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Not sure if anyone else is noticing this, but I'm finding that when characters do not have an alignment requirement like cleric, champion, etc. players are choosing a true neutral alignment since it denies all alignment-based damage. There doesn't seem to be a disadvantage to it? Anyone else seeing this trend?
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Not sure if anyone else is noticing this, but I'm finding that when characters do not have an alignment requirement like cleric, champion, etc. players are choosing a true neutral alignment since it denies all alignment-based damage. There doesn't seem to be a disadvantage to it? Anyone else seeing this trend?
I hadn't noticed this, and with a handful of characters created so far for PFS2 only two of mine are Neutral (due to backstory).
Have 4 Neutral Good
The 2 Chaotic Good are both due to restrictions, but it fits their character rather than vice-versa.
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I'm seeing this to pretty much the same extent that I saw it in PF1.
It happens, but not to a huge extent. Most players just take whichever alignment best suits the character. The mechanical disadvantages of playing a particular alignment are, in practice, so small that they don't really matter except to the most extreme of power gamers.
On a similar note, I do see a fair few characters who take mortal healing. There the mechanical advantage is enough to be very attractive, especially to druids :-).
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I think the only time it came up for me in PFS1 was with my -1, who is a Neutral Slayer/Cleric of Irori.
Because he channeled positive, he was up on point, it was a logical assumption that he was a Paladin (he was kind of acting like one, too, so that was even better) and the opponent brought forth the *Smite Good*... And then couldn't hit the broadside of the barn and almost had a crisis of faith. :>
It was memorable because we had two lawful good characters in the party, one a healer-focused cleric and another a Divine Archer paladin who would have both gotten *wrecked* by the Smite Good.
Haven't seen it be much of an issue playing PFS2 yet. Might be the province of 'local' play bias?
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First, let's please not turn this into a "here is a list of all my characters and their alignments" thread. We few who post in the forums are not likely to represent the greater community, though I admit that other than perhaps Paizo pulling data from all the -200X characters to see what the alignment distribution is, this is all just speculation and anecdotal.
Like most, I did not see this much until very recently. There isn't a whole lot of alignment damage (at least nor directed at the PCs) at low levels, but I am seeing a lot more occurrences of it appearing level 7+. As I discuss this issue with other players they are frequently saying that they chose Neutral for their character because it is the most optimized alignment or that after experiencing higher level games, they intend to do something similar for future characters moving forward.
I just wonder if we start to see some-kind of 'unalignment' damage in the near future that would bring this issue back into balance?
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I saw something similar with Electric Arrc -- until I played a couple of scenarios where it was effectively useless (and they were earlier scenarios, so it wasn't like it was an 'added' thing to nerf the spell).
It'd be interesting if the same sort of metric would apply to 'only Chaotic' (and no one in the party has that alignment) or 'only damages Lawful', etc.
In PFS2 combats, there's not a lot of time for opponents (even if they have some sort of way of detecting alignment) to figure out the optimal attack -- an action taken trying to figure out someone's alignment is an action that's not being spent doing other things, like sending damage downrange, etc.
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I still have a good mix of alignments going through my tables. I actually rarely see True Neutral as an alignment.
The avoidance of alignment damage seems a low pressure driver. The outer planes' alignment traits don't even do that much to non-matching alignments anymore. In a home game where the campaign is going to take you into the Abyss, I could certainly see people realize that if they make their characters CN or N then they're going to avoid a certain fraction of damage.
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I haven't seen it as a problem. There's still the small forcing function for divine caster's with divine lance/divine wrath and the other various spells that need a deity and a component of deities alignment. Ditto for champions.
Typically if you're fighting things that do evil damage (for instance) you want a source of good damage. So if its a campaign theme (maybe not as relevent in PFS) to fight evil outsiders; you'll probably have at least _a_ character who has a good alignment, which can sometimes encourage others to match (both for RP or for mechanics (immunity to divine wrath/caster can center the AOE on the frontliners)). Of course a all TN party can rely on Holy runes instead.
And personally I see that TN is probably the most common alignment in universe for un-named NPCs, so I don't mind if there's a slight 'consider this alignment bias' in the game.
So, yes I think TN can be a slightly stronger mechanical choice; but alignment extremes often still open up access to spells/abilities; both are weak enough effects that I feel its pretty well balanced.
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I think the idea is that you don't need to BE good to deal good damage, so a "theorycrafter" would choose to make a TN character who could both resist evil damage and deal good damage.
Divine Lance only cares what your Deity's alignment is.
Searing Light only allows for non-evil casters.
Protection can save a TN caster from any of the 4 alignments.
And a Holy Rune only need be crafted by someone good. It can be wielded by any alignment (even evil, albeit with a drawback).
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I think this goes to illustrate my concern. Doing alignment damage by PCs, especially Good damage is incredibly useful. Its just pragmatic because in order to do the bad things most enemies do, they have to be evil. OTOH, PCs who generally would be classified as "good" based on the actions we generally perform, can easily be neutral and avoid all alignment damage types. Any even if they aren't TN, being X-Neutral at least affords them resistance to the most common alignment monster damage. I'm just hooping that Paizo recognizes this issue and creates a way to attack neutral alignments as well to balance the equation. It would go to support their design philosophy of choices matter.
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I only have two characters in the 7+ range, but alignment damage doesn't seem common enough to warrant changing a character's backstory-driven alignment for.
But, if this is a problem, I would favor adding benefits of being good over punishments for being neutral. It's (a) more meaningful that way, and (b) also easier to implement. To do alignment damage to true neutrals involves changing a game rule, to give a bonus to good character can be done by the scenario authors without changing the game rules.
Like, you can give LG followers of Iomedae a bonus that NG followers don't get, as long as the frequency-adjusted value of the benefit is on par with the frequency-adjusted value of chaotic damage. Since PFS controls (or can control) the frequency at which things appear, this is much more doable for PFS than for PF in general.
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involves changing a game ruleThis part I disagree with. It just requires creating creatures and/or spells that target creatures without any "conviction" towards the alignment axes. No game rule changes are required.
I guess technically that doesn't break the following rule:
Weapons and effects keyed to a particular alignment can deal chaotic, evil, good, or lawful damage. These damage types apply only to creatures that have the opposing alignment trait.
You're just creating a new type of damage that only applies to neutral creatures that isn't "Alignment Damage." I don't see it being any easier to implement than a formal rule change.
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The Conviction Monstrosity gains a +7 status bonus to damage rolls against a creature who's alignment is true neutral.
Just a monster ability, no new rules, no alignment damage, ta da.
Or the Conviction Monstrosity gains a -5 status penalty to damage rolls against a creature who's alignment is good or evil and a -1 status penalty to attack rolls against a creature who's alignment is lawful or chaotic.