Cowled Wizards

[House of Rahl]

Alright, so I’m not yet back to bg2 yet, but I wanted to get yalls opinions on the cowled wizards. I strongly relate to the chaotic good alignment. “He believes in goodness and right but has little use for laws and regulations. He hates it when people try to intimidate others and tell them what to do. He follows his own moral compass, which, although good, may not agree with that of society.”

The cowled wizards taking Imoen at the start for defending herself was an act of war. Any and all cowled wizards I come across are enemy combatants unless they prove otherwise. In fact I’ve been known to walk into their main building in the government district and once strong enough use spells like gate to summon in fiends to run amuck terrorizing their members. I am not a forgiving person, I will have Imoen back or there will be war until I do! Ive even been known to cast foolish spells like stone skin in the middle of the city just to draw out the wizards so I can kill more of them.

Im curious how yall handle this travesty of justice. Law or not I don’t see it as good in the least to jail someone over self-defense. But on the other side they are just following the law. In fact didn’t 6 or 7 of the idiots lose their lives to Irenicus before he finally surrendered himself? Isn’t that sufficient grounds to prove she needed to either defend herself or likely perish?!? Boy I wish I could find out where the council that condemned her is…. Me and them need to have a chat!

[fauxpas]

They regulate magic so scrictly in part because it helps keep the the powers that be in power, but from the standpoint of a common man, I'd be grateful for them cracking down on people that are capable of raining firerly death upon the market at a whim.

[House of Rahl]

i dont disagree with the premise, its the same reason your drinking patrons shouldnt be armed with giant battle axes. however if one of the thieves guild assassins came at you i would find it perfectly acceptable to murder that assassin with said axe. punishing the victim is ridiculous.

i agree that magic is much more deadly a threat. if somone were to summon in a demon lord or pit fiend into the market hundreds if not thousands might die before it could be put down. i dont remember where in the story you hear of it, but a wizard was arrested for using a magical disc to carry his luggage. how the heck is that a threat to the citizens of the city.

[fauxpas]

It's a zero tolerance policy with all of the silliness that goes with it (plus it allows the guild to sell expensive magical permits) but from a muggle's perspective if a mage can cast Tensor's Disc then they are capable of casting fireball in the middle of my wood home. (I could be wrong but if I remember correctly both are 3rd level spells.)

[House of Rahl]

if im not mistaken, its only arcane spells that are flagged by the cowled wizards, not divine. if i am in fact remembering that correctly, then that means i can animate dead, throw around glyphs of warding, flame strike, call lightning, blade barrier, bolt of glory, finger of death, gate, firestorm, natures beauty, aura of flaming death, storm of vengeance, globe of blades, and implosion. thats a fair bit of dangerous offensive magic to let someone throw around willy nilly in town.

if this regulation is all for public saftey, they arnt exactly doing the the very job they claim is their mission statment. while priest spells cant be used quiet as offensively as arcane spells can, they can still do some serious damage, expecially if you have more than one priest, or if that priest is using items to speed their casting time. any one of those spells and quiet a few i didnt even bother to mention could easily kill your average lv 0/1 citizen near imediatly.

as for your muggle, harry potter reference, the muggles arnt the ones enforcing the law. its the order of the cowled wizards. they would have a clear understand of what is, and is not an offensive spell and what could or could not pose a threat to the locals. that disc, not a threat, in the same way something like mirror image, or stoneskin wouldnt be a threat to anyone. heck i could totally see wizards casting mirror image as part of a carneval trick/magic show.

[LoneEagle]

I have mixed feelings about the Cowled Wizards. I beat all these games many years ago, but now I'm playing again. This time I am a Neutral Evil Shaman named Thrull FleshEater. I want to be rich and powerful. I am willing to ally myself and complete tasks with whoever will give me the greatest rewards and most powerful items. Since the Cowled Wizards seem to be running things in the city, they seem like a good ally to have. However, the Shadow Thieves have a lot of power also. At this point, I am trying to play both sides. I hope to eventually grow powerful enough to kill all of the powerful and rule the city myself. After I destroy all the dragons and max out all my items / weapons / magic / etc. I want to see if this is possible. I am in no hurry to finish the game, and I intend to do everything possible until it forces me to confront Irenicus. Maybe He and I can be partners? I could care less about Imoen. I already have a badass mage who helped me betray one of the Shadow Thief rulers (Mae'Var?) and slaughter his clan. :) I hope to stay allied with Renal Bloodscalp as long as possible since he paid me 10,500 gold and I like gold......Any thoughts?

[fauxpas]

Divine magic has always been policed by the Church and the Gods in DnD so I don't agree that is an issue.

And sure, the CW's understand the difference between an utility spell and battle magic, just as an average muggle can but the point is that someone who CAN cast a 3rd level spell is just as capable of casting a fireball as well hence that the average muggle on the street is happy either way.

It might be better to look at what the CW'S do not as banning magic but instead as attempting to regulate it since a mage is allowed to register and purchase a magical permit in order to legally cast spells.

[Hamtata]

it's abit silly actually....you can't cast fireballs outside, but I can go inside a inn and reduce them to a bunch of fried running chickens. Given enough time, I could turn a few towns in Amn into populated outside, empty indoors.

As for divine magic......there are good and evil alignments....chaotic evil types will go "BUAHHAHAHA and fire lightning bolts at townfolks?"

Finally Colwed Wizards are the smart ones. They'll give up on you after a few rounds, they know they cannot stop you. It's the Amn guards that are dumb, they'll keep chasing after you (if you have reputation 3 or lower) and never learnt their lesson. I always enjoy looting their equipment and sell for big profits to offset the high cost of buying from merchants.

[House of Rahl]

@faux
"but the point is that someone who CAN cast a 3rd level spell is just as capable of casting a fireball"

so.... what? the law is now enforcable on what MIGHT come to pass, instead of what has? so because my half-orc thief is capable of stealing everyones possestions right out of their very pockets and taking every valuable outa their home we should arrest them before they can commit these feared acts? how is that justice. no crime has been committed, your simply lashing out in fear at an unconfirmed threat standing before you. fear is not a justification for descrimination, its a signal to make yourself less ignorant of the situation, and only afterwards if it remains, a cause for action to be taken. your "muggles" are ignorant, thus i dont give a hoot what they think or want. ignorance is excusable but its by no means a reason for sympathy to their thoughts or opinions. the wizards are not ignorant, but they act as if they are, willful ignorance is not be to forgiven.

[Marksthecylon]

In every case mentioned (and shown) in the games a crime was committed. The cowled wizards do not randomly grab spellcasters off of the street. Use (not possession) of magic in Amn is forbidden without a permit. Irenicus was openly using magic in the market, Imoen did use magic in the market as well. the cowled wizards probably wouldn't have bothered taking her but Irenicus forced their hand, making detaining her part of his surrender. As for the mage using the disk to carry his luggage he was openly using magic without a permit and in Amn (as in real life) ignorance is not a defence against the law.

[House of Rahl]

and how did irenicus force their hand? yeah they were getting slaughtered left and right, but they conceeded to taking her as a part of his surrender? are you then saying that they saw her as innocent but condemed her simply because they wanted to take down irenicus and the sacrifise of one "innocent" was the lesser of two potential evils, the other being more of their members dying attempting to stop this obviously powerful mage.

ignorance is infact a defense in international law. it might not be so in domestic, but you cant be expected to know all the laws of another nation. its why most nations on the plantet grant diplomatic immunity to international represenatives, because they cant be expected to know all the laws and because bogus charges would sometimes be used to entrap and detain dignitaries illegally. the mage with the disc story i dont remember much more than he was detained and imprissoned for it. if he was traveling to the city which seems likely since he was using a spell to help transport his goods, than he may never have been to amn or taught its laws. while he obviously was not a dignitary, and i dont recall any such diplomatic imunity ever present in the BG universe, he couldnt have known such a harmless spell was enough to send him to spell hold. ignorance may not be a defense in domestic law but law enforcement agents cut people breaks all the time because of ignorance. someone speeding, is let go with a warning, either because they ignorantly didnt know the speed, or simply because the cop just wanted to be nice to the person.

i still stand by them policing only arcane magic as if it was the only threat is as best discriminatory, at worse its open persecution. ignoring and allowing cleric magic while discriminating arcane is at best a double standard. somone made the argument that gods and the church police divine magic. really, where do we see that happening? another made a good point, what god is going to punish an evil cleric for gating in a demon in the government district? if lathander had the power to stop all evil clerics, he likely would have long ago and wed not be facing any in our game.

not taking into the acount the severity of the act is inexcusable. a single magic missile spell used in defense does not equal the casting of the 9th lv spell call meteor in the downtown market. one of those has the potential to cause massive casualties, even if its used in self defense the use of it would be reckless given the potential for collateral damage. there is no potential for collateral damage with the use of magic missiles. the fact that it was used only in self defense, no more so than the cowled wizards themselfs attempted when irenicus scythed through their numbers, leaves me baffled at how they can conclude that was an improper use of magic. life is the most precious posetion anyone holds, it trumps membership, or some silly permit every time, to punish someone for defending their life is in or itself a crime, it is a persecution of that persons right to continue breathing.

[LoneEagle]

@Richard Rahl I have a few comments for you.
First: I have to compliment you on your community name. I love Sword of Truth and wish they had made more than two television seasons of The Seeker. Terry Goodkind's books are full of philosophical debates regarding reason and truth. I find your posts to be full of philosophy-which I am a student of. I am considering going for a Masters in Philosophy because the subject fills me with such passion and intrigue.
Second: I am happy to see that others are as passionate about these games as I am-and some seem even more so than I. I do try to take the games seriously when I play. I imagine myself as the main character, get lost in the game, and really try to make decisions as if it were really me. I have read around 30-40 books from the Forgotten Realms universe so it feels as if I already know a few of the characters.
Third: I enjoy reading your posts because they make the game have more depth for me and seem more real. I am taking my time playing through the BG2:EE (my first time with enhanced edition) and I am excited to see how my character develops as I go through the three games (SOA, TOB, and the third new one which I have never played). I have always been a good character in the past, but it is refreshing to try something new. Most of my actions would probably still be considered good, but occassionally I make a decision purely on selfish Utilitarian grounds. My main goal this time through is to see how rich and powerful I can get (but keeping a decent reputation for now will probably help enhance my goal) If I ever get as powerful as a Demi-Lich Elminster / Drizzt Do' Urden Hybrid perhaps I will just take over the city / world in the future?

[fauxpas]

Originally posted by Richard Rahl:

@faux
"but the point is that someone who CAN cast a 3rd level spell is just as capable of casting a fireball"

so.... what? the law is now enforcable on what MIGHT come to pass, instead of what has? so because my half-orc thief is capable of stealing everyones possestions right out of their very pockets and taking every valuable outa their home we should arrest them before they can commit these feared acts? how is that justice. no crime has been committed, your simply lashing out in fear at an unconfirmed threat standing before you. fear is not a justification for descrimination, its a signal to make yourself less ignorant of the situation, and only afterwards if it remains, a cause for action to be taken. your "muggles" are ignorant, thus i dont give a hoot what they think or want. ignorance is excusable but its by no means a reason for sympathy to their thoughts or opinions. the wizards are not ignorant, but they act as if they are, willful ignorance is not be to forgiven.

No, the law is enforcable on what happened, in this case the illegal display of magic by an unpermitted wizard, and if it got him sent to Spellhold then there is far more to the story than JUST a Tensor's Disc, as Spellhold simply isn't large enough if the CW's really were snatching mages off the streets and throwing them there at the first offense (And yes, whether or not you want to admit it, Imeon was a special case due to Jon.). You want to quibble about the classification of the spell but you are ignoring that the important part in the CW's eyes is that the wizard was unregistered and unpermitted. As for simply labeling the muggles as ignorant in order to be able to feel justicified in a blanket dismissal of their opinions ... meh, whatever floats your boat, but painting people that you disagree with as ignorant so you don't have to deal with them is as easy as it is lazy.


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As for ignorance being an excuse in international law ... umm, since when? And you are simply incorrect in your statement that the purpose of diplomatic immunity is because envoys might not know the local laws. ... As for diplomatic immunity existing in the Forgotten Realms, I don't believe its formally recongized as such, but punishing the envoys of a friendly (or powerful) kingdom doesn't tend to be a smart decision for the local lord to make.


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And whether you like it or not (and I personally don't agree with the decision), DnD has always drawn a stark crimson line between Divine Magic and Arcane Magic, so the CW's focusing on arcanists and not clerics makes perfect sense.

[fauxpas]

Originally posted by Pukka:

it's abit silly actually....you can't cast fireballs outside, but I can go inside a inn and reduce them to a bunch of fried running chickens. Given enough time, I could turn a few towns in Amn into populated outside, empty indoors.

I chalk that up to a limitation in the game programming and not a statement of lore.

[Marksthecylon]

Originally posted by fauxpas:

Originally posted by Pukka:

it's abit silly actually....you can't cast fireballs outside, but I can go inside a inn and reduce them to a bunch of fried running chickens. Given enough time, I could turn a few towns in Amn into populated outside, empty indoors.

I chalk that up to a limitation in the game programming and not a statement of lore.

I'd say it was probably a compromise with the lore so as not to cripple caster characters in the early game.

[fauxpas]

Originally posted by Marksthecylon:

Originally posted by fauxpas:

I chalk that up to a limitation in the game programming and not a statement of lore.

I'd say it was probably a compromise with the lore so as not to cripple caster characters in the early game.

That makes sense.