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Neutral Good (for me)
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Alignment is simple for me, and I like to share when I get the chance (some folks like my view, others less so):
Good and Evil are Morality alignments. Good is pro-individuals-rights, helping the unfortunate, doing 'the right thing' etc., etc. Evil is anti-individuals-rights, exploiting the weak, being selfish and putting oneself first at the expense of others. (pretty easy)
Lawful and Chaotic are Personality alignments. A Lawful personality thinks things through and plans; a Chaotic personality acts whimsically and off-the-cuff. A Lawful personality prefers structure and order in the game world; a chaotic personality likes haphazard and random stuff in-game. Lawful is strict and disciplined; Chaotic is rash and ill-mannered.
Neutral are the Moralities -- and on the other axis the Personalities -- that are neither Good nor Evil, neither Lawful nor Chaotic:
A Neutral morality may be a truly-neutral mercenary. A Neutral person may have an obsession. One may be Lawful in all ways but when a certain, specified trigger is, um, triggered (goes berserk/haywire when youth is in danger), becomes wildly Chaotic. Someone whose most significant trait is Jealousy would be Neutral. Someone who is Fearful of X may have a Neutral Alignment because in certain situations the Personality or Morality of the character is different.
I have learned that Neutral is often more an NPC thing -- I can make an ambitious NPC (Neutral) or an obsessed NPC, or an NPC who would normally be described as LE except, whoa, when Daemons are involved may as well be called the most Zealous LG Paladin out there. Normally they believe in taking slaves, burning down orphanages, and bullying weaker Orcs and Goblins -- but the second one of those NE'aloths show up, joining the Crusade!
There's a player in my group who loves playing with a Chaotic Personality, loves raw, spur-of-the-moment action and does not make plans or think decisions through for one second -- EXCEPT when it comes to 'Mother Nature' stuff. The moment an NPC is cutting down a forest for wood or a nature preserve is in danger, she becomes super-Lawful-obsessed with planning and her opinions and and postulation on 'what-the-group-should-do-next' becomes very meticulous, very ordered. She becomes disciplined and strict. So, usually she's quite Chaotic, doing things haphazardly. But for that once-in-a-campaign thing, the second she hears a Dryad needs help,....
For me, if you're mostly like a LG but when it comes to Undead you turn Chaotic, then you're probably NG.
I know that the alignment system is meant to serve as more of a loose structure for characters rather than strictly control their actions, but I still need help finding what official alignment my character’s personality is closest to.
To try to make a long story short, my character has become very jaded and ruthless towards certain (usually) evil races or groups, specifically vampires, witches and werewolves. It has become his life’s mission to purge the plane of them by any means necessary. Although his primary target is evil, he is willing to offer equally sadistic treatment to those who get in his way. He also gets a certain satisfaction from killing the creatures he hunts and sometimes makes them suffer.
He has a code and doesn’t kill simply for the sake of killing, but he doesn’t regard law or authority either. He primarily hunts evil, but is willing to harm others by association. Any ideas for the alignment?
For me being willing to harm others (in general, not in some very specific circumstance) means the character is not good. Good goes out of its way to help others and protect them.
In the days when Law and Chaos existed, I probably would have said Lawful Neutral (lawful wasn't about regarding the authority or laws of the place you were in). Now...I guess they're just neutral.
Edit: Just realized this is a PF1 post. Lawful Neutral it is.
I know that the alignment system is meant to serve as more of a loose structure for characters rather than strictly control their actions, but I still need help finding what official alignment my character’s personality is closest to.
To try to make a long story short, my character has become very jaded and ruthless towards certain (usually) evil races or groups, specifically vampires, witches and werewolves. It has become his life’s mission to purge the plane of them by any means necessary. Although his primary target is evil, he is willing to offer equally sadistic treatment to those who get in his way. He also gets a certain satisfaction from killing the creatures he hunts and sometimes makes them suffer.
He has a code and doesn’t kill simply for the sake of killing, but he doesn’t regard law or authority either. He primarily hunts evil, but is willing to harm others by association. Any ideas for the alignment?
From the description he's coldhearted, sadistic and willing to kill people just for getting in his way, or because of their race which takes anything goodly out of the equation.
He sounds more lawful than chaotic, but not heavily aligned to either. I'd probably go with NN with strong evil tendencies.
As I said in the duplicate thread... Chaotic Neutral, at best. More likely Neutral Evil or Chaotic Evil depending on how they go about dealing with innocents.
Like i said in a duplicate thread
It's sounds to me like Chaotic neutral
Chaotic: he is willing to do anything by any means to archives the results; that for me is like anarchy in most of his time.
Neutral: the form in which you describe him mean that he is not going to be a good boy or saint, at the same time he is doing something good in his eyes by eliminate this creature so in part he is not evil in my eyes.
As for the satisfaction when Killing this type of creature i see it like a drawback trait hedonism and the respect of a moral code like the honor sistem presented in the ultimate campaign
That character doesn’t seem to have a clear cut alignment so it depends on what are the most important facets in the description you gave and how you interpret that.
If for example his personal code is the defining feature then potentially he could be lawful. Or if his personal code is just an excuse to disregard laws in general then chaotic makes more sense.
He could be evil, but that depends on just how ruthless he is in achieving his goals.
The only alignments I would rule out for sure are the good alignments. He is clearly no hero, but he could make for a good anti-hero or villain.
If he were my character I would make him chaotic neutral and also give him some redeeming features like he donates half his earnings to charity and he cannot refuse a genuine request for aid.
Like I posted in the duplicate thread: NE.
People tend toward the extremes too much. Most people are just neutral. Neutral has a lot of variety.
On a character such as this, I'd default to Chaotic Neutral, but that's just me.
People tend toward the extremes too much. Most people are just neutral. Neutral has a lot of variety.
Sure. But even Neutral people have issues with harming innocents and only do so when pressed. Casual disregard is one thing but complete disregard is pretty much a shoe-horn for Evil.
Some people don't like the label of 'evil' to be applied to their characters even when it fits the in game description of it. I just say accept it and roll with it, rather than justifying it to make themselves feel better about it.
People tend toward the extremes too much. Most people are just neutral. Neutral has a lot of variety.Sure. But even Neutral people have issues with harming innocents and only do so when pressed.
I don't think evil creatures and those aiding them count as "innocents".
I don't think evil creatures and those aiding them count as "innocents".
Sure, but Monty7 did not limit it to those specific people.
Although his primary target is evil, he is willing to offer equally sadistic treatment to those who get in his way...
...He primarily hunts evil, but is willing to harm others by association.
Even if it was limited to strictly evil creatures or those aiding them, doing evil to Evil for the simple sake of doing it is still Evil. This isn't mathematics where two negatives create a positive. The only thing multiplied is the amount of Evil being done.
I am not in the habit of allowing exceptions to a rule to override the general rule as a whole. Evil doesn't just take advantage of Good or Neutral people. Evil does evil to Evil just as well. Good goes out of their way to help. Neutral doesn't go out of its way to help or hinder. Evil takes advantage when and where it can.
As I said before, people tend not to like that particular take on alignment. In my experience, it hits a little too close to home if they project it into their own world views.
I don't think evil creatures and those aiding them count as "innocents".People tend toward the extremes too much. Most people are just neutral. Neutral has a lot of variety.Sure. But even Neutral people have issues with harming innocents and only do so when pressed.
he said "by association", this can include the inn-keepers that just happen to be the hosts of a vampire one night. They would most certainly be innocents, yet unknowingly be "associates" of a vampire, and thusly targets of the OP. Killing them would absolutely be an evil act, and push his alignment into the Evil category.
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he said "by association", this can include the inn-keepers that just happen to be the hosts of a vampire one night. They would most certainly be innocents, yet unknowingly be "associates" of a vampire, and thusly targets of the OP. Killing them would absolutely be an evil act, and push his alignment into the Evil category.I don't think evil creatures and those aiding them count as "innocents".People tend toward the extremes too much. Most people are just neutral. Neutral has a lot of variety.Sure. But even Neutral people have issues with harming innocents and only do so when pressed.
To add to what TxSam88 said, to me "hurting people by association" means that the character will not have qualms about burning down the inn that is hosting the gypsies (to stay with an old cliché) moving the vampire coffin from one location to another, even if that will harm or kill the innkeeper, his family, the servant, and the other hosts.
He will not harm those people if the gypsies have already moved on, but he would rough them up to get the information he wants.Depending on how far he will go with that kind of action I would classify him from neutral to neutral evil. Probably he will start at level 1 as neutral and then move along the alignment axis based on his behavior.
A strong and well-defined personal code of conduct can make him lawful, but it doesn't sound as if his code is that strong.
If you want a alternate alignment system that can be easily adapted to Pathfinder without a lot of changes to the spells, I suggest the one used by Palladium.
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To try to make a long story short, my character has become very jaded and ruthless towards certain (usually) evil races or groups, specifically vampires, witches and werewolves. It has become his life’s mission to purge the plane of them by any means necessary. Although his primary target is evil, he is willing to offer equally sadistic treatment to those who get in his way. He also gets a certain satisfaction from killing the creatures he hunts and sometimes makes them suffer.
He has a code and doesn’t kill simply for the sake of killing, but he doesn’t regard law or authority either. He primarily hunts evil, but is willing to harm others by association. Any ideas for the alignment?
A dedicated genocidaire of a given magical tradition (witchcraft) or victim of a disease (lycanthropy), who in pursuit of the total eradication of his targets is willing to harm innocents and who is otherwise relatively antisocial? Neutral Evil.
Until Monty jumps back in and clarifies, we can't really be sure of the actions against "innocents". It's very possible the character only attacks those who physically get in the way of the evil he's trying to destroy.
That’s right, we don’t know how far this character is prepared to go in order to achieve his goals.
In the case of the innkeeper example “harm others by association” might mean damage to reputation. In other words he might warn the townsfolk that the innkeeper harbours vampires thereby damaging his business. Or it could be the other extreme and he could commit cold blooded murder. Those would represent very different alignments.
My feeling is that the opening post is going for rebellious anti-hero who spends his whole life vanquishing evil. To me that sounds chaotic neutral, but he has some traits that could easily put him on the path to evil. To make it clear that he is not a villain he needs some obvious redeeming feature.
In addition with the same example of the inn keeper the pc don't know if the innkeeper is under the effects of a charm or domination spell, so if he kill the npc and later he discover that the innkeeper was innocent this could go against her code in which he tries to maintain; if he do some research before doing something like killing him he could free him and save a life, this from my point of view is a neutral path, but since he is the type of person that don't care about the consequences if this lead to accomplish his goals it mostly to go in the chaotic path