Meissa wrote:
Pacifism, to me, could fall into a number of alignments -- it just depends on the motivation for being such. Are you simply too reverent to the idea of life to justify its taking? Seems light. Are you too afraid to suffer the consequences of your actions, whether by the long arm of the law or by simple retaliation from those who you've wronged? Seems gray. Forcing there to be one way to be pacifist (and defaulting it to good) seems kind of silly.
I feel like Principled and Scrupulous cover the range of good as far as SK goes. While, aesthetically, I agree it would be nice to have an even number of options on either side of the coin, I can't help but feel like every suggestion I've read already falls into one or the other that already exists.
All that said, I'm completely unopposed to implementing more pacifist alternatives to the grind to make it more possible from a gameplay standpoint. But really, at the end of the day, I'd rather "pacifist" be a class with some nifty title -- These adventurers would have little need for combat skills and spells, and could perhaps be given an assortment of abilities that make them a jack- or jill-of-all-non-aggressive-actions. They could be restricted to a few alignments that would make sense, as well, but I'm just brainstorming, here.
I can think of a number of spells that would be incredibly useful for a pacifist:
word of recall - to avoid smackdowns
create food and create water - no creature was harmed during the creation of these neato brownies.
cancellation/remove compulsion - again, no real detrimental or harmful use, but utility for the passive.
any of the healing spells.
sanctuary/protection - again, just to protect, rather than inflict any harm
identify - another something neat and utilitarian with no real harm available
spell ward - another attack negating magick
fly/invis - for escape and/or travelling with less being attacked by aggro NPCs in the wild and being able to escape them without killing them.
stoneskin - more attack negation with no compensating harm
resist elements - more negation
understand - no harm but offers the ability to study texts in various languages as a scholar might.
tongues - utility without firepower
mirror image - able to obfuscate themselves to keep from being attacked as easily
etherealform - more damage reduction utility spells
And actual skills:
dodge - damage avoidance, again
swim - just plain useful
meditation - got spells after all!
trance - (see meditation.
)
haggle - yeeeees, without killing money will be a lot rarer, I'd think, so this would be much more useful
rescue - because saving someone
retreat - because you don't want to be cornered
self defence - seems obvs
climb - yes plz, more utility, more lack of damage
fast healing - after all those years not being beat constantly...
lore - maybe? kind of a wishlist thing for me
brew/scribe/herbalism - some neat productive skills which can be used when not killing.
I dunno, I can see where you're coming from on the drive behind it not being restricted, but simultaneously, it's hard for me to play anything but diabolic or unprincipled much. The idea of alignments being 'such' an ingrained and permanent thing prevents pretty much any real story of redemption, and that makes me almost as sad a panda as that neutral pcs can't be followers of Love. Like only lighties can think love is the most important thing. >.< Ah, well.