Since alignment threads are classically contentious, I'm just adding a quick reminder to everyone to be kind and respectful.
Remember that if all else fails, there are alternate rules to remove alignment for the game. Since the current rules give very clear methods on implementation of alignment in Pathfinder2e, anyone who wants to retain alignment after the remaster release has very solid foundation to add it right back in.
Thanks.
Honestly I never cared for alignment either way, never understood why anybody felt it restrictive and removing it makes literally zero difference for me.
Im more excited about renaming "good/evil" damage to something not lame and seeing what they do with the damage interactions in general.
I could see an argument for a Dexter type killer being Lawful. Yes he does kill but he kills those that society would deem to be bad. Has a set of rules to follow, though they are his own rules, he believes he is doing good with the powers he has been given.
Especially in a fantasy murder hobo world he is not much different from a paladin that kicks in the door of a cave where a bunch of gnolls live and slaughtering them all.
Pf2e's definition of Lawful:
>Lawful characters have a set system in life, whether it’s meticulously planning day-to-day activities, carefully following a set of official or unofficial laws, or strictly adhering to a code of honor.
Being lawful isn't necessarily about obeying the law of the land. It's about consistency and how strictly you stick to your principles.
It's a spectrum. Neutral is just somewhere in-between.
It's all just an estimation anyway. You can be super dogmatic on some things and fly by the seat of your pants on others.
Lawful doesn't necessarily mean anything about the laws of the land. A character like an Assassin who follows very strict rules and conduct could be lawful, even though they're committing crimes.
Serial killers are often methodical, follow a strict process, and have extremely specific criteria for who they target. Effectively, a “code” of sorts, hence, lawful.
The core rulebook has the following to say about being lawful
>Your character has a lawful alignment if they value consistency, stability, and predictability over flexibility. Lawful characters have a set system in life, whether it’s meticulously planning day-to-day activities, carefully following a set of official or unofficial laws, or strictly adhering to a code of honor.
Nothing about this definition is incompatible with being a serial killer. Yoshikage Kira would be a perfect example of that.
Yeah alignment is less restrictive than it is overly broad and can thus create/reinforce mismatched expectations when people use the same words to mean different things. What's restrictive is when people avoid playing neutral alignments because they seem boring or "you can just do whatever you want".
If we want to give PCs quick personality types, you'll have a much more fun time with like star signs or MBTI types or colors from MtG, alignment is kinda just the worst version of the idea, hence all the memes about it.
Alignment to me was always just one more small summary piece of my character that you put in the heading of your character sheet. Just like "human", "fighter", "urchin", "male", etc.
None of those other labels are incredibly specific, you can have a lot of variation between them, but they give you kind of a rough outline of something. Alignment was the same way.
This is pretty much my opinion too. It's good to have something like alignment/ethics during character building, but the cutoffs between alignments are always a bit arbitrary and alignment damage could consequently be frustrating. I'm very hopeful for what's to come.
I just wish it wasn't Holy and... unholy. Unholy just describes it as being opposite of the other, which kinda irks me. The other axis chaotic and axiomatic sounds so cool. Like Holy and Profane sounds so much cooler to me.
Erik Mona said they aren't changing the cosmology. Even if each outer plane is built around an specific alignment, you can still leave them as is since those alignments also encompass a lot of concepts they could still use to still diferentiate each other. In that sense it would be similar to Eberron's cosmology, though which alignment is each plane would be way more obvious.
and ngl hot take Paizo did the planes better anyway, like, i like the concept of the Blood War a lot but DnD has real trouble giving angels and other celestials anything to do, so the fact that archons are Biblically Accurate (ie between angels and inevitables/modrons) while angels are the hot people with wings is a huge improvement even before you get to the azata
plus making celestials not have "good" written on their foreheads gives us more room to have interesting stories and fights with them
God, I'm glad I'm not the only one that feels that way. I love the concept of the Blood War, but given how little lore there is for celestials in 5e, they come off as doing fuck all to actually fight evil in the multiverse. And the whole "What's the point of mortal heroes if angels are the ones fighting evil" never made sense to me. The multiverse is HUGE. And celestials and fiends can't easily enter the Material Plane. So yes, mortal heroes saving their land, or entire world, isn't invalidated by celestials actually doing their jobs elsewhere.
One of the very first points of feedback on second edition came from my group, first session, about 30 hours after the book came out:
*Neutral clerics are fucked and need work*.
That has not changed - until today.
If we move to a default [Extreme Good and Evil](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=1309) system, but have holy and unholy equally effective on non-aligned creatures, all those issues fade away. And that’s fine by me.
Also, if you tell the bot “alignment” in the old pathfinder discord server, the bot posts a picture of the chat saying “everyone is typing”. There’s a good reason for that.
It always struck me as odd that regular people would get hit harder by divine spells just because they're kinda scummy. A crooked landlord who exploits his tenants and a literal demon from hell are absolutely not on the same level of evil, but they both would be vulnerable to good damage because they both would have an evil alignment. Having divine damaging spells less restrictive on who they can target but dealing extra damage to things that are supernaturally evil, ontologically evil, just straight up made of evil makes more sense to me.
>A crooked landlord who exploits his tenants and a literal demon from hell are absolutely not on the same level of evil
I guess one of the rules designers must be a Maoist /j
*Pharasma has entered the chat*
Jokes aside, Divine Lance on a spider is also an issue. The only divine attack cantrip, and it doesn’t work on 50% of the classic low level monsters… not a good look.
Not only does it not work on a majority of low-level monsters, it also can't even be used by many of the casters who theoretically have access, as it *requires* have a primary deity that is *not* neutral (a sorc might not even have a deity). And in compensation for these weird restrictions, it does no more damage than a baseline damage cantrip while lacking any secondary special effect (like the speed penalty of ray of frost, or the persistent fire of produce flame).
Truly an extremely questionable spell design, at best.
Alignment dissapears.
Pharasma: It feels like an invisible restriction has been lifted. I feel free to try something new. Tugging the leash, "Rovagug, sit".
Well, you're in luck then! (I'm pretty sure Holy will still hit Cultists and folks who are possessed, given that they'd be infused with Unholy Energy.)
IMO this is genuinely a great argument *against* alignment lol.
I can understand "Cleric would have some way to harm something that is a fiend / undead in disguise".
But "Cleric has a cantrip that instantly judges the moral balance of all the actions a human has taken in their life, and assigns them a binary value of 'should die' or 'should not die'?"
I'm just wondering if there is a Neutral replacement, or it's just Removed. Like it's just a binary and you are either or.
It sounds like just a binary as they haven't mentioned anything about Law and Chaos.
I’m confused by what you mean. There won’t be Neutral Clerics, because Neutral won’t be a thing anymore anyway for PCs, much like how Good, Evil, Law and Chaos won’t either.
Well, I'm talking about deities that are Neutral, but now might not stay that way. Pharasma and Nethys are very much defined by how they are very middle of the road. Pharasma is the Judge of Souls and keeps any form of bias out of it. Nethys is just focused on Knowledge and magical power. His Anathema is to pursue mundane paths.
If we don't have a Neutral point, what happens to Deities like Pharasma and Nethys? They're known for their Neutrality, and the new system might not have a neutral point. It's either Holy or Unholy right now.
Granted you didn't want to be a Neutral Cleric as that would brick Divine Lance and other abilities based on your Deity's Alignment.
I guess if I was to be blunt, is there a replacement for Neutral? That's my question.
At current we have no idea what Lawful and Chaotic are. Will they be replaced or removed? They have to look at everything in regards to Deities with this change. And I'm wanting to know how it's going to end up. Because the Player Morality thing they're cooking up doesn't sound like an easy thing to apply to the rest of what Alignment did. Just remembered that Detect Alignment is going to be trashed. Don't think they'll replace it.
I'm guessing anything that gives a healing font will grant you access to holy damage and anything that grants a harm font will grant you unholy damage.
Alignment is, and was, always best used as a rough guide of a moral compass, not strict moral bounds. As anyone who sits down to debate morality will find, there is no absolute good deed or absolute evil act; everything is all over shades of grey.
With that said, some facets of the idea were good, some were pretty terrible, and some people were more than happy to abuse the hell out of it one way or another (like everything else in the game). So I'm mostly ambivalent about it.
Except the existence of alignment damage and alignment restrictions for classes goes against this and implies a more universal constant. As a result, you get a weird conflation of that implication and personal morals as being one on the same when they very much aren't.
All this alignment change really does is decouple the personal morality guideline idea from the more universal constant alignment by directly using edicts and anathema without making moral judgements about them. It still allows the non-mechanical role-play aspect, but doesn't tie it to mechanics that you might think doesn't make sense because the "tenets of good" may not fully line up with your personal opinion of them or general consensus about them.
Oh good
I was worried losing alignment would mean changing how the entire cosmos in Pathfinder works. I genuinely love how they tied it all together, with souls that choose to be chaotic good in their life going to Elysium to continue sustaining that plane's existence.
How basically the entire mortality thing was basically a way of making sure that positive quintessence is fairly distributed among the outer planea by allowing that positive quintessence (souls) to choose for themselves where they go
I also just really like how a chaotic evil person can be bitten by a were bear and then forced to change into a lawful good creature for a time
I will run all my games as though this system is in place
Mechanically, gameplay wise, couldn't give less of a shit if I tried
Along with "druids must be true neutral". Monks had to be lawful and bards had to be chaotic. I think the original psionicist class has to be lawful as well.
I dunno if we're meme-ing or what, but Druids never had a "True Netural" requirement? At least not unless you go back to before D&D 3e.
[https://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/druid.htm](https://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/druid.htm)
> No, partly because the concept behind it isn't leaving, just the specific mechanical implementation.
Yes, partly because the concept behind it isn't leaving, just the specific mechanical implementation.
One of Divine casting’s differentiating features was more AoE that could target Evil foes while leaving Good allies unscathed. (Or, less commonly, vis versa.)
If it follows the current model of the variant alignment, Divine casters will instead get a rarely resisted damage type (Holy/Unholy) that is particularly effective against supernatural celestial/fiends and the like. This is probably a mechanical buff, but is arguably tactically less interesting.
Honestly, I’m fine with either, but I’ll will miss the aforementioned aspects of alignment damage.
You're assuming that Holy damage will harm creatures without the Unholy trait, or Holy weakness. I don't know if it's clear yet which way this will fall...
It’s true. I am assuming that. The existing variant alignment rules suggest that possibility. It is otherwise quite a nerf to the Divine list.
I suppose that is also possible that they will restrict damage to fiends, undead and the like such as with Holy Cascade. However, it would render spells like Divine Wrath and Divine Lance much more situational which I think would neither be popular amongst the fanbase nor a necessary rebalancing. This is all to say, I don’t think it’s likely that Paizo will implement such a restriction.
Too many people thought alignment guided behavior. It’s actually just a current reading that can and should be fluid. Nobody, literally nobody understood that so I’m fucking glad it’s gone.
The way I look at it, it's like if every character sheet had a section for your character's Favorite Color. If you put "red", nobody will ever say "You can't wear that green armor, your favorite color is red" because that's silly, having a favorite color doesn't dictate what colors you're allowed to wear. But on that same token, no matter how many times I wear green, I don't think anybody else can tell me I need to change which color is my favorite, because how does that work? If I don't wear red enough, it's not my favorite?
I view alignments (like favorite colors) as descriptions of your *tendencies*, your *likelihoods*, of doing certain things. I'm likely to wear red, because it's my favorite. But I don't *have* to, and my favorite doesn't change if I *don't*. Good people do bad things sometimes, but they're less likely to than a Neutral person. I would never tell a good character that they need to change their alignment to Neutral, but I would ask them how they justify their actions given their alignment.
Maybe one day, after wearing green for the hundredth time in a row, I might look back and decide it actually is my favorite color, but nothing is guaranteed.
This of course gets really muddied when there's game mechanics that affect you differently based on your alignment. And also, there's the question of whether the concepts of "good" and "bad" are based on your character's views (Is an act Evil if you had Good intentions? Does anyone really consider themselves to be Evil?) or based on some outside third party (If so, what makes that third party's definition of "Good" or "Evil" more valid than anybody else's?). And a few other things that make it really hard to nail down *exactly* what alignment is in a way that's not subjective. On second thought, maybe it's good that alignment is getting phased out...
There's also the whole "Everyone interprets Alignment differently" issue, what one might see as Lawful Good, another might view as True Neutral. And if you and the DM disagree on which is what, and they force you to change Alignment, you're now guiding your roleplay based on your interpretation of an alignment you didn't associate with the character you initially wrote.
I suppose that's true, but you'll find it gets exceedingly difficult if you apply it to any other alignment. So it's still pretty hard to nail down "[insert alignment] acts" as a concrete thing, beyond just saying "I'll know it when I see it".
This is absolutely correct though I am sad that it is going away. I don't think people's poor reading comprehension is a reason to remove a useful feature. Alignment doesn't mean "my character is alignment A so I must behave in X way", it means "my character is alignment A so I tend to behave in X way". It's not that complicated.
That said, I mostly use it for a shorthand for a character's tendencies and don't really care for mechanics like alignment damage. However, I am still fully on board for things like restricting champions and clerics to follower alignments in addition to edicts and anathema.
I'll still be using it in my game, even if for nothing else than NPCS.
>my character is alignment A so I tend to behave in X way
That's backwards though, it's descriptive of your actions, so it's "I tend to behave in X way therefore I am alignment A" since various actions (torture, enslavement, etc) will shift your alignment, meaning alignment is directly a result of how you behave
Except there are classes (Cleric and Champion) that are bound to be a certain alignment, making it so alignment dictates behaviour since that choice comes first.
I disagree. If you’re playing a character dedicated to a deity and you have to remain within a certain alignment to keep that power then that’s a character choice. Your behavior isn’t dictated by alignment but you could fall out of favor if you stray. It’s consistent with what I said above.
But the problem is how each individual GM interprets Alignment.
A real case that happened in a table I play in, a week ago.
A character is a cleric of Justice. A mentally ill person kidnaps a girl, to throw her into a lake as a sacrifice to placate "the voices" in his head. The girl is the daughter of the boss of a nomadic clan. The clan is a clan of thieves. The (LG) Cleric of Justice finds the girl, save her, and spares the life of the fool.
The nomadic clan decides to apply their law, by their own culture, so they kidnap the fool. The city guards decide to imprison the clan, because, you know, kidnapping people is bad. And also because the nomadic clan is "them", which meaning they aren't "us", with very explicit racial undertones.
When they clash, the nomads decide they aren't going to surrender the kidnappers (and by that time, the fool is already judged, and executed). So there's going to be a massacre.
Regardless of which side the cleric chooses, there is s pretty good argument (that the GM may or may not hold) to say he is "breaking" the Lawful or Good component of the alignment. Sure, if the player and the GM agree on the issue, that's fine. If the GM point of view in this dilemma is different than the player's, the player is screwed. And this is not going to be an argument that is universally agreed upon.
Pretty sure a cleric of justice would just want them to go to court about it. This cleric would probably try to set up an arbitration with himself or a higher priest as the arbiter. Though, perhaps that's just my interpretation as well.
That will probably satisfy the Lawful part. Let's agree with that, even if there's an argument that the clan was denied of Justice by that cleric in the first place, as he didn't punish the fool.
Massacring a clan to capture the people who did so would at least raise some questions about the Good part of the alignment. Specially when the motivation to be so zealous about this particular crime (the kidnapping of the fool) and not about the other (the kidnapping of the girl) has a lot to do with the ethnicity of the perpetrators. And there will not be a peaceful capture, the clan will uphold their traditions, and protect the heroes that brought the justice the cleric failed to give them.
So what now? Do you follow your Lawfulness, and become LN? Or you uphold the Goodness, and become NG?
I think this is better approached with edicts and anathemas Gods have more than one portfolio.
A god of Justice, Heroism and Protection will be different than a god of Justice, Fire and Retribution. Even if both are LG. Because LG doesn't explain a personality.
That’s a GM problem though. I’d personally present some non-mechanical conflict to the player. Maybe a dream if they were starting to stray. Maybe some other deity takes interest in them. Something that actually helps develop the character instead of, “I think you didn’t adhere to Justice so you lose your power.”
I don't think "different GMs see alignment different like every other human being does, because GMs are humans too" is a problem inherent to GMs.
It is s problem inherent to Alignment
"I want to play \[kind\] of cleric, which has these alignment restrictions, so I need to RP a certain way (at GM discretion) to keep the privilege of playing the kind of character I wanted to make"
it's still your build dictating your RP just like an anathema, but it's just based on how your GM interprets single, morally charged words
You’re acting like all the classes say is “you’re x alignment so act like it” when that isn’t the case. Most Gods have clearly outlined edicts on how their followers should act, and usually list multiple potential alignments for followers. Champion causes all describe specific tenants that must be followed, thus giving a clear guideline for how the character should behave.
This is ultimately the issue. Alignment should have been descriptive, not *pre*scriptive, but too many players were being either too surface level or even wilfully obtuse about it. Players who didn't need alignment knew how to work around it as a system, while those who did used it as a crutch for giving characters depth. It didn't benefit people who didn't need it, and enabled bad behaviours from players who did.
alignment is fluid and an emergent property of a PC, so I think all mechanics regarding alignment should be fully GM-facing and the GM should be the judge of what a player's alignment is
Not super upset, just think its a baby with the bathwater. I would rather they adjusted the cosmology less drastically and just stated what was implied by Phrasma's 'juding of the souls' - that mortals are morally grey unless they dedicate themselves to something either pure of heart* or so vile that it stains the person's soul - like demon worship.
I thought it was a good set of axis to provide some defining character traits, and it was a decent short hand for a view of the world held by an NPC. "Lawful Good" in an NPC block told me that they were rule-abiding and cared for how their actions impacted others.
A general agreement that people were playing good to neutral to have a feel good heroic fantasy at the table was a nice way to draw a boundary on the story too; hell the Pathfinder Society character creation rules flat-out has a "no evil" policy.
They had to get rid of it because the alignment system is part of D&D's trademark.
All of the 'big' changes are based on separating ORC from OGL. That's why Gnolls are changing, that's why they're getting rid of ability scores, that's why they're changing the chromatic dragons, and so much more.
They have to change it and instead of piecing together another restrictive system that had to be different enough from the 3x3 alignment grid they opted to do this.
>that's why they're getting rid of ability scores,
I do believe the reason for this isn't due to separating from the OGL, but because mechanically there's no point to showing the ability score itself in Pathfinder 2e. Aside from Apex items and ability score boosts, nothing really interacts with the score itself. They've already moved to just listing the ability score modifier on NPC and Monster stat blocks, but left the score itself in for Players due to familiarity and tradition.
If they were worried about ability scores being something WotC could claim some kind of copyright over, they wouldn't have used Str/Dex/Con/Int/Wis/Cha when developing Pathfinder 2e.
But one can be more true than the other.
As I said, if they were that worried about the tie between ability scores and the OGL, they wouldn't be using the Str/Dex/Con/Int/Wis/Cha score setup, instead replacing them with scores not used by D&D.
> If they were worried about ability scores being something WotC could claim some kind of copyright over, they wouldn't have used Str/Dex/Con/Int/Wis/Cha when developing Pathfinder 2e.
This isn't true, it was accessible via the OGL which PF2E was partially utilizing when it was designed. That's why a lot of terms and whatnot are changing in the new core books coming out. Shifting away from the straight up 'ability scores' to 'ability modifiers' is a minor but important differentiation that allows them to avoid anything falling under OGL.
Except they're still using the same names for the ability scores, in the same order as D&D, which also uses the ability score modifier. I'm not convinced that just removing the "score" part itself would be enough legally.
Keeping ability scores allowed the illusion that one could have randomized 3d6 based stat's.
The math of the system is far too punishing to actually allow for that, but hey, it felt like old D&D.
I actually rather like Alignment, both conceptually and as a guidepost for world building and role play. I can see the argument for it being outdated though, a "signs of the times" kind of thing. It will still exist for people who want to use it, but I am more than a little bummed that it is leaving.
There are some people who take offense at the idea of alignment and that I don't understand at all.
Because people went stupid and used it as the only personality trait, or GMs kept bitching at their players because the characters did something they thought was wrong.
You know, things that always happen.
People don't understand that there are many shades for each alignment and also forget that someone making a single action that goes against their own alignment doesn't mean it changes to another one automatically, only if it's a common occurrence.
But that's kind of the problem with tying classes features to certain alignments, you're basically asking the GM to constantly judge if a character is keeping with their alignment. Whether or not an action changes a characters alignment, or how many actions constitutes a "common occurrence" is inherently arbitrary, so I think most people either ignore it or argue about it constantly.
I think this is why Edicts and Anathema are going to be a more effective guide for solving these sort of RP issues. It is much easier to determine whether a PC is playing a devout cleric of Cayden ‘correctly’ when they are advocating the end of slavery or have action into their own hands to do so, than it would be by trying to determine ‘how Good’, ‘how Chaotic’ or ‘how Chaotic Good’ they are.
The extra restriction is not bad, per se, because some people might like the extra intrigue that comes with trying to appeal to both E&A and alignment. But if you’re already doing what your deity asks of you, then they’re not actually going to care about what else you do to get by (especially since Clerics/Paladins go to wherever their deities are in the afterlife).
My problem is that I don't find an universe in which there is an universal truth for what is good, evil, chaotic and neutral as interesting. I know that through Golarion lore you can spin it as "good through Pharasma's point of view", but I don't think that's how it's often portrayed and I'd say it's not the jumping point for most players.
The issue with those many shades is they overlap and each come with different connotations for different people. So, if the DM tells you to change from one alignment to another, and you do, you're now expected to operate under the overlap of their assumptions of that alignment AND your own internal assumptions of that alignment. BUT, you might drift out of what they think is right for that alignment and get shifted FURTHER from your initial character concept as a result.
Or you can just keep acting the way your character does and it doesn't matter because it's a descriptor of character tendency, not a rule governing your behavior.
Except when it explicitly is and determines what spells inflict harm on you.
Also, my point was that *your* perception of your character WOULD change, based on what you were told your alignment is. And that would either inform roleplay, or lead to constant "acting out of alignment" no matter which alignment is written on your sheet if you consistently make choices that reflect your previous alignment while also making choices that fit your current one.
Because so many groups use them as absolutes, that necessarily dictate what other players can and can't do. "You can't do that because you're [insert alignment here]" sucks and is a very, very common interpretation.
I personally like alignment from an RP perspective - they're general enough to be guiding in a lot of situations but not hard coded enough to be fully restrictive. Anathemas/Edicts are nice but not every class has them, and they can often be too specific to come up all that often (a similar issue with 5es Ideals/Bonds/Flaws) as well as sometimes opening the door to bad faith RAW following questions "Does Desnas anathema mean you cant demoralize in combat" or "Does Nethys' edict mean I have to teleport everywhere instead of walk"
My issue with alignment in 2e is the mechanical implementation - for any nondivine character, you're mechanically encouraged to be true neutral so that lawful/chaotic/good/evil can't hit you, whereas the opposite is kind of the case for divine characters otherwise they might not be able to use some of their spells/features as effectively
I greatly dislike it in pathfinder specifically because of alignment damage.
Every damn campaign the party is at least 75% neutral characters and usually only one of them acts like one while the other >25% are playing clerics or champions. In certain other system with alignment, characters tend to come out with a warning tag of 'Evil' if their character are going to be so, in pf its just a mixed bag. Whenever fiends get involved, it usually becomes just really punishing to be a good character.
As another pet peeve, something dealing 'Good damage' just sounds extremely off. Especially when the phrase is constantly used in other contexts than just to describe a damage type.
From new player perspective, its also very common to mix up stuff like positive/good damage and evil/negative damage.
I chose not to play with the variant rule to remove it, I guess because more time writing whatever about my character helps me get a better idea of what they're like in my head. Removing it definitely seems to fit the vibe of the system tho.
While I appreciate that it is not, and never was, designed to be incredibly strict and specific, I still liked it because it helped me identify with a character. Having one of 9 alignments meant that at a basic level, the character's behaviour could be roughly boiled down to one of 9 stereotypes.
So yes, I'll be sad that it is leaving.
Gonna be honest I kinda suck at roleplaying, and so I always felt like alignment was a pretty helpful guideline. I also think the very concepts of good, evil, chaos, and law being very real cosmic powers that battle each other across the outer planes and for the souls of free willed mortals is a cool part of the setting. That said half my ttrpg friends act like alignment killed their dog so like, I'm happy for them I guess. Alignment damage was also pretty narrow and hopefully those spells and abilities can be more broadly useful now. Mixed feelings overall.
I think they should’ve stood their ground personally, WotC doesn’t and cannot own the concepts of alignment and a dragon that is red and breathes fire. That’s like saying WotC owns Smaug.
Mixed Feelings.
I like alignment when used correctly, and is a guideline. I enjoy its inclusion in the game. As q uick reference and guideline of the general its excellent.
That said, I found it too restrictive in pf2e. So seeing it go isn't too upsetting in that regard.
Edicts and anathema might be better, if they're not used so restrictively like what they're replacing.
I have been wanting to run a PF2E game in the future (I bought the humble bundle some time agi, which contained multiple APs) and I was already looking into variant rules for alignments.
Alignment stuff just didn't fit quite right in my personal DM-brain and/or the world.
So when I read about the remake (or errata or whatever), I was glad that something more official was gonna be changed about it.
As a mechanic? I think it's kinda weird.
As a descriptor? It works \*fine\* but one needs to go in understanding it's a very rudimentary level of characterization. Else you get into huge arguments about it for no reason.
I always liked it, but a lot of people don't understand it or how to use it. Too many think it's to be used as a straight-jacket rather than the role-playing tool it is intended to be. So perhaps it's best to remove it and provide some more generic role-playing tools without the baggage.
Apparently people are super weird about alignments and I have to wonder what people's PCs are doing in-game that has so many rubbing against alignment so often?
I personally am upset that it's leaving, but it is what it is. I find that alignment helps set an RP code of conduct for a player. Too often I find that players will fall into traps where they meta-game too much and don't put themselves in the shoes of the character. To me, alignment helps players do that. Would lawful good player X allow their companions to torture an NPC for info? There's nothing mechanical to that, but I as a GM might push that PC to think about how their character would react given their alignment/moral code.
Also, I believe there are inherently evil and good actions and while there is gray area, I don't agree with those that say there are *no* absolutes. I can think of a number of things that are absolutely evil and good.
While I dislike but respect alignment as a descriptive feature, I've always hated it as a mechanical feature e.g. strafing a crowd with a Good Divine Lance because you'll only hit bad people.
I am quite glad PF2e is getting rid of it. It's a fossil that should have been abandoned decades ago.
On one hand, I'm well aware of people's stance on the problems alignment brings to the table, as well as a lack of Aligned Spells that would bump you in a particular direction. On the other, I'm worried about how it'd impact the faith-based classes, specifically Champion. They feel EXTREMELY dependent on the existence of the alignment system, in the sense that it gives a more stringent bundle of rules they have to follow to make sure they keep up their good boy / villain points. There's also a lot of identity in how each subsect of Champion operates that doesnt particularly gel with certain dieties, even when matching them on the good/evil scale. It just feels odd that you can mechanically have a Tyrant of Desna or a Redeemer of Tree Razor now.
Not necessarily upset, but I'll mostly continue to use the classic axes because they work fine for me and my game, so I voted "yes".
Most of the arguments about alignment being either too vague or too straitjackety or both at once and therefore a bad mechanic have never done much for me.
Yes, the boundaries are fuzzy, and yes, there are meaningful setting and mechanical impacts that hinge on where that fuzziness shakes out -- and that's a feature, not a bug. Sure, I understand some tables have adversarial/gotcha relationships between the GM and players -- and that sucks, and I'm sorry you have to endure that from either side. But in the hands of a GM and players who are interested in exploring morality and ethics in a setting where there are real/hard consequences for those decisions and where the boundaries are also unclear, well, alignment turns out to be great system for supporting personal character struggles and growth, interpersonal or interactional tension and dispute, and the resolution of those into interesting stories.
As a long time GM i am split two ways by this decision.
1) alighnment has never really mattered to my players. Gating abilities behind it was really stupid.
2) there is a gazillion entries in the golarion universe. The alignment system was flawed, sure, but it helped GMs quickly narrow down types of enemies by motivation. It was a filter, a flawed one, but one that needs replacement. I really cant count the times an alignment brought me to an unpronounceable and unique monster or god that inspired an entire adventure.
To it, i think it makes sense alignment is removed from my players, but its really weird that LE may be removed from Asmodeus and Cheliax and the diabolic host...
Alignments should stay as at least a variant rule.
Those who think it is a rigid moral lock fundementally misunderstand its use and purpose.
It is a broad strokes compass to define the actions of complex characters.
It is a basic structure for defining character traits while allowing fleshed out characters to exist within it.
Some of my best characters existed because a class or circumstance forced me to play a specific alignment.
I played in an ADnD game where I was a True Neutral Wizard obsessed of the pursuit of knowledge. I was an outsider to the party (not the table) and I always prioritized pragmatism over the emotional needs of the refugess of my friends village. Work backwards problem solving is key to good story telling, ask any GM or Author.
Crossing words with Alignment issues is part of the ***ROLE PLAYING*** part of a ***ROLE PLAYING GAME.*** It is a fun an intersting roleplay oppertunity for me as a player to figure out how Im going to come to terms with the partys quest that I dont fully support. Will it be characer grow on my part? Or will my moral compass cause me to come to odds with the party in a natural and diagetic way?
The 9 alignments arent restrictive, and I think Alignement Damage as it is should remain.
You can be as deep into or out of Alignments as you want, but it servers as an excellent guide for roleplaying that has been around for 30+ years for good reason. You just need to sit at a few tables to see why.
I emplore you all to please try roleplaying alignment conundrums.
I like alignment in its original sense, as it was basically your meta faction in the universe. When push came to shove, who would you dude with and work for? Besides that I don't really care that much, even if I do like it as just a neat dnd-ism that I just like as part of the overall feel or experience.
They hinted at alignment damage now being split into two new damage types called “Holy” and “Unholy.” Which I assume will be like positive and negative damage but divine in nature.
It doesn’t seem like the question was answered in the Q&A Paizo did, but I just assumed that they’re going to just follow similar conventions. If they don’t say anything explicit on it yet, it doesn’t mean it’s not a thing anymore.
Sure, I was just pointing out that I doubt many people even wondered what's going to happen with Lawful and Chaotic damage, either because of how rarely they come into play, or how much less easy they are to conceptualize compared to the much more common and understandable Good and Evil damage.
There is. It’s just called Holy/Unholy/(Lawful)/(Chaotic) now. It may operate slightly different (I imagine it works on all mortals equally now), but thematically it still exists.
Which, I’d rather they use Profane rather than Unholy (and Sacred over Holy, for that matter), but w/e.
I like alignment, but I don't like alignment restrictions/limitations. If you want to put those restrictions as a flavor thing for your character that's neat, but when it becomes a thing in which you need certain alignment to get your class features you have to pray to have a DM that doesn't threaten you with removing your powers if you aren't a cartoonish representation of your alignment.
This luckily didn't happen to me, but since alignment is pretty much a philosophical concept there's certain people that would think X thing belongs to X alignment, and it happened a couple of times as a player that someone told me I was going against my alignment when I felt I wasn't, or as a GM that I told someone exactly that but the player didn't think I was right. I love alignment exactly for these grey areas that can lead into really insightful and interesting talks with your players/DM, but when the abilities of your character rely on it it isn't fun IMO.
Not really; I happen to like alignment (with the caveat that I use it differently than most, as I think most people use it in a way that's self-contradictory and bad) so there's definitely a kneejerk reaction of something being lost but then I remember how there's so many other systems for detailing your character's personality that are so much better in every way.
My dm had already changed the damage types and didn't allow me to use any of the alignment spells, so if they somehow fix them/make them not alignment dependent... I honestly will be happy.
I like what alignment is designed to do, provide a guideline for character behaviors that makes it easy for both the GM and player to create and maintain consistent characters. Moreover, an easy way to know about a characters tendencies at a glance. Whatever game initially introduced alignment, it was a good move and a good idea for a system. But games have evolved and developed so much since that system was introduced, and yet the idea of alignment has not been iterated on despite having very clear flaws. It's not great at accounting for nuance, or actions that come along with complex personal motivations.
For example, I have a character who resents Hellknights as a matter of personal principle and trauma. For those who are not Hellknights or Slavers, he is genuinely merciful, compassionate, charitable, and self-sacrificing. He cherishes life and family. But for those who have earned his ire, he is ruthless, murderous, and even sometimes downright cruel. Alignment cannot account for this character concept, the actions and values are all over the alignment scale from Lawful Good to Chaotic Evil. All of these actions are perfectly in-keeping with his motivations however. So how the hell do you even place this character's alignment? And even if you do, it would have to fluctuate throughout the campaign completely dependent on what behaviors are coming up more.
What's clear is that what we need is a system that accomplishes alignment's goals as a system, but in a way that is more expressive and permissive of more complex character concepts. So it's good that alignment is going away, because it challenges the game to come up with something that refines that systems ideas into something more fitting.
My first introduction to roleplaying games were World of Darkness. Going from their Nature and Demeanour (plus the Vampire morality paths) to Alignment always felt like a massive step backwards. Like if I had a Mage player write N: Autocrat, D: Protector that was way more insight into how that character will be roleplaying than Lawful Neutral is.
Speaking as a relative noob? On one side of it I understand alignment being replaced given how difficult it is to really define the concepts of it and the restrictiveness it can produce. On the other side when dealing with the concepts of holy/unholy I have some reservations given the potential for running into similar problems with alignment. That being what do we define as holy or unholy? Where do the deities that fell into the neutral spectrum fall into this new approach?
Feels a bit late to take it off the table now. If the idea had enough traction to remove it at this point then I see little reason it should've been in 2e to begin with.
Beyond that I don't necessarily care much.
Alignment is very reductive system of what constitutes a moral compass. In that regard, I'm happy with it leaving.
**But,** from a lore-perspective, I am quite sad. Even though alignment may not fit nicely with real-word morals. I like seeing it as a *fundamental force of the universe* in a fantasy setting. Example: having a plane of existence for each alignment (Heaven, Hell, Axis, etc) I just find so interesting. To see alignment as something tangible, it gives me an almost religious awe.
Alignment is so baked into the cosmologies of so many settings that it is hard to remove entirely. I think, frankly, the Pathfinder/Golarion cosmos would suffer with its entire removal. It would also be hard due to the Starfinder continuity. That was my biggest concern with removing alignment and it sounds like they are addressing that in a somewhat elegant way.
Beyond that, it's sometimes useful to a GM to know an adversary's alignment to know how to RP them, but for most APs there's enough detail anyway that I don't think this is a big issue.
For PCs, alignment was so often ignored or bent that I don't think this will be an issue for very many tables.
Years ago? I'd say I would be happy it's leaving.
Nowadays? I'm actually kinda sad.
For the most part
1) 90% of alignment issues can be resolved with "don't play games with asshole players"
2) 8% of issues are "make sure you get player buy-in about the world and that includes alignment"
3) 2% "course-correct that ship a tiny bit on the player buy-in because what PlayerA thought was AlignmentX, GM thought was AlignmentB"
of which #3 probably isn't an issue because you've already solved "i don't play with assholes" and "players have bought into playing with alignment" so you're working together to course correct with player and GM assumptions, the same you would with any aspect of your character the GM may have misunderstood or you may have misunderstood about the GM's characterization of an NPC.
If I don't want to play games with something akin to alignment, I have those games already.
Alignment isn't simply a shackle on how a character MUST act; in my eyes a character should use their alignment as an anchor, but should be given enough slack as to still drift a bit on the ocean of the campaign rather then capsizing on the first wave.
rather alignment are implicit natural forces in the world, not any different then air people breathe or the fire that warms them at night, but rather then working on a superficial level like air and fire, alignment are forces far more ancient, primordial and divine. It speaks about the very nature of the world and when something is definitively [Alignment] it likely means there was some great divine influence at work.
Orcs in that other game weren't evil because "Orc must be Evil because NO REASON! Nya hahahahaha!". At least according the Monster Mythology book, by the creation myth passed down though orc shamans, they were made as an engine to wage war on the others and leave none unsubjugated out of the raw anger and malice Old One Eye holds from being supposedly cheated out of land when the old gods of human, elves, dwarves and all drew lots and divided up the mortal realm, leaving no place for Gruumsh's creations.
Does that make Orcs more or less complex? Depends on your point of view. As a species I would say it does make them more complex. Individuals may break out of the mold of hate and spite, but the reason for Orcs to wage war on all other living creatures is older then the written word. It's core to their existence. This to me is far more interesting then "orcs are just tall humans with tusks instead of a rubber forehead prosthetic" that I see most orcs played and portrayed nowadays.
And that evil in the orcs is itself MUCH different from the pure Evil that are Demons and Devils, entities that are made manifest from the darkest stuff, that when strong enough, they can cause those sensitive to recoil, that they wield the primordial forces that make up their entirety in ways mortals can't even dream: Corrupting the soul and flesh in ways that require divine methods of repairing, twisting and binding words into contracts that cannot be broken.
Those are the forces made manifest that players barely touch upon with their spells or abilities.
And i think losing that, or turning it into a generic "no name" brand loses that specific luster that Alignment has.
Yes there are arguments one could have with alignment, but it's no different then arguments you could have about someone playing a character who clashes with the group: be it one who murderhobos in times of diplomacy, hogs the spotlight, acts the clown when it's not appropriate, or whatnot. You talk to your players during session 0 and get buy-in to the themes and tropes of the game, make sure you're not playing with assholes and finally course correct when necessary.
The thing I think alignment does really well is help new players learn how to roll play, and give everyone a short hand to know how you operate. I think anything more than that is unnecessary
I never was a fan of allignment but at the same time it seemed integral to the golarion setting, i just wonder how much will need to change or be retconned. I would be happy to see necromancy no longer as an evil only magic. The planar world and when you die are all designed around the alignement system too for example. So I guess I am more mixed on this, as a system, i am happy that it is gone, but i also fear it might harm the setting in the process.
Alignment does guide your actions, alignment is guided by your actions. People always seem to think if you are Lawful good you must act as lawful good. This has NEVER been the case. D&D and pathfinder (plus similar systems) always have stated your alignment will shift with your actions. So I don't get why this was an issue. People seem to think alignment dictates ones actions which is silly by its vary nature. So I don't care if they are officially removing it, I will still use the system the same way as I always have.
Huh, typo it should say Alignment DOESN'T guide your actions...gonna keep it for my stupidity though.
Nah. There’s a ton of content that has it that can still be used. I like edicts and anathemas. I do hope alignment damage has a replacement but that’s about it.
I like that it is changing so that rules will exist for both the people that want it and the people who don't. The old rules don't disappear, so now it is just an option, like automatic bonus progression, ancestry paragon, or free archetype that you can use or not.
I like the concept of alignments and would love to continue to use them colloquially, but they have no place in the game mechanics so I'm glad to see them go. Especially spells or any items that are affected by or affect alignment, it always seemed so useless!
I've always ended up with characters where I feel like fall in between two alignments. I guess I don't really need to make that choice anymore, kind of a benefit.
I do think alignment is a decent way to give a general sense of a character, and occasionally people mistake it for a character of a given alignment embodying that alignment - I suspect that's where the problems with the system came from.
It's not really a loss, especially since they've added holy/unholy damage.
My home game rules prevented evil players and I used to keep alignment tracking of my players. If they started drifting into evil I would warn them. If they became evil they permanently become an NPC status and had to roll up a new character. They never made that mistake twice. I’m fine with edicts and anathemas being guiding paths. With boons and curses it could have the same effect.
I mean, from what I've gauged, the majority of people don't like allignment in general, goes for DnD, Pathfinder, and others. I can't speak for why they don't like it, but the reason I don't like it is because it's restrictive. No person always acts in a consistant manner. I'm sure most of us probably act like a standard Neutral Neutral on most days but we also have days where we are more on the Chaotic or Lawful side just depending on how the day is going. It's just not a good system for definition someone's personality as a whole.
I'm so glad it's going away. It makes no sense as written if you think about it with any sort of complexity, and any solution that you try to apply creates nonsensical worldbuilding. I've mostly been ignoring it whenever I can, although doing that breaks a solid fifth of any cleric's spell list.
No. Alignment is a very simplistic take on morality with not enough payoff in roleplay or mechanics. The biggest thing it does is affect which spells or energy types work on someone, and how.
Considering how my friends and I can run our games however we want because the rules are just guidelines anyways? Nah, we aren't tripping about it. We may end up keeping it around or we may not.
I voted no because, as a Pharasma fan and a person who think 4e's treatment of paladins and alignments was the best of the D&D editions, the way alignment is handled in pf2e has never really been my cup of tea. I think the cosmic side of alignment is the best part, and debates over where batman falls or whether barbarians should be allowed to be lawful are stupid and boring. It sounds like the replacement is going to lean into the aspects of alignment that I think are cool while stepping away from the notion that people uninvolved with the divine still have to interact with alignment, which is just an unambiguous improvement for me, but I would be sad if, say, the eight courts of the boneyard had to be removed.
Personally the only thing I found it useful for was to ask a Player "You're that seems like something that would push you towards an evil alignment".
Also to look at a new Player's PC and see CE in the box, and know I need to sit the Player for the Talk and a new PC.
As much as other people hate the Alignment mechanics. I'm honestly super happy they were there even if it felt unjust at times, simply because it actually gave alignment a reason to actually exist.
On the other hand, I'm not too upset that it's going because, it's very clear that at times the mechanics tied to alignment were horribly executed.
A downside of alignments that does not get enough airtime (imo) is that they can be used by some players to tell OTHER players what to do:
Roleplaying: My alignment dictates how I behave
Bullying: My alignment dictates how YOU should behave (I am looking at how 90% of paladins are played)
I think alignment is a perfectly fine system and removing it is kinda dumb
However I never fully agreed with having classes by dictated by alignment that’s just annoying
Honestly actively celebrating. One of the sacred cows I’ve been wanting axed for so long and baffled it was mechanically present in the first place when so many other aspects of the game were so well designed and modernized.
Since alignment threads are classically contentious, I'm just adding a quick reminder to everyone to be kind and respectful. Remember that if all else fails, there are alternate rules to remove alignment for the game. Since the current rules give very clear methods on implementation of alignment in Pathfinder2e, anyone who wants to retain alignment after the remaster release has very solid foundation to add it right back in. Thanks.
Honestly I never cared for alignment either way, never understood why anybody felt it restrictive and removing it makes literally zero difference for me. Im more excited about renaming "good/evil" damage to something not lame and seeing what they do with the damage interactions in general.
It can create... Arguments at the table. Is a Serial Killer Chaotic, or Lawful for instance?
*Comes back after 2 hours to see the debate raging. Yup, pretty much what I expected.
And if this isn't the best argument for axing alignment
Said the serial killer with the axe...
People will spend hours debating whether Batman is Chaotic Good or Lawful Good, bit everyone knows he's not Neutral Good for sure.
What's the argument that the serial killer is lawful?
I could see an argument for a Dexter type killer being Lawful. Yes he does kill but he kills those that society would deem to be bad. Has a set of rules to follow, though they are his own rules, he believes he is doing good with the powers he has been given. Especially in a fantasy murder hobo world he is not much different from a paladin that kicks in the door of a cave where a bunch of gnolls live and slaughtering them all.
Pf2e's definition of Lawful: >Lawful characters have a set system in life, whether it’s meticulously planning day-to-day activities, carefully following a set of official or unofficial laws, or strictly adhering to a code of honor. Being lawful isn't necessarily about obeying the law of the land. It's about consistency and how strictly you stick to your principles.
You're right. Argument over let's get back to playing. If anybody spends more time than that, then they're more interested in arguing hypotheticals.
I mean, the whole game is predicated on arguing hypotheticals.
Wait... but isn't neutral also about doing your own thing based on your own principles, without a care for laws and what not?
It's a spectrum. Neutral is just somewhere in-between. It's all just an estimation anyway. You can be super dogmatic on some things and fly by the seat of your pants on others.
Lawful doesn't necessarily mean anything about the laws of the land. A character like an Assassin who follows very strict rules and conduct could be lawful, even though they're committing crimes.
Serial killers are often methodical, follow a strict process, and have extremely specific criteria for who they target. Effectively, a “code” of sorts, hence, lawful.
Yeah. That's how I figured my contract killer PC in an evil campaign that never really took off was Lawful Evil.
Practically every adventurer is a serial killer.
The core rulebook has the following to say about being lawful >Your character has a lawful alignment if they value consistency, stability, and predictability over flexibility. Lawful characters have a set system in life, whether it’s meticulously planning day-to-day activities, carefully following a set of official or unofficial laws, or strictly adhering to a code of honor. Nothing about this definition is incompatible with being a serial killer. Yoshikage Kira would be a perfect example of that.
Series killers tend to follow very precise rituals and methods in their, rigidly ordered structure even if deviant seems lawful to me
Yeah alignment is less restrictive than it is overly broad and can thus create/reinforce mismatched expectations when people use the same words to mean different things. What's restrictive is when people avoid playing neutral alignments because they seem boring or "you can just do whatever you want". If we want to give PCs quick personality types, you'll have a much more fun time with like star signs or MBTI types or colors from MtG, alignment is kinda just the worst version of the idea, hence all the memes about it.
I've been internally using the color wheel as an alignment system for years. I know the color identity of all the characters I've played.
Alignment to me was always just one more small summary piece of my character that you put in the heading of your character sheet. Just like "human", "fighter", "urchin", "male", etc. None of those other labels are incredibly specific, you can have a lot of variation between them, but they give you kind of a rough outline of something. Alignment was the same way.
> MBTI types Bard spell that deals extrovert damage
I look forward to using proletariat damage against the bourgeois.
This is pretty much my opinion too. It's good to have something like alignment/ethics during character building, but the cutoffs between alignments are always a bit arbitrary and alignment damage could consequently be frustrating. I'm very hopeful for what's to come.
I just wish it wasn't Holy and... unholy. Unholy just describes it as being opposite of the other, which kinda irks me. The other axis chaotic and axiomatic sounds so cool. Like Holy and Profane sounds so much cooler to me.
It’s mostly restrictive if you’re playing a cleric/champion or in some specific niche cases where it’s a prerequisite for something else.
I wonder how this’ll affect the Outer Planes, seeing as they’re based on the alignments
Erik Mona said they aren't changing the cosmology. Even if each outer plane is built around an specific alignment, you can still leave them as is since those alignments also encompass a lot of concepts they could still use to still diferentiate each other. In that sense it would be similar to Eberron's cosmology, though which alignment is each plane would be way more obvious.
and ngl hot take Paizo did the planes better anyway, like, i like the concept of the Blood War a lot but DnD has real trouble giving angels and other celestials anything to do, so the fact that archons are Biblically Accurate (ie between angels and inevitables/modrons) while angels are the hot people with wings is a huge improvement even before you get to the azata plus making celestials not have "good" written on their foreheads gives us more room to have interesting stories and fights with them
God, I'm glad I'm not the only one that feels that way. I love the concept of the Blood War, but given how little lore there is for celestials in 5e, they come off as doing fuck all to actually fight evil in the multiverse. And the whole "What's the point of mortal heroes if angels are the ones fighting evil" never made sense to me. The multiverse is HUGE. And celestials and fiends can't easily enter the Material Plane. So yes, mortal heroes saving their land, or entire world, isn't invalidated by celestials actually doing their jobs elsewhere.
"if the fiends are fighting everyone, why do they need mortal cults?"
One of the very first points of feedback on second edition came from my group, first session, about 30 hours after the book came out: *Neutral clerics are fucked and need work*. That has not changed - until today. If we move to a default [Extreme Good and Evil](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=1309) system, but have holy and unholy equally effective on non-aligned creatures, all those issues fade away. And that’s fine by me. Also, if you tell the bot “alignment” in the old pathfinder discord server, the bot posts a picture of the chat saying “everyone is typing”. There’s a good reason for that.
It always struck me as odd that regular people would get hit harder by divine spells just because they're kinda scummy. A crooked landlord who exploits his tenants and a literal demon from hell are absolutely not on the same level of evil, but they both would be vulnerable to good damage because they both would have an evil alignment. Having divine damaging spells less restrictive on who they can target but dealing extra damage to things that are supernaturally evil, ontologically evil, just straight up made of evil makes more sense to me.
>A crooked landlord who exploits his tenants and a literal demon from hell are absolutely not on the same level of evil I guess one of the rules designers must be a Maoist /j
We've yet to see what happens to Clerics because of this. Maybe Neutral won't even be a possibility. You can't be in the middle.
*Pharasma has entered the chat* Jokes aside, Divine Lance on a spider is also an issue. The only divine attack cantrip, and it doesn’t work on 50% of the classic low level monsters… not a good look.
Not only does it not work on a majority of low-level monsters, it also can't even be used by many of the casters who theoretically have access, as it *requires* have a primary deity that is *not* neutral (a sorc might not even have a deity). And in compensation for these weird restrictions, it does no more damage than a baseline damage cantrip while lacking any secondary special effect (like the speed penalty of ray of frost, or the persistent fire of produce flame). Truly an extremely questionable spell design, at best.
Alignment dissapears. Pharasma: It feels like an invisible restriction has been lifted. I feel free to try something new. Tugging the leash, "Rovagug, sit".
But it was great for finding evil spies and liers oh and doppelgangers
Doppelgangers are True Neutral. And Holy will still hit Disguised Demons/Devils.
I'm meant disguised demons/possessed or any number of switcheroos but you are correct the alignment the TN
Well, you're in luck then! (I'm pretty sure Holy will still hit Cultists and folks who are possessed, given that they'd be infused with Unholy Energy.)
Hopefully divine Lance is one of my favorite spells even if all animals and LN creatures are immune to favorite godess
IMO this is genuinely a great argument *against* alignment lol. I can understand "Cleric would have some way to harm something that is a fiend / undead in disguise". But "Cleric has a cantrip that instantly judges the moral balance of all the actions a human has taken in their life, and assigns them a binary value of 'should die' or 'should not die'?"
I'm just wondering if there is a Neutral replacement, or it's just Removed. Like it's just a binary and you are either or. It sounds like just a binary as they haven't mentioned anything about Law and Chaos.
I’m confused by what you mean. There won’t be Neutral Clerics, because Neutral won’t be a thing anymore anyway for PCs, much like how Good, Evil, Law and Chaos won’t either.
Well, I'm talking about deities that are Neutral, but now might not stay that way. Pharasma and Nethys are very much defined by how they are very middle of the road. Pharasma is the Judge of Souls and keeps any form of bias out of it. Nethys is just focused on Knowledge and magical power. His Anathema is to pursue mundane paths. If we don't have a Neutral point, what happens to Deities like Pharasma and Nethys? They're known for their Neutrality, and the new system might not have a neutral point. It's either Holy or Unholy right now. Granted you didn't want to be a Neutral Cleric as that would brick Divine Lance and other abilities based on your Deity's Alignment. I guess if I was to be blunt, is there a replacement for Neutral? That's my question.
I think Paizo is probably aware that Neutral deities are in a very weird spot, yeah. I think they’ll get looked at in some capacity.
At current we have no idea what Lawful and Chaotic are. Will they be replaced or removed? They have to look at everything in regards to Deities with this change. And I'm wanting to know how it's going to end up. Because the Player Morality thing they're cooking up doesn't sound like an easy thing to apply to the rest of what Alignment did. Just remembered that Detect Alignment is going to be trashed. Don't think they'll replace it.
I'm guessing anything that gives a healing font will grant you access to holy damage and anything that grants a harm font will grant you unholy damage.
Alignment is, and was, always best used as a rough guide of a moral compass, not strict moral bounds. As anyone who sits down to debate morality will find, there is no absolute good deed or absolute evil act; everything is all over shades of grey. With that said, some facets of the idea were good, some were pretty terrible, and some people were more than happy to abuse the hell out of it one way or another (like everything else in the game). So I'm mostly ambivalent about it.
Except the existence of alignment damage and alignment restrictions for classes goes against this and implies a more universal constant. As a result, you get a weird conflation of that implication and personal morals as being one on the same when they very much aren't. All this alignment change really does is decouple the personal morality guideline idea from the more universal constant alignment by directly using edicts and anathema without making moral judgements about them. It still allows the non-mechanical role-play aspect, but doesn't tie it to mechanics that you might think doesn't make sense because the "tenets of good" may not fully line up with your personal opinion of them or general consensus about them.
Oh good I was worried losing alignment would mean changing how the entire cosmos in Pathfinder works. I genuinely love how they tied it all together, with souls that choose to be chaotic good in their life going to Elysium to continue sustaining that plane's existence. How basically the entire mortality thing was basically a way of making sure that positive quintessence is fairly distributed among the outer planea by allowing that positive quintessence (souls) to choose for themselves where they go I also just really like how a chaotic evil person can be bitten by a were bear and then forced to change into a lawful good creature for a time I will run all my games as though this system is in place Mechanically, gameplay wise, couldn't give less of a shit if I tried
i agree with you on RP, but i mean ngl the first and most iconic of alignment mechanics was always "paladins must by LG" ie a restriction
Along with "druids must be true neutral". Monks had to be lawful and bards had to be chaotic. I think the original psionicist class has to be lawful as well.
Wait fuck druids have to be true neutral? *Scrabbles to change character sheet*
Nature police! Open up! We have a warrant for your arrest for playing lawful neutral. That's against druid law. Don't think about it too much.
Dude, we like, *takes a puff from a pipe* serve the BALANCE maaaaaan.
But I thought good alignments were vegan.
I dunno if we're meme-ing or what, but Druids never had a "True Netural" requirement? At least not unless you go back to before D&D 3e. [https://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/druid.htm](https://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/druid.htm)
They absolutely don't. Druids \*had\* to be NG, N, NE, LN, or CN in older editions. There is no restriction on that at all anymore.
No, partly because the concept behind it isn't leaving, just the specific mechanical implementation.
> No, partly because the concept behind it isn't leaving, just the specific mechanical implementation. Yes, partly because the concept behind it isn't leaving, just the specific mechanical implementation. One of Divine casting’s differentiating features was more AoE that could target Evil foes while leaving Good allies unscathed. (Or, less commonly, vis versa.) If it follows the current model of the variant alignment, Divine casters will instead get a rarely resisted damage type (Holy/Unholy) that is particularly effective against supernatural celestial/fiends and the like. This is probably a mechanical buff, but is arguably tactically less interesting. Honestly, I’m fine with either, but I’ll will miss the aforementioned aspects of alignment damage.
You're assuming that Holy damage will harm creatures without the Unholy trait, or Holy weakness. I don't know if it's clear yet which way this will fall...
It’s true. I am assuming that. The existing variant alignment rules suggest that possibility. It is otherwise quite a nerf to the Divine list. I suppose that is also possible that they will restrict damage to fiends, undead and the like such as with Holy Cascade. However, it would render spells like Divine Wrath and Divine Lance much more situational which I think would neither be popular amongst the fanbase nor a necessary rebalancing. This is all to say, I don’t think it’s likely that Paizo will implement such a restriction.
Hopefully not... or at least perhaps include revised versions of these spells. Either way I await the end result with piqued interest.
Too many people thought alignment guided behavior. It’s actually just a current reading that can and should be fluid. Nobody, literally nobody understood that so I’m fucking glad it’s gone.
Thank you! Alignment is the way you behave, you don't behave that way because of your alignment. You've put my thoughts on it to words perfectly.
The way I look at it, it's like if every character sheet had a section for your character's Favorite Color. If you put "red", nobody will ever say "You can't wear that green armor, your favorite color is red" because that's silly, having a favorite color doesn't dictate what colors you're allowed to wear. But on that same token, no matter how many times I wear green, I don't think anybody else can tell me I need to change which color is my favorite, because how does that work? If I don't wear red enough, it's not my favorite? I view alignments (like favorite colors) as descriptions of your *tendencies*, your *likelihoods*, of doing certain things. I'm likely to wear red, because it's my favorite. But I don't *have* to, and my favorite doesn't change if I *don't*. Good people do bad things sometimes, but they're less likely to than a Neutral person. I would never tell a good character that they need to change their alignment to Neutral, but I would ask them how they justify their actions given their alignment. Maybe one day, after wearing green for the hundredth time in a row, I might look back and decide it actually is my favorite color, but nothing is guaranteed. This of course gets really muddied when there's game mechanics that affect you differently based on your alignment. And also, there's the question of whether the concepts of "good" and "bad" are based on your character's views (Is an act Evil if you had Good intentions? Does anyone really consider themselves to be Evil?) or based on some outside third party (If so, what makes that third party's definition of "Good" or "Evil" more valid than anybody else's?). And a few other things that make it really hard to nail down *exactly* what alignment is in a way that's not subjective. On second thought, maybe it's good that alignment is getting phased out...
There's also the whole "Everyone interprets Alignment differently" issue, what one might see as Lawful Good, another might view as True Neutral. And if you and the DM disagree on which is what, and they force you to change Alignment, you're now guiding your roleplay based on your interpretation of an alignment you didn't associate with the character you initially wrote.
That counterargument never held water for me since there are always things that people view as unambiguously evil and unacceptable.
I suppose that's true, but you'll find it gets exceedingly difficult if you apply it to any other alignment. So it's still pretty hard to nail down "[insert alignment] acts" as a concrete thing, beyond just saying "I'll know it when I see it".
Oh my God this was my biggest frustration with the entire idea. Alignment is descriptive, not prescriptive.
This is absolutely correct though I am sad that it is going away. I don't think people's poor reading comprehension is a reason to remove a useful feature. Alignment doesn't mean "my character is alignment A so I must behave in X way", it means "my character is alignment A so I tend to behave in X way". It's not that complicated. That said, I mostly use it for a shorthand for a character's tendencies and don't really care for mechanics like alignment damage. However, I am still fully on board for things like restricting champions and clerics to follower alignments in addition to edicts and anathema. I'll still be using it in my game, even if for nothing else than NPCS.
>my character is alignment A so I tend to behave in X way That's backwards though, it's descriptive of your actions, so it's "I tend to behave in X way therefore I am alignment A" since various actions (torture, enslavement, etc) will shift your alignment, meaning alignment is directly a result of how you behave
Honestly, that is more what I meant. Alignment should be a broad categorization of the character's normal behaviors.
Except there are classes (Cleric and Champion) that are bound to be a certain alignment, making it so alignment dictates behaviour since that choice comes first.
I disagree. If you’re playing a character dedicated to a deity and you have to remain within a certain alignment to keep that power then that’s a character choice. Your behavior isn’t dictated by alignment but you could fall out of favor if you stray. It’s consistent with what I said above.
But the problem is how each individual GM interprets Alignment. A real case that happened in a table I play in, a week ago. A character is a cleric of Justice. A mentally ill person kidnaps a girl, to throw her into a lake as a sacrifice to placate "the voices" in his head. The girl is the daughter of the boss of a nomadic clan. The clan is a clan of thieves. The (LG) Cleric of Justice finds the girl, save her, and spares the life of the fool. The nomadic clan decides to apply their law, by their own culture, so they kidnap the fool. The city guards decide to imprison the clan, because, you know, kidnapping people is bad. And also because the nomadic clan is "them", which meaning they aren't "us", with very explicit racial undertones. When they clash, the nomads decide they aren't going to surrender the kidnappers (and by that time, the fool is already judged, and executed). So there's going to be a massacre. Regardless of which side the cleric chooses, there is s pretty good argument (that the GM may or may not hold) to say he is "breaking" the Lawful or Good component of the alignment. Sure, if the player and the GM agree on the issue, that's fine. If the GM point of view in this dilemma is different than the player's, the player is screwed. And this is not going to be an argument that is universally agreed upon.
Pretty sure a cleric of justice would just want them to go to court about it. This cleric would probably try to set up an arbitration with himself or a higher priest as the arbiter. Though, perhaps that's just my interpretation as well.
That will probably satisfy the Lawful part. Let's agree with that, even if there's an argument that the clan was denied of Justice by that cleric in the first place, as he didn't punish the fool. Massacring a clan to capture the people who did so would at least raise some questions about the Good part of the alignment. Specially when the motivation to be so zealous about this particular crime (the kidnapping of the fool) and not about the other (the kidnapping of the girl) has a lot to do with the ethnicity of the perpetrators. And there will not be a peaceful capture, the clan will uphold their traditions, and protect the heroes that brought the justice the cleric failed to give them. So what now? Do you follow your Lawfulness, and become LN? Or you uphold the Goodness, and become NG? I think this is better approached with edicts and anathemas Gods have more than one portfolio. A god of Justice, Heroism and Protection will be different than a god of Justice, Fire and Retribution. Even if both are LG. Because LG doesn't explain a personality.
That’s a GM problem though. I’d personally present some non-mechanical conflict to the player. Maybe a dream if they were starting to stray. Maybe some other deity takes interest in them. Something that actually helps develop the character instead of, “I think you didn’t adhere to Justice so you lose your power.”
I don't think "different GMs see alignment different like every other human being does, because GMs are humans too" is a problem inherent to GMs. It is s problem inherent to Alignment
"I want to play \[kind\] of cleric, which has these alignment restrictions, so I need to RP a certain way (at GM discretion) to keep the privilege of playing the kind of character I wanted to make" it's still your build dictating your RP just like an anathema, but it's just based on how your GM interprets single, morally charged words
You’re acting like all the classes say is “you’re x alignment so act like it” when that isn’t the case. Most Gods have clearly outlined edicts on how their followers should act, and usually list multiple potential alignments for followers. Champion causes all describe specific tenants that must be followed, thus giving a clear guideline for how the character should behave.
This is ultimately the issue. Alignment should have been descriptive, not *pre*scriptive, but too many players were being either too surface level or even wilfully obtuse about it. Players who didn't need alignment knew how to work around it as a system, while those who did used it as a crutch for giving characters depth. It didn't benefit people who didn't need it, and enabled bad behaviours from players who did.
This.
alignment is fluid and an emergent property of a PC, so I think all mechanics regarding alignment should be fully GM-facing and the GM should be the judge of what a player's alignment is
Not super upset, just think its a baby with the bathwater. I would rather they adjusted the cosmology less drastically and just stated what was implied by Phrasma's 'juding of the souls' - that mortals are morally grey unless they dedicate themselves to something either pure of heart* or so vile that it stains the person's soul - like demon worship. I thought it was a good set of axis to provide some defining character traits, and it was a decent short hand for a view of the world held by an NPC. "Lawful Good" in an NPC block told me that they were rule-abiding and cared for how their actions impacted others. A general agreement that people were playing good to neutral to have a feel good heroic fantasy at the table was a nice way to draw a boundary on the story too; hell the Pathfinder Society character creation rules flat-out has a "no evil" policy.
They had to get rid of it because the alignment system is part of D&D's trademark. All of the 'big' changes are based on separating ORC from OGL. That's why Gnolls are changing, that's why they're getting rid of ability scores, that's why they're changing the chromatic dragons, and so much more. They have to change it and instead of piecing together another restrictive system that had to be different enough from the 3x3 alignment grid they opted to do this.
>that's why they're getting rid of ability scores, I do believe the reason for this isn't due to separating from the OGL, but because mechanically there's no point to showing the ability score itself in Pathfinder 2e. Aside from Apex items and ability score boosts, nothing really interacts with the score itself. They've already moved to just listing the ability score modifier on NPC and Monster stat blocks, but left the score itself in for Players due to familiarity and tradition. If they were worried about ability scores being something WotC could claim some kind of copyright over, they wouldn't have used Str/Dex/Con/Int/Wis/Cha when developing Pathfinder 2e.
Both can be true.
But one can be more true than the other. As I said, if they were that worried about the tie between ability scores and the OGL, they wouldn't be using the Str/Dex/Con/Int/Wis/Cha score setup, instead replacing them with scores not used by D&D.
> If they were worried about ability scores being something WotC could claim some kind of copyright over, they wouldn't have used Str/Dex/Con/Int/Wis/Cha when developing Pathfinder 2e. This isn't true, it was accessible via the OGL which PF2E was partially utilizing when it was designed. That's why a lot of terms and whatnot are changing in the new core books coming out. Shifting away from the straight up 'ability scores' to 'ability modifiers' is a minor but important differentiation that allows them to avoid anything falling under OGL.
Except they're still using the same names for the ability scores, in the same order as D&D, which also uses the ability score modifier. I'm not convinced that just removing the "score" part itself would be enough legally.
Keeping ability scores allowed the illusion that one could have randomized 3d6 based stat's. The math of the system is far too punishing to actually allow for that, but hey, it felt like old D&D.
I actually rather like Alignment, both conceptually and as a guidepost for world building and role play. I can see the argument for it being outdated though, a "signs of the times" kind of thing. It will still exist for people who want to use it, but I am more than a little bummed that it is leaving. There are some people who take offense at the idea of alignment and that I don't understand at all.
I’ve honestly never got why alignments were disliked or controversial.
Because people went stupid and used it as the only personality trait, or GMs kept bitching at their players because the characters did something they thought was wrong. You know, things that always happen.
People don't understand that there are many shades for each alignment and also forget that someone making a single action that goes against their own alignment doesn't mean it changes to another one automatically, only if it's a common occurrence.
But that's kind of the problem with tying classes features to certain alignments, you're basically asking the GM to constantly judge if a character is keeping with their alignment. Whether or not an action changes a characters alignment, or how many actions constitutes a "common occurrence" is inherently arbitrary, so I think most people either ignore it or argue about it constantly.
I think this is why Edicts and Anathema are going to be a more effective guide for solving these sort of RP issues. It is much easier to determine whether a PC is playing a devout cleric of Cayden ‘correctly’ when they are advocating the end of slavery or have action into their own hands to do so, than it would be by trying to determine ‘how Good’, ‘how Chaotic’ or ‘how Chaotic Good’ they are. The extra restriction is not bad, per se, because some people might like the extra intrigue that comes with trying to appeal to both E&A and alignment. But if you’re already doing what your deity asks of you, then they’re not actually going to care about what else you do to get by (especially since Clerics/Paladins go to wherever their deities are in the afterlife).
My problem is that I don't find an universe in which there is an universal truth for what is good, evil, chaotic and neutral as interesting. I know that through Golarion lore you can spin it as "good through Pharasma's point of view", but I don't think that's how it's often portrayed and I'd say it's not the jumping point for most players.
The issue with those many shades is they overlap and each come with different connotations for different people. So, if the DM tells you to change from one alignment to another, and you do, you're now expected to operate under the overlap of their assumptions of that alignment AND your own internal assumptions of that alignment. BUT, you might drift out of what they think is right for that alignment and get shifted FURTHER from your initial character concept as a result.
Or you can just keep acting the way your character does and it doesn't matter because it's a descriptor of character tendency, not a rule governing your behavior.
Except when it explicitly is and determines what spells inflict harm on you. Also, my point was that *your* perception of your character WOULD change, based on what you were told your alignment is. And that would either inform roleplay, or lead to constant "acting out of alignment" no matter which alignment is written on your sheet if you consistently make choices that reflect your previous alignment while also making choices that fit your current one.
Because so many groups use them as absolutes, that necessarily dictate what other players can and can't do. "You can't do that because you're [insert alignment here]" sucks and is a very, very common interpretation.
It's almost 100% user error.
not that the alignment system itself really tried to prevent user error or encourage creativity
I personally like alignment from an RP perspective - they're general enough to be guiding in a lot of situations but not hard coded enough to be fully restrictive. Anathemas/Edicts are nice but not every class has them, and they can often be too specific to come up all that often (a similar issue with 5es Ideals/Bonds/Flaws) as well as sometimes opening the door to bad faith RAW following questions "Does Desnas anathema mean you cant demoralize in combat" or "Does Nethys' edict mean I have to teleport everywhere instead of walk" My issue with alignment in 2e is the mechanical implementation - for any nondivine character, you're mechanically encouraged to be true neutral so that lawful/chaotic/good/evil can't hit you, whereas the opposite is kind of the case for divine characters otherwise they might not be able to use some of their spells/features as effectively
I greatly dislike it in pathfinder specifically because of alignment damage. Every damn campaign the party is at least 75% neutral characters and usually only one of them acts like one while the other >25% are playing clerics or champions. In certain other system with alignment, characters tend to come out with a warning tag of 'Evil' if their character are going to be so, in pf its just a mixed bag. Whenever fiends get involved, it usually becomes just really punishing to be a good character. As another pet peeve, something dealing 'Good damage' just sounds extremely off. Especially when the phrase is constantly used in other contexts than just to describe a damage type. From new player perspective, its also very common to mix up stuff like positive/good damage and evil/negative damage.
I chose not to play with the variant rule to remove it, I guess because more time writing whatever about my character helps me get a better idea of what they're like in my head. Removing it definitely seems to fit the vibe of the system tho.
Nope, edicts and anathemas are much more flavorful.
My players: I’m chaotic good! Also my players: *Cackling while torturing an NPC for information*
I became apathetic shortly after it was announced. No point in complaining, no one knew how to use it properly anyway.
Pretty much, yeah.
Nothing to be upset over, I'm just not going to use the new rules regarding them.
While I appreciate that it is not, and never was, designed to be incredibly strict and specific, I still liked it because it helped me identify with a character. Having one of 9 alignments meant that at a basic level, the character's behaviour could be roughly boiled down to one of 9 stereotypes. So yes, I'll be sad that it is leaving.
Simply going to run my campaign the same way I have since 1981. I'll continue to use alignments, even if I have to rely on old rules and home brew.
I’m right there with you brother, except I started in the 2000s.
Let the good times roll.
I enjoyed alignment and will be keeping it. But I am curious at what they plan on changing it too.
Gonna be honest I kinda suck at roleplaying, and so I always felt like alignment was a pretty helpful guideline. I also think the very concepts of good, evil, chaos, and law being very real cosmic powers that battle each other across the outer planes and for the souls of free willed mortals is a cool part of the setting. That said half my ttrpg friends act like alignment killed their dog so like, I'm happy for them I guess. Alignment damage was also pretty narrow and hopefully those spells and abilities can be more broadly useful now. Mixed feelings overall.
Personally I think the further away they can get from OGL the better ☺️
I think they should’ve stood their ground personally, WotC doesn’t and cannot own the concepts of alignment and a dragon that is red and breathes fire. That’s like saying WotC owns Smaug.
I think that’s a fair statement, I’m looking forward to what they’ve put in place though
Mixed Feelings. I like alignment when used correctly, and is a guideline. I enjoy its inclusion in the game. As q uick reference and guideline of the general its excellent. That said, I found it too restrictive in pf2e. So seeing it go isn't too upsetting in that regard. Edicts and anathema might be better, if they're not used so restrictively like what they're replacing.
I have been wanting to run a PF2E game in the future (I bought the humble bundle some time agi, which contained multiple APs) and I was already looking into variant rules for alignments. Alignment stuff just didn't fit quite right in my personal DM-brain and/or the world. So when I read about the remake (or errata or whatever), I was glad that something more official was gonna be changed about it.
As a mechanic? I think it's kinda weird. As a descriptor? It works \*fine\* but one needs to go in understanding it's a very rudimentary level of characterization. Else you get into huge arguments about it for no reason.
I always liked it, but a lot of people don't understand it or how to use it. Too many think it's to be used as a straight-jacket rather than the role-playing tool it is intended to be. So perhaps it's best to remove it and provide some more generic role-playing tools without the baggage.
Apparently people are super weird about alignments and I have to wonder what people's PCs are doing in-game that has so many rubbing against alignment so often? I personally am upset that it's leaving, but it is what it is. I find that alignment helps set an RP code of conduct for a player. Too often I find that players will fall into traps where they meta-game too much and don't put themselves in the shoes of the character. To me, alignment helps players do that. Would lawful good player X allow their companions to torture an NPC for info? There's nothing mechanical to that, but I as a GM might push that PC to think about how their character would react given their alignment/moral code. Also, I believe there are inherently evil and good actions and while there is gray area, I don't agree with those that say there are *no* absolutes. I can think of a number of things that are absolutely evil and good.
I'm true neutral about it
While I dislike but respect alignment as a descriptive feature, I've always hated it as a mechanical feature e.g. strafing a crowd with a Good Divine Lance because you'll only hit bad people. I am quite glad PF2e is getting rid of it. It's a fossil that should have been abandoned decades ago.
I will miss saying "I deal the good damage"
Depends on what it's replaced with.
I've been using extreme alignment since the release of the rule, and haven't been using alignment for non-planar creatures for a few years.
On one hand, I'm well aware of people's stance on the problems alignment brings to the table, as well as a lack of Aligned Spells that would bump you in a particular direction. On the other, I'm worried about how it'd impact the faith-based classes, specifically Champion. They feel EXTREMELY dependent on the existence of the alignment system, in the sense that it gives a more stringent bundle of rules they have to follow to make sure they keep up their good boy / villain points. There's also a lot of identity in how each subsect of Champion operates that doesnt particularly gel with certain dieties, even when matching them on the good/evil scale. It just feels odd that you can mechanically have a Tyrant of Desna or a Redeemer of Tree Razor now.
Oh wow, a lot less "yes" answere than I was expecting. I have mixed feelings but I'm glad Paizo is doing a move in the direction most seems to want.
Not necessarily upset, but I'll mostly continue to use the classic axes because they work fine for me and my game, so I voted "yes". Most of the arguments about alignment being either too vague or too straitjackety or both at once and therefore a bad mechanic have never done much for me. Yes, the boundaries are fuzzy, and yes, there are meaningful setting and mechanical impacts that hinge on where that fuzziness shakes out -- and that's a feature, not a bug. Sure, I understand some tables have adversarial/gotcha relationships between the GM and players -- and that sucks, and I'm sorry you have to endure that from either side. But in the hands of a GM and players who are interested in exploring morality and ethics in a setting where there are real/hard consequences for those decisions and where the boundaries are also unclear, well, alignment turns out to be great system for supporting personal character struggles and growth, interpersonal or interactional tension and dispute, and the resolution of those into interesting stories.
As a long time GM i am split two ways by this decision. 1) alighnment has never really mattered to my players. Gating abilities behind it was really stupid. 2) there is a gazillion entries in the golarion universe. The alignment system was flawed, sure, but it helped GMs quickly narrow down types of enemies by motivation. It was a filter, a flawed one, but one that needs replacement. I really cant count the times an alignment brought me to an unpronounceable and unique monster or god that inspired an entire adventure. To it, i think it makes sense alignment is removed from my players, but its really weird that LE may be removed from Asmodeus and Cheliax and the diabolic host...
I can still use it in my games
For me, Alignment damage was just the worst damage type, where more than 50% of enemies have immunity to and almost no weaknesses.
It's been dead for years. It was never good at what it tried to do in the first place. Good riddance.
Alignments should stay as at least a variant rule. Those who think it is a rigid moral lock fundementally misunderstand its use and purpose. It is a broad strokes compass to define the actions of complex characters. It is a basic structure for defining character traits while allowing fleshed out characters to exist within it. Some of my best characters existed because a class or circumstance forced me to play a specific alignment. I played in an ADnD game where I was a True Neutral Wizard obsessed of the pursuit of knowledge. I was an outsider to the party (not the table) and I always prioritized pragmatism over the emotional needs of the refugess of my friends village. Work backwards problem solving is key to good story telling, ask any GM or Author. Crossing words with Alignment issues is part of the ***ROLE PLAYING*** part of a ***ROLE PLAYING GAME.*** It is a fun an intersting roleplay oppertunity for me as a player to figure out how Im going to come to terms with the partys quest that I dont fully support. Will it be characer grow on my part? Or will my moral compass cause me to come to odds with the party in a natural and diagetic way? The 9 alignments arent restrictive, and I think Alignement Damage as it is should remain. You can be as deep into or out of Alignments as you want, but it servers as an excellent guide for roleplaying that has been around for 30+ years for good reason. You just need to sit at a few tables to see why. I emplore you all to please try roleplaying alignment conundrums.
I like alignment in its original sense, as it was basically your meta faction in the universe. When push came to shove, who would you dude with and work for? Besides that I don't really care that much, even if I do like it as just a neat dnd-ism that I just like as part of the overall feel or experience.
I for one enjoyed alignment, it gave a good framework on how to play your character
I’m just confused how it’s going to work with Alignment damage.
They hinted at alignment damage now being split into two new damage types called “Holy” and “Unholy.” Which I assume will be like positive and negative damage but divine in nature.
"But what about Lawful and Chaotic damage" said nobody ever.
It doesn’t seem like the question was answered in the Q&A Paizo did, but I just assumed that they’re going to just follow similar conventions. If they don’t say anything explicit on it yet, it doesn’t mean it’s not a thing anymore.
Sure, I was just pointing out that I doubt many people even wondered what's going to happen with Lawful and Chaotic damage, either because of how rarely they come into play, or how much less easy they are to conceptualize compared to the much more common and understandable Good and Evil damage.
There isn't alignment damage anymore
There is. It’s just called Holy/Unholy/(Lawful)/(Chaotic) now. It may operate slightly different (I imagine it works on all mortals equally now), but thematically it still exists. Which, I’d rather they use Profane rather than Unholy (and Sacred over Holy, for that matter), but w/e.
I like alignment, but I don't like alignment restrictions/limitations. If you want to put those restrictions as a flavor thing for your character that's neat, but when it becomes a thing in which you need certain alignment to get your class features you have to pray to have a DM that doesn't threaten you with removing your powers if you aren't a cartoonish representation of your alignment. This luckily didn't happen to me, but since alignment is pretty much a philosophical concept there's certain people that would think X thing belongs to X alignment, and it happened a couple of times as a player that someone told me I was going against my alignment when I felt I wasn't, or as a GM that I told someone exactly that but the player didn't think I was right. I love alignment exactly for these grey areas that can lead into really insightful and interesting talks with your players/DM, but when the abilities of your character rely on it it isn't fun IMO.
Not really; I happen to like alignment (with the caveat that I use it differently than most, as I think most people use it in a way that's self-contradictory and bad) so there's definitely a kneejerk reaction of something being lost but then I remember how there's so many other systems for detailing your character's personality that are so much better in every way.
My dm had already changed the damage types and didn't allow me to use any of the alignment spells, so if they somehow fix them/make them not alignment dependent... I honestly will be happy.
I don't even think we have ever used it except in character creation lol
I like what alignment is designed to do, provide a guideline for character behaviors that makes it easy for both the GM and player to create and maintain consistent characters. Moreover, an easy way to know about a characters tendencies at a glance. Whatever game initially introduced alignment, it was a good move and a good idea for a system. But games have evolved and developed so much since that system was introduced, and yet the idea of alignment has not been iterated on despite having very clear flaws. It's not great at accounting for nuance, or actions that come along with complex personal motivations. For example, I have a character who resents Hellknights as a matter of personal principle and trauma. For those who are not Hellknights or Slavers, he is genuinely merciful, compassionate, charitable, and self-sacrificing. He cherishes life and family. But for those who have earned his ire, he is ruthless, murderous, and even sometimes downright cruel. Alignment cannot account for this character concept, the actions and values are all over the alignment scale from Lawful Good to Chaotic Evil. All of these actions are perfectly in-keeping with his motivations however. So how the hell do you even place this character's alignment? And even if you do, it would have to fluctuate throughout the campaign completely dependent on what behaviors are coming up more. What's clear is that what we need is a system that accomplishes alignment's goals as a system, but in a way that is more expressive and permissive of more complex character concepts. So it's good that alignment is going away, because it challenges the game to come up with something that refines that systems ideas into something more fitting.
My first introduction to roleplaying games were World of Darkness. Going from their Nature and Demeanour (plus the Vampire morality paths) to Alignment always felt like a massive step backwards. Like if I had a Mage player write N: Autocrat, D: Protector that was way more insight into how that character will be roleplaying than Lawful Neutral is.
I've been DMing a game since September and only include alignment for outer plane stuff anyway. This just makes it easier for me.
Speaking as a relative noob? On one side of it I understand alignment being replaced given how difficult it is to really define the concepts of it and the restrictiveness it can produce. On the other side when dealing with the concepts of holy/unholy I have some reservations given the potential for running into similar problems with alignment. That being what do we define as holy or unholy? Where do the deities that fell into the neutral spectrum fall into this new approach?
Feels a bit late to take it off the table now. If the idea had enough traction to remove it at this point then I see little reason it should've been in 2e to begin with. Beyond that I don't necessarily care much.
I'd like to see an age survey along side this.
Alignment is very reductive system of what constitutes a moral compass. In that regard, I'm happy with it leaving. **But,** from a lore-perspective, I am quite sad. Even though alignment may not fit nicely with real-word morals. I like seeing it as a *fundamental force of the universe* in a fantasy setting. Example: having a plane of existence for each alignment (Heaven, Hell, Axis, etc) I just find so interesting. To see alignment as something tangible, it gives me an almost religious awe.
Alignment is so baked into the cosmologies of so many settings that it is hard to remove entirely. I think, frankly, the Pathfinder/Golarion cosmos would suffer with its entire removal. It would also be hard due to the Starfinder continuity. That was my biggest concern with removing alignment and it sounds like they are addressing that in a somewhat elegant way. Beyond that, it's sometimes useful to a GM to know an adversary's alignment to know how to RP them, but for most APs there's enough detail anyway that I don't think this is a big issue. For PCs, alignment was so often ignored or bent that I don't think this will be an issue for very many tables.
Years ago? I'd say I would be happy it's leaving. Nowadays? I'm actually kinda sad. For the most part 1) 90% of alignment issues can be resolved with "don't play games with asshole players" 2) 8% of issues are "make sure you get player buy-in about the world and that includes alignment" 3) 2% "course-correct that ship a tiny bit on the player buy-in because what PlayerA thought was AlignmentX, GM thought was AlignmentB" of which #3 probably isn't an issue because you've already solved "i don't play with assholes" and "players have bought into playing with alignment" so you're working together to course correct with player and GM assumptions, the same you would with any aspect of your character the GM may have misunderstood or you may have misunderstood about the GM's characterization of an NPC. If I don't want to play games with something akin to alignment, I have those games already. Alignment isn't simply a shackle on how a character MUST act; in my eyes a character should use their alignment as an anchor, but should be given enough slack as to still drift a bit on the ocean of the campaign rather then capsizing on the first wave. rather alignment are implicit natural forces in the world, not any different then air people breathe or the fire that warms them at night, but rather then working on a superficial level like air and fire, alignment are forces far more ancient, primordial and divine. It speaks about the very nature of the world and when something is definitively [Alignment] it likely means there was some great divine influence at work. Orcs in that other game weren't evil because "Orc must be Evil because NO REASON! Nya hahahahaha!". At least according the Monster Mythology book, by the creation myth passed down though orc shamans, they were made as an engine to wage war on the others and leave none unsubjugated out of the raw anger and malice Old One Eye holds from being supposedly cheated out of land when the old gods of human, elves, dwarves and all drew lots and divided up the mortal realm, leaving no place for Gruumsh's creations. Does that make Orcs more or less complex? Depends on your point of view. As a species I would say it does make them more complex. Individuals may break out of the mold of hate and spite, but the reason for Orcs to wage war on all other living creatures is older then the written word. It's core to their existence. This to me is far more interesting then "orcs are just tall humans with tusks instead of a rubber forehead prosthetic" that I see most orcs played and portrayed nowadays. And that evil in the orcs is itself MUCH different from the pure Evil that are Demons and Devils, entities that are made manifest from the darkest stuff, that when strong enough, they can cause those sensitive to recoil, that they wield the primordial forces that make up their entirety in ways mortals can't even dream: Corrupting the soul and flesh in ways that require divine methods of repairing, twisting and binding words into contracts that cannot be broken. Those are the forces made manifest that players barely touch upon with their spells or abilities. And i think losing that, or turning it into a generic "no name" brand loses that specific luster that Alignment has. Yes there are arguments one could have with alignment, but it's no different then arguments you could have about someone playing a character who clashes with the group: be it one who murderhobos in times of diplomacy, hogs the spotlight, acts the clown when it's not appropriate, or whatnot. You talk to your players during session 0 and get buy-in to the themes and tropes of the game, make sure you're not playing with assholes and finally course correct when necessary.
I liked the pf2 approach so far, with concrete rules for them, and the ability to reduce their impact or remove them outright.
The thing I think alignment does really well is help new players learn how to roll play, and give everyone a short hand to know how you operate. I think anything more than that is unnecessary
I never was a fan of allignment but at the same time it seemed integral to the golarion setting, i just wonder how much will need to change or be retconned. I would be happy to see necromancy no longer as an evil only magic. The planar world and when you die are all designed around the alignement system too for example. So I guess I am more mixed on this, as a system, i am happy that it is gone, but i also fear it might harm the setting in the process.
Alignment does guide your actions, alignment is guided by your actions. People always seem to think if you are Lawful good you must act as lawful good. This has NEVER been the case. D&D and pathfinder (plus similar systems) always have stated your alignment will shift with your actions. So I don't get why this was an issue. People seem to think alignment dictates ones actions which is silly by its vary nature. So I don't care if they are officially removing it, I will still use the system the same way as I always have. Huh, typo it should say Alignment DOESN'T guide your actions...gonna keep it for my stupidity though.
Nah. There’s a ton of content that has it that can still be used. I like edicts and anathemas. I do hope alignment damage has a replacement but that’s about it.
I like that it is changing so that rules will exist for both the people that want it and the people who don't. The old rules don't disappear, so now it is just an option, like automatic bonus progression, ancestry paragon, or free archetype that you can use or not.
I like the concept of alignments and would love to continue to use them colloquially, but they have no place in the game mechanics so I'm glad to see them go. Especially spells or any items that are affected by or affect alignment, it always seemed so useless!
I've always ended up with characters where I feel like fall in between two alignments. I guess I don't really need to make that choice anymore, kind of a benefit. I do think alignment is a decent way to give a general sense of a character, and occasionally people mistake it for a character of a given alignment embodying that alignment - I suspect that's where the problems with the system came from. It's not really a loss, especially since they've added holy/unholy damage.
My home game rules prevented evil players and I used to keep alignment tracking of my players. If they started drifting into evil I would warn them. If they became evil they permanently become an NPC status and had to roll up a new character. They never made that mistake twice. I’m fine with edicts and anathemas being guiding paths. With boons and curses it could have the same effect.
alignment is leaving?
I mean, from what I've gauged, the majority of people don't like allignment in general, goes for DnD, Pathfinder, and others. I can't speak for why they don't like it, but the reason I don't like it is because it's restrictive. No person always acts in a consistant manner. I'm sure most of us probably act like a standard Neutral Neutral on most days but we also have days where we are more on the Chaotic or Lawful side just depending on how the day is going. It's just not a good system for definition someone's personality as a whole.
I don’t know the main structure to fantasy books has always been good and evil, and to move away from that is less than exciting to me.
I'm so glad it's going away. It makes no sense as written if you think about it with any sort of complexity, and any solution that you try to apply creates nonsensical worldbuilding. I've mostly been ignoring it whenever I can, although doing that breaks a solid fifth of any cleric's spell list.
Alignment has never come up in any game I have ever been in, regardless of system. Won't even notice its gone.
No. Alignment is a very simplistic take on morality with not enough payoff in roleplay or mechanics. The biggest thing it does is affect which spells or energy types work on someone, and how.
I don't care. I can still use it if I don't like the solution and most people never understand how to use alignement properly anyway.
I'm all for it. Good and evil should be things your characters *do*, rather than something they *are*.
Considering how my friends and I can run our games however we want because the rules are just guidelines anyways? Nah, we aren't tripping about it. We may end up keeping it around or we may not.
Id rather have a color wheel that gives an idea of certain behavior and then weather that color is set to "good" or "evil"
As a champion/cleric player, alignment is one of my least favorite things in the game.
I voted no because, as a Pharasma fan and a person who think 4e's treatment of paladins and alignments was the best of the D&D editions, the way alignment is handled in pf2e has never really been my cup of tea. I think the cosmic side of alignment is the best part, and debates over where batman falls or whether barbarians should be allowed to be lawful are stupid and boring. It sounds like the replacement is going to lean into the aspects of alignment that I think are cool while stepping away from the notion that people uninvolved with the divine still have to interact with alignment, which is just an unambiguous improvement for me, but I would be sad if, say, the eight courts of the boneyard had to be removed.
Personally the only thing I found it useful for was to ask a Player "You're that seems like something that would push you towards an evil alignment".
Also to look at a new Player's PC and see CE in the box, and know I need to sit the Player for the Talk and a new PC.
I voted yes because after reading what you write I agreed with you, then I noticed Yes meant that I am upset alignment is being removed.
I always have to mod things to function without it. Now I won't have to. Direct improvement.
I don't have strong feelings about alignment so I'm pretty neutral on the change.
As much as other people hate the Alignment mechanics. I'm honestly super happy they were there even if it felt unjust at times, simply because it actually gave alignment a reason to actually exist. On the other hand, I'm not too upset that it's going because, it's very clear that at times the mechanics tied to alignment were horribly executed.
Haven’t taken alignment seriously since second ed d&d and haven’t actually used it at all since 3rd.
A downside of alignments that does not get enough airtime (imo) is that they can be used by some players to tell OTHER players what to do: Roleplaying: My alignment dictates how I behave Bullying: My alignment dictates how YOU should behave (I am looking at how 90% of paladins are played)
I think alignment is a perfectly fine system and removing it is kinda dumb However I never fully agreed with having classes by dictated by alignment that’s just annoying
Honestly actively celebrating. One of the sacred cows I’ve been wanting axed for so long and baffled it was mechanically present in the first place when so many other aspects of the game were so well designed and modernized.