindered when they attempt to assassinate Khelben or Caladnei.
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Post by marquardt on Nov 4, 2009 22:27:48 GMT -5
Auras in general are supernatural effects. It doesn't matter how many times you've faced a fear aura creature, or a confusion aura creature, or a creature with a Form of Madness(PnP badness, go Obyriths), because it's not about mastering nervousness, it's about a mystical effect overwhelming your senses. I'll recount Wulfgar's resistance to mind-affection as a result of his captivity by a demon Errtu, which is illustrated when he bluffs being held by a spell from a shaman in one of the novels. The novel does what none of us seem willing to do, that is, decide for ourselves how things should work from time to time. Not to mention the many many instances where adventurers of a certain level are immune to the fear affects of critters in the MM amongst other sources, which implies the ability to become seasoned against certain "fear" effects. The fact that fiercesome creatures are usually the ones to have the fear radius suggests that you're afraid of them because they're feirce, not because they arbitrarily have a magic fear radius. Furthermore, if it's some "magical fear radius"... why do we roll a will save at all? As I mentioned earlier, the more we look to the "facts" and "science" on a fantasy world rather than using our own intuition and figuring it out on our own, perticularly on things like this which ought to be open to interpretation, the more we will be liable to (needlessly) encounter posts and situations like the one that started this thread, where people approach roleplay scenarios not as though they were IN the action, but as though they were outside of their char, looking down on it. If your char has the means to ward his friends from his own spells, you should ask yourself if he would, not "is this spell evil and will I get evil points for it?". If the spell required the blood of the innocent or something like that, it would be a different story, but as it stands, it does not. |
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