Intelligent weapon: Harizawn

Post/Author/DateTimePost
#1

Sorxores

Dec 04, 2014 5:09:15

last night we found Harizawn, an intelligent Neutral Evil weapon. My ELdritch knight is Chaotic Good, so what does that mean?

 

I don't have the DMG (since I'm a player), if someone can quote me the intelligent weapon entry it would be greatly appreciated.

 

Then how do you rule how the sword work.

 

-Some people are saying the sword deal 2d6 necrotic damage to me (the weilder) because we don'T ahve the same alignment

 

-Other say the sword simply whisper evil "secret" in my ears ("attack the paladin he's a traitor" or "this little innocent girl will become a formidable evil witch and will cause the destruction of neverwinter, you should kill her now if you are really good" type of secret)

 

-Other say the sword simply don't allow me to attune nor bound (special Eldritch knight ability) with it

 

-Other say it's a curse item so once attune I need a restoration spell or remove ccurse

 

-Other say the sword can talk loudly so basically make me fail all stealth check (being in heavy armor and with 8 Dex I already failk my stealth check anyway)

 

-Other say the sword simply won't power up so will be a regular greatsword

 

-Other say the sword can take control of me so now I shoul dbecome neutral evil and the DM should take my character since neutral evil are illegal in AL

 

-Other say the sword can prevent me from swinging it completly making me loose my action

 

-Other say I have disavantage when using the sword

 

-Etc...

 

So who's right? I got this sword that I taught was super cool and I was super happy, and I would be really sad if I learn that this sword is completly useless and that I'm better to stay with my mundane greatsword that I had, would be kind of very bad if in the complet HotDQ book, within the 10+ magical item none of them are usefull for a greatsword fighter when the rogue got a super cool dagger of venom and a longbow +1, the wizard got awesome bracer of defense that stack on top of his Mage armor giving him a higher AC then the fighter and got close to get a staff of fire (we'll get it in Rise of Tiamat) and a wand of winter, the druid got a necklace giving him a magical +1 attack and damage to his wild shape forms, the paladin tank got a shield of arrow catching and a longsword +1, the ranger got a longbow +1. The leather armor+1 and the chain mail +1 are useless since studded leather and splint mail does the same job and doesn't count as a magical item. We couldn't found teh cloak of elvenKind nor the white dragon scale mail

#2

Nachturnus

Dec 04, 2014 6:46:47

Intelligent weapons are the purview of your DM. What does your DM say it does? It makes literally no difference what anyone else says, as intelligent items are explicitly controlled by the DM, though more extravagant ones (2d6 necrotic, disad) seem like players who are just making things up. Intelligent items typically are more-than-willing to interact with people of other alignments, because they usually have uncommon alignments for player characters (XEvil, often,) and thus wouldn't be in any way compelling if you were prohibited from using them in any real manner.

This relates to old edition D&D content, and thus isn't immediately relevant, but can serve as a decent baseline. Blackrazor was a very powerful weapon  (usually a two-handed sword) that can steal the souls of it's victims, and compelled it's wielder to murder living creatures with frequency.  It's a chaotic evil weapon, but was often wielded by non CE characters, because murdering living creatures is fairly easy as an adventurer. 

Basically: it's going to depend on how your DM runs the weapon. It's not likely your character is going to suffer damage every round they use it, nor that it'll be impossible to use. 

#3

Sorxores

Dec 04, 2014 7:07:42

My DM is a beginning DM and he always ask to people how stuff work, usually I can refer him to the book and tell him this is how the book word it and this is my interpretation and here are the mos tpopular interpretation that the community brought up.

 

The problem here, is the description of what Inteligent weapon are is in the DMG and I didn't read it yet, So I told him that well, it's evil weapon so it want to do evil act. Evil act can be lesser evil like killing stuff moderatly evil like bathing in the blood of his victim, or extremly evil like getting polish using a freshly made skin cloth and fresh blood etc... The sword coul deven have a super cool talking persoallity where it will try to tempt me in doing stuff and try to explain some situation trought his understanding and his evil point of view, trying to convert me to the evil side.

 

If the weapon is disastisfy, it is still just a weapon without any telekenitic power or mental posssession ability, but could refuse to activate it's own power (making it a mundane greatsword untill it become satisfy again.

 

and this would be a very cool and fun item, way more fun then a simple flametongue and I would love such a weapon.

 

But in my group there is some player from older edition who believe that player other then themself shoudn't have cool stuff, so they convince the DM that an evil intelligent weapon is a cursed item, and it's the worse thing that ever existed and the weapon got all those super powerfull mental ability where the sword can refuse to attack and completly nullyfy my attacks, so now everytime I want to attack I need to roll 2 d20. The first one is to see the mood of the sword if I roll too low, then the sword do not move (prevent me from moving the sword completly so I lose my attack), so now the weapon become completly useless and nto fun at all, and I'm back at using my mundane greatsword, and I'm stuck with a useless piece of crap preventing me from getting an magical item that I could use untill everyone else get a magical item, since it's not a curse item I cannot simply remove curse and destroy it, it's a legit magical item so I cannot loose it, give it away, or what get rid of it by any means. Even if I give it to someone, I simply "lend it" to him and at the end of the session I get it back by AL rules. so this weapon is even worse then a curse item. At least a curse item is a challenge, it was put there to be fun, to force the player to be cautious and not simply equip any non identify item, and if my mistake you get curse there is a way to get remove the curse. Now I have a PERMENANT curse item that cannot be remove curse or wish away it is PERMANENT and cannot be destory by any AL legal way.

 

At least a staff of defense, once the item is obsolete and that I donT' want it anymore, I can simply use all it'S charge and eventually I will roll a 1 on the d20 and destroy it, but not HArizawn, even using all it's charge there is no destroy the weapon option within AL rules. (in my knowledge ther is no adventure to go to the volcano of Mordor.

(Reply to #3)

Nachturnus

Sorxores wrote:
#5

CahPahkah

Dec 04, 2014 9:16:19

Hazirawn is a sentient item, the rules for which are on pp. 214-218 of the DMG. There are four pages there that I'm not going to type out for you, but the big takeaways are:

 

  • Sentient items are NPCs under DM control, and have their own personalities and objectives.; DMs have a lot of discretion in how easy or difficult it is for you to use an item.
  • If your PC's goals and actions are too far removed from the item's, the Conflict rules (on p. 216) can kick in. That's bad for you.
  • Some sentient items have attunement requirements based on class, race, or level. Hazirawn does not - anybody can use it.

The other thing I'd mention is that, if you're playing in an Adventurer's League game, not everything that's in the DMG is applicable at the table. And the idea of including a high-level treasure that literally no character can use (since there are no neutral evil PCs) while simultaneously being a permanent magic item that you can never trade or otherwise rid yourself of is fundamentally contrary to the spirit of the AL, and pretty obviously not how it works.

#6

Sorxores

Dec 04, 2014 11:22:24

CahPahkah wrote:
(Reply to #6)

CahPahkah

If you want to get into that level of detail, either you or your DM should buy the DMG. It's full of useful information, and could provide a lot of context for what you're trying to do.

 

In short, yes, an unhappy sentient items can prevent you from attuning to it, turn its powers off, and even force you to follow its commands via a charm power.

 

Would I do any of those things to you in the situation you're describing? No, I wouldn't. But I'm not your DM.

 

It's also worth noting that Hazirawn was created for the Hoard of the Dragon Queen adventure prior to the DMG being finalized, and so it's not actually statted properly as a sentient weapon. If you compare it to the sample sentient items on p. 216 of the DMG the difference (and the source of your conflict here) is pretty obvious: sentient weapons have attunement requirements, defined Int/Wis/Cha stats, specifications as to how they communicate, stated goals, and descriptions of their personalities. Hazirawn has none of those things. If it did have those attributes, there would be a lot less disagreement.


As it stands, Hazirawn is really just statted as a magic weapon that happens to have an alignment for some reason. Without any real insight into its personality or goals, anything more than that is just an issue of DM invention.

 

If I were you, I'd find a copy of the DMG, look at this section with your DM, and see if you can agree upon a set of full stats for the sword. If you can't, ask to "unclaim" the item, as your DM is radically changing its properties with the rulings he's making.

#8

Nachturnus

Dec 04, 2014 12:42:43

Your DM doesn't understand what the NE alignment means, apparently. 

Just because something is neutral evil doesn't mean it starts attacking things at random. Neutral signifies that the entity behaves the way it does methodically (non-chaotic), but because it wants to, not because it is following a code of reason or conduct (non-lawful.) Evil signifies that the entity behaves in ways that are commonly considered bad, such as stealing, killing, or otherwise breaking common moral codes. 

Examples of neutral evil: 

The Xenomorph (from the Alien franchise,) which murders other sentient creatures to reproduce.

Man eating tigers (real-world) which intentionally attack humans because they are more centralized, and there's always a supply of them to feed on.

Zombies (modern mythos, not the D&D creature specifically) which eat the flesh of still-living creatures to sustain themselves, without intent or malice. 

Drug Lords (real-world) who victimize other humans, often resulting in murder and theft, in order to make an obscene ammount of money.

Your DM seems to have been spooked by the idea of the word 'evil,' and decided that all evil is chaotic evil, or 'stupid evil' as it's sometimes called, where all evil wants to do is cut up people for no reason and play around in their blood for a little bit. 

If the sword is neutral evil, it's going to want to kill people because that's what it does. Maybe it likes betrayal, but it should have no problem with killing stuff, so long as it's being used to kill, rather than, say, subdue. 
 

If anything, Chaotic Good is more likely to be able to align with it because Chaotic Good archetypes are more likely to try to control evil for good ends, certainly moreso than any lawful or neutral good alignments, and probably moreso than a lawful neutral. 

Now, this is, again, your DM's call, but you should point out to him that he's making the sword out to be some sort of rabid murder-monster (CE) rather than it's actual alignment. You should let him know that it's not worth playing as is, and you need it fixed, or will have to reroll/take your playership elsewhere.

 

#9

Sorxores

Dec 05, 2014 5:11:51

Nachturnus wrote:
#10

Nachturnus

Dec 05, 2014 5:52:29

Sorxores wrote:
#11

El_Condoro

Dec 05, 2014 13:51:11

Nachturnus wrote:
#12

Kentus

Dec 05, 2014 18:51:04

Normally your DM should consider first, if the following things are there:

1.) Harizawn is a weapon and wants to be used as such. So as long the PC is using Harizawn often enough, it should stay tame.

2.) But it's NE, means that it doesn't care if it's time to be patient. It should regularly and selfishly suggest the wish to be used and be mean, if it isn't used as often as it wants.

3.) You attune to it. Attunement means to open yourself to the item, so it might use this connection to charm the wielder, as long it may think it's necessarily. NE items doesn't know scruples.

 

 

The DM is free to add any history and goals to Harizawn, if it seems plausible and makes the item more interesting. So maybe Harizawn is (due the former connection to Rezmir) too interested into the cult's plan and might block any attends to be used against the cult of dragons.

 

Basically: A NE evil weapon is NE, so it does what it wants, because it can. As long as you don't have some means to persuade it (like intimidate it to be thrown in a volcano), you might deal with a real nasty fellow here.

#13

Nachturnus

Dec 06, 2014 6:59:57

We're about to hit some philosophy here that is relevant to the point, but also a bit long-winded , so anyone who's not interested in going down the rabbit hole, tune out here:

 

El_Condoro wrote:
#14

El_Condoro

Dec 05, 2014 21:11:52

^^ I think I agree with most of what you're saying. Actually, I have deleted a lot of my post because I had a penny-drop moment! The key is to separate intentions, which we have no way of objectively measuring, from the action, which has an objective and measurable effect. The DM cannot say, in the example above, that the paladin's intentions in killing the hooded trolls were for good or for expediency ("evil") - whatever the player may describe - but he or she can say there are now dead innocents tied to those poles because of what the paladin and the party did. Murdered innocents are evil by most (all?) definitions.

 

Likewise, the man-eating tiger in your example is still nonaligned from a real-world point of view (they "lack the capacity for rational thought" as per PHB122) but from the point of view of their actions - in a game of D&D - they have done something evil (killed to satisfy a blood lust?) and can be considered evil. The intention and the motivation are irrelevant - we can feel sorry for such a tiger - but its actions would still see it being killed by villagers as a man-eater. The shark in the PHB example is in a similar situation: recently here in Australia they were hunted and killed when a human life was lost to one. The shark is nonaligned but its action of killing a human is "evil" from an objective point of view. Most people still feel sympathy for those sharks, though!

 

My limited understanding of law says the sociopath can still be convicted of a crime even if their "it's just who I am" defense may be true (this is a simplification, of course). The effect of their action is what is being punished. It's also why manslaughter is still a crime - a person has died, even if it was unintentional. Perhaps this relates to the paladin example above?

 

It's why the whole concept of alignment has been debated since its inception and is still (ENWorld link to topic of removing alignment from D&D)

 

And that's why, especially for RPGs, actions are the only true measure of alignment because the intention is unclear to the DM. As someone else has said, the actions invoke consequences and it is those consequences that will affect how the character will act in the future, not an abstract idea called "alignment". That said, it can still be useful for NPCs and for a basic character outline, as others have said.

#15

Psikerlord

Dec 07, 2014 13:23:09

I've not seen the DMG yet, but my instinct is, a NE sword is not meant to be weilded by a good PC. So my ruling would probably be that it's powers dont work for the good PC, or something similar. Or maybe it works at first, but as it comes to understand the PC is good, stops working - possibly at the most inopportune and dangerous time - either hoping to be discarded or getting the PC killed so it can go to an evil person.

 

So it might start out ok, but then kinda morph into a cursed weapon like effect.

#16

Nachturnus

Dec 08, 2014 5:51:11

Psikerlord wrote:
#17

Sorxores

Dec 08, 2014 11:17:02

Nachturnus wrote:
#18

Nachturnus

Dec 08, 2014 12:10:05

I've edited the post-edit, to try to make it more coherent to respond to. EDIT: The Wizards forum engine is giving me crap, so I'm finding it impossible to quote your post, as it's replied to in an edited form of my post. I'll be bolding your quotes, Sorxores.

 

---

 

There is no difference between the "man eating" and the "garden variety" in the mentality and view of the world. The only difference is when they are babies there mother teach then what is good to eat and what is not worth eating. The mother will bring to her cub a dead mouse, a dead rabbit, a dead bird, a dead what ever she can hunt (an learned from her mom the same way), to teach the cub what kind of meat is good to eat. Then the mother will bring an injured animal so the cub can learn the movement pattern of the different prey he could eat, then when the cub become older, the mother will bring him on the hunt to teach him how to hunt. Then the tiger will go on his own to get his own territories and hunt what his mother taught him to hunt. Tiger don't generally eat human, because most tiger that tried are getting killed and cannot pass the knowledge to the next generation. In the animal kingdom there is no difference between a human, a chimpazee a mouse or a fish, they all have the same worth, none of them is more important or got a special statut of "god favorite". With the EVIL HUMAN (because human are evil, knowingly destroying it's own environement and taking away the environement of other animal) destroying the tiger and it's prey environment tigers are force to find new source of meat, and a slow moving human without any weapon and that can be found anywhere is tempting and the tiger will try it since there is no other choice. This is not evil at all, no matter of the definition of evil you want to use: The tiger is not using the "morality" of human considering that human are more important then other animal. All animals (excluding human) cannot be evil (nor good) they are simply following the law of nature like they are suppsoe to do to survive, they are following the law of nature that let the previous generation survive and give birht to the new generation (which is the ONLY purpose of life). They don't do what they do for some other reason then surviving. if this is being evil, then all our character are evil because they all kill other stuff (goblin, kobolts) to protect them self, they all kill meat (hunting) to eat.

 

However there is a difference. In literary tropes during the late colonial period, there are numerous stories (The Jungle Book for example) in which Man-Eating animals feature prominantly as villains and antagonists, and are very clearly defiend as 'evil.' This is because they actions they took, regardless of intent, were viewed as harmful or destructive by the societies in which those activities were performed, thus making them evil. 

 

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YES that what it means, the "men eating" tiger do not wake up the morning and wondering if he's going to eat human, dear and bird tonight, he go for hunt and kill the first thing he catch, if he see a dear first, but the dear manage to flee, then the tiger will continue to hunt, then asee a bird and catch it, so the men eater tiger will eat BIRD tonight. If the first thing he manage to catch (because he's injured, weaken or becasue everything else got killed by human) is a human then he eat a human, but he DO NOT PREFER human, he eat it because he couldn't catch anythign else. If killing without considering the motivation for the killing make you evil, then like I said, EVERYONE in the DnD world is evil, because EVIL are killing others. Even in the real life, everyone is killing to eat (even vegen are killing plant, and plant are a living organism with the same worth as an animal, so if killing animal is wrong, then killing plant is just as wrong) killing bacteria (there are living organism just like animal and plant) killing to protect themself, asking to other people to kill for them (we are asking hunter to kill for out food, we are asking our military power to kill to protect our country, we ask policement to kill to protect our cities etc... 

 

 

There is a difference, however. We expect the police to kill criminals, and the military to kill other militant bodies, because that's when we accept that killing is "justifiable." However, as soon as those social expectations are slightly mismatched (My Lai Massacre, Race Riots, the recent rash of highly publicized police shootings.) people freak out, decrying the actions as evil. Meanwhile in Norway there was recently a national outcry because the Norwegian police shot and killed the first criminal in that institution's history, and there a massive investigation into the issue. Obviously there are degrees of social variance here, however that doesn't make the defintiion of evil arbitrary and meaningless: it means it's defined by social standards. A lack of 'absolute' morality doesn't mean that morality doesn't exist. 


---

 

Killing is NOT an evil act. The same way that casting fireball is not evil. It's all depend on the reason why you do it. casting fireball to burn down an orphanage, is evil, killing for fun is evil, killing for revenge is evil. Casting fireball to protect yourself, your party, friends, family from the ennemy is neutral. killing for hunting and eat is neutral. Killing to protect the village of stranger, where you got no family, no friend living there, that is good. It's for this EXACT reason that most beast are unaligned, and the "men eating" tiger are unalign as well, they simply do what they have to do to survive, because EVIL human stole their land, stole their prey, and are too weak to protect themself.

[/quote]

 

The Norwegians beg to differ, or more importantly, it depends wildly on what society or setting you find yourself in. 

 

---

 

exactly, human standard do not mean anything and are worthless, therefor you cannot use human morality to determined evil or good. You cannot use your god (if you follow a God) to determine if your evil or not, since those action where commanded by their God (I won't start a debate demonstrating that God is a human creation, since the morality of God somehow follow the human morality)

 


Since Gods in D&D are essentially magical people, invoking them as a standard for 'divine mandate' is pointless, I agree. However, the standards of a setting are incredibly important. For example, the PHB and DMG both state, incontravertably, that Necromancy is an evil act... except when the setting requires it as a standard. An easy exmaple is the Diablo setting, where Necromancers and dead-raising Witch Doctors are common occurences, and routinely save the world. I've participated in many campaigns where necromancy isn't just accepted, it's institutionalized. In those settings, a character performing 'demonstrably evil act's according to the PHB are actually Lawful Good players. 

Very clearly, morality is setting-dependant, and variable, however it is still important to how weapons and characers are treated. It's also mostly sepparate from intent, and intent usually only plays in in situations where someone is performing an evil act (killing a person.) but when we make an excuse due to the intent (a mass murderer, to prevent them murdering others.)  

You're advocating a system in which there is no such thing as evil, or good, as Stalin himself had 'good' intentions when he killed over 100 million of his own people: he wanted to modernize his nation, and decrease political dissidence so that his people would work towards his vision united. People who stood against those ideals were enemies of the state (as stalin was the state in his mind) and thus deserved exactly what they got. If we use Stalin's perspective, Stalin's intentions are entirely honorableand valid, making his acts non-evil. Not only that, all of his followers bought into his perspective and executed his orders. 

I for one argue that, regardless of intention, killing 100 million people is insurmountably evil, as did most of the world at the time. 

 

---

 

False again, many humans does evil act all the time, and those act or encourage by our evil society and everyone know those act are evil, they simply ignore it because it's easier. The destruction of our own planet/society for making a quick profit for example. Selling drug, ****, killing for revenge or for political reason or just for money, slavery (even today). Do you really believe that the hit man working for the mafia, trully believe that since the drug addict didn't pay his drug it is legitimate to kill him? or does he do it knowing that it's evil, but the money will help him ignore that fact? Does the guy who **** a women "because she was dress like a prostitue" trully believe that it's victim deserve to be ****? He might use it as a defence in court, but I'm sure that if the guy is sane, he know he did something wrong. Good and Evil are nto sepparate from intent. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, first this is again a ignorant human saying, Then those good intent that paved the road to hell, had a bad execution (bringing 30 peanut butter sandwich to school to feed the kid who cannot afford eating breakfast in the mornign is a good intention, but forgetting that some kid are deadly allergic to peanuts, if a BAD EXECUTION, and those good intent that paved Hell road, shoudl be rename "blatant stupidity pave the road to Hell"

 


You wildly underestimate the human ability of self-delusion. People justify decapitating random people they met on the road because 'their god wills it.' and they consider themselves righteous paragons of the human race. Drug dealers often have as little choice in the matter as anyone else: it's a well-known fact that drug dealers opperate largely on credit, and once they become indebted to a distributor, they are usually in a poor position to renig. 

Almost no one on earth wakes up in the morning, grabs their box of wheaties, and says "Lets be Evil, baby!" before strapping on their supervillain costume. Usually people have 'reasons' that they use to try to excuse their actions to themselves. To boot, many things we view externally as 'evil' that are totally normal in other cultures, such as ritual suicide and the killing of prisoners. 

Evil is thusly defined on a setting-by-setting basis, and based on the general moral standards of that setting. 

 

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Please can you tell me which country have **** legalise for men? The difference is human learned to control there instinct, we have a  very well develop frontal brain lobe which make us rationalise our instinct a frontal lobe tha is a lot less develop in most other animal (including tiger) we can control our instinct, they cannot.

 


Turkey. They've gotten nailed on it for the last twenty years or so, and it's one of the major reasons they've had such trouble getting into the EU. There are also dozens of countries across Africa and Asia (notably Iran and Syria) who have a number of such laws. Suffice to say, they have a different defintiion of evil than some western nations do. 
 

 

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We are now in magical realm of DnD so some of it might change, but from my knowledge, redeeming evil outssider (demon, devil etc...), are able to stop being evil and have a chance to redeem themself if they want to, they simply don't want to do it because being evil if fun and enjoyable or they prefer their own safety because if they rebel to become good they usually get killed quickly enought. The lesser being could choose if they want to to stop doing evil thing, but then they get hunted down by the greater one so they CHOOSE the easy path of continuing doing evil act instead of infuriating their master and having to work hard and fight many obstacle to escape their evil ways. Sometime you can read a story about some of them who manage to escape their fate (Drizzt'z I know he's not a evil outsider, he's an evil humanoid, but he did the choice to rebel against it's nature/culture and became a good align hero.)

 



Demons are inherently incapable of redemption. They exist as blights upon the fabric of the universe, and their very presence brings corruption and destruction. They were created Chaotic Evil, and they lack the ability to become more than such in the D&D core universe. Even the Demon Princes are still bound by their natures most easily demonstrated by Demogorgon, who is almost entirely incapable of decisive action because of his dueling heads. They are not Chaotic Evil because they like it, or because they had some choice somewhere back in their early days: they are evil because the Greater Demons created them to be such, and thus they are: slaves. Since they are slaves, does that mean their actions are justified? Are they Chaotic Neutral while chewing the face off of an orphan? I'd venture 'No.'

Devils are also slaves. The original Devils fell from angelhood by way of following Asmodeus and ignoring their divine creators. Angels who fell became endebted to one another in the currency of souls, leading to yet another system of systemic slavery, where a devil can easily be forced into actions (by such lowly creatures as PCs) if they can speak his true name. Is a Devil, who only intends to stay alive and avoid trouble, and thusly has to bathe in the blood of innocents every so often, a Good character? What if he only tortures one every now and then? I'm still prompted to say 'No.' That being said, Devils are capable of redemption, however redemption might not seem like a viable alternative to a Devil: trading slavery from a system of soul commerce to slavery at the hand of a tyrant diety. Is it 'Good' to go from being a Devil in the 9 hells to becoming an Angel of Gruumsh or Cyric? What about Bane? Vecna?

I'm going to refrain from posting another long diatribe in ths thread. If you would like more information, please read more on Social Contract Theory. It has an excellent wikipedia article, and is the subject of numerous philosophical texts. 


 

#19

Sorxores

Dec 08, 2014 12:52:27

[quote="Nachturnus"]

I've edited the post-edit, to try to make it more coherent to respond to. 

 

[quote="Sorxores"]

There is no difference between the "man eating" and the "garden variety" in the mentality and view of the world. The only difference is when they are babies there mother teach then what is good to eat and what is not worth eating. The mother will bring to her cub a dead mouse, a dead rabbit, a dead bird, a dead what ever she can hunt (an learned from her mom the same way), to teach the cub what kind of meat is good to eat. Then the mother will bring an injured animal so the cub can learn the movement pattern of the different prey he could eat, then when the cub become older, the mother will bring him on the hunt to teach him how to hunt. Then the tiger will go on his own to get his own territories and hunt what his mother taught him to hunt. Tiger don't generally eat human, because most tiger that tried are getting killed and cannot pass the knowledge to the next generation. In the animal kingdom there is no difference between a human, a chimpazee a mouse or a fish, they all have the same worth, none of them is more important or got a special statut of "god favorite". With the EVIL HUMAN (because human are evil, knowingly destroying it's own environement and taking away the environement of other animal) destroying the tiger and it's prey environment tigers are force to find new source of meat, and a slow moving human without any weapon and that can be found anywhere is tempting and the tiger will try it since there is no other choice. This is not evil at all, no matter of the definition of evil you want to use: The tiger is not using the "morality" of human considering that human are more important then other animal. All animals (excluding human) cannot be evil (nor good) they are simply following the law of nature like they are suppsoe to do to survive, they are following the law of nature that let the previous generation survive and give birht to the new generation (which is the ONLY purpose of life). They don't do what they do for some other reason then surviving. if this is being evil, then all our character are evil because they all kill other stuff (goblin, kobolts) to protect them self, they all kill meat (hunting) to eat.

[/quote]

 

However there is a difference. In literary tropes during the late colonial period, there are numerous stories (The Jungle Book for example) in which Man-Eating animals feature prominantly as villains and antagonists, and are very clearly defiend as 'evil.' This is because they actions they took, regardless of intent, were viewed as harmful or destructive by the societies in which those activities were performed, thus making them evil. In the jungle book is a magical worl just like DnD, the tiger is able of speach, so i believe that in the jungle book, that tiger must have a develop frontal lobe so yes he his evil because he have a human like mind. So yes I agree with you, the magical tiger from the Jungle Book is evil, but the real life tiger in the real world is UNALIGNED. There is also a singing bear speaking English. And don't get me wrong, in the jungle book, there is a friendly panther as well... I don'T want to break your beautiful dream, but if you give a defenseless baby human to a panther, then panther will EAT THE BABY, Jungle book is NOT based on reality. Yes in the magical world of the Jungle book, the tiger is evil, because in this magical land the tiger is able of reasoning and thought.

 

[quote="Sorxores"]

YES that what it means, the "men eating" tiger do not wake up the morning and wondering if he's going to eat human, dear and bird tonight, he go for hunt and kill the first thing he catch, if he see a dear first, but the dear manage to flee, then the tiger will continue to hunt, then asee a bird and catch it, so the men eater tiger will eat BIRD tonight. If the first thing he manage to catch (because he's injured, weaken or becasue everything else got killed by human) is a human then he eat a human, but he DO NOT PREFER human, he eat it because he couldn't catch anythign else. If killing without considering the motivation for the killing make you evil, then like I said, EVERYONE in the DnD world is evil, because EVIL are killing others. Even in the real life, everyone is killing to eat (even vegen are killing plant, and plant are a living organism with the same worth as an animal, so if killing animal is wrong, then killing plant is just as wrong) killing bacteria (there are living organism just like animal and plant) killing to protect themself, asking to other people to kill for them (we are asking hunter to kill for out food, we are asking our military power to kill to protect our country, we ask policement to kill to protect our cities etc... 

[/quote]

 

There is a difference, however. We expect the police to kill criminals, and the military to kill other militant bodies, because that's when we accept that killing is "justifiable." However, as soon as those social expectations are slightly mismatched (My Lai Massacre, Race Riots, the recent rash of highly publicized police shootings.) people freak out, decrying the actions as evil. Meanwhile in Norway there was recently a national outcry because the Norwegian police shot and killed the first criminal in that institution's history, and there a massive investigation into the issue. Obviously there are degrees of social variance here, however that doesn't make the defintiion of evil arbitrary and meaningless: it means it's defined by social standards. A lack of 'absolute' morality doesn't mean that morality doesn't exist. I agree with you morality is ever changing, evolving, and change between setting, in ancient greek, having same sex sexual relation between a adult and a child was accepted occurance (the apprentice was often bottom to the master) and then same sex relation got banned by the churchs, now same sex relation are accepted in the most advance country but sex between adult and child are viewed as evil. But in DnD, the Good Vs Evil system is universal, the Lawful Good paladin in Neverwinter, don't become Chaotic Evil when he travel to Thay. The system of Good Vs Evil in DnD is a morality system over the Gods. Pelor, Good align good give his cleric healing and offensive power only when those cleric follow the teachings of Pelor, Bane, Evil god, give THE SAME 95% SPELLS (domain spell might change) to his cleric when they follow Bane teaching. But Pelor teaching and Bane teaching both follow the SAME MORALITY CODE, Pelor is good and Bane is evil based on the universal morality system and no one believe that Bane is a good align God, but his simply misunderstood.

So we cannot use morality system based on human standards since those are changing and DnD is not changing (Bane is always evil no matter where you are, and Pelor is always good no matter where you are. Pelor is still a good align God even in the necromantic circle, those necromantic circle are willingly breaking Pelor will to achieve there own goal.

 


[quote="Sorxores"]

Killing is NOT an evil act. The same way that casting fireball is not evil. It's all depend on the reason why you do it. casting fireball to burn down an orphanage, is evil, killing for fun is evil, killing for revenge is evil. Casting fireball to protect yourself, your party, friends, family from the ennemy is neutral. killing for hunting and eat is neutral. Killing to protect the village of stranger, where you got no family, no friend living there, that is good. It's for this EXACT reason that most beast are unaligned, and the "men eating" tiger are unalign as well, they simply do what they have to do to survive, because EVIL human stole their land, stole their prey, and are too weak to protect themself.

[/quote]

 

The Norwegians beg to differ, or more importantly, it depends wildly on what society. Then the norwegians are evil person since they are killing plants, animal and bacteria all the time in order to survive, and if killing is always evil, then they are evil. Then in DnD, all our character who are killing goblins, orc, dragon, outsider, other humanoid etc... by this definition they are all Evil, even the most virtuous paladin is a evil, evil character killing countless goblin/koboldt/dragon etc... (does killing undead count as killing? lol)

 

[quote="Sorxores"]

exactly, human standard do not mean anything and are worthless, therefor you cannot use human morality to determined evil or good. You cannot use your god (if you follow a God) to determine if your evil or not, since those action where commanded by their God (I won't start a debate demonstrating that God is a human creation, since the morality of God somehow follow the human morality)

[/quote]

Since Gods in D&D are essentially magical people, invoking them as a standard for 'divine mandate' is pointless, I agree. However, the standards of a setting are incredibly important. For example, the PHB and DMG both state, incontravertably, that Necromancy is an evil act... except when the setting requires it as a standard. An easy exmaple is the Diablo setting, where Necromancers and dead-raising Witch Doctors are common occurences, and routinely save the world. I've participated in many campaigns where necromancy isn't just accepted, it's institutionalized. In those settings, a character performing 'demonstrably evil act's according to the PHB are actually Lawful Good players. 

Very clearly, morality is setting-dependant, and variable, however it is still important to how weapons and characers are treated. It's also mostly sepparate from intent, and intent usually only plays in in situations where someone is performing an evil act (killing a person.) but when we make an excuse due to the intent (a mass murderer, to prevent them murdering others.)  Not sure I understand what you mean? are you saying that killing is alway evil, but can be forgiven if the intention was good (protecting your life/friend/village etc...)

You're advocating a system in which there is no such thing as evil, or good, as Stalin himself had 'good' intentions when he killed over 100 million of his own people: he wanted to modernize his nation, and decrease political dissidence so that his people would work towards his vision united. People who stood against those ideals were enemies of the state (as stalin was the state in his mind) and thus deserved exactly what they got. If we use Stalin's perspective, Stalin's intentions are entirely honorableand valid, making his acts non-evil. Not only that, all of his followers bought into his perspective and executed his orders. Stalin is still evil, since he might have noble intention, but he use a VERY BAD EXECUTION, the execution of his plan was evil, and he had a choice, he had the possibility to realize that what he was doing was wrong and that there most be an other way to achieve his goal. He could also realise that is so many people were against his ideas, maybe his ideas wasn't that great? or maybe they wasn't expalin properly?

I for one argue that, regardless of intention, killing 100 million people is insurmountably evil, as did most of the world at the time.
So when we irradicate all the goblin from the dungeon is an evil act? so back in 3rd edition, when a paladin was doing something evil without feeling remorse he was loosing his paladin power, so the paladin should lose his paladin power for defending his home town?
 

[quote="Sorxores"]

False again, many humans does evil act all the time, and those act or encourage by our evil society and everyone know those act are evil, they simply ignore it because it's easier. The destruction of our own planet/society for making a quick profit for example. Selling drug, ****, killing for revenge or for political reason or just for money, slavery (even today). Do you really believe that the hit man working for the mafia, trully believe that since the drug addict didn't pay his drug it is legitimate to kill him? or does he do it knowing that it's evil, but the money will help him ignore that fact? Does the guy who **** a women "because she was dress like a prostitue" trully believe that it's victim deserve to be ****? He might use it as a defence in court, but I'm sure that if the guy is sane, he know he did something wrong. Good and Evil are nto sepparate from intent. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, first this is again a ignorant human saying, Then those good intent that paved the road to hell, had a bad execution (bringing 30 peanut butter sandwich to school to feed the kid who cannot afford eating breakfast in the mornign is a good intention, but forgetting that some kid are deadly allergic to peanuts, if a BAD EXECUTION, and those good intent that paved Hell road, shoudl be rename "blatant stupidity pave the road to Hell"

[/quote]

You wildly underestimate the human ability of self-delusion. People justify decapitating random people they met on the road because 'their god wills it.' and they consider themselves righteous paragons of the human race. Drug dealers often have as little choice in the matter as anyone else: it's a well-known fact that drug dealers opperate largely on credit, and once they become indebted to a distributor, they are usually in a poor position to renig. If people decapitate other "because they heard voice telling them to do so, doesn't matter if those voice are from the devil, satan, god, an angel or any other source" and are unable to rationalize it and realise that it's evil and truly believe that they are being rightious, then this person got MENTAL ISSUES, therefor not evil, just sick and should receive metal care.

Almost no one on earth wakes up in the morning, grabs their box of wheaties, and says "Lets be Evil, baby!" before strapping on their supervillain costume. Usually people have 'reasons' that they use to try to excuse their actions to themselves. To boot, many things we view externally as 'evil' that are totally normal in other cultures, such as ritual suicide and the killing of prisoners. 

Evil is thusly defined on a setting-by-setting basis, and based on the general moral standards of that setting.
Agree with you
 

[quote="Sorxores"]

Please can you tell me which country have **** legalise for men? The difference is human learned to control there instinct, we have a  very well develop frontal brain lobe which make us rationalise our instinct a frontal lobe tha is a lot less develop in most other animal (including tiger) we can control our instinct, they cannot.

[/quote]

Turkey. They've gotten nailed on it for the last twenty years or so, and it's one of the major reasons they've had such trouble getting into the EU. There are also dozens of countries across Africa and Asia (notably Iran and Syria) who have a number of such laws. Suffice to say, they have a different defintiion of evil than some western nations do.
Prooving further more that human made moral are ever changing per setting and I think we do agree on this point
 

 

Sorxores wrote:
#20

Nachturnus

Dec 08, 2014 13:36:52

Rather than try to reply to each quote in that tangled mess (Thanks WotC,) I'm going to hit the major points:

1) We Agree Morality is determined on a setting-by-setting basis. This means it's external, and thus socially determined rather than internally determined. We've given numerous examples of how people can justify wildly evil (by our social standards) acts, and still be considered 'moral' by themselves or their society. 

2) That doesn't mean things don't have a specific morality within a setting. You agree with me on this, in that you say 'in D&D' (by which I take you mean Greyhawk) 'Bane is always evil.' Which is normally correct, though it lso depends on setting. 

3) This means that society determines Evil and Good morals, not the person's intention. Intent is often a factor in how people react to Good or Evil, but it doesn't define it. Murder is evil, but intent can excuse it. Giving to charity is good, but intent can demonize it, etc.

4) This means intent is a modifier to morality, not a cause. This is why many soldiers have guilt for killing other soldiers, because they're trying to reconcile the justification with deviating from the moral standard. 

5) This means intent should be considered part of the internal evaluation of a character (Lawful, Neutral, Chaotic) rather than their external, social evaluation (Good, Neutral, Evil.)