Post/Author/DateTime	Post
thinkhard 03-21-05, 12:34 AM	This explains a little bit about the ambiguity of divine spell casting in my campaign setting Compitum. Godless Clerics, Friendly Fiends, and Evil Celestials Because of the alignment ambiguity and lack of a developed pantheon in Compitum, this presents a few problems for conventional ideas of clerics and divine creatures. To accomidate for this, the following adjustments should be made: 1. Clerics choose a god from the Greyhawk Pantheon presented in the Player's Handbook. This is soley for the purpose of helping the cleric choose appropriate domains, decide if they sponteneously cure or harm, and whether they turn or rebuke. The standard "one-step" rule applies. This does not imply, though, by any means that the cleric worships that deity. The deity is chosen simply from a mechanic standpoint. 2. Abilities against alignments function only against alignments. This means a Paladin's Smite Evil would not harm a good fiend. 3. Despite alignments, creatures retain their types and subtypes. This means that a good fiend can still be injured by a Knight of the Chalice's abilities against Evil Outsiders, or warded off by a Magic Circle Against Evil, because "evil outsider" is a fiend's creature type. As specified earlier, though, abilities mentioning only alignments require the creature in question to have that alignment. This dependency on creature type goes both ways; a good-aligned fiend would be able to enter a Magic Circle Against Good without penatly because "good outsider" is not his creature type. 4. Despite alignments, outsiders and other divine creatures retain the same abilities. Yes, an evil Celestial still casts smite evil. This is because these abilities are inherent to the blood and race of the creature, even when the alignments are skewed and removed. If a creature has a spell-like ability that affects creatures of a certain alignment in a given area (not based upon a creature type such as Evil Outsider), the caster of the ability is still subject to it if he is within the area. Target based spells though, like Smite Evil, only effect the creature targeted. 5. Lycanthropy and other afflictions that can shift alignment still do, but can be fought. The clause of willfull shifting for lycanthropes causing their alignments to shift no longer applies. The standard saves to retain the same alignment as per unwillfull shifting apply, but must be taken everytime a character shifts. Failure results in the alignment shift, but the next time the character changes again, he/she may retake the save. Similar saves should be taken upon a character becoming a vampire or some kind of permanent change, unless they are the thrall of another vampire or controlled in another fashion, in which case they are evil until such a time they regain free will. The save is taken once and only once. These saves, though, are more or less meant to retain the ability to choose morality. A once good vampire who made their save can become evil through actions, but is doing so by choice. Unintelligent undead are always the alignment bestowed upon them (which is never good, mostly evil, sometimes neutral). The DC's of such saves should be modelled after Lycanthropy, but are subject to change at a DM's discretion. 6. Codes of Conduct still apply. Divine magic, while entirely ambigious in origin, still has a sense of morality. Violating one's code of conduct as given by a class still incurs the same penalties. These different rules may confuse a setting a bit, but I think they should work fo the most part and add a new dimension to the game.
Seeker95 03-21-05, 09:36 AM	I suspect you probably want your Compitum threads on another board. More specifically, Campaign Workshop (http://boards1.wizards.com/forumdisplay.php?f=295)
thinkhard 03-23-05, 01:01 AM	I'll go ahead and move it, it didnt get too developed in this thread to really have a drastic effect if i changed its location