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Hello!
We have a concern in our campaign about the opposite alignment of neutral characters. When using the "Summon Monster" Spell, this spell becomes spell of this creatures alignment.
What i found is that the spell can have one or more descriptors of the different types (in this case lawful and good for archons for example)
So a neutral cleric from a neutral deity cant cast it to summon archon because LG es opposed to neutral, according to the gm.
I have a few questions:
Is the opposite alignment defined anywhere in the core rulebook?
where does it say that chaos is opposite to law and good to evil.
The Gm says that true neutral is opposite to "extreme" alignments, so is opposite to LG, LE, CG, CE.
He uses the Helm of Opposite alignment as example.
What i found in the rulebook about this case:
Cleric cant cast spells with alignments descriptors opposed to their deities alignment, summon monster adquires the descriptors of the monster summoned.
He also uses the rule about the "steps" from the alignment section to define opposite alignment. Found in the page 166 of the Core Rulebook. What i understand is that this is for effets and rules that use steps of alignment like for example a cleric cant be of an alignment more than one step from his deity alignment.
I would appreciate answers based on actual rules and not just opinions because he says that anything that is not written is invalidated.
Thanks!
Would your GM block a Lawful Good cleric from summoning an elemental?
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He says no, because there is no "neutral" descriptor, so it only works one way apparently. I tried to state that saying that a lawful good cleric wouldnt be able to cast any spell that doesnt have lawful and good as a descriptor. He also said that "lawful good" is a descriptor different from good, or lawful and that is the reason why there isnt a "neutral" descriptor, for lawful good clerics to be able to cast other spells.
The real problem is that he says that the example is clear, in the Helm of Opposite alignment and because of that "neutral" is opposite of LG, CG, LE, CE.
Ah, there's where he's wrong: "lawful good" isn't a descriptor. An archon is written as "lawful, good"; they're two separate descriptors that mean different things. The neutral cleric is within one step of lawful and one step within good; it doesn't matter that they're not within one step of lawful good.
The Helm of Opposite Alignment argument isn't any good either; it's not a consistent rule, as there are other instances where Neutral is shown as not opposed to anything in particular (Champion of the Faith Warpriests, for example).
In that case you're out of luck, because there are zero definitive rules that say neutral has no opposite alignment just as there are zero definitive rules that say neutral does. The Helm of Opposite Alignment is a niche cursed item that cannot be taken as overarching rule for every non-oracle divine caster.
You're not going to be able to get your GM to relent on this, so you'll have to decide if you want to keep playing in his campaigns. I don't personally think this particular instance is even close to worth dropping a campaign for, of course.
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Pathfinder is written as a permissive rule set, for the most part.
It tells you what you're allowed to do, not what you're not allowed to do. To that end, it doesn't tell you things like neutral isn't opposed to anything. It only tells you that Good is opposed to Evil and Law is opposed to Chaos.
You're GM is incorrect in his understanding of the rules, but there is nothing to point to tell him he's wrong because there no place that establishes the incorrect rule he's using outside of some very specific instances of magical items. And those rules are specific to those items, not applicable to all things.
Since when does someone interpret "neutral" to mean "diametrically opposed to everything else"?
Sorry to throw this in here, but there's other evidence to support your GMs idea in various Harrow-themed products (Harrow spell, Harrower PrC), as well as in the neutral-equivalent of holy word, Arbitrament.
I think it's a fine, thematic house rule. That said, it's probably not the original intention and I'm not sure it would fit "diametrically opposed." I haven't looked at the spell/summon list to see how much of a change it would be to a cleric's abilities, though.
As for 'playing by the rules...' Eh, it's not that important. The rules don't make sense in a lot of places. It's more important that everyone agree on how rules work in general. A "pure RAW" game would barely work and probably not be very fun. Everyone has their own variations and house rules, whether they know it or not.
The GM has final say, but the group should comment on things like this together so that everyone is having fun.
(Note, I don't this house rules is a dirty word like some do.)
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What if you believe in both justice and freedom and you're in favor of altruism but you're too selfish to make any real sacrifices for it? Doesn't that average out at Neutral?
It is, literally, whatever is best for me in any given scenario regardless of good, evil, laws, or freedom.
FTFY.
The previous explanation would have actually led the assumption of being Chaotic Neutral. In other words, think your typical "I only want money" Rogues.
Neutral is, more or less, nothing. No opinion, leaning, or desire either way.
The problem with TN, and why when it was created TSR initially said it was impossible to play, is that it's the lack of alignment.
You don't care about law or chaos and you don't care about good or evil.
Usually Lawful is opposed to Chaos. Law and order vs. Personal freedom. Usually Good is opposed by Evil, altruism vs selfishness.
Neutral is the lack of support or opposition. Thus NG, or someone who cares not for Law or Chaos, only Good, would be opposed by someone who cares not for Law or Chaos, only Evil.
But then you get to the null value - someone who has no strong beliefs about anything.
Hey man, sorry but this is completely wrong. TN: from the 1st edition player's handbook.
True Neutral:The "true" neutral looks upon all other alignments as facets of the
system of things. Thus, each aspect - evil and good, chaos and law -
of things must be retained in balance to maintain the status quo;
for things as they are cannot be improved upon except temporarily,
and even then but superficially. Nature will prevail and keep things
as they were meant to be, provided the "wheel" surrounding the hub
of nature does not become unbalanced due to the work of unnatural forces - such as human and other intelligent creatures interfering with what is meant to be
This set the ground work for TN to be considered the center around which the other alignments are organized. Frequently this has been played as someone who believes a balance must be struck between good and evil, law and chaos. And can be believed just as fervently as any other alignment. There are numerous examples of characters (especially in comic books) whose shtick is "the balance must be maintained"
To the OP, I can see how TN could be considered opposed to all the alignments. But it only appears that way when viewed from the perspective of any one of the other alignments. The reality is that TN consists of all the other alignments because each alignment must exist to maintain the balanced wheel of which TN is the hub.
For ex. It is perfectly acceptable for the TN character to endorse the actions of a CE character when faced with a place where LG has become too over-achingly dominant. And then travel to the next kingdom and help a resistance group over-throw an evil tyrant.
Another popular take on TN is the druid philosophy that Nature is the natural state of things or the law of nature that all things have a time to flourish and a time to wither.
Apathy, or only caring about yourself, has typically been considered a NE trait.
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What i found in the rulebook about this case:Cleric cant cast spells with alignments descriptors opposed to their deities alignment, summon monster adquires the descriptors of the monster summoned.
You have your answer right there. As Alignment descriptors are Good (opposed by Evil), Evil (opposed by Good), Chaotic (opposed by Lawful) and Lawful (opposed by Chaotic).
There is no such thing as Lawful Good alignment descriptor. There is only the conjunction of the Lawful descriptor and the Good descriptor.
Ie, what Arachnofiend said.
Note also that the helm says : "On a failed save, the alignment of the wearer is radically altered to an alignment as different as possible from the former alignment—good to evil, chaotic to lawful, neutral to some extreme commitment (LE, LG, CE, or CG)."
The text does NOT actually speak of opposed alignments ;-)
Since when does someone interpret "neutral" to mean "diametrically opposed to everything else"?
It should only occur in answer to the question "What happens when a True Neutral character puts on a Helm of Opposite Alignment?"
Otherwise, True Neutral is not diametrically opposed to anything.
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Hello!
We have a concern in our campaign about the opposite alignment of neutral characters. When using the "Summon Monster" Spell, this spell becomes spell of this creatures alignment.
What i found is that the spell can have one or more descriptors of the different types (in this case lawful and good for archons for example)
So a neutral cleric from a neutral deity cant cast it to summon archon because LG es opposed to neutral, according to the gm.
The term "opposite" is described in the Alignment section of the Ultimate Campaign book. Here's the relevant quote:
Every character has a 9-point scale for the lawful-chaotic alignment axis, with 1, 2, and 3 representing lawful, 7, 8, and 9 representing chaotic, and the rest representing neutral. Each character has a similar scale for the good-evil alignment axis, with 1, 2, and 3 representing good and 7, 8, and 9 representing evil.
...
A forced alignment change, such as from a helm of opposite alignment, shifts a character's position on each alignment track to the corresponding opposite position (1 becomes 9, 2 becomes 8, and so on); a true neutral character jumps to an extreme point on both alignment tracks (1/1, 1/9, 9/1, or 9/9).
To me, the second item is only describing the effects of the magic item. It doesn't help define what "opposite alignment" means. The first does that.
But, hey, he's the GM.
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The Cleric rule relates to "opposed" alignment descriptors on spells. There are four such descriptors; good, evil, lawful, and chaotic.
If we take 'neutral' to be "opposed" to good/evil and lawful/chaotic then a TN Cleric would not be able to summon creatures of any alignment EXCEPT true neutral... e.g. a 'Lawful Neutral' creature would cause the spell to have a lawful descriptor, which is hypothetically opposed to their neutral alignment.
If we DON'T take 'neutral' as "opposed" to good/evil and lawful/chaotic then a TN Cleric should be able to summon creatures of any alignment.
Thus, neither interpretation of "opposed" in the Cleric restriction gets us to TN being unable to summon just the four 'extremes'.
If we house rule that spells with BOTH the lawful and good descriptors (or other combinations of the extremes) are "opposed" to 'neutral' on BOTH scales then presumably that would also mean that LG/LE/CG/CE Clerics cannot summon TN creatures... the alignments are hypothetically 'opposed'.
They had a tendency to refer to it as "neutral" or "True Neutral" but I'm not sure what you mean by there was no true neutral. Where are you seeing that? In old monster descriptions? In the AD&D Player's Handbook (with the famous idol on the cover) I don't see what you are referencing.
My text is straight from that book.
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Checking everything you say here is actually useful, specially the guy who mentioned the ultimate campaign, it helps to clarify things. The main problem here was the summoning system. They dont want the neutral cleric to be able to summon all the possible monsters with "Summon Monster".
The GM statements are:
- A cleric gets his spells from their god (developer said this)
- Neutral is against every "extreme", on alignment description (core rulebook)
- A cleric cant cast spells with alignment opposed to them or their deities.
So TN cant cast summon mosnter to get an archon, because it becomes a LG spell and his god hates extremes, since LG is extreme, he cant do it.
That is what GM says and makes perfect logic for him, he even asked it on another forum and got some ppl supporting it, os now he proceeds to say that as a "rule", not a house rule.
The statements from the players are:
- Ok, so alignment is a thing that can get messy, but there are some mechanics that the game itself says are defined on the stat blocks (like devils being LE), one of these things are spell descriptors.
- On the cleric entry Core Rulebook it says: Clerics cant cast spells with alignment opposed to their alignment or their deity alignment. Spells get their alignment as descriptors, it mentiosn 4 descriptors. Also in the magic chapters we can find the types of descriptros and it says that spells can have more than one descriptor.
- There is no "neutral descriptor", nor "Lawful good" descriptor. There is just [LawfuL,Good] as two descriptors.
And here is the point where we have the problem. Player says that if neutral is opposed to "extremes", then extreme should be opposed to neutral, so every "extreme" character from "extreme" deity shouldnt be able to cast any "neutral" spell. Gm says: that is why there is no [neutral] descriptor.
The thing ended in "agree to disagree" but since the gm is the gm, we do what he says. I am 100% sure that this is not the actual ruling, nor RAW or RAI, but i needed actual reference from the rule set.
Gm said: When you GM, i will be totally ok if you say that neutral is not opposite to extremes, but if i am GM, i dont think so.
I hope some developers throw a hint on this or actually state what opposite means for characters like clerics and inquisitors, because apparently, what we play are interpretations, not clear facts.
Go cast a Cure or Inflict spell. The GM is going to tell you that your deity doesn't like the extreme levels of energy, which means Positive and Negative Energy aren't allowed. Only the Neutral Energies, such as Acid, Cold, Electricity, Fire, Force, Sonic, and Untyped are allowed. This also means you must use your Channel class feature to use one of the neutral energy types.
Oh, and Divine isn't allowed either, we wouldn't want to bring in any radical religious fanatics into our sect; extremists aren't allowed. Or Panda Bears. Just sayin'.
I never thought it was so hard to be NN really.
If your PC doesnt have strong feelings towards any direction , he should end up there. I follow the law of the place usually , unless a reason i believe worth breaking it for appears. Im willing to give some help to others as long as it isnt a huge issue for me...
I also usually find amusing when the DM wants to change my PC because of his actions , instead of his personality.
When i make a PC , lets say NN , and i say "i love fey and hate the people from kingdom X" , then my DM makes adventures that only involves fey , my PC ofc behaves like a good person , since he likes fey and ends up becoming good , then the DM makes adventures on kingdom X and my PC will behead , torture and do other horrid acts without a second thought , even being NG , atleast you know , for the first day there :P.
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Honestly, all the facts were laid out and if he still refused to accept the truth, then he has no business being a GM; he is completely unsuited for the task. He should either step down and let someone competent handle the responsibility, accept the advice of people who understand the rules and the fundamentals of logic far better than he, or you should leave outright. Being a GM isn't just about "I'm always right, screw your logic"; it is an important job in the game and a heavy responsibility to the group. The GM is a referee for the game, and referees are still obligated to make proper calls. Those that fail and fail consistently get fired.
Yeesh! People need to get a grip. I don't agree with the ruling either, but it is hardly the end of the world. GMs can, do, and should make house rules all the time. A house rule you dislike does not make someone a bad GM. In this case he seems to be trying to apply some 'balance' to the number of alignments each character can summon... RAW CE/CG/LE/LG can each summon 4, NE/NG/CN/LN 6 each, and NN all 9. He is changing that to NN being able to summon 5. Much more in line with the other alignments. I don't think it is necessary, but it also isn't a big deal at all.
+1. People are overreacting.
It makes perfect sense (from a thematic perspective), even considering the flawed arguments that extreme alignments should oppose neutral. LG opposes CE. They might not care for TN, but no one really fundamentally despises neutrals (except maybe Zap Brannigan :P ).
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Its muddled in flavor text, but if you read flavor text as RAW, TN opposes everything without a neutral in its name. Only one thing is for sure, you can't trust them.
I never thought it was so hard to be NN really.
If your PC doesnt have strong feelings towards any direction , he should end up there. I follow the law of the place usually , unless a reason i believe worth breaking it for appears. Im willing to give some help to others as long as it isnt a huge issue for me...
I also usually find amusing when the DM wants to change my PC because of his actions , instead of his personality.
When i make a PC , lets say NN , and i say "i love fey and hate the people from kingdom X" , then my DM makes adventures that only involves fey , my PC ofc behaves like a good person , since he likes fey and ends up becoming good , then the DM makes adventures on kingdom X and my PC will behead , torture and do other horrid acts without a second thought , even being NG , atleast you know , for the first day there :P.
To me, the G vs E axis is more of extremism vs tolerance while the L vs C is more moral strictness vs moral looseness. If you dislike something, a good character wouldn't start murdering everyone who likes what you likes while an evil one would have no problem butchering the heathens and a neutral character wouldn't go out of his way but also wouldn't feel bad if those guards that were in his way happened to like what he dislikes; a lawful character might enact his judgment on every digresser he sees and never partake himself while a chaotic person would ignore liberally because he thinks they might have had a good reason(or just pee in their face) and hypocritically indulge while a neutral person might excuse some but certainly not most or everyone and partake on rare occasions. A standard system for alignment is good, but the mold should also adjust to fit around the personalities of every character.
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Well being honest he is a good gm, he sometimes enjoy making the players feel desperate and frustrated, but well.. thats his thing. He normally search for the rules and tries to find something right RAW and RAI. Thats why im not sure about this, i guess everyone makes a mistake from time to time. Anyway im really glad you all of your responses. At least the topic is clarified, the community has spoken and i know im not the only one who thinks this way!
The GM statements are:
- A cleric gets his spells from their god (developer said this)
- Neutral is against every "extreme", on alignment description (core rulebook)
- A cleric cant cast spells with alignment opposed to them or their deities.So TN cant cast summon mosnter to get an archon, because it becomes a LG spell and his god hates extremes, since LG is extreme, he cant do it.
That is what GM says and makes perfect logic for him, he even asked it on another forum and got some ppl supporting it, os now he proceeds to say that as a "rule", not a house rule.
Best I can come up in the CRB is:
PRD and scroll down to Neutral:A neutral character does what seems to be a good idea. She doesn't feel strongly one way or the other when it comes to good vs. evil or law vs. chaos (and thus neutral is sometimes called "true neutral"). Most neutral characters exhibit a lack of conviction or bias rather than a commitment to neutrality. Such a character probably thinks of good as better than evil—after all, she would rather have good neighbors and rulers than evil ones. Still, she's not personally committed to upholding good in any abstract or universal way.
Some neutral characters, on the other hand, commit themselves philosophically to neutrality. They see good, evil, law, and chaos as prejudices and dangerous extremes. They advocate the middle way of neutrality as the best, most balanced road in the long run.
Neutral means you act naturally in any situation, without prejudice or compulsion.
No diametrically opposed alignment here.
Later: PRD
Defeat/slay diametrically opposed alignment*
* The purpose of the neutral (N) version of this item is to preserve the balance by defeating/slaying powerful beings of the extreme alignments (LG, LE, CG, CE).
This shows that Neutral has no diametrically opposed alignment.
There is custom that NN is opposed to extreme alignments like LG, LE, NG, and NG, but there is no text that actually supports this.
If you GM insists there is CRB support, demand to see it. No one else has found it.
/cevah
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In our playgroup, we tend to make a difference between NN and TN.
NN is the undecided guy who does not balance towards good/evil/law/chaos, but without fluctuating between alignments. In that way, he's not opposed to anything alignment-wise.
TN is the "guardian of balance" type, clearly opposing anything extreme.
This difference affects what could be cast by a character of these alignments.
Except NN and TN essentially share the same axis, which means that a rule that applies to one must apply to the other.
So, now you're going to basically nerf somebody because he decided to cross a T instead of zig-zag an N? Good lord, splitting hairs with words and phrases is one thing, but letters, of all things?
Having read all the responses, my personal opinion of this is a true Neutral Cleric shouldn't be able to summon something two steps away from his/her alignment. It has to cross one step into good, and then a second into law. Similar to how a N cleric cannot worship a diety of one of the four extremes, summoning a creature from one of them would be out of the question. Elementals do not have an alignment subtype and outsiders do. It also depends on what you are trying to do, I mean I'm sure you could lawyer your way into being allowed to summon one, but a diety might have something to saw about summoning an archon to commit some chaotic or evil act.
My personal opinion anyways, if you can't worship the diety affiliated with the outsiders alignment, it should make sense you cannot summon its minions. Binding them is a totally different story, but with equal difficulty.
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Maybe I ought to put this in a new thread, but since it seems to be partly related to this discussion I will place it here.
If an evil character tries to cast Dominate Person on a target warded by Protection from Evil the spell won't work, correct?
Protection from Evil will not help if the caster of Dominate Person is Lawful Neutral, but protection from Law will help?
Assuming the above it true, what if a True Neutral Caster invokes Dominate Person... There is no protection spell for that so the target better make the save?
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There is a logical fallacy in your statement.
Because Person A dislikes Person B and Person C, it doesn't necessarily mean that Person B and Person C dislike Person A.
Opposed: diametrically different
Its not about like or dislikeIf we take that A opposes B and C, but don't necessarily B opposes C and A, then we are screwed because we end with more dilemmas. Its not about "who likes who" its about what is opposite to what.
You don't allow N?
That is the oddest houserule I have ever heard of and IMHO your reasoning makes zero sense. Do the neutral gods also not exist?