Author Topic: Virtue penalty for spell usage?  (Read 16775 times)

Offline Andyr

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Re: Virtue penalty for spell usage?
« Reply #50 on: January 02, 2005, 07:22:08 AM »
As far as I know, once enacted the spell is permanent. The death of the creator just means he can't give them any more orders. ;) The skeletons persist until destroyed.
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Offline jester

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Re: Virtue penalty for spell usage?
« Reply #51 on: January 02, 2005, 09:43:00 AM »
Jes: Summoned creatures are drawn from a different plane. So they did exist before. When the spell expires, or when they are killed, they are returned unharmed to their home plane.

So summoning anything is not evil as it does not really harm the creatures involved. How about the souls of the animated undead? Aren't they moved by the extended will of the caster instead of their own souls?
« Last Edit: January 02, 2005, 09:46:00 AM by jester »
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Offline Andyr

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Re: Virtue penalty for spell usage?
« Reply #52 on: January 02, 2005, 11:27:19 AM »
Yes and no... The caster has complete control over them in that only he can order them to do anything.

Skeletons and zombies only understand very simple commands, though, and have no initiative. Similar to golems in that respect. ;)

So the caster's will tells them what to do any nobody else can. But the caster is not controlling their every action, and is not aware of them and what they are doing at all times.

The souls, as far as I know, are removed from the afterlife to sit helpless in the bodies.

Note more powerful undead (ghouls, wights and onwards) are sentient and free-willed, but you don't get them with the BG2 spell. In pnp, these are created by other spells such as the aptly-named Create Greater Undead. :)
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Offline CORVIS TERRIBLE MOUNTAIN GOD

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Re: Virtue penalty for spell usage?
« Reply #53 on: January 02, 2005, 01:21:57 PM »
Grey Necromancy and Animate Dead specifically are fine for use by neutral characters in general. They aren't so much for followers of Kelemvor, who considers the undead to be, without exception, an abomination. Despite this, you could still create this character-- and one very similar to him is described in the Necromancer's Handbook. There was even a Lichslayer Necromancer Kit, though I don't believe you'd be able to replicate that within the BG2 engine. What you could replicate are the various White Necromancy spells. White Necromancy generally contained two types of spells: Healing spells (which worked through health transfer-- the caster gives up hitpoints to heal someone else), and anti-undead spells (which are rather self-explanatory).

Offline Lord Kain

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Re: Virtue penalty for spell usage?
« Reply #54 on: January 02, 2005, 09:00:36 PM »
Andyr right now we are speaking of the Baldur's gate animate dead. The PnP animate dead means nothing. Zero, nota single thing.
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Offline Andyr

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Re: Virtue penalty for spell usage?
« Reply #55 on: January 03, 2005, 10:02:32 AM »
I know we are talking about BGII. :) But I don't think this makes the pnp rules meaningless. I would say that the thought behind the spell still makes it Evil, even though in BGII you don't need a corpse to cast it on.

Why not, then, just cast one of the Animal or Monster Summoning spells if you don't want a Virtue hit?
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Offline Lord Kain

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Re: Virtue penalty for spell usage?
« Reply #56 on: January 03, 2005, 07:25:59 PM »
Animate Dead is more powerful then the summon animal or any of those monster summoning spells.

If you summon an animal or a monster, they may not remember it but they did feel pain as the fault for you. Isn't that more evil then summoning an evil undead which would feel no pain anyways? If we are going to have a virtue hit on spells. What about the ones that call uncontrolled fiends to the battle field.
Releasing an uncontrolled creature upon the area intentionally is evil.

Your not going to hurt anyone by casting BG's animate dead. The spell expires in 8 hours sending the summoned undead back to where they came form. Even if it did animate the dead as named they are only animated for 8 hours then there souls would be free. Raise dead won't bring them back to life they'd need more powerful magic but so what.

Finally if I have to take  a virtue hit to use the most powerful summoning spell (high level abilities aside) then I won't update virtue ever again. Clerics may have restrictions on what spells they can cast based on alignment but wizards do not. Except for Krynn.




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Offline Murdane

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Re: Virtue penalty for spell usage?
« Reply #57 on: January 03, 2005, 07:49:18 PM »
Those are some good points, but is using someone's soul for 8 hours (without their permission) really all that fair?

Offline SimDing0™

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Re: Virtue penalty for spell usage?
« Reply #58 on: January 03, 2005, 07:50:50 PM »
Are you using their soul, though? I'd be inclined to say it just animated the body.

Offline Murdane

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Re: Virtue penalty for spell usage?
« Reply #59 on: January 03, 2005, 07:53:51 PM »
Are you using their soul, though? I'd be inclined to say it just animated the body.

Well, like I said, I'm not sure, so I'm not really going to debate this, nor am I going to insist that people get Virtue penalties for using the spell. :)  I said before, I consider the spell evil (and how it is portrayed in pnp does matter to me), but I think it's best to leave it a gray area and let people use their discretion.

However, I also must point out that if using summoned creatures from another plane and making them fight for you is morally wrong, I don't see how that is much worse than using someone else's soul, if it really *is* the soul that's being used for the spell.

Offline SixOfSpades

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Re: Virtue penalty for spell usage?
« Reply #60 on: January 03, 2005, 08:23:02 PM »
If Skeletons and Zombies don't have intelligence ("Take what you will, we might as well be nothing more than mindless skeletons") of their own, can Animating them really cause pain or harm to the souls of those who once resided in them?

[ADD] Oh yeah. If a Virtue penalty of -1 is applied for Skeleton Warriors, that would necessitate a drop of -2 for the various Demon / Fallen Planetar / Fallen Deva summonings, which must then be balanced with +2 bonuses for summoning their non-Fallen versions. So a Sorcerer abusing Project Image could jump from a 1 to a 20 in about two minutes.
« Last Edit: January 03, 2005, 08:31:45 PM by SixOfSpades »

Offline Murdane

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Re: Virtue penalty for spell usage?
« Reply #61 on: January 03, 2005, 09:43:46 PM »
I think it's the fact that you are playing fast and loose with other peoples souls that would make it wrong.  Souls are considered to be important, and they belong entirely to one person.  I'm not saying it should have a Virtue hit (we haven't even decided if there really are souls inside the skeletons), I'm just saying that it doesn't seem all that ethical to use other people's souls in such a manner, even though it doesn't cause them any pain (and maybe it does, how do we know it doesn't?).

 

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