Player Core 2 Preview: The Champion, Remastered

The Raven Black wrote:

Squiggit wrote:

The Raven Black wrote:

And here I thought getting rid of Chaotic and Lawful on the PCs' level was not going to result in Law/Chaos disappearing from the setting.

IMO it makes for a blander, more one-dimensional, setting, if easier to access for newcomers.

Does it? In terms of practical implications, that one protean no longer takes 5 extra damage from certain attacks but otherwise the setting is pretty much the same.

How people read the setting certainly seems different to me.

Some see it as fundamentally dissociated from the alignment grid from the get-go.

I think that is just wishful thinking encouraged by the disappearance of alignment in Remaster.

No, I think Squiggit has it mostly right.

Yes, it is different. But if anything, I think the perception of the setting has become more nuanced, rather than less. It certainly has at my table, immediately.

Because before, the discussion and usually even the perception was like 80% about alignment. Now, we still have the vague "good vs evil" thing floating around. But the focus has absolutely shifted to the "commandmends" your character subscribes to. And those are so many times more varied than the old alignment could have ever hoped to be.

So just because there is no longer law/chaos written on a sheet somewhere doesn't mean the ideas behind them are gone. And in my eyes those ideas are what actually matter, not weird supposedly cosmic forces.

I never saw alignment as a straightjacket, as opposed to many. And the planes are still there and still function the same, as do the cosmic entities. So, I'm good with the post-Remaster setting.

But I think the feeling I (and a few others) had that struggles between Law and Chaos would disappear from the scene with the disappearance of mechanics linked to that axis is completely validated IMO.

Except of course for the few remnants we will have in the Champion class.

Gisher wrote:

shroudb wrote:

Alignment not being a mechanical thing doesn't impact the fact that morality exists.

More precisely, lots of different moralities exist — arguably at least one for each sapient creature.

shroudb wrote:

You can still be an evil bastard or a virtuous paragon without having a tag on your sheet.

And you can be an evil bastard under some of those moralities while simultaneously being a virtuous paragon under others. :)

Replacing a singular definition of good and evil with the realism of subjective ethics is the main reason that I'm so happy that alignment was eliminated.

I think the singular definition of good and evil is still there. It is merely hiding behind the Holy/Unholy tags.

There is still a one true way of cosmic morality even if its impact on a PC level has been drastically reduced.

As I read things, Holy and Unholy indicate whether or not one has joined a side in one particular cosmic conflict rather than defining singular, universal definitions of good and evil the way that the alignment system did. It's now possible for people to disagree about which actions they consider good and evil within their own ethical systems just like in real life.

As I read things, Holy and Unholy indicate whether or not one has joined a side in one particular cosmic conflict rather than defining singular, universal definitions of good and evil the way that the alignment system did. It's now possible for people to disagree about which actions they consider good and evil within their own ethical systems just like in real life.

Agreed here, with the caveat that there's very little space for gray in that particular cosmic conflict. Like, if you're unholy, and you're arguing that you're a good person anyway, then you're lying to yourself. At best you're evil with standards.

At the same time, the fact that someone has that shiny "holy" sanctification doesn't in and of itself mean that they're necessarily more "good" than someone who does not. It just sets a (reasonably high) floor for how good of a person they themselves are.

Alignment never was a straightjacket because alignment was descriptive, not prescriptive. If you conceived your character as LG but as the campaign went on you did a ton of evil stuff you'll likely turn to LN and eventually LE, or NG and then CG if you were chaotic instead. If you weren't a class that relied on alignment, this was literally 100% flavor and didn't have any impact in your character and not even in how you RP'ed your character because if your character changed alignment you were already acting as a character of that alignment beforehand.

Meanwhile, edicts and anathema are a straightjacket because those explicitly tell you what you can and you can't do, while alignment was something loose to begin with. For a champion or cleric edicts and anathema make sense, but when you want to force those into a barbarian or even ancestries as a whole then they become really arbritary IMO.

Holy/Unholy is just the magically-manifested opinion of a bunch of alien beings. They can be wrong.

Alignment never was a straightjacket because alignment was descriptive, not prescriptive. If you conceived your character as LG but as the campaign went on you did a ton of evil stuff you'll likely turn to LN and eventually LE, or NG and then CG if you were chaotic instead. If you weren't a class that relied on alignment, this was literally 100% flavor and didn't have any impact in your character and not even in how you RP'ed your character because if your character changed alignment you were already acting as a character of that alignment beforehand.

Meanwhile, edicts and anathema are a straightjacket because those explicitly tell you what you can and you can't do, while alignment was something loose to begin with. For a champion or cleric edicts and anathema make sense, but when you want to force those into a barbarian or even ancestries as a whole then they become really arbritary IMO.

It's not... forced, though? The idea of personal edicts/anathema is that you're literally describing your character's personality. It's not that they're somehow constrained to act that way, it's that this is the way that they naturally act. If they just love teaching kids, and do so whenever the opportunity arises, that's an edict. If they're willing to do anything - literally anything - in order to survive another day, that's... well, honestly, that's probably an edict and an anathema working together, or something like that.

Personal edicts and anathema are supposed to be descriptive rather than prescriptive. If you find yourself violating one, that means that either you were wrong about what your personal edicts and anathema were in the first place (and should change them) or your outlook on life has changed (and you should change them). It's kind of like alignment shifting in that way, except that with edicts/anathema it's a lot more obvious when it has occurred.

Basically, it lets you be a lot more conscious and intentional about all of this stuff, by writing it out more clearly and specifically.

Holy/Unholy is just the magically-manifested opinion of a bunch of alien beings. They can be wrong.

Huh. Okay. I could see that working as a take. It would be sort of similar to the way that psychopomps can be wrong sometimes when they assign you to an afterlife. It's not usually going to be what happens, but it's totally possible.

To put it in Planescape terms, the Holy/Unholy divide is philosophers with clubs with so much belief that they have warped reality to reflect that belief. The divine order is something put into place by deities, not just something that occurs naturally, or else the psychopomps and Pharasma would be unnecessary. There may be some scenario where the deities are staving off an external threat, perhaps making them more like druids struggling against a corrupting influence, but in doing so they are still meddling.

As far as I know, cosmic alignment still exists. It's just not a thing you write down. Pharasma figures it out when you die. It's just something we don't need to worry about in game

Huh. Okay. I could see that working as a take. It would be sort of similar to the way that psychopomps can be wrong sometimes when they assign you to an afterlife. It's not usually going to be what happens, but it's totally possible.

It's the Rahadoumi take. The ability to do extra damage against demons does not necessarily lead to objective moral truth.

To put it in Planescape terms, the Holy/Unholy divide is philosophers with clubs with so much belief that they have warped reality to reflect that belief. The divine order is something put into place by deities, not just something that occurs naturally, or else the psychopomps and Pharasma would be unnecessary.

Small correction, that divide wasn't put in place by deities, or if it was, then we don't know who those deities are. Qlippoth and archons now canonically predate the gods, and the Outer Rifts and Heaven, which are aligned with unholiness and holiness, also existed before the gods got there.

Agonarchy wrote:

To put it in Planescape terms, the Holy/Unholy divide is philosophers with clubs with so much belief that they have warped reality to reflect that belief. The divine order is something put into place by deities, not just something that occurs naturally, or else the psychopomps and Pharasma would be unnecessary.

Small correction, that divide wasn't put in place by deities, or if it was, then we don't know who those deities are. Qlippoth and archons now canonically predate the gods, and the Outer Rifts and Heaven, which are aligned with unholiness and holiness, also existed before the gods got there.

They don't canonically predate Pharasma.

That's more of a nitpick and an implied question than a direct contradiction of your core thesis, though. We can be pretty darned sure that she wasn't the one to create Holy and Unholy sanctifiction.

Also, when asked about a "remaster" of the harrow, they said it wouldn't happen, because the lore still exist, and it still make sense "in-world", to have people splitting things into a grid, even though there's no mechanical rules for that anymore.

Perpdepog wrote:

Agonarchy wrote:

To put it in Planescape terms, the Holy/Unholy divide is philosophers with clubs with so much belief that they have warped reality to reflect that belief. The divine order is something put into place by deities, not just something that occurs naturally, or else the psychopomps and Pharasma would be unnecessary.

Small correction, that divide wasn't put in place by deities, or if it was, then we don't know who those deities are. Qlippoth and archons now canonically predate the gods, and the Outer Rifts and Heaven, which are aligned with unholiness and holiness, also existed before the gods got there.

They don't canonically predate Pharasma.

That's more of a nitpick and an implied question than a direct contradiction of your core thesis, though. We can be pretty darned sure that she wasn't the one to create Holy and Unholy sanctifiction.

Indeed, my understanding is this isn't her first universe.

Sanityfaerie wrote:

Perpdepog wrote:

Agonarchy wrote:

To put it in Planescape terms, the Holy/Unholy divide is philosophers with clubs with so much belief that they have warped reality to reflect that belief. The divine order is something put into place by deities, not just something that occurs naturally, or else the psychopomps and Pharasma would be unnecessary.

Small correction, that divide wasn't put in place by deities, or if it was, then we don't know who those deities are. Qlippoth and archons now canonically predate the gods, and the Outer Rifts and Heaven, which are aligned with unholiness and holiness, also existed before the gods got there.

They don't canonically predate Pharasma.

That's more of a nitpick and an implied question than a direct contradiction of your core thesis, though. We can be pretty darned sure that she wasn't the one to create Holy and Unholy sanctifiction.

Indeed, my understanding is this isn't her first universe.

Yep; it's her second.

I mean also all the deities with holy sanctification have edicts and anathemas that are broadly agreed to be good and all the deities with unholy sanctification have edicts and anathemas that are obviously kinda bad, a lot of people love being the one Lamashtu cultist who only donates to orphanages and help underprivileged people and definitely do nothing to make those orphans and underprivileged people but let's be real, that's you ignoring the reality of what her incentive structures do.

I mean also all the deities with holy sanctification have edicts and anathemas that are broadly agreed to be good and all the deities with unholy sanctification have edicts and anathemas that are obviously kinda bad, a lot of people love being the one Lamashtu cultist who only donates to orphanages and help underprivileged people and definitely do nothing to make those orphans and underprivileged people but let's be real, that's you ignoring the reality of what her incentive structures do.

There's plenty of deities that allow for both holy and unholy sanctification with value-neutral edicts and anathema though? Granted we don't know yet specifically what the additional edict and anathema Champions get when they sanctify holy or unholy, but for example I don't think there's anything stopping a cleric of Calistria from sanctifying themselves holy just to get revenge on a demon that wronged them or something, and their morality could be pretty dubious otherwise. Or conversely, maybe a decent and upright (for the most part) cleric of Nethys sanctifying unholy because that's their magic research project or something haha.

I mean also all the deities with holy sanctification have edicts and anathemas that are broadly agreed to be good and all the deities with unholy sanctification have edicts and anathemas that are obviously kinda bad, a lot of people love being the one Lamashtu cultist who only donates to orphanages and help underprivileged people and definitely do nothing to make those orphans and underprivileged people but let's be real, that's you ignoring the reality of what her incentive structures do.

So... that wasn't the case for Good/Evil in the pre-remaster days. Now, the remaster hasn't yet progressed to the point where we can say that conclusively for Holy/Unholy sanctification, but I'd be surprised if there weren't at least a few like that.

Ryangwy wrote:

I mean also all the deities with holy sanctification have edicts and anathemas that are broadly agreed to be good and all the deities with unholy sanctification have edicts and anathemas that are obviously kinda bad, a lot of people love being the one Lamashtu cultist who only donates to orphanages and help underprivileged people and definitely do nothing to make those orphans and underprivileged people but let's be real, that's you ignoring the reality of what her incentive structures do.

There's plenty of deities that allow for both holy and unholy sanctification with value-neutral edicts and anathema though? Granted we don't know yet specifically what the additional edict and anathema Champions get when they sanctify holy or unholy, but for example I don't think there's anything stopping a cleric of Calistria from sanctifying themselves holy just to get revenge on a demon that wronged them or something, and their morality could be pretty dubious otherwise. Or conversely, maybe a decent and upright (for the most part) cleric of Nethys sanctifying unholy because that's their magic research project or something haha.

No.

The very definition of Holy implies devotion to good. Same for Unholy and evil.

exequiel759 wrote:

Alignment never was a straightjacket because alignment was descriptive, not prescriptive. If you conceived your character as LG but as the campaign went on you did a ton of evil stuff you'll likely turn to LN and eventually LE, or NG and then CG if you were chaotic instead. If you weren't a class that relied on alignment, this was literally 100% flavor and didn't have any impact in your character and not even in how you RP'ed your character because if your character changed alignment you were already acting as a character of that alignment beforehand.

Meanwhile, edicts and anathema are a straightjacket because those explicitly tell you what you can and you can't do, while alignment was something loose to begin with. For a champion or cleric edicts and anathema make sense, but when you want to force those into a barbarian or even ancestries as a whole then they become really arbritary IMO.

It's not... forced, though? The idea of personal edicts/anathema is that you're literally describing your character's personality. It's not that they're somehow constrained to act that way, it's that this is the way that they naturally act. If they just love teaching kids, and do so whenever the opportunity arises, that's an edict. If they're willing to do anything - literally anything - in order to survive another day, that's... well, honestly, that's probably an edict and an anathema working together, or something like that.

Personal edicts and anathema are supposed to be descriptive rather than prescriptive. If you find yourself violating one, that means that either you were wrong about what your personal edicts and anathema were in the first place (and should change them) or your outlook on life has changed (and you should change them). It's kind of like alignment shifting in that way, except that with edicts/anathema it's a lot more obvious when it has occurred.

Basically, it lets you be a lot more conscious and intentional about all of this stuff, by...

What you describe is how I always saw alignment working.

The Raven Black wrote:

Gisher wrote:

shroudb wrote:

Alignment not being a mechanical thing doesn't impact the fact that morality exists.

More precisely, lots of different moralities exist — arguably at least one for each sapient creature.

shroudb wrote:

You can still be an evil bastard or a virtuous paragon without having a tag on your sheet.

And you can be an evil bastard under some of those moralities while simultaneously being a virtuous paragon under others. :)

Replacing a singular definition of good and evil with the realism of subjective ethics is the main reason that I'm so happy that alignment was eliminated.

I think the singular definition of good and evil is still there. It is merely hiding behind the Holy/Unholy tags.

There is still a one true way of cosmic morality even if its impact on a PC level has been drastically reduced.

As I read things, Holy and Unholy indicate whether or not one has joined a side in one particular cosmic conflict rather than defining singular, universal definitions of good and evil the way that the alignment system did. It's now possible for people to disagree about which actions they consider good and evil within their own ethical systems just like in real life.

TBT it was already possible before, but you needed to jump through some hoops that the Remaster did away with.

But what people / PCs consider good and evil have no bearing on the cosmic/divine axis of good vs evil as embodied by the Holy/Unholy tags.

It's just that, unless signing up for the Holy/Unholy cosmic struggle, mortals are almost completely not concerned with what was previously called alignment until they die.

Perpdepog wrote:

Agonarchy wrote:

To put it in Planescape terms, the Holy/Unholy divide is philosophers with clubs with so much belief that they have warped reality to reflect that belief. The divine order is something put into place by deities, not just something that occurs naturally, or else the psychopomps and Pharasma would be unnecessary.

Small correction, that divide wasn't put in place by deities, or if it was, then we don't know who those deities are. Qlippoth and archons now canonically predate the gods, and the Outer Rifts and Heaven, which are aligned with unholiness and holiness, also existed before the gods got there.

They don't canonically predate Pharasma.

That's more of a nitpick and an implied question than a direct contradiction of your core thesis, though. We can be pretty darned sure that she wasn't the one to create Holy and Unholy sanctifiction.

Actually, Pharasma is True Neutral because it was her interactions with the new reality that defined the alignment axes including the first deities and the aligned planes. They emerged in relation to her central place in reality.

Note that we do not know what her alignment/values were in the previous reality. Maybe she was what we would have called LG or CE. No one can know that, not even Pharasma herself.

Holy/Unholy is just the magically-manifested opinion of a bunch of alien beings. They can be wrong.

Since these beings are the ones who created the current Universe and the mortal beings who populate it, including PCs, I have trouble conceiving who could actually be in a position to judge that they are wrong.

Maybe Yog-Sothoth or some other entity from outside reality.

And now I have the image of the outer entities experimenting throughout the succession of realities for their own purpose, like Marvel's Celestials do with planets.

Absolute morality is in an interesting place in the lore since it probably exists because of pharasma but we don't/can't know her criteria exactly so we're still forced to use our own judgement.

Absolute morality is in an interesting place in the lore since it probably exists because of pharasma but we don't/can't know her criteria exactly so we're still forced to use our own judgement.

I... don't think it necessarily does anymore. Like, Pharasma created planes that are generally lawful, chaotic, good and/or evil. She created entities who appear to be lawful, chaotic, good and/or evil that were often generally inclined to inhabit those planses. She pretty clearly tried to make them in some sort of balance with one another. She set up a system of psychopomps (with herself at the top) who (among other things) subjectively judge which of those planes souls should go to after they die. Cool.

Then, sometime later, we started getting serious conflicts between the evil and good sides, and between at least some of the lawful and chaotic sides. The good/evil fights were a much bigger deal in general, and eventually those sides managed to weaponize their philosophies against one another, developed Holy and Unholy sanctifications, and started handing them out to the mortal servitors where they felt it appropriate. Cool.

None of that requires or even strongly implies any kind of morality that is any more absolute than "Pharasma had these vague general ideas while she was creating everything". The whole setup was pretty clearly intentional on Pharasma's part. There's enough of the cosmology clearly visible (in the form of the planes, if nothing else) that it could be reverse-engineered by mortals (like, say, the ones that designed the Harrow deck) and debated. That doesn't mean that there's any kind of fundamental Good Essence or Evil Essence out there, let along Law or Chaos.

The closest we get to evidence of a fundamental good or evil is that the sanctifications actually work to deal additional damage to certain creatures, and that's pretty circumstantial. There's a lot of ways to explain that one that don't require that "fundamental good/evil particles" (or whatever) exist as a thing.

Agonarchy wrote:

Holy/Unholy is just the magically-manifested opinion of a bunch of alien beings. They can be wrong.

Since these beings are the ones who created the current Universe and the mortal beings who populate it, including PCs, I have trouble conceiving who could actually be in a position to judge that they are wrong.

Maybe Yog-Sothoth or some other entity from outside reality.

And now I have the image of the outer entities experimenting throughout the succession of realities for their own purpose, like Marvel's Celestials do with planets.

That's rather the beauty of being a mortal being; the capacity to judge those more powerful.

The Raven Black wrote:

Agonarchy wrote:

Holy/Unholy is just the magically-manifested opinion of a bunch of alien beings. They can be wrong.

Since these beings are the ones who created the current Universe and the mortal beings who populate it, including PCs, I have trouble conceiving who could actually be in a position to judge that they are wrong.

Maybe Yog-Sothoth or some other entity from outside reality.

And now I have the image of the outer entities experimenting throughout the succession of realities for their own purpose, like Marvel's Celestials do with planets.

That's rather the beauty of being a mortal being; the capacity to judge those more powerful.

It is not a matter of power. But of understanding.

And the created can indeed judge the creators, and think themselves better than the deities. I believe it is called hubris.

Agonarchy wrote:

The Raven Black wrote:

Agonarchy wrote:

Holy/Unholy is just the magically-manifested opinion of a bunch of alien beings. They can be wrong.

Since these beings are the ones who created the current Universe and the mortal beings who populate it, including PCs, I have trouble conceiving who could actually be in a position to judge that they are wrong.

Maybe Yog-Sothoth or some other entity from outside reality.

And now I have the image of the outer entities experimenting throughout the succession of realities for their own purpose, like Marvel's Celestials do with planets.

That's rather the beauty of being a mortal being; the capacity to judge those more powerful.

It is not a matter of power. But of understanding.

And the created can indeed judge the creators, and think themselves better than the deities. I believe it is called hubris.

Cuts both ways. The gods make errors of judgement on grand scales on a regular basis.

Cuts both ways. The gods make errors of judgement on grand scales on a regular basis.

Hi there, Sarenrae!

Indeed. It makes for a setting better suited to tell a variety of interesting stories.

Agonarchy wrote:

Holy/Unholy is just the magically-manifested opinion of a bunch of alien beings. They can be wrong.

Since these beings are the ones who created the current Universe and the mortal beings who populate it, including PCs, I have trouble conceiving who could actually be in a position to judge that they are wrong.

You're conflating two different things.

On the one side, the point you raise is valid. There's no one with greater authority out there who's going to show up and tell Pharasma that her idea of "good" and "evil" are somehow inaccurate. If Pharasma herself decides that your shade belongs in Axis, there is no higher court to appeal to.

On the other side, that doesn't make it objectively correct in any meaningful way... or even necessarily invariant. It's still a subjective judgement. It's just that it happens to be the subjective judgement of the goddess of death, and she has enough authority that that has real effects. So, at best, you could try to figure out what Pharasma's opinions on the matter of Good/Evil/Law/Chaos were by spending a bunch of time watching the judgments she makes. I suspect that a fair number of newbie psychopomps do just that as a form of training for their future careers. Even so, it's just the opinion of one very powerful individual... and an opinion that can conceivably be swayed. That's not at all the same as saying that Golarion has an objectively correct Good/Evil/Law/Chaos to appeal to.

Agonarchy wrote:

Cuts both ways. The gods make errors of judgement on grand scales on a regular basis.

Hi there, Sarenrae!

She's keeping good company with Desna and Aroden. Just so, so much Aroden.

Sanityfaerie wrote:

Agonarchy wrote:

Cuts both ways. The gods make errors of judgement on grand scales on a regular basis.

Hi there, Sarenrae!

She's keeping good company with Desna and Aroden. Just so, so much Aroden.

Some day I want to see an inverse Aroden - an evil deity who keeps trying to carry off evil schemes and is constantly screwing up and making things better for everyone by mistake and happenstance. Broken base of legit worshippers (LE/LN/NE) on the one side and a small splinter congregation of CG who are completely convinced that he's actually an incredibly clever trickster deity and faking it.

I think the appeal to pharasma might have been stronger when she was actually omniscient. I recall that being changed at some point in the lore. Is that right? At the very least, I would agree that her views are probably the most valuable if they're not technically objectively true. That's good enough for me

Agonarchy wrote:

Sanityfaerie wrote:

Perpdepog wrote:

Agonarchy wrote:

To put it in Planescape terms, the Holy/Unholy divide is philosophers with clubs with so much belief that they have warped reality to reflect that belief. The divine order is something put into place by deities, not just something that occurs naturally, or else the psychopomps and Pharasma would be unnecessary.

Small correction, that divide wasn't put in place by deities, or if it was, then we don't know who those deities are. Qlippoth and archons now canonically predate the gods, and the Outer Rifts and Heaven, which are aligned with unholiness and holiness, also existed before the gods got there.

They don't canonically predate Pharasma.

That's more of a nitpick and an implied question than a direct contradiction of your core thesis, though. We can be pretty darned sure that she wasn't the one to create Holy and Unholy sanctifiction.

Indeed, my understanding is this isn't her first universe.

Yep; it's her second.

*Gasp!* Pharasma is Galactus!?!

I'm not a fan of moral relativism, neither in ttrpgs nor in real life. Seeing the holy/unholy paradigm in the remaster brought a smile to my face bc it seems like a stronger more definitive judgement call than what came before. Some forces want to be selfish and harm others, other forces want to be selfless and aid others. These qualities define those that either likened to literal devil's and demons or likened to literal angels. That was a STRONG statement and I'm all here for it.

I'm not a fan of moral relativism, neither in ttrpgs nor in real life. Seeing the holy/unholy paradigm in the remaster brought a smile to my face bc it seems like a stronger more definitive judgement call than what came before. Some forces want to be selfish and harm others, other forces want to be selfless and aid others. These qualities define those that either likened to literal devil's and demons or likened to literal angels. That was a STRONG statement and I'm all here for it.

Yeah, demons and devils I think we can safely say are evil. Of course, there are exceptions and that makes for interesting story telling but the typical fiend is fairly rotten by default and that's their purpose.

A suitable place for a final alignment debate?

=)

WWHsmackdown wrote:

I'm not a fan of moral relativism, neither in ttrpgs nor in real life. Seeing the holy/unholy paradigm in the remaster brought a smile to my face bc it seems like a stronger more definitive judgement call than what came before. Some forces want to be selfish and harm others, other forces want to be selfless and aid others. These qualities define those that either likened to literal devil's and demons or likened to literal angels. That was a STRONG statement and I'm all here for it.

Yeah, demons and devils I think we can safely say are evil. Of course, there are exceptions and that makes for interesting story telling but the typical fiend is fairly rotten by default and that's their purpose.

Which has always been the case in the setting actually.

A suitable place for a final alignment debate?

=)

Though the names might change there is no such thing as "final" as far as alignment debates are concerned.

A lack of alignment makes greater good types like Pharasma work a lot better. She can be ultimately a "good" person at the cosmic level while not doing anything to stop evil without her alignment being confusing.

The Raven Black wrote:

Agonarchy wrote:

Holy/Unholy is just the magically-manifested opinion of a bunch of alien beings. They can be wrong.

Since these beings are the ones who created the current Universe and the mortal beings who populate it, including PCs, I have trouble conceiving who could actually be in a position to judge that they are wrong.

You're conflating two different things.

On the one side, the point you raise is valid. There's no one with greater authority out there who's going to show up and tell Pharasma that her idea of "good" and "evil" are somehow inaccurate. If Pharasma herself decides that your shade belongs in Axis, there is no higher court to appeal to.

On the other side, that doesn't make it objectively correct in any meaningful way... or even necessarily invariant. It's still a subjective judgement. It's just that it happens to be the subjective judgement of the goddess of death, and she has enough authority that that has real effects. So, at best, you could try to figure out what Pharasma's opinions on the matter of Good/Evil/Law/Chaos were by spending a bunch of time watching the judgments she makes. I suspect that a fair number of newbie psychopomps do just that as a form of training for their future careers. Even so, it's just the opinion of one very powerful individual... and an opinion that can conceivably be swayed. That's not at all the same as saying that Golarion has an objectively correct Good/Evil/Law/Chaos to appeal to.

TBH I do not see any difference.

A lack of alignment makes greater good types like Pharasma work a lot better. She can be ultimately a "good" person at the cosmic level while not doing anything to stop evil without her alignment being confusing.

She was True Neutral for a reason. She just cares for reality to live on through the cycle of souls. She does not do this to help people out of the goodness of her heart.

A lack of alignment makes greater good types like Pharasma work a lot better. She can be ultimately a "good" person at the cosmic level while not doing anything to stop evil without her alignment being confusing.

I feel like Pharasma specifically is less concerned about the battle between "Good" and "Evil" and more concerned about the battle between "Order" and "Chaos" in the sense that chaos already won the battle and she's trying to delay the Maelstrom consuming all of reality and grinding it into undifferentiated potentiality as long as possible.

Whatever souls end up in the other outer planes makes little difference to her.

Agonarchy wrote:

A lack of alignment makes greater good types like Pharasma work a lot better. She can be ultimately a "good" person at the cosmic level while not doing anything to stop evil without her alignment being confusing.

She was True Neutral for a reason. She just cares for reality to live on through the cycle of souls. She does not do this to help people out of the goodness of her heart.

Right, but presuming she's not an automaton or a glorified cosmic parasite she has some sort of motivation.

TBH I do not see any difference.

Well, that would explain the conflation. I try to clarify.

- If there is an "objective good" then it's an official fact about the setting of Golarion, and, by extension, PF2 as a whole. People at that point can (and will) argue about what is or is not "good", because there is, in fact, an objective "good" to argue about. If your character has opinions about what is and is not morally good that conflict with this established structure, then in a very real way, your character is incorrect. Additionally, indications of what counts and does not count wrt objective good are, effectively, moral pronouncements by Paizo itself.

- If there is not an Objective Good, then all that's left are the subjective personal opinions of a number of NPCs. There's no way to argue about what is or is not "good" in a Golarion context because there is no official "Golarion context Good" to argue about. If you disagree with Pharasma's opinions on what is or is not good, then... you disagree with her. There's nothing saying that she's correct or you are because there's no fundamental truth to appeal to. She's far more powerful and influential, and she Got There First, but that doesn't necessarily make her any more of a moral authority than anyone else. She's the arbiter of final fates, and it's not like that doesn't matter in a practical way, but it doesn't mean the same thing in a moral way. Also, it's at least conceivable that her opinion on certain things might change over time, as with all thinking beings. That's not so much the case if there's some impersonal objective Moral Force out there.

rainzax wrote:

A suitable place for a final alignment debate?

=)

Though the names might change there is no such thing as "final" as far as alignment debates are concerned.

While I'm coming to the conclusion that you're correct here... I feel like this version of the alignment debate is actually pretty chill, compared to many of those that have gone before. It feels like more of an alignment discussion. I think I like it... and I think that the change from objective to subjective is part of why it works that way.

I'm not a fan of moral relativism, neither in ttrpgs nor in real life. Seeing the holy/unholy paradigm in the remaster brought a smile to my face bc it seems like a stronger more definitive judgement call than what came before. Some forces want to be selfish and harm others, other forces want to be selfless and aid others. These qualities define those that either likened to literal devil's and demons or likened to literal angels. That was a STRONG statement and I'm all here for it.

I wanted to address this too, though... because I also think you're kind of right in that the holy/unholy thing is a meaningful stronghold for moral absolutism. The fact is, devils and demons and whatnot are almost entirely awful individuals, and unholy consecration is a pretty clear indicator that you deserve whatever's coming to you. It's barely possible to come up with a character who's flagged unholy who can be argued to not be a terrible individual, but if you get up in the morning and go out and murder 70 people who are all consecrated unholy, without knowing anything else about them, you can sleep soundly that night, assured that you have made the world a generally better place... and that's not going to change. Anyone out there arguing that we should be more tolerant of unholy consecration because they're really not that bad is, in fact, incorrect. They are that bad. It's possible that that person is just deluded, but it's more likely that they are lying to you.

It's like, the world does have space for moral relativism now, in a way that it kind of didn't before... but the flex in that relativism doesn't go but so far, and Holy and Unholy are far enough at the extremes, and pure enough, and straightforward enough, that it strains to reach anywhere close to the midpoint from where they start.

I do think it's possible that objective morality exists but it's not possible to know it in its entirety for anyone who isn't pharasma. That keeps it practically subjective for players operating in the setting. Narratively, paizo doesn't actually need to create an absolute morality system since the inner mechanisms of pharasma's decisions do not have actual criteria we know about.

That's my understanding of it anyways. It justifies sanctification and extreme outsiders without undermining player choice since it's the only thing we have to work with regardless.

This has gotten pretty irrelevant to the new champion though.

I like the new champion!

Indeed, lots of good stuff for champion fans. Now I'm spinning my wheels on the obedience cause (former tyrant) trying to think of the different ways I can make one that's neutral....or even good! It's uncharted territory.

It's interesting to see everyones takes on unholy and holy. For me all the grey area stuff is for anyone choosing not to sanctify. Unholy specifically has you embracing cruelty and forces that wish to inflict cruelty, and holy altruism and forces that wish to help others. Like maybe if you play in a home setting or a home variation of Golarion where those terms aren't defined as such. But in base Golarion it seems pretty cut and dry, these are specific defined stances and choices you are making.

As for the actual changes to Champion I am all for it. I am excited to see the final version of both of my current champions might be seeing a change in what cause they follow.

It's interesting to see everyones takes on unholy and holy. For me all the grey area stuff is for anyone choosing not to sanctify. Unholy specifically has you embracing cruelty and forces that wish to inflict cruelty, and holy altruism and forces that wish to help others. Like maybe if you play in a home setting or a home variation of Golarion where those terms aren't defined as such. But in base Golarion it seems pretty cut and dry, these are specific defined stances and choices you are making.

As for the actual changes to Champion I am all for it. I am excited to see the final version of both of my current champions might be seeing a change in what cause they follow.

That's pretty much where I am viz Holy/Unholy. If someone is sanctified then it's because they've made a conscious decision to embrace those end goals for whatever reason. Granted there are some funky areas, like undead, but for character-building purposes that's how I see Holy and Unholy.