'Best' Optimized Character Builds Are Evil (3.5)

[Eloi]

I noticed that the 'best' optimized character builds are evil. To wit:

Pun-Pun, with the ability to turn into a Sarrukh being the base of its power, has the Sarrukh being typically Neutral Evil.
War Hulking Hurler is Lolth-touched and thus Chaotic Evil
Illithid Savants are and worship a Lawful Evil deity.

So, from a mechanics standpoint, Evil is the most powerful force in the universe. I wonder what kind of cosmology these munchkin gods would make, if there are actually the most powerful beings in any D&D setting barring 0th law.

Well, Pun-Pun has the ability to create any type of creature, so he can be the creator of the world. Being the munchkin that it is, it will probably only create things with good stats.
The War Hulking Hurler has the ability to kill things. Really, really well. So he could introduce the overpowerful beings to warfare and start its chaos.
The Illithid Savants will make every single sentient being its slave/food supply, and thus maintain order by oppresive work regimes.

Thus if a D&D cosmology were ruled by the opti-build trio, it'd be an ever warring world full of over-powered slaves battling for little reason for gods they can never hope to topple.

What are your thoughts on this trend for Evil=Good Optimized Build, is there any known breaks, and what do you think a cosmology governed by the three munchkin Gods would be like?

[Private-Prinny]

I came in expecting some Stormwind Fallacy. I am pleasantly surprised.

On another note: Cancer Mage, abused for NI STR, requires an Evil alignment. And in the actual D&D cosmology, it's strongly implied, if not outright stated, that either demons or devils could curb-stomp the Upper Planes, and that the Blood War is the only thing keeping the Angels safe.

[Marriclay]

I have to disagree with the OP.

Sarrukh, as you mentioned, are neutral evil. that says nothing for the individual kobold that becomes pun-pun

War Hulking Hurler doesn't have to be lolth touched - hells, the war hulk PrC by itself is broken, and all that it requires is that you be large and good in combat, and the hulking hurler class isn't even that mean. Combining the classes together is broken, yes, but by no means inherently evil

the only one I agree with you on is the illithid savant

[sofawall]

Pun-Pun is a Paladin. A LG one.

[Private-Prinny]

Pun-Pun is a Paladin. A LG one.

Wrong. That Pun-Pun build calls for Pazuzu, which shifts him to NG and causes him to fall.

[Mr.Bookworm]

Pun-Pun is a Paladin. A LG one.

Though that particular build involves contracting out to demon lord, so perhaps not.

[Dusk Eclipse]

IIRC using the Pazuzu method (fastest way AFAIK) shifted your aligment one step towards CE per wish

EDIT: I failed my spot check, there too many ninja

[PId6]

IIRC using the Pazuzu method (fastest way AFAIK) shifted your aligment one step towards CE per wish

But you only need one. NG is still Good.

[Dusk Eclipse]

But you only need one. NG is still Good.

Hmm I thought you used more wishes

[Runestar]

Wrong. That Pun-Pun build calls for Pazuzu, which shifts him to NG and causes him to fall.

I thought no harm comes to a paladin who uses wish for the 1st time? The entry explicitly states that Pazuzu goes to great pains to ensure this.

[Prodan]

Because Good is dumb.

[Private-Prinny]

I thought no harm comes to a paladin who uses wish for the 1st time? The entry explicitly states that Pazuzu goes to great pains to ensure this.

That just means there's no "You didn't wish to not be on fire" shenanigans. It still shifts his alignment.

[PId6]

Hmm I thought you used more wishes

You get those from Gated Efreets, not from Pazuzu.

[Weezer]

And don't forget two staples of TO, Ur-Priest and Tainted Scholar. For the first the prereq is to be evil and the second one gains its power by tainting itself with pure evilness.

[Eloi]

I have to disagree with the OP.

Sarrukh, as you mentioned, are neutral evil. that says nothing for the individual kobold that becomes pun-pun

War Hulking Hurler doesn't have to be lolth touched - hells, the war hulk PrC by itself is broken, and all that it requires is that you be large and good in combat, and the hulking hurler class isn't even that mean. Combining the classes together is broken, yes, but by no means inherently evil

the only one I agree with you on is the illithid savant

a) Kobolds are typically Lawful Evil. That still doesn't change anything.
b) Yes, because something that just focuses solely on killing everything and has no intelligent skills is sure to be of good-morals and sane-mind, right?

[Siosilvar]

You get those from Gated Efreets, not from Pazuzu.

Efreet are evil. Using Gate to call one makes it an [Evil] spell. One could argue that using items that duplicate [Evil] spells is just as bad as casting the [Evil] spell yourself.

[PersonMan]

b) Yes, because a warrior who just focuses on killing everything and has no intelligent skills is sure to be of good-morals and sane-mind, right?

Why not? How are most DnD characters different? They just only go after acceptable targets-like if a modern axe-crazy murderer wouldn't be arrested/whatever if he only killed criminals or something. Just because they have "Good" on their sheets doesn't mean that what they do is that much different than ones with "Neutral" or "Evil" on their sheets.

[Eloi]

Why not? How are most DnD characters different? They just only go after acceptable targets-like if a modern axe-crazy murderer wouldn't be arrested/whatever if he only killed criminals or something. Just because they have "Good" on their sheets doesn't mean that what they do is that much different than ones with "Neutral" or "Evil" on their sheets.

*sigh* Okay, okay. I'm just going off what the character build itself says:
http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/War_Hul...haracter_Build)
And according to it the Lolth-touched is one of the templates needed for the opti build, making the character build evil.
But thats not my point.
My point is that evil things seem to be the more powerful, like if you were say to remove the Lolth-touched template from the opti-build it'd probably be less powerful, and same with the alterations with Pun-Pun. It just seems to me that Evil is stronger than good in D&D mechanically.

[Marriclay]

a) Kobolds are typically Lawful Evil. That still doesn't change anything.
b) Yes, because something that just focuses solely on killing everything and has no intelligent skills is sure to be of good-morals and sane-mind, right?

A) it says usually. Just because 50% of kobolds are lawful evil that doesn't mean the individual is, otherwise every dwarf would be lawful good, every elf would be chaotic good, and we'd never have monster characters. Alignments are not a straitjacket, and individuals don't have to be controlled by the mindsets of their peers

B) so what your saying is that, on a lesser level, a man who trains himself with a sword to exclusion of all else, with the intent of using those skills to protect his home is just as evil, or is it just on a smaller scale? intentions are what define an alignment, not skills or training

It just seems to me that Evil is stronger than good in D&D mechanically.

how can you expect to be a hero if the odds against aren't you impossible?

[Eloi]

A) it says usually. Just because 50% of kobolds are lawful evil that doesn't mean the individual is, otherwise every dwarf would be lawful good, every elf would be chaotic good, and we'd never have monster characters. Alignments are not a straitjacket, and individuals don't have to be controlled by the mindsets of their peers

I realize that. My Species Doth Protest Too Much and all that lot. Lawful Good drow and stuff like that. I understand that, but in the character builds ,they seem to favor the evil options.

B) so what your saying is that, on a lesser level, a man who trains himself with a sword to exclusion of all else, with the intent of using those skills to protect his home is just as evil, or is it just on a smaller scale? intentions are what define an alignment, not skills or training

This is a debate about opti-build alignment-preference not ethics lets not get off-topic.

how can you expect to be a hero if the odds against aren't you impossible?

Hm, so the mechanics could be to the monsters individual favor mechanically because an adventuring group usually has more members in it than a typical random encounter, such as in Boss fights. Makes sense, but why aren't the good-aligned enemies that evil parties have to face not in opti-builds? No Achrons, Aasimar, Paladins?

[Marriclay]

Hm, so the mechanics could be to the monsters individual favor mechanically because an adventuring group usually has more members in it than a typical random encounter, such as in Boss fights. Makes sense, but why aren't the good-aligned enemies that evil parties have to face not in opti-builds? No Achrons, Aasimar, Paladins?

simple - D&D is a game for heroes, or at least that was how it was based. of course, an evil party could always fight that white robed wizard who is trying to whitewash the world, but generally, since evil turns in on itself, you can also fight evil things. Sure, the war between good and evil is clearly defined, but what most don't realize is that, while evil is bigger, it's also fighting itself. There's just been more writing and support for evil creatures in splatbooks because it's what players will fight more of

[The Glyphstone]

Why not? How are most DnD characters different? They just only go after acceptable targets-like if a modern axe-crazy murderer wouldn't be arrested/whatever if he only killed criminals or something. .

Well...yes, yes he would. Assuming you're in a country with laws against murder, vigilante murderers still get arrested and sent to prison (maybe a mental hospital), even if they're killing criminals.

Anything more on the subject would wander towards politics, which is a bad thing.

[Eloi]

simple - D&D is a game for heroes, or at least that was how it was based. of course, an evil party could always fight that white robed wizard who is trying to whitewash the world, but generally, since evil turns in on itself, you can also fight evil things. Sure, the war between good and evil is clearly defined, but what most don't realize is that, while evil is bigger, it's also fighting itself

Hm, so because Evil Isn't One Big Happy Family, there can be a balance between Good and Evil in D&D, and thus team-work of Adventureres and good factions are one of things keeping it alive. Its also like how munchkins, while still having 'fun' bashing the rules, will never have the wonderful experience that everyone else enjoys by cooperating. I like that premise, its uplifting.

[Optimystik]

Congratulations on your sleuthing, OP - Evil Is Easy! Next you'll be telling us that monks are underpowered and vorpal swords are sharp

[PersonMan]

Well...yes, yes he would. Assuming you're in a country with laws against murder, vigilante murderers still get arrested and sent to prison (maybe a mental hospital), even if they're killing criminals.

Anything more on the subject would wander towards politics, which is a bad thing.

I...used unclear terms. What I meant to say was that if such a person was pardoned as long as he only targeted criminals, he'd be like a "good" DnD party.

And you're right. Let's get back to...whatever we were talking about.

[Devils_Advocate]

Eloi, of course Evil gets most of the powerful stuff. Evil gets most of the weak stuff, too. Evil gets most of the stuff, period. The D&D multiverse is naturally slanted towards Evil and Chaos. The Abyss has more layers than all of the other planes put together. There are more Evil monsters than Good ones. And so on and so forth.

The reason that Good can hold out against Evil is that Good creatures and factions work together, largely because the overabundance of Evil necessitates this. Evil creatures and factions fight for dominance. The Blood War is merely the epitome of this.

so what your saying is that, on a lesser level, a man who trains himself with a sword to exclusion of all else, with the intent of using those skills to protect his home is just as evil, or is it just on a smaller scale? intentions are what define an alignment, not skills or training

If you want to help people, you can become a teacher, a healer, or any number of things. Blacksmith would be a perfectly good choice, if your village is short on blacksmiths. For example. There are lots of services that you can provide for others, in large part because society is set up so that people can get what they want, often through the assistance of other people.

On the other hand, the number of ways in which one can cruelly exploit others is fairly limited. There are relatively few skill-sets with which to do this effectively and relatively few positions from which to do this effectively. Leader. Representative. Bureaucrat. Businessman. Criminal. Warrior.

It's not that people with those vocations can't benevolently (or not) fulfill vital functions and even be loved for what they do. They totally can. But the screwing over of people is concentrated within certain professions, and thus activity within those professions is statistically more likely to involve screwing people over. This can lead to the unfair perception of an entire profession and everyone in it as corrupt, because a lot of people are stereotyping simpletons. And that's unfortunate. But you are in fact most likely to find people being great big jerks in the jobs in which it's easiest to be a great big jerk.

(Of course, if your job within one of these professions involves doing whatever work someone pays you to do, then a lot of people are going to very understandably hate you, since you're likely or at least willing to occasionally do bad things for bad people. Because they'll give you money to do them. This is why people hate lawyers, who are largely mercenary bureaucrats, essentially. Still, you may manage to remain relatively moral and/or ethical while holding such a job if it's something that someone's going to do anyway, and you actually try to minimize the damage involved, more or less.)

A random PC-classed NPC's alignment is Evil half of the time. (See DMG p. 110.) The breakdown of 20% Good, 30% Neutral, 50% Evil is roughly the same for just random PC-classed humans, too. I've done the math.

It's stated in the PHB that humans tend towards no alignment. But, evidently, human "adventurers" are as likely to be Evil as not. It would seem that Evil alignment is in fact more common among individuals well-prepared to kill things and take their stuff. This strikes me as appropriate. I would be more surprised were that not the case. For it to be otherwise, Evil individuals would have to prepare to kill things and take their stuff no more often than Good individuals, which does not strike me as plausible. Killin' and stealin' are some of the relatively few viable Evil options, as discussed above. (In particular, almost all of the straightforward ways of being exceptionally Evil are going to involve the use of force.) So, being good at killing everything positively correlates with being Evil. Surprise, surprise.

Thus if a D&D cosmology were ruled by the opti-build trio, it'd be an ever warring world full of over-powered slaves battling for little reason for gods they can never hope to topple.

Well, obviously there are gods who want their peoples to fight each other, but the mortals have to be able to reproduce as quickly as they kill each other off in order for this to be sustainable. So you need a bunch of non-warriors to farm and breed and for that matter supply the raw materials needed for the warriors' equipment (so that your death-dealers don't have to waste time resource-gathering). So what you wind up with is a world that still has relatively ordinary societies, but also exceptional individuals who mostly go out and fight each other rather than peacefully using their extraordinary powers for the betterment of intelligent life.

In other words, you get a setting for a typical D&D campaign. Or a typical superhero comic.

munchkins, while still having 'fun' bashing the rules, will never have the wonderful experience that everyone else enjoys by cooperating.

Those who seek to win against everyone else of course won't be satisfied until they reach a position of complete dominance, which is very difficult to achieve, as There Can Be Only One and there's a lot of competition. This is the problem with Black (to put it in Magic: the Gathering terms): absolute power requires, amongst other things, that no one be able to act against you, and thus it may only be possessed by a single individual. So, ultimately, Black is an inherently adversarial philosophy, however much cooperation it might inspire in the short term.

Evil Is Easy!

Though avoiding certain potential consequences of one's Evil deeds may not be. Though it depends. If you can find a socially acceptable -- ideally, socially approved -- and profitable -- ideally, highly profitable -- form of cruelty, then you can really go to town. Just make sure to worship a Lawful Evil deity so that the devils don't get your soul, because I hear that they tend to do unpleasant things to it. You'll probably want to look into what sort of afterlife the Lawful Evil deity offers, for that matter. Shop around. It's important to find the right vengeful, merciless, tyrannical god for you.

[lesser_minion]

vorpal swords are sharp

You know, that's never stated. Vorpal Swords are just good at decapitation - they could just as easily be blunt compared with their non-vorpal counterparts.

[taltamir]

b) Yes, because something that just focuses solely on killing everything and has no intelligent skills is sure to be of good-morals and sane-mind, right?

I present to you roy greenhilt.

I must say I am impressed with this thread, I too expected stormwind...
instead I see you make an excellent point. And I was going to offer further evidence for your claim, such as tainted scholar and cancer mage and ur priest but it was already done by others.

That being said, some of the ultra tricks like the psion save scumming, Io7fV, incantantrix, etc are awesomely broken and powerful without being evil.

[hamishspence]

A random PC-classed NPC's alignment is Evil half of the time. (See DMG p. 110.) The breakdown of 20% Good, 30% Neutral, 50% Evil is roughly the same for just random PC-classed humans, too. I've done the math.

It's stated in the PHB that humans tend towards no alignment. But, evidently, human "adventurers" are as likely to be Evil as not.

That said, random communities tend to have a distribution slanted slightly more toward Good than evil- for the power centres, in DMG.

In Cityscape- it provides "community alignment" which may differ from power center alignment. Again, evil is rarer than good.

Maybe the "tend toward no alignment" is overall- with the Evil humans tending to leave communities and become adventurers.

Hence- communities are biased more toward Good, and adventurers more toward Evil.

[Optimystik]

Though avoiding certain potential consequences of one's Evil deeds may not be. Though it depends. If you can find a socially acceptable -- ideally, socially approved -- and profitable -- ideally, highly profitable -- form of cruelty, then you can really go to town. Just make sure to worship a Lawful Evil deity so that the devils don't get your soul, because I hear that they tend to do unpleasant things to it. You'll probably want to look into what sort of afterlife the Lawful Evil deity offers, for that matter. Shop around. It's important to find the right vengeful, merciless, tyrannical god for you.

The trouble is that if you end up dead, said LE deity might not be too happy with you or understanding of circumstances. Bane for instance has little patience for failure. You thus might find yourself handed off to Mephistopheles et al. anyway, despite your precautions - if they feel your soul is worth more as a bargaining chip than as a petitioner.