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I doubt outright evil gods are going to have any appreciable number of good worshipers. Neutral maybe, but not good. But I expect that most neutral worshipers probably pretend to be good by doing good acts so as to not arouse suspicion of being an evil cultist.
Just because good and evil are no longer rules elements doesn't mean that those concepts cease to exist within the context of the game world. They're more grey than they were before, but I doubt you'll have blatantly evil beings being supported by good gods because hopefully there will be a common tenet about respecting the lives and well being of others among good deities.
So here's the thing, though.
There's no longer any such thing as a "Good" god. The gods are just people, of tremendous power, that care about the things that they care about. Even the ones that are what you'd generally consider to be "good" are unlikely to have 100% overlap with what your personal definition fo "good" is, especially if they're not one of the deities that's signed on to the "I want all of my clerical followers to be holy" bandwagon.
Gods have the tenets that they have.
At the same time, it means that your choice of deity isn't as defining. Like, yeah, maybe that follower of Desna happens to also be a murderous con artist who slowly infiltrates the lives of their targets, taking everything they can before murdering and fleeing in the night to some new place. Desna maybe doesn't care much about that... but by the same token, "I'm a loyal worshiper of Desna" isn't going to be a particularly strong defense when the people around them figure out what they're doing and manage to catch them.
That's the whole thing about ditching alignment. We don't really have the whole "these are the good people, those are the bad people" thing anymore. We have "consecrated holy", "consecrated unholy" and "not", and for everything in the "not" block (ie, almost everyone), it's just as morally messy as the real world.
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The idea has been floated a couple times that not getting a hit off detect alignment should be automatically suspicious, but I'm not sure I'm following. Not detecting an alignment is one of only two possible outcomes of casting the spell Detect Alignment, with the other outcome being "Yes, they are of the queried alignment"
That's sort of true, they could be true neutral. And I think a lot of these issues go away with sanctification, to be clear. Since bandits or whatever aren't going to be unholy sanctified even if in premaster they were evil before.
If you cast Detect Alignment [Evil] on a group of NPCs including a paladin of Sarenrae, a handful of commoners, and a devious 5th level poisoner who was behind the recent spate of mysterious deaths, you will get "No Evil". Of whom would you be suspicious?I must have simply missed a different spell being discussed again, but I can think of no other way (short of a blast of alignment damage) to discern somebody's alignment.
Is that true? I was under the impression that this meant you'd get the evil poisoner's aura, the paladin's aura, and so on. So you get "evil" on the poisoner:
"Your eyes glow as you sense aligned auras. Choose chaotic, evil, good, or lawful. You detect auras of that alignment. You receive no information beyond presence or absence. You can choose not to detect creatures or effects you're aware have that alignment."
And yeah there's also the issue of "I hit you in the face with good damage, your anti-detection abilities don't mitigate damage!" Which is sort of silly.
Anyway, it's not AS much of an issue with the remaster.
Check out the second paragraph of Detect Alignment.
Only creatures of 6th level or higher—unless divine spellcasters, undead, or beings from the Outer Sphere—have alignment auras.
You also need the second level casting before it would tell you which aura maps to each creature.
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So here's the thing, though.There's no longer any such thing as a "Good" god. The gods are just people, of tremendous power, that care about the things that they care about. Even the ones that are what you'd generally consider to be "good" are unlikely to have 100% overlap with what your personal definition fo "good" is, especially if they're not one of the deities that's signed on to the "I want all of my clerical followers to be holy" bandwagon.
Gods have the tenets that they have.
At the same time, it means that your choice of deity isn't as defining. Like, yeah, maybe that follower of Desna happens to also be a murderous con artist who slowly infiltrates the lives of their targets, taking everything they can before murdering and fleeing in the night to some new place. Desna maybe doesn't care much about that... but by the same token, "I'm a loyal worshiper of Desna" isn't going to be a particularly strong defense when the people around them figure out what they're doing and manage to catch them.
That's the whole thing about ditching alignment. We don't really have the whole "these are the good people, those are the bad people" thing anymore. We have "consecrated holy", "consecrated unholy" and "not", and for everything in the "not" block (ie, almost everyone), it's just as morally messy as the real world.
Good may not be a mechanical tag that exist for the gods anymore, but conceptual there are still good and evil gods, and that's probably not going to change for any gods that have existed with those tags previously.
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I think it's naive to think that even if the phrase "Lawful Good" doesn't appear anywhere in Torag's writeup that people aren't going to continue to think about him this way (including some people who write for Paizo.)
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I think it's naive to think that even if the phrase "Lawful Good" doesn't appear anywhere in Torag's writeup that people aren't going to continue to think about him this way (including some people who write for Paizo.)
Oh, I'm not saying that they would necessarily change all that much as people... but without the tag insisting that they must be Good, I think there would be more space for them to be what they are. Like, we had a discussion a while back as to whether it was even possible for a "good" god to have certain kinds of antisocial traits. That question has now been rather conclusively answered. Torag is goign to continue to have (and approve of) a number of traits that we would normally think of as "Good" and "Lawful". He's still going to be a force for general order and benevolence in the world... but there's no longer a requirement that he have all of those traits. We won't have any more of the "but he/she is a good god, and therefore must hold position X/Y/Z on these particular matters that I personally care about".
Of course, you're correct that Paizo writers are people too, and those things are likely to endure in many cases as tendencies, but they won't be part of the fundamental nature of the world anymore. They won't be mandated... and that opens up all sorts of possibilities for slow change and gray areas and subtleties.
Captain Morgan covers it. Detect Alignment was "pick one of these four" and then you get a "Yes/No" for that alignment existing within 30'.take that alongside most low level creatures not having any alignment aura regardless how evil or good they are, and Detect Evil just isn't going to be relevant to an average member of the townsfolk, certainly not enough to bother hiding their alignment aura (though hiding their actions on the other hand...)
If one if those NPCs instead was a level 2 Cleric of an unholy deity, certainly the spell would return "Yes Evil" but unless you did the 2nd rank version you won't nniw which of the NPCs was Evil. In the meantime they've just realized it's time to invest in nondetection if they can afford it--or maybe cleaf out of town.
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I think it's naive to think that even if the phrase "Lawful Good" doesn't appear anywhere in Torag's writeup that people aren't going to continue to think about him this way (including some people who write for Paizo.)
Give it a decade or so--enough time for the next generation of Pathfinder roleplayers to get their foothold--and I'd wager you won't have to look very far to find someone with a very different idea of who Torag is than yourself.
If the rules don't spell out Torag's disposition, then people simply won't know what it is unless they played pre-Remaster and remember it, or else closely associate with someone who does and that shres that forgotten knowledge.
Sure they might spell it out in his description, but even that won't be as constant a reminder as the alignment tags of today are.
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Heck everything being gray is the entire reason why alignment was removed. All those "I want to play a paladin but follow non of the rules".
Why do you think that Edicts and Anathema are not rules?
If a Paladin is not following the Tenets of Good and the Paladin Cause, then they aren't being a Paladin. Alignment has nothing to do with that. Alignment's absence will not be felt.
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I think some of y'all are severely overestimating the impact when we already have holy/unholy serving the space that matters here.
Holy (Trait): Effects with the holy trait are tied to
powerful magical forces of benevolence and virtue.
Unholy (Trait): Effects with the unholy trait are tied
to powerful magical forces of cruelty and sin
Consider Torag:
Edicts: be honorable and forthright, keep your word, respect the forge, serve your people
Anathema: tell lies or cheat someone, intentionally create inferior works, show mercy to the enemies of your people
If you can look at those plus Torag allowing or requiring Holy Sanctification and not think "lawful good" you never actually understood what alignment meant in the first place. In which case having LG in his stat block was probably worse than having nothing at all.
Heck everything being gray is the entire reason why alignment was removed. All those "I want to play a paladin but follow non of the rules".
******************
Here is something that will make some people mad. A certain inquisitor from a certain campaign can now go about doing his thing without needing to be an inquisitor. Yeah that guy who burned children under the name of Iomedae? That guys is now perfectly following her rules without needing any help from his class.
For urgathoa: A person with low appetite who captures and relocates undead to other places where they can roam free and not harm people. Turning undead when they die? Well they have a contract with a devil to do that for them.
What are you even talking about?
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If you can look at those plus Torag allowing or requiring Holy Sanctification and not think "lawful good" you never actually understood what alignment meant in the first place. In which case having LG in his stat block was probably worse than having nothing at all.
"allowing" and "requiring" are two very different things.
Like, sure, there are still going to be deities out there that require Holy (or Unholy) sanctification, and they're (probably) going to run about the same... but from the sounds of things, it's not going to be most of them. It's not going to be "one third require holy, one third require unholy, and one third are chill about it." There's still going to be a lot more grey area than there was before.
There's still going to be a lot more grey area than there was before.
Looking at Torag since it was the example given a few posts ago.
Yes, there is more gray area here:
Follower Alignments LG, LN
But there isn't much gray area here:
Edicts be honorable and forthright, keep your word, respect the forge, serve your people
Anathema tell lies or cheat someone, intentionally create inferior works, show mercy to the enemies of your people
So what is the problem? You still aren't going to have player characters playing Clerics of Torag running around as swindlers or brigands. At least not any more often than you did when Alignment was a thing.
If you can look at those plus Torag allowing or requiring Holy Sanctification and not think "lawful good" you never actually understood what alignment meant in the first place. In which case having LG in his stat block was probably worse than having nothing at all."allowing" and "requiring" are two very different things.
Like, sure, there are still going to be deities out there that require Holy (or Unholy) sanctification, and they're (probably) going to run about the same... but from the sounds of things, it's not going to be most of them. It's not going to be "one third require holy, one third require unholy, and one third are chill about it." There's still going to be a lot more grey area than there was before.
Yes, allowing and requiring are two different things. But they are about as different as deity that allows only good clerics (Sarenrae) and one that allows neutral clerics (Torag.) We know Sarenrae requires holy, and I suspect Torag will allow it. And Torag already felt kind of grey given his anethema includes the sketchy "show mercy to the enemies of your people."
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We know Sarenrae requires holy
Actually, unless the previews have been amended, we know Sarenrae allows holy, not requires it. Iomedae is the deity example we have who requires it, to make Temperans' example even more nonsensical.
My speculation is that this is to better serve her narrative of extending offerings of redemption, since her requirement that followers themselves be good can well and easily be modelled narratively, being as there's no rubber stamps for good or evil anymore.
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Temp, are you high?
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With the Gozreh example in particular, what about alignment made this any different?
Any player trying to rules lawyer their GM into absurdity is going to have a hard time finding groups to play with.
Why do you think that Edicts and Anathema are not rules?They are rules. But a very specific rule is much easier to bypass than a very vague rule.
You can't honestly be telling me with a straight face that Alignment is not a 'very vague rule'.
We can't even agree if 'Lawful' actually means following the laws of the nation that the character is living in, or just that they are very organized and methodical in their thinking.
Nothing is less strict than edicts. There is no mechanical weight behind edicts. Edicts are, at best, roleplaying prompts.
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Nothing is less strict than edicts. There is no mechanical weight behind edicts. Edicts are, at best, roleplaying prompts.
I'd wager they will have far more mechanical weight to them in the Remaster, at least for clerics and champions and the like.
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This whole thread is about you can maliciously comply with edicts/anathema and still do your own thing.
He's completely unhinged and totally perpendicular to the line, but as far as this sentence goes, I have to admit he's right. OP did ask for what kind of nonsense you could hypothetically get away with if anathema is the only thing stopping your devout characters from doing what they want aside from "GM fiat".
The examples given thus far are nonsensical but the spirit in which they're given seems on the level.
...
Also it took me until just now to realize that Gozre is Gozreh, not some deity I'd never heard about nor the villain of the Ghostbusters movie.
I was saying that alignment is vague and edicts/anathema are strict.
Ah.
Well, I would disagree. I think both are pretty loose. That is why I don't think the loss of Alignment is going to really be felt. The entire system is still a thin veneer over a social agreement among the players to actually advertise accurately how their character is going to behave in-game. Both systems.
But both your pharasma and Gozreh examples have nothing to do with alignment. Any player who really believes that the actions their character are taking is good or evil was going to play their character that way anyway as well. Alignment provided nothing that edicts and anathema don’t except the opportunity for other people to tell you you are playing your character wrong.
The gozreh example also has the worshiper breaking two out of gozreh's three anathema (just because metal is a natural element doesn't mean digging big old mines to get at them isn't despoiling nature) the only way it could be worse is if they were also creating undead to do the mining, I also just more generally don't see how non-disruptive and malicious compliance work together
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A post-alignment discussion on alignements!!!!!!
Hurray!!!
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A post-alignment discussion on alignements!!!!!!
Hurray!!!
There are decades left in the topic.
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I doubt outright evil gods are going to have any appreciable number of good worshipers. Neutral maybe, but not good. But I expect that most neutral worshipers probably pretend to be good by doing good acts so as to not arouse suspicion of being an evil cultist.
Just because good and evil are no longer rules elements doesn't mean that those concepts cease to exist within the context of the game world. They're more grey than they were before, but I doubt you'll have blatantly evil beings being supported by good gods because hopefully there will be a common tenet about respecting the lives and well being of others among good deities.
So here's the thing, though.
There's no longer any such thing as a "Good" god. The gods are just people, of tremendous power, that care about the things that they care about. Even the ones that are what you'd generally consider to be "good" are unlikely to have 100% overlap with what your personal definition fo "good" is, especially if they're not one of the deities that's signed on to the "I want all of my clerical followers to be holy" bandwagon.
Gods have the tenets that they have.
At the same time, it means that your choice of deity isn't as defining. Like, yeah, maybe that follower of Desna happens to also be a murderous con artist who slowly infiltrates the lives of their targets, taking everything they can before murdering and fleeing in the night to some new place. Desna maybe doesn't care much about that... but by the same token, "I'm a loyal worshiper of Desna" isn't going to be a particularly strong defense when the people around them figure out what they're doing and manage to catch them.
That's the whole thing about ditching alignment. We don't really have the whole "these are the good people, those are the bad people" thing anymore. We have "consecrated holy", "consecrated unholy" and "not", and for everything in the "not" block (ie, almost everyone), it's just as morally messy as the real world.
The deities will keep on acting as they did previously. Including upholding the values and behaviours that gave them their alignment in PF2.
Nothing is less strict than edicts. There is no mechanical weight behind edicts. Edicts are, at best, roleplaying prompts.
Well, it is a role-playing game.
Yeah sometimes I do some typos that are really bad but make sense in my head. Then I read it again and its like "how the heck did I do that mistake?"
In quick moving forms of communication, typos really are not a big deal. People either figure out the context or get a response when it is clear that loose language has led to confusion. It shouldn't be treated as such (says the English Professor), so no worries at all about typos, especially on made up/game specific words.
The way I have remembered how to spell Gozreh is learning that it very much is just Herzog backwards, and was intentionally named after the documentarian.
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Yeah sometimes I do some typos that are really bad but make sense in my head. Then I read it again and its like "how the heck did I do that mistake?"In quick moving forms of communication, typos really are not a big deal. People either figure out the context or get a response when it is clear that loose language has led to confusion. It shouldn't be treated as such (says the English Professor), so no worries at all about typos, especially on made up/game specific words.
The way I have remembered how to spell Gozreh is learning that it very much is just Herzog backwards, and was intentionally named after the documentarian.
I second this. I only highlighted my response to the spelling because I thought my own confusion was funny. I could have been clearer at that.
Also, knowing that about Gozreh is cool. Their name often confused me when I was new to the setting.
I have been doing this for both "good" and "evil" gods. But notice how people only complain when I do it for the good gods? Isn't that funny, how its "only being a jerk" when you do it to a good god?
There's no great mystery. Doing evil while nominally worshipping a good deity is jerk behaviour if you fid it at the table because most often any evil brhaviour is disruptive and it gets even moreso if you actually tried to argue that you're technically following your deity's tenets.
People just have a much stronger negative reaction to justifying jerk behaviour than whether or not it is technically correct by lore for a worshipper of an evil deity to bend the rules to mercy. Also probably because there might be a sense that evil characters can justify anything they want if it serves their self interest, regardless whether they are supposed to be Lawful or not
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Here is something for Irori: A mean and obese caricature of the meme redditor. They constantly strive to exercise, learn, and hone their mind but in the most in efficient way possible. When asked for advice they do help, but half the time the advice is unhelpful. They not only protect important records, but all records regardless of how insignificant (also making it difficult to find any record).
Asmodeus: Pinkie Pie "evil" rules barrister. Always negotiate for the best possible interpretation. Rule any place you own with a tyrannical candy coated fist. Torture your enemies with too much candy, tickling, and excessive talking. Buy slave contracts and place them to work at liveable wage (they are still slaves on paper). You never show mercy because when you defeat them you spoil their lunch (whahaha).
I don't get what are supposed to be these characters? Followers of the deity? Well, you can't do anything against that. Clerics or anyone with holy powers from their deity? I highly doubt they will get anything from their gods.
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I have a bigger question of just, why are any of these examples even worshiping the mentioned god, as an example going back a bit to the Rovagug one that's more someone who has gotten out of a cult and is maybe cursed, not a worshiper of rovagug and certainly not some kind of cleric or champion of him
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It seems like maybe the bigger question behind this whole thread is whether the design team at paizo is making it where "heretical" orders of some faiths are going to be common and fully empowered by the divine source of their power, or if that is just not going to be the case.
At any specific table, people can make that call for themselves, but with the whole cult of the dawnflower being declared a error that needed correcting because it wasn't possible for that to happen under Sarenrae's watch, it seems like the official answer is going to be no. Gods are not going to give divine power to people who call themselves followers, but do not cary out the will of the god on Golarion. Players don't really have the power to decide what that will is without talking to their GMs and tables about that, and it seems unlikely there will be many published examples of it either.