Barren Realms MUD

I assure you that it was only a failed attempt at humor. I am sorry if you were offended. These recent posts were an attempt to lighten the mood and still make a point. Perhaps if I used more smiley faces, then people would see that I am kidding.

Energy drain is the attempt to steal somethings soul to fuel yourself.

How is that not an evil thing?

We beat on mobs all day long, but at least we leave their souls intact.

souls?

'ENERGY DRAIN'
This incantation opens a magical channel between caster and foe, draining
the life force its victim and transferring it to the caster of the spell.

Syntax: cast 'energy drain' <victim>

Energy Drain is available in guild for Elves at level 13.

Life force. Soul. Whatever you want to call it. The essence of the mob's being. You tap into their essence, drain it, and convert it to hp. You enhance your own soul by feeding off someone else's. Sure, there are spells in other systems that aren't evil but still attack soulds (for Lairian's sake at least "fires of purity" in the mage system), but those don't tap them for the caster's use. If you went around sucking out and eating people's souls, I'd say you were pretty evil, too.

Ok, so if a soul is the "life force", then it is directly represented by hit points. Life force is being drained every time you hurt something. What is the difference between draining that life force for your own hp, or draining it for your own experience and rise in power? We kill all the time for our benefit. There is no difference.

It would make more sense if a soul were something more than just a "life force". A soul is far more vital that health, and your description of energy drain does not encompass it.

I may be mistaken but energy drain was changed to affect alignment.

Comatose wrote:There was a decision that these spells should come from a negative source. The act itself may not be any more evil than backstabbing someone with a dagger, but the source of the magic comes from a negative source and therefore makes you more evil if you use that magic.

Regardless, Comatose provides a better explanation. The source of the magic is evil, therefore the caster is influenced by it.
The help file should be changed so that this is better understood. Any help file for an altered spell should be updated.

With alignment changing spells people will not need to go slaughter sheep or baaz to change their alignment. It can super easily be done with ED and some future good spell, more effective than an align change mob since you can use ED to become neutral in a snap.

Stars wrote: With alignment changing spells people will not need to go slaughter sheep or baaz to change their alignment. It can super easily be done with ED and some future good spell, more effective than an align change mob since you can use ED to become neutral in a snap.

I suddenly have 110% support for the "align change" spec to cast an alignment affecting spell instead of simply alterning it. Someone mentioned this somewhere sometime.

Change_Align was never meant to be a good thing. Obviously that was overlooked, although I do think it will be quite useful as is in a continent setting.

Of course, you've now reduced your entire support for alignment based spells down to "ease of changing my alignment". Pretty lame.

If it will please you to have the help file changed, you could just submit a new help file to Kiri with a brief explanation of why you felt it was incorrect. Others have done that exact thing and their changes have gone in.

I have not significantly altered my support for anything. I stated the ease of align changing thing to make you guys aware of the loophole. If anything, I am now against player spells affecting alignment. My earlier arguments were more inquisitive than against it.

I also support change_align to cast a spell that cannot be altered until it is dispelled or the duration has passed.

Stars wrote:Ok, so if a soul is the "life force", then it is directly represented by hit points. Life force is being drained every time you hurt something. What is the difference between draining that life force for your own hp, or draining it for your own experience and rise in power? We kill all the time for our benefit. There is no difference.

No, energy drain does do damage to a mob but it also drains its mana. I'd say mana is more connected to the lifeforce/soul than hp. Other attacks don't drain mobs mana.

Unfortunately, when mobs cast spells, it costs them no mana, and does not check if they have enough mana to cast it or not (i.e. you could cast several thousand acid blasts while at 0 mana... if you were a mob). I don't know how or if this relates to this argument at all, but that's how the game sees it.