OSSR: Book of Exalted Deeds

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Sat Feb 16, 2013 10:53 pm

Unless there's a large chunk that hasn't been quoted, the wording would seem to only install two restrictions:

1. The Apostle of Peace cannot attack or debuff living targets unless the party is using nonlethal damage in the fight. There seems to be no mention whatsoever of a restriction on buffing people.
2. Once someone drops unconscious or is otherwise taken out of the fight entirely, you have to stop stabbing them. There's no requirement that you stabilize people who got knocked into the negatives, and they weren't helpless before they dropped into the negatives.

These are both potentially disruptive, #1 locks the player into being a buff/heal bot and #2 seriously cuts into the viability of hold person and friends as well as presenting you with a serious complication if the BBEG miraculously manages to recover from incapacitation without receiving outside aid, but it doesn't look like anything so crazy as no one in the party being allowed to kill people ever. If you particularly need to ensure someone dies, you can always call on the rules-lawyering spirit of Ancient Rome and bury them alive so they starve to death, although that does somewhat violate the spirit of the thing.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sat Feb 16, 2013 11:26 pm

hyzmarca wrote:It does specific that you can't leave them to be killed by your allies. It says nothing about leaving them to be killed by enemies or neutral third parties. So it's perfectly reasonable to just slather them with honey and ring the dinner bell, knowing that the woods are full of bears. You can even stand there and watch the bears eat him without penalty, because the bears aren't you're allies. They're merely animals doing what comes naturally to them.

Likewise, you could probably throw him in a river and let him drown, or push him off a high cliff, or into a volcano. In those cases, the death is caused by environmental damage, and the environment isn't your ally, either (unless it's a sentient environment that's explicitly your ally, of course). It would violate the spirit of the vows, I'm sure, but it doesn't seem to violate the letter of them.

Yes, technically, the Vow of Peace character could deliberately go about murdering as many people as they can by slightly indirect means.

But if you think the actual goal of a character who takes Vow of Peace is to murder as many people as possible, then yes, the Vow of Peace character is not much of a detriment to the party. But since it goddam isn't the goal of any character who takes Vow of Peace, the character will object and fight just as hard to prevent you from feeding Demons to bears as they will to you murdering them.

Torko · Post by **Torko** » Sat Feb 16, 2013 11:32 pm

I knew a guy who wanted to play an apostle of peace. He started by buying 18 CHA as a monk. Fortunately he was killed when the party's other powerhouse (CW samurai) provoked a nonthreatening stone giant into combat at level 2.

ishy · Post by **ishy** » Sat Feb 16, 2013 11:36 pm

If you're a rules lawyer, wouldn't a wand of cure light wounds + every other pc readies an attack, work as well?

Though if you did take that feat and the class, you probably don't want to play in that way. I don't think most DMs would allow it either (though maybe I just had different DMs than most).

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Sat Feb 16, 2013 11:43 pm

Kaelik wrote:
hyzmarca wrote:It does specific that you can't leave them to be killed by your allies. It says nothing about leaving them to be killed by enemies or neutral third parties. So it's perfectly reasonable to just slather them with honey and ring the dinner bell, knowing that the woods are full of bears. You can even stand there and watch the bears eat him without penalty, because the bears aren't you're allies. They're merely animals doing what comes naturally to them.

Likewise, you could probably throw him in a river and let him drown, or push him off a high cliff, or into a volcano. In those cases, the death is caused by environmental damage, and the environment isn't your ally, either (unless it's a sentient environment that's explicitly your ally, of course). It would violate the spirit of the vows, I'm sure, but it doesn't seem to violate the letter of them.
Yes, technically, the Vow of Peace character could deliberately go about murdering as many people as they can by slightly indirect means.

But if you think the actual goal of a character who takes Vow of Peace is to murder as many people as possible, then yes, the Vow of Peace character is not much of a detriment to the party. But since it goddam isn't the goal of any character who takes Vow of Peace, the character will object and fight just as hard to prevent you from feeding Demons to bears as they will to you murdering them.

Personally, I think it makes for a great Evil Monk or priest character. You could totally make a Cardinal Borgia style ruthless Machiavellian power-monger Apostle of Peace who uses various loopholes to indulge his every twisted desire without actually breaking his vows or doing anything Evil.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Sun Feb 17, 2013 12:13 am

+1

That would be hilarious

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun Feb 17, 2013 12:24 am

This reminds me of an idea I had recently.

I've actually been thinking lately that there's actually a way for evil being a quick path to power is represented in the rules.

Plain and simply, it's system mastery and ignoring the spirit of the rules. Evil characters are typically going to be more prone to and capable of the pragmatism and mental gymnastics that a lot of our min maxing uses than good characters will be. It's dumb, and it's somewhat MTP/metagame-y, but it works to an extent. This actually means that a wizard who uses Call Faithful Servants, Dretch Horde, Lemure Horde and Animate Dead to amass a giant army of mooks actually is more likely to be evil, simply because a good wizard would really not likely do that. They would avoid such non-sensical, rules lawyery stuff.

It's akin to how the Joker's insanity, in one interpretation I've seen, actually makes him the most sane person in DC. He believes (and happens to be correct) that everyone around him is merely a figment of someone's imagination, and that whatever he does doesn't actually matter, because he's not mutilating/murdering/raping real people, but paper dolls. In-universe, this makes him terrifyingly insane, but in actual fact, it is literally the truth. An evil character could have a similar mindset, and it would allow them to amass a large amount of power, very quickly, compared to good character who would generally not be able to think in that way.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sun Feb 17, 2013 12:33 am

hyzmarca wrote:Personally, I think it makes for a great Evil Monk or priest character. You could totally make a Cardinal Borgia style ruthless Machiavellian power-monger Apostle of Peace who uses various loopholes to indulge his every twisted desire without actually breaking his vows or doing anything Evil.

Except that the pre-reqs to the feat that you have to keep meeting include being Exalted Good, and Exalted, despite being completely incomprehensible, is very clear about it not being a ruthless Machiavellian power monger.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun Feb 17, 2013 12:44 am

Strictly speaking, ruthlessly accumulating political power isn't actually mutually exclusive to any of the headings in pages 5-8. It means you've got a few idiosyncracies, like donating tons of money to good causes (where as most machiavellian characters horde their money like they horde their power), redeeming villains by teaching them to be like you, and not completely destroying political rivals if they concede, but I think it could work. I'd have to read the section verbatim, but on first principles, I think it's a workable idea.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Sun Feb 17, 2013 2:15 am

hyzmarca wrote: Personally, I think it makes for a great Evil Monk or priest character. You could totally make a Cardinal Borgia style ruthless Machiavellian power-monger Apostle of Peace who uses various loopholes to indulge his every twisted desire without actually breaking his vows or doing anything Evil.

Using the power of holy vows for evil is totally appropriate in Kungfu or Indian settings. Most of the major demon battles in Hindu stories involve a demon who achieved a powerful vow.

like that time Shiva gave this demon a boon for his asceticism, so the demon asked for the power to "disintegrate anyone by touching their forehead" and Shiva goes "lol sure what can go wrong" and then the demon immediately tries it on Shiva, because he wants Vishnu's hot wife, so Vishnu runs away. Vishnu solves this problem by transforming into a sexy girl, using her sexiness to get the demon in a dance contest, and getting him to accidentally touch his own head when he tries to mirror girl-Vishnu's dance. Hindu stories read like Ranma 1/2

Eliminate the specifically Christian things about this book and it would be more flexible.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Sun Feb 17, 2013 3:56 am

Prak_Anima wrote:Strictly speaking, ruthlessly accumulating political power isn't actually mutually exclusive to any of the headings in pages 5-8. It means you've got a few idiosyncracies, like donating tons of money to good causes (where as most machiavellian characters horde their money like they horde their power), redeeming villains by teaching them to be like you, and not completely destroying political rivals if they concede, but I think it could work. I'd have to read the section verbatim, but on first principles, I think it's a workable idea.

You could probably satisfy Vow of Poverty's giving requirements by making donations to charities you control, in effect donating it to yourself. Nothing prevents you from being the leader of the organization that gets all your loot, just so long as you have minions use it instead of using it personally.

Xaos · Post by **Xaos** » Wed Jun 12, 2013 9:14 am

CapnTthePirateG wrote:Yeah, I want to know who thought these were a good idea.

Be evil: less furries.

Less furries....and more insect lovers.

icyshadowlord · Post by **icyshadowlord** » Wed Jun 12, 2013 10:56 am

So, how should redemption be done in the first place?

Should I just kill all the Evil guys I face and save myself the trouble?

Also, kinda funny how the reason for poison being Evil was that Evil dudes said it was.

Yes, I consider the rich bastards who oppress the poor to be Evil, or the closest thing to it IRL.

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Wed Jun 12, 2013 1:13 pm

icyshadowlord wrote:So, how should redemption be done in the first place?

It's kind of hard with the whole Great Wheel cosmology. Typically, redemption in popular culture involves a bad person becoming good. Now, you can do that sort of thing in the Great Wheel setup, if you allow people to go to their new afterlife if they behave properly. The problem is, it cuts both ways. So, you can have a story where an evil villain switches teams and becomes a good guy, but on the flip side, you can have stories where the paladin has his fall and is rewarded by getting to torture people in Baator for eternity.

People like fallen paladin stories, but they don't like to see the paladin rewarded. So, you either need to ditch the Great Wheel, ditch redemption, or be cool with any form of behavior being rewarded in some version of the afterlife.

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Wed Jun 12, 2013 1:31 pm

Here's a possible thumbnail:
Gods like having followers. They reward them after death. Thing is, even though the reward is more puissance /after death/, souls are too fragile to handle extra power all at once. So gods actually bolster your soul well ahead of time (in real time, as you do deeds in their name, for all practical purposes). That means that a longtime paragon of evil is going to be powerful in the afterlife /no matter what he does next/.
The problem is, Your soul is drawn to whichever god poured the most improvement into it. That leaves basically two redemption methods: atonement, where you spend a long time slowly red educating yourself, and blaze of glory, where you get massively empowered too quickly, and subsequently die (basically suited for situations like Darth Vader).

icyshadowlord · Post by **icyshadowlord** » Wed Jun 12, 2013 1:37 pm

OgreBattle wrote:
hyzmarca wrote: Personally, I think it makes for a great Evil Monk or priest character. You could totally make a Cardinal Borgia style ruthless Machiavellian power-monger Apostle of Peace who uses various loopholes to indulge his every twisted desire without actually breaking his vows or doing anything Evil.
Using the power of holy vows for evil is totally appropriate in Kungfu or Indian settings. Most of the major demon battles in Hindu stories involve a demon who achieved a powerful vow.

Like that time Shiva gave this demon a boon for his asceticism, so the demon asked for the power to "disintegrate anyone by touching their forehead" and Shiva goes "lol sure what can go wrong" and then the demon immediately tries it on Shiva, because he wants Vishnu's hot wife, so Vishnu runs away. Vishnu solves this problem by transforming into a sexy girl, using her sexiness to get the demon in a dance contest, and getting him to accidentally touch his own head when he tries to mirror girl-Vishnu's dance. Hindu stories read like Ranma 1/2

Eliminate the specifically Christian things about this book and it would be more flexible.

...I'll have to keep that Hindu story in mind for my own campaign world.

Also, the BoED in general just spelled as gibberish to me, since I'm jewish.

Well, that and every other reason why it made no bloody sense, as others have pointed out.

Edit: Seems redemption is harder to pull off sensibly than I expected. Then again, I'm usually too cynical to try it, knowing that the DM will usually make the target backstab me at a bad time for being so naive and stupid.