Champion of Neutrality

[Abaddon87]

So I have a crazy idea for a character and the weapon that he/she uses. A true Neutral character that uses a weapon with each of the allignment enchantments. Good, Evil, Lawful, Chaotic... maybe throwing on Ghost Touch and that property from ToM that overcomes any DR (just an idea for those last two enchantments, not a requirement for the character plan). Play the character as someone who actually champions neutrality. For every good act, an evil one must balance it. Sticks to a strict code, but acts without reason. An interesting idea at least.

Any thoughts on how to make/improve on this base idea? Any race/class/build that might fit it well?

[true_shinken]

Ever heard of the Concordant Killer? I believe it's from MM4 and it's basically what you want.

[Abaddon87]

I only have MM 1 & 2... and the 3.0 versions at that...

This was mostly a player character idea. I might think about playing it on some night I dont know what to do. Also, I am afb right now but I'm pretty sure you wont catch any neg levels for holding a weapon with all the allignment enchantments if you are true neutral.

[true_shinken]

I think there is a paladin of neutrality on some dragon magazine issue.
I've been trying to track that one issue myself, but it's really hard to find it here in Brazil >.>

[Aidan305]

Sounds like the Rilmani, the outsider race that represents neutrality. Not sure if they were ever upgraded to 3rd ed. You can find a good bit of information on them in 2nd ed stuff though.

[Urpriest]

Sounds like the Rilmani, the outsider race that represents neutrality. Not sure if they were ever upgraded to 3rd ed. You can find a good bit of information on them in 2nd ed stuff though.

They're in the 3e Fiend Folio I believe. Fun guys. Not to derail, but it makes me sad that their concept doesn't really work in 4e.

[true_shinken]

They're in the 3e Fiend Folio I believe. Fun guys. Not to derail, but it makes me sad that their concept doesn't really work in 4e.

There are lots of concepts that don't work in 4e. It made me really said when I noticed I simply couldn't make a Dex-focused Paladin that didn't suck.

[Dr.Epic]

Play the character as someone who actually champions neutrality.

Champions neutrality? How can you fight for that? Wouldn't that be doing nothing? Like that one planet on Futurama? Neutrality is supposed to be apathy, not caring for either side, how can you can about being neutral?

For every good act, an evil one must balance it. Sticks to a strict code, but acts without reason. An interesting idea at least.

That's lawful: you're stick to the code of anything you do has to be balanced by an opposite act. I'm not sure how, but if you dedicate yourself to neutrality your dedicating yourself to something, and are thus living by the code of neutrality and are thus lawful. This is a paradox that is making my brain explode.

[true_shinken]

Champions neutrality? How can you fight for that? Wouldn't that be doing nothing? Like that one planet on Futurama? Neutrality is supposed to be apathy, not caring for either side, how can you can about being neutral?

Well, it was the whole shtick of druids and Harpers on AD&D - to strive for balance.

[GoatBoy]

Champions neutrality? How can you fight for that? Wouldn't that be doing nothing? Like that one planet on Futurama? Neutrality is supposed to be apathy, not caring for either side, how can you can about being neutral?

The text says they defend the right of people across the multiverse to not take sides, and to keep good and evil in check.

[Urpriest]

Champions neutrality? How can you fight for that? Wouldn't that be doing nothing? Like that one planet on Futurama? Neutrality is supposed to be apathy, not caring for either side, how can you can about being neutral?



That's lawful: you're stick to the code of anything you do has to be balanced by an opposite act. I'm not sure how, but if you dedicate yourself to neutrality your dedicating yourself to something, and are thus living by the code of neutrality and are thus lawful. This is a paradox that is making my brain explode.

Neutrality can be obsession with balance. Look at the Rilmani, or the aforementioned Concordant Killer.

Think about it this way: the rule of the Aristotelian Mean is that one should seek moderation in all things. Anyone who argues that this is contradictory because it would involve excessive pursuit of moderation is missing the point.

[Abaddon87]

Yea the whole Lawful and Chaotic part is a bit tough. But as far as Good and Evil I look at it like this:

Spoiler

Show

An Infernal Behemoth and a Seraph were locked in combat, each one determined to destroy the other.

"Foul creature! Begone from this place!" Shouted the Seraph.

"You first." The Behemoth laughed. His claws burned with hellfire as he struck the Seraph.

The Angel knew he could not win at this point, he closed his eyes and waited for the end to come.


*BANG* *BANG* *BANG* *BANG* *BANG* *THUD*

The Seraph looked up at his savior, an extremely slender young tattooed man holding a rifle.

"Th.. Thank you. You saved my life, I am in your debt." The Seraph began to rise.

*BANG*

The Nexus Champion's tattoos darkened as he reloaded.

"Consider your debt cleared." Spoke the Nexus Champion.

*BANG*


*THUD*

Or this:

Spoiler

Show

Around him, the battle raged.

Most would call him foolish to have allowed himself to end up inbetween the advancing angelic and demonic armies, right in the middle of a battle that was not his. And for most, it would be foolish.

But not for him. As he wove his way through the battle, striking down a lightspeaker one minute and an oppressor the next, warriors on both sides tried to stop him. And failed. As he danced between their blades and between their combatants, every blow directed at him fell short. This was not his battle, and it would not hurt him--even if he interfered.

[realbombchu]

{Scrubbed}

Treat your character as a calm executor of balance. If you feel something is bound to happen, help it along so the event will resolve quickly. If something opposes the flow of things, eliminate it so the world returns to its original course, for good or ill.

[Urpriest]

A Hellbred with Ordered Chaos could do a lot of good/evil/law/chaos stuff while still being neutral. Seems like a good base for this kind of character.

[Zeofar]

The Law/Chaos axis neutrality is weak. Abiding by a strict code isn't lawful enough to warrant "acting without reason" (Which, frankly, is weak for chaos roleplaying-wise; this is the poor man's chaotic, in my mind). Chaos does not predilect personal codes; you don't have any truly lawful traits. Handwave the "code/acts without reason" axis justification and assume that the character does equal acts that both support society and deprecate it. If it works for good/evil, it works for law/chaos, more or less.

Also, those battle descriptions both sound highly chaotic with no lawful influence whatsoever.

[Eldariel]

Yeah, sounds like you want a Druid. True Neutral, have stuff like Word of Balance, go to town. Get a bit of a perspective, help whichever side seems to be falling behind in the small scheme of things and overall, work towards the middleground.

[Akal Saris]

Actually, one of the Dragon Magazine variant paladins sounds like the best adaptation for this. Probably the Anarch (CN):

‘Anarch’ Class Abilities: (for review purposes...)
Destructive Strike(DR310 p48) – The Anarch is able to inflict critical hit damage on Constructs or objects, usable Charisma modifier times per day. The
Destructive Strike is designated when a critical is threatened but before it is confirmed. If the threatened critical is not confirmed, that use of Destructive
Strike is wasted. (Swaps with Smite Evil)
Slippery Mind(DR310 p48) – If the Anarch fails his/her saving throw against an Enchantment, he/she receives a new saving throw after 1 round. (Swaps with Divine Health)
Turn Constructs(DR310 p48) – Able to Turn / Destroy Constructs as a Cleric three levels lower Turns / Destroys Undead. Usable 3 + Charisma mod. times per day.

[Serpentine]

For every good act, an evil one must balance it.

In my opinion, this is a terrible idea. This isn't "championing neutrality", it's being a mental case.

Neutrality is supposed to be apathy, not caring for either side, how can you can about being neutral?

That is only one version of Neutrality. There are others.
Here's some I prepared earlier:

- Too dumb for philosophy. Animals are the main example of this. They do what they need to do to survive, cannot make any judgements over whether what they do is good or evil, and so cannot truly perform good nor evil acts.

- Too naiive for philosophy. Someone who does not think terribly deeply into the motivations behind other people. Other people do what they do, and sometimes it's good for you, sometimes it's not. You do what you're told or, again, you do what you need to do to survive, nothing more and nothing less, without any consideration for right or wrong or what is best for society.

- Undecided/too new. This character has yet to form any opinions or ideas on right and wrong. A character of mine who was almost literally born yesterday (well, a couple of weeks ago) and who has spent all their life in one place with only a couple of others to talk to has not yet experienced... anything, really. It has no concept of malice nor altruism. It will probably change its alignment as it goes along, although it may just take a distant, observational stance, as it looks at such philosophy from the outside. Which brings me to:

- The observer. This character has no emotional investment in the world around them. You may take a more "large scale" approach to the universe - everyone dies eventually, everyone goes to their appropriate afterlife, the universe trundles on, that sort of thing. You find the things people do interesting, but you do not condemn nor laude their actions, merely, for example, find it an intriguing study of human nature.

- Cloistered. This character is so focussed on one specific thing that it neither has interest nor much effect on anything else. An academic who spends all their time studying dragons of all kinds, with little interest in anything else, will probably be True Neutral, if only because they don't really do anything else, good or bad.

- Balance-seeker. All too often this is described as the "something Good one minute, something Evil the next" variety. As mentioned, this is pretty much insanity - and really, possibly more suited to a Chaotic Neutral than a True Neutral character. Alignment can be about lifetime actions, not just their immediate behaviours one second to the next. If an area, for example, has an overall dominance of Evil, then it makes more sense to balance it out with long-term Good deeds than a mixture of both. It could be things like a decision that, although this Lawful government is doing well now, it looks like it's on the way to becoming an oppressive dictatorship in 20-odd years, so you start sewing the seeds of resistance now.

- Balance-seeker 2 - the ecologist. This is the idea I had for a paladin of Balance (note the small "p". I think a TN Paladin would be hard to do well, if it's possible at all). Law and Chaos are opposing forces of creation and destruction. A world without one would be just as terrible as a world without the other, and it is together, by clashing and opposing and interaction, that the universe functions at its best. Good and Evil, if they really exist at all, are elements of the universe, like Fire or Earth. You're more likely to use Positive and Negative than the culturally-loaded terms Good and Evil. In reality, they are both necessary for the survival of species - a purely Good species would quickly be wiped out as its members hasten to sacrifice themselves for the good of others, and a purely Evil species would similarly disappear in a mess of back-stabbing and infanticide and the like. The most important thing, essential to the maintenance of the world and the universe, is diversity. Too much Chaos and you have anarchy, too much Law and you have inertia. Variety is the basis of the universe, it is the driving force of evolution, it is the best defense a species has against extinction. Anything that threatens to reduce diversity must be opposed - whether it is a tribe of orcs waging a genocide against elves, or an edge that might allow the Celestials to finally put a dint in the forces of Hell. Such a character would probably prefer to avoid death where possible, but would not necessarily balk significantly at killing where necessary.

- The Halfway House. TN can be a stopover on the way from one alignment to another. A Lawful Good character will rarely leap straight to Chaotic Evil. You're much more likely to have your idealogy slip and blend and twist into its new one over time, the transient form possibly fitting into a TN alignment.

Think that about covers it.

[Valameer]

I've played this before. It was a lot of fun getting the viewpoint right. To me, it boiled down to "Extremism is the greatest evil. Without balance, there is no free thought. Everyone has the right to choose." Also, if good or law ever 'conquered' the world, then people would get soft and weak and dependent on someone else telling them what to do.

The true path to a strong community is a balance of laws vs individuality. Selflessness balanced with selfishness. There is always a middle ground between extreme behaviour, a SANE ground.

You end up helping an evil agenda to break up a good deity's stranglehold on a community. Or stopping an evil overlord's domination scheme. Help the vigilante break up stifling authority over a city, then turn on the vigilante when he has become more powerful and big-headed than the law.

I don't get why some people (Kevin Siembieda) can't wrap their head around a motivated alignment based on neutrality (rejection of extremes) and preservation of balance.

[Cerlis]

I'm reminded of when Dominic Deegan realized he was not the champion of Law but the champion of balance.

Unless you want a rather "kick in the door, violate everyone's morals all over the freaking place character" (which is quite common in DnD ,and though i'm against it, i'd understand if you where *shrug*)

I'd say try to think about it. I'd say the best route (as people have pointed out) is to champion for balance.

People who live in a perfect world would probably become lazy and indifferent,

people who lived in a horrible world would become talented but vile (in order to survive)

Law brings order for the sake of the community or the self(lawful evil, lawful Good) but If you listen to any anti goverment cynic you will see the basis of how law is corrupted. How if a society gets bogged down into bureaucracy that their intent is hindered by the actual rules.

Chaos brings freedom, but there is a point when people have so much freedom they are free to violate others freedoms. This is the entire reason we have Government (law). Crazy conspiracy theories aside, Law only increases because people can stop screwing each other over.

Good brings happyness and well being. But often it can be blinded by its intent. Evil makes people unhappy and hurts them but it often makes them self sufficient and stronger. Good can be bad when you are misguided such as Some people supporting slavery because they honestly thought a race of people where stupid and needed to be "civilized". Evil can be good in that, though it may hurt, peoples selfishness can force Independence. That greed drives competition and (if kept in check by law) betters the economy.

He wouldnt be against 100% Law, chaos, Good and Evil. But a guardian against when people gets blinded by their dogma and ruin society


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and since you asked more about mechanics than a lecture i'd say is it possible to have say, a Lawful Good cleric Devoted to neutrality and some of those feats from the Complete Divine (or whatever) that switches Spell Types. Like there are feats somewhere i think where you can turn your fireball into a waterball, or give ur Acid arrow the good subtype.

[Lord_Gareth]

I'm reminded of when Dominic Deegan realized he was not the champion of Law but the champion of mind rape.

Fixed for accuracy. See the Dominic Deegan thread in the Webcomics forum for more details.

[Abaddon87]

Yea I guess I worded this all wrong. I had meant to make this idea based on a character who champions balance. DnD doesnt call it "balance" though, calls it "neutrality". Someone who sees that Solars can be just as oppressive as Balors and Pit Fiends. Laws can be bad when they take away a persons free will, and chaos can lead to the destruction of society.

Above all things, they would be an agent of Free Will.

Now my other question still remains unanswered. Could you wield a weapon with all the enchantments for allignments without catching negative levels if you are true neutral?

[Urpriest]

A true neutral character could indeed wield any aligned weapon without harm.

Aligned Planar Terrain Mastery from Horizon Walker would make you immune to stuff like Blasphemy as well, if it fits your character concept. And I'm still suggesting Hellbred or Ordered Chaos.

[Abaddon87]

Those are templates Urpriest? I'll have to look into them. I got the idea from a web browers MMO I used to play called Nexuswars. Its a post-appoc type game where a war is going between the forces of Good, Evil and Free Will for controll of the future universe. People moved by good deeds gradually turn into angels, evil deeds turn people into deamons and shadows. Those with free will become Muad'Dib from Dune

[Urpriest]

Those are templates Urpriest? I'll have to look into them. I got the idea from a web browers MMO I used to play called Nexuswars. Its a post-appoc type game where a war is going between the forces of Good, Evil and Free Will for controll of the future universe. People moved by good deeds gradually turn into angels, evil deeds turn people into deamons and shadows. Those with free will become Muad'Dib from Dune

But...Muad'Dib is essentially the antithesis of free will, that's his whole schtick! Constrained by prophecy and all that jazz.

Anyway, Horizon Walker is a prestige class in the DMG focused on a ranger-y character who travels across the world and between the planes, Ordered Chaos is a feat from Fiendish Codex I that lets you count as chaotic in certain ways while nonchaotic, and Hellbred are a race from Fiendish Codex I that are souls condemned to hell that rebel against their dark masters, and can count as evil for things without being evil.

[dsmiles]

Read about Mordenkainen in the LGG. His philosophy: Enforced Neutrality.

[Abaddon87]

Was saying Muad'dib only in the sense of the whole "superhuman" thing. Im not sure about those things Ur, Im not looking to count as chaotic OR evil at all. I dont suppose there is any kind of template for Neutral creatures? Like a plane alligned neutrality?

[mucat]

Yea I guess I worded this all wrong. I had meant to make this idea based on a character who champions balance. DnD doesnt call it "balance" though, calls it "neutrality". Someone who sees that Solars can be just as oppressive as Balors and Pit Fiends. Laws can be bad when they take away a persons free will, and chaos can lead to the destruction of society.

Above all things, they would be an agent of Free Will.

Now that makes a lot more sense than the "for every good act, you must commit an evil one" description.

As Serp said, someone who actually tried to intentionally balance good and evil acts would be either insane or evil. Good and evil just aren't symmetric that way. Someone who believes that good creatures might need to be kept in check, though, is a strong character concept.

He would probably not use the terms "Good" and "Evil" to describe the balance he was trying to strike. An oppressive Celestial is still a Celestial, but in his mind, they are decidedly not "good".


For an example from fiction, I'm reminded of John Constantine (as portrayed in comic books, not in the embarrassingly bad movie they made.) He's a little on the Chaotic side compared to what you've got in mind, but he definitely believes angels are as big a threat to the world as demons, and will take a stand against whichever side is trying to trigger Armageddon at the moment.

Now my other question still remains unanswered. Could you wield a weapon with all the enchantments for allignments without catching negative levels if you are true neutral?

Certainly. The negative levels only apply if you're opposite the weapon's alignment, not if you're neutral. (How such a weapon came to exist in the first place would be an interesting story, of course!)

[dsmiles]

Mordenkainen the archmage formed the Circle of Eight as a tool to manipulate political factions of the Flanaess, preserving the delicate balance of power in hopes of maintaining stability and sanity in the region. Mordenkainen's view of 'enforced neutrality' is not tit-for-tat equality, but rather a detailed theoretical philosophy derived from decades of arcane research. He has fought ardently for the forces of Good, most recently during the Greyhawk Wars, but just as often has worked on darker plots to achieve his ends. In all things the Circle of Eight prefers to work behind the scenes, subtly manipulating events to ensure that no one faction gets the upper hand.

This is a champion of neutrality if I ever saw one.

[Starbuck_II]

Morden was evil a lot even when he was striving for balance: he was evil aligned (despite what he thought since Alignment is a cosmic force not an opinion)).