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In my opinion it's simply a mechanic that just didn't bring anything good to the game.
In practice it just makes it easier to identify who is good and who is evil in a supernatural way, it is extremely exploitable, any player knows that if you choose to be neutral you will basically be immune to all alignment mechanics (nothing better for face fiends and evil clerics rather than being neutral) and even clerics of a deity often manage to be of a neutral alignment allowing them to gain the benefits of alignment spells and damage while evading weaknesses in addition to alignment-dependent spells being unreliable (However, it is quite common in many adventures that a large part of your opponents are evil, which also ends up overestimating the advantage of causing good damage).I'm sorry, but it's just a bad mechanic and hard to get around.
When I was homebrewing ideas for my homebrew setting, I like to use alignment to represent your alignment literally xD Ya know, like alignment in SMT
I definitely can say that its not hard to get around alignment damage as you are saying because PF2e math balance means you can make rather sweeping alterations and its still balanced.
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You can change some things, but the more things you change the more risk you run of your game being unrecognizable. If your question is "why wasn't X changed" it's probably "because we erred on the side of caution in making sure our game is recognizable in the tradition of similar games."
But... alignment damage wasn't an inheritance. It's completely new to PF2.
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And the school of magic, which to my knowledge is not a tag.The wizard might also recall it is an evocation that causes an explosion of fire large enough to incinerate a platoon formation of soldiers.Fireball affiliation to Evocation is the information contained in the tagsIt is
https://2e.aonprd.com/Traits.aspx?ID=65
https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=119
There we go. Now it's up to the GM if he is telling the character about the game tags or the in world school of the spell.
There still is no reason the character has to learn the damage type when observing the spell.
But as people have pointed out, alignment is so ingrained into mechanics it makes it difficult or nearly impossible even to play without alignment.The Game Mastery Guide (PF2), published in February, 2020, included explicit rules for running the game without alignment.
Not only is it not "nearly impossible" to run without alignment, Paizo clearly tells game masters how to do precisely that. As did Mark Seifert, in both his public posts and private discussions with you.
Whatever rules you're making up in your own head about how to deal with alighment, they aren't the same rules that the rest of us are following. We are allowed to play without alignment. We are given instructions by Paizo for how to make those adjustments.
Whatever your homebrew rules are, the official PF2 rules make it easy to run without alignment.
If it’s so easy to run the game without alignment, then why do I see people constantly talking about how it’s so difficult to do so they don’t bother, despite them not liking alignment damage and other alignment things?
I’ve seen games posted by people on discord where they don’t get rid of alignment damage despite said posters being people who dislike alignment mechanics and have made it clear they don’t like it
Not a single westmarch has removed alignment mechanics because it’s difficult to do that
Not to mention some people might want to run campaigns on Golarion but have room for complex characters and not be forced into making black and white characters
Black and white characters have a place in certain fantasies, but some people don’t want to always have those types of characters and not everyone plays the game the same way
Alignment damage might be fine for an epic where you slay demons and be an awesome badass
But that’s not every game
Really, alignment damage should have been the variant rule, not playing without being the variant rule
Also, Pathbuidler doesn’t support playing without alignment and I don’t think wanderers guide does either
Neither does other tools people made for PF2e such as discord sheet importing bots, because playing without alignment is a hassle
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Mostly because people are prone to making excuses "its too hard to do" rather than actually try to do it, because they over think it, because its easier to claim something is out of their control and they don't actually have that strong dislike for alignment damage enough to do something about it or because they actually just want to run things "rules as written".
Like, you don't need to remove alignment damage with "damage type that only affects specific creatures and most creatures are immune to it", the base minimum you need to do is "treat them as normal damages, but celestial/monitors/fiend either resist/are immune/are weak to it depending on the damage. Like when you in 1e remove alignment, you assume smite evil just works on every creature <_<
Like maybe Agents of Edgewatyxh shouldn’t have alignment
Imagine a police officer going around throwing divine lance at a bunch of people in an impoverished district to root out evil doers because they assume poor people are more likely to be evil, and when one hits they brutally beat that person up
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Just as freebie, here is one alternate way of using alignment that I homebrewed up:
All characters are neutral until they choose to align themselves with the cosmic forces. When they do so, the side they aligned themselves to likes them better and they gain ability to deal damage type associated with the side, but become vulnerable to damage type from the opposite side that now dislikes them more. You are free to name the damage types whatever you want, good/evil, radiant/shadow, light/dark, celestial/fiend, the name doesn't matter because in this variant alignment isn't description of your personality or innermost quality, its you literally choosing to take sides in cosmic conflict aka the "a position of agreement or alliance" definition of alignment.
(I think lot of problem people have with alignment are about idea that its objective descriptor for your character, but I can't speak for people whether concept of it being in character choice rather than summary of character's personality works for them better)
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If it’s so easy to run the game without alignment, then why do I see people constantly talking about how it’s so difficult to do so they don’t bother, despite them not liking alignment damage and other alignment things?
Really, people are "constantly talking about how it’s so difficult to do so they don’t bother, despite them not liking alignment damage and other alignment things"?
Also, Pathbuidler doesn’t support playing without alignment and I don’t think wanderers guide does either
Neither does other tools people made for PF2e such as discord sheet importing bots, because playing without alignment is a hassle
HeroLab does. Gotta pay for it.
Free tools may not have all the variant bells and whistles you want. You can always ask Pathbuilder to add more variant rules, which he may add under their subscription tier which already has other variant rules. Again, probably won't be free.
It's not that these things are difficult per se… I would guess that a minority of players actually want them and that's why we don't see them getting baked into all the freebie tools out there.
Also, people don't got time to build you free stuff.
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But as people have pointed out, alignment is so ingrained into mechanics it makes it difficult or nearly impossible even to play without alignment. Not only is there alignment damage but there are spells, feats and other things based entirely on or around alignmentKnow what's also a tradition in TTRPGGs? Discarding stuff the table doesn't like.
All TTRPG's can be tailored to your table preferences.
and we keep saying that is just rubbish. It is just not true. Please don't try to express your unwillingness to play with a variant rule as a fault in the game.
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I only concern myself with alignment in game if it is relevant to the encounter for damage mechanics or there is an egregious violation of alignment. Otherwise, alignment is a background component of no real importance to the game. Alignment does not trump personality or role-play.
Alignment has never been a very important part of the game save for mechanics and for certain classes. Most players read the very basic descriptions, pick an alignment and going with neutral if they don't plan to be too extreme on any component.
I haven't played in any games where people focused too much on alignment. Alignment is almost forgotten after picking it during character creation in most campaigns.
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But as people have pointed out, alignment is so ingrained into mechanics it makes it difficult or nearly impossible even to play without alignment. Not only is there alignment damage but there are spells, feats and other things based entirely on or around alignmentKnow what's also a tradition in TTRPGGs? Discarding stuff the table doesn't like.
All TTRPG's can be tailored to your table preferences.
Play another game that better suits your wants, or run the game as GM and customize the mechanics to your liking.
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Like maybe Agents of Edgewatyxh shouldn’t have alignment
Imagine a police officer going around throwing divine lance at a bunch of people in an impoverished district to root out evil doers because they assume poor people are more likely to be evil, and when one hits they brutally beat that person up
That had to be the least problematic example possible.
A PC who does that won't be able to use Good damage anyway, because no Good deity would tolerate it.
A PC who does that in Agents of Edgewatch, of all campaigns, won't be able to get away with those crimes. Keeping them out of jail would be really hard to justify.
Not only is this issue unrelated to alignment in the first place, alignment damage solves the problem!
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Most if not all these "what-ifs" are straw man arguments about problem players, not problem lore.
If your PC is disrupting the game by walking around hurting random people with magic (physically or mentally) then YOUR BEHAVIOR needs to be fixed, not the SYSTEM.
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Didn't look at this thread because the title of it doesn't seem like it's mean to be an actual discussion of alignment - but just of game mechanics.
But if it is mean to be about alignment...
I've never liked the concept of alignment going as far back as 1980 when I started with AD&D 1E.
It's an artificial construct that does an extremely poor job of describing character motivations and loyalties. It's basically a wargaming 'which side is this unit fighting on' mechanic converted to an attempt to give 'sides' to characters and monsters.
Even a 1970s script writer or psychologist could rip such a poor concept apart. Script writer as in - people like Lucas who I personally think was a poor writer still had more depth to their 'good guys vs bad guys' than alignment. And the psychologist people like the claim he was inspired by: Jung - had his archetypes that go radically deeper even while still being sadly shallow pathetic attempts to describe the complexity of personality.
If not for game mechanics around alignment, it could be tossed in a heartbeat and players could just be asked to 'describe your character and then... try to actually play that role like any amateur actor in the local drama club might.'
So then the question becomes... what to do about those mechanics. And for that you can just start making them more and yet less complex.
I'm opposed to you, our factions are at war - so my 'factional spell damage' works against you. Six months later we make peace and come to an agreement, my factional damage spell no longer hurts you.
Rather than detecting alignment, I could detect aspects of personality.
"Hey, I'm picking up that that guy is generally honest, but the one over there is psychotic."
- At this point the spells start to lack "concrete mechanics" a player can point to and say "all the guys in green vests will ping from this." It instead becomes an issue about roleplay and GM adjudication. It starts to work like an 'ethics and psychosis' themed variation on Recall Knowledge.
Which is... not that hard to deal with. Every RPG out there that is NOT based on AD&D does that after all.
But I'm not going to houserule it into my game on day one. I might after I have a known set of players. And if they announce Pathfinder 3E is in development, I will start arguing for the end of alignment...
But not for now.
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Alignment is a bad construct from a bygone era. It was meant to describe people for what they ARE, rather than what they DO.
That's not really correct though. Evil characters are evil because they commit acts of evil.
Older versions of D&D had a lot more 'naturally evil' characterization for certain types of creature, but even that still was directly related to how those characters were typically expected to behave when used in games and sometimes there were exceptions to those norms that had different alignments, because they behaved differently.
And the school of magic, which to my knowledge is not a tag.The wizard might also recall it is an evocation that causes an explosion of fire large enough to incinerate a platoon formation of soldiers.Fireball affiliation to Evocation is the information contained in the tagsIt is
https://2e.aonprd.com/Traits.aspx?ID=65
https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=119There we go. Now it's up to the GM if he is telling the character about the game tags or the in world school of the spell.
There still is no reason the character has to learn the damage type when observing the spell.
Identifying the spell means you know what it is and what it does. You would know what tradition of magic it is, you would know what school of magic it is, etc. You would basically give them the details of the entire spell entry. This isn't like identifying creatures where you only give them some parts, with increasing DCs for further/more obscure information. Either you know what the spell is, or you don't know what the spell is.
As for learning damage type, it can be a bit more mysterious with Divine Lance, but odds are, if you know what the source of the spell is from (such as from a worshipper of an Evil or Good deity), you will likely know what damage type it is going to do based on what options are available, and you would also know that neutral-aligned characters cannot make use of this effect, or be affected by it.
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As for learning damage type, it can be a bit more mysterious with Divine Lance, but odds are, if you know what the source of the spell is from (such as from a worshipper of an Evil or Good deity), you will likely know what damage type it is going to do based on what options are available, and you would also know that neutral-aligned characters cannot make use of this effect, or be affected by it.
That's your assumption. Have fun deciding if you can tell the difference between chaotic and good damage.
As for learning damage type, it can be a bit more mysterious with Divine Lance, but odds are, if you know what the source of the spell is from (such as from a worshipper of an Evil or Good deity), you will likely know what damage type it is going to do based on what options are available, and you would also know that neutral-aligned characters cannot make use of this effect, or be affected by it.That's your assumption. Have fun deciding if you can tell the difference between chaotic and good damage.
The universe seems to be able to do so, given that it sorts out alignment through planes and such.
As for learning damage type, it can be a bit more mysterious with Divine Lance, but odds are, if you know what the source of the spell is from (such as from a worshipper of an Evil or Good deity), you will likely know what damage type it is going to do based on what options are available, and you would also know that neutral-aligned characters cannot make use of this effect, or be affected by it.That's your assumption. Have fun deciding if you can tell the difference between chaotic and good damage.
All issues of alignment aside, I feel like just on principle asking a player to roll to identify a spell, having them succeed, and then intentionally hiding information from them feels kind of... idk, s@*@ty? Clearly against the spirit of spell identification too.
We're not talking about some super rare, unique, or strange spell either.
I'm also not really clear what purpose it serves other than to communicate to the player that you don't want them identifying magic (which could just as easily be served with a houserule before the game starts).
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They don't need to be. It can be obvious that a Divine Lance is made from primordial chaos or axiomatic law, just as it's obvious that a Fireball is made of Fire and a Lightning Bolt is made of Electricity.
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If that's what you want to rule as GM, sure.
I'm also not really clear what purpose it serves other than to communicate to the player that you don't want them identifying magic (which could just as easily be served with a houserule before the game starts).
This was specifically in response to the argument that players can know NPC alignments by just blasting them with Divine Lance and using that as failproof evidence of who the bad guy is. Not in response to trying to ID a spell.
If that's what you want to rule as GM, sure.
Better than simply giving a spell name that can tell very little, and being all like "You don't know, I'm not gonna tell you, figure it out."
Or even better, relying on players using metagame knowledge to piece together what happened, which is even worse from a roleplay standpoint.
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Characters don't learn mechanical knowledge, they learn in world knowledge. Evocation and [Evocation] are separate as are evil and [Evil]. The rules do not compel knowledge of the alignment tag attached, making it a GM call.
Gameplay like that is precisely why builds involving Recall Knowledge are instantly thrown in the trash and disregarded as a tactic; not because it can't be useful, but because its usefulness is directly related to how GMs run it, and based on your statements, anyone using Recall Knowledge is better off sparing themselves the roll and actions and doing nothing.
Agreed, much of 2E is designed this way.
Characters don't learn mechanical knowledge, they learn in world knowledge. Evocation and [Evocation] are separate as are evil and [Evil]. The rules do not compel knowledge of the alignment tag attached, making it a GM call.
This argument makes no sense because the traits are expressly used to ensure those are all one and the same. Evil characters have Evil traits. Evocation spells have Evocation traits. The idea that Evil characters aren't [Evil] is even more baffling than the "Divine Lance Everyone" tactic, which is really just proactive Good behavior taken to the extreme.
It also is a non-sequitur, because in-game knowledge is analogous enough that mechanical knowledge can transfer beyond obvious gamist mechanics like XDY damage, especially when you're basically saying characters can't tell if a Holy Avenger is [Good] or [Evil]. Just because it's Holy doesn't mean it's [Good], after all, and you're saying characters can't identify traits.
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The tags... communicate information about what the spell does in-game.
The assumption that all alignment damage looks and feels the same, which is clearly not true for other categories of damage types like physical or energy, is also a strange one. It's not based on any rules and doesn't make a lot of sense.
The assumption that all alignment damage looks and feels the same, which is clearly not true for other categories of damage types like physical or energy, is also a strange one. It's not based on any rules and doesn't make a lot of sense.It's up to the GM.
So much for posing an "honest question" when you apparently already knew the answer.
We've been trolled by a disingenuous premise. Time to ignore and move on.
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It's been well past that for awhile. (The question was answered long before.)
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It has been argued that simply having Evil thoughts or feelings counts as being Evil, even if they do not act upon them. So the idea that you have to commit acts of Evil to be Evil is debunked by this logic. (And before you ask, no, I don't agree with the premise, but it was brought up as a counterargument once, so feel free to take it up with that person.)Alignment is a bad construct from a bygone era. It was meant to describe people for what they ARE, rather than what they DO.That's not really correct though. Evil characters are evil because they commit acts of evil.
That is not what I stated, get better at lying.
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It was meant to describe people for what they ARE, rather than what they DO.
That is how alignment works though, based on what people do. The exceptions being outsiders quite literally MADE of that alignment, but in 99.9999999% situations the souls of that outsider did something to end up as that outsider that aligns with those thoughts.
You wrote two very long posts about how about this thing you don't like, but Alignment in the game is not as you describe it, so your complaint is kinda irrelevant, like complaining about cotton candy at Taco Bell. Taco Bell doesn't sell cotton candy (if some random location does please point this out to me)
Characters don't learn mechanical knowledge, they learn in world knowledge. Evocation and [Evocation] are separate as are evil and [Evil]. The rules do not compel knowledge of the alignment tag attached, making it a GM call.This argument makes no sense because the traits are expressly used to ensure those are all one and the same. Evil characters have Evil traits. Evocation spells have Evocation traits. The idea that Evil characters aren't [Evil] is even more baffling than the "Divine Lance Everyone" tactic, which is really just proactive Good behavior taken to the extreme.
It also is a non-sequitur, because in-game knowledge is analogous enough that mechanical knowledge can transfer beyond obvious gamist mechanics like XDY damage, especially when you're basically saying characters can't tell if a Holy Avenger is [Good] or [Evil]. Just because it's Holy doesn't mean it's [Good], after all, and you're saying characters can't identify traits.
It was meant to describe people for what they ARE, rather than what they DO.That is how alignment works though, based on what people do. The exceptions being outsiders quite literally MADE of that alignment, but in 99.9999999% situations the souls of that outsider did something to end up as that outsider that aligns with those thoughts.
You wrote two very long posts about how about this thing you don't like, but Alignment in the game is not as you describe it, so your complaint is kinda irrelevant, like complaining about cotton candy at Taco Bell. Taco Bell doesn't sell cotton candy (if some random location does please point this out to me)
For me the best definition of good and evil is more about the intention of not committing the opposite act than anything else. But the negative intention as well as the positive one is problematic. Well, look:
If we consider that an evil character is one who commits evil, a character who made mistakes or was forced to commit atrocities can end up falling very easily in this scenario. In addition, it is very doubtful to fit a character who was good his whole life, then at a certain point in his life he committed an act of terrible evil, and then spent the rest of his life being good, he would end up being what exactly? Good for having spent most of your life being good, or for ending it being good? Or neutral because in a single moment he committed evil acts and therefore can never be good again?
In short, this would result in or play neutrality for most of the characters. For it would simply be enough to have committed some acts of evil and kindness to end up being expelled from extremes.
The other option is by intention, a kind character is one who is selfless, a saint who only thinks about others, society, the world, who cannot see anyone suffering and going through difficulties, who soon stops everything and dedicates himself to helping/saving this person. And the malgina is that highly selfish being who just wants to chip away at others for their own benefits, fun or even misrepresented moral value.
In the end, we would once again end up in a situation where, to be good, you would have to be Jesus, to be evil, Satan. Everything else would be neutral.
But evaluating how some characters are constructed in the world of golários, how some benign and evil characters are defined in pop culture, and even, or perhaps mainly, how the definition of good and evil is made in the main religious base most used in the world, the religion based on Abrahamic religions.
In this definition, for you to be good, it is enough for you not to be evil, that is, you must refuse evil acts, and if for some reason you weaken or are even forced to commit them, you truly repent (in the form of intention, action is not enough). This is quite visible in the Old Testament when we already see the commandments where most of them say "do not steal", "do not kill", "do not sin" and so on. In other words, the main definition of good is "don't be evil"!
The idea is basically, even if you have to give up a benefit, or until it causes you harm, you should never do evil deeds.
Following this same logic in reverse we can do the same thing with an evil character. While the benign character avoids evil at all costs, even giving up evil actions that would benefit or please him directly or indirectly. For a character to be evil it would be enough to follow the opposite principle, he must not do kind acts that do not benefit him (ie he must not be truly selfless). That wouldn't stop him from doing kind acts. For example, an evil character could pass himself off as an excellent person, helping others and setting an example, but behind the scenes this would just be a means to gain prestige and relevance for future benefits, and he really doesn't care about that. none of that, and if it weren't for gain, I would never commit such acts.
The neutral character, on the other hand, would end up in the middle ground between these, he would be a character who would put the acts on the scale. He is not good enough to disown any evil act. Maybe petty theft isn't a problem for him, maybe he's a killer who kills anyone he's hired to kill, but uses the money to help the orphanage where he was born. Or it could be the algo of an evil lord who loves his family or his community and in exchange for that lord's protection, he obeys and blindly slaughters all other people his lord sends him.
That is, he is a character who still has some moral principle, but adapts or restricts it depending on the situation.
This for me is the simplest and safest way to define the alignments.
There are still exception cases such as supremacist murders that need to be looked at carefully, as they seem neutral, but are evil because in fact their sense of morals has been distorted and even though they think they do good and are affectionate with their family and similar, but they murder another ancestry or ethnicity without the slightest remorse or even a sense of duty. Which probably just don't fit well into the Manichean definition of the system.
It's that thing, Create Undead is an evil ritual, which even has the Evil trait. But imagine a deity of night and darkness who knows that the sun will be extinguished billions from now and encourages its clerics and believers to practice and develop undeath precisely as an alternative solution to this problem, precisely to save those who will be left behind in the darkness, without the main source of positive energy (the sun) with only death awaiting them. Is Create Undead really evil from the point of view of this deity and these people?
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I see alignment in PF2 kind of like mushrooms on pizza. Some people really love it and would complain loudly if it was removed, most people are indifferent, and another chunk dislikes it. The variant rules are essentially the TTRPG version of picking them off and that's rarely a solution most people are very into.
Let put somethings clear.
Positive energy isn't good.
Negative energy isn't evil.
Positive energy can also harm and even kill (some living creatures can be killed with positive energy. Positive plane and some creatures can overload and kill material plane creatures).
Undeads can be cured by negative energy.
Undeads aren't necessary evil (playable undead ancestries exists).
But Create Undead for some reason has Evil trait (I understand if we had something like you are enslaving a soul or something like that but in practice nothing is said, only that you are animating a corpse).