What's the best alignment, and why is it Lawful Evil?

What's the best alignment, and why is it Lawful Evil?

Are you baiting/doing this ironically or are you just stupid?
CN

That is a pretty dumb chart.

Lawful Evil is evil with a purpose, that's what's so great about it. A decent player with an LE character can travel alongside a goodly party and never be noticed, unless the players are sheetgazin.

Or have a paladin. Or basically anybody casts Ruin Surprise.

>evil with a purpose
NE can be that too

Meh. I think people deliberately misinterpret Detect Evil. A balor is going to register as a wave of carnage that makes you want to vomit, but Rick the Ranger might only give you a vaguely uneasy feeling, even if he is LE in alignment.

I'm not going to argue edition-dependent spell effects because that's just retarded, but I would like to point out how absurdly effective a non-evil villain can be at manipulating a "detect first" party.

Because evil let's you pursue a goal in the single most effective way possible without being hindered by things like empathy or simpathy. Much like how in an RPG the best way to level up is to slaughter a specific wildlife to extinction.

Being lawful gives you the ability to act according to laws or your parties goals "within reason" because it is the smartest thing to do. You don't help your allies to kill the kobold raiders to help the village, you do it so you have leverage to pressure them or to collect the kobold's skulls for your rituals.

Long story short, it lets you be evil but still fit into good parties convincingly.

Honestly, I'd say chaotic and lawful are the more conflicting end of alignments rather than good or evil, as chaotic evil and chaotic good create conflict the most, and lawful good usually is too up-tight.

>CN
How's tenth grade treating you

The best alignment is true neutral.
Lawful evil is second best, followed by lawful neutral and neutral good.
Worst alignment is chaotic good.

TN>NG=LN>LE=CG>LG=CE=NE=CN

Official power ranking based on tendency to attract THAT GUYS.

Meaning that TN attracts the most "that guys"?

People who claim to play True Neutral will often just play an extremely egoistic character who might refrain from killing or something like that. Generally speaking, to my experience all neutral alignments are usually played as actually rather evil characters.

God Tier
Neutral Good

Good Tier
Lawful Good, True Neutral

Pick these to be a contradictory asshole that still manages to be part of the party tier
Lawful Neutral, Chaotic Good

Pick this to be the bare minimum of acceptable in a party tier
Lawful Evil

Shit Tier
Everything else

How do you play TN?

I hate characters who are obsessed with balance. I like TN when the character is just apathetic and does his thing.

Meaning that TN is least likely to attract THAT GUYS.

That makes more sense.
Few people play TN anyway.

You can play TN as someone who is generally just uncaring about the needs of others or someone who can see the goal without being worried about the steps needed to achieve it.

>see the goal without being worried about the steps needed to achieve it.

An "ends justify the means" type of guy? Wouldn't that be closer to NE?

Q. How do I find out what alignment I am?

The tests I take usually show me as Lawful Good, but everyone says I'm Evil since I support eugenics and slavery and keeping women in the role of housewives.

It depends on the goal really.

NE would be someone leaving their partner to die just to get back to civilization in one piece while fleecing a reward.

TN would be someone who weighs the options of both ends of the spectrum and choose the one which will efficiently achieve that goal, even if it takes them to dark places.

To put it another way, NE would be like Jayne from Firefly while TN would be someone like the HAL from "a space odyssey."

Nobody agrees 100% on alignments which is what makes them shit.

In this case I think most people would agree that what separates "the end justifies the means" when it comes to TN and NE is who the end is benefiting and what degree. If it's benefiting the player alone to the detriment of others, it's NE, while if it's benefiting the party/the people/pc's family/whatever it's TN.

Hm, I don't really get it.

Where exactly do you draw the line?

To me, anyone who deliberately hurts others to achieve his goal despite having other (albeit less practical) options is NE.
Someone who tries not to hurt others in order to achieve his goal, but might do so if it's the only option, would be TN.

Also, if said goal is completely selfish, then wouldn't the character automatically be NE?

THAT GUYS usually play CG as an excuse to have their character do shady things and be a dick while hiding behind the pretense of being morally upright.

I don't use alignments, because there's inevitably a shitstorm on what constitutes "good" or "evil".

So I just ask the player exactly what they mean when they cast a spell that targets "good" or "evil", write it in my notes, and then that's what the spell does.

Classes that require you to stay a certain alignment, I instead just have them require you to follow the tenets and rules of whatever deity is involved.

My group are going to be playing a fleet of crusa- I mean... paladins. Your enjoyment comes from playing a character, not from what you think are restrictions.

It all comes down to whether or not they're doing it because they want to or if they're doing it because they have to.

Jayne threw a man out of a shuttle and left him to rot in prison just to save his own skin, when the money he was carrying was roughly the same weight (IIRC).

HAL's programming compelled him to kill the crew, though it wasn't necessarily something that he did out of malicious intent, he was just following his programming.

Of course, alignments are so poorly written in general that it's hard to really peg anyone or anything as one specific alignment.

I understand better, thanks.

Again it sort of comes down to whether or not the character is a dick or if he just does what he needs to do.

The best alignment streamlines with the party and the tone of the campaign, and can thereby be literally any alignment.
Let's not fight, please, I am delicate

Chaotic Evil

I eschew alignment for reputation, which is managed by the DM.

There's no reason for players to track that kind of thing, as their actions should start from the personalities they've designed, not a laundry list of class requirements.

Neutral Good, of course.

tfw playing tn right now