Allegiance and Alignment


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion


I think in the next game I run, I will have alignments being personalities and allegiances being what pings on spells and items. So a human duellist might have a LE personality but only have allegiance of law because he serves the states and doesn't care about ethical debate.

Adventurers would typically be of good allegiance, divine spell-casters would have their god's alignment/goals as a suitable allegiance, outsiders would have an automatic allegiance to their origin (thus even a good-personality & good allegiance tiefling would also have evil allegiance) etc.

All this would mean detect evil would detect allegiance rather than personality, smite evil would not affect the selfish merchant (unless he was also a cultist of the Elder Evil) and paladins (with their automatic law & good allegiances) would not be forced to spurn that LE duellist who works for the paladin's government, though he may have problems with that honest & law-abiding tiefling.

The True Neutral/Unaligned allegiance may prove some difficulties in the end, but do people think that this system is playable in standard fantasy d20?


Arakhor wrote:
I think in the next game I run, I will have alignments being personalities and allegiances being what pings on spells and items. So a human duellist might have a LE personality but only have allegiance of law because he serves the states and doesn't care about ethical debate.

You have an interesting proposal. I have a question:

1. Why are you suggesting an allegiance mechanic? (What goal does an allegience mechanic serve in your game that the alignment mechanics do not?)

If I know what you want to use it for, I can offer my humble opinion on how serviceable it might be in play.


Arakhor wrote:


The True Neutral/Unaligned allegiance may prove some difficulties in the end, but do people think that this system is playable in standard fantasy d20?

Yes, but it seems unneeded, to me. Interpretations vary, but alignment and allegiances can be explained through the actions and reasoning of the characters, for the most part. The GM can note deviations from what s/he expects, and penalize PCs appropriately.

Nothing like not getting his spells renewed to tell the cleric he's messed up.


Well, what mainly brought it on were the problems that our resident party paladin seems to have with anyone of evil alignment. He would rather butcher a group of evil merchants & slave-traders (the only merchants for hundreds of miles around) than buy and sell equipment from them, even when they mean him and his party no harm and are grateful for the trade.

It is more than possible to be a complete arse and still work for a good cause - Mass Effect is the perfect example of this. Renegade Shephard may well have a thoroughly evil alignment but most certainly does not have an evil allegiance. Said LE duellist who is also a government agent would fall into the same category.


This sounds like another example of a paladin who thinks he is lawful good but is really just lawful stupid. And I'm not so sure about the lawful part, either.

Most laws require a crime before punishment can be enacted.

Did those evil merchants try to enslave the paladin? Did he witness them commit a crime? Or did he merely detect their evil alignment.

Now, if he did witness a crime, what was it? Slavery?

Is slavery legal in the land where these evil merchants are practicing their trade? If so, then punishing them for conducting legal business is a very touchy area for a lawful paladin.

Further, most laws, and most "good" people, feel that punishment should fit the crime. Sure, slavery is a terrible thing, but "butchering" them for it is not an appropriate level of punishment. If the punishment should fit the crime, then incarceration and/or indentured servitude is far more suitable to a "good" mentality that open butchery. And even that would requie the paladin to have conclusive proof that they had commited a crime.

Ideally, there probably needs to be some due process (a trial, for example). Very few laws empower their officers with the right to act as judge, jury, and executioner without any further due process.

If that paladin were playing in my game, I would have a long talk with the player about his understanding of the terms "lawful" and "good". If he continued to act lawful stupid, or just stupid, his alignment would slip. Just planning to butcher these merchants (the thought isn't necessarily wrong, as long as he recognizes the wrongness of it, but the planning is wrong) would be cause to lose at least his good alignment (good paladins don't butcher civilians, even if they are criminals, unless it is in self-defense or the last resort to save lives) and he would probably lose the lawful part of his alignment (even witnessing them in the act of enslaving innocents means he should bring them to justice, not butcher them).

I say all this to point out that it's not necessary to change the entire alignment mechanic of a well-established game system because you have one player who doesn't grasp the subtleties of the mechanic.

Instead, you can use the alignment system, and the paladin's alignment restrictions and code of conduct, as a figurative yardstick to smack him on the knuckles when he fails to play his alignment in accordance with what would commonly be recognizable as "lawful" and/or "good" behavior.

But, if his DM allows him to butcher civilians (merchants or otherwise) on nothing more than a detect alignment spell, or even to do so with evidence of a crime but without due process or any effort to enact fair punishment that could serve as a chance to correct their behavior and redeem them as human beings, then the DM is as much at fault as the player.

The DM should make those alignment restrictions of the paladin character class actually restrict the paladin, actually limit his choices, or else they mean nothing. The restrictions are there for a reason: without them, the paladin is a very powerful class who, for all intents and purposes, is a god-empowered bully who runs around butchering the weak and ethically challenged.

As you have seen.


DM_Blake wrote:
This sounds like another example of a paladin who thinks he is lawful good but is really just lawful stupid. And I'm not so sure about the lawful part, either.

+1. Classic lawful stupid.


Incidentally, lawful doesn't necessarily have anything to do with whether a person respects the laws of a given land. It also has much to do with self discipline. On the other hand, I agree with the above: if your paladin simply slaughters a collection of civilians, he's most definitely breaking the code of conduct and becomes nothing more than a regular fighter with fewer feats.


Well, this specific occasion was in Khyber (Eberron's underdark), where the only law is imposed by might and almost everyone is evil, if not directly hostile. Said group of evil merchants were trading in a settlement run by an ogre mage, who possessed something we needed. Instead of negotiating with the ogre mage (and doing business with the merchants), the paladin wanted to kill the ogre mage and end the alleged terror of the slave-dealers.

Going back to allegiance though, why should smite evil work on a selfish merchant who is evil by thought and deed, but whom most certainly does not serve the forces of cosmic or global evil?


If a paladin in my game were to use smite evil against him for no more reason than detect evil pinged him, I'd rule that he just broke the code of conduct and it doesn't work until he atones. Just because someone is evil, doesn't mean they deserve to be killed, and killing someone who doesn't deserve it, unless in the last extreme of self defence, is most definitely an evil act.

Contributor

Arakhor wrote:

Well, this specific occasion was in Khyber (Eberron's underdark), where the only law is imposed by might and almost everyone is evil, if not directly hostile. Said group of evil merchants were trading in a settlement run by an ogre mage, who possessed something we needed. Instead of negotiating with the ogre mage (and doing business with the merchants), the paladin wanted to kill the ogre mage and end the alleged terror of the slave-dealers.

Going back to allegiance though, why should smite evil work on a selfish merchant who is evil by thought and deed, but whom most certainly does not serve the forces of cosmic or global evil?

Because the system doesn't really differentiate cosmic evil from garden variety wickedness and that's part of the problem.

I have, in games past, told paladin players that their powers specifically detect the power of hell, so the chambermaid who make a pact with an imp out of desperation will show up but the evil wazir, who simply plots, schemes, and puts people to death the old fashioned way with executioners and assassins, will not show up at all. It's a question of cosmology.

In other games, where I've gone with the RAW, I've let paladin players know that they really can't find a successful merchant or moneychanger who isn't evil, but just because someone's a successful moneychanger, it doesn't mean they're sacrificing virgins to Baal. They're too busy foreclosing on mortgages and turning widows and orphans out onto the street. Think Mr. Potter from It's a Wonderful Life and Barnaby from Babes in Toyland.


Chris Parker wrote:
If a paladin in my game were to use smite evil against him for no more reason than detect evil pinged him, I'd rule that he just broke the code of conduct and it doesn't work until he atones. Just because someone is evil, doesn't mean they deserve to be killed, and killing someone who doesn't deserve it, unless in the last extreme of self defence, is most definitely an evil act.

I rule slightly different in my games: if someone registers as evil with a detect evil spell they are free game for smiting. This stems from the deity which empowers Paladins, who is very stern and unsympathetic towards those whose deeds land them with an evil alignment. Good and evil are not ambiguous concepts open to interpretation in my worlds but very real forces at work in the world. Note that this approach may not jive well with all groups and there ARE balancing factors for a smite-happy paladin, notably representatives of OTHER faiths or legal systems who may not take kindly to the paladin's activities. Put simply, the god charges the paladin with combating evil wherever it is found and will not punish his faithful for executing his mandate.

As I said before, this approach may not be to everyone’s liking. Thus the differentiation between alignment and allegiance is an elegant solution for your games. Where I to run a world more based in shades of gray on the metaphysical level I certainly would utilize it.

Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / General Discussion / Allegiance and Alignment All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.
Recent threads in General Discussion