Assigning stats to alignments

[SangoProduction]

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[Biggus]

Apparently Rich Burlew thinks Wisdom is Good...

https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0058.html

[hamishspence]

Given that there are more than a few Evil clerics in OOTS, and clerics run on Wisdom, I'd put that down as a one-off circumstance - rather than "Wisdom, in general, is Good"

[Saintheart]

So if you're very wise and intelligent you are Lawful Neutral. I approve heartily of this proposition.

[MR_Anderson]

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[Maat Mons]

Barbarians are the poster-children for Strength, and they're necessarily non-lawful. I'd be inclined to assign Strength to Chaotic alignments, on that basis.

Charisma is primarily associated with Bards, Paladins, and Sorcerers. Sorcerers don't need to be any particular alignment. Bards have to be non-lawful, but Paladins have to be Lawful. I'm inclined to say those cancel out. That leaves us with the Paladin's Good alignment. So let's assign Charisma to Good alignments.

Clerics are Wisdom-dependent and have alignment restrictions, but the restrictions are vastly different for different Clerics. Rangers are Wisdom-dependent, but have no alignment restriction. The you have Druids and Monks. Druids can be Good, Evil, Lawful, or Chaotic (though they need to be Neutral on one axis). So I don't see that class arguing for an association between wisdom and and of the four alignment components. Monks, on the other hand, are necessarily Lawful. So I'm incline to assign Wisdom to Lawful alignments.

None of the PHB classes tend toward Evil, so there isn't any way to assign a attribute on that basis. But I'd like to argue for Constitution. It's the stat that benefits only oneself. If you have a high score in any of the other abilities, you can, somehow, use it to influence the world in ways that help others. But a high constitution score just keeps you alive.



So characters from Chaotic societies learn to be strong. They have to be self-reliant because there isn't any big, organized government taking care of things for them.

Characters from Lawful societies learn to be wise. They are always affecting others with their action and being affecting by the actions of others. They come to understand that all decisions need to be weighed carefully.

Characters from Good societies are trained to be leaders of men. They inspire others by example. And the compassion they show for others naturally tends to make others like them and want to be around them. That is to say, they are charismatic.

Those from Evil societies... well they learn to survive... or they don't. Evil cultures breed tough individuals, because the ones who aren't tough don't make it.



That leaves Dexterity and Intelligence unaligned. And that seems fitting enough. Those are the Rogue stats. And Rogues are a practical bunch. No united philosophy there.

[SangoProduction]

Using the core classes to align stats would mean Intelligence is associated with Wizards, which, while most spells are not classed as Evil (even really horrible spells that would kill painfully, or...enchantment spells), there are virtually no Good spells.
Thus, most spells are unaligned, but most with an alignment are evil, making Intelligence, the facilitator of the spells, Evil.

[hamishspence]

None of the PHB classes tend toward Evil, so there isn't any way to assign a attribute on that basis.



Using the core classes to align stats would mean Intelligence is associated with Wizards, which, while most spells are not classed as Evil (even really horrible spells that would kill painfully, or...enchantment spells), there are virtually no Good spells.
Thus, most spells are unaligned, but most with an alignment are evil, making Intelligence, the facilitator of the spells, Evil.

It's worth noting that using the DMG random NPC tables, then statistically, Wizard NPCs the party encounter will be more likely to be Evil than Neutral or good.

If you randomly generate 10,000 NPCs, you will on average get 400 Good wizards, 600 Neutral wizards, and 750 Evil wizards.

Though to be fair, aside from Paladins, most of the PC classes will tend toward Evil when random generation is used.

Barbarians? 100 Good, 150 Neutral, 500 Evil
Bards? 100 Good, 150 Neutral, 250 Evil
Clerics? 400 Good, 150 Neutral, 1000 Evil
Druids? 100 Good, 300 Neutral, 250 Evil
Fighters? 200 Good, 600 Neutral, 500 Evil
Monks? 100 Good, 150 Neutral, 250 Evil
Paladins? 100 Good, 0 Neutral, 0 Evil
Rangers? 200 Good, 150 Neutral, 250 Evil
Rogues? 200 Good, 600 Neutral, 1000 Evil
Sorcerers? 100 Good, 150 Neutral, 250 Evil

So - Druids and Fighters are the only ones for which Neutral is more common than Evil. For all but Paladins, Evil's more common than Good. And of all the classes, the two with the strongest bias toward Evil are Barbarians and Clerics, with Rogues coming third.

In the novels (Shadow of the Avatar Book I: Shadows of Doom), Elminster says

"Ever wonder why there are more evil mages than good ones? It's because power like that makes it so hideously easy to rule all about ye."