I'm pretty sure fear of punishment isn't a valid enough reason to count as any sort of repentance.
I guess it depends on how you weigh the differences between motives and actions in your campaign.
It probably depends on the god.
Not that it helps you directly, but if showing a given PC the afterlife would mean something in Golarian, it might mean something completely different (or nothing at all) in a third party setting like Kaidan, for example, which has nothing like Abrahamic religions involved.
In the Rite Publishing Kaidan setting of Japanese horror (PFRPG), everyone earns positive or negative karma points based on the deeds committed in their life (lawful or good for positive points versus chaotic or evil acts for negative points) to determine your karma score. At PC Death your karma score determines your soul's destination within the cursed reincarnation cycle. Although there is a small chance to be sent to Jigoku (hell) which is actually a part of the Abyss, be trapped in Yomi, the land of the dead (as a yurei ghost), or a return as a newborn, all other souls simply reincarnate to a different social caste. Meaning for most people, if you want to look at the afterlife, its hardly more than looking at the living social castes above or below your current social caste to most likely witness your next life. Doing so, probably won't "scare you straight", though it might if social position has some meaning to you.
Even if you're from a culture that practices Abrahamic religions, if you visit Kaidan and die there, your religious choice means nothing at all, instead of normally going to your deity's chosen afterlife (heaven or hell), you are instead trapped in the Kaidan reincarnation cycle making it impossible to go to heaven or hell.
So, depending on the setting in which you die, the circumstances of the afterlife might mean very little regarding your choice to be good or evil.
Really, knowing that heaven and hell does exist in most fantasy settings. Why wouldn't an explanation by a given cleric of what hell is like, be enough to convince you that committing evil acts is a bad idea if your afterlife has any meaning at all?
In Golarion the afterlife is not a heaven/hell reward/punishment system for the morality of a mortals actions while alive. Evil rewards evil as much as good rewards good.
However as for your main point pathfinder alignment is a specific type of thing.
"A creature's general moral and personal attitudes are represented by its alignment . . . Good characters and creatures protect innocent life. . . . Good implies altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings. Good characters make personal sacrifices to help others."
If he is protecting innocent life, acting altruistically, respecting life, and acting with concern for the dignity of sentient beings, by the pathfinder definition he qualifies as good whether he is doing it out of altruism or threat of consequences.
"People who are neutral with respect to good and evil have compunctions against killing the innocent, but may lack the commitment to make sacrifices to protect or help others."
If he has the commitment to make sacrifices to protect or help others he is not neutral, he is good.
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This goes to the question of what matters more in alignment issues, action or intention.
You won't find consensus on this issue, it's the same one at the heart of several alignment debates. If you're running, do what's best for your game.
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I'm pretty sure fear of punishment isn't a valid enough reason to count as any sort of repentance.Seems to work for the Abrahamic religions.
That's like saying that the reason to do charity work is because a judge will likely give you less time if you're ever sent to prison.
Technically true - but missing the point entirely.
In Golarion the afterlife is not a heaven/hell reward/punishment system for the morality of a mortals actions while alive. Evil rewards evil as much as good rewards good.
Ehm...no. Unless you consider "Get tortured for all eternity until every last shred of your individuality is erased and you're reborn as the lowest kind of Fiendish life centuries later, forced to live in terror of now being absorbed by stronger beings with the possibility of maybe, MAYBE working your way up the ranks to become stronger" a reward (and that's how Hell and the Abyss roll, pretty much).
Abaddon is slightly better, if you're the kind of evil that enjoys the thrill of the hunt and the fear of being hunted, but for most people that's a pretty s!*~ deal too, and 99.99999% of the time your skinny mortal ass is going to be snapped up and have your soul turned into a little gem, sold to some guy, and then crushed to make his spell stronger (ONCE), so you're consigned to utter nonexistence, with no trace of anything you ever were remaining. Or eaten by a Daemon to make him stronger directly.
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It is possible that I'm an outlier on this issue.
I've run D&D games in the past without alignments, finding their broad generalizations cumbersome and irritating in what do to character creation and evolution.
For many years now, I've run alignment as a test of "how far you're willing to go without remorse". NPCs and society will (in my campaigns), in general treat people based upon their actions and deeds rather than the results of some divination.
As for the OP's theoretical situation, yes he still radiates as evil.
People may like him, depending upon his charisma and actions, he'd probably be a welcome volunteer at the church fund-raiser and at the soup kitchen, but that big shiny "E" still shows up when the detect spells start flying. Maybe somewhere down the road he slowly migrates out of "E".
Seeing the horror of the lower planes could change someones actions, but the reason would be fear of consequences and not a moral or ethical belief.
Actually, there is a spell about it:
So still, there are a few reasons to stay evil:
a) You think the present matters and not the future.
b) You have no clue how to better yourself and stick with the behavior which served you well so far.
c) You feel that your environment forces you to be evil or to die soon.
d) You successfully convince yourself that your deeds are for a 'greater good' or at least within the law.
e) You feel that you are a hopeless case anyway - no matter how much good you'd do, it wouldn't outweigh the bad things of the past.
f) You think you can evade death (most likely by becoming undead).
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I think he might eventually (and remember- a long and slow process) degrade to neutral.
Mostly because he is not actively doing evil, and your actions have at least some effect on your attitudes. If he no longer looks to act on his anger/jealousy/etc. by doing bad deeds to others, he might eventually just stop caring and take more of a 'live and let live' attitude.
That might eventually cause him to go neutral. Never good, obviously, since being good is about sacrifice and building up... but he will eventually not be evil since he no longer takes the short path that acts on his dark desires.
OF course, that is no guarantee, obviously. And again- TIME. It should generally take a few years before he stops dinging if he isn't actively doing anything to reform himself. I view being evil as just as much an active process as being good... it is just that being good takes time, and being evil means you take the tempting shortcut. So as long as he doesn't do minor evils (embezzlement, short changing and cheating people in business/gambling, mistreating and deriding neighbors, etc.), it will not keep up on the evil scale.
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I'd say that in Pathfinder terms he'd probably become neutral eventually, depending upon when he last did evil and how bad that was.
You could easily have him slowly begin to understand. Have him notice the reaction of people when he does good things and begin to realize what it means etc. He might even do what he can to see if he can get that reaction again, especially if they do something nice back to him. etc.
I was asking because I primarily had something like a goblin in mind who had been shown the abyss and was doing his best to avoid it by following a good deity even if he doesn't really 'get it'. He gets encountered, detection spells are used against him and he shows up as evil, yet he never does anything evil. He's quiet, avoids eye contact, helps out whenever he can and spends parts of his nights on prayers, very aloof. He doesn't 'get' what he's doing, but he knows that others avoid the abyss in this manner. He hasn't technically done any evil yet, there's an NPC who's been trying to forcibly convert creature's alignments by showing them visions of the evil planes rather than use something like a helm of opposite alignment.
It was at this point that I was wondering whether he would still detect as evil, and if he was to die where would his soul go?
(also I'm in agreement that unless you're a demon/devil/daemon worshipper in one of these settings, evil doesn't reward evil. Heck, even if the inhabitants don't torture you (but they will), the land itself is a nightmare)
There's actually a spell that does that. 2nd level cleric 'Early Judgement'
Depending on the creature's alignment and its adherence to its ethos, you can provide it a brief glimpse of the reward or punishment that waits for it when it dies by showing it a mental image of its destined plane in the afterlife. If the target is good-aligned, it is fascinated for 1d4 rounds on a failed save. If the target is neutral-aligned, it is confused for 1d4 rounds on a failed save. If the target is evil-aligned, it is shaken for 1d4 rounds on a failed save.
Also, remember that you don't actually detect as Evil until after 5th level (unless a cleric or Paladin)...
Also there really isn't a mechanical method for changing alignment. It's really a fiat kind of thing. Either player wants to have the character grow, or the DM thinks the character has changed...
Personally, I'd say if 'he never does anything evil' then he'd probably be neutral... or at least an easy shift up to neutral. Think and say what you want... but without the actions to back it up he's not as evil as he wants people to think he is.
The way I do it, orcs, drow, etc aren't 'evil' races. They are races. Some prevailing cultures in those races may have cultural values we might consider evil. Other cultures in those races might not. Various schools of thought can exist in those cultures on what is ideologically correct, and so on.
Makes things a whole lot more interesting in my opinion, and a whole lot more believable to me.
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The way I do it, orcs, drow, etc aren't 'evil' races. They are races. Some prevailing cultures in those races may have cultural values we might consider evil. Other cultures in those races might not. Various schools of thought can exist in those cultures on what is ideologically correct, and so on.
Makes things a whole lot more interesting in my opinion, and a whole lot more believable to me.
While I'll allow the existence of evil races, any individual from any race can be of any alignment, orc, drow or otherwise.
While I'll allow the existence of evil races, any individual from any race can be of any alignment, orc, drow or otherwise.The way I do it, orcs, drow, etc aren't 'evil' races. They are races. Some prevailing cultures in those races may have cultural values we might consider evil. Other cultures in those races might not. Various schools of thought can exist in those cultures on what is ideologically correct, and so on.
Makes things a whole lot more interesting in my opinion, and a whole lot more believable to me.
I know someone who as GM (for a dungeon test for lvl 1 players, not an actual campaign) would not allow a friend to play a drow because 'drow are evil'. My friend then made a purple-skinned elf just to antagonize him.
I understand GM's are final arbiters on what is allowed in their campaign, but I still think it's a dumb reason.
This goes to the question of what matters more in alignment issues, action or intention.
You won't find consensus on this issue, it's the same one at the heart of several alignment debates. If you're running, do what's best for your game.
Hell...I think this has been a topic in philosophy four a couple of thousand years, with no firm consensus on the issue.
Hell...I think this has been a topic in philosophy four a couple of thousand years, with no firm consensus on the issue.This goes to the question of what matters more in alignment issues, action or intention.
You won't find consensus on this issue, it's the same one at the heart of several alignment debates. If you're running, do what's best for your game.
True,but it's specifically reared it's head in the "does casting an [evil] spell make you Evil" threads, especially in regards to Infernal Healing.
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Well, people have demonstrated an amazing capacity to tell their future selves "screw you" in exchange for immediate gratification.
People go to outer planes populated with people like themselves.
The planes populated by awful people being awful places for most of them isn't terribly surprising.
Yet I suspect most orcs (at least the ones growing up in orc society) would gladly take the the uncertainty and violence of the Abyss over, say, having to behave themselves elsewhere.
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8
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If you lose your body, and you lose your memories, what's left? Why would you think of that being, who has almost nothing in common with you, as being -you-?
Evil benefits me now. It punishes a stranger in the future who shares my name. I'm evil, so of course I'm going to screw that guy over.
Except you do have your memories, for many decades or centuries worth of torture before they're ground out of you.
Except you do have your memories, for many decades or centuries worth of torture before they're ground out of you.
Except when you don't. Occult Adventures touches on why souls don't normally remember their past lives.
To sum it up, souls normally relive and then purge their memories as part of preparing themselves for reincarnation or for transfiguration into a petitioner. A soul usually isn't ready for judgment until its completed this process.
I suspect a soul that's bound by lower planar contract skips this process, though. After all, you've already agreed on where you're going...
There's a bit of conflicting fluff, but the descriptions of how terrible a place Hell, Abaddon, and the Abyss are don't make much sense if the victims of their depredations are mindless and/or other Devils/Demons.Daemons.
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For those who say that motives matter more than actions, what if we flipped the alignments?
Someone has Good thoughts/mentality, but they only ever commit Evil actions. Would you consider them a Good character?
I played a CG barbarian once. He talked up how he wanted to steal everything, murder this person or that person, burn villages, etc. But if you took the measure of his actions he never actually hurt anyone who wasn't already engaged with combat. He regularly provided aid to the poor and indigent and constantly sought to right wrongs in society. Everyone (people at the table and characters in game) expected the worst from him, but he never lived down to that expectation and surprisingly held up to a very high standard.
Consider every villain who ever felt justified in their actions. Being "justified" should be considered Good, as the word implies bringing about justice. But just because someone thinks they are imposing justice does not mean they actually are. This gets to the fact that Good/Evil are not subjective in the game. Otherwise all societies would be Lawful Good, because they would all be following what they consider appropriate and good rules of conduct.
In real life, alignment is subjective. What is considered Good/Evil will differ from table to table, but as game terms they become completely useless if you consider them subjective within the game itself.
Also those arguements make sense for the random evil guy, but what about people who actually worship evil dieties? Like people who worship Asmodeus or Zon Kuthon? Hell, Asmodeus prettY much has a city that is his (Cheliax is very much pro asmodeus...).
In Golarion the afterlife is not a heaven/hell reward/punishment system for the morality of a mortals actions while alive. Evil rewards evil as much as good rewards good.Ehm...no. Unless you consider "Get tortured for all eternity until every last shred of your individuality is erased and you're reborn as the lowest kind of Fiendish life centuries later, forced to live in terror of now being absorbed by stronger beings with the possibility of maybe, MAYBE working your way up the ranks to become stronger" a reward (and that's how Hell and the Abyss roll, pretty much).
Abaddon is slightly better, if you're the kind of evil that enjoys the thrill of the hunt and the fear of being hunted, but for most people that's a pretty s~&* deal too, and 99.99999% of the time your skinny mortal ass is going to be snapped up and have your soul turned into a little gem, sold to some guy, and then crushed to make his spell stronger (ONCE), so you're consigned to utter nonexistence, with no trace of anything you ever were remaining. Or eaten by a Daemon to make him stronger directly.
but if you are smart enough and have power you can avoid the torture part and become a powerful fiend when you die
...After the the thousands of years of torture that destroys your individuality, sure.
There's no "avoiding the torture" except in exceedingly rare, almost random cases where you might spontaneously arrive as an Ice Devil or something.
If you're smart, you won't bank on that.
For those who say that motives matter more than actions, what if we flipped the alignments?
Someone has Good thoughts/mentality, but they only ever commit Evil actions. Would you consider them a Good character?
I played a CG barbarian once. He talked up how he wanted to steal everything, murder this person or that person, burn villages, etc. But if you took the measure of his actions he never actually hurt anyone who wasn't already engaged with combat. He regularly provided aid to the poor and indigent and constantly sought to right wrongs in society. Everyone (people at the table and characters in game) expected the worst from him, but he never lived down to that expectation and surprisingly held up to a very high standard.
Consider every villain who ever felt justified in their actions. Being "justified" should be considered Good, as the word implies bringing about justice. But just because someone thinks they are imposing justice does not mean they actually are. This gets to the fact that Good/Evil are not subjective in the game. Otherwise all societies would be Lawful Good, because they would all be following what they consider appropriate and good rules of conduct.
In real life, alignment is subjective. What is considered Good/Evil will differ from table to table, but as game terms they become completely useless if you consider them subjective within the game itself.
The bolded is why I'm seriously considering houseruling out rules/mechanics depending on alignment in the game, and leaving alignment solely as a general guide/flavor text than a rule.
the problem is that Good and Evil are subjective concepts by nature, but, as you say, in the game, good and evil is objective. if so, what is an objective good or evil?
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I already basically ignore alignment for pretty much that reason.
if Good and Evil are objective forces...why is anyone evil? You're objectively wrong. You cannot delude yourself into thinking you're doing the right thing. Which means all villains above level 5 have to be freakin' Snidely Whiplash because a 1st level spell can tell them "Yep, you're Evil.".
^We need a movie Evil and Loving It . . . .
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Also those arguements make sense for the random evil guy, but what about people who actually worship evil dieties? Like people who worship Asmodeus or Zon Kuthon? Hell, Asmodeus prettY much has a city that is his (Cheliax is very much pro asmodeus...).
You can be Lawful Neutral and worship Asmodeus. Asmodeus is Evil-aligned and EXTREMELY Lawful-aligned. He runs the multiverse's prison.
I already basically ignore alignment for pretty much that reason.
if Good and Evil are objective forces...why is anyone evil? You're objectively wrong. You cannot delude yourself into thinking you're doing the right thing. Which means all villains above level 5 have to be freakin' Snidely Whiplash because a 1st level spell can tell them "Yep, you're Evil.".
Try thinking of it as categorizing, rather than "exactly what it says on the tin in real-world terms."
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For those who say that motives matter more than actions, what if we flipped the alignments?
Someone has Good thoughts/mentality, but they only ever commit Evil actions. Would you consider them a Good character?
I played a CG barbarian once. He talked up how he wanted to steal everything, murder this person or that person, burn villages, etc. But if you took the measure of his actions he never actually hurt anyone who wasn't already engaged with combat. He regularly provided aid to the poor and indigent and constantly sought to right wrongs in society. Everyone (people at the table and characters in game) expected the worst from him, but he never lived down to that expectation and surprisingly held up to a very high standard.
Consider every villain who ever felt justified in their actions. Being "justified" should be considered Good, as the word implies bringing about justice. But just because someone thinks they are imposing justice does not mean they actually are. This gets to the fact that Good/Evil are not subjective in the game. Otherwise all societies would be Lawful Good, because they would all be following what they consider appropriate and good rules of conduct.
In real life, alignment is subjective. What is considered Good/Evil will differ from table to table, but as game terms they become completely useless if you consider them subjective within the game itself.
The bolded is why I'm seriously considering houseruling out rules/mechanics depending on alignment in the game, and leaving alignment solely as a general guide/flavor text than a rule.
the problem is that Good and Evil are subjective concepts by nature, but, as you say, in the game, good and evil is objective. if so, what is an objective good or evil?
Note, I'm going to say this as someone who is NOT a fan of alignment.
It's one of those things you have to buy into. It also works particularly for games that are going to deal with black/white issues (assigning the grey areas to Neutral). The cosmological reality of the game doesn't need to reflect the real world. You and your group just need to define the morality that you want to use.
That said, I think the game works fine if you abandon alignment. You can keep it as a more fluid, suggestive concept, or abandon it altogether.
I sometimes write N on my character sheet. Technically it stands for Neutral, but I read it as None.
Note, I'm going to say this as someone who is NOT a fan of alignment.
It's one of those things you have to buy into. It also works particularly for games that are going to deal with black/white issues (assigning the grey areas to Neutral). The cosmological reality of the game doesn't need to reflect the real world. You and your group just need to define the morality that you want to use.
That said, I think the game works fine if you abandon alignment. You can keep it as a more fluid, suggestive concept, or abandon it altogether.
I sometimes write N on my character sheet. Technically it stands for Neutral, but I read it as None.
Yeah, I'm definitely not a very black/white storyteller or worldbuilder. I'm not quite so grey as George RR Martin/Game of Thrones, but my worldbuilding and storytelling does tend to be on the cynical side and to reflect the real world for the most part.
Also those arguements make sense for the random evil guy, but what about people who actually worship evil dieties? Like people who worship Asmodeus or Zon Kuthon? Hell, Asmodeus prettY much has a city that is his (Cheliax is very much pro asmodeus...).You can be Lawful Neutral and worship Asmodeus. Asmodeus is Evil-aligned and EXTREMELY Lawful-aligned. He runs the multiverse's prison.
Yes but he Is still EVIL. So if someone actively worships and praises Asmodeus (even a LN guy like a hellknight), would they be tortured and flayed by him? Seems like a piss poor way to get followers...
Yes but he Is still EVIL. So if someone actively worships and praises Asmodeus (even a LN guy like a hellknight), would they be tortured and flayed by him? Seems like a piss poor way to get followers...Also those arguements make sense for the random evil guy, but what about people who actually worship evil dieties? Like people who worship Asmodeus or Zon Kuthon? Hell, Asmodeus prettY much has a city that is his (Cheliax is very much pro asmodeus...).You can be Lawful Neutral and worship Asmodeus. Asmodeus is Evil-aligned and EXTREMELY Lawful-aligned. He runs the multiverse's prison.
most likely the LN Hellknight would probably end up in the plane of Axis due to his LN alignment, i am basing this off of the fact that souls go to what ever plane best fits their alignment as from the novel Death's Heretic
most likely the LN Hellknight would probably end up in the plane of Axis due to his LN alignment, i am basing this off of the fact that souls go to what ever plane best fits their alignment as from the novel Death's HereticYes but he Is still EVIL. So if someone actively worships and praises Asmodeus (even a LN guy like a hellknight), would they be tortured and flayed by him? Seems like a piss poor way to get followers...Also those arguements make sense for the random evil guy, but what about people who actually worship evil dieties? Like people who worship Asmodeus or Zon Kuthon? Hell, Asmodeus prettY much has a city that is his (Cheliax is very much pro asmodeus...).You can be Lawful Neutral and worship Asmodeus. Asmodeus is Evil-aligned and EXTREMELY Lawful-aligned. He runs the multiverse's prison.
But he is a hellknight of ASMODEUS. Seems odd that he would not go with the deity he specifically reveres...