Should Turn Undead destroy your own skeletons (for good clerics)?

[Mike1072]

My friend is developing a card game where everyone plays as a race (e.g. faeries, goblins, wraiths, trolls). Each race belongs to a group and each group has a size category.

 

For whatever reason, the common races are defined to be smaller than the undead races. Skeletons are canonically larger than humans.

[Fiann of the Silver Hand]

Raising skeletons as automatically evil is a debate this forum is not equipped to debate, but I'll throw my vote in to "no spells restricted based on arbitrary morality".

[subtledoctor]

Yeah, but "Lathander hates undead and would never allow his priests to associate with it use undead" is not just arbitrary morality. It's in-game lore. It's canon.

[Fiann of the Silver Hand]

Yeah, but "Lathander hates undead and would never allow his priests to associate with it use undead" is not just arbitrary morality. It's in-game lore. It's canon.

Can it be called canon if Bioware had multiple opportunities to patch it out, yet didn't? That's hardly "in-game lore". It's just another instance of shit consistency.

 

I don't have a dog in this fight, but no one's really making a compelling argument one way or the other. Best just to say "this is what I want" and go with that.

[toxin]

This is what I want ©

summon undead, not destroying them when I turn

[cipher]

lol that's a proper argument as any Fiann

 

I would go with summon undead (no restriction based on alignment really) and not turning your own summons I think was a subject that was settled long ago tbh. Don't know how it came up again.

 

My rationale is that Baldur's Gate does not promote role playing in any actual degree. So give player the choice and it's up to them to decide if they'll have a lawful good Lathandrian leading an undead army or perish the very thought of such an evil act.

 

As a case in point I'd like to add that having druids summoning animals, that they supposedly protect and respect, to become meat shields is entirely against their ethos. So, as nice as the new animal summons are (actually I'm not thrilled ), I never have them memorised. I only allow elemental summoning when it is available.

See? Player choice

[subtledoctor]

 

Yeah, but "Lathander hates undead and would never allow his priests to associate with it use undead" is not just arbitrary morality. It's in-game lore. It's canon.

Can it be called canon if Bioware had multiple opportunities to patch it out, yet didn't? That's hardly "in-game lore". It's just another instance of shit consistency.

Well, Bioware was a shit DM, the way the crafted the game rules (i.e. the governing code) was in a number of ways a pathetic representation of the game system (AD&D 2E) they were purportedly converting to a CRPG. (And it's to this day by far the best-executed conversion of AD&D to CRPG, so it shows you how hard that is and how poorly everyone else did it!)

 

So yes, it *is* in-game lore, it's just that Bioware did a crappy job implementing it. Which I am rectifying with a mod. Because we're only talking about mods here, right? So we're not Contrained by Bioware's shittiness. (That's basically the motto for the Revisions mods: "Don't be constrained by Bioware's shittiness!")

 

This is what I want ©

summon undead, not destroying them when I turn

That is *perfectly reasonable!*

 

But, imho it should not be part of SR, it should be a separate mod called "Unturnable Summons" or something.

 

Actually, doesn't SR have an .ini for power users? This might be a perfect optional .ini setting.

[Demivrgvs]

Leaving aside this discussion probably has little to do with SCS, my 2 cents.

 

Yeah, but "Lathander hates undead and would never allow his priests to associate with it use undead" is not just arbitrary morality. It's in-game lore. It's canon.

Can it be called canon if Bioware had multiple opportunities to patch it out, yet didn't? That's hardly "in-game lore". It's just another instance of shit consistency.

Ehm...that's a really poor argument imo. Do you really want me to list the amount of silly or broken stuff they didn't patched? They simply didn't have time, will or knowledge to fix everything.

 

In-game lore, not to mention PnP, do states that animating/summoning undead is an evil act. Within another setting we could debate that, but not within this setting where even druids - the very definition of neutrality - consider undead creatures an abomination that must be stopped.

 

FR clerics do not "learn" spells, they do not get to pick spells based on their individual morality, they get the spells their deities let them use, and good aligned FR deities do not lend their followers the power to create undead armies.

My rationale is that Baldur's Gate does not promote role playing in any actual degree. So give player the choice and it's up to them to decide if they'll have a lawful good Lathandrian leading an undead army or perish the very thought of such an evil act.

You do have that choice within vanilla, but I will not extend your "rationale" (*) to SR. I do want to promote role playing (I think BG tried too, despite its limits) and I do want to follow PnP lore (btw when it comes to CANON, that's PnP books; like it or not videogames rarely define what is canon when it comes to D&D). If an SR player wish to have an undead army he doesn't need an evil cleric, a neutral one will do. Morninglords will not have it, but in exchange they get shiny sun-related spells.

 

(*) With that "rationale" everyone should get whatever they want. Let Barbarians get PfMW, Thieves getting an innate Mislead, Wizards casting healing spells, etc. Let players choice.

[cipher]

You do have that choice within vanilla, but I will not extend your "rationale" (*) to SR. I do want to promote role playing (I think BG tried too, despite its limits) and I do want to follow PnP lore (btw when it comes to CANON, that's PnP books; like it or not videogames rarely define what is canon when it comes to D&D). If an SR player wish to have an undead army he doesn't need an evil cleric, a neutral one will do. Morninglords will not have it, but in exchange they get shiny sun-related spells.

 

(*) With that "rationale" everyone should get whatever they want. Let Barbarians get PfMW, Thieves getting an innate Mislead, Wizards casting healing spells, etc. Let players choice.

I think you took my suggestion really too far. I'd never suggest something like that. I wouldn't even play a mod like that.

 

You have to take what I said within the context of the sentence that follows it. I'll try to explain a bit more clearly.

 

First of all, each class follows a general concept. That disallows barbarians getting PfMW, mages healing etc.

After that, the specifics of each class are defined appropriately.

 

So druids have affinity with nature due to their training, talent, whatever. It makes sense for them to be able to call animals for help, the same way they can control lightning, create stoneskins or become elementals. So you give them that ability. But a druid summoning (going by the dictionary that means calling from another place) real, living animals and purposely sending them to their deaths does not sound very druid-y to me. Would it be fitting a good aligned druid not to get this line of spells?

 

Similarly priests due to their training, enlightenment etc, have studied blessings, wounds, death and undeath. So they can heal/create wounds, resurrect/slay living and (brace yourself!) destroy/create undead. If alignment is a factor then why allow (in fact, introduce) create wounds or slay living for good clerics, but not raise skellies?

 

From a roleplaying perspective maybe the player thinks that they raise the corpses of evil humanoids as a punishment for their living transgressions. So the act itself is not evil.

Or they think the act is evil, no buts or ifs, so they don't use it at all. They could, they have the knowledge, but they don't. The same way I play druids: they have the knowledge to beguile animals to their bidding, but they choose not too.

 

From a gameplay perspective it simply railroads you in to preferring neutral priests, because, simply put, they are superior. So even less leeway for roleplaying.

 

In any case that's my view on the matter. Maybe it's reasonable, maybe it's shit, but I find that the benefit in a discussion lies in hearing the different opinion and not your own. If something good comes out of it, everybody wins.

[toxin]

And it's to this day by far the best-executed conversion of AD&D to CRPG, so it shows you how hard that is and how poorly everyone else did it!

 

I always thought that spot was reserved for the Temple of Elemental Evil (great game BTW)

Or is 3.5 not considered AD&D? I'm not completely clear on the versioning there...

 

 

My rationale is that Baldur's Gate does not promote role playing in any actual degree

 

The best example for this would be the fact that you could choose whatever quest option you see fit, regardless of your CHARNAME alignment.

 

From a roleplaying perspective maybe the player thinks that they raise the corpses of evil humanoids as a punishment for their living transgressions. So the act itself is not evil.

 

Or they just see it as a necessary evil for the greater good. Just like Keldorn reluctantly agrees to help the Shadow Thieves because the transgression is not so big as to hinder the greater cause (saving Imoen etc).

[Jarno Mikkola]

(*) With that "rationale" everyone should get whatever they want. Let Barbarians get PfMW, Thieves getting an innate Mislead, Wizards casting healing spells, etc. Let players choice.

Well, a rational be what it can... but there's no way you can say that uncivilized Barbarians like yourselves(humans) can cast a civilized spells like the Protection from (All) Magical Weapons, let alone know what those are. Or read the technical specifications.

Thieves ... no mislead, a rogue of a different kind, yes. And magic caster can cast a healing spells, but archane mages, no. The rational being here that the role -names actually mean something other than just 'x'.

 

Again, how far is the BG2 from the PnP ? More than a few base rules different, like for example: The turn based combat instead of tics, AI instead of the Dungeon Master... you have no foundation to build that argument up from. The base canon for the game itself, is base the game itself. Your headcanon is the PnP... but that's basically your opinion.

 

So yes indeed, you could let the player choose.

 

*tic being the 1/15th of a second or 2 frames of game time that the AI and everything else is based on.

 

The way I now envision the Turn Undead effects be, if it can be done in this game, use the level of the caster as the reference on the hostile undead(liches, and other casters not included, the mummy'es could be included if they change themselves after the are done with casting etc) if the creature is too low level of the caster, it disintergrates, if it's higher than that, but still too many levels below the caster, it get's stunned. If it's high enough level as the caster, it turn in fear and tries to walk away and then goes berserk. And if it's higher than the caster, it gains detection from invisibility and attacks the turner.

[Nilfalasiel]

a good aligned druid

 

That's not actually possible, since Druids must be True Neutral in BG.

[Jarno Mikkola]

 

a good aligned druid

That's not actually possible, since Druids must be True Neutral in BG.

No they don't, just edit the alignmnt.2da file on the correct spot and you can have anything you wish. There are several mods that have this feature build in. Just like with the Evil Paladins...

[subtledoctor]

priests due to their training, enlightenment etc, have studied blessings, wounds, death and undeath. So they can heal/create wounds, resurrect/slay living and (brace yourself!) destroy/create undead. If alignment is a factor then why allow (in fact, introduce) create wounds or slay living for good clerics, but not raise skellies?

That's perfectly reasonable... but it describes vanilla BG1 or IWD, where there are no kits. Once you specialize your character and say "I'm a Good-aligned priest who venerates Lathander" and the lore of the setting is that Lathander hates undead, then your "clerics have general abilities" rationale is out the window. IMHO.

 

Basing these things purely on alignment is a different question; it's a judgment call, and a modder like Demi is effectively standing in as DM and making that call. You can accept him as DM and accept his rule, or you can mod the files yourself and make your own rule.

 

My personal rule is that these things will be governed by kit, not by alignment. The mod I'm working on will remove any alignment restrictions that Demi puts in place ( ) and replace them with kit-based restrictions. I'm spending this weekend making it compatible with SRv4. So you can have it either way.

[Shaitan]

AD&D is not 3.5.

 

PnP Temple of Elemental Evil was great fun - yeah. That was made in AD&D. Those were the days, think I played it around '86.

 

Temple of Elemental Evil PC game was using 3.5 ed., not as good a game as BG in my opinion, but a good game nonetheless.

 

On topic:

A good divine caster can cast evil spells (Necromancy ain't evil IMO, it's how it's used that defines the evil part). A divine caster with a good aligned god cannot.

In BG it means what Demi allready said.

 

Cheers