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Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
So i was Perusing my PHB the other day when i looked over the paladin class and something hit me. There was no alignment .... anything, and double checking throughout the book it seems that this is constant.
In 5e alignment never touches mechanics.
Protection from evil singles out undead and fiends, rather than an alignment for instance. the same group a paladins Smite keys off of.
I noticed that as well. Also, there's now Unaligned instead of Neutral for animals and other creatures that wouldn't be thinking in moral terms at all. I immediately grabbed that for most of the deities in my World of Battersea.
As a firm opponent of alignment as a mechanical system I approve of Unaligned.
It is interesting that the distinction of paladin as undead slayer is different from paladin as (Lawful Good) holy warrior.
I'm very eager to see what the oathbreaker paladin that's supposed to be in the DMG is going to look like. That and the Death clerical domain.
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They talk about alignment tendencies in the Oaths. One of the Oath paths talks about Chaotic Good as being the common alignment.
Yes. They've unhooked alignment from all classes and it's about time.
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Chuck Wright wrote: They talk about alignment tendencies in the Oaths. One of the Oath paths talks about Chaotic Good as being the common alignment.
Yes. They've unhooked alignment from all classes and it's about time.
They did that back in '08 with 4e too, just sayin'.
That's cool. I never got that far because [stuff that would upset people if I said it].
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(P.S. I liked some thing about 4E, but the way it played wasn't my cup of tea. Pointing out this or that was done in 4E is a complete "whatever" for me and has absolutely no bearing on the conversation other than to drag edition warring into a thread. Just sayin'.)
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This gives me hope that they will get two things right with the monster manual that they've gotten wrong in the past:
a)Non-unique species shouldn't have alignments listed in the generic stat-block. Alignment should be reserved for individuals.
Rich Burlew (author of The Order of the Stick) has explained why both on his forums and in his book OOTS: Start of Darkness, so I'll refer anyone who thinks otherwise to his explanations.
b)Monster fluff should not be solely a means to 'justify' killing the monster as quickly as possible! This is an issue most endemic in pathfinder and 4e. I really hope they fix it in 5e.
Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
I don't see them changing it. It will always be "If it has green skin, it gets dead". Don't get me wrong, I hate the whole enemy race thing too and wish it would go away. But when it comes to the default, they will always be there. Orcs, goblinoids, gnolls, ogres, trolls, giants... basically anything that isn't human with a different size (elves are tall thin humans with pointy ears, dwarves are short wide humans with beards, halflings are even shorter humans with pointy ears, and gnomes are super short humans). Notice how the only good orc is when it is mixed with human.
And do you have a link to Rich Burlew's explanations? Curious what he says. Also, one of the reasons I loved Eberron as a setting is because of the lack of uniform alignment and enemy races. He had LG red dragons, NE silver dragons, an actual nation of "monsters", and so on. I have no problem with the alignment system. I do have one when it defines an entire species (all orcs are CE, all dragons of a certain color are a certain alignment, etc). The only time I agree with the entire race = a single alignment is outsiders like celestials, demons, and such.
And if I remember correctly, 4th edition just made paladins Good, while 5th makes them anything. Either way, both are steps in the right direction.
Adjule wrote: I don't see them changing it. It will always be "If it has green skin, it gets dead". Don't get me wrong, I hate the whole enemy race thing too and wish it would go away. But when it comes to the default, they will always be there. Orcs, goblinoids, gnolls, ogres, trolls, giants... basically anything that isn't human with a different size (elves are tall thin humans with pointy ears, dwarves are short wide humans with beards, halflings are even shorter humans with pointy ears, and gnomes are super short humans). Notice how the only good orc is when it is mixed with human.
And do you have a link to Rich Burlew's explanations? Curious what he says. Also, one of the reasons I loved Eberron as a setting is because of the lack of uniform alignment and enemy races. He had LG red dragons, NE silver dragons, an actual nation of "monsters", and so on. I have no problem with the alignment system. I do have one when it defines an entire species (all orcs are CE, all dragons of a certain color are a certain alignment, etc). The only time I agree with the entire race = a single alignment is outsiders like celestials, demons, and such.
And if I remember correctly, 4th edition just made paladins Good, while 5th makes them anything. Either way, both are steps in the right direction.
Orcs and goblins being 'always evil' is a Tolkienism, although he at least had a plausible explanation for it.
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Adjule wrote: I don't see them changing it. It will always be "If it has green skin, it gets dead". Don't get me wrong, I hate the whole enemy race thing too and wish it would go away. But when it comes to the default, they will always be there. Orcs, goblinoids, gnolls, ogres, trolls, giants... basically anything that isn't human with a different size (elves are tall thin humans with pointy ears, dwarves are short wide humans with beards, halflings are even shorter humans with pointy ears, and gnomes are super short humans). Notice how the only good orc is when it is mixed with human. The Basic Rules DMG says, "The alignment specified in a monster’s stat block is the default. Feel free to depart from it and change a monster’s alignment to suit the needs of your campaign. If you want a good-aligned green dragon or an evil storm giant, there’s nothing stopping you."
So probably no lawful good orcs officially, but if you want to have them in your world you've got something to point to while you throw dice at any rules lawyer who tries to argue that it's wrong.
Grey Lensman wrote: Adjule wrote: I don't see them changing it. It will always be "If it has green skin, it gets dead". Don't get me wrong, I hate the whole enemy race thing too and wish it would go away. But when it comes to the default, they will always be there. Orcs, goblinoids, gnolls, ogres, trolls, giants... basically anything that isn't human with a different size (elves are tall thin humans with pointy ears, dwarves are short wide humans with beards, halflings are even shorter humans with pointy ears, and gnomes are super short humans). Notice how the only good orc is when it is mixed with human.
And do you have a link to Rich Burlew's explanations? Curious what he says. Also, one of the reasons I loved Eberron as a setting is because of the lack of uniform alignment and enemy races. He had LG red dragons, NE silver dragons, an actual nation of "monsters", and so on. I have no problem with the alignment system. I do have one when it defines an entire species (all orcs are CE, all dragons of a certain color are a certain alignment, etc). The only time I agree with the entire race = a single alignment is outsiders like celestials, demons, and such.
And if I remember correctly, 4th edition just made paladins Good, while 5th makes them anything. Either way, both are steps in the right direction.
Orcs and goblins being 'always evil' is a Tolkienism, although he at least had a plausible explanation for it. Various races of monsters being always evil goes back well beyond Tolkien. Though I'll give you orcs and goblins, since they were his creations.
Races of evil human-like, but not human creatures go way back in both fantasy literature and folklore/mythology, as do other types of monsters as both good and evil. I like to see that reflected in the game, along with more varied creatures, since those are the sources I use for inspiration for games.
JoeJ wrote: Adjule wrote: I don't see them changing it. It will always be "If it has green skin, it gets dead". Don't get me wrong, I hate the whole enemy race thing too and wish it would go away. But when it comes to the default, they will always be there. Orcs, goblinoids, gnolls, ogres, trolls, giants... basically anything that isn't human with a different size (elves are tall thin humans with pointy ears, dwarves are short wide humans with beards, halflings are even shorter humans with pointy ears, and gnomes are super short humans). Notice how the only good orc is when it is mixed with human. The Basic Rules DMG says, "The alignment specified in a monster’s stat block is the default. Feel free to depart from it and change a monster’s alignment to suit the needs of your campaign. If you want a good-aligned green dragon or an evil storm giant, there’s nothing stopping you."
So probably no lawful good orcs officially, but if you want to have them in your world you've got something to point to while you throw dice at any rules lawyer who tries to argue that it's wrong.
That's probably the best approach. Kind of lets you have it both ways. Even from a more simulationist approach, I like the idea of different races have strong tendencies in one direction or another, with some variation. They shouldn't all think just like humans.
Chuck Wright wrote: (P.S. I liked some thing about 4E, but the way it played wasn't my cup of tea. Pointing out this or that was done in 4E is a complete "whatever" for me and has absolutely no bearing on the conversation other than to drag edition warring into a thread. Just sayin'.) I point it out because it isn't something that WotC has recently implemented and that people have been enjoying for quite some time. No e-warring intended.
I think it's less about the monster as it is their culture or inherent nature. If your instinctively going to kill anything for food, that isn't evil. Trolls probably aren't evil, but they do things to civilised lands that would make us think they're evil, so we would kill them on sight.
If the major societal influence of a creature is the god of war and murder, in a world where that god directly influences life through clerics and other worshipers, not following those mandates will make you dead rather fast. Therefore it is pretty reasonable to assume tha running into creatures who worship the god of murder and war will mean bad things for you if you don't stop them first.
So, monster manuals tend to give the predominant cultural reaction rather than an inherent evilness.
As someone said above, celestial sand devils etc are probably the only real embodiments of an alignment per se.
The best thing is, I love campaigns where people are shades of grey rather than black and white. This edition will make it far easier for me to DM in that way.
Cheers
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They explain why some things are evil in the player book. I believe in the half orc entry. I'm going to paraphrase here. Since it is known the gods exist and created everything and all that, this is how it works. The races by the goodly gods were made fully with freedom because how can they choose good if evil can not exist among them or something like that. The more evil gods made their races to be servants to them, so the tend to evil as those gods wished. They can still break away but always feel the pull. It mentions that even half-orcs somestimes hear the whispers of gruumsh or have visions of him in their dreams.
I do like what they did with alignment and explained things more if you read ALL the flavour descriptions in each class. This edition was clearly designed on the roleplay and flavour side of things like the old TSR game and less mechanics based. Less hard clear rules for how things act and instead we get those wonderful somewhat vague descriptions that you draw upon for ideas of how they act.
They are clearly trying to make D&D a game about storytelling first, numbers and "beating the game" second.
The paladin has no clear "Must be lawful good" in it but when you read the oaths and what it means to break them and whatnot, you clearly see what it is intended to be. They keep it vague so it is easier for you to change it in your game world. Nobody gets to argue that mechanic and say they are right rather than just asking the DM "What does this mean in your game?"
When I read my PHB it seems to me this was written by Roleplayers, for Roleplayers. I have even seen in a blog by one of the writers that they were trying to step away from the powergamer and MMO mindset for this by default, but yes you can play how you want. They are just going for the feel of the old games with the ease of getting started of the new games.
Why do I type stuff out at 1:05 AM? This is probably gonna look like some mess when I read it in a few hours.
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