Goblin Squad Member
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We asked the Pathfinder Online Community to submit some Video Frequently Asked Questions.
Here are the first answers!
You can submit your questions at: Video Q&A! Submit your questions!
Areks: Alignments have been a hot topic on the forums for a while now. So I just wanted to know how exactly are the alignments of characters, settlements, and kingdoms all going to factor into one another.
Stephen Cheney: Essentially, if you have a Lawful Good settlement, it can be part of a Neutral Good or a Lawful Neutral kingdom. And you could also be one of those alignments if you're in the settlement. So, your maximum reach for a settlement is going to be across the main axis. So, if you're Lawful Neutral, True Neutral, and then Chaotic Neutral, you could have a Lawful Neutral person, a True Neutral settlement, and a Chaotic Neutral kingdom, for example.
Illiyendier: My question is about alignment and Lawful Good settlements.
Stephen Cheney: So, your alignment - with the example of a Paladin being the exception - is usually going to be restricted to one axis. Barbarians have to be non-Lawful, and Druids have to have at least one of their axis poles Neutral so they can be Neutral Good or they can be Lawful Neutral. That means that a Neutral Good Barbarian could be part of your Lawful Good settlement, and a Lawful Neutral or a Neutral Good Druid could be part of your Lawful Good settlement. The issue is, they're going to have a pretty tough time maintaining that specific alignment to keep from going all the way to Lawful Good but keep from drifting too far away from the settlement. And also, your settlement might not be able to have training facilities that can teach
them the skills they need to know. For example, it might require a Chaotic town to teach Barbarian skills. So you'll want to ally with another kingdom that can possibly teach them that.
Mbando: I'm hoping you can shed some light on how we might interact with and incorporate planar forces into our game play.
Stephen Cheney: A lot of the buildings we're currently looking at designing for settlements have a high-end upgrade that gives you settlement guards that are high-end extra-planar beings. So temples would have angels, then devils and demons. And the Sorcerer training facilities would eventually have elemental bloodline things like elementals. And the Fey Embassy which lets you have First World creatures.
Right now, we're not sure of the balance concerns or the AI concerns for having them actually leave the city, but we're pretty sure they're going to be available at least as guards when you do that.
Off-screen: So, what about Lawful Good and I hang out with a Chaotic Evil character? How does that work?
Kaesh831: So, will alignment restrict my ability to play with other people in the world?
Stephen Cheney: So, Lawful Good and Chaotic Evil characters - there's nothing stopping you from being in the same party. You won't be able to join into the same official group because those are usually restricted to one alignment step. It's possible you could both be a member of a kingdom by a transitive property, but that'd be really hard to do, and I'm actually not sure how you'd do it. But you can be in the same party.
And, the important thing about that is that you would be really poorly off if you're the Lawful Good guy, because the Chaotic Evil guy has many less restrictions on his behavior than you, so he could embroil you in fights that cause you to lose alignment. Conversely, however, if you're running around and there are a bunch of Lawful Good knights running around that you've got your alliance rating with really high for them, the Chaotic Evil guy might get attacked by them and you wouldn't be. And vice versa for his factions that he's got on his Chaotic Evil character. So, that could wind up ruining the alliances you have, or you could just stand there and watch your buddy get beat up because you don't want to ruin your alliance.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Google Draw rough draft based on what I understand of the
PFO Kingdom, Settlement, Character alignment grid.
So oddly it seems like a Lawful Evil or Chaotic Good Kingdom can create party with both an LG and CE party members. Also comical is that a CE kingdom can generate a party with LE and CG, the Slaver and the Freedom Fighter in the same party working for a kingdom bent on general destruction. :P
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Better one will be coming, I was trying to wrap my head around how only '1 step' changes impacted who was and was not allowed at each level. I'll have to like update again when more get solidified regarding training facilities and what buildings can be built by which Kingdoms/Settlements. I'd assume only LG settlements can construct Angle guard summoning structures, while only CE Sets could get Demon guards. And IMO no one wants Dæmon guards. I think I'm actually more scared of hard core NE groups in Pathfinder then I am of CE. Although an LN Set with Inevitable guards would be funny... until you broke the rule about laughing in the Marlin Square on the Thursday after Middsummers at 1:35, and getting your head stomped in by an Outsider Construct.
I used to have to explain EVE Fleeting mechanics to people. It's amazing how fast a simple picture helped set them straight. If you've never seen EVEs fleeting system basically you can have a Fleet Commander giving a Fleet Bouns, up to 5 Wing Commanders under him, each with their own Wing Bonus, and each Wing can have up to 5 Squads with their own Squad Bonus.
The tricky part is that the Commanders at each level didn't actually have to the bonus giving skills, they could pick anyone as the bonus giver for their level. That's what the white pluses in the EVE picture denote, who's been picked at which fleet organizational level to be the bonus giver.
It got much worse when you had partly dysfunctional fleets where you had more people then commanders with skill support it.
I expect that I'll likely be explaining PFO army formations structure once that gets going (likely late Beta my guess)
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Goblin Squad Member
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It seems like there ought to be a built-in bias for Character Alignments to slip towards their Settlement and Nation.
While it's technically possible for a Lawful Good Character to be a member of a Lawful Neutral Settlement that's part of a Lawful Evil Nation, I would want that character to have to work much harder to remain Good than they would if they were in a Lawful Good Settlement in a Lawful Good Nation.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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The Bais will be inherent in company you keep and the things you do with them. Not auto/system but Player driven.
Again going to EVE, while it doesn't have alignments per say it does have Standing to one of 4 main nations (4 pirate groups), plus security rating. I tend to play balanced characters that trend as Netural Good as possible. However because my friends were mainly Minmatar based and ran excusively missions there my standing with the opposing Amar splipped almost to the point of being KOS to their NPCs and I ended having a major issue clawing my way back out of that standing hole.
Then there was you Concord Security rating (basically how much you instigated PvP and other naughty things). Mine was fairly high until I again started joining friends in pirate baiting in the Low-Sec spaces. because we were the aggressors most often my Security rating dropped.
Minmatar if put as kinda Chaos and Amar Law, so in effect I slipped from NG to virtually CN just by the company I was keeping and actions I was participating in. I didn't have any kind of slow trickle toward CN just for being a part of that group. All Player driven action. Expect PFO have similar Alignment impact mechanisms.
A LG character in a LN settlement is going to find mostly Netural activities awaiting them, with some evil, and the occasional good. When it comes to the Kingdom as a whole any large scale Kingdom action (inter settlement parties) is likely going trend way more Evil in what they're getting up to. That social bias will end up pushing an LG to LN or maybe even LE overtime if they don't do something about it outside the settlement/kingdom.
Let's take a far flung example, a LG crafter and merchant who spends 90% of his time in market centers and craft hubs on behalf of of the LN settlement buying/selling/making goods. He may not like that his settlement is bowing to an LE Kingdom (RPing) but is loyal to his settlement. Or he's just an outright dupe, there are Good people tricked into working for Evil all the time in fiction.
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Goblin Squad Member
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And, the important thing about that is that you would be really poorly off if you're the Lawful Good guy, because the Chaotic Evil guy has many less restrictions on his behavior than you, so he could embroil you in fights that cause you to lose alignment.
Does someone in your party fighting something automatically mean the whole party is fighting who/whatever that is, even if the rest of the party does nothing at all (or even helps the target)? That seems kind of ... odd.
The Bais will be inherent in company you keep and the things you do with them. Not auto/system but Player driven.
Again going to EVE, while it doesn't have alignments per say it does have Standing to one of 4 main nations (4 pirate groups), plus security rating. I tend to play balanced characters that trend as Netural Good as possible. However because my friends were mainly Minmatar based and ran excusively missions there my standing with the opposing Amar splipped almost to the point of being KOS to their NPCs and I ended having a major issue clawing my way back out of that standing hole..
Sounds like the EQ faction system.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Sounds like the EQ faction system.
More or less. Factions system are quite common these days.
Actually when you get down to it in meta Alignment is basically Factions. Only Lawful Neutral has backers in the Great Beyond just as Chaotic Neutral or CE or LG do.
Alignment impacts should be things you do not the time you spend around a particularly group. The eventual result will be that spending time with "the wrong crowd" will eventually put a character in situations where they're going to end up doing things that cause their alignment to move one way or another.
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Goblin Squad Member
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And this is a good thing!
One problem in EvE was that there were no factions, only "guilds". This ment that there was zero incentive to not kill someone on sight who didn't belong to your guild/alliance while inside your guilds territory.
The whole game was huge but the vast amount of these areas were no go for the majority of people.
With a faction system I can see that a LG kingdom will have no problems accepting LG, LN or NG strangers onto their land.
I like that very very much!