Are evil wizards more poweful that non-evil wizards?

[Tanarii]

Few systems integrate mechanical penalties for being Evil or have all the Evil options include clear disadvantages that are problematic for PCs, because then the allure of Evil vanishes.

There are many systems that do this. Or have magic be inherently corrupting, so that any use of it is trading power for risk, regardless of alignment.

Warhammer, both Fantasy and 40k. Runequest. Call of the Cthulu. Beyond the Supernatural. Those are four off the top of my head. I'd also count AW. I haven't played enough WoD so something else would have to comment.

IMX D&D used to be something of to be the outlier on "magic comes without an in-game price" system in RPGs. Instead it used real-world price: time. Magic-users required a lot more invested real world time to gain power.

But like pretty much anything, most people want easy "power" without having to work hard for it. This is as true in RPG-land as anything else. So as the market expanded, instead of having easy power come from something only in-game twisted people would do, and with downsides only in-game twisted people would risk, or with a real-world large invested time price tag attached ... now survival, leveling, and rapid gain (or starting with) large relative power is much more common in the market.

I seem to have wandered slightly off topic in my nostagic rant.

[Mechalich]

Few systems integrate mechanical penalties for being Evil or have all the Evil options include clear disadvantages that are problematic for PCs, because then the allure of Evil vanishes. And then they abstain from having rules that have Good outdoing Evil actually work, as they rarely specify that the Evil powers require you to be a backstabbing ******* and as such Lawful Evil Giganazis can happily trample over the do-gooders because they've god fundamental objective advantages.

TTRPG design is rightfully leery of introducing 'corruption' impacts that alter the personality of a PC is meaningful way, because it's basically a license for the GM to abuse a character. Unfortunately, this is classically how the self-destructive nature of being corruptive by evil plays out in essentially all storytelling. Instead you get super-functioning psychopaths with no moral restraint but non of the other pathologies that cluster with them.

As a result we tend to get moral metering systems that have a bunch of purely fluff impacts until a PC crosses some metaphorical redline and becomes an NPC. This is what happened in VtM when you ran out of humanity, it was how several iterations of dark side point systems worked in Star Wars, and there are other examples. Corruption is hard to model mechanically in the mid-range and most morality mechanics are fairly easy to metagame around - 'got to avoid that last dark side point.'

Also, many systems try to put forward social impacts for evil, and this rarely works because in most systems PCs are well beyond the power of society to easily constrain. Having the city guard arrest you for murder quickly becomes a ridiculous exercise in D&D and many other systems, and having OP NPCs running around the setting to maintain the moral structure - like in FR - is a terrible setup anyway.

[Bohandas]

We kind of saw that it WASN'T stronger at most every point of contest. Anakin and Obi Wan on Mustafar got locked trying to push each other and it came out a tie. Yoda and palpatine was neck and neck for the entire fight.

In every one sided fight, it was more about one side being higher level, rather than being light or dark.

It's stronger if you're human and don't have 900 years to master the light side

[Bohandas]

Having the city guard arrest you for murder quickly becomes a ridiculous exercise in D&D and many other systems,

Indeed it's intrinsically a problem in D&D because if the city guard is powerful enought to handle the PCs they're powerful enough to handle whatever the problem is and that sort of negates the premise

[Bohandas]

There are many systems that do this. Or have magic be inherently corrupting, so that any use of it is trading power for risk, regardless of alignment.

Warhammer, both Fantasy and 40k. Runequest. Call of the Cthulu. Beyond the Supernatural. Those are four off the top of my head. I'd also count AW. I haven't played enough WoD so something else would have to comment.

IMX D&D used to be something of to be the outlier on "magic comes without an in-game price" system in RPGs. Instead it used real-world price: time. Magic-users required a lot more invested real world time to gain power.

It requires quite a bit of in-game time too. 9 hours total for spell preparation. You can't just spam spells like every wizard in every fantasy movie, TV show, and anime ever

[oxybe]

Evil is more... pragmatic then Good.

Evil does what it has to, to gain power. This is what's scary about evil.

Evil has just a few qualms burning down an orphanarium as it does building a new one, as long as doing so is the action that best serves it's goals. This is the scary thing about Evil: being evil doesn't preclude the Evil from doing good, it's just doing good for selfish reasons instead of altruistic ones.

In this case our Evil wizard is in a sense more powerful then a non-evil one in that all else being equal, the Evil wizard will choose the path that will best serve it's needs more then the non-evil one, who may choose a more self-destructive, but altruistic one, coming out at a "loss" when all is said and done.

And I say "loss" because for the non-evil wizard, what he lost in the act is less in comparison to what he gained, so po-tah-to, po-tay-to (boil 'em, mash 'em stick 'em in a stew!. Largely it's about that perspective.

The other issue is that of moral objectivity.

See, outside of Skeletor going around yelling "NYEAH! I WILL GO KILL THE HE-MAN AND THEN DROWN THIS BAG OF PUPPIES BECAUSE I AM TEH EVIL... NYEAH!", most villains don't see themselves that way.

To them their actions (which us the viewer, as well as the hero to contrast the Evil Wizard, whom I now decided is called Edward Vil Wizarddington the VIIIth) aren't evil/wrong... they're justified. Some may feel remorse but in the end say "I did the right thing/what had to be done".

And if to make that omelette you have to force-crack a few younglings, well...

So the path of Evil isn't one that's more powerful, just one that plays by a different set of rules then the path of Good: since Evil's path has fewer self-imposed restrictions then the Good one, that's where the "power" comes from and is more then willing to play by Good's rules if they also play to Evil's strengths, but are more then ready to discard them if they don't.

In short, Good chooses to play Soccer on Evil's Calvinball pitch.

[Pleh]

It's stronger if you're human and don't have 900 years to master the light side

So, Obi Wan never defeated Darth Maul, or Vader on Mustafar, and Luke never beat Vader (in 2 out of 3 movies)?

I'm not impressed by this idea that human lifespan makes the darkside more worthwhile. All the combat we've seen between dark and light side human jedi again comes down more to natural talent mixed with practice than whether they use light or dark.

The only real difference seems to be that the dark side has more proclivity to directly harming people through the force itself. Honestly, the lightsaber both sides wield is their least humane method of dealing damage.

[Satinavian]

Well, Star Was has such an extra actor rewarding/punishing. It is the Force itself this time.

Unfortunately we mostly see Light Side Users, getting guidance, prophecies, lucky coincidences etc. and we don't really know, if Dark side users get the same. But it is hinted that they don't or at least don't get those to a similar extend.

But what is far more important is the punishing here. Dark side users are pretty much all insane. Where evil is willing to make sacrifices good is not willing to do, Dark side users lose the ability to think rationally about this additional cost and weight it up against the benefit. They always become obsessed with something and waste all the power they amassed for achieving that goal. Suddenly no price is ever to high for a Dark side user. And if that was not already bad enough, they also get paranoia. Some sources even hint they also get cravings for stupid evil things turning them from additional options to pure necessity. And then there is that strange side effect through which all Dark side users develop serious disablities or disfigurements, which is sometimes treates as rule and price, sometimes as pure coincidence.

So yes, Light side is stronger.

[khadgar567]

you know what Red Fel, Red Fel, Red Fel. we need the master of evil to show the proper way one more time as this is getting sly.

[Andor13]

Evil, IMHO, is generally rooted in some combination of selfishness, self-deception, and short term thinking, it also tends to focus on negative sum and zero sum transactions and has kind of a blind spot about positive sum transactions. Evil often has a short term advantage, because it is focused on the short term, but in the long term it tends to be self-crippling.

This is a IRL evil, everything goes out the window with Supernatural Evil, because magic does whatever the author wants it to. In most of the heroic fiction that D&D draws on Wizards tend to be, at the very least, not good. This is either because they acquire power by serving dark forces, or because they have become so powerful that they have no need to fear consequences. (See H.G.Wells The Invisible Man, Griffin becomes a villain, not because he is more powerful than any other man, but because he thinks his invisibility gives him freedom from the consequences of his actions.) Note however that D&D has become a genre unto itself, and magicians are at least as often heroes as villains.

Well, Star Was has such an extra actor rewarding/punishing. It is the Force itself this time.

Unfortunately we mostly see Light Side Users, getting guidance, prophecies, lucky coincidences etc. and we don't really know, if Dark side users get the same. But it is hinted that they don't or at least don't get those to a similar extend.

I feel like we didn't watch the same movies. Palpatine's strongest powers by far were his foresight, and his ability to cloud the sight of the Jedi while retaining his own.

[Pleh]

I feel like we didn't watch the same movies. Palpatine's strongest powers by far were his foresight, and his ability to cloud the sight of the Jedi while retaining his own.

Yeah, the "supernatural force guidance" powers seem pretty universal. It seems more a question of how much are they listening and paying attention, which requires discipline to quiet the mind and focus.

The benefit jedi have is that all their teachings emphasize this kind of self control and attentiveness. The Sith undermine their ability to hear by intentionally filling their minds with noisy emotions like hate and pain that make the attempt to listen to counsel difficult. The Sith who master foresight often do so similar to predators that have to push aside hunger to focus on the act of hunting, which is exactly what palpatine what truly skilled at doing: having the patience to focus all his dark emotions to pursuing long term goals.

The battle for every jedi is having enough discipline to hear even the most subtle stirrings of the force. The battle for every sith is maintaining their presence of mind while harnessing the power of their destructive negative emotions.

But if you watch carefully, palpatine (and vader) never actually says that the dark side is stronger. They suggest that it is powerful, but never deny the strength of the light side. At best, they imply the dark side is stronger, but they never outright declare the dark side stronger. Palpatine teaches that the dark side possesses different powers (some would consider "unnatural") and he implies it has a strength that is unlike the light side. It would be quite fitting for the dark side to fool its users into believing it to be stronger than it actually is, because deception is a form of power as well.

"But more kinds of power IS more power." Not necessarily. Just as faster power isn't always more power.

Suppose we had one magic class in 3.5 that only had one spell per spell level and had no choice of which spell, but all the spell gained were the most powerful and broken abilities available. Then compare with a class that can choose from any spell list even at first level, but never gets more than their first level spell slot. Which is stronger?

A faster power progression may be limited by having a shorter power scale. A more diverse selection of abilities may be stuck choosing from a set that fails to compete with a more limited set.

[Tanarii]

All the combat we've seen between dark and light side human jedi again comes down more to natural talent mixed with practice than whether they use light or dark.

All the combat we've seen involves fighting with a light saber.

Whenever it goes to telekinesis or force lightning, only Yoda manages to hold his own.

[Pleh]

All the combat we've seen involves fighting with a light saber.

Whenever it goes to telekinesis or force lightning, only Yoda manages to hold his own.

You've clearly forgotten half of it, then.

Obi-Wan deflected Dooku's lightning with lightsaber assistance (that can't be a mundane effect, he was going half and half lightsaber and force).

Anakin and Obi-Wan tried a simultaneous push and broke even.

Your memory seems a bit selective.

[Bohandas]

Unfortunately we mostly see Light Side Users, getting guidance, prophecies, lucky coincidences etc. and we don't really know, if Dark side users get the same.

Spoiler

Show

Snoke definitely did, although they were vague enough to be fatally misinterpreted. (unless he really is Plagueis as some fan theories contend and really is unable to be permanently killed, in which case he may have seen it clearly and not cared)

He was also able to implant false visions and prophecies in others.

[Tanarii]

Obi-Wan deflected Dooku's lightning with lightsaber assistance (that can't be a mundane effect, he was going half and half lightsaber and force).

Deflecting force lightning with light sabers is very much a mundane effect, and part of the reason for them.

Anakin and Obi-Wan tried a simultaneous push and broke even.

Oh my bad. A fully trained Jedi managed to handle a Padawan just turned to the dark side. How could I possibly have overlooked it.

Your memory seems a bit selective.

ironic.

[Red Fel]

you know what Red Fel, Red Fel, Red Fel. we need the master of evil to show the proper way one more time as this is getting sly.

Sure, okay, I'm in.

So, Ive been playing some non-D&D roleplaying games, and from what i can see, evil wizards have more powerful spells. Here are some examples:

*SNIP*

Excluding the fact that other characters will dislike the evil wizard, does that make him nonetheless more powerful than the other players?

Short version? There are two spectra of power to consider.

First is distinctly Evil powers and spells. The Yoda quote has already been raised, but it's a fair point - many powers that are intrinsically Evil are shortcuts. Good powers, or non-aligned ones, tend to require more work to get the most mileage, but they tend to pay off pretty well. Evil powers tend to frontload their efficacy, but do so with a cost, and in endgame, Evil powers may or may not have as much punch as their Good or non-aligned equivalents.

That said, Evil powers also tend to be far more utilitarian. Good powers, or again non-aligned ones, can handle pretty much whatever, from cleansing a water supply to helping crops grow; neat little tricks, not necessarily useful. Good powers in particular tend to be more subtle, and therefore harder to call "powerful," than Evil ones - for example, telekinesis or the "Jedi mind trick" are only as useful as you make them. Evil powers tend to be results focused - typically, destroying or dominating your enemies, causing them pain, and so forth.

So, in terms of Evil powers versus everything else, I'd say it's a bit of a mix - Evil powers tend to be more destructively-focused, and tend to show their strength earlier on, but other powers can exceed them in the long run. It's just a matter of "power now, at any cost," versus "power later, maybe."

Next spectrum, however, deals with Evil characters versus Good or non-aligned. And here's the big difference: An Evil character will do whatever it takes to achieve his goals, unconstrained by morality.

This point has been raised, but it bears noting. Evil Wizards, or Sith, or whomever, appear more powerful because they refuse to stand in their own way. If a Good character is thinking about killing you, they will have second thoughts or restrain themselves. If an Evil character is thinking about you, you are already dead, and he or she will use whatever tools are available.

This creates an appearance of being more powerful, due to the fact that (1) the Evil character is able to take actions that other characters can or will not, and (2) the Evil character is willing to use means that other characters can or will not. Which means that, generally, (3) the Evil character will be more effective, more successful, than other characters. And that makes the Evil character look more powerful by comparison.

[Pleh]

Deflecting force lightning with light sabers is very much a mundane effect, and part of the reason for them.

I don't think so. Mace Windu had to work pretty hard to ward off palpatine's blast while Obi Wan had no trouble with Dooku's when given the opportunity to focus. Seems pretty clearly a force ability.

Also, Mace deflected Palpatine's lightning, which even Yoda struggled at. 900 years only made Yoda slightly more effective at it.

Oh my bad. A fully trained Jedi managed to handle a Padawan just turned to the dark side. How could I possibly have overlooked it.

Correction, Anakin was a fully trained Jedi Knight prodigy with a higher medichlorian count than Yoda who had recently been seriously considered for being granted the title of Master only a short time before this conflict. By that point, Anakin has already fully trained *another* jedi (ashoka).

In terms of training, they were near equals, and the fight with Dooku during Palpatine's rescue showed that Anakin had just about surpassed Obi Wan in skill with the blade.

This was a contest between a veteran jedi master and a knight bordering on master who had "chosen one" attributes and doped up on the dark side. It still came out a tie.

[Satinavian]

So, in terms of Evil powers versus everything else, I'd say it's a bit of a mix - Evil powers tend to be more destructively-focused, and tend to show their strength earlier on, but other powers can exceed them in the long run. It's just a matter of "power now, at any cost," versus "power later, maybe."

Quite a lot of evil powers are just about taboo breaking, there does not need to be anything destructive involved. Most of the necromancy stuff is the obvious one, but nearly every version of seeking immortality and quite a bit of disregarding natural order (e.g. making chimeras) is branded evil too in a surprising number of settings.

[Kitten Champion]

There's a certain assumption in many TTRPGs that you're going to default to a Good-to-Neutral party. Of course there are numerous games which intentionally buck that and push you into various shades of grey and black, but works like D&D and its various cousins are centred around delivering that party-based Heroic Fantasy experience. Evil magicians are presumed to be villains that your protagonists fight, it's a pretty well-established archetype in myth, folklore, and contemporary fantasy after all.

One of the benefits of having Evil magician gain power in a mechanical sense by doing Evil is to provide a straightforward motivation for them. "S/he/it's sacrificing innocents for cosmic powers!" is easy as far as creating conflicts go, you can even bake it further into the setting like Dark Sun does if you want to make it more thematically developed. Having more power make them more difficult to fight, and thus more fun as villains. The question of "why doesn't Evil rule over everything if they get more power that way" is partly resolved by the fact that D&D stereotypical Evil is intrinsically selfish and unstable, the Drow for instance are collectively quite powerful with numerous high-level magic users without scruples but their knife-in-back ways makes them a marginal threat to every else. The individually weaker but collectively stronger approach of an Adventuring Party balances against them.

Of course, you usually have the option to be Evil yourself, but in doing so you invert the conflict to turn society against you. Which also works to balance things somewhat.

My impression of D&D over editions has been that the designers have realized that a lot of players want those Evil abilities without being strictly Evil, so they've boxed many of them into being culturally taboo - or at least frowned upon - and moved more to a murky grey territory than just making them outright tools of villains. You can see similar positions developed for video games like Warlocks and Demon Hunters in WoW, or Blood Magic in Dragon Age -- that fantasy is something people want but at the same time they don't want to actually be treated with the kind of hostility and dread that the powers they use would usually entail in the lore, though those games have to then balance those so they aren't actually overpowered.

[Lord_Drayakir]

Yes, evil wizards are generally more powerful than good wizards. In general, evil people are more powerful than good people because Evil is less self-limiting. Granted, Good is more likely to cooperate, so your best bet as an Evil wizard/person is to be Evil enough where you have an advantage over everybody, but not Evil enough where Good is going to team up on you.

[Benthesquid]

Urban Shadows has an interesting mechanic for this- Corruption. When you do things that Corrupt your character (each Playbook has a different thing that will trigger this, plus just generally being evil can, at the MC's discretion) you mark Corruption. Mark enough and you mark a Corruption advancement.

Corruption Advancements come with some really cool, powerful moves. (The Vamp, for example, can get "That human NPC can't escape you no matter what, and you can kill them or feed on them at will). Those moves also cause you to mark corruption.

But here's the catch- there are a limited number of Corruption Advances, and one of them is "Retire your character. They may return as a Threat."

So yeah, you gave into Corruption. Congratulations. You've been Corrupted. You're no longer the character you were. Give your sheet to the MC and figure out who you want to play next. And brace yourself for the character you built and gave all those cool, dark, twisted powers to come back, under the MC's control, and tear down everything you'd previously accomplished with them.

[tomandtish]

There is no "light side" of the Force. There is the Force and the unbalanced Dark Side.

Balance and the Force dominating are one and the same. Balance between "light" and "dark" sides of the Force is fanon.

At least that's how things used to be because post-Disney, what is canon and what isn't became muddled.

EDIT:

On point. Technically, evil and non-evil wizards have the same potential for power. However evil wizards have fewer taboos they are unwilling to break in pursue of power, and because of that they have more opportunities to grow powerful by for example sacrificing innocents or their soul to demons or whatever.

In old AD&D (1E) days in the DragonLance setting, Black robe wizards (generally thought of as evil) could gain power more quickly, but were more limited in spells they could cast. At 18th (as high as the old table for DL went), a Black robe wizard spells by level were: 5 5 5 5 5 4 3 2 1. A White robe wizard on the other hand, required more XP per level (so gained power more slowly), but ended up with spells of: 5 5 5 5 5 4 3 3 3

[Tanarii]

In old AD&D (1E) days in the DragonLance setting, Black robe wizards (generally thought of as evil) could gain power more quickly, but were more limited in spells they could cast. At 18th (as high as the old table for DL went), a Black robe wizard spells by level were: 5 5 5 5 5 4 3 2 1. A White robe wizard on the other hand, required more XP per level (so gained power more slowly), but ended up with spells of: 5 5 5 5 5 4 3 3 3

This is, that's comparing apples (level X black robe) to oranges (level X white robe). That's why they get "less" spells, the levels aren't flat equivalents, unlike later editions. And in DL nobody "ended up" at max level, that was just there to prevent west coast power gaming. The only character to ever reach the level cap was Raistlin, the lore was explicit about that back then. Black robes were just flat out more powerful, because they advanced faster.

And they weren't generally thought of as evil, they were required to be evil.
(Color coded alignment for your convenience. )

[Segev]

While Red Fel breaks it into two "facets," I actually think they boil down to the same thing: willingness to take the short cut. Red Fel did mention this, but mostly as the second "facet."

Are your powers evil because they "corrupt" you, or because you had to make a dark pact for power now that you'll owe on later? That's a short cut. Are your powers evil because they require a high cost, but you can make others pay it? (e.g. sacrificing virgin elves as part of a heinous ritual) That, too, is a short cut. The final use of that ritual's granted power can almost certainly be obtained through other, harder means that may cost you, personally, more in time, effort, or other substance, but the ritual is easier on you for the power it grants.

I won't say that evil is necessarily less likely to hesitate about killing. There is still the consideration of consequences for it which may stay their hand: future utility of the person to be killed compared to the threat they pose/joy killing them would bring; concern over vengeful friends/family; possible legal repercussions (including fines for killing somebody else's serfs); etc. In addition, Terry Pratchett points out that, once the choice to murder somebody has been made, evil men are more likely to relish the moment. To gloat, or pause to savor, or extend it with pain before finishing off their victim. Good people, once they've decided somebody must die, will just do it as quickly as possible. They take no joy in it. There's nothing to savor.

But yes. Evil will take the direct path. The short cut. This isn't "cheating," to them. It's pragmatic. Foolish evil thinks they'll never have to pay the credit card debt, and will just rack up hundreds of thousands of dollars of it. Wiser evil will recognize that there are ways to exploit it so that somebody else winds up paying their debts for them.

[Max_Killjoy]

There is no "light side" of the Force. There is the Force and the unbalanced Dark Side.

Balance and the Force dominating are one and the same. Balance between "light" and "dark" sides of the Force is fanon.

At least that's how things used to be because post-Disney, what is canon and what isn't became muddled.

That was one agenda that was pushed by certain in-setting factions and by those fans who took the words of those factions as gospel.

The Force having "light" and "dark" sides predates Disney and appeared in official Lucas-level canon-level material. For starters, it appeared in 100% cannon Clone Wars animated series, and those episodes built on far earlier ideas.

Of course, what's canon and what actually makes any damn sense are often quite divergent even in the Lucas era.

[Max_Killjoy]

Something to consider is the difference between the magic itself being inherently corrupting, and the price one has to pay being inherently corrupting.

For example, immortality.

In some settings, obtaining immortality is evil because it requires clearly evil steps to complete the process. It's not the immortality itself that's evil.

In other settings, just obtaining immortality is seen as evil, because it "breaks the natural order" or "violates the cycle life and death" or some other equally vapid bullcrap. Even if someone could obtain immortality by saying "I'd like to live forever" three times, it would still be "evil" in that setting, "because".


Going back to the Star Wars example, it's widely asserted that "force lightning" is automatically evil... because it is. It's largely based on who we do and don't see use it, and little else, with a lot of retroactive justification whipped up. What really makes "force lightning" a "dark side power", through, other than "because we said it is"?

[Morphic tide]

Going back to the Star Wars example, it's widely asserted that "force lightning" is automatically evil... because it is. It's largely based on who we do and don't see use it, and little else, with a lot of retroactive justification whipped up. What really makes "force lightning" a "dark side power", through, other than "because we said it is"?

Something, something "can only be done by intending a painful murder", far as I know.

[Pleh]

The desire to torture a person to death directly through use of the Force itself inflicting massive pain and shock seems pretty much a "dark side" way of resolving things.

I thought Luke learned a "green lightning" lightside power in the old EU?

[PhoenixPhyre]

The desire to torture a person to death directly through use of the Force itself inflicting massive pain and shock seems pretty much a "dark side" way of resolving things.

I thought Luke learned a "green lightning" lightside power in the old EU?

It's also a power that can a) only be used as an attack (can't be used defensively or for non-combat purposes) and b) kills slowly and painfully. Seems like a shoe-in for a dark side power to me.

[Max_Killjoy]

Don't want to derail the thread, so no one has to answer, but consider this question: what's the difference between force lightning, and any other method of killing that doesn't drop the target instantly? (And keep in mind that unlike what happens in Hollywood fare, most combat deaths aren't anything near instant, most involve a lot of suffering.)