You say my narrative isn't supported by the rules, but there's is nowhere that says alignment is a result of actions, only code of conduct violations.But the actions specifically are the thing that change alignment from one to another.That's very close to what the rules say (from my read), but it's not actually what they say. They say that if a character acts in a way inconsistent with his alignment, talk to the player about changing what it says on the paper to match the way the character is portrayed.
The portrayal (which includes motives and the like) is what drives alignment. The actions are the most visible part of that.
That might have some weight if alignment were purely a metagame construct- but it's not. Alignment is visible in-world. Characters know what it is, can detect it with spells, and are directly affected by it. If your assertion were true you'd also need to go back and change past events in the campaign based on the change of alignment (like losing a fight they actually won because they weren't as badly affected by a holy word, or pinging on a detect alignment spell).
Alignment change actually occurs in world, and needs an in world cause.
In-world, the character acts the way they want because they choose to. Their decision-making IS an in-world cause. Just because the GM isn't psychic and can't model the world perfectly doesn't mean it's not supposed to be the way it works.
If that were the most important thing and we were willing to devote enough player and GM effort to it, whenever a player decides his character would act differently in the future, the player and GM would have a conversation about what that means his alignment is now. Because that's when the character's personality changes and hence when his actual alignment changes. Just because we take a while to realize it doesn't mean we're modeling the world perfectly.
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You're dead, the GM runs the NPC inhabiting your body. If you're a particularly gifted roleplayers who's down for it you could run it for him within certain criteria, but that's unlikely. Most likely your undead self flees the party or attacks them. Your options are: 1) party tracks down and kills undead, resurrects PC, or 2) roll a new character.Appreciate the answer, but your answer happens to avoid the context of my question. I'm asking this because it has been made evident, that some people believe that were I to remain in control of my character, through the transformation to vampire, my personality would then be radically changed. My question asks for their clarification on how they would have that change be a thing, at their table. So this response is not really helpful.
-Nearyn
You feed on sentient, living creatures to survive. You take their lives, not to save the world from anything, but to continue to exist.
The response isn't "helpful" because, from what I can tell from this thread, people want all of the power of being undead, but none of the consequences.
You feed on sentient, living creatures to survive. You take their lives, not to save the world from anything, but to continue to exist.
That isn't necessarily evil, especially since many do not actually need to feed and many that do feed do not need to kill.
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Yeah I typo'd. I meant it the other way around.You are putting the horse before the carriage here.Well, yeah. Isn't that how it's usually done?
So you put the horse before the carriage? ;)
You feed on sentient, living creatures to survive. You take their lives, not to save the world from anything, but to continue to exist.
The response isn't "helpful" because, from what I can tell from this thread, people want all of the power of being undead, but none of the consequences.
1) You deal easily healed damage, and can exist without harming anyone unwilling to help you in any way. Being a vampire doesn't require you to kill a single living being. One could make an argument that you harm fewer animals if you ate meat as a living creature, but that's a bit out of scope.
2) I don't know what power you're talking about, unless you're under the assumption people are cool with just slapping a +2 CR template on a character without adjusting other elements to remain the same CR. It's certainly not anything inherent to having the undead creature type, since it has its own bevy of vulnerabilities and downsides countering its benefits.
3) You haven't been reading the actual discussion, if you think it comes down to powergaming or munchkinizing or whatever word you want to use to demonize people who play differently.
You're dead, the GM runs the NPC inhabiting your body. If you're a particularly gifted roleplayers who's down for it you could run it for him within certain criteria, but that's unlikely. Most likely your undead self flees the party or attacks them. Your options are: 1) party tracks down and kills undead, resurrects PC, or 2) roll a new character.Appreciate the answer, but your answer happens to avoid the context of my question. I'm asking this because it has been made evident, that some people believe that were I to remain in control of my character, through the transformation to vampire, my personality would then be radically changed. My question asks for their clarification on how they would have that change be a thing, at their table. So this response is not really helpful.
-Nearyn
You feed on sentient, living creatures to survive. You take their lives, not to save the world from anything, but to continue to exist.
The response isn't "helpful" because, from what I can tell from this thread, people want all of the power of being undead, but none of the consequences.
Not accurate.
What people in this thread want are rules for undead that actually have internal consistency with other rules (and their setting's own flavor text).
Please refer to the link I posted earlier discussing the discrepancies in how the rules handle necromancy.
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It's extremely hard to argue with you when you respond to criticism in that way. You're asking people to do something that's already been done, in this thread. You're saying "You've shown me the evidence, now show me the evidence!" and it's utterly baffling.
As for how I responded to criticism, I was merely trying to say that if you're trying to prove that what I'm saying is false, you should be talking about what I'm saying. If you're saying A is the right way to do something and I say B is also valid, further asserting A without showing that B is invalid isn't disproving my assertion.
To put it another way, you say A and show some evidence. I say maybe B and show some evidence. You then say "No, A" and show the same evidence. There are clear assertions that I'm making and they might be provable in the rules, disprovable in the rules, or not addressed in the rules. Since the conversation has been missing that, I thought I would make clear what would be convincing to me.
I may have also been biased by posts that were entered and deleted once cooler heads prevailed. I tried to reset my reaction, but may have failed.
Has there been evidence that alignment is changed by actions in-world (barring things like taking a wish from certain evil creatures, etc.)? I have seen a lot of assertions along those lines, but not rules quotes that actually say that.
What I have been saying, which might be more frustrating for both of us, is, "That's not evidence. Show me evidence." And if I'm wrong, you can leave me to be a crazy person - I wouldn't be the only one and I'll gladly take that label as long as you don't put words in my mouth :-). I have been very careful to not claim everyone agrees with things that the person I'm talking to doesn't agree with.
How is a personality evil? A person's thoughts don't cause evil, only their actions.
How is a personality evil? A person's thoughts don't cause evil, only their actions.
Something causes them to take those actions. A personality that would give rise to enough evil actions would correspond to an evil alignment.
Here personality is a shorthand for their attitude, values, strength of character, loyalties, and probably about a million other influences.
Edit: let me illustrate my interpretation of the rules this way. There's a good subject with a good king, both in alignment and quality. One day, the subject decides to stab the king. He runs up to the throne and does it. It turns out what the subject thought was the king was actually just an illusion that day - the king was out on vacation and projected in that day via his wizard friend so he wouldn't have to put on pants. So there's no harm done.
Assuming this betrayal is sufficiently out-of-alignment to cause alignment questions, what should happen to the subject's alignment and when. No actual evil act was performed because the illusion isn't an intelligent being. The subject certainly acted with evil intent. My claim is that by the time he actually fully resolved to do it, he was already evil. It doesn't wait until he does the act. It might not be when he decided to do it, either, because deciding to kill and going through with it are very different levels of conviction. But the fact that he failed through no failure of his own intent means that it still shows that he was evil by the time he made the stab.
The problem is that, if you say that intent is important, then what happens when you look at the majority of people who do evil. Most of them don't see themselves as evil, and no one is actually looking at their thoughts from moment to moment, so who decides when you are thinking evily?
Not to mention the whole thought police, lack of free will concern this keeps raising for me.
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The problem is that, if you say that intent is important, then what happens when you look at the majority of people who do evil. Most of them don't see themselves as evil, and no one is actually looking at their thoughts from moment to moment, so who decides when you are thinking evily?
Not to mention the whole thought police, lack of free will concern this keeps raising for me.
The GM decides. Because in the end this is only a game and he is the one in charge of running it.
You feed on sentient, living creatures to survive. You take their lives, not to save the world from anything, but to continue to exist.
The response isn't "helpful" because, from what I can tell from this thread, people want all of the power of being undead, but none of the consequences.
Mmmm no. The response isn't helpful, because it doesn't actually address the question I asked. The same holds true for your response, which is also not helpful to what I asked.
As for what people want, I'm afraid I cannot speak for "people", but what exactly I asked for, can be read in post 709 of this thread.
-Nearyn
While evil thoughts don't necessary lead to evil actions, you do need an evil throughts for an action to be considered evil. In legal terms we call it the Actus Reus (Act) and the Mens Rea (the mental element or intention). Hitting someone with your car accidentally may be functionally the same as intentionally driving into them but we would consider one substantially higher up the spectrum of evil than the other.
I can't think of any act we would consider evil that doesn't have intent as a crucial part. That's why spells or powers that take a persons free will away shouldn't mean the person committing the acts is evil. From evil thoughts flow evil actions and from good thoughts flow good actions. otherwise a person is acting whimsically.
For the record, recklessly disregarding whether evil outcomes are likely is as bad as intending them. If reasonable evil outcome could be predicted from any given action we would still consider the act evil. In the driving example above, you may not intend to run someone over but if you drive down a busy high street at speed it is reasonable to consider that people will be injured and it is still a wicked act, regardless of intention.
I think we accept that short of domination, PCs shouldn't be compelled to perform certain actions. A PC is given the label of chaotic evil because they perform chaotic evil actions because we have no idea what a PC is thinking. Where a PC has completely free will this isn't a problem as the player has no need to talk about intention, just action. The player intentions become a surrogate for the characters intentions. The character proceeds straight to action and unless the PC chooses to tell the group what their character is thinking then there is no way of determining whether the character has good or evil thoughts. Judgements on PCs have to be based on actions. This explains the wording of the rules quoted by Ashiel and others.
Where a player is following a particular God, or has a particular racial trait - or where a campaign alignment restriction is in place the player may need to conform to a particular philosophy and think and act accordingly - if the player wants to roleplay the character. There range of options narrow if they are playing that character. However if they chose they can break away from the mound and fall/lose clerical powers etc. There is still nothing stopping them behaving in a certain way because the characters intentions are still completely controlled by the player.
My metaphor for Alignment is like a heavy ball (alignment) attached to a small ball (actions) by by a six foot piece of rope, by throwing the small ball you will slowly move he larger one but you can also throw it in the other direction a little every so often and it won't have much impact on the general direction the heavy ball moves. If you hit the small ball hard enough it will move the heavy ball a lot. A single major act or several small acts will move alignment but not the odd small act in the other direction.
What does alignment represent? Alignment has been around long before it was a tag to determine which spells affected you. Is it your general outlook on life or is a description of the acts you have taken to date? If it is the former and you subscribed on the notion that there is no action without thought then a persons alignment should influence their choice of actions. If you believe it is the latter then then how a person feels is irrelevant. The core rules on alignment say it is both, "a curious creature" that represents both "philosophy" and "how she interacts with others". As a result I think we have to accept that alignment does at least partly govern how a person thinks as well as how they act.
The trouble occurs where alignment is mandated by curse, item or class (e.g assassin) or type (evil outsider). If alignment is a philosophy and outlook on life then a characters thoughts should reflect this, if it also reflects how they interact with others and evil actions flow from evil thoughts then their behaviour being mandated to an extent. That heavy ball is locked in position and no matter what direction you kick it won't budge. Actions can only stray so far from that central philosophical position and remain credible.
Rules are being quoted as facts claiming an absolute truth about this issue. But the truth is that this is an area where rules are substantively left out of the text. What is left is guidance and advice. We can argue all night about whether a stat block can be considered a rule or not, or whether the descriptive part of the bestiary is a rule. Ultimately it doesn't matter. The campaign setting, not the core book, will determine what the rules on alignment are. I only claim that if those restrictions are in place then they should be adhered to as more than just a tag to determine which spells affect you.
This post isn't intended to be inflamatory, or indeed to 'disprove' any one else's view point. It is just an explanation of why I see alignment the way I do. Respect to you all.
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*sigh*
Alignment is a tool for developing your character's identity—it is not a straitjacket for restricting your character. Each alignment represents a broad range of personality types or personal philosophies, so two characters of the same alignment can still be quite different from each other. In addition, few people are completely consistent.
All creatures have an alignment. Alignment determines the effectiveness of some spells and magic items.
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Good implies altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings. Good characters make personal sacrifices to help others.
Evil implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others. Some evil creatures simply have no compassion for others and kill without qualms if doing so is convenient. Others actively pursue evil, killing for sport or out of duty to some evil deity or master.
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Nine distinct alignments define the possible combinations of the lawful-chaotic axis with the good-evil axis. Each description below depicts a typical character of that alignment. Remember that individuals vary from this norm, and that a given character may act more or less in accord with his alignment from day to day. Use these descriptions as guidelines, not as scripts.
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Alignment is a tool, a convenient shorthand you can use to summarize the general attitude of an NPC, region, religion, organization, monster, or even magic item.
Certain character classes in Classes list repercussions for those who don't adhere to a specific alignment, and some spells and magic items have different effects on targets depending on alignment, but beyond that it's generally not necessary to worry too much about whether someone is behaving differently from his stated alignment. In the end, the Game Master is the one who gets to decide if something's in accordance with its indicated alignment, based on the descriptions given previously and his own opinion and interpretation—the only thing the GM needs to strive for is to be consistent as to what constitutes the difference between alignments like chaotic neutral and chaotic evil. There's no hard and fast mechanic by which you can measure alignment—unlike hit points or skill ranks or Armor Class, alignment is solely a label the GM controls.
It's best to let players play their characters as they want. If a player is roleplaying in a way that you, as the GM, think doesn't fit his alignment, let him know that he's acting out of alignment and tell him why—but do so in a friendly manner. If a character wants to change his alignment, let him—in most cases, this should amount to little more than a change of personality, or in some cases, no change at all if the alignment change was more of an adjustment to more accurately summarize how a player, in your opinion, is portraying his character. In some cases, changing alignments can impact a character's abilities—see the class write-ups in Classes for details. An atonement spell may be necessary to repair damage done by alignment changes arising from involuntary sources or momentary lapses in personality.
Players who frequently have their characters change alignment should in all likelihood be playing chaotic neutral characters.
1. Alignment is at most a RP tool. It doesn't control anything about the way your character acts.
2. Its only game effect is determining alignment-based effects.
3. Alignment is a tool for getting a general idea of the attitude for NPCs, items, reigions, religions, but not PCs.
4. If a player is roleplaying outside their current alignment the GM lets them know and the alignment changes. There is only an issue if alignment would negatively impact the character (such as a Paladin falling).
5. The only thing that a GM should strive for is to be consistent with the differences between alignments when deciding what is and is not in keeping with the alignments, as far as telling PCs when they're acting outside of their current alignment.
6. It continues the class feature loss by noting that an atonement spell is needed to repair the damage done by alignment changes arising from involuntary changes (such as the mace of blood) or having a sudden bout of puppy kicking, because that's the only way to restore your class features.
So in further summary...
1. Alignment doesn't determine actions or why you take them. If actually says quite the opposite, that people can freely act outside of their alignment.
2. Alignment does what it says. Nothing more, nothing less.
3. Alignment does not care about fooling things but it can change and may change frequently.
4. The GM doesn't control the PC at all. They only note when the PC is acting outside of alignment and remain consistent upon what that means. At no time is the GM allowed to say "Your character would/wouldn't do that".
Final Summary
Berinor has made claims that need evidence to back them up. The alignment rules actually contest his stance in several areas and he has not provided sources indicating that alignment restricts a character's motivations for doing anything, nor any indication that a forced alignment change is permanent, or that it must make your character different in any way other than what has been explicitly specified.
What the rules actually say is that alignment is a tool for determining general attitude and for game mechanics. As we have repeatedly noted, by the rules, a Paladin who biffs using the mace of blood or gets slapped with the vampire template suddenly has an allergy to holy smite and loses Paladin class features. However, neither of those things indicate a permanent alignment shift and their alignment will return if they don't embrace this new alignment and can be returned and all mechanical damage undone by an atonement spell.
The special snowflake in this discussion is the helm of opposite alignment which has its own set of rules for how it affects a character.
Berinor keeps saying alignment does a thing but has yet to show that alignment does a thing. And there is game text that explicitly notes that alignment doesn't do that thing.
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As a point of curiosity. Can someone who has been advocating the "undeath turns your alignment to evil, which changes your personality" point of view, kindly tell me how exactly they'd make that work at the table?
I'm curious how this situation plays out in your mind's eye. So I'm a player at your table, I'm playing a LG Order of the Dragon cavalier, and as I ventured into the crypt of scarlet ashes, to scout ahead of the party, I was attacked by a vampire, drained and turned. My party, noticing signs that I've had a scuffle with a vampire, decide to retreat and go shopping in the Van Hellsing armory, for the proper equipment to deal with the longfang, and rescue me, if I'm still alive.
Now you describe my character awakening, I've been turned into a vampire. The argument here is that now that I've been turned, my alignment has been changed to any evil (Let's say Neutral Evil), and this is something I should roleplay. What do you, as the GM, tell me when my character wakes up?
What is my character's personality? It has just been changed, and not by me. If my alignment changing has forced an entirely different mindset, to such an extent that I now act and think in a way that fits the bill of neutral evil, what do you say to me? I have NO way of knowing what you expect of my new personality, or how my character justifies ANYTHING. I knew how my character thought and WHY she thought what she did, before, when my character was something I had constructed. Are you going to explain an entirely new character to me? And what does my character believe the basis for her new actions and thoughts are, having been a lawful good white-knight of friendship and loyalty, no more than 1d4 days ago?
When you give the reins back to me, and say "there, now roleplay your neutral evil vampire cavalier", what have you told me that would enable me to properly portray your vision, and how long have you taken to explain this to me?
I'm asking because, as I attempt to imagine my GM telling me these things, I'm left with...
First, I would ask if you (and the other players) are ok with playing the part of the now Evil newborn vampire that once was your mortal PC.
If not, I will control it as I would any NPC and I would try my best to portray it as a twisted version of the PC it was, with its values now bent to an Evil worldview aka innocent people are fair game for anything you wish.
If yes, I will ask you to try and roleplay it that way. And we can work together on developing its Evil persona as much as you want.
If it becomes too complicated or if you are not comfortable with it, we will devise a way to get your original morality back through some sidequest (Helm of Opposite alignment for example), if the other players are ok with you playing your non-evil vampire PC. Else you create a new PC and the vampire is now a NPC I try to portray as mentioned above.
Wow, lots to read there.
Regarding intent; I want to at least explain why, for me, intent is not really important or even good to look at when talking about alignment.
The problem with intent is bias. Ultimately, your going to have people doing things that help many for selfish reasons and others who harm many for 'the greater good'. People don't think their actions are wrong by and large, but people do wrong all the time.
Also, look at all the claims of evil in this thread that don't actually fulfill the requirements of an evil action. Cultural bias is an issue as well. Look at the claims about cannibalism being evil. The only reason that was given was burial rights, as if not getting your body buried in a hole in the grounds constitutes evil.
It's just an argument waiting to destroy games that are meant to be fun.
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What the rules actually say is that alignment is a tool for determining general attitude and for game mechanics. As we have repeatedly noted, by the rules, a Paladin who biffs using the mace of blood or gets slapped with the vampire template suddenly has an allergy to holy smite and loses Paladin class features. However, neither of those things indicate a permanent alignment shift and their alignment will return if they don't embrace this new alignment and can be returned and all mechanical damage undone by an atonement spell
You keep saying that and yet i don't see anyone claiming the opposite of that.
There are circumstances where alignment is relevant to character creation and actions.
The are games where alignment matters a great deal.
- heroic campaigns where evil alignment is banned (PFS)
- Campaigns where good is banned (Such as the Way of the Wicked)
If a campaign is strongly aligned to either good or evil, and this is communicated in advance it is reasonable for players to be restricted in both character thought and action to the alignments required.
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Wow, lots to read there.
Regarding intent; I want to at least explain why, for me, intent is not really important or even good to look at when talking about alignment.
The problem with intent is bias. Ultimately, your going to have people doing things that help many for selfish reasons and others who harm many for 'the greater good'. People don't think their actions are wrong by and large, but people do wrong all the time.
Also, look at all the claims of evil in this thread that don't actually fulfill the requirements of an evil action. Cultural bias is an issue as well. Look at the claims about cannibalism being evil. The only reason that was given was burial rights, as if not getting your body buried in a hole in the grounds constitutes evil.
It's just an argument waiting to destroy games that are meant to be fun.
That's exactly why the game has a GM.
" In the end, the Game Master is the one who gets to decide if something's in accordance with its indicated alignment, based on the descriptions given previously and his own opinion and interpretation—the only thing the GM needs to strive for is to be consistent as to what constitutes the difference between alignments like chaotic neutral and chaotic evil. There's no hard and fast mechanic by which you can measure alignment—unlike hit points or skill ranks or Armor Class, alignment is solely a label the GM controls."
The entire Alignment system is built upon guidelines, opinion, and interpretation. It changes from group to group.
Ashiel - you skipped the sentence that defines alignment.
A creature's general moral and personal attitudes are represented by its alignment: lawful good, neutral good, chaotic good, lawful neutral, neutral, chaotic neutral, lawful evil, neutral evil, or chaotic evil.
I believe this is the definition of alignment. My natural reading of "changes your alignment to evil" therefore means it also changes your outlook. Alignment generally doesn't determine your attitude (that would mean you're forced to act a certain way because of your alignment), it represents your attitude. In other words, it matches your attitude. If your alignment ever doesn't match your attitude, your alignment changes accordingly. There's no waiting period, so the forced alignment change would have no effect. Note, I'm not claiming that your interpretation makes the alignment change have no effect - I'm claiming because of how the rules work, the alignment change would effectively bounce off.
The only difference between our stances on forced alignment change is I believe the information about acting your new alignment in there is extraneous. You believe it makes it distinct from other effects that change your alignment. There are other examples (I don't have them here, but I can probably find some if you think it's false) where there's extra text applying the normal consequences of an effect.
I was denied an edit by the site being down. I wanted to be clear that the part of the helm I think is general is the "Alteration in alignment is mental as well as moral, and the individual changed by the magic thoroughly enjoys his new outlook." Atonement sets the precedent for restoring involuntary alignment changes.
Edit here: I had only skimmed your summary of my position since I thought I knew my position. I don't think involuntary alignment shift is permanent, merely that it changes what your alignment is. In that situation only alignment changes your character's motivations. If your motivations subsequently change, your alignment will change. If there's not a reason behind that change or at least some time after the involuntary alignment change I'm going to look at you funny and potentially talk to you about negating something that happened to your character. Atonement works like the spell says.
But I do believe your character's motivations should change in the meantime. Because your alignment changed and that's what alignment means. Usually those guidelines tell you what alignment you should be, but in this one exception (involuntary alignment change) they should be used as guidelines for how your character should act immediately after.
If your alignment changing does not do anything special as far as your actions are concerned, then you can basically switch at will between alignments. Which makes alignment (and all the effects that rely on it such as Detect, Smite, protection) meaningless.
It's not meaningless because alignment is quite clear that while you can deviate from your norm, your norm represents your alignment. How quickly someone changes alignment is up to the GM, but yes, you can just start doing things outside of your alignment and it will change at whatever pace the GM sets.
Atonement is required for rapid alignment shifting, however. At least, the alignment rules heavily imply that consistency is important and atonement has the function of immediately changing alignment.
Nothing about what I have said at all suggests that someone can just decide to change alignment to avoid smites and protection spells.
I was denied an edit by the site being down. I wanted to be clear that the part of the helm I think is general is the "Alteration in alignment is mental as well as moral, and the individual changed by the magic thoroughly enjoys his new outlook." Atonement sets the precedent for restoring involuntary alignment changes.
Edit here: I had only skimmed your summary of my position since I thought I knew my position. I don't think involuntary alignment shift is permanent, merely that it changes what your alignment is. In that situation only alignment changes your character's motivations. If your motivations subsequently change, your alignment will change. If there's not a reason behind that change or at least some time after the involuntary alignment change I'm going to look at you funny and potentially talk to you about negating something that happened to your character. Atonement works like the spell says.
But I do believe your character's motivations should change in the meantime. Because your alignment changed and that's what alignment means. Usually those guidelines tell you what alignment you should be, but in this one exception (involuntary alignment change) they should be used as guidelines for how your character should act immediately after.
You're very caught up on a brief description of alignments, ignoring the actual rules for how those alignments function. Great lengths are taken to note that your alignment doesn't dictate how you act in the slightest.
Fortunately, that brief description is clearly noted as having no authority over the actions of a character everywhere else in the rules. You keep clinging to a description that has no mechanical effect on anything and ignoring the rest that's going with your idea.
Hence why this was actually cleared up a while ago. You keep trying to push that the brief description of an alignment has some sort of effect when it doesn't. There is no effect. It doesn't do anything.
Not everywhere else. The helm of opposite alignment explicitly works that way. You assert it's the exception for involuntary alignment shift. I posit it's the exemplar.
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Specific > general. If it does not say it does, it does not.
General is the player selects an alignment and, if the character's actions reveal that the character's personality is too far afield from that alignment, that character's alignment changes because it's clear his morals really were a different alignment all along. I could call this two general rules. (1) The player has complete control over his character's personality. (2) The character's alignment matches his personality. This has the result that when they're in disagreement, the character's alignment moves to meet personality.
Involuntary alignment change changes this situation. If we agree that the character's personality was consistent with LG, it's probably not consistent with CE unless that character is very bland. This means that now that he is CE, we need to figure out what his personality is like. If it is the same, we don't even need to wait to see his actions. We know it's consistent with being LG, so if we keep both of the above general rules, they combine to immediately change his alignment back to LG (since there's nothing preventing his alignment from changing again). So we need to give up one of them.
Ok. You say player creative control is the cardinal value when interpreting rules. So if one of those general rules has to go, 2 is the less important one. That's fine and since the rules don't say much on the topic, either one can go.
I say a consistent meaning of things is more important. It's jarring to me if an evil character and a good character have the exact same code and behave in exactly the same way. So I think when an alignment is forced to change it makes more sense that the character's personality changes with it but they stay together. It's too bad that the player isn't playing the character he intended, but neither is the player whose master swordsman lost an arm to Grendel. That's what restorative magic is for.
So we both take the specific rule that alignment changed without player intent and realize a general rule involving alignment needs to change. We just chose different general rules because the effect didn't specify.
Considering you can be evil while having the personality of a saint in Pathfinder by doing things like casting Animate Dead or Deathwatch over and over and over, personality does not determine alignment.
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Considering you can be evil while having the personality of a saint in Pathfinder by doing things like casting Animate Dead or Deathwatch over and over and over, personality does not determine alignment.
This logic is a little backwards, but if it really is evil to cast those spells, then being willing to do it over and over again means you don't have the personality of a saint as a saint and morality are defined in Pathfinder.
When I have been saying "personality" it's also a cop-out and doesn't mean what I would mean in conversation. It's the combination of personality, morals, willpower, education, culture, and everything else that determines how you would act in a given circumstance.
This logic is a little backwards, but if it really is evil to cast those spells, then being willing to do it over and over again means you don't have the personality of a saint as a saint is defined in Pathfinder.
You seriously think that you cannot have a good saintly personality if you use magic to look at how healthy your allies are? Or that you animate dead bodies of those who willing donated them and use them to build infrastructure, churches, defences, and orphanages? Spells that both have no actual sign that they are evil.
"No, no, no. You must have a cruel personality if you look at your allies health so you know who needs healing the most. You look at your allies health too much and you'll start murdering people and kicking casts."
Casting deathwatch makes the character evil because it's an evil act (despite the fact no where in the rules does it suggest that casting an evil spell is an evil act... I mean hell, does casting fireball alot change your alignment closer to Fire), so you can be a completely Good personality wise and still count as evil.
This logic is a little backwards, but if it really is evil to cast those spells, then being willing to do it over and over again means you don't have the personality of a saint as a saint is defined in Pathfinder.You seriously think that you cannot have a good saintly personality if you use magic to look at how healthy your allies are? Or that you animate dead bodies of those who willing donated them and use them to build infrastructure, churches, defences, and orphanages? Spells that both have no actual sign that they are evil.
No on deathwatch, yes on animate dead. I think deathwatch is inappropriately given the evil descriptor. I think animate dead is accurate from the way I feel about creating undead. I believe it can be rare enough that you can make up for it and still be good, though.
I also think what makes up this "personality" is a lot more than I as another person would be able to see. You can combine any set of personality traits. If creating undead is actually evil, your willingness to do that mixes with all your other values and pulls you towards evil.
In a cosmology where undeath isn't strongly associated with evil creating undead would presumably not be evil. But that's the sign that animate dead is evil in the default Pathfinder universe.
Deathwatch does not have the evil tag.
It is Necromancy, but not Necromancy[evil]
Animate Dead is Necromancy[evil]
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Deathwatch does not have the evil tag.
It is Necromancy, but not Necromancy[evil]
Animate Dead is Necromancy[evil]
It had the tag in 3.5. It was thankfully removed in PF.
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This logic is a little backwards, but if it really is evil to cast those spells, then being willing to do it over and over again means you don't have the personality of a saint as a saint is defined in Pathfinder.You seriously think that you cannot have a good saintly personality if you use magic to look at how healthy your allies are? Or that you animate dead bodies of those who willing donated them and use them to build infrastructure, churches, defences, and orphanages? Spells that both have no actual sign that they are evil.
"No, no, no. You must have a cruel personality if you look at your allies health so you know who needs healing the most. You look at your allies health too much and you'll start murdering people and kicking casts."
Casting deathwatch makes the character evil because it's an evil act (despite the fact no where in the rules does it suggest that casting an evil spell is an evil act... I mean hell, does casting fireball alot change your alignment closer to Fire), so you can be a completely Good personality wise and still count as evil.
Spells can have an alignment. This alignment is indicated by the alignment descriptors of the spell (all per the Cleric rules on spells and alignment in the PRD).
The mere fact that Clerics are prohibited from casting spells opposed to their alignment or that of their deity shows that those descriptors do have a link with alignment.
Deathwatch is Necromancy, but does not have the Evil descriptor. It is not an Evil spell.
Animate Dead permanently creates Evil undead with the ability to attack innocent people if / when they escape your control. It is indeed Evil.
It had the tag in 3.5. It was thankfully removed in PF.Deathwatch does not have the evil tag.
It is Necromancy, but not Necromancy[evil]
Animate Dead is Necromancy[evil]
Good call. I should have double-checked.
You feed on sentient, living creatures to survive. You take their lives, not to save the world from anything, but to continue to exist.That isn't necessarily evil, especially since many do not actually need to feed and many that do feed do not need to kill.
Per the Dhampir Blood Drinker Feat, it's totally evil.
Choose one humanoid subtype, such as “goblinoid” (this subtype cannot be “dhampir”). You have acquired a taste for the blood of creatures with this subtype. Whenever you drink fresh blood from such a creature, you gain 5 temporary hit points and a +1 bonus on checks and saves based on Constitution. The effects last 1 hour. If you feed multiple times, you continue to gain hit points to a maximum of 5 temporary hit points for every three Hit Dice you have, but the +1 bonus on Constitution-based skill checks and saving throws does not stack.
Normally, you can only drink blood from an opponent who is helpless, grappled, paralyzed, pinned, unconscious, or similarly disabled. If you have a bite attack, you can drink blood automatically as part of your bite attack; otherwise, you must first cut your target by dealing 1 hit point of damage with a slashing or piercing weapon (though you may feed upon a creature with severe wounds or a bleed effect without cutting it first). Once you cut the target, you can drink from its wound as a standard action. Drinking blood deals 2 points of Constitution damage to the creature you feed upon. The blood must come from a living creature of the specified humanoid subtype. It cannot come from a dead or summoned creature. Feeding on unwilling intelligent creatures is an evil act.
And don't even do it as often as full vampires. An argument could be made for 'willing' victims... but that doesn't feel like a realistic character. There can't be THAT many people willing to get drained.. unless you're charming them... which is a whole different violation :P
Kind of looking forward to dealing with this issue with my new Dhampir inquisitor. He's already keeping that 'evil act' as a trump card in his back pocket 'just in case'....
If creating undead is actually evil, your willingness to do that mixes with all your other values and pulls you towards evil.
Thing is, I've seen characters played that didn't know that Animate Dead was evil (since the evil involved in the act is not perceivable in anyway), they were friggin saints and used their undead to do great good. But rules caused them to be considered evil regardless of personality. I'm not saying, the character wasn't evil. They repeatedly committed evil acts, so their alignment changed to evil. But the personality was not evil, and was not the thing that decided their alignment.
Also, thank god that Paizo removed Evil from Deathwatch. Thank you to the people telling me.
Spells can have an alignment. This alignment is indicated by the alignment descriptors of the spell (all per the Cleric rules on spells and alignment in the PRD).
Yes, the spells are linked to a alignment. But there actually isn't anything in the rules that simply using a spell associated with evil is an evil act. I mean, if you call a devil using Planar Binding, it's a spell with the evil descriptor, that is for certain. But then the mage might say... kill the devil and because it killed them while it was called rather than summoned the death is real and permanent and the mage just permanently removed a bit of evil from the world. The descriptor, rule-wise, means that the spell uses evil in some manner in the process of the spell. The planar binding above has the descriptor because it transported evil. But, there is no actual section of the rules that states that casting an [Evil] spell is an evil act, merely that evil spells use evil as part of the process. Now, in Golarion at least, we have it as an official ruling from the dev's that it is an evil act, but when it comes to RPG-line, it is not an evil act until it's in a book or FAQ.
Animate Dead permanently creates Evil undead with the ability to attack innocent people if / when they escape your control. It is indeed Evil.
Actually, the rules do not indicate that they do anything of the sort if they escape control, the rules actually say they are mindless automatons aside from their ability to wield weapons. But regardless, yes it's evil... I wasn't arguing that it wasn't.
And don't even do it as often as full vampires. An argument could be made for 'willing' victims... but that doesn't feel like a realistic character. There can't be THAT many people willing to get drained.. unless you're charming them... which is a whole different violation :P
1. Are you suggesting blood donations are unrealistic despite it happening in real life every day?
2. I know people who let other people drink their blood willingly, and they definitely weren't charming individuals.
1. Are you suggesting blood donations are unrealistic despite it happening in real life every day?
2. I know people who let other people drink their blood willingly, and they definitely weren't charming individuals.
In typical vampire stories... they don't take 'just a little'. They need a LOT to maintain their undead existence.
For a typical vampire to only drink... he inflicts D4 points of Con damage every 6 seconds he does it and regains 5 hp.
mechanically speaking, It's a fairly unrealistic expectation to have people willing to keep you alive that way, and without some kind of magical restoration... you're going to need a few. You'll burn through that first one pretty quick.
Not even mentioning anyone who dies that way, may come back as a vampire.
I hadn't thought about a character who doesn't know what they're doing. To answer that question, you need to answer what casting an evil spell does. Some don't need extra context (e.g. death knell). For animate dead, skeletons are mindless automatons (with an evil cunning - I get how the cunning means weapons but I don't get what the evil does there), but zombies explicitly slaughter when they get bored so they're pretty evil. Otherwise evil spells may give more power to create demons and the like so it tilts the cosmic balance slightly that way.
As for whether creating that unwittingly makes her evil, that depends whether her reaction on finding out is horror and making amends or making excuses. Or diving in. Because personality drives alignment, ignorance is a valid excuse if the consequences are far enough downstream. Honest ignorance is different from willful ignorance, though.
The other possibility is that the evil of the spell leaves something on you as you channel its power. If this is the way your cosmology works, you would have to figure out whether that actually affects your personality so that regular users of dark magic become crueler over time or if it just masks your goodness so that detections and smites flare on the residue you're carrying with you.
My read of standard Pathfinder is that evil spells are evil acts because of their impact on the world, not on the caster. So the alignment ramifications are the second paragraph, not the third.
Donating blood for altruistic purposes is a noble act. However being charmed into doing it - not so much. Don't forget being bitten by a vampire is a con draining attack.
In the game Somethig Rotten in Kislev a village has taken to raising its dead to fight against a different threat. Zombies worked the fields and skeletons patrolled the stockade. I always thought it was a cool idea. However the mastermind behind it was utterly evil. Good people just don't animate the rotting corpses of their friends and neighbours and set them to waste.
Our revulsion to the dead may be partly due to the 'uncanny valley' effect that makes us feel uncomfortable if something looks alive but isn't quite right. It's the Andrex puppy animation was one of the creepiest things on telly, and the reason Wonga deliberately use animations of puppets not people. That isn't culturally biased it's a trait of the human condition. Also being reminded of your own mortality daily is not a healthy way to live.
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The thing about changing alignment because of spells and such , is that i atleast wouldnt give a single damm about it.
If i was playing a wizard/sorc which was good , but i kept using such "evil" spells (something i would never stop just because the game said it was evil) and the GM decided i should change to neutral and then evil , i wouldnt complain.
But my PC would still save people and act like a perfectly good guy , just using evil spells over and over lols.
I believe that in changing the way you roleplay during a story because of certain actions your PC takes , like saving or killing people... i would never do so because im casting spell with a "evil" word on them , unless im actually using them to do evil.
Donating blood for altruistic purposes is a noble act. However being charmed into doing it - not so much. Don't forget being bitten by a vampire is a con draining attack.
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Nitpick - It's a Con damaging attack. This is a pretty major difference, since the victim only needs to wait a few days to recover instead of being permanently weakened without access to powerful restorative magic (Restoration requires a 7th level cleric).
Overall, I have to wonder how Evil feeding on an unwilling victim is. Feeling a bit ill for a couple of days seems fairly benign compared to getting robbed, and the vampire's act is actually necessary for their survival. It seems like being fed on in one's sleep isn't actually that damaging to the victim, and unlike the robber the vampire actually needed to harm the victim to survive.
OTOH, some of those arguments could justify rape, so I guess it isn't as clear cut as that.
Dunno , like so many others things , will depend on the GM.
Just played a game where my party was in a city full of vampires and dhampirs divided in families , they were pretty much the nobility and such.
Many vampire there were evil , but there were also quite an amount of neutral ones , that actually had a paid job in their castles where people would be "food" to them , ofc they didnt kill the people working for them and so on.
My party (with my PC and another player being good) then proceded to kill the evil families that used slaves and cut a deal with the neutral ones where they would just grant more labor rights to their workers.
Best outcome for me.