Nope. You're not being watched by the alignment system, you are the alignment system. YOU know. It's kind of a quantum thing- You are included as an observer. If you don't know you did something, and nobody knows you did something, then you effectively did nothing. Keep in mind, in pathfinder, there are souls. So even if you kill someone instantly without them knowing at the time, their soul can still be like "Hey, that happened."
Plus, truenames. The multiverse itself is aware of your actions, detectable to gods or mortals or not. To become undetectable to the multiverse would be to cease to exist.
Point being, the alignment system isn't based on something knowing you did something, it's based on what you are after you have done something, internally.
You can't really fool the alignment system, but you do have the ability to fool those that can detect alignment. The two examples that I can think of are Angelskin and/or a two level dip into Master Spy
Edit: However, if someone wanted to do a complete change from an evil alignment, as opposed to hiding from those who would have reason to come after you, you would simply need a cleric/druid of 9th level or higher to cast Atonement on you.
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No, because the instant you murder someone in cold blood your soul is affected by the act - you can then erase your memory of the specific act, but the general taint of evil on your soul remains. Your sense of empathy and respect for life has been subtly eroded, and whether or not you remember having murdered anyone you have become the sort of person who would commit murder.
Do a bit of research into amnesia, it's quite fascinating. Implicit memory, your ability to perform learned tasks, is unaffected by your ability to consciously remember having previously practiced the task. Emotional states like happiness or sadness can also persist even if one cannot remember the event that caused that emotion.
These real-life examples support the idea that our core identity, what in PF constitutes the soul, remains intact even when conscious memory is altered. The only way I can see what you have suggested working is if the character actually had a split soul, which would manifest as an extreme form of Dissociative Personality Disorder brought on by the abuse of memory-altering spells. In this case the assassin persona at least would suffer for its crimes in the afterlife, and the civilian persona might also be held accountable depending on its level of awareness of the existence of the assassin.
The infiltrator inquisitor also gets an ability to disguise their alignment, and a Ring of Nondetection with Magic Aura on it should be a pretty undetectable way to appear true neutral.
I disagree with Weirdo.
Your memories are what make your personality. So if you had your memory of evil actions erased, you would be a blank slate until your actions shaped a new alignment. It could coincidently be the same, but it would be arrived at through different experiences.
This is a trope in a lot of fantasy and science fiction. For example, Planescape: Torment was centered around this premise.
Whether or not evil acts permanently "stain" your soul is probably up the campaign world and the GM.
Also, I always caution against trying to use real-world science to justify concepts in a fantasy game--especially something as dubious as DPP.
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Well there are methods to erase someone's memory. For instance, you could secretly poison someone. Then erase your own memory of the poisoning.One way to do it would be to set up a trigger that would have your memory returned to you(through Contingency for instance). This would allow you to become lawful good while still committing evil acts.
As for why you would do this, several reasons. One, if you are trying to infiltrate an enemy organization, this would get past detection(spells that make alignment undetectable are spotted with detect magic). Two, it would allow you to get into heaven if you get killed. Which is much nicer than going to the abyss or hell.
I don't think you're getting what the alignment system is. Alignment isn't what you know about your character, it's the general category your character falls under based on actions and morals. A "good" character wouldn't murder some random innocent, and the minute they did, they would probably shift to "evil." These are arbitrary things though. Just because your character can't remember what he did, doesn't mean he didn't intentionally do it, and therefore has the capability for these kinds of actions.
Also, the whole "getting into heaven" thing is also probably BS. A goodly aligned deity probably isn't going to allow someone who murdered a innocent, then cleared the memory to "cheat the system" into heaven.
Just my opinions on this.
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Also, I always caution against trying to use real-world science to justify concepts in a fantasy game--especially something as dubious as DPP.
First, that wasn't the example I was using to justify my opinion - it was an example I was using as a last-ditch explanation for how the OP might be able to achieve what he apparently wants to achieve with his "LG assassin," which is indeed dubious.
Second, the OP asked for a "logical explanation for the rules we have been given." The rule we've been given is that Modify Memory doesn't affect your alignment because it doesn't say it affects your alignment, and spells can't do things if it doesn't explicitly say they can do them within the spell description. So this isn't really a discussion about whether MM will affect your alignment, it's a discussion about what the best explanation is for the fact that it can't - just like IRL gravity is the best logical explanation for the observed rule that things fall to the ground when dropped.
So when looking for a "logical explanation" for this fantasy phenomenon I looked at basic research into human memory, because fantasy people have memory too and it presumably works pretty similarly to ours. Modify Memory, by RAW, does not affect alignment. Why not? Because Modify Memory affects only explicit memory, but performing evil acts also leaves an imprint on implicit memory. That's a reasonable, logical explanation that fits what we know about memory.
Either that or Modify Memory doesn't change alignment because the angels are watching you always and they know what you did. And that's also a fine explanation in a fantasy game. I like the first one, though.
Your memories are what make your personality. So if you had your memory of evil actions erased, you would be a blank slate until your actions shaped a new alignment. It could coincidently be the same, but it would be arrived at through different experiences.
Actually, personality appears to be at least partly genetic. Twins separated at birth tend to have similar personalities.
Even if you believe that your memories are the only element of your personality, your memory is made up of explicit and implicit memories. People with no explicit memory (memories they can report, for example of events that they participated in) are demonstrably still affected by their experiences - they still learn and have emotions. An amnesiac man will not consciously recognize his wife, but he will still love her (and this guy proposed repeatedly).
Modify Memory only affects the explicit memory - it affects your conscious memory of events. Alignment is in the implicit bits of memory - such as the fact that the murderer now has weaker inhibitions towards performing violent acts on other humanoids, even if he doesn't remember killing the mayor and his wife and burning the bodies.
This is a trope in a lot of fantasy and science fiction. For example, Planescape: Torment was centered around this premise.
I have heard of Planescape but have not played it. I do know that amnesia is often handled very poorly in fiction by writers who get their information from other fiction rather than from actual psychology.
Whether or not evil acts permanently "stain" your soul is probably up the campaign world and the GM.
The GM has a right to change the cosmology of course, but alignment as implemented in PF indicates that your alignment is a product of your actions barring magic that specifically changes your alignment - Atonement, for example. Modify Memory is not Atonement. If a Paladin performs an evil act and then has his memory modified, his paladin status is not restored.
Mundane redemption is always possible as Thomas Long describes, but in that case it's a result of good actions, not of having the superficial memory of misdeeds erased.
Not recalling things you've done in your past, might have an effect on your memories. But in itself your alignment isn't just the product of your memories.
For example: A character might have been the greatest menace to all existence, raining doom on every plane, but having been slain, no memories exist of his former self, the character becoming a wholly different person. There is a legacy, that if he becomes aware of it, is definately going to be an issue, but could easily have evolved into a good character.
The OP question however, is nothing similar. Whether or not the character remembers killing innocent people with poison, at the in time where he plans it - and furthermore taking steps to remove his own memories - he is strayed pretty far from acting in a lawful good manner.
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Your alignment is an abstraction meant to represent how you view the world and interact with it. If you are attempting to play a lawful good character and are planning on how to assassinate people w/out altering your alignment...well, then you failed, just planning this out and carrying out the plan, rather altering your memory or whatever, means that you were not lawful good to begin with.
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Your alignment is an abstraction meant to represent how you view the world and interact with it. If you are attempting to play a lawful good character and are planning on how to assassinate people w/out altering your alignment...well, then you failed, just planning this out and carrying out the plan, rather altering your memory or whatever, means that you were not lawful good to begin with.
This. Your alignment isn't given to you from some external force, it is your internal moral compass. Unless you can work out a way to trick yourself with yourself not knowing you were going to trick yourself into doing something you 'know' to be wrong there isn't a way to trick the alignment system.
S.
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In the fantasy setting souls are real, and good and evil are omnipresent supernatural forces which purify or taint the soul.
Good thoughts and acts make the soul good. Evil thoughts and acts make the soul evil.
Its much more simplistic than the real world with its scientific and psychological complexities.
Trying to mix the supernatural fantasy with the scientific creates a lot of confusion - such as trying to mix evil/soul with memories erased from the neurons from the brain.
I can understand this POV if I were actually trying to map out the parts of the brain that different types of memory correspond to. But this is really quite simple. There is more to your memory/mind/soul than just the memories and thoughts you are aware of. Getting rid of the surface layer doesn't affect the other stuff. This is true whether you call it explicit memory vs implicit memory, conscious vs subconscious, mind vs soul.
Can a particular fantasy world break this pattern? Yes, just like they can decide that gravity is inconsistent or nonexistent. But in most worlds gravity works normally. It may not work because of an attractive force - maybe it's in the nature of things to move downwards - but it works out the same. Because a world without the observable effects of gravity is weird. And a person who had only conscious memories - no learned skills, complex emotional states, habits, unconscious motivations, gut feelings - would be weird.
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This is true whether you call it explicit memory vs implicit memory, conscious vs subconscious, mind vs soul.
I'm no expert on this topic so please allow me a question: Do you think that Modify Memory only erases explicit memory and if so, why do you believe that? I took a look at the spell and it seems to say that it erases "ALL" memory which in my mind could easily include implicit memories as well.
I think the point of contention is your assertion that alignment is an intelligence. I, and I believe others, see it more like a metaphysical force of nature for Golarion, like pressure, heat, or gravity.
Although it certainly has its agents -- outsiders such as demons, daemons, devils, angels, axiomites, qlippoths, inevitables -- I don't imagine the alignments as four big entities sitting around a table, explicitly making plots and giving orders.
To answer your question, one must start by deciding if some external force is judging you (or not) and proceeding from there. I am of the opinion that alignment comes from within.
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Your alignment is an abstraction meant to represent how you view the world and interact with it. If you are attempting to play a lawful good character and are planning on how to assassinate people w/out altering your alignment...well, then you failed, just planning this out and carrying out the plan, rather altering your memory or whatever, means that you were not lawful good to begin with.This. Your alignment isn't given to you from some external force, it is your internal moral compass. Unless you can work out a way to trick yourself with yourself not knowing you were going to trick yourself into doing something you 'know' to be wrong there isn't a way to trick the alignment system.
S.
But alignment isn't based on your internal moral compass. Keep in mind, you can be evil in Pathfinder while thinking you are good.
There is an external entity that is deciding if you are good or evil.
Where are you getting that from? This external entity idea isn't supported by RAW and even I'm having issue seeing how what is written in the core book can be taken as RAI to mean external entity.
From the Core rules we have;
"A creature’s general moral and personal attitudes are
represented by its alignment: lawful good, neutral good,
chaotic good, lawful neutral, neutral, chaotic neutral,
lawful evil, neutral evil, or chaotic evil.
Alignment is a tool for developing your character’s
identity—it is not a straitjacket for restricting your character.
Each alignment represents a broad range of personality
types or personal philosophies, so two characters of the
same alignment can still be quite different from each
other. In addition, few people are completely consistent."
Bolding is mine for emphasis.
Perhaps if you mean the GM has the final say on if a character is acting, er, out of character (based on alignment) - but that is a purely mechanical thing not something that the character (as opposed to the player) would ever know about.
S.
PS: Unless you hold the idea that Good in the world wouldn't exist if their wasn't a God, then I can see how there would be a connection. But taking the Christian faith (which this example is) then persons have freedom of choose only the concept of Right vs Wrong exists. Still a persons 'moral compass' is a choice. Not sure how other real world regions handle this. I guess those with a fate component would say that your choices are made/influenced from on high and we are all meat-puppets on some cosmic stage?
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Because the system is objective, it has to be some external intelligence that is observing the characters.It may require an external intelligence (in game) to originally define the alignment system
I think I don't understand why an external intelligence in game is required. It is a tool that helps a player (not character) play their character is a consistent way. Alignments existed before the gods in any of the settings from PF going back to 1e AD&D. These gods were assigned alignments they didn't define or create them. I don't see an external intelligence (unless as GM you wish it) to be needed in game for interpreting alignment any more than an external intelligence 'in game' is required to interpret the roll a die.
S.
But alignment isn't based on your internal moral compass. Keep in mind, you can be evil in Pathfinder while thinking you are good.There is an external entity that is deciding if you are good or evil.
Not really. It's an amalgam of a number of things.
On one hand, it's a yardstick, objectively measuring a PC's moral character. That's what alignment detecting abilities are based on - the objective assessment of what your PC is. Now, that is, of course, adjudicated via the GM - if you're fooling him (and let's be honest, you shouldn't be setting out to do so) then you might squeak by "fooling" cosmos. But you're really just fooling the person sitting behind the GM's screen.
Alignments are also philosophical systems. Players can actively, deliberately decide to conform with one of the defined alignments and play their PCs that way - or fail to do so and have their character drift to another alignment.
So there's no real "fooling the system". If you're plotting and performing evil, as others have said, you're evil even if you're trying to disguise it as good or even if you're deluded enough to think you're performing good.
Here's how it works:
You might play your character a certain way, to stick with some sort of alignment that you intend, based on your interpretation of how alignment works. The GM determines your alignment based on your actions and his or her interpretation of how alignment works. Then, you disagree with the GM, and the two of you argue. Whatever happens next depends on the result of the argument.
This is the plain truth. No amount of internet advice will help, unless houseruling is involved. Setting up an objective system is a bad idea, as objective systems can be optimized for. If houseruling, my advice is to allow PCs to arbitrarily select whatever alignment they want at character creation time, have it stay constant, and not have actions determine alignment, and vice-versa.
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You can create a simple computer program that models gravity. You couldn't do the same with alignment, because alignment requires determining alignment requires high level cognitive functions.
Correct, but this intelligence is the GM in conjunction with the player. It is the player that ultimately decides what their character does. This is completely independent of alignment. But the GM gets to determine, again ultimately, if that act is in accordance with the alignment as chosen by the player for their character. As RAW - but your game your rules. If I was running a Greek themed game I would 100% have alignment enforced by the meddling gods.
S.
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How?If its a dumb system(like gravity or magnetism), it would be pretty easy to fool. Although I can't imagine how a dumb system would be able to read people's minds and determine what actions they are capable of.It is not a smart system.
It is a framework, imposed on everything, which dictates what is good and what is evil, what is lawfull and what is chaotic.
Step 1: The player chooses an alignment.
Step 2: The player has their character carry out actions in-game.
Step 3: The GM decides (as a real life person) is these actions are consistent with the alignment the player chose.
Step 4: The GM may impose an in-game effect or may just mention to the player (not character) that they are behaving strangely given there choice of alignment for their character.
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The thing is, gravity is really simple. All it does is pull two objects together based on their mass and distance. Alignment is much more complex. For instance, killing someone isn't always an evil act. It can be justified. Trying to figure out if someone is good or evil requires a high level of intelligence.
You can create a simple computer program that models gravity. You couldn't do the same with alignment, because determining alignment requires high level cognitive functions.
It requires a high level of intelligence or sophisticated programs to accurately describe physics at the atomic level. But the universe doesn't have any problem managing it. Your brain is an incredibly complex piece of machinery that we still can't fully model or explain, but it runs just fine. Alignment might look like a process that requires intelligence or self-awareness (because in our world ethics are a product of intelligent minds) but in the PF system it's a physical thing just like the atoms in your desk or the neurons in your brain and you can't trick these things just by pretending they don't exist.
Now, you can manipulate these things if you understand the system. But the system only responds to defined processes. You can manipulate or disregard the usual constraints of gravity by generating an upward force greater than gravity, or by using clearly defined spells like Fly. You can change alignment through the slow process of corruption and redemption, or using an Atonement spell if there exists real desire to change your behavior. You can't trick gravity by painting yourself blue. Nor can you trick the alignment system by deciding that you're really a good person inside, by modifying your memory, or using nondetection effects.
This is true whether you call it explicit memory vs implicit memory, conscious vs subconscious, mind vs soul.I'm no expert on this topic so please allow me a question: Do you think that Modify Memory only erases explicit memory and if so, why do you believe that? I took a look at the spell and it seems to say that it erases "ALL" memory which in my mind could easily include implicit memories as well.
Good question. Three reasons.
First and most simply, it doesn't grant skill bonuses. Learned skills are one of the most basic forms of implicit memory and if Modify Memory affected implicit memories then implanting a memory of the target swimming should make them better at swimming (competence or insight bonus on swim checks). The spell doesn't do this, so it doesn't affect implicit memory.
Second, the spell requires that the caster spend up to five minutes visualizing in real time the memory they want to alter. This suggests that the memory modification operates on surface / explicit memories because it's hard to visualize an implicit memory. They operate outside of our conscious experience. This is actually linked to why people "choke" in sports events - under pressure they begin to think consciously about their technique, which messes them up and leads to poor performance. A caster trying to visualize an implicit memory would probably mess it up.
Third, there's the line "A modified memory does not necessarily affect the subject's actions, particularly if it contradicts the creature's natural inclinations. An illogical modified memory is dismissed by the creature as a bad dream, too much wine, or another similar excuse." Implicit memories do affect our actions even if they are illogical. If Modify Memory was able to get at a target's implicit memory - or anything outside of their conscious awareness - then implanting a memory would automatically affect their actions. Implanting a memory of the target donating one hundred gold pieces to an orphanage would cause them to think favourably about that orphanage, since obviously they cared about it enough to donate, and it will make the target more likely to donate "again." Modify Memory explicitly says that if the memory is illogical - if the target isn't the type to donate to orphanages - it is disregarded. This suggests that Modify Memory doesn't tap into those unconscious, sometimes illogical processes that would cause the character to value and want to donate to the orphanage. This separates Modify Memory from spells like charm, geas, or suggestion, which do alter natural inclinations by compelling the target to do something they normally wouldn't (and these compulsions can't be removed by Modify Memory which doesn't reach deep enough into the target's mind).
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But to get to the point of needing to modify your memory there was intent before any action was carried out. This intent is enough to trigger the GM to perhaps have a chat with the player. In the real world threatening to kill is a crime that carries a jail (or goal) term. Intent is more than enough to hang someone.
You presume there is an entity... but that's not a solid presumption. You presume this because it seems it's necessary to determine alignment, but this isn't really the case, as others have shown.
If you believe it needs to be that way... it should be in your games.
If your GM(s) believe(s) it doesn't need to be that way... it likely won't be in his/her/their game(s).
Reference birds and intelligence: nope.
Magnetic forces function on and alter stones as much as creatures (we look at subtle elements within them to determine ages), weather patterns (preventing solar storms), and other elements that don't require intelligence at all, much less life. There are other microscopic lifeforms that don't have brains or intelligence at all that use magnetic fields to navigate and their life-cycles.
Magnetic north affects a lot - a whole lot - more than just intelligent creatures, even if they lack the intelligence to understand it. And magnetism can be a very complicated force, if you look deeply enough into it... it's just we assign it the "simplistic" elements of "front", "back" and "rotation". Hm: a few major elements of a universal force relatively easily represented on a diagram... similar to some other system we're talking about...
In any event, gravity is similar: it's actually really complicated, we just take it for granted, our sense of it can be fooled (making us dizzy and believing up is down, or otherwise), and we can even "defy" gravity in certain areas (such as by "floating" in water)... even though gravity continues to function in actuality.
However, let's go with your assumption that there is a Singular Judge of alignment, a Super Sentience, as it were, that decides. It's inherently substantially more potent than any PC or element in the gaming omniverse (with the possible exception of some of the Great Old Ones or Outer Gods), because it 'bags and tags' (as it were) alignments for everything that exists, and does so accurately. This means, by logical processes, that either there is nothing a non-god could do (because they're too small and weak) or only the weakest of creatures could possibly fool it (i.e. 1 hit dice non-outsiders) by being "too small" to notice. So, still no dice*, unless you're not doing anything anyway.
The point is: you can choose to make it something able to be fooled in your games. There's no inherent reason based on itself and game rules that it should be.
Otherwise, as people have said, just fool your GM.
* Hahah, oh man, me an my unintentional puns.
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I have always interpreted alignment as a property of the world. There is no judgement by some specific entity, only the universe itself. Its judgement is very simplistic, but this is why your alignment rarely shifts instantly (the average should bear it out).
Given the above, there is no way to fool the alignment system without fooling the universe itself. Given that even deities have alignments that I'm sure they disagree with, I assume this is impossible.
However! You can fool your *effective* alignment via Master Spy. At higher levels of that prestige clas (6th level, to be exact), only deities have any method of determining your real alignment for sure. This is because you can change not only how they detect, but how alignment-based effects affect you. For example, a LE master spy could pretend to be LG and, in doing so, would no longer be affected by the Holy weapon property.
However, even this can be bypassed by deities.
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I didn't actually say an intelligence was required, just that it may have been, and only to set the rules in place, not to determine if any individual's actions are good/evil/lawful/chaotic.It may require an external intelligence (in game) to originally define the alignment systemI think I don't understand why an external intelligence in game is required. It is a tool that helps a player (not character) play their character is a consistent way.
No stress. It was a question rather than a poke at your post - and apologies if it came across that way.
The only D&D product I can recall that had the idea of something powerful and intelligent that was above any setting god and were never defined are the Dark Powers described in the Ravenloft setting. They seem to take a direct hand in alignment shifting. I can see they would take delight in having a player attempt to trick the alignment system. In fact I believe they would support such attempts and even reward them, well until the end...
Thinking about it they must be the most powerful of any D&D 'thing' they could block all other Powers in any setting.
S.
Also, the Lady of Pain.
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You're conflating two different systems. The nine alignments are a descriptive game mechanic: "Anyone who does X is in category Y." While they also help players to role play, mechanically, that's it. Mechanically, anything that refers to alignment might as well refer to their level, their HP total, their skill ranks, or anything else about a character. Mechanically, the system is impossible to trick. Trying is like trying to fool the system into thinking your blond character is really a brunette - you can dye your hair, but that only fools other characters, not the system.
That said, the rules refer to alignment in the present tense - so a character who has been evil for 50 years, has their memory wiped somehow, and lives out their years behaving and believing like a lawful good person IS lawful good. The character used to have black hair, but woke up with red hair, and it's been growing red ever since; it doesn't matter ehat the old color was - they're now a ginger.
From the character's perspective, things are somewhat different. In-universe, characters don't think of themseles aligning to a descriptive grid except in the way than real people do - "I think it's important to obey the law" or "it's not right to treat people that way" or "who cares if it hurts her - I'll do what I want." Characters can't 'trick' their nature except in the ways that real people can.
However, it may be possible to trick the fates/gods/whatever and get away with an evil action - but that's completely setting specific. Ancient Egyptians believed the soul would be weighed agains the feather of truth. In the pathfinder setting, souls are judged by Pharasma. Other settings have other mechanisms. The point is that in-universe consequences are not necessarily tied to an in-universe perception of the 9 alignments.
In some settings evil actions may permanently taint the soul, whatever a character consciously remembers (I wouldn't say this is the case on Golarion, as only knowingly or willingly evil actions are held against paladins - they're not tainted if they're mind-controlled). Other settings may allow sincere deathbed conversions, or the purchase of indulgences to alone for wrongdoing in advance, or whatever! The sky's the limit. Each setting has its own way to determine what consequences an action has, and whether key's possible to get away with it.
So, summing up: can you be good while acting evil? Not in the sense of mechanical, descriptive alignment. However, in-universe you might be able to avoid the eternal consequences of an evil act.