Pathfinder

And the Red Raven's civilian identity Aric is up.

And it's the same Aric from Requiem for the Red Raven, Legacy Character Jossed.

^^Minions who use "I just followed orders" reason do count as LE in Pathfinder you know. That is given as one of examples of Lawful Evil in Champions of Corruption :P

Whether or not "just following orders" qualifies as Lawful Evil depends heavily on two things.

One is whether or not the ordered individual has full understanding of the consequences of following the orders. If the person being ordered is shielded from knowing the full consequences of the decision, then they can't be held accountable for the consequences that they did not know of.

The other is if, in regards to the consequences that they do know of, whether or not they act within the structures of the law to mitigate those consequences. Whether it be by following Exact Words and thus neglecting something that would make the consequences worse, or by deliberately including back doors that would allow either interference from outside sources or for those suffering the negative consequences to escape, there are ways to interfere with the "evil" portion of a Lawful Evil order while sticking with a Lawful Neutral outlook.

In general, I find that it's rather reductive to say a given one-sentence outlook is inherently of a single alignment, because so much of the alignment system is very situation-dependent.

Not really, a lot of alignment system is objective. Sure, lot of objectivity is in "You are doing evil without being mind controlled to do so", but still.

Like for example, torture is objectively evil in it.(it is objectively evil in real life too even though someone will argue against that :P)

edited 7th Mar '16 10:45:45 AM by SpookyMask

Yeah, the first part is a stellar example of "just following orders" and not being Evil.

Like, I hate to invoke Godwin's Law, but like, even people in the SS didn't know what evil they were doing unless they were actually working in the camps. For all they knew, they were working against enemies of the state, or fighting in combat.

But yeah: "Just following orders = Lawful Evil" is stupid, and honestly I'm ashamed that Paizo put that into an official book.

Shamed? Really? <_< You are saying that Minions of the tyrants aren't LE?

@1779 I wasn't arguing whether morality or ethics (the two issues judged in the D&D/Pathfinder alignment setup) are objective (and honestly, that's far from a settled issue as-is, but this isn't a philosophy-focused thread, so all I'm saying is that I'm not going there). I'm saying that a proper objective weighing of the morality of a decision cannot be properly performed unless the circumstances of the decision are fully known. Otherwise, you get stupid things like a paladin suddenly losing his powers because they chose to spare an opponent who turns out to one day become a Chaotic Evil tyrant lich that enslaves multiple countries (thus, allowing that character to come to power is Evil). I've seen some people run games like that, but it's frankly demanding psychic powers on the part of the player to be able to divine the complete consequences of every single action (and, of course, assume that the GM isn't just a Jackass Genie out to screw you alignment-wise on every action).

@1780 The weird thing is, there are numerous occasions in various adventure paths that I've skimmed where that isn't the case - where characters will follow evil orders with Exact Words to get around the worst parts of the order, or deliberately undermine part of the order in some way that wasn't explicitly ordered against (like leaving openings in the death trap or secreting items to help out prisoners). Multiple times in various official sources, it's shown that Lawful characters in Evil organizations will work from within to undermine evil and attempt to reform the system they're in. They can follow orders while being creative enough in following them that they aren't evil.

^^^Also, that example of yours doesn't work out because in order to have evil alignment, you have to KNOW what you are doing is evil. So yes, "I've just followed orders" doesn't make you LN especially when you know what you are doing is bad :P And I don't see how anything Nazis did would have been justified even if they were only targeting "enemies of state"

edited 8th Mar '16 11:36:02 AM by SpookyMask

Seeing as how the United States did the exact same thing to its Japanese-American citizens after Pearl Harbor, we just didn't start mass-executions on them while they were in the Concentration Camps.

And if you don't know what you're doing is bad, but still following orders, that makes you Lawful Evil according to Champions of Corruption if I'm not misunderstanding what you said.

edited 8th Mar '16 1:20:15 PM by BlackSunNocturne

@Footsteps: Ye, in pathfinder you have to be aware of the choice's effects you are choosing and not being mind controlled to do so in order it to have effect on alignment. Unless its one of those few deeds that game considers pretty much objectively evil.

^So wait, USA's government being kind of evil isn't the common opinion? :O

Seriously though, nah, you are misunderstanding what I said(probably because I'm good with being unclear) o-o The exact text is:

"The world is a dangerous and confusing place, filled with overwhelmingly powerful entities. Thankfully, sometimes those beings take lucky souls under their wings, offering protection, purpose, and perhaps permission to indulge aspects of oneself that society otherwise prohibits. Whether the patron is a god, monster, nation, or mortal, the minion knows that loyalty and perfect service—no matter how distasteful or depraved the command—are the best ways to rise in the ranks and achieve comfort and security. Minions may take pride in their service or comfort in the fact that any responsibility for their actions ultimately lies with their masters. Total devotion is a small price to pay for the gifts these dark masters offer."

Basically, those who refuse to take responsibility for their actions because they were "just" following what they were told to do :P If you don't know what you are doing is bad, then you can't be evil by the way pathfinder alignments work.(unless you are one of those outsiders that radiates evil xD You can be CN villain though)

Also, in some acts in Pathfinder are considered so evil that you can't really perform them without being aware that its an evil act.(like torture)

edited 8th Mar '16 1:53:13 PM by SpookyMask

Err, the SS were not just people "following orders." They weren't the general rank and file of the German army; they were people who were very ideologically dedicated to the Nazi ideals of racial purity. And a decent number of them were complete fucking psychopaths.

Spooky, you've managed to argue both sides of the argument on this one. Among other things, this is why this isn't the proper forum to discuss ethics and morality - the conversations are too muddy.

Even in cases where one can make an argument for an extremely reductive statement about ethics and morality (such as "Torture is always an evil act" - if you want, flip over to the "GM gripes about players.." thread to see where I did, in fact, get into an at-the-table argument over that specific issue), it's not really all that productive of a topic, and that's even before you get into the various pitfalls of the alignment system.

As a side note, I'm rather sympathetic to those who would like to eliminate the alignment system in the D&D derived systems, but I find it too integrated into the entire engine to completely abandon myself. I instead try to come up with common-sense applications of the alignment system when needed.

I'm not sure I have been, I mean, I have been from perspective of alignment system and in Pathfinder, torture is considered evil act. Hence why Profession Torturer is banned from PFS

That being said, torture is pretty evil act in real life considering that its likely to get incorrect information from subject so its just really inefficient(so you can't justify it as necessary) and cruel thing to do.

I do my best to rebuild what I can with an alignment-free game.

Pallies gimme the most trouble but are also the most fun, for me, to rebuild: Smite EVERYTHING doesn't feel broken, three-laws code works in my head and I'm-a have a lot of fun giving them Dresden Files esque Sight in place of Detect.

Finally going to be starting my first Pathfinder session with D Ming

And with a custom campaign too.

Hope it goes well, because these pdfs are going to be a bitch to read on my phone.

Ultimate Intrigue looks promising. I'm gonna buy it once it's available.

So, I joined a Pathfinder group at some point. I assume that were using a nodded cruelest, as I ended up playing as a Warforged Bard named Feedback.

But anyways, I challenged the vampire cleric to round of Time Wizards (which is a bizarre and hilarious game that you should totally never play) for a limited god wish. The GM's exact words are, "Does anything except turn you into a god."

So, naturally, I'm going to wish for the power of Wish. You can see where this starts to break things, given how I have just found out about the Roaring Dragon Helm.

Doesn't power of wish mean you can only grant other people's wishes? : D Like thats reason why villain Efreets' gets minions to do wishes for them

@1793 Wish is restricted that way for all genies, but not everything has that limitation on its wish powers. Pit fiends, for example, have wish as an innate ability and can use it as they please; their limitation is that they can only do it once per year. There are a few other creatures that have access to it or miracle (either as a spell-like ability or because they effectively act like sorcerers or oracles or a given level), and only some of them are restricted in how they use it.

Well, either way, if you get wish spell as ability, gm can still do the whole monkey paw thing unless you can only grant it to others in which case you get to do the "twisting the wording" thing which is pretty cool in evil-ish way : D

edited 17th Mar '16 8:03:55 AM by SpookyMask

I confused the character folio for the character sheet.

Cue me delaying the character creation day AGAIN. I wish I had a laptop to make viewing the PDF's easier. Currently I'm stuck on my phone, but god bless the DM screen PDF.

edited 17th Mar '16 9:03:41 AM by LSWraith

Well, yes, Jackass Genie and Exact Words are always on the table and why the Genre Savvy player gets nervous whenever a wish becomes available. Among other things, I'd assume that the fact that wish effectively grants godlike power would be why any sort of request for more wishes would fail a "no wishing to be a god" rule.

Though it does make me appreciate that, these days, the wish spell has built-in "safe" requests that aren't to be twisted unless they're specifically granted by someone who has cause to twist it (like the aforementioned pit fiends - look, if you want to trust a literal incarnation of Lawful Evil to grant your wish, and you don't have epic amounts of contingencies to deal with potential twisting or betrayal, you deserve what you get). It's nice to be able to pick up a ring of three wishes and just be able to get a stat buff without the GM being a jerk.

Failing that, I should probably wish for a scroll of wishes. Although, I'm not totally sure how that one works.

I like how nobody has questioned the logic of having a vampire cleric.

One of my players is planning on playing a Half-Elf where the elf part is drow. Any tips for racial traits or just stick with the stock standard Half-elf stuff?

I'd say stick with standard stuff, especially since it's your first time. But I'm a very, very, very big fan of reskinning, since core D&D already has way more rules and variants than it needs for my tastes.