NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chaosmancer" data-source="post: 8037537" data-attributes="member: 6801228">Yeah, I've wanted it out and taken it out for years. It offers me nothing of value. Especially on the Law and Chaos axis. And, I'd want to challenge you that they function as general descriptors. If they did then I could take five Chaotic Evil creatures and their behavior would be relatively similar, right? Red DragonGnollCloakerChasme DemonWill-O-WispThink about the personality, tactics, goals, ect of these creatures. Are they really similar at all? We've got a Cruel Tyrant, a bloodthirsty pack hunter, a singular ambush predator, a hive servant, and a lure predator. Those descriptions are far easier to work with and build around than "Chaotic Evil"Considering I've had issues with alignment for over a decade, I don't think it is "a few problematic descriptions". Those were just examples on how the system fails, using the example given.You seem to be trying to be making a point, but I can't parse it. Yugoloths don't care about mortals. At all. They care about getting paid. They are immortals that want to amass wealth, for seemingly no reason. They don't tempt mortals, they don't care about souls or worship, they just are violent, cruel and greedy.But, Mammon's defining trait is his greed. He weaponizes greed, he spreads greed, he uses his greed to play off the greed of others.Yugoloths could be true neutral and the only difference would be they would be a little less malicious. They are tepid water. And, evil for the sake of evil sounds like Chaos to me. I do it because it feels good, or I do it because I want to would be standards of chaotic evil, but that is all the Yugoloths are, yet they are neutral evil?Which was kind of my point. They don't fit their alignment, so using them as an example of why alignment is helpful is a bad example.So, I think there was something I thought was obvious, that you are missing. Grab an MM. Open it to the Aboleth page, not the statblock, the entire other page on the back. The eight paragraphs of lore and description. Keep that. Go to the statblock, white out the two words "Lawful Evil". That's it. I have eight paragraphs telling me how they act, what they want, what it known. I have abilities and effects that tell me so much. Those two words? I don't need them. Nothing they tell me is more evocative or easier to work with than what I have from other sources. And that is ignoring the same issue I brought up above, which is that you can have a wide pool of creatures that share alignment, and they don't really act that alike. Neutral Evil by itself doesn't tell you enough, and the only reason Lawful Evil and Chaotic Evil do is because you can compare them to the most famous icons of those alignments. Is the creature more like a Devil or more like a Demon,And even that isn't too helpful, since a Kyton is different than an Erynes is different than an Amnizu, so even within devils there is a vast gulf of difference.Demons don't care either. I mean, they care about who wins because they are one of the two sides fighting, but I don't think that say, Spirit Naga (Chaotic Evil) really care who wins the blood war either.But, I'm sure that evil apathy doesn't describe a Yuan-Ti, they care very much about winning and controlling the world. They are also Neutral Evil, not Lawful.So, again, I don't think these two word descriptions are really adding anything useful. Neutral Evil isn't the evil of Apathy, and Chaotic Evil isn't rooting for each other to win.</blockquote>

Verification