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golentan
2008-10-13, 01:11 AM
This is a rather complicated one that came up in an old game, and has a number of arguments between me, the other players, and our GM over how to classify the NPC in question.

Long Version: The NPC in question (henceforth character A) was a lawful evil outsider of considerable power and influence, who through a long chain of events (including deific intervention) in the campaign met and fell in love with a lawful good character (character B), attempting to behave in such a way as to not lose the company of B.This was before BOED, and the DM felt that the Evil subtype compelled the being with it constantly towards evil, even after the influence of the aforementioned divine intervention. As such, A, being an incarnation of Wrath, would periodically lose control and lash out at whoever was nearest in the most violent and painful (not to mention usually lethal) ways possible. Though A tried to avoid this in the presence of B, it occurred with increasing frequency and resulted in the eventual death of B. A, wracked with self-loathing over what it had done, retreated to it's home plane vowing not to interfere with mortal affairs again. This promise did not last, and in the climactic moments of the campaign (demonic army at the gates, last bastion of humanity about to fall, survivors numbering in the hundreds vs. an army in the millions) A returned at the behest of the PCs and using their combined magical might defeated the demonic army (crazy circle magic homebrew). The act that did so, however, was an epic spell with the evil descriptor, which further required innocent sacrifices. The resultant backlash killed A.

Short Version: Character: Lawful evil outsider.

Good acts: Falls in love, tries to be violate own nature, tries to not harm further when that fails, saves the world by sacrificing own life (remember, outsider, no resurrection).

Evil Acts: Continues to murder, manipulate, and act cruel even during "best" times. Kills loved one in fit of rage. Casts epic spell with evil descriptor requiring death of children as final act.

Lawful Acts: Attempted to adhere to personal code, fought forces of chaos at every turn and even upheld the order/organization of the planes, remained loyal to companions/former companions.

Chaotic Acts: Violated personal code repeatedly, lack of self control, violated oaths.

Question: Ignoring the rules that say "Lawful evil outsider, always lawful evil," what the heck is this being's alignment at time of death? Does the standard 9 point alignment system even have an appropriate space for this?

And yes, I know this is a dark campaign world. The DM explained that he wanted "for the greater good" to often involve despicable behaviors, and doing the right thing to often get you punished. Also, the lower planes were more prone to intervening in the world, the upper planes tended to say "you must overcome evil and achieve enlightenment yourself."

Sstoopidtallkid
2008-10-13, 01:15 AM
LN. He has a genetic predisposition to evil that he fought a large portion of his life, but failed to suppress repeatedly. This is one of those cases where large amount of good+large amount of evil=neutral.

TheOOB
2008-10-13, 01:27 AM
Anyone who harms innocents is evil, period, end of story, regardless of how much good they do. Keep in mind that a neutral person isn't someone who is balanced between good and evil, but rather they are someone who doesn't have the conviction of a good person(isn't willing to take risks to help people) but is also is opposed to evil(doesn't harm innocents to advance their goals).

Someone who harms innocents as evil, largely because good and neutral are defined as not harming innocents.

JaxGaret
2008-10-13, 01:50 AM
Sounds Chaotic Evil to me. The few Good acts are far outweighed by the plethora of very Evil acts, and all of the intent in the world doesn't change the fact that A was a random murderer, and violated their own personal oath to the one they loved the most in the world in a manner that led directly to their death.

Note that fighting the forces of Chaos does not itself make you inherently Lawful. Also, I would argue that A did not purposefully remain loyal to anyone.

EDIT: Wait a second, did A actually kill B? If so, as CE as it gets.

golentan
2008-10-13, 02:26 AM
Sounds Chaotic Evil to me. The few Good acts are far outweighed by the plethora of very Evil acts, and all of the intent in the world doesn't change the fact that A was a random murderer, and violated their own personal oath to the one they loved the most in the world in a manner that led directly to their death.

Note that fighting the forces of Chaos does not itself make you inherently Lawful. Also, I would argue that A did not purposefully remain loyal to anyone.

EDIT: Wait a second, did A actually kill B? If so, as CE as it gets.

Sorry, gave the wrong impression about a few things. The murders weren't random, and were in fact mostly targeted at violent criminals and the like. A would, when it felt itself close to snapping, position itself near individuals it viewed as "parasites on humanity." As for killing B, yes, A did directly kill B. B followed A on one of it's "extracurricular" trips, hoping to break the pattern of behavior, but instead got killed in the crossfire. A actually remained scrupulously exact in all oaths and loyalties made to outside beings until released (merely to the letter of the agreement). Sort of a pain, dealing with it in that respect. It was the internal rules that were broken, the ones set up by A for A. In fact, one of the ironies of the whole situation is that A offered B a contract of behavior, that B turned down. Given the painfully precise adherence to such things in all other respects, and the clauses of behavior codified, the contract most likely would have saved B's life.

Aquillion
2008-10-13, 06:34 AM
Anyone who harms innocents is evil, period, end of story, regardless of how much good they do. Keep in mind that a neutral person isn't someone who is balanced between good and evil, but rather they are someone who doesn't have the conviction of a good person(isn't willing to take risks to help people) but is also is opposed to evil(doesn't harm innocents to advance their goals).

Someone who harms innocents as evil, largely because good and neutral are defined as not harming innocents.
That's not quite true. First of all, your alignment is almost never determined solely by a single act. The fact that Hercules goes into a berserk rage once and kills his wife and children does not automatically make him evil; alignment describes the entire sum of your character, not the worst thing you did.

From the SRD:

"Good" implies altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings. Good characters make personal sacrifices to help others.

"Evil" implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others. Some evil creatures simply have no compassion for others and kill without qualms if doing so is convenient. Others actively pursue evil, killing for sport or out of duty to some evil deity or master.

People who are neutral with respect to good and evil have compunctions against killing the innocent but lack the commitment to make sacrifices to protect or help others. Neutral people are committed to others by personal relationships.Note the "compunctions against killing the innocent" -- it doesn't say you never do it, it just says that you don't like to do it. A frenzied berserker who occasionally kills innocents by accident in a fit of rage -- or a rogue who kills an innocent guard in a blind panic during a botched robbery -- can still be neutral, overall, despite having committed an extremely serious evil act, as long as they feel genuinely guilty afterwords.

A wholly evil character kills without qualms, or even does it for fun. Someone who kills in a panic or a blind rage and regrets it afterwords is therefore not necessarily evil (this doesn't necessarily make their actions non-evil; but alignment describes the sum of your character, not one or two events.)

Likewise, a character who sacrifices innocents for the 'greater good' can be neutral as long as they do not enjoy doing it. (Again: It's important to understand that this does not automatically make those specific actions non-evil. But despite committing an evil act, if they hated to do it then their overall character probably fits the neutral description better than the evil one, at least going by the SRD. You have to kill "without qualms", or for sport or in the service of an evil master, for it to really qualify you as evil.)

Technically this character might even qualify as good if you finesse the definitions (neutral characters "lack the commitment to make sacrifices to protect or help others"; evil ones kill "without qualms" or for sport. Both of these clearly fail to apply here. But nothing in 'good' says that you never do anything evil; it can still technically be applied.) But that would be pushing it. (How much "respect for life" do they have? They seem more concerned with their lost love, which fits "Neutral people are committed to others by personal relationships.")

Basically the SRD's alignment descriptions suck.

Incidentally, by my reading your good-evil alignment is determined not primarily by your actions, and not by your intentions (which are just an aspect of your actions anyway), but by your state of mind. It is possible for a good character and an evil character to do the exact same thing in the same situation for the same reasons. However, the good character will feel genuine remorse for and aversion to committing evil deeds (even if they think it's necessary or when they're forced into it by circumstances), while the evil character will either not care at all or will revel in it.

Starbuck_II
2008-10-13, 07:04 AM
This is a rather complicated one that came up in an old game, and has a number of arguments between me, the other players, and our GM over how to classify the NPC in question.

Long Version: The NPC in question (henceforth character A) was a lawful evil outsider of considerable power and influence, who through a long chain of events (including deific intervention) in the campaign met and fell in love with a lawful good character (character B), attempting to behave in such a way as to not lose the company of B.This was before BOED, and the DM felt that the Evil subtype compelled the being with it constantly towards evil, even after the influence of the aforementioned divine intervention. As such, A, being an incarnation of Wrath, would periodically lose control and lash out at whoever was nearest in the most violent and painful (not to mention usually lethal) ways possible. Though A tried to avoid this in the presence of B, it occurred with increasing frequency and resulted in the eventual death of B. A, wracked with self-loathing over what it had done, retreated to it's home plane vowing not to interfere with mortal affairs again. This promise did not last, and in the climactic moments of the campaign (demonic army at the gates, last bastion of humanity about to fall, survivors numbering in the hundreds vs. an army in the millions) A returned at the behest of the PCs and using their combined magical might defeated the demonic army (crazy circle magic homebrew). The act that did so, however, was an epic spell with the evil descriptor, which further required innocent sacrifices. The resultant backlash killed A.

Short Version: Character: Lawful evil outsider.

Good acts: Falls in love, tries to be violate own nature, tries to not harm further when that fails, saves the world by sacrificing own life (remember, outsider, no resurrection).

Evil Acts: Continues to murder, manipulate, and act cruel even during "best" times. Kills loved one in fit of rage. Casts epic spell with evil descriptor requiring death of children as final act.

Lawful Acts: Attempted to adhere to personal code, fought forces of chaos at every turn and even upheld the order/organization of the planes, remained loyal to companions/former companions.

Chaotic Acts: Violated personal code repeatedly, lack of self control, violated oaths.

Question: Ignoring the rules that say "Lawful evil outsider, always lawful evil," what the heck is this being's alignment at time of death? Does the standard 9 point alignment system even have an appropriate space for this?

And yes, I know this is a dark campaign world. The DM explained that he wanted "for the greater good" to often involve despicable behaviors, and doing the right thing to often get you punished. Also, the lower planes were more prone to intervening in the world, the upper planes tended to say "you must overcome evil and achieve enlightenment yourself."

NG: He tried to follow his "non-evil" code but he failed. He leans LG though.

And while he did much evil: he didn't purposely kill B; He had a Frenzy Berserker mechanic (from DM) that caused it. He had no control during that time.
He was like an animal: he couldn't reason. So that alone was nuetral.

He killed only evil people like all adventurers. In fact, I can't think of a single evil act he did willingly.
Well, there was the Epic spell: so why did using Epic spell kill him? Was he a child?

Anyhoo, I think overall he was Good by his last sacrifice.

NG with Lawful and evil tendencies.

Kalirren
2008-10-13, 07:08 AM
Well, here's my two cents;

It's very convenient that character A happened to die. I think that A was lawful evil in as much as lawful evil can behave in a Lawful Evil (with capitals) manner and still interact in any meaningfully human way. To the extent that A was not Lawful Evil (with capitals) in the archetypical, context-free sense, A was embroiled in the context of the foreign plane he was in. That's unavoidable. Eventually Lawful and Evil got in each others' way, the character had to make a choice, and the choice was substantially related to the character's destruction.

I think player A did a very good job portraying the character and in toeing the RP-ing line that was toed.

hamishspence
2008-10-13, 07:28 AM
If you go by fiendish codex 2, the question is, did he atone properly for any of his evil deeds? As in, apologize, try and fix damage in some one, by ressurecting victims or travelling to afterlife to apologize to them, go off on quests of good-deed doing, as well, etc.

If not, given number of evil deeds, its Hell for him.

However, if he spent end of his life genuinely repentant, and trying to atone in various ways, Hellbred is the likely option: being reincarnated with a second, very difficult, chance, to do some great Good deed and earn his "get out of Hell free" card :smallsmile:

As for evil acts done unknowingly (under frenzy) Still evil. See atonement spell. But, maybe not corrupt, maybe not enough to make him change alignment, though.

JBento
2008-10-13, 08:26 AM
I'd like to start this by saying that falling in love is not a good act - it's just, well, falling in love. Since you can't control the conditions of it, if you have to give it an alignment tendency, it has to be neutral.

I have to go with CN for that guy. He couldn't prevent himself from killing, and those can't, therefore, be taken into account when determining alignment. While some might say that the correct solution would be imprison himself or even commit suicide to prevent further loss of life, I'd put that in Exalted ground.

However, good is out of the question when he performs a ritual that requires the sacrifice of innocent beings, regardless of the ends of that ritual: it's clearly stated that "for the greater good" is a trap, and evil acts for good ends are still evil acts. I guess the case for good could be argued if said beings volunteer for the ritual, but still...

hamishspence
2008-10-13, 08:31 AM
However, given that this is indeed an outsider, what happens to its soul is a tricky question.

(oh, and by the way, it is in fact possible to ressurect outsiders, its just very difficult: requires true ressurection to "sift through the plane and reconstitute the dissolved soul" Complete Divine.)

Sstoopidtallkid
2008-10-13, 08:32 AM
(oh, and by the way, it is in fact possible to ressurect outsiders, its just very difficult: requires true ressurection to "sift through the plane and reconstitute the dissolved soul" Complete Divine.)There's also SpC spells that do it. I think they're one level higher than the spells to resurrect normal beings.

JBento
2008-10-13, 08:46 AM
IIRC, Outsiders cannot be killed in the Prime Material Plane, only in their home plane, if even they are gated here. They reform in said home plane and cannot return to the Prime for 1001 years.

Of course, they may be other consequences. Devils, for instance, are generally demoted when they "die" in the Prime as punishment for their failure.

Aquillion
2008-10-13, 08:00 PM
As for evil acts done unknowingly (under frenzy) Still evil. See atonement spell. But, maybe not corrupt, maybe not enough to make him change alignment, though.Atonement (at least that part of it) is for Paladins and other characters who are specifically punished even for unknowing/unwilling acts. That doesn't mean that your alignment is changed by them; it just means that it can still 'burden' your conscience and cost you your Paladin-hood.

Pronounceable
2008-10-13, 10:46 PM
Now THAT is a great portrayal of LE. Kudos to DM.

A was completely and totally LE. He (she? it?) fell in love and tried to behave itself. Which failed. It later tried to help some folks over guilt, and did it with at best neutral methods. I see no change here. A was still as LE as they come. Just because it tried to good as best it can (which amounted to neutral here) won't be changing its alignment any time soon, especially for an evil outsider.

If it survived and continued to do such stuff for, say... 10000 more years, it'd probably shift to LN.

sonofzeal
2008-10-13, 11:04 PM
Good acts:
Falls in love - I wouldn't count this in general, as anyone can love. However, he seemed to love selflessly, so that's points.
tries to be violate own nature - This. This defines it for me.
tries to not harm further when that fails - Definitely major points here too.
saves the world by sacrificing own life - Major points here too.

Evil Acts:
Continues to murder, manipulate, and act cruel even during "best" times - evidence of insanity. Not legally responsible for his actions.
Kills loved one in fit of rage. - definitely further evidence of insanity rather than evil
Casts epic spell with evil descriptor requiring death of children as final act. - Ouch. That's a serious alignment hit right there.

Lawful Acts:
Attempted to adhere to personal code - yup, points here.
fought forces of chaos at every turn and even upheld the order/organization of the planes - Major points here
remained loyal to companions/former companions. - minor points here.

Chaotic Acts:
Violated personal code repeatedly - loses points here, partially mitigated by aformentioned legal insanity
lack of self control - ditto
violated oaths - ditto


Diagnosis: He's not evil, he's suffering from a mental disorder.

Good/Evil: He's not exactly Mr Paladin, but he's really trying, and sacrificing along the way, not just at the end. On a five point scale (exalted-good-neutral-evil-vile), I'd say he pulls off Good. On a three point scale, probably Neutral though.

Law/Chaos: His mental disorder impacts his performance and prevents the most extreme categories here, but he's still solidly on the side of law due to his crusade and attempts at self-management. On a five point scale (anarchic-chaotic-neutral-lawful-axiomatic) he'd be solidly Lawful... and he'd probably be Lawful on the three point scale too.

hamishspence
2008-10-14, 07:41 AM
Exalted characters of any kind. Thing is, in later book: Fiendish Codex 2: it said, for minor evil acts, just the apologizing, fixing damage,/ giving up benefits of evil acts, doing extra good acts, is enough, for major ones you need atonement spell as well.

Sure, alignment can't be changed by them. Acts still count as Evil, so paladin falls. If paladin erroneusly believes an act is evil (but not majorly against code) he wouldn't Fall, despite believing he should fall. So, conscience can't be it.

Tsotha-lanti
2008-10-14, 07:44 AM
Continues to murder, manipulate, and act cruel even during "best" times - evidence of insanity. Not legally responsible for his actions.

...

Diagnosis: He's not evil, he's suffering from a mental disorder.

So you'd say Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, and Charles Manson wouldn't be Evil-aligned in a D&D world?

hamishspence
2008-10-14, 07:47 AM
Hmm, tricky. Mostly, answer is: Yes they would. "Mad, I tell you!" is one of the Evil variants in Champions of Ruin. The guy driven by his mental problems to "acts that would horrify a demon"

However, one exception is listed: Heroes of Horror, which argues on detect evil for serial killers: if he's completely insane, one could make a case that he's not evil at all.

This is, however, one of the odder books. Great, but odd.

Duke of URL
2008-10-14, 08:56 AM
Just a note on "good" acts -- alignment is meant to represent an outlook of the world in general. A specific interpersonal relationship does not necessarily have to follow the same outlook. An evil being can quite easily fall in love or wish to protect and nurture those close to him/her, while still having an abusive outlook toward the rest of the world. (Example: prototypical "mob" figures engage in murder, prostitution, fraud/theft, drug running, etc., while being good "family" men at the same time.)

Likewise, a champion of good (in general) can suffer from poor interpersonal relationships, leading to anger, jealousy, and resentment, even toward good-aligned people who would be natural allies. (Roy Greenhilt is an excellent example here.) Paladins are, as usual, the notable exception because of the unique code of conduct they must adhere to is generally considered stricter than alignment constraints.

hamishspence
2008-10-14, 08:57 AM
yes; fits with Savage Species, which says evil beings can love their family, friends, people.

Starbuck_II
2008-10-14, 10:04 AM
yes; fits with Savage Species, which says evil beings can love their family, friends, people.

That is because love is evil. Before I get arguments; let me continue.

Love is a neccesary evil of our genetic makeup. If we don't bump uglies/smite evil as Miko calls it: we would die out as a race (human, elf, etc).

So, of course, evil can do it, but what is more surprising is that good does it as well.

Paladins who fall in love fall obviously. This must be mutual love.

One sided love is neutral, but errors on evil side (meaning usually will be). This is why Stalkers happen to act badly.

hamishspence
2008-10-14, 11:07 AM
I prefer the idea that Love is neutral. But thats me.

I've never liked the whole "lovemaking is evil" and prefer Exalted Deeds where lovemaking is considered a natural and good thing, when its not twisted.

It also said Vows were based around giving up natural and healthy things. so, breaking a vow would as a rule not be an evil act. It might permanently lose you the vow, but not benefits of other exalted feats.