Ask Arkanis

[mireigi]

To what extent must a follower of a deity adhere to the dogma of the deity they follow, and how far from their deity's alignment can they stray, given that they are not receiving any divine spells from their deity?

Ie: Can a Lawful Evil Fighter / Rogue / Divine Champion worship Tyr, killing criminals who go free due corrupt or inefficient upholders of the law? Without losing the abilities granted by Divine Champion?

[DM Golem]

Hello Arkanis

Most of my TPKs are long drawn out affairs, with a lone survivor fleeing half a map before being cut down.

Have you got any advice as to how to make the process quicker and more efficient without using DM Kill?

Many thanks

Golem

[LISA100595]

Use the epic bandit assassins .. wipe the part in a matter of seconds ( I speak from experience ) LOL

[NegInfinity]

There is a Forgotten Realms novel about the death of Helm at the hand of Tyr, following which Tyr resigns as a deity and leaves Torm in charge. It was written from the perspective of an Angel and Succubus, wherein the succubus is subjected to a trial of torment by conciounce in the home of the Triad.

At the end of the story she switches alignment to neutral.

That kind of illustrates the level of divine intervention that was needed. But on the other hand it also shows that outsiders are still people who think in terms of reason and relate to the world with a somewhat human perspective. (Though that is perhaps a limitation of the writers imagination too)

NO offense, but novels don't count (because it is very likely that author won't know lore well enough). And outsiders are not people. I apologize that I forgot to mention that ("no novels").

In my question I had erinyes in mind. Those descend from celestials, are born and not made, meaning the chance is higher. In my understanding, demons would have higher chance of alignment shift (due to their nature), than normal devils, erinyes would come second, while non-erinyes devil have the least possibility of that happening. The reason is because devil is distilled evil, literally, they are made from vilest mortal souls and absorb even more souls during their advancement through ranks, so something like that ever changing alignment is unlikely.... however erinyes seems to be different enough for occasional exception from the rules.

Dont' forget True Names, though. Difficult as they are to obtain, once you have the True Name for a creature, you can make the creature do anything you want. Anything. Want to see a Devil take up worship of Tyr and spread Tyrran faith to other Devils? True Name will allow you to do that.

As far as I know, true names have a very limited application in 3.5 haven't researched this topic thoroughly.

"A fiend is an evil creature from one of the Fiendish Planes. They are not just evil, but born of Evil; primal malevolence is one of the roots of their nature, and the evil essence of the fiendish planes permeates every part of their bodies."

I would almost call it impossible for a mortal creature to ever convert a Fiend or Celestial of high rank. They are simply too otherwordly and powerful, and a mortal would just never reach those heights of charisma and influence.

With that said, even Celestials may fall from grace and become corrupted, the other way is perhaps likely too. Even Gods are not immune to sway from their alignments.

Wasn't expecting ONE mortal to accomplish that in one mortal lifetime. Probably would require thousand of years of brainwashing for mortals to do that.

The question of evil as a perspective is a good one too - does a devil consider themselves evil? Do they care? Could they perform many wondrously good deeds and still be evil?

Book of exhalted deeds mentions interesting thing... "evil performed in the name of greater good is still evil", and so exhalted char abandoning one of their vows shifts balance in favor of evil, no matter what kind of good this act accomplishes. It IS possible that it works the other way too, but that is just a speculation, and is not explicitly mentioned anywhere. There is a possibility that in d&d universe evil (which acts as physical force) is inherently stronger than good. Several books mention harmful effects of evil that can warp reality and acts akin to radiation. However, I haven't noticed anything similar mentioned in regards of forces of good.

[TheKai]

Hello DM Arkanis!

Is it okay to create a PC with an origin of a local city on the server? I.e. a hin that grew up in Corm Op or Gullykin? An expectation would be for the player to do his/her research on the server and cannon happenings of the particular city, but is it allowed?

[DM Arkanis]

If you put it inside a cube, wouldn't the hellfire die down because it burns all the oxygen? Does Hellfire still require oxygen?

I can't find any reference to Hellfire requiring oxygen to burn - all the references I can find are vague or need some clarification. One thing the blogs seem to agree on is that when the CoF is used to keep everything out there is a limited amount of oxygen in it, although the item would most likely run out of charges before one person could use it all up. I need to ask some questions of the guys that run mathematical calculations on this kind of stuff and see if they have a rate that Hellfire burns oxygen...

[DM Arkanis]

To what extent must a follower of a deity adhere to the dogma of the deity they follow, and how far from their deity's alignment can they stray, given that they are not receiving any divine spells from their deity?

Ie: Can a Lawful Evil Fighter / Rogue / Divine Champion worship Tyr, killing criminals who go free due corrupt or inefficient upholders of the law? Without losing the abilities granted by Divine Champion?

Here's what I found about DC's:

"Whereas most divine spellcasters are bound to serve their god under tight restrictions, divine champions are a more loose-ended form of soldier among the faithful, able to carry out the will of their god in ways that others might not be able to. Divine champions have, in fact, no alignment restriction at all and are not even required to be the same alignment as their deity, as an avenger, invoker, or paladin is and while it is unlikely, an evil divine champion could serve within the church of a good god such as Bahamut, so long as their faith was true.

Little unites divine champions. Most of them have a military background, but it is not a requirement. Divine champions are a diverse lot and it is as possible for a barbarian or a bard to become a divine champion as it is a cleric or fighter. Divine champions are, however, required to possess some learning in religious lore, as well as the ability to wield their god's favored weapon skillfully. Every single church can have divine champions and the battles between champions of opposing faiths are legendary."

[DM Arkanis]

Hello Arkanis

Most of my TPKs are long drawn out affairs, with a lone survivor fleeing half a map before being cut down.

Have you got any advice as to how to make the process quicker and more efficient without using DM Kill?

Many thanks

Golem

Hey Golem,

Best advice is cut to the chase without drawing things out too long. If your party knows they are dead anyway you have several other options than the DM kill button:

1. Gradually reduce all the players' CON until they die of exhaustion.
2. Start casting random spells on them from your avatar.
3. Port them all to a small area: island, top room of a tower, boat, etc. then go handle other player requests. First party member to message you about where you are gets ported to the Fugue Plane.
4. Tell the party they all have to fish for 2h in real time and bring the catch to you. Once they all have arrived cast Mass Drown on them.
5. Port the party somewhere they shouldn't be - send surfacers to the UD and vice versa. Let the other players kill them/RP with them, and then blame another DM for doing it... ( )

You get the idea...

Ark

[DM Arkanis]

Hello DM Arkanis!

Is it okay to create a PC with an origin of a local city on the server? I.e. a hin that grew up in Corm Op or Gullykin? An expectation would be for the player to do his/her research on the server and cannon happenings of the particular city, but is it allowed?

Hi Kai - there is nothing wrong with having a character be from somewhere on the server map, and having a good knowledge of the place in your bio shows that you have done your research. Some cautions: if you want to play a famous or well known person you need DM team approval first. This also goes for knowing/being related to/friends with famous NPC's in that place - simply being from a town doesn't mean you are chummy with the local celebrities. Finally, knowledge of what is going on in that place based on the character growing up there would depend on why they would know that information. Writing a crafty bio based on OOC knowledge from wiki's and source material doesn't necessarily mean that you can create a character that would have intimate knowledge of the goings on of any particular town to the molecular level. Best advice is to roll up your character, do your research, write your bio, and submit it to the DM team for approval before you proceed.

Ark

[NegInfinity]

If you put it inside a cube, wouldn't the hellfire die down because it burns all the oxygen? Does Hellfire still require oxygen?

IMO, there is no reason to think that in D&D world oxygen exists and normal chemistry rules apply. Because there is planar travel abd magic, because evil and good act like physical forces, it is possible that the world is different from ours on fundamental particle level.

Now, regarding hellfire.

Hellfire is the creation of Mephistopheles, archduke of Cania.
Hotter than the hottest flames of any world, hellfire burns with
a white-hot glow and is capable of burning through even the
hardest of substances. Hellfire does not deal fire damage, de-
spite its flames. Even creatures with immunity or resistance to
fire take full normal damage from these hellish flames. Hellfire
also deals full damage to objects, unlike normal fire damage.

, he has mastered the essence of Hell, channeling it
into a foul destructive energy called hellfi re. With such tools
at his disposal, it seems Mephistopheles will one day make
good on his promise to rule in Asmodeus’s stead.

Basically, it is not flame, but essence of hell and there is no reason to think it would require oxygen.

My guess is that hellfire would burn away the cube you're using to confine it.

[DM Arkanis]

If you put it inside a cube, wouldn't the hellfire die down because it burns all the oxygen? Does Hellfire still require oxygen?

IMO, there is no reason to think that in D&D world oxygen exists and normal chemistry rules apply. Because there is planar travel abd magic, because evil and good act like physical forces, it is possible that the world is different from ours on fundamental particle level.

Now, regarding hellfire.

Hellfire is the creation of Mephistopheles, archduke of Cania.
Hotter than the hottest flames of any world, hellfire burns with
a white-hot glow and is capable of burning through even the
hardest of substances. Hellfire does not deal fire damage, de-
spite its flames. Even creatures with immunity or resistance to
fire take full normal damage from these hellish flames. Hellfire
also deals full damage to objects, unlike normal fire damage.

, he has mastered the essence of Hell, channeling it
into a foul destructive energy called hellfi re. With such tools
at his disposal, it seems Mephistopheles will one day make
good on his promise to rule in Asmodeus’s stead.

Basically, it is not flame, but essence of hell and there is no reason to think it would require oxygen.

My guess is that hellfire would burn away the cube you're using to confine it.

Excellent insight NegInfinity. My guess wasn't if the hellfire would burn out the CoF but how long it would take it to do so.

[TheKai]

Hello Arkanis!

My question is in regards to the UD and drow vision. For the most part, a drow uses infrared while in the UD, picking up the heat signatures to hunt and the like. For someone that radiates extreme heat, like a fire genasi, would it be blinding to the drow using infrared?

[DM Narshe]

Hello Arkanis!

My question is in regards to the UD and drow vision. For the most part, a drow uses infrared while in the UD, picking up the heat signatures to hunt and the like. For someone that radiates extreme heat, like a fire genasi, would it be blinding to the drow using infrared?

*steals the question*
Darkvision is unobstructed by bright lights and there is no mention of heat.

Drow are unaffected by any source of light other than direct sunlight and spells that mimic direct sunlight, such as the spell Daylight (Light) and similarly described spells here.

Also, nothing in PNP indicates that Fire Genasi give off any heat or light.

Fire genasi are hot-tempered and quick to anger, proud and unafraid to take action. They are most often neutral. They appear mostly human, with one or two unusual traits reflecting their, quasi-elemental nature, such as skin the color of burnt coal, red hair that waves like flames, or eyes that glow when the genasi is angry. They prefer to dress simply and elegantly, although their fashions can be more flamboyant than the most outrageous trend.

They do have a nifty ability to manipulate an already existing flame somewhat.

Control Flame (Sp): Fire genasi can cause a nonmagical fire within 10 feet of them to diminish to the level of coals or flare to the brightness of daylight and double the normal radius of its illumination. This ability does not change the heat output or fuel consumption of the dire source, lasts 5 minutes, and may be done one per day. They use this ability as 5th-levels sorcerers.

[TheKai]

Ah I see. thank you DM Narshe!

[LISA100595]

I would like to know if there is a specific set of rules for the "Rite of Exorcism" somewhere in the D&D books? I have one that we have been using for years, but I would like to double check it to make sure it's correct please.

Thanks