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View Full Version : Tiers of evil, in regards to alignment [3.0/3.5]



Ragitsu
2010-11-02, 06:35 PM
In your D&D games that involve alignment that's stricter than, say, Eberron's guidelines, do you have tiers of evil (and by extension, good?) or is all evil equally evil?

Examples ->

Someone raised in an evil culture. They had no choice otherwise [Orcs/Humans].
Someone or something with an almost, if not fully, racially genetic bent towards evil [Chromatic Dragons/Illithids].
Someone or something actually FORMED of evil [Demons/Devils].

gbprime
2010-11-02, 07:45 PM
Someone raised in an evil culture naturally chooses evil actions/reactions by preference. They are evil, but could change if they had sufficient reason or incentive.

Someone with a genetic evil bent is much the same. They could change with effort, but they'd be tempted to return to evil like a drug addict returns to his vice. it's just not natural for them to do otherwise, but it is possible.

Something MADE of evil would have the same choices, but good choices would be pretty alien to them. They wouldn't come naturally and would have to be learned, possibly badly. It's 99.99 percent a lost cause to try.

Showing mercy to the first group is a crap shoot. It might pay off it might not, but some heroes are supposed to try. Showing mercy to the second group is pretty much destined to failure, and it's a fool's errand to attempt it with the third.

Exceptions, of course, are what good roleplaying is made of. :smallamused:

Ragitsu
2010-11-02, 08:00 PM
What's your ethical/moral take on magic items that change alignment?

Ormur
2010-11-02, 08:15 PM
I assume that but for everything but the purest incarnations of evil racial evilness is something resulting from living conditions and culture. Most Orcs earn a living by raiding and burning villages, in most Drow societies it's taught that every other race is inferior. Something like that.

A peaceful farming civilization probably has fewer evil people than a genocidal raiding culture. The former still has individual evil people but I wouldn't differentiate between some individual killing innocent people despite the rules of his society or because of them. Both would detect evil, which by the way doesn't automatically mean they can be killed on the spot.

gbprime
2010-11-02, 09:03 PM
What's your ethical/moral take on magic items that change alignment?

Alignment change by fiat (or magic item) is tricky. I can see pros and cons for and against a good person making the choice to alter someone's alignment by force, even if it serves a greater good. As an evil thing (or a chaotic neutral funny thing) to do, I can see that more.

Imagine the mage who wants to "enlighten" people, to show them the error of their ways or the folly of their judgements. Imagine the inquisitor that sentences someone to have all the alignment "stripped" from them, sort of a lobotomized true neutral. Imagine the unseelie warlock who wants to punish or mess with a rival.

The mechanics of it would be as much illusory as they are enchantment. You PERCEIVE things differently, and thus react sensibly. I could believe that someone so affected could be unaware that anything had changed, but was wondering why everyone else was being so unreasonable.

Kuma Kode
2010-11-02, 09:09 PM
My custom alignment grid looks like this.



{table]Sacred Order| Sacred Law | Sacred | Sacred Chaos | Sacred Anarchy
Good Order| Good Law | Good | Good Chaos | Good Anarchy
Neutral Order| Neutral Law | True Neutral | Neutral Chaos | Neutral Anarchy
Evil Order| Evil Law | Evil | Evil Chaos | Evil Anarchy
Vile Order| Vile Law | Vile | Vile Chaos | Vile Anarchy[/table]

The extreme alignments are generally reserved for the entities that embody that alignment, as such extremes are typically beyond mortals. Very rarely a mortal may possess an extreme alignment, and these people are normally recorded in history for their pursuit of their ideals.