Evil Incarnates "ascending" to lose their powers - what would it take?

[hamishspence]

I see shaping an [Evil] soulmeld as maybe on a par with casting an [Evil] spell like Deathwatch, that does minimal harm, but concentrates Evil energy.

[Taveena]

I see shaping an [Evil] soulmeld as maybe on a par with casting an [Evil] spell like Deathwatch, that does minimal harm, but concentrates Evil energy.

Right. Except for Necrocarnum, which is literally mashing up the spirits of the damned and torturing their souls for power.

Ironically, Necrocarnum melds - for which it is not only [Evil], but Evil, Vile, and evil - are the only evil melds Lawful Neutral and Chaotic Neutral Incarnates can shape, through the Necrocarnum Acolyte feat.

And then presumably they lose their powers as they IMMEDIATELY drop to LE/CE alignment for AGONISING SOUL-TORTURING.

[Segev]

First off, i would like to apologize for seemingly abandoning the thread; I've been at GenCon and what little time I've had in front of my computer has been mostly about figuring out Pathfinder Society rules. I've been playing a halfling sorcerer of rather heavy unoptimality due to choosing hypnotism and charm person and not encountering people it's both wise and possible to use them on. Still, he's been a fun character. (I'll probably be starting at least one thread to ask for help working through some of my own confusions about PFS, though, that persist still.)

That's neither here nor there, however, for this thread, save for the apology at the start of it.

Thank you all for your thoughts on this. It's interesting to see the outlooks people have. I'm in agreement that it puts a strange twist on a classic problem. The classic problem being a guy playing a class with good/lawful alignment restrictions that he's power-gaming and wants to avoid the restrictions of...but instead it's now the "expedient" alignment that's required which makes the question ... tricky. (AT least, it seems so to me, which is why I asked it.)

To be honest you can play your evil character the same way your your friend is playing his paladin. You both do super good deeds, and everyone adores you. Except the paladin would keep doing it even if every time he rescued orphans from the burning building he got rotten fruit thrown at him. While if you weren't praised and hailed as a hero then you'd go do something else.

You would also not blink at using ANY means to rescue that princess from a dragon. I mean, the paladin can go fight the dragon, ill just get this draconian I enslaved to do it for me.

And you would definitely not care about doing such things like casually trading your prisoners of war for the princess, because the dragon doesn't ACTUALLY care who he eats.

You'd also likely struggle with concepts like collateral damage. So if you are bringing down an evil Kingdom, you'd probably not even consider that only like the top echelon is evil, you'd just make the whole place decent into chaos for being evil and stuff.

I really do get the difference between a villain with good PR/"nice but evil" and honest-to-Goodness Good-aligned. This is an excellent illustration of it, but it's dodging the question I'm looking to explore.

Generally, if you're being evil 'just for the power-ups' you are perverting the role-playing intent in a fairly significant way. Personally, I think such a choice should be rejected by the GM 100% of the time. 'I want this awesome ability but I don't want to have to bother with the role-playing bagged attached to it' means you haven't constructed your character to justify having it.

This is getting closer to the heart of the issue at hand. While I agree in theory, and in the classic case, it would be a player whose taken a powerful class whose power is tempered (and in theory balanced) by RP restrictions on how he can use it (creating challenge by putting up obstacles which prevent its use or forcing him to do things in a harder, less expedient fashion) who wants to bypass those RP restrictions and just use his powers to overwhelm all...

...here, the character would actively be choosing more RP blockages, except in situations where "stupid evil" would create them. And most of our discussions about Evil alignment done right involve hefty acknowledgment that evil doesn't mean you have to kick every puppy you come across.

So the question is...given you'd be annoyed with a player abusing the mechanics like this, at what point would you draw the line and say, "I'm sorry, Bill, but you're just not playing EVIL." What final sort of act could make you say, "And with that...you're now Neutral. You can't tap those evil energies anymore. Or any of them, because you're just not evil enough to be an Evil Incarnate?"

By RAW, there are certain abilities which carry the Evil tag. Abilities whose very use constitutes a vile and inexcusable act. We have a character who has absolutely no problem using them on a regular basis, and finds them a perfectly efficacious way of doing what he feels he needs to do. He's Evil.

It's workable. It also makes it really easy to choose to play an Evil Incarnate who can get along with any party full of Good-aligned people who are willing to accept that their perfectly nice friend just happens to ping on detect evil despite never seeming to do anything to deserve it beyond practice techniques with an "evil" reputation.

Even if the DM inserts "what's really happening" fluff-mechanics that make Necrocarnum truly heinous to use (e.g. each use actively causes a stillbirth as the unborn souls are ripped out of the forming infant), there are Evil-tagged Incarnate Soulmelds which are hard to make morally repugnant to modern western social mores without broadly painting all of Incarnum with it.

So it remains ... weird ... (and makes the feat that lets non-evil characters use Necrocarnum nonsensical, since using it should make you Evil!)



But one of the biggest questions in which I remain interested is: if you feel a player is not "living down" to his Evil alignment, what would you tell him he should stop doing (or start doing) to preserve it? There are obvious lists of things which are exhaustively discussed and analyzed for Good characters to preserve their Good alignment, but since Evil need not be actively engaged in Evil and can even find "evil" reasons to do Good (where the Good character doing Evil has 'slipped up' and needs to repent), that seems a much harder (and thus more interesting) question to me.

[Troacctid]

But one of the biggest questions in which I remain interested is: if you feel a player is not "living down" to his Evil alignment, what would you tell him he should stop doing (or start doing) to preserve it? There are obvious lists of things which are exhaustively discussed and analyzed for Good characters to preserve their Good alignment, but since Evil need not be actively engaged in Evil and can even find "evil" reasons to do Good (where the Good character doing Evil has 'slipped up' and needs to repent), that seems a much harder (and thus more interesting) question to me.

Personally? I'd just remove the alignment restrictions completely and let the player be any alignment they want.

I mean, there are certainly cases where the class itself has class features that actively push you toward evil acts, like a Necrocarnate killing people to harvest essentia from them, or a Death Master sacrificing people to Orcus to use their blood as a spell component. So it's pretty tough to not be evil if that's what you're dealing with. Similarly, if you're a Knight, your Knight's Code is probably locking you into a Lawful alignment no matter what, and if you're a Healer, your Hippocratic Oath will probably at least keep you out of Evil.

Generally, though, I'm not a fan of alignment restrictions, and I'm happy enough to loosen them.

[Mechalich]

But one of the biggest questions in which I remain interested is: if you feel a player is not "living down" to his Evil alignment, what would you tell him he should stop doing (or start doing) to preserve it? There are obvious lists of things which are exhaustively discussed and analyzed for Good characters to preserve their Good alignment, but since Evil need not be actively engaged in Evil and can even find "evil" reasons to do Good (where the Good character doing Evil has 'slipped up' and needs to repent), that seems a much harder (and thus more interesting) question to me.

I think that, in order to do an evil character properly the player needs to have very clear ideas of 'my character believes X, Y, and Z things and those things are evil for reasons A, B, and C.' And then the character needs to apply those principles in a consistent way.

To take, for example, the Joker from the Dark Knight (who I think we can all agree meets D&D criteria for evil): he believes that A. the world is totally without value. B. the misery of other's, especially misery they don't particularly deserve, is hilarious. and C. there is absolutely no reason not to indulge this impulse to the fullest extent one can get away with. Those things are evil because they display total disregard for the rights of others, are incalculably damaging to collaborative endeavor of any kind, and cause ever-increasing quantities of suffering to be inflicted on the innocent.

Would the Joker have sold his soul to the elder gods for the power to make people into zombie puppets in exchange for his soul - of course he would have, and he would have found it hilarious.

By contrast, when I think of people who play as evil 'for the powerzz' I think of my evil play-throughs of BGII - where you play the game exactly as if you were lawful good because the gameplay setup maximizes XP game and item accumulation that way, and just periodically murder random peasants to maintain your evil cred. That's not really evil - it's a heroic character who occasionally has random spasms of homicidal insanity.

So the evil character must have legitimately evil overall goals, and must be advancing them - which requires evil actions in order to meet partial goals. Even an evil character who's got everyone fooled - like Frank Underwood in House of Cards - is undertaking evil actions all the time. Yes, your goal of conquering the kingdom so that your can rule it from atop a throne of skulls may be best undertaken via slaughtering every evil monster and willing massive popular support - but it also requires destabilizing the current king, knocking off any inquisitive paladins who might be around, and probably undertaking a politically motivated marriage to a good individual who (by virtue of their goodness) you absolutely despise.

Good characters with powers of goodness have to sacrifice for the sake of virtue. Evil characters with power for the sake of evil should have to sacrifice for the safe of depravity.

[Segev]

But where's the sacrifice?

The whole point of evil is often the unwillingness to make personal sacrifices where you can make others do it for you. Or where sacrifice doesn't get you anything, personally.

As has oft been discussed, evil has a lot of flavors and forms.

We have more than once seen the "good" character who honestly believes he's doing righteous, noble, necessary things...but is such an extremist and so driven by his HATE (which he justifies as righteous anger) that he is, in all honesty, evil.

So is it that an evil-on-paper character needs only to keep saying, "I'm helping them because it'll indebt them to me and their gratitude is useful?" What makes this evil man "have" to despise his good-aligned political wife? He can like her and just think her naive, or may even agree with her in principle and just think his means are superior, or... well, at what point do you tell the player, "Um, what, exactly, is Evil about your character?" if he loves, respects, agrees with, and uses the methods of his good-aligned lover/best friend/party members? And if he says, "I'm just doing it because it profits me more in the long term," or "They're MY assets and I won't let anybody hurt them" or the like, is that sufficient?

In most tales of the Noble Demon's heel-face turn, there comes a point where he is clearly protesting too much to be seriously considered evil. But that point is usually clear in fiction because the author writes them to be.

If Paladin was really a godly-powerful class, in some alternate reality's version of 3.5, and its only balance-point was its LG alignment, we'd have a lot of very good examples of what he cannot do and keep his powers.

But if the Blackguard was instead the really powerful class...we don't have a lot we can point to to say, "Yeah, you lose your powers because you're just not evil enough."

And finding that line, if there is one, in gameplay, is what I'm looking for.

That, and, what a player of this Evil Incarnate (who just isn't playing really all that evil) must do or must stop doing to salvage his Evil.

A Paladin at risk of falling can refrain from even vaguely questionable acts, and go on quests specifically of selfless nature, to strive to atone for the acts that put him in such risk of moral decay. And we can point to the acts which put him at risk.

What can/must the Evil character do to avoid "purifying" too much, to the point of being Neutral? Assume that the player really is playing the character as Neutral or even Good despite writing Evil on his sheet. What do you tell him he needs to start or stop doing if he doesn't want his written alignment to change?

[Red Fel]

What can/must the Evil character do to avoid "purifying" too much, to the point of being Neutral? Assume that the player really is playing the character as Neutral or even Good despite writing Evil on his sheet. What do you tell him he needs to start or stop doing if he doesn't want his written alignment to change?

There is no specific answer; it really varies widely depending on context. Just as there is no one way to play any alignment, there is no specific way to maintain an alignment (although, obviously, certain hideously Evil acts form a pretty solid basis).

My advice? Give the guy Kick the Dog moments. Or rather, give him the opportunity, and encourage him to take it.

For reference, a Pet the Dog moment is a moment in storytelling when the audience is shown that a character is good, or at least has positive traits. Even villains get these; it's a chance to show that the villain actually cares about something, and to give him depth.

A Kick the Dog moment is the opposite. It needn't be as utterly senseless as literally kicking a dog or stealing candy from a baby, but it functions to remind us that a character is capable of cruelty, selfishness, or wickedness. Killing someone who asks for mercy is an example, as is using torture to get answers.

If you really think this character needs to justify his alignment, this is what I suggest. First, sit down with the player and advise him of your position; you're concerned he won't be Evil enough for his job if he keeps up as he's doing. Second, in game, offer him situations in which acts of Evil could benefit the party. Interrogation is an example, as is theft, or any number of other base acts. Don't hang a lampshade on it or anything, but create a situation in which his character - being a token Evil teammate - could do something which the other characters wouldn't do, which would help everyone out.

If he takes your out-of-game advice, and is savvy enough to seize the opportunities presented, mission accomplished. If he repeatedly declines to commit beneficial Evil acts, however, you sit him down again and explain that he has shifted to Neutral. But this way, at least, you not only gave him a fair chance, you gave him a logical opportunity. In many instances, people don't commit Evil acts simply because it doesn't do anything; create scenarios where it will actually help, and any sensible person playing an Evil character will take the opportunity. If he doesn't, it's just a letter on the character sheet.

[noob]

well you are neutral now but you are hungry for power(an evil trait) and so you cast evil spells with the will of becoming power-fuller (an extremely evil act) and so you cast detect dead 50 times for becoming power-fuller and you are evil because it is a 100% evil act made with evil reasons.

[Nifft]

But if the Blackguard was instead the really powerful class...we don't have a lot we can point to to say, "Yeah, you lose your powers because you're just not evil enough."

And finding that line, if there is one, in gameplay, is what I'm looking for.

I feel like there are several possible answers to this:

1/ Evil power is inherently Evil, and using the Evil power is giving in to an Evil temptation. So having and using the powers on a day-to-day basis is why you're Evil. This is the "dark side of the Force" style evil temptation, where the power is not the result of the temptation, it's the thing that tempted you in the first place.

2/ Activist Evil patron. When you use your Necrocarnum or whatever, the force of Evil hurts someone else on your behalf. You will discover this eventually. If you keep using your powers, you will be knowingly making people suffer just to power yourself up. Again, this ought to be inherent in the powers themselves, because a PC will not willingly part with power except as a major character-changing sacrifice.

3/ Activist Evil patron who gives you missions. Kinda the video game option. "You must X within Y days." where X is evil. Works well for Blackguards, but maybe not so well for Incarnates.

[atemu1234]

This is better said than I could manage.

I've also read an evil person can act good 99% of the time. There are some key moments which define the person. A classic example is a good person might self-sacrifice while an evil might not.

This.

It's not who you are in the light of day, when the sun beats down on you and the spotlights shine and people are watching.

It's who you are in the dark of night, when no one can see the evil that you do but you and your victims, and that is what makes you evil.

[Segev]

It's not who you are in the light of day, when the sun beats down on you and the spotlights shine and people are watching.

It's who you are in the dark of night, when no one can see the evil that you do but you and your victims, and that is what makes you evil.

I agree with that. Red Fel hits the point most squarely, I think. It's actually interesting to see the "moral test of character" option be used to, instead of create challenge for the Good-aligned PCs who shouldn't take the expedient way out, create the opportunity for the Evil PC to prove his Evil chops. Heck, if you want to be a helpful DM, make it one of those situations where it's easy to justify your evil. Make it, as Evil is wont to do, feel good to be bad.

The trouble with the "it's who you are in the dark" angle is that it's assuming the PC and the player are trying to pull a fast one by claiming to be good while secretly acting evil; the opposite is the case. The hypothetical player was pulling a fast one (or at least "doing it wrong") by claiming his PC was evil without ever proving it. Even, hypothetically, in the dark.

So yes, giving specific "temptations" that are not of the baby-eating variety, things that you might expect your typical "good" PC to be heavily tempted to do, is probably the right way to handle it. Because the one thing about Evil is that it should never be resisting temptations on the grounds that they're wrong.

("It would upset my beloved" is a different matter. But "it's wrong" is not a reason. "It's dangerous/unhealthy/risks losing me power" is valid, however. Evil can show self-control, just not for purely conscience-driven reasons.)

[Taveena]

("It would upset my beloved" is a different matter. But "it's wrong" is not a reason. "It's dangerous/unhealthy/risks losing me power" is valid, however. Evil can show self-control, just not for purely conscience-driven reasons.)

S'worth noting that a character prone to losing self-control is probably CE, while one who rigidly adheres to it is likely LE. Neutral Evil, like Neutral Good, assesses the situation at hand and decides how to react to further their goals rather than relying on a strict ethical dogma.

[Segev]

S'worth noting that a character prone to losing self-control is probably CE, while one who rigidly adheres to it is likely LE. Neutral Evil, like Neutral Good, assesses the situation at hand and decides how to react to further their goals rather than relying on a strict ethical dogma.

This is a tricky point. I agree with you on CE, but "assesses the situation at hand and decides how to react" can also describe LE. The main difference, I think, is really in how the value function is assigned. Does the character believe the long-term risks to his reputation as honorable and trustworthy are worth the immediate benefits? Lawful Evil types will tend to think it less worth that risk. Neutral Evil types are more likely to assess a situation as suitably rewarding to take the risk given low probability of detection.

Though I think the biggest signifier of NE vs. LE is that LE really will keep their word almost all the time, preferring twisty language to squirm out of bad arrangements (though obviously, most people are not perfect paragons of their alignments, and just as Paladins can sometimes perform Chaotic acts, so can LE masterminds). NE, on the other hand, is probably making it a general rule just so that he can get people to trust him implicitly that one time he finds that breaking his word costs him nothing and gains him everything. (Or at least close enough to those two amounts.)

Of course, not all characters are paragons of self-control, even if they're LE. LE is probably going to look more controlled than CE, but only because he uses fear of the consequences built into the rules by which he lives to help constrain him. And he can still lose control and do chaotic things. He just has to be more usually adhering to the rules than breaking them to maintain Lawful alignment (and willing acceptance of legal consequences for overt lawbreaking can be a sort of "atonement," as well).

NE types who lack self-control may be the ones who TRY to follow the rules, especially while observed, but have numerous vices which they hide with varying degrees of skill. They have personal codes they mostly follow, but are a little loosy-goosy about it when it suits them and tend to indulge in breaking them when it seems costless.

CE types can actually be VERY controlled. They don't have to be raving lunatics. Just because you ARE free to do whatever you want doesn't mean it is wise to do it. You just don't feel any guilt or even ethical twinge about it when you choose to. Rather than a rigid code or even a semi-formal set of guidelines, your self-controlled CE villain recognizes that his personal strength and that of any patrons he has only extends so far, and that even sheer power can't always compel as well as a trade. His word is almost certainly no good, and he won't trust another's word (unless he knows them, beyond a shadow of a doubt, to be the kind of honorable fool that he most despises) without assurances. Being self-controlled, he'll be willing to trade measured hostages and insurance items to enforce his loyalty to a deal, as long as he has similar from the other side. At times, he may not even really want to betray the deal. He's not slavishly devoted to clinging to every little thing he can get; a hostage exchange can go smoothly because he really doesn't mind letting them go and values not risking screwing up getting his own back more than spiting the other side.

CE types don't even have to want to spite everybody they meet. They're capable of being less than pure *****. Having absolutely no problem inflicting suffering doesn't mean one has to always enjoy it. I think that's part of why we often make the mistake of thinking CE is "the worst kind of evil." We assume that all CE types are psychopaths who enjoy seeing other people suffer and will throw everything to the wind for the opportunity to inflict pain. This is not true. CE is as varied as any other alignment.

Drow society is very genteel, for example, but is absolutely CE. The rules are largely arbitrary, are followed only as guidelines to avoid being squashed by something higher up the food chain, and can change with the whim of the hierarchy above you. It only works as well as it does because the absolute ruler of it - Lolth - is powerful enough to enforce obedience on a monumental scale. But it is purely based on top-down strength (and the ability to manipulate the strong to side with you over your foes) while still having no rules that exist for much more reason than to break them. While drow probably near-universally enjoy a good torture session (as long as they're not the victim), it's not something htey compulsively perform. A CE drow might find it an idle amusement, but may well still turn down an opportunity to perform or watch it just because it's not that important to her. She may not care about THAT victim, or she may have more important things to do (like that new half-orc slave she just picked up from the market).


I think the best thoughts on where the line is drawn come about when the "evil" PC refuses to do things that are expedient, in his own and the party's best interest, and with minimal personal consequences, simply because they're "mean."

It is still rather weird to try to think in these terms, to me. Alignment restrictions are usually portrayed as ways to highlight the difficulty of adhering to a code of ethics or a moral structure. Consequences for evil behavior are oft discussed as means of trying to curtail player choices that are venturing too far south on the alignment grid.

Perhaps, that, too, becomes a tool for helping "guide" the must-be-evil character to his alignment? Doing too much Good creates consequences, as well. People aren't always going to react with quid pro quo gratitude. Sometimes, the reward for doing something is that others expect you to do it for them, for even less reward, just because. Entitlement attitudes are offensive to even the most LG of characters. Our Evil Incarnate could be exposed to more and more greed-disguised-as-gratitude as people assume he owes them his toil and offer paltry thanks afterwards.

It's a tricky balance to strike, of course, because one doesn't want to imply that Paladins owe such entitled jerks anything, either.

...still, it's tricky, because usually the allure of Evil is simply that it's EASIER in the short-term. It's not supposed to require hard choices of the character to maintain that alignment. It's often portrayed as being about a lack of standards and limits. "Power from Evil" is usually about being willing to make sacrifices of other people's well-being for your personal gain. The (anti)hero who is driven to dabble in "dark power" pays whatever prices there are either himself, or with great grudging resignation, others...and feels it a tremendous cost he does not wish to keep paying. The evil monster does not count it as much of a cost at all; he has other beings as resources and he is willing to expend them.

As an example, imagine a "blood magic" which had mechanics for expending hp at a rate similar to PP in psionics, for similar-scale effects. The good and even neutral practitioner would use only their own blood and those of willing others, at most. In extremis, the neutral blood mage might forcibly take a "donation," but would hesitate still to take a lethal one from innocents. Evil practitioners, however, would only consider the cost to themselves the downside: it takes effort and/or money to get slaves to sacrifice. So to them, it's just money. The lives are meaningless. Thus they are more powerful for their indulgence in evil. The "cost" of not being evil is that it's harder to get the same amount of power.

That is probably the biggest problem with alignment-restrictions to "must be evil."

And I suppose it goes back to one of the earliest points in this thread: it's not a risk to play your Evil Incarnate however you like, because apparently somehow just using the powers you're using are horrific acts of evil.

(This is also one of the reasons I tend to dislike "taint of evil" systems which treat it like a mind-control curse that forces you to commit more and more atrocities as you accumulate more. Real evil and its temptations are shown by the fact that halting the descent is as easy as treating the immense power as too costly. Which means giving up some of it.)


Thinking about it, finally... I think I'd probably draw the line at the point where the PC is showing that what he is in the dark really is not able to go through with expedient but evil acts. His weakness in not killing that helpless foe shows that he lacks conviction, and he just can't call upon the Soulmelds he wants. Kind-of like Zuko after his heel-face turn. If he's willing to show conviction and strength by performing acts of evil to benefit himself, he can get his powers back. But while he's weak-willed enough to show pity for no reason, he just can't pull it off.

Showing strength of conviction the OTHER direction, refusing to do evil given the chance and standing up for something because he knows it to be RIGHT...that could push him to NG and regain his powers.

Of course, the player may still be annoyed because he took Evil because it had more (and arguably better) soulmelds to choose from. I suppose that this might actually be a point where it's fluff and mechanically justified to engage in "evil for the evuls?" Specifically, committing a few ritual murders just to regain your Evil powers would, in fact, be a moral event horizon type thing. If you're willing to do that for powers your desire, you're Evil, even if afterwards you go on to act like a totally nice fellow.

[noob]

"Of course, the player may still be annoyed because he took Evil because it had more (and arguably better) soulmelds to choose from. I suppose that this might actually be a point where it's fluff and mechanically justified to engage in "evil for the evuls?" Specifically, committing a few ritual murders just to regain your Evil powers would, in fact, be a moral event horizon type thing. If you're willing to do that for powers your desire, you're Evil, even if afterwards you go on to act like a totally nice fellow. "
You do not need sacrifices you can just use a wand of death watch and become ultra super evil just by casting it since casting this spell is an evil act no matter the fact you annoy nobody sentient nor harm anybody.(and tiny evil acts out-weight all the good you could have done in your entire life)

[Taveena]

You do not need sacrifices you can just use a wand of death watch and become ultra super evil just by casting it since casting this spell is an evil act no matter the fact you annoy nobody sentient nor harm anybody.(and tiny evil acts out-weight all the good you could have done in your entire life)

Not quite how it works, I'm afraid. See the Neutral Dread Necromancers and Dry Liches - by definition, bringing evil into the world with necromancy, but nonetheless their persistant good acts can cancel out their misdeeds.

Now, if you just OCCASIONALLY bind a Necrocarnum meld... an hour of AGONIZING SOUL TORTURE, for personal gain - that's evil. That's VILE.

[Troacctid]

Not quite how it works, I'm afraid. See the Neutral Dread Necromancers and Dry Liches - by definition, bringing evil into the world with necromancy, but nonetheless their persistant good acts can cancel out their misdeeds.

Now, if you just OCCASIONALLY bind a Necrocarnum meld... an hour of AGONIZING SOUL TORTURE, for personal gain - that's evil. That's VILE.

Necromancy spells don't universally have the [Evil] tag. For the ones that do, casting them does constitute an evil act.

[hamishspence]

Yup - and in the Dread Necromancer class description, it says

"Performing evil acts is a basic feature of the class, but some (most PC dread necromancers) manage to balance their evil deeds with good intentions and remain Neutral".

I would guess that (since a huge proportion of their spell list are spells with the [Evil] tag), casting evil spells is one of those "balanceable evil deeds" being referred to.

[noob]

"their evil deeds with good intentions"
Casting death watch with the intention of becoming power-fuller is not doing it for good intentions at all.

[Taveena]

"their evil deeds with good intentions"
Casting death watch with the intention of becoming power-fuller is not doing it for good intentions at all.

Keep in mind Death Watch is granted by the Repose domain, which is designed for Good death-clerics.
Now, this is obviously a mistake on WotC's part, but the mistake is because SOMEONE at WotC agreed that Death Watch isn't a **** move violating the sanctity of all life.

[hamishspence]

Repose as a domain first appeared in 3.0, when Deathwatch did not have the [Evil] descriptor.

Late in 3.0 (BoVD) Monte Cook recommended that Deathwatch be given the [Evil] descriptor.

And it gained it, in 3.5. Not everybody was aware of this, it seems (the Healer from Miniatures Handbook - Always Good Alignment - had it, as did the Slayer of Domiel PRC in BoED).

[Fizban]

I like the stuff in this thread, to answer the specific question:

So the question is...given you'd be annoyed with a player abusing the mechanics like this, at what point would you draw the line and say, "I'm sorry, Bill, but you're just not playing EVIL." What final sort of act could make you say, "And with that...you're now Neutral. You can't tap those evil energies anymore. Or any of them, because you're just not evil enough to be an Evil Incarnate?"

If I was going to run it that way, I'd just kinda keep track of how often the character wasn't being evil enough. If an evil person is always supposed to have another angle but never actually cashes in on it (doesn't leverage his contacts from donations, recruit brainwashed orphans, pressure the princess he rescued, etc), then I'd warn him he's starting to feel a little altruistic. The tiny shriveled up heart is pinging some empathy, and a properly depraved character (especially if their power literally depends on it) is likely to respond to such feelings of weakness by immediately exploiting the heck out of whatever is most handy, weather cashing a previous PR stunt or just murdering someone to take their stuff. It's a common enough trope: villain/antihero feels happy emotion, reacts violently, repeat until it stops or they accept it. Can happen weather or not they're playing nice in the open.

There wouldn't be a sudden final act that would trigger it without player warning. Redemption is multi-stage: the final act comes after many smaller acts before it (with magnitude comparable to the magnitude of the original evil), and I'd make the player aware that they're in the "danger zone," where any sufficiently heroic deed left standing without betrayal/exploitation for too long would push them over. If they do the deed, beg off the evil because "it's not the right time" and skip the golden opportunity, or forget to keep seething (maybe even silently track if they go a session without mentioning it). I would then announce basically that: your character has a sudden realization that he really could have taken that opportunity/forgot about the debt he meant to collect, so it must not have really mattered that much to him. You are now Neutral.

You mention "the demon doth protest too much" above: if the player intended to be dragged screaming into decency, then setting up one of these would be good. If they had timed-out of my plan above and an opportunity presented itself, then taking it for one of these would be cooler than a solo epiphany, but I wouldn't set them up to fall on purpose.

A specific timeframe? Highly dependent on the pace of the game both IRL and in-game. At a session a week, 4 sessions without seriously trying to un-balance the scales would be easily enough I think. For in-game time it would depend on the timeframes involved with the deeds committed. Some cheques needs to be cashed short-term and others (like big donations) need to mature, but maybe half a dozen costly efforts over a year of game-time with no recompense might exhibit a trend. Say you started the game year with several short adventures where you gave up on extracting full rewards because you didn't want to rock the boat, then took a long journey to the next adventure area, ended the year with a couple large personal risks without reward, and by spring you hadn't tried to take your due: now you're neutral.

Red Fel makes good suggestions re: giving the player moments to be evil and benefit the party, and this is good DMing. I mean my response above for a less personalized game, where players generally make and respond to their own events or interact with locations/events that are neutralish. In that case, a special evil moment is more of a trap than a gift for a player who truly does not like roleplaying evil deeds. I'd expect such a player to take their "evil" character to lots of locations where they can be properly mercenary without needing to kick any dogs, so I'd only penalize them if they started showing a pattern of niceness, as above (Actually I'd rather work something else out, but if I was to run in a way that pertains to the question then sure. I've yet to meet a player that opposed to doing evil though).

[Taveena]

It's worth keeping in mind, in... I wanna say Manual of the Planes, there's a Wizard (or Sorcerer?) on Mount Celestia who is Evil aligned. However, he is THOROUGHLY working at redemption, and working so earnestly that people aren't even complaining about him being around... but he's still tagged Evil by the universe.

Ascending from Evil is hard, and takes years of dedicated effort, apparently.

[hamishspence]

It's worth keeping in mind, in... I wanna say Manual of the Planes, there's a Wizard (or Sorcerer?) on Mount Celestia who is Evil aligned. However, he is THOROUGHLY working at redemption, and working so earnestly that people aren't even complaining about him being around... but he's still tagged Evil by the universe.

Ascending from Evil is hard, and takes years of dedicated effort, apparently.

Yup - if you're an NPC. Players are much less patient - so there's the "change alignment" function of the atonement spell.

It is indeed Manual of the Planes that has that guy (Malhevoc?) - who has received divine permission to reside there.

[Vogie]

The main issue is that Alignments are basically fixed, and sentient individuals in a world of varying levels of reality are not. There are characters that acre clearly Evil Characters on baseline, but their entire character arcs are redemption paths.

Thomas in the Harry Dresden novels, is a Succubus/"EmotionVampire" that denies the desires of his bloodline, being in a commited relationship and siphoning energy from his clients in tiny, unmeasurable doses so he is effectively starved.

Dexter from the books and show of the same name is a serial killer, but has a moral code ingrained in him so his only targets are other serial killers or those that avoided the justice of the law in some way. He also acts in a way different from the average sociopath, caring for his family, and acting alongside law enforcement for the large portion of his life.

Random characters of various lifespans in the Supernatural series.

Could a PC & DM craft a role in the world where the "obviously evil" can be "good". A Necromancer raising a prisoner who committed suicide to continue serving his sentence. A state-sponsored bloodmage harvesting from a target of capital punishment at the appointed time. An Incarnate stealing the soul of the unborn in an legal abortion clinic. The oft overused trope of vampires working at bloodbanks or draining livestock.

However, the DM obviously has the ability to make that quest miserable or nearly impossible. The Ascending character may have a Demon on her heels, and if they don't act evil enough, they would rather be devoured than commit an(other) evil act. A bloodmage that uses his own blood rather than that of others, eventually losing limbs and his life. A Drow that actively avoids all the "requirements" of their lineage.

But there's a problem... all of those are journeys, not destinations. Both of the characters above have not yet gotten to the point of redemption, but are still striving at it (as far as I've read, that is). Dexter's still a serial killer, Thomas is still #OurVampiresAreDifferent. As another thread noted "evil is a product of selfishness, greed, and ambition", all of which are states of action. They are going through penance of some variety, but the thread of those stories is that they COULD break out and go evil, at any moment.

[Thealtruistorc]

Falling from evil requires a wholly different outlook than falling from good, namely because evil has a whole different variety of qualifications to meet.

The main question is: WHY are you evil in the first place? What motivates your character's abnormal morality and actions? Is he upset with an established good or status quo? Does he find that such tenants impede his actions rather than complement them? Does he simply struggle to live up to the expectations of being good and has as such given up on living up to such ideals? Any character who is evil needs a very good reason to be evil, because it is in that reason that he may fall.

To fail at evil is to fail to live up to your reason to be evil, to have your willpower lapse in a crucial moment so that you can no longer sacrifice what is thought to be hunky-dory in order to accomplish your goals. Billy's main motivation seems to be power, so he must be willing to utilize that power to its fullest degree (think of the cursed Muramasa blades from Japanese mythology). Deep inside, whenever he channels his dark incarnum abilities, he will have urges to do things, terrible things, to others. If he does not cooperate with these urges, his powers may turn against him, possibly forcing him to commit hideous acts or not working properly if he refuses to act. Evil is rather picky with who it bestows power to, and if somebody isn't willing to debauch themselves enough then their abilities can be taken away (just look at all of the Faustian pacts that went wrong).

Incarnum energy comes from somewhere, and that somewhere must have some sort of criteria for it to bestow the sort of power that Billy would want. It will likely expect something in return, and that something will often mean service (intentional or no). Anything that this fellow does to turn the tides of the universe against evil will be met with consequences. Remember every action that he performs, and make sure to plan for long-term consequences (he may have stopped a villain, but in the process left many others to suffer). There is no such thing as a free lunch, especially when toying with [Evil].