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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.
Well thats because maybe, just maybe, there was a valid in-game reason for the "good guys" to go there and kick some butt apart from muh XP and gold/items?
Perhaps the scheming baron shouldn't have captured and imprisoned the pricess? Perhaps the merciless bandits shouldn't have terrorized the nearby villages? Perhaps the bloodthirsty ogres shouldn't have decided that cooking humans on their stove might be a good idea? Perhaps the greedy mercenaries shouldn't have accepted the contract to guard the evil artifact of Rovagug?
Purpose man, purpose...
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@Gaterie
It does, you’re misreading.
Thought precedes the actions. You choose to do whatever aligned action it is. There’s not a purely good intent to casting a fireball on a group of people you know nothing about. If your character thinks otherwise then it’s because they’re insane (being literal there, not insulting).
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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.
PF1 - however same issue - and Return of the Runelords volume 1) part 4 page 51.
Awarding experience points for this portion of the
adventure can be tricky, since if the PCs fight and defeat
numerous initiates, they would in theory earn much
more XP than if they adopt a more peaceful or stealthy
approach to securing Baraket for themselves. To offset
this complication, when the PCs gain control of the Sword
of Pride, they should earn a story award of 1,600 XP. This
story award should be reduced by 400 points for every
Order of Resplendence initiate they had to kill along the
way, to a minimum award of 0 XP if the PCs kill more than
four initiates. In addition, the PCs should not earn XP for
killing more than four initiates during this adventure.
If you would rather not read adventure text - the gist is that they recommend an xp cap for certain monsters and to award xp if they are avoided.
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As I explained in my previous post, my assertion holds in the context of an AP - there is a limited number of encounter in an AP.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.This makes a computer-game like assumption about the universe.
I.e. That is that there is only a limited amount of content - what was programmed into the game. Which in an RPG is not necessarily true.
AP cover multiple ways to handle planned encounters and also provide optional encounters so that the PCs don’t fall behind.
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This is starting to get farcical in how much people are stretching to create scenarios.
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.
right but if your belief system would prevent you from ever actually doing anything evil, then you're not really evil. even from the listed perspective you showed, all that's missing is them actually performing the evil tasks.
so either they will given infinite chances perform these evil tasks or not.
if someone is just a bit of an arse but not going to willingly harm other individuals i don't think they'd be evil.
they're still either worthy of being called evil or they are not, and on a weird objective morality view point that could mean they're worthy of being punished, because you could 100% verify from a godly perspective whether they would have performed deeds worthy of death or not, given the chance.
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Because that's the subject at hand: according to some people in this thread, your champion of Sarenrae should have offered redemption to every guard of the baron, every bandit and every ogre. And I'm quite confident he didn't, because I'm confident he didn't even tries to determine who's guilty and who is not: he just entered and killed everyone.
You're confident that's how games look at tables you've never played at? Your descriptions of how players generally act have seemed quite alien to me so far so I wouldn't take your experience as universal.
Did your character even try to determine if the baron's guard knew their master captured the princess? Did he give them the evidences of the misbehavior of their master? Or did he just enter and slaughter everyone, let Pharasma sort them out?
Did you check if every bandit in the camp was mercyless and was terrorizing the villages? or did you kill everyone, let Pharasma sort them out? Did you check if every ogre knew there were human in their stew and approved it, or did you kill everyone, let Pharasma sort them out? etc.
I'm not even talking about offering redemption. Because that's the subject at hand: according to some people in this thread, your champion of Sarenrae should have offered redemption to every guard of the baron, every bandit and every ogre. And I'm quite confident he didn't, because I'm confident he didn't even tries to determine who's guilty and who is not: he just entered and killed everyone.
And that is where you are wrong kiddo. I am playing a roleplaying game and not a mindless and immoral computer hack & slash adventure. So my warpriest of Sarenrae will do all the above except in the the most obvious cases. Everybody gets a chance to declare themselves (if they don't attack on sight that is), everybody gets a chance to surrender if they don't want to fight to the finish, everybody gets a chance to proove himself if he can plausibly explain that and how he will do so.
However I have to admit that the new rules do not make it especially easy to not accidentially kill someone (need to use non-lethal damage on the very last hit, which can be hard to guess).
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right but if your belief system would prevent you from ever actually doing anything evil, then you're not really evil.
Sure, but if your belief system would allow you to commit evil acts, you are evil even if you never actually commit any evil acts. The acts are secondary to the beliefs.
if someone is just a bit of an arse but not going to willingly harm other individuals i don't think they'd be evil.
It depends whether they're "not going to willingly harm other individuals" because they aren't inclined to, or because they lack the opportunity. If they're not inclined, then they arguably don't have the belief system required to be evil. If they just lack the opportunity, then they are still evil.
they're still either worthy of being called evil or they are not, and on a weird objective morality view point that could mean they're worthy of being punished,
Note, though, that Sarenrae's anathema is "fail to strike down evil" not "fail to punish evil." This could be about incapacitation rather than punishment. That fits in with Sarenrae's Edict to offer redemption. Whether redeemed or stricken down, a formerly evil creature will do no more evil. Perhaps that is what the Neutral Good (thus not concerned with the rule of law) Sarenrae cares about.
As with most things in the game, the actions themselves aren't really alignment defining, but the intent behind said actions certainly are.In a universe in which good and evil are objective facts rather than subjective opinions, it seems to me that intent only gets you so far. Whether or not you believe with all your might that killing an innocent is a good act, it isn’t. It’s evil. The wrinkle in this case is that the innkeeper wasn’t innocent.
I mean, it's not really an evil act if the Champion believes the target is evil,What does it matter what the Champion believes? And for that matter what does it matter if the target is actually evil? Having an evil alignment doesn’t mean it’s not evil to kill you.
Not to mention legitimate authority would be called on said ChampionIn this particular case the authority figure in the village, the priest of the Shoggoth cult had just died after siccing a group of Deep Ones and a Gug on the party in order to kidnap some for breeding stock and sacrifice the others to the Shoggoth. So no one was going to investigate. But, yeah, I agree it was an unlawful search and seizure.
They are objective only if the activity in question has the respective alignment trait. As an example, an activity of raising undead more often than not has the Evil trait, probably because such things are bound together by negative energy and have the evil trait themselves. As such, even if said undead were raised to build a makeshift keep or village for innocents to live in, the means of which it was done was Evil, which the trait enforces. Last I checked, killing doesn't have such traits. And when certain things don't have traits, we look to intention for carrying out whether it was good, evil, lawful, and so on.
It matters because that's the sole reason the Champion is doing what they're doing. Yes, objectively, Divine Lance to try and find evil is a poor way to do so, as not only can they get in trouble with the good guys, but they may get in trouble with the bad guys too, biting off more than they can chew with either an encounter or a faction. But there has to be some sort of justification for the Champion (or more accurately, the player behind the Champion) vying for this sort of activity.
Which you just explained in the next paragraph. He's literally in a city of evil which is ran by clergies of an evil deity, and is effectively incapable of using abilities like Detect Evil (excuse me, not the innate 1st level ability they used to have, but now Sense Evil, a feat not available until 8th level now, and is weaker than before) to differentiate potential friends from apparent foes, especially when such an environment has all kinds of alignmented characters, ranging from cultists to rogues to peddlars...the list goes on. This might be a way to challenge the player, but it seems the player either doesn't understand or want to go through the challenge.