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People were talking about alignment in another thread so I decided to make this thread so people can talk about it here instead.
I think alignment for the sake of clerics and who they are allowed to follow is fine
But otherwise the heavy alignment mechanics, like alignment damage, shouldn’t be in the game, at least in my and many others’ opinions
Things like The Dragon Prince or Game of Thrones or LotR or The Witcher doesn’t have people get damaged by alignment because alignment damage would make writing complex characters who aren’t 2-dimensional hard
Seeing that people are really focusing on story, roleplay, character and other similar things now, alignment damage shouldn’t have carried over. D&D did away with alignment damage, other TTRPGs don’t have any alignment damage stuff, like MoM, Shadowrun and other things doesn’t have any alignment damage in it.
I feel like having alignment so integrated into mechanics hurts complex villains or characters
The only reason alignment damage exists is because it existed in the previous edition and that’s it.
Alignment damage doesn’t exist in an era where people are focusing a lot more on story and rp
What happens when a villain who is either doing evil things in pursuit of a good noble goal or thinks they are the hood guy takes good damage? Alignment damage only works for black and white cartoonishly evil villains
Alignment damage is a leftover from early dnd editions where crunch and war gaming was the focus
D&D ditched alignment damage, PF should have as well
Thankfully, the really stupid things like monks having to be lawful or barbarians having to be chaotic are gone. You can play a chaotic good monk or a lawful good barbarian in 2e.
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I think alignment for the sake of clerics and who they are allowed to follow is fine
But otherwise the heavy alignment mechanics, like alignment damage, shouldn’t be in the game, at least in my and many others’ opinions
Things like The Dragon Prince or Game of Thrones or LotR or The Witcher doesn’t have people get damaged by alignment because alignment damage would make writing complex characters who aren’t 2-dimensional hard
Seeing that people are really focusing on story, roleplay, character and other similar things now, alignment damage shouldn’t have carried over. D&D did away with alignment damage, other TTRPGs don’t have any alignment damage stuff, like MoM, Shadowrun and other things doesn’t have any alignment damage in it.
D&D ditched alignment damage, PF should have as well
I dont think that clerics need alignment at all they just need to follow their deity tenets to function properly same goes for Champion.The reason why alignment stay at all is Golarion cosmology that was fully based on it so it cannot properly function if you remove alignment
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Alignment is a convenient short hand. It is something to hang mechanics on. It works fine. It adds to the mechanical richness of the system.
Yes perhaps good versus evil is too simplistic, or a take on morality you don't like. Fair enough. But it is how 80% of people understand religion in the primary target market for PF2 - the US.
More importantly it is a convenient labelling of sides. For even though PF2 is a role playing game, it is also still a combat game. Many people don't want to get bogged down in an exploration of morality, they just want to play a game.
Everything about alignment is optional. If you don't want to use it, then you can just leave it out of your game. If you want to go into your in game religion deeply you can absolutely do the roleplaying and make that happen. I prefer to flesh out the religion of my clerics just so I know how to play the character consistently. But not everyone wants that. I've also played in a few games where the cleric hasn't even worked out who his deity is after a few sessions.
If anything at least PF2 forces you to choose your deity as so much mechanically hangs off it.
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Alignment damage is there so that good clerics and paladins can call on searing holy light to burn demons, etc. That's pretty central to their class fantasies. I don't care about that particular fantasy myself, but it's incorrect to say that the only reason alignment damage exists is for legacy/holdover reasons.
Could it be handled other ways? Obviously, yes. Pathfinder has variant rules to do so.
If I had a choice of alignment system I would make it relative to each religion.
IE Clerics of Sarenrae consider these acts and devotees of these religions evil, and acts and devotees of those religions good.
So detect evil, alignment damage would work differently from one religion to the next.
Maybe even come up with an attitude matrix for religions with respect to each other: Friendly, Helpful, Hostile, Indifferent, Unfriendly.
I think it would be fun, but it is way too much work.
Alignment damage is there so that good clerics and paladins can call on searing holy light to burn demons, etc. That's pretty central to their class fantasies. I don't care about that particular fantasy myself, but it's incorrect to say that the only reason alignment damage exists is for legacy/holdover reasons.
Could it be handled other ways? Obviously, yes. Pathfinder has variant rules to do so.
Yeah, for fighting demons and devils or undead maybe.
But im talking more so the awkward interaction between alignment damage and characters who aren’t extra planar beings
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Alignment isn't just a pure leftover relic like wizard or rogue proficiencies. It actually serves a practical purpose - giving mechanics to religious beliefs, principles and world views. Good vs evil and (to a lesser extent) order vs chaos are core conflicts of human philosophy and therefore fiction. Especially heroic fantasy like 2E.
It isn't an amazing system, but it works well enough for what it is. Paizo have certainly tried their best to make it reasonably flexible - insofar that is possible - by taking much of the strictness out of it. I've yet to find it being particularly restrictive to character creation or creating complex villains. Aside from clerics and champions, but that is kind of the point.
If you don't treat it like a set of ironclad rules - because it isn't meant to be - then it is fine. If 3E does away with it, I wouldn't mourn it, but it isn't an actual problem either.
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One of my greatest problems with alignment is the Red team vs Blue Team aspect of it. All good are on blue team and all evil is on red team. I would love to do some game of evil religions fighting among one versus other, like you know, should be the norm on places like the Abyss. But no, they only really know to harm the do-gooders that may not show on all the story. I really dislike that.
My main other dislike is the limits on the kind of Champion. Why is there no Neutral Evil Redemeer that has the exact same mechanics, but around temptation instead of redemption? Why all the "I will punish all those who will harm my comrades" Champions must be Lawful Good? A Lawful Evil bodyguard should be quite possible.
But I like the concept of alignment. I NOT want it to be banished from the game, I just want it as a descriptor with few mechanical impacts.
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Alignment isn't just a pure leftover relic like wizard or rogue proficiencies. It actually serves a practical purpose - giving mechanics to religious beliefs, principles and world views. Good vs evil and (to a lesser extent) order vs chaos are core conflicts of human philosophy and therefore fiction. Especially heroic fantasy like 2E.
It isn't an amazing system, but it works well enough for what it is. Paizo have certainly tried their best to make it reasonably flexible - insofar that is possible - by taking much of the strictness out of it. I've yet to find it being particularly restrictive to character creation or creating complex villains. Aside from clerics and champions, but that is kind of the point.
If you don't treat it like a set of ironclad rules - because it isn't meant to be - then it is fine. If 3E does away with it, I wouldn't mourn it, but it isn't an actual problem either.
Main problem with champion is that insted of being deity warrior it still need to follow some arbitary restrucrtions that not realted with its deity at all like why Rovagug champion would not able to use relics of good even if they help to achive universal destruction or not able to take oath even if it helps goal as well
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One of my greatest problems with alignment is the Red team vs Blue Team aspect of it. All good are on blue team and all evil is on red team. I would love to do some game of evil religions fighting among one versus other, like you know, should be the norm on places like the Abyss. But no, they only really know to harm the do-gooders that may not show on all the story. I really dislike that.
My main other dislike is the limits on the kind of Champion. Why is there no Neutral Evil Redemeer that has the exact same mechanics, but around temptation instead of redemption? Why all the "I will punish all those who will harm my comrades" Champions must be Lawful Good? A Lawful Evil bodyguard should be quite possible.
But I like the concept of alignment. I NOT want it to be banished from the game, I just want it as a descriptor with few mechanical impacts.
I agree with what you said in the first half. The whole red vs blue thing. Just because some share an alignment doesn’t mean they are on the same side. Two kingdoms ruled by two good aligned kings who care about their people can still go to war over food and other supplies for example.
As for the second half, I don’t agree.
While I think we should be allowed to play a lawful or chaotic good redeemer, neutral evil redeemer doesn’t make any sense at all
A champion that is the exact opposite of a redeemer and is all about corrupting someone towards evil is called a desecrator. That’s their whole thing, tempting good people towards evil. Exactly what you are describing
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One of my greatest problems with alignment is the Red team vs Blue Team aspect of it. All good are on blue team and all evil is on red team. I would love to do some game of evil religions fighting among one versus other, like you know, should be the norm on places like the Abyss. But no, they only really know to harm the do-gooders that may not show on all the story. I really dislike that.
My main other dislike is the limits on the kind of Champion. Why is there no Neutral Evil Redemeer that has the exact same mechanics, but around temptation instead of redemption? Why all the "I will punish all those who will harm my comrades" Champions must be Lawful Good? A Lawful Evil bodyguard should be quite possible.
But I like the concept of alignment. I NOT want it to be banished from the game, I just want it as a descriptor with few mechanical impacts.I agree with what you said in the first half. The whole red vs blue thing. Just because some share an alignment doesn’t mean they are on the same side. Two kingdoms ruled by two good aligned kings who care about their people can still go to war over food and other supplies for example.
As for the second half, I don’t agree.
While I think we should be allowed to play a lawful or chaotic good redeemer, neutral evil redeemer doesn’t make any sense at all
A champion that is the exact opposite of a redeemer and is all about corrupting someone towards evil is called a desecrator. That’s their whole thing, tempting good people towards evil. Exactly what you are
describing
Enlightener would be me more accurate term because in both cases redeemer and desecrator are persons who trying to bring someone on path to principles that they see as universal truth of morality
Maybe I should try to explain myself better. With the "Neutral Evil Redeemer" I mean directly a corruptor, someone good to find evilness on everyone and that can use those evil for own profit. That can use exactly the same mechanics as the Redeemer while being fully evil. Of course, a character like that would not call itself Redeemer.
The Neutral Evil current Champion is more a "self-interest" champion.
Anyway, those are just examples of how to use Champions outside their box alignment. The example can totally be why a CG Redeemer of Nocticula, you know, the REDEMPTOR QUEEN, is not legal by RAW.
Edit to expand the answer and trying to be clearer.
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Honestly, I think both the concept and the alignment mechanics are bad both mechanically for the system itself. As for Golárion's set, anyone who has read much of his material knows that many times it is far from Manichaeism.
In terms of mechanics it's just awful. The damage formulas for alignment spells and powers are basically the same as for any energy damage. Except that while energy damage affects practically everything, except for some creatures with specific resistances. Alignment is simply played for a 1/3 chance situation. If you're using something that deals good damage, it only works against an evil target, if you're using something that deals chaotic damage, it only works against a lawful target.
This leads to 2 things. The first and least bad is the good damage alignment. Knowing that most adventures are against evil creatures, players are driven by the metagame to choose good damage as their preferred alignment damage. After all, the enemies they have to face are much more likely to be evil than neutral and much less good, while the alignment of order and chaos is almost completely random.
The second is the exploit about it. Knowing this, the tendency is for players who need to follow deities to opt for good deities, not because of a thematic choice, but because they know that it gives access to the good alignment, at the same time tending their own alignment to neutrality, as this, in addition to giving greater freedom of action, makes them immune to damage and almost all alignment effects, making the whole mechanic highly exploitable for free!
The other issue is that of fantasy and role play. It starts with the meta-game: "Well, if my good damage doesn't work against this target, it means he's not evil", even if you don't try the joke/exploit of using Divine Lance as an indirect alignment detector. The mere fact that a champion's smite isn't working is already starting to give the thing away.
In addition, you start to gather all kinds of different deities, with different dogmas, with different peculiarities and whims, within the same basket that is the alignment. And what's worse is that even deities are slaves to alignment. Calistria is Rovagug's sworn enemy (as are most major deities), but they share the same alignment, so their clerics' alignment spells are useless against them!
I know that there are those who like it, but honestly it's a system that never brought absolutely anything good either for PF2, or for any D20 system before it. No wonder D&D dropped it, and honestly, nobody missed it!
I'm going to stop the criticism here otherwise this post won't be long enough. Because there are so many bad things and almost nothing good in this system, that the post would be too big for anyone to read.
But I still need to comment on the alternative rules. And I'll start right away with the conclusion. Which is that they just don't work! The system is too tied to current alignment rules to the point where simply shaking or altering them is either not possible or requires too much mechanical rebuilding work to be worth it. The best I could do was stop treating Neutral characters as immune.
If you’re using the no alignment variant, remove or replace aligned damage (chaotic, evil, good, and lawful damage), which requires significant adjustments for creatures like angels and devils that were built with a weakness to aligned damage. One option is to replace them one-for-one with new damage types like “radiant” and “shadow” that don’t have any moral assumptions. Another option is to simply change the damage type needed for creature weaknesses to some other damage type on a case-by-case basis. A third option is to remove the weaknesses, reduce the monsters’ maximum Hit Points, and call it good. No matter what you do with creatures, you’ll also have to replace abilities like the champion’s that deal aligned damage in a similar way, or remove those abilities.
Moral Intentions: Conceptually it's pretty cool, but once again it's mechanically difficult to apply and maintain some balance, as it's usually going to affect a small group of op morale individuals:
If you’re using the moral intentions variant, you can replace chaotic, evil, good, and lawful damage with a single type of damage called aligned damage, which harms those with intentions directly opposed to those held by the character, as determined by you as GM.
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This leads to 2 things. The first and least bad is the good damage alignment. Knowing that most adventures are against evil creatures, players are driven by the metagame to choose good damage as their preferred alignment damage. After all, the enemies they have to face are much more likely to be evil than neutral and much less good, while the alignment of order and chaos is almost completely random.
Heroes gonna hero. News at 11.
The other issue is that of fantasy and role play. It starts with the meta-game: "Well, if my good damage doesn't work against this target, it means he's not evil", even if you don't try the joke/exploit of using Divine Lance as an indirect alignment detector. The mere fact that a champion's smite isn't working is already starting to give the thing away.
Gives what away? Why are you acting like this has any bearing on anything at all?
“That person is evil!”
Yes, and the sky is blue. And?
And what's worse is that even deities are slaves to alignment. Calistria is Rovagug's sworn enemy (as are most major deities), but they share the same alignment, so their clerics' alignment spells are useless against them!
This is a ridiculous strawman, if not outright lying for shock.
1) Cali and Rova do not share the same alignment, they’re both Chaotic, that’s a VERY wide berth.
2) oh no those poor clerics can’t use Chaos Hammer against them, if only they had AN ENTIRE DIVINE SPELL LIST OF OTHER SPELLS THEY COULD USE.
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“Radiant Damage” worked just fine for holy folks in 4e without being Alignment-based. One of my biggest frustrations with 2e is how the Alignment became the defining axis for Champions, so much moreso than their deity.
So yes, OP, I’m with you.
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Here are those variant rules for anyone who wants to look them over.Alignment damage is there so that good clerics and paladins can call on searing holy light to burn demons, etc. That's pretty central to their class fantasies. I don't care about that particular fantasy myself, but it's incorrect to say that the only reason alignment damage exists is for legacy/holdover reasons.
Could it be handled other ways? Obviously, yes. Pathfinder has variant rules to do so.
Not only do they provide variants but succcinct and cogent reasoning about the history of alignment, why it's problematic at some tables, and fluid rules that can also serve as inspiration for the GM.
GMG continues to be a criminally underrated 2E sourcebook.
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One of my biggest frustrations with 2e is how the Alignment became the defining axis for Champions, so much moreso than their deity.
In all honesty, my read on this situation is precisely the opposite of yours. The 1e Paladin was a class defined entirely by alignment, and not at all by deity- all you needed to be a Paladin was to be super-duper Lawful Good, but you could be an Animist, a Pantheist, an Atheist, someone who isn't sure, etc.
Now the Champion class is almost entirely defined by deity, which I don't like at all since I never played a single Paladin in PF1 that was deity focused.
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A good outsider was not immune good damage and vice versa, they were just not weak to it.
That’s because “Good Damage” wasn’t a thing in P1.
Holy Weapon enchant for example said it overcome the corresponding DR and Evil creatures took extra damage.
“Aligned” damage wasn’t a thing.
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Now the Champion class is almost entirely defined by deity
I don't really get this. Your core gameplay mechanics and tenants are all defined by your alignment. Your deity just gives you a skill proficiency and a die bump if their favored weapon is simple.
How is that being 'entirely defined' by deity? You could completely remove the deity section from the Champion class writeup and virtually nothing would change.
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GMG continues to be a criminally underrated 2E sourcebook.
This might be beyond the expertise of a typical rules lawyer and might call for a criminal defense rules lawyer.
I think the GMG variant alignments rules do a great job of giving many alternatives to fit any table. The only problem is variant rules are rarely allowed in organized play. Using them would need to be appealed to the Supreme Rules Court.
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Now the Champion class is almost entirely defined by deityI don't really get this. Your core gameplay mechanics and tenants are all defined by your alignment. Your deity just gives you a weapon proficiency you can freely ignore since you have all martial anyways.
How is that being 'entirely defined' by deity?
Especially when your subclass choice is literally “What Alignment are you?”, so much so that you still can’t play a Neutral Champion despite the abundance of Neutral Deities.
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I don't mind alignment. I don't care if they modify it to holy versus unholy, axiomatic versus chaotic. I like having that metaphysical good versus evil, law vs. chaos as "real" forces in the fantasy universe from which creatures like demons and archons are born.
Most games don't pay this aspect of fantasy much mind, but D&D and by association PF has always incorporated this element of fantasy that I enjoy.
I've played plenty of games where they don't have alignment. The method PF/D&D uses to handle alignment makes them unique compared to other games. I like having some of the throwback ideas in the game to give it the feel that makes this particular fantasy game unique.
Plenty of other games out there for people that don't like alignment. The majority of games don't use alignment in my experience. I see no reason to discard this unique element for games born of the D&D lineage. Some of us like having a game that keys off this classic fantasy trope of good versus evil.
We may not speak up as much as some, but plenty of us are out there enjoying playing a game we don't have to spend too much time thinking about questions of good and evil. Sometimes you want to be the hero defeating the bad guys without feeling like you're in Game of Thrones or a movie like Narc with massive shades of grey.
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I see no reason to discard this unique element for games born of the D&D lineage. Some of us like having a game that keys off this classic fantasy trope of good versus evil.
I mean you can have that without PF2's specific mechanics.
Alignment damage as it's portrayed in this system doesn't exist in any other version of D&D or Pathfinder, so it's not exactly a 'throwback' or a hallmark of the lineage either.
We may not speak up as much as some, but plenty of us are out there enjoying playing a game we don't have to spend too much time thinking about questions of good and evil. Sometimes you want to be the hero defeating the bad guys without feeling like you're in Game of Thrones or a movie like Narc with massive shades of grey.
Which is a perfectly valid way to play, but also has absolutely nothing to do with "clerics of pharasma can't cast divine lance"
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Now the Champion class is almost entirely defined by deityI don't really get this. Your core gameplay mechanics and tenants are all defined by your alignment. Your deity just gives you a skill proficiency and a die bump if their favored weapon is simple.
How is that being 'entirely defined' by deity? You could completely remove the deity section from the Champion class writeup and virtually nothing would change.
Probably he/she is talking about the 1st and most important Tenet of all champions ("Tenets are listed in order of importance, starting with the most important") (even evil ones):
You must never perform acts anathema to your deity or willingly commit an evil act, such as murder, torture, or the casting of an evil spell.
This basically makes champions to obey the same restrictions of clerics + champion tenets.
I see no reason to discard this unique element for games born of the D&D lineage. Some of us like having a game that keys off this classic fantasy trope of good versus evil.I mean you can have that without PF2's specific mechanics.
Alignment damage as it's portrayed in this system doesn't exist in any other version of D&D or Pathfinder, so it's not exactly a 'throwback' or a hallmark of the lineage either.
We may not speak up as much as some, but plenty of us are out there enjoying playing a game we don't have to spend too much time thinking about questions of good and evil. Sometimes you want to be the hero defeating the bad guys without feeling like you're in Game of Thrones or a movie like Narc with massive shades of grey.Which is a perfectly valid way to play, but also has absolutely nothing to do with "clerics of pharasma can't cast divine lance"
I don't care how they do it, as long as they have it.
I know it changed from PF1 and 3E. It seems they wanted to align it more directly with the alignment system. I prefer holy and unholy myself, but maybe this made something easier in the game design. I don't know.
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80% is a grossly overblown figure. Ever since 2nd ed in the very late 80s, I 've had players that didn't like alignment. It's been an awkward game system for it's entire span of existence.
I did not say 80% of people liked alignment. Just that is how the vast bulk of american people understand religion and morality. IE good and evil. It is just a convenient label.
One of my greatest problems with alignment is the Red team vs Blue Team aspect of it. All good are on blue team and all evil is on red team. I would love to do some game of evil religions fighting among one versus other, like you know, should be the norm on places like the Abyss. But no, they only really know to harm the do-gooders that may not show on all the story.
There is nothing stopping two sides of the same alignment from fighting. I'm not sure there is any monster or character restricted to purely alignment damage.
My main other dislike is the limits on the kind of Champion. Why is there no Neutral Evil Redemeer that has the exact same mechanics, but around temptation instead of redemption?
They have only done some things and not others. The scope of every possible combination is just too large.
Limitations create flavour.
Adjust what is there and more on. Or wait for more options. I certainly want more champion options.
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A good outsider was not immune good damage and vice versa, they were just not weak to it.That’s because “Good Damage” wasn’t a thing in P1.
Holy Weapon enchant for example said it overcome the corresponding DR and Evil creatures took extra damage.
“Aligned” damage wasn’t a thing.
You are misremembering how that worked. "Aligned" damage was a thing, just as we have both stated it bypassed resistance.
This power makes the weapon good-aligned and thus bypasses the corresponding damage reduction.
You're repeating what I just said and telling me I’m wrong?
There wasn’t aligned damage in that it wasn’t “you take 2d6 Good damage” like in P2, you had specific instances of the attack being X-aligned and thus overcoming DR.
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And here it goes veering into the real world even thought it is a fantasy game not meant to mirror the real world of humanity and all its moral quandaries.
Some people just have to push their personal philosophy onto fantasy RPGs meant to be a fantasy version of good and evil where yes good and evil are clearly delineated.
It's not the real world. Everyone knows that alignment isn't great for mirror the real world and no one is forcing anyone to use it if your group chooses not to.