Paragon of... Neutral?

[Lord_Asmodeus]

If the forces of good get Paladins to represent everything good and just, and Evil gets blackguards for the opposite, what does neutrality get? At first I thought maybe the Harpers, but aren't they an organization as opposed to a class or something?

[kpenguin]

Neutrality gets Gary Gygax (Mordenkainen) himself.

[Xefas]

The dragons get the Dispassionate Watchers of Chronepsis.

Though, I must say the idea of a "paragon" of neutrality is kind of amusing. Isn't it either a moderation of both sides, or an outright devotion to balancing the extremities?

When I imagine a "paragon" of neutrality, I imagine one of those paranoid people who go back in time, and then refuse to touch anything for fear of altering the future.

"Oh, %$#@! I just stepped on a shrub! It's a living thing! I've thrown the pendulum sharply into evil territory! Must find some orphans to save!"

[Guildorn Tanaleth]

Neutrality has Buddhist Zen peaceful, meditating monks who acknowledge their class's weakness and don't care.

[Falconer]

Well, a druid might fit that role. I could picture a fanatic true neutral druid dedicated to balance.

[Hallavast]

Wait, Gygax is Mordenkainen?

[Xefas]

Wait, Gygax is Mordenkainen?

Yeah, that was his original character he'd play D&D with, or so I've heard.

[tyckspoon]

Wait, Gygax is Mordenkainen?

Why do you think Mordy made all the coolest (and some of the most powerful) spells?

[bugsysservant]

Well, one way of looking at a paragon of neutrality would be a wizard. Arcane magic obeys all, unlike its divine counterpart which has been corrupted by ideologies. Its not hard to imagine a wizard dedicated to the fundamental, alignment free, stuff of the universe.

[Hallavast]

I refuse to believe it!

[Felius]

I refuse to believe it!

You know it's true. Look into your soul...

[averagejoe]

The dragons get the Dispassionate Watchers of Chronepsis.

Though, I must say the idea of a "paragon" of neutrality is kind of amusing. Isn't it either a moderation of both sides, or an outright devotion to balancing the extremities?

When I imagine a "paragon" of neutrality, I imagine one of those paranoid people who go back in time, and then refuse to touch anything for fear of altering the future.

"Oh, %$#@! I just stepped on a shrub! It's a living thing! I've thrown the pendulum sharply into evil territory! Must find some orphans to save!"

No, no, no, a paragon of neutrality is the sort of person who would attempt to assassinate a wierd looking alien with some scissors.

[Lord_Asmodeus]

hehe, that episode of futurama was hilarious "sir, weve gone to beige alert" "If I don't make it, tell my wife, hello" :smallbiggrin:

[Hallavast]

You know it's true. Look into your soul...

I would, but I can't get the child-proof lid off....

[Randel]

Paragon of neutrality?

True Neutral: A mindless inanimate rock. It has no thoughts of either right or wrong and takes no actions of good or evil.

Morally Neutral: Some kind of robot, they decide to do either good or evil through either lawful or chaotic means. Either by going through a series of steps (lawful) or by randomly flipping coins (chaotic)... imagine a paragon of chaotic moral neutrality wandering around flipping a coin. Heads, they give someone ice cream, tails, they set them on fire.

Law/chaos neutrality: A philosopher. They argue constantly either in favor or against (sometimes even both ways simultaneously) the validity of society over the individual but never actually do any good or evil deeds.

Insanely Neutral: They keep a big list of everything they see and tally up any measurements of law/chaos good/evil they can find. Then they go do something to negate that whenever they can. If someone feels sad, they cheer them up just enough that they don't become 'too happy' if a city is prosperous they try to ruin it just enough that it doesn't get 'too screwed up'

Ultimately the paragon of Insane Neutrality wants to destroy the universe as quickly and painlessly as possible. Spellcasters might opt to drain all emotion and hope from an area so that nobody can feel happy or sad again, or destroy all sentient life so that only non intelligent creatures with no concept of morality exist. Some might say that they are evil, but even evil people generally try to make themselves happy in some way, the insanely neutral doesn't even do that.

[Inyssius Tor]

Well, yes. I don't think the Lord of the Ninth really wants the paragon of Neutral, as much as a devoted and Lawful axiomatic warrior of the Neutral ideal, since Blackguards and Paladins aren't paragons of Evil or Good, they're devoted and Lawful holy/unholy warriors of the Good/Evil ideals.

[horseboy]

The Order. Course, they're Dark Sun, and Psionicists.

[Tengu]

Insanely Neutral: They keep a big list of everything they see and tally up any measurements of law/chaos good/evil they can find. Then they go do something to negate that whenever they can. If someone feels sad, they cheer them up just enough that they don't become 'too happy' if a city is prosperous they try to ruin it just enough that it doesn't get 'too screwed up'


That's the definition of True Neutral from AD&D, which basically means that 1/9 of the whole population are lunatics... wait, make that 1/3 - Chaotic Neutral and Chaotic Evil were pretty screwed up, too. Anyway, since druids could only be True Neutral back then, one could say they served as paragons of neutrality, but that's no longer the case.

[Icewalker]

Hmm...nobody brought up the inevitables yet.

The robots that go around and wreck people who are breaking their rules, which on the whole are for balancing neutrality.

[TheOOB]

Acually, the insanely neutral people (such as mordenkeinen) should be tagged as evil. Harming innocents to achieve your goals(even if that goal is "balance") is an evil act.

Being a paragon of neutral would be...difficult. A neutral person is someone who isn't willing to risk their life to protect an innocent, but doesn't want to hurt them either. Someone who does look ahead, and consider the far reaching impacts of their actions, caring about tradition and what not, yet still being grounded in the here and the now, willing to change their ways or break a few rules if they need to. In short, a true neutral person is an average person who doesn't have a particularly strong leaning twords good, evil, law, or chaos. Really, the best way to make a "neutral paladin" would be to make some sort of druidic paladin variant, someone who fights fervently for cause such as nature that is independent from ethics and morality.

[Tengu]

Acually, the insanely neutral people (such as mordenkeinen) should be tagged as evil. Harming innocents to achieve your goals(even if that goal is "balance") is an evil act.


I agree with that. If you purposely do both good and evil of the same strength, you're not neutral, you're deluded evil.

[Mewtarthio]

I think a god could pretty easily be a Paragon of Neutral. He could staunchly oppose any and all divine interference in the mortal world, believing it's best to let the mortals work things out on their own, and let the chips fall where they may. I wouldn't consider him Lawful, since he wouldn't object if the world fell into Chaos, nor Chaotic, since he'd never interfere with any governments, nor Good or Evil, since he'd be completely uncaring on that front, and yet he's still strongly devoted to his alignment.

Yes, that's right: He's the God of Atheism. :smalltongue:

[kpenguin]

The god of atheism is the strongest god around, too. He gains power from people not believing in him.

[Dode]

Void Disciple?

[TheOOB]

You can't be strongly neutral, a neutral god isn't the most neutral thing possible, it's just a god who isn't good/evil/lawful/chaotic. Neutral isn't an alignment so much as it is a lack of alignment.

[Zenos]

The Swiss?

[Mewtarthio]

You can't be strongly neutral, a neutral god isn't the most neutral thing possible, it's just a god who isn't good/evil/lawful/chaotic. Neutral isn't an alignment so much as it is a lack of alignment.

I disagree. For instance, an NG guy may be a guy who's simply Good and doesn't care about Law or Chaos, but it could also be a guy who's Good and believes that caring about Law or Chaos will actively impede his ability to do Good. There's a subtle yet important difference: The former guy simply doesn't think about ethics, while the latter guy has made a firm decision to actively ignore ethics.

[TheOOB]

I disagree. For instance, an NG guy may be a guy who's simply Good and doesn't care about Law or Chaos, but it could also be a guy who's Good and believes that caring about Law or Chaos will actively impede his ability to do Good. There's a subtle yet important difference: The former guy simply doesn't think about ethics, while the latter guy has made a firm decision to actively ignore ethics.

Beings alignment is objective and not subjective it doesn't matter what your characters views on law and chaos are, you either act in a lawful/chaotic manner, and thus gain the appropriate alignment, or you don't and stay neutral in the ethical axis.

Though it should be noted that making a firm decision to ignore ethics to achieve your goal(such as "doing good") is a fairly lawful viewpoint, though really it depends on how you act on those views to determine what alignment you are.

PS: Tengu, your avatar is creeping me out :P

[Khanderas]

hehe, that episode of futurama was hilarious "sir, weve gone to beige alert" "If I don't make it, tell my wife, hello" :smallbiggrin:
Curse you, for I was planning to post that pun :D


Also paragon for neutrality, seems to me to be a Cursader for.. eh.
unless the balance above all things madness (the humans are winning the war? time to join the orcs).

[Serpentine]

I think my take on True Neutral may be rather strongly influenced by the Baldur's Gate version, but I haven't read it for ages and can't remember.
Basically, I think True Neutral believes that Good, Evil, Law and Chaos all have their place in the world. They believe the world is in perfect balance and harmony with all of these, or should be. To take the Druid angle, Nature has its own order and structure, but is full of chance and random events. It can do truly horrible, despicable things, but it can also do beautiful, wonderful things. A True Neutral character will either, to take extremes, believe that the world is in harmony and can maintain the balance itself, without any outside help. Such a person will probably believe that their actions, whatever alignment they might adhere to, won't really make that much of a difference to anything. They might avoid doing anything too far to any extreme (no burning down orphanages or hunting down an oathbreaker to the end of the earth, for example), and they might try to keep their own person and space as balanced as possible through little deeds, but they generally won't set out to Restore The Balance.
At the other end (and this is more Warrior Paragon of Alignment material), is the person who sets out to maintain the delicate balance that is so easily swayed in any direction. These people are the sort who might undermine long-standing tyrannies, or suppress a revolt, or assassinate a too-powerful paladin, or combat the marauding undead armies. Alternatively/additionally (and I'm sure I'm getting this from Baldur's Gate or somesuch), these are the people who stand up for the underdog. To take what I'm sure is an example straight from my half-remembered source, they will help defend a city against an army of orcs, but then help the orcs to survive when the city's citizens set out to exterminate them.
I think a Knight of the Balance or something like that could work... Any takers? :smallamused:

[Yami]

Karla from Record of Lodoss War would be the best example of a True Neutral Paragon that I could come up with.

[Khanderas]

Read Serpentine's post and thought of the Necromancer class in Diablo 2.
The material plane, with its death and rebirth is the balance as it should be. Demons, Devils and angels just mess things up. A TN, character could be intrested in booting all extraplanar influences off the material plane. Good or Evil. Problebly including gods, atleast those with personal agendas.

[Serpentine]

That would certainly be an interesting way to play it, but personally I'd probably make that an "only if I can't stop one side from taking over" option.
Now, would a Paragon of Neutral spellcaster summon Neutral creatures only (or none at all) or would it try to summon the opposite alignment of the enemy in an attempt to make it a balancing battle-between-ultimate-enemies?

[Laurellien]

According to BoVD and the BoED, there are a set of powerful artefacts given to the champion of Neutrality to match the regalia of evil and the regalia of good.

[Azerian Kelimon]

You know, TN Paragons can't exist on D&D. Mostly because of technology, because no one has a Supercomputer around.

[Admiral Squish]

The champion of balance

Just like blackguards and paladins, even the variant paladins for chaos, a true neutral paragon would be made to enforce the balance of the world by hindering one side when it became too strong. If a tyrant came to power, he'd fight them in the name of chaos. A powerful group of bandits? He'd fight for law. An evil plot? He'd fight for good. A organization of good getting too close to 'cleansing'? he'd fight for evil. He'd probably think everyone needs a champion at times.

Now I have to go homebrew this, too...

[Keld Denar]

hehe, that episode of futurama was hilarious "sir, weve gone to beige alert" "If I don't make it, tell my wife, hello" :smallbiggrin:

Nothing is more satisfying that the epic struggle between good.....and neutral. One has to ask themselves, what drives a man to be neutral? Is it his upbringing, his family life, or is he just born with a heart full of neutrality?

-Zap Brandagen (mostly)

[Azerian Kelimon]

Actually, NOTHING can drive a man to be TN. It's simply impossible. He might get to be N, but not T. TN implies Soullessness, and a soulless being is no longer a man.

[Lord_Asmodeus]

Actually, NOTHING can drive a man to be TN. It's simply impossible. He might get to be N, but not T. TN implies Soullessness, and a soulless being is no longer a man.

Wait wait, where in Ao's name do you get being True Neutral as to mean soullessnes?

[Jayabalard]

Paragons of balance (ie, neutral) are druids; ask a hard one next time.

in 1ed, druids had to be true neutral; even in 3ed, they have to be at least partially neutral.