Where does it point out where always, often and usually mean in terms of alignment?

[Drakevarg]

PHB, p. 104

Animals and other creatures incapable of moral action are neutral rather than good or evil. Even deadly vipers and tigers that eat people are neutral because they lack the capacity for morally right or wrong behavior.

Animals and other creatures incapable of moral action are neutral. Dogs may be obedient and cats free-spirited, but they do not have the moral capacity to be truly lawful or chaotic.

I'm not saying I agree with them, I'm just saying that within the guidelines set by the PHB, animals are incapable of moral action, and by logical extension any creature with a non-neutral alignment IS capable of moral action and can thus choose to go against their standard alignment.

[Mystic Muse]

Unless they are literally fueled by evil or good. In which case they might not have a neutral alignment. In the case of skeletons for example. Although why negative energy is evil is beyond me. Especially since several negative energy spells don't have the "evil" descriptor.

[Drakevarg]

Unless they are literally fueled by evil or good. In which case they might not have a neutral alignment. In the case of skeletons for example. Although why negative energy is evil is beyond me. Especially since several negative energy spells don't have the "evil" descriptor.

So smite evil works on them, probably. WotC is kinda stupid like that.

But as you said, "One cannot truely be good without the ability to be evil." And vice versa.

[Yukitsu]

How bout a skeleton? Or how about any animal with an alignment altering template? Or for a non-aligned plane, a dark creature which makes animals usually neutral evil?

Also, I would argue that they weren't necessarily knowledgeable of random animal murders. (frankly, I've never seen one that wasn't related to territorial disputes where the scientist couldn't disintangle the groupings.)

[Drakevarg]

How bout a skeleton?

Also, I would argue that they weren't necessarily knowledgeable of random animal murders. (frankly, I've never seen one that wasn't related to territorial disputes where the scientist couldn't disintangle the groupings.)

I've read up on ones where a monkey would just snatch a baby monkey out of its mother's arms and kill it for ****s-n-giggles. Or dolphins that would beat porposes to death despite the fact that they don't share the same diet or territory.

Edit-Ninja'd:
For an animal with an alignment-altering template, the only ones I know of make them Magical Beasts with an INT of at least 3, making them capable of moral action.

Also, if I decide to kill my neighbor because his fridge is better stocked than mine, I'm a murderer. If a lion does it, it's a "territorial dispute."

To quote Jubal Early, "Does that seem right to you?"

[Yukitsu]

I've read up on ones where a monkey would just snatch a baby monkey out of its mother's arms and kill it for ****s-n-giggles. Or dolphins that would beat porposes to death despite the fact that they don't share the same diet or territory.

More recent studies found this was when the original father was driven off in apes, and the new monkey will kill the offspring that aren't his own. It's a drive instinct to ensure the mother stops caring for the child such that she can have another child sooner. It's not a random event, but an evolutionarily stable strategy.

Don't know about dolphins and porpoises, and don't really care to study marine life. If it's anything like the human's they've drowned, probably something stupid, like they don't understand other animals don't play the same way they do.

Edit-Ninja'd:
For an animal with an alignment-altering template, the only ones I know of make them Magical Beasts with an INT of at least 3, making them capable of moral action.

Feindish and celestial changes to magical beast, but does not increase their intelligence. The dark lion is given an int of 2, and an alignment of usually neutral evil.

Also, if I decide to kill my neighbor because his fridge is better stocked than mine, I'm a murderer. If a lion does it, it's a "territorial dispute."

To quote Jubal Early, "Does that seem right to you?"

You'll often find territorial disputes end with either injuries, or one side backing off. People are a bit different because we have no obvious ways of telling who's stronger or as the case is, better armed, and thus can't do any obvious dominance displays.

That and most animals won't fight over the best land if they have their own. It's only when they don't have enough to attain the means of survival, or have enough dominance over the other that they aren't likely to clash. The only thing where reciprocated violence is common is a fight for a female, but frankly those are done as fair fights, not one side shooting the other. It is very, very rare for one side to rush in and kill the other without first giving the other time to back off or to fight back. So rare that I can't think of any examples off the top of my head other than plants funnily enough.

[Drakevarg]

MM, p. 31, under Celestial Creature:

Abilities: Same as the base creature, but Intelligence is at least 3.

And like I edited in my last post before getting ninja'd, if an animal murders for a pragmatic reason its just a survival tactic. If I do the same, I'm a murderer. I call bull****.

[lsfreak]

I've read up on ones where a monkey would just snatch a baby monkey out of its mother's arms and kill it for ****s-n-giggles. Or dolphins that would beat porposes to death despite the fact that they don't share the same diet or territory.

Yup, primates (iirc, chimpanzees and baboons) and dolphins are the ones I've heard of committing what could potentially be labeled 'murder,' as opposed to lions (for example) killing cubs (reproduction-based reasons) or hyena cubs (reduce competition).

While more ambiguous, a wide variety of predators have been recorded surplus killing, where their prey is slaughtered in large groups, with no apparent cause.

[Mystic Muse]

Fiendish and Celestial templates change intelligence to at least three. So, yes, they are totally capable of moral action at that point.

[Drakevarg]

Well, real-world biology aside, in DnD at least, animals are incapable of moral action. Because of this they are True Neutral regardless of their behavior. Therefore logically, any creature with an alignment other than True Neutral is capable of moral action and by extension can choose a nonstandard alignment.

Now, if you don't mind, I need to get to bed...

[The Glyphstone]

Aren't fiends evil not by upbringing/choice, but because their flesh, blood and soul are literally formed from solidified evilness?

[Yukitsu]

Aren't fiends evil not by upbringing/choice, but because their flesh, blood and soul are literally formed from solidified evilness?

Sort of. They can however become good aligned. They just remain evil subtyped.

Missed the "at least 3 intelligence" clause in celestial. However, it does remain in the case of a dark creature as well as many forms of undead.

[Mystic Muse]

Sort of. They can however become good aligned. They just remain evil subtyped.

Which oddly does not prevent them from being Paladins.

[Devils_Advocate]

After all, if fiends and the like had literally no ability to control their alignment, they'd default to neutral like animals, since they essentially lack moral capacity.

You're making an unjustified assumption about what "moral capacity" means in this context. A creature's alignment describes how it chooses to interact with other sentient beings. As such, a creature with no concept of other sentient beings is unaligned/neutral. It seems likely that this is the sense in which animals (allegedly) lack moral capacity. There are probably other senses that would also work.

Furthermore, suppose that a fiend is both fundamentally evil and capable of deciding what its alignment will be. Given that it's fundamentally evil, what alignment is it going to choose for itself? Well, evil, obviously. Just like being fundamentally good would prevent someone from choosing to be evil.

When someone says that a sentient being, rather than e.g. an inanimate object, "can" do something, they often mean this in the special sense that the sentient being could perform the activity if it wanted to. That doesn't necessarily mean that there's actually a possibility that it might do it, as it might be that it will certainly never want to. Thus, taking "can" to mean "might" in this context is equivocation. (I once saw this used in the argument "God cannot be perfectly good and all-powerful, since if He is all-powerful He can sin, but if He is perfectly good He cannot." Doesn't quite work.)

"Free will" is a contradiction in terms, insofar as the term "will" refers to a force that determines one's actions and the term "free" denies any such determination. That you determine your own actions requires that your actions be determined, not undetermined. Specifically, it requires that your actions be determined by you. This factor does not serve to make human behavior unpredictable. On the contrary, I predict with a high degree of certainty that you will eat a meal within the next twenty-four hours, not because you are compelled to eat against your will, but because you are compelled to eat by your will, as it is your will that you be fed. You're still "free" to go hungry, in the sense that you could if you wanted to.

They don't do evil for any reason, it's just what they do.

Nothing happens for no reason. Given sufficient evidence, I could accept that a unicorn appeared out of thin air. I could accept that there was no discoverable cause for this event. But it wouldn't occur to me that maybe it had just happened for no reason. Not, interestingly enough, because there's any sort of logical contradiction involved in that notion, but because it's so out of keeping with how we understand the universe to work as to be basically unthinkable. And that's double plus extra true for the idea that some type of event might routinely happen for no reason. (Thus, this is also a major problem for any theory of "free will" that labels choices as "uncaused".)

They don't act in a good or evil way, they just torture and kill and rape and conquer because that's just how they're made.

I'd be interested to know what you think it means to act in an evil way, then.

The PHB specifically states that animals are incapable of being anything but True Neutral. Not "in almost all cases". Always.

No, it doesn't. It implies it, sure, but you're really overstating your case here.

And like I edited in my last post before getting ninja'd, if an animal murders for a pragmatic reason its just a survival tactic. If I do the same, I'm a murderer. I call bull****.

The choices of, say, lions, are made in very different psychological and social contexts than choices made by human beings. That's not a trivial distinction.

Aren't fiends evil not by upbringing/choice, but because their flesh, blood and soul are literally formed from solidified evilness?

But evilness is a quality, not a substance. It's nonsensical to state that a physical object is literally composed of... oh, look, never mind.

Although why negative energy is evil is beyond me.

It isn't. Certain uses of negative energy are arbitrarily labeled "evil" for no apparent reason beyond some writers liking to arbitrarily label things "evil".

Zombies and skeletons are allegedly mindless, Neutral Evil creatures that just unquestioningly follow the commands of whoever controls them. But at most one of those things can be true.

(1) It's not spelled out what "moral action" is supposed to mean, but that barely matters here, because it's clear that for any reasonable meaning that it might have in this context, mindless creatures are incapable of it.

(2) Anything capable of understanding language ought to have an Int score of 1 at the very least. And yet "mindless automatons" under your control can do things that take weeks to teach a dog to do just because you tell them to do them. Unlike with Strength and Constitution, we're provided with no reason why Int Ø should function any differently from Int 0; it just arbitrarily does, and arbitrarily is the one mental ability score that creatures are allowed to not have. (And yet Charisma is required. Charisma. What the frick?)

(3) Blind obedience to a master is Lawful Neutral or arguably just Neutral. It's certainly not necessarily Evil. Zombies pretty clearly have the same general moral and personal attitudes as golems. "A creature’s general moral and personal attitudes are represented by its alignment". Ergo, zombies and golems should have the same alignment. It's not rocket science!

(And if zombies and skeletons are just supposed to interact with alignment-based effects as though they were Evil... well, that's what the Evil subtype is for, innit?)

[hamishspence]

'scept, y'know, animals DO murder. And fiends "basically just are", too, if they are literally incapable of being good-aligned. They don't act in a good or evil way, they just torture and kill and rape and conquer because that's just how they're made.

Now, if a fiend CAN be good-aligned, then it's more of a bias from their genetics/upbringing.

According to Expedition to the Demonweb Pits (3.5 splatbook), at least 1 type of demon (despite its Evil subtype and extraplanar type) is Often Chaotic Evil, Usually Evil, and "10% are Neutral or Good".

The cambion.

However, the reason for this, is suggested to be that it's mortal parent (a planetouched, usually a tiefling) was not evil.

So, you can have the Evil subtype, be a fiend, and not be Evil.

Savage Species, in its description of "outlooks" for various societies, has "Chaotic/Accepting" - which has as its philosophy, that monsters, even fiends are often victims of their own psychoses, and that it's possible for a fiend to be redeemed.

A ritual in Savage Species allows you to replace the Evil subtype of a creature, with the Good subtype. If the creature is unlucky (fails a Will save) it will die in the process, though.

[Greenish]

So, you can have the Evil subtype, be a fiend, and not be Evil.

Indeed, there was a sample NPC in WotC's pages who was a succubus paladin. She gained a negative level from holding her Holy weapons.

[hamishspence]

Conversely, there's an angel in Elder Evils which is Evil (but still has the Good subtype)

Having a subtype doesn't make it impossible to be of other alignments, just extremely difficult.

Same applies to "always" for half-fiends and the like. The Epic Handbook mentions a Neutral half-fiend gargoyle who is a shopkeeper.

[Lix Lorn]

Skeletons are evil because they literally RUN ON EVIL. They don't have moral values, its they just happen to be powered by the tears of orphans.

Hate to jump in, but can I sig that? XD

[Zeful]

In the Monster Manual, I believe. "Always" means 99% of the time, Usually means like, 66%, and Often is at least 33%.

I took it to mean that: "Without outside interference (Helm of Opposite Alignment, any of the varied spells that change alignment etc.) a creature of the Always Evil will not choose anything other than Evil."

[hamishspence]

Or "outside interference" that is nonmagical.

Can an Always Evil being be redeemed without magic? If you go by BoED- it can, though it's difficult. Only a Outsider with the Evil subtype can't be redeemed in the fashion it describes (through Diplomacy).

[2xMachina]

^ How does the Paladin Succubus come about then? Pretty sure it didn't get Helmed.

[Mystic Muse]

^ How does the Paladin Succubus come about then? Pretty sure it didn't get Helmed.

IIRC She saw an angel she thought was freaking hot and wanted to get with him but she could only do that if she was good aligned. So she repented and became a Paladin.

[hamishspence]

Chose of its own accord? Sanctify the Wicked?

(Technically, as written, the spell shouldn't work on fiends, since, while the spell description doesn't say it won't work, the template that the spell grants, states specifically that it can't be applied to fiends.)

Maybe it works out as, the creature gaining a new alignment, but not the Sanctified template.

If it doesn't work on fiends though, the fiend itself has to go through experiences which lead it to choose Neutrality or Goodness- you can't just use Diplomacy on the fiend (over a long period) since it doesn't work.

Besides the WoTC succubus, Fall-From-Grace, in Planescape Torment, was LN- and has been mentioned in the later source Demonomicon: Malcanthet, an article in Dragon Magazine, written by the writers of Fiendish Codex 1.

[2xMachina]

^ I say that counts for redemption through diplomacy.

Or heck, Evil subtypes can choose to be Good without any interference (unless you count seeing something a interference)

EDIT: Ninjaed.
Refering to the post ^ twice

[hamishspence]

I'd probably go with "player's can't use diplomacy to redeem unrepentant demons" though- only a demon which has, somehow, chose itself to seek redemption- can be redeemed.

The article is here:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fc/20050824a

The important bit:

In worlds where magic is common, powerful wizards sometimes use their dweomers to warp and change creatures for their own purposes. However, even more profound changes sometimes stem from the natural forces in the multiverse. One of those forces is love, and love somehow found the succubus known as Eludecia.

She does not talk about what happened, but during one of her many quests to tempt souls and bring them to the Abyss, she met a beautiful angel, and something unimaginable happened -- she fell in love. Eludecia fought against the unfamiliar emotion for a long time but finally realized that she could not win. So she sought out the angel and confessed her feelings for him, though she did not understand them.

When Eludecia asked for help in redeeming herself, the angel was only too happy to accommodate her. After all, the succubus was extremely beautiful, and he could not help but be attracted to her. Furthermore, the accomplishment of redeeming a demon would certainly make him well known in the angelic hierarchy and advance him in his master's service.

Redemption sometimes comes in a flash, but more often it takes years and years of painful work -- and so it was in this case. Born to evil, Eludecia found it hard even to understand goodness, let alone embrace it. However, she persevered until she finally achieved a shaky redemption. She then dedicated herself fully to the cause of good and took on the mantle of paladin, although no deity was willing to be her special patron.

Eludecia knows that she can never purge herself completely of her evil nature without magical aid, but for now, she shuns such help because she is determined to "make it on her own." Thus, she must fight each and every day to avoid slipping back into her evil ways. Thus far, she has succeeded admirably.

[Mystic Muse]

^ I say that counts for redemption through diplomacy.

Probably.

hehe. Looking at the diplomacy tables I'm thinking of doing something very funny in my DM's campaign. (just as a joke and then he'll override it with rule zero)\

The funny thing is using Diplomancy to turn an aspect of Tiamat to indifferent and then to helpful.

[Lix Lorn]

I disagree with absolutes like 'Always Evil'. That's why I'd go with the 99% model.

[Greenish]

The funny thing is using Diplomancy to turn an aspect of Tiamat to indifferent and then to helpful.

Helpful? Bah, if you're using two checks, you should get up to "fanatical".

[Mystic Muse]

Helpful? Bah, if you're using two checks, you should get up to "fanatical".

Well, I'm a Paladin, not a bard, so I can't use Glibness*. Although I'm sure there are other methods to get high diplomacy scores.

*I looked for a wand of this or a ring of diplomacy. I struck out.

[Greenish]

Well, I'm a Paladin, not a bard, so I can't use Glibness*. Although I'm sure there are other methods to get high diplomacy scores.

Glibness doesn't do anything for Diplomacy.