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well, that's the thing, you do technically know one thing about them if you hurt them, that they were evil. it's a strange area to be in morally.Finding out after the fact that the guy you murdered was a villain doesn't make the act any less evilWhat you’re saying makes perfect sense, but in the weird objective mortality of F20 gaming, I’m not sure whether that’s true or not.No it's true.
Murdering someone just because without any knowledge of them is blatantly evil. The person's alignment is irrelevant to your actions.
Not really, since that doesn’t tell you how they are Evil.
It’s the equivalent of finding out they like pineapple, which is to say irrelevant.
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In the latter case, it's just hypocrisy:
Only if you assume that killing a random NPC because you feel like it and killing an enemy in a combat encounter are equivalent.
I think that's a pretty odd assertion to make though.
Re: the conversation about Cosmic Evil being a thing in Golarion/Pathfinder.
Correct, the just born half-devil baby that has done nothing in its life, but begun to exist, will be cosmically, evil from an aura standpoint as part of it. Said baby may be struck via Divine Lance 'good' and kill the baby.
If you assume that using Good energy can do nothing but good, perhaps that action can be categorized as Good. However, it isn't unreasonable for someone to suggest that the baby didn't have to embrace its evil as it grew, and thus had potential good that was lost. So it isn't hard to believe that cosmicly, that action might fall outside of Cosmic good. It might even fall into Cosmic evil.
Take for instance.
An evil mother, bears a child. The child is not evil, maybe even, the child is good. The child slips, falling, but the mother catches the hand of the child, leaning over the edge getting ready to pull the child back up.
An inquisitor sees this happen, and has been wanting to catch this evil creature, and noting she was flatfooted and unable to defend herself, uses a divine lance, killing the mother. [potentially the mother in the long term, deserved a death sentence] However, the inquisitor knew the situation, with the child, and so was in a very distinct way, responsible for the resulting death of the child who fell.
Is it not unreasonable with the mantle of choosing the action that caused the child's death, when they could have chosen to wait for the child to be pulled back up. [but potentially thus putting the inquisitor at a greater risk] Might that action have been tainted with a certain... selfishness and evil... when the well being of the innocent is taken as a lower priority than the well-being of the servant of good? Note, I'm not saying this is instant FALL of a divine agent, but pointing out. Evil aura does not mean acceptable to be destroyed, even from a cosmic sense, from my perspective.
If allowing the one innocent to die had to be done, because failing to act would likely cause more innocents to die, I can imagine the action can be justified. But even justified, it may not be cosmically good. Being cosmically good doesn't necessarily mean destroying all things that have cosmic evil.
That said I think most laws of most place would not be written such that it would be legal to use alignment damage to sort out those who should live, from those who should die.
Equating, failing to give bandits who waylay your caravan, attacking, and potentially killing others in the caravan, their chance to be redeemed. There are situations where dealing with an immediate threat, the striking down a foe, would take precedence over bringing about a chance for redemption. However, walking up to a stranger, that you know nothing about and testing to see if they are good or evil at the moment, and bringing about their death if they were evil, isn't one of those moments.
Anyway, I'm sure there would be table variation on how alignment will be handled, but I imagine it will be rare where destruction of something tainted by evil by any means is considered definitively good by inherent definition. After all evil divine beings can change to become neutral. There has to be room for some mortals to overcome their own thoughts.
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Maybe saving the good child moves the mother closer to good. Maybe the child a motivation and a path to good in general.
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It would be similar to walking around and randomly swabbing people with one of those test swabs to see if the person had been handling explosives recently. Nobody would be comfortable with you doing that, despite the fact that the swabs are completely harmless.
Extending the metaphor, these test swabs also cause the bombs to explode and kill you if you do happen to carry any.
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I can't speak for what other people do in their homebrew campaigns, but Paizo APs often list explicit xp rewards for resolving encounters non-violently in situations where it's possible to do so. Players really aren't punished for it. (You might miss out on some loot, but you frequently gain an ally, information, or something else instead.)
But killing someone who's attacking you or someone else is way different than going around town doing a potentially fatal test to see who's evil. Have they done things evil enough to deserve the death penalty? Too late to find out; they're already dead.
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It’s the equivalent of finding out they like pineapple, which is to say irrelevant.
That’s ridiculous. While I absolutely agree that evil alignment is not sufficient to the question of whether harming a creature is justified, it is certainly more relevant than the question of whether they like pineapple.
This is particularly true in the case of a follower of a deity whose anathema includes “fail to strike down evil,” but which speaks not at all to pineapple preference.
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@Luke
It’s not.
You find out the person is Evil... and?
Why are they evil? What have they done? Are they going to do anything evil?
You know none of that, only that your evil-hurting powers will work on them in the immediate future. That’s it.
So about as relevant as knowing they like pineapple or sweetened tea. You don’t actually have any relevant information on them.
well, that's the thing, you do technically know one thing about them if you hurt them, that they were evil. it's a strange area to be in morally.Finding out after the fact that the guy you murdered was a villain doesn't make the act any less evilWhat you’re saying makes perfect sense, but in the weird objective mortality of F20 gaming, I’m not sure whether that’s true or not.No it's true.
Murdering someone just because without any knowledge of them is blatantly evil. The person's alignment is irrelevant to your actions.
Not really, since that doesn’t tell you how they are Evil.
It’s the equivalent of finding out they like pineapple, which is to say irrelevant.
well, no it's "strange" as i put it because you know they're evil, but not why.
in essence, you know they're guilty but not of what. and not in a weird metaphorical way but a real physical way.
of course that's not to say all acts that make you evil require death or anything, but it's a strange moral position to think about.
generally you need to find out what someone has done to see if they're worthy of punishment, but you already know they are worthy of punishment (if they died right now they'd be sent by Pharasma to a very bad place) without actually knowing the crime. it's all very strange.
You don't know they're worthy of any punishment in the slightest, they might just be a misanthrope that hasn't ever acted on any maliciousness.
You also have no idea where they'll be sent or end up so that's an even bigger assumption right there.
as far as i remember your alignment is what determines where you go baring some other overriding thing, like being cursed or getting trapped in a soul crystal, etc. oh and I guess if you die while on an outer plan.
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as far as i remember your alignment is what determines where you go baring some other overriding thing, like being cursed or getting trapped in a soul crystal, etc. oh and I guess if you die while on an outer plan.You don't know they're worthy of any punishment in the slightest, they might just be a misanthrope that hasn't ever acted on any maliciousness.
You also have no idea where they'll be sent or end up so that's an even bigger assumption right there.
Gorum (CN) lives on Elysium (CG), if you're a CE follower of Gorum you go to Elysium.
Where you end up is less your ALignment and what all you've done your life and who you worship, and that's without involving defense councils and the like.
as far as i remember your alignment is what determines where you go baring some other overriding thing, like being cursed or getting trapped in a soul crystal, etc. oh and I guess if you die while on an outer plan.You don't know they're worthy of any punishment in the slightest, they might just be a misanthrope that hasn't ever acted on any maliciousness.
You also have no idea where they'll be sent or end up so that's an even bigger assumption right there.
Gorum (CN) lives on Elysium (CG), if you're a CE follower of Gorum you go to Elysium.
Where you end up is less your ALignment and what all you've done your life and who you worship, and that's without involving defense councils and the like.
and yet i doubt a NE worshiper of sarenrae goes to happy ville.
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That comparison doesn't work. Sarenrae only accepts Good worshippers. Gorum accepts CE.
and yet i doubt a NE worshiper of sarenrae goes to happy ville.as far as i remember your alignment is what determines where you go baring some other overriding thing, like being cursed or getting trapped in a soul crystal, etc. oh and I guess if you die while on an outer plan.You don't know they're worthy of any punishment in the slightest, they might just be a misanthrope that hasn't ever acted on any maliciousness.
You also have no idea where they'll be sent or end up so that's an even bigger assumption right there.
Gorum (CN) lives on Elysium (CG), if you're a CE follower of Gorum you go to Elysium.
Where you end up is less your ALignment and what all you've done your life and who you worship, and that's without involving defense councils and the like.
What if you follow Sarenrae but at the same time really want to murder children and deep down think that murding children is okay but you know that your sky-friend Sarenrae wouldn't like it. Like: for that person, temperance and patience are of utmost importance but for predominantly self-serving reasons so they really value Sarenrae's ethos and judgement. I think that would describe a fundamentally evil person that never really hurts anyone and gets to go to fantasy heaven.
That said, I could still imagine another "good" character who would not give two s*$%s if they plugged that dude with a divine lance.
Anyways, morality is hard and the alignment system is silly.
That comparison doesn't work. Sarenrae only accepts Good worshippers. Gorum accepts CE.
Sarenrae only accepts clerics that are one step from their alignment. Is that true of followers? I am doing all of this off of one google search.
That comparison doesn't work. Sarenrae only accepts Good worshippers. Gorum accepts CE.
right so where does a NE worshipper of sarenrae go? not everyone follows a god of the correct alignment was my point.
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You can pay lip service (because that's what it is if you're that far off) to any Deity no matter you're alignment, but if your alignment is so diametrically opposed to them then your "worship" is heretical to the point of blasphemy.
Aka you're not actually worshiping them you're worshiping a farcical misinterpretation of them.
In order to gain any mechanical benefits as a worshipper, you need to be in the allowed domains.
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That comparison doesn't work. Sarenrae only accepts Good worshippers. Gorum accepts CE.right so where does a NE worshipper of sarenrae go? not everyone follows a god of the correct alignment was my point.
That doesn't take away from what I said, you have no idea of knowing where people go when they die and not all Evil souls go to the Lower Planes.
In the example Ex provided, Evil but fighting their nature, then they could very well go to Nirvana, interesting story there.
If you're Evil and act on it then you're not worshipping Sarenrae, you're either a grave misunderstanding of her or we're veering into delusions and insanity territory if they think they're a legit follower of her's.
You can pay lip service (because that's what it is if you're that far off) to any Deity no matter you're alignment, but if your alignment is so diametrically opposed to them then your "worship" is heretical to the point of blasphemy.
Aka you're not actually worshiping them you're worshiping a farcical misinterpretation of them.
right and so where do they go when they die. I was considering worshipping deities one of the special ways, though i was thinking of particular demons and appearing in their realms in the abyss. not really Gorum in elysium, which i will admit was beyond my knowledge.
my point being with nothing pulling you to a specific location whats the lowest common denominator in where you go? i thought that was alignment.
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In order to gain any mechanical benefits as a worshipper, you need to be in the allowed domains.
Yeah the words tend to get mixed up often (by me too) but
Worshippers: divinely empowered
Follower: worships/venerates but does not receive power, for a a variety of reasons like not being all that faithful, which you are the further your alignment is from your deity.
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You can pay lip service (because that's what it is if you're that far off) to any Deity no matter you're alignment, but if your alignment is so diametrically opposed to them then your "worship" is heretical to the point of blasphemy.
Aka you're not actually worshiping them you're worshiping a farcical misinterpretation of them.
right and so where do they go when they die. I was considering worshipping deities one of the special ways, though i was thinking of particular demons and appearing in their realms in the abyss. not really Gorum in elysium, which i will admit was beyond my knowledge.
my point being with nothing pulling you to a specific location whats the lowest common denominator in where you go? i thought that was alignment.
It's not.
The afterlife is complicated and setting specific. People going to Abaddon for instance can decide to go to Hell or the Abyss instead.
And that's just the 3 main Lower Planes, there's others.
In the example Ex provided, Evil but fighting their nature, then they could very well go to Nirvana, interesting story there.
I don't actually agree that his description would be evil, or if he was that he'd actually go to nirvana, either he's evil or is successfully fighting back his urges or what ever.
You can pay lip service (because that's what it is if you're that far off) to any Deity no matter you're alignment, but if your alignment is so diametrically opposed to them then your "worship" is heretical to the point of blasphemy.
Aka you're not actually worshiping them you're worshiping a farcical misinterpretation of them.
right and so where do they go when they die. I was considering worshipping deities one of the special ways, though i was thinking of particular demons and appearing in their realms in the abyss. not really Gorum in elysium, which i will admit was beyond my knowledge.
my point being with nothing pulling you to a specific location whats the lowest common denominator in where you go? i thought that was alignment.
It's not.
The afterlife is complicated and setting specific. People going to Abaddon for instance can decide to go to Hell or the Abyss instead.
And that's just the 3 main Lower Planes, there's others.
do you know of any material i could read on this? like would inner sea gods be a good read for this? I think i want to read up more in the outer planes in the lost omens setting.
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You can pay lip service (because that's what it is if you're that far off) to any Deity no matter you're alignment, but if your alignment is so diametrically opposed to them then your "worship" is heretical to the point of blasphemy.
Aka you're not actually worshiping them you're worshiping a farcical misinterpretation of them.
right and so where do they go when they die. I was considering worshipping deities one of the special ways, though i was thinking of particular demons and appearing in their realms in the abyss. not really Gorum in elysium, which i will admit was beyond my knowledge.
my point being with nothing pulling you to a specific location whats the lowest common denominator in where you go? i thought that was alignment.
It's not.
The afterlife is complicated and setting specific. People going to Abaddon for instance can decide to go to Hell or the Abyss instead.
And that's just the 3 main Lower Planes, there's others.
do you know of any material i could read on this? like would inner sea gods be a good read for this? I think i want to read up more in the outer planes in the lost omens setting.
We're getting Lost Omens Gods & Magic in January, other than I would look into Planar Adventures.
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I don't actually agree that his description would be evil, or if he was that he'd actually go to nirvana, either he's evil or is successfully fighting back his urges or what ever.
In the example Ex provided, Evil but fighting their nature, then they could very well go to Nirvana, interesting story there.
If he's actively having to fight his nature and urges and these aren't errant thoughts then that kinda paints them as evil, but fighting against it. Similar to Fiends fighting against their nature.
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Why are they evil? What have they done? Are they going to do anything evil?
The anathema isn’t “fail to strike down evil so long as it’s really bad.” The fact that a creature is evil is relevant to a follower of Sarenrae. Again, even then I don’t think it’s justification on its own to kill or even attack them, but that might just mean I’m not cut out to worship Sarenrae.
So about as relevant as knowing they like pineapple or sweetened tea. You don’t actually have any relevant information on them.
Show me the anathema of Sarenrae that deals with pineapple or sweet tea and maybe you’ll convince me.
In other words, when avoiding encounters, the PCs may gain the encounter xp, or less. Never more. It's GM-dependent, but one thing is certain: if you want to maximize xp, you can't avoid any encounter; each time you bypass an encounter, there's a risk you lose some xp.
Moreover, the game punishes you explicitly when you're too smart and your ideas make it too simple. In other word, in order to maximize xp, you have to play dumb and use methods that have a decent chance to fail (and degenerate into a fight).
And finally, note the part about dungeons with multiple paths: in such a dungeon, once you've killed the boss and accomplished your mission, you should go back in the rooms you didn't explore (and probably kill every living thing in those rooms). If you go home because you accomplished your mission (and you're happy you didn't have to murder every single guard to do so), then you lose xp (and, obviously, loot).
This is obviously not how i play, but we're talking about the rules here. And as a matter of fact, the rules punishes you for avoiding encounters.
I would LOVE to see a developer response to this since I think, RAW, you are absolutely right, but I nevertheless don't believe it was ever the developers'intent.
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There are bonuses that you can get by diplomatically resolving encounters in adventures, and there are even rewards specifically for doing this.
Beginner box spoiler
In Black Fang's Dungeon, if you work with the goblin leader, and return the toy, they tell you where the dragon is and the secret of where Black Fang's armor is weakest giving you a bonus against his natural armor.
I seem to recall on of the early repeatable adventures for pathfinder society had specific options for resolving another situation with negotiation. It seemed like it gave the party information and potentially an item from what the group had. I can't however remember either the scenario name or specifics any longer.
Kingmaker had options for diplomacy. Many of those left you with the potential of having less treasure at the beginning, but made it really easy for the GM to have the excuse to give us allies as we were building up in the kingdom building phases of the game.
Back to the original discussion of uses of Divine Lance as a detection.
My suggestion, have a creature whose touch imparts the evil trait for 24 hours, and have someone investigating reports of a potential evil impostor around. When one of the characters is accused of being evil, and they volunteer to be divine-lanced as proof they aren't a bad guy. They end up taking damage due to their tainted aura from the creature bite. Then they have to explain why they shouldn't be hauled off to jail, or they kill a fellow good, and would have to later explain that.
Lesson being, being tainted with evil, is not justification for imprisonment or execution.
Now, if the innkeeper was foolish enough to 'ask for a divine lance' as a form of lie detector test, then well, that alleviates much of the issue in question, performing such a spell at the target's request, is a little hard to call evil. It might not be wise, and might have bad repercussions, but is believable. Now if the innkeeper said, cast a detection spell to detect if I'm evil, and they used a combat spell... I'd say people would have an argument that consenting to a detection spell is not consenting to taking damage if detected.
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Being evil isn't... evil.
He might be heartless and selfish. But not a murderer himself.
And, as others have pointed out, not giving him the chance for redemption.. attacking him just to find out if he's evil.
Murder hobo paladin.
Being evil isn't... evil.
He might be heartless and selfish. But not a murderer himself.
And, as others have pointed out, not giving him the chance for redemption.. attacking him just to find out if he's evil.
Murder hobo paladin.
thinking more or less on this point, i don't think someone like this would actually be evil, I would think you'd have to truly be doing some evil things to be evil.
And, regardless, instead of focusing on the evil guy's maybe actions.. the paladin is supposed to be better than that.
A vampire? Yes. A soulless champion of Hell? Okay. An evil bartender, tho?
It would be similar to walking around and randomly swabbing people with one of those test swabs to see if the person had been handling explosives recently. Nobody would be comfortable with you doing that, despite the fact that the swabs are completely harmless.Extending the metaphor, these test swabs also cause the bombs to explode and kill you if you do happen to carry any.
Clearly, we need to make false positives for alignment damage now.
Mwahahahahahaha!
Look at all the people in this thread saying a level 10 champion didn't murder 200+ enemies: saying they didn't ever read or play an AP isn't "uncharitable", it's true.
They didn't murder 200 creatures. They marched into the enemies' homes uninvited, got attacked, and then killed those enemies in self-defence. Fortunately, that's not considered murder, for some reason.
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thinking more or less on this point, i don't think someone like this would actually be evil, I would think you'd have to truly be doing some evil things to be evil.
I don't know that the game agrees with you.
ALIGNMENT
Alignment represents a creature's fundamental moral and ethical attitude.
That definition touches not at all on "doing some evil things" but is entirely thought-based.
GOOD AND EVIL
Your character has a good alignment if they consider the happiness of others above their own and work selflessly to assist others, even those who aren’t friends and family. They are also good if they value protecting others from harm, even if doing so puts the character in danger. Your character has an evil alignment if they’re willing to victimize others for their own selfish gain, and even more so if they enjoy inflicting harm. If your character falls somewhere in the middle, they’re likely neutral on this axis.
Again, this language is entirely concerned with thoughts and attitudes, not with deeds.
Further down the page we get this:
CHANGING ALIGNMENT
Alignment can change during play as a character’s beliefs change, or as you realize that your character’s actions reflect a different alignment than the one on your character sheet.
Note that a character's alignment changes if their "beliefs change," which, again, focuses on thought rather than action. Alignment can also change if the character's "actions reflect a different alignment" but that reads to me more like the actions revealing a different alignment than actually causing a shift to that different alignment.
This is all much less focused on actions than I would have expected.