So, when you say that someone can be altruistic and evil, I disagree. You may make apparently altruistic actions while being evil. But you don't really make actions out of altruism while evil.That means the morality system you're proposing has absolutely no room for an "ends justify the means" character. "For the greater good" at all costs is a really common fictional archetype. Clearly willing to commit acts that are objectively evil (because that's something that exists in Golarion), as much as necessary. Horrible atrocities in the name of protecting people or bettering the world is bread and butter for this character, there's no real way to call them Good or Neutral. But they're also clearly altruistic, often characters who fall under this archetype aren't just not selfish, but are outright self sacrificing.
That paints a pretty clear picture of a character who is both very clearly evil and still altruistically minded.
The character you're painting is neutral to me. Evil acts but altruistic goals, both evening out for a neutral character. But he may very well shift one side or the other depending on the balance between his evil acts and his good ones.
But these types of personnality generate lots of discussion. If you build a time machine and kill an awful dictator while he's still a child, is it an evil or a good act?
I don't think you'll find a definite answer.
While slavery is always evil, the mere fact of owning a slave may not be so. I mean, if you legally own the slave because freeing them may cause some problems, but treat them with full respect, that doesn't seem like an evil behaviour.
Much depends on why you are not actually freeing them; in cases like Schindler's, then you are definitely good.
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They changed it... Well, it wasn't originally.
In Golarion it always has been, actually. It wasn't in the PF1 Bestiary solely because that book was setting neutral.
So, let's take a rich chelaxian who's sensitive to the halfling condition there and buy lots of them, giving them very decent living conditions. Maybe this chelaxian owns a factory, and has his halflings working there. He gives them money, and the maximum freedom he can in this country considering their condition as slaves.
Maybe he can do more, really freeing them. But maybe he can't, I'm not sure Cheliax government would see very positively someone who fights a bit too obviously for the halfling condition.
Is this guy absolutely evil for owning that many slaves? Is he neutral? Is he good?
This is what Schindler did, roughly. And I don't think anyone would consider him evil.
This is really moving the goal posts. Previously you were saying that owning slaves in Cheliax wasn't Evil just because of the culture, now you're constructing this elaborate scenario involving saving them.
So, yes, I'd say if you're actively trying to free them in the long term and you owning them is just a step on that road, that's not Evil. But that's a very specific situation, and not what you were originally talking about that I was disagreeing with.
Allow me to strongly disagree on that. Writing about morality takes way more pages than Pathfinder books will ever contain. And that's not much of a necessity, people have a sense of morality, I don't think Pathfinder has to explain us what a moral and an immoral actions are.
But it does get to explain to us how Alignment is defined in Golarion. Which is what I'm discussing. And there are several very clear indicators that your interpretation of how Alignment works is, by the books, objectively wrong.
I'm happy to discuss real world morality at some point, but this isn't really the right place, and that's not what I've been doing here.
First you're going to need a trolly, six people, and some rope...
is the rope to hang yourself so you don't have to sit through another trolley problem?
The answer to the trolley problem is always to kill them all and let the gods sort them out.
Thank you all for those so much interesting points of view! :) In the end, I realized that as a cleric of Sarenrae I should give the benefit of doubt and try to encourage my companion to seek redemption (the fact that my own religious zeal may cloud my judgement as far as what is right or wrong is concerned is a totally different matter...)
I also realized that the only way to achieve what I want the "easy" way is to attack with Divine Lance, but that is definitely NOT gonna end well on the long (or short) run and it just screams "anathema".
A minor contribution to the other topics discussed here: The way I perceive it, slavery is not something that automatically sets your alignment evil in the world of Golarion. First of all, slavery (no matter the form, absolute or limited) is legal almost everywhere. In addition, Quadira is a country where the dominant religion is the church of Sarenrae and, at the same time, slavery is accepted. Even Milani holds a minor grudge against Sarenrae for not condemning slavery, and Sarenrae is clearly a force of good.
On the other hand, I can not conceive a way to play a good character who owns a slave or supports slavery... so yeah, my contemporary morality kicks in. However, I can see him/her accepting that slavery is not per se evil but perhaps something necessary under particular socioeconomic circumstances (disclaimer: in-game ONLY... duh)
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If you don't mind severely escalating the situation, a Good Divine Lance won't damage neutral or good creatures.
Attacking someone unprovoked, regardless of their alignment, is pretty sketchy behavior for a Good cleric though and generally frowned upon as something to do to another player's character.
And a good way to earn infamy in PFS.
Also, for those wanting a method of this less likely to accidentally kill your average evil legendary baker (for some reason the baker is the standard PF2 non-combat challenge civilian), holy water does good damage and splash is only a single point. Could be cool for a zealous NPC or something for someone running an adventure where the party encounters a town that is a take on a witch hunt. Maybe it's like a town tradition akin to an executor, and the investigator NPC eventually takes damage themselves after overseeing enough tests, and has to be replaced by another volunteer willing to forsake their soul for the "benefit of the town."
I wrote that, and then looked at holy water again, and it won't even hurt your average evil baker because it's more restricted than other good damage and damages only fiends, undead, and creatures that
have a weakness to good damage. I'm honestly a little salty about that now.
So as for sense of evil
- You have to invest on a LvL 8 Class Feat ( the spell is free, once unlocked )
- It only works on evil creatures ( the spell works on any kind of creatures )
- You can't pin point the location ( spider sense? while the spell tells you )
- Enemies in disguise can even trick you with a successful deception against your perception DC ( A champion gets his EXPERT perception by lvl 11, and don't become master unless at lvl 17 you have Cunny Acumen, while an evil character deception well, I suppose that many evil character will have deception ).
Another thing to note about "Sense of Evil" that got overlooked is that it only works for overwhelming and powerful auras, which (for regular folks) is level 16+, and 11+ for undead/clerics+divine spellcasters with a patron deity, and creatures from the Outer Sphere.
So like, you won't even have a chance to detect your average succubus (level 7), for instance.
Still, detect alignment warps games in weird ways, and rightfully belongs marked as uncommon with a heavy "consider the game implications on this before allowing access to this" in practice.
It's not the case in Pathfinder. Good vs Evil is about intent. In the wake of a bunch of paladins there are numerous corpses. The thing is: These deads are evil so the paladins are good.
...
Also, following the law or the local moral tend to make you neutral. 100 years from now, many people were beating their children. They were not evil because of that, it's just that it was not immoral by the time. So you also have to consider, to some extent, the local morality. Owning a slave in Cheliax isn't evil while owning a slave in the River Kingdoms is. Following the law makes you less evil and less good, as your intent is not to cause harm or do good.
...
But a spousal abuser is not evil for me
...
Is this guy absolutely evil for owning that many slaves?
Man, I just...Naw, man. There are literal riots happening right now in an ostensibly free country because of evils perpetuated over centuries that still exist in hearts, minds, laws, and most importantly actions today. There's a reason the lawful evil champion is called the tyrant.
Here is the story:
You've gone around and detected a few evil-doers via divine lance in a few places.
Well, then one day a new fiery Divine sorcerer/inquisitor of Sarenrae comes into town and comes to speak with you and helping you with something, or passing on a hint about a task for you to take out a bad and get some treasure.
After you come back and thank her, she's been talking to the village, and apparently some naer-do wells have been sowing some discontent and accusing your all's good name. So she simply wants to clear everyone's concerns, and is going to prove that they should not need to be worried about you by demonstrating to them with Divine Lance that you aren't the evil that someone is saying is responsible for some recent deaths.
So simple enough, she casts divine lance against the party leader. Everyone, expecting as much is ready to laugh at the villagers foolish thoughts. However, the Divine lance visibly damages the person, and suddenly the villagers and guards become visibly shocked and the sorcerer looks with horror as one would expect when uncovering such Treachery from a presumed friend.
Everyone assembled attacks the party and they find their selves narrowing escaping with their lives and wanted criminals now in the land.
The Sarenite goes back into her shrine, opening the secret door into the back shrine with the star inscribed on the floor, laughing with a devious chuckle at your plight.
So, may it be known that Divine Lance tells those others watching, that you having opposing viewpoints with someone. It doesn't identify evil or good for them.
Actually, an interesting idea for another cantrip someone might find useful.
Divine Conviction: It does damage to anything that is not mindless, vermin or only animal intelligence, and that doesn't have at least one of the alignment traits, Lawful, Chaotic, Good, or Evil. Having at least one, means they are convicted in at least some manner and so do not take any damage from it. That would make Neutral-Neutral no longer the "I'm Immune to absolutely all alignment damage, choice."
I was going to suggest "what if someone developed a spell that only LOOKS like divine lance".... but you have a point. Divine lance itself doesn't indicate that there is any change in appearance depending on alignment or any other factor. It is just something we likely assume for thematic reasons.
Divine lance alignment is something we can only assume after using a detect spell on the caster. But then again, there are ways to muddle alignment detection, which means the only reliable way is to use other clerics with divine lance as a litmus test.
And if the upper echelons of a country's main church get replaced by demonic cultists? Then the litmus test might not even work, since every major cleric you grab could be in on the trick.
I was going to suggest "what if someone developed a spell that only LOOKS like divine lance".... but you have a point. Divine lance itself doesn't indicate that there is any change in appearance depending on alignment or any other factor. It is just something we likely assume for thematic reasons.
Divine lance alignment is something we can only assume after using a detect spell on the caster. But then again, there are ways to muddle alignment detection, which means the only reliable way is to use other clerics with divine lance as a litmus test.
And if the upper echelons of a country's main church get replaced by demonic cultists? Then the litmus test might not even work, since every major cleric you grab could be in on the trick.
Do I smell the makings of an invasion of the soul snatchers campaign?
Man, I just...Naw, man. There are literal riots happening right now in an ostensibly free country because of evils perpetuated over centuries that still exist in hearts, minds, laws, and most importantly actions today. There's a reason the lawful evil champion is called the tyrant.
Yeah, the tyrant, not the sheep.
I encourage you to read about Milgram if you have never done it before and realize that obedience to authority can make you do evil things despite not being evil yourself (unless you consider more than half of the population is evil).
I also realized that the only way to achieve what I want the "easy" way is to attack with Divine Lance, but that is definitely NOT gonna end well on the long (or short) run and it just screams "anathema".
The fact that divine lance has the attack trait doesn't mean that it has to be an attack at all.
It could a tool to check if somebody is evil.
Obviously, even if rules couldn't state it, you can lower the damage a spell will do. So you could decide to deal 1 damage with your cantrip to find out if somebody is evil or not.
Finally, being evil is not a sin, while being an evil-doer is.
Also, remember that claiming an evil person is an evil-doer is an evil act, regardless the alignment.So by doing this you could
- Commit an evil act
- You could tell a lie, not knowing if that one is an evil-doer for sure
- You also will fail to strike down evil, since you will claim that an innocent evil person is the real culprit.
Nope, that's a house rule. And while merit of it can be debated, as far as I know there is no rule that allows such.
Obviously, even if rules couldn't state it, you can lower the damage a spell will do. So you could decide to deal 1 damage with your cantrip to find out if somebody is evil or not.
And lower radius fireballs?
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The Heightening is automatic, there is no "may/can" to it. If you cast a cantrip it functions based on the highest level of Spells you can cast even if there isn't any benefit to that. There is no way to "throttle" your Cantrips.
Also, for the record, I want to just say that the tactic in question here, Divine Lance to ferret out Evil Alignment creatures and NPCs is ethically questionable at BEST. If you're playing a Cleric or Champion with a Good Alignment I cannot imagine that this would be considered culturally, ethically, or socially acceptable in any way/shape/form. If you're a Sorcerer, mechanically speaking, no big deal but it doesn't mean your Character won't be viewed as an unwashed burro.
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Just because some creature has a mechanical alignment that says "Evil" in the statblock doesn't mean they are currently, or even have EVER performed actual Evil acts.
It really depends on how each person runs Alignment in their game I guess but you're talking about situations where it could be justified, a the fair shake I suppose but that's not the context that this topic is about, instead what we are talking about is some Good Aligned Divine Spellcasting indiscriminatley casting an offensive spell that has the potential to harm or outright slay a full 1/3 of Characters as a means to "testing" the "inner virtue" of someone else (here is the important bit) regardless of the actual behavior[/i] that has been observed.
Just because someone is Evil, in a mechanical sense, does not mean that violence against them is automatically justified. If you ask me, that reasoning itself is a PERFECT example of actual Evil beliefs or as the book states...
Your Character has an evil alignment if they're willing to victimize others for their own selfish gain...
The Cleric is "curious" about their party members' Alignment so to try to figure it out they resort to using magic which would injure them if their suspicion rang true. That's not Good behavior, no matter how you spin it, that's witch-hunting and would be an IMMENSE breach of privacy and trust even if the spell fails.
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Just because some creature has a mechanical alignment that says "Evil" in the statblock doesn't mean they are currently, or even have EVER performed actual Evil acts.
Canonically, it does mean they have at some point (since, canonically, alignment is a description of your previous behavior). But, as I describe above, those acts may well be entirely legal and/or completely undeserving of being stabbed/burned/otherwise physically assaulted.
It's definitely not useful or appropriate as a way to look for people doing a specific variety of bad thing.
You can't state for sure that "everybody would never consider doing that".
Sure people consider it. Evil people.
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'We have to stab everyone, maybe killing some of them, in order to identify the villain!'
That's just not a statement Good characters can make in Pathfinder, it's right up there with 'We had to destroy the village in order to save it.' in terms of things a Good character should basically not say or do.
Which is to say, we understand your scenario, we're just pretty sure you're factually wrong given the rules and world as presented.
So it's alright for you to, say, do a bunch of damage to a bartender who's only "evil" because he waters down the beer and overcharges?
But you still recommend shooting a laser that will damage him.
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You could “justify” the situation all you want, the underlying act is still Evil because potentially injuring someone so you can learn something about them is literally printed in the rulebook as something that makes you evil. In all of your examples, there are alternatives to violence to determine the same info. Sure they make take longer or involve more work, and maybe other people will get injured or killed as a result of that extra time taken. None of that is relevant, because the fact alternatives exist which don’t involve attacking random people to see which of them actually get hurt means that the divine lance route is selfish behavior (saves you time/effort) that victimizes others.
The rulebook quote above doesn’t carve out exceptions for why you’re doing a particular act. In PF1, Evil is infectious. A Good act for an Evil reason is evil. An Evil act for a Good reason is evil. The scenarios you are describing are the latter case, and are still evil. While that hasn’t been printed in any PF2 rulebook thus far to the best of my knowledge, I can’t imagine that general trend changing since the same people are still largely in charge.
I hereby assert my right not to be shot on the grounds that it may incriminate me (of numerous unrelated evil deeds).
Book of Exalted Deeds had ravages (essentially poisons that only effect evil beings), so clearly, someone at some point thought this was a viable idea.
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What you state from the book sees a character which intentionally injure somebody to learn something.
That is not the situation I have described.
this is exactly what you described.
You’re trying to justify torture as Good, and it’s not. Going around blasting all Civilians with potential lethal force is not Good, “oh if you’re pure of heart” ain’t gonna cut it. You’re using torture and Lethal Force on civilians.
For absolutely no gain.
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I hereby assert my right not to be shot on the grounds that it may incriminate me (of numerous unrelated evil deeds).
Book of Exalted Deeds had ravages (essentially poisons that only effect evil beings), so clearly, someone at some point thought this was a viable idea.
Ravages and Smite Evil are a lot different than “I’m going to randomly torture/kill people to find out their alignment.”
Not to say BoED wasn’t really f#%%ed up in a lot of ways, cause it was.
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If I'm a regional governor and I hear there's a bunch of people running around shooting lasers at my townsfolk to see if they're evil or not, those guys are going to the dungeon regardless of if they're finding something.
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It seems that you misunderstood the scenario.You Don't Stab anybody, since the only obr who will take damage ( without dying) would be the evil one, or at least some evil characters.
Among them there could be the culprit.
Yeah, this right here is the part that makes it super evil.
You don't know who the culprit is, you don't know why people are evil. But you're going to do the equivalent of stabbing them with a magic knife that only damages you if you're evil, but not necessarily guilty of the crime you have in mind.
That's super hard core evil in my book.
You do realize people can be evil for things like offering predatory loans to people?
Sure that's evil, but that's not the sort of evil that justifies stabbing them.
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You do realize people can be evil for things like offering predatory loans to people?
Sure that's evil, but that's not the sort of evil that justifies stabbing them.
*opens mouth*
*closes it*
Don't get me wrong, I'd like to, I just don't think it's justified.
Putting them out of business and taking their money and returning it to the people they wronged would be the correct course of action.
Edit: And that kind of thing is the takeaway here. Good doesn't take the easy route. It's hard. Hella hard. It's not always fast, and may not always be within your personal power to make the change quickly.
A good person who wants to deal with predatory loan sharks will lobby to get the laws changed and put such a person out of business. They will help those (monetarily) who have been harmed, possibly providing shelter and food. They're so many options to do good. But in this kind of situation, stabbing them even if you know exactly who it is and what they've done, isn't the correct solution to this problem.
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What you state from the book sees a character which intentionally injure somebody to learn something.
That is not the situation I have described.
this is exactly what you described.
You’re trying to justify torture as Good, and it’s not. Going around blasting all Civilians with potential lethal force is not Good, “oh if you’re pure of heart” ain’t gonna cut it. You’re using torture and Lethal Force on civilians.
For absolutely no gain.
Are you trolling?
I made plenty of examples explaining that nobody is getting shot for no reasons, but just by decision."I have to poison you in order to let you pass the gate on a death cart, disguised as corpse"
"Ok, thanks for what are you doing"
Clearly evil stuff.
People AGREES TO BE TESTED
By doing so they can be excluded from being evildoers for sure.
Even if part of the population refuse ( IT'S A CHOICE ), they can drastically reduce the number of persons, among those the culprit lies.
I used the capslock to make it clear that
1) nobody is running shooting missles to anybody
2) people decides to agree for their own good ( because they have been told how it works, and because they have nothing to hide )S
Pointing out the ridiculous of your stance isn’t trolling, claiming other people are trolling for disagreeing with you, is however.
The poison example is a complete red herring and a diversion from this conversation so not even gonna bother with that.
Again, you’re trying to justify using lethal force/torture for absolutely no gain other than to incite a witch hunt. NPCs don’t have access to their character sheets, a bunch might not realize they’re Evil for a variety of reasons, and this test gives you absolutely no evidence to help you find a serial killer, going off your earlier example.
Guard captain: what did you find out?
You: well these two men are not pure of heart.
Guard Captain: do you think they did it?
You: I don’t know.
Guard Captain: ....
You gain absolutely nothing from this, unless your intent was to start a mob up in order to lynch people for flippant reasons.
Blasting people with potential lethal force to determine if they’re “just” or not, is Evil. Full stop.
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You do realize people can be evil for things like offering predatory loans to people?
Sure that's evil, but that's not the sort of evil that justifies stabbing them.
*opens mouth*
*closes it*
Don't get me wrong, I'd like to, I just don't think it's justified.
Putting them out of business and taking their money and returning it to the people they wronged would be the correct course of action.
*nods*
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The tyranny of the majority is something that needs to be avoided too.
What you're describing isn't so different from a witch hunt.
Divine lance casts too broad a net to be used as you want, since it will harm any evil person, and people can be evil for a wide variety of reasons.
People who know they're evil probably wont agree, because it has no benefit to them and they will literally be harmed. And people will assume they did whatever evil deed is on everyone's mind, even if their evil is unrelated.
And lets assume everyone good volunteers and no one evil does in your theoretical town. The divine lance turns up nothing on those who volunteer so it's done nothing. But now the whole town starts a witch hunt on those who remain. And what happens to those who are innocent of the particular crime you're worried about but are evil nonetheless? They have no evidence to prove they're not guilty of that crime.
And that's why it's evil. Because you're going to incite violence against a small portion of the population who will have no way to prove their innocence. That's why the foundation of most modern justice system is innocent until proven guilty. Your justice system you're proposing is guilty until proven innocent.
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Devolving into pettiness isn’t doing your argument any favors. I’ve pointed out why it is evil.
There is no obligation ( like I already stated plenty of times ).
You keep harping on this like it legitimizes your claim, when in truth it’s the exact opposite.
There would be a heavy social obligation to do so, refusing to do so would even more suspicions among the guards and scared populace and stoke the embers further for a lunching.
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People who know they're evil probably wont agree, because it has no benefit to them and they will literally be harmed.
Just to hone in on this particular point: I doubt most people know their own alignment. Most evil people probably convince themselves they are good, and guilt and shame can be strong enough to make many good and neutral worry they are. Think of all the reassuring people need over whether or not they are a good person. Someone harboring guilt because they don't donate to charity or something would probably decline the "test."
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Devolving into pettiness isn’t doing your argument any favors. I’ve pointed out why it is evil.
There is no obligation ( like I already stated plenty of times ).You keep harping on this like it legitimizes your claim, when in truth it’s the exact opposite.
There would be a heavy social obligation to do so, refusing to do so would even more suspicions among the guards and scared populace and stoke the embers further for a lunching.
This is your assumption.
The adventurers could keep the information for themselves.
And what you said it's correct, but you should have used "could" instead of "would".Stating that the scenario would only be the way you think is not the best deal, since nor you nor me can't prove it nor the opposite.
We, or at least I, are speak about possibilities, and you are simply negate what I consider a possibility.
It's the difference between
"Those who decides not to take part to the test WILL be linched"
and
"Those who decides not to take part to the test COULD be linched"
Howerver, I think we are getting closer.
You really don’t have the best grasp about how people, people in groups, and most importantly scared people in groups function.