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Sanctified is a word that has been in our language for a long time. Champions need to be religious and devout. Not being sanctified implies a half hearted commitment. Ergo it is not appropriate for a Champion.I would say it is a necessity, I dream of a non sanctified championIn the PF2 context of Champion that is an oxymoron. I hope we don't get it.How can it be when non-sanctified champions have existed for years up until now? Sanctified isn't even a game term yet!
Champions can already follow non-good, non-evil deities. All you'd need is an appropriately adjusted set of tenets for ones that don't map to existing good or evil.
Oh so you're not aware that Sanctified is the name of a new game mechanic being added in the remaster to partially replace alignment? It has nothing to do with being uncommitted. It's merely a mechanic tied to certain deities that changes the way specific attacks work.
Oh so you're not aware that Sanctified is the name of a new game mechanic being added in the remaster to partially replace alignment? It has nothing to do with being uncommitted. It's merely a mechanic tied to certain deities that changes the way specific attacks work.Sanctified is a word that has been in our language for a long time. Champions need to be religious and devout. Not being sanctified implies a half hearted commitment. Ergo it is not appropriate for a Champion.I would say it is a necessity, I dream of a non sanctified championIn the PF2 context of Champion that is an oxymoron. I hope we don't get it.How can it be when non-sanctified champions have existed for years up until now? Sanctified isn't even a game term yet!
Champions can already follow non-good, non-evil deities. All you'd need is an appropriately adjusted set of tenets for ones that don't map to existing good or evil.
Abusing langauge in this way weakens flavour.
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What I've seen recently previewed for terminology changes throughout the rules may break your heart.
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Not being sanctified to either holy or unholy powers I don't think is necessarily the same thing as not being sanctified at all. All champions can be sanctified to their gods (non mechanically beyond what already exists re: anathema) but I would rather see champions who do not need to dedicate to holy or unholy powers, particularly as there a proposed to be hide who don't offer either course of sanctification, who therefore would have no option for champions
Preview pdf: "they matter much less in the game world"
Bah and that was just because paizo didn't want to make stories about law vs chaos themes :'D
I mean, it's been a part of the Pathfinder lore probably before there was a Pathfinder that Chaos already won the battle of Law vs. Chaos, it's just going to take eons for it to play out since Chaos isn't in a hurry to do anything in particular.
So that makes it kind of hard to make especially compelling Law vs. Chaos stories. Since Law is just trying to carve out what it can and hold out for as long as it can, but it will lose in the end.
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Preview pdf: "they matter much less in the game world"
Bah and that was just because paizo didn't want to make stories about law vs chaos themes :'D
I mean, it's been a part of the Pathfinder lore probably before there was a Pathfinder that Chaos already won the battle of Law vs. Chaos, it's just going to take eons for it to play out since Chaos isn't in a hurry to do anything in particular.
So that makes it kind of hard to make especially compelling Law vs. Chaos stories. Since Law is just trying to carve out what it can and hold out for as long as it can, but it will lose in the end.
Where has it been stated ? I honestly do not remember anything like this.
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Where has it been stated ? I honestly do not remember anything like this.Preview pdf: "they matter much less in the game world"
Bah and that was just because paizo didn't want to make stories about law vs chaos themes :'D
I mean, it's been a part of the Pathfinder lore probably before there was a Pathfinder that Chaos already won the battle of Law vs. Chaos, it's just going to take eons for it to play out since Chaos isn't in a hurry to do anything in particular.
So that makes it kind of hard to make especially compelling Law vs. Chaos stories. Since Law is just trying to carve out what it can and hold out for as long as it can, but it will lose in the end.
I think Planar Adventures section on Axis mentions the long decline of law against chaos. Signs of it are the slow loss of the big demi-god level inevitables with no reinforcements being created, and I think the last couple of protean crusade equivalents against Axis laid waste to some neighborhoods that haven't been rebuilt. It's still huge and strong, but it's not at it's peak and no one seems to think it's going to push back out.
I have a vague thought that this was supposed to be part of why the aeons were retconned to LN, as well - they wanted to slow this process down and decided to join team law to support longterm overal neutrality by equalizing this balance of forces.
I understood it to be that the fundamental nature of Pathfinder Metaphysics is that in time, everything will be ground down into undifferentiated potentiality by the maelstrom at which point the Survivor will use the Seal that is the gravestone of this universe as the foundation stone of the next reality, like Pharasma did coming out of the last one.
The end state of the universe (and presumably all previous universes) is "the Maelstrom consumes everything" which is essentially synonymous with "chaos triumphs over order."
The end state of the universe (and presumably all previous universes) is "the Maelstrom consumes everything" which is essentially synonymous with "chaos triumphs over order."
Which is sort of funny because the end state without intervention is a static mush of homogenized nothing which sort of feels like a win for cosmic order when compared to the status quo.
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I would say that the eventual triumph of chaos is analogous to the second law of thermodynamics. From an information theoretic perspective, entropy is the opposite of information.
In a maximized information system, you everything there is to know about every part of that system.
In a maximized entropy system, you don't know anything about any part of it in terms of "what it is", "what it's doing", "what it's done", etc.
So like the ultimate victory for chaos is "turn everything into an undifferentiated sludge of potentiality". The ultimate victory for order would be "everything is frozen in place forever, as nothing can become different from what it is because it is already perfect."
Mortal life shouldn't want either of these things to happen, but at least when chaos wins you get another universe for other people to enjoy. This is kind of why I'm okay with dropping "law vs. chaos" as a cosmic battle as something that the PCs might be interested in, since this is a "whoever wins, we lose" kind of situation for mortals.
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I've been thinking that even if there is no sanctification for Law and Chaos(because its too niche), they could still do some sort of "you get bonus vs beings from Elysium/Outer Rifts/Maelstrom" thing for Hellknights and "You get bonus vs beings from Heaven/hells/Axis" to whatever CHAOS worshippers you want to make
Or would that be unlikely as well? Like I think that is easiest bare minimum bone to give to Order of the Godclaw whose whole thing is crusade against chaos x'D
Sanctified-only Champions is still my greatest fear as far as Remastered is concerned.
Gorum paladins, who are just really decent people in a way that's unrelated to their religious appreciation of combat. Alignment being shown the door opens up a lot more interesting takes on how people approach religion in the setting.
Also, please, for the ironic love of God, RAW option to not have a god as a champion and that not mechanically matter. Don't make people have to negotiate this with their GM and bring up their reasons why, make it so people can just show up to the first session having never mentioned it and the GM never commenting on it.
Where has it been stated ? I honestly do not remember anything like this.Preview pdf: "they matter much less in the game world"
Bah and that was just because paizo didn't want to make stories about law vs chaos themes :'D
I mean, it's been a part of the Pathfinder lore probably before there was a Pathfinder that Chaos already won the battle of Law vs. Chaos, it's just going to take eons for it to play out since Chaos isn't in a hurry to do anything in particular.
So that makes it kind of hard to make especially compelling Law vs. Chaos stories. Since Law is just trying to carve out what it can and hold out for as long as it can, but it will lose in the end.
I think Planar Adventures section on Axis mentions the long decline of law against chaos. Signs of it are the slow loss of the big demi-god level inevitables with no reinforcements being created, and I think the last couple of protean crusade equivalents against Axis laid waste to some neighborhoods that haven't been rebuilt. It's still huge and strong, but it's not at it's peak and no one seems to think it's going to push back out.
I have a vague thought that this was supposed to be part of why the aeons were retconned to LN, as well - they wanted to slow this process down and decided to join team law to support longterm overal neutrality by equalizing this balance of forces.
I understood it to be that the fundamental nature of Pathfinder Metaphysics is that in time, everything will be ground down into undifferentiated potentiality by the maelstrom at which point the Survivor will use the Seal that is the gravestone of this universe as the foundation stone of the next reality, like Pharasma did coming out of the last one.
The end state of the universe (and presumably all previous universes) is "the Maelstrom consumes everything" which is essentially synonymous with "chaos triumphs over order."
I think it's all of this. But I agree with PossibleCabbage that ultimately it's about the fact that at least as far as we know, the multiverses days are numbered. Pharasma has a planned successor and knows this incarnation of reality to have a flaw, just as the previous one she survived did. Eventually all mortals will be judge and the universe will basically break down and stop. Rovagug/Groetus will consume most everything except the designated survivor and the outer gods (including the watcher) and become the next "plate" which is used to start the next incarnation of reality.*
This last bit about Groetus is purely my speculation between the stated role for Groetus and what we know about Pharasma and her founding of reality. And the respective roles of Rovagug and Groetus aren't really known 100% as they're both stated to consume reality in the end times.
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Where has it been stated ? I honestly do not remember anything like this.Preview pdf: "they matter much less in the game world"
Bah and that was just because paizo didn't want to make stories about law vs chaos themes :'D
I mean, it's been a part of the Pathfinder lore probably before there was a Pathfinder that Chaos already won the battle of Law vs. Chaos, it's just going to take eons for it to play out since Chaos isn't in a hurry to do anything in particular.
So that makes it kind of hard to make especially compelling Law vs. Chaos stories. Since Law is just trying to carve out what it can and hold out for as long as it can, but it will lose in the end.
I think Planar Adventures section on Axis mentions the long decline of law against chaos. Signs of it are the slow loss of the big demi-god level inevitables with no reinforcements being created, and I think the last couple of protean crusade equivalents against Axis laid waste to some neighborhoods that haven't been rebuilt. It's still huge and strong, but it's not at it's peak and no one seems to think it's going to push back out.
I have a vague thought that this was supposed to be part of why the aeons were retconned to LN, as well - they wanted to slow this process down and decided to join team law to support longterm overal neutrality by equalizing this balance of forces.
...I understood it to be that the fundamental nature of Pathfinder Metaphysics is that in time, everything will be ground down into undifferentiated potentiality by the maelstrom at which point the Survivor will use the Seal that is the gravestone of this universe as the foundation stone of the next reality, like Pharasma did coming out of the last one.
The end state of the universe (and presumably all previous universes) is "the Maelstrom consumes everything" which is essentially synonymous with "chaos
This was true before the breaking of prophecy. Now, thanks to this breaking, anything is possible.
Which just might have been the goal pursued.
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I've been thinking that even if there is no sanctification for Law and Chaos(because its too niche), they could still do some sort of "you get bonus vs beings from Elysium/Outer Rifts/Maelstrom" thing for Hellknights and "You get bonus vs beings from Heaven/hells/Axis" to whatever CHAOS worshippers you want to make
Or would that be unlikely as well? Like I think that is easiest bare minimum bone to give to Order of the Godclaw whose whole thing is crusade against chaos x'D
I think they might create a ritual or something similar. But I very highly doubt there will be a more commonly used way for PCs to get anything similar to alignment damage beyond Holy/Unholy.
I think there is still potential for champions of "neutral" concepts or gods after the remaster. They will just have more specific abilities that future rules supplements can detail.
A champion of nature that is neither sanctified or unsanctified may exist, but their abilities would have more of a natury theme and they may get bonuses against different flavors of enemies, maybe outsiders in general or constructs more specifically
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I think there is still potential for champions of "neutral" concepts or gods after the remaster. They will just have more specific abilities that future rules supplements can detail.
A champion of nature that is neither sanctified or unsanctified may exist, but their abilities would have more of a natury theme and they may get bonuses against different flavors of enemies, maybe outsiders in general or constructs more specifically
I do not expect Favored Enemy to come back any time soon.
Aeons and proteans may or may not play any major part in a war of the immortals, but even if they don't that hardly means they don't matter.
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You know, I never once would have described the ability to deal 1d4 law or chaos damage as an inevitable it protean's "key mechanic". Maybe for Marut being unkillable period unless you randomly happened to come with chaos damage built in, but that was much more an interesting design problem than it was a core identity.
Naturally during the war I expect aeons and protean's to do what they do best: monitor and maintain the systems of reality in each their own way to each their own ends while the holy and unholy types try to tear everything down in their ideological crusades.
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You know, I never once would have described the ability to deal 1d4 law or chaos damage as an inevitable it protean's "key mechanic". Maybe for Marut being unkillable period unless you randomly happened to come with chaos damage built in, but that was much more an interesting design problem than it was a core identity.
Naturally during the war I expect aeons and protean's to do what they do best: monitor and maintain the systems of reality in each their own way to each their own ends while the holy and unholy types try to tear everything down in their ideological crusades.
Its not really chaos/law damage that I miss that much, its mechanical options at all. We never got law/chaos champions even when those were a thing and there isn't now an option to dedicate yourself to one of two sides meaning that mechanically all monitors are just "neutral to holy/unholy war" now
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What do you mean now? Monitors weren't really invested in good/evil stuff before either.
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What do you mean now? Monitors weren't really invested in good/evil stuff before either.
Thats the THING though. War of the Immortals is seemingly going to be grand battle between good and evil.
In otherwords, the Paizo decided that grand planar war isn't place for grand cluster mess of good vs evil war triggering lawful planes trying to invade chaotic planes to impose order while chaotic planes just be kinda chaotic. Because paizo never really likes exploring the concept of Law vs Chaos even in 1e or even with Hellknights :'D
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I spent all of Wrath of the Righteous and the corresponding PFS Season 5 hoping that we'd at least get the option of marching an army of Hellknights into the Worldwound, but alas...So much book space was devoted to Hellknights who are all about Law.
So much book space devoted to Firebrands who are very chaotic.But support for Law and Chaos? Apparently adding 2 more santification options is too much.
Upholding Law was more important to Hellknights than dealing Law damage. Wtf is an Order of the Pike HK gonna do with Law damage?
Chaos damage would be completely useless to Firebrands.
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I mean, order of the godclaw's entire theme is "crusade against chaos" and we never saw them join Worldwound in the canon.
There also aren't major protean infestations on golarion for hellknights to really care about planar chaos either.. Its why I keep being sad about this because I'm honestly really interested in weird things like order vs chaos more than good vs evil.
You know why? Because obviously I want good to win x'D With order vs chaos there is the lovely "err, middle road is the better road?" and case by case aspect rather than "yep, always join this team".
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It’s not when only one of those actually shows up and gets used regularly, both gameplay wise and narratively.
“Losing” chaos/law damage is… honestly absolutely meaningless. Those critters are still there. I could care less about their special damage types/resistances/weaknesses.
Chaos Noodles are still gonna Chaos Noodle.
Aeons are still gonna be busybodies.
The characters are still there. A damage type is not.
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Its not really chaos/law damage that I miss that much, its mechanical options at all. We never got law/chaos champions even when those were a thing and there isn't now an option to dedicate yourself to one of two sides meaning that mechanically all monitors are just "neutral to holy/unholy war" nowYou know, I never once would have described the ability to deal 1d4 law or chaos damage as an inevitable it protean's "key mechanic". Maybe for Marut being unkillable period unless you randomly happened to come with chaos damage built in, but that was much more an interesting design problem than it was a core identity.
Naturally during the war I expect aeons and protean's to do what they do best: monitor and maintain the systems of reality in each their own way to each their own ends while the holy and unholy types try to tear everything down in their ideological crusades.
Ah, please do not mistake me for someone who is indifferent to the plight of the Neutral Champion. I have advocated for a neutral set of champion tenets in every thread on the subject that I've encountered over the last year and change. It is rather certain trains of thought which equate the removal of L/C aligned damage to the abolition of law and chaos as concepts within the setting that draw my flippancy.
We currently have almost no insight into the form the remastered Champion will take when it comes out in something like a year from now. I feel it is perhaps too soon to judge whether we will indeed never see a lowercase 'champion of order', least of all because the two most irrelevant damage types in the game were taken out, yet some voices such as those in this thread seem firm in their stance that no being on the face of Golarion will again have cause to join forces with the law against chaos or vice versa.
The Champion of Good we have right now comes in three flavours depending whether they swear to uphold the law, redeem villains, or protect freedom. It would be a little strange if, just because you can't be LG or CG anymore that you can't still swear to uphold order or strike down tyrants. We know that the concepts of law and chaos will remain in the setting unchanged, even if the immortals who embody those concepts don't get bonus damage. The difference between proteans and aeons hasn't become meaningless in the absence of LN and CN in their bios, despite Temperans' vocal concern.
While you can't become sanctified to gain law damage, it's far too soon to say that no character can swear themselves to order or anarchy in some way. I would be a little surprised and more than a little disappointed if there never comes an option for a Champion neither holy nor unholy to pick a cause that supports order, but even if it comes in the core rulebook, that's still a year away.
It'd be super easy for Lawful Champions to get an exclusive Oath feat that makes them stronger against Proteans, and Chaotic Champions get an Oath feat that makes them stronger against Aeons.
It'll be interesting to see how unsanctified Champions would play out, given there's a level 1 feat option to sanctify Exemplars in the current playtest, and another level 1 feat that locks you out of sanctification in exchange of their own benefits.
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Honestly I think getting rid of alignment will make it more likely we see a "neutral" champion cause. Before each cause had to try to represent its box on the alignment chart, and there was only one cause per box. The good and evil causes already didn't completely cover their alignments well. Redeemer hardly fit all of the NG deities for example. But without alignment, causes are more open; you can have a champion of nature cause without it needing to be the true neutral cause. They could even print more good causes if they wished, just give each cause its own sanctification requirements that must be compatible with your deity's. All they need is an anathema, a focus spell, a reaction, and a handful of feats based off the cause.
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Honestly I think getting rid of alignment will make it more likely we see a "neutral" champion cause. Before each cause had to try to represent its box on the alignment chart, and there was only one cause per box. The good and evil causes already didn't completely cover their alignments well. Redeemer hardly fit all of the NG deities for example. But without alignment, causes are more open; you can have a champion of nature cause without it needing to be the true neutral cause. They could even print more good causes if they wished, just give each cause its own sanctification requirements that must be compatible with your deity's. All they need is an anathema, a focus spell, a reaction, and a handful of feats based off the cause.
Just a note that the Cause is based on the alignment of the Champion. Not that of the deity.
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It’s not when only one of those actually shows up and gets used regularly, both gameplay wise and narratively.
“Losing” chaos/law damage is… honestly absolutely meaningless. Those critters are still there. I could care less about their special damage types/resistances/weaknesses.
Chaos Noodles are still gonna Chaos Noodle.
Aeons are still gonna be busybodies.
The characters are still there. A damage type is not.
As a player, being able to really hurt Proteans with Lawful damage was significant when you met those critters.
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It'd be super easy for Lawful Champions to get an exclusive Oath feat that makes them stronger against Proteans, and Chaotic Champions get an Oath feat that makes them stronger against Aeons.
It'll be interesting to see how unsanctified Champions would play out, given there's a level 1 feat option to sanctify Exemplars in the current playtest, and another level 1 feat that locks you out of sanctification in exchange of their own benefits.
Having sanctification (Order / Chaos) would have been broader than getting a kind of sanctification vs Proteans/Aeons.
Yet the former was not included because it was deemed not relevant.
I do not see Paizo designing a PC ability whoch would be even less relevant (hurt Proteans/Aeons) since it would have been easier to just include sanctification (Order / Chaos).