Monster Alignment

[I'm A Banana]

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I wonder if the emphasis on Chaotic Good and Lawful Evil themes in some products wasn't meant as a reaction against a perceived bias that sometimes went overboard.

Good point. I've heard legends about how "chaotic = evil" during early D&D days, so I wouldn't be surprised if that was partially the case.

4e definitely has a more "lawful = good" vibe going on, but it's also not particularly keen on encouraging people to be capital-G-Good, which is probably OK.

Does that really manifest that much outside of the Complete Book of Elves?

It crept in a few places. I remember Monster Mythology having a heaping helping of it. I did usually prefer the "aloof, snobbish" look for elves, myself.
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Back on topic!

It's a tangent of a sort, but entirely relevant. What do the good dragons do? I agree that they're a classic archetype and want them to remain so, but what's their purpose when 4E seems intent on delivering a "kill the bad monster" ethic most of the time?

Now this is a fun question!

I've been playing around with the idea of "patronage powers" in my 4e campaign. The PC's have a choice of adventures to go on, a lot of people clamoring for their help. Part of the incentive is that if they choose a particular person, they gain a "patronage power" over the course of the adventure related to that person's goal. Use them with APs or at Milestones.

So say you sign on to help a Gold Dragon: maybe you get powers of luck and fire, sunlight and flight. Help an Angel, maybe powers of defensive magic and healing.

I'd also like to see social encounters with these beasts. Convincing it to avoid burning the town where the thieves are hiding; convincing it to give up a piece of treasure for the PC's to use (no easy task, especially if what the PC's want to use it for might not be entirely good!).

Information as a mount or as an NPC ally are also extremely useful. Who doesn't want to ride into the thick of evil on the back of a shining gold dragon? How is that NOT one of the coolest images in heroic fantasy?

And I honestly don't begrudge the existence of non-Good variants that they can plunk down a stat block for (this Gold Dragon is possessed by a demon! It has demonic gold dragon powers of awesome evil coolness!), but I want the baseline Lawful Good Gold Dragon.

That might mean that normal gold dragons don't appear in the Monster Manual, but only in the Draconomicon or something.

That's perfectly OK with me. I'd rather have a useful gold dragon than another monster stat block.

 

[Shemeska]

On some level I can see the rationale behind the 4e idea of 'if it's good you don't fight it, and PCs as heroes don't fight good creatures, and you don't need stats if you don't fight it', I find it too constraining as a default. It's in some ways similar in tone to the things that early 2e was often attacked for: being too goody-goody, except here in 4e it's part of the core assumptions (all PCs are heroes, heroes do this, and nothing outside of this really be supported).

I find an absolutely delicious glee as a DM in providing moral quandries, and when appropriate, using good creatures as antagonists. They might be misguided, they might be right and the PCs wrong, and yes even two good aligned people can be fighting with both of them being true to their alignments.

And of course, they're free game for use when I have a party of PCs comprised of various flavors of neutral or even evil characters. My current campaign has such upstanding individuals as a NE/CE tiefling worshipper of Shar, a sorceress who's the offspring of a greater yugoloth and a fallen guardinal, a half-drow wizard with a living manifestation of Baator sitting on his shoulder, a rakshasa from a banished noble house in Acheron, a psion with questionable sanity, and to balance them out a NG cleric and his LG fighter cohort. Even evil people can have friends and shared goals.

I've usually skewed towards evil enemies in all of my campaigns, but again when appropriate, I've used good creatures just as much. Removing good creatures out of some wierd desire to straightjacket PC concepts and campaign flavor is misguided in my opinion, and rather annoying. Scrubbing the serial numbers from previously good creatures and making them unaligned in 4e isn't a good solution either, because while you still technically have the creature, it's no longer the same outside of the name and superficial appearance perhaps. You still have the thematic restrictions built into the game's precepts, rather than there being a big tent approach to what campaigns can contain.

Some folks are going to immediately say that including good monsters and their stats is a waist of space. Fair enough if you only use monsters for PCs to fight. But again that restricts others from using them as antagonists for evil PCs, or even occasionally for neutral or good PCs as well. And I've heavily used good monsters as allies and NPC cohorts in my games, and I think something is lost in that regard by shutting the door on good monsters in 4e material.

That's my take on the matter.

 

[Agamon]

All of those are good ideas, KM. Maybe we will see them in a Draconomicon or DMG. Having them unaligned though, doesn't discount them from being patrons or negotiating or what have you. In fact, it makes it equally likely you could use them as a monster or a friendly NPC.

 

[I'm A Banana]

All of those are good ideas, KM. Maybe we will see them in a Draconomicon or DMG. Having them unaligned though, doesn't discount them from being patrons or negotiating or what have you. In fact, it makes it equally likely you could use them as a monster or a friendly NPC.

Right. Like I pointed out upthread, that's not really the point.

 

[Agamon]

Right. Like I pointed out upthread, that's not really the point.

Fair enough. We can agree to disagree. I do a lot of modding to monsters already, changing one word to another in the stat block would be fairly trivial.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Fair enough. We can agree to disagree. I do a lot of modding to monsters already, changing one word to another in the stat block would be fairly trivial.

I agree with you there, but, again, modding the statblock isn't really the point. We can certainly agree to disagree that the proper role for the Gold Dragon in D&D is to be that archetypal good dragon, or that the good dragon archetype is something that D&D even needs, of course.

 

[Obryn]

I agree with you there, but, again, modding the statblock isn't really the point. We can certainly agree to disagree that the proper role for the Gold Dragon in D&D is to be that archetypal good dragon, or that the good dragon archetype is something that D&D even needs, of course.

I find it difficult to even consider alignment in the statblock.

I mean, it's certainly a word that is found within the stat block, but given that it has no mechanical effects, I don't think it belongs there. It's not really a statistic as such in 4e.

If eye color were added to the stat block, it'd be "in the stat block" too. And it would have just as much effect on the creature's use in the game.

-O

 

[Shemeska]

If eye color were added to the stat block, it'd be "in the stat block" too. And it would have just as much effect on the creature's use in the game.

-O

Eyecolor doesn't influence any assumptions of behavior, interaction with PCs, and role however.

 

[Oni]

Eyecolor doesn't influence any assumptions of behavior, interaction with PCs, and role however.

Neither does alignment as far as I'm concerned. NPC's behave in the manner that they are needed to behave. All a printed alignment really accomplishes is a metagame expectation on the part of players that happen to have read the MM. IMHO of course.

 

[Obryn]

Eyecolor doesn't influence any assumptions of behavior, interaction with PCs, and role however.

Neither does alignment in any sort of mechanical way. I'd expect a statistic to have a mechanical effect.

-O