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Well, seems like we agree, then. More or less. Let us proceed to another area we can both doubtless agree on...POLITICS.
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Just pointing out that there's an obvious mechanical benefit to using TN with Nihimon's idea...
I'm not sure how much of an advantage it would be.
Any Nation Alignment would have 4 allowed Settlement Alignments. True Neutral would allow all 9 Character Alignments, Corners would allow 8, and Edge Middles would allow 7.
But just because those Alignments would be allowed, doesn't mean that Characters of those Alignments would benefit by being a member of that Nation. A True Neutral Nation that excluded Neutral Evil would probably not be making any effort at all to support Evil players.
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Just pointing out that there's an obvious mechanical benefit to using TN with Nihimon's idea...I'm not sure how much of an advantage it would be.
Any Nation Alignment would have 4 allowed Settlement Alignments. True Neutral would allow all 9 Character Alignments, Corners would allow 8, and Edge Middles would allow 7.
But just because those Alignments would be allowed, doesn't mean that Characters of those Alignments would benefit by being a member of that Nation. A True Neutral Nation that excluded Neutral Evil would probably not be making any effort at all to support Evil players.
As I understand it, every alignment except CE has advantages. LG has the best settlements. Evil has more freedom of action. Chaos has less laws to enforce to curb corruption, etc. Intentionally, CE settlements we are told, will 'suck'; I wonder if, along the alignment axis, that will mean that NE and CN settlements are even viable.
I'm thinking a Chaotic Evil settlement would be kinda a River Kingdom within the River Kingdoms--where those even the normal Kingdoms can't stand go.
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As I understand it, every alignment except CE has advantages. LG has the best settlements. Evil has more freedom of action. Chaos has less laws to enforce to curb corruption, etc. Intentionally, CE settlements we are told, will 'suck'; I wonder if, along the alignment axis, that will mean that NE and CN settlements are even viable.Just pointing out that there's an obvious mechanical benefit to using TN with Nihimon's idea...I'm not sure how much of an advantage it would be.
Any Nation Alignment would have 4 allowed Settlement Alignments. True Neutral would allow all 9 Character Alignments, Corners would allow 8, and Edge Middles would allow 7.
But just because those Alignments would be allowed, doesn't mean that Characters of those Alignments would benefit by being a member of that Nation. A True Neutral Nation that excluded Neutral Evil would probably not be making any effort at all to support Evil players.
To clarify, CE with low rep will suck. CE with moderate to high rep, yet to see.
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To clarify, CE with low rep will suck. CE with moderate to high rep, yet to see.As I understand it, every alignment except CE has advantages. LG has the best settlements. Evil has more freedom of action. Chaos has less laws to enforce to curb corruption, etc. Intentionally, CE settlements we are told, will 'suck'; I wonder if, along the alignment axis, that will mean that NE and CN settlements are even viable.Just pointing out that there's an obvious mechanical benefit to using TN with Nihimon's idea...I'm not sure how much of an advantage it would be.
Any Nation Alignment would have 4 allowed Settlement Alignments. True Neutral would allow all 9 Character Alignments, Corners would allow 8, and Edge Middles would allow 7.
But just because those Alignments would be allowed, doesn't mean that Characters of those Alignments would benefit by being a member of that Nation. A True Neutral Nation that excluded Neutral Evil would probably not be making any effort at all to support Evil players.
I hope it is possible to play CE without low rep. But the devs have consistently said, "We wish you luck."
Which could lead to an exciting conflict when those two CE settlements realize the setting ain't big enough for the both of them.
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To clarify, CE with low rep will suck. CE with moderate to high rep, yet to see.I hope it is possible to play CE without low rep. But the devs have consistently said, "We wish you luck."
For what it's worth, Giorgo recently brought this to my attention:
If you have a town full of CE people who are bloodthirsty barbarians who don't do a lot of griefing but instead are declaring war all the time, they can totally have a high Reputation, max level Barbarian trainer, etc...
I think they've been pretty consistent in saying "it will be possible to be a non-jerk CE, but we expect most CE folks will just be jerks".
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To clarify, CE with low rep will suck. CE with moderate to high rep, yet to see.I hope it is possible to play CE without low rep. But the devs have consistently said, "We wish you luck."For what it's worth, Giorgo recently brought this to my attention:
If you have a town full of CE people who are bloodthirsty barbarians who don't do a lot of griefing but instead are declaring war all the time, they can totally have a high Reputation, max level Barbarian trainer, etc...I think they've been pretty consistent in saying "it will be possible to be a non-jerk CE, but we expect most CE folks will just be jerks".
That post is over a year old. As usual, read the entire bullet point and you get the sense that it's possible to have a high rep CE settlement but unlikely. I myself believe that barbarian, rogue, evil cleric and necromantic training should be available to CE, low-rep characters through tier 3. That would impede the planned use of alignment/rep as anti-griefing tools, I know. But that only people of High Reputation are the ones who can teach the most effective ways to go into a homicidal rage, stab someone in the kidney or call upon the powers of Hell doesn't make sense to me. If your reputation number is a product of whether you engage in griefing or not, so be it; let it effect both your alignment and rep. But I don't think a LE character should get a rep hit for creating undead; he/she is supposed to do that. If I cast Shriveling on a paladin in meaningful pvp, giving him a virulent disease that could spread to his party members, then yeah, it should move me towards evil-I'm probably already there. But why would the use of an evil/necromantic spell hurt my reputation? I'm evil-I'm supposed to shrivel bozos.
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Back to nations, settlements, companies, and individual alignments. Please correct but, IIRC, each of these allow/require 1 step limitation on next level.
Settlements need to be 1 step of nation alignment but may be 2 steps from other national settlements.
Companies need to be within 1 step of settlement alignment or 2 from other companies of the settlement thus may be 2 from national alignment and 3 steps from companies in other settlements in the nation.
Finally, individuals need to be within 1 step of the company alignment. This means companies can have members 2 steps apart, 2 steps from settlement alignment, 3 steps from national alignment. These members may be 4 steps from members of companies in other settlements.
If the nation is on a corner alignment, members may be of any alignment except the most opposed.
If the nation is on a middle edge, members may be of any alignment.
Back to TN druids: They can have their TN company with membership in any middle edge settlement and then with corresponding corner nation.
Alternately the TN druids can be members of a middle edge company which can bee part of a corner settlements.
I would see Druids "resident" in a POI such was a manor or shrine. Typically these would be associated with a settlement with agreements on the specifics of the association.
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Finally, individuals need to be within 1 step of the company alignment. This means companies can have members 2 steps apart, 2 steps from settlement alignment, 3 steps from national alignment. These members may be 4 steps from members of companies in other settlements.
Characters must be within 1 step of their Settlement's Alignment if they are Members of the Settlement. Thus, they could only be 2 steps from the Nation's Alignment, but could still be 4 steps from the Alignments of other intra-Nation Settlement Members.
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Finally, individuals need to be within 1 step of the company alignment. This means companies can have members 2 steps apart, 2 steps from settlement alignment, 3 steps from national alignment. These members may be 4 steps from members of companies in other settlements.Characters must be within 1 step of their Settlement's Alignment if they are Members of the Settlement. Thus, they could only be 2 steps from the Nation's Alignment, but could still be 4 steps from the Alignments of other intra-Nation Settlement Members.
And nobody can be 5 alignment steps from anybody else, without making the grid bigger.
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I myself believe that barbarian, rogue, evil cleric and necromantic training should be available to CE, low-rep characters through tier 3. That would impede the planned use of alignment/rep as anti-griefing tools, I know. But that only people of High Reputation are the ones who can teach the most effective ways to go into a homicidal rage, stab someone in the kidney or call upon the powers of Hell doesn't make sense to me. If your reputation number is a product of whether you engage in griefing or not, so be it; let it effect both your alignment and rep. But I don't think a LE character should get a rep hit for creating undead; he/she is supposed to do that. If I cast Shriveling on a paladin in meaningful pvp, giving him a virulent disease that could spread to his party members, then yeah, it should move me towards evil-I'm probably already there. But why would the use of an evil/necromantic spell hurt my reputation? I'm evil-I'm supposed to shrivel bozos.
I haven't ever seen them say that doing evil things like assassination or necromancy will hurt rep. They can give the Heinous flag, which allows people to PvP you without rep or alignment consequences, but they won't negatively affect your rep unless you are also doing rep-lowering activities (i.e. free PvP).
AFAIK, nothing about low reputation directly impedes any training.
Suggestions are that it makes a settlement less efficient, so they will have less resources in general,
but they choose to use those resources however they want. Concentrating on Necromancy/Assassin/Barbarian training seems pretty plausible.
Of course, you don't have to be Chaotic for any of that, so being at least Neutral helps offset Low Rep inefficiencies.
Such a settlement might be Neutral, have a good number of Lawfuls to offset anybody who goes Chaotic, and do OK.
(Barbs don't need to be Chaotic, although if we see things like Alignment keyed abilities tied to actual alignment score, many may choose to be)
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AFAIK, nothing about low reputation directly impedes any training.
In order to create and operate high end training facilities a settlement needs to set a high minimum reputation for its citizens; the better the facilities, the higher the minimum rep. So an individual character who is low rep will not have access to high end training facilities.
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OK, so I am one step from my company and my company joins a settlement one step the other way. Am I kicked out of the company? I have not seen that members of settlement must be one step, only that the companies must be one step. Nihimon, can you do your quote magic?
Edit -- Fixed spelling
@Shane: Thanks, some of the older details can get confused.
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OK, so I am one step from my company and my company joins a settlement one step the other way. Am I kicked out of the company? I have not seen that members of settlement must be one step, only that the companies must be one step. Nihimon, can you do your quote magic?
You won't be kicked out of your Company, but you also won't be a Member of the Settlement, or of the Nation. If you're a Member of the Settlement, you must be within one step of the Settlement, irrespective of your Company.
I don't think there's a direct quote for this particular case, it's just that the rule is you must be within one step of the Settlement in order to join it.
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As I understand it, every alignment except CE has advantages. LG has the best settlements. Evil has more freedom of action. Chaos has less laws to enforce to curb corruption, etc. Intentionally, CE settlements we are told, will 'suck'; I wonder if, along the alignment axis, that will mean that NE and CN settlements are even viable.
Why would LG settlements necessarily be the best? People do accomplish more when working together, but to get there you just need natural goodwill or an enforced social order. You could reach a high degree of cooperation with either Good or Law, but you don't need both unless you're doing each to a mediocre degree. CG would get 100% of its 'cooperation factor' from Good, LE gets 100% from Law, and NN gets roughly 50% from each. LG would still cap at 100% but be more 'durable' in the sense that you'd have to hit them with a lot of corruption & unrest at the same time, enough to drop both of their sources of 'cooperation factor' sharply before the total drops below the 100% cap. Every step away from LG on the way to CE confers greater individual freedom of action.
Yeah, I do kind of agree that Lawful Evil and Lawful Neutral should be about equal. Evil can use stuff like slave labor (though obviously not in this case), Neutral has impartiality that probably helps. As long as you aren't Chaotic, I don't see much reason a settlement would struggle.
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Yeah, I do kind of agree that Lawful Evil and Lawful Neutral should be about equal. Evil can use stuff like slave labor (though obviously not in this case), Neutral has impartiality that probably helps. As long as you aren't Chaotic, I don't see much reason a settlement would struggle.
Why shouldn't Chaotic Good work? You don't need rule of law if the people in the community are naturally cooperative in the first place. The effect of alignment on what the settlement can accomplish isn't exactly about their moral & ethical stance, it's about how well they work together.
The problem with a Chaotic Evil settlement is not that it's somehow cursed or lacking in representation, it's that they're trying to form a society capable of big community projects with a bunch of antisocial individuals for members. You can only get them to work together under direct supervision and threat of force, because corruption and unrest are their default mode. They don't put any external value above their personal desires and they don't respect any authority which isn't offering a credible threat, so they fracture. The efficiency wasted on layers of close supervision would be expressed in the difficulty of building & maintaining structures beyond their most basic levels.
I'm sure Chaotic Good could work, it just wouldn't work as well. Good counts for a fair bit, yeah, but you still aren't going to control much. It's a society of good-hearted individuals, which means they aren't all going to work together. That doesn't mean it's not going to exist, but it does have an inherent disadvantage.
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I myself believe that barbarian, rogue, evil cleric and necromantic training should be available to CE, low-rep characters through tier 3. That would impede the planned use of alignment/rep as anti-griefing tools, I know. But that only people of High Reputation are the ones who can teach the most effective ways to go into a homicidal rage, stab someone in the kidney or call upon the powers of Hell doesn't make sense to me. If your reputation number is a product of whether you engage in griefing or not, so be it; let it effect both your alignment and rep. But I don't think a LE character should get a rep hit for creating undead; he/she is supposed to do that. If I cast Shriveling on a paladin in meaningful pvp, giving him a virulent disease that could spread to his party members, then yeah, it should move me towards evil-I'm probably already there. But why would the use of an evil/necromantic spell hurt my reputation? I'm evil-I'm supposed to shrivel bozos.I haven't ever seen them say that doing evil things like assassination or necromancy will hurt rep. They can give the Heinous flag, which allows people to PvP you without rep or alignment consequences, but they won't negatively affect your rep unless you are also doing rep-lowering activities (i.e. free PvP).
Thanks for the clarification. Can't say I'm a huge fan of the Heinous flag but it does seem to have a place in tt and River Kingdoms lore. It seems a CE organization with a moderate rep requirement could be viable if you can stand griefers banging on the gates- "hey, let me in, I can change!"
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From: I Shot a Man in Reno Just to Watch Him Die blog
"Assassin (Evil)
Assassin is for players who want to kill specific other players, or more generally kill other players (as who doesn't like a critical hit bonus?). Assassins do have a signifier of their assassin flag, so their intent may be detected, but they also have a Stealth bonus so they can remain out of sight. Some folks have voiced concern that assassins will not be able to escape since they will be marked as an assassin, but that's what Stealth is for (and if you could hide the assassin flag after completing your kill, the guy you just killed could use chat, a vent server, etc., to tell everyone who killed him anyway).
This flag cannot be disabled while Attacker, Criminal, or Heinous (or their 24-hour versions) are active.
While Assassin is active:
The player gets a bonus to Stealth and critical chance that scales up each hour they remain flagged, up to ten hours.
These bonuses reset to the minimum upon gaining the Attacker flag unless the target was the subject of a bounty or assassination contract held by the Assassin. (Remember: you don't get Attacker in wars, if the target already has a PvP flag, etc.)
If an Assassin has had his flag active for at least an hour and kills a character with an active bounty or assassination contract, the Assassin gains bonus reputation up to a daily max. (Any other kills made by the Assassin suffer the normal reputation and alignment losses, so keep collateral damage to a minimum!)
Attacks by an Assassin have a chance to sever a link to one of the target's respawn bind spots, meaning they may have not have access to their preferred respawn point if killed. Targets killed by an Assassin have a dramatically higher chance of this happening. So assassinating someone may take them out of the action for a while as they work their way back to their original location over a longer distance."
I don't think being an assassin gives the heinous flag. In the same blog it discusses:
"Heinous
The character has committed an act that is universally viewed as evil, such as raising and controlling undead, using slaves to build structures or gather resources, etc.
Each time the character gets the Heinous flag they lose good vs. evil.
Anyone may kill a Heinous character without fearing reputation or alignment loss.
Heinous is removed once the character has been killed.
The Heinous flag lasts one minute beyond the duration of the deed unless the character does something to get it again before the duration runs out. Characters using undead for example will have the Heinous flag the entire time they are using undead.
If the character gets the Heinous flag again within the duration of its existing Heinous buff, the count of Heinous increases by 1 and the duration resets ten minutes longer, up to a maximum of 100 minutes.
If the character gets to Heinous 10 they get a new flag, Villain, which lasts for 24 hours and does not disappear on death. It acts the same as Heinous, allowing repeat offenders to be hunted down for longer periods of time."
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An example I can state is "the belief (mistaken or truthful) in the supernatural"... well ok, but what about bhuddism.For the record, Buddhism does believe in the supernatural. Buddha just told his followers that the supernatural was not important to attaining enlightenment. That being said, most of the stories about Buddha do tend towards what scientists would define as fantastical.
A better example of a non-supernatural religion might be something like Confucianism, but even that has supernatural themes.
I am asked about the apple tree, but I only have an apple. I can try to infer the nature of the tree by contemplating the apple, and surely without understanding the apple I will not fully know the apple tree. But perhaps it is enough to simply enjoy eating the apple, for that is all that was given.
The Druid may be interested in the city because the city, too, is as natural in its way as everything else humans naturally build and do. We adapt to the desert. We adapt to the forest. We adapt to the sea. Why be amazed that we adapt to the city?
There is a difference between indecision and true neutrality. True Neutrality eschews extremism and embraces moderation, even of extreme moderation.
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Your argument that neutral is a viable platform for settlements? I fully agree with that. The only rational way to dispute it is a matter of game balance, not realism--tons of nations in Golarion are True Neutral. Nations don't have to have ideals, but even if they did, the fact that there are so many Neutral gods makes it plain that neutrality can be one.
Switzerland did pretty well at it. They also have narrow mountain passes.... and a heavily armed populace...
...and a nation that's rigged to self-destruct...
Putting aside real-world countries, Absalom, Hermea, Katapesh, the Realm of the Mammoth Lords*, the Mwangi Expanse*, Nex, Qadira, Sargava, Taldor and Varisia* are all Golarion nations aligned as True Neutral. It's quite obvious that if Neutral kingdoms are banned in Pathfinder Online, it won't be because Goblinworks doesn't believe they can exist.
* A few of these examples lack true rulers, or are simply unions of several large city-states. Before anyone argues that these do not count: Who's to say a kingdom could not be formed in PFO with similar technique?
EDIT: Incidentally, fewer nations are of any alignment on the Good spectrum than are True Neutral. That's five good nations versus ten True Neutral nations, or seven if you don't want to count the less organized ones.
