The Unfun Question: Defilers, Hexblades, Hemomancers, oh my.

[Paint]

TL;DR -- I think it's super weird that defilers aren't alignment locked while classes that work similar forces are.

I don't think this is going to win me any friends, because I think by and large the community resents alignment restrictions on classes. There's an argument to be made that despite alignments being cosmic forces of good, evil, law, and chaos, that we as players, and possibly even the DMs apply these concepts arbitrarily, situationally, and subjectively. And while I'm not ready to open another alignment debate, I'm sure this'll spark one. Hence, the nature of the unfun question:

Why is Defiler not Neutral and Evil locked? Hear me out about this; Palemasters are evil. They require an -award- to be played as -not- evil. The reason for this is that they do vile things to themselves with negative energy, and their main mode of dealing with problems, as presented by the class is -evil- in nature. Not just from a subjective point of view, but from the very cosmic laws of reality that have been established within the Forgotten Realms setting. It is evil. It is -very- difficult to be a goodly palemaster, because even with pure intents, you, by the nature of what you are, spread and propagate evil.

Hemomancers are alignment-locked to non-good as well, for much the same reason. Their magic is mostly dark and sinister, and no matter how perfectly wholesome their intents may be, by the nature of what they do, they -spread evil and entropy-.

Hexblades are just sick as hell. I have nothing to say about them they're cool AF, please keep them evil locked so people don't ruin the aesthetic.

Anyways, to get back to my point. The main gimmick that defiler clerics revolves around is pumping so much negative energy into a thing that it -dies-. If this isn't on the same level of disruption as hemomancy, animation, or palemastery, what -exactly- separates defiler-pathed clerics from these classes? What makes a defiler more worthy and good?

And therein lies the other part of this. If it can be argued that defilers should be allowed to be good, why not palemasters? Why not hemomancers? Why not hexblades?

I'm asking for a conversation on setting consistency here. Because I firmly believe that no matter how pure a defiler's intentions are, if they work overwhelmingly in negative and entropic energy, it should leave a stain on their soul that prevents them from having the good alignment. Thank you for coming to my ted talk.

Edit:
Just to drive my point home, here's the defiler path token description in game:

[Azekil]

Palemasters and Hemomancers both go further than using negative energy, Palemasters turning themselves part undead and hemomancers need ot take their own or someone elses blood to use magic in the first place.

Inflict wounds and the entire line of it is not evil same as harm, though the rulebook doesn't go into where the negative energy being channeled comes from it is no where near as bad as using people as a duracell or partially turning yourself undead.

Both the negative and the positive plane are horrendous places to be as well (Manual of the Planes):

The Negative Energy Plane is a barren empty place, a void without end, and a place of empty, endless night. Wordse it is a needy , greedy plane, sucking the life out of anything that is vulnerable. Heat Fire and life itself are all drawn into the maw of this plane, which hungers for more. [...] The Negative Energy Plane is the most hostile of the Inner Planes, and the most uncaring and intolerant of life. Only creatures invulnerable to its life draining energies may survive there, and even they have problems as the negative energy tugs at them imploringly.

The Positive energy Plane is best compared to the heart of a star. It is a continual furnace of creation, a domain of brilliance beyond the ability of bortal eyes to comprehend. Its very being wavers and ripples as new matter and energy is born and swells to full power like a bursting fruit. It is a vibrant plane, so alive with itself that travelers themselves are empowered by visiting it. [...] Depite the beneficial effects of the plane it is one of the most hostile of the Inner Planes. An uprotected character on this plane swells with power as positive energy is force-fed into her. Then, her mortal frame unable to contain that power, she immolates as a small planet caught at the edge of a supernova.

They are essentialy just the cosmic + and - and IIRC mortals have some part of both where overloading either into them will kill them.

It's mechanically strong and enjoyable to play, but given it's flavour text it probably should be evil only.

That's my two cents over.

[Paint]

I'm not necessarily sure that I agree that a hemomancer's methods are any more evil than a defiler's. More gruesome to witness, sure, but the results are relatively similar. And despite this argument about the positive and negative energy planes, they are undeniably strongly associated with the upper and lower planes respectively, and cosmic good and evil respectively. It's impossible to divorce the concepts when the lore surrounding FR and the outer planes is built around this.

Palemasters are definitely worse than hemomancers or defilers, though, and that's probably why you need a normal award to play a neutral one.

[definatelynothealbold]

Defiler Path Clerics should be non-Good.
Healer Path Clerics should be non-Evil.

Alignment matters for Divine magic.

[Azekil]

I'm not necessarily sure that I agree that a hemomancer's methods are any more evil than a defiler's. More gruesome to witness, sure, but the results are relatively similar. And despite this argument about the positive and negative energy planes, they are undeniably strongly associated with the upper and lower planes respectively, and cosmic good and evil respectively. It's impossible to divorce the concepts when the lore surrounding FR and the outer planes is built around this.

Palemasters are definitely worse than hemomancers or defilers, though, and that's probably why you need a normal award to play a neutral one.

Point granted, I do agree anyways that they should be non-good if not evil-only. Though I always found the complete black and white around energies to be really boring.

[Flower Power]

I don't really see any downside to putting hard alignment locks on the obviously morally horrific magical disciplines anymore, with the Big NPC Leaders of the major settlements forcing legal toleration of them regardless.

If you want to use other people's life force as a magical battery, you should probably just own up to how outrageously inherently evil that is - at least as a player. Playing a Good character who does it and just shrugs and handwaves it off is dull. Playing an Evil character who attempts to be decent in contrast to the means by which they've obtained power, constantly placing themselves in a position of narrative tension at odds with themselves, is interesting (unless you're just, again, shrugging and handwaving it off.)

[Eyeliner]

Defiler Path Clerics should be non-Good.
Healer Path Clerics should be non-Evil.

Alignment matters for Divine magic.

I don't see an issue with evil healers at all. You could be a healer for an evil army or price gouge for your healing services or whatever. I mean positive energy is a feylock trademark and they're certainly not using it for good.

It's a lot more difficult to justify a good character using defiler powers but these things don't have to be yin-yang.

[The GrumpyCat]

No really strong feelings about this, though I tend to prefer wider alignment options rather than narrow ones, for just more interesting concepts. Not that the alignment system is without it's flaws to start with...

But that aside - another aspect to look at these isn't just 'what they can do' but 'do they choose to do it?'

Pale Master: CHOOSES to chop off parts of their own body and replace them with a corpses. Not 'accidently' not 'is forced' it's a CHOICE of the pc to go through these rituals.

Hex Blade: WILLFULLY makes a pact with foul forces, dabbling in the very souls of those it slays

Warlock: See Above - chooses to make the pact with a very vile entity (Though for some reason warlock allows neutral and Hexblade doesn't? I'm sure there was a reason for this when it was introduced, possibly balence? I honestly can't recall what it was now as both are very thematically similar? Perhaps because Hexblade needs souls or something to keep going wheres as warlocks technically don't? Garrbear would know best)

Assassins: Choose to kill

Blackguards: Choose to make a pact

Zhents: Chooses to join, and wouldn't last long if they weren't a bit evil at least.

Dirge Singer: Ok, I don't know about that one. but they can be neutral too I believe. I just guess that by nature they're very gloomy?

Shadow Dancer/Shadow Mage: Again - not quite sure about the willingness factor in lore with these two. I'll bow to the belief of others. Though generally it's expected that shadow magic/stuff corrupts to... that's why Not Good I guess?

Hemomancers: Are innately born. Whilst it's true that they chose to grow their rather grousome abilities (which is a good reason they can't be Good aligned, a truly Good hemomancer would never pick up the adventuring mantle in the first place, and would keep their abilities as minimised as possible) - at the same time they didn't make a 'choice' to have those abilities. They were just born with them.
So to me for Hemomancers neutral does make sense.

Defilers: Ok so honestly I'm not sure? I had a look at the wiki page. The blurb for them makes them sound really evil - but their abilities arn't really... that bad? There's no animation there, and I don't recall anything that messes with souls, or summons demons or devils. Mostly it's a bit of harmful/necromantic magic, but nothing that causes undead at a glance neccesarly. Just stuff really good for causing a lot of destruction. Which say, Elementalist is also good at.
And then the question of 'willingness' comes up. Do the clerics CHOOSE that path In Character? Or is it just teh way the gods give them their blessings? If Tommy the Tormatar Cleric wakes up one day able to hurt people more than he can heal them - is that his fault or just the way Torm wants him to go? I honestly have no idea.

[Kuma]

And then the question of 'willingness' comes up. Do the clerics CHOOSE that path In Character?

Yes, or they'd be a Favoured Soul.

[ReverentBlade]

Railroady fluff description aside, is more and better Inflict spells really enough reason to alignment lock someone? Not so sure on that one. They make great healers, too!

[Amateur Hour]

Railroady fluff description aside, is more and better Inflict spells really enough reason to alignment lock someone? Not so sure on that one. They make great healers, too!

Their healing spells are decreased to 66% effectiveness. I wouldn't call that "great".

[Paint]

Railroady fluff description aside, is more and better Inflict spells really enough reason to alignment lock someone? Not so sure on that one. They make great healers, too!

I do think that it's enough reason. Not because these spells are destructive, but because of how negative energy seems to work in the lore of the setting.

I think that's something that people are getting caught up on here. The reason corpse animation is universally evil, rather than subjectively evil is because it causes big problems when left unchecked. It's a recurring theme. Necromancy relies widely on negative energy to accomplish this, and zombies, ghosts, wights, etc, are all sustained by negative energy. The overuse of spells which rely on negative energy has been cited as a reason for why, for example, it's exceedingly rare to be a 'good animator,' as it's typically a corrupting influence when you're around enough of it for long enough.

These same principles are in application here; there's just no creation of weird corpse creatures. It is objectively worse for the world to murder something with negative energy than it is to kill them with a fireball. Why? I don't know. It's just how the setting is set up. It's a question of setting integrity.

Defilers: Ok so honestly I'm not sure? I had a look at the wiki page. The blurb for them makes them sound really evil - but their abilities arn't really... that bad? There's no animation there, and I don't recall anything that messes with souls, or summons demons or devils. Mostly it's a bit of harmful/necromantic magic, but nothing that causes undead at a glance neccesarly. Just stuff really good for causing a lot of destruction. Which say, Elementalist is also good at.
And then the question of 'willingness' comes up. Do the clerics CHOOSE that path In Character? Or is it just teh way the gods give them their blessings? If Tommy the Tormatar Cleric wakes up one day able to hurt people more than he can heal them - is that his fault or just the way Torm wants him to go? I honestly have no idea.

Clerics aren't like favored souls. They're certainly not like sorcerers either. A cleric goes through rigorous training in the rituals of their faith to be able to cast the spells that they do, and this is discussed repeatedly throughout 3e forgotten realms lore -- to the point where there's some fourth-wall breaking passages in faiths and pantheons describing ceremonies clerics should undergo whenever they 'gain a level.' Becoming a Defiler cleric isn't just that your god gives you better harm spells. It represents continued, pursued interest in a very specific set of doctrines and worship.

[Richrd]

Defilers should be non-good minimum. Ideally they'd be evil-only.

[Amateur Hour]

I'd also say certain gods should not permit defiler clerics. Even if neutral, Sehanine or Naralis should DEFINITELY not permit defiler clerics.

[AstralUniverse]

We already have special restrictions and conditions for playing good monster, or good palemaster. It would make sense to me if playing a good defiler would also be subject to same or similar conditions. Balance-wise I cant really come up with a reason not leave it open but not all is balance. Although, balance-wise speaking it surprises me Defiler doesnt need any foci in necromancy to get all this tasty juice.

[The GrumpyCat]

I get that being a cleric is a choice. Like - to be a Cleric of Illmatur you have to learn the rites, go to the temple, purposefully choose the god, ect.

What I mean here is the paths themselves?

Is it a case that a cleric of Illmatur goes 'Right! I'm going to CHOOSE to focus on healing!' Or is it a case where Illmatur goes 'OK bub, your'e a cleric, but I think healing path is good for you so these spells are going to be eaiser for you to do/be super effective?'

Actually thinking about it - a lot of the paths give access to certain spells so... I suppose you're right? I think it's a slightly grey area. But yeah hrm. I suppose there is some choice in it!

[Batrachophrenoboocosmomachia]

Frankly, I think Defilers should be evil only. It feels incredibly obvious, and I'm shocked they weren't at outset.

[Deep Fried Thinking Emoji]

Clerics who crave power through corruption and enslavement often EMBRACE the path of the Defiler, making it their purpose to bring ruin and suffering to the realms at the behest of their dark patrons.

I think the description of the path makes it clear that it is something that clerics choose by themselves, not something that is forced on them by whichever deity they are following.

In my opinion, rather than limiting the path to evil or neutral only, I think the fluff should just be changed to be less over the top evil. At the end of the day the path is about using negative energy and death spells, yes, but those spells are not necessarily evil.

Hexblade being only evil is plainly weird and I don't understand it. 3.5e Hexblades are not pacted to any foul power, even if they are supposed to be somewhat selfish and so limited to non-good alignments, but even if we ignore what a "canon" Hexblade is, warlocks in Arelith are already spellcasters pacted to foul powers that can be neutral.

What Hemomancers do shouldn't really be regarded as evil on the Forgotten Realms setting. Spells like Healing Sting or Assimilate already consume the life force of other beings to heal yourself, or outright kill someone else to strengthen yourself and they both lack evil descriptors. They are still gruesome and creepy, and I think it would be cool if people regarded them IC with a degree of distrust because they are fueling their magic with the blood of their enemies and their own (this just doesn't happen), but at the end of the day their magic doesn't feel more evil than that of a normal sorcerer, just more unhygienic.

There's also the fact that there are spells that need blood as spell component (doesn't need to be your own) in the setting, and are not evil spells either.

[In Sorrow We Trust]

Railroady fluff description aside, is more and better Inflict spells really enough reason to alignment lock someone? Not so sure on that one. They make great healers, too!

Their healing spells are decreased to 66% effectiveness. I wouldn't call that "great".

spell recharge for defiler works on life transference and the healing from that is not reduced (that I've seen), it's not terrible when you use this

[ReverentBlade]

Yes. You don't use your direct healing. A defiler able to work her thing in the back gives a party pretty good healing and overheal bubbles.

[Peachoo]

Hemomancers are alignment-locked to non-good as well, for much the same reason. Their magic is mostly dark and sinister, and no matter how perfectly wholesome their intents may be, by the nature of what they do, they -spread evil and entropy-.

Hi there!
So, I haven't had a moment to look at the other classes you mentioned here, but I had some time to look over Hemomancer with the creator of the class.
The wiki has been updated with a clarifying paragraph regarding the alignment of the class and why neutral alignment is allowed.

Hemomancers as a class is not about spreaading evil or entropy. It is a homebrew class entirely made up by the Arelith Team, with some themes inspired by pathfinder/3e classes.

Hemomancer's theme does, in fact, lean towards evil. But it leans towards evil in that Hemomancer's practice 'leeching life/energy from others to empower oneself.' Basically, they take life/energy/blood from others to empower themselves.

While Red Harvest is a spell that has the Evil tag, it can also be used on oneself. If the caster uses it on themselves, this is the neutral alignment option. There are also several spells the Hemomancer can cast that are not tagged with the Evil tag, and thus are not inherently evil. (Though some maybe can be argued ic to some extent, but that's an rp thing!) Basically, this class is similar to the school of necromancy as some spells are evil and some are just not.

If the spell, such as Massacre, has the Evil tag- then the act of casting the spell alone is in itself an evil act.

So, say that you have a neutral hemomancer casting massacre on a group of cyric cultists trying to do some dark ritual. While the hemomancer may be doing a good thing by killing the cyricists and stopping their ritual- casting the spell itself is considered an evil act and the Hemomancer may be judged according/suffer the ic consequences accordingly by good aligned pcs AND npcs.

Furthermore, casting such evil spells in public places where NPCS are will net the same reaction from the npcs that any other evil tagged spell would such as - animating the dead.

The world/setting is made in a way that non-playable characters can and should react to evil marked spells like this- as will deities and good aligned creatures judge a mortal casting these spells.

So it's important to keep the npcs in mind, as always, when rping and playing a neutral pc with an inherently 'evil' themed class.

The team did not want to limit players in utilizing this cool class, and I wholeheartedly agree. At the end of the day, it's how you use it. I would use your characters best judgement of what they'd know about a hemomancer/invoker class when encountering them and these evil spells.

Here is a link to the page. It should be under Hemomancer:
https://wiki.nwnarelith.com/Invoker#Not ... ancer_Path

I will take a look at the others as well mentioned in this post. But, I hope this clarifies for some of the confusion. I firmly believe, as well, that any homebrew class should be clarified as there is no source reference material to draw from. If you aren't ever sure, the Arelith Writing team can be contacted for questions regarding lore related content. Take care!

[WanderingPoet]

Assassins: Choose to kill

Not to derail, but I always find it weird that assassin are evil only for doing what ever adventurer ever does (getting coin for killing things). While dirgesingers (not even alignment locked) and palemasters who animate the dead and do horrendously evil things, are not forced to be evil.

Agreeing with the OP though that it's strange that defiler which does again, horrendously evil things can be good aligned.

Ironically you could have an evil assassinated assisted by a dirgesinger with all their undead pets, and hemomancer ripping the blood from people, and a defiler who fills people with negative-entropic energy and death magic until they drop. Yet the only one that's actually evil is the guy that happens to stab people for money.

Also if defilers do become evil only, Healer should probably be good (maybe neutral) only. Evil people don't exactly decide to forgo wielding weapons and protecting themselves in order to keep others alive.

[Paint]

Hemomancers are alignment-locked to non-good as well, for much the same reason. Their magic is mostly dark and sinister, and no matter how perfectly wholesome their intents may be, by the nature of what they do, they -spread evil and entropy-.

Hi there!
So, I haven't had a moment to look at the other classes you mentioned here, but I had some time to look over Hemomancer with the creator of the class.
The wiki has been updated with a clarifying paragraph regarding the alignment of the class and why neutral alignment is allowed.

Hemomancers as a class is not about spreaading evil or entropy. It is a homebrew class entirely made up by the Arelith Team, with some themes inspired by pathfinder/3e classes.

Hemomancer's theme does, in fact, lean towards evil. But it leans towards evil in that Hemomancer's practice 'leeching life/energy from others to empower oneself.' Basically, they take life/energy/blood from others to empower themselves.

While Red Harvest is a spell that has the Evil tag, it can also be used on oneself. If the caster uses it on themselves, this is the neutral alignment option. There are also several spells the Hemomancer can cast that are not tagged with the Evil tag, and thus are not inherently evil.

If the spell, such as Massacre, has the Evil tag- then the act of casting the spell alone is in itself an evil act.

So, say that you have a neutral hemomancer casting massacre on a group of cyric cultists trying to do some dark ritual. While the hemomancer may be doing a good thing by killing the cyricists and stopping their ritual- casting the spell itself is considered an evil act and the Hemomancer may be judged according/suffer the ic consequences accordingly by good aligned pcs AND npcs.

Furthermore, casting such evil spells in public places where NPCS are will net the same reaction from the npcs that any other evil tagged spell would such as - animating the dead.

The world/setting is made in a way that non-playable characters can and should react to evil marked spells like this- as will deities and good aligned creatures judge a mortal casting these spells.

So it's important to keep the npcs in mind, as always, when rping and playing a neutral pc with an inherently 'evil' themed class.

The team did not want to limit players in utilizing this cool class, and I wholeheartedly agree. At the end of the day, it's how you use it. I would use your characters best judgement of what they'd know about a hemomancer/invoker class when encountering them and these evil spells.

Here is a link to the page. It should be under Hemomancer:
https://wiki.nwnarelith.com/Invoker#Not ... ancer_Path

I will take a look at the others as well mentioned in this post. But, I hope this clarifies for some of the confusion. I firmly believe, as well, that any homebrew class should be clarified as there is no source reference material to draw from. If you aren't ever sure, the Arelith Writing team can be contacted for questions regarding lore related content. Take care!

I think, uh, and I don't want to sound ungrateful for this response, I think you might've missed the point of my original question here. Whether or not Hemomancers are attempting to spread evil and entropy, they do. It's baked into a large portion of their kit, and using that kit does that thing. Spells with the evil-descriptor aside, it's been thumped a lot that negative energy has big not-good effects in lore. It's strongly associated with the lower planes, and the plane of shadow -- a place that arelith characters can visit to uh, see, and acts as an emboldening factor for undead.

Granted, I'm interpreting Hemomancer through scattered bits of lore that -do- already exist, but when you see things like entropic energy and negative energy, those things do have connotations, whether or not the wielder wants them to. Hemomancer might be a homebrew class, but it's not written into a vacuum.

But! I'm not particularly interested in seeing Hemomancer as an evil-locked class. In fact, I was using hemomancers as an example of why I think defiler clerics should probably be neutral at best, since they hit on similar notes.

[Eyeliner]

Also if defilers do become evil only, Healer should probably be good (maybe neutral) only. Evil people don't exactly decide to forgo wielding weapons and protecting themselves in order to keep others alive.

I don't agree on the healers at all. Having the power to heal doesn't mean you have to use it for good. Evil factions need healers too and there are evil deities like Luthic who are all about healing monsters to go out and do more monstrous things.

I don't see any problem with limiting defilers to evil and neutral but that doesn't mean there has to be a flip side to the equation. I know that's a common impulse ("if this class gets a restriction, its counterpart should have one too") but it doesn't always apply.

[Kenji]

Admittedly it was a mistake on my part to introduce the defiler path as the mechanical opposite of the healer path, because conceptually they certainly are not. Over time, the mechanics have gone from mirrored design to each having their own thing, as well.

It's not too far-fetched to limit the Defiler path to non-Good clerics only, while the Healer path remains open to all.

To what extent would one rationalize the significant use of negative energy/harmful divine magic against others while remaining in good alignment? (if we don't look at the name "Defiler" at face value)

If anyone has a concept for a good Defiler, I'm interested in hearing it.