137 - On Everyone's Lips
Nosey sighed as she walked away from the crowd of ponies behind her.
After sentencing Fencer, or rather Garden Gate, Lex had curtly ordered everypony to finish making preparations to leave. While several ponies had started heading back to the shelter to collect the last of the supplies there, most were milling about, talking to themselves in hushed voices about what they’d just witnessed. The snatches that Nosey had overheard as she’d left the crowd hadn’t been approving.
What was Sonata thinking, letting Lex do that on his own? Nosey was certain that if Sonata had been the one doing the talking, things would have looked quite different. After all, Garden Gate had openly admitted that it was her fault that Pillowcase had died. For something as serious as that, Sonata would have been able to make it sound Lex was working with Garden to help her atone, that those curses were her penance, her way of punishing herself in a tangible manner for something she couldn’t undo. But now…
“You’ve gotta admit, that was pretty impressive,” came a raspy whisper, causing Nosey to look up at where Aria was lying on a nearby metal shelf. “Not as impressive as him fighting off me, Lirtkra, and Monitor all at the same time, but still pretty intense.”
Nosey frowned. Although she hadn’t talked to the Siren before now, Sonata had told her all about her sisters back in Tall Tale. The picture she’d painted hadn’t been a flattering one, and hearing Aria’s take on what Lex just did wasn’t helping to change that. “He made everypony afraid of him,” replied Nosey flatly. “Right now, they’re all wondering how he could be so cruel.”
“Cruel?” echoed Aria with a sneer, before tilting her head up and pointing to the faint scar on her neck. “Cruel is ripping someone's voice away forever because they enchanted a couple of ponies. What Lex just did was nowhere near as bad, for something much worse.”
“Somehow I’m guessing you weren’t sorry for what you did,” countered Nosey, “but Garden Gate clearly was. She apologized for everything, and he still came down on her so hard.” She shook her head, looking at the ground in discouragement. “Everypony here was really starting to believe in him, to see that he was somepony they could count on. But now…now he’s going to have to work even harder to win their trust back.” The sound of Aria snickering made her look up, indignant. “What? That’s funny to you?”
“Very,” smirked Aria. “I think it’s hilarious that you all are fine with him killing monsters that prey on you, or even helping him do it, but when another pony kills a pony you’re all horrified that he so much as raps her on the hooves.”
“Wh-, that’s different!” sputtered Nosey.
“Whatever you say,” came a flippant reply as Aria turned away. “I don’t really care either way. I just think that it’s funny that you all think that this is him being harsh, when I’ve seen firsthand what he can really do.”
Nosey had no response as the Siren left.
“Can you guys give us a few minutes?”
The other ponies glanced at each other uneasily before one of them looked back at Cloudbank. “Lex said that he wants everything left in the shelter packed up immediately. If we don’t get it done right away…” He trailed off, clearly afraid of what would happen if they didn’t follow the orders they’d been given.
Cloudbank glanced at Drafty, seeing the same uncomfortable expression on the other mare’s face that she knew was on her own. Lex had given them marching orders as well, telling the two of them to go retrieve Aisle and Cozy – along with Pillow’s body – so that the rest of the medical area could be broken down. But Cloudbank knew that before she could do that, she needed to fix things with Drafty, and she was pretty sure she wasn’t the only one who felt that way. But they couldn’t make up with a crowd of ponies rushing them.
Sighing, she forced herself to look cool and confident as she spoke. “It’ll be fine. If Lex has a problem, tell him that I was the one who held you up.”
“But-”
Cloudbank flared her wings, taking a single step forward. “I’m a servant of the Night Mare, the same goddess that supports Lex. I wielded the living weapon Severance and struck down the kraken in that last battle.” She paused to let that sink in before continuing. “I’m telling you, nothing will happen to you, so please,” she folded her wings back in, her voice softening, “just give us a few minutes.”
“…okay.” The others backed off then, and a few seconds later Cloudbank and Drafty were by themselves.
Sighing in relief, Cloudbank turned to face her girlfriend. “Drafty, about before-”
“I’m sorry,” interrupted Drafty. “I didn’t mean to get so upset. I don’t even know why I did, I just…and now Pillow…”
“I know.” Cloudbank immediately closed the distance between them, wrapping a hoof around Drafty and pulling her close, feeling the other mare immediately embrace her in return. “I’m sorry too.” The news of Pillow’s death had completely overridden her hurt feelings, reminding her that a petty fight was not worth getting angry over, not when their lives could end at any minute. Still, it was a relief to know that Drafty wasn’t mad at her anymore either.
The embrace ended a moment later, and Drafty sniffled. “I can’t believe he’s really gone. It seemed like just the other day that he was telling us all about the Crystal Empire, remember?”
Cloudbank managed a small smile. “Yeah.” More than anypony else, Pillowcase had been adamant that they’d all survive, telling them about how they could all come visit him and Cozy in the Crystal Empire once everything had calmed down. “He said he’d treat us to so many crystal berries that we’d be sick of them by the time we left.”
Now it was Drafty’s turn to smile wanly. “And then Aisle asked if crystal berries could be grown here in Vanhoover.”
Cloudbank nodded. “Right, and then Pillow says, ‘sure, but then they’d just be berries,’ and he and Aisle started laughing.” She still didn’t know why that was supposed to be funny, but she grinned at the memory all the same, seeing Drafty smirking also.
But the other mare’s smile didn’t last very long before it devolved into a worried expression. “Do you…do you think she’s angry at me?”
Cloudbank tilted her head. “What?”
“Cozy.” Drafty looked at the ground. “Do you think she’s mad at me for what happened to Pillow?”
“Why would-” Suddenly Cloudbank knew exactly what Drafty was asking, and she took a step forward, lifting Drafty’s chin to make her meet her eyes. “No. Absolutely not. Don’t even think that.”
“But if I hadn’t gotten sick…” Drafty’s eyes were watery, her voice quivering as she spoke, and it absolutely broke Cloudbank’s heart to see. “If he hadn’t gone to look for medicine for me, he’d be here right now.”
“Listen to me.” Cloudbank made her voice as firm as she could. “What happened to Pillow is not your fault, do you understand me? You are in no way responsible, and I know Cozy knows that too.”
“But-”
“No buts. It wasn’t your fault, it wasn’t Pillow’s fault, it wasn’t the doctors’ fault. It was…” For an instant she hesitated, the memory of what they’d just witnessed not something she was comfortable signing off on, but the sight of Drafty’s guilt-ridden face pushed her to say it. “It was that other pony’s fault, Garden Fence or whatever. This was because of her. Not you.”
Drafty sniffled and looked away, rubbing her eyes before she turned back to Cloudbank. “Yeah…Lex really brought the hammer down on her, huh?” She tried to keep her voice light, but Cloudbank knew her well enough to hear the uncertainty there. In that moment she knew that Drafty’s admiration for Lex had been shaken by how harsh he’d been with that mare, and that she was asking for her opinion about what had just happened.
Cloudbank bit her lip, hesitating for just a moment. She’d been uncomfortable for a while now with how much Drafty had come to revere Lex; that had been why they’d gotten in that fight, after all. So if she pushed the issue here and said that Lex had gone too far in cursing that mare, it might put Drafty off of him permanently. But if she did that, then Drafty might blame herself for what had happened, and Cloudbank refused to entertain the possibility of her very special somepony carrying that kind of pain around for the rest of her life. I won’t do that to her, she swore to herself. I’d rather she spent the rest of her life thinking Lex can do no wrong than think it was her fault. Even so, there was a bitter taste in her mouth as she spoke. “He was right to do so.”
“Yeah?” The hope in Drafty’s voice, the desire to believe what she was being told, was audible.
Cloudbank made herself appear resolute as she nodded. “Absolutely. For what she did to Pillow, he was absolutely right.”
“Even though she apologized?”
“Even though she apologized. Some things are so bad that saying you’re sorry, no matter how much you mean it, isn’t enough.”
Drafty let out a slow breath. “Yeah…you’re right.”
“Darn right I’m right. And don’t you ever forget it.” Cloudbank stepped closer and nuzzled Drafty, closing her eyes to enjoy the sensation of her returning the gesture before stepping back. Canting her head towards the shelter, the two started walking towards it, sides pressed against each other.
“So what’s her condition?”
House Call sighed as he approached where Turbo and his friends had moved apart from everypony else, hearing the thinly-veiled tension in the stallion’s voice. “From what I can tell, she has some sort of proximity-induced myasthenia. Grade three, I think. It’s hard to say for certain without running more tests.” He held up a hoof to forestall the questions he knew were coming. “That means that her muscles are working enough to let her move around, but beyond compensating for gravity they can’t take much resistance. She can walk, and she can open a door or lift a pencil, but if someone’s put the lid on a jelly jar too tight she’s going to need help with it.”
Turbo grit his teeth, trying to control his breathing. “What about her horn? Can she really not use any magic at all anymore?”
House Call licked his lips slowly. “I’m afraid that I can’t answer that right now. With her being fresh out of reattachment surgery, she needs to let it heal before we examine it.”
Turbo took a step closer to House Call. “Doctor, those curses that Lex put on her-”
“Are completely beyond anything I can treat,” replied House Call immediately. “I’m sorry, but I’m a doctor, not a wizard. I’ll keep monitoring her during her recovery period, and if there’s anything I can do to make her more comfortable then I will, but that’s the limit of what I can do in this situation.”
Turbo was about to make it clear exactly how unsatisfactory that answer was, but Granola Bar put a hoof on his side and shook her head, and he let out a slow breath. “Okay. Let me know if there’s any change.” He waited until House Call nodded and left, before turning back to the others. Each and every one of them looked scared and angry. But worse was how they all looked defeated, as though they’d given up all hope of being able to do anything. He knew how they felt, but they needed to snap out of it if they were going to turn this around. “Alright, look. We’re in over our heads. Up until now we’ve just had to scrounge for food and run away from monsters, but this is different. So we need to try something different.”
“You don’t mean fighting that Lex guy, do you?” squeaked Piggy, blanching at the thought.
Turbo almost rolled his eyes, not so much at the question, but at how this was Piggy always acted whenever the situation was even slightly bad. For all that he liked to boast about being their leader, it was things like this which made him a joke to everyone else. Still, he was part of their group, which meant that they couldn’t just ignore him…and besides, his own wings were still covered in black crystals, serving as a reminder that Piggy’s question, albeit cowardly, was not unreasonable. “No, we’re not gonna fight him. Fencer told me that she didn’t want us to try anything, and we’re going to listen to her.” He knew she’d said her name was something else, but he still couldn’t think of her as anyone except Fencer.
“Now everypony pay attention. Here’s the new plan…”
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Going deeper into the Earth, we find even more caves. It is also starting to get a bit warm. Do typos thrive in warm conditions?
I don't think 'approving' is the right word here.
But it? I am not even sure what this is supposed to be.
The but doesn't own anything.
Now, I hope Lex realizes he may have come down a bit hard on Garden Gate. If he had any empathy whatsoever, maybe. I am almost certain that Sonata knew what happened to Garden Gate though.
Well, the aftereffects of Garden Gate's punishment are certainly what I expected, fear and uncertainty though Aria's words does imply that the ponies probably wouldn't have minded the harshness of Lex's punishment as much if the one being sentenced wasn't a pony. Of course, that's her view on the situation since she was punished by ponies though Nosey's retort isn't helping her case.
As for Turbo, it seems that he's refusing to let go of how he saw Fencer, strong and aloof, instead of the broken mare that Garden Gate is. Guess Drafty isn't the only one with a case of hero worship, even if they're fallen ones. At least she and Cloudbank have patched things up again, even if it leaves a bad taste to Cloudbank but such are the sacrifices one makes for love.
Still, I wonder what Turbo has got in mind that doesn't involve fighting Lex.
One idea they could consider is to take Garden Gate and leave Lex and make off with whatever supplies they can get their hooves on (including medical supplies) when they're marching towards the blockade though that would still leave Garden cursed. Though given their lack of knowledge about curses, they might think that there's a way to remove them. Though it still depends on if they could get away with said supplies.
Another idea could be that they'll try to spread dissent amongst the ponies in Lex's group though even with the cruelness he displayed earlier, that would take too long and be unreliable since anything could happen before that plan could pan out. Well, that and Turbo's seemingly brash nature doesn't mix well with plans that take too long to accomplish.
8392611
Technically, there IS a way to remove them, they'd just have to get Fencer to someone powerful and knowledgeable enough (and willing) to be able to remove the curses. Unfortunately, at the moment aside from Lex himself, the only others capable of doing so are all outside Vanhoover or in Everglow.
8392706
And there lies the problem, Lex is the only individual in Vanhoover they know that can remove the curses. The only other individual that has displayed some knowledge of Everglow magic is Block Party but his display of it is limited so far though I doubt they'd try to go to him for help since he's the reason why they couldn't leave Vanhoover in the first place.
Still, should Turbo and the others try to leave Lex's group and succeed, they'll have to contend with surviving while also caring for Fencer/Garden at the same time as well as searching for someone to help remove the curse. I really hope Turbo and the others don't try something foolish...but given his brash nature, I'm worried for Fencer/Garden.
8392498
I'm sure there's a setup for a great joke here...but I can't think of what it is.
What conjugation of "approve" would have worked, then?
Nuts. Fixed now.
Again, the genitive case does not always indicate possession.
I somehow doubt that Lex thinks he was too harsh in his punishment of Garden. But then, that's sort of the problem, isn't it?
8392611 Aria's subtle accusation of hypocrisy that everypony was fine with Lex cutting a bloody swath through monsters, only to be horrified when he cursed Garden Gate for murdering another pony, was one that Nosey wasn't sure how to deal with. That's largely because she, like most people, views morality as something intuitive, rather than explicit. For Nosey, and most other ponies, right and wrong are things that are felt rather than explicitly stated, to the point where they're almost foundational concepts that can't be adequately described unto themselves, like colors. Hence, when called out on the particulars of a moral conundrum, she faltered.
That doesn't mean that Aria was right, of course. Rather, it just means that Nosey is somewhat out of her element when trying to debate the question of whether or not something is "right" or "wrong." Lex, of course, would have no such problem, which is doubtlessly why he felt so comfortable doing what he did to Garden Gate in the first place.
Having said all of that, I found it interesting that you drew a parallel between Turbo and Drafty as both hero-worshipping somepony else. I hadn't quite seen Turbo that way, which makes your take on it fun for me to consider, as it puts a spin on things that I hadn't thought of. Thanks for that!
As for Cloudbank, she knows that Drafty's not to blame for what happened, and couldn't bear the thought of her thinking she was. Having to watch her make goo goo eyes at Lex in exchange for easing her guilt is a price she was willing to pay, though I wonder if she'll regret it later.
As for Turbo's plan...well, I suspect we'll see it unfold in due course...
8392926
I'm not sure. Approving just sounds weird to me. It's not wrong, but I feel it isn't the right word.
The sentence implies that the 'but' is supposed to be plural. If it is indeed plural, there should be no apostrophe.
8393323
I think it's okay; this isn't an issue of tense, per se, since the use of "approving" isn't meant to be present-continuous verb. Rather, it's an adjective.
Hm, as it turns out, you're correct here.
Change made.
8392961
This pretty much sums it up. If the mechanics don't line up with the expectations, it's a problem, but it doesn't mean that an expectation that does line up is invalid simply because it's different. So yes, it really depends on waht the viewpoint on the topic is.
Well... Sorta, yes. Unless it IS the worst case scenario where one feat allows you to increase your resistance and another one (think Augment Attack (2d6 fire damage) specialized to only apply to fire-spells, corrupted to never add more damage than the enemy has resistance, that only works against a creature with fire resistance, possibly backed up with a "natural law immunity" or an Immunity against Fire Resistance) to increase your damage ONLY against targets that have a high resistance and you are back to square one.
Luckily, the opportunity costs for such a scenario are incredibly high (spending CP over CP or feat after feat on this), and I believe even WotC's highest level of Immunity-stacking was Immunity-Immunity in the form of Searing Spell, so I assume it would never come up in a real game.
But would a Fire Elemental afraid of it's own reflection make the game more fun?
Also, we are talking about "possible bad game design", and as I wanted to demonstrate, if you really want to go down the rabbit hole, which means wasting a ton of feats that still may very well be countered, you can do that with escalating resistances just fine. They are the game designers: If they are hellbent on making their product suck, they are more than able to do so regardless of the game using resistance or immunity. You can even go one better, remove all resistances and instead buff their saves and give them a refreshing pool of temp-hp against a specific elemental type, if you so choose.
Well... Then why not do it? I fully agree that a god in his area should be able to overcome minor inconveniences like this. To bring back the example of the Invisibility God, he could overcome them: He could've just cast Superior Invincibility and went on his way undetected (Satan could've used a laced magic jar too). It's not that he can't: It's that the god CHOSE not to. I mean, in a way, by saying that the god of invisibility can't be seen, regardless of whether or not he'd really like to be seen, you are robbing him of power too. Of course, you could also say that he's "trapped by his own power" and that "divinity comes at a price", in which case... Well, we are back to the question of "what did we originally expect the god to be able to do?"
True, saying it's a hard limit was wrong (especially since I immediately gave a way to break it, beig the derp I am
). It's more so a limit that's in play in the few games where Eclipse is a thing, as we'd otherwise just have a Metamagic-War on our hands and are still stuck at the original problem^^
So do I. I suppose only time will tell :3
I know
Be interesting to see how Garden Gate progresses. Right now she's just suffering the first two curses, which can be lived with and mitigated to a certain extent. She'd be having nightmares every night regardless. But eventually, getting those terrible nightmares every night.... yeah, it's extremely hard to expect any outcome other than suicide. Lex puts up with a similar curse himself, but he is of an extraordinarily strong mental constitution that "Fencer" in no way approaches.
It's also interesting that the ponies at large are seeing the other side of living under the rules of the Night Mare. Yes, you get the best possible protection from external dangers, but you abandon the generous forgiveness-based culture in exchange for total and unflinching obedience to those more powerful than you, with harsh punishments for minor deviations meted out. Lex himself hasn't really preached doctrine yet though, so the populace may not make any immediate connection.
Some are trying to make the best of disaster by working together to make things bette, others just want to work together so they get the best, no matter what they need to do to others? But all this time, if they had stopped to think, they would be ghoul food. So how does Lex get them to slow down without dealing with them permanently?
8393442
The problem, of course, is that most people don't explicitly make their underlying expectations clear, and so in a conversation the differing premises won't be explicitly stated, meaning that there's often a breakdown in understanding from the get-go. It's part of why a lot of gamers, who are typically very quick to say that there's no wrong way to play, will immediately launch into accusations of "stats for gods is badwrongfun" or imply that anyone who wants such a thing should justify that desire with an explanation of the practical use for them, etc. Don't even get me started on those individuals who think that having them will somehow wreck the game because it enables powergamers; that is an argument that's so wrong-headed I can't stand it.
Mixing traditional feats with Eclipse abilities is kind of a bad recipe, to my mind. If you really want increased energy resistance in an Eclipse-based game, then you'll need to purchase it manually, rather than taking a feat like the one you linked to. Likewise, I really don't see any reasonable GM allowing you to take an Immunity to someone else's being immune to something. There's a reason why natural-law immunities are the sort that Thoth tends to recommend against.
I feel like we're getting away from the point, which is that energy resistances have a built-in scaling effect that better aligns with preexisting expectations rather than a binary set of immune/not immune abilities that lend themselves to one extreme or the other. Obviously, you can extend energy resistances, or energy damage, to unreasonable levels as well, but the ability to push things to the breaking point is not and should not be the hallmark of how well an idea works. Any system, provided it has sufficient moving parts, can be broken that way; that doesn't speak very much at all to the virtue therein.
Not nearly as much as if it was afraid of roasted garlic.
Again, the hallmark of whether a game's design is good or bad has relatively little, to my mind, to do with how easy it is to deliberately break. The nature of what makes for a "good" game is not how well it forcibly constraints its players from doing anything (via the game rules) which could break game "balance." Even if we leave aside that "balance" is a term with no real consensus as to its meaning, this misses the wider point: that a problem player will find a way to ruin other people's enjoyment regardless of what mechanics are available to them. The far more important issue, I think, is how robust the game system presents itself to be when the players aren't trying to twist it to an extreme. If the game falls into issues of making characters either unstoppable or useless even when designing without much through for optimization, then there's a problem.
That's just one of the issues; the other is how well it emulates the genre (and other issues of setting) that it wants to represent. In that regard, the argument for energy resistances over energy immunities is that the former lends itself more readily to scaling that allows for it to be used however much is necessary to meet a variety of expectations. Absolutes and counter-absolutes don't have that level of flexibility, because they're inherently binary, being either supreme or meaningless. If you have a high energy resistance, then it's possible for you to still take damage, but a large portion (maybe even almost all of it) will still be negated, after all.
The issue of "why not do it?" goes back to what I think of as the next step up from issues of differing expectations: that once the game designer(s) make a choice to begin representing deities (and similarly-powerful beings) under the game rules, they then need to concretely understand (and, ideally, communicate) what expectations they're operating from, and then write the gods up accordingly. That can be difficult to do, however, because for games with a large amount of moving parts (i.e. games that are rules-heavy) it can be easy to make an oversight allows for some unintentional consequence that runs counter to the expectation that the deity's stats are meant to represent. Hence why the Book of Vile Darkness gave Asmodeus the Dark Speech feat (p. 165), and yet had no rules or notes saying that he - the lord of all Hell and one of the single greatest evils in the multiverse - would be exempt from the damage that came with using that feat's dread, power, or dark unity abilities (p. 33) due to how evil that language was.
This is the kind of issue with "making the rules accurately represent the world" that makes a lot of gamers (to my mind) prefer that the attempt not be made in the first place. Because it leaves open "exploits" that can technically be utilized even when they don't accurately represent the intent of the designers, nor the way in which the game world self-evidently functions. Apparently, that the GM could utilize their authority and simply fix those problems of their own accord (which is sort of an important part of their job) never occurred to anyone.
I made this face at what you said here:
Honestly, if you're using Eclipse and going for escalating a single ability (and the GM is letting it happen) rather than widening your variability...I won't say that you're "doing it wrong" - I hate that phrase - but I really feel like that's missing an important point.
8395571 How indeed? Keep reading to find out.
8395496
I dropped some hints about this in the chapter or two leading up to this one, but one thing that's important to note is that Lex isn't planning on having these curses follow Garden around for her entire life. Remember, he noted that one of the three goals of criminal justice is to rehabilitate the offender. Presuming that the other two goals - deterrence and proportional punishment - have been met when that happens, at that point the sentence is served and ongoing penalties cease, allowing the offender to rejoin society. In other words, Lex doesn't intend for Garden to suffer from nightmares (or the other curses) for the rest of her life; rather, she'll just have to suffer from them until she regrets what she's done.
...the issue being, of course, that she already regrets what she's done, and Lex simply can't see that. (Worse, it's doubtful that he'd care much if he did; since there's still the issue of deserved punishment, regardless of rehabilitation, that also needs to be addressed.)
I question the degree to which "total and unflinching obedience" is necessarily a part of the Night Mare's doctrine. To be fair, I say that not because I think the idea doesn't necessarily fit with her religious dogma, but because the game rules which this fic is adhering to imply that religions necessarily have "doctrinal drift" in how they worship deities. That is to say, clerics (and to my mind all other divine spellcasters, though the game rules only call out clerics and a few others) can have an alignment that's one "step" removed from their god's alignment, and I see this leading to different denominations of a particular deity's church. If the Night Mare is Lawful Evil, then her Lawful Evil "orthodox" church might have a very different doctrine than her Lawful Neutral "conservative" church. And the Neutral Evil "reform" church would be different from both. That's not even getting into particular game rules that allow for even greater deviations.
And that's only the macro-level differences. It's entirely possible to take this to a smaller scale of "personal deviations that might reflect doctrinal differences." The next big one is domain choices; choosing different clerical domains could very well be seen as focusing on different aspects of a particular faith, which could conceivably be represented by differences at the organizational level, whereby doctrine is (re)interpreted or contextualized differently from how other branches of the faith do it. And then we get into subdomains... (And, of course, different divine spellcasting classes, though I'm de-emphasizing those due to Lex being a class-less character.)
The typical counterargument to this is "well, why doesn't someone just get in direct contact with their deity (or at least a high-level servant) - using magic to either talk to them or just going there - and ask which way is 'right'?" The answer to this, at least to me, is that deities want to hedge their bets. It's very important to them that mortals worship them (for whatever reason; I personally liked the "mortal faith sustains them" answer, certainly more than Paizo's "why do the gods care about mortal worship? It's a secret" shtick), and even the most Lawful of them is probably going to realize that if there's some new interpretation of their faith springing up, it might be a natural reaction to a changing society, and squashing that would mean that they'd have nothing if their old faith gets left behind. At the very least, coming down and telling one body of worshipers "you're wrong" tends to be a good way to drive those worshipers away.
And, of course, the Night Mare is explicitly said to be very cognizant of all of this, having seen her worship undergo a major shift in pony society, and changing herself accordingly...a change that gained her a higher status in the pantheon.
8396077
I may not have made that clear enough: What I was trying to say is that, if you can invent a feat that grants and removes immunity, you can make a feat that increases and removes resistance and you're basically back to square one.
For that person, yes, and maybe for you, but personally, I'd not expect any magical being living on a plane made of fire to have to be afraid of the very thing it's made of. Seems to be a matter of preference then.
Exactly. For the same reason, the idea that Immunities lead to bad game design due to a possible "Megamegaflames-feat" is just as ridiculous.
My point exactly: Scaling resistances make it possible for a character to say "I do nothing but throw fireballs" without any possible counter. With Immunities, he can't just say "Fireball", but either has to have the foresight to plan around possibly immune enemies or pay for Searing Spell or equivalent. Without them, he doesn't have to do any of that: He just needs to up his damage, which'll come in time with caster levels or similar. If a being normally immune to fire cannot stand up to a maximized Fireball without any optimization, then my expectations, for the most part, are shattered.
Hey, I'm not saying to get rid of energy resistance entirely: It has it's place. I just argue that Immunity does too. Nothing stops you from just using a different energy type and be ready to go. You know, more of "maybe I shouldn't try to set the fire on fire" and less of "I use twice as much fire to extinguish the fire". Escalating resistances do lend themselves quite well to the idea of a "one-trick pony", simply because it's "one-trick" can now steamroll any enemy regardless of their abilities unless over-CR'd.
Again, I don't really see an error in that: Evil has it's price, and you gotta pay for it. If you can't pay, it won't help and it even points that out in the feat itself.
All in all, I feel like "moar brute force" shouldn't be able to answer every question, be it (literal) firepower or evulz.
Eh, I have to say that I always appreciate attempts to not try to fix what's not broken. Sometimes, it's not a bug but a feature :D
Exactly, hence the "we don't do that at our table"-thing.
8396123 Lex's logic makes sense, and fits with his character. It also fits with his character that he's hasn't realized he hasn't communicated that with her. If Fencer only thinks the nightmares will last forever, it has the same effect.
This is certainly true, and I am sure in Lex's mind he thinks he is Lawful Neutral, or even Lawful Good. But I don't assume Lex is Lawful Evil just because is a cleric of the Night Mare. No, I assume that because of Severance. Generally speaking, any evil Major Artifact is going to turn its bearer evil over repeated uses, pretty much all the evil artifacts required their bearers to make a weekly Will save or change their alignment to evil. That's why so many old school D&D plots were about destroying evil artifacts. Major Artifacts that are servitors of a particular god are going to be even more strict about this than your average evil artifact. Severance is not going to accept serving a Lawful Neutral or Neutral Evil master for long, he would change his master to be a perfect vessel of the Night Mare (the way he tried to do to Applejack). But as Severance told us, he feels no need to do that to Lex, because Lex is already perfect in his eyes (i.e. Lawful Evil).
On a larger scale, the Night Mare is looking to Lex to establish a beachhead through which she can build a massive church in this new world. It's ok if there are some slightly heterodoxical LN or NE clerics, but she expects the larger church, and the government Lex will entwine with it, to be LE. If her church is not the same alignment as her, it makes it less under her control. There's also the fact that the Night Mare is LE because she believes that "total and unflinching obedience" is the only way to permanently build a stable society. She won't tolerate a society being built that isn't lawful evil over the long term.
Look at Asmodeous in Cheliax. Calls himself the Prince of Law, allows freedom of most other religions, tries to come off as a Lawful Neutral "type." But he makes darn sure the heads of government, and the vast majority of his church, are Lawful Evil, and the country as a whole has this alignment.
Now that other new cleric of the Night Mare, I bet he's Lawful Neutral, and I bet the Night Mare accepts that. Why? Because he's not the future king/head of her church in a brand new world. And Severance is willing to aid him in the very short term. But if Severance was transferred to him full time, you can bet your bottom dollar he would turn Lawful Evil from the fell influence of the artifact.
8396451
Hm, good point. He hasn't clearly communicated that this isn't a life sentence for Garden. As you noted, this sort of failure of communication is entirely in-character for him, and could likely lead to further misunderstandings down the road.
I know this isn't what you meant, but this touches on the whole question of how aware characters are of alignment forces in general, and their own alignment in particular. That's always a can of worms.
Here's the kicker, though: Lex actually is Lawful Neutral. In game terms, his pathos can be summarized as him wanting to be Lawful Good, but continually finding that Lawful Evil is a better fit for what he wants to do, and so that leaves him stuck in the middle, unhappily so.
But with regards to Severance, you're mostly correct; the artifact does indeed slowly shift its bearer's alignment to Lawful Evil over time, in incremental steps. But the reason it isn't trying to do that with Lex is because Lex already registers as Lawful Evil, even though that's not his actual alignment. If you look back at his stat block, you'll notice the text for the Horn of King Sombra that says "The entire relic is corrupted for two-thirds cost/blatantly utilizes dark magic, the wielder is vulnerable to spells and effects that affect evil-aligned creatures when using this relic."
I'd tweak that text if I wrote it today, because it doesn't quite communicate the intent behind it, which is that the bearer essentially has the Evil alignment-subtype (albeit without the benefit of overcoming DR X/evil when making melee attacks). In essence, Lex is treated as though the "moral" axis of his alignment (i.e. the good/neutral/evil component) is evil, regardless of what it actually is. Hence, he comes across as Lawful Evil to Severance, who sees no further need to try and shift his mentality. That, and Lex's mindset is already a near-perfect fit for how the Night Mare views the world anyway, save for his lack of religious devotion.
I'd be more likely to agree with this but for the fact that the Night Mare explicitly acknowledges that deities need to change with regard to a widespread change in how mortals view/worship them. To be fair, I don't think this means that she'd necessarily undergo a radical shift if a wildly-divergent interpretation suddenly sprang up; rather, she's willing to make gradual shifts in not only how she accomplishes her goals, and even what those goals are, over time if it reflects a widespread belief among those who know about/worship her. To that end, I suspect that she'd be willing to accept it if the mainstream interpretation of her faith in Equestria was, say, Lawful Neutral in nature. Even leaving aside that such a thing would likely preempt the Moon Princess from trying to gain a hoofhold there, that strikes me as being within what she'd accept, since she's open to having to alter what she does in order to gain mass acceptance among the populace.
Leaving aside the necessary disclaimer that alignment isn't the be-all end-all of behavior (e.g. the Night Mare - and all of her pantheon - are racial deities, unlike Asmodeus), I'm inclined to agree that the Night Mare's approach would be similar. But I see that as a preference on her part, rather than a necessity. She'd like it if Lex made sure that her church had a stranglehold on Equestria's religious life (which he intuitively understood, hence why he made sure to say that he'd give her religion, and hers alone, state sponsorship), but if that's not in the cards, she won't say no to getting most of what she wants. There's a reason why she was willing to give so much power and authority to a pony that didn't have a single rank of Knowledge (religion), after all.
Cloudbank's a girl.
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I understood you; I just disagree with you here. I don't think that the mechanical aspect of it, with regards to pointing out the parity of the game-design approaches, is the salient aspect of what's being discussed. Yes, you can just "invent" a feat either way; that's not the point. The point is that one approach has greater flexibility to model a range of underlying presumptions than the other one does.
And this is why I'm saying that energy resistances incorporate a greater range of flexibility with regards to meeting expectations. Both the 3.5 rules and Pathfinder note that the "fire-dominant" planar trait only deals 3d10 points of fire damage per round. If you give a creature fire resistance 30, then it's going to (at least so far as it knows) be unafraid of the worst of what fire can do. Give it fire resistance 60, and even a maximized fireball won't hurt it, and so even it might think that it's "immune" to fire, etc. Give it fire resistance 120, and it might as well be, unless someone's bringing a serious munchkin character, etc.
Yes, but again, I don't see that as the main substance of what's being discussed. Rather, it's a rebuke of absolutes as lacking the degree of finesse that energy resistances possess.
You've lost me, here. How does someone trying to overcome energy resistances by dealing more damage than the target's resistance equate to "without any possible counter"? If you mean they can't upgrade their resistance, that's probably the case, but other counters are possible (e.g. counterspelling, spell immunity to fireball, spell resistance, etc.). Moreover, that's a really bad tactic, as a significant portion of the fire damage will be ablated anyway, and they'll get their turn to attack you back.
Again, I don't think this is nearly as simple as you're making it out to be. If some enemy has fire resistance 30 and you can deal 15d6 fireballs, then yes, on average you're going to be able to get a little over 20 points of damage through. But that's such a terrible way of fighting (given that, if you're facing a CR-appropriate foe at the level where you can up your damage output that much, at least without hideous optimization), that it's going to self-evidently not be the way to go anyway, to the point where the very sort of power-gamer you're referring to wouldn't want to do this to begin with, in all likelihood. Rather, it's the sort of thing they'd do only if there was no other choice; when you're fighting an enemy that's resistant to your best weapon, you don't keep using it if you have another one; you just switch to your backup and go from there.
Again, that doesn't work very well, to the point where I can't bring myself to think of it as a significant problem. Yes, you might get an instance of that scene from Bastard!, where Dark Schneider is facing an efreet, who scorns him trying to attack it with fire, only for him to use fire so hot that he burns it anyway, to its shock...but for the most part, that's going to be such a sub-optimal method that it won't usually come up in game-play. The only real issue is one of implicit expectations, as to whether or not a character should be able to scorch a creature made of elemental fire.
The problem with that, as I (and several others; this was one of the complaints by the people who later wrote The Gates of Hell, which is a truly excellent series) see it, is that Asmodeus isn't just an evil character; he's an archetype of what it means to be evil. He should be one of the individuals who invented Dark Speech; to suggest that it hurts him to use it because of how evil it is presents a reduction of his nature, which is understood (by me, at least) to be that he's one of the beings that defines what evil is. He shouldn't be hurt by it.
Sure, and I don't think that this is some sort of glaring flaw in the game system - hell, I used to argue the other way, years ago - but nowadays I think of it immunities (for the most part) as being a less-than-elegant solution.
I can see why.
8396917
...Did we read the same article then? I felt like he made a big point out of the whole on-off-feat thing.
...What is your definition of a munchkin-character?
Reserves of Strenght and Firey Spell on a Red Mage (and whatever leadership, summon or similar spell is required to use circlemagic) with a Banner of the Strom's Eye alone allow for 369 damage on a maximized combust (a 5th level spell) or 451 damage on a maximized greater fireburst (a level 8 spell). Sure, you take 1d6 damage too, but even for a Fire Elemental, that's pretty lethal and it will flat out annihilate most non-fire immue creatures. I don't call that being a munchkin, personally, because it's simple blasting 101. It's not a Mailman or anything where you have to plan out every feat and spell choice. Heck, Red Wizard gives you Maximize Spell for free.
Eclipse makes this even easier: Now that you don't have to worry about immunities, just get double damage (only when using a Fire-Spell against a Fire-resistant creature) and specialized it in your spell of choice for a 270 damage maximized orb of fire. Again, I'd be hesistant to call that munchkining because that's how the linked author seems to want it to work by removing immunities.
Well, if Spell Immunity goes the same way by removing absolutes, it's more of a spell-resistance. The aforementioned Red Wizard hits 45 on a one.
Yes, it is worse than using a spell of a different element, but consider that you can now put EVERYTHING into your fire spells: Augment Magic, Double Damage, Streamline and Augment Attack. There is no reason not to, because at least after the triple damage modifier, you likely beat the 150 anyway.
That would make me ask a different question then: Why?
Now I'm just gonna take the common knowledge part away:
If it should be self-evident that, if encountered with resistance, there is a tool that would do the job better, in what way does Resistance enhance the experience any more than an Immunity does? The only point which we'd have to consider is a scenario where the difference between high resistances and immunities matters (as otherwise, they are interchangeable), and since we WILL switch to backup weapons that do the job better if we have them, the only scenario in which we wouldn't just switch (which, again, would make no difference regardless of it being an Immunity or a high resistance) would be one where the enemy is so good with fire that every other method he could employ is inferior to just adding more fire, which effectively is the same as if he'd have an ability that could pierce Immunity to Fire (or reduce the resistance).
I feel the issue with "expectations" there is that we can have both simply coexist. Again, I see no reason to remove fire resistance. I'm just saying that we can cover the expectation of "highly resistant to fire" and "immune to fire" if we have both. Now what if you want "this fire can burn away virtually everything"? Well... again, we can have that too: Just get Lacing.
And that, in my eyes, is the beauty of it: You aren't restricting people to say "you can't burn this thing ever", but you are telling them that it comes at a cost. By having both immunity and resistance, for the fire spell to truly deal a lot of damage you have to not only lace the spell against immunity, but have to amplify it to get through resistant creatures too. Heck, maybe the beforementioned efreet didn't take an anti-fire-immunity spell into account, and next time they meet, the spell fails because it got it's hands at a Resist Energy spell and the pure damage doesn't cut it for our hero? Maybe it's even a Fire-Immune and Fire-Resistant creature and it got itself some Protection from Fire?
The more you stack the favors against a one-trick pony, the less likely it is for people to become a one-trick pony.
The god of fire's stomach doesn't incinerate the fire elemental? So what? It's bound to deal crushing damage too, not to mention that he/she/it may very well have other ways to deal damage.
Satan can't possess someone? As the prince of lies, a good bluff and diplomacy roll are on his list of abilities as well.
The god of invisibility can be seen by others? A simple Light-spell might just be the distraction he needs.
Honestly, I think it's exactly that which makes it so incredibly funny: Asmodeus didn't create something so evil that it hurts to use it, he wanted to make sure the price for this power is paid so he made it so evil that it refuses to work if it can't hurt it's user. The irony in it is that, for Asmodeus to use it, he has to allow it to hurt him, as that's how he created it to function. And I heard hell appreciates irony
Oh, they aren't the most elegant thing, true. Personally, I'd prefer to combine the two approaches: If somethings Immunity is shattered, it still has a bit of resistance up and running.
...Why do I feel like I missed a joke somewhere?
8397113
The article in question spent virtually all of its time on the game-mechanics effect of immunities; that much I'll grant you. I'm looking at what I consider to be the impetus underlying the use of immunities in the first place, and what I see as the philosophy behind discarding them in favor of resistances. We're talking about that as a topic, rather than dissecting that article per se, after all.
Dude, seriously, I love you, but you're answering your own question here:
Okay, let's break this down for everyone following along from home. The mechanics being utilized here are:
Now, I'll go ahead and say right off the bat that we can overlook that magic item, since all it does is suppress fear effects and prevent creatures from becoming confused or stunned.
With regards to the rest of what's here, let's presume that we're using a 10th-level wizard/10th-level red wizard, who already meets all the prerequisites to use the feats et al outlined here. Since you indicated taking only 1d6 backlash, we'll presume that you're only using Reserves of Strength to add +1 to your caster level.
So how much damage would you do if you were using all of the above and casting the indicated spells? Well, if you're casting combust, you'll deal 10d8 normally, which is raised to 11d8 thanks to Reserves of Strength. Fiery Spell adds 1 point of additional damage per die, so now it's 11d8+11. Maximize Spell makes that 99 points of damage so far; not enough to hurt a creature with fire resistance 120.
Now, red wizards have the "spell power" ability that raises their caster level - albeit only for the school of magic that they specialize in (which we'll assume is evocation, here) - which would grant a +5 to their caster level. But here we run into the problem: this doesn't go over the spell's maximum dice cap the way Reserves of Strength does. The fact is, that feat is the only thing in this write-up that allows a spell's effect to exceed its normal damage cap. So we can overlook the "spell power" ability.
What about the red wizard's circle casting ability? Well, that does allow for the circle leader to bank a significant amount of extra power in the form of "circle bonus levels." However, while circle bonus levels can be applied to your caster level for a spell in terms of boosting level-dependent variables, there's still nothing here that says that they let you exceed a spell's normal dice cap. So this won't let you increase the damage output of your combust spell anymore than you already have.
What about using greater fireburst? Well, that's 15d8 normally at caster level 20, which now becomes 16d8+16 thanks to Reserves of Strength and Fiery Spell, Maximized to become 144 points of damage, unless the target makes their save, in which case it's 72. Still, if they fail they'll still take 24 points of damage (presuming that we're utilizing the "fire resistance 120" example I posted).
So overall, this seems like something that's about appropriate for a 20th-level spellcaster: they're able to slightly toast a creature that is nominally "immune" to fire via fire damage, but that's about it.
I feel fairly confident in stipulating that in order for something to be considered "101," it should be in the Core Rules. This load of materials that you've called upon is not "101" in any way, shape, or form.
If having to plan out everything about your character in order to achieve a specific effect (presumably you meant at 20th level) is what you call a munchkin, then we're just going to need to agree to disagree.
It technically doesn't; rather, you can just use circle casting to apply its effect via circle bonus levels (unless you meant using the PrC's bonus feats to choose it).
I always shake my head at sentiments like these, because we've already talked about the implicit GM veto that goes along with Eclipse wherein the GM simply wouldn't let you make these choices, or at the very least not sign off on that specialization. Likewise, just because Sean K. Reynolds preferred resistances to immunities doesn't mean that he's implicitly signing off on optimization to beat immunities.
Given that the spell immunity spell is a short-term single-spell-only immunity, I'd be tempted to let that one slide. Retooling it as spell resistance might work, though it should be extremely high, or maybe as a save bonus.
Again, even Thoth's atrocity build is predicated on the fact that the GM is letting things go without saying anything. That's the reason not to.
Why use a secondary attack mode when the primary one isn't getting results? Well, that sort of answers itself, doesn't it?
My answer to this is that the secondary attack method you'd use in that situation is presumably less than optimal compared to the primary attack method, at least when compared to an enemy that doesn't have some resistances; hence why it's secondary to begin with. As such, it's clearly the superior choice in a situation like the one under discussion, but that doesn't mean that resistances are functionally useless, because the aforementioned secondary attack mode likely lacks some of the some forms of optimization (and/or has additional drawbacks) that your primary (and now less useful) attack mode has (which, again, is why it's secondary to begin with). That's not always the case, but sometimes it will be, particularly if you've already paid opportunity costs regarding your primary attack mode anyway (e.g. prepared more fire-based spells than cold-based ones).
I'm not suggesting that we should remove all immunities in favor of resistances; I'm just pointing out that the game design philosophy that such a stance presents has some good points. Likewise, I don't feel like those points are negated by players who go full-munchkin in order to try and surpass resistances.
I'm not very sympathetic to the idea that we should need to mix immunity and resistance on creatures at the same time in order to try and cut down on instances of over-optimized players building counter-immunity/resistance builds. That gets back into the trap of "defense design," where by you're building the game rules with the method of containing the most egregious player abuses, rather than trying to model how the game world operates. Far better to simply have the GM tell those players "no" when they want to build such a tightly-focused character, or even better, do so "softly," whereby they can't meet the in-game requirements necessary to make that happen. You want a feat from a Dragonlance sourcebook? Well we're not on Krynn, so there's no one here who could teach it to you. (Or even better, the player doesn't want to go full munchkin to begin with.)
Which is hopefully why players won't want to super-specialize like that to begin with, since Darwinism will very quickly take them out of the picture anyway. And that's kind of the GM's job to enforce that, in terms of the world operating according to its own principles, rather than having meta-game considerations mean that the PC's singular attempt to "win" the game be catered to.
Yeah, though in this case I feel like we're getting back into issues of expectations versus consequences. At the very least, being able to negate those abilities should be harder than a single low-level spell.
I disagree. I think that it's an example of poor game design; the language of pure evil shouldn't be able to hurt "The Devil," because he's a/the living incarnation of evil. Trying to use pure evil to hurt him should be like trying to drown a fish (and please, no funny bits about putting a freshwater fish in salt water, etc.; the meaning is understood).
And again, I think that's too much, as it's a reaction to - and implicit sanction of - powergaming, rather than an attempt to discourage it.
8396883 Shoot, I had forgotten that Lex detects as Lawful Evil. Yeah, Severence is not going to force Lex to transform. Though eventually, if Lex wields Severance long enough (probably months or years), he'd turn LE on his own (typical evil major artifacts automatically require their bearers to make a Will save once a week or turn evil, even if the artifacts aren't sapient).
Not sure I agree with you on the perspective of the Night Mare though. From everything I've read she fits the mold of a typical Lawful Evil deity, meaning she believes strongly in a hierarchy that she is at the top of, using any means necessary to achieve that. Yeah, she says that it's all for the greater good, protection of the weak, yadayadayada, so does Asmodeous and every other LE deity, that's just self-justifying PR. If you listened to Asmodeous's own statments, he wouldn't sound that different from Abadar.
I can see other deities being willing to adapt to the needs of their followers in another world, but being Lawful Evil is all about the idea that the world should change itself to you, not the other way around.
Also a good point about Night Mare being a racial deity in a way that Asmodeous is not. She's probably the single biggest proponent of ponies enslaving non-ponies, and I would expect that eventually she will push for the same thing here. Enslaving "monsters" and setting them to work serving or guarding ponies is one of the core tenants of her faith. Lex himself values pony life more than non-pony life (though I should make clear not any more than the average pony), but eventually he's going to be asked to do things like start dominating tribes of Diamond Dogs to help rebuild the city, etc.
Whoops, I was sure it was Pillow that was the cleric, until I remembered that he died. Thanks for clearing that up!
8397955
That's easy to do, as I haven't played it up in this story. Moreover, his ring of mind-shielding and his Adamant Will witchcraft ability both allow him to defeat alignment-detection effects, so it'd really only be an instance of someone trying to drop an alignment-based spell (or something similar) on him and it works as per his being evil. Even then, that'd most likely just make readers think that he actually is Lawful Evil, since it's hard for the narrative to clearly communicate "no, really, he's Lawful Neutral."
Well, if Lex underwent an alignment change over the long-term, I don't think it'd be due to Severance. The issue of evil major artifacts forcing alignment changes isn't uncommon, but it's not necessarily universal (though I'd have to go look at my books to double check), particularly when you start parsing that across editions; that sort of thing was a lot more common before D&D 3rd Edition.
I agree with most of this; as a Lawful Evil deity of personal strength, mastery of monsters, tyranny, conquest, and similar areas of concern, it's entirely within the Night Mare's purview to want to create a regimented society that lionizes dominance. I don't know that she'd approve of "any" means to achieve that, because I see a strict Lawful alignment as encompassing process as well as results; how you get something is just as important as actually getting it. The difference is that the Evil portion means that you're willing to ignore the spirit of what those rules mean so long as you can stick to the letter. That gets into the whole issue of utilizing laws against people, rather than to serve their interests.
But more than this, I see an issue that makes the Night Mare different from a lot of Lawful Evil deities, which is that her dogma extols personal strength and dominant attitudes (which, in their purest expression, necessarily allow for the recognition of no superior), but at the same time asserts that she is the ultimate tyrant, at the top of a pyramid which ultimately encompasses all of ponykind. This, then, presents an apparent paradox: how can she champion ponies that refuse to ask a superior being (such as herself) for aid, while at the same time demanding the obedience of those who would be part of her faith?
The answer I've come up for this is two-fold: First, I think the Night Mare views - and encourages everyone else to view - all people in terms of master-slave morality (or at least, after a fashion). As such, her religion encourages the view that there are those who have a fundamental weakness of character wherein they're not fit to bear the burden of leadership, and those that have that inner strength. Naturally, her religion would accept both, since those with strong leadership abilities would be considered the ideal, whereas those without would dedicate themselves to their superiors, and the Night Mare herself, as "natural" slaves (in terms of mindset). The important thing here is that I think this necessarily refutes a hierarchical structure wherein someone is a master to their inferiors while simultaneously being a slave to their superiors; I see the Night Mare as rejecting the idea that you can be both master and slave at the same time. That means that the structure of her church wouldn't be a hierarchy, but rather A) a singular cleric of note and his servitors, or B) a group of powerful clerics, and their individual servitors, who can manage to cooperate while still maintaining that they're working with each other, rather than for each other, towards some shared goal. Internal power struggles are probably accepted as a reality under this structure, but aren't allowed to threaten the entirety of the group.
Secondly, I think that - insofar as those "master morality" ponies would go - the Night Mare allows, accepts, and even encourages them to view her as an ideal to be achieved, rather than an object of "worship" per se. It would still be religious faith after a fashion, but more along the lines of emulation rather than adulation (though still enough to focus their internal magical channels so as to receive spells from her safely). As such, she's probably fine with those ponies seeing her as a means to an end, or someone whom they have a "business"-style relationship with. Hence why she can encourage strength and independence in those who most closely follow her example without requiring that they bow down to her. In other words, I see her as being a proponent of orthopraxy as much as orthodoxy. Hence why she was willing to grant Lex divine spells after he came to her attention, despite his complete lack of religious devotion.
That's just my off-the-cuff impression , at least; I haven't put too much thought into it.
Again, the Night Mare explicitly recognizes that faith must evolve in order to survive. She used to be a goddess of monsters, and darkness, whom ponies placated to keep her attention away from her. Then pony civilization grew stronger, and she grew to be revered as the goddess of the night who allows ponies to overcome the monsters. She knows that adaptation is the hallmark of survival, to say nothing of thriving.
I suspect that the Night Mare's religion definitely encourages slavery (which we know is practiced on Everglow anyway, though it's apparently underground within the Pony Empire), and while I admit I'm not sure what Lex would think about actually commoditizing sapient beings from other races, I can say with confidence that he'd probably be fine with less explicit forms of domination (e.g. forcible takeovers of non-pony societies). After all, when a superior society colonizes a lesser one, it's to the lesser one's benefit, isn't it?