Alignment

[FredSRichardson]

Wow, am I crazy? It looks like most of the undead in IWD2 have neutral alignment. What!!?? They should all be Eeevillll! What the heck is Holy Smite supposed to be for anyway?

 

I'm going to try and change these alignments where I see an error.

[BigRob]

I think skeletons, zombies and other very basic undead count as neutral because they don't actually have minds (a bit like golems). Most higher undead should be evil though.

[aVENGER_(RR)]

In D&D 3.5, both "Skeleton" and "Zombie" are simply templates which can be applied to base creatures. Their alignment entry is listed as "Always Neutral Evil".

[FredSRichardson]

Wow, okay, I guess I've been looking at the 3.5E Monster Manual.

 

Looking at the 3.0E SRD, it looks like Zombies and Skellies are neutral, whereas a Ghoul or Ghast is Chaotic Evil. A Wight is lawful evil.

 

I can see the sense in this, as BigRob said, Zombies and Skellies are like mindless automatons. I caught glimpses of long discussions on rec.games.frp.dnd about whether they have evil auras or not. It looks like 3.5E decided they're evil after all?

[Solar's Harper]

Your average undead being neutral does make sense in a way.

 

Zombies, skeletons and the real basic sorts are more lacking in direction, although they tend towards what can be considered evil, would every person coming back from the dead for one reason or the other be evil, even when they help you?

 

Vampires and the sort on the otherhand are very well aware of their current condition, intelligent beyond the basics as well. While some may despise what they are, often many revel in what they can do.

 

And liches, well if you take the example of a self-imposed undead situation, then you can rest assured that lich has over 50% chance to be of selfish intent. And very likely to be taking things out on the living for no apparant hair day reason.

 

Anyway this could turn into a long debate as to why there are average differences. So I'll leave my post at that. Hope it clears a few heads. It sure doesn't mine.

[FredSRichardson]

I think you have a good point, and I know this must have spawned long discussions.

 

It's interesting that IWD2 doesn't have any kind of Detect Evil. Perhaps this would have blown the plot early on or something.

 

I'd be happy to keep Skeleton and Zombies as neutral. They really are just automatons. Ghouls, Ghasts, Wights, Shadows, Mummys, Vampires and Lichs have more of an evil agenda. Well, okay, it's not always that clear, but I'm happy to go with the 3.0E specs since that's what the game was designed for.

 

I was reading about an interesting RP situation involving Lycanthropy. A teen aged girl was a werewolf. The party had to decide whether or not to try and save the girl (find a cure), or not. I think the rules dictate that she would be chaotic evil while transformed and possibly chaotic evil after that (depending on her will save and whether she's awareness of the condition or not). So a paladin who detects an evil aura around her might have a tough decision to make.

 

I probably shouldn't have brought this up at all. Alignment in general is probably one of the most controversial things in D&D.

[Kulyok]

// my two sad cents:

 

I love conversions. Tutu rocks.

 

I love fixes to these conversions, I love tweaks to these conversions, I love mods for these conversions. Installed separately. (<long list> rocks).

 

But I become very, very sad when the two merge: when I get fixes together with the conversion. I think they really, really, really should be separate. Optional install and all that.

[FredSRichardson]

Kulyok,

 

Yes, another very good point. I would say that I'm stuck with having to make "decisions" which can result in fixes. For example, IWD1 is AD&D 2E while IWD2 is AD&D 3E, so when I convert IWD1 to IWD2 I have to map some things to other things (saving throws, THAC0 -> BAB, HD/level/CR?, spells). These mappings aren't always obvious, but I do have some things to go on. For example, both IWD1 and IWD2 have Goblins of the same level, so I can use these IWD2 Goblins as a mapping for the IWD1 version and remain consistent in terms of what the IWD2 developers would likely do. The mappings in this case are compensating for the new rule set and "balancing" in terms of difficult (in IWD2, all the low level Goblins have -3 luck and a damage penalty of -4 on their bows, Goblins without those penalties will riip through a level 1 party).

 

For most other creatures there is no pre-existing mapping and I have to make something up. What I can do is look at a higher (or lower) level version of the same thing in IWD2, examine the IWD1 CRE, consult the 3E monster manual and make some decisions.

 

Alignment is an interesting case, because the same CRE in IWD1 and IWD2 may have different alignments. Now, since IWD2 tries to follow the AD&D 3E system, I can always go to the monster manual for that. But this can get interesting, it could be the case where IWD1 uses an alignment that agrees with the 3E MM, but the IWD2 version of the same (or similar) CRE doesn't. In that case, agreeing with the MM is "fixing" the IWD2 CRE. On the other hand, there may be no CRE in IWD2 that's close to the IWD1 version, and the alignment is different according to the MM. In that case I would follow the 3E MM because it's likely to be the correct conversion.

 

Items are actually more sticky in a way. Some of the effects don't make any sense. I've tried to map over IWD1 items to existing versions of the same ones in IWD2, but that only gets me so far.

 

Anyway, sorry to go on like this, but as you can tell this is much more of an art than a science (which I guess makes it more fun ).

 

I will try to avoid gratuitous changes where I can. The "lesser shadows" in IWD1 curse you with bad luck in IWD1 whereas the "shadows" in IWD2 permanently drain your strength 4 points (until you cure disease that is). I'd be inclined to have them curse rather than drain, but there's an interesting decision.