The Order of the Stick

Maybe she made her own Deal with the Devil?

Edited by DrunkenNordmann on May 3rd 2021 at 4:16:46 PM

No, see, I disagree with this too. What PCs should or shouldn't be able to do depends entirely on the table. You can't make any absolute blanket proscription on a plot effect in such a freeform game^note By which I mean in general, a proscription within a certain campaign or playgroup can absolutely be made and is often good, because of the massive variety in potential plots. Morality, too, cannot be an absolute limiting factor because D&D parties can be of any morality. And while mechanically it's hideously unbalanced and by the rules illegal-as-constructed, D&D is a game of mutable rules and balance.

If some theoretical D&D player group wants to run a campaign about hideously overpowered and ludicrously evil PCs making massive, disproportionate effects on the world, Familicide would be a good fit. Homebrew-heavy epic-level D&D probably wouldn't be the best game to run that sort of thing in, but hey, if they have fun it's good enough I guess. And it doesn't seem absurd to me that there might be some people who would have fun with that sort of thing? It'd probably be a fair amount of work on the DM's part, although maybe they could just ad lib the consequences.

I think "I wouldn't want to play in a campaign where that could happen" is as strong a statement as we can make on this sort of thing, and that's okay?

And, what, the fiends that let her cast that spell for ludicrously cheaper than she should have been able to subsidized Vaarsuvius's casting of it too? Because I think if fiends could help Wizards create a spell of disproportionate evil affect that any other Wizard could theoretically learn, there would be more of that going on.

Addendum: Also there's the fact that a PC could use it in a campaign in something like what Vaarsuvius did it in the comic, a moment of inexcusable and atrociously large-scale evil could fit in a plot even if the plot is not relishing in evil. That works better in a set story but it's not impossible to do in roleplay. Just as long as the table is okay with it is what matters.

Edited by RaichuKFM on May 3rd 2021 at 10:33:32 AM

Speaking as someone who used to be a DM a long time ago, a player character who even contemplated researching an Epic spell like that would drop a rung on the alignment chart. If they somehow managed to cast it, the gods might intervene directly. It's that evil.

But of course, anyone can play D&D in any way they like. I'm not going to dictate how you should run your games.

Edited by Fighteer on May 3rd 2021 at 10:40:06 AM

I mean you can't drop from evil to "more evil". People do play PCs like Belkar, after all.

I've learned not to allow outright Evil PCs in any of my games. It just doesn't work. You can't have one of the characters constantly acting in ways that are detrimental to the success of the team and expect things to hold together. If they don't act selfishly at the expense of others, then they aren't actually Evil, so the problem works itself out.

Maybe I just never DM'ed a group that was capable of handling it sensibly. One time I tried to play a Chaotic Evil halfling cannibal in someone else's game. It ended up not being fun because acting completely in-character was harmful to the group's interests and the only effective solution was to have the character killed and run another.

Again, though, this is the very definition of YMMV. It's not something I can dictate to anyone else.

Edited by Fighteer on May 3rd 2021 at 10:50:41 AM

If you don't want your campaign to potentially go in a genocidal direction, don't give your players potential access to a tool of genocide.

You give people a jolly, candy-like button that will erase history or a bloodline or a planet, they will press it.

Eh, in my experience players will concoct plenty of zany power schemes on their own. I've learned to dread my friends asking me to allow something in a supplement they just bought, although that was back in the 3.x days when each official supplement contained an even more broken rule or ability than the last. At the same time, it felt bad to say no.

"Oh, that's neat. You can use Divine Metamagic cheese to get a 1st level spell to do 300d6 damage in a 100 yard radius. Welp, that's tonight's adventure done."

Edited by Fighteer on May 3rd 2021 at 10:53:51 AM

At least that way they're the ones doing the hard work of coming up with a way to recreate a fission bomb with Dn D mechanics.

Edited by M84 on May 3rd 2021 at 10:53:50 PM

How about the exploit that allows you to bomb a city to oblivion by casting scrying? That's totally fair.

Edited by Resileafs on May 3rd 2021 at 11:01:54 AM

Yes, the locate city bomb, and the thing about that is it involves a combination of obscure rules and feats from a whole bunch of different sourcebooks and some very creative reading of a few of them. You can tweak the stats of locate city just a bit to remove the parameters that let those other things work with it while retaining the spell's function, so the problem is not unsolvable. It's just that the designers didn't consider every possible cheese and, most importantly, left it up to DMs to adjudicate these sorts of weird things.

My answer to a player trying it is, "No, it doesn't work that way, because I say so."

Even simpler than that, though, is to house rule the description of the base spell by fiat so it isn't a valid target for the feats in question.

Edit: In fact, a savvy DM will come prepared with house-ruled errata to hand to prospective players listing all the things that can't be done in their setting to preempt any attempt at cheesing.

Edited by Fighteer on May 3rd 2021 at 11:11:06 AM

^x6 I once played a Lawful Evil character in a 5e game. She easily was the most generous and helpful member of the party because I played her as Evil by way of Enlightened Self-Interest. Her ultimate goal was to overthrow the king and claim the throne for herself, and reasoned it'd be way easier in the aftermath to have the populace's adulation and support for her heroics and aid than their enmity forming La Résistance.

Edited by Wryte on May 3rd 2021 at 8:11:58 AM

Although I suppose there have been some D Ms who decide to go with it.

"Alright, so you all accidentally the world. Eh, I'll roll with it — just gimme a few days."

Wait, is cheese actual D&D slang?

I stopped playing after 3.x, so I don't have any direct experience of 5E. I suppose there's no reason you couldn't play a character like that, but if their ultimate goal is to overthrow a kingdom and have everyone like them for it, the other PCs might take issue with it. I suppose you could be running an Adrian Veidt kind of scheme, but then you are a villain, not a hero.

Yep. It is actual slang.

Edited by Fighteer on May 3rd 2021 at 11:19:40 AM

The way I see, that kind of stuff is better with player and DM buy-in. When everyone knows what to expect, less risk of players stepping on each other's toes.

Yeah, a lot of absurd cheese is vulnerable to dismissal by DM fiat, and rightly so. The peasant railgun is inconsistently applying physics, etc.

In D&D I usually play goodie two shoes by personal preference but sometimes an Evil character concept strikes me. The first major one I never played but the basic concept was "Chaotic, and also evil", someone who genuinely subscribed to a legitimate non-Evil cause of freedom and liberation and just happened to personally lack moral scruples and had a selfish streak. (But not petty or shortsighted selfishness; staying in good with the group would be in her best interests personally and be best for her greater cause.)

The other I haven't played just yet but is a Neutral Evil drow who got forced to the surface after some failed intra-family politicking underground. Trying to stay safe in a semi-hostile environment, she falls in with an adventuring group, taking pains to establish herself as reliable, trustworthy, and well-meaning. She sees herself as part of the group and working towards the group's ends to further her own, rather than working towards her own and using the group; burning bridges while in a precatious position isn't always smart. The idea is she grows to genuinely like the rest of the Party, because she is genuinely friendly and also deeply starved for people she can trust coming from a paranoid backstab-encouraging society. She's still evil, she'd kill someone without qualms if she thought it advantageous for her and her allies/dare-she-say-friends, though there's an impetus not to rock the boat. (She might likely grow to be more moral through the power of friendship in actual play, but her viability as a PC isn't meant to be contingent on that.)

In both cases the trick is supposed to be that the Evil doesn't require a betrayal of the Party's collective interest or openly violating its mores. This is still selfish, but a calculating kind of selfish or a "me and mine" kind of selfish, respectively. It also helps that being evil is part of their characters rather than the point of it; if there were no good opportunity to show that they are worse than Neutral morally, I wouldn't be disappointed, as it's still depth that informs everything else. (I'd protest if they were supposed to be bumped up to Neutral due to (lack of) behavior before I thought they'd actually grown, though.)

If the play group as a whole is for it, self-interest conflicts can be a feature and not a bug, but I have the impression the majority of groups dislike them in practice. (For me it really depends, but I try not to start them.) They can happen between Neutral and Good characters too, but Evil ones tend to be the most prone for obvious reasons.

Maybe she planned on fooling them, too? Or she could just genuinely be a better ruler and no fooling is necessary to earn their support, even if her motives weren't pure.

Yeah, I would have run/have run my Evil concepts by the rest of the (digital) table. I think it can also work as a surprise, but even then it's still best to have a general buy-in on that kind of surprise on the record by the table.

I usually play good characters because I usually don't have it in me to be a dick. If I feel like it wouldn't mesh well with the party (the kind with several Chaotic Greedy sorts) then I might play Neutral, but even then I have to hold myself back from insisting we try to leave some of the monsters alive, or maybe use nonlethal damage this time, or maybe we should try and negotiate with them, what do you mean you already killed everyone?

I do have a Lawful Evil character idea, but I lowkey dread the idea of playing him, because even though he is relatively even keeled and willing to play along, he is the sort that would absolutely leave people to die and take advantage if he can help it, whereas I am the sort that likes to have my pally always ready to stick out her neck for the team.

I’m now imagining his teammate, who hates sticking their neck out for anyone, but keeps doing it because they keep scrupulous lists of who they owe favours to and they hate feeling indebted and this stupid paladin keeps doing nice things for them.

Edited by Noaqiyeum on May 3rd 2021 at 6:21:24 PM

I’m actually D Ming an evil campaign currently, but they aren’t heroes, they’re villains. They explicitly are a group of (shitty) pirates hired by a claimant to a local duchy to help him overthrow the current duke.

The group cohesion is there because they’re all evil and have an evil quest.

Edited by Silasw on May 3rd 2021 at 7:01:34 PM

I once justified creating a party that had both a Paladin and an evil Drow Wizard in Icewind Dale by imagining the Drow as an outcast who fled Menzoberranzan after losing out in a power struggle. The only reason he sticks around with the party is because he has no other options. It helps that the Paladin was also the kind of Paladin who was more about redemption than about smiting.

I think evil P Cs can be fun if you're in an evil party or in a story where it makes sense. 5e has Descent into Avernus which seems like a good opportunity to use it. It even has an aura that can randomly change the alignment of the P Cs to evil.

I am not fond of forced alignment changes unless the player is willing to go along. It can ruin someone's experience if they are not prepared for it.

There's also the obvious issue of OOC player knowledge. "I put on the helm we just found." "Okay, we need to talk privately. Everyone have a snack." When the player comes back to the table five minutes later looking shifty-eyed, it's not hard to figure out what's going on.

Edited by Fighteer on May 4th 2021 at 8:23:31 AM

That's why you tell the player about his new alignment between games. :D

I don't know, I cannot imagine a forced alingnment change that doesn't come off as extremely cartoonish. It can work if that's the intended tone of the story (a sort of Bizarro Episode where the main party becomes evil for a while would be tons of fun), but I would never be able to take it seriously.

Durkon's whole vampire thing was a deconstruction of the concept. Yeah, there's no way to suddenly turn Durkon evil and still have him be the same character... which is why the truth is that he's been replaced by an evil spirit pretending to be him.

Not sure you could make that work with a helm of alignment change, but maybe.