I've gotten myself into a pickle with the current antagonist my players are facing. I'm not sure what his alignment is.
His people were enslaved by drow generations ago and they've only this generation escaped. He led them back to their ancestral homeland to find someone had settled that land and established a bustling trade city there.
He has since been employing the local goblinoid tribes to aid him in reclaiming the land he feels belong to his people by right through military force.
If he succeeds he wouldn't slaughter everyone in the city, but he would insist that most if not all currently living there leave (causing many to lose their current homes). Anyone that uses violence to resist invites a violent reaction, however.
So he's doing what he does for the good of his people
His methods aren't "good"
He is acting selfishly, but not just for HIS benefit.
His limited interactions with the current inhabitants of the land have all been negative.
So what is his alignment? Particularly on the Good-Evil axis. This is important because one of my players is a paladin. He'll want to do some smiting if this guy's evil.
I'd go for LN leaning towards LE.
I would go into more detail but no doubt someone would come along and tell me I was wrong. They may still do that. :)
|
I see him as Lawful : being responsible (to his people) and following the traditions of his culture seem to be of the utmost importance to him. Also I get a "group>individual" vibe.
How does he answer to people who use violence only in self-defense ?
What conditions would he put for allowing some of the current residents to stay in their home ?
Answers to these questions would help me put this guy on Lawful Neutral vs Lawful Evil.
I definitely do not put him as LG because he does not even try to find a peaceful solution.
BTW : I feel like calling him Moses :-))
Just have him not be an Alignment, so that it will mess with the players who try to beat him with Alignment tricks.
How does he answer to people who use violence only in self-defense ?
What conditions would he put for allowing some of the current residents to stay in their home ?
In the military maneuvers he realizes and accepts that there may be civilian casualties. He finds this fact regrettable but not something he can really change.
Given that the people that he is fighting are also fighting for their homes, every person you fights could be said to be acting in "self-defense". That said he would probably intervene if he saw some of his troops attacking a civilian (directly) unprovoked even if the civilian acted to defend himself.
As far as letting people stay. Only a limited number would be given that option, so only those who would willingly help support his people's way of life.
I never would have considered giving him a good alignment. But I've been struggling with the Neutral vs. Evil question for a while now.
What makes him evil exactly? Do you want him to be a particular alignment?
LN. Good campaign idea for introducing ethical dilemmas.
Lawful Neutral.
Just have him not be an Alignment, so that it will mess with the players who try to beat him with Alignment tricks.
If you run this through Google Translate, it comes back as "I hate my Paladin players, and wish to deprive them of their characters' prime motivation."
Lawful Neutral.
Just have him not be an Alignment, so that it will mess with the players who try to beat him with Alignment tricks.If you run this through Google Translate, it comes back as "I hate my Paladin players, and wish to deprive them of their characters' prime motivation."
And why do paladins care about the existence of alignments more than any other class? Yeah, I get the smite evil and detect evil things, but if you're arguing for LN, those don't come into play anyway, and even so, no class should have their "prime motivation" pigeonholed like that. There are plenty of ways to play a paladin that aren't the crusading Lawful-Stupid stereotype.
Might be better to say your depriving them of a good chunk of their class features. It sucks to be a paladin in a game without a lot of evil or evil subtype creatures.
Sounds like a Lawful Neutral guy. Doesn't want to cause harm unnecessarily, but does want to restore what he views as belonging to his people. He places the importance of the group above that of the individual.
Might be better to say your depriving them of a good chunk of their class features. It sucks to be a paladin in a game without a lot of evil or evil subtype creatures.
True, but I chalk that up to be more of a problem with the class mechanics being too founded in Alignments. Personally, I like alignments when used as a guide, but whenever there's actual crunch or flavor that depends the existance of 9 distinct moralities, that aren't just philosophical concepts, but instead tangible things, alignment becomes more of a burden than a help. As such, if I were personally to redo Paladins, I'd just make smite a universal thing providing the Cha bonus vs any target, not just Evil foes. (While this kind of makes some of the Cavalier obsolete, I'd probably in the same swoop remove the Challenge feature from the cavalier, and replace it with a more support ability)
Might be better to say your depriving them of a good chunk of their class features. It sucks to be a paladin in a game without a lot of evil or evil subtype creatures.True, but I chalk that up to be more of a problem with the class mechanics being too founded in Alignments. Personally, I like alignments when used as a guide, but whenever there's actual crunch or flavor that depends the existance of 9 distinct moralities, that aren't just philosophical concepts, but instead tangible things, alignment becomes more of a burden than a help. As such, if I were personally to redo Paladins, I'd just make smite a universal thing providing the Cha bonus vs any target, not just Evil foes. (While this kind of makes some of the Cavalier obsolete, I'd probably in the same swoop remove the Challenge feature from the cavalier, and replace it with a more support ability)
I'm actually not big on alignment outside of a guideline myself. Oddly enough, I did make a thread on removing the evil from smite evil to see people's reactions to the idea. Most people believe it to be a core part of its balance, but I think it makes it harder to DM for them when I want to put neutral enemies in. Cavalier's challenge is pretty close to awful as is.
In any case, I'm not big on the idea of anyone's alignment being whichever is best in the moment. It then feels very adversarial, and it creates an idea that you just can't win. Not the mood I'm into personally.
Might be better to say your depriving them of a good chunk of their class features. It sucks to be a paladin in a game without a lot of evil or evil subtype creatures.True, but I chalk that up to be more of a problem with the class mechanics being too founded in Alignments. Personally, I like alignments when used as a guide, but whenever there's actual crunch or flavor that depends the existance of 9 distinct moralities, that aren't just philosophical concepts, but instead tangible things, alignment becomes more of a burden than a help. As such, if I were personally to redo Paladins, I'd just make smite a universal thing providing the Cha bonus vs any target, not just Evil foes. (While this kind of makes some of the Cavalier obsolete, I'd probably in the same swoop remove the Challenge feature from the cavalier, and replace it with a more support ability)I'm actually not big on alignment outside of a guideline myself. Oddly enough, I did make a thread on removing the evil from smite evil to see people's reactions to the idea. Most people believe it to be a core part of its balance, but I think it makes it harder to DM for them when I want to put neutral enemies in. Cavalier's challenge is pretty close to awful as is.
In any case, I'm not big on the idea of anyone's alignment being whichever is best in the moment. It then feels very adversarial, and it creates an idea that you just can't win. Not the mood I'm into personally.
Though I'm not sure what Vamptastic's idea was originally, I wasn't really arguing to make it "whichever is best at the moment" but to instead strip it of all mechanical weight, though if I were to do so, I'd do so on a unilateral basis. In this instance (assuming alignments remain as written), I'd agree with the majority in saying LN.
As for paladins, and smite evil, I agree it'd be better to not have it be dependent on evil or good, since the "balancing move" basically serves to eliminate a lot of good story concepts for non-evil antagonists. Were I to try to fix it without referencing alignment, I'd have it apply to sentient targets in opposition to the Paladin and undead, then have its greater effect apply to Outsiders and Dragons in opposition to the Paladin and Undead. Probably codified in a better way than this, but basically just to encapsulate all normal enemies, with the exception of Animals, constructs and other non-sentient beings
|
|
How does he answer to people who use violence only in self-defense ?
What conditions would he put for allowing some of the current residents to stay in their home ?
In the military maneuvers he realizes and accepts that there may be civilian casualties. He finds this fact regrettable but not something he can really change.
Given that the people that he is fighting are also fighting for their homes, every person you fights could be said to be acting in "self-defense". That said he would probably intervene if he saw some of his troops attacking a civilian (directly) unprovoked even if the civilian acted to defend himself.
As far as letting people stay. Only a limited number would be given that option, so only those who would willingly help support his people's way of life.
I never would have considered giving him a good alignment. But I've been struggling with the Neutral vs. Evil question for a while now.
He obviously does not care one iota about the welfare of innocent people as long as they do not belong to his people. This is definitely worse than Neutral ("not sacrificing oneself to help the innocent").
Lawful Evil to me. Self-justifying his atrocities as being unavoidable, for the greater good or both.
Him disciplining his troops if they go too far (by his very lenient judgement) = Lawful vs Chaotic rather than Good vs Evil.