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I believe there are nonevil undead, but they're all sentient and they need really, really, REALLY strong willpower to resist falling to evil. Also ghosts are a thing.That still feeds into the problem. Why is being undead an inherently morally corrupting? The search for immortality and the process of becoming undead are easily things I could see being morally corrupting, but just existing seems backwards as a corruptive force. Like I could even see a lich or some graveknight doing the whole retired dictator thing where they try to pretend they aren't evil anymore because they've mellowed out since the whole consuming people's souls to make their phylactery days.
Like saying "becoming x kind of undead requires y evil action which stains your soul forever" works perfectly fine by me. Specifically the AD&D explanation for how liches are made, but when the method of creation is morally neutral or even selfless I don't see how that would corrupt anyone. Take mummies created by volunteers who are forgoing an afterlife they objectively knows exist to guard their king's tomb. That's noble and selfless. There isn't any reason their alignment shouldn't read "any lawful".
It has to do with the nature of negative energy as inherently anti-life. Creatures powered by it have all their instincts telling them to extinguish life (or similar unpleasantness)...and that has a tendency to make one Evil if listened to.
Not that intelligent undead have to listen to it, of course, but they do have to work harder not to be Evil than most living creatures. Which explains their rarity...but not nonexistence.
Which is convenient, since non-Evil undead are officially not nonexistent at all. Rare, but not nonexistent. And something I also quite like, for the record.
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Meh... Just give them a wand of Protection From Evil. 5 castings and they're paragons of morality!
Aren't alignment rules wonderful?
It has to do with the nature of negative energy as inherently anti-life. Creatures powered by it have all their instincts telling them to extinguish life (or similar unpleasantness)...and that has a tendency to make one Evil if listened to.
Not that intelligent undead have to listen to it, of course, but they do have to work harder not to be Evil than most living creatures. Which explains their rarity...but not nonexistence.
Which is convenient, since non-Evil undead are officially not nonexistent at all. Rare, but not nonexistent. And something I also quite like, for the record.
This seems against there narrative role as frequent dungeon monsters who've been entombed for centuries with no ill effect. Unless this is to imply that undead are like Bastion from Overwatch and can be fine and moral being so long as the living aren't around to tempt them into murder. Which actually was something that came up in Baldur's Gate 2, wherein there were ghouls who tried to self isolate from humans to avoid killing anyone once they found a constant source of non-murdered food.
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This seems against there narrative role as frequent dungeon monsters who've been entombed for centuries with no ill effect. Unless this is to imply that undead are like Bastion from Overwatch and can be fine and moral being so long as the living aren't around to tempt them into murder. Which actually was something that came up in Baldur's Gate 2, wherein there were ghouls who tried to self isolate from humans to avoid killing anyone once they found a constant source of non-murdered food.It has to do with the nature of negative energy as inherently anti-life. Creatures powered by it have all their instincts telling them to extinguish life (or similar unpleasantness)...and that has a tendency to make one Evil if listened to.
Not that intelligent undead have to listen to it, of course, but they do have to work harder not to be Evil than most living creatures. Which explains their rarity...but not nonexistence.
Which is convenient, since non-Evil undead are officially not nonexistent at all. Rare, but not nonexistent. And something I also quite like, for the record.
Perhaps ironically, those undead should have been good-aligned. They were altruistically protecting the lives of others, even going so far as to go out of their way and living in seclusion.
By D&D alignment standards, that's good.
I really wish that it could have been resolved peaceably. It was a cool little area and seemed pretty neat.
RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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Just because a FAQ comes down on the side opposite your opinion doesn't mean it's errata. Sometimes the original wording of something didn't convey the intent of a rule very well. For the wild armor property, clearly there was disagreement or else there wouldn't have been FAQ clicks.
I presume, conceptually, that adding wild to armor means it no longer merges with your form, but instead shifts to some sort of appropriate barding. Thus you keep the ACP.
I guess I do kind of enjoy it when a FAQ comes down that cause half the forums to wail and gnash their teeth, so to speak.
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Just because a FAQ comes down on the side opposite your opinion doesn't mean it's errata. Sometimes the original wording of something didn't convey the intent of a rule very well. For the wild armor property, clearly there was disagreement or else there wouldn't have been FAQ clicks.
I presume, conceptually, that adding wild to armor means it no longer merges with your form, but instead shifts to some sort of appropriate barding. Thus you keep the ACP.
I guess I do kind of enjoy it when a FAQ comes down that cause half the forums to wail and gnash their teeth, so to speak.
FAQ has contradicted itself several times and several FAQs have been retracted and changed.
It has nothing to do with "my opinion". It has everything to do with the rules.
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I like criticizing rpg developers. I know some in the hobby dislike that. Yet if a rpg developer keeps making the same mistake. Or releases material that the fans have repeatedly told them not to (Paizo gun rules I'm looking at you). Then I don't see why a fan should not be allowed to do so. As long as their rude or not disrespectful.
If a player decides to make a fighter that has low strength. Or a Rogue with low Dex. Then complains that at the table that those who do the opposite are more effective then their character. I'm the kind of guy to politely say I told you so. I know some people dislike that. I really dislike when someone takes a low value in a primary stat say like Strength. Then is unhappy when he can't lift as much and everyone else refuses to be his or her pack mule. Build a character your way take personal responsability for one choices and suffer in silence.
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Ashiel's right on this one. FAQs are all over the place, even sometimes tripping over themselves.
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A tool that would help clue in design folks to cascading changes would be a simple analysis tool that breaks out unique words and compares them in chunks to their internal database of stuff. Report back things past a certain threshold and you have a pretty good chance of colliding changes.
Unfortunately, most kinds of analysis (really, any kind) is out of hand put off as too complicated, scary, or whatever if it's just a tiny bit out of your wheelhouse when really all I described is an array doing a contains type check. It takes maybe an hour (tops) to code and is useful across the board.
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Eh, I think the FAQ system works pretty well. At least we get FAQs for many things. However, I tend to find that I agree with 80-90% of FAQ rulings.
I really don't see too many contradictions, and can only recall a couple reversals, one of which was explicitly stated as a possibility when the FAQ was issued(SLAs as prerequisites). And that one really was FAQ-as-errata - they stated it was a deliberate change in the rules they were trying out. They didn't like it so they reverted it.
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I believe there are nonevil undead, but they're all sentient and they need really, really, REALLY strong willpower to resist falling to evil. Also ghosts are a thing.That still feeds into the problem. Why is being undead an inherently morally corrupting? The search for immortality and the process of becoming undead are easily things I could see being morally corrupting, but just existing seems backwards as a corruptive force. Like I could even see a lich or some graveknight doing the whole retired dictator thing where they try to pretend they aren't evil anymore because they've mellowed out since the whole consuming people's souls to make their phylactery days.
Like saying "becoming x kind of undead requires y evil action which stains your soul forever" works perfectly fine by me. Specifically the AD&D explanation for how liches are made, but when the method of creation is morally neutral or even selfless I don't see how that would corrupt anyone. Take mummies created by volunteers who are forgoing an afterlife they objectively knows exist to guard their king's tomb. That's noble and selfless. There isn't any reason their alignment shouldn't read "any lawful".
It has to do with the nature of negative energy as inherently anti-life. Creatures powered by it have all their instincts telling them to extinguish life (or similar unpleasantness)...and that has a tendency to make one Evil if listened to.
Not that intelligent undead have to listen to it, of course, but they do have to work harder not to be Evil than most living creatures. Which explains their rarity...but not nonexistence.
Which is convenient, since non-Evil undead are officially not nonexistent at all. Rare, but not nonexistent. And something I also quite like, for the record.
>It has to do with the nature of negative energy as inherently anti-life. Creatures powered by it have all their instincts telling them to extinguish life (or similar unpleasantness)...and that has a tendency to make one Evil if listened to.
Never really got that logic. Things powered by positive energy(that is, all living things) certainly don't seem inherently pro-life(I mean, look at humans). Assuming that power source influences what the thing does is also rather silly-is your phone "pro-electricity"? Or perhaps "pro-batteries"?
Finally, to be truly anti-life, you need some sort of malicious intelligence, because life pretty much invented the art of using things that want to kill it. All fire does is turn things into dust, hot air and infrared radiation, which just helps fire to spread by drying things. Life bend that thing to it's will easilly enough. Ionising radiation pretty much straight up kills living things by breaking their DNA and corrupts non-living things (such as steel) by breaking their crystalline structure. Life is currently using this monster to heal people.
So to be actually anti-life you would need to be not only sentient, but smart, otherwise you will just end up helping it somehow. And assuming that some sort of energy can think in this way seems silly to me.
Back to the thread: optimisation, as in people making choices that make their character better at the thing their character is supposed to be pretty good at. When a fighter who has encountered flying enemies keeps refusing to carry a sidearm crossbow, I start to question the sanity of the character.
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I'd be more okay with the FAQ/Errata stuff if Paizo stopped being a company about the whole deal and would have developers explain why they came to the decisions they came to.
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They already get chewed out for every design decision they make, no matter what. Why would anyone subject themselves to that?
Thats a bridge these forums burned years ago.
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They already get chewed out for every design decision they make, no matter what. Why would anyone subject themselves to that?
So that they can figure out where the actual criticism is so they can actually improve. It's something every artist no matter what medium they're in has to do.
^...and the player.
There are a lot of reasons why a person might not want their character to carry a ranged weapon, most of them quite reasonable (for example, they might not like the mental image of their character with a crossbow). However, I find myself hard-pressed to imagine any reason why a person constantly being in mortal danger while fighting deadly monsters wouldn't want to carry a shooty thing.
On that note, I love all the different archetypes for Bards. :-)
I like that Bards have a performance component. Don't think it means they have to sing and dance like a Disney character either.
For me personally, the performance component is the main thing that stops me from ever playing a Bard. I'd rather the bonuses come from an "aura" type of ability rather than having to sing and play the lute or whatever.
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I like that Bards have a performance component. Don't think it means they have to sing and dance like a Disney character either.For me personally, the performance component is the main thing that stops me from ever playing a Bard.
Then reflavor it.
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I like that Bards have a performance component. Don't think it means they have to sing and dance like a Disney character either.For me personally, the performance component is the main thing that stops me from ever playing a Bard. I'd rather the bonuses come from an "aura" type of ability rather than having to sing and play the lute or whatever.
My bard uses Perform Oratory to speak beautiful words that inspire her allies.
If they understand Sylvan, they would realize she is hurling vile imprecations at the enemy. But it sounds pretty to those not in the know.
Bards don't need the perform skill to do well, you know.
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I like settings that have actual limitations, such as Dragonlance and Dark Sun. Settings that aren't "everything and the kitchen sink fits in somewhere!" are always fun for me. Plus, Dragonlance has Draconians.
I like settings that have actual limitations, such as Dragonlance and Dark Sun. Settings that aren't "everything and the kitchen sink fits in somewhere!" are always fun for me. Plus, Dragonlance has Draconians.
Pathfinder is the first setting I've seen that is "everything and the kitchen sink." That's why I love it, because it's the only setting that doesn't seem to limit itself. There is literally a place for most any kind of concept. Freedom of imagination means more people can get involved and more interesting stories can be created.
Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Planescape, and Eberron have all been kitchen sink settings.
I don't have a problem with kitchen sink settings, in general though, I prefer a setting that is willing to say, "ALL the gnomes are dead...ALL of them." or "Lycanthropes don't exist here". For me, I tend to work better with some limitations. That encourages the imaginative process for me. If a DM says, we are running Curse of the Crimson Thorne, please make characters only from Kosova and neighboring areas, I will have a better time making my character vs the option to pick anything from Golarion.
Though, that's just me. Everyone creates in their own way.
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The name is escaping me but I recall in 3.5 Eberron they had a template for some good undead who were kept alive with positive energy...
I believe you are thinking of the Deathless
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The name is escaping me but I recall in 3.5 Eberron they had a template for some good undead who were kept alive with positive energy...
Equally annoying to me, since positive energy is not and has never been even a little bit 'good.' That plane will kill you just as dead as the negative energy plane, and there isn't even a spell to protect you from it!
...something cool and thematic that isn't immediately covered in the rules. Things like "I attempt to flatten the charging group of enemies by flipping the bar table on top of them"...
You should try playing Feng Shui.
Rule of Cool is a real rule 8)
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...something cool and thematic that isn't immediately covered in the rules. Things like "I attempt to flatten the charging group of enemies by flipping the bar table on top of them"...You should try playing Feng Shui.
Rule of Cool is a real rule 8)
There's also Tension and Tenra Bansho Zero, among other systems.
The name is escaping me but I recall in 3.5 Eberron they had a template for some good undead who were kept alive with positive energy...Equally annoying to me, since positive energy is not and has never been even a little bit 'good.' That plane will kill you just as dead as the negative energy plane, and there isn't even a spell to protect you from it!
Huh? There's lots! For example, Mage's Sword targeted on yourself can provide lots of rounds of protection.
For example, Mage's Sword targeted on yourself can provide lots of rounds of protection.
Eh? How so?
To be fair you can survive on that plane by stabbing yourself in the gut every few seconds.
For example, Mage's Sword targeted on yourself can provide lots of rounds of protection.Eh? How so?
It damages you, so you don't hit your temporary HP cap. It averages (not counting crits) 17 points per round, so you can rotate it among three members of your party and not worry about dying from damage (or too many temporary HP) before the duration runs out.
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To be fair you can survive on that plane by stabbing yourself in the gut every few seconds.
Or set yourself on fire and intentionally fail all saving throws to put yourself out.
Planar exploration is fun!
Oh. I missed the context of being on the positive energy plane.
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Something to point out is that negative energy is inherently less destructive to creatures powered by it. The negative energy plane is like living in a continuous paradise for creatures powered by negative energies. Each round you simply heal 1d6 hit points worth of damage and are never at risk of death by awesome.
Amusingly, despite it saying the plane is super hostile, the plane itself actually transforms living creatures that die on it into undead creatures that thrive on it thereafter.
As for the good/negative channeling thing, that only applies to clerics. Paladins for example, have no issues channeling negative energy if they gain the ability to do so in some way, such as having a magic item that uses inflict spells.
Trying to suggest that a cleric's alignment restrictions on their class features plays a part in the morality or ethics of a force of nature is about as dumb as suggesting that wearing chainmail makes divine magic stop working, when that is only true for druids.
I like Mythic Adventures.
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I would have to say my favorite thing that people hate is badass over the top mid to high level martials.
When a level 17 or better fighter not only can slice open the veil between dimensions but must do so prior to a fight if he doesn't want to risk damaging the fabric of that particular material plane.
My sarcasm sense is tingling.
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As for the good/negative channeling thing, that only applies to clerics. Paladins for example, have no issues channeling negative energy if they gain the ability to do so in some way, such as having a magic item that uses inflict spells.
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Positive channeling clerics can prepare and cast inflict spells just fine, or were you talking about something else?