Which is the most optimal alignment? (3.5)

[flappeercraft]

So basically the title. What does the playground think is the most optimal alignment in general? Post your arguments on which alignment is the most optimal and why.

I believe the Moral side to be Evil. This would be due to the power that corrupt spells have, Mindrape, Mother Cyst spells, PrCs like Ur-Priest/Cancer Mage and following Elder Evils for bonus feats being some of the best choices in the game before getting to Pun Pun sillyness.

As for Law/Chaos axis I am not really sure.

[Goaty14]

True Neutral: Nobody can smite you.

[quark12000]

In the Pathfinder game I play, PCs can't be evil, so that's not an option. I think it depends on the class as to what alignment to choose. Personally, I like playing Neutral Good. You can break the laws when you need to, but you don't have to be totally reckless.

[death390]

generally speaking Chaotic Neutral has the most player agency, with the least restraints.

True Neutral is difficult to pull off but has a lot of benefits: no one can smite you, access to both good and evil spells, gets along with everyone (technically), several choices made by being one alignment or other let you pick if neutral (cleric cure/inflict), ect.

[Khedrac]

A lot also depends on the campaign world, if an alignment is likely to get you hunted down and killed, (though usually this should be a pattern of behaviour rather than an actual alignment) then that alignment is not optimal even if it has obvious benefits.

I would also put a case forward for the "one that is closest to your actual nature" - it is much easier to roleplay it which helps prevent slipping out of alignment. (Evil priests that lose their abilities because they go round helping people have almost as many problems as paladins.)

[Elkad]

I would also put a case forward for the "one that is closest to your actual nature" - it is much easier to roleplay it which helps prevent slipping out of alignment. (Evil priests that lose their abilities because they go round helping people have almost as many problems as paladins.)

That's me most of the time, at CG.
Otherwise I tend to go for the exact opposite with LE.

If I totaled up all the hours played on all my characters at different alignments, it's probably 70% CG, 20% LE, 5% LG (many years ago), 5% all the rest.

[Avigor]

Depends on what you want; here's my ranking and explanations:

True Neutral is immune, or at least less effected, by a lot of alignment based spells and attacks. They're also only rarely discriminated against by either good or evil, albeit they might be subject to constant recruitment attempts.
Chaos is the best for a spontaneous wizard (http://minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=474.0), and generally lacks any major restrictions.
Evil has a lot of options, as you pointed out; some are just fluff and worthless, others are pretty strong. The best are related to necromancy, such as undead hordes and energy drain, albeit some summoning exclusives that the Malconvoker can't have might be worthy of consideration.
Good has some exclusive options, but they're often sub-optimal, unless you need to specialize in killing undead or fiends, or you want to be a healer for some reason.
Lawful doesn't have much going for it; if anything, it is forbidden by some strong options.

[ChaosStar]

True Neutral is difficult to pull off but has a lot of benefits: no one can smite you, access to both good and evil spells, gets along with everyone (technically), several choices made by being one alignment or other let you pick if neutral (cleric cure/inflict), ect.
The bolded part is not true, True Neutral is affected by unaligned Smite abilities, like the Crusader's.

[death390]

damn i forgot there is a unaligned smite, i always think of alignment based smites.

i often balance between CN and TN. funny because those what dnd character are you quiz's tend to put me at TN/CN border.

[Boggartbae]

Just going to play devil's (angel's?) advocate for good being mechanically superior to evil, even though, as previously stated, it's not. Good doesn't have a lot of unique options available to it, but the (good) versions of spells tend to be a lot better than the (evil) versions, because most enemies tend to be evil. So even though an evil character casting protection from good gets the same mechanical benefits as a good character casting protection from evil, in practice, the good character comes out way ahead because it gets to actually use its spells, whereas the evil PC will rarely be fighting good enemies, so the protection from good spell is mostly worthless.

I don't think that this actually puts good ahead of evil mechanically, because evil characters got the BoVD, both fiendish codex's, Libris Mortis, and Heros of Horror, whereas good only ever got the BoED, but with the number of times I've wished my characters could actually USE blasphemy, magic circle against good, and smite good, I think it's at least worth considering.

As for Law/Chaos, I would have to say that being neutral in that department is probably better, because it protects you from the rare effect that actually care about whether you're lawful/chaotic. If neutral isn't an option, then I would vote chaos, because it lets you play barbarians and bards, whereas law only gets you monks and paladins (eww! :smallyuk:)

[InvisibleBison]

Most optimal in what context? There is no one "most optimal" alignment for all situations. For a paladin, lawful good is the most optimal alignment because being any other alignment causes him to lose his abilities. For a barbarian, lawful good is a decidedly sub-optimal alignment, for the same reason.

[ayvango]

True Neutral: Nobody can smite you.
Several spells allows punishing creatures of opposite alignment like the Turn Anathema spell. If you would like to use it, you should has sharp alignment

[Goaty14]

Most optimal in what context? There is no one "most optimal" alignment for all situations. For a paladin, lawful good is the most optimal alignment because being any other alignment causes him to lose his abilities. For a barbarian, lawful good is a decidedly sub-optimal alignment, for the same reason.

Decidedly? A Lawful Good character is not a Barbarian, and a lawful good barbarian ceases to be.

[Afgncaap5]

Most optimal in what context? There is no one "most optimal" alignment for all situations. For a paladin, lawful good is the most optimal alignment because being any other alignment causes him to lose his abilities. For a barbarian, lawful good is a decidedly sub-optimal alignment, for the same reason.

To build on this, it's worth noting that characters generally can't take all of the options for a given alignment; there may be no strict rule against it in most cases, but feats, prestige class levels, and other things that often have alignment preferences are at a premium. You might be able to get every Evil or Chaotic or Good or Lawful spell, but I think that's the only case where it's possible (and even then, I'm not sure if it's possible outside of thought exercises that aren't expected to see much table play.)

And, of course, setting dependency is key... in Eberron you could make the argument that no one alignment actually gets preferential treatment, even if the exceptions to the rules tend to truly be exceptions and up to DM fiat. In Rokugan, I think it's fair to say that Lawfulness is supreme (assuming that we equate Lawfulness to Honor, a currency which can let you get away with a lot with proper amounts of book diving.)

In thought-exercise-land, I'm gonna say that goodness comes in at a close second to evil, though with the caveat that I believe most versions of Pun Pun have the kobold starting out as lawful good thanks to Pazuzu lore (I'll assume for the sake of argument that Pazuzu doesn't exist across all game table worlds, though.) In practical-play-land, I think that Boggartbae's point about the number of enemies you'll be facing is significant enough to give the edge to goodness or evil. It's hard to qualify chaos in practical-play-land... which is appropriate, I think. It's fair to say that chaos can avoid more issues than lawfulness can, and that it has a number of fun benefits.

I'm gonna vote that Chaotic Good is the most optimized candidate for practical-play-land, and that Chaotic Neutral or Chaotic Evil wins in thought-exercise-land, and that Lawful Netural wins in Rokugan.

[Jay R]

The one that's most compatible with the DM's unconscious ideas about gaming.

[KillianHawkeye]

Decidedly? A Lawful Good character is not a Barbarian, and a lawful good barbarian ceases to be.

To be fair, Barbarians lose a lot less when they become Ex-Barbarians than a Paladin loses when he becomes an Ex-Paladin.

Still, I agree with whoever said that there's no such thing as "most optimal in general". The whole point of optimization is to find the best way to achieve a specific goal.

This seems like an especially silly question when it comes to alignment, because there are lots of ways to make a character that literally doesn't care about alignment 95+ percent of the time. Alignment is one of those things that matters a lot when it matters (and there are certain characters who have to care about it a lot), but is usually just flavor text or a roleplaying aid all the rest of the time.

So, maybe if the question was "What's the most optimal alignment for a Cleric", since they're one of the classes where choice of alignment/deity is the most meaningful, then we could get a pretty good discussion going.

[Jormengand]

True Neutral is usually the best unless you have something you specifically want to do... except, of course, that neutral evil is ironically the best alignment for those who want to be a protagonist, because it prevents you getting caught up in enemy blasphemies and unholy blights, which are far more common than enemy holy words or holy smites!

Of course, other alignments are useful if you're trying to do a specific thing with them, but that depends entirely on the specific thing in question.

[Luccan]

True Neutral is usually the best unless you have something you specifically want to do... except, of course, that neutral evil is ironically the best alignment for those who want to be a protagonist, because it prevents you getting caught up in enemy blasphemies and unholy blights, which are far more common than enemy holy words or holy smites!

Of course, other alignments are useful if you're trying to do a specific thing with them, but that depends entirely on the specific thing in question.

This makes me think, if I were to do a game where everyone starts as commoner shmucks, I might have them start as TN until the call to action comes and their morality and ethics actually starts to matter once they leave the dirt farm.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

For game mechanics, any Good alignment is by far the most powerful, simply because it has better options available. Between exalted feats, other good-required feats like Ancestral Relic, sanctified spells, Sacred Exorcist, etc. a good character has better choices than a nongood character.

For role playing, Lawful Evil is my go-to choice. It's the get-sh*t-done alignment, LE characters accomplish whatever they set out to do, regardless of who they need to hurt or exploit to do so, without running afoul of any authorities. They easily fly under the radar of the forces of good, because they don't make their evil obvious.

[Florian]

Probably LE. All the powerful options that E can get, while still possible to play in a "civilized manner" that can fit most parties.

[Boggartbae]

For game mechanics, any Good alignment is by far the most powerful, simply because it has better options available. Between exalted feats, other good-required feats like Ancestral Relic, sanctified spells, Sacred Exorcist, etc. a good character has better choices than a nongood character.

Everything that good has, evil has, and evil also gets to play with undead, sacrifice, souls, poison, and a whole bunch of other stuff that I can’t remember off the top of my head right now. Good has very few exclusive options (I don’t actually think it has any, but I’m not willing to commit to that right now :smalltongue:)

[Luccan]

Everything that good has, evil has, and evil also gets to play with undead, sacrifice, souls, poison, and a whole bunch of other stuff that I can’t remember off the top of my head right now. Good has very few exclusive options (I don’t actually think it has any, but I’m not willing to commit to that right now :smalltongue:)

I mean, Evil has Evil versions of lots of Good things, but they usually aren't actually equivalent. Like exalted and vile feats.

[Seto]

I'm not sure which is the best in terms of alignment-restricted spells, classes or items, but in terms of roleplay, I would say NE, because it lets you do anything you want. Evil can use good means without becoming Good, which is not true of Good or Neutral using evil means. As for Law/Chaos, Lawful is clearly the more restrictive option, and thus inferior. Chaotic or Neutral can both do pretty much whatever they want, but I would say Neutral is slightly better as it lets you act lawful when you need to.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Everything that good has, evil has, and evil also gets to play with undead, sacrifice, souls, poison, and a whole bunch of other stuff that I can’t remember off the top of my head right now. Good has very few exclusive options (I don’t actually think it has any, but I’m not willing to commit to that right now :smalltongue:)

Exalted feats (requires gooder-than-paladin status) and sanctified spells (requires a good alignment at least, probably exalted status) are way better than any evil-equivalent mechanics. A lot of the stuff you listed is perfectly doable by neutral characters, but the best good-aligned options are not. The Sacred Exorcist prestige class is a fantastic addition to literally any spellcaster, and it opens up the ability to use divine feats, but it requires a good alignment. The Ancestral Relic feat can be used to enable a lot of powerful shenanigans, it requires a good alignment. Good has a lot more useful exclusive mechanics than evil, since most of the best stuff evil characters get is just non-good and available to neutral characters.

[Zanos]

I'm tempted to say Neutral Evil, because you'll almost always be fighting Evil stuff with anti-Good abilities anyway, and Evil can tap into most sources of powers without consequence. Sacrifice rules, pain as power, souls as power, [Evil] and [Good] spells, etc.

[Boggartbae]

Exalted feats (requires gooder-than-paladin status) and sanctified spells (requires a good alignment at least, probably exalted status) are way better than any evil-equivalent mechanics. A lot of the stuff you listed is perfectly doable by neutral characters, but the best good-aligned options are not. The Sacred Exorcist prestige class is a fantastic addition to literally any spellcaster, and it opens up the ability to use divine feats, but it requires a good alignment. The Ancestral Relic feat can be used to enable a lot of powerful shenanigans, it requires a good alignment. Good has a lot more useful exclusive mechanics than evil, since most of the best stuff evil characters get is just non-good and available to neutral characters.

The exalted feats aren’t that good, the only sanctified spell worth talkIng about is luminous armour, and I’m pretty sure that Ur Priest is better than Sacred Exorcist.

Also, evil characters get free feats for aiding elder evils. Yes, most vile feats aren’t anything to write home about, but the best ones are more generally applicable than the best exalted feats.

Last, but definitely not least, is taint, which is generally considered one of the most broken mechanics in the game, and only available to evil characters.

[Crake]

The exalted feats aren’t that good, the only sanctified spell worth talkIng about is luminous armour, and I’m pretty sure that Ur Priest is better than Sacred Exorcist.

Also, evil characters get free feats for aiding elder evils. Yes, most vile feats aren’t anything to write home about, but the best ones are more generally applicable than the best exalted feats.

Last, but definitely not least, is taint, which is generally considered one of the most broken mechanics in the game, and only available to evil characters.

Taint itself isn't only available to evil characters, anyone can get tainted, though I presume you mean things which take advantage of taint.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

The exalted feats aren’t that good, the only sanctified spell worth talkIng about is luminous armour, and I’m pretty sure that Ur Priest is better than Sacred Exorcist.

Also, evil characters get free feats for aiding elder evils. Yes, most vile feats aren’t anything to write home about, but the best ones are more generally applicable than the best exalted feats.

Last, but definitely not least, is taint, which is generally considered one of the most broken mechanics in the game, and only available to evil characters.

Nymph's Kiss for skills, Righteous Wrath for Frenzied Berserker, Exalted Companion for a Celestial animal companion which can take VoP, Nemesis, Words of Creation for doubling your already absurd Inspire Courage bonus..... There are no nongood equivalents to these feats, but there are often nonevil equivalents to the usable vile feats.

(Greater) Luminous Armor alone is often worth having a good alignment on many characters.

Ur-Priest is a niche class that you need to build a character around, and it has a built-in adaptation for making a nonevil version that worships a dead god. Sacred Exorcist can be added to any spellcaster for almost no sacrifice, it offers better BAB and HD than nearly any arcane prestige class, and it even meets its own spellcasting prerequisite with its Dispel Evil spell-like ability so you don't need to keep Dismissal as a spell known. It's possible to add it onto any spellcaster without changing the direction of your build, whereas Ur-Priest completely turns you off your current path if you decide to take it.

Taint is available to characters of any alignment. The taint-based prestige classes aren't really anything to write home about without shenanigans that are even less reputable than an Ancestral Relic Runestaff.

[flappeercraft]

Well, Ur-Priest is pretty useful for making Double, Triple and Quadruple casters. I'm not even sure you can do a Quadruple caster before ECL 20 without Ur-Priest or Pun Pun/Illithid Savant like shenanigans.

Edit: Ur-Priest does not necessarily take you off your path. Take one level dip and then Mystic Theurge, Psychic theurge or similar classes for progression on your other casting (Unless it was divine).

[Dimers]

sanctified spells (requires a good alignment at least, probably exalted status)

Surprisingly, no, just non-evil.

[BloodSnake'sCha]

L/C/X

Order Chaos is a nice feat ;)

Get L benefits and the C benefits in the same time is nice.

I like to get G over E because I like the Good only options(I don't like the E only options) of the Crusader.

[emeraldstreak]

Nymph's Kiss for skills, Righteous Wrath for Frenzied Berserker, Exalted Companion for a Celestial animal companion which can take VoP, Nemesis, Words of Creation for doubling your already absurd Inspire Courage bonus..... There are no nongood equivalents to these feats, but there are often nonevil equivalents to the usable vile feats.

(Greater) Luminous Armor alone is often worth having a good alignment on many characters.

Ur-Priest is a niche class that you need to build a character around, and it has a built-in adaptation for making a nonevil version that worships a dead god. Sacred Exorcist can be added to any spellcaster for almost no sacrifice, it offers better BAB and HD than nearly any arcane prestige class, and it even meets its own spellcasting prerequisite with its Dispel Evil spell-like ability so you don't need to keep Dismissal as a spell known. It's possible to add it onto any spellcaster without changing the direction of your build, whereas Ur-Priest completely turns you off your current path if you decide to take it.

Taint is available to characters of any alignment. The taint-based prestige classes aren't really anything to write home about without shenanigans that are even less reputable than an Ancestral Relic Runestaff.

Exalted feats, sanctified spells, Saint are all solid choices for a game of moderate-to-high optimization.

[KillianHawkeye]

I'm tempted to say Neutral Evil, because you'll almost always be fighting Evil stuff with anti-Good abilities anyway, and Evil can tap into most sources of powers without consequence. Sacrifice rules, pain as power, souls as power, [Evil] and [Good] spells, etc.

An Evil Cleric (or a Cleric of an Evil deity) wouldn't be able to cast [Good] spells, though.


sanctified spells (requires a good alignment at least, probably exalted status)


Surprisingly, no, just non-evil.

However, the luminous armor spell and its greater version can only be cast on a Good creature.

[Gemini476]

True Neutral is usually the best unless you have something you specifically want to do... except, of course, that neutral evil is ironically the best alignment for those who want to be a protagonist, because it prevents you getting caught up in enemy blasphemies and unholy blights, which are far more common than enemy holy words or holy smites!

Of course, other alignments are useful if you're trying to do a specific thing with them, but that depends entirely on the specific thing in question.

The risk with this, I think, is that a Neutral Evil character is much more likely to actually run into enemy Holy Words or Holy Smites than, say, a True Neutral or Neutral Good one. After all, the DM doesn't need to justify enemy archons or paladins as being deceived or fallen - they could just be the standard crusaders looking to smite some evil.

Basically, it's the old problem where having a Rogue makes traps more likely because the DM builds around the class, while not having a Rogue makes traps less likely since the DM is building with the assumption that the party does not have a Rogue. If you're undead, the DM has reason to start sending Turn Undead your way. If you're a party of monstrous humanoids, enemy casters will mysteriously stop preparing Hold Person.
If you're Evil, the DM will probably start sending anti-Evil opponents at you and ease up on the Blasphemies.


There's also a more general problem where setting yourself up as a Neutral Evil PC fighting Evil puts yourself in a personal version of the Blood War: you don't really have that many allies. While a Good character is generally nominally on the same side as Good NPCs and Neutral characters can finagle things, Evil characters are generally opposed to Good on account of, well, literally being opposed to Good. The natural response would be to start allying with other Evil and Neutral characters, but since you're out on a crusade against Evil like the typical heroic PC that means that even that pool is limited.
Basically, you need to start worrying about all those classes and prestige classes and monsters that have Detect Evil.

I'm personally inclined to believe that True Neutral is a rather strong pick, but honestly there's arguments to be made for any of the alignments. If you want to actually play published adventures you might want to be non-Evil, though, because that might conflict with some of the base assumptions made in them (e.g. you're a do-gooder doing good).

[Dimers]

However, the luminous armor spell and its greater version can only be cast on a Good creature.

I enjoy the thought of a Neutral caster using that on a Good target. Heathens to the rescue! :smallbiggrin:

[ericgrau]

In general... true neutral means you are affected by the least things and can use the most things. But specific builds have specific alignment requirements so that with the caveat of switching as needed for build.

Anti-evil stuff is often good because campaigns are often against evil creatures. But you can usually use these means while neutral. If you need to be good to use something then you might be good just for this reason.

Also DMs may have biases that you want to avoid. For a common example if he's a stickler on what lawful is supposed to do, don't play lawful.

[Sam K]

Probably LE. All the powerful options that E can get, while still possible to play in a "civilized manner" that can fit most parties.

I would say even CE can be played in a civilised manner as long as you're not devoted to it (ie serving something that REQUIRES you to act in a certain way)/psychotic/bloody stupid. You can act neutral 99% of the time, and spend that last 1% of the time capturing souls and using them for craft XP, or sacrifice prisoners to whatever evil will grant you useful boons.

All very pragmatic and nothing that demands that you set fire to puppies or kill orphans for fun. Still, enough to get you labeled as some of the worst evil around (anything involving messing with eternal souls will pretty much do that, at least according to the BoVD).

For the most optimal alignment, I will interpret the question like this: if I could only play one alignment ever again, which one would I chose to get the most possible options across the most possible games?

True neutral would be my first choice. It has very few restrictions, and the ones it restricts me from are either bad (monk, paladin), extremely restrictive (anything exalted) or obscure (Ur-priest, vile feats). I might miss out on some good spells, but over all I'm be ok with making that trade-off. Simply put, I could play almost everything I want using TN (though I would miss crusaders...) Also, even in the more zealous interpretations of alignments, TN will usually be ok. In a world ran by :miko:-style paladins, TN can still exist as long as it keeps a low profile.

NE would be my second choice. Pragmatic, un-aligned evil is very powerful. Some of the evil options are VERY good (ur-priest, for example), and NE still has access to druid. But it could be quite restrictive because a lot of tables do not allow evil, or take a very heavy handed approach to it. But I probably wouldn't want to play at those tables anyway.

Third choice would be CN: CN is probably my favourite alignment, but it simply doesn't give that much over TN, but comes with a restriction that might make you an enemy with a third of the universe (the lawful part).