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tussock wrote:
> Justisaur wrote:
> > tussock wrote:
> >
> >>Justisaur wrote:
> >>
> >>>If you remove alignments from 3.5, what do you do with the DR types
> >>>that include alignment? I thought of using some special metal, but
> >>>many creatures already have a special metal with an and/or with an
> >>>alignment requirement. For instance a Balor has DR 15/cold iron and
> >>>good.
> >>
> >> The things with DR X/alignment are angels and feinds. Why exactly
> >>would you want angels and feinds in a game that doesn't concern itself
> >>with Good and Evil?
> >
> > Good & Evil (and Law & Chaos) as abstracts or shades of grey rather
> > than detectable, affectable absolutes.
>
> Which doesn't really suit supernatural creatures of pure Good and
> absolute Evil, IMO.
>
Even christianity doesn't have absoulte evil and good (except perhaps
for the trinity - one or three beings however you look at it), the
demons were at one time angels and were good, even the epitome of evil
was the big guy's right hand in the begining.
Other mythologies don't really have anything approaching absolute good.
Greek, and Norse the "Good" are a bunch of petty emotional squabbling
inbred homicidal maniacs showcasing the worst part of humanity, with an
occasional good bone.
As for law and chaos, there's a heck of a lot less evidence of
absolutes of those.
The only justification for having absolute Good & Evil is because it's
a fantasy world, and it's quite a cool fantasy to be able to just say a
few words (or stare) and tell if someone is one or the other or blast
them with (un)holy power. Unfortunately this simplifies role playing
and destroys a large number of possible plots. Is it worth it? Not
sure. I've never actually eliminated it in any game I've run, as I
didn't feel it was worth the huge effort. But I do often feel highly
constrained in my plots because of it. It's definitely more of a pain
from a DM point of view, and surely a boon to PCs.
> > Of course one might want celestials & fiends as just creatures from
> > other dimensions.
>
> OK; I'd as soon make a whole new monster as make up new background
> info for all the strongly aligned ones, or more likely just stick with
> the other thousand or so published critters.
>
> Nothing wrong with Gaints, Dragons, Undead, and Aberrations.
>
Very true, I've thought of that as well, but as I mentioned the
majority of High level threats are outsiders. You also have to do
something with the summon monster spells, as all of them are either
celestial or fiendish animals, or some type of outsider, only a very
few without alignment types.
>
> I guess if I really wanted the outsiders in play I'd consider them
> to be "all the same" mechanically, and have one new material type that
> bypassed all their DR. Messes with Celestials vs Feinds, but they don't
> need to be enemies sans alignment.
> Perhaps Wood, it should really have some mystical game benefit.
>
The problem with that is that a lot of the DRs of these creatures
alread includes a material.
So far the Consecrated or Magic or Bane options seem the most viable.
Magic is easiest, but it seriously downgrades the rarity of being able
to overcome the DR.
Bane is probably closest to what's in existance now, with a different
one required for each type, but would need some reworking since there's
no spell (that I'm aware of) that gives bane, as well as you no longer
have 'outsider, evil' if you eliminate the alignments, and 'demonbane'
etc. is significantly more limited than 'outsider, evil'. You could
just call it Lower Planar bane, but it sound lame, and somewhat defeats
the purpose. Even if you don't use bane to overcome the DR you still
have to look at what to do for the 'outsider, evil' cases, so it may be
the best bet anyway.
Consecrated is middle of the road between the two, where you change
holy/unholy ect to only work against outsiders, but it works against
all outsiders. It's nice, but I'm leaning toward magic just because of
the ease of implimentation, and the fact that PCs loose a lot of power
when you take away alignments anyway, which this will help take care
of.
- Justisaur
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