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2010-06-03, 09:08 PM (ISO 8601)
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'Best' Optimized Character Builds Are Evil (3.5)
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?Last edited by Eloi; 2010-06-03 at 09:09 PM.
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2010-06-03, 09:14 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: 'Best' Optimized Character Builds Are Evil (3.5)
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.Quotebox
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2010-06-03, 09:14 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: 'Best' Optimized Character Builds Are Evil (3.5)
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
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2010-06-03, 09:15 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: 'Best' Optimized Character Builds Are Evil (3.5)
Pun-Pun is a Paladin. A LG one.
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2010-06-03, 09:16 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: 'Best' Optimized Character Builds Are Evil (3.5)
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2010-06-03, 09:17 PM (ISO 8601)
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2010-06-03, 09:18 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: 'Best' Optimized Character Builds Are Evil (3.5)
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
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2010-06-03, 09:19 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: 'Best' Optimized Character Builds Are Evil (3.5)
Rogue Handbook | Warmage Rebuild | Diablo's Assassin | Revised Classes
Potpourri Creation Contest II Winner: Desert Martial Adept Substitution Levels
Potpourri Creation Contest III Best Characterization: Edward the Sly's Lucky Spells
Prestige Class Contest XXI Submission: Child of the Seelie Court
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2010-06-03, 09:21 PM (ISO 8601)
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2010-06-03, 09:22 PM (ISO 8601)
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2010-06-03, 09:23 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: 'Best' Optimized Character Builds Are Evil (3.5)
Because Good is dumb.
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2010-06-03, 09:23 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: 'Best' Optimized Character Builds Are Evil (3.5)
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2010-06-03, 09:25 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: 'Best' Optimized Character Builds Are Evil (3.5)
Rogue Handbook | Warmage Rebuild | Diablo's Assassin | Revised Classes
Potpourri Creation Contest II Winner: Desert Martial Adept Substitution Levels
Potpourri Creation Contest III Best Characterization: Edward the Sly's Lucky Spells
Prestige Class Contest XXI Submission: Child of the Seelie Court
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2010-06-03, 09:26 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: 'Best' Optimized Character Builds Are Evil (3.5)
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.
At the heart of all beauty lies something inhuman, and these hills, the softness of the sky, the outline of the trees at this very minute lose the illusory meaning with which we clothed them, henceforth more remote than a lost paradise.
-Camus, An Absurd Reasoning
Fourth Doctor avatar courtesy of Szilard
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2010-06-03, 09:31 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: 'Best' Optimized Character Builds Are Evil (3.5)
Last edited by Eloi; 2010-06-03 at 09:36 PM.
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2010-06-03, 09:32 PM (ISO 8601)
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2010-06-03, 09:36 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: 'Best' Optimized Character Builds Are Evil (3.5)
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.
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2010-06-03, 09:39 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: 'Best' Optimized Character Builds Are Evil (3.5)
*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.
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2010-06-03, 09:42 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: 'Best' Optimized Character Builds Are Evil (3.5)
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 traininghow can you expect to be a hero if the odds against aren't you impossible?
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2010-06-03, 09:48 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: 'Best' Optimized Character Builds Are Evil (3.5)
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
how can you expect to be a hero if the odds against aren't you impossible?
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2010-06-03, 09:54 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: 'Best' Optimized Character Builds Are Evil (3.5)
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
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2010-06-03, 09:58 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: 'Best' Optimized Character Builds Are Evil (3.5)
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.Last edited by The Glyphstone; 2010-06-03 at 09:58 PM.
NOW COMPLETE: Let's Play Starcraft II Trilogy:
Hell, It's About Time: Wings of Liberty
Does This Mutation Make Me Look Fat: Heart of the Swarm
My Life For Aiur? I Barely Know 'Er: Legacy of the Void
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2010-06-03, 10:00 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: 'Best' Optimized Character Builds Are Evil (3.5)
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.
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2010-06-03, 10:22 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: 'Best' Optimized Character Builds Are Evil (3.5)
Congratulations on your sleuthing, OP - Evil Is Easy! Next you'll be telling us that monks are underpowered and vorpal swords are sharp
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2010-06-03, 10:22 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: 'Best' Optimized Character Builds Are Evil (3.5)
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2010-06-04, 02:15 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: 'Best' Optimized Character Builds Are Evil (3.5)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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2010-06-04, 02:24 PM (ISO 8601)
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2010-06-04, 02:25 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: 'Best' Optimized Character Builds Are Evil (3.5)
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.Last edited by taltamir; 2010-06-04 at 02:37 PM.
I do not have a superman complex; for I am God, not Superman!
the glass is always 100% full. Approximately 50% of its volume is full of dihydrogen monoxide and some dissolved solutes, and approx 50% a mixture of gasses known as "air" which contains roughly (by volume) 78.08% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, 0.93% argon, 0.038% carbon dioxide, and trace amounts of other gases.
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2010-06-04, 03:32 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: 'Best' Optimized Character Builds Are Evil (3.5)
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.Marut-2 Avatar by Serpentine
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2010-06-04, 03:36 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: 'Best' Optimized Character Builds Are Evil (3.5)
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.
Last edited by Optimystik; 2010-06-04 at 03:36 PM.