Hellfire Warlock: Get rid of the "evil" requirement

[Thaelis]

I still don't get it. Don't we have plenty of CE characters, including hellfire warlocks, roleplaying pretty much LG? What's the point of restrictions? Seems it's only mechanical, which pretty much serves as grounds for metagaming and balancing some spells, smites etc.

It's driving me crazy, but I don't think I get what some of you are saying. Apologies, I'm sure it's not you and it's me instead.

Ok this is how it works in my mind... (forgive me if my interpretation is wrong).

You can RP being Lawful Good, save peasants from monsters, give to charity, promote the dogma of a Good deity etc etc. Others may see you as Good, you will see yourself as Good.

However the Gods, Heavens, Celestials, Cosmic Balance, the Planes will put you squarely on the Evil side of the axis if you are using the powers of Hell. Celestials are well known for not giving a FUDGE about the concerns of mortals. They have bigger issues to worry about.

In a nutshell those bigger issues are an interplanar war between Good and Evil that has raged since almost the dawn of time. If you steal your neighbor's chicken, a Celestial might give you a disapproving glare, but if you borrow the powers of Hell, and especially if you sell your Soul to Hell suddenly they give a ^&*% because you're tipping the Universal Balance towards Hell. No matter how many Good deeds you do, they can't outweigh that gigantic sin.

[Wolfrayne]

I still don't get it. Don't we have plenty of CE characters, including hellfire warlocks, roleplaying pretty much LG? What's the point of restrictions? Seems it's only mechanical, which pretty much serves as grounds for metagaming and balancing some spells, smites etc.

It's driving me crazy, but I don't think I get what some of you are saying. Apologies, I'm sure it's not you and it's me instead.

Ok this is how it works in my mind... (forgive me if my interpretation is wrong).

You can RP being Lawful Good, save peasants from monsters, give to charity, promote the dogma of a Good deity etc etc. Others may see you as Good, you will see yourself as Good.

However the Gods, Heavens, Celestials, Cosmic Balance, the Planes will put you squarely on the Evil side of the axis if you are using the powers of Hell. Celestials are well known for not giving a FUDGE about the concerns of mortals. They have bigger issues to worry about.

In a nutshell those bigger issues are an interplanar war between Good and Evil that has raged since almost the dawn of time. If you steal your neighbor's chicken, a Celestial might give you a disapproving glare, but if you borrow the powers of Hell, and especially if you sell your Soul to Hell suddenly they give a ^&*% because you're tipping the Universal Balance towards Hell. No matter how many Good deeds you do, they can't outweigh that gigantic sin.

This is actually very accurate, there are certain acts that will automatically change your alignment to evil or good regardless of what the intention is, this is why paladins quite often fall from grace and become blackguards or fighters because when it comes to the divines. heavens or hells there is no room for "interpretation" A soul sold to a demon is tainted by evil.

And yes BGTSCC is a "medium" roleplay server but there has to be some kind of respect for this boundary otherwise we may as well all be playing a hack and slash MMO that is all about numbers and who has the best build.

Warlocks regardless of their patron are supposed to be considered a threat, they are dangerous beings who are basically puppets for whatever or whoever owns their soul at the time which should be met with a lot of distrust and skepticism rather than inviting them over for tea and cake to talk about the latest scandal of whos dating who on the sword coast.

[Hoihe]

Not all pacts with devils immediately change your alignment to evil and samn your soul. Some pacts are more.. insidious. i.e: pact insidious from fiendish codex 2.

Pact insidious allows you to remain your alignment, and get miniscule powers. To get higher powers, you need to perform tasks for your pact holder. Refusal to do these tasks can mean loss of all power so far.

At first, these tasks arent that big deal. However, it only gives weak powers. you naturally want more.

Let's see the tasks the fiendish codex 2 gives:

Using an evil spell (1)
Humiliating an underling (1)
Engaging in intimidating torture (1)
Stealing from the needy (2)
Desecrating a good church/temple (2)
Betraying a friend/ally for personal gain (2)
Causing gratuitous injury to a creature (3)
Perverting justice for personal gain (3)
Inflicting cruel or painful torture (4)
Inflicting excruciating torture (5)
Murder (5)
Inflicting sadistic torture (6)
Cold-blooded murder (6)
Murder for pleasure (7)
Inflicting indescribable torture (7)

By the time a devil pacted warlock who thought thenselves smart and signed a pact insidious rather than directly sell their own soul - they will have been forced to do horrible things just to get their powers. And they will have to keep doing these horrible things to keep those powers.

(consequently, the same applies to clergy of evil gods. Look up rituals/holy days of evil gods in denihuman dekties or faiths and pantheons. Kind of makes it impossible for non-evil clerics for a number of deities if the cleric wants to keep their power and favour)

[Young Werther]

Well if there were actual dark powers threatening the lives of the Hellfire users who didn't toe the line of infernalist doctrine it could be pretty interesting. I'm no lore buff but it seems logical to me that Hellfire would be a very guarded secret. Consequences and all that.

[blowuup]

I vote yes to removing the requirement.

○ Good/Neutral Hellfire Warlocks are mentioned in the Class Description.
○ It was not a restriction in Fiendish Codex II or in the original NWN2 Base Game.





Andddd I want to see LazyTrain's Chaotic Good Hellfire Warlock. Sounds interesting.

[artemitavik]

Another thing I find interesting is that argument like this are being made on both side of

"Well, this isn't "official", we should be able to do what we want..." as well as

"Well, in the official rules, it says..."

People want to follow the rules one way because it benefits them, but the on other subjects want the homebrew shenanigans.

So ultimately, there needs to be a consensus: Is this a DND Homebrew that has House Rules that Hellfire warlocks gotta be evil because reasons? In which case you can also justify the silliness of say, fighters wearing heavy armor suddenly having 20% elemental resistance to "make up" for that their Evasion no longer works, because Homebrew.

Or, if you cling to "must follow 100% of the rules" and thus allowing Hellfire Warlocks to be not-evil, then by that logic you also must advocate getting rid of all of the other Homebrew rules the server follows, including all the ones that you like and make your build cool.

So which really is it that we want dominate for these sorts of things, Rules Lawyering, or Homebrew Shenanigans?

[Azroth]

So which really is it that we want dominate for these sorts of things, Rules Lawyering, or Homebrew Shenanigans?

In my overall experaince?
Most of the time these arguments are entirely one-sided I have learned. Making it just overall easier to kind of take a step back and ask yourself "Is this a reasonable request" rather than say "Well X says this and Y said that."

It's why I'm not a huge fan of homebrew as some of it can get carried away a bit too much. Then it just becomes a mess in general in both practice within RP and OOC when someone wants some level of authenticity, like e.g. with faiths and what not.

My thing? Homebrew within reason. Not the sky is the limit.

[artemitavik]

Then we get into definitions of "within reason" which is a whole different debate.

But I am side tracking, apologies. It still comes down to at some level, what do we want, more home brew or more rules lawyering? We cannot function in a community of 80 people mucking about as if it were a 100% dmed table of 6. What we do need, however, is a consensus.

[Azroth]

Then we get into definitions of "within reason" which is a whole different debate.

But I am side tracking, apologies. It still comes down to at some level, what do we want, more home brew or more rules lawyering? We cannot function in a community of 80 people mucking about as if it were a 100% dmed table of 6. What we do need, however, is a consensus.

Don't be sorry and I agree consensus is ideal. And that said I think we can all agree that the average Joe of a player on the server doesn't have the final say.

So I ask; is it worth the argument?

I don't care one way or another as the alignment restrictions lifted is not affected by any of my current characters. But I'm not sure it's worth the hassle either.

[Thaelis]

So ultimately, there needs to be a consensus: Is this a DND Homebrew that has House Rules that Hellfire warlocks gotta be evil because reasons? In which case you can also justify the silliness of say, fighters wearing heavy armor suddenly having 20% elemental resistance to "make up" for that their Evasion no longer works, because Homebrew.

Or, if you cling to "must follow 100% of the rules" and thus allowing Hellfire Warlocks to be not-evil, then by that logic you also must advocate getting rid of all of the other Homebrew rules the server follows, including all the ones that you like and make your build cool.

So which really is it that we want dominate for these sorts of things, Rules Lawyering, or Homebrew Shenanigans?

I think this is a really good point, and the answer is pretty obviously Homebrew.

If you look at spellcasting alone, damaging spells got a big boost and Reignite Evocation was added (I can't find any reference to this in PnP, but perhaps it's from an old edition). And while I'd prefer if we were using pure PnP rules (Pathfinder or 3.5), that's just my own selfishness manifesting itself, I understand that some things were changed for balance and some of the broken NWN2 mechanics were left as-is for reasons.

So, I don't think we can really use the argument that "that isn't how it is in PnP!" (despite the fact I try to use this argument all the time )

[Kitunenotsume]

My understanding behind the boost to damage spells is simply that NWN2 on average has double the HP of tabletop, because all HD are considered to be their maximum, instead of rolled or half value. As such, to be on par, damage spells are improved.
Reignite and the other 'infinite spell feats' addresses the frequency of encounters per level/rest - 3.5 tabletop has a metric in the DMG of about 13 encounters per level. The system we use makes that number substantially higher, with a larger number of spells being cast per rest/level.
There are of course more examples of reintroducing parity to match the intent of tabletop by violating the written rules, but those are the two Thealis pointed out.

I strongly opine that the argument is not "Homebrew vs RAW", because every campaign and setting has their own non-binary blend. If anything, that is the substantial strength of our chosen gaming system and medium. The relevant question(s) seems to be "What works for the server, both mechanically and socially?"


[ Personally, I'd be OK with halving everything's hit-points, but I get the feeling that isn't really on the table. And rolling it? Well, eventually someone will get a level 30 wizard with 34 HP ]

[c2k]

All aligned magic is corruptive .

QFT. Casting good-aligned spells makes me gag and gain emotional scars.

[TravelingVagrant]

Bit of a necropost but I'm inclined to agree with the sentiment of the OP - there is no evil requirement for Hellfire warlock in 3.5, there's no need for it to be here. If you want to argue that characters in an PNP game are 'special', given they are the protagonists of their world - who are the protagonists of this world, if not us?

I've always been along the idea that alignment requirements are a dated version of gameplay, you'll note that 5e D&D did away with alignment requirements or 'Always Evils', as they do nothing but limit RP. There's really no reason why a warlock couldn't use hellfire for the forces of good. Or, hell, there's no reason a Warlock using Hellfire has to suddenly be okay with murder, thievery, etc. They don't just magically become a bad person because of power - things like that are better suited to RP than what a system tells you you have to be, IMO.

Ultimately, if someone wants to RP a tortured-morally-gray warlock who uses Hellfire but battles against it's darker impulses, the system NWN2 is based on says it's fine, so I tend to agree.

[Unastine]

I personally do not agree with evil alignment limiting RP. Maybe safe to say evil must be more careful anywhere they go. But then again it is a type of gameplay hence the RP. I think when we understand the concept of reasoning, you will know that an evil character can team up with a paladin while he sees it as an opportunity for his own ego. But he knows that he should keep himself hidden in such scenario while he can unleash full power with a party of like-minded which is up to you to find out or don't and suffer consequences. I played warlock a lot including hf warlock. Also most of my characters are evil and never have I ever came to a situation where I wouldn't have something to say. You can still manipulate good people with your lies. Just do your bluffing a bit strong and see if they are wise enough to not to fall in your secret plans. Or perhaps just don't bother with plotting against your fellow paladin and benefit from his strength to further strengthen your own evil self. I agree, evil needs more creativity but all we have to do is just think more. Off course that is not everyone's cup of tea but then again none is forcing us to choose that path

[TravelingVagrant]

I personally do not agree with evil alignment limiting RP. Maybe safe to say evil must be more careful anywhere they go. But then again it is a type of gameplay hence the RP. I think when we understand the concept of reasoning, you will know that an evil character can team up with a paladin while he sees it as an opportunity for his own ego. But he knows that he should keep himself hidden in such scenario while he can unleash full power with a party of like-minded which is up to you to find out or don't and suffer consequences. I played warlock a lot including hf warlock. Also most of my characters are evil and never have I ever came to a situation where I wouldn't have something to say. You can still manipulate good people with your lies. Just do your bluffing a bit strong and see if they are wise enough to not to fall in your secret plans. Or perhaps just don't bother with plotting against your fellow paladin and benefit from his strength to further strengthen your own evil self. I agree, evil needs more creativity but all we have to do is just think more. Off course that is not everyone's cup of tea but then again none is forcing us to choose that path

When I say limiting RP, I mean that it forces you to have to engage with others in this nefarious/lying way, when perhaps that doesn't suit the character concept. You're absolutely right that nothing forces me to play a Hellfire Warlock, but there's also nothing in the PnP game that forces HF warlocks to be evil, either.

Bit of a double-edged sword, that.