You could just as well rule that PCs are incapable of harming babies. Simpler rule.
I don't understand how "not letting good aligned powers" harm innocent creatures be equal to not letting PCs harm babies... What I want in my game is that if someone takes a baby as a hostage, the good guy with the repeating crossbow to be at a disadvantage in rescuing the baby over a PC that HAS good-aligned powers and has to be good to get his powers... it's not that similar, is it?
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Holy Smite is a 20 foot burst: a sphere, not a disc. Ergo, it is quite possible to aim the centre in mid-air so that it does not affect the 5' cube near the floor. Since your average human is over 5 foot tall, he'd be creamed while the baby on the floor was unaffected.
So, in my campaign, while the baby, being NN, would certainly be toasted by a Holy Smite, the cleric could easily aim the effect so as to avoid hitting the baby (assuming no ceilings etc getting in the way). Same for a wizard casting fireball.
I suppose that is true. But then how do we avoid the next question of "What percentage of the BBEG's body need be in the AOE to apply full damage? Does he get a save for only being partially in the square?"? Things of that nature.
While I admit that is ridiculous, and I wouldn't pull that crap as the DM, I could certainly see my players arguing with me over it if the shoe were on the other foot. :-)
You could just as well rule that PCs are incapable of harming babies. Simpler rule.I don't understand how "not letting good aligned powers" harm innocent creatures be equal to not letting PCs harm babies... What I want in my game is that if someone takes a baby as a hostage, the good guy with the repeating crossbow to be at a disadvantage in rescuing the baby over a PC that HAS good-aligned powers and has to be good to get his powers... it's not that similar, is it?
Heck, make it easier than that: Your BBEG is a nine-months-pregnant antipaladin or high priestess of Lamashtu. Anything short of lopping her head off followed by an emergency caesarian will likely kill her child too, and that includes Holy Smite.
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I question why someone with good aligned powers should be able to just go around blasting area effect attacks and get a pass on innocent bystanders? Are we advocating that good should be easy? In which case, then give everyone the equivalent of 'selective channel' on all area effect spells and be done with it. Where's the challenge? Might as well have a game where there is no good ro bad guys. Shadowrun anyone?
Are we advocating that good should be easy?
I agree wholeheartedly with your sentiment. Good characters should be held to a higher standard. That's part of the appeal of playing such a character to begin with (it's much easier to be neutral, or evil).
Heck, make it easier than that: Your BBEG is a nine-months-pregnant antipaladin or high priestess of Lamashtu. Anything short of lopping her head off followed by an emergency caesarian will likely kill her child too, and that includes Holy Smite.
Well you might be mocking me, but I actually like the spirit of the idea. It would make GREAT role playing, and quite a good story. A BBEG woman pregnant, she evil as hell and must be stopped at all cost... but the party has divine insight that if the baby grows to be mature he will be a champion of light. Like a reversed Darth Vader story. It's good to have a story where mauling the BBEG to death isn't the solution.
I question why someone with good aligned powers should be able to just go around blasting area effect attacks and get a pass on innocent bystanders?
Your concept of innocense seems a bit broader than mine, I say that a baby should be protected from good-aligned damaging powers(that state that they don't hurt good-aligned creatures), because of the nature of his innocence (being a baby). Normal bystanders would be affected normally by the rules.. you are good you are safe.
I just imagine 10 people in a burst of a good-aligned damaging spell, 6 good-aligned children, 4 babies... BOOOM... only children standing?... Its weird...
Holy Smite is a 20 foot burst: a sphere, not a disc. Ergo, it is quite possible to aim the centre in mid-air so that it does not affect the 5' cube near the floor. Since your average human is over 5 foot tall, he'd be creamed while the baby on the floor was unaffected.
So, in my campaign, while the baby, being NN, would certainly be toasted by a Holy Smite, the cleric could easily aim the effect so as to avoid hitting the baby (assuming no ceilings etc getting in the way). Same for a wizard casting fireball.I suppose that is true. But then how do we avoid the next question of "What percentage of the BBEG's body need be in the AOE to apply full damage? Does he get a save for only being partially in the square?"? Things of that nature.
While I admit that is ridiculous, and I wouldn't pull that crap as the DM, I could certainly see my players arguing with me over it if the shoe were on the other foot. :-)
I'd rule that unless the PC is less than 5' tall, he's in and therefore affected: you're either all in or all out (same as a colourspray follows the squares on the battlemat whereas in reality it's an arc). Technicallities like ducking are already covered in the saving throw :)
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Until and unless the children can make moral decisions, they are neutral. There is no specific age that they become good or evil or stay neutral. You might have a 95yo man that was born neutral, and never had to make a choice one way or the other to be good or evil. He never went out of his way to help or hinder others. Or you might have a 9yo boy who saw someone beating a prostitute in an alley and threw a brick and knocked the assailant out, and the experience made him want to be better than that robber, so he makes a conscious effort to be good from then on.
The big problem I see here is people equate innocence with good. Innocence is not inherently good, it's merely an absence of sin. If you're in a christian mythos ethical construct, then they are also inherently good. But within PF/D&D world terms, there is no equation of good and innocent. A good person can be a mass murderer (think of the concept of a Paladin who's a dragon slayer and slays evil dragons as part of a personal crusade). Such a character is by no means innocent in any way shape or form, but he's good. A newborn baby is utterly innocent, but is in no way good or evil, as there has been no moral choices to align him with either alignment. The game rules themselves say that a single act shouldn't change alignment, so how can an absence of act change your alignment?
So for the example of children standing up after the smite, maybe the 9yo who threw the brick is still standing, but the 15yo boy who gropes girls is down, so is the 13yo girl who worries more about her looks and trying to land a rich husband than helping others. And so are the babies, because they haven't even had a chance yet to be good or evil.
This is why good is harder than evil, you have to be more careful and more aware of your actions. Evil can just do whatever it wants. The only reason evil doesn't win is it can't work well with others and usually ends up falling to its own internal divisions.
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Until and unless the children can make moral decisions, they are neutral. There is no specific age that they become good or evil or stay neutral. You might have a 95yo man that was born neutral, and never had to make a choice one way or the other to be good or evil. He never went out of his way to help or hinder others. Or you might have a 9yo boy who saw someone beating a prostitute in an alley and threw a brick and knocked the assailant out, and the experience made him want to be better than that robber, so he makes a conscious effort to be good from then on.
The big problem I see here is people equate innocence with good. Innocence is not inherently good, it's merely an absence of sin. If you're in a christian mythos ethical construct, then they are also inherently good. But within PF/D&D world terms, there is no equation of good and innocent. A good person can be a mass murderer (think of the concept of a Paladin who's a dragon slayer and slays evil dragons as part of a personal crusade). Such a character is by no means innocent in any way shape or form, but he's good. A newborn baby is utterly innocent, but is in no way good or evil, as there has been no moral choices to align him with either alignment. The game rules themselves say that a single act shouldn't change alignment, so how can an absence of act change your alignment?
So for the example of children standing up after the smite, maybe the 9yo who threw the brick is still standing, but the 15yo boy who gropes girls is down, so is the 13yo girl who worries more about her looks and trying to land a rich husband than helping others. And so are the babies, because they haven't even had a chance yet to be good or evil.
This is why good is harder than evil, you have to be more careful and more aware of your actions. Evil can just do whatever it wants. The only reason evil doesn't win is it can't work well with others and usually ends up falling to its own internal divisions.
THIS! Very well said, mdt! Likewise, I would add that in the PF/D&D world, the gods have no inclination to care that the infant is in harms way. Why would they make an exception? The gods themselves are not concerned with that minutiae. It is incumbent on his followers to uphold his mantra lest they suffer the consequences for stepping out of line. They wouldn't step in and make exceptions for the careless cleric to go about smiting in the presence of "innocents".
Until and unless the children can make moral decisions, they are neutral...
Ok, you convinced me I could play with that logic and it would be aceptable. Now let me ask you a question to get a bit more of your insight. If you could somewhat gain "good" karma or "evil" karma you where a Paladin...and could only save one of the following: an old person, confirmed to be very good and a neutral baby, who has the posibility of being very evil... saving who would give you the most good-karma by your good god standards?
Heck, make it easier than that: Your BBEG is a nine-months-pregnant antipaladin or high priestess of Lamashtu. Anything short of lopping her head off followed by an emergency caesarian will likely kill her child too, and that includes Holy Smite.Well you might be mocking me, but I actually like the spirit of the idea. It would make GREAT role playing, and quite a good story. A BBEG woman pregnant, she evil as hell and must be stopped at all cost... but the party has divine insight that if the baby grows to be mature he will be a champion of light. Like a reversed Darth Vader story. It's good to have a story where mauling the BBEG to death isn't the solution.
No, wasn't mocking--just cutting the story to the chase so you don't have to figure out where the BBEG got a baby, or have people just coming up with quick ways to snatch the kid and do acrobatic tumbles out of the way when the Holy Smites start going off. If the baby is in the BBEG, that sort of skips that maneuver, plus pregnancy is a big thing with the Cult of Lamashtu so I think you'd need to come up with a good reason why the priestess wouldn't be pregnant.
As for the "child will be a champion of light" prophecy, I think that makes the moral decision a little too easy. What if her child is just a baby, who might be a champion of light or a champion of darkness, or maybe just grow up to be his/her own person? What if the child is a half-gnoll monstrosity, which might have a tendency to evil, but is still capable of moral decisions?
Until and unless the children can make moral decisions, they are neutral...Ok, you convinced me I could play with that logic and it would be aceptable. Now let me ask you a question to get a bit more of your insight. If you could somewhat gain "good" karma or "evil" karma you where a Paladin...and could only save one of the following: an old person, confirmed to be very good and a neutral baby, who has the posibility of being very evil... saving who would give you the most good-karma by your good god standards?
Depends on the god. Seriously.
Someone who cherished children would want you to save the child. Someone who cherished wisdom would want you to save the goodly old man. You're down to trying to get a Paladin into a 'which way do you want to fall'. In the above situation, neither option is going to give the Paladin evil kharma. The good and kindly old man has lived a full life, and the babe is innocent, so saving the child is a Good act, not an evil one or even a neutral one. By the same token, the old man is Good, and will be a shining example to others, and will help others certainly, rather than simply having the potential of good, so saving him is a good act. The choice then is between two good acts, which one is the 'better' good act depends on the Paladin, his/her god/goddess, etc.
And actually, Christian ethos actually holds children to be more innocent than good. Not a lot of people realize that though, because it's not a popular thing to say babies are not good. :)
But, within the Christian belief structure, Christ was able to sacrifice his life to pay for all sins because he led a perfect and sinless life, and thus his death counted for the death penalty all sinners were born under.
Now, there are two ways to look at this, if you go with the 'original sin' construct, then a baby is born neither innocent nor good (he has the taint of the original sin). If you don't go with that, then the first baby that ever died in childbirth would have absolved the entire race for their sins, because he would have had a blameless life.
So even with the Christian matrix, a newborn baby is not good, not technically.
Objection! If they're mormons, and yes mormons are christians, regardless of how much protestant, or other, trinitarians might glare at them for being weird, which they are, then the baby is good. (Which I admit always seem weird to me, then I see one and realize that I took that flaw at first level and turn into one of the fawning masses. Evil baby supervillians have a huge army of minions waiting for them. Hail our new overlords!)
My vote on this issue is to follow the herd. Babies are N, but smite evil doesn't hurt them. Why, but that just seems weird. "I will now smite you with goodness!" "Really? Then you'll kill this poor innoucent baby. You monster." "Wait, what? Seriously? I'm a cleric of the goddess of love and my using the power of goodness to smite you will kill a baby? I think not!" Baby dies. Later that night, "Dear Shelyn, You. Are. An. Ass. Please explain. Sincerely one very confused cleric on his way to being an ex-cleric."
Except the 'herd' doesn't seem to be agreeing with you Lloyd Jackson, or rather, not completely. The consensus does seem to be 'Neutral', with a vocal minority adding in a proviso of 'but babies get immunity to all damage'. I think that vocal minority are all the people who's will turns to tapioca when presented with a cute but utterly soulless baby. :)
Objection! If they're mormons, and yes mormons are christians, regardless of how much protestant, or other, trinitarians might glare at them for being weird, which they are, then the baby is good. (Which I admit always seem weird to me, then I see one and realize that I took that flaw at first level and turn into one of the fawning masses. Evil baby supervillians have a huge army of minions waiting for them. Hail our new overlords!)
Mormons diagree with Original Sin (one is not punished for parent's sins), but that doesn't mean the baby is good: that just means it was born neutral.
It still can do evil (though till age 8 that evil is the parent's fault not their own: so prior to age 8 the kid's got free access to the highest heavens if it dies. After that, it has to prove it is good like the rest of us).
Mormons diagree with Original Sin (one is not punished for parent's sins), but that doesn't mean the baby is good: that just means it was born neutral.
It still can do evil (though till age 8 that evil is the parent's fault not their own: so prior to age 8 the kid's got free access to the highest heavens if it dies. After that, it has to prove it is good like the rest of us).
It actually does mean they are born good, because their spirit/soul was good before it was incarnated. Thus the child is good because, even if they don't remember it, they have a long history of good choices.
Sins don't get transferred from the kid to parents before they're 8, it's just a blanket coverage thing, which I'm pretty sure there's more to than RAW. They, and anyone, don't have to 'prove' they're good. They just have to be good. Kinda of like in the subcontinent traditions it is about becoming something, which actions are an critical part of.
Note, for a hilarious, and really weird, time, get a knowledgeable mormon, hindu(Buddhists are an acceptable substitute.), and wiccan talking theology. Actually knowledgeable people of any tradition are fun to be around, but this combo was particularly enjoyable. Add a dash of evengelical for proper seasoning.
*Edit Okay, it's time to eat lunch. I'm turning religions into food.
I forget, does Remove Colic get a save or not?
You could say the same about killing peasants with the spell in general. Or why your lightning spells aren't redirected to avoid killing good people.
Pathfinder Gods aren't omniscient. They expect their servants to use their powers responsibly.
This. I see it as gods grant their power to their champions, trusting them to use it correctly. They're not micromanaging every aspect of how it is applied, or they wouldn't need mortal servants in the first place.
Human infants in the real world are usually CN/CE. Ideally, they eventually are broken of their evil tendencies via parenting, education, and natural maturation.
If you're in a christian mythos ethical construct, then they are also inherently good.
Saint Augustine, one of the most influential Christian philosophers in history, would like a word in edgeways:
It can hardly be right for a child, even at that age, to cry for everything, including things which would harm him; to work himself into a tantrum against people older than himself and not required to obey him; and to try his best to strike and hurt others who know better than he does, including his own parents, when they do not give in to him and refuse to pander to whims which would only do him harm. This shows that, if babies are innocent, it is not for lack of will to do harm, but for lack of strength. I have myself observed a baby to be jealous, though it could not speak; it was livid as it watched another infant at the breast.
Who is ignorant of this? Mothers and nurses tell us that they cure these things by I know not what remedies. But is this innocence, when the fountain of milk is flowing fresh and abundant, that another who needs it should not be allowed to share it, even though he requires such nourishment to sustain his life? Yet we look leniently on such things, not because they are not faults, or even small faults, but because they will vanish as the years pass. For, although we allow for such things in an infant, the same things could not be tolerated patiently in an adult.
The idea that babies are innocent little angels is so much sentimental Victorian-era propaganda, produced by reformers who wanted to get kids legislated out of the work force.
You could say the same about killing peasants with the spell in general. Or why your lightning spells aren't redirected to avoid killing good people.Pathfinder Gods aren't omniscient. They expect their servants to use their powers responsibly.
True-ish. Peasants, adults at least, have alignments based on choices. Infants haven't made any choices yet. They're just stuck with neutral. As said, it just seems weird, to me.
As for the lightning, I see that as different. If I smite you with lightning, it's the lightning that's killing you. Electrons don't do alignments.(Well, yeah they do kind of.) If I smite you with good. It's good particles/waves that are doing the killing, and I think that should make it different.
What are the stats for a human baby? Are there any rules for such a thing?
Do you use the Young Template on the worse NPC commoner class? (basically -4 STR, -4 COn, +4 Dex, 1 size smaller)..
Is the baby even level 1?
A Level 1 Commoner NPC has d6 hitdice, +0 to all saves, skills 2+ modifier
STR 13
DEX 12
CON 11
INT 10
WIS 9
CHR 8
Of course the DM can change those scores around.
How many hitpoints does a baby have? d3? d4?
Seems like you should do -8 to all stats and no increase in dex (for humans) no feat and no skills and -5 to all Saves (when is a baby going to tumble out of a Fireball?) and 3 hitpoints
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For the record, my player knew that there was a chance of killing the infant. I warned him just after he said he was going to cast the spell. He did it anyway.
Well, in that case he's absolutely got the death of that infant on his conscience. That's probably a fall for a good-aligned cleric, and either a fall or a warning for the party's paladin, depending on whether the character had an opportunity to stop the cleric. If the character didn't have such a chance, he shouldn't fall, but the player should be warned that passing up an opportunity to prevent baby-killing is evil.
EDIT: I don't want to talk about how many HP a baby has, but Holy Smite will probably critically wound your average adult commoner (average HP = 3-4, average damage to a neutral target = 6 at minimum CL of 7, save unlikely). You think twice, maybe three times before dropping AOE on any sort of low-level innocent bystanders.
Now, there are two ways to look at this, if you go with the 'original sin' construct, then a baby is born neither innocent nor good (he has the taint of the original sin). If you don't go with that, then the first baby that ever died in childbirth would have absolved the entire race for their sins, because he would have had a blameless life.
So even with the Christian matrix, a newborn baby is not good, not technically.
Ignoring the technicalities of the christian viewpoint, a newborn baby is good if we assume exactly two things.
1) Good is defined by absence of sin/evil.
2) Sin/evil requires evil action and therefore is not present at birth.
The idea that "the first baby that ever died in childbirth would have absolved the entire race for their sins" requires that you believe that the death of an innocent person can remove guilt from an evil/sinful person. While that may be part of christian theology as evidenced by Jesus, it doesn't have to be the case for (1) and (2) to be true, and therefore we can't rule out the possibility that in some cosmologies a newborn would be good-aligned.
And while St Augustine has a good point about babies being inherently selfish, there's an argument to be made that that isn't the same thing as being sinful/evil - some would argue that doing evil requires an understanding of right and wrong that every young children don't have. Which is again why we tolerate their selfishness - they don't know better.
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Maybe "good" characters shouldn't go around killing everything that's "evil." Like you said, it sort of turns into "Red" vs. "Blue" if they do. I submit to you that "good" characters should be held to a higher standard than their "evil" counterparts, especially when it comes to slaughtering babies (something I've never and will never include in any of my games; it's just not the story I want to tell, nor something I'd enjoy playing through).
Now that's something I can get behind 100%. :)
Yup! Babies would be an excellent example of a scenario where smiting the evil is the wrong approach and the proper response is to educate the evil creature in the ways of good and improve its nature instead.
If you could somewhat gain "good" karma or "evil" karma you where a Paladin...and could only save one of the following: an old person, confirmed to be very good and a neutral baby, who has the posibility of being very evil... saving who would give you the most good-karma by your good god standards?
The paladin tries to save both of them, though the price be his own life.
I still stick by babies are good until they do something to prove otherwise because it makes for a better story, but I see the logic behind the Neutral vote.
SO, moving past that, the player seems to feel that he was not warned. (I play with these guys, but wasn't at this game). He says that he was told to roll damage then he was told babies are neutral. Then the player said he would like to take the action back.
I think the next step was to take it back, but only with leaving a bad taste in the DMs mouth. Then it became a big discussion through texts, which migrated to this board.
SO, continuing on, what do we do now? Player appears to feel railroaded (based on past experiences, I wasn't there for this one) and DM appears to feel players are silly and don't RP (based on past experiences, I wasn't there for this one).
This is a common theme with the group. I think most of it has to do with the linear nature of the Adventure Path more than the group of individuals at the table. The town friendship mechanic from book 1 and trial mechanic from book 2 (I think) really did a number on RP and set the tone for the campaign. Intelligent decisions and RP didn't seem to matter because we didn't have enough "points".
How do we, as a pretty cool group (based on my 20 years of playing), get past this, because that is truly the problem that I see here.
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The problem here is that the rules force the True Neutral alignment on real-world creatures that they cannot observe in action and thus classify in one of the other alignments. It is more of a default choice, even though it does have a strong impact within the game mechanics.
For example, the designers decided a very long time ago that Nature was True Neutral and then that all RL animals, being seen as a part of Nature as opposed to human beings, were then True Neutral.
You will note that this decision implies that human beings are NOT animals, and thus NOT a part of Nature, or at the very least not automatically. The whole "Druid needs Neutral in their alignment" is based on the same idea, as becoming closer to Nature needs a conscious choice and a specific worldview/philosophy (ie, Alignment) on the part of the Druid.
Actually, if you observe animals (especially mammals who are closer to us human beings), you will notice decidedly Chaotic and Lawful behaviours (and even personalities) as soon as the animal is subject to interaction with other representatives of its species. It is easier to notice it in mammals because of their proximity to our own species, but I think we will find it applies to any animal if we are able to actually NOTICE the behaviour.
True Neutral then is the default alignment for any RL-like character whose real alignment cannot be observed and noticed (thus here both animals and infants).
This early designers' decision is full of Epic failure when you begin to take into account the game mechanisms that are based on alignment, as this whole Smite Baby thing shows.
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I still stick by babies are good until they do something to prove otherwise because it makes for a better story, but I see the logic behind the Neutral vote.
SO, moving past that, the player seems to feel that he was not warned. (I play with these guys, but wasn't at this game). He says that he was told to roll damage then he was told babies are neutral. Then the player said he would like to take the action back.
I think the next step was to take it back, but only with leaving a bad taste in the DMs mouth. Then it became a big discussion through texts, which migrated to this board.
SO, continuing on, what do we do now? Player appears to feel railroaded (based on past experiences, I wasn't there for this one) and DM appears to feel players are silly and don't RP (based on past experiences, I wasn't there for this one).
This is a common theme with the group. I think most of it has to do with the linear nature of the Adventure Path more than the group of individuals at the table. The town friendship mechanic from book 1 and trial mechanic from book 2 (I think) really did a number on RP and set the tone for the campaign. Intelligent decisions and RP didn't seem to matter because we didn't have enough "points".
How do we, as a pretty cool group (based on my 20 years of playing), get past this, because that is truly the problem that I see here.
I believe that the problem actually lies with both the GM and players : their personalities and their relations to each other. The AP and its technicalities only crystallize the differing opinions and the dynamics of the group.
For the group to get out of this, the players AND the GM first need to all admit that the group has a problem. Then they need to have a discussion all together about what is working and what is not and which solutions can be found.
It is most definitely NOT an easy thing to do but it is the only basis for strong human relations.
Ignoring the technicalities of the christian viewpoint, a newborn baby is good if we assume exactly two things.1) Good is defined by absence of sin/evil.
2) Sin/evil requires evil action and therefore is not present at birth.The idea that "the first baby that ever died in childbirth would have absolved the entire race for their sins" requires that you believe that the death of an innocent person can remove guilt from an evil/sinful person. While that may be part of christian theology as evidenced by Jesus, it doesn't have to be the case for (1) and (2) to be true, and therefore we can't rule out the possibility that in some cosmologies...
That response from me was answering someone else's argument that 'everyone should treat the baby as good because in christianity they are' argument.
As to your 1 and 2 above, they also only work if you assume good is absence of sin/evil. Unfortunately for your premise, the book disagree's with you. Absence of Evil is not Good, it's either good or Neutral. Neutral is the absence of both good and evil, and the rules state it requires actions to change alignment. Since the baby can't make actions yet that vary it's alignment, it's pretty much Neutral (probably neutral chaotic since it doesn't understand rules).
If you want to house-rule that Good is the absence of Evil, and Neutrality is a conscious choice then that's fine, but it's a house-rule.
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I personally don't want to house-rule that Good is the absence of Evil. I'm simply arguing that it's possible to define good in that way, since I (apparently falsely) perceived your previous post as an argument that it was logically impossible. I posted on the previous page, in reference to the PF system: "many people define good as being something more active, involving compassion and the desire to help others even at cost to yourself. A baby, however pure and innocent, doesn't qualify for that." And I support this system. I just also support peoples' right to make house-rules that involve babies being either good-aligned or at least exempt from being smote by good.
...SO, continuing on, what do we do now? Player appears to feel railroaded (based on past experiences, I wasn't there for this one) and DM appears to feel players are silly and don't RP (based on past experiences, I wasn't there for this one).
This is a common theme with the group. I think most of it has to do with the linear nature of the Adventure Path more than the group of individuals at the table. The town friendship mechanic from book 1 and trial mechanic from book 2 (I think) really did a number on RP and set the tone for the campaign. Intelligent decisions and RP didn't seem to matter because we didn't have enough "points".
How do we, as a pretty cool group (based on my 20 years of playing), get past this, because that is truly the problem that I see here.
I believe that the problem actually lies with both the GM and players : their personalities and their relations to each other. The AP and its technicalities only crystallize the differing opinions and the dynamics of the group.
For the group to get out of this, the players AND the GM first need to all admit that the group has a problem. Then they need to have a discussion all together about what is working and what is not and which solutions can be found.
It is most definitely NOT an easy thing to do but it is the only basis for strong human relations.
I agree. The first thing is to have a serious talk about what problems people are having, both this incident and others. If the GM feels that he adequately warned the players but the players do not feel that they were warned, then there is some problem that needs to be worked out.
If the AP mechanics are making it difficult, can they be adjusted or scrapped? If the "town relationship points" or whatever are making RP feel too mechanical, could they just be gotten rid of?
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I'm just going to sneak a little comment in here, killed about 90% of the alignment arguments in my games, might help some others.
The nine alignments are often drawn as a grid, right? Like a tic-tac-toe board. True neutral in the middle, Chaos on the left, Law on the right, Good above, Evil below?
Okay, its a grid. A creatures alignment is a point on that grid. You can be a great person, giving some of your chicken's eggs to your neighbor, inviting them over for dinner, and being genuinely pleasant to everyone you meet. And you still likely end up with your "dot" in the TN grid square, its just very close to the NG border line.
You can be a jerk and not be evil, be sloppy or impetuous without being chaotic, and be disciplined without being lawful. In fact, I go so far as to say most "mortal" creatures can't actually go past halfway into any of the extreme alignments, because being TRULY good/evil/lawful/chaotic is by almost every standard being clinically insane. And thats where most outsiders start, the middle of their alignment square. Solars should be absolutely bizzare, being so fundamentally and genuinely nice, yet also so uncomprimising of evil that they seem psychopathic in attempts to end it. Of course, most have enough powers to fix any collateral damage then incur, which should be small (Invis+True Seeing+Detect Evil followed by Firestorm generally ends any fight before it starts, with relatively minimal civilian casualties. And then there is Resurrection+Restoration for any who were to close. Plus 20th level cleric casting to impress the locals.)
So yeah, alignment is a grid, you exist as a spot on it, but are still within a particular alignment's square. That way babies can be neutral, children are mean and jealous until they learn better, and most people can live petty, generous, rigid, or rebellious lives and all still be Neutral at the end of the day. Just like the book says.
Part of the trouble here is that we haven't precisely defined what "Good" is so we don't quite understand the metaphysics of it and what it does.
If you've got something that fire, whether magical or mundane, you have a general idea of how it's supposed to work: Fire burns things that can burn. A wizard can light his pipe with a match or with a magical flame from the tip of his finger, because tobacco, pipeweed, or whatever else we're putting in our pipes is designed to burn and it doesn't matter whether the source of flame is mundane or magical. It's not hard to figure out how magical fire operates since we're already familiar with mundane fire.
Then you get holy smiting. How does it work? The best way to look at it is with an analogy. Holiness is usually termed "light" or "brightness." Most creatures are not light-sensitive. Some are. Some are extremely light-sensitive. So "holy smite" is holiness concentrated so much that things that are unholy burn up, like paper under a magnifying glass. Things which cannot make moral decisions and are thus neither holy nor unholy--just "not applicable," like rocks--are unharmed by the concentrated holiness.
If you don't want babies being incinerated on contact with holy fire, the easiest way to deal with it, apart from coming up with the "innocence" shield, is to just move them to "not applicable" column. If a baby is incapable of making a moral decision, it's as neutral as a rock--also incapable of making a moral decision--and should be treated the same.
Of course, by the same logic, an animal is also incapable of making a moral decision. If holy smite doesn't work on a baby, it shouldn't work on a dog either, even a savage rabid dog.
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The nine alignments are often drawn as a grid, right? Like a tic-tac-toe board. True neutral in the middle, Chaos on the left, Law on the right, Good above, Evil below?
I disagree with the entire premise that your argument is based on.
EVERYONE knows that Law is on the left and Chaos is on the right.
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Yeah, I like that ability for that reason.
If you don't want babies being incinerated on contact with holy fire, the easiest way to deal with it, apart from coming up with the "innocence" shield, is to just move them to "not applicable" column. If a baby is incapable of making a moral decision, it's as neutral as a rock--also incapable of making a moral decision--and should be treated the same.
Of course, by the same logic, an animal is also incapable of making a moral decision. If holy smite doesn't work on a baby, it shouldn't work on a dog either, even a savage rabid dog.
For that we'd need a distinction between "unaligned - no capacity for moral thought" and "true neutral - no particular moral leanings." Which isn't too hard to do, it's just not currently in the game.
I'm perfectly fine with someone house-ruling whatever they want. :) However, if we're talking about the core rules, !good <> evil, and !evil <> good. :)
But in that case, there's no reason to really be asking questions on how it should work, since if you're houseruling, it works however you want.
Well, some of it's house-ruling, some of it is trying to make logical sense of how the RAW is written.
Look at, for example, skeletons. They're supposedly "mindless" and also "evil" but if you leave an uncontrolled skeleton in the room with the baby antichrist, what happens? The skeleton, while "mindless," will nonetheless miraculously know what a baby is and that it should kill it, even though it will generally leave plants and vermin alone, which hardly seems mindless. Then you have the skeleton, which is by the RAW evil, and little Damien, who is also evil, and then the skeleton kills the baby antichrist. The difference between this and Holy Smite is what precisely? You have a dead antichrist either way.
Of course, looking at the skeleton as a case in point, "mindless evil" is not "mindless" in the usual sense of the word nor is it necessarily "evil" either. It's easier to say that the skeleton isn't so much evil as life-hating--it will happily slaughter dozens of antichrists while utterly failing to desecrate holy water fonts and other non-living icons of goodness--and not so much mindless as rather stupid, being effectively an automaton programmed with certain knowledge but not much else.
But, after establishing that the uncontrolled skeleton can kill little Damien, we know that evil magic can be used to accomplish a good end--so can good magic be used to accomplish an evil end?
Easily. Let's say instead of having little Damien, you have the golden child--the baby that's the paragon of perfect goodness. Your rogue pulls out a scroll and uses it to summon a celestial lion, then tells the good lion summoned by a good spell to eat the good baby. Good magic used for an evil act.
So then you look at Holy Smite. By the RAW, it blows up your average baby who is neither the golden child nor the antichrist. This is an evil act, but as has been shown, good magics can easily be used for evil ends.
All babies are neutral. Environment determines earliest alignment changes. Though I'd say infant mortality brings up a ton of rping theological debut. But that's really a private touchy topic I'd rather not get into here.
As far as skeletons, I've always interpreted them as attacking anything that's alive and mobile. So plants aren't attacked because they are sessile, but I always have them attack anything else that's alive, centipedes, elephants, mice, humans, elves. Lawyers get a pass, that whole lack of a soul thing. :)
All babies are neutral. Environment determines earliest alignment changes. Though I'd say infant mortality brings up a ton of rping theological debut. But that's really a private touchy topic I'd rather not get into here.
The goddess of death in my own world doesn't like harvesting souls that aren't ripe, so she leaves a window open longer for those souls to be brought back by other humans. If nothing happens though, she'll harvest the soul and replant it in another vessel, since it didn't ripen correctly.
There's a whole continent where people rejected the gods, and so she harvests their souls and just replants them shortly after death in a new vessel.
Interesting.... according to the Pathfinder rules that means:
Adolf Hitler was True Neutral when he was a Baby. Same with Joseph Stalin and Saddam Hussein.
If we are to believe Baby Jesus was also True Neutral?
Game Mechanics = A Succubus and Human mate and have a Half-Fiend Human/Succubus on Succubus's homeplane. Is the baby Half-Fiend also True Neutral?
Or does the True Neutral aspect of the baby only apply to Prime babies (Human, Elf, ect) and not to Outsiders?
This is one you decide for your own game. The almighty rules are either incorrect or insufficient.
Neutral.
I'd go with neutral good (since there is nary a smidgeon of evil in the baby), but that just my personal preference.
The way I look at it, the law/chaos axis relies on nurture, whereas the good/evil axis is a matter of nature. Evil is acquired, law is learned. Even a 'neutral' person is half-evil. A baby can't have any evil until it becomes responsible for its own actions.