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I agree 100% with this thread
In our current group, we've had several people who started with an alignment of True Neutral, and told the GM -- "Hey, I'm just gonna do my thing. Let me know if that changes, and I'll mark it down on my sheet."
That's what I tell players who aren't sure what their alignment is to do. "Just start TN, I'll shift you as appropriate, if you disagree then we'll work it out".
@Lemmy: Never had a problem with any of those personally. Of course Good/Evil is going to have the best toys for taking out Evil/Good. Kind of irked that Order/Chaos didn't get the same benefits in some cases (smite for example). And any Rogue with something to hide should have UMD for scrolls of undetectable alignment. ;)
Alignment limitations to spells... never personally limited their casting actually. "Your NG priest wants to cast an [Evil] spell? Is it on your list? Okay, you can cast it. It's an evil act though, you get an alignment shift of X points south. Still wanna? Okay, roll your dice, what's your save DC?"
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When I can, I play personable and overall likeable evil characters.
Evil can be your best friend.
Actually, Evil by definition is not capable of being your best friend because it is more interested in itself than you. In order to love someone or truely be someone's friend you need to value that person more than yourself.
That is something Evil can never do. Evil can only seem like your best friend until the moment it chooses itself over you.
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Clearly the neutral alignment should be NERFED.
After all, nobody likes a fence sitter.
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I actually like the "Everyone's counted as neutral, unless you have an alignment type or an aura" idea you mentioned above.
Yeah, it's a real good idea :D
I think the 'treat as alignment X' is a handy spell idea. It could even be a side effect of protection spells.
I actually like the "Everyone's counted as neutral, unless you have an alignment type or an aura" idea you mentioned above.Yeah, it's a real good idea :D
I think the 'treat as alignment X' is a handy spell idea. It could even be a side effect of protection spells.
I really like this. Sure, you're shielded by this bit of a deity/cleric's power, but it also gives you a shade of their metaphysical/philosophical nature that a canny opponent can take advantage of. Some benefit, some drawback, makes one question the use of the spell - do the pros outweigh the cons?
I may steal this.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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I actually like the "Everyone's counted as neutral, unless you have an alignment type or an aura" idea you mentioned above.Yeah, it's a real good idea :D
I think the 'treat as alignment X' is a handy spell idea. It could even be a side effect of protection spells.
I really like this. Sure, you're shielded by this bit of a deity/cleric's power, but it also gives you a shade of their metaphysical/philosophical nature that a canny opponent can take advantage of. Some benefit, some drawback, makes one question the use of the spell - do the pros outweigh the cons?
I may steal this.
Hmm, let me try this.
Imbue With Alignment
School conjuration; Level anti-paladin 1, cleric 1, inquisitor 1, paladin 1
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V,S,DF
Range Touch
Duration 10 min/level
Saving Throw Will negates (harmless); Spell Resistance no
You channel part of your own aura through your willing follower. For the duration of the spell the target is treated as having an aura of one component of the spell (good, evil, law or chaos) for the purposes of spells and abilities that are alignment dependent.
The spell gains the alignment subtype of the alignment imbued.
Imbue with Alignment, Mass
School conjuration; Level anti-paladin 3, cleric 4, inquisitor 3, paladin 3
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V,S,DF
Range cone, 60' length
Duration 1 hour/level
Saving Throw Will negates (harmless); Spell Resistance no
As Imbue with Alignment except where noted.
I figure the cone makes sense, picturing a priest rasing his arms in suplication, blessing the congregation.
I'd remove the "harmless" from the saving throw and "willing" from the description. I agree that it works for the priest blessing the congregation, but I could just as easily see it used in a hostile manner to make opponents vulnerable to your spells, and "willing" negates that ability.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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I'd remove the "harmless" from the saving throw and "willing" from the description. I agree that it works for the priest blessing the congregation, but I could just as easily see it used in a hostile manner to make opponents vulnerable to your spells, and "willing" negates that ability.
Not sure how. My intent is so the priest of a LE god can imbue the target with Law or Evil. So he can then drop dictum or unholy word without frying his flunkies. The same priest can't imbue the heroes with Good or Chaos as they're not alignment types his aura possesses.
Point. As I said in my post above, not something I usually take into account.
I'd probably just house-rule it myself then.
That WOULD work actually.
In our current group, we've had several people who started with an alignment of True Neutral, and told the GM -- "Hey, I'm just gonna do my thing. Let me know if that changes, and I'll mark it down on my sheet."That's what I tell players who aren't sure what their alignment is to do. "Just start TN, I'll shift you as appropriate, if you disagree then we'll work it out".
This is the best way to deal with it.
I feel like Lawful Neutral is the most pliable alignment for people willing to come up with a good reason for stuff.
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Neutral can be interesting if you are min/maxing stats and looking at advantages. But when it comes to roleplaying, you have to really think your way into a neutral state of mind. For me it comes of thinking of old fashioned druids, reading too much Elric and watching too many students at the local university where I work.
If you don't own the True Neutral, you will hash it up pretty quick and your GM should bust you on it! Quickly, harshly and un-personally - just like the player you said you were would have done it. Rules are easy to go Neutral with. Keeping the balance in your conversation with your companions though, that takes some skill. Whether you just don't care what happens to everyone else, are bi-polar in your portrayal or have some higher motive that is calling you to something more lasting (druids again, I know... though the black sword has it's place here too). It can be fun to side with the law abiding paladin against the barbarian breaking the rules just as you follow the evil sorcerer into a dungeon to gain more power to help you fight more viciously against the evil green skinned menace and their lust of axecraft! But you have to be mentally quick on your feet or extremely dedicated of purpose to achieve your dream of neutrality.
Basically, I consider the bastion of Neutrality to be the realm of the witily gifted. As such, I judge harshly those that attempt to scale the towers without reserves of deep thought, mental agility and savage cunning. Of course there is the long view but you had better convince me in your short term discourse that there is a long view, or you are getting booted to the faster spinning part of the carousel!
Silverwulfe,
Most people are neutral, but not philosophically so. They aren't good enough to be called 'good', or wicked enough to be called 'evil'.
Walk outside your door. Most of the people you meet would be called neutral, although they usually make the pretense that they are 'good'.
Or if they have evil inclinations, they use the term 'smart'.
But yes, this.
Neutral is the alignment of the apathetic and imbecilic. For instance the Tarrasque, in spite of being the spawn of Rovagug and a horrific engine of destruction, is True Neutral because it's puny 3 int is insufficient to really be anything else. More than 4 out of 1000 non-elven adventurers with rolled in order ability scores have 3 int and as such it cannot represent more than moderate mental retardation.
Any implication that neutral is hard is laughable. True Neutral is typified by selfish people with occasional noble impulses.
Just tossing this out there, but the 3E system assumes that 3+ Int is a sentient creature capable of rational thought and understanding the difference between right and wrong. If you have Int 3+, you are capable of functioning in society, speaking 1-2 languages, make more money than your friends, and tell the difference between right and wrong.
D&D does not do "mental retardation". It does not do mental illness very well either. The moment you hop the fence from 2 to 3, it's a whole new ballgame. In fact, it's such a whole new ballgame, that creatures that have a greater than 3 Int cannot drop below 3 Int due to racial adjustments in 3E and its derivatives.
Pathfinder doesn't specifically include such information, but then it doesn't include a lot of stuff. Last I checked it doesn't actually explain things like ability score increases, have the rules to prevent "useless" characters via rolling options and the like.
I'm not sure if you're trolling or joking. I'd like to assume the latter.
And yet whatever the exact level of intelligence 3 represents, it is low enough that the spawn of Rovagug, at that intelligence, is sufficiently philosophically undeveloped that it cannot be held responsible for its actions. Its objectively very evil actions of killing large numbers of sapients without cause. By making the Tarrasque not ping the evildar for all its mass murder Paizo implies that int 3 is not capable of understanding good and evil well enough to have an alignment.
And ogres aren't proficient with their own weapons. I'm not saying the game is perfect, and I agree that the Tarrasque should be an evil alignment, given that it's perfectly capable of choosing to NOT kill everything in its path. However, that goes back to my commentary on alignments being utter b*~$%@*@. Nobody can agree on them. Even in 3E where it was specifically noted that 3+ Int means "sentient, reasoning, morally responsible" the Tarrasque has 3 Int. Why they did this I do not know, unless it was just to prevent people from training it with Handle Animal.
By all accounts the Tarrasque should be pretty darn evil. It's definitely not "retarded". It's got Wisdom and Charisma scores in excess of 14 each. It most assuredly can perceive that the things it is killing and devouring are sentient, and it apparently just doesn't care. Unless the idea is that it's Neutral because it has to eat all that stuff or die (last I checked the Tarrasque is not immune to death by starvation); which means it might literally be killing everything solely for its own survival (which might make it justifiable as Neutral?).
However, it's clear that Int 3 characters can have alignments. It's entirely possible to roll up a character with a 3 as easily as an 18, and dumping in Int still means you pick an alignment. It's entirely possible to have a 20 Int and be Neutral, or have a 3 Int and be Chaotic Good.
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Tarrasque doesn't do what it does for good, or evil reasons. It does what it does because it is all it knows. It is a spawn of Rovagug, it is within it's very being to destroy. It is the Hulk, with no Bruce Banner within. It simply is overwhelmed by instinct. Whether it knows right from wrong is irrelevant, as any thought on such a thing is consumed by need to destroy, everything, even it's own memories.
Neutral may be dumb, almost animal like in intelligence, neutral may be the common man's alignment one who doesn't think of philosophies but was raised in some sort of belief system which is vaguely followed, a typical person who tries to get by and do what is asked of them (if there is enough incentive). Or, the venerable wise sage could also be neutral.
Mercs can be neutral, merchants can be neutral, scholars or sages can be neutral. There is a lot in it, especially eastern such ideas that good and evil, death and life are not truly separable or independent.
Ashiel or anyone else :
IF you want to even things out enough so that neutral is not the alignment choice by default, what do you think would be good houserules to implement considering the points you brought up ?
It depends on how far you want to go with it. One method would be to remove the alignment system from the mechanics and return it to being primarily a roleplaying aid. However, that might include throwing the baby out with the bathwater, so we don't want to be hasty. There is merit in the idea of holy swords and such.
One method I had a lot of success with was used in an online campaign. I had to deal with a lot of players (it was a persistent world campaign, so there were many players and many more characters) and noticed that some of the people were metagaming alignment. Not like this, and perhaps not intentionally. Some of them were admittedly new to RPGs, and the ability to read alignments often made them act in bizarre ways; and one player was always trying to guess alignments or tell others what their alignment really was. Eventually, I nearly removed alignment from the equation using the following methods:
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- All characters (that includes PCs/NPCs/Monsters) are treated as Neutral alignment mechanically unless they have an alignment subtype (such as Law and Good). In essence, it was assumed that no matter your personality, if you didn't have a connection to those raw powers, you were assumed to have an equal share of all inside you -- even if you don't display those shares equally.
- Neutral characters are half-vulnerable to everything alignment based. So an unholy sword deals +1d6 damage vs neutral and +2d6 damage vs good. This meant that while there were admittedly far less true good or true evil creatures in the world, alignment based abilities (such as smite evil, holy weapons, or protection from evil) were less powerful but easier to use (protection from evil would provide small benefits vs virtually all enemies, and Paladins could
You know, I had the same ideas on handling alignment as what you did for your game. Came up with them while pondering the question (on of many, not all related to PF) during an intense session of boredom earlier this month from my lack of internet. I was having some issue figuring out how to balance the whole thing, since I haven't played in ages. Seriously, thanks for effectively clarifying the issue I was having xD.
Now, to try and finish reading the topic xD.
Though, I must say I tend to believe that making the alignment system part of game mechanics was a pretty horrible mistake, as people have commented before. I noticed most of the players in my old group tended to both metagame and powergame the alignment system, vast majority were neutral in name but chaotic or evil in nature. Sadly, I wasn't the GM, and he let them run rampant in the name of neutrality, which progressively wrecked my verisimilitude each week... Not that I had much anyways, given how they would reference game mechanics IN character.
I'm actually fiddling around with an alignment-optional system that gives characters the option of playing no alignment (thus unaffected by certain things, and at the same time unable to take advantage of certain things), or playing in the alignment system (with some slight tweaks, similar to your quick patch, and they tend to automatically effect DR/Alignments without needing magic). Of course, alignment required classes MUST play in the alignment system, but meh. I want it to go for a more pseudo cinematic/story feel, where the alignment system totally falls flat on it's face. At the very least it should prevent too much power gaming on the alignment system X_X.
In the mean time... Who wants to be part of the new Thousand Year Neutral Empire?! No no, don't throw your hands up, no shouting. We're neutral, a simple alignment friendly thumbs up will do.
The overall effects were entirely positive. Players began thinking less about their characters' alignment and far more about their character.
I have found as a player that unless I am playing a paladin or other aligned class it is really best to simply let the DM worry about my alignment. He can change it if he wants to, and whether he does or not is unlikely to affect how I play the character.
It's not necessary to alter alignment to play like this, of course; but perhaps it helps.
it seems like a sacred cow that really needs to become a sacred cheeseburger.
Heh. Heh heh. Hehehe.