How imporant are alignment-based outsiders?


Homebrew and House Rules


Well, it's really all there in the title.

I'm very far from being an expert, but surely some (most?) of the important, characteristic and famed outsiders of Pathfinder are »alignment-based« - angles are NG, demons CE etc. - and this is a concept that goes back to D&D.

But, would it matter if that was changed? I'm thinking in doing so in my campaign. I'm going to have (at least) two groups of deities, the groups having different origins yet containing overlapping alignments - so you might find both LG and NE in both groups. And then it makes sense to have the important outsider groups tied to these different pantheons - each group of deities having created/allied with a group of outsiders. That would imply a LG outsider of group A has more in common with a NE outsider of group A than a LG outsider of group B.

I'm hesitating about such a change, because it feels like I might remove something important to Pathfinder that I haven't grasped yet.

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Alignment is a force of nature in Pathfinder, like Magnetism, Gravity, Fire, Earth, etc..

Alignment-based Outsiders are basically Elementals of their respective Alignment.

If you tinker with this you go to the core of the D&D-ish worldbuilding.

...

But its your world, Do what seems fitting to your setting.

Silver Crusade

Alignment based outsiders are a part of the default setting. Remove or change them and you change the setting. That's the primary effect. There would be some secondary effects on game balance and mechanics.

Right now, a cleric's summoning ability is limited by the alignment of his deity. If the deity is lawful good, no chaotic evil summons for the cleric but anything Lawful Neutral is fair game. In your proposed setting, it wouldn't make sense for the Lawful Good cleric of pantheon A to be able to summon any outsiders associated with pantheon B. On the other hand, it might (or might not) make sense for him to be able to summon even chaotic or evil outsiders associated with pantheon A.

Likewise, if the main conflict in your game is not moral, it might not make sense for DR to work the way it does (why does it take a holy weapon hurt demons if demons aren't necessarily opposed to the gods). And there would be a similar impact on spells. Why would you have Holy Word and Holy smite? The paladin class would also be problematic (since its abilities, restrictions, and flavor presuppose a moral conflict and morally focused deities). You could eliminate the paladin class entirely and replace with cavalier, warpriest, and inquisitor as appropriate. (Perhaps removing the detect alignment ability from the inquisitor). You could take a page from the Arcanis (3.5) campaign setting and change all of those spells to "word of faith" etc which effect outsiders regardless of alignment. Or you could eliminate holy, unholy, etc effects altogether. You'd need to write up a magic circle spell (perhaps it just works on everyone regardless of alignment, or perhaps it has to be keyed to a pantheon or type of creature when cast (humanoid, or undead being options)). Eliminating holy and unholy might make bane weapons more important as the easiest way to overcome formerly alignment based DR.

But as before, the impact on the setting would be the most important factor. It's all well and good to say that pantheon A Lawful Good and Pantheon A neutral evil have more in common with each other than with anyone in pantheon B, but you need to decide what exactly it is that they have in common and why it is important for them to work together in their conflict with Pantheon B. And if you want the choice between pantheons not to add a moral element, that conflict can't be something like, "the Frost Giants want to destroy the world, the gods--mostly including Loki--want to stop them from doing so." In that scenario, Loki and Tyr have more in common than either of them do with the frost giants, but the choice between the gods and the giants is a pretty easy one and looks like a moral one too.

Going back to unaligned deities, the apparent three way conflict between the elemental (elven) pantheon, the human pantheon, and the forces of entropy in Arcanis is an example of one way this can be pulled off. But in Arcanis, one of the reasons it works is because the history, the alignment information, and a lot of the conflict is hidden information. You're never quite sure if, for example Hurrian and Illir are good aligned or not. It's clear that Sarish is probably some kind of lawful but not much more. It's not clear if Anshar is even really part of the pantheon. The elves have their story of what happened between the elemental lords and the gods, but it's not clear if it's true and if it is, if they have the whole story. The forces of entropy are hinted at in the adventures but what's going on with them is not clear either. That fog of war makes it possible for conflicting information to be resolved since one bit or the other of the lore could be incorrect, characters could be wrong about what the gods are like, or the gods could even change over time.


Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

So Demon is a CE outsider, and while they serve say Nocticula the Demon Lord, they are not created by Nocticula. They are created by the Abyss itself spontaneously from the souls of CE mortals. As Guru said above, they are more like Elementals of their respective planes than creations of their gods.

That being said that is important from an -IN SETTING- cosmology perspective. i.e. when playing in Golarion, it wouldn't make sense not to have alignment based outsiders because otherwise where do all the dead souls go?

If you are doing your own setting, souls can go wherever you want, and how or even IF they interact with the outer planes is also up to you.

From a mechanical standpoint, it may be difficult to completely eliminate the monsters. 1) they are listed on the Summon Monster list; 2) they make up a significant chunk of upper to high level foes where there are much fewer options available.

Now you can fix this by say, eliminating SM as a spell (not super nerfing) and still using the monster stats just they your players it is a Norfank in the service of Voltar (made up names for example) instead of a Kyton or Solar.


Good answers.

I feel that you might have over-interpreted me. Which is probably my fault, given how I expressed my thoughts.

See, I am not considering (well, not in this thread anyway) removing Good/Evil and Law/Chaos as fundamental forces and cosmic forces. Just complement them, make them murky.

When I said

"Blymurkla wrote:
That would imply a LG outsider of group A has more in common with a NE outsider of group A than a LG outsider of group B.

I still meant that the two LG outsiders do have their alignment in common.

Maybe this is a detour, but imagine a gal. She's a young gal from Japan, from a wealthy background, trained as an engineer and currently working as a project leader on an international scale. She detest authorities, stress the importance of liberal rights and does a lot of charity work in her spare time. Probably Chaotic Good, right?

Now, with which person does she have most in common? Her colleague, also a young bourgeoisie Japanese female engineer working as a project leader but considering the Law to be above all and is not beyond harming others to better herself (so, LN or LE). Or the poor old male farmer in Eritrea who has never seen the ocean who does everything his limited power to help his peers and tries to get rid of the oppressive government?

I mean, say a lawful good outsider related to pantheon A is going to have an easier time understand a chaotic evil outsider of pantheon A than a lawful good outsider of pantheon B. Even though the two LG outsiders share common goals and sentiments, they will have a hard time working together and wont appear similar to a mortal.

What I am imagine is a world where the PCs could gain some experience fighting NE outsiders, learning their strengths and weaknesses. Then they meet a CN outsider, and can apply many of the same tactics they've learned, because the two outsiders share history and traits. But then the meet a NE outsider of a different origin, and their experience is less valid.


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Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

What it sounds like is you are creating a new outsider subtype. So say all outsiders aligned with pantheon A are Outsider (exptraplaner, [alignment subtype], pantheon A), pantheon B get subtype pantheon B. This will help to create a unified group w/o need to have two completely different groups of monsters.

Players would learn this subtype just as they would otherwise i.e. knowledge (planes) checks.

I would suggest that they all have a unifying physical descriptor. Something that doesn't affect them mechanically, but allows players to recognize one if you describe one, say all As have glowing colored eyes and Bs have color coded halos


I've considered just using good aligned outsides refluffed as other creatures just to give players interesting encounters. After all, these creatures have combat abilities that players aren't used to fighting.

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