Where it's never evil to kill orks and goblins

[RadiantPhoenix]

I'm curious, though, does Protection From Evil work against, say, Bernie Madoff, or is it simply for the powers of the lower planes, and those that align themselves with them?

This spell wards a creature from attacks by evil creatures, from mental control, and from summoned creatures. It creates a magical barrier around the subject at a distance of 1 foot. The barrier moves with the subject and has three major effects.

First, the subject gains a +2 deflection bonus to AC and a +2 resistance bonus on saves. Both these bonuses apply against attacks made or effects created by evil creatures.

Second, the barrier blocks any attempt to possess the warded creature (by a magic jar attack, for example) or to exercise mental control over the creature (including enchantment (charm) effects and enchantment (compulsion) effects that grant the caster ongoing control over the subject, such as dominate person). The protection does not prevent such effects from targeting the protected creature, but it suppresses the effect for the duration of the protection from evil effect. If the protection from evil effect ends before the effect granting mental control does, the would-be controller would then be able to mentally command the controlled creature. Likewise, the barrier keeps out a possessing life force but does not expel one if it is in place before the spell is cast. This second effect works regardless of alignment.

Third, the spell prevents bodily contact by summoned creatures. This causes the natural weapon attacks of such creatures to fail and the creatures to recoil if such attacks require touching the warded creature. Good summoned creatures are immune to this effect. The protection against contact by summoned creatures ends if the warded creature makes an attack against or tries to force the barrier against the blocked creature. Spell resistance can allow a creature to overcome this protection and touch the warded creature.

Arcane Material Component: A little powdered silver with which you trace a 3-foot -diameter circle on the floor (or ground) around the creature to be warded.

So there are three parts:

1. +2 Defense
2. Protection from mind control
3. Protection from summoned creatures

Part 2 explicitly doesn't care about alignment, so it does work, and Bernie Madoff isn't a summoned creature, so part 3 doesn't work.

That leaves us with part 1, and that requires you to have an alignment debate.

[rasmuswagner]

Whoops, I suppose I should have accounted for spells like Detect Evil.

I'm curious, though, does Protection From Evil work against, say, Bernie Madoff, or is it simply for the powers of the lower planes, and those that align themselves with them?

Well, it's going to give you a boost to your saves and AC versus his attacks, but it won't do anything for your Sense Motive roll...

[Cyberzombie]

Whoops, I suppose I should have accounted for spells like Detect Evil.

I'm curious, though, does Protection From Evil work against, say, Bernie Madoff, or is it simply for the powers of the lower planes, and those that align themselves with them?

I've always played it as any creature with an evil alignment. I've seen people argue in 3E that it only applies to things with the [evil] descriptor, but I'm not aware of anything that supports that particular interpretation. Prior to 3E, the only real definition for evil creatures was things with evil alignment, so it'd work on evil humans as well as fiends.

[hyzmarca]

DnD outsiders are literally made of their alignment, Archons are made of pure law-goodium, demons are pure chaos-evilite. Thus, killing a demon reduces the total amount of evil in the multiverse.

Of course tiefling and aasimar are a diferent story, being part mortal, and thus having more free will to choose their own path ect.

Are they're like fossil fuels that trap evil in a convenient form and burning them increases the total amount of evil in the atmosphere.

A new direction? Okay. I really enjoy portraying fiends ranging from "actually pretty chill" to "punchclock dickishness, but horrified at mortals who get up to seriously Bad Stuff."

But I've never really gotten into Abyss or Baator adventures, and I'd love to run the kinds of low-level adventures hyzmarca alluded to. Any advice?

Tome of Fiends has some.

My personal preference is to go with big cities and small villages. Places where little guys can fall through the cracks.

Take Dis, for example. It's a planar metropolis with filled with multi-kilometer-tall iron skyscrapers. It stretches hundreds of kilometers in every direction. It's huge. And it's got powerful movers and shakers, but it's also got a lot of little guys just trying to make ends meet. It's got native devils, damed souls, and plane-hopping immigrants. It's got Wall Street. It's got Little Pharagos. Central Park and Kozakuratown. Cosmopolitan. Homeless. Poor. Wretched huddled masses yearning to breath free. Wealthy soul-traders and starving artists. Think a slightly less evil New York. The sheer size and diversity means that you can stay under the radar and avoid attracting the attention of the high level players until you can play in their leagues.

There's also the tiny villages in bumfuck nowhere to consider. The planes are infinite, but the population isn't You can have a tiny villiage far enough away from everything important that no one powerful cares about it.

One of my ideas was something that I called the New Sheriffs in Town. The basic idea is that there's this small village that got dropped in Baator by a careless wizard and it's been chugging along fine (well struggling to eek out a meager existence in a harsh wasteland) because it's not close enough to anything for the devils to bother with. Except that it's become an attraction for low-level fiendish outlaws and escaped slaves. The Devils are sticklers for rules and order, but they really don't have time to deal with it, so they hire the PCs to go there and lay down the law. Thus the campaign has that western feel. And some saddles might blaze.

Another idea I had was called Repo Men, in which the PCs are from said small town and get a job collecting the souls of infernal debtors who refuse to pay the piper (by killing them). Which can be any level, really. But that's not a pure infernal game. It can take the PCs anywhere in the multiverse to meet interesting people and kill them.

I also had this idea where the PCs are Lawful Good types who get dumped in a similar small town in the Abyss by a demonic ritual (the original setup for the idea was that one of their childhood friends made a deal with Pazuzu to resurrect her dead child and it ended up corrupting a whole village and when they investigate the strange happenings someone summons Pazuzu who dumps them there).
The general idea was to have a situation where Paladins and general LG characters are stuck out of their element, in the middle of the Abyss, with zero support, and have to reexamine their priorities and find a compromise that their morality can stand in order to survive.

That particular village is led by a Succubus "legitimate businesswoman" in a three-piece suit and a fedora. The entire area would have a 1920s feel and be situated near a portal used to run contraband into the nastier parts of the Abyss. The Succubus Gangster would potentially be an ally or an antagonist, depending on the attitudes and actions of the PCs. She'd ideally have enough moral ambiguity to fill either role. Someone who has a strong sense of possessiveness towards "her people", a desire to protect them and see them prosper, while at the same time somewhat selfish, myopic, and ruthless as fuck. Someone who does good things for the locals while at the same time running drugs to other demons and keeping the place comfortably corrupt.

[Chamomile]

I actually have a campaign idea that's been bumping around in my head that I've been calling "Kafkaesque," which is about navigating the Baatorian bureaucracy, the very basic concept of which is the Tome of Fiends thing where you go into the DMV to get your driver's license renewed, and the form you have to fill out is guarded by rabid wolves. The party would be a bunch of lobbyists or campaign managers or something for some political party or another (probably the details are up to them to decide, since it's more fun that way), and they spend their time navigating the bureaucracy and getting all the paperwork filled out in triplicate for the construction of new suburbs, and the restoration of a road slowly falling into ruin, and investing government funds into technology that will extract more power from the souls of the damned, and so on and so forth.

One idea I had was random encounter forms. Certain parts of the bureaucracy would have to be navigated over and over again, like adding new destinations to your travel permit. Each time the party receives a copy of a form for adding different destinations to your travel permit, and depending on how they fill it out they get sent to one of various offices with various deathtraps guarding it. Early on it would be a genuinely random encounter, because the information on the form has no correlation to the kind of encounter faced, but as the party gets more familiar with the forms, they can match up certain encounters with certain parts of the form. For example, filling in your plane-of-origin as "Prime Material" rather than "Plane of Fire" gets you sent to a combat encounter instead of a homicidal riddlemaster...Or at least you think it does, but the bizarre mechanisms of the bureaucracy mean that it might not because last time it was a weekday but now it's a weekend, or because a policy has been updated, or because you used orc blood instead of elf when filling out the form and it turns out that makes a difference.

But nine times out of ten, filling out the form the same way gets you the same encounter, so when the party needs to fill out a form they've filled out before, they're faced with a choice: Fill it out the same way and get the same (or at the very least, a similar) encounter that they can prepare for, or fill it out differently in the hopes of finding an easier encounter. And of course a Profession (Bureaucrat) roll would provide some sort of benefit, although I'm not sure if it should be limited to just informing you what a certain form configuration leads to, or what configuration is required to get a specific encounter, or just provide a list of potential encounters and let the player pick one. Probably all three depending on the result.

I haven't fleshed it out much, but I'm now imagining the idea of the bureaucracy as a hub between different jobs with different flavors. So you might have a job about the Blood Wars, and another about a Baatorian western, and a third be an investigative/legal drama over a damned soul who's appealing his case claiming that he's totally Evil enough to qualify for the fast track to petitioner status, and a fourth be a crime drama about bringing down a mafia boss supported by corrupt authorities, and a fifth about completing construction of a suburb that was originally intended for incoming slavers and assassins-for-hire but construction halted fifteen years ago and the site has now fallen into ruin and must be restored and completed before the next batch of middle-class Evil souls arrives and has no place to stay. And in between each one you have to navigate the bureaucracy to get your travel permits updated for the new location, your work permits updated for the new job, maybe get your citizenship renewed, get a health certificate to prove you aren't carrying mummy rot, basically every paper from Papers, Please can be its own subquest.

[ishy]

DnD outsiders are literally made of their alignment, Archons are made of pure law-goodium, demons are pure chaos-evilite. Thus, killing a demon reduces the total amount of evil in the multiverse.

Of course tiefling and aasimar are a diferent story, being part mortal, and thus having more free will to choose their own path ect.

So killing a Lawful Good paladin succubus would decrease the total amount of evil?

[Wiseman]

Really, an outsider with a changed alignment should have it's subtype reflect that, but I don't know how that would affect the game.

[ishy]

Whether it should or not, in 3.5 a LG succubus paladin still has the evil subtype.

[Dean]

One thing I wanted to point out was that Good and Evil aren't as objective in D&D as people act like they are. Sure you can point a "Detect Evil" at someone and get a Good or Evil rating but that information is coming from somewhere. Pelor sent you that Detect Evil spell and it is made to transmit his preferences about the world and how you should act in it. The information is still coming from someone and even though Pelor is impressive he isn't an objective source of information. Of course the ruling power gods are going to set themselves and their followers up to ping as "Good" and their enemies to "Kill on sight".

[ishy]

One thing I wanted to point out was that Good and Evil aren't as objective in D&D as people act like they are. Sure you can point a "Detect Evil" at someone and get a Good or Evil rating but that information is coming from somewhere. Pelor sent you that Detect Evil spell and it is made to transmit his preferences about the world and how you should act in it. The information is still coming from someone and even though Pelor is impressive he isn't an objective source of information. Of course the ruling power gods are going to set themselves and their followers up to ping as "Good" and their enemies to "Kill on sight".

IIRC the god don't sent you spells, they are just a funnel.

And if Good and Evil are not objective in 3.5, how does a Holy weapon work?

[Sakuya Izayoi]

One thing I wanted to point out was that Good and Evil aren't as objective in D&D as people act like they are. Sure you can point a "Detect Evil" at someone and get a Good or Evil rating but that information is coming from somewhere. Pelor sent you that Detect Evil spell and it is made to transmit his preferences about the world and how you should act in it. The information is still coming from someone and even though Pelor is impressive he isn't an objective source of information. Of course the ruling power gods are going to set themselves and their followers up to ping as "Good" and their enemies to "Kill on sight".

IIRC the god don't sent you spells, they are just a funnel.

And if Good and Evil are not objective in 3.5, how does a Holy weapon work?

Well, I can't describe in terms of physics how a holy weapon works, but here is the lens for which I frame them: a wielder of a Holy weapon has transfigured themselves into what Kierkegaard calls a Knight of Infinite Resignation: he accepts Pelor's truth, that demonspawn and greenskin and their ilk are anathema to the world, a pox to be swept a way in a cleansing fire. Even when confronted with paradoxial evidence, such as infants in the Cave of Chaos with the innocence of youth on their faces, the Knight of Infinite Resignation's heart holds no doubt. It is through this that the weapon gains power, and is able to burn with a white fire, perhaps channeled through whatever latent enchantment the blade holds.

[RadiantPhoenix]

Protection from Evil is a Wizard spell (in addition to cleric, etc).

If it could (in world) be made Protection from Everyone, Wizards would presumably do that.

[ishy]

Well, I can't describe in terms of physics how a holy weapon works, but here is the lens for which I frame them: a wielder of a Holy weapon has transfigured themselves into what Kierkegaard calls a Knight of Infinite Resignation: he accepts Pelor's truth, that demonspawn and greenskin and their ilk are anathema to the world, a pox to be swept a way in a cleansing fire. Even when confronted with paradoxial evidence, such as infants in the Cave of Chaos with the innocence of youth on their faces, the Knight of Infinite Resignation's heart holds no doubt. It is through this that the weapon gains power, and is able to burn with a white fire, perhaps channeled through whatever latent enchantment the blade holds.

So why does an evil human who picks up the weapon gain a negative level and extra damage while fighting other evil humans?

[Sakuya Izayoi]

Well, I can't describe in terms of physics how a holy weapon works, but here is the lens for which I frame them: a wielder of a Holy weapon has transfigured themselves into what Kierkegaard calls a Knight of Infinite Resignation: he accepts Pelor's truth, that demonspawn and greenskin and their ilk are anathema to the world, a pox to be swept a way in a cleansing fire. Even when confronted with paradoxial evidence, such as infants in the Cave of Chaos with the innocence of youth on their faces, the Knight of Infinite Resignation's heart holds no doubt. It is through this that the weapon gains power, and is able to burn with a white fire, perhaps channeled through whatever latent enchantment the blade holds.

So why does an evil human who picks up the weapon gain a negative level and extra damage while fighting other evil humans?

T
That being the end result of said interaction may be subject to oberoni.

[Dean]

Protection From Everyone certainly could be a spell the D&D gods could design but why would they? Why arm people with defenses against themselves? If the American government could design bulletproof vests that onl worked for Americans dont you think they would? Giving Clerics protection spells that still allow angels to possess them if they want is just a smart plan.
I dont understand why Holy Weapons couldn't function under the assumptions I stated. If magic was created to give consistent but ultimately subjective judgments why couldn't an item be granted the power to follow those subjective determinations.

[DSMatticus]

Evil and good are physical things in D&D. You can go places where everything is made out of evilons and places where everything is made out of goodons. Being an evil douche either attracts or generates evilons, and the universe has some definition of evil douche that it's operating on fuck your subjectivity. Similarly, being a nice dude either attracts or generates goodons, and the universe has some definition of nice dude that it's operating on fuck your subjectivity. That is about the most sense you can make out of the D&D good/evil alignment system.

The succubi nun who rescues and shelters orphans detects as evil because she is made out of evilons, and nothing she ever does will change that. This works for the most part because most things made out of evilons are also evil douches, but when you cast detect evil on an outsider with the evil subtype all you are really doing is confirming that they are an outsider with the evil subtype and then letting statistics carry you the rest of the way to stabbing them in the face. The reverse is true for outsiders with the good subtype, who can do whatever the fuck they want and always have detect good's stamp of approval.

@dean: protection from evil is also a wizard spell. Wizards do not get their spells from deities.

[Cyberzombie]

The succubi nun who rescues and shelters orphans detects as evil because she is made out of evilons, and nothing she ever does will change that. This works for the most part because most things made out of evilons are also evil douches, but when you cast detect evil on an outsider with the evil subtype all you are really doing is confirming that they are an outsider with the evil subtype and then letting statistics carry you the rest of the way to stabbing them in the face. The reverse is true for outsiders with the good subtype, who can do whatever the fuck they want and always have detect good's stamp of approval.

In that case, I would say that she should go from being a succubi to some other kind of outsider, reflecting her new alignment. The MM talks about the first Erinyes being fallen angels, and keep in mind that Erinyes are devils and not angels. I would assume a risen succubus would follow similar rules, becoming some kind of new outsider type.

Of course, if you're running a black and white game, you don't want to ever have good demons, since that ruins that whole concept that evil creatures are irredeemable.

[Wiseman]

@dean: protection from evil is also a wizard spell. Wizards do not get their spells from deities.

Depends on the setting. For some reason dragonlance wizards get their spells from the gods of magic.

[ishy]

[quote="Cyberzomie]
In that case, I would say that she should go from being a succubi to some other kind of outsider, reflecting her new alignment. The MM talks aibout the first Erinyes being fallen angels, and keep in mind that Erinyes are devils and not angels. I would assume a risen succubus would follow similar rules, becoming some kind of new outsider type.

Of course, if you're running a black and white game, you don't want to ever have good demons, since that ruins that whole concept that evil creatures are irredeemable.[/quote]You assume wrong. In 3.5 you'd get a good succubus who would still get negative levels from wielding holy weapons, because of her evil subtype .

[hyzmarca]

Jesus said and Jesus wept.
Jesus heard and Jesus walked over.
I don't wanna talk about Jesus.
Cos as the big man teaches us, there's two sides to every story.
Not one but two. A story is not one-sided.
A story has duality. There's two sides to every story.
Which brings to mind the phrase "necessary evil".
I know many of you hear that phrase and say,
"That don't even make no sense to me.
"Can't be no such thing as necessary - how's evil necessary?
"That don't match. That's plaids and stripes, evil and necessary."
You see, because without bad, there is no good.
Without light, there is no dark, you need both these things.
You hear what I'm saying?
If every day is a sunny day, well, then, what's a sunny day?
Well, the bottom line, what I'm trying to tell you tonight,
is that evil...eeeevil... is necessary.
Evil is necessary, thereby, if it's necessary, evil...
...must be good.
Evil is good.
That's what I think. Evil must be good, must be good.
Let me hear y'all say it...
- Evil is good.-
Evil is good. Take Brother Brown, one of our strongest deacons, pillar of stability.
Brother Brown was on Bushwick Avenue last night with a two-dollar whore.
Now, that's evil.
When you tell your wife, "I'm going to see Mama," then you go get you a two-dollar ho, that's evil.
But Brother Brown had a good time with that two-dollar ho. You can push a two-dollar ho and she don't have no limits!
Evil and good walk hand in hand.

[Cyberzombie]

[quote="Cyberzomie]
In that case, I would say that she should go from being a succubi to some other kind of outsider, reflecting her new alignment. The MM talks aibout the first Erinyes being fallen angels, and keep in mind that Erinyes are devils and not angels. I would assume a risen succubus would follow similar rules, becoming some kind of new outsider type.

Of course, if you're running a black and white game, you don't want to ever have good demons, since that ruins that whole concept that evil creatures are irredeemable.

You assume wrong. In 3.5 you'd get a good succubus who would still get negative levels from wielding holy weapons, because of her evil subtype .[/quote]

The alignment of a succubus is "Always Chaotic Evil."

Now there may well be some edge case, like helms of opposite alignment where you can end up with a good succubus that still has the [evil] tag, but if the change is voluntary, it seems based on the Erinyes that you discard your prior subtype and adopt a new one based on your new alignment. The risen succubus would no longer be a demon (and thus no longer [evil]) the same as how an Erinyes is no longer an angel (and thus no longer [good]).

That is consistent with the fact that outsiders are literally made of whatever their plane is. Once you start being a good succubus, you have to shed your body for some other form that isn't made of Chaotic Evil. I'm not aware of any examples where you've got a voluntarily redeemed demon that keeps the demon subtype.

[hyzmarca]

[quote="Cyberzomie]
In that case, I would say that she should go from being a succubi to some other kind of outsider, reflecting her new alignment. The MM talks aibout the first Erinyes being fallen angels, and keep in mind that Erinyes are devils and not angels. I would assume a risen succubus would follow similar rules, becoming some kind of new outsider type.

Of course, if you're running a black and white game, you don't want to ever have good demons, since that ruins that whole concept that evil creatures are irredeemable.

You assume wrong. In 3.5 you'd get a good succubus who would still get negative levels from wielding holy weapons, because of her evil subtype .

The alignment of a succubus is "Always Chaotic Evil."

Now there may well be some edge case, like helms of opposite alignment where you can end up with a good succubus that still has the [evil] tag, but if the change is voluntary, it seems based on the Erinyes that you discard your prior subtype and adopt a new one based on your new alignment. The risen succubus would no longer be a demon (and thus no longer [evil]) the same as how an Erinyes is no longer an angel (and thus no longer [good]).

That is consistent with the fact that outsiders are literally made of whatever their plane is. Once you start being a good succubus, you have to shed your body for some other form that isn't made of Chaotic Evil. I'm not aware of any examples where you've got a voluntarily redeemed demon that keeps the demon subtype.[/quote]

Fall-from-Grace

A Succubus who was sold by her mother as a slave in Baator, eventually won her freedom, and went to Sigil where she opened the Brothel for Slaking Intellectual Lusts, about the only place in the planes where you can pay to play chess with a medusa. She's Lawful Neutral. Still a Demon. She's still made from raw Chaos and Evil. But she's Lawful Neutral.

[OgreBattle]

A Succubus who was sold by her mother as a slave in Baator, eventually won her freedom, and went to Sigil where she opened the Brothl for Slaking Intellectual Lusts

[DSMatticus]

@Cyberzombie: that doesn't happen. There are no rules or notable examples for spontaneously transforming because you're too nice for leathery bat wings. The only mentions of anything like that are long forgotten origin myths. Even in the "fallen angel" origin Asmodeus gets in some splats, he doesn't transform into a devil through committing evil deeds - he transforms into a devil through over-exposure to the abyssal creatures he is charged with fighting. I.e., he gets a nasty case of evil radiation poisoning from all those evilon-rich abyssals he's murdering, and then Celestia kicks him out for his newly acquired evil subtype (which, again, he did not acquire through evil actions, but rather through exposure to other creatures with the evil subtype).

Monster manual entries love to use their "always," because they are trying to create a black and white world where you don't have to worry about whether or not the demon you're stabbing deserves stabbing, but there actually are examples of creatures in D&D material with an alignment subtype that don't behave as per their subtype. Planescape: Torment has already been mentioned, because it has a succubus who is neither evil nor chaotic, but it also has Trias, a deceitful uber-dick deva who retains his aura of good. Not exactly the most legitimate source, but the trope of "saintly asshole" is common enough that I'm sure it occurs in some more standard adventure paths somewhere.

And there actually are ways to change a creature's alignment and nothing special happens when you do that to someone with an alignment subtype. Indeed, alignment subtypes very explicitly do not give a fuck about their holder's actual alignment: "Most creatures that have this subtype also have evil alignments; however, if their alignments change, they still retain the subtype. Any effect that depends on alignment affects a creature with this subtype as if the creature has an evil alignment, no matter what its alignment actually is."

[RadiantPhoenix]

Protection From Everyone certainly could be a spell the D&D gods could design but why would they? Why arm people with defenses against themselves? If the American government could design bulletproof vests that onl worked for Americans dont you think they would? Giving Clerics protection spells that still allow angels to possess them if they want is just a smart plan.

Two huge problems with that argument:

• I said Wizards, not Clerics. (DSM mentioned this)
• Protection from Evil does stop Angels from possessing you.