Bone Golem and Fear

[Olme]

My character went into fear in the Dire Woods when fighting the Bone Golems, even though I was warded  by the spell 'Immunity to Fear' .

This happened several times on two separate trips.


http://www.layonaraonline.com/forums/photos/show-album.asp?albumid=366&photoid=8755

[Doc-Holiday]

This can often happen during a bit of lag, sometimes effects will strike before the system recognizes that you are immune.

I have seen this happen to Paladins during severe lag

[Talan Va'lash]

Protection from evil only makes you immune to fear effects created by evil creatures. Golems by nature are true neutral (cant really have a moral bias if you don't have a mind.)

[FlameStrike]

Odd, i've never been affected by that Fear ability, Doc. And yeah i've been in that area once or twice where severe lag effects were happening.

 Hah, Paladins running in fear, something you don't see every day for sure.

[Rayenoir]

The spell is not, as I recall, "Immunity to Fear," but Remove Fear.  It offers a long-duration (10 turns, which amounts to 10 real-life minutes) increase in saves vs. fear (+4 to be precise), but as one can tell from the name that is not really its primary purpose.  http://nwn.layonara.com/Remove%20Fear

I believe what Talan said here is accurate, the Immunity to Fear that you see listed with your spell effects is from Protection from Evil, and the golems (while made of bones and looking creepy) are simply not evil.
http://nwn.layonara.com/Protection%20from%20Alignment

[Doc-Holiday]

Skeletons aren't evil!

Unless their wearing fur coats



or high heels..

then you just have to wonder

[Talan Va'lash]

Mindless undead are neutral evil gaining the evil bias due to the fact that they are animated by negative energy. Negative energy is evil, and any act of manipulating negative energy is also evil.

This is not one of those "oh but it could be used for good" questions, it simply is. Manipulating Positive energy is a good act while manipulating Negative energy is an evil act. This statement is cannon D&D and the premise upon which a good number of things are built (for all you old timers this was changed in 3rd edition a bit from 2ED. One of the related changes being the change of all cure spells from necromancy in 2ED to conjuration in 3ED+.)

Golems are not animated by negative energy, they are animated by some form of magical energy, though unlike undead, golems are not one of the areas that I know thouroughly so I'll just leave it at that rather than chance saying something that is incorrect.

The alignments of Intelligent Undead (lichs, some rare mummies, non-mindless vampires) are subject to a bit more freedom since they have the capacity for choice.

Edit: NWN by default makes a lot of undead chaotic evil. In the majority of cases this is incorrect.

[Doc-Holiday]

Which I find frustrating since the description of the school of Necromancy is (paraphrazed) "Spells that directly affect the life force of the target"

Which in my opinion should include healing since that would be a direct influence over the life force of a creature

I considered many of the Necro spells "evil" by comparison to a fireball... similar to shooting someone with a bullet is evil.. but not compared to shooting them with puff of Somen (a gas created by the Germans in WWII and was so deadly as to cause neurological death in less then a minute and was excrutiatingly painful)... both can kill but Somen is FAR more evil than the bullet.

[Talan Va'lash]

Doc-Holiday - 10/5/2006  3:33 PM

Which I find frustrating since the description of the school of Necromancy is (paraphrazed) "Spells that directly affect the life force of the target"

Which in my opinion should include healing since that would be a direct influence over the life force of a creature

I considered many of the Necro spells "evil" by comparison to a fireball... similar to shooting someone with a bullet is evil.. but not compared to shooting them with puff of Somen (a gas created by the Germans in WWII and was so deadly as to cause neurological death in less then a minute and was excrutiatingly painful)... both can kill but Somen is FAR more evil than the bullet.

Healing spells were necromancy in 2ED. It was a school of ambiguous morality... which I definitely liked. In 3ED it was slanted a lot more toward evil though (at least in NWN) greater restoration is still necromancy... Though that kinda feels more like a mistake to me than an intentional action since all other restorations are conjuration.