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Necromancy (school) spells for Lawful Good Sorcerer?

Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2018 12:14 pm
by The Oblivious One
Something I can't quite figure out is what spells would be appropriate for a Lawful Good sorcerer to cast- and furthermore are they legal according to BG laws aside from used to harm citizens/innocents (of course). The specific ones that come to mind are:

Ray of Enfeeblement
Enervation
Contagion
Control Undead
Destruction
Finger of Death
Wail of the Banshee
Energy Drain
Horrid Wilting
Avasculate
Vampiric Feast Forget that one- obviously evil
Curses (i.e. impending blades)
Even Fear?

Not Necromancy but [Evil] is Evard's Black Tentacles. How about that one?

*edit* This may seem obvious to some of you, but the DMs I played PnP with were pretty anything goes- even summoning Undead as a good character was fine with them.

Re: Necromancy (school) spells for Lawful Good Sorcerer?

Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2018 1:08 pm
by MrPsion
Add false life (2) to the list. Disrupting the negative energy that holds undead together could be an interesting research topic for this pc, as an aside.

Re: Necromancy (school) spells for Lawful Good Sorcerer?

Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2018 1:20 pm
by samb123
Well, here's a question. Bearing in mind the laws of the city of BG (see "THE LAWS OF THE LANDS (IC)" thread), how would a LG sorcerer treat this? See, there's currently a law against "Practicing Necromancy, eldritch magic, and those Arts that are known as Blood Magic".

Hypothetically, if your LG sorcerer came from a society where necromancy was fine and viewed as more of a neutral thing, would your sorcerer, as a character who tries to embrace order and respect for life, even start/continue to practice necromancy in a city-state where necromancy is outlawed?


That said, not all spells in the "School of Necromancy" are clearly bad. The type of thing that is feared would be using necromantic energy to raise or control undead, using necromantic energy to cause harm, etc. So, personally, I would say spells like Death Ward, Opalescent Glare (has [Good] descriptor), Touch of Fatigue, and (depending on RP) possibly even Curse of Impending Blades are okay-ish.

Re: Necromancy (school) spells for Lawful Good Sorcerer?

Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2018 3:00 pm
by The Oblivious One
I have read the rules of the land, and "practicing necromancy" seems very broad. It can't possibly be the school of necromancy. Death Ward is a paladin spell, and I would think a spell dedicated to the destruction of undead couldn't be evil/against the law (Undeath to Death), so the question is, what spells would be evil/against the law?

I could see anything that drains the life force from a living being be at best inching up to a fine line and at worst completely evil. But then again, there are so many abilities that are amoral yet destructive designed to inflict as much damage as possible to your foe. So which, in the DMs/community's eyes would be evil/unlawful practice of necromancy? And I guess I could see using undead in anyway form or another probably would be lawless/evil, even Control Undead, right?

I am asking, because I wouldn't want to take, say, avasculate (a great spell imo) or horrid wilting (an equally great spell imo) for a sorcerer with a precious few known spell slots whose player (me) truly desires to roleplay a lawful good character right and not get dinged by a DM.

Re: Necromancy (school) spells for Lawful Good Sorcerer?

Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2018 3:05 pm
by Glowfire
If the spell doesn't have the [Evil] descriptor in-game, then it's fair game to use as a LG character no matter what PnP says. This server isn't a copy of PnP and the staff have decided to not add the [Evil] descriptor to Avasculate. Simply go by the IG descriptors, basically.

Re: Necromancy (school) spells for Lawful Good Sorcerer?

Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2018 3:14 pm
by Lockonnow
I found it odd that those spells is not evil of couse they are

Re: Necromancy (school) spells for Lawful Good Sorcerer?

Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2018 3:30 pm
by Valefort
You have to understand it as an IC law, written by non-wizards, the forbidden necromancy is everything that touches raising undeads and messing with corpses. To paraphrase some words of wisdom by Charraj (I believe):

"Uh, zombies are bad news .." and "Death ward ? Sounds like an holy spell !"

Re: Necromancy (school) spells for Lawful Good Sorcerer?

Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2018 4:24 pm
by Sun Wukong
The Oblivious One wrote:Ray of Enfeeblement
Enervation
Contagion
Control Undead
Destruction
Finger of Death
Wail of the Banshee
Energy Drain
Horrid Wilting
Avasculate
Vampiric Feast Forget that one- obviously evil
Curses (i.e. impending blades)
Even Fear?
Ray of Enfeeblement, you sap the strength of a single target. I do not think a Lawful Good character would have much of an issue with this spell, especially if it is used in self defence.

Enervation, it supresses the life force of the target for few hours. Again, a spell that could to be used in self defence to weaken dangerous foes.

Contagion, this is an evil spell. You spread diseases that often kill slowly.

Control Undead, for a temporary duration you may take control over the dead and control them. The undead are the polar opposite of living things, often without wills of their own, so the use of the spell depends on how the undead are controlled. If you turn undead against undead, there is nothing wrong with it. In theory you could command undead to stand still as they get put down.

Destruction, this is a cleric spell, so it does not appear on the Lawful Good sorcerer list. Anyhow, the effect is instant, so the subject is likely to die before their nerve systems even registers the pain.

Finger of Death, the effect of this spell is instantaneous so it is rather similar to the Destruction spell. But again, it really falls down on how it is used. If it is cast on an orphan, then yes, clearly evil. If it is cast on a orc trying to slaughter the orphan mentioned before, clearly not evil.

Wail of the Banshee, you could consider it as Finger of Death on an area of effect spell. It is likely to slay the orphan in the above example, so it should be reserved for situations where the caster is surrounded and has no other choice.

Energy Drain, it is just stronger Enervation, so refer to the previously mentioned spell.

Horrid Wilting, you could consider this spell as instantenous extreme dehydration. It leaves behind corpses that are basically mummified, victims of some kind of horrid wilting. But because the effect is instantenous it once again depends on how it is used.

Avasculate, you cause any living creature struck by the ray of this spell to violently purge blood or other vital fluids through its skin. This spell doesn't kill the kill the target, it just causes more and more suffering. This is an obvious evil spell only used by the foulest of individuals. But because the publisher wanted a PG-13 game, the actual spell description was cleaned up, and because the HP pools of mobs and bosses are bloated to the extreme on this server, it has become a very popular spell. I would not use this spell with any goodly aligned character, not even on a neutral one. But role-playing standards come with variance on this server. :|

Vampiric Feast, forget that one- obviously evil. (Yeah.)

Curses (i.e. impending blades), depends on the curse. But most curses are comparable to enervation and energy drain.

Even Fear, a group of orcs approaches a village to raid, you strike them with fear spell and the group of orcs disperses in panic. It depends on how it is used.


Raising hordes of undead, yeah, it is not really 'kosher' for an arcanist of the Lawful Good alignment. Even if used as the last resort, what if the caster dies and the created hordes of undead remain? Just refer to Fields of the Dead.

Re: Necromancy (school) spells for Lawful Good Sorcerer?

Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2018 5:35 pm
by The Oblivious One
Sun Wukong wrote:

Avasculate, you cause any living creature struck by the ray of this spell to violently purge blood or other vital fluids through its skin. This spell doesn't kill the kill the target, it just causes more and more suffering. This is an obvious evil spell only used by the foulest of individuals. But because the publisher wanted a PG-13 game, the actual spell description was cleaned up, and because the HP pools of mobs and bosses are bloated to the extreme on this server, it has become a very popular spell. I would not use this spell with any goodly aligned character, not even on a neutral one. But role-playing standards come with variance on this server. :|
Sounds awful, glad it is not described like that IG :lol:

Re: Necromancy (school) spells for Lawful Good Sorcerer?

Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2018 5:44 pm
by Deathgrowl
Opalescent Glare even has [Good] descriptor.

Undeath to Death is also a non-evil spell.

Avasculate actually has [Evil] descriptor in PnP. I tend to treat it that way in nwn2 too. No reason not to.

Re: Necromancy (school) spells for Lawful Good Sorcerer?

Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2018 12:03 pm
by The Oblivious One
Thank you, thank you, everyone. It seemed to me there is a lot of gray area, but I would think a LG character tends to see things a bit more black and white. So the guidance is much appreciated!