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Lolwut ?
I would never enforce an alignment change in such stiuation. Your PC removed the threat and sent him to a place where there are high chances of somebody kicking his head right away. Sure, it wasn't the best option but there are more intelligent ways of showing a player the consequences of his actions instead of hitting him with alignment change.
Perhaps, maybe, down the line I would set up your PC to meet some angry celestial who had to deal with the demon. Or maybe a planar ally or gate would result in an angel reluctant to cooperate with you. Interesting RP opportunities, in my opinion.
But I'm curious if you had a forked rod attuned to Celestia, which is required to Plane Shift somebody there.
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Sending it to Celestia: That may be a chaotic action, but not an evil one.
Offering to send it to the Abyss : By fighting to the death to destroy this 1 evil, how many more people could die in the future because you were not there to protect them? See, it works both ways. I'd say that it was an acceptable way to end the threat, now.
I've done something similar in the past. I've also had an angry angel turn up and berate the party for "Dumping their trash in her yard." :)
Also, I'm not sure that it works this way in Pathfinder, but usually, killing a demon just means that it reforms back on the Abyss and can't travel to the Prime for a length of time.
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Awesome.
I'm a big Alignment guy and love situations like this. My favorite part of D&D.
I, like Gorbacz, would never change an alignment like this. In fact, if I'm the Player I'd kindly tell the DM that he can say whatever the F* he wants, the PC's Alignment is whatever the F* the Player says it is. Kindly tell.
Sending the Glabrezu to a Plane other than the Abyss is great.
It probably is Chaotic good rather than Lawful. No biggie.
Sending it to the 9 Hells would've been spectacular.
But the questions are,
1) Could it be considered an Evil act (shifting you to Neutral)?
2) Will the Angels of Celestia really be pissed and call you on it?
3) Could you and the DM retroactively say, We'll, a Type 3 Demon would be smart enough to negotiate intelligently and make you say what Plane, making the decision to negotiate difficult?
4) Should the PC get extra XP for coming up with a clever solution, F*#ing the Demon.
My take,
1) Yes. The PC did lie in spirit if not in actuality -- something a Devil (or other evil) would accept but not those in Celestia. (keeping in mind everyone has the prerogotive to look at it differently, thus a DM can't change a PC's alignment).
2) It depends on if the DM wants this to be a continued part of the adventure -- the Angels can give you a task; the Glabrezu could be banished from Celestia to the Abyss and haunt you, the PC, later in the Campaign. If the DM wants.
3) If there's precedent in the group for doing some things retroactively.
4) Yes. Absolutely.
My DM decided to move my alignment to Neutral. She argued that I lied to the demon and that I endangered Celestia and its inhabitants. I argued that I never said I would send him back to the Abyss (but I guess that's probably what it understood) and that it would have been evil to send him back where there would be no one to stop the trouble he could cause.
..were you under the impression that was the only demon in the Abyss?
Wow... uh...
Lying, yes it's an evil act, but it's a minor one. But dropping you to neutral is very harsh unless you have done other violations. If you were a paladin I'd make you get an atonement (I'd even waive the GP cost if it was my campaign), but you're not a paladin. What you did was chaotic, and it could theoretically be evil if you thought a demon rampaging on the outer plane might do some actual damage. Still, unless you did that consistently, one action that's just a little gray shouldn't change your alignment.
If I was in your situation, I'd get an atonement spell cast. It's possible you annoyed some angels, but again, being good creatures, if you only did it once, and were an otherwise good person, they'd forgive.
The demon was too easily duped, even if his sense motive didn't beat yours, and even if he just missed that you didn't specify a plane (it happens), he would get a spellcraft roll when you cast plane shift, and might have noticed that you pulled out the wrong tuning fork. That would have given him spell resistance and a save at minimum.
Regardless, it was a really inventive way to deal with him.
As a side note, I thought demons (eventually) reformed on their home planes when they die and had to be killed on their home planes to be permanently destroyed. I guess that changed or was an optional rule from an earlier edition.
To those who are asking if lying is evil, and those who are outright saying that lying is evil, the Core rulebook has this to say about Law vs. Chaos:
Someone who is neutral with respect to law and chaos has some respect for authority and feels neither a compulsion to obey nor a compulsion to rebel. She is generally honest, but can be tempted into lying or deceiving others.
This describes your NG character - you are neutral with respect to law and chaos. Which means you can be tempted into lying or deceiving others, particularly considering this:
A neutral good character does the best that a good person can do. ... Neutral good means doing what is good and right without bias for or against order.
Your character faced a serious danger. You and your friends could have died if you fought the demon. If that happened, not only are you dead, but the demon is freed of its master and the only adventurers who may have stopped it, so it could go on a murderous rampage throughout Golarion - who knows how many innocents could die.
So you found a solution. You lied to it, but with good intent. You did what you thought was the right thing to do to save lives, doing the best that a good person can do, without bias for or against order (honesty).
As far as I can tell, your actions were abosolutely within the CORE definitions of a NG alignment, and there was no reason to shift your alignment.
I would suggest that your DM revisit the chapter on alignments and observe the difference between Law/Chaos and Good/Evil. I suggest this because good characters are NOT restricted from lying, while lawful characters are. In other words, lying is pretty much always a chaotic thing to do, but it is not necessarily an evil thing to do.
Had your character been LN, then it might have been justifiable to shift your alignment, or at least threaten/warn you that your alignment is wavering, because your chaotic lie goes against your supposedly lawful nature.
But you were not LN.
And there was no justification in the CORE rules to shift you away from a good alignment for telling a lie that very likely saved lives, maybe even hundreds of lives.
(side note: it might be considered an evil act to drop a demon on some poor unsuspecting celestial schmucks, just sitting there, playing their harps, shining their halos, when along comes the big bad demon and eats them on their home plane - which by the way, is a permanent death for them).
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I might actually benefit from the change (to neutral) if we start meeting with demons, since some have access to (spells) targeting good characters :-)
Icky-yuk.
This is where Metagame thinking soils otherwise great Players.
. . . .
Glad to hear this isn't actually affecting the enjoyment of the game: glad to hear the DM liked the idea; glad to hear the OP isn't upset.
.... Even though RAW has a definition specifically for this kind of Alignment situation, as DM_Blake quoted, the Alignments are SO BADLY written out, filled with soooo many gross, subjective generalizations that end up meaning nothing, each group (that wants to have Alignment a large part of their game) has to come up with its own ruling on this.
My DM decided to move my alignment to Neutral. She argued that I lied to the demon and that I endangered Celestia and its inhabitants.
She? See, that's why Erastil's sexist. Women have no idea (j/k ;-))
Lying is a chaotic act. If your character's lawful, I'd give him "one strike" (it's like that baseball game you Americans like for some reason: Three strikes and you're out. In other words. If you collect three strikes, your alignment will be forcefully shifted by me, the GM). A paladin would lose some of his powers (maybe even all) and would have to atone for his deed. If not, I'd tell you that you did something that doesn't really fit a lawful character.
I might ask you whether you really consider your character to be lawful, or whether you think that neutral would make more sense. Since more or less all alignments are fair game in my games (it's your overall behaviour and how you interact with the party and story that has to fit, not whether you nurse baby kittens back to health or eat them), that would have no other consequences for you or your character other than a slightly more used up eraser.
In cases where a character has some alignment restriction (Paladins are the prime example, of course), it would be a sterner warning, since you decided that you wanted to play that very alignment. As I said above, you might have to atone for your "sins". But still, unless you'd do a really, really extreme act, I wouldn't change your alignment on the spot.
If the character already was neutral, nothing would have happened. Sure, it was a chaotic act, but not that far out, definitely not enough to make you more chaotic.
As for turning that character neutral (i.e. no longer good). for that: Whiskey Tango Foxtrott?
If you hadn't done that, what would have happened? You'd have gotten that thing killed, but in a more direct manner (well, or he you, but let's assume you'd have done him in). Would you have become neutral for that? You chose a plane full of angels ass your weapon of choice. Nicely done. You lied so a bit less order for you, but no longer good? Get outta here!
Mind you, I would have given the demon a spellcraft check to recognise the focus you use for the spell (as each plane has their own focus, something that fits the theme - no fluffy bunnies for pharasma's Boneyard!)
- What would you have done if I had sent him back to the Abyss?
Nothing too much, to be honest. I still use the old ruling where you have to kill an outsider on his home plane to really off him - otherwise he's just banned for a hundred and one years.
Then, given you were down on your resources, I might have let it slide that you allowed that fiend to come back a bit earlier so you won't run the risk of dying (which is worse for the world in the long run - there's countless demons, but only a few heroes in the position to stop that villain).
I might have gone as far as give you one strike towards neutrality (though I usually give more or less subtle warnings before I do that sort of thing), but an immediate change is out of the question.
If anything, I might have awarded you a little something extra in XP for playing it smart.
I also realize now that the smartest thing would have been to send him to Hell, where he could have been taken care of too, but any casualty would have been in the ranks of Devils rather than Angels. Unfortunately, when playing last night, I did not think of that.
Yeah, that would have been even better. On the other hand, those angels and other celestials are always happy to kill fiends, so you have done them a favour rally.
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Evil? No.
Funny? Hell yes!
Frankly, that sounds more like the GM was a bit annoyed that you tricked her, hence the allignment change because you made her Glabrezu (and by extension her) look stupid.
That wasn't evil, it was inspired. I can just see the look on the Glabrezu's face as it realises where it has been sent and turns around to come face to face with a legion of Hound Archons and a very annoyed looking Solar...
Brilliant. Honestly I am still laughing as I write this.
+loads for making my day!
Run with it. Your PC has gotten a taste of evil and liked it. Work your way to evil this will put a stop to align changes by the DM because one evil PC in a group of Good pcs can be difficult.
I think sending the demon to hell would have been a better choice, but if I were the DM I might have shifted you toward CG not N.
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To be fair, alignments are a metagaming concept.
I conceed the point; that's certainly true from a certain point of view.
(For the record, lots of old Planescape veterans, myself included, have made Alignment considerably not metagaming -- but, of course, not everyone uses Alignment the same way.)
Nonetheless, your statement was metagaming. It's no biggie; we all do it from time to time.
Don't even get me started on Feat selection.
What if you had resolved the situation/combat by casting dismissal? I would find it very strange if someone classified that as an evil act.
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8
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You're right, I was under the misconception that only good characters could be protected by the spell. Only a good cleric can cast it since it has the good descriptor, but anyone can be protected by it (and as I'm a wizard, there's no limitation limiting me from casting it).
I think you're also misunderstanding the cleric limitations.
Chaotic, Evil, Good, and Lawful Spells: A cleric can't cast spells of an alignment opposed to her own or her deity's (if she has one). Spells associated with particular alignments are indicated by the chaotic, evil, good, and lawful descriptors in their spell descriptions.
Note the italicized portion. Good and Neutral are not opposed to each other, so a Neutral cleric of a Neutral god can still cast [Good] spells (as well as Lawful, Chaotic, and Evil spells). It's when you become Evil that you lose access to [Good] and vice versa.
I dont think the angels would be mad. If you dropped my enemy in a spot where I had all my friends with me to deal with him I would consider it a favor.
Don't be too precious with the Celestials. They're not all doing philly commercials and sipping mint tea - they're in a constant prep for their war(s).
A wounded demon dropped into Celestia would be a warm up - a chance to advance their cause without even leaving home. Its like they ordered out.
Besides the Demon was probably such a surprised and extreme visitor he must have set off alarms and wards and all manner of defenses.
You'd have discovered the answer to an age old question:
How many angels can dance on the head of a pin head?
Sigurd
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Don't be too precious with the Celestials. They're not all doing philly commercials and sipping mint tea - they're in a constant prep for their war(s).
A wounded demon dropped into Celestia would be a warm up - a chance to advance their cause without even leaving home. Its like they ordered out.
Besides the Demon was probably such a surprised and extreme visitor he must have set off alarms and wards and all manner of defenses.
You'd have discovered the answer to an age old question:
How many angels can dance on the head of a pin head?
Sigurd
+1 to this.
One glabrezu is not going to do much damage. I doubt he will even get a chance to move before he gets splatted by a bunch of planetars and the odd Solar.
It is a chaotic act though. You have made an agreement and blatently broken that promise. Having said that, I would not have thought it was an allignemnt changing issue, a quick word from the GM would have sufficed.
A wounded demon dropped into Celestia would be a warm up - a chance to advance their cause without even leaving home. Its like they ordered out.
It's also an epic dick move. Here all the angels are hanging out in their happy angel place and some one drops a Glabrezu in the middle of it? Wtf, man? Sending it to the hells would have been more entertaining