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AFAIK, the monsters in the bestiary are just "typical" of their species. If you want to create a monster with a different alignment, I don't see why that wouldn't work out. They don't seem to have the "Always XX" alignments that they had in 3.5, which I take to mean that alignments are now more flexible.
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For the case of monsters, listing an alignment is an INCREDIBLY easy way to summarize a monster's personality with two letters. It also helps to give monsters social categories—one can imagine a bunch of LE monsters hanging out together, for example. In many cases, the choice is relatively arbitrary—one picked by the designers, who look at the monster's traditional role in the game and make the decision there. A monster's alignment is a great way to organize monsters as well. It's certainly the predominant alignment of the monster—it's not an inborn trait for non-ousiders, but all monsters have an alignment that they default to. There can be variances, just as you can have unusual colors in monsters, or monsters with slight other differences in appearance, but the majority should be of the listed alignment. If you change the monster's alignment, in other words, you need to justify that change in game with descriptive text.
Be careful trying to compare monster alignments to real world species, though, because not only is alignment NOT a real-world concept (it's a completely artificial game mechanic aimed at giving game designers and players a swift way to summarize a creature's baseline personality), but the vast majority of real-world creatures that appear in the game as well are all animals. And thus neutral aligned—which is the best alignment to assign something that isn't inherently good or evil, I guess. Humans would be neutral if they had an entry in the Bestiary.
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So it would not be inappropriate to have a gold dragon raising clutches of chromatic eggs as "reformed dragons"?
It wouldn't be "illegal" really. But it's not something that every GM would find to his tastes. It's certainly not to MY taste, and I'd probably never ever approve a storyline like that for publication as part of a Paizo product unless the author could prove to me that he/she can handle the story with enough skill to make it cool.
It's one thing to give a monster a weird off-kilter personality by simply saying it's alignment is drastically different from the norm. It's another to have the skill to pull off a character like that in writing that can honestly live up to the expectations I would have for such an unusual character.
While some monsters are typical for their species, things like Dragons are or were originally conciderd Elemental Beings of their kind and therefore Paragons of what they were eg helms of opposition alignment would work, but the effect would wear off in a matter of a few weeks...
But with Ebberon that Idean went out and even dragons became mutable in that every once in a while one of them would be changed by some circumstance to be of a different alignment thant its racial to its elemental core...
Goblins, Orcs, Kobolds etc... Its a societal thing to be evil and more of a racial thing to be Chaotic etc... like an animal is neutral... but with the proper upbringing or motivation this can change...
Unintelligent Monsters they usually come as they are unless magicked or unless they are Magick wich makes thier alignment to the core...
Demons and Devils etc its Elementaly what they are much like Dragons.
Same as Fey are Elementally what their alignments are...
And Elementals are Elementally what their Alignments are ;)
Bacically if its a people things can change, if its a creature it probably wont, and if its a magickal creature it wont. If its a magickal being it wont. If you can tame it it might...
Aside from outsiders that arise from alignment based planes, I really don't like the idea of sentient creatures without free will being locked into a given alignment.
Well, except undead, because you can make a case for some undead literally being the embodiment of curses or punishments for the sins of their life, but that's a whole other issue.
On the other hand, I do think that its interesting to look at what goes into the cultural factors in the game world. Yes, in the real world people that were considered evil by other cultures were far deeper than some of the other cultures might give them credit for, but let's look, for example, at orcs.
Orc culture passes on from father to spawn that breaking things is fun, killing things is fun, mating with things is fun, and proving dominance is important. While this may leave some room to wiggle around, also remember that orcs have shaman and clerics and druids and what have you that can reinforce aspects of orc culture.
An orc tribe that has a shaman of Rovagug will likely loose his powers if he quits telling the tribe that breaking things and killing them is fun. If the tribe has a cleric of Gorum, that cleric is going to likely loose their power if they don't teach the orcs that fighting is good. If they have clerics that follow the unnamed orc archetype gods, they will likely loose their powers if they don't uphold traditional orc values.
What I'm getting at is that this isn't just a religion, its a religion backed by immediately visible results, driven by living, active beings that have their own agendas. While a human society that worships Iomedae and Gorum, for example, may even out around neutral, orc tribes that worship Rovagug, old orc gods of general unpleasantness, and Gorum will likely end up CE.
I guess what I'm getting at is that, not only does alignment exist in the game, the game world reinforces it with gods, alignment planes, active beings promoting their goals one way or the other, etc.
Best to ask you GM. As many will have exception and thier own rules.
As GM, well its your world, make it as you like.
Hi there. I don't post to this forum very often, so I hope its okay to post to an older thread like this, but I have an alignment-related issue and this seems like the right thread to address it in.
The question of the nature of monsters' alignment has come up in my group and is causing some serious problems. I maintain that in order for adventurers to be justified in what they do, alignment must be absolute in most cases, meaning we can be assured that certain creatures are always evil and, therefore, as good-aligned heroes, we are always justified in killing them without mercy or remorse, even if we haven't personally witnessed their evil acts. Such as if we explore a dungeon and find a black dragon at the end of it, we're justified in attacking and killing that black dragon simply because it's a black dragon and we know it, without a doubt, to be evil and, therefore, a menace to society.
I further maintain that there is a clear reasoning for absolute alignment that goes beyond mere assumption of guilt or speciesism or racism: only humanoids (monstrous or otherwise) have souls, and therefore, only humanoids can determine the fate of their souls in the afterlife by way of their actions in life, thus determining their own alignments. All other creatures are, specifically, soulless and do not gain punishment or reward upon death. This is evidenced by the interest the gods play in the lives of mortals, where they take an active role in guiding their fates, both on a societal and personal level, while, for the most part, utterly ignoring even intelligent monsters such as dragons and fey. I maintain that all other monster types are, for various reasons, soulless by nature, and therefore have neither afterlife nor ability to choose or voluntarily alter their alignment. They are born/created with their alignment, which they will and must maintain throughout their existence (barring outside influence).
In other words, humanoids have a "nurture" alignment, while everything else has a "nature" alignment. This allows PCs to be justified in their often proactively violent habits in relation to these beasts and still consider themselves good-aligned.
My fellow players (and, unfortunately, my GM) vehemently disagree with me on this. My GM, specifically, claims that only creatures that bear an alignment subtype (Good or Evil) have a "nature" alignment and that all other creatures, regardless of type, are the specific product of their society/upbringing. To me, this means that all intelligent creatures must have souls, and that we are never justified in attacking any intelligent monster without direct evidence that it has committed an evil act (or is detectable as evil by detect evil). Killing in self-defense or the defense of others is one thing, but without the concept of a knowable, absolute alignment, the concept of invading a dungeon to kill the "evil" monsters living there and stealing their treasure, which is the D&D/Pathfinder adventure at its most classic and most basic, becomes paramount to home invasion, robbery, and murder (depending on circumstances, of course).
So am I right in assuming that most monsters lack souls and, therefore, have no control over their alignment, or are they, as my GM claims, the products of their culture or environments and may be redeemed or have atypical alignments if raised under different conditions?
Thanks for considering.
There is no clear answer on that, Talon. Every table can have a different approach to that problem. Personally, if every orc or black dragon is always evil you lose interesting roleplaying oportunities and the world seems really bland. But if you want a simple "kill them all" game, "they are always evil" is an enterely valid position.
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My fellow players (and, unfortunately, my GM) vehemently disagree with me on this. My GM, specifically, claims that only creatures that bear an alignment subtype (Good or Evil) have a "nature" alignment and that all other creatures, regardless of type, are the specific product of their society/upbringing. To me, this means that all intelligent creatures must have souls, and that we are never justified in attacking any intelligent monster without direct evidence that it has committed an evil act (or is detectable as evil by detect evil). Killing in self-defense or the defense of others is one thing, but without the concept of a knowable, absolute alignment, the concept of invading a dungeon to kill the "evil" monsters living there and stealing their treasure, which is the D&D/Pathfinder adventure at its most classic and most basic, becomes paramount to home invasion, robbery, and murder (depending on circumstances, of course).
So am I right in assuming that most monsters lack souls and, therefore, have no control over their alignment, or are they, as my GM claims, the products of their culture or environments and may be redeemed or have atypical alignments if raised under different conditions?
I agree with that GM.
In fact, I'd LOVE to play with that GM.
Having entire races soulless and there only for guilt-free genocide would make me miserable at the table. It's the exact opposite kind of scene I'd want out of a heroic fantasy game.
The rules line up with that GM as well. Living things have souls by default, and the Bestiary itself points out that alignment is not universal for a species or set in stone.
I agree with your players and the GM Talon. I agree that most monsters have certain tendencies which may get you off the hook for certain actions, but that does not mean they are innately evil. Treating them(some) like people and having an "ask first" attitude can help a story more than it can hinder a story at times. Yeah they may be evil but that does not mean they are "I will betray or kill you for no reason" evil. So negotiating with them could be useful depending on how the GM runs the game.
As for the home invasion and murder issue, I just accept that social norms and laws allow for more leeway. When you are out in the woods(insert other noncivilized area as needed) you have to provide your own protection so when kobold X tries to kill, then running to the town guard may not be an option. As a good aligned character however if it was just out hunting, and not bothering me then I would not kill it. Most of my kills in non evil campaigns were in self defense or the defense of those less able to defend themselves, but I do know some partying are murder-hobos.
PS: Monstrous humanoids are not humanoids. They just have similar names, and dragons are not immortal. Not all outsiders have an alignment subtype.
I further maintain that there is a clear reasoning for absolute alignment that goes beyond mere assumption of guilt or speciesism or racism: only humanoids (monstrous or otherwise) have souls, and therefore, only humanoids can determine the fate of their souls in the afterlife by way of their actions in life, thus determining their own alignments. All other creatures are, specifically, soulless and do not gain punishment or reward upon death. This is evidenced by the interest the gods play in the lives of mortals, where they take an active role in guiding their fates, both on a societal and personal level, while, for the most part, utterly ignoring even intelligent monsters such as dragons and fey. I maintain that all other monster types are, for various reasons, soulless by nature, and therefore have neither afterlife nor ability to choose or voluntarily alter their alignment. They are born/created with their alignment, which they will and must maintain throughout their existence (barring outside influence).
Saying moral obligation only exists towards creatures with souls is certainly an... interesting way to approach things. Leaving aside the repugnant taste in my mouth at the idea of saying "it's okay to kill someone so long as they don't have a soul", there's a very real question of how your character in-universe can determine who does and does not have a soul. Remember, your character doesn't have access to statblocks and hence cannot look for the word "humanoid" there. How do you determine that a black dragon lacks a soul? I don't know what setting you are playing in, but in a lot of settings, non-humanoids do have religions and deities. Dragon deities seem to be especially common. But anyway, how does your character determine that the deities don't take an active role in guiding the fates of dragons? How do they know that the same or different deities don't also interfere in the lives and societies of dragons?
What about native outsiders? Do they have souls? Is it okay to wantonly kill any tiefling you come across? What about the CG tiefling alchemist in the party? Is it okay to kill her? If native outsiders can have souls, this opens up a lot of grey area. Do humanoids with the half-celestial or half-dragon templates have souls? Do they only have half a soul? Is half a soul enough that you oughtn't just kill them on sight?
Further, there's the issue that existence of souls is an established things in a lot of settings. If the setting and the DM say that dragons have souls, then your character is just wrong. Perhaps this is just me, but one's moral beliefs should be more robust than this and be less dependent upon certain claims about the world being true. Finding out you were wrong about a specific fact about the world, that dragons do have souls, shouldn't change you from being a paragon of virtue to being a genocidal monster.
You can have a perfectly fun Pathfinder campaign without needing that certain creatures ought be killed just because they are dragons with blue scales. You can have conflicts with groups of creatures for reasons besides that they are always CE. It doesn't even have to be a deep or complicated thing. Even a mindless excuse plot for a hack-n-slash adventure doesn't need inherently evil creatures to work. You can have a simple kill them all game without saying that dragons are color-coded by alignment.
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Saying that some races have souls and some do not smacks of Ubermenschen and Master Races. Not the kind of experience I want in my games.
With this issue, I am again and again remind that, when it comes to setting and NPCs, the role of GM becomes a heavy burden. The reason why some GMs go with the 'just kill it already' route is because it allows them to simply make monsters, rather than characters of a nonhuman nature. This is because such a character is a big challenge to pull off convincingly, particularly when the large number of enemies called for within the game would cause moral ambiguity when you can't handle giving them all appropriate cues and characterization.
A few short hands can help when the GM simply wants to make an enemy though. "Trophies" can work well with a basic perception check, which would allow you to see things like a bloodstained tunic coming out of a pack, or a chain with a dozen elf ears on it. Such things would allow the GM to indicate, while there may be moral flexibility within a race, these particular individuals are direct threats to innocents and should be stopped.
Of course, I also like the idea of a paladin with max ranks in diplomacy and linguistics trying to parlay with some giants while the rest of the party stealths around and readies an action to attack. I suggest paladin since 1). They generally should be one of the classes that are against unmoderated slaughter and 2.) They are the ones that can most take a beating when it goes bottom up.
Vivianne, you seem to be very disenchanted with much of the objective nature of alignments as expressed in Golarion and Pathfinder in general. Have you considered playing a setting that more suits your tastes in modern moral ambiguity, such as Cubicle 7, Storyteller, or Amber Diceless? There does exist a wide and fruitful roleplaying universe beyond the sharp edges of D20.
The settings I DM and play in don't have these issues, whether the system is Pathfinder or something else.
Well, admittedly fey are listed as not having souls, justified as being 'rough drafts' of their material counterparts and such. But they are hardly bound to particular alignments (tendency towards CN maybe, but the demigod-ish beings of the fey cover both ends of the Lawful and Chaotic axis, so even that is not set in stone), and most of the time they are often not outright malicious, but more ignorant of how a world works when people don't just spontaneously respawn after death.
The designers. That's pretty much it.
Any creature with free will can choose its own path in life, and be any alignment. This includes demons/devils/angels/whatever else is out there. The rules themselves say this (as quoted above). It's important to remember that 'monsters' are really NPCs in most cases, and as such have individual motivations and personalities.
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I have no idea what In Nominee is.
I'm just a big fan of free will and self-determination. I also find black-and-white Saturday Morning Cartoon morality to be uninteresting. Shades of grey for hats, rather than just black and white.
And besides, that makes no sense. If something is literally born good or evil ... it can't be either, because they lack free will. Morality (or lack thereof) is a choice.
I have no idea what In Nominee is.
I'm just a big fan of free will and self-determination. I also find black-and-white Saturday Morning Cartoon morality to be uninteresting. Shades of grey for hats, rather than just black and white.
And besides, that makes no sense. If something is literally born good or evil ... it can't be either, because they lack free will. Morality (or lack thereof) is a choice.
From what little I understand, In Nominee is a system built around playing either angels or demons, and it has "no definitive answer as to whether the fallen angels had justification to rebel" according the the wikipedia entry.
This means a degree of moral ambiguity depending on perspective.Essentially, it can be more of a law/chaos debate, where one side could be disruptive traitors and the other side could be oppressive dictators.
His comment was meant to ask whether you are using the unchangable absolutes (which means easily picking out who to go murderhobo on and who not to) that he finds in pathfinder/d&d, or the in system moral ambiguity of In Nominee. But those do not necessarily need to be mutually exclusive approaches in your games. I know that Pathfinder has released official statements on changing alignment subtype creatures (although whether it is feasible using human means within the typical pace of the game is certainly up for debate)
Thanks, everyone, for your input. This is a difficult question and one I have continued to struggle with since making my initial post back in December (although mostly internally now, not wishing to spark more arguments at the game-table). The scenario that started the initial discussion revolved around my CG rogue's slaying of an evil fey prisoner during one of the early modules of the Shattered Star series. I felt justified in doing so because I assumed (admittedly out of game) that an evil fey could never be anything other than evil, so I was ridding society of a dangerous menace. My fellow players disagreed and basically accused my character of murder, and me of not properly playing my character's alignment.
Regardless, I appreciate y'all's insight into this topic. I can't argue with anything that has been said here, and I feel that, perhaps, my position isn't as well thought-out as I initially believed. I still don't like the "alignment is technically optional" approach (I feel that it makes the entire mechanic rather pointless), but I definitely see your various points regarding what might and might not have a soul, and how that might pertain to alignment and the machinations of the gods. Perhaps, I am being overly simplistic about the whole thing, wanting a clean game with black-and-white motivations, and perhaps the more realistic moral ambiguity does make for more interesting roleplaying. Unfortunately, in my experience, this kind of "interesting" usually just means inter-party conflict, which is something I happen to hate, but I do see what you mean there.
Anyway, thanks again for taking the time to answer my question. This has been very helpful to me, even if it did take me 6 months to remember to check the thread for replies... :-P
I have to disagree with your partymembers that killing the evil fey, is against your alignment. If we look at a person we all know like Sam from LotR. He would be lg or something close to that, and he would have killed gollum, or at least he wouldn't give him an honest chance.
So Sam, loyal and helpful as he is would go for LG in my book, his hatred for Gollum not. This is possible because Sam is a person and not a walking alignment. So if he did kill Gollum because he thought that would help a friend or make the world better, it wouldn't have to change his alignment.
Also, having to debate half an hour before you can finally kill something 5 times a dungeon is really boring.
For the case of monsters, listing an alignment is an INCREDIBLY easy way to summarize a monster's personality with two letters. It also helps to give monsters social categories—one can imagine a bunch of LE monsters hanging out together, for example. In many cases, the choice is relatively arbitrary—one picked by the designers, who look at the monster's traditional role in the game and make the decision there. A monster's alignment is a great way to organize monsters as well. It's certainly the predominant alignment of the monster—it's not an inborn trait for non-ousiders, but all monsters have an alignment that they default to. There can be variances, just as you can have unusual colors in monsters, or monsters with slight other differences in appearance, but the majority should be of the listed alignment. If you change the monster's alignment, in other words, you need to justify that change in game with descriptive text.
Be careful trying to compare monster alignments to real world species, though, because not only is alignment NOT a real-world concept (it's a completely artificial game mechanic aimed at giving game designers and players a swift way to summarize a creature's baseline personality), but the vast majority of real-world creatures that appear in the game as well are all animals. And thus neutral aligned—which is the best alignment to assign something that isn't inherently good or evil, I guess. Humans would be neutral if they had an entry in the Bestiary.
jellyfishes are evil... jellyfishes ARE evil... EVIL!!!!
I have to disagree with your partymembers that killing the evil fey, is against your alignment.
I generally disagree with the phrasing 'against your alignment'. Alignment isn't supposed to be static, it's supposed to change. Your actions determine your alignment, not the other way around. As you state, an LG character could indeed be pushed to murder ... and a single one wouldn't cause a shift.
You should never think 'I'm (alignment), so (action/inaction)'. Just have your character do what you think he'd do in that situation, and let alignment take care of itself.
My fellow players (and, unfortunately, my GM) vehemently disagree with me on this. My GM, specifically, claims that only creatures that bear an alignment subtype (Good or Evil) have a "nature" alignment and that all other creatures, regardless of type, are the specific product of their society/upbringing. To me, this means that all intelligent creatures must have souls, and that we are never justified in attacking any intelligent monster without direct evidence that it has committed an evil act (or is detectable as evil by detect evil). Killing in self-defense or the defense of others is one thing, but without the concept of a knowable, absolute alignment, the concept of invading a dungeon to kill the "evil" monsters living there and stealing their treasure, which is the D&D/Pathfinder adventure at its most classic and most basic, becomes paramount to home invasion, robbery, and murder (depending on circumstances, of course).
So am I right in assuming that most monsters lack souls and, therefore, have no control over their alignment, or are they, as my GM claims, the products of their culture or environments and may be redeemed or have atypical alignments if raised under different conditions?
I agree with that GM.
In fact, I'd LOVE to play with that GM.
Having entire races soulless and there only for guilt-free genocide would make me miserable at the table. It's the exact opposite kind of scene I'd want out of a heroic fantasy game.
The rules line up with that GM as well. Living things have souls by default, and the Bestiary itself points out that alignment is not universal for a species or set in stone.
It can be a very tough situation, playing good characters. What do you do with prisoners when you are at the start of a dungeon? (this is why Leadership is a thing, BTW, it gets abused-let your cohort guard them, and the DM will love you for not using him as a second blaster/tank!).
What do you do with orphans? How can Rogues really be good when they have this super stabby sneaky vibe going on?
My group usually plays evil. They fireball orphanages, they sometimes perform cannibalistic acts, they worship Daemons, the whole nine yards.
The 'bad guys' in my game are often good aligned people. Seems to work. But, to each their own.
The actual rules of the game explicitly state that even Outsiders of a certain alignment type aren't always that type. Often, Black Dragons are evil. But they don't HAVE to be. I would argue that anyone who attacks something on sight is evil. What if that dragon is actually a polymorphed person, or even another kind of dragon that has been magically altered to look/detect as evil?
Generally, I go with this rule of thumb: if they attack first, you can retaliate without concern. You may offer them the chance to surrender (probably should, if you are good and if it would be appropriate)-offering surrender to a golem is dumb.
That being said, your playstyle is your own. I'm currently playing a Doppleganger posing as a human raised in a small fishing village. He is part of the town watch, and ALWAYS uses a sap. Even while adventuring, he does non-lethal damage. He takes prisoners, he convinces the party that learning about why the bandits are attacking is part of stopping them. He has yet to kill something.
He is level four. You don't get xp for killing, you get xp for defeating. :D
And no, he isn't a Paladin. To each their own. If it's fun, you are doing it right.
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[...] whether or not certain creatures have souls is a setting detail, which, as the GM, is something he gets to arbitrate.Side note:
While the GM is, of course, always the last instance, the spell "Magic Jar" does tell us what beings have souls: Every living creature, and all intelligent undead.Sure, the GM can change that, but "Creatures have souls" is actually the default.
Indeed. Though there's some evidence that non-native Outsiders might be an exception given their inability to be raised from the dead by most conventional means...ditto undead for similar reasons.
But everything else? Pretty clearly in the 'have a soul' camp.
