strangeness in the Az'atta page

[Dorganath]

Also... from the Azattan page.

Cleric Alignments:
 
    * Neutral Good
    * Chaotic Good
    * Chaotic Neutral                 

and from the Dark elf page...

All PC Dark Elves must be submitted as one of the following alignments: True Neutral, Chaotic Neutral, Lawful Evil, Neutral Evil. The lone exception to this rule is if a Dark Elf is submitted as a cleric of Az'atta, in which case they may submit with a Good alignment.

Note that there is nothing stated specifically that there cannot be any neutral Azattans.  

From [LORE]Az'atta[/LORE]:
Alignment: Chaotic Good
 
Worshippers: Any race as long they are good aligned.
 
Cleric Alignments:

• Neutral Good
  
• Chaotic Good
  
• Chaotic Neutral

[/quote]

So yes, it states that followers are only of Good alignment.

In fact, Azatta having chaotic neutral clerics is explicitly allowed.  

And again, above I stated that this is quite possibly an oversight.  It's also possibly one of those non-fitting compromises because of the core NWN system we work with.  Only Ed can answer this question.

Not ALL chaotic neutral people torture.  Not ALL True Neutral people attack unarmed foes.  Note the usage of the word "may".

No, of course not.  But as a generality of the alignment, such individuals carry the predisposition for such acts, but more generically for acts of cruelty against others.  That is fundamentally what's at odd's with Az'atta's dogma, in my opinion.

If one is truly an Azattan follower however, I would fully expect them NOT to use weapons, or poison, or kidnap, murder, torture.  Otherwise they really aren't Azattans.

Ah, but the question is why don't they do these things?  Because they claim to be Az'attan or because they just don't because they feel it's wrong and secondarily because it goes against Az'atta.  Perhaps a subtle difference but there's where alignment and dogma sort of collide.

[lonnarin]

People could be less than good in other ways that didn't totally spit int he face of her faith.  They could be stingy witht heir gold; tell that wino beggar to go get a job to pay for his habit rather than buy his bottle for him.  They could be pacifists that oppose even just and righteous wars that help the weak and prevent suffering.  Take for example Rael's Lordship, they could be against an armed uprising of CG and NG rebels and prefer the "peace and order" of his tyrannical rule. (ala: Jennera Creekskipper's arguments to Farros)  It doesn't make them evil to have such an idealistic position, but it doesn't make them all that good either to play devil's advocate for such a wicked devil.  Perhaps their pacifism could stem from some logical conclusion of violence's absurdity; Vulcans are pacifist vegetarians, but they are hardly "good" aligned, mostly LN or TN.  They could also be persons who are seriously trying to change themselves but still are given to violent tempers as some people have chemical imbalances which make them that way.  Many serial killers or violent offenders are mild mannered to a point, then some trigger event sends them into doing the things that they do.  Or they could be aberrational rebels to their own culture, like a daughter of a family of dwarven Voraxians who adopts this contrary philosophy out of rebellion and dates dark elves.  You never know.  The totality of a character's moral and mental make-up is not cookie-cutter specific to the examples listed in the alignment guidelines.

Anyhow, if there is a creed and philosophy or redemption, omitting the steps towards it seems a fallacy.  Conversion just doesn't happen overnight like Darth Vader, it's more like Wolverine, a constant struggle against ones past and slowly nurturing the goodness within in order to become a better person.  If she wants to show these people that she loves and forgives them, then why wouldn't she SHOW them that love through prayer?

[Hellblazer]

Real interesting point there...makes me think a bit about how the system is implemented.  But then, it also makes me wonder if we did this if we'd see a whole lot more clerics of Az'atta.

I don't know if it would or not, but I think one of the reasons why there are less players playing a cleric of certain faith is probably due to the very nature of the game. There is a few deities that shuns violence all together (unless of a last resort) others that are far less if not prone violence. Go and rout out evil and right the injustices, comes to mind. Almost a green card to go and point evil.. kill kill kill

like a daughter of a family of dwarven Voraxians who adopts this contrary philosophy out of rebellion and dates dark elves. You never know.

*dies of laughing*

[Dorganath]

And in truth, its a lot rp yes, but also because if you disallow future bios from having a az'attan deity field for tn and cn DE, then you should simply scrap the whole raising aspect and deity spell effect all together. As a lot of spells will apply per deity/allied/friendly. It's a stretch (yes I know), but if you change this aspect of the lore, you will have to adjust the spells (in the best of world). This will truly give a lot less luster to anyone who would want to play a cleric of az'atta in the future. And this gave an other options to those who wanted to play a DE but didn't like the other two deities, beside the choice of putting no deity at all, which would take a lot of the RP away of playing a DE as their faith is something that seems to be entrenched deeply in that race, unless I'm mistaking.

I'm sorry...how does one of our twenty-eight deities having an alignment restriction throw the entire deity-based spell effect system into disarray?  You're taking this to an extreme that is really quite a stretch, per your admission.  How does it take the "luster" off Az'atta?  With 5 allied deities, 9 friendly and 2 neutral...that's 16 out of 28 that can be considered to benefit from spells from an Az'attan, not to mention all the non-devout characters.

And on limiting options...how?  Why can't a TN or CN Dark Elf character be submitted with no deity, struggle with its dark past (as given by a non-good alignment) and grow toward a Good alignment and embrace Az'atta?  And why would a Dark Elf need to limit himself/herself to only one of the three Dark Elf deities?

Really, I understand the confusion, and I even understand the logic behind the original intent of this thread, but we're just beating a dead horse until Ed gets back. I'm not going to convince you and you're not going to convince me, and even if you did, I can't change it.

[lonnarin]

Maybe if she was Neutral Good.  Then ALL good people could follow her.  Poor clerics, they pay their taxes on time, obey the law, yield the right of way of their oxen to pedestrians, attend the home owner's association meetings, respect law enforcement, try to change the unjust laws by the legal means available, go to church on Azatta-days, never lie, cheat or steal, and Azatta shuns them.  What did Hank Hill ever do to deserve such treatment?  Does she tell such people that they are fuddy duddies and tell them to get drunk and rowdy once in awhile?

On a serious note though, why are Azatta and Aeridin only friendly and not perfect allies?  They're the two gods that respect life beyond race, offer redemption and disallow weapons other than the bare hands or quarterstaff and dissuade their followers from striking first or even entering combat at all.  Sounds like they'd be very close allies.

[Nehetsrev]

At this point, it just seems to me that someone wants to have their cake and pie too.
 
 It's been stated repeatedly that though Dark Elf characters who are not clerics of Az'atta may still be submitted as True Neutral, Chaotic Neutral, Lawful Evil, or Neutral Evil they may still progress toward good through Role-play and character growth over time, thus at some point eventually earning the right/ability to populate their diety field and step into receiving Az'atta's blessings.
 
 But I have to agree that Dorganath in my opinion has the right of it.  The diety is not going to go out of the way to show her sustained blessings on someone who hasn't shown themselves to be reformed and ready to receive those blessings with wisdom.  In special (DM supervised) instances, such as a CDQ, it may happen that Az'atta may show her blessing on someone that under normal game mechanics wouldn't be able to receive such a miracle, but the circumstances would have to be pretty special, I'd think, and the character in question would have had to have made a conscious decision to call directly upon Az'atta for that help.  A vessel has to be open, and ready to receive, before a blessing can be poured into it.  If you think of your character as a cup, and evil as mud in the cup, that cup's going to have to be cleaned out and the evil mud removed before anyone's going to want to pour their very expensive wine into it for serving.
 
 Put another way, if a gambler loses at the casinos, and someone gives that gambler money, a gambler who's learned their lesson and become reformed, repentant, and redeemed will have learned the wisdom to find a more worthwhile use for the money they are given, while the un-reformed, un-repentant, and un-redeemed gambler will just take the money and gamble it away almost as soon as it's in their possession.

[Hellblazer]

Not trying to convince you Dorg, just exploring the different aspects.

To answer your question. Basically because of the recent changes to the dogma, where you have a deity that now shuns any weapons of their clerics (and obviously their followers, unless to defend themselves or others, without of course running toward trouble and then state oh it was to defend them), now there is the sight of seeing even more restrictions coming along. At one point there can be so much taken out that the people looks at the deity pages and just decides to look elsewhere, and what you have spent a lot of time creating you see hardly used to almost not used at all. Beside Marcus who still plays regularly, I don't see many more active character that follows Az'atta beside the one I created recently.

You were wondering if taking out the death penalty of raising a dead char for the cleric of az'attan would have more people playing them. But at the same time if you put even more restriction on the other side, then it doesn't balance it out.  I understand that to have a diversity in the deities, you need to put some restriction on certain aspect of Role playing to a deity and not to an other. But putting too much can also just right away kill of the use of that deity.

While yes they are a lot of friendlies and allies that can be helped with the system, it comes back down to, would a cleric of Az'atta willingly go with people who are about to kill hundreds of trolls to get to the sapphire, or would they even go on a call where she/he thinks that there could be possible violence?

Now that I know that even a race that has a restriction on alignment can go and change their alignment with game play and cdq and the whole lot of things that are available to attain that, that does actually put a lot possibilities. Well to be more specific, going upward toward good instead of the possible down in the alignment diagram. It gives a lot more flexibility in my mind, which is undoubtedly good. But it just seems that at the present, there has been a lot of work for this deity (and probably not the only one) that doesn't see the full usage* that it could offer, Rp and otherwise, because of the recent changes, and the possible future one.

*(Within the present stage of the game, as we know there will be sometime before we see the mmo up and running.)

[lonnarin]

I think being able to raise anyone regardless of deity would be a small boon compared to running around naked and weaponless in a game which largely rewards killing killing killing.  If that means there would be a lot more Azattan clerics, that's great.  Haven't met one yet.

Edit: OH WAIT!  ROTTIE!  Yeah, we have one.  Haven't grouped with him yet, he had an interesting bio.

[Hellblazer]

Right so that's three

[Dorganath]

Not trying to convince you Dorg, just exploring the different aspects.

To answer your question. Basically because of the recent changes to the dogma, where you have a deity that now shuns any weapons of their clerics (and obviously their followers, unless to defend themselves or others, without of course running toward trouble and then state oh it was to defend them), now there is the sight of seeing even more restrictions coming along. At one point there can be so much taken out that the people looks at the deity pages and just decides to look elsewhere, and what you have spent a lot of time creating you see hardly used to almost not used at all. Beside Marcus who still plays regularly, I don't see many more active character that follows Az'atta beside the one I created recently.

And what about Aeridin? They, played correctly, are even more pacifistic than Az'atta.

You were wondering if taking out the death penalty of raising a dead char for the cleric of az'attan would have more people playing them. But at the same time if you put even more restriction on the other side, then it doesn't balance it out.  I understand that to have a diversity in the deities, you need to put some restriction on certain aspect of Role playing to a deity and not to an other. But putting too much can also just right away kill of the use of that deity.

This seems to be more of a focus on mechanical benefits and less on the RP behind the choice.

While yes they are a lot of friendlies and allies that can be helped with the system, it comes back down to, would a cleric of Az'atta willingly go with people who are about to kill hundreds of trolls to get to the sapphire?

Why not? Couldn't an Az'attan use primarily protective and healing spells to help keep the others from harm?

[lonnarin]

Why not? Couldn't an Az'attan use primarily protective and healing spells to help keep the others from harm?

Well technically yes, though if they were running around killing things for being "evil", it would be a lot like a militant vegan selling mink coats and burgers.

And on Aeridin being more pacifistic... I don't know.  Aeridinites at least get a beating stick or a cudgel.  Of course that's supposed to be for the undead and not making death.  I wonder if Azatta would have similar exceptions.  One really can't "forgive" a zombie or a rampant golem bent on destroying everything in sight.  They're totally mindless an amoral.  So why pull punches in those cases? (or throw punches, as it were, instead of swinging a weapon)

[Dorganath]

Well technically yes, though if they were running around killing things for being "evil", it would be a lot like a militant vegan selling mink coats and burgers.

Note I didn't mention killing.  And while Az'attans avoid killing, they will do so to protect others.

[Hellblazer]

And what about Aeridin? They, played correctly, are even more pacifistic than Az'atta.

Well Aeridin has a whole other aspect of going against deaders, that I don't really see in Az'atta's ways at all. I don't know if her redeemness* would even extend to the lich's and vampires and all.

*is that even a word???

This seems to be more of a focus on mechanical benefits and less on the RP behind the choice.

 Well in all reality, when someone creates a char, they don't only look at the RP aspect, they also look at the mechanical benefits and all. it goes hand in hand I think.

I personally created Tyillaan because of the possible rp of her racial tendencies vs her dogma (which I have had a good one with Lance Stargazer lately kudos there mate!). But also because it's a deity I had never played and from what I had seen, is rarely played.

Why not? Couldn't an Az'attan use primarily protective and healing spells to help keep the others from harm?

yes but that would also go with the "well she knew that there was going to be mass killing, how did it show Az'atta's willful nature to redeem all, if one of her clerics went on a genocide?" That would go against her peaceful mantra. It's well and all to say, well you go the first time because you don't know, but then you shouldn't go for a second third and forth servings. But in this game setting, that is impossible to do as your char would stagnate, you'd then have the RP which I will admit is a lot of why I play here, but personally I will freely admit it, I'm no Storold. I can't just stand sitting around for 8 hours on the same bench. I need diversity. And I think it's safe to bet that most of the people playing here are the same.

[lonnarin]

I could see a vampire being redeemed.  He could run a butcher shop or only feed on cattle.  Remember eating rats in Vampire: Bloodlines?  And some people might become liches to protect their nation, family or magical knowledge rather than an act of evil.  I think I heard that some Lucindite liches exist in the order, it was one of the big reasons Logan couldn't be an Undead Hunter.

Azattans don't HAVE to go around killing sentient beings.  They could very well do like Athus and solely kill the undead and go on quests to lecture everybody.

No weapons vs. zombies though... hmmm.  "I forgive you brother! I--- AAAUUURRGGGHH!!!"  "mmmmm, braaaaaaainsss!"  yeah, that wouldn't work too well.  May as well be jumping off of cliffs and forgiving gravity.

[Dorganath]

Well in all reality, when someone creates a char, they don't only look at the RP aspect, they also look at the mechanical benefits and all. it goes hand in hand I think.

Some do, some don't. My first character has some rather inconvenient choices I'd undo for mechanical reasons, but he's flawed, so it's all good.  My second character was only partially built for mechanics...a front-line melee druid.  My third character is a complete RP build in both skill and feat choices.

That's me, but I know there are others like me.

And then there are (no offense milty) characters like Steel who are pretty much (or seem to be) purpose-built from the ground up to fit their conceived mechanical role very well.

So looking at Az'atta from an RP standpoint, I think there's a world of possibilities.  From a mechanical standpoint, yes, it's restrictive.  But I think that was the point.
 

yes but that would also go with the "well she knew that there was going to be mass killing, how did it show Az'atta's willful nature to redeem all, if one of her clerics went on a genocide?" That would go against her peaceful mantra. It's well and all to say, well you go the first time because you don't know, but then you shouldn't go for a second third and forth servings.

Again..."what if".  Every situation is different and there's ways to go about things. It's situational and particular to the person.  

But in this game setting, that is impossible to do as your char would stagnate, you'd then have the RP which I will admit is a lot of why I play here, but personally I will freely admit it, I'm no Storold. I can't just stand sitting around for 8 hours on the same bench. I need diversity. And I think it's safe to bet that most of the people playing here are the same.

It's not impossible and your character does not have to stagnate. It's all a matter of perspective.  Somewhere in the last 5 levels gained by my main character (I forget which, but it's in the 25+ range), one of those levels was almost completely RP taps by roving GMs, except for 3 quests and maybe 4,000 XP from gathering-related bashing.

And ouch on the Storold thing.  But since you brought him up...we now have 4 characters who are level 40...who by your apparently XP-centric view of stagnation are...well...stagnant.  And yet they still play.

[Hellblazer]

Yes well I knew storold do go on trips, but I also saw him mainly just sitting at his bench for weeks at a time, about a year ago.

I know it's possible but it's all relating on your gaming type. Some will be more suited for it others wont. I, i think..., fall in between. There will be days where I would just sit around and rp, others where I would just bash the engine out. And then there is the "most" days where I would rp while doing something at the same time. For those who find me falling silent on a trip.. well its that bash the engine day like thingy you know? lol.

Although I do wonder, how long did it take for you to level your chars just by the gm taps? also if you were in the 20;th level+ a 5 hour quest is 100000xp;) Hehe. Kidding asside though, I guess it all depends on the personality of the player behind it and his gaming time also.

[Dorganath]

Although I do wonder, how long did it take for you to level your chars just by the gm taps? also if you were in the 20;th level+ a 5 hour quest is 100000xp;) Hehe. Kidding asside though, I guess it all depends on the personality of the player behind it and his gaming time also.

Months! hehe...especially since I might only get online once a week.

[darkstorme]

Speaking for myself, my bard got nearly ten thousand XP over the course of a day from RP taps and one impromptu.  (And she's level 7.)

[EdTheKet]

Thanks to rowana for pointing out this thread, I had gone through the forums quickly when I returned and then marked them all as "read" so I missed this one (could be I missed more, if I did, it's not intentional so let me know).

I have removed CN as possible alignment for cleric characters following Az'atta.
The reason for this is that if CN is properly played, it cannot be reconciled with Az'atta's dogma.

Yes, this will make it more restrictive. And no, I am not concerned about that. The pantheon with its 28 deities is not aimed at ensuring each deity gets the same number of player characters, that's not the intent.

The intent is to have a diverse pantheon that covers many views and thoughts, something which it does now.

Pacifistic deities will inherently have less player characters than militant deities. This is because of the nature of the game NWN/D&D, where character advancement is  through XP gained by combat for the most part.

[SteveMaurer]

Thanks to rowana for pointing out this thread, I had gone through the forums quickly when I returned and then marked them all as "read" so I missed this one (could be I missed more, if I did, it's not intentional so let me know).

I have removed CN as possible alignment for cleric characters following Az'atta.
The reason for this is that if CN is properly played, it cannot be reconciled with Az'atta's dogma.

Yes, this will make it more restrictive. And no, I am not concerned about that. The pantheon with its 28 deities is not aimed at ensuring each deity gets the same number of player characters, that's not the intent.

The intent is to have a diverse pantheon that covers many views and thoughts, something which it does now.

Pacifistic deities will inherently have less player characters than militant deities. This is because of the nature of the game NWN/D&D, where character advancement is  through XP gained by combat for the most part.

Well, this certainly helps me clarify my situation with Rottie, who is chaotic neutral because all PC Half-Ogres have to be.   Since you're hopefully paying attention Ed, let me ask a few more questions:

[LIST=1]

• Are the restrictions against using weapons supposed to be followed by just the clergy of Az'atta, or all its worshipers?
• Can Az'attan clerics be Sacred Fists, or is that considered just an artful dodge around the reason why Az'atta prohibits her clerics from using them in the first place?
• Are Undead Slayers allowed?   If so, can an Az'attan Undead Slayer use weapons against undead?  (Or are Vampires to be "saved" instead?)
• Do Az'attans, through the auspices of Az'atta's Sight, do rescue missions?   Protection for priests in dangerous areas?

Let me leave it at that for now.