Is poison use evil?

[Taelas]

The mistake with the Assassin prestige class was calling it 'Assassin'.

[Feytalist]

The mistake with the Assassin prestige class was calling it 'Assassin'.

As opposed to what? Honour killer? Assassins are a fantasy staple, much like many other D&D classes and prestiges.

[Coidzor]

I don't think those particular PRCs were ever really designed for use in Core campaigns, and I know the writers didn't expect for the splatbook writers to ride the PRC idea that hard. So, the odd prerequisites seem sensible, at least to me, when considering the environment DMG was written in. Of course, little turned out the way they expected.

So instead they designed, published, and sold DMs on things that were never supposed to be able to work in the first place or ever actually be used? That's even worse.

Honestly, I do not see it as stupid. If you treat taking levels in Assassin as joining an in-world group, a conceit common to many prestige classes, then ffones explanation makes perfect sense. You don't like the idea of having a character killing someone merely to join a group but have the assassin abilities, then become an Avenger.

Well, no, ffone's explanation does not make perfect sense or it would have won me over to seeing it that way. I see Assassins as being fluffed and sold in a way that is fundamentally different from common street gangs. Not as being merely a "high-class" version of them like the two of you believe to be appropriate.

Why is that by the way? None of the fantasy stories I've ever read or heard people talk about have treated them in such a manner.

Further, this is a group of assassins with some kind of mystical connection to magic so they can teach people who are otherwise useless at it how to do it & their entrance requirements are still "stab random street urchin."

[Taelas]

As opposed to what? Honour killer? Assassins are a fantasy staple, much like many other D&D classes and prestiges.

It implies all assassins belong to the prestige class, as opposed to what it is: a very specialized group of assassins.

They should have come up with a different name for it. Anything which changes it from the generic 'assassin' would have been good.

When you can say, 'All Assassins are assassins, but not all assassins are Assassins', something has gone wrong.

[The Big Dice]

You don't like the idea of having a character killing someone merely to join a group but have the assassin abilities, then become an Avenger.
No, not that kind. Nor that kind. This kind.

That would be the April Fool post. That also requires you to kill someone to join up. So really, even ignoring the bad joke aspect, you're still in a position where you need to kill someone to join.

[Lord_Gareth]

That would be the April Fool post. That also requires you to kill someone to join up. So really, even ignoring the bad joke aspect, you're still in a position where you need to kill someone to join.

Well, first, it's a RAW April Fool's post. Second, let's take a look at the 'kill requirement', shall we?

Special: The character must have killed an enemy leader or champion in defense of his homeland or nation.

Emphasis mine. While the Avenger doesn't have a 'non-evil' requirement (indeed, their requirement is 'non-chaotic', they do have a requirement stipulating that they eliminate an active threat to their homeland or nation. What this means is that the 'kill requirement' is, at worst, an act of war during a pre-existing conflict or a strike against an outlaw or criminal. Is it possible that this is evil? Certainly! An Avenger working for Zhentil Keep may murder an active, good-aligned adventurer because, well, they're a threat to Zhentil Keep. But an Avenger might also bring down a necromancer that's been plaguing the outlying villages, assassinate an enemy champion during a time of war, eliminate a bandit king that's been plaguing the trade routes, or bring peace eternal to the mad king of an enemy nation.

The point being, that kill requirement is phrased much more reasonably and has a hell of a lot more room for non-evil occurrences with regards to its fulfillment.

Say it with me now, everybody: dishonorable tactics are not evil.

[SITB]

As opposed to what? Honour killer? Assassins are a fantasy staple, much like many other D&D classes and prestiges.

Err? The Hasashin (الحشاشين) existed in real life.

Mind you, The original Hashashin were a singular group, while the Assassin guild archetype is fantasy staple, but even then there are usually beings that constitute assassins and yet operate independently.

[Eldariel]

So instead they designed, published, and sold DMs on things that were never supposed to be able to work in the first place or ever actually be used? That's even worse.

PRCs were designed as something every DM would write uniquely for their campaign. Base Classes were intended to take care of the generic stuff and then PRCs cover any particular intricacies of your settings. Don't really see how that's "worse" TBH.


DMG is a guidebook for DMs with things like suggested encounter compositions, a small list of potential magic items, suggested encounter density, a few game world types (status quo vs. scaling, for one), different ways to run campaigns, a ton of potential alternative rules sets, rules for different eras and levels of magic availability, etc.

PRCs really fall right in that line of thinking and is pretty uniform with the rest of the book. Whether they shoulda made the guidebook is just a book of hard rules is a different matter but it's always been the underlying assumption in D&D that DM changes everything anyways so a book of hard rules for DMing wouldn't really work for that.

[Callista]

Which is stupid as a requirement to join a group of assassins for a variety of reasons, my least favorite being that somehow killing a faceless no-name is really worth teaching some two-bit rogue how to use magic.

I always thought of it as something like being a made man in the Mafia--demonstrating your loyalty by killing someone for the organization. In D&D that would probably be a thieves' guild or a specific group of assassins. So it wouldn't be a faceless no-name; it'd be someone that a higher-up in the group wants dead. If you insist on Assassins as evil, that's actually a pretty cool way to go about inducting one. But since I don't like restricting that prestige class to Evil-only, I'll only use that particular requirement for Evil characters wanting to get in. Good and Neutral characters, if their mission involves killing, will be targeting people who deserve to die--enemy leaders in a war, tyrannical dictators, etc. Or they'll end up taking on some kind of covert mission, for example breaking out a prisoner taken by an enemy during war.

[The Random NPC]

Err? The Hasashin (الحشاشين) existed in real life.

Mind you, The original Hashashin were a singular group, while the Assassin guild archetype is fantasy staple, but even then there are usually beings that constitute assassins and yet operate independently.

He ment what else would you call the class? He didn't mean to suggest that Assassins didn't exist in real life, Hashashin or otherwise.

[The Big Dice]

Well, first, it's a RAW April Fool's post.

Remind me exactly how a post on the WotC website, and one that announces that it's an april Fool, is RAW again.

Second, let's take a look at the 'kill requirement', shall we?<snip>

All of which comes with exactly the same baggage and potential for problems as the original Assassin PRC. and all the blurb that goes with the Avenger makes it clear that they are an organisation. They aren't the metagame abstract that some people like classes to be. You want to be an Avenger, you join the ranks of the Avengers.

Face it, the Avenger is a bad joke. Change two sentences from the requirements, use a find/replace to remove the word assassin. The fact that it's an April Fool is a thumbing of the nose to people who like to refluff things.

Say it with me now, everybody: dishonorable tactics are not evil.

so, given the narrow and concrete morality (places, people and things are made of morality, remember) what exactly are dishonourable tactics? In an environment as precisely defined in terms of right and wrong as D&D is, where do dishonourable tactics fit on the scale?

They aren't Good. Nor are they Lawful. They can sometimes be sort of Neutral, but in a selfish way. In the ordered, everything has a place and there's a place for everything land of D&D morality, that doesn't leave a lot of wiggle room.

So I ask again, exactly where do dishonourable tactics fit on the Alignment grid?

[Lord_Gareth]

Dice, I think it should be telling to you that no one else seems to think the Avenger is a joke - indeed, the article itself says 'let's take a look at when assassins go good-aligned'.

As far as "dishonorable tactics on the alignment grid", it goes like this: honor is a lawful concept, but not all lawful characters are honorable. Or, at least, not all lawful characters are chivalrous, which is not quite the same thing. Lawful characters may be compelled by loyalty, practicality, orders from a superior, or another source to use 'underhanded' or 'dishonorable' tactics like stealth, save-or-die spells, poison, Sneak Attacks, et cetera.

It's worth noting that while archons comport themselves with honor in their personal affairs, they too support rogues and even an organization of assassin-like characters (the Slayers of Domiel) that strike from darkness and engage in unfair combat. Guardinals and Eldarins don't even give that much of a courtesy, using whatever non-evil tactics are going to be effective in order to oppose evil in all of its forms.

All of this is to say this: Dishonorable tactics do not have an alignment. Anyone, barring those with a specific personal code (Knights, Paladins) can and probably will take advantage of them. Mages and rogues don't even think twice. Knights and paladins are forbidden these actions because they're supposed to fit a specific lawful archetype (as you'll note that even LE knights are forbidden); that is, they embody the Lawful ideal that sticks to honor even in warfare. However, it's perfectly within any alignment to believe that the only fair fight is the one you lose.

[Hiro Protagonest]

All of this is to say this: Dishonorable tactics do not have an alignment.

This is almost right. It really depends on the situation. Plenty of lawful evils use it, so in this case it's evil, because it is not lawful. Chaotic good might also use it, and in this case it's chaotic, because it's not good. Poison cannot be lawful or good, but it can be chaotic or evil, it doesn't have to be always evil. True neutrals also can use it because they are not lawful or good.

[The Big Dice]

Dice, I think it should be telling to you that no one else seems to think the Avenger is a joke - indeed, the article itself says 'let's take a look at when assassins go good-aligned'.

The article starts by saying "As befitting the spirit of April Fool's Day, we offer the following variant of an existing prestige class." And it was posted on April 1st 2007. The picture is a dodgy colour replacement job on the picture from the DMG.

The who article screams "Hurr hurr, assassins that aren't evil That's funny because it's not true!" I'm sure the guy who wrote it can't believe that people are still taking it seriously five years later.

As far as "dishonorable tactics on the alignment grid", it goes like this: honor is a lawful concept, but not all lawful characters are honorable. Or, at least, not all lawful characters are chivalrous, which is not quite the same thing. Lawful characters may be compelled by loyalty, practicality, orders from a superior, or another source to use 'underhanded' or 'dishonorable' tactics like stealth, save-or-die spells, poison, Sneak Attacks, et cetera.

It's worth noting that while archons comport themselves with honor in their personal affairs, they too support rogues and even an organization of assassin-like characters (the Slayers of Domiel) that strike from darkness and engage in unfair combat. Guardinals and Eldarins don't even give that much of a courtesy, using whatever non-evil tactics are going to be effective in order to oppose evil in all of its forms.

All of this is to say this: Dishonorable tactics do not have an alignment. Anyone, barring those with a specific personal code (Knights, Paladins) can and probably will take advantage of them. Mages and rogues don't even think twice. Knights and paladins are forbidden these actions because they're supposed to fit a specific lawful archetype (as you'll note that even LE knights are forbidden); that is, they embody the Lawful ideal that sticks to honor even in warfare. However, it's perfectly within any alignment to believe that the only fair fight is the one you lose.

This is avoiding the issue. What you're saying is, honour is aligned, but dishonour is perfectly acceptable behaviour for all alignments. In other words, honour is stupid. Because being dishonourable is better because you can use poisons, cheat, lie and steal and so on.

I'd like to see where it says that save or die, sneak attack and stealth are good. Because I'm fairly sure the PHB says "Good” implies altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings." and that doesnt sound like the kind of person who would use poison to me.

And considering that sneaking and ambushing are usuallt hallmarks of evil races in D&D, the case for them being Good in terms of alignment isn't strong.

and what this really does is shine a bright light on just how outdated Alignment really is. There's a reason it went out of fashion in the 80s. Only to be dragged kicking and screaming back into the light after the milennium.

[Lord_Gareth]

'Respect for life' means a lot of things, including that a good-aligned character, if they must take life, will generally try to do so in as painless a fashion as possible. Poison might be that method; so too might sneak attacks, death attacks, Finger of Death, et cetera. Good characters don't cause unnecessary suffering, but they can - and do - cause suffering.

Not every action in D&D is automatically aligned; you don't need to check with your DM to see how chaotic your Hide check made you today. Save or die attacks, likewise, don't normally have the [Evil] or [Chaotic] tags - indeed, they often have no tags at all! Stealth, cheating, trickery, deception, ambushes, overwhelming numbers, et cetera are all perfectly acceptable tactics for anyone that doesn't, again, have a specific code of honor forbidding them. I can pull up canon example after canon example of celestials, demons, inevitables, and other outsiders from all across the alignment chart doing these things if you really want me to. Hell, Couatls are [Lawful] [Good] beings with a pretty deadly poisonous bite!

Again, Dishonorable tactics have no alignment. Only the targets and scale of your action determine the alignment of what has been done. Ambush an enemy in wartime? Neutral. Ambush a merchant caravan to steal their possessions? Chaotic. Kill them in the process? Chaotic evil.

It's a pretty simple delineation.

[Shadowknight12]

This is almost right. It really depends on the situation. Plenty of lawful evils use it, so in this case it's evil, because it is not lawful. Chaotic good might also use it, and in this case it's chaotic, because it's not good. Poison cannot be lawful or good, but it can be chaotic or evil, it doesn't have to be always evil. True neutrals also can use it because they are not lawful or good.

Lawful Good rogues can use poison. And Lawful Good clerics can use the spell Poison. Lawful Good fighters can poison their weapons. And Lawful Good monks can apply poison to their monk weapons. And so can Lawful Good rangers.

[Lord_Gareth]

This is almost right. It really depends on the situation. Plenty of lawful evils use it, so in this case it's evil, because it is not lawful. Chaotic good might also use it, and in this case it's chaotic, because it's not good. Poison cannot be lawful or good, but it can be chaotic or evil, it doesn't have to be always evil. True neutrals also can use it because they are not lawful or good.

Plenty of evil people use swords, fireballs, finger of death spells, power word: pain, traps, ambushes, and Sneak Attacks too. All of those are methods of ending lives, many of them in the form of unanswerable strikes or cheap shots. Why is poison any different from slitting someone's throat as they sleep or ramming a spear into a guard's kidney when he isn't looking? From using finger of death on a warlord?

Weapons are neither good nor evil, and neither are most tactics (torture, rape, and extensive mental violations stand out as actions that degrade both the one who commits them and the victim, no matter how noble the purpose or how justified). Their users are. Does a sword choose to kill? No. Its wielder does.

[The Big Dice]

Again, Dishonorable tactics have no alignment. Only the targets and scale of your action determine the alignment of what has been done. Ambush an enemy in wartime? Neutral. Ambush a merchant caravan to steal their possessions? Chaotic. Kill them in the process? Chaotic evil.

It's a pretty simple delineation.

It's not simple at all. One side of the scales has an Alignment. The other doesn't. How is this conceptually possible? Unless it's to say that honour doesn't matter because by choosing to be honourable, you are choosing to be weaker.

The way D&D works is, everything has an Alignment. Everything. Some things have the free will to act in ways that will change their Alignment, others don't. Some places are literally made of Alignment.

Questions like, can good come about through evil means? These are the things that Paladins are made of. They are also the things that Evil characters are made of.

Ambushing an enemy during a war. That's not necessarily good. Were there survivors? Did you take them prisoner or execute them after the battle? What objective was served by the ambush? Was it a strategic need or was it simply to kill the enemy? Because you don't win wars by simply killing the enemy, you win wars by taking away the ability to or the reason for making war.

When it comes to ambushing a merchant caravan, how is that Good in any way, shape or form? For it to be an ambush, there would logically be some sort of armed resistance. Which would then have to be overcome by use of force. That sounds suspiciously like premeditated killing to me. that's not Good.

But mostly, what I want to know is, how can honour be Aligned, but dishonour not? In a game like D&D, that just doesn't make sense.

[Ravens_cry]

The point is a person could join by stabbing a homeless drunk or by pulling off an intricate dance of subterfuge and murder. One is easier, and the other is more deserving. If it is representing joining an organization, they should be giving you your first mission and forcing the dance.

I still don't see it. I like the UA idea, but even it is not your first mission, it is a demonstration of your willingness to kill for the group, to subvert your will to others. You are also now a murderer. You can't go to the authorities without dancing the hempen jig yourself.

Well, no, ffone's explanation does not make perfect sense or it would have won me over to seeing it that way.

Sorry, should have added the qualifier "to me".

I see Assassins as being fluffed and sold in a way that is fundamentally different from common street gangs. Not as being merely a "high-class" version of them like the two of you believe to be appropriate.

And I myself do not see it.

Why is that by the way? None of the fantasy stories I've ever read or heard people talk about have treated them in such a manner.

Further, this is a group of assassins with some kind of mystical connection to magic so they can teach people who are otherwise useless at it how to do it & their entrance requirements are still "stab random street urch"

Well, it's like the Mafia. Movies like the Godfather created a mystique but in the end it's just a racketeering and exhortion gang, among other things, writ large. You can add all sorts of trappings, but unless it is explicitly legal in a setting, that doesn't change the fundamental aspect. Besides, an unskilled Assassin who kills the easiest target possible, even if they join up, won't last long as an Assassin. Survival of the fittest and all that. Again, I think the Unearthed Arcana requirements give us the best of both worlds.
But I think we disagree too fundamentally to change each others mind, so let us leave it at that.

[Kojiro]

In my opinion, at first glance poison seems, while not quite dishonorable, definitely not the honorable thing to do; however, thinking about all the other DnD things, poison is not really different from a lot of normal things. People went over all the ability score spells and whatnot, but something people mentioned is that it's a sneaky thing that people can't expect (which technically isn't unLawful by DnD standards, as you could be a Lawful Rogue, and Sneak Attack is, well, exactly what it says).

So are most magic items.

Seriously, a ton of dangerous magic things you can wield don't necessarily look magical; you can be fighting some guy and you won't know his sword is magical until he sticks it in your gut and you explode; even the less spectacular ones usually confer various advantages from sources other than skill or strength. Most magic items like this, and of course a lot of magic itself (again, ignoring that far too many mages try to look magical, there aren't usually visible signs saying "this person can destroy you with a thought"), which is also neither Evil nor Chaotic, are used by pretty much every adventuring party, including the Lawful Good can't-poison-people Paladins. Not only is all this just as impossible to know about as a poison (and before you comment on Detect Magic and such, there is a Detect Poison spell), there is no stigma attached to any of it, excluding the downright horrific uses of these things. A person who knows that there's a group of adventurers breaking into his tower, meanwhile, sure, he'd probably know that there are magic people in the party, but he also should at least suspect poison, unless he considers it a lesser threat than the guy who can behead him with a sword taller than he is, or the one who could incinerate him and everything else in the room, which is understandable.

Basically, unless Lawful and/or Good characters are required to either alert their foes to all their various abilities and not sneak around, or simply not use them, there is no functional difference between them and poison. It's a surprise; so are many other standard things the Good PCs can and will use, and ambushes are the same thing on a tactical level, either in small groups or in war, that most army leaders would not dismiss as evil. It can damage ability scores; again, there are other, far worse things that can do that. Someone mentioned that you could run from a battle, but that a poison injection was definitely fatal; this is amazingly untrue, what with both magic and the more mundane antidotes and medicines.

In short, in a world such as that of DnD, poison is an amazingly small thing to declare as absolutely evil, or even ignoble. It's arbitrary standards applied without thought to the setting as a whole.

[Coidzor]

PRCs were designed as something every DM would write uniquely for their campaign. Base Classes were intended to take care of the generic stuff and then PRCs cover any particular intricacies of your settings. Don't really see how that's "worse" TBH.


DMG is a guidebook for DMs with things like suggested encounter compositions, a small list of potential magic items, suggested encounter density, a few game world types (status quo vs. scaling, for one), different ways to run campaigns, a ton of potential alternative rules sets, rules for different eras and levels of magic availability, etc.

PRCs really fall right in that line of thinking and is pretty uniform with the rest of the book. Whether they shoulda made the guidebook is just a book of hard rules is a different matter but it's always been the underlying assumption in D&D that DM changes everything anyways so a book of hard rules for DMing wouldn't really work for that.

So because it's not a book of "hard rules," that justifies the designers not actually providing examples that would be workable if anyone used them? And you don't think that could be interpreted as bad?

I don't think that's what you mean to be saying here, but that's all I'm getting from what you've said so far.

And I've read the DMG on PrCs and if that's what they wanted to convey with the example of the Assassin PrC, then they pretty much failed utterly at communicating it...

So I ask again, exactly where do dishonourable tactics fit on the Alignment grid?

Well, fitting them on the Good Vs. Evil access doesn't really work universally.

Nor does Law vs. Chaos universally.

Some individual actions might ping on one or both though.

Mostly seems to be social taboos which the Alignment Grid isn't supposed to deal with very well.

Well, it's like the Mafia. Movies like the Godfather created a mystique but in the end it's just a racketeering and exhortion gang, among other things, writ large.

So a cartel that steals souls from the innocent while leaving no one the wiser, not even those being so robbed is exactly the same group of thugs as petty thieves and beatsticks for hire?

How is that satisfying in play to have every kind of criminal be exactly the same kind of person and antagonist?

[Eldariel]

So because it's not a book of "hard rules," that justifies the designers not actually providing examples that would be workable if anyone used them? And you don't think that could be interpreted as bad?

I don't think that's what you mean to be saying here, but that's all I'm getting from what you've said so far.

I'm just saying, I understand what they're coming from in giving an example of how to make a PRC specific for an organization that only exists in your campaign (though nothing stops you from running the organization of the DMG Assassins in your campaign, of course). Not saying if it's done well or poorly, just that I get the idea behind it and why it's there. Overall, that part I simply don't consider very major either way.

And I've read the DMG on PrCs and if that's what they wanted to convey with the example of the Assassin PrC, then they pretty much failed utterly at communicating it...

This is very true; I don't think they mentioned that little detail until in some interview years later.

[Lord_Gareth]

But mostly, what I want to know is, how can honour be Aligned, but dishonour not? In a game like D&D, that just doesn't make sense.

It makes perfect sense, because honor is a voluntary and unnecessary code of behavior that a being takes up willingly. A lack of honor doesn't necessarily indicate an active opposition to honor, it just indicates that you don't care about it. That's why honor is a Lawful concept; it's a being willingly taking on a code of restrictions and obligations in service to some manner of ideal. That's really, really Lawful. But NOT doing that isn't automatically chaotic. It's just neutral.

[The Random NPC]

It's not simple at all. One side of the scales has an Alignment. The other doesn't. How is this conceptually possible? Unless it's to say that honour doesn't matter because by choosing to be honourable, you are choosing to be weaker.

Two points, if you accept that being dishonourable is simply not being honourable, then while one would have an Alignment, the other would not. Similar to nothing really being cold, just less hot than other things.
Second point, choosing to be honourable is choosing to handicap yourself. Wars would be a lot easier if we didn't have to worry about the Law of Armed Conflict and Rules of Engagement.

[Lord_Gareth]

Two points, if you accept that being dishonourable is simply not being honourable, then while one would have an Alignment, the other would not. Similar to nothing really being cold, just less hot than other things.

Second point, choosing to be honourable is choosing to handicap yourself. Wars would be a lot easier if we didn't have to worry about the Law of Armed Conflict and Rules of Engagement.

This is such deep and resounding metaphysical truth that NPC should found an entire system of morality around it.

[The Random NPC]

I'm sorry, but I have no idea what you mean by that. It is just flying over my head.

[Archwizard]

This is almost right. It really depends on the situation. Plenty of lawful evils use it, so in this case it's evil, because it is not lawful. Chaotic good might also use it, and in this case it's chaotic, because it's not good. Poison cannot be lawful or good, but it can be chaotic or evil, it doesn't have to be always evil. True neutrals also can use it because they are not lawful or good.

Damn this is... misguided. King says to his subjects: All executions must now be carried out using poison. Bume, poison use is now Lawful.

"it's evil, because it is now lawful." Uh, what? Law vs. Chaos and Good vs. Evil is how the D&D spectrum is set up, not Law vs. Evil.

Anyway, people who later said the being honorable = being Lawful are not necessarily right. Following codes of conduct is not the same thing as being Lawful. Most societies would have them be the same, but it is not inherently true.

Take a RL doofy example:
On a date, the traditional "chivalrous behavior" (pardon the hetero-normative nature of the following text) is for the man holds the door for the woman, get her chair for her, and pay for the meal.

Now let's say that those actions, across the board, are illegal. Now chivalry and law are diametrically opposed.

Or how about a society where it's considered honorable to face one's accuser in an open duel to clear your name. Let's say important people (nobles, etc) are forbidden by law to endanger their lives in that way. So, as an accused noble, do you do the honorable thing and fight a duel to clear your name, or do you follow the law and not fight the duel?

[The Random NPC]

Lawful the alignment doesn't necessarily equate to following society's laws. While a Lawful Good person will likely follow the laws, they don't have to, especially if the laws contridict their own code of conduct. Contrariwise, a Lawful Good person might follow all laws even if it goes against their code.

[Lord_Gareth]

Lawful the alignment doesn't necessarily equate to following society's laws. While a Lawful Good person will likely follow the laws, they don't have to, especially if the laws contridict their own code of conduct. Contrariwise, a Lawful Good person might follow all laws even if it goes against their code.

This is why it's also important to define "internal" law (Lawful because of a strict code of ethics or behavior) and "external" law (Lawful because of a belief in and practice of political/religious laws), just like it's important to define "passive" chaos (does their own thing) and "active" chaos (tears down order wherever they find it).

[The Random NPC]

I wonder if all alignments have and "active" and "passive" state... perhaps adding them may help defray the alignment arugements? I don't quite see how Good and Evil might have them though.