Fiendish's page

But even in Pathfinder they are regarded as more beautiful than most other races at least in the fluff, the artwork sometimes makes me wonder. But in general, yeah elves should be pretty.

Sorry for speaking my mind, but I am not going to censor myself. I am entitled to my opinion.

Personally I am thinking the elves look like hideous freaks at the moment. Certainly not rocking that beautiful vibe they are supposed to have. The dwarfs and humans are decent considering the level of art right now but the elves, no they are just gross.

I finally got to play for first time last night, my name is Sadrissa, I am a wizard. I got trained up I think I achieved level 2 Wizard. I got a few achievements like Bandit Hunter(?) 1 and some gathering ones.

I can live with that, thanks for the quick answer. :)

Okay so first time posting here in awhile, but I've been lurking lately and have a couple of questions for the Alphas.

I know monks are complicated and all and will come later in the development cycle. My question is basically this, at the start of EE you will be able to train one of the four base classes (fighter, rogue, cleric, wizard) and when the new classes come out you will have to...

a. just redirect your training to that new class?
b. there be some kind of conversion process?
c. it's still up in the air?

If it's answer a: redirect your training. What would be the best class to focus on to be the most ready to covert to a monk? I am thinking fighter or rogue but not sure.

I hope they throw Calistra in, otherwise its Asmodeus, Norgorber, or Lamashtu for me.

I would love to see if a priestess of Lamashtu could make alliances with the goblins, orcs, and ogres of the River Kingdoms.

Andius wrote:

They had said earlier they only plan to realease with 9 gods. 1 for each alignment. I don't remember all of them but I'm pretty sure Iomedae, Desna, Cayden Caliean, Phrasma, and Asmodeus were among them.

The best I could find was this thread from May discussing the now-hidden Crowdforger Poll #2. Alexander Damocles' post has the list of gods as of then.

(Edit: Spellhammer's post a little way down has the list s/he copied from the original poll post.)

I think this is the list of Golarion Gods in PFO.

LG-Iomedae
NG-Shelyn
CG-Desna
LN-Abadar
TN-Gozreh
CN-Gorum
LE-Asmodeus
NE-Norgorber
CE-Lamashtu

I think Calistra and Torag should be included for the Elves and Dwarves. I know a lot of people also wanted Sarenrae, Pharasma, and Cayden Cailean.

Fiendish wrote:

All the major Golarion gods better be there. I am very interested in religious gameplay. One of my EE characters will be a Cleric.

Now you are just plain scaring me! ;)

Working as intended. ;)

All the major Golarion gods better be there. I am very interested in religious gameplay. One of my EE characters will be a Cleric.

I see no fighting in here? Only civilized discourse. I've been duped.

I consider myself a chaotic person in RL, not evil. I bristle at authority figures. I obey laws mostly out of fear of all the s&+! that comes at you if you don't. Have a hard time working at places that are too uptight with stupid rules. I've move around a lot. I am a total liberal. There is probably more. Not sure if that makes me chaotic but my life certainly feels chaotic a good deal of the time. (This is probably a little TMI)

As for role-playing I honestly have a hard time playing anything but a Chaotic-something. I find lawful characters boring. I actually was toying with the idea of a lawful PFO character, but have already kinda killed that idea.

Furthermore, ontop of that. Most of the truely "Evil" and feindish characters that I saw played well in such environments hardly ever touched a blade themselves. They concentrated on sowing strife and discord with thier words, Upon corrupting and disillusioning hero's and innocents and upon manipulation of people and events

YES, YES, YES

Pax Deacon wrote:

Just trying to find out how many more of us are out there in the pre-game community. So basically if you plan on playing evil, just poke your head in.

@Pax Deacon

Sorry for going off on CE only. NE and LE seem like they will be playable and have quite a following of those intending to play them. CE on the other hand seems to be the most argued about.

@ All

I stand behind my proposal that we just PLAY CE and show GW it can work. By the time the end game comes around, by the time we have full settlements, by the time we need the training that CE has been cut off from, we could have proven the system and GW can make something to allow for those players without opening it up to griefers. We are the people playing the game, it's HOW we play it that will matter and make GW change it.

The system they have now allows us to play CE and as I see it, CE is only nerfed in the later game because we can't find a settlement to call our own but we won't even have PC settlements until the end of EE and into OE so we have plenty of time. GW can adjust things. We can make it work and stop trying to make them change it before we see HOW it works. You never know, CE may end up working great and having everything it needs to balance it out even though it looks like it will be nerfed in the late game. Don't let that stop you from setting your character to CE and RPing the hell out of it without becoming what the system is trying to stop.

I'm pretty sure we will find it is viable in many ways that we don't expect and can't see right now. It may be something where if training can be sold, that is what CE groups are paid in even from LG settlements and we can have a contract that once fulfilled we get the training time. I'm sure being ever so slightly lawful to complete the contract won't save our souls and we can stay CE quite easily.

Lets just give it a go and leave it alone until we can!

I agree and that is what I will be doing in EE.

If you're only fighting other CEs, your relative power level will be just fine. Think of it as a challenge to overcome.

So if you want to role-play a chaotic evil villain we should just accept a lower tier of play?

They really are going for the "Wild-west" feel of the River Kingdoms huh?

The only "system" I have objected to is attaching game mechanics with preconceived notions that amount to "Guilty, even if Proven Innocent".

I've also argued for equity of alignment, not equality of alignment. This would recognize the difference of alignment, but would not pick a clear winner or loser.

The argument that we have called for EZ Mode PvP is baseless. Every action that we have proposed in taking makes us a sanctioned PvP target. Even the SAD can, by the choice of the person being SADed, become a sanctioned PvP engagement.

I second that, Being your attempt to call out people who disagree with certain aspects of the developer's ideas as wishing for "EZ-mode" PvP and wanting to harm the overall success of the game was a poor attempt to misstate our intentions, but a fine piece of bloviation.

Fiendish wrote:

My point wasn't copy [EVE], my point was that they must be doing something right.

I played EVE for a fairly short period of time, and left because I really don't like random murder-fests and the UI and Skill Trees were nigh unfathomable - or at least, would require an investment of time beyond what I was willing to make in light of my distaste for random murder-fests.

And yet, I'm still drawn to it for its economy. I was blow away by how effective the simple Buy & Sell Order system was in creating a vibrant, meaningful market. I submit that the economy might be what EVE is doing right, and their success is despite the random murder-fest nature of the game, not because of it.

Honestly I am not experienced enough one way or the other as to speak to the nuances of EVE, my point is that apparently whatever they have or haven't done continues to bring in more players. The game is growing not dying as many other MMOs are, unusual for such an old MMO.

Fiendish wrote:

Banesama wrote:

I've never played EVE but almost all the comments I have seen about EVE's PVP is that it is toxic. Regardless if it is or not, perception will usually rule the day.

If PFO can get a reputation outside of the game as being non-toxic PVP, it will most likely draw a great deal of new players to at least try it out.

Yet EVE is highly successful and still gaining subscribers after 10 years.

If PFO was to try to become an EVE-clone, then it would probably fail just like so many WoW-clones. A new game should always strive to be different and hopefully new.

My point wasn't copy it, my point was that they must be doing something right.

I've never played EVE but almost all the comments I have seen about EVE's PVP is that it is toxic. Regardless if it is or not, perception will usually rule the day.

If PFO can get a reputation outside of the game as being non-toxic PVP, it will most likely draw a great deal of new players to at least try it out.

Yet EVE is highly successful and still gaining subscribers after 10 years.

Proxima Sin wrote:

Bringslite wrote:

Why is there still a disconnect?

GW called murder sprees the result of a player at a keyboard acting outside the bounds of acceptable behavior in a MMO, outside the sandbox.

GW invented a whole system out of the blue to deal with players in the new-to-Pathfinder MMO environment that do things out-of-bounds and make the game suck for them because of it; but they're using these separate in-bounds mechanics on the problem.

For me, that's why.

Fair enough, and for the record I understand (I bslieve) why you aren't comfortable with this approach and that it has to do with perceived equality and noting to do with an attempt to open the door for "murder simulator #172".

I'd say the same goes for me, truthfully I don't mind things being harder for me as a CE either. It's the thou shall not advance as a character due to lack of opportunity (training, etc) that really bugs me.

Proxima Sin wrote:

... the reputation-ignoring argument of "Good needs mechanical advantage to balance that Evils can kill outside approved structures all day long and don't have to worry about alignment shift!

Except there is a set of characters that can be targeted while ignoring reputation losses. Low rep characters of any alignment *can* be targeted with extremely low rep penalties. GW doesn't have the luxury of ignoring this; they have to take it into account in their design and expectations.

Ryan has spelled out that he expects players who are focused on garnering lots of PvP achievements to prey on low rep CEs (because many low rep people will be CE). And he's further suggested that he expects that many of those people preying on the low rep CEs will themselves be Evil. Because characters who hunt/kill low rep characters outside of feud and war will be taking low rep hits, but normal evil hits.

Good characters won't have the same opportunity to hunt the low rep types, because they won't be able to afford the constant evil hits. So while reputation is a factor, Evil will have kill/loot and achievement gaining opportunities that Good will not easily be able to take advantage of. That seems to be what they're planning for, anyway.

Good players will have the opportunities though because most likely a lot of those low-rep players will be flagged Criminal and Heinous and thus will be able to be attacked without any rep loss to the good players.

I don't mind even being more vulnerable to attack as a CE but I don't feel my advancement should be hampered. (i.e. training and crafting limitations.)

I'm in favor of well-played 'evil' (not that I'm any good at it). But if I were going to play a charming, urbane, manipulative wizard with a "rules don't apply to me" and a "I put my self first" attitude, I wouldn't choose to self-label as CE. I'd label as something else and game the system - setting my mantra as "rules don't apply to me." Lots of 'good' villains hide that way.

Indeed they do and that was just one example to show the range a chaotic evil can have. People love to associate chaotic evil with chaotic stupid.

I just don't like the idea of gaming the system for mechanical benefit as there are a lot of other great character concepts that would get destroyed by the current alignment system. However that apparently is "working as intended".

Question 1: How come there isn't a thread called 'Alignment Discussion' stickied here? Would be easier if there was one place to talk about that system instead of 10 different threads that are about other aspects of the game. I'm starting to lose track of which discussion is going on where since each thread starts to look the same a few pages in :/

Question 2: Why care so much about the alignment system?
I am a player that likes to spread myself out across a game like butter on toast...I don't dedicate myself to one aspect 100%. So I like to RP, but not ALL the time. So I like to go on adventures, but not ALL the time. So I like to crush your face just because you looked at my mineral deposit the wrong way, but not ALL the time. And the same goes for the RP side of my characters. I am not one-sided, and neither are my characters.

The thing that I don't understand is the way that some RPers treat alignment. They set CE on a character and play that character like a A4 with a bad guy scribbled on it. They make it seem like an evil character could never do anything good. Why not set your character as L/CN and play him/her in many different ways. At some point you might have feasted a bit too freely on your neighbors, or "forgot" to uphold a deal. The next month you spend your days being a productive Goblin-stew maker/harvester. Your alignment would sway back and forth all this time.

Any Character Investigation spells/mechanisms could return one or both of two things>
1. Core alignment (which would claim you are a Neutral person...a joker or a wildcard)
2. Current alignment (which would claim you are either the Hannibal of PfO or a great cook and goblin killer...depending on the month)

This would give the other player plenty enough info on your character to make a judgement on whether or not to trust you at that given time.

If you plan on being a one-sided evil character that does nothing except eat people, then accept the mechanical disadvantage that comes with or find a settlement that will work...

Question 1: One of the official ones ended up being locked but they don't generally sticky much.

Question 2:

Basically my most favorite character I ever played in tabletop was a Chaotic Evil wizard for all intents and purposes. Even though she was officially Chaotic Neutral, I crossed over into the Evil camp on many occasions.

I was not some homicidal, face-stabbing, manically laughing stereotype. I was charming, urbane, manipulative, witty. I was the party leader, who held together the party together through strength of will and manipulation, but I always put myself first in almost all occasions. I nearly betrayed the party, often made deals behind their backs that only benefited me. Most of the time they never knew. Occasionally I got caught but I was good at talking my way out of things. This character ran for a campaign that lasted 3 real years of consistent playing. So she was no one shot throw away.

Chaotic Evil can be that. A "rules don't apply to me" and a "I put my self first" attitude is what makes chaotic evil. You don't have to be a stupid boor. Bearing in mind evil has degrees like anything else. Evils who want to destroy the world are not evil they are just insane.

Of course I could still play that way in PFO but there will be no purpose in setting your alignment at what your character really is. Just game it and give yourself the highest score on both the axis (7500, 7500) that way you have the farthest to fall. Alignment choice is meaningless. That is what we are lamenting. The alignment system is not really an alignment system, it's a bad player punishment. Unfortunately however it screws anyone who wants to RP a proper villain, treating them as nothing more than the equivalent of someone they don't want playing their game.

Fortunately, not one person has expressed this as their character concept. This is a red herring and beneath the discussion.

Not one individual has written that they are looking to play outside of sanctioned PvP methods. It has all been related to using feuds, wars, factions or other means available that would not cost reputation.

Based on Ryan's comments it appears that players will have to spend some time grinding alignment to stay out if CE. I suspect he will say that is working as intended, but that in no way says that PFO has a "meaningful" alignment system in my opinion.

Ryan has also said that eventually most players will simply ignore alignment, except for Paladins, Monks and Clerics (within their Deity's range). All others can and should set their alignment as far from CE, but play however they choose to, mindful of only reputation.

Based on this assumption I see many setting core alignment to Lawful Neutral. That will give them 3 whole steps to burn through before ever touching CE.

What is funny about this whole thing is the loss of trust players will have, even if they use a Know Alignment spell. They will see the Core but not be able to trust if you actually play that way or if you artificially grind your way back to it every once in a while.

So much for the "Sacred Cow", it's a complete mockery.

That's right by sacrificing CE, PFO has sacrificed the whole alignment system in regards to having any real role-play meaning within the game. Any alignment is meaningless, everyone will just set their alignment to LG (farthest from CE)so no matter your actions then you can drift back up to get the most mechanical benefit. One of the greatest things that drew me as a role-player to PFO was the alignment system, now it's just a tool to smack bad players over the head with. All the while being ineffectual as players are smart and will game the system.

Ryan, how high can a reputation go playing Lawful Evil?

As in you have to do some evil stuff to maintain the "Evil" in your alignment and most evil things result in loss of reputation. So how would, in your opinion, a Lawful Evil city fair against a Lawful Good one in terms of advanced training and crafting?

Some portion of people will want to play a Role with an alignment limit, mostly Paladins but maybe Monks. Some of them will not know there are alignment restrictions for those Roles and they'll either have to grind alignment changes to get to where they need to be, or they'll start over

Will clerics be expected to stay within the accepted alignment restrictions of the deities as per the tabletop rules?

Notmyrealname wrote:

It sounds like an evil settlement next to good one could cause the unrest in the good settlement without going to war to do it . A good settlement may not be able to use that tactic without the cost in alignment being to high. It will be interesting to see the kind of things you can do as an evil settlement that good settlements cant do, causing unrest in a good settlement sounds like great gameplay.

This is what I was trying to point out; there's an additional way to mess with Good settlements that you can't use against Evil settlements in the form of raising their unrest via Evil deeds on their property.

@Fiendish, your first quote did not take any of that into account; the part you quoted, taken on its own, seemed to indicate that Evil had a simple disadvantage when it came to unrest. I was just pointing out that it's not as cut and dry as that in the blog post; (opinion here) Evil seems to me to actually have an advantage with unrest, as it's one less avenue of attack they have to worry about, even if their value starts higher.

Sorry if it seemed like I was atatcking you or something, but all I'm saying is it's very likely that there will be very strong Evil organizations in game, as well as successful Evil characters. There are benefits and drawbacks planned for both sides of the Good vs Evil spectrum, and only looking at the benefits for Good and the drawbacks for Evil is skewing the public opinion on the system's fairness or balance. Many people seem to already have it in their mind that there's going to be no way to be successful as an Evil character (not saying you hold this view), and what I'm trying to say is, yes there will be.

Yes I realize the developers at this time are erring on the cautious side with their initial rules because they don't want unwanted PvP to get completely out of hand. I also realize the knobs and dials can be adjusted and will be adjusted during EE. I may sound like I am convinced its going to be horrible for evils but I'm not. I know I can't really judge it until I see it in action.

It sounds like an evil settlement next to good one could cause the unrest in the good settlement without going to war to do it . A good settlement may not be able to use that tactic without the cost in alignment being to high. It will be interesting to see the kind of things you can do as an evil settlement that good settlements cant do, causing unrest in a good settlement sounds like great gameplay.

That would be interesting.

Fiendish wrote:

I don't think you know that for sure. From the blog:

Quote:

Unrest: Unrest measures how unhappy your NPCs are, causing them to work less hard and decreasing crafting and training efficiency so they take longer. Unrest starts high for Evil settlements and low for Good settlements

Quote:

Higher end structures, like tier 2 and 3 training and crafting facilities, require the settlement have its minimum Reputation set to certain levels to function. So if you want your town to have awesome training and crafting facilities, you have to set a high minimum Reputation to enter the settlement.

Looking at those two together you can't see what a major problem Evil settlements are going to have?

Lawful Evil Settlements don't want only Lawful Evils in their city, I'd imagine they want to cater to all evils to a degree. Otherwise they won't have very robust populations. As long as someone minds their P's an Q's in the city, Evil doesn't care what they do beyond their walls.

Of course I don't know anything about the design for sure, none of us do.

The first quote is not taken in context. Evil settlements start with a higher unrest than good, that much is true. However, the part right after that says that a good settlement which has Evil stuff happening in it frequently will actually have a higher unrest than the evil settlements. So Evil just has a middling unrest, whereas good's can swing from low unrest to high depending on what people are doing in good's lands. This provides an avenue of attack for anyone looking to weaken a Good settlement.

The second quote has nothing at all to do with a Lawful Evil player's alignment. A LE settlement will have plenty of high reputation characters.

No it's not out of context, it says "IF" they do not take care to keep evil things from happening in their lands the Unrest "MAY" end up higher than an evil city. It says nothing about them frequently having higher Unrest. I don't expect that to be the norm for Good cities.

The second quote refers to the fact that it would not be smart for a LE city to set the reputation requirement too high. If it's too high it ends up being too restrictive for other evil alignments (who will most likely have lower reputations) and thus hurting their overall population. If they set their reputation requirement very high why wouldn't someone just go to a good city where there will be less Unrest to get better training? At the same time if they do not set it too high they will end up with inferior training by not being able to build Tier 2 and 3 facilities. It's a Catch-22.

I can see the Evil's going to have some sort of "intimidation" structure, in order to bring that high starting Unrest under some measure of control. It may take the form of a temple selecting "random" folk for human sacrifice (although good luck getting that past international censors), a training hall for very large, very mean NPC guards (these pointed at the population, not enemies outside the walls), a headquarters for the secret police (encouraging everyone to report on their neighbours and families, or else face imprisonment or execution themselves), or any other thing pariah states have tried in our long ugly human history.

Please fill in your own favourite horror story.

Mmmmm, all those sound delightful.

Proxima Sin wrote:

.No one seems worried that CG or CN will be flouting GWs PvP structures to maintain their chaotic so they must be built to suck.

So where is it that the devs get evil characters by default must be made to suck worse than any other alignments that players can flame from or pvp outside the structures and drift back to?..

Actually I am concerned for CN. First, we are the closest to slipping into CE. Secondly, in the event that no one is stupid enough to roll a CE character, how long before GW's alignment hammer comes down on CN?

I honestly don't see how you will even be able to hold on to CN playing a bandit. Most of the time you will be attacking non-hostile players. Unless SAD reduces the reputation hit you take? Or can you declare war on every settlement you come across? (The whole idea of a bandit having to officially declare war sounds a bit goofy though)

Kryzbyn wrote:

Seems everything is leaning towards the good side of things. The most benefit seems to be from being good.

This is because if there were no mechanical benefits to being good it would never be played. Being good involves giving up opportunities to harm your opponents in underhanded ways, helping others without personal gain, etc. Doing so in a competitive settlement-building MMO means you will be weaker than an equal settlement with Evil policies, who will kill you relentlessly, assassinate your leaders, and use every dirty trick in the book because none of it hurts their alignment. This is why Good has mechanical bonuses: because absent such bonuses we wouldn't have any long-standing Good-aligned settlements.

Now, some forumgoers have conflated the issue of Good vs Evil with Goblinwork's stated view that CE should suck, and assumed that all of Evil should suck, but that is simply not the case.

I don't think you know that for sure. From the blog:

Unrest: Unrest measures how unhappy your NPCs are, causing them to work less hard and decreasing crafting and training efficiency so they take longer. Unrest starts high for Evil settlements and low for Good settlements

Higher end structures, like tier 2 and 3 training and crafting facilities, require the settlement have its minimum Reputation set to certain levels to function. So if you want your town to have awesome training and crafting facilities, you have to set a high minimum Reputation to enter the settlement.

Looking at those two together you can't see what a major problem Evil settlements are going to have?

Lawful Evil Settlements don't want only Lawful Evils in their city, I'd imagine they want to cater to all evils to a degree. Otherwise they won't have very robust populations. As long as someone minds their P's an Q's in the city, Evil doesn't care what they do beyond their walls.

I plan on having an evil alt, but I am worried about there being overly burdensome limits on advancement.

Yes and those of us who plan to have an evil main are doubly worried.

Do our EE characters carry on into release or are they wiped? I thought they carry on.

Are Drow going to be a character choice some day? And maybe underground settlements to go with it.

I hope so. Honestly I hope we get more choices for the start of the game. Though my main will be human I was hoping for more of a choice for my Destiny's Twin. I am not so worried about the classes not being there since it's skill based and you can always train in something new but once you pick your Race it's done. Only having 3 choices in EE is really limiting. They should strive for more.

I have to ask, what are lochs? Google only gives me the Gaelic name for lakes.

Actually we are all spelling it wrong, good call. It's Lox. Lox is a fillet of brined, smoked, salmon.

My main, my DT and the chartered company myself and my friends will form will be LE. This seems as good a place as any to state that more and more I'm coming around to the view of Proxima Sin: If I choose a character and my core alignment is Chaotic Evil, why does the mechanical anvil fall on my head when I haven't done anything? I presume I would start with a 1000 reputation like anyone else-why is it assumed I will immediately start RPKing and following around people making real world insults? If I'm a CE Barbarian raider-a role which should be completely supported and would generate a lot of fun content-I don't expect to stroll into Fort Riverwatch and buy a Cinnabun but why would the training at my warcamp be any worse? I don't expect the barbarian horde to have a settlement with high DI structures-that makes sense-but I am saying that training for low rep evil characters shouldn't be less powerful or harder to get, it should be different. So, yes, it should be difficult or impossible for our CE raider to go get Fighter or Wizard training based on his low rep, but rage powers? Fiendish sorcerous bloodline powers? Negative energy channeling? Sneak attack training at Thornkeep? I gotta raise my reputation to get those? A CE player expects to travel to dangerous places to learn dark secrets, and understands he/she will never be welcome at Brighthaven. I realize a CE character will engage in unsanctioned pvp; probably hoping for some nice loot; and I understand that by their very nature griefers will probably end up CE with reputations of -5500 or worse, but that someone who roles a CE character is automatically a griefer who will commit actions that will cut them off from npc settlements at -2500, who made that rule? Heck, you could just worship Rovagug, declare a feud against a good chartered company and start the killin'. Completely under the rules.

Yes, and another example that came to my mind lately was Drow. A completely Chaotic Evil society but I doubt anyone would call them uncivilized with inferior training. The lack of training in Chaotic settlements does not make sense.

Being wrote:

Few if any of them would be the same in person over lochs and toasted onion bagels with a cup of rich coffee. Mmm and a glass of orange juice, please.

OMG, that is my favorite breakfast!!!

I also confess to a love of bagels with lochs and coffee for breakfast. :)

Most certainly.

Well lets hope we have decent guards because there's going to be a whole lot of slavery going on with a side of infernal deal-making.

It seems to me that the "Universal" truths should apply everywhere, despite the laws of man. Now that does not mean that "attacking" a heinous flagged person could not be illegal in a settlement if they so choose.

Well at least we hope the granularity of the settlement laws will allow you to set an override to the heinous flag and get the attacker flagged criminal. However since the Heinous flag is a universal flag that overrides any repercussions this makes me nervous. Those two rules are at odds with another and the Settlement rule will have to trump the Heinous flag, otherwise Heinous flagged people are not even safe in their own cities.

Pax Shane Gifford wrote:

Fiendish wrote:

Pax Shane Gifford wrote:

@Fiendish, you should read over the alignment section of the blog post Alignment and Reputation. Basically what I believe Ryan is saying is that crafters have no reason to be anything except LG; their actions will not drift them away from LG (maybe even drift toward LG, but that would be kinda weird IMO), and it gives the most benefits, so it's in the crafters' best interests to pick LG.

Then why does he use the word "drifting" to LG. That makes it sound as if their actions move them to LG rather than what they pick.

They would drift to LG if they set their core alignment as LG, as the blog post explains. And as I said before, it's in their best interests to be LG, so most of them will be.

There are your actions nudging you step by step in whatever direction you're acting and then there's the upper case Drifting back to the single coordinate of your Core Alignment. It can get confusing if someone says "drifting" to mean the former type of little nudges from actions.

@Fiendish The Core Alignment concept popped up after a scare that character actions would nudge a majority of them into LG, so passively Drifting back to your Core is supposed to counteract that or whatever other little hops you take in a direction away from your preferred Alignmet.

You seem like the kind of person that your next question is something like, "But isn't what you do supposed to be your alignment?" I know, right? As a priestess of Azmodeus you can die untraind in the fiery pits of CE hell but if a NG merchant doesn't wanna be LG then *pat pat* that gets artificially fixed right up.

Essentialy, yes.

I want meaningful choices in addition to combat that allow one to play as their chosen alignment no matter what it is. Like you said Proxima everything I'm hearing makes it sound as if evil and especially chaotic evil is going to be limited in that area, especially as compared to the good spectrum alignments. Fundamentally that strikes me as unfair.

I also don't like the answers that equate to "well don't choose that alignment because it's not mathematically advantageous for you to." That is not role-playing.

If there is a LG city big enough to survive two miles from that city I'm not sure I want to stand in the spots between them.

Do any cities in fiction or especially Golarion openly practice necromancy, orc underlings pawing the commoners, or have slaves officially owned by the city-state?

I've always come across that as the state allows those things and gets a cut of the material benefits but doesn't engage in them itself. That principle would simplify game mechanics to say only individuals use the slave mining kits it's not the state's business (but they get a cut of the profits when those mined goods are traded in town). The state itself doesn't do necromancy just those creepy guys that don't come outside very much but they get a cut of the before and after of that too.

In Golarion:

Cheliax openly uses slavery, it is thoroughly sanctioned by the state at all levels. Geb is a country entirely made of undead, it's ruler an immortal ghost. Gnolls are a major race of Katapesh, that can often be found in the cities there.

There are probably more, these are just a few examples. Golarion is big.

@Fiendish, you should read over the alignment section of the blog post Alignment and Reputation. Basically what I believe Ryan is saying is that crafters have no reason to be anything except LG; their actions will not drift them away from LG (maybe even drift toward LG, but that would be kinda weird IMO), and it gives the most benefits, so it's in the crafters' best interests to pick LG.

Then why does he use the word "drifting" to LG. That makes it sound as if their actions move them to LG rather than what they pick.

Fiendish wrote:

So Lawful Evil can only maintain being Lawful Evil by whacking Chaotic Evils?

Srsly?

Well at least half "Srsly". When you say...

The people who want to be crafters are going to end up drifting towards lawful good. The actions they take are going to mostly be lawful and mostly be good. They're going to avoid combat and they're not going to spend time & energy pursuing the kinds of Achievements that will unlock combat-focused character abilities.

To me that says unless you play a combatant who actively and regularly participates in player killing you are going to drift away from whatever your starting alignment is towards LG. I don't think that it is too big a leap to say based on everything you've stated here.

We clearly have examples of characters in fiction who are not combatants or who even kill people (at least directly) that are villains and evil.

Are there going to be opportunities for characters to role-play evil settlement managers, evil crafters, evil merchants, etc. without being direct combatants? From what you have posted tonight it does not sound like it. I hope I am wrong.

Bluddwolf wrote:

Ryan Dancey wrote:

I think the solution to CE militias will be LE mercenaries. I think that if there are a lot of CE militias, there will be an overwhelming number of LE mercenaries.

I'm curious why you feel Lawful Evil is the natural or most likely enemy of Chaotic Evil?

I think Lawful Evil will be the preferred alignment for large, cohesive, successful mercenary companies. I think that becoming a successful Lawful Evil mercenary will require a character to whack a lot of opponents. Whacking opponents while remaining relatively high in reputation and remaining Lawful will require a lot of dead CE bodies. By design, the LE mercenary companies will see CE characters as a harvestable resource for Achievements which will unlock character abilities to make them bad ass.

A CE character in accessible territory is going to be like blood in the water to LE mercenaries.

So Lawful Evil can only maintain being Lawful Evil by whacking Chaotic Evils? If that is the case they need to rethink the whole system as that is so frustratingly limiting, and nothing like Pathfinder p&p.

This tells me there are not going to be any evil schemers/manipulators in the game because since they are not actively killing people they drift towards good. Even though they may me causing all kinds of damage in other ways.

Does it not seem dumb that the current way is no one who doesn't participate in active killing can be evil?

Maybe they should not let you change your core alignment freely when you pick it (but maybe a cost of some sort will change it) , and instead of calling it "Active" alignment, call it "Perceived" alignment. As in that is how you seem to others though you may be rotten to the core and are a good actor? Classes with alignment restrictions like Paladins need to keep up appearances and keep their Perceived and Core alignment equal.

Hopefully there is more to than what Ryan just said because that seems a bit limited.

Ryan Dancey wrote:

I think the solution to CE militias will be LE mercenaries. I think that if there are a lot of CE militias, there will be an overwhelming number of LE mercenaries.

I'm curious why you feel Lawful Evil is the natural or most likely enemy of Chaotic Evil?

The way alignment is being presented in PFO, primarily by you, there is no game mechanics reasoning behind it, The alignment system in PFO barely has any connection to role playing, it being used primarily as a funnel / segregation tool.

I see it more likely that LE will use CE hoards as a tool rather than fighting to crush them, that would be more in line with what LE would do. That plan has even been expressed here on the forums several times and by multiple organizations.

I agree, As a LE I certainly wouldn't be against using some CE thugs to harass my enemy and all the while keep my hands clean.

I am so excited Fiendish, that you and your company will be taking up this endeavor.

Although I will occasional raid your slaver caravans to free your slaves, butcher your teamsters and loot whatever coin they have, it will be great fun having an evil adversary.

I agree! To the victor go the spoils!

I'm still trying to figure out why the use of slaves or undead saddle the player with the most severe PvP flag, for PvE content. This is especially true for Necromancers.

Yes,I have this feeling as well. It's why I think a separate flag for Heinous is a bit much.

As one who will be using slaves, one who will worship the God of Slavery, as one who will be allied with the Hellknights of Fort Indomitable, who are the Order of the Chain whose prime directive is the capture and return of escaped slaves. It makes me think I will be flagged Heinous a good deal of time.

Raiding POI for slaves, assuming that poi are run by npc's. i see slaves as one more resource to be harvested, sold/traded or sacrificed.

Would you raid a POI with slavers? we get the slaves and you get your loot.

I like the way you think. I was also thinking it would be great if we could set up a slave market in my city where raiders/slavers come to sell them!