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So if my Paladin kidnaps an evil drow priestess in order to ransom her for 200 children who were about to be sacrificed to demon lords in an unholy rite, did he fail? Man, gaming with you must be difficult :)
Umm...yeah, failed on all sorts of levels.
You shouldn't let an evil demon-worshiping priest go free. =)
Look, Dryads have gotten a pass on the whole CG vs. CN thing for a long time by virtue of the whole "Oh darn, the insanely hot fae girl just charmed me into being a sex toy...<sigh> OK, I guess I'll play along."
Still to close to the date-rape boarder. Make the target of the wrong gender/sexual orientation, and it crosses that boarder.
In fact fae in general have been given quite a pass in this regard almost across the board. Fae of mythology are kind of nasty, even the "nice" ones.
I have always run alignment as not always what you do on a day to day basis, but what you'd be willing to do without remorse.
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You'd think the Lorax would side with the forest spirits if anyone would...
I SENT the Dryads to charm your lumberjacks, I didn't say it was "Good". =)
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Good implies altruism, respect for life, and a concern
for the dignity of sentient beings.
When humans invade your forest, this is kind of a "pick two" situation. You can protect the forest and let them live, but charm them; you could respect their freedom, but kill them for the greater good; or you could just let them be, but allow them to wreak destruction on the world.
Generally someone only says "greater good" when they're commiting an evil act to achieve a good cause.... Which is the realm of neutral and evil beings.
So what you're saying is that you agree they are commiting evil acts, possibly on a regular basis, but should still be considered good? Sounds more like neutral to me.
Getting someone killed on your behalf is definitely an evil act.
The literal example in Kingmaker is a Dryad using charm person and suggestion to coerce your party into fighting a very deadly monster on her behalf. She's not trying to shoo you off or defend herself from you, but trying to use you as a meat shield.
If a PC did that most GMs would look at that good allignment and ask "really?"
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Orrrr... she's desperate enough to do the one thing that'll keep her alive. Maybe you should read the encounter again; it makes it very clear that she's desperate and has no other way to survive. If I recall correctly, she tries diplomacy first and charm as a last resort to stay alive.
What would you suggest she do in that situation, in keeping with her Good alignment?
Accept her allignmemt hit and live.
Not condemning her actions as "omg what a monster she must die!"
More "Well she did what she had to in order to survive, but what she did was horrible."
It's not like she loses anything, aside from pinging as good to allignment detecting spells. Honestly a Dryad's alignment isn't such a big deal, a CN Dryad would have very few mechanical differences, be more in line with the "nature is neutral" thing Pathfinder has, and would gel better with theor descriptions in adventures, the bestiary, and setting books.
Additionally this seems pretty common an occurance according to Fey Revisired and Bestiary 1.
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Accept her allignmemt hit and live.
Not condemning her actions as "omg what a monster she must die!"
More "Well she did what she had to in order to survive, but what she did was horrible."
It's not like she loses anything, aside from pinging as good to allignment detecting spells. Honestly a Dryad's alignment isn't such a big deal, a CN Dryad would have very few mechanical differences, be more in line with the "nature is neutral" thing Pathfinder has, and would gel better with theor descriptions in adventures, the bestiary, and setting books.
Additionally this seems pretty common an occurance according to Fey Revisired and Bestiary 1.
Sounds like fey make a good group to have as regretful villains.
That would actually be pretty interesting. I'd be all for it :)
A fey who became a monster while in pursuit of peace.
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Getting someone killed on your behalf is definitely an evil act.
The literal example in Kingmaker is a Dryad using charm person and suggestion to coerce your party into fighting a very deadly monster on her behalf. She's not trying to shoo you off or defend herself from you, but trying to use you as a meat shield.
If a PC did that most GMs would look at that good allignment and ask "really?"
in that case, everyone who ever hired an Adventuring party is evil.
Accept her allignmemt hit and live.
Not condemning her actions as "omg what a monster she must die!"
More "Well she did what she had to in order to survive, but what she did was horrible."
You just described old school CG.
in that case, everyone who ever hired an Adventuring party is evil.Getting someone killed on your behalf is definitely an evil act.
The literal example in Kingmaker is a Dryad using charm person and suggestion to coerce your party into fighting a very deadly monster on her behalf. She's not trying to shoo you off or defend herself from you, but trying to use you as a meat shield.
If a PC did that most GMs would look at that good allignment and ask "really?"
"Hired." You said it yourself. If they used charm person on the adventuring party, then used the opposed charisma check to convince them to do something uncharacteristic of themselves, such as fight a strong monster for free, then it would be more like what the Dryad is doing.
Fortuneatly in the.. opening post of this thread, we have the current description of CG! I suggest reading the whole thread so you don't retread old ground.
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For the people who keep saying "Well look at it from the Dryad's perspective and that suicidal mind control is good because they are protecting their home" Well I guess Qlippoth are good in that respect too. Pretty much their reason for attacking people is because the demons have invaded the place they lived since before time began and drove them into the deepest pits. Their only way to take their rightful home back is to wipe out all mortals. They are just doing the only thing they can to protect themselves Qlippoth are now Good-Aligned.
Basically look at things from the eyes of a lot of monsters and they would be Good
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in that case, everyone who ever hired an Adventuring party is evil.Getting someone killed on your behalf is definitely an evil act.
The literal example in Kingmaker is a Dryad using charm person and suggestion to coerce your party into fighting a very deadly monster on her behalf. She's not trying to shoo you off or defend herself from you, but trying to use you as a meat shield.
If a PC did that most GMs would look at that good allignment and ask "really?"
Or literally every nation/kingdom to ever impose a draft.
Or literally every nation/kingdom to ever impose a draft.in that case, everyone who ever hired an Adventuring party is evil.Getting someone killed on your behalf is definitely an evil act.
The literal example in Kingmaker is a Dryad using charm person and suggestion to coerce your party into fighting a very deadly monster on her behalf. She's not trying to shoo you off or defend herself from you, but trying to use you as a meat shield.
If a PC did that most GMs would look at that good allignment and ask "really?"
Why yes, an argument could be made for that and it could hold water.
Additionally, as has been stated, there is a difference between hiring willing mercenaries who have clarity of thought and magically coercing people into being your meat shields.
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"Hired." You said it yourself. If they used charm person on the adventuring party, then used the opposed charisma check to convince them to do something uncharacteristic of themselves, such as fight a strong monster for free, then it would be more like what the Dryad is doing.in that case, everyone who ever hired an Adventuring party is evil.Getting someone killed on your behalf is definitely an evil act.
The literal example in Kingmaker is a Dryad using charm person and suggestion to coerce your party into fighting a very deadly monster on her behalf. She's not trying to shoo you off or defend herself from you, but trying to use you as a meat shield.
If a PC did that most GMs would look at that good allignment and ask "really?"
never played with a DM that said charm could make you do something uncharacteristic of yourself -that's what dominate person is for. Opposed charisma checks are also not the same thing as dominate person.
Or literally every nation/kingdom to ever impose a draft.in that case, everyone who ever hired an Adventuring party is evil.Getting someone killed on your behalf is definitely an evil act.
The literal example in Kingmaker is a Dryad using charm person and suggestion to coerce your party into fighting a very deadly monster on her behalf. She's not trying to shoo you off or defend herself from you, but trying to use you as a meat shield.
If a PC did that most GMs would look at that good allignment and ask "really?"
Why yes, an argument could be made for that and it could hold water.
Additionally, as has been stated, there is a difference between hiring willing mercenaries who have clarity of thought and magically coercing people into being your meat shields.
charm is not dominate.
Fortuneatly in the.. opening post of this thread, we have the current description of CG! I suggest reading the whole thread so you don't retread old ground.
not retreading. I mentioned in my post the. type of CG I was referring to.
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Fey logic. Also, I suspect that James Jacobs would want to edit that part of the Dryad description in the future. Someone could ask him about it at the proper thread...
Or just ask here.
For some creatures, we should probably have made some changes to make them fit their role in the world better. Dire apes could have stood to be quite a bit higher CR so that their Strength scores could be more appropriate, but we couldn't change their CR because they were already tied into summon monster spell lists, for example. And also, changing their CR too much would have complicated previous adventures and backwards compatibility.
Dryads are chaotic good because that's what they were in 3.5 D&D. When we built the Bestiary back in the day, we were VERY nervous about backwards compatibility, to the extent that making the changes we did to derros, ropers, and krakens actually made me pretty nervous. To the extent that we really tried to minimize the number of changes we were making, because we weren't sure what the threshold of "You changed too much from D&D and that makes me not want to play Pathfinder" was.
So yeah... Dryads are chaotic good because they've always been chaotic good.
If I were to redo the Bestiary today, I MIGHT make them chaotic neutral. I'd also change a LOT more than just dryads, though, since today, Pathfinder can stand on its own without needing backwards compatibility with D&D to exist. That wasn't the case many years ago.
THAT SAID.
A strict reading of the Bestairy's entry on dryads reveals that they "...have been known to magically coerce passerby into aiding them in tasks they cannot complete. They are more like to be friendly to non-evil druids and rangers, as they recognize a mutual respect for or empathy with nature." Nothing there says that they abduct people, magically control their minds, and keep them as pets. To a dryad, asking someone to help, say, kill the ogre who's been chopping down trees is no different than charming them into doing that—that's part of their strange fey personality and mindset—but she would still treat the magically compelled helper in a chaotic good way.
Later in the entry, it says, "some keep one or more charmed humanoids in their territory to fend off or lead away attackers..." and the key there is the word "some" combined with the fact that "charmed humanoid" could just as easily refer to things like evil giants or orcs or the like that, left to their own, would sow cruelty and despair and pain. Further, not all dryads ARE chaotic good. Remember, as mentioned on page 5 of the Bestiary... "The alignments listed for each monster in this book represent the norm for those monsters—they can vary as you require them to in order to serve the needs of your campaign." That means that "some" dryads are chaotic neutral, or evil, or whatever.
Taking JUST the flavor text about dryads on page 116 of the Bestiary, I don't see anything there that specifically goes against Chaotic Good. It's certainly and absolutely easy to bring baggage from other editions of the game, or even from other sources in Pathfinder, to the dryad... but as presented at ground zero in the Bestiary, I think she's fine as a chaotic good creature.
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I suspect that I believe a smaller percentage of Good creatures are saints than do many of the posters in this thread.
Leave it to James Jacobs to make the most sound arguments in favor of Good Dryads while similataneously arguing for a good ammount of wiggle room. I don't see anything really worth arguing over even though I don't agree 100%.
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Leave it to James Jacobs to make the most sound arguments in favor of Good Dryads while similataneously arguing for a good ammount of wiggle room. I don't see anything really worth arguing over even though I don't agree 100%.
He and the rest of his team did try to make the best of the work they did when they were still working to stand separate from WOTC, and yeah, the alignments in the bestiary do allow for wiggle room.
Now to put the finishing touches on this group of fey my players are going to be facing off against soon.
I'm sure you got some good inspiration now, what with all this banter on the nature of Fey and alignments :)
never played with a DM that said charm could make you do something uncharacteristic of yourself -that's what dominate person is for. Opposed charisma checks are also not the same thing as dominate person."Hired." You said it yourself. If they used charm person on the adventuring party, then used the opposed charisma check to convince them to do something uncharacteristic of themselves, such as fight a strong monster for free, then it would be more like what the Dryad is doing.in that case, everyone who ever hired an Adventuring party is evil.Getting someone killed on your behalf is definitely an evil act.
The literal example in Kingmaker is a Dryad using charm person and suggestion to coerce your party into fighting a very deadly monster on her behalf. She's not trying to shoo you off or defend herself from you, but trying to use you as a meat shield.
If a PC did that most GMs would look at that good allignment and ask "really?"
Read the spell again. This is in there.
"You can try to give the subject orders, but you must win an opposed Charisma check to convince it to do anything it wouldn't ordinarily do. (Retries are not allowed.) An affected creature never obeys suicidal or obviously harmful orders, but it might be convinced that something very dangerous is worth doing."
never played with a DM that said charm could make you do something uncharacteristic of yourself -that's what dominate person is for. Opposed charisma checks are also not the same thing as dominate person."Hired." You said it yourself. If they used charm person on the adventuring party, then used the opposed charisma check to convince them to do something uncharacteristic of themselves, such as fight a strong monster for free, then it would be more like what the Dryad is doing.in that case, everyone who ever hired an Adventuring party is evil.Getting someone killed on your behalf is definitely an evil act.
The literal example in Kingmaker is a Dryad using charm person and suggestion to coerce your party into fighting a very deadly monster on her behalf. She's not trying to shoo you off or defend herself from you, but trying to use you as a meat shield.
If a PC did that most GMs would look at that good allignment and ask "really?"
Read the spell again. This is in there.
"You can try to give the subject orders, but you must win an opposed Charisma check to convince it to do anything it wouldn't ordinarily do. (Retries are not allowed.) An affected creature never obeys suicidal or obviously harmful orders, but it might be convinced that something very dangerous is worth doing."
then clearly, we have different approches to the "obviously harmful" part of it. Charm person makes you their friend, not their patsy. Just because something is worth doing doesn't mean they are going to do what they are told exactly as it was told to them. Again, that's dominate person.
If Charme says "You can try to give the subject orders, but you must win an opposed Charisma check to convince it to do anything it wouldn't ordinarily do" then maybe, just maybe, the people in that "harem" want to stay there ... Even if the Dryad keeps them for plesaure for them is not a so bad deal xD !
D "You my new friend will stay here with me, help me protect this glade and since you're so manly ( not like my satyr consort over there ) i want you to pleasure me from time to time ! Also you've got some friends so yoou don't get lonely when i'm away with Fey Business ! Enjoy !"
that's bribery, not magical roofies.
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I feel like there was one thing that wasn't getting mentioned; there were lots of examples of why the dryad shouldn't be "chaotic good" and defending why one wouldn't be good. to me, that's the same logic as "why wouldn't all humans just be classified as evil, since there are no demon/devil-worshiping dwarf or elf nations" or "of the core races, only humans are portrayed as having slaves". the answers are A) "well that's only a small sample size of limited population" since there's only one elf nation and... 2 dwarf ones? and the B) there's plenty of examples of humans being good in other ways.
you've pretty much strictly cited negative appearances of dryads, the worst of which has ambiguous wording that you've equated to rape when "for pleasure" is specifically chosen because it can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. for all we know, "for pleasure" is literally the "pleasure" of teaching mean-spirited forest-harmers to live in harmony with nature. yeah, I totally agree that the intent was meant one way, but if you're going to be strict and literal then you have to allow all legal interpretations of the wording, and I'm going to insist that it's the pleasure of redeeming prisoners that Absalom dumps there for reformation.
interpretation of intentionally vague terminology aside, earlier you asked why they're chaotic GOOD and not just chaotic neutral. part of it is legacy, part of it is damsel in distress, and part of it is that they're allied with other CG creatures more often than not in many, many APs and lore, both from 3.5 and from Pathfinder. sometimes they're described as allies of druids and lumberjacks, acting as ambassadors for the forest and shepherds or wardens for the lost. sometimes they're described as fond and protective of human children, or aides to the children of any races that end up in the woods. sometimes it's that they actively oppose evil when it pops up (or just threatens the wilds).
in "The Fellnight Queen" (or whatever), like 12 dryads burn to death because they stood in the way of an evil faerie queen trying to destroy a human town. in that encounter, an enormous number of woodland and fey creatures die in defense of a human village that loses like, one woodsman 3 months earlier. in the Skull and Shackles AP, an island dryad acts as the local healer, sage, and warden for the nature on the island, including tasking the players with defeating the remnants of a corrupted seedpod left from a demon lord. in the Shudderwood, the dryads are described as wary guardians against the taint of the Worldwound, or in the Azata realms they're referred to as light-hearted party-goers that just dance around in sacred groves. in many presentations of dryads, unicorns freely associate with them, and unicorns are pretty explicitly only friends with creatures they deem to be pure and good.
a simpler way of breaking it down might be this: taken in isolation, without threats to their home (like a scytheclaw tree nearly mortally wounding her husband because it wants to devour her) or lumberjacks like the ones mentioned in Andoran (some of the lore for which has those same "innocent" lumberjacks that "just want to help their village" brutally nailing live pixies to trees because 'rumor has it their blood turns to gold'), ask the following question - "is this creature going to react positively, neutrally, or negatively to the player popping up?"
the dryad, in the larger percentage of incarnations, is going to be happy, chatty, helpful, and interested in the player. more often than not, they're portrayed as the light-hearted, innocent, protector of the forest/nature type of fey. protectors of anything "pure' are usually considered higher on the morality scale, as is innocence, joviality, and beauty, and that's why many people consider them to be the "good" in chaotic good.
Yeah, my point was that maybe that "harem" is made of consensual partners .. So is not a Evil or Neutral thing .. I mean the whole point is that charme itself doesn't force anything
Except when it forces you to regard a stranger as someone you trust enough that they can pressure you to do stuff you don't want to do, like sex. I mean, that's obviously what the opposed Charisma check is for. It's the equivalent of bossing around your friend/partner until they do what you want.
Charm Person on its own isn't evil or neutral. Using it to confuse a stranger so they think you're someone they'd be willing to consider sex with is decidedly evil—or very, very low neutral, depending on your point of view.
I feel like there was one thing that wasn't getting mentioned; there were lots of examples of why the dryad shouldn't be "chaotic good" and defending why one wouldn't be good. to me, that's the same logic as "why wouldn't all humans just be classified as evil, since there are no demon/devil-worshiping dwarf or elf nations" or "of the core races, only humans are portrayed as having slaves". the answers are A) "well that's only a small sample size of limited population" since there's only one elf nation and... 2 dwarf ones? and the B) there's plenty of examples of humans being good in other ways.
you've pretty much strictly cited negative appearances of dryads, the worst of which has ambiguous wording that you've equated to rape when "for pleasure" is specifically chosen because it can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. for all we know, "for pleasure" is literally the "pleasure" of teaching mean-spirited forest-harmers to live in harmony with nature. yeah, I totally agree that the intent was meant one way, but if you're going to be strict and literal then you have to allow all legal interpretations of the wording, and I'm going to insist that it's the pleasure of redeeming prisoners that Absalom dumps there for reformation.
interpretation of intentionally vague terminology aside, earlier you asked why they're chaotic GOOD and not just chaotic neutral. part of it is legacy, part of it is damsel in distress, and part of it is that they're allied with other CG creatures more often than not in many, many APs and lore, both from 3.5 and from Pathfinder. sometimes they're described as allies of druids and lumberjacks, acting as ambassadors for the forest and shepherds or wardens for the lost. sometimes they're described as fond and protective of human children, or aides to the children of any races that end up in the woods. sometimes it's that they actively oppose evil when it pops up (or just threatens the wilds).
in "The Fellnight Queen" (or whatever), like 12 dryads burn to death because they...
I thought this thread was dead, but instead I'm greeted with a really strong post for Dryad, and Fey, goodness!
Really, I had no idea such examples existed and I really thank you for bringing up real examples in the PFverse of good Dryads.
I think I can accept that in general Dryads are relatively harmless and even good creatures.
I still believe that the one in Kingmaker would have taken an alignment penalty for her, justifiable yet evil, actions of attempting to force others to fight and die for her when they explicitly say no.
However due to your post I now view that Dryad's actions as more that of a desperate minority and not the norm for their species.
I think I can accept that in general Dryads are relatively harmless and even good creatures.
I still believe that the one in Kingmaker would have taken an alignment penalty for her, justifiable yet evil, actions of attempting to force others to fight and die for her when they explicitly say no.
However due to your post I now view that Dryad's actions as more that of a desperate minority and not the norm for their species.
I'm generally amazed it would come to that... The dryad asked us for help to save her life... and we jumped to the rescue... We kept a wary eye on the satyr around our female PCs, but all in all it was a pleasant encounter with no charms at all... O.o
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Regarding the Kingmaker encounter, specifically: I think there may be something else about that. It reminds me of a certain controversy regarding a certain goddess in Wrath of the Righteous. Not identical, I admit, but the way people read both was "she'll do this thing! Evil!" when the actual encounter was far closer to "she'll do this thing... if pushed over the line or there are no other choices".
In addition, both read to me as contingencies. As Phantom pointed out, his group helped the dryad without question, and I assume many groups did the same. The same may be true of Wrath of the Righteous, although this part of the comparison is a bit apples-to-oranges (low-level pioneers vs. high-level mythic champions). In either case, the "questionable" actions are included as plan B contingencies, yet discussion treats them as the default.
I'm... not entirely sure where I was going with this; it's well past my bedtime. Still, hopefully there's some seed of interesting discussion here. :)
Eh, I'm off-and-on feverish, but it makes sense to me!
I think of it like zombie apocalypse movie characters. Before the zombieapoc they could have been good people, but in order to survive, protect their family/friends, and not go hungry they're going to be forced to make tough decisions. Just because a decision was necessary does not make it any less evil, if neccessity DID make something hunky dory then a lot less people would ping up as evil.
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Despite my avatar, I am in no way employed by or allied with Dryads singly or in any plurality.
But what I know of humanity suggests to me, that on the occasions when a man returned from their company, that man would be badgered into confirming sexual congress. And any denials of such would be taken as lies.
So OF COURSE the reputation of Dryads is salacious. Humanity is very ready to believe of itself that it is universally desirable. Even by plants.
TL;DR: Four words. Out of your league.
So since the thread is going strong, why can a dryad (a fey creature of the natural world) be chaotic good, while a druid MUST retain a measure of neutrality? Does this seem like a conflict to anyone else?
Yes. Similarly nymphs (with druid spellcasting) being chaotic good, while druids must be neutral good or chaotic neutral, but never chaotic good. It's... weird, but, I think, a legacy issue. The entire deal with druids centers around the idea of the "balance of nature" (which is a really weird concept itself) and was thus related to alignment neutrality (I've heard tale of folk who used to demand that for every good action a druid do, they must do an evil... never something I played with in that way, so ew), which is... meh, personally.
But, by the same token, I can actually kind of see it. In a way, it's a "look but don't touch" attitude with alignment as much as anything else - by forcing that alignment difference, you are kind of forced to keep a quasi-professional-like distance in attitudes, beliefs, and so on, which can be kind of a safe-guard against becoming so entangled that you, yourself, lose balance in order to save that one side with which you've come to empathize with so strongly.
... but, yeah, never been the greatest of fans, despite having a nifty reasoning behind it.
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Druids are guardians of nature, more or less, and nature is neutral, so a druid needs to stay somewhat neutral in order to remain connected to nature.
Dryads dwell in nature and are very nature compatible... but they're not druids. They're fey, and they come not from nature, but from the First World, which chaotic, not neutral. Same goes for nymphs; their ability to cast druid spells is honestly more of a shorthand than us saying they have druid levels. Rather than create a special nature-themed spell list for nymphs, letting them cast spells as a druid gets the idea across in a few lines of text rather than several dozen pages (or more). Nymphs don't gain all the other powers a druid gains, in any event.
It's to elementals that you'd likely want to look for a supernatural, otherworldly type of druid-themed ally, frankly, not to the fey. Although a lot of fey ARE druid compatible... a lot are not.
In any event, druids and dryads are very different creatures, and thus have very different alignments.
So would a nymph taking druid levels (to advance spellcasting) have to become at least partly neutral?
Or does their casting advance by hit dice instead?
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So would a nymph taking druid levels (to advance spellcasting) have to become at least partly neutral?
Or does their casting advance by hit dice instead?
She would if she wanted to gain any druid abilities from those druid levels, yes.
Casting does not generally advance with Hit Dice. In fact, true dragons are the only creatures I can think of that do anything close to spellcasting advancing with Hit Dice.