Can someone explain exalted?

[Satori]

I don't want to turn this thread into an alignment debate, but here is how I generically view the various forms of Good.
I'll follow with what I view to be the Exalted Equivalent.

Lawful Good: You believe in ordered goodness and reason, with firm rules and regulations that ensure that people can be protected from themselves and others. You methodically approach the good deeds you do, and the world tends to be Black and White in terms of Good vs Evil. Because of the comfort within structured rule sets, laws and rules tend to be followed religiously, and loyalty and obedience are paramount. When these rules/laws originate from a seemingly good organization/ruler, then the Lawful Good person tends to be a bit slavish in their devotion to the edicts within said organization/ruler...which can be troublesome when the ruler/organization isn't as good as it appears. Lawful Good visions/goals tend to be extremely reasonable, defined, and ordered...if a bit lacking in creativity or grandeur.

Neutral Good: "True Good", the only thing that matters to this person is that they can effectively do their "good calling" in the most efficient manner possible. If they can organize it efficiently, then they're happy. If they are unable to get it ordered and have to perform impulsively and without direction, then so be it. They tend to be a bit "take it or leave it" with rules. If the rules seem fair, then they follow them. If rules get in the way, then they forget them and do what they do. Neutral Good visions/goals tend be very balanced and practical. They have a far reaching goal, but approach it appropriately.

Chaotic Good: Freedom fighters unite! Driven by emotion and passion. Chaotic Good heroes often try to take on the world all by themselves, and reject perceived "reason" for action. They'd rather act than plan, and they aren't happy unless they are seeing very real results very quickly. The concept of authority offends them, as they prize individuality over law, and they can be a bit polarized in their view of ANY authority regardless of the goodness within.

Exalted Equivalents:

Lawful Good: "I am the LAW!"
The law enforcer for a supremely good ruler/religion, he does not hesitate in the face of evil and is willing to immediately sacrifice his own life to further the goals of his belief. His mission is carried out in small, easily reachable segments and you are either an ally or an impediment. Nothing stops him, nothing sways him...he is a juggernaut of justice and all that is holy!

Neutral Good: "Stop talking and heal him!"
Passion and logic are concepts that stand by the wayside in the pursuit of truly HOLY work. The unbiased healer during a time of war, she expends her entire energy healing both sides of the battle (unless one is obviously evil). Politics, law, facade, etc... mean nothing to this person. If a ruler disapproves of their actions, then the Exalted NG hero will simply find a new ruler...or go alone. Their devotion to their cause is pure and undiluted by any extenuating circumstance.

Chaotic Good: "They may take our lives...but they'll never take...OUR FREEDOM!"
You have a cause, and the people are looking up to you. You champion the poor, sick, and underappreciated. Rules cannot restrain you, and you will bow to NO ONE! Kings and Queens act too slowly, politicians talk to much, and the Law Enforcement gets too caught up in details. The world needs to change whether it wants to or not, and you are the champion to change it...starting NOW!


Looking at it this way, Lawful Good is hardy "Goody Goody". Neutral Good seems more Goody Goody than Lawful Good, as the means hardly matter so long as the good is achieved. Lawful Good seems more Righteous Smitish, and Chaotic Good is all about the freedom, baby.

 

[Dimwhit]

Looking at it this way, Lawful Good is hardy "Goody Goody".

Yeah, I agree with you on that. My main thinking was that exalted wasn't always Goody Goody. Just depends on what kind of 'good' you are.

Good summation.

 

[RigaMortus2]

To me, all exalted really means is that there are no gray lines. If you are any other alignment, you occassionally run into gray areas. Where a good person might do something that is not quite good, but not quite evil. If you are exalted, everything is black and white. The DM should let you know the expected action an exalted character would take in these situations and then let you decide what you want to do.

 

[ForceUser]

Objectively, exalted status implies that you adhere as best you can to the standard detailed in Chapter 1 of the BoED. Subjectively, exalted status is what you and your DM agree upon. Both are important.

 

[Evilhalfling]

Its like world of darkness - except good, with strange martial art powers.
Ive read through the books, but my group is very conservative, and wouldn't try it.
Try checking on RPG.net - they love it over there.

 

[Nonlethal Force]

To me, all exalted really means is that there are no gray lines.

In a way, this is a good summation too. Think about your typical NG character. Occasionally maybe there a bit CG at times. Then maybe in a different circumstance they come across as borderline LG. But for the most part they are NG.

Now, an exhalted charter may well have days where their alignment strays - but an Exhalted NG may stray into Exalted LG or Exhalted CG or maybe (rarely) into just plain old NG ... but the point is that if they do stray they are straying into another Good alignment.

Another way of putting it. You and I may be honest and good people - but occasionally we have bad days. We have days where we might come off vindictive, angry, or maybe even hateful. But for the most part we're neutral or good. On a bad day, an exhalted character is just as good as we are on our best days!

I know this isn't totally by the book, bt in my mind I almost use the following alignment diagram:

 ELG   ENG   ECG

  LG    NG    CG

  LN    TN    CN

  LE    NE    CE

 VLE   VNE   VCE

Where E=Exhalted and V=Vile

On a side note ... I've been waiting for the companion books called "Book of Ordered Deeds" and "Book of Random Deeds" to come out. [BoOD and BoRD, respectively! ] Basically, the same things as the BoED and the BoVD except for Lawful and Chaotic. To further complicate matters ... that would make this really cool alignment tree:

OELG ELG   ENG   ECG RECG

 OLG  LG    NG    CG  RCG

 OLN  LN    TN    CN  RCN

 OLE  LE    NE    CE  RCE

OVLE VLE   VNE   VCE RVCE

O=Ordered, E=Exhalted, R=Random, V=Vile

Wouldn't that be a fun system to try and use! We'd need a Myers-Briggs in the PHB alone!

 

[KarinsDad]

Chaotic Good: Freedom fighters unite! Driven by emotion and passion. Chaotic Good heroes often try to take on the world all by themselves, and reject perceived "reason" for action. They'd rather act than plan, and they aren't happy unless they are seeing very real results very quickly. The concept of authority offends them, as they prize individuality over law, and they can be a bit polarized in their view of ANY authority regardless of the goodness within.

...

Chaotic Good: "They may take our lives...but they'll never take...OUR FREEDOM!"
You have a cause, and the people are looking up to you. You champion the poor, sick, and underappreciated. Rules cannot restrain you, and you will bow to NO ONE! Kings and Queens act too slowly, politicians talk to much, and the Law Enforcement gets too caught up in details. The world needs to change whether it wants to or not, and you are the champion to change it...starting NOW!

I think you miss the entire point here. Exalted means GOOD. It does not mean Chaotic.

An Exalted Chaotic Good character will not be a souped up version of Chaotic Good, rather, s/he will be Chaotic Good Good character. The Good portion gets souped up, not the Chaotic portion.


And, I've always had a problem with this type of definition of Chaotic Good (or chaotic in general) that you listed above anyway.

Here is what I told the players for my new campaign:

You can play Chaotic Good if you have a deity who is Chaotic Good. That gives players 3 main alignments to choose from and 2 more with a very good background justification.

But, Chaotic does not mean a non-team player or a loner or anti-social.

There are a lot of elves who are Chaotic Good who do not flaunt the law at all. Rather, they obey the law as long as they think it is a good law. They might protest if they think a law is unjust, but they don't flaunt authority just to do so, nor do they break an unjust law just to do so. They need a good and valid reason to do so.

Chaotic is more about personal freedoms (in my campaign) than it is about not following laws. You can still have a lot of personal freedom and still obey the law.

The SRD lists "Rebel" under Chaotic Good, but that should only be under harsh authority conditions. I do not proscribe to this description. CG characters can become rebels when necessary, but do not walk around being rebels all of the time without good cause.

You can do unexpected things, but not random things. No rolling the dice in order to make a decision (like some players in the past who we will not mention). And CG does not mean Crafty / Greedy. It is not a license to get away with borderline evil such as vigilantism, or like striking an unconscious or fleeing opponent, or like raiding Temple treasuries of other Deities for personal gain.

Even if Chaotic Good, the character is still expected to have high moral standards and be a hero.

The problem with the "rebel" concept of Chaotic Good is that all Elven communities would disintegrate into chaos and civil war and there would be no elves. Ditto for other chaotic races. There is a difference between chaos and anarchy, but the rebel definition is closer to anarchy.


Getting back to the subject of Exalted, I think that many people have this concept that Exalted means "True Fighter of Evil". That only occurs in my campaign if the Deity the Exalted character is following focuses on fighting evil. But, most Exalted characters in my campaign (and we will probably only have one PC out of six who might go this route) should be more interested in charity, mercy, helping others, healing others, forgiveness, etc., and violence and destroying evil should be much lower on their priority list.

In fact, I'm hoping that the campaign will someday get to the point that even though the PCs have a Good alignment, that they will not just destroy evil to destroy evil. Instead, they will sometimes work with evil enemies to refocus their goals. Getting one Evil Empire to focus on the strength and well being of its citizens, thereby leaning that country towards neutral, can do a lot more than killing the leaders of the country (since the vacuum will just be filled back up with other evil leaders).

 

[RigaMortus2]

And CG does not mean Crafty / Greedy. It is not a license to get away with borderline evil such as vigilantism, or like striking an unconscious or fleeing opponent, or like raiding Temple treasuries of other Deities for personal gain.

No, that would be Chaotic Neutral

 

[KarinsDad]

No, that would be Chaotic Neutral

I've seen both CG and CN attempted to be played as CE in this manner. :\

 

[RigaMortus2]

I've seen both CG and CN attempted to be played as CE in this manner. :\

I don't know if you are familiar with the Palladium system, but they have a nice alignment system that seems to make sense. One of the alignments is Selfish. I see CN people like this. They only care about themselves, no matter what the law says.