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I have yet to see a stat block which specifies immunity to spirit damage. I checked the brass bastion for it. Given we know the exemplar has an ability which calls out its spirit damage effecting constructs, it is possible some combination of the construct and/or mindless trait will specify spirit immunity.
But I'm not sure yet. Paizo maaaaaay not be either given how far off monster core is. There are constructs which definitely have minds and souls. There are devils which are mindless. Neither seems like they should be immune to spiritual damage. Mindless zombies don't either, especially since we know holy damage is supposed to be significant against undead... but maybe it is non-spiritual holy damage you want for mindless undead?
To be fair, the stat blocks for enemies on preview content probably aren't the final product. It is entirely possible that the final product will be updated with that kind of information (or it might be a general rule regarding all construct enemies). If the argument of "wait for the official release" applies to the moans and groans of balance concerns, then it applies here as well.
That being said, they should clarify what precisely spirit damage is, and what some common indicators are for having resistance/immunity to it. Saying "it requires a brain," for it to apply, to me, makes no sense, since we already have a damage type that fulfills this fantasy: Mental Damage. And we already have a mechanic that gives blanket immunity to mental damage/effects, which is the Mindless trait.
Having Mindless affect multiple damage types (one of which doesn't make sense to me) seems a step in the wrong direction for both a balance standpoint as well as a setting standpoint, so hopefully this will be fixed upon the official release (or maybe an errata soon afterward if not).
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I think it's pertinent to this discussion to recall at this time that there is literally no such thing as a "Good character" or an "Evil character" anymore, at least within the Remastered rules. Like, you can totally be a morally good character with Unholy powers... as long as your personal idea of "morally good" can encompass a character who's doing... whatever it is that gaining and using those Unholy powers requires. Remastered no longer expresses any sot of opinion at all about what is and what is not "morally good". The only thing is has left is "signed up for the Great War In Heaven (angelic)", "signed up for the Great War In Heaven (demonic/devilish)", and "didn't". Possibly an extra add-on for "is legit vulnerable to Holy/Unholy".
Did your Unholy Power come with tenets or anathema? Do you personally feel that those drive you to act in ways that you consider Evil? Do you believe that you are incapable of being a good person while also following them? If you answered "no" to any of those questions, then it's possible for you to both be a good person and wield unholy power. Wielding Holy Power as an evil person is just the mirror of that. It really is that simple.
I think you're overstating the change a bit. The Remaster Core Preview references good and evil as values relevant to the holy and unholy traits, and ties them to benevolence and virtue or cruelty and sin. Good and evil are still things with mechanical relevance to holy and unholy, and I wouldn't assume you can kill babies as a holy sanctified cleric just because your anathemas don't explicitly prevent it-- I fully expect the GM/god to strike you down. We don't know how other classes will interact with the trait yet. The Exemplar seems to be able to decide they are on a side and gain the holy or unholy trait without regard to their actual morality, but they are a rare class which is meant to be break the normal rules governing mortals and not finalized to boot.
From the preview:
Sanctification: Some deities sanctify their clerics and
similarly devoted followers. This gives the follower
the holy or unholy trait. The holy trait indicates a
powerful devotion to altruism, helping others, and
battling against unholy forces like fiends and undead.
The unholy trait, in turn, shows devotion to victimizing
others, inflicting harm, and battling celestial powers.
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.
Creature Stat Blocks: Remove the alignment entry
from all creatures. If a creature’s nature is strongly
suffused with the magic of good or evil, the creature has
the holy or unholy trait, and often its Strikes and other
actions do too. Celestials have the holy trait. Fiends and
undead have the unholy trait. (As with most things,
there are occasional exceptions.) A cleric, champion,
herald, or similar follower of a deity might be sanctified
as well, gaining the appropriate holy or unholy trait.
Aligned Damage: Consider adding the holy trait
or unholy trait to an action, spell, or item if it’s often
strongly themed to a deity or the metaphysical fight of
good versus evil.
I have yet to see a stat block which specifies immunity to spirit damage. I checked the brass bastion for it. Given we know the exemplar has an ability which calls out its spirit damage effecting constructs, it is possible some combination of the construct and/or mindless trait will specify spirit immunity.
But I'm not sure yet. Paizo maaaaaay not be either given how far off monster core is. There are constructs which definitely have minds and souls. There are devils which are mindless. Neither seems like they should be immune to spiritual damage. Mindless zombies don't either, especially since we know holy damage is supposed to be significant against undead... but maybe it is non-spiritual holy damage you want for mindless undead?
To be fair, the stat blocks for enemies on preview content probably aren't the final product. It is entirely possible that the final product will be updated with that kind of information (or it might be a general rule regarding all construct enemies). If the argument of "wait for the official release" applies to the moans and groans of balance concerns, then it applies here as well.
That being said, they should clarify what precisely spirit damage is, and what some common indicators are for having resistance/immunity to it. Saying "it requires a brain," for it to apply, to me, makes no sense, since we already have a damage type that fulfills this fantasy: Mental Damage. And we already have a mechanic that gives blanket immunity to mental damage/effects, which is the Mindless trait.
Having Mindless affect multiple damage types (one of which doesn't make sense to me) seems a step in the wrong direction for both a balance standpoint as well as a setting standpoint, so hopefully this will be fixed upon the official release (or maybe an errata soon afterward if not).
The brass bastion I mentioned is a published, final product from Rage of the Elements. It's the new golem for PF2, and does not have specific immunity to spirt damage. The construct trait is also listed in the Rage of the Elements glossary and does not mention spirit damage.
So either the brass bastion will need some errata (a real possibility given how far off monster core was when RoE was published) or spirit damage's immunities will need to be defined better in the damage type itself come the first Core releases.
I would say errata is needed, since I imagine the Brass Bastion is also mindless, and again, having two damage types being susceptible to the same symptom (having a brain) seems backwards in design, since compared to the physical damage types (slash/pierce/bludgeon/bleed), these at least have important distinctions from one another. Whereas Spirit/Mental doesn't seem to. You could literally take all Spirit entries, change them to Mental, and the meanings/ramifications would remain the same.
I think for insight into this, it might be better to look backward at Secrets of Magic. The "On Essences" chapter tries to delineate mental essence and spirit essence, but I'm not sure if succeeds. It also makes some reference to alignment, so using it retroactively here is tricky.
"What would a being without Spirit be like? Much as your physical body can change and grow as you age, work your muscles, or gain weight, Spirit allows you to grow metaphysically. That means a being without Spirit can think, reason, have instincts, and even have a metaphysical alignment, but it has no capacity to grow past those and become a funadmentally different person."
"A being of pure Spirit is would be w mindless quintessential or ethereal construct, neither alive nor dead, requiring programming from a creator to act. Think of a mindless inevitable and you're close."
What makes it is odd is the bass bastion seems not to rely on Spirit, Mental, or Life essence. But a being of pure material is just a rock, so... what powers an elemental golem exactly?
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I think it's pertinent to this discussion to recall at this time that there is literally no such thing as a "Good character" or an "Evil character" anymore, at least within the Remastered rules. Like, you can totally be a morally good character with Unholy powers... as long as your personal idea of "morally good" can encompass a character who's doing... whatever it is that gaining and using those Unholy powers requires. Remastered no longer expresses any sot of opinion at all about what is and what is not "morally good". The only thing is has left is "signed up for the Great War In Heaven (angelic)", "signed up for the Great War In Heaven (demonic/devilish)", and "didn't". Possibly an extra add-on for "is legit vulnerable to Holy/Unholy".
Did your Unholy Power come with tenets or anathema? Do you personally feel that those drive you to act in ways that you consider Evil? Do you believe that you are incapable of being a good person while also following them? If you answered "no" to any of those questions, then it's possible for you to both be a good person and wield unholy power. Wielding Holy Power as an evil person is just the mirror of that. It really is that simple.
I think you're overstating the change a bit. The Remaster Core Preview references good and evil as values relevant to the holy and unholy traits, and ties them to benevolence and virtue or cruelty and sin. Good and evil are still things with mechanical relevance to holy and unholy, and I wouldn't assume you can kill babies as a holy sanctified cleric just because your anathemas don't explicitly prevent it-- I fully expect the GM/god to strike you down. We don't know how other classes will interact with the trait yet. The Exemplar seems to be able to decide they are on a side and gain the holy or unholy trait without regard to their actual morality, but they are a rare class which is meant to be break the normal rules governing mortals and not finalized to boot.
From...
I think the Exemplar still has to follow the rules to gain the appropriate Trait.
No evil person having the Holy trait.
Now, evil person with powers that do have the Holy trait might be feasible, even though the person themselves will not have the Holy trait. We'll know SOON.
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Characters being objectively Good or Evil do not exist any more, but sanctification does reference good and evil, so that's why I used small 'g' and small 'e'. Alignment as a stamp on everybody's soul that labels them on a scale of how good or evil they are is gone, but it seems unlikely a cruel and selfish person would be able to "dedicate themselves to altruism" which is a part of sanctification - ie for a cleric and probably champion.
You may not have to be objectively good to gain holy powers (because no one is) but the systems seems to be clear so far that sanctification means dedicating yourself to cosmic goodness, whatever your internal compass.
And of course as RB says, even an evil creature (small e) seems to have no contradiction slinging spells of holy energy, and just as long as they're not weak to holy it doesn't seem like there'd be any problem. Sanctification only means being able to turn certain sources of spirit damage in to holy or unholy spirit damage. Other abilities seem to dictate by their nature whether they draw on holy or unholy powers in their description, so nephilim and sorcerers are at least fully plausible for "I save kittens but shoot unholy lasers" and "I kick puppies but the hallelujah chorus rings when I tap my heritage"
Oh, and as a PS, I didn't really like divine sorcerers being forced to rely on a deity (and everyone including clerics needing non-neutral deities) but from what we know that's not what holy and unholy is. Divine Lance is spirit damage and any divine caster can use it regardless of deity. Holy sanctification only so far seems to matter to creatures weak to holy ie fiends and plausibly undead.
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I think for insight into this, it might be better to look backward at Secrets of Magic. The "On Essences" chapter tries to delineate mental essence and spirit essence, but I'm not sure if succeeds. It also makes some reference to alignment, so using it retroactively here is tricky.
"What would a being without Spirit be like? Much as your physical body can change and grow as you age, work your muscles, or gain weight, Spirit allows you to grow metaphysically. That means a being without Spirit can think, reason, have instincts, and even have a metaphysical alignment, but it has no capacity to grow past those and become a funadmentally different person."
"A being of pure Spirit is would be w mindless quintessential or ethereal construct, neither alive nor dead, requiring programming from a creator to act. Think of a mindless inevitable and you're close."
What makes it is odd is the bass bastion seems not to rely on Spirit, Mental, or Life essence. But a being of pure material is just a rock, so... what powers an elemental golem exactly?
Well, according to the Bestiary :
"There exist two known methods of animating a golem. The traditional method involves harvesting and implanting an elemental soul or essence within the newly crafted host statue, a procedure seen as vile and blasphemous to those who value the sanctity of the soul; evil or amoral golem crafters tend to prefer this method. The other, less disreputable technique involves siphoning pure positive energy into the statue to artificially imitate the creation of a soul. The result does not give the golem a true soul and is generally a more costly and time-consuming method of creation."
I think for insight into this, it might be better to look backward at Secrets of Magic. The "On Essences" chapter tries to delineate mental essence and spirit essence, but I'm not sure if succeeds. It also makes some reference to alignment, so using it retroactively here is tricky.
"What would a being without Spirit be like? Much as your physical body can change and grow as you age, work your muscles, or gain weight, Spirit allows you to grow metaphysically. That means a being without Spirit can think, reason, have instincts, and even have a metaphysical alignment, but it has no capacity to grow past those and become a funadmentally different person."
"A being of pure Spirit is would be w mindless quintessential or ethereal construct, neither alive nor dead, requiring programming from a creator to act. Think of a mindless inevitable and you're close."
What makes it is odd is the bass bastion seems not to rely on Spirit, Mental, or Life essence. But a being of pure material is just a rock, so... what powers an elemental golem exactly?
Well, according to the Bestiary :
"There exist two known methods of animating a golem. The traditional method involves harvesting and implanting an elemental soul or essence within the newly crafted host statue, a procedure seen as vile and blasphemous to those who value the sanctity of the soul; evil or amoral golem crafters tend to prefer this method. The other, less disreputable technique involves siphoning pure positive energy into the statue to artificially imitate the creation of a soul. The result does not give the golem a true soul and is generally a more costly and time-consuming method of creation."
So by that logic, the former golem should be susceptible to spirit damage and the latter to void... but it doesn't work that way in either case. Pretty weird.
I actually interpret the "positive energy into a makeshift soul" line as taking energy and essentially turning it into an artificial intelligence, which can explain why Androids/Automatons/etc. can still be affected by positive/negative energy, and why it could also fulfill the "affected by mental/spirit damage" lines.
Another potential solution for the Spirit damage conundrum is to make a "Soulless" trait, which makes them immune to effects which require spirits to function (such as spirit damage).
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I actually interpret the "positive energy into a makeshift soul" line as taking energy and essentially turning it into an artificial intelligence, which can explain why Androids/Automatons/etc. can still be affected by positive/negative energy, and why it could also fulfill the "affected by mental/spirit damage" lines.
Another potential solution for the Spirit damage conundrum is to make a "Soulless" trait, which makes them immune to effects which require spirits to function (such as spirit damage).
Androids and Automatons have real souls. Golems do not AFAIK.
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Whatever happens I really hope we don't end up with what they did with bleed damage where the text gives implied immunity that means the value of the damage type will vary wildly from GM to GM.
Androids and Automatons have real souls. Golems do not AFAIK.I actually interpret the "positive energy into a makeshift soul" line as taking energy and essentially turning it into an artificial intelligence, which can explain why Androids/Automatons/etc. can still be affected by positive/negative energy, and why it could also fulfill the "affected by mental/spirit damage" lines.
Another potential solution for the Spirit damage conundrum is to make a "Soulless" trait, which makes them immune to effects which require spirits to function (such as spirit damage).
Who says the souls implemented via positive energy aren't real? Synthetic versus natural doesn't really matter in determining whether something exists or not.
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Who says the souls implemented via positive energy aren't real? Synthetic versus natural doesn't really matter in determining whether something exists or not.Androids and Automatons have real souls. Golems do not AFAIK.I actually interpret the "positive energy into a makeshift soul" line as taking energy and essentially turning it into an artificial intelligence, which can explain why Androids/Automatons/etc. can still be affected by positive/negative energy, and why it could also fulfill the "affected by mental/spirit damage" lines.
Another potential solution for the Spirit damage conundrum is to make a "Soulless" trait, which makes them immune to effects which require spirits to function (such as spirit damage).
IIRC souls are not just positive energy though.
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IIRC souls are not just positive energy though.Who says the souls implemented via positive energy aren't real? Synthetic versus natural doesn't really matter in determining whether something exists or not.Androids and Automatons have real souls. Golems do not AFAIK.I actually interpret the "positive energy into a makeshift soul" line as taking energy and essentially turning it into an artificial intelligence, which can explain why Androids/Automatons/etc. can still be affected by positive/negative energy, and why it could also fulfill the "affected by mental/spirit damage" lines.
Another potential solution for the Spirit damage conundrum is to make a "Soulless" trait, which makes them immune to effects which require spirits to function (such as spirit damage).
Correct to my understanding. At minimum they also include quintessence ie spirit, and possibly trace other elements.
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Am I correct in assuming that vitality/void damage works exactly the same as positive/negative damage did in terms of "who/what it does or doesn't harm"?
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Am I correct in assuming that vitality/void damage works exactly the same as positive/negative damage did in terms of "who/what it does or doesn't harm"?
Yes you are. Those are simply the new names for the concept.
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I don't believe they will make soulless creatures (constructs and mindless undead) immune to spirit damage. But that would make the name cause confusion because spirit == soul-like thing is pretty much stablished. But clearly its something born from the formerly aligned planes which are very much related to souls.
You may wish to reconsider this view in light of the evidence:
Spirit Damage: Directly affecting the spiritual essence of a creature, spirit damage can damage a target projecting its consciousness or possessing another creature even if the target’s body is elsewhere. The possessed creature isn’t harmed by the blast. Spirit damage doesn’t harm creatures that have no spirit, such as constructs. Many effects that deal spirit damage also have the sanctified, holy, or unholy trait/
I could see spirit damage being allowed to affect whatever it is that pilots a mindless creature (i.e. an amount of void pooled into a corpse, perhaps combined with a shred of soul, perhaps not, depending which part of the lore you interrogate and when), if only so that holy powers can still be used to blast zombies. For consistency I would somewhat rather not unless there is a clear division drawn between 'still enough soul' mindless undead and 'not enough spirit' constructs.
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Also automatons being soulless is rather a strange assertion given that was kind of the point of automatons. Most poppets obviously don't, but independent playable poppets explicitly gain a spark of life (which from context of description obviously includes both vital and spiritual essence), so I would move in favour of PC poppets having souls.
Does anyone know if regular old leshies have any soul lore or if they're just pure 'vitae' given form?
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I don't quite get what you mean about automatons. I was giving examples of the difference between construct with soul and without a soul. Automatons have an automaton core instead of a soul (quite a powerful artifact if I might add) a mind with planar energy as power.
Pardon my insistence, but what would the point of the automaton core be if it didn't preserve the soul? Automatons were created as vessels for the Jistkan people to stave off the collapse of their empire. Each automaton core explicitly contains a Jistkan soul, often trapped within, since even if the body is destroyed the core might not be.
These intelligent constructs house actual souls and represent what remains of a dying empire's last attempt at greatness. Automatons combine technological ingenuity with magical power, creating a blended being wholly unique to Golarion.
Does anyone know if regular old leshies have any soul lore or if they're just pure 'vitae' given form?
According to SoM, the "nature spirits" which form leshies aren't actually composed of Spirit at all, hence the fictional author coining the term vitae. But it sounds like they gain Mind and Spirit once they actually form a leshy.
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IIRC souls are not just positive energy though.Who says the souls implemented via positive energy aren't real? Synthetic versus natural doesn't really matter in determining whether something exists or not.Androids and Automatons have real souls. Golems do not AFAIK.I actually interpret the "positive energy into a makeshift soul" line as taking energy and essentially turning it into an artificial intelligence, which can explain why Androids/Automatons/etc. can still be affected by positive/negative energy, and why it could also fulfill the "affected by mental/spirit damage" lines.
Another potential solution for the Spirit damage conundrum is to make a "Soulless" trait, which makes them immune to effects which require spirits to function (such as spirit damage).
You literally posted a quote that says that one method of animating a construct is by taking positive energy and turning it into an artificial soul to inhabit the construct.
Well, according to the Bestiary :
"There exist two known methods of animating a golem. The traditional method involves harvesting and implanting an elemental soul or essence within the newly crafted host statue, a procedure seen as vile and blasphemous to those who value the sanctity of the soul; evil or amoral golem crafters tend to prefer this method. The other, less disreputable technique involves siphoning pure positive energy into the statue to artificially imitate the creation of a soul. The result does not give the golem a true soul and is generally a more costly and time-consuming method of creation."
The big question becomes whether you need a genuine (read: natural) soul for Spirit Damage to affect you, in which case, I don't see the difference in whether the soul is natural (true) or artificial (made to inhabit a construct), since Spirit Damage doesn't make that distinction for us. The only distinction it makes is that it doesn't harm creatures that don't have a spirit.
Of course, the quote of Spirit Damage expressly not affecting constructs kind of debunks anything here (though I wish they would put Spirit Damage as an immunity in each Construct statblock for consistency, since not many GMs are going to expressly know that Constructs are immune to Spirit Damage), but it kind of puts the Beastiary entry in how constructs are made into question, given that one method takes natural elemental souls and infuses them into a given construct, whereas another takes positive energy and creates an "artificial intelligence" soul into a given construct, either of which could be grounds for Spirit Damage affecting them to begin with.
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Holy and Unholy are more about intent than Good and Evil were, but are still roughly homologous since Holy is about "selflessness" and "wanting to help people" while Unholy is more about "selfishness" and "cruelty".
So like a Holy Evil thing might be something that wants to help people very badly, it just has seriously misguided notions about "what exactly that involves."
An Unholy Good thing might be someone who reliably helps end threats to communities, because the pay is good and the work (i.e. killing) is fun.
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You know what would be cool? And something I've unconsciously wanted since I first read through Sorcerer years ago? I want the fiendish bloodlines to have a blasting focus spell or two that draw on their origins, and thus have the Unholy trait...and also the Sanctified trait. So if you mostly draw on the hellish magic of your bloodline to fight but are sufficiently buddy-buddy with Nocticula or Ragathiel, then hey presto, your innate hellacious firebomb or whatever that burns at the core of celestials is also Holy and bears blessings against fiends. (And burns a bandit as surely as most anything else.) That would be sick. :3
Ditto for celestial bloodlines getting unholy blessings in a campaign like Blood Lords!
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Holy and Unholy are more about intent than Good and Evil were, but are still roughly homologous since Holy is about "selflessness" and "wanting to help people" while Unholy is more about "selfishness" and "cruelty".
So like a Holy Evil thing might be something that wants to help people very badly, it just has seriously misguided notions about "what exactly that involves."
An Unholy Good thing might be someone who reliably helps end threats to communities, because the pay is good and the work (i.e. killing) is fun.
I actually believe there might be mortals with this kind of corner cases. I think some people would love them. And GMs can always houserule.
But the Golarion deities are another thing completely.
Now, the replacing of alignment by holy/unholy makes even the deities feel less straightjacketed. But that mostly makes a difference for people who saw alignment as a straightjacket. I did not, so for me it changes basically nothing.
Holy and Unholy are more about intent than Good and Evil were, but are still roughly homologous since Holy is about "selflessness" and "wanting to help people" while Unholy is more about "selfishness" and "cruelty".
So like a Holy Evil thing might be something that wants to help people very badly, it just has seriously misguided notions about "what exactly that involves."
An Unholy Good thing might be someone who reliably helps end threats to communities, because the pay is good and the work (i.e. killing) is fun.
I actually believe there might be mortals with this kind of corner cases. I think some people would love them. And GMs can always houserule.
But the Golarion deities are another thing completely.
Now, the replacing of alignment by holy/unholy makes even the deities feel less straightjacketed. But that mostly makes a difference for people who saw alignment as a straightjacket. I did not, so for me it changes basically nothing.
To be fair, I don't think we'll technically ever see a deities themselves listed as 'holy' or 'unholy'. These are traits which they grant to followers who wish to be sanctified (with some deities in fact requiring it, like Iomedae). I don't remember if we've seen a deity who allows both holy and unholy sanctification, but we can't always take a 1:1 with a deity allowing sanctification and that deity themselves. On the other hand, it stands to reason a deity thought of as a beacon of justice, who encourages their followers toward helping others, and who allows or requires holy sanctification ought to be considered pretty holy themselves, even if we never get a future alignment initial for them.
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This may be a bit off-topic but something that was quite hard to put into words has been rubbing me the wrong way about alignment for years and the changes with Remaster have helped highlight what that is.
** spoiler omitted **...
You know that all matter is energy, right ?
So, same difference.
Also, AFAIK, Vitality is the new name of positive energy. I believe it is not the same as the Vital essence.
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Positive Energy is the SOURCE of life itself, renaming it Vitality only reinforces the strangeness that life is and at the same time is not itself magical and the souls are both real and normal things as well as infinitely complex raw magical energy.
Life if magic but it's not but it is, every element is another form of raw magic but then again it's not.
It's like there are two kinds of magic, one being the magic of existence and then Magic that is magical because... well, just because.
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Positive Energy is the SOURCE of life itself, renaming it Vitality only reinforces the strangeness that life is and at the same time is not itself magical and the souls are both real and normal things as well as infinitely complex raw magical energy.
Life if magic but it's not but it is, every element is another form of raw magic but then again it's not.
It's like there are two kinds of magic, one being the magic of existence and then Magic that is magical because... well, just because.
RL Matter and energy.
Matter is energy, but with its own set of laws, more familiar to us that those governing energy.
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Also, AFAIK, Vitality is the new name of positive energy. I believe it is not the same as the Vital essence.Maybe? Vitality is in opposition to Void I guess. But since the Wood elemental plane is involved now, so Vitality does seem to have something to do with life/growing and it's not so closely associated to the outer planes formerly-known-as-good as positive was? I will admit, I am not completely familiar with all the backstory.
I think the real answer is "we are game designers not theologians or philosophers, it's not a fully worked out and internally consistent metaphysics. Use what we give you, fill in the blanks yourself...and roll." ;)
Positive and Negative energies have been True Neutral for a long, long time.
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[I think the remaster removes that conflict, for non-holy PCs anyway. No more "I totally count as good aligned for the purposes of getting free paladin reaction stabs but also can torture prisoners for the greater good" rogues, for instance. The main thing that might get a little gross is that stuff like Divine Wrath can fall upon the innocent now.
I'd honestly have preferred that Good/Holy characters kept the old alignment damage rules and evil characters didn't. I understand why they didn't do that from a mechanical perspective (symmetry is much easier to write, mechanically) and from an in-play perspective (nobody wants to have their divine lances bounce off bears and fire elementals).
The real problem is that with alignment there's no distinction in neutrality between "innocent baby", "hungry animal", and "hardened mercenary who will work for bad guys but isn't actually evil". They all just get lumped into "neutral." Because the pre-remaster alignment damage rules (for Good damage at least) were designed around neutral creatures that were all pure innocent Neutral babies. Not rampaging Neutral fire elementals, psychotic proteans, booty-hungry pirates, or angry bears.
Tl;dr alignment was narrow enough that you couldn't assume all the monsters the PCs fought were Evil, but it was also sufficiently broad that there were whole classes of enemies (elementals, monitors, wild animals, bandits) that fell under the "pure innocent child" umbrella of neutrality when they really should not have.
Technically Divine Wrath could always hurt innocents because innocent could mean neutral, as you point out.
I also don't think Holy creatures being immune to Holy damage would have solved your problem. While I believe almost all Holy people will be good, most good people will not be Holy. This might be the most significant change from alignment for the lore. One could be Good just by doing good deeds and acting as a good person. Holy requires divine intervention. You could be the most altruistic, giving person in the world, but you won't become Holy from it unless a god takes notice.
What are you talking about? (Pre-Remaster) Divine Wrath is absolutely alignment damage. Always has been.
It can sicken neutral creatures, but can't damage them.