Part of the issue is that you just described something that is pretty identical to a cleric. Part of being a Champion is having additional anathema that are specific to their theme. Having a coherent theme around being dedicated to neutrality-as-a-concept is...odd.
Chaotic neutral champions could be warriors who fight for victory or death and are forbidden from using underhanded tactics.
First off, just gotta note, while it may work for Gorum, stopping a Chaotic Neutral in general from using Underhanded Tactics just feels... wrong. And on top of that you directly reference Calistria for this, who literally has the Trickery domain.
On top of that though, this just feels too... focused. A Champion of X alignment (or at least the first Cause for each alignment, maybe future Causes can get a bit more focused) can't focus on just one or two Deities. This is bad with CN where you reference merely Gorum and Calistria while other deities such as Nocticula, Besmara (yeah, let's see "No Underhanded Tactics" fly there), Groetus, Bastet (another Trickery deity), the Lantern King (try telling a Fey not to be underhanded)... etc all would also use the same Champion cause. Not to mention all the other deities that allow CN followers and would thus also use CN Champions. But it feels even worse with the TN option. Psychopomps are pretty much solely the servants of Pharasma, while even among the Core deities you also have Gozreh and Nethys among TN deities. And just like with CN the TN list only grows if you look outside the Core Deities. But as a Champion's Cause (or, like I said, at least the first one) has to be able to represent any Deity that supports that Alignment.
Which, this is honestly why I'm kind of disappointed that they do insist on waiting until they get a good pitch for all three before they'll do Neutral Champions. Because while it may be possible to play up the Pure Lawful of LN or the Pure Chaos of CN, what single theme can properly represent Champions supported by Gozreh, God of Nature and Casandalee, Goddess of Technology? Let alone Pharasma, who cares only for Life and Death, Nethys who cares only for Magic (and in fact would be an interesting one to try to represent with a Champion at all, given his Anathema demands you use magic to solve all problems if at all physically possible), and Grandmother Spider, the Goddess of (quite literally) Weaving your own Fate. And that's only among the TN deities, not even touching on those who merely allow TN followers (though I'll admit there's not as many of those as one might suspect after how 5 different alignments allowed TN followers in PF1e).
I think champions of Law and Chaos make sense. I think you would need tenants of Law, Chaos and True Neutrality.
I think then having them have the option of selecting the reaction of their good or evil counterpart but deal law or chaos damage. True Neutral champions are hard so maybe they would get something other than damage (temp hp based on level?) or like clerics of true neutral gods just not get the alignment damage component. Or could just not have true neutral champions.
So a LN champion having a champion reaction like Paladin but targeting chaotic alignments rather than good makes sense. You could even have them select either the Paladin or Tyrant (LE Champion or whatever they call it).
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James Jacobs' post inspired me to go the exact opposite way about the mechanics of the Neutral Champions.
Until we get official Neutral Champions, I am borrowing PF1's thing for Channel.
If you are Neutral on the Good-Evil axis, you get the ability that fits the Good-Evil alignment of your deity. And if both you and your deity are Neutral, you choose at character creation which one you get (Evil or Good) but only if your deity allows this alignment.
And I will likely homebrew a Class feat called Versatile Champion akin to PF1's Versatile Channeler. So that you can get both abilities :-)
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I eventually want to be able to play Champions who aren't tied to deities at all (think about people from cultures who worship something other than deities.) So making it impossible to do the neutral champions this way doesn't sit well with me.
I think then having them have the option of selecting the reaction of their good or evil counterpart but deal law or chaos damage. True Neutral champions are hard so maybe they would get something other than damage (temp hp based on level?) or like clerics of true neutral gods just not get the alignment damage component. Or could just not have true neutral champions.
Whatever Paizo does with Neutral (Wherever they lie on the Law/Chaos axis) Champions... I really hope the first Causes don't go this route. I'm sure that whatever theme they come up with they can do something more original than "take this feature from this other subclass" for the Reaction, which (IMO at least) is one of the key defining features of the Champion.
Either way, I want Paizo to do more with Valkyries.
Probably a good starting point would be getting them into PF2e, since I don't think they actually are yet.
I eventually want to be able to play Champions who aren't tied to deities at all (think about people from cultures who worship something other than deities.) So making it impossible to do the neutral champions this way doesn't sit well with me.
Yes.
Look, two things are true of champions as they stand. They're (a) the only real "hard" defender in PF2, and (b) they require that one be super virtuous, according to a hard-coded prior interpretation of a good alignment, and swear obedience to a weird, super-powerful magical being.
Many players, one can only assume, would be really excited to do (a) but regard (b) as dealbreakers. One can only assume Paizo would recognize this, and want to accommodate these players! And yet instead the APG is giving us evil champions, which—being alignments many GMs and adventure paths just ban—are unlikely to see play!
Bring on the hard-bitten, cynical, atheist mercenaries, I say!
I'm honestly expecting a future class to also get Legendary Armor proficiency eventually, for exactly that reason. Paizo may have had fairly hard Niche Protection in the CRB, but locking Legendary Armor to a Deific class just doesn't seem a niche pairing that can last long-term.
I'm honestly expecting a future class to also get Legendary Armor proficiency eventually, for exactly that reason. Paizo may have had fairly hard Niche Protection in the CRB, but locking Legendary Armor to a Deific class just doesn't seem a niche pairing that can last long-term.
That's my expectation. Hopefully the next round of new classes features a heavy defensive option that isn't deific in any category. I don't know pf1 that well, but are there any defense-first classes that also tie into features like arcane/occult casting or alchemy/steampunk "science" stuff?
I still want the defender class that's devoted to something, just let that something be an ideal, a tradition, or a philosophy instead of a deity.
PF1e didn't have a lot of defense-oriented classes in general. Which, given how wildly large attack bonuses could easily get and how little scaling there was to AC, wasn't entirely surprising. Probably the closest to a defensive Arcane class would be the Magus, which does eventually get Heavy Proficiency and the ability to cast in it, and there is the periodic archetype that gets Heavy Armor Proficiency.
Bring on the hard-bitten, cynical, atheist mercenaries, I say!
We call those "fighters" where I come from...
All joking aside, the whole schtick of a Champion ("I carry this cause to absurd extremes in order to advance my baseline ideology in the world") doesn't really lend itself to a cynical world-weary type. Y'gotta have some ZEAL! Some COMMITMENT to power your divine-themed shenanigans.
You need BELIEF to... wear... armor... better than... hrnh. ANYway.
As to the wider issue of "tenets of neutrality," that stands to be dicey.
Good and evil deities (and therefore, the causes those alignments reflect) in Pathfinder, taken broadly, have a lot of variety- compare Desna to Erastil, or Asmodeus to Lamashtu- but they tend to have broad strokes that can be applied- "Help others" is something you can see all of the good-aligned types agreeing on, even if they differ on how to go about doing that. Likewise, the evil guys have varying degrees of "use and/or discard others as you need and can get away with."
The neutral deities... are all over the friggin' place. Some are relatively easy to shade- Gorum is on the nastier end of the spectrum, while Alsseta is on the nicer end of things, as two quick examples, but taken as a group, you cannot really arrive at a single sentence statement like the two leading into this ramble that they would all go along with.
I know that there's some desire for Champions uncoupled from deities, but for the sake of the broadline experiment:
What code along the lines of "the tenets of good" could apply equally to a True Neutral followers of the following True Neutral deities? I'm leaving out Law and Chaos, because, well, those are fairly easy to piece out possibilities for.
-Pharasma
-Gozreh
-The Lost Prince
-Ng
-Naderi
-Daikitsu
-Nethys
-Brigh
-Casandalee
-Grandmother Spider
and hey, for fun, let's pop out of the Golarion window and toss in True Neutral Champions devoted to
-Elemental Fire
-A bear totem wholly concerned with a bear's natural activities as virtues
-Total devotion to martial skill without embracing concepts of good or evil
What shared basic tenets actually unite such agendas?
Some Dragonlance blither about "balance"? Something about noninterference in matters outside of your chosen purview (and what a strange fit THAT would be for a cause-obsessed warrior, besides making them lousy choices for PCs)?
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I talked a little bit about this in the other thread, but my thinking was that a True Neutral Champion could be called a "Steward," all united thematically by the idea that they watch over their deity's portfolio basically without much concern for the morality of the thing. That is, a Steward of Pharasma might be out to zealously protect the cycle of life/afterlife, a Steward of Nethys might stand watch over an academy of magic or otherwise be sworn to protect magic and magical solutions, and a Champion of Brigh could be devoted to ensuring that innovation is supported, regardless of whether it might ultimately be harmful or beneficial.
I think what a neutral Champion can be is less difficult to imagine than how neutral Champions can be unified mechanically. One idea could be to outline additional neutral tenets for each deity that could have neutral Champions, which would take a lot of page space. True Neutral could, for instance, get a domain as their first level ability and take their "stewardship" from there.
I talked a little bit about this in the other thread, but my thinking was that a True Neutral Champion could be called a "Steward," all united thematically by the idea that they watch over their deity's portfolio basically without much concern for the morality of the thing. That is, a Steward of Pharasma might be out to zealously protect the cycle of life/afterlife, a Steward of Nethys might stand watch over an academy of magic or otherwise be sworn to protect magic and magical solutions, and a Champion of Brigh could be devoted to ensuring that innovation is supported, regardless of whether it might ultimately be harmful or beneficial.
I think what a neutral Champion can be is less difficult to imagine than how neutral Champions can be unified mechanically. One idea could be to outline additional neutral tenets for each deity that could have neutral Champions, which would take a lot of page space. True Neutral could, for instance, get a domain as their first level ability and take their "stewardship" from there.
I think leaning into that zealotry isn't a bad place to look.
Neutral Champions will need both a common reaction framework, and a shared focus spell.
In both cases, we want to emphasise the idea that these Champions are leaning heavily into the ideals purported by their tenets and their deity. So, having a reaction which pushes others towards that action would be a place to start. Maybe having a reaction which triggers whenever an ally performs a specific action and grants them a bonus to that action?
The focus spell is a little trickier. Perhaps a mini-Heroism which grants you a universal boost to everything for a round? It enables you to have Champions which care about different things, while still granting them an ability they can all use.
I'm assuming that the Evil Champions abilities and focus spells are going to be offensively and vindictively flavoured.
I see neutral champions as I would the old 3.5 knight class, or the 1st Edition Order of the Cockatrice cavalier.
If anything, I feel they would be more like traditional armored knights or samurai (both heavy armor concepts) fighting on behalf of mortal traditions and beliefs rather than those of the gods.
The mercenary knight that follows coin and himself would be chaotic neutral. A samurai who follows their mortal master regardless of whether they do good or evil would be lawful neutral. Disenfranchised knights or ronin wandering the land would be largely neutral, at least until they can find a new path.
This could also represent a champion of Rahadoum, who hunts down champions and clerics of the faith, since they should not be swayed by the extremism common to other alignments.
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Yeah, as an archetype I think a non-magical "champion" or oath-sworn character could work really well and have a ton of potential. A Fighter who swears an oath to their liege would be easy to do, assuming the cavalier isn't just that, and you could open up the concept to a bunch of classes (Barbarians devoted to protect their charge, honorable thieves and Swashbucklers, etc.)
I think the Champion class has too much deity-related baggage to just flip the switch and be non-religious, as a class. You'd have to take a bunch of class feats and features and turn them off or reflavor them significantly, and at that point you might as well just make a different class.
I don't know how well that would fit with divine ally. Normally I would be okay with mad-libbing any pesky adjectives, but that one seems a little too detailed for that.I see neutral champions as I would the old 3.5 knight class, or the 1st Edition Order of the Cockatrice cavalier.
If anything, I feel they would be more like traditional armored knights or samurai (both heavy armor concepts) fighting on behalf of mortal traditions and beliefs rather than those of the gods.
The mercenary knight that follows coin and himself would be chaotic neutral. A samurai who follows their mortal master regardless of whether they do good or evil would be lawful neutral. Disenfranchised knights or ronin wondering the land would be largely neutral, at least until they can find a new path.
This could also represent a champion of Rahadoum, who hunts down champions and clerics of the faith.
Not to mention Deific Weapon, or the fact that following a Deity is inherently linked to the Champion (and in fact you're supposed to pick your Deity before you pick your Cause). a Godless Champion of any sorts is most likely going to be more of a Class Archetype thing than a Subclass, if not just straight up a new but at least vaguely similar class.
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So, the concept I had for Neutral Champions involves the nature of Reality.
Warders: Chases perfection. While LG and LE in their owns ways seek to enforce order on an innately disorderly world, Warders feel that misses the point. Laws aren't meant to be followed, they're meant to describe the Ideal, Perfectly static world that Warders know is possible, if only pesky Chaos agents would stop trying to subvert it. As seekers of stasis, to the extent that they tolerate change they prefer it to follow predictable paths towards an ideal (progression via leveling is fine, but druids annoy the ever living crud out of them).
Watchers: Chases natural progression. Seasons change, the circle turns, even gods may die, and watchers are there to help keep these cycles unhindered by those that would seek to either stop or accelerate them. Unlike Warders, Watchers don't much care how things turn out, as long as the system they protect is able to find its way on its own. Civilization encroaching on wildlife, necromancers halting the flow of souls, and anti-intellectuals raging at the progress of science or magic are all equally valid foes a Watcher might take on.
Warpers: Chasers of change. "Change for change's sake" makes little sense to most, but Warpers see it as only bare truth. When, at a fundamental level, anything can be everything at once, Warpers use their powers to allow everything in reality to follow their whims to wherever that may lead.
Watchers, Warpers, and Warders might seem to oppose one another, especially the last two, but there is a fundamental point on which all agree: morality is often too narrow in defining what is acceptable, and too fond of imposing restrictions instead of exploring what is possible.
For the crunchy bits, I would see reactions triggered off certain kinds of magic: Warders opposing Evocation or Transmutation, Watchers Necromancy or Conjuration, and Warpers Abjuration or Enchantment, with a tenant that they can never cast an effect of the first school and take a dim view of the second.
Not sure how well this would all play out, but I think if we see neutral champions, it will be something along these lines. Less about Law vs Chaos (which the good and evil champions will have a firm grip on), more about the Static and Morphic natures of reality.
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For the crunchy bits, I would see reactions triggered off certain kinds of magic: Warders opposing Evocation or Transmutation, Watchers Necromancy or Conjuration, and Warpers Abjuration or Enchantment, with a tenant that they can never cast an effect of the first school and take a dim view of the second.
Not sure how well this would all play out, but I think if we see neutral champions, it will be something along these lines. Less about Law vs Chaos (which the good and evil champions will have a firm grip on), more about the Static and Morphic natures of reality.
I don't think we'll see school specific abilities; they're too specific to be reliably useful.
But I definitely think you're onto something with the idea of Stasis and Change. True Neutral Champions are going to want to find a third axis of morality to differentiate themselves along, and Stasis/Change could comfortably work alongside Law/Chaos and Good/Evil.
Note that Law is not Stasis- law is social order. Just like Chaos is not Change- it's individuality.
It reminds me of the morality between Preservation and Ruin in Mistborn. Preservation isn't exactly good, and Ruin isn't utterly evil- it just happens that thing they're divided over protecting or changing is life.
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TN is about not letting yourself be distracted from your sacred cause and calling.
Considerations such as how should I behave with innocent creatures (Good or Evil), or how should I react when being told what to do (Law or Chaos) are only distractions. They are nice and even interesting, but in the long term unimportant.
Note that Law is not Stasis- law is social order. Just like Chaos is not Change- it's individuality.
Those can be Law and Chaos..but the LN plane is a perfectly ordered city "with vast mechanical armies of inevitables marching forth to explore, define, and pacify an imperfect, unruly universe", while the CN plane is one of 2 planes or dimensions that has the Metamorphic trait. The other, the Dreamlands, is also chaoticly aligned (although mildly).
Since Paladins and Tyrants are probably going to have the Social Order themes firmly in hand, while Liberators and (...antipaladins? ravagers? whatever they're called) can well represent Individuality, that leaves these OTHER themes untapped.
Besides, the edition is young. No reason they can't circle back and make the tenants of Law and Chaos later on; this would just give a thematic reason to explore LN, TN, and CN without needing to have LN and CN directly opposed to each other.