Talk:Tome of Necromancy (3.5e Sourcebook)/Morality

Adding to the Entry

I was wondering if it were alright if I added a bit under the first "Moral Option"--the article seems to focus solely on the negative things about it, ignoring the good aspects of the option. Would it be alright to add, "However, this can also be a good thing, because..." to it? --Ghostwheel 07:27, 5 August 2009 (MDT)

I'm leery about adding anything -- what, exactly, were you planning on adding? Surgo 10:36, 5 August 2009 (MDT)

Should I detail out everything I would add here? --Ghostwheel 14:35, 5 August 2009 (MDT)

Yeah...before adding anything to the completed document, we should detail it out here. Surgo 15:01, 5 August 2009 (MDT)

Ah, alright, this is what I would add:

However, this option is not without its benefits; it gives a reason for evil beings to be truly evil. What this option means is that negative energy is inherently corrupting. Animating undead is an evil act that slowly but surely corrupts the soul of all who use it, dragging them towards the evil end of alignment and changing them slowly but surely. The inverse of this means that channeling positive energy purifies the soul and leads one closer to good. A cleric of Hextor who might prepare Cure Wounds a number of times would probably stay Evil due to the other evil acts he commits, but should he cast only said spell in a vacuum without any evil actions he might become good and find redemption. On the other hand, a wizard who is primarily good, yet who binds creatures of pure Evil and animates the dead might find himself slowly slipping into darker acts of vileness as the dark energy corrupts his soul and pushes him to worse acts of depravity.

Another possibility when using this option is that one's alignment "pings" evil when channeling negative energy, but the person is not truly evil. Take a Blood of Vol cleric in Eberron, who is good as far as his actions and intent go, but would ping Evil to any nearby paladin that attempted to detect his alignment. This allows for a more diverse world, where paladins have less freedom to simply kill all those who appear Evil, since Evil becomes simply another team that you can work with, and has nothing to do with one's actions or intent.

Basically something along those lines, illustrating that it's not necessarily the "wrong" option to choose--to me, at least, it feels like the article is pushing firmly towards option #2, and I think another perspective is important. --Ghostwheel 15:51, 5 August 2009 (MDT)

I don't think I necessarily like that paragraph, because there are plenty of people who are evil (they even have the subtype) who don't do anything with negative energy. Surgo 18:17, 5 August 2009 (MDT)

That's not the point of it though; the point is that negative energy can corrupt, not that it's the only source of corruption. What the option is trying to say is that in D&D, virtually every "evil" act is corrupting and leads to becoming Evil. Summoning evil creatures? Corrupts the soul. Using negative energy to raise undead abominations? Corrupts the soul. Eating the flesh of sentient beings? Corrupts the soul. No matter what purpose it's for, such actions can lead one on a dark path because in D&D, such actions are Evil in and of themselves. The paragraph talks about negative energy specifically because this is the Tome of Necromancy, but it could easily be expanded to include the other examples. --Ghostwheel 07:59, 6 August 2009 (MDT)

It could, but at the same time, this is more or less a transcription of someone else's work (with perhaps a few small, grammatical corrections), so modifying the original would imply that what you put in the article is what the original author intended, and that just may not be the case. It's something you can note for your own campaigns, but if it's all the same otherwise, if Frank and K chose not to write about it, we might be better off just leaving it as is. I'm not saying what you have proposed doesn't add to the article, it might even improve it, and yes, this is a wiki, but still, not all articles on a wiki (especially one such as this--wiki, not the article) can be freely edited. -- Jota 12:38, 6 August 2009 (MDT)

Can we add a note at the bottom then, that's not part of the article, but that expands option #1? It just seems like the current article is incredibly one-sided, pushing people to use #2 without giving the first one the full consideration that it should have, both positive and negative. It would give people the impression that #2 is the only way to go, without giving a thought to #1. --Ghostwheel 13:20, 6 August 2009 (MDT)

I don't feel that it pushes people either way, except that Playing with Fire is much more exciting because of the ambiguity. That's the nature of the choices, and not a matter of how it's written.

But Ghostwheel's point isn't very clear here. He and I discussed this in IM, and basically what he's proposing is a third moral option which is a muted version of The Crawling Darkness: instead of being the manifestation of evil itself, negative energy is evil to some finite amount. Casting Inflict Minor Wounds might be as evil as stealing a penny from a merchant, or it might be as evil as slaughtering 1,000 babies with a rusty spoon, depending on where the DM wants to place it, but it is not tantamount to summoning Evil itself into the world. It's a bad thing, not the Bad Thing. I think that's a valid and viable way of playing it, and could be included below the two moral options in some sort of infobox (preferably collapsible) that marks it as third-party commentary. --DanielDraco 09:55, September 12, 2010 (UTC)

If we can ping the original authors, we could ask them to add it to the book, no? This is a small chapter (only 2.6 page heights on my computer where the others are at least 4), so they might like it being fleshed out more. --Havvy 11:25, September 12, 2010 (UTC)