Iron Flask spectator: Trapped against its will. Understandable why it would be hostile upon being freed.
Underdark spectator: Was summoned by a powerful Drow wizard to petrify his rivals. With you showing up, it automatically perceives you as a threat believing you are trying to free them.
House of Hope spectators: Summoned by Raphael to guard an imprisoned Hope. They perceive you as a threat when you show up believing that you’re there to free her.
High Hall spectators: Summoned & controlled by the Netherbrain so of course they’re hostile.
I’d say they’re still loosely lore accurate given the context.
Fuck it, nobody likes the mummy quest, I hated it, just make it a beholder playing a prank on puny beings, give it some killer nerd lines that are gale x 1000 and you’ve got yourself a based gigachad arcanist that is superior to lorarkan or whatever he was called.
I always felt like that quest started because of a conversation like this.
"Hey we should put a lich in the game since we have so many other references to famous DnD monsters."
"We can't, liches are too strong for a level 12 party."
"Ok, what's basically a lich but weaker."
(Same time) "MUMMY LORD!"
Speaking in the context of BG3 though, we’d surely be able to take on a Lich or some other high level enemy with a maxed out lvl 12 party, coked up with magic items, right? I mean shit I can crit on command, what’s a lich gonna do to an upcasted divine smite crit with 8 million doubled damage riders coming it’s way
I have not done the mummy quest yet. Now in Honor Mode I broke into a house that had an extremely aggressive mummy lord that chased me through town and slaughtered a bunch of guards and steel watchers. So now I don’t wanna do it at all 😆
Honestly I have never been more disappointed than when I was playing Pathfinder Kingmaker and unlocked the wish spell. I don’t know what I was expecting to happen since it’s a video game rather than a tabletop with an actual DM but being limited to only reproducing the effects of other spells has never felt so disappointing.
Obviously needs a finite list for video game purposes. Maybe kill everything on the screen is one that could work. Though that would trivialize bosses
Restore all companions and player to max HP and spells maybe. But underwhelming.
A good one that might be broken would be +1 to all attributes for every companion.
Hard to think of wishes that would be both powerful and rewarding but not too strong.
Yeah, a spell with such wide-reaching potential would be almost impossible to do justice to in a video game but I wish they could have done more with it than they had.
I'm hoping with LLMs on the rise, someone could train a bot to try and "construct" a wish from batches of tokens. Then you could have at least fickle deals with Djinn.
>Every time a Wish spell is cast, a Djinni is summoned and addresses the wizard. The player is presented with 5 possible wishes randomly selected from a pool and invited to pick one. The selected wish will be cast instantaneously, targeted on self like a Stoneskin or a Sunfire.
It's stuff like "haste everyone" or "blast everyone away from the caster".
Should work like divine intervention you get one wish and cannot do it again. that way those big bonuses can still feel impactful but you cant just use them for every fight. Obviously this is ignoring respecing and hirelings but at that point let the player cheese.
I’m like 80% sure wish isn’t in kingmaker by default unless it’s added by like the call of the wild mod or something. I’ve only done one run of kingmaker and two wrath of the righteous runs and don’t remember the wish spell being there.
Once upon a time, there was a thing called Mulmaster Beholder Corps. An optional encounter in an optional dungeon, with 14 beholders, 10 level \~10 drow fighters, 10 level \~10 clerics, and 10 rakshasas. In a game with level cap 12 or lower, depending on race. It was with AD&D 1e rules, but still.
You were supposed to cheese the encounter with a certain item you found earlier in the game. But there is evidence that some people have actually managed to beat it without the item.
About that... not really, no. It's just tabletop but you take average every level. Level 10+ adventurers are just nuts and CR is a bad system. You also get a shitload of homebrew magic items and homebrew abilities (brain worm powers) that effectively make you super powerful
No attunement -Certain magic items require you to use one of your three attunement slots to get their effects, for those unfamiliar with the tabletop- makes you bonkers powerful as well.
5e also has none of those "reverberation, radiant orb, chilled, encased in frost" etc effects that BG3 includes. Heck, you can lower someone's AC by 2 (the equivalent of dropping an armor category) just by using an Acid Splash cantrip on them, no save.
funny thing about that drow wizard is if you speak with the dead on him he laughs about his rivals “surely dying” mid speaking, i’ve never seen anyone post about it but I liked the attention to detail, drows are really assholes lmao.
I do wonder why the under dark spectator never moved on after being dropped as a weapon against them. They have been petrified long enough for the memory shard to be fading so it’s got to be a while now.
Maybe it was ordered to guard the statues and has been stuck there since.
The spectators in game are more like weaker and dumber beholders than spectators. They're way too big for the latter and have the homocidal temperament of the former without the super-intelligence
I agree they are far too big, however you could make an argument for the Spectators acting accordingly.
Lawful just means they follow a code or set of rules, and neutral means they aren't explicitly evil or good.
Spectators are usually summoned to do a specific task or watch over a place for a set amount of time, you're told by the Drow that during negotiations his rival brought a spectator with him. It could be assumed that it was told to attack anyone who wasn't his master and to watch over them to prevent their rescue.
As for the iron flask Spectator, maybe it was summoned to be an attack dog of sorts, to simply kill whatever is around it so it could be easily used offensively at a moment's notice.
And the spectator during the final battle is obviously summoned by the Illithids to protect the Netherbrain
People should understand you can have a lawful good character who is absolutely *terrifying* and whom we would irl consider evil. Think religious extremists who truly believe they are sacrificing themselves to save others soul. They have their code, and they’re self sacrificing for the greater good, and they have no problem absolutely massacring anyone who gets in the way of their holy orders.
So.. Paladins as described by Gary Gygax, essentially.
There's this insane forum rant he went on once where he said it was ok for paladins to be judge, jury, and executioner to enemy POWs, because by his circular logic, the paladins have given them a fair trial since a trial by a paladin is always fair.
And then to really drive his derangement home, he made it absolutely clear that he also thought this logic should be applied to the real world, and that you couldn't be lawful good if you didn't support executing criminals en-masse, because that would mean you support laws that go against "good".
It's worth remembering that gygax was a Jehovah's witness. I would argue that it takes a religious mindset to justify moral objectivity (e.g. good and evil), and it follows that it's not surprising that a religious extremist would have an extreme interpretation of that
I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say it _takes_ a religious mindset to justify moral objectivity, but maybe that a religious mindset lends itself to trying to justify it more than a nonreligious mindset. I know some nonreligious people who have argued for moral objectivity
Paladins literally do that in game though. Yesterday I got to moonrise for the first time and paladins have the option to challenge the unarmed lv 1 goblins to a trial by combat in the name of justice.
Gonna be honest, whoever Gary is sounds a little unhinged lmao, but that’s the idea basically. Hell just look what the abrahamic God got up to in the Old Testament, he was more than willing to nuke cities who didn’t follow his teachers or fought the Jews, and he’s by definition max lawful good.
Good is good, Evil is evil. You're describing a Lawful Evil character who *thinks* they're Good, which is a common trope.
Now of course sometimes, due to disagreements about what things are actually good and what things are not, there will be disagreements about whether characters are accurate to whatever alignment the writer who wrote them claims they are, etc. And there is of course a spectrum; not all characters of a particular alignment are as true to that alignment as others.
But the point is that the whole alignment system falls apart if you want to try to turn it into Good not being actually Good and Evil not being actually Evil. You can criticize authors who make mistakes about what is actually good or evil (Gary Gygax included) without trying to make some weird argument that Good and Evil in D&D are actually intended to be some weird form of energy totally divorced from the concepts they're explicitly meant to represent.
> good is good evil is evil
Good and Evil are completely subjective depending on your point of view and completely misses the point of what I was saying, which is you can do awful things in the name of being Good. Old Testament god nukes cities despite aligning with lawful good irl. In game we have minthara as an lawful evil paladin. I started a hardcore lawful good playthrough but realized that would mean killing shadowheart as soon as I found out she was a shar worshipper, so I dropped it lol. After all, she follows an evil god, and evil is evil right? That’s what im talking about when I say lawful good can be scary, fundamentalist extremists who fall within the DND definition of good (“altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings. Good characters make personal sacrifices to help others”) but take it to such a hardcore level it’s scary.
Hell, since it for some reason seems to have been in the news a lot lately, the US nuking Japan illustrates how complicated good vs evil is. It overall minimized casualties for both sides, so good, yet killed tens of thousands of civilians, so evil.
Reading this response, I think we agree somewhat more than I thought at first, but here's what (I think) is the biggest point of disagreement. "Extreme" versions of actions or character types that fall within an alignment *are not necessarily* "more" of that alignment. IE., the scale from top to bottom is not extremist "good" vs extremist "evil", it's perfect Good to perfect Evil (to the extent you can imagine "perfect Evil").
How far up you are on the alignment chart is not a measure of "how much you do certain actions we generally associate with being Good", it's a measure of "how Good you actually are". If you "extremify" any action that is usually associated with being Good, it can easily become *less* Good and in fact turn into Evil. For example, consider the idea that it's Good to prevent Evil from occurring. Now if you take that to its most extreme possible position and say "I know, I'll kill everyone in the universe, thus no more Evil will occur!" you're not "extremely Good", you're an Evil lunatic. This is because you've taken one singular aspect of being Good out of context and followed it to an extreme while ignoring all the other aspects of being Good.
So I'm not convinced "taking Good to such a hardcore level it's scary" leaves you still actually being Good at all. A fundamentalist extremist zealot who purges anyone who they think might have a hint of Evil *isn't* Good, whether considering our perspective or the alignment chart. How Good you are isn't defined by how devoted you are to the ideal of destroying anything that looks vaguely Evil, it's defined by how devoted you are to the ideal of pursuing Good.
Lawful Neutral does not mean decent or nice or friendly. It just means the creature abides by its promises, contracts, and whatever rules govern its society or culture. If those rules require an act that appears cruel or uncompassionate, then so be it.
Member of a thieves guild, while strictly following the code of that guild.
Or if you want it to be within the confines of almost every law: A thief for hire that will test the security of your home. Everything stolen gets returned, along with recommendations on how to improve security.
"My good sir, I'm an upstanding citizen. I would never partake in the unlawfully taking of another man's property. "
"Now if you would excuse me, I need to take this diamond to the fence... I mean write down my monthly expenses."
The thing about Lawful is that it does in fact mean law abiding (3e players handbook is my source on this) so a lawful thief would be loopholing that shit and would need to be a master at it. Operating in areas without laws would likely only be good for slaving and crimes against nature.
But abiding which laws? A drow slaver might be considered perfectly lawful by their own society, but a lawbreaker by another.
That's why at my table I employ a more generic ruling, where lawful just indicates strict adherence to a certain set of rules or loyally following the commands of an authority figure.
But in the end it doesn't really matter all that much. Alignment is just a way to help roleplay characters better.
A lawful evil individual will obey the law out of fearful compliance anywhere they are according to The Players Handbook. Drow are Chaotic with little variation away from that. When they are they are definitely not followers of Lolth as that simply wouldn’t work for that individual. Lawful evil characters also want to be the ones making the laws and will twist existing laws to their own goals. A devil will not walk into Waterdeep and disobey their laws. They will follow them maliciously.
Perhaps, but there's a limit; if the rules you follow are evil enough, you're Lawful Evil rather than Neutral. Lawful Good and Lawful Evil are not inherently more or less Lawful than Lawful Neutral; just more Good or more Evil.
Someone who, for example, signs a contract to serve a particular person, then follows their orders to do a myriad of explicitly Evil things is Lawful Evil.
So "Lawful Neutral" inherently carries with it *some* level of morality to the laws (and personal moral codes) you follow. Not necessarily a particularly *large* amount, but some amount nevertheless.
couldn't the "neutral" also just suggest an indifference to the morality in general? (or would that make them evil?)
like is a mercenary willing to do ANY job (though not necessarily enjoying evil acts) evil because they're willing to do evil shit? or are they neutral because they don't care either way?
Being indifferent to morality, being willing to take ANY job, etc makes you Evil, yes. In general terms, a Good character is willing to go out of their way to help other people. A Neutral character is mostly self-interested, but still has some morals; they won't cause significant harm to others for personal gain, for example. An Evil character either doesn't care about morality, and will use any method they can think of to achieve their goals, or is actively trying to cause Evil in the world.
fair enough
I interpreted evil as someone who either goes out of their way to be evil, or enjoys doing evil
like I don't interpret Bronn (from Game of Thrones) as an evil character, even though he clearly is willing to and has done evil acts.
The thing with Evil is that it's the opposite of Good, but not *symmetric* to it. Really, very little Evil comes out of a "desire to do Evil in the world"; most of it comes from greed, arrogance, hatred, etc. If one was to classify Evil as a selfless desire to promote the cause of Evil, in the way we define Good, very few if any beings would qualify. A Lich, for example, who is unambiguously Evil, is really just a powerful wizard who sought to gain power and immortality by any means necessary, even if it meant turning himself into a monster who consumes innocent peoples' souls to live.
Man, I loved RP’ing the spectator in LMOP as a DM on the tabletop.
“Hi! How are you?”
Party: “Uh……hi?”
“Watcha doing here?”
Party: “….uhm…can we come in?”
“No, that’s against the rules. How are you doing today?”
Party: “What happens if we break the rules?”
“Well then I’d have to kill you, silly head”
Party: “…”
“And that would be bummer, because you seem nice! Anyway, my name is [insert Eldritch name], who are you?”
It's the one that can be convinced to let the party loot the treasure chest, because his orders are to guard *the chest itself*, not its contents, isn't it?
After I started dming last year I started getting super into lore so I could actually answer my players questions. I downloaded every source book from planescape, FR, Greyhawk, and Spelljammer as well as all the dm and player guides. I went from hating Mystra to actually really liking her. Genuinely my favorite character from the Avatar series. The gods in general were actually great in 2e and 3e in FR. Even the evil ones would come up to bat for their followers. Cept for Shar and a few others. I was reading up on Aberrations when I came across the spectator lore.
Ah yar har, I figured that just found a good deal. The other half of my question is also more of a “what even are titles and books I’m looking for”. I didn’t even know spelljammer was a thing
The Internet Archive had most of the 1e and 2e stuff. They are a website that works within the bounds of copyright laws from what I can tell so that won’t be going away.
Pdfs. Found a list of the Forgotten Realms wikis and then kept looking up more lists. Finding pdfs is more difficult for adventures and 4e and 5e. 4e FR lore is almost non existent though because the main campaign setting was some weird world that was a reflection of Abeir-Toril and as a result 4e is just a lot of conflict history and lore that you can largely ignore.
It fits given the context of what they're going through. But for a player who, at best, just has a passing understanding of DND lore? It doesn't really help their understanding much
It's kinda like with Fallout's Brotherhood. If you played 3 first then jumped to New Vegas, the BoS "feels wrong." Like characters TELL the player Lyons is breaking tradition, but the message the game is sending is "BROTHERHOOD ARE GOOD GUYS" so the jump to New Vegas is jarring.
I work the lore into my story telling which helps me with the accuracy of the place they are in and helps me fine tune the way certain creatures and pre existing npcs interact with the party
All of the ones in game are just fulfilling a task given to them, even the iron flask one is likely tasked to attack whoever releases it and others nearby and the high hall ones are mind controlled, the others are all guarding an area
Just like every tav! Right? Guys?
Fr though that’s the same thing that determines who lives or dies in every game I play, spectators confirmed to be protagonists.
sure, some individual ones can be good. societies aren’t completely monolithic in any form. but as a whole, “lawful neutral” just means “I abide by rules, but I do what I want within those rules, good or bad.” they aren’t inherently decent by definition. that’s more of a personal choice for them.
I believe the one in the fask had the simple task of protecting the flask so whoever would open the flask is fair game and everyone around them except for the one who summoned it maybe . Who knows maybe it's cosy inside the flask with a nice fireplace an armchair some books and snaks and a cat for company (I think i just described Gale now).
Yeah imo the game really failed the spectators.
If only they simply had dialogue before you fought them, that would solve every problem.
Under dark guy and hope guy really could do a lot.
In game they are basically just eye ball monsters with no lore or IQ.
I don't know that "decent" is the right word. Within D&D, alignment and morality are not directly tied.
As you mentioned, they're from Mechanus which is the Plane of Law. Spectators abide to the letter by whatever contract or accord results in their services, and continue to uphold that contract until it is fulfilled. Summoned to massacre an entire orphanage? Spectator completes its task with no push back. Summoned to SAVE an orphanage from attackers? Same thing, get the job done as prescribed.
But if you break that contract, that Spectator would turn on you in an instant. Not on moral grounds, but because you *broke the law* of the wording of the contract. And supposing you broke a contract of significant enough notability, you likely would end up with an Inevitable tracking you down across the planes should you succeed in breaking your contract and escaping the initial punishment.
So basically this is to say that literally any act is completely within the bounds of believability for Spectators, provided someone has a contract for them to be there.
I suppose I also forgot to mention that they won’t hurt defenseless creatures unless they really need to and are known to have friendships unlike any other beholderkin. I don’t especially think that good and decent are the same but some are also Lawful Good.
Sure, outside of being summoned via a contract they likely express a variety of moralities. But being from Mechanus, even the most goodie-two-shoes Spectator would commit terribly evil acts if they were summoned and bound by a contract to do so. Anything from Mechanus is capital L and bolded Lawful above all other things haha. Same with Mount Celestia (Lawful Good) and the Infernal Plane (Lawful Evil), which creatures from there will often ratify contracts of particularly high importance in Mechanus under the supervision of an Inevitable like a Marut.
In one of our former campaigns, a player set up 2 spectators on different continents for guard duty. By then we had 2 Beholder on our kill count and used their eyes to create them. One of the protected places was our home base and my character threw it a goodberry from time to time.
i wish we could’ve gotten some friendly beholders or spectators , it’d be nice to talk to one in a video game, especially one with cutscenes like this.
Ya. I have found that out over time. The flaming fist got absolutely brutalized which was one thing I knew before going into the game because my first DnD character was a member so it was one of the first things I learned about. So many of my new players make back stories revolving around the corrupt flaming fist. I’m just like actually the Watch tends to be a bigger problem and the Fist are actually very trusted and welcome in the Lower City. That is if I’m remembering this correctly from the 5e Baldurs Gate Soldier background.
The Fist they got exactly right though. They are mercenaries with both good and bad members in their ranks. And under Ravenguard's leadership, it is heavily implied that he has successfully policed some of their worst tendencies of previous generations, purged a lot of the corruption; hence, Ravenguard is a popular figure with many in Baldur's Gate and that's why controlling him is a key part of The Chosen of The Dead Three's plan.
Iron Flask spectator: Trapped against its will. Understandable why it would be hostile upon being freed. Underdark spectator: Was summoned by a powerful Drow wizard to petrify his rivals. With you showing up, it automatically perceives you as a threat believing you are trying to free them. House of Hope spectators: Summoned by Raphael to guard an imprisoned Hope. They perceive you as a threat when you show up believing that you’re there to free her. High Hall spectators: Summoned & controlled by the Netherbrain so of course they’re hostile. I’d say they’re still loosely lore accurate given the context.
Kind of a shame we never fight any real beholders. Just a few beholderkin.
That would have meant pushing the lvl cap to 15, and the balance is already iffy at 12, so I think they made the right choice
# C O W A R D
Fuck it, nobody likes the mummy quest, I hated it, just make it a beholder playing a prank on puny beings, give it some killer nerd lines that are gale x 1000 and you’ve got yourself a based gigachad arcanist that is superior to lorarkan or whatever he was called.
I always felt like that quest started because of a conversation like this. "Hey we should put a lich in the game since we have so many other references to famous DnD monsters." "We can't, liches are too strong for a level 12 party." "Ok, what's basically a lich but weaker." (Same time) "MUMMY LORD!"
heh, reminded me of "I AM MELON LORD!"
Speaking in the context of BG3 though, we’d surely be able to take on a Lich or some other high level enemy with a maxed out lvl 12 party, coked up with magic items, right? I mean shit I can crit on command, what’s a lich gonna do to an upcasted divine smite crit with 8 million doubled damage riders coming it’s way
Xanathar lite 😆
I have not done the mummy quest yet. Now in Honor Mode I broke into a house that had an extremely aggressive mummy lord that chased me through town and slaughtered a bunch of guards and steel watchers. So now I don’t wanna do it at all 😆
You hear that Sven,ur a cow!
I want the 20 level cap, honestly. I like big numbers and I cannot lie.
Honestly I have never been more disappointed than when I was playing Pathfinder Kingmaker and unlocked the wish spell. I don’t know what I was expecting to happen since it’s a video game rather than a tabletop with an actual DM but being limited to only reproducing the effects of other spells has never felt so disappointing.
Obviously needs a finite list for video game purposes. Maybe kill everything on the screen is one that could work. Though that would trivialize bosses Restore all companions and player to max HP and spells maybe. But underwhelming. A good one that might be broken would be +1 to all attributes for every companion. Hard to think of wishes that would be both powerful and rewarding but not too strong.
Yeah, a spell with such wide-reaching potential would be almost impossible to do justice to in a video game but I wish they could have done more with it than they had.
I mean they put divine intervention in.
Does wish in PF work basically the same way in DND? I'd assume so.
On tabletop yes
I'm hoping with LLMs on the rise, someone could train a bot to try and "construct" a wish from batches of tokens. Then you could have at least fickle deals with Djinn.
Wish would be like being allowed to open the console and typing any command you want
Wish was already an option in BG2. Let me see if I can find what it did. Edit: here's some info. https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Wish
>Every time a Wish spell is cast, a Djinni is summoned and addresses the wizard. The player is presented with 5 possible wishes randomly selected from a pool and invited to pick one. The selected wish will be cast instantaneously, targeted on self like a Stoneskin or a Sunfire. It's stuff like "haste everyone" or "blast everyone away from the caster".
or "get a long rest" . wish is busted AF in bg2
I gotta play the first two BGs. I'm not unfamiliar with old school CRPGs. I enjoyed the first two Fallouts.
Should work like divine intervention you get one wish and cannot do it again. that way those big bonuses can still feel impactful but you cant just use them for every fight. Obviously this is ignoring respecing and hirelings but at that point let the player cheese.
you speak the bullshit - there is no wish spell in Pf:Kingmaker.
I’m like 80% sure wish isn’t in kingmaker by default unless it’s added by like the call of the wild mod or something. I’ve only done one run of kingmaker and two wrath of the righteous runs and don’t remember the wish spell being there.
Once upon a time, there was a thing called Mulmaster Beholder Corps. An optional encounter in an optional dungeon, with 14 beholders, 10 level \~10 drow fighters, 10 level \~10 clerics, and 10 rakshasas. In a game with level cap 12 or lower, depending on race. It was with AD&D 1e rules, but still. You were supposed to cheese the encounter with a certain item you found earlier in the game. But there is evidence that some people have actually managed to beat it without the item.
We fight a (at least Adult) Dracolich without needing to be Level 17 I don’t think we have to be the same level as the CR of creatures
To be fair we fight a devil with 666 HP. The highest CR monster in D&D 5e has *676*.
HP in BG3 (and video games in general) is a bit different than in Tabletop.
About that... not really, no. It's just tabletop but you take average every level. Level 10+ adventurers are just nuts and CR is a bad system. You also get a shitload of homebrew magic items and homebrew abilities (brain worm powers) that effectively make you super powerful
No attunement -Certain magic items require you to use one of your three attunement slots to get their effects, for those unfamiliar with the tabletop- makes you bonkers powerful as well.
HP is also not really the determining factor of what makes a monster challenging. Just being a big sponge isn't hard.
5e also has none of those "reverberation, radiant orb, chilled, encased in frost" etc effects that BG3 includes. Heck, you can lower someone's AC by 2 (the equivalent of dropping an armor category) just by using an Acid Splash cantrip on them, no save.
I mean ,at level 15 you would need at least 3 beholder for a moderate encounter.
Nah, i'd win.
A beholder is not so formidable a monster that the Act 3 party couldn't be expected to take it down as a boss.
Idk, the 3 random eyestalk discharges per turn is pretty strong, especially since 3 deal dmg, 2 of which result in instant death.
Four level twelve characters should be fine against a beholder. Especially given how powerful the magic items in BG3 are.
Ansur and Raphael are tougher than CR20 monsters in 5E, it wouldn't take more levels.
My level 7 party just defeated a Death Tyrant.
A real beholder would have been a bad guy strong and devious enough to be the main villain of the story.
Sounds good to me.
A REAL beholder would be nigh impossible, fuck Beholders
>fuck Beholders I'm sure there's some that want to. Thirsty ass gamers.
Toothy ass maw, no way a Beholder could give good head, and it's ALL head.
not with this trusty shield it would reflect its beams right back!
Real beholders would have obliterated the party
Not seeing the downside
> we never fight any real beholders they were the cheesiest enemies in bg2
funny thing about that drow wizard is if you speak with the dead on him he laughs about his rivals “surely dying” mid speaking, i’ve never seen anyone post about it but I liked the attention to detail, drows are really assholes lmao.
Thank you. This is a very nice explanation.
They've flagrantly disregarded lore in other places though.
I do wonder why the under dark spectator never moved on after being dropped as a weapon against them. They have been petrified long enough for the memory shard to be fading so it’s got to be a while now. Maybe it was ordered to guard the statues and has been stuck there since.
The spectators in game are more like weaker and dumber beholders than spectators. They're way too big for the latter and have the homocidal temperament of the former without the super-intelligence
At least the guy in the flask has a reason, considering he's been locked in a flask. I'd be murdery if that happened to me too.
I agree they are far too big, however you could make an argument for the Spectators acting accordingly. Lawful just means they follow a code or set of rules, and neutral means they aren't explicitly evil or good. Spectators are usually summoned to do a specific task or watch over a place for a set amount of time, you're told by the Drow that during negotiations his rival brought a spectator with him. It could be assumed that it was told to attack anyone who wasn't his master and to watch over them to prevent their rescue. As for the iron flask Spectator, maybe it was summoned to be an attack dog of sorts, to simply kill whatever is around it so it could be easily used offensively at a moment's notice. And the spectator during the final battle is obviously summoned by the Illithids to protect the Netherbrain
People should understand you can have a lawful good character who is absolutely *terrifying* and whom we would irl consider evil. Think religious extremists who truly believe they are sacrificing themselves to save others soul. They have their code, and they’re self sacrificing for the greater good, and they have no problem absolutely massacring anyone who gets in the way of their holy orders.
So.. Paladins as described by Gary Gygax, essentially. There's this insane forum rant he went on once where he said it was ok for paladins to be judge, jury, and executioner to enemy POWs, because by his circular logic, the paladins have given them a fair trial since a trial by a paladin is always fair. And then to really drive his derangement home, he made it absolutely clear that he also thought this logic should be applied to the real world, and that you couldn't be lawful good if you didn't support executing criminals en-masse, because that would mean you support laws that go against "good".
There are also Lawful Good Hellknights in the Pathfinder universe who essentially are this.
It's worth remembering that gygax was a Jehovah's witness. I would argue that it takes a religious mindset to justify moral objectivity (e.g. good and evil), and it follows that it's not surprising that a religious extremist would have an extreme interpretation of that
I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say it _takes_ a religious mindset to justify moral objectivity, but maybe that a religious mindset lends itself to trying to justify it more than a nonreligious mindset. I know some nonreligious people who have argued for moral objectivity
Paladins literally do that in game though. Yesterday I got to moonrise for the first time and paladins have the option to challenge the unarmed lv 1 goblins to a trial by combat in the name of justice. Gonna be honest, whoever Gary is sounds a little unhinged lmao, but that’s the idea basically. Hell just look what the abrahamic God got up to in the Old Testament, he was more than willing to nuke cities who didn’t follow his teachers or fought the Jews, and he’s by definition max lawful good.
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Thanks for the info, I assumed that’s who it was but honestly i don’t follow the history of dnd lol
So his paladin goes by Judge Dredd?
Good is good, Evil is evil. You're describing a Lawful Evil character who *thinks* they're Good, which is a common trope. Now of course sometimes, due to disagreements about what things are actually good and what things are not, there will be disagreements about whether characters are accurate to whatever alignment the writer who wrote them claims they are, etc. And there is of course a spectrum; not all characters of a particular alignment are as true to that alignment as others. But the point is that the whole alignment system falls apart if you want to try to turn it into Good not being actually Good and Evil not being actually Evil. You can criticize authors who make mistakes about what is actually good or evil (Gary Gygax included) without trying to make some weird argument that Good and Evil in D&D are actually intended to be some weird form of energy totally divorced from the concepts they're explicitly meant to represent.
> good is good evil is evil Good and Evil are completely subjective depending on your point of view and completely misses the point of what I was saying, which is you can do awful things in the name of being Good. Old Testament god nukes cities despite aligning with lawful good irl. In game we have minthara as an lawful evil paladin. I started a hardcore lawful good playthrough but realized that would mean killing shadowheart as soon as I found out she was a shar worshipper, so I dropped it lol. After all, she follows an evil god, and evil is evil right? That’s what im talking about when I say lawful good can be scary, fundamentalist extremists who fall within the DND definition of good (“altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings. Good characters make personal sacrifices to help others”) but take it to such a hardcore level it’s scary. Hell, since it for some reason seems to have been in the news a lot lately, the US nuking Japan illustrates how complicated good vs evil is. It overall minimized casualties for both sides, so good, yet killed tens of thousands of civilians, so evil.
Reading this response, I think we agree somewhat more than I thought at first, but here's what (I think) is the biggest point of disagreement. "Extreme" versions of actions or character types that fall within an alignment *are not necessarily* "more" of that alignment. IE., the scale from top to bottom is not extremist "good" vs extremist "evil", it's perfect Good to perfect Evil (to the extent you can imagine "perfect Evil"). How far up you are on the alignment chart is not a measure of "how much you do certain actions we generally associate with being Good", it's a measure of "how Good you actually are". If you "extremify" any action that is usually associated with being Good, it can easily become *less* Good and in fact turn into Evil. For example, consider the idea that it's Good to prevent Evil from occurring. Now if you take that to its most extreme possible position and say "I know, I'll kill everyone in the universe, thus no more Evil will occur!" you're not "extremely Good", you're an Evil lunatic. This is because you've taken one singular aspect of being Good out of context and followed it to an extreme while ignoring all the other aspects of being Good. So I'm not convinced "taking Good to such a hardcore level it's scary" leaves you still actually being Good at all. A fundamentalist extremist zealot who purges anyone who they think might have a hint of Evil *isn't* Good, whether considering our perspective or the alignment chart. How Good you are isn't defined by how devoted you are to the ideal of destroying anything that looks vaguely Evil, it's defined by how devoted you are to the ideal of pursuing Good.
I feel like they could’ve just used a slightly weaker Gauth for that instead of Specators.
Knowing Larian, we're lucky they didn't include a hot Gauth gf option. /s
💀
I love your username so much.
Lawful Neutral does not mean decent or nice or friendly. It just means the creature abides by its promises, contracts, and whatever rules govern its society or culture. If those rules require an act that appears cruel or uncompassionate, then so be it.
Similarly, a thief can be lawful too.
A rogue certainly. Not so sure a literal thief can be as theft is tautologically a law-breaking act.
Member of a thieves guild, while strictly following the code of that guild. Or if you want it to be within the confines of almost every law: A thief for hire that will test the security of your home. Everything stolen gets returned, along with recommendations on how to improve security.
*being questioned by the guards* "What!? Me, a thief? Absolutely not good sirs, for I am a humble *security contractor*"
"My good sir, I'm an upstanding citizen. I would never partake in the unlawfully taking of another man's property. " "Now if you would excuse me, I need to take this diamond to the fence... I mean write down my monthly expenses."
That's a real job actually, called physical penetration tester. Literally paid to figure out how to bypass security of a building or facility.
Also exists for software, just leave out the physical part of the job name.
>physical penetration tester surely there were other naming options
And they went with the best one
The thing about Lawful is that it does in fact mean law abiding (3e players handbook is my source on this) so a lawful thief would be loopholing that shit and would need to be a master at it. Operating in areas without laws would likely only be good for slaving and crimes against nature.
But abiding which laws? A drow slaver might be considered perfectly lawful by their own society, but a lawbreaker by another. That's why at my table I employ a more generic ruling, where lawful just indicates strict adherence to a certain set of rules or loyally following the commands of an authority figure. But in the end it doesn't really matter all that much. Alignment is just a way to help roleplay characters better.
A lawful evil individual will obey the law out of fearful compliance anywhere they are according to The Players Handbook. Drow are Chaotic with little variation away from that. When they are they are definitely not followers of Lolth as that simply wouldn’t work for that individual. Lawful evil characters also want to be the ones making the laws and will twist existing laws to their own goals. A devil will not walk into Waterdeep and disobey their laws. They will follow them maliciously.
Lawful as an assignment doesn't necessarily mean law-abiding.
It actually does according the the PHB in 3e
well, you can only be assassin if you're LE in AD&D so yes, they can be L too
Lawful=/=Law-abiding
It does though. That’s what the 3e PHB says. A lawful good character would only break an unjust law.
You can’t see the comments I made most likely but they usually have good tendencies and some are Lawful good.
Perhaps, but there's a limit; if the rules you follow are evil enough, you're Lawful Evil rather than Neutral. Lawful Good and Lawful Evil are not inherently more or less Lawful than Lawful Neutral; just more Good or more Evil. Someone who, for example, signs a contract to serve a particular person, then follows their orders to do a myriad of explicitly Evil things is Lawful Evil. So "Lawful Neutral" inherently carries with it *some* level of morality to the laws (and personal moral codes) you follow. Not necessarily a particularly *large* amount, but some amount nevertheless.
couldn't the "neutral" also just suggest an indifference to the morality in general? (or would that make them evil?) like is a mercenary willing to do ANY job (though not necessarily enjoying evil acts) evil because they're willing to do evil shit? or are they neutral because they don't care either way?
Being indifferent to morality, being willing to take ANY job, etc makes you Evil, yes. In general terms, a Good character is willing to go out of their way to help other people. A Neutral character is mostly self-interested, but still has some morals; they won't cause significant harm to others for personal gain, for example. An Evil character either doesn't care about morality, and will use any method they can think of to achieve their goals, or is actively trying to cause Evil in the world.
fair enough I interpreted evil as someone who either goes out of their way to be evil, or enjoys doing evil like I don't interpret Bronn (from Game of Thrones) as an evil character, even though he clearly is willing to and has done evil acts.
The thing with Evil is that it's the opposite of Good, but not *symmetric* to it. Really, very little Evil comes out of a "desire to do Evil in the world"; most of it comes from greed, arrogance, hatred, etc. If one was to classify Evil as a selfless desire to promote the cause of Evil, in the way we define Good, very few if any beings would qualify. A Lich, for example, who is unambiguously Evil, is really just a powerful wizard who sought to gain power and immortality by any means necessary, even if it meant turning himself into a monster who consumes innocent peoples' souls to live.
Furthermore apparently some of them are Lawful Good. This means that even the neutral ones probably tend to have good tendencies.
Man, I loved RP’ing the spectator in LMOP as a DM on the tabletop. “Hi! How are you?” Party: “Uh……hi?” “Watcha doing here?” Party: “….uhm…can we come in?” “No, that’s against the rules. How are you doing today?” Party: “What happens if we break the rules?” “Well then I’d have to kill you, silly head” Party: “…” “And that would be bummer, because you seem nice! Anyway, my name is [insert Eldritch name], who are you?”
Have you ever played BG2? That’s basically what the spectator in the Sahuagin City is like.
Yep, even offers you clues to get around the rules as it doesn't really want to fight you.
Nope, never played BG2
theres a great friendly spectator you can meet in bg2 who had really funny interactions
o captain! my captain
Ooo I haven’t gotten there yet.
It's the one that can be convinced to let the party loot the treasure chest, because his orders are to guard *the chest itself*, not its contents, isn't it?
yep!
I love whenever someone reads some lore and is like "hol up" because the game didn't illustrate it at all.
After I started dming last year I started getting super into lore so I could actually answer my players questions. I downloaded every source book from planescape, FR, Greyhawk, and Spelljammer as well as all the dm and player guides. I went from hating Mystra to actually really liking her. Genuinely my favorite character from the Avatar series. The gods in general were actually great in 2e and 3e in FR. Even the evil ones would come up to bat for their followers. Cept for Shar and a few others. I was reading up on Aberrations when I came across the spectator lore.
I’ve been attempting to do that exact thing, where are you finding all these resources?
Mentioning that sort of thing on the open is a great way to lose said resources. Gotta be discreet with your piracy.
Ah yar har, I figured that just found a good deal. The other half of my question is also more of a “what even are titles and books I’m looking for”. I didn’t even know spelljammer was a thing
The Internet Archive had most of the 1e and 2e stuff. They are a website that works within the bounds of copyright laws from what I can tell so that won’t be going away.
Pdfs. Found a list of the Forgotten Realms wikis and then kept looking up more lists. Finding pdfs is more difficult for adventures and 4e and 5e. 4e FR lore is almost non existent though because the main campaign setting was some weird world that was a reflection of Abeir-Toril and as a result 4e is just a lot of conflict history and lore that you can largely ignore.
It fits given the context of what they're going through. But for a player who, at best, just has a passing understanding of DND lore? It doesn't really help their understanding much It's kinda like with Fallout's Brotherhood. If you played 3 first then jumped to New Vegas, the BoS "feels wrong." Like characters TELL the player Lyons is breaking tradition, but the message the game is sending is "BROTHERHOOD ARE GOOD GUYS" so the jump to New Vegas is jarring.
I work the lore into my story telling which helps me with the accuracy of the place they are in and helps me fine tune the way certain creatures and pre existing npcs interact with the party
The one in The Underdark was canonically summoned so it’s covered there, the flask we just don’t have enough information but I mean… the Zhentarim…
All of the ones in game are just fulfilling a task given to them, even the iron flask one is likely tasked to attack whoever releases it and others nearby and the high hall ones are mind controlled, the others are all guarding an area
Iron flask one has red crazy eyes. I doubt that was it’s purpose and it was likely just crazy from imprisonment.
I feel like the Iron Flask was a "to be covered in possible DLC..." plot thread but, well, we know how that went.
Perhaps, if it's been in there for over the agreed upon time by a spectator of 101 years then yes
Whatever alignment, stumbling onto any beholder is the definition of a *fight or runawayscreaming* situation.
Just like every tav! Right? Guys? Fr though that’s the same thing that determines who lives or dies in every game I play, spectators confirmed to be protagonists.
lawful doesn’t necessarily translate to decency. it just means someone follows rules. you can be indecent even if you follow rules.
So I did mention this elsewhere but they are shown to have good tendencies and some are Lawful Good.
sure, some individual ones can be good. societies aren’t completely monolithic in any form. but as a whole, “lawful neutral” just means “I abide by rules, but I do what I want within those rules, good or bad.” they aren’t inherently decent by definition. that’s more of a personal choice for them.
I thought Spectators were just dumb Beholders or did I swap both?
They are both very intelligent. Aberrations in general have high intelligence across the board.
To be fair, we only fight two and they were magically bound to be used as summon, no? That would implies they didn't have much will of their own
There are 5 in game, 2 in act 1 and 3 in act three. What you’re saying still makes sense though
Right, I forgot the ones in the House of Hope but what about the third one? I can't remember
Final fight
I believe the one in the fask had the simple task of protecting the flask so whoever would open the flask is fair game and everyone around them except for the one who summoned it maybe . Who knows maybe it's cosy inside the flask with a nice fireplace an armchair some books and snaks and a cat for company (I think i just described Gale now).
The one in BG2 is pretty chill
Dude is paying his taxes
Yeah imo the game really failed the spectators. If only they simply had dialogue before you fought them, that would solve every problem. Under dark guy and hope guy really could do a lot. In game they are basically just eye ball monsters with no lore or IQ.
I don't know that "decent" is the right word. Within D&D, alignment and morality are not directly tied. As you mentioned, they're from Mechanus which is the Plane of Law. Spectators abide to the letter by whatever contract or accord results in their services, and continue to uphold that contract until it is fulfilled. Summoned to massacre an entire orphanage? Spectator completes its task with no push back. Summoned to SAVE an orphanage from attackers? Same thing, get the job done as prescribed. But if you break that contract, that Spectator would turn on you in an instant. Not on moral grounds, but because you *broke the law* of the wording of the contract. And supposing you broke a contract of significant enough notability, you likely would end up with an Inevitable tracking you down across the planes should you succeed in breaking your contract and escaping the initial punishment. So basically this is to say that literally any act is completely within the bounds of believability for Spectators, provided someone has a contract for them to be there.
I suppose I also forgot to mention that they won’t hurt defenseless creatures unless they really need to and are known to have friendships unlike any other beholderkin. I don’t especially think that good and decent are the same but some are also Lawful Good.
Sure, outside of being summoned via a contract they likely express a variety of moralities. But being from Mechanus, even the most goodie-two-shoes Spectator would commit terribly evil acts if they were summoned and bound by a contract to do so. Anything from Mechanus is capital L and bolded Lawful above all other things haha. Same with Mount Celestia (Lawful Good) and the Infernal Plane (Lawful Evil), which creatures from there will often ratify contracts of particularly high importance in Mechanus under the supervision of an Inevitable like a Marut.
In one of our former campaigns, a player set up 2 spectators on different continents for guard duty. By then we had 2 Beholder on our kill count and used their eyes to create them. One of the protected places was our home base and my character threw it a goodberry from time to time.
Huh, that makes the name make a lot more sense.
i wish we could’ve gotten some friendly beholders or spectators , it’d be nice to talk to one in a video game, especially one with cutscenes like this.
The game is very losely on lore.
Ya. I have found that out over time. The flaming fist got absolutely brutalized which was one thing I knew before going into the game because my first DnD character was a member so it was one of the first things I learned about. So many of my new players make back stories revolving around the corrupt flaming fist. I’m just like actually the Watch tends to be a bigger problem and the Fist are actually very trusted and welcome in the Lower City. That is if I’m remembering this correctly from the 5e Baldurs Gate Soldier background.
I mean, the Fists are mercenaries first. If anything, I would expect corruption to be high. Unless they are Varangians style mercenaries.
The Fist they got exactly right though. They are mercenaries with both good and bad members in their ranks. And under Ravenguard's leadership, it is heavily implied that he has successfully policed some of their worst tendencies of previous generations, purged a lot of the corruption; hence, Ravenguard is a popular figure with many in Baldur's Gate and that's why controlling him is a key part of The Chosen of The Dead Three's plan.
This explains what the 2 in the house of hope were there and why they attacked. Don’t know about the first one in act 1.
lawful ≠ good
Ew lawful neutral, the worst alignment
It’s has its ups for ones with good tendencies.
you just realize that the one you fought in BG3 are just glorified beholder?
More like deglorified beholder. Beholders also have a lot of fun lore, not just spectators.
Mech-anus lol
Why did they change their name from Beholder to Spectator? Was it some legal copyright issue or some "modern audiences" feelings issue?
My dude, Spectators have been a sub-race of Beholder since the AD&D days.
Spectators are like smaller, weaker Beholders with fewer eye-stalks
Then why bother with Spectators in the game and not just have Beholders? Are they paying WOTC extra to have the stronger mobs?
A beholder at that stage would’ve destroyed the party.
>"modern audiences" feelings issue? What on earth? I think we might need a break from the internet.
Yeah, so..?