What is, objectively, the best alignment?

[DMVerdandi]

Air Bud Defense

My first gut-buster of the day


------
Anyway, on to the topic at hand. Best alignment is Definitely going to be on the neutral spectrum. Personally, I would say either neutral good, neutral evil, or true neutral.

Neutral good
because if you decide to be good, you aren't letting any code of ethics outside of altruism affect your behavior. Laws are good, but people aren't made to obey laws, laws are made to help people, and when they don't, you need not obey.

Secondly because being too anarchic in one's mindset doesn't allow for the benefits of society to actualize in the individual or the group. Some rule is just, simply because it controls individuals who need to be.

Thirdly, to help others is to create friendships, associations, and contacts that can further increase your own strength, and to make them happy is to solidify those relationships.



Neutral Evil
Because if you decide to be evil, no fetters to your behavior exist at all. While you can work within a legal structure, you aren't dependent on it to get what you want, and you aren't so hell bent against the system that you can't use it when you need it.

Being evil doesn't mean you don't pay your taxes, and it doesn't mean you have to destroy social order, or dominate it. You can, but the choice is yours. This alignment is perfect freedom of choice REGARDLESS of the feelings of others, but it doesn't mean that you can't understand and consider them. You can! You can even be a nice guy! But, if there is something you want, take it, and do it in a way that gives you 100% success regardless of how it is achieved.

If you have to burn someone's cottage down to do it? Make it happen.
If you have to lie to the town guard and place the blame on your good neighbor, so that you don't get caught? Do it.
If you then kill the town guard, wear his clothing to get into the guard keep, steal some documents that tell you where the prisoner you had to rescue is located within the dungeon, make it happen.

You can save the day being neutral evil, or completely ruin it. The choice is yours.




Everyone else has waxed poetic about true neutral, so...

[Anlashok]

because if you decide to be good, you aren't letting any code of ethics outside of altruism affect your behavior. Laws are good, but people aren't made to obey laws, laws are made to help people, and when they don't, you need not obey.

A lawful alignment doesn't require you to obey the law though.

Would also argue your bottom definition describes CE almost as well as it describes NE.

[Sagetim]

Air Bud Defense

My first gut-buster of the day


------
Anyway, on to the topic at hand. Best alignment is Definitely going to be on the neutral spectrum. Personally, I would say either neutral good, neutral evil, or true neutral.

Neutral good
because if you decide to be good, you aren't letting any code of ethics outside of altruism affect your behavior. Laws are good, but people aren't made to obey laws, laws are made to help people, and when they don't, you need not obey.

Secondly because being too anarchic in one's mindset doesn't allow for the benefits of society to actualize in the individual or the group. Some rule is just, simply because it controls individuals who need to be.

Thirdly, to help others is to create friendships, associations, and contacts that can further increase your own strength, and to make them happy is to solidify those relationships.



Neutral Evil
Because if you decide to be evil, no fetters to your behavior exist at all. While you can work within a legal structure, you aren't dependent on it to get what you want, and you aren't so hell bent against the system that you can't use it when you need it.

Being evil doesn't mean you don't pay your taxes, and it doesn't mean you have to destroy social order, or dominate it. You can, but the choice is yours. This alignment is perfect freedom of choice REGARDLESS of the feelings of others, but it doesn't mean that you can't understand and consider them. You can! You can even be a nice guy! But, if there is something you want, take it, and do it in a way that gives you 100% success regardless of how it is achieved.

If you have to burn someone's cottage down to do it? Make it happen.
If you have to lie to the town guard and place the blame on your good neighbor, so that you don't get caught? Do it.
If you then kill the town guard, wear his clothing to get into the guard keep, steal some documents that tell you where the prisoner you had to rescue is located within the dungeon, make it happen.

You can save the day being neutral evil, or completely ruin it. The choice is yours.




Everyone else has waxed poetic about true neutral, so...

Ahem.

I have to concur, that for most beings neutral good, true neutral, or neutral evil is the best way to go.

[5ColouredWalker]

Ahem.

I... Ahh... What did I just watch? Other than something funny.

[DMVerdandi]

Ahem.

I have to concur, that for most beings neutral good, true neutral, or neutral evil is the best way to go.

HAHAHA! exactly.

[Snowbluff]

UGH, fine. It's time for the truth.

Snowbluff is best waifu anime geographical feature crystal gem alignment.

[Falcos]

CE or LE. Extreme alignments give the most protection to the potentially deadly Word of Chaos/Dictum/Blasphemy/Holy Word spells. Also, except for corrupted/sanctified spells generally evil magic is more potent than good magic simply because evil has more tools (undead creation and Mindrape for example).

While I'm by no means unilaterally stating that my preferred alignment is the best (It's True Neutral), I did feel the need to chip in with a counterpoint to this argument: Word of Balance says hi. (As does Words of the Kami, for that matter)

[Psyren]

That's not what's happening here at all. The rules directly state that those with prepared casting, as long as they're not evil, have the capacity to do this. That sets the broad structure for the rules of sanctified spells. From that point, the onus is on the rules to set specific limitations on sanctified spells, or else said limitations don't exist.

In other words, I'm not saying that there's no rule that says a dog can't play basketball. I'm saying that there's no rule that says a good wizard can't cast fireball. You, on the other hand, seem to be claiming that good wizards can't cast fireball, even with no such rule in place. Calling upon the, "The rules don't say you can't," fallacy has its limits, and this is one of them.

I agree that Air Bud fallacy tends to get misused on these boards but I'm with Curmudgeon on this one. The default assumption is already that not every spellcaster with the slots available can use sanctified spells, therefore all limitations are indeed taken into account when asking "well then, who can use them?" Comparing it to a wizard casting fireball, which is not assumed to be specially limited in the same way, is specious.

[eggynack]

I agree that Air Bud fallacy tends to get misused on these boards but I'm with Curmudgeon on this one. The default assumption is already that not every spellcaster with the slots available can use sanctified spells, therefore all limitations are indeed taken into account when asking "well then, who can use them?" Comparing it to a wizard casting fireball, which is not assumed to be specially limited in the same way, is specious.

From where are you deriving this default assumption, or indeed any assumption, about what constitutes the limits on sanctified spells? Sanctified spells are specially limited in the exact and specific ways they're detailed to be specially limited. That's just how the rules work. So, let's leave behind the fireball example, and instead use an example directly using sanctified spells. You have a wizard, and a perfectly good wizard at that, trying to cast ayailla's radiant burst. However, tragically, the wizard really likes eating chocolate. I would assert that the rules don't say that a chocolate loving character can't cast this spell. Should I instead take this limitation into account when considering who can cast this spell? After all, you've asserted that all limitations are taken into account, and chocolate loving is a subset of all possible limitations.

[Segev]

At least in the case of the Incarnate class, NE seems to be the most optimal in terms of options. There are more Evil-aligned soulmelds than any other alignment, even before you count the Necrocarnum ones, and they tend to be as good as if not better than their other-alignment counterparts.

You can make a case for others in specific builds - if you need a particular bonus to a particular sub-stat (AC, to hit, damage, etc.) more than the one granted by the Evil version of some soulmelds - but by and large, NE is going to get you the most versatile and potent Incarnate you can find.

[ryu]

I agree that Air Bud fallacy tends to get misused on these boards but I'm with Curmudgeon on this one. The default assumption is already that not every spellcaster with the slots available can use sanctified spells, therefore all limitations are indeed taken into account when asking "well then, who can use them?" Comparing it to a wizard casting fireball, which is not assumed to be specially limited in the same way, is specious.

Ah but we already have a known limitation. You can't cast sanctified spells if evil. That's a full third of the population of the known universe incapable of casting them before even taking into account magical talent or ability to make sacrifices. Also note that it specifically states non-evil rather than good by hard limits.

[Psyren]

From where are you deriving this default assumption, or indeed any assumption, about what constitutes the limits on sanctified spells?

I derived it from the fact that "utterly devotes themselves to good" is crystal clear as far as intent. You could certainly infer "but folks who don't utterly devote themselves to good can also cast these spells I guess" but I find that to be a rather disingenuous reading.

[Jormengand]

I derived it from the fact that "utterly devotes themselves to good" is crystal clear as far as intent. You could certainly infer "but folks who don't utterly devote themselves to good can also cast these spells I guess" but I find that to be a rather disingenuous reading.

"A wizard casts arcane spells which are drawn from the sorcerer/wizard spell list." I guess that means sorcerers don't, then?

Just because X can doesn't mean not-X can't.

[ryu]

I derived it from the fact that "utterly devotes themselves to good" is crystal clear as far as intent. You could certainly infer "but folks who don't utterly devote themselves to good can also cast these spells I guess" but I find that to be a rather disingenuous reading.

I take it a step further actually. The quoted passage doesn't even capitalize the g in Good. Reading that word as it is often used in other places throughout D&D means we are dealing with the concept of morally positive as defined by mortals as opposed to Good the alignment, or [Good] the the typing attached to many outsiders among other things.

[Psyren]

"A wizard casts arcane spells which are drawn from the sorcerer/wizard spell list." I guess that means sorcerers don't, then?

"A sorcerer casts arcane spells which are drawn primarily from the sorcerer/wizard spell list."

I'm not sure what point you were trying to make but a little further reading would have saved you some effort.

[eggynack]

I derived it from the fact that "utterly devotes themselves to good" is crystal clear as far as intent. You could certainly infer "but folks who don't utterly devote themselves to good can also cast these spells I guess" but I find that to be a rather disingenuous reading.

So now we're in, "The rules intend to say I can't," mode, rather than, "This isn't how the rules operate, because Air Bud reasoning is intrinsically fallacious," mode. Except, first, intent has limited to no bearing on how the rules actually operate, and second, I disagree with your assertion that this is necessarily the intent of that passage. There are two separate modifiers in that sentence, after all, both "utterly" and "great". To me, this implies that those who go all in on sanctified spells, paying sacrifice costs left and right, are devoting themselves utterly, and thus get this great power from sanctified spells. Meanwhile, any expenditure less than utter will yield slightly fewer sanctified spells, and thus slightly less than great power. It's a sliding scale, in other words, from reasonable devotion to utter devotion, and from power to great power.

Is this the only way to read the intent of the text? Of course not. Intent is notoriously difficult to come to a unified conclusion on, and perhaps even more difficult to prove. Which is why I think that the truly disingenuous reading is the one that thinks it has some higher claim over the intent of the authors, and bases itself on that intent. Intent is murky, at best, which is why we rely on the rules as they are written. It isn't disingenuous at all to take the words as they are, as a result, and in this case grant sanctified spells to neutral folk.

Moreover, the available evidence strongly implies that the intent was for neutrals to have access to sanctified spells. After all, it would have been trivial to write "Non-good characters cannot cast sanctified spells," where they ultimately wrote, "Evil characters cannot cast sanctified spells." Your claim would have this be a mistake, one so blatant so as to be absurd, or otherwise be assumed to be generally redundant rules text beside the initial "requirement" of utter devotion to good, eschewing any sort of clarity in favor of players having to read the text incredibly closely. As before, this cannot be said to be perfect evidence of intent, but thinking that the argument against that intent is somehow airtight is ludicrous on its face.

[Jormengand]

I'm not sure what point you were trying to make

If you'd quoted my entire post, you would have found out:

Just because X can doesn't mean not-X can't.

but a little further reading would have saved you some effort.

Oh, but it wouldn't have saved me any effort.

[Psyren]

So now we're in, "The rules intend to say I can't," mode, rather than, "This isn't how the rules operate, because Air Bud reasoning is intrinsically fallacious," mode. Except, first, intent has limited to no bearing on how the rules actually operate, and second, I disagree with your assertion that this is necessarily the intent of that passage. There are two separate modifiers in that sentence, after all, both "utterly" and "great". To me, this implies that those who go all in on sanctified spells, paying sacrifice costs left and right, are devoting themselves utterly, and thus get this great power from sanctified spells. Meanwhile, any expenditure less than utter will yield slightly fewer sanctified spells, and thus slightly less than great power. It's a sliding scale, in other words, from reasonable devotion to utter devotion, and from power to great power.

Is this the only way to read the intent of the text? Of course not. Intent is notoriously difficult to come to a unified conclusion on, and perhaps even more difficult to prove. Which is why I think that the truly disingenuous reading is the one that thinks it has some higher claim over the intent of the authors, and bases itself on that intent. Intent is murky, at best, which is why we rely on the rules as they are written. It isn't disingenuous at all to take the words as they are, as a result, and in this case grant sanctified spells to neutral folk.

Moreover, the available evidence strongly implies that the intent was for neutrals to have access to sanctified spells. After all, it would have been trivial to write "Non-good characters cannot cast sanctified spells," where they ultimately wrote, "Evil characters cannot cast sanctified spells." Your claim would have this be a mistake, one so blatant so as to be absurd, or otherwise be assumed to be generally redundant rules text beside the initial "requirement" of utter devotion to good, eschewing any sort of clarity in favor of players having to read the text incredibly closely. As before, this cannot be said to be perfect evidence of intent, but thinking that the argument against that intent is somehow airtight is ludicrous on its face.

"How the rules actually operate" to use your phrasing, is that they tell you what you can do. Or in this case, who can do what. If a rule somewhere does not say you can do something, then you can't do it. Since there is a rule saying X can do Y, the onus falls to you to prove that "not-X" can also do Y.

The fact that there is a complementary rule saying "Evil characters can't X" is not carte blanche for neutral characters to be treated as though they are utterly devoted to good.

If you'd quoted my entire post, you would have found out:





Oh, but it wouldn't have saved me any effort.

Right, but I responded to that, so it still seemed like reiterating it was a waste of time.

My main point though was that your analogy made no sense. There is a separate sorcerer rule saying sorcerers can cast spells from the sorcerer/wizard list, so the fact that the wizard rule doesn't say this is wholly irrelevant.

[Jormengand]

Okay, the point is:

wizards, druids, rangers, and paladins can all prepare sanctified spells, clerics... can spontaneously cast any sanctified spell.

Unless a provision such as "Evil characters cannot cast sanctified spells, including ones cast from magic items" would prevent a character casting such a spell, they can do so as long as they are a wizard, druid, ranger, paladin or cleric. That's because there is an affirmative statement allowing such characters to do so. There is no negative statement preventing you from doing so if neutral, only a positive one saying that good characters can do so. The burden is on you to show why a neutral character can't cast sanctified spells, just as it is on you to explain why a neutral character cannot cast fireball if you wanted to argue that.

[Psyren]

Okay, the point is:



Unless a provision such as "Evil characters cannot cast sanctified spells, including ones cast from magic items" would prevent a character casting such a spell, they can do so as long as they are a wizard, druid, ranger, paladin or cleric. That's because there is an affirmative statement allowing such characters to do so. There is no negative statement preventing you from doing so if neutral, only a positive one saying that good characters can do so. The burden is on you to show why a neutral character can't cast sanctified spells, just as it is on you to explain why a neutral character cannot cast fireball if you wanted to argue that.

Being a ranger, paladin etc. is not mutually exclusive with being utterly devoted to good. Therefore, since both conditions are provided, a sanctified spell-user would need to meet both unless something elsewhere says they can ignore one.

[eggynack]

"How the rules actually operate" to use your phrasing, is that they tell you what you can do. Or in this case, who can do what. If a rule somewhere does not say you can do something, then you can't do it. Since there is a rule saying X can do Y, the onus falls to you to prove that "not-X" can also do Y.

Well, that part's simple. The rules strictly define the set of creatures capable of casting sanctified spells as those with prepared casting (though within the given alignment set of non-evil). Spellcasters prepare the spells as they do any other spells, and that's permission giving right there. From that point, where all casters can prepare these spells, the game lays out specific limitations, those being that spontaneous casters and evil creatures cannot use sanctified spells. Thus, we have a range, and exceptions to that range, and neutral folk are not among those exceptions.

The fact that there is a complementary rule saying "Evil characters can't X" is not carte blanche for neutral characters to be treated as though they are utterly devoted to good.

All it is is an indicator, just as your quote is an indicator, of intent. You're trying to call upon a text citation to establish intent, but there exists other text that works to establish the opposite intent. Neither sentence is a strict rules answer to the question being posed, but rather a general indicator of what the authors were trying to do.

Edit:

Being a ranger, paladin etc. is not mutually exclusive with being utterly devoted to good. Therefore, since both conditions are provided, a sanctified spell-user would need to meet both unless something elsewhere says they can ignore one.

It doesn't matter if they're mutually exclusive. What matters is that the second is not a condition. It only really indicates that utter devotion is sufficient, rather than necessary, and it doesn't even do that given that further restrictions mean that just being a character devoted to good doesn't automatically mean sanctified spells.

[Psyren]

It doesn't matter if they're mutually exclusive. What matters is that the second is not a condition.

That's the part you need to prove. "X can do this" is a condition, just like "wizards can cast spells from the sorcerer/wizard list," to borrow helpfully from Jormengand, is also a condition - Fighters do not have this line, therefore they can't do this. You need to prove that it's not a condition.

[Jormengand]

That's the part you need to prove. "X can do this" is a condition, just like "wizards can cast spells from the sorcerer/wizard list," to borrow helpfully from Jormengand, is also a condition - Fighters do not have this line, therefore they can't do this. You need to prove that it's not a condition.

By that logic, one needs to be a wizard and a sorcerer to cast wiz/sor spells, because they're both conditions. Anyone who is a wizard, druid, ranger, paladin or cleric can use sanctified spells. Also, on an unrelated note, for those willing to utterly devote themselves to good, great power awaits in their form.

[eggynack]

That's the part you need to prove. "X can do this" is a condition, just like "wizards can cast spells from the sorcerer/wizard list," to borrow helpfully from Jormengand, is also a condition - Fighters do not have this line, therefore they can't do this. You need to prove that it's not a condition.

Whether it's a condition or not, it's by logical definition not a necessary condition. The full list of prerequisites are, by strict definition, both necessary and sufficient to acquire the thing they're prerequisites for, and this line indicates that the thing in question is neither necessary nor sufficient (with the latter largely being a consequence of the presence of other conditions). Necessary conditions show up elsewhere in the passage, like the one about evil characters not being able to use these spells, and this isn't one of them.

[5ColouredWalker]

I'd like to take a moment to extend the intent argument somewhat. Were good taken to imply Good instead of good, as Psyren states, that means that LG and CG characters couldn't cast the spells, as they're partially devoted to Law and Chaos as well as Good, preventing them from being 'utterly' devoted to good.

Just a thought I found a amusing.

[Psyren]

By that logic, one needs to be a wizard and a sorcerer to cast wiz/sor spells, because they're both conditions. Anyone who is a wizard, druid, ranger, paladin or cleric can use sanctified spells. Also, on an unrelated note, for those willing to utterly devote themselves to good, great power awaits in their form.

So by your logic, Fighters, Warlocks and Scouts can use them too? After all, they meet the second condition, so why should the first matter?

Whether it's a condition or not, it's by logical definition not a necessary condition. The full list of prerequisites are, by strict definition, both necessary and sufficient to acquire the thing they're prerequisites for, and this line indicates that the thing in question is neither necessary nor sufficient (with the latter largely being a consequence of the presence of other conditions). Necessary conditions show up elsewhere in the passage, like the one about evil characters not being able to use these spells, and this isn't one of them.

The evil character statement is merely reminder text. It does not contradict either of the passages to come before.

I'd like to take a moment to extend the intent argument somewhat. Were good taken to imply Good instead of good, as Psyren states, that means that LG and CG characters couldn't cast the spells, as they're partially devoted to Law and Chaos as well as Good, preventing them from being 'utterly' devoted to good.

Just a thought I found a amusing.

That's a perversion, not an extension. It's a different axis - by your logic, Archons are less good than Guardinals, LG solars are less good than NG ones etc.

It's like saying you can't travel North anywhere on the planet except at the Greenwich Meridian.

[5ColouredWalker]

It's like saying you can't travel North anywhere on the planet except at the Greenwich Meridian.

Sure you can, you head North. The world is a sphere not a plane, which is why whenever start on the north pole and take a step, you've technically only travelled South, regardless of facing.

Also, just sharing it as an amusing thought.

[Psyren]

Sure you can, you head North. The world is a sphere not a plane, which is why whenever start on the north pole and take a step, you've technically only travelled South, regardless of facing.

...Yes, that was my point

(I should have used that blue text everyone is on about.)

[eggynack]

So by your logic, Fighters, Warlocks and Scouts can use them too? After all, they meet the second condition, so why should the first matter?

Mostly just because of the part from the second paragraph, "Spellcasters prepare sanctified spells just as they do regular spells." This is a strict definition of the operation of sanctified spells, and preclude the use of sanctified spells by characters that do not prepare spells. This is, in fact, the primary condition associated with sanctified spells.

The evil character statement is merely reminder text. It does not contradict either of the passages to come before.

I agree that it doesn't contradict anything. Wasn't saying it does. However, the difference between that line and your cited line is that the line about evil characters has rules impact, rooted in logic, while your line doesn't really mean anything in the grand scheme of things. Once the text gives broad permission to prepared casters to make use of these spells, and the text does in fact do so, it is up to the text to restrict that permission, and it never does so. That's the point, and rather wholly the point.

[Psyren]

Mostly just because of the part from the second paragraph, "Spellcasters prepare sanctified spells just as they do regular spells." This is a strict definition of the operation of sanctified spells, and preclude the use of sanctified spells by characters that do not prepare spells. This is, in fact, the primary condition associated with sanctified spells.

Ah, but by your logic, that particular provision only applies to "spellcasters." Fighters are not spellcasters, so they can simply meet the one condition (devote themselves to good) and use sanctified spells without preparing them at all! After all, nothing in the text says they can't!

I agree that it doesn't contradict anything. Wasn't saying it does. However, the difference between that line and your cited line is that the line about evil characters has rules impact, rooted in logic, while your line doesn't really mean anything in the grand scheme of things. Once the text gives broad permission to prepared casters to make use of these spells, and the text does in fact do so, it is up to the text to restrict that permission, and it never does so. That's the point, and rather wholly the point.

You're right, the text does not restrict fighters in any way. Sanctified Spells ahoy.