>Muh Paladin semantics
So is he right? Or is this technically DM railroading bullshit?
Obligatory Goblins tag
>>47844725
I must admit this makes a certain amount of sense, if you squint hard enought.
Thunt's world clearly isn't core D&D where good and evil are absolute objective metrics that can be observed and measured. As Kore is insistent enough that he is good to retain his paladin levels, subjectivity does enter into the acts of good and evil. By performing actions that are wrong by his own subjectivity, he did indeed work evil with the axe.
This also explains why the axe didn't explode after a couple wings of Saral's usage; even though he was performing grim and terrible deeds that weakened it nonetheless, by his subjectivity (as an amoral sadist) he was just having fun.
>>47844725
It's horseshit. Pure "muh opinion" and not even one that makes a lot of sense.
You could easily start undermining it by pointing to Good characters in places full of chancers, crooks and scammers. The Good character doesn't want to waste his limited resources on the underserving.
It's basically a rant at people who ask for proof when someone says they were raped, or mugged, or whatever.
If you were a GOOD person (a paladin), you would listen and believe. A bad paladin and a bad person would require proof first!
>>47845012
Except it equally argues in the reverse.
Help the perceived victim, but do not harm the perceived accused.
>>47844725
That's the rules for that setting. It works fine and makes enough sense. Nothing else really matters.
It's not crap but it doesn't actually work at the table.
"Good" and "evil" aren't real words the way "carbon" or "north" are real words, they're placeholders for nebulous concepts that can't every truly be defined because context and personal taste are far too involved. In RL we're used to tolerating a little fuzziness around the edges, like a mini debate about whether it's "wrong" to give money to PBS for arts and educational programming instead of giving the money to malaria prevention. There's actually really good points to be made on both sides but outside of some ultimate sperglording neither side thinks the other is "evil."
But transfer that to game mechanics that by definition are trying to put definitive lines between things and it gets weirdly complicated fast. By the time characters have alignments, races have alignments, Gods have alignment, spells have alignments, duties have alignments, planes and demi-planes have alignments, and items have alignments it's just a mess. And attempts to write in hard limits like "all paladins everywhere never use poison ever" look out of place and ham-handed.
The best way to get out of it is to just take a huge step backward away from it and let people disagree about things. It makes for better roleplay and it smooths over a lot of stupid arguments. Step away from paradoxes caused by over-granular rules like "all orcs are evil, all babies are innocent, but orc babies exist" and put alignment back in the one place it can do some good:
Sometimes in a story you're supposed to root for the prince to put down the rebels. Sometimes in a story you're supposed to root for the rebels to overthrow the prince. A France full of Valjeans isn't better than a France full of Javerts, but neither is it the other way. For explaining situations like that the ol' 3x3 is fine. Go much past that and it's useless.
>>47845115
>Help the perceived victim, but do not harm the perceived accused.
I think this is arguably the best philosophy for any individual who desires to be as "good as possible".
This is at the very least the best we can hope for.
>>47845285
>they're placeholders for nebulous concepts that can't every truly be defined because context and personal taste are far too involved
Unless you're playing DnD, in which Evil creatures are Objectively Evil because they are made of particles of Objective Evil from the Plane of Objective Evil.
>This fucking hack is still writing his shitty wax-people d&d drama
>>47846170
And just like in D&D, for every 19 pages of shit he makes, there's 1 page that's actually passable.
>>47844963
This is where it falls apart, for sure. When evil abuses the good nature of Pallies/LG people, it's indirectly causing more evil to happen.
Oddly enough, the opposite is actually more adherent, that Evil want a reason to help, but don't need an excuse to hurt people. Good can't exactly exploit evil nature without also being considered the same kind. Also, rarely does using evil for a good cause ever get remembered fondly.
Sheesh, the dark side really is far easier to pursue.
>>47848073
>Sheesh, the dark side really is far easier to pursue.
Think of it this way,
Being good is like jumping through 15 hoops flawlessly each and every day and if you nick one hoop, you're shit and terrible and everyone will say how much you suck for making one mistake after years of jumping through those hoops perfectly.
Being evil is like jumping through 15 hoops flawlessly each and every day, but as time goes on you start to mess up more and more. Maybe you nick a hoop once or twice a week, then it increases to five times, then you decide not to jump through the hoops for a day or two or five until you stop jumping through the hoops altogether.
The reason why good loses to evil and why good men fall is because being good has too many requirements that most people cannot hold themselves to, to a reasonable degree. It's like expecting a child to get an A+ on every single test they take, it's impossible yet there are people who expect you to perform to this standard for every single moment of your existence yet can't understand why some people will say "fuck it" and purposefully drop out of college just to get some degree of enjoyment out of their lives.
Good will make you feel like shit for messing up, evil will welcome mistakes and allow you to let go of the need to please anyone but yourself.
This is why evil wins in the long run.
Wait a minute. Back in >pic related, Ears detected evil on them, and determined they were evil. Then, he didn't do anything until they were attacked. How is that not making certain "bringing harm to others is the correct and necessary thing to do?"
Leave aside the Kore bit- what would a paladin be SUPPOSED to do in the Hall of Evil-Opposites-But-You-Don't-Know-That-Yet, according to Thunt?
>>47848829
This is one of the reasons a spell like "Detect Evil" is better used for objects and spotting daemon-ghosts sneaking up on you or using illusions, rather than on characters with full personhood. For example:
>The glowing red ring could be powerful, but the Paladin "Detects Evil" so we realize it's probably some dark lord's gear.
>There's three beautiful maidens bathing by a river, but they all ping as evil and are promptly revealed as water hag things that eat people.
Meanwhile, a morally bankrupt Vizier probably *shouldn't* ping as evil, both for story purposes and to account for creatures with free will being more difficult to tie directly to cosmic forces of good and evil. At least, that's my thinking behind not having Paladin's just auto-smite, or getting into a silly arms race of alignment hiding spells.
Bullshit like this is one of the reasons why, if I ever play a Paladin*, it will be a Paladin of a specific god/religion. Things that depend on the good/evil of a target will instead work on if my god/religion does/doesn't like the target.
If the GM won't agree to that and wants my paladin to fall if he is 'evil', then I won't play a paladin in that game.
*Which is likely to happen next time I play a system and setting that allows one.
So Thunt's point seems to be that this is all really subjective. Ears' ax cracked because Ears feels like he did something wrong. Kore gets away with being a murderhobo because he doesn't think he did anything wrong. Therefore evil-ass paladins everywhere in D&D.
That's pretty meta.
>>47845412
Which wouldn't be so bad if the RAW actually lived up to that, but they don't. They want alignment to refer to bloodlines *and* planes of origin *and* NPC design *and* PC choices *and* school of magic *and* battlefield tactics *and* equipment selection. Then you throw an oath or a sentient weapon in there and the whole thing is back to being a trashfire.
>>47848829
>"I'm sad."
And there go my sides
>>47845412
Dude, D&D is so fucked when it comes to an alignment that it's hard to honestly pin down what it's actually supposed to represent.
It refers to a way of life and an elemental force of the universe. It's hard to call anything "objectively" anything due to the fact that the game's own definition of good/evil can be used to refer to multiple areas.
If it was something like an element, then detect good/evil should be used to detect a person's aura to sense what types of magic they utilize most often.
If it was something like a way of life, then it should honestly only work on non-humans who come from planes that aren't our own, similarly to how it works in 5e.
Either of these could work but really, the problem comes from the game mixing these two concepts together.
I think Pillars of Eternity handled this scenario pretty damned well. Instead of establishing some universal morality that all paladins had to adhere to at pain of 'falling', there were different orders of paladins who were, in turn, expected to hold a different moral ideal. There were some paladins who were guided towards being merciless, brutal smite bots (like Kore), and some devoted to being the kind, compassionate type (like Big Ears). They'd only 'fall' if they consistently deviated from the ideals that they took on by joining their orders.
Shame the idea didn't gain more steam.
>>47845412
I really like objective Evil, myself. It's because you can get away from all the hand-wringing and navel-gazing. Like:
> "Okay, okay. Your angst-filled backstory is very interesting, but you're really fucking Evil.
> I'm just going to kill you now."
>>47848829
>"I'm sad"
Wait, did this comic get better while I wasn't looking? That's actually really funny.
>>47848458
Good is about trying to jump through the hoops. Evil starts when you stop trying and begin just going through the motions.
>>47848458
You are making this far more complicated than it is in a transparent attempt to make evil sound superior.
Being a good person is pretty damn easy since being evil requires you to actively do immoral things or actively fuck with other people.
>>47852927
Not really.
When you think about it, most people are far less willing to trust kind, helpful, altruistic people then someone who they know is bad news.
I mean, if someone threatens you and wishes to cause you harm, you at least know where they stand. Hell, there are whackos who actively seek out sexual relationships with murderers, rapists, and other criminals just because they think being a piece of shit is sexy as fuck.
If someone claims to be "good, kind, helpful, charitable, etc." then you're going to immediately distrust them because you're going to think "why is this motherfucker so nice, he must be up to something."
And why wouldn't you?
Cultists, nice-guys, sociopaths, and other types of shady people claim to be good folks, only to use it as an in to get close to you and ruin your life just to further their own happiness.
>>47852874
>>47852927
D&D Good isn't that fault tolerant or that intention-based. Lots of bad/stupid/evil crap starts with someone meaning well.
IRL I'm all for an ethos of "do the best you can with what you've got. Take care of each other. Pay it forward when you can but don't set yourself on fire to keep someone else warm. And for God's sake it's better to give a second chance than to make an enemy" but it doesn't look *anything* like the myriad of things that "good" can mean in an alignment system.
Alignment remains a garbage dump of a system being asked to track too many terribly different things under too many circumstances just to cram it into one of 9 boxes. Frankly, we could do worse than "for a Paladin's purposes 'being good' means trying to be as helpful as possible in every circumstance. Sometimes that means taking a bold stance, sometimes it means listening to feedback, sometimes it means doing the right thing when it isn't the easy thing, and sometimes it means solving the problem as safely and efficiently as possible. You'll win some, you'll lose some, but you haven't fallen until you're been knocked down and don't get back up."
But then we couldn't mine stupid alignment mechanics for stupid alignment arguments and might have to talk about and/or play the actual game.
>>47853027
>If someone claims to be "good, kind, helpful, charitable, etc." then you're going to immediately distrust them because you're going to think "why is this motherfucker so nice, he must be up to something."
It's not about claiming to be anything. It's about living your life without making undue demands of others, and offering your assistance when it's needed. It's really not that hard. In fact, you probably do it when you're not acting edgy on the internet.
>>47848458
Good /= Perfectly Good
>>47852927
>You are making this far more complicated than it is in a transparent attempt to make evil sound superior
Also this.
>>47852874
Good is about jumping through hoops because you're expected to.
Evil is when you stop trying to jump through hoops because you realize how pointless it is.Redemption is when you stop jumping through hoops, not for the sake of others, but because you want to.
>>47853086
The D&D alignment system is fine when you use it properly.
>Oh, my character grew up and stopped being a childish edgelord, now I've lost proficiency with my +2 Chaotic Katana of Weebness)
The problem is when people don't understand it and think that alignment determines the actions that a character is allowed to perform and it begins to infringe on player agency.
>You can't tip that waitress! As a chaotic character, you believe she should quit her job if she's not earning a living wage from it.
>>47853027
Again, I wanted to point out your weak logic and how you argued against yourself...
>>47853091
>It's not about claiming to be anything. It's about living your life without making undue demands of others, and offering your assistance when it's needed. It's really not that hard.
This anon Again said it well.
It's easy to be good in most situations.
What you might be thinking of is: "It's easier to get what you think you want at the moment when you think you want it, if you're willing to be evil."
But that doesn't make it hard to be good.
>>47853091
The same rule applies.
When someone you don't know acts incredibly helpful and kind and charitable for no reason, you'll immediately start to think "why is this motherfucker helping me so damn much?"
Because let's face, the idea of a scumbag doing something nice to get something they want from you isn't out of the realm of possibility, we hear about it all the time and we expect the worst because we've all known someone who fell for the "nice-guy" meme and ended up being indebted to someone because the "nice-guy" kept bringing up all the bullshit they did and tried making you feel guilty for them going out of their way to please you.
Now, I'm not saying that there aren't nice people are there who are good for goodness sake but 9/10 times, nobody does anything for no reason.
>>47853100
If you slip up being good then it's just a gradual shift down to evil.
Why do you think Batman never killed the Joker?
>>47853170
I'm not talking about following someone around and chewing their food for them. I'm talking about shit like being at work and your coworker is bitching about his/her car breaking down and the bus ride home requiring 5 stops and 2 hours. If you offer a ride, no one in their right mind is going to think you have some sort of ulterior motive. Or if you're lounging around at home and you see your neighbor out painting his or her fence so you go out and offer a hand.
It's really not that hard to not be a complete twatwaffle.
>>47853027
>If someone claims to be
>claims
This is why it's best to look to a person's actions rather than their words. Granted, an awful person can act decent for a while, but that's still harder to pull off than just talking about it.
>>47853180
>If you slip up being good then it's just a gradual shift down to evil.
Because redemption is impossible, doing one evil thing permanently ruins you forever, one bad apple spoils the whole bunch, anyone who isn't perfectly good will eventually become as evil as possible, and people only ever become more evil and never become more good?
No.
Your example is one of an individual's personal, subjective threshold between Good and Killer/Bad and indicative only of his mindset, not the intrinsic nature of humanity.
>>47853180
>Why do you think Batman never killed the Joker?
Because he has the mentality and stability of an at-risk youth?
>>47844725
>>47848829
Christ, these characters are ugly as fuck
>>47844725
The tumblr-tier crybaby faggot is just making an obvious and ham-handed political statement, and you're all fucking retarded for not seeing it.
>>47844725
This is a worse case of words-words-words than OotS. If I wanted to read a thesis about paladins I wouldn't look for a comic.
>>47853231
>If you offer a ride, no one in their right mind is going to think you have some sort of ulterior motive.
"Why is this weird guy who I barely talk to offering me a ride, he must be one of those fuckers who drives a windowless van around a school, fucking weirdo."
>Or if you're lounging around at home and you see your neighbor out painting his or her fence so you go out and offer a hand.
"Why is this weird guy who lives alone offering to help me paint a fence, he must be trying to get me to do a favor for him."
>>47853271
Well yeah, why do you think so many paladins end up falling?
>>47853126
(samefriend)
Yeah, absolutely. Difference between "screw helping people, Imma get mine. Let me just mail this holy symbol back and we'll go do some mugging" and "it was a rough situation and I had to make some quick calls with the information I had. If I knew then what I know now I'd have done a few things different but that's always the case." One's a fall and the other is just making friends with the reality of operating with imperfect information.
If at heart you still want to upset status quo's you should still be capable of working the Weebtana. Hell, even if you've actually come to appreciate that order can get some stuff done too and gone neutral you should still have truck with the blade (3.PF "anarchic" weapons only require you to be non-Lawful. Hell, even a lawful character can weeb it out for a -1 level while actually holding the blade. 5e just requires you not get in a fight with the weapon as you're trying to use it)
Actually going lawful in the I-don't-want-any-more-Chaos-in-the-world-than-there-has-to-be sense *should* be a split with the blade, though, because it's a ticket to a place you don't actually want to go. If you *do* still want to go there, you're Neutral-whatever at best.
The difficulty comes in when players can't process it through the lenses of "my intelligent sword and I both want a world of peace and order even if we don't always agree on the best way to get there, but we're in harmony as long as we're willing to listen to each other and work through it" or "I value life too much to take one if at all avoidable, but I won't stand by and watch innocent people die in hopes of saving one person who is choosing to do evil even if my intervention may well result in their death."
Instead we get stupid crap like PF's "phylactery of faithfulness" which is a box of scripture on a headband that automatically tells you if you're gaining or losing brownie points with "good" or "bad." Screw that.
>>47853353
So nothing good happens and everyone is as suspicious as possible against everyone? Wow you're an edgelord.
Backstabbing_We'reFree!.jpeg
>>47853374
>Instead we get stupid crap like PF's "phylactery of faithfulness" which is a box of scripture on a headband that automatically tells you if you're gaining or losing brownie points with "good" or "bad." Screw that.
Honestly, a lot of stupid shit concerning alignments can be traced back to 3rd edition as a whole.
>>47853353
If you're really this fearful of other people, I feel sorry for you. But don't mind me, that's just my selfishness talking.
>>47853470
It's just so painfully over-loaded. The paladin keeps his powers and his anti-evil superweapon as long as he makes good choices by whatever poorly defined standard seems shiniest at the moment while the thing he's beating to death with it is taking extra damage because of it's plane or origin. Unless it's the other way around. And then 2 scenes later the same "mechanic" is liable to come up again because in some stupid way because Aerith channels positive energy because she's an NG cleric but Bob takes damage because 3 stories ago he was saved from death by a "blood" transfusion from a CN NPC from a CE racial type and it's all so stupid and poorly defined and I hate all of it.
>>47853463
>>47853510
We live in a world where people kidnap children, where people will put razor blades in candy apples on Halloween, where weirdos will chop you into little bitty pieces because the wind blew the wrong way.
In short, people are fucking nuts and you have good reason to be suspicious of everyone you meet to a reasonable extent.
Hell, even good people only do good things either because they believe that they're supposed to or because it makes them feel better.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
>>47853556
>All people are evil
>You can never trust anyone ever
*tips fedora*
>>47853536
I honestly don't see the problems with it. Every NPC race gets a base alignment for the GM's sanity, and any character of importance (including PCs) gets an alignment based on their actions. Having demon's blood doesn't make you evil unless it actually corrupts you and makes you start doing evil stuff. Alignment doesn't count for anything except things like aligned weapons and detect evil and such. As long as alignment doesn't impinge on roleplaying, I don't think it's an issue.
>>47853536
It's because it's defined as an elemental force of the universe, a way of living one's life, and a point of origin where outsiders come from.
It's hard to define it because it applies to so many different areas at once and they have fundamentally different definitions for how they work.
>>47844725
He is right, and that's why the axe didn't break. Kore WAS evil, and the axe knew that, even though Ears didn't and his faith took a hit.
>>47853556
I don't think you understand how statistically unlikely all of those things are. You're more likely to get hit a car and die on your way to the grocery store (regardless of whether you choose to walk or drive or ride your bike) than have any of those things happen to you. How do you even live if you're afraid to leave your house at all?
>>47844953
'cept the guards back in Goblinslayer's place were evil. It's not subjective, and we still don't know how Kore is keeping his powers.
On the topic of the thread, I quite like this strip more than the others. He danced around his code because other people told him to, and that's not something a paladin can get away with.
>>47853590
So if some random dude came up to you and offered to give you a ride, you would let him do it just because he "seemed like a nice guy?"
Being good doesn't mean being naive.
>>47845412
>Evil creatures are Objectively Evil because they are made of particles of Objective Evil from the Plane of Objective Evil.
No they're not anon. Stop that.
>>47853649
No, because it's suspicious.
If a coworker I don't really know of offer me a ride home after I complained that my car broke, I certainly would. That's how you get to meet new people and make friends.
I do that sometimes too, I offer help to people next to me without tinking about it.
>>47853649
>some random dude
Your coworker
>came up to you
When you were already conversing
>and offered to give you a ride
When it was clear you needed one
Damn son, you can't even strawman properly.
>>47848829
Actually it is quite interesting. Guys ping as evil because it's Ears' past self who has the evil as fuck axe. Whether that's clever or not is up to debate, but it makes sense.
>>47849216
>Meanwhile, a morally bankrupt Vizier probably *shouldn't* ping as evil
No, he shouldn't. Because a Ring of Mind Shielding is 8000 gp.:^)
>>47853601
>>47853611
The problem comes in when all these disparate and poorly defined but thematically rich and interesting questions end up slamming headfirst into a mechanics question and have to be resolved. If I'm a positive channeling cleric does my channel help or hurt an NG good acting ally who was originally from a CE plane? If I'm LG and my buddy's intelligent blade is anarchic, but he's currently unconscious and me and the blade both want the BBEG dead and now is our chance, do I get the full bonus because me and the blade are in harmony so I roll at full strength or do I take a negative level because I'm technically lawful and it's technically chaotic? Or do we have to face the fact that both me and the blade are actually neutral because we're so willing to team up? And isn't odd that wouldn't have even come up if I was trying to stab him with a butter knife?
Mess. Utter, stupid, wasteful, mess.
>>47853624
Just because something is unlikely doesn't mean that it never happens.
I mean, it's statistically unlikely that you'll get robbed or suffer a home invasion but I bet you still lock your goddamn doors.
Besides, I'm not saying to go through life constantly looking over your shoulder, I'm saying that you should have a reasonable degree of skepticism and suspicion whenever you talk to someone you don't know.
Which includes not getting into a car with someone you don't know.
>>47853694
>NG good acting ally
Seems pretty clear to me.
>If I'm LG and my buddy's intelligent blade is anarchic, but he's currently unconscious and me and the blade both want the BBEG dead and now is our chance, do I get the full bonus because me and the blade are in harmony so I roll at full strength or do I take a negative level because I'm technically lawful and it's technically chaotic?
I'd say that if the blade is sapient and you can convince it you want the same thing, then you're fine. If it's just a chaotically aligned weapon then you take the level reduction.
There's super easy and intuitive ways to resolve all of these issues if you stop trying to make alignment something it was never intended to be.
>>47844725
So is it bad writing to have a filibuster about morality when morality is an important mechanic of the setting?
I guess it is, show don't tell and all.
>>47853667
>That's how you get to meet new people and make friends.
That's also how you end up on the missing person's list.
>>47853682
So?
That's like saying it's okay to get a ride from someone who goes to the same class as you.
Just because you're in the same building doesn't mean that you're friends, at most you're casual acquaintances.
I mean, if you're hanging out with them outside of work/class then that's different.
>>47853710
>Just because something is unlikely doesn't mean that it never happens.
No, but worrying about things that are incredibly unlikely to the exclusion of much more clear and present dangers that you accept implicitly is illogical.
>I bet you still lock your goddamn doors.
I don't, actually. Haven't been robbed yet.
>Which includes not getting into a car with someone you don't know.
Except we're explicitly talking about someone you do know. And hell, my brother hitchhiked across the country and back. As far as I know, no one was raped or murdered.
>>47853725
Both work if you prioritize "what makes sense" over RAW but that doesn't change the fact that RAW is sludge. As guidelines it's great but as hard crunchy mechanics it's literally worse than useless.
>>47853752
How well do you think you have to know someone before you get in a car with them?
>>47853752
>That's also how you end up on the missing person's list.
Highly unlikely.
"Hey, that's weird, this dude is missing and the last time we saw him he was riding with this coworker he didn't know well. I wonder what happened!"
>>47853773
>Letting rules cuck your roleplaying
This is literally why GM Fiat (or should that be Fiat Chrysler?) exists.
>>47853725
>There's super easy and intuitive ways to resolve all of these issues if you stop trying to make alignment something it was never intended to be.
It's only "simple and intuitive" if you ignore most of the bullshit and make your own judgment call based on what you believe the alignments represent.
Which doesn't help when the game has mechanical penalties for acting out of alignment yet doesn't do a good job of defining what alignment actually is when it calls an alignment an objective measurement of an elemental force of the universe and a subjective view on how a sentient creature lives their life.
>>47844725
Big Ears' description of evil is basically that of a vindictive person.
Most of us have the image of a sociopath associated with evil, but sociopathy is relatively rare, vindictive empaths are much more plentiful.
It's a good heuristic, I like it.
>>47853822
>mechanical penalties for acting out of alignment
Like what, Paladins notwithstanding?
>>47853793
Part the first I'll take that as win: As I've said from the beginning RAW is indeed useless shit and needs to be thrown out and replaced with 'because the DM said so' to work as advertised.
Part the second, if I wanted to pull rulings out of my ass I wouldn't bother spending money on the books to begin with. I can figure out my own opinion for free. The point of the books is for people to figure this shit out ahead of time so my group can spend more time on story and mechanics and less on game design.
>>47853774
>How well do you think you have to know someone before you get in a car with them?
When you know them well enough to note their positive qualities and their negative qualities.
Never trust a motherfucker who never lets you see their flaws, it means they're hiding something devious beneath the surface.
>>47853776
The cops placing you in his car isn't going to unrape/unkill you nigga.
>>47853859
>needs to be thrown out
No, you just need to use a tiny bit of common sense when arbitrating disputes. Usually this shit will never even come up. If it does, giving a concise and intuitive ruling is faster than digging through rulebooks to resolve some obscure rules interaction.
>>47853848
The aforementioned -1 level for a lawful creature using an anarchic weapon.
XP penalties for going out of alignment in OD&D.
Not being able to progress through certain classes like the monk, barbarian, and druid if you shift too far out of your alignment.
Losing access to certain spells that are of a [good] or [evil] alignment.
Among other things.
>>47853848
Clerics, for one. Bards. Monks. Alignment specific items both enchanted and sentient/intelligent, protection from alignment gear an spells, bonus damage items and spells that target an alignment, positive and negative energy channeling.
Not to mention PFS has a rule that Evil aligned characters are automatically unplayable and Adventures League bans NE and CE, house rules that a *lot* of DMs maintain.
All that and we haven't even talked about any IC stuff. Odd that. It's almost as if this is a poorly defined mechanic that shows up in way too many places and actually reduces to crunch too often.
>>47853875
How well do you have to know someone to verify that they're not secretly trying to torture and kill you? Can you ever get to that point if you never spend any time alone with them?
>>47853888
But they will catch him 100%, which means it's highly unlikely to happen.
You sound paranoid as fuck mate
>>47853361
Still no.
And why do paladins fall?
Because of dick GMs and edgy players like Anon Edgerton of McEvilshire that I was responding to, whose concept of good and evil is based on the "wisdom" of Dark Helmet.
>>47853915
>>47853929
None of those things sound like issues as long as you treat alignment reasonably and don't pull any orc babies wat do bullshit.
>>47853091
Nobody can really do that. There is so much need in the world that you could live your whole life as a slave, claiming nothing at all for yourself and selflessly accepting massive amounts of abuse, and still never make things noticeably better. Everyone who enjoys a higher standard of living than abject slavery is being selfish to some degree. I admit it. Most people do not. They think that it takes some relatively small fee or tithe to earn the status of "good person." In reality it takes everything, all your property, comfort, liberty, and dignity for the rest of your life.
>>47853912
"Just make it up if you don't like what's written" is far from common sense. It defeats the whole purpose of having a rulebook in the first place.
It's just more magic tea party grognard bullshit where ultimately it's whatever your DM feels like that day and we've got this whole board full of reasons that never actually works out.
Mechanical alignment is a useless system that requires the DM to fiat things to their own taste instead of exploring them in game and that's literally the opposite of a working system
>>47853875
>Never trust a motherfucker who never lets you see their flaws, it means they're hiding something devious beneath the surface.
My god, Mother Theresa must have been one seriously devious bitch.
>>47853934
You really can't, or at least not 100%.
>>47853981
People who worked with her have said things to that effect. She was deeply unpleasant to work with and wasn't even particularly religious, having taken her vows mostly for social reasons.
>>47853970
This is just edgelord bullshit justifying assholery by defining Good as impossibly difficult to attain. By enslaving yourself to others' needs, you make yourself require the assistance of others to survive and make the world even worse off than it was. See to your own needs first, then help others as you are able.
>>47853875
I literally suffer from Paranoid Personality Disorder, to the point where I kick over my garbage cans when I take out the garbage for fear of someone lurking in them, yet I'm still capable of realizing how stupid you're being. I have all these moronic thoughts but I fight them to be a rational non-retarded human being, so for you to actually believe what you're saying, I think you should seriously see a shrink m8.
>>47853965
The problem is the setting actually has orc babies in it. That's not some theoretical thing that only happens in obscure thought experiments, you're either required by your deity/philosophy/ideals/vow to genocide the orcs if possible or you are not.
Treating "Good," "Evil," "Lawful," and "Chaotic" as if they are simultaneously ways you can behave, things you can be born into, places you can be from, elemental magical forces, and choices at character creation and then sort of glomping them together and hoping no one looks to close isn't "reasonable" it's stupid. If it's not coming up in your games it's not because it's not a problem it's because you're consciously or unconsciously steering away from it.
Which wouldn't be a bad thing if you just owned up to it but you come on here and pretend like that's the right just and honorable thing to do and anyone who points it out is just being unreasonable. The system doesn't work and it either has to be fiat patched or avoided.
>>47853948
People don't think about the consequences at every point of their day, even then they'll usually think that they'll be able to get away with it.
They could kill/rape you and then realize "oh shit, I could go to jail" after the fact, it's not going to save you.
>>47853948
>You sound paranoid as fuck mate
You are arguing with someone that is professing that you can better trust someone who is openly threatening you rather than someone who acts polite, kind, or somewhat Canadian.
Paranoia is the least of their issues.
>>47853965
Except for the fact that alignment restrictions exist and many options in the PHB depend on your character's alignment.
>>47853974
Ignoring it as also changing the system, and complaining about it on Neohimalayan cryptopottery forums isn't productive.
>>47853981
She actually was.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Mother_Teresa
Morality/ethics are hard, they're even harder when you refuse to put any effort into them
>>47854028
Yeah, yeah.
And Ghandi killed his wife.
Everyone ever is super evil.
Guess that excuses us all from being dicks, right?
>Murderhobo time for all!
Please.
>>47854042
What parts are unreasonable to you?
>>47854032
That's the utilitarian way of justifying a selfish life. But unless you'd murder x people to save x+1 people, you must admit that there's more to good than simply weighing help against harm. Good is more about adherence to good principles, especially the principle that one must be selfless. So a life of voluntary slavery is good even if it means not being particularly helpful. Starving yourself to death so that others can eat is almost certainly not the choice that produces the most utility, but good is not about utility.
>>47854052
What?
No.
As an ex deliquant, I guarantee you that you do think of the consquences and avoid shit when it's too risky
>>47854082
This started with people saying RAW were fine and functional and anyone who says different was arguing in bad faith and since then team "no they're not" has chased the goalposts all over the field.
It is a chunk of the rulebook that does not work as advertised and it must be dealt with. Whether dealing with it involves replacing it with "DM's word is law," admitting up front that the alignment RAW is unworkable and won't actually be invoked in crunch, or trying to reach some sort of actionable compromise to let people use it as well as possible without any nasting surprises (or resorting to a 1000gp do-dad that beeps whenever your evil level starts to rise/drop outside tolerances. Gag me.) some sort of method of dealing with it has to be selected. That happens sometimes because the rules can only be so granular.
But let's not pretend the rules are fine and it's the DMs and/or players that are the problem.
>>47854113
Only if you want. The lesson to be learned from those people is that esteem is an accident of history. The way people perceive you will be wrong in one way or another, and morality is made of these false perceptions with nothing real underneath to base it on, so just live your life however you want and don't be afraid that you're not conforming to some kind of objective moral principles, because those don't exist. Right and wrong can't be found in the world, only in our own minds.
>>47854113
Everyone has flaws and people who hide theirs away are usually the most devious motherfuckers you can meet.
At most, we're all gray.
>>47854137
If you could do that then you wouldn't be an "ex-delinquent" in the first place.
>>47854205
Ex-delinquent because I did many illicit things, not because I got caught
>>47854220
You still did illicit things that could've gotten you arrested if you were caught but you didn't think about it when you were doing those things at that moment.
If the cops showed up, I bet you would've been thinking "shit, I could go to jail."
>>47854197
No one can ever be good at all because all it takes is one slip up:
>>47853180
>you slip up being good then it's just a gradual shift down to evil.
Everyone ever is evil always and forever.
>>47854245
No, that's what I'm saying. You're wrong.
You think about it, you weight it, you weight your chances.
The only people who think "shit, I could go to jail" are shithead teenagers
>>47854136
Good is absolutely about utility. Here, have some reading material.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effective_altruism
>>47848829
>"I'm sad"
Did... Did he become self-aware? M-maybe all is not lost for him after all...
>>47854085
>>47854028
Having read those criticisms, they amount to her behaving exactly like a good person that 100% believes in Christianity.
Being kind to "evil" people, secretly baptizing people to save their souls, and caring more about saving souls than ending worldly suffering.
She kinda sucked at being secularly good, but she was aces at religious good.
>>47854194
Truth.
There are true rights and wrongs, but that's myopic quibbling.
Friendly reminder that it is possible to have good things come out of an alignment thread.
>>47854269
Good and evil are ideals that most people will never meet.
Nobody is completely good or completely evil, you're just a collection of positive and negative qualities that make you human.
It's just a matter of whether or not one group of qualities outweighs the others.
>>47854399
You sound far more sane than the anon from earlier.
>>47854328
The thing is, it's still kinda fucked up to make a religious call for someone just because you feel as though you're saving them from eternal damnation.
It came from an arguably good place sure but it's still a pretty horrible thing to do to someone who doesn't realize what's going on.
Then again, this is why alignments are supposed to be subjective.
>>47854433
My logic is sound but my delivery is spotty.
>>47844725
I'm SAD
>>47854460
Either it matters, and was good, or it doesn't and was innocuous.
>>47854460
If you're a different religion, it doesn't matters, your god will surely not sanction you because you were baptized against your will on your deatbed.
If there is no god, it's not important at all, it was a nice attention from a religious person.
If there is a christian god, this was VERY nice
>>47854506
>>47854554
If Mother Theresa converted Christians into becoming Muslims, most people would be outraged.
Yet because she's an "honest Christian lady" helping out "godless heathens," it's all well and good because she's doing it for the glory of god.
>>47854566
strawman
>>47854554
So does that mean that we should all become suicide bombers in case Allah exists?
That we should start beating gays to death just for existing?
That we should sacrifice virgins in case Satan exists?
That we should circumcise ourselves in case the Jews had it right all along?
FUCK NO!
Because nobody knows who or what lies beyond this mortal coil and it's beyond foolish to do something like this just because you believe you backed the wrong horse.
Fuck, under this logic, I could sneak bacon bites into a Muslim's salad because I like bacon and think it's delicious and not feel bad about encroaching upon their religious views because if Allah doesn't exist, they just tasted some delicious bacon.
All in all, everyone should have the ability to express their religious preference and nobody has a right to overstep their religious freedoms just because they believe that they're doing something good.
>>47854328
Not *my* Christianity, Dietrich Bonhoeffer's, +John Shelby Spong's, or Phillip Gulley's. She pledged allegiance to a moronic if not demonic in all sense of the word set of beliefs that prized human suffering as a positive outcome in order to cover for the excesses of a corrupted organization and it rotted the soul right out of her, as even a quick glimpse of her 50 year plus secret diary of how much she felt like she'd lost her faith and God was ignoring her would show.
She sucked at being good in all senses of the word but she was good at marketing. She managed to convince the world there was only one way to be a Christian and that she was good at it and both of those were absolute lies.
>>47854309
You can get a philosopher to argue anything, which is why that mutually incompatible philosophical concepts each have their own Wikipedia pages. It doesn't mean that they're all true. They can't be.
>>47854383
Friendly reminder that we don't know if it's possible or not because it's never happened.
>>47854654
m8 you're baked
>>47854654
>become suicide bombers
>beating gays to death
>sacrifice virgins
>circumcise ourselves
>FUCK NO!
>sneak bacon bites into a Muslim's salad
None of those equate to sprinkling water onto a dying person's forehead.
>>47854554
There are a wide variety of theologies of baptism inside and outside the Catholic church. While it's true that there are certain members of her particular sect who might think it a "nice" gesture, there's a lot of Christians that wouldn't.
>>47854666
>She managed to convince the world there was only one way to be a Christian
And goodnight.
>>47844725
Ears' reasoning and belief is pretty solid actually. This comic is not nearly as bad as people make it out to be. Sure, this page has a lot of words, but other pages have very few. I at least appreciate the characters talking extensively between fights rather than during them (I'm looking at you OotS).
>>47854566
No.
>>47854554
>>47854506
These points remains true.
It was inappropriate, not outrageous.
>>47854691
Pic related t-shirt came from one such thread, heathen.
>>47854733
Suicide bombers believe that blowing themselves up gives them 72 virgins.
Christians believe that gays are an abomination who deserve to die for being responsible for the decay of society.
Sacrificing someone/something to your deity of choice is done to pay respect, and what better form of respect than a young, unmarred soul?
Muslims believe that pork is unclean and touching it would bar your entry into heaven.
And keep in mind, most of these religions also have clear cut rules that basically comes down to "anyone who doesn't believe in god deserves to die" and realize that Mother Theresa forced someone to convert to Christianity when they couldn't even consent and realize that if their god exists, she just condemned these people to eternal damnation for the rest of their immortal existence just because she thought that being a Christian was better.
>>47854879
You heard me. Did I stutter?
>>47854851
So what if it does matter and she just screwed them out of their cushy afterlife at the last second?
>>47854882
Beliefs related to actions does not equate sprinkling water to suicide bombing.
You are a fool.
>just because she thought that being a Christian was better
Close, but you're missing why she thought it was better.
>just because she was certain their soul would be damned to hell forever if she didn't.
>>47854910
>GET OUT OF MY TERRITORY I'M DOING MY OWN THING
>>47853350
>He doesn't read Subnormality
Trust me, once you get into that comic all others seem like brief pamphlets.
>>47854929
Show me the religion that says you don't get the good afterlife if you agree you'd like a ticket there and then get moistened, and we'll talk.
>>47855002
>Beliefs related to actions does not equate sprinkling water to suicide bombing.
It does when they both impact someone else's life without their consent.
If someone shot orphans because he believed that it was better to kill good people so they couldn't slip into sin than to have them live and end up burning in hell because they didn't have a chance to absolve their sins, would he be justified because that's what he believes and he was certain that they would burn in hell if he didn't do it?
Not to mention, eating bacon isn't going to kill you yet most Muslims would still want to murder you for ruining their chance to get into heaven since that's what they believe.
>>47844725
Didn't this guy have a breakdown from trying to please the feminists, then apologized for being born a straight white male? I don't mean this in mockery, I mean that this was a thing that happened and it actually made him stop writing the comic for a while.
>>47845378
B-but when do I get to rider kick the bad guys with mohawks?
>>47854882
>Christians believe that gays are an abomination who deserve to die for being responsible for the decay of society.
No, Social conservatives believe this and weakly use Christianity to justify it.
The New Testament tosses out the Old Testament, and all the New Testament has to say on gays is "well, they aren't going to heaven".
>>47853556
Those are all pretty fucking unlikely. If your computer slows down, do you immediately suspect the NSA has planted spyware to monitor your every movement, or do you first run through more reasonable options like "I have too many tabs open"? We live in a world where trying to consider every possibility results in paralysis because there are infinite possible threats, benefits, and random bullshit that doesn't even register on a profit/loss scale. You can either be rational and ignore the things that will almost certainly never be true, or you can be ridiculous and get your ass killed in a car crash because you were afraid to fly somewhere. Your call.
>or because it makes them feel better
Post-script: This is stupid reasoning. It doesn't explain anything, because you're using it as a catch-all for every conceivable motivation other than, apparently, duty. I guarantee you that you expect to dismiss any examples by explaining how they boil down to generating "good feelings", but what you overlook is that evil actions do the same, and so do neutral ones. It's exactly as much an explanation as "Because God willed it."
>>47855109
How about literally every religion that talks about how to treat people who aren't of the faith.
When you baptize someone, they're now effectively Christians for the purpose of an afterlife.
You've exiled them from their original religion for forcing them to practice something that isn't of their faith and you've kicked them out of Christian heaven since they're basically heathens who didn't absolve themselves of the sin of blasphemy.
In a nutshell, you're condemning them to limbo at best or eternal damnation in hell at worst because you believe that they'll be happier as pseudo-Christians.
>>47855116
>It does when they both impact someone else's life without their consent
Okay, you have to choose between experiencing the impact of water droplets moistening your forehead and the impact of a suicide bomber set in a ring next to you.
Which do you choose and why if they equal each other?
>>47855245
I doubt you know anything about what you're talking about.
What specific religion counts uninformed, unintentional baptism as a damning offense?
>>47855261
>set in a ring
Autocorrect, I don't even
>>47855245
Presumably the metaphysical afterlives of other religions don't acknowledge the existence of Christianity, so her actions wouldn't have barred them from entry.
>>47855245
>In a nutshell, you're condemning them to limbo at best or eternal damnation in hell
These are Christian concepts, so she explicitly saved them from those things.
>>47855245
>When you baptize someone, they're now effectively Christians for the purpose of an afterlife.
Only if the sects of Christianity that make baptism a prerequisite for entrance into Heaven are correct. Otherwise it's a meaningless ritual with no particular cosmic power. Certainly many religions forbid the practice of other religions, but whichever of those turns out to be true if Christianity fails is unlikely to condemn a helpless, dying person for having been subjected to such a ritual with no belief on their part. Certainly, you need to be concrete about it and point out which religion, specifically, does so, because it's all about the person being baptized's faith, not Mother Teresa's.
>>47855174
That's not exactly true. There is blessedly little about teh homosex in either the old or new testament and what mentions they do have are odd to say the least. If you get the right English translation and start and stop the readings at the right times you can create the impression that the text is a lot more "clear cut" than it actually is.
If you actually attempt to reach an understanding of what the writers were trying to convey to the audience they were deliberately writing too, it's actually a lot more complicated and involved and very little is known for sure.
>>47853656
>Not knowing what Negative Energy is, or what the Plane of Negative Energy is
>inb4 'lol stop playing dnd then' when you were knowingly speaking of dnd
>>47855119
Yes, you're right.
I actually have his announcments written down and saved.
>>47855245
[citation needed]
>>47855315
Islam?
>>47855245
>>47854882
>Start religion where you baptize people by shooting them
>Begin removing kebab
>Because your religion is false, converted kebabs are removed from all planes of existence
We should get /k/ in on this. It's relevant to their interests.
>>47855261
I'd rather not have any of those things really but at least dying by bomber doesn't violate my religious freedom.
>>47854137
There's crimes of passion, anon. When you do something because of your emotions running high, then only afterwards realized how much you fucked up. Just because you thought of the consequences doesn't mean every single criminal ever has. In fact, crimes of passion are much more common than premeditated crimes.
>>47855381
>Not knowing the negative energy plane is explicitly not evil
>Not knowing only evil outsiders are 'made of evil', not evil creatures in general
>inb4 'lol undead are evil though' when that's irrelevent
>>47855429
>>47855449
>Moisture can baptize you against your will
[citation indeed needed]
Enjoy your horrible, painful death.
>>47855556
Actually, depending on how close you are to the explosion, you'll probably end up dying relatively quickly and painlessly due to your body taking so much damage at once that you just pass out from the pain and die of blood loss.
So really, death by explosion isn't the absolute worst way to die, not by a longshot.
>>47855556
>[citation indeed needed]
Islam has a goddamn city where you're supposed to cast non-Islamists out man, it's obvious how they view people not of the faith.
>>47855703
Do they define heathens/heretics as "people who have had water on the forehead at any point during their life"?
>Assuming baptism can be laid upon an unconscious person
Baptism is an acceptance of faith performed by people already participating in the faith. You can't baptize an unconscious person any more than you can baptize a baby. Neither were already in the faith and neither accepted the baptism.
>>47855772
Stop being obtuse.
Anyone who isn't an Islamist earns their ire, and you can't be an Islamist if you've gotten a Christian baptism in your life.
>>47855825
If it was against your will, while you lay dying, does it count as a Christian baptism for the purposes of disqualification from Islam? And let's not talk about Islamism, that's a political movement, not a religious one.
>>47844953
More wrote "Lawful Good" on his character sheet in pen.
Pen.
That ink don't erase.
>>47855386
Glorious. Nice work putting all that together.
>>47855825
If not even the person that received the baptism knows about it, are they still excommunicated? What if somebody climbed to the top of a mosque and dribbled water onto people as they left. Would those people be damned forever?
Alignment talk is always stupid goof and evil don't exist there just constructs of society like borders and money
>>47856415
Goof = good
>>47853556
>where people will put razor blades in candy apples on Halloween
You know that was an urban legend, right?
>>47854399
It's not even set in stone which qualities count as good and which count as bad. Good is just what people prescribe and evil is what people prescribe against. How people do this varies from person to person.
>>47854177
>It is a chunk of the rulebook that does not work as advertised and it must be dealt with.
Depends on edition. I always favored the early editions' Law vs Chaos, where they each represented a cosmic force, and were sort of like picking a team. Alignment languages were granted to you by the supernatural beings that ruled over your alignment, allowing you to communicate secretly with other beings who were part of your cause.
Meanwhile neutral is all caught in the middle with smiley gladhand papists opposed to making a quick buck on one side, and creepy murder-loving chaos cultists on the other.
Adding the other axis was a mistake.
>>47844725
This webcomic is just tragic, what a squandering of human life and effort.
>>47856704
Oh my god, you're so original
>>47854733
>None of those equate to sprinkling water onto a dying person's forehead.
What about sprinkling water on a dying person's forehead, while their family is outside asking if Grandpa is here, and your nuns are lying to them and saying no, because you don't want them to take him away to a hospital where he might be given medicine that would save his life, but not his soul?
>>47856756
Uh what, "original"? I'm saying my opinion.
>>47856788
I was trying to convey a sarcastic tone with that post.
I guess I failed miserably.
>>47856704
>what a squandering of human life and effort.
And us sitting here, reading and posting in this stupid thread isn't?
>>47856841
To be fair you are not putting is as much time and effort to post replies in a thread as the webcomic artist is to write and illustrate his comic.
>182 replies and i'm sad hasn't been posted yet
shake my head to be honest family
>>47844725
>>47856875
Read >>47848829
>>47844725
Not even the weirdest tree this week.
>>47857037
Google gives nothing
Gib source
>>47848829
>I'm sad
Waiiit, what? It's a new strip and author become aware of his bullshit?
>>47857498
Kill Six Billion Demons
>>47857534
That happened like two months back
>>47856221
>He uses that picture and doesn't even say "Ice work"
>>47857749
meh the pun thing is too stale
>>47857778
So the pun is a bread art form? Do you think it will ever rise again?
>>47844725
eh, that was pretty good, especially for this series.
>>47849216
So, what, smite never works on humanoids, then?
>>47857498
Google reverse image just seems to be broken lately. Even the simplest pics get tagged weird things which seems to throw off the whole search.
>>47857582
It's not like a followed this comic much.
>>47844725
All dem words
holy christ all dem words
it physically hurts looking at this
>>47857951
Reading *is* hard.
Sound the words out.
We believe in you!
>>47857534
>>47857582
>That happened like two months back
>>47852869
Sucking at something is the first step to being sorta good at something.
>>47854666
Nice try, Satan! I'm not falling for your lies!Bizzaro-edgelord: What's it like when everyone's an edgelord, and the special snowflake is the only legitimately good guy but nobody believes him?
>>47855521
Negative/necrotic energy is neutral like fire is neutral, but its presence still causes the world to slide closer towards evil and corrupts sentient beings towards evil actions.
>>47860118
>Sucking at something is the first step to being sorta good at something.
Where's that Olgaf reaction image about not being born with cocksucking lips?
>>47860593
Listen, if you have too much of any goddamned elemental energy, you'll cause destruction.
Too much fire leads to everything burning to the ground, too much water leads to widespread flooding, too much earth leads to suffocation and earthquakes, too much air leads to oxygen poisoning.
Fuck, even too much positive energy can cause you to explode if you get healed past a certain threshold.
So really, it should be that negative energy corrupts only if you abuse it, which should extend to magic as a whole considering how easy it is to abuse it and cause widespread destruction at no cost to the user beyond the expenditure of a spell slot.
>>47860870
Yes, that's why those are neutral, and that's not what I'm talking about.
Any usage at all of negative energy drags the world towards Evil as a concept. The devastation wrought by it is not related. Its existence at all causes the presence of sadism and selfishness to grow, plane-wide, even if only the slightest degrees.
>>47853086
I see alignment as a personal philosophy for my adventurers, rather than moral code.
Example:
I am Lawful Good, I live my life within the law, try to help my fellow man, and better myself and others. Should a law that is morally wrong crop up, then I shall ignore it or try to have it removed. I shall do my best to oppose evil, be it a serial killer or someone who cheats others out of their gold.
>>47860914
You really can't have it be the cause of sadism and destruction while still listing it as a neutral element like fire or water.
I mean, if it's the former then why aren't other elemental energies causing similar effects whenever a mage decides to use them?
I would love it if there was something like fire mages becoming more and more prone to anger and fits of rage or earth mages becoming more and more prone to being rigid in their thinking.
If it's the latter then what are its reasons for existing?
Fire provides heat, water keeps us hydrated, earth provides stability, air provides oxygen for us to breathe, etc.
Where does negative energy fit along the spectrum, does it just exist to give paladins a force to fight against? Is its only reason for being centered on its association with deamons and the like?
I mean, even if we say it's associated with death, then it still wouldn't make sense since death isn't inherently evil or destructive on its own.
All in all, doesn't really make sense.
>>47844725
Someone missed the memo that comics are for pictures, and that there should be more picture per page than half assed dialogue.
>>47861236
>You really can't have it be the cause of sadism and destruction while still listing it as a neutral element like fire or water.
You can. It is not itself evil, but evil is generated around it.
>I mean, if it's the former then why aren't other elemental energies causing similar effects whenever a mage decides to use them?
They do, in their own ways. Pulling water elemental energy increases likelihood of rain, and earth energy causes mineral quality to increase, and so on--but those are neither evil nor good. The world is only in a tenuous balance of elements and mages are throwing it in disarray all over. Elemental Evil goes over how any of the elements growing out of control leads to a fucking apocalypse.
>I would love it if there was something like fire mages becoming more and more prone to anger and fits of rage or earth mages becoming more and more prone to being rigid in their thinking.
They do do that as well. All heavily elemental users show these sort of traits, especially elemental cultists.
>Fire provides heat, water keeps us hydrated, earth provides stability, air provides oxygen for us to breathe, etc.
The four elements swirl in a tide of chaos that causes existence to exist. D&D's world is not made of atoms. Everyone is made of fire, air, earth, and water.
>Where does negative energy fit along the spectrum, does it just exist to give paladins a force to fight against? Is its only reason for being centered on its association with deamons and the like?
Negative/necrotic energy and Positive/radiant energy exist in conflict with each other. One brings growth and creation and obviously the other brings decay and destruction. The Inner Planes exist in this conflict: four planes in chaos, two planes in opposition. The meaning to their existence is for context for the rest of reality--filling it with life and undeath. (Death is neutral and not directly related to negative energy, but instead a lack of positive energy)
>>47861236
>I mean, even if we say it's associated with death, then it still wouldn't make sense since death isn't inherently evil or destructive on its own.
And to this last point, negative energy leads to undeath, not death. The undead are fueled by it, radiate it, created by it, and so on.
This is why the creation of undead is an absolutely Evil concept in D&D. Even created undead for the best of purposes and using them for the highest of Good ends, is invariably Neutral at best because you are generating a continuous source of Evil for the universe.
>>47853324
This. The last panel is just how the US Left sees the Right, it couldn't be any more fucking obvious given current events and the current political climate.
>>47861429
>You can. It is not itself evil, but evil is generated around it.
To paraphrase Chris Rock for moment.
"Why can't they be crazy? What, you can't crazy no mo'?"
I dunno, to be serious for a moment, how does this necessarily fit into free will?
Are people just sponges that absorb positive/negative energy and anything we do is just because of our alignment and not because people are just assholes or something?
>>47856595
Happened a few times in my neighborhood last year, actually. Someone got arrested for it.
>>47844725
>>47861752
>I dunno, to be serious for a moment, how does this necessarily fit into free will?
>Are people just sponges that absorb positive/negative energy and anything we do is just because of our alignment and not because people are just assholes or something?
Free will is a matter of literal willpower; how much ability one has to resist the whispers of the energy that swirls around them. Most of the "evil races" were created with little or no willpower to this end--Orcs are Evil because Gruumsh literally created them to be inclined towards Evil. In that sense, they lack free will. "Free will" is mostly a personal preference of the Good gods, who believe that Goodness without intent is just programming. (Many celestials take offense and look on mortals with pity.)
>>47853556
>Hell, even good people only do good things either because they believe that they're supposed to or because it makes them feel better.
You have described the average democrat
>Not that there's anything wrong with that.
There are several things wrong with that
>>47862053
Your brain is not working correctly.
You should look into that.
>>47862090
>Ad hom is the only defense against facts
Classic
>>47853324
>The tumblr-tier crybaby faggot is just making an obvious and ham-handed political statement, and you're all fucking retarded for not seeing it
>>47861706
>The last panel is just how the US Left sees the Right, it couldn't be any more fucking obvious given current events and the current political climate.
It is always funny when idiots on one side of a political issue fail to see how both sides are quick to codemn, vilify, and attack others.
This is true whether the idiots are left, right, or indecisive.
>>47862207
Your "facts" are not facts and you make no argument.
Your brain is still not working.
I suggest you try again later.
>>47850239
Same.
Well played to thunt.
>>47844725
I'm hoping this turns out to be Ears just over-thinking it and it wasn't attacking Kore that led to the axe breaking. Because come on, Kore is pretty fucking evil.
Also, attacking an opponent from behind isn't a question of morals. It's combat; you have to use some layer of tactics, deception, and opportunist actions. The goal is not to be moral, it is to end the fight- either by subduing the individual until the reason for the conflict can be sorted out, or by killing them. If you grapple somebody from behind to restrain them until they calm down and stop trying to kill you, is that evil? If you refuse to attack when your opponent overcommits to a swing and put themselves off-balance, is that good?
My point is, trying to end somebody's life is never a Good action; the caveat being that it is sometimes, especially in D&Dlands, a NECESSARY one. Killing a criminal or evil person comes out as a net neutral action. What makes a Paladin is why they are fighting in the first place, and whether they act responsibly and hold themselves accountable for their actions.
>>47862315
>posts same insult
First day?
also helping people, not because they may need it, but to make yourself feel better, that you did something important, is the sin of pride.
You give a homeless man 100 dollars.
You don't know this man, or his habits. Is this a good act?
>>47862443
See, now you're doing more than proudly posting conclusions empty of argument.
Now tie it to democrats.
Helping you is making me feel better.
>You give a homeless man 100 dollars.
>You don't know this man, or his habits. Is this a good act?
Perhaps.
>>47862443
Good answer, though it is a gamble
You are enabling him to do whatever he will with that money, be it drink himself to sleep, get crack, gamble, or, potentially, get his life turned around. people are poor for a reason, normally a vice or a lack of will and enabling that reason is an evil act, as you are enabling the continued poverty of that man. A good act would be to get him a job and a set of clothes, so he may be given a chance to dig him self out of the hole
.
>what is shitposting
>>47862670
meant for>>47862567
>>47862567
Dems are all about "helping" the poor, with welfare being their more acceptable offering as opposed to offering reperations to praire niggers and normal niggers
I like it. It's far more hardass about good and evil than I'd ever enforce in game, but if my pally player said his character was doubting the legitimacy of his actions based on an especially subjective but not entirely invalid interpretation of alignment and thought it might make for a good cause of plot-relevant turmoil I'd take that shit and run with it. As it is, his 1-2 "Detect Evil" and "Smite Evil" playstyle may get him into some serious shit as he's approaching enemies with Misdirect and moving into more complicated situations than monster-slaying quests. What happens when he finds a Neutral or even Good aligned citizen with a single Evil intention that sets off the pally-meter, like committed intention for, but not yet guilt of, embezzling funds at the expense of others? Eventually that shit's going to come down to how his God rules the action, so probably pretty lenient toward "Good Enough", but we can accept that while Good and Evil are meant to have fairly specific meaning in D&D there's wiggle room, especially when it comes the cosmic forces that arbitrate such things in universe.
>>47862712
Passable, but you still got too much /pol/ stuck to the underside of it.
>>47844953
>By performing actions that are wrong by his own subjectivity, he did indeed work evil with the axe.
Which is exactly how it should work.
Falling is a psycho-spiritual state, not just an action.
>>47852927
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
>>47853315
Oh man, you pansies and your high-bar for art (in a free medium, no less.) It gives you all such a low tolerance level for mistakes and flaws. You want ugly as fuck? Try looking at Thunt's *first* Goblins comics.
Holy God. It's like someone sketched a faceless picture of a bodybuilder, crumpled it up, fed it through a dryer for thirty minutes, then had someone else with an entirely different art-style draw a smiley emote on it.
It's borderline nauseating. You look at that for several dozen strips and you'll be begging for his current art.
>>47853353
Like he said, anon, no one in their right mind.
>>47853929
3rd edition shit edition.
>>47853974
>this whole board full of reasons
A bunch of assholes giving slightly differently-worded versions of how their 7th-grade DM was an asshole does not 'a whole board of reasons' make.
I will forever hate that the goblins heads all look like mushy lumps of playdough.
>>47868415
Here's how I know you've never actually read the 5e books. For starters, Adventurer's League has only been around for 1-2 seasons of 5e play. You aren't aware of the sentient item conflict rules on DMG 216. You aren't aware of the 11 items in the DMG that change effects based on alignment. You aren't aware Glyph of Warding can trigger based on handler alignment alone. You aren't aware of the alignment-bound door in Curse of Strahd. You aren't aware Sir Lanniver Strayl's responses in Out of the Abyss depends on average party alignment or that the book legendary Dawnbringer is alignment locked. You aren't aware that Lycanthropy and Vampirism both suggest alignment shifting and taking control of a character until the curse is lifted (MM207 and MM295.)
You are, in short, unaware of everything that has happened since 3e and need to shut the fuck up about it until you are. But please continue to pretend that "lolnope they aren't" cause you can't be assed to ctrl-f
>>47845115
So listen to pe people complain but never act on it?
>>47844725
Well funny how by the last panel Kore is 100% evil but still remains a paladin.
>>47862421
This is D&D-based, meaning fucking around with morals is exactly like nullifying fundamental forces that keep the universe from blowing the fuck up.
>>47868750
Those are all so supremely obscure that you'll need to be looking at their exact ruling no matter what when you bring them onto the field. The fact that they are not simple or intuitive in light of that is irrelevant.
>>47869457
The items are obscure but not the sytem, it's on page 4 of the Adventurers League Player's Guide. They mention alignment restrictions on factions before they mention factions.
I am thankful it's still mostly "3rd edition shit" but I'm sorry it's not all 3rd edition shit. They are still using it for game mechanics in the form of one-offs, character approval, and the 5e version of explosive runes so not quite a perfect score.
I did however drop the ball in a huge way: items created 5e's sentient item system *don't* actually check alignments. Shocking but true being the same alignment as the item doesn't help you and being of a different alignment doesn't actually hurt you, it only matters if you and the sentient item get into an argument. That one is on me and it's a breath of fresh air. Unbeknownst to me I was looking at a copy of the PF rules that had been mislabled as the 5e rules so an honest fuckup but a serious one.
I am wiling to hereby publicly award 5e an A- in putting alignment bullshit in the past. Not all the way gone unfortunately but refreshingly close to it.
>>47845378
>>47844725
Seems irresponsible to act without proof, this is an argument for stupid good or lawful stupid at least.
>>47864863
Polished shit is still shit. Not to mention so grimderp you'd think it's his magical realm, or he's got severe mental issues and Goblins is the only thing keeping him sane (in a weird hate-love sort of way).
>>47844725
It doesn't matter. What happened is that the axe hit an anti-magic field and broke because it was held together by magic.
>>47870003
>Seems irresponsible to act without proof
But he's arguing specifically against that.
