Alignment

[Kaftan Barlast]

Im going to risk having the power of google ruin the surprise for my players by spelling out the exact scenario:

 

 

The party has picked up an additional PC which presented herself as a cleric of Ellistraee(good deity). In truth, she is an cleric of Lolth(evil deity) which has infiltrated the party in order to lure the player to find a powerful artifact that really should be left alone.

 

 

Now, is there any way for the party to expose the iniltrator just by studying the way she casts spells? The party contains a Wizard(detect magic, spellcraft) and a ranger(has some divine spells). The Lolth cleric carries a magical headband of "undetectable alignment" to prevent them from trying a simple "detect evil"

[metadigital]

What setting is it? Later versions of D&D (3.5?) have divine spells from different domains; maybe the Ranger might recognise similar domains and be alarmed by very different (evil) ones ... or not.

[Kaftan Barlast]

It's a Planescape campaign but following the deities etc. of the forgotten realms. Now, anyone with spellcraft would notice if the cleric started casting blatantly evil spells so naturally, she wont do that.

 

 

The question is more wether they would notice if something was wrong just by watching her cast perfecly normal clerical spells such as "cure light wounds"

[metadigital]

I doubt it. The ingredients would be similar, for example, to create healing spells.

[Maria Caliban]

Ginthaerial:

" The people who lambast Alignment for restricting roleplaying, tebd to also like Planescape: Torment for its deep roleplaying aspects."

 

Alignment was built into the setting in a far more visceral and complex way in Planescape than it is in the generic D&D setting. My PHB has only *one* page on alignment but a dozen on races, classes, combat, and equipment. It's treated like an afterthought yet it's vitally important for anyone playing a paladin or cleric but near-to-useless for a rogue or fighter.

 

On the other hand, the Vampire games from White Wolf (all WW games, actually) has an alignment system that's, mechanically, even more restrictive than the D&D one. However, it's crafted into the very idea of a vampiric condition so it's strongly grounded in the setting and effects every character equally.

 

Tigranes:

" Since I don't believe in an absolute and universal value of Good and Evil, that throws me into "Alignments are bad cookies" party,"

 

I don't believe in magical elves but that doesn't mean I think they're bad in an RPG.

 

Dgwar:

"Chaotic Neutral would be the only D&D alignment that would allow you to do whatever you wanted...."

 

Only if you have a poor DM.

 

metadigital:

"Not sure anyone is guilty of not giving answers in good faith ..."

 

They are trying to lead this poor youth astray. I suspect they're all CE.

 

Atreides:

" What's up with the lawful btw? The Punisher isn't motivated by obeying the law."

 

Paladins behave in a lawful good manner. If you take a paladin and place him in a land where the law is that you must feed newborn babes to demons every Tuesday* then they're going to break that law. A lawful character does not have to follow the law of the land. From the PHB: A Lawful Evil person methodically takes what he wants within the limits of his code of conduct without regard for whom it hurts.

 

*As anyone who's debated D&D alignment knows, you can't bring up paladins without including demons and dead babies.

 

Darque:

"Chaotic people wouldn't care if laws were broken"

That's an oversimplification. For instance, you could have the head of the town militia be a CG woman who demands strict adherence to the law but also bucks her society's expectations for demeanor and behavior, opposes the church because she sees them as enforcing outdated ideals, and works in an adaptable, unorganized manner.

 

The majority of people are upset when laws are broken because most laws are there for a reason.

 

****

 

metadigital:

" Yeah, my understanding is that "Lawful" refers to an external, societal law."

 

Please don't misconstrue my intention here but your understanding of 'lawful' in a D&D context is inaccurate. Lawful can refer to law, tradition, or personal code. If an assassin ritualistically murders someone every new moon, disembowels them, eats their brain, and offers their heart Shar then they're acting in a lawful evil manner. If another murderer simply lets the pressure build until they *must* roam the street at night with an axe, find some lone prostitute, and chunk them then they're acting in a chaotic evil manner.

 

The lawful/chaotic axis is as more about personality and methodology, leaving intentions or specific behaviors for the good/evil axis.

Edited October 6, 2006 by Maria Caliban

[alanschu]

Lawful seems related to consistency.

[Maria Caliban]

Pop:

" All deities had to give spell power to their followers through Mystra's weave, so I don't know if you could trace a spell back to them or back to Mystra."

 

Is that all deities or all deities native to Faerun? During the Time of Troubles, I thought that clerics of the Seldarine could still cast magic despite Mystra no longer being around.

 

Kaftan Barlast:

 

"Now, is there any way for the party to expose the infiltrator just by studying the way she casts spells? The party contains a Wizard (detect magic, spellcraft) and a ranger (has some divine spells). The Lolth cleric carries a magical headband of "undetectable alignment" to prevent them from trying a simple "detect evil"

 

All that detect magic tells you is that there's magic present and, if you concentrate long enough and combine it with a spellcraft roll, the spell's school. For instance, if the priestess casts Desecrate from the Evil sphere then a successful detect magic + spellcraft would tell the wizard that she was casting an Evocation spell of X level.

 

A plain spellcraft roll would tell you that she was casting Desecrate, Cure Light Wounds, or what have you but not what deity was powering the spell.

 

If she's doing a prayer or ritual then a knowledge [religion] check might clue in a character that something isn't quite right. It would have to be a rather high check, however, as prayers and rituals to Lloth aren't exactly well known. Moreover, Ellisatree is a chaotic goddess. For instance, her commandments for gatherings seem to be "When the moon is full, strip down butt nekked and shakith thy money-maker." I can see priests of Helm all following the exact same ritual when lying on hands or calling upon their god but Ellisatree doesn't strike me as a goddess who'd care about that.

[Kaftan Barlast]

The alignment which makes the least sense to me is "Chaotic Evil". It symbolises just a random, erratic, instinctual desire to cause harm and mayhem without any real plan or agenda. Where is the fun/challenge in that?

 

 

Its especially odd when its applied to organisations and deities who very clearly have an agenda an a very elaborate hierarchy. Like Lolth and the Drow in my campaign, they could very well be Lawful Evil with all their dogma but theyre CE in the books

[Pop]

"Pop:

"All deities had to give spell power to their followers through Mystra's weave, so I don't know if you could trace a spell back to them or back to Mystra."

 

Is that all deities or all deities native to Faerun? During the Time of Troubles, I thought that clerics of the Seldarine could still cast magic despite Mystra no longer being around."

 

I usually play FR, I know that's how it works there, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was different in other gameworlds without Mystra.

 

As for the ToT, no clerics could cast any spells unless their deity's mortal avatar was within a certain radius (1 mile, I believe) Thus, clerical healing became a near-impossibilty during that time. In the ToT storyline, Mystra confined herself to an amulet during that time, so the woman who carried the amulet and became Mystra could always cast spells. I believe I remember the Seldarine (like many deities during the ToT) resided amongst their chosen people during this time, in some big tree grove, most likely. Thus a cleric not far from said grove would be able to cast spells. I don't know if that explains all of it, though, because Helm (the only deity in heaven during the ToT) would still technically then be able to grant his followers spells.

 

Mystra created the weave, it's kind of like her body, as I understand it. It can be wounded, creating dead and wild magic zones. Maybe because she was confined to the earth, she couldn't control it. If someone were to destroy the weave (say, with epic mythal spells) they would destroy Mystra. Technically, Mystra could deny any person the right to magic use, and could cut off a deity to his followers. That would probably royally piss of Ao, though. Big "balance" violation.

 

I have all the FR 3.5 books

Edited October 7, 2006 by Pop

[metadigital]

metadigital:

" Yeah, my understanding is that "Lawful" refers to an external, societal law."

 

Please don't misconstrue my intention here but your understanding of 'lawful' in a D&D context is inaccurate. Lawful can refer to law, tradition, or personal code. If an assassin ritualistically murders someone every new moon, disembowels them, eats their brain, and offers their heart Shar then they're acting in a lawful evil manner. If another murderer simply lets the pressure build until they *must* roam the street at night with an axe, find some lone prostitute, and chunk them then they're acting in a chaotic evil manner.

 

The lawful/chaotic axis is as more about personality and methodology, leaving intentions or specific behaviors for the good/evil axis.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Point well made; it has been several decades since I last read the PHB, so your incisive editorial is refreshing.

 

So, back to the $64000 question: what alignment is Harry Callahan? Because it seems you are saying he is more like CG ... :D

[Darque]

That's an oversimplification.

 

Yup.

[Jorian Drake]

Thanks for the replies guys.  What's up with the lawful btw?  The Punisher isn't motivated by obeying the law.  If anything he should have a chaotic swing, right?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

He is a chaotic good guy with tendency to neutrality.

[Berserk]

Thanks for the replies guys.  What's up with the lawful btw?  The Punisher isn't motivated by obeying the law.  If anything he should have a chaotic swing, right?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

He is a chaotic good guy with tendency to neutrality.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I'd say that the Punisher is Lawful Neutral since he is pretty bound to his own "code", i.e punish the "guilty" and don't let "innocents" get hurt in the crossfire. How he arrives to the conclusion of who is "guilty/innocent is a whole other story though Calling him good is a bit much though, since he doesn't really care about what kind of methods he employs as long as it gets the job done.

[Jorian Drake]

Thanks for the replies guys.  What's up with the lawful btw?  The Punisher isn't motivated by obeying the law.  If anything he should have a chaotic swing, right?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

He is a chaotic good guy with tendency to neutrality.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I'd say that the Punisher is Lawful Neutral since he is pretty bound to his own "code", i.e punish the "guilty" and don't let "innocents" get hurt in the crossfire. How he arrives to the conclusion of who is "guilty/innocent is a whole other story though Calling him good is a bit much though, since he doesn't really care about what kind of methods he employs as long as it gets the job done.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

chaotic neutral then

 

 

but only playing after own rules is definetly chaotic and not lawfull (because if you describe lawfull otherwise, even CE characters could be lawfull)

 

 

PS: You are a necroposter! (Necromancer)

[Pop]

Its especially odd when its applied to organisations and deities who very clearly have an agenda an a very elaborate hierarchy. Like Lolth and the Drow in my campaign, they could very well be Lawful Evil with all their dogma but theyre CE in the books

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The drow are CE because even though there is a heirarchy in drow society, order itself is not valued. If you can get away with killing your superiors, you should. The same can't be said of, say, the zhentarim, where a lot of caution must be exercised if you're going to break rank. In this way, the drow society is chaotic in a social darwinist sense, the herd is constantly being culled of the weak, and as a result the drow are always formidable opponents.

 

However, unlike the Germanic-style CE warrior culture of the orcs, the paremeters of the drow heirarchy remain more or less static, there's an established high-born class that always leads them, and the race of the drow itself retains a singular sense of malign purpose (in the following of Lolth) that unites them against external pressures and makes their threat to the surface constant. Interestingly, in the FR Lolth no longer exists, for all intents and purposes, and drow society in that setting has more or less collapsed as CE groups tend to do when they have no supreme power-regulating figure with an interest in a status quo, but the full implications of it haven't been explored much last time I checked.

[Tigranes]

What exactly happened to Lolth according to FR lore?

[metadigital]

However, unlike the Germanic-style CE warrior culture of the orcs, the paremeters of the drow heirarchy remain more or less static, there's an established high-born class that always leads them, and the race of the drow itself retains a singular sense of malign purpose (in the following of Lolth) that unites them against external pressures and makes their threat to the surface constant. Interestingly, in the FR Lolth no longer exists, for all intents and purposes, and drow society in that setting has more or less collapsed as CE groups tend to do when they have no supreme power-regulating figure with an interest in a status quo, but the full implications of it haven't been explored much last time I checked.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Today's homework: compare and contrast the hierarchies of Demons and Devils.

[Pop]

What exactly happened to Lolth according to FR lore?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

According to the material I have, one day in the FR the clerics of Lolth suddenly stopped being able to cast spells, and they sent some adventurers to the Demonweb Pits to check **** out. The adventurers found Lolth "in a comatose state" on the floor of her Abyssal grotto or whatever. At that point the opposing drow god Vhaerun teleported in to kill Lolth (apparently he had just found out about the situation) and Lolth's slave-son Selvetarm came in to defend her. Big god-battle ensues, and the very substance of the Abyss is torn in so doing, and Lolth's body, Vhaerun, and Selvetarm all fall into a void. The implications of this are also unclear, as there are now 3 potentially dead drow deities.

 

It was suggested in the material that this could constitute another FR cataclysm, with the rift in the Demonweb Pits causing the Abyss to "bleed" onto the other planes and the prime material. High-level campaign, obviously.

 

Exactly what happened to Lolth is a mystery, I believe it was made that way so RPers would be able to make the story up themselves. When I briefly ran a campaign centered around it, I naturally tied it into BG pulling my deity/adventurer into conflict with Lolth, with my deity setting up the rift as a trap. The rift fed into the Far Realm, D&D's version of a Lovecrafian cosmos. It was meant only to trap my deity and Lolth, but when Selvetarm and Vhaerun also got pulled in the trap went haywire and the rift became permanent. The PCs were meant to start off small, fighting monsters and horrors that had appeared on Faerun through the rift, then become wise to the rift itself, go through the rift to the Far Realm, find Selvetarm and Vhaerun, kill them or get them out, deal with Lolth's minions, and then leave before the rift closed itself, and ensure that neither my deity nor Lolth could escape. Pretty epic stuff.

 

I'm glad this is a D&D enamored board, else I would never talk about these outlandish ideas I have at all.

 

However, unlike the Germanic-style CE warrior culture of the orcs, the paremeters of the drow heirarchy remain more or less static, there's an established high-born class that always leads them, and the race of the drow itself retains a singular sense of malign purpose (in the following of Lolth) that unites them against external pressures and makes their threat to the surface constant. Interestingly, in the FR Lolth no longer exists, for all intents and purposes, and drow society in that setting has more or less collapsed as CE groups tend to do when they have no supreme power-regulating figure with an interest in a status quo, but the full implications of it haven't been explored much last time I checked.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Today's homework: compare and contrast the hierarchies of Demons and Devils.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Heh, I'll try. The blood war and the outer planes are more symbolic than anything. Everything in the outer planes is a personification and exaggeration of ideas and concepts. They're kind of like Plato's ideal forms, kind of. As was outlined in PS:T, the blood war is less of a fight between devils and demons than it is a fight between law and chaos. And unlike drow and orcs, devils and demons and angels cannot have any traits that are unbecoming of their alignment, they are their alignment. They are ideal representatives of it. A succubus who acts in a lawful or good manner is no longer a succubus. An archangel who acts in an evil manner just once becomes an archdevil.

 

So really, all you have to do to compare devils and demons is compare LE to CE.

 

Here's a cosmology of the Far Realm I made. It was meant to have a linear, assymetrical configuration in comparison to the conventional D&D wheel-cosmology. I remember having all of it done, but I can't find a complete copy, so it's incomplete here as is:

Edited November 19, 2006 by Pop

[kormesios]

What exactly happened to Lolth according to FR lore?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Exactly what happened to Lolth is a mystery, I believe it was made that way so RPers would be able to make the story up themselves.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Back in the first edition days (the only one time I played), there was a module that let the adventurers kill Lolth herself--it was the culmination of the classic series that began with the classic "Expedition Against the Hill Giants." I wonder if the ambiguity was done to let players who'd done an "official" module easily import characters and histories in a new setting?

[Atreides]

The Punisher is my hero.

[Darque]

You Necroposter.

 

[Sammael]

Eh, the whole "Lolth is gone" storyline was just an excuse to justify the changing of Demonweb Pits into an independent plane, rather than a layer of the Abyss. She is back and everything is pretty much as it was, minus a few destroyed drow cities and such. Much ado (and a whole series of novels) about nothing, really.

[Atreides]

I just got my hands on a bunch of Punisher comics and I'm enjoying them a lot ^_^

[metadigital]

Eh, the whole "Lolth is gone" storyline was just an excuse to justify the changing of Demonweb Pits into an independent plane, rather than a layer of the Abyss. She is back and everything is pretty much as it was, minus a few destroyed drow cities and such. Much ado (and a whole series of novels) about nothing, really.

Where is this new plane, then? I thought the 666 layers of the Abyss was THE Chaotic Evil plane ...