Another alignment question

[maggot]

OK, I posted before about the cleric that used true seeing (3.0 version) to read people's aruas and attack evil people on sight. That you all for help on that. Now I have the opposite problem. The same cleric uses true seeing to find lawful good people in a large city, and then knows he can trust them.

He will only get informations from lawful good people in town. He won't listen to anyone else. He knows the lawful good people will not lie to him. And the cleric is a cleric of a major lawful good god, so people want to help him.

Another time he asked around until he found a lawful good someone who would let the party store treasure at his house. Obviously a lawful good person who agrees to it would not steal the stuff.

Abuse of spell, or creative use of spell?

 

[WCrawford]

OK, I posted before about the cleric that used true seeing (3.0 version) to read people's aruas and attack evil people on sight. That you all for help on that. Now I have the opposite problem. The same cleric uses true seeing to find lawful good people in a large city, and then knows he can trust them.

He will only get informations from lawful good people in town. He won't listen to anyone else. He knows the lawful good people will not lie to him. And the cleric is a cleric of a major lawful good god, so people want to help him.

Another time he asked around until he found a lawful good someone who would let the party store treasure at his house. Obviously a lawful good person who agrees to it would not steal the stuff.

Abuse of spell, or creative use of spell?

Creative use.

But, just because a person is Lawful Good doesn't mean that they have the correct information (if they have any at all) or that their home is a secure place to store treasure (thieves don't care that the home owner is Lawful Good). And what happens to the Lawful Good person whose daugher comes down with a serious illness and a little of the PC's treasure will save her life?

 

[billd91]

OK, I posted before about the cleric that used true seeing (3.0 version) to read people's aruas and attack evil people on sight. That you all for help on that. Now I have the opposite problem. The same cleric uses true seeing to find lawful good people in a large city, and then knows he can trust them.

He will only get informations from lawful good people in town. He won't listen to anyone else. He knows the lawful good people will not lie to him. And the cleric is a cleric of a major lawful good god, so people want to help him.

Another time he asked around until he found a lawful good someone who would let the party store treasure at his house. Obviously a lawful good person who agrees to it would not steal the stuff.

Abuse of spell, or creative use of spell?

I can't see it as an abuse of the spell, but it's not exactly a smart thing to do. If he won't listen to anyone else, that's his right, I suppose. But it doesn't mean that in all cases the LG people about town will know what it is he needs to know. They may tell him what they think he wants to know or what they heard might be true. In other words, there's no strong reason to suspect that the information from LG people about town is any more reliable than anyone else's information. I suppose he might feel better that any inaccuracies will be there for reasons other than malicious intent.

It also doesn't mean they are 100% scrupulous, just that they generally are. If the LG character thinks a few coppers or silvers won't be missed, is down on his luck, and needs to get some food for the kids, he'll raid the money alright and maybe try to make restitution in some way.

I think this player of yours is taking alignment WAY too seriously. He should be taught that it's a general tendency and not a deterministic straight-jacket.

 

[apsuman]

Bad idea.

Just because a person is LG does not mean that they would be the best source of information or help.

A LG townsperson might not have the same ideas of property that your characters do. He might use/abuse/giveaway your treasure while you have it at your house. Really a LG commune leader that belives in sharing everything might happily take your stuff and then give it to everyone else, while still being LG.

Also, LG types aren't always in the know. The lesser lawful and lesser good characters often know more dirt.

LG types might be innocents, and thus naive. Believing everything and repeating it might be a good way for a bad guy to give your characters false information.

LG types might be real a$$e$ and not want to help, or charge exessive fees.

LG types might be truthful, but how much detail are they willing to share? They might hide information on purpose or not, reveal details about themselves and their involvement or not.

g!

 

[Wolffenjugend]

You are aware that True Seeing has a material component that costs 250 gp, right? That right there should limit a cleric's ability to constantly cast the spell. And if money isn't an issue, simply limit the availability of "mushroom powder, saffron, and fat" so that the spell becomes less available, and therefore more valuable.

 

[Trickstergod]

For the most part, I agree with everyone else here in that only trusting Lawful Good individuals is a bit, well, dumb.

However, the idea that a Lawful Good individual might skim from, or steal, or redistribute another individuals goods is just, well, not the case. At least if the situation is:

Cleric: "Can I store my stuff at your place?"
Lawful Good Guy: "Sure thing"

There's really nothing ambiguous about "store my stuff" that would give one the impression that a Lawful Good individual could make use of it.

A Lawful Good individual would likely ask before taking anything from the priest, being both Lawful, and Good. Or he might say, "I'm going to start charging you for storing your treasure at my place. And, if you want to move it, then I'm still going to have to ask for a little for the time it already spent locked away at my residence. Fair's fair, after all."

While it is true that alignment isn't a straight jacket, a Lawful Good individual seems to imply someone who would ask first, whereas a Neutral Good one would borrow, then ask after the fact (or fess up to it), and a Chaotic Good one might skim without asking and never say a word, knowing it was the right thing to do, and not wanting to anger the priest. At least as far as general alignment tendencies go.

Considering that your average person doesn't do great deeds of sacrifice and nobility, it's often little things like that, in my opinion, which make up the alignment of the individual. They might save a kid from a burning building, or turn in their morally twisted relative to the law, or whatever, but situations like that don't come up often, so it's the little things like common courtesy (or lack thereof) or personal integrity that help define the alignment in most folks.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

It's also worth considering that alignments can change. The man who is lawful good today could be persuaded to compromise his principles in a small way tomorrow. And in a slightly bigger way the next day. And so on and so on until a year from now, he's a very bitter chaotic neutral.

And placing a large amount of treasure in someone's keeping without any method of accounting for it is a very big temptation--the kind that could actually be responsible for luring the individual from lawful goodness.

And as others have said, being Lawful Good is not synonymous with being wise, careful, responsible, or a good steward. I know more than a few decent honorable people who can't be trusted with a credit card and are more than a little gullible. Wise characters should place their money in the hands of men with proven judgement and reliability--not just those who happen to be lawful good.

Wise people should also be wary of believing what people say just because they're decent, honorable folks. By all accounts, Neville Chaimberlain was a good man but he was dead wrong about Hitler.