What happens if I ditch alignment?

[Brauron]

I'm building a setting for D&D 3.5/Pathfinder, taking considerable inspiration from Robert E. Howard's Conan stories, Michael Moorcock's Elric stories, and real world Dark Ages history. It's going to be a low-level, low-magic setting, with very few spellcasting clerics (most priests being Experts with ranks in Perform (Sermon) and Knowledge (Religion)) and wizards extremely rare due to religious persecution (the setting takes place a thousand years after the equivalent of the Fall of Rome, which in this case was brought about by the hubris of wizards) and most other spellcasting classes banned. Instead it's going to be Fighter, Rogue, Barbarian, Scout, Swashbuckler, Cleric, Oracle, Witch (refluffed slightly to be this setting's Wizards -- I like the unholy pact aspect of the Witch's spellcasting) Cavalier and Noble (converting from the Star Wars D20 rules).

One thing I'm very seriously thinking about is ditching the standard alignment system. I don't like it to begin with, and my players generally play characters with fairly realistic beliefs and motivations, and they don't really care too much about what two-letter code representing one of nine viewpoints is on their sheet, so I don't bother enforcing it.

Other than doing away with the "Protection from [Alignment]" spells, I don't think that simply eliminating alignment all together will have too much fall-out on the setting I'm building, but maybe I'm missing something that will, when it comes time to play, blow a gaping hole in my game and leave me sitting there in shock with my eyebrows singed off.

What do you think, Playgrounders? Am I overlooking something?

[Lord Raziere]

Nope, your overlooking nothing! Go ahead! Good decision from the looks of it.

[imperialspectre]

Alignment is not a necessary part of the D&D/Pathfinder system, although it's in enough places that you have to devote some thought to modeling things like DR/[alignment]. If your game isn't going to incorporate a lot of outsiders and such, a lot of your work is done already.

We removed alignment entirely when we designed Legend, and nobody's complained so far. It's certainly easier when you're designing a system from the ground up, though.

[some guy]

I've never DM'ed a game with alignment and it's never been a problem.

[GungHo]

I typically use alignment as a guide, and only really apply its extreme forms when representing deities, outsiders, and the undead.

When you drop alignment altogether, you do lose some flavor the VS good/evil weapons and Protection from good/evil, but that's actually easy to bring back in by just relableing it a holy vs unholy power that applies against extremes. You can still have cavaliers/knights that are bound to codes of conduct or priests that espouse certain beliefs without trying to everything in a box.

[Andreaz]

If you ditch alignment, you generally just have to worry about things that were made to work under its purview. Namely smite-likes and incarnum classes. The former is easy to solve: define some kind of opposition as valid targets (smite heathen!). The latter is easier: pick one of the 4 progressions at first level.

[nyarlathotep]

As the last guy said it messes up paladins, certain spells, and incarnum. If you as the DM are willing to alter or just straight up remove those though you should be fine.

That being said with a d20 system, unless you had a lot of spellcasting clerics in the past the is absolutely not realistic way you could have driven arcane casters to the edges of society. If they had any form of organization before the persecution the only thing that could defeat them would be other spellcasters.

[Belril Duskwalk]

That being said with a d20 system, unless you had a lot of spellcasting clerics in the past the is absolutely not realistic way you could have driven arcane casters to the edges of society. If they had any form of organization before the persecution the only thing that could defeat them would be other spellcasters.

The OP did say the wizards caused the fall of an ancient empire through their own hubris. Which isn't impossible. In my experience, there are few people in the world who can't be defeated handily if they allow themselves to become overconfident. A Wizard is nearly untouchable if he is ready for a fight, no doubt. But if that same wizard prepared 90% of his spells to go to a party with other wizards, get drunk and have a grand old time? Better yet, if the attack comes AFTER the wizards are drunk, their spells burned on impressing each other with all the cool things they can do? Might as well be an unarmed peasant for all the good that will do for you against enemy forces.

Alternatively, you go the route of Netheril from the Forgotten Realms setting. The reach of the grand wizards of the empire exceeds their grasp, they fail in some spectacular fashion and only divine intervention spares their empire from complete annihilation. Even still, a huge portion of the empire is lost in their failure. The populace becomes aware of how thoroughly the wizards screwed up and they turn on the wizards.

Either case, maybe the wizards could fix the problem, but if all the people hate them for causing the problem they might not accept their help. People aren't always rational, with just a little hatred in the mix I can easily see the people rejecting the wizards, shunning them, resolving to fix this without including the wizards who broke it. For their part, the wizards might admit they failed and resign themselves to some hermit-like existence away from the rest of the world. Or they might cling to their pride and choose to build their own society apart from the masses. Over the next few decades their little enclave falls apart as the number of children they have capable of full spell-casting fails to meet the number necessary to keep their little sub-society functional, and all the normals certainly aren't sending any of THEIR brightest to live with the hated Arcane casters.

Simply put, you don't need a spell-caster to defeat a spell-caster if the spell-caster defeats himself.

EDIT: Probably should say something about the alignment issue. Sounds like it should work if you're willing to keep an eye on divine casters. Normally the 'alignment within one step of Diety' rule helps keep divine casters true to their god's goals. If you scrub alignment you'll need to watch that divine casters don't deviate too far from what their god wants done. Not hard, just worth remembering.

[Andreaz]

Normally the 'alignment within one step of Diety' rule helps keep divine casters true to their god's goals. If you scrub alignment you'll need to watch that divine casters don't deviate too far from what their god wants done. Not hard, just worth remembering.

I disagree. Faith alone suffices to gain power (clerics don't need a deity to gain spells and domains).

Just let them do whatever they want. They can already do it without the mask of a patron, so letting them do it with patrons enables more interpretative possibilities.

[Brauron]

Belril hit the nail on the head. The collapse of the Empire, in my setting, is something of a cross between the story of the Tower of Babel and sinking of Atlantis. The Wizards of the Empire tried to put themselves on the same level as the gods, and were slapped down HARD. Hard enough that not only the wizards' infrastructure, but that of the Empire itself basically dissolved overnight, with tens of thousands of people, from every walk of life, dead. The church had the infrastructure in place (and was relatively undamaged by what became known as The Cataclysm) to step in and work on the rebuilding process.

In the modern day of the setting (about a thousand years after The Cataclysm), wizards are still exceedingly rare, and only the truly corrupt or power-mad are willing to make the necessary pacts with outside forces to begin the study of arcane magic (remember, I'm ditching the Core Wizard in favor of the APG Witch, slightly refluffed). I'm basically treating wizards as Sith -- twisted, depraved and in the thrall of the entities from which they derive their power.

If a wizard is caught being a wizard, then they are pretty well and truly ganked -- if they aren't mobbed by peasants and stabbed to death with a dozen rusty daggers, they're probably going to be given a show-trial and then be hanged, drawn-and-quartered, burned, the ashes sealed in a lead-lined box blessed by the major priests, and thrown into the deepest depths of the ocean.

People are really not happy about what happened to the Empire, even though in the "modern" era they really only know it through distorted, idealized legends.

Andreaz -- I'm taking that tact as well. In essence, there's three primary faiths jockeying for primacy in this setting: the Dual Church of Jorel and Illvora (basically renamed versions of Zeus and Hathor), which is this setting's equivalent of Roman Catholicism circa 1000 AD; The Churches of Law and Chaos (stolen shamelessly from Michael Moorcock's Elric saga, both of which are essentially morally neutral and who credos, taken to the extremes the churches are working to fulfill, are Bad Things); and the Skeptics, who profess that the gods are an illusion created by the people, and that divine spellcasting is actually a channeling of one's inner force of will.

Additionally, street preachers are fairly common, many of them the sole worshipers of gods they've in essence "dreamed up" -- and no one can really say if these gods exist or not, as some of these street preachers have, in the past, manifested divine spellcasting talent.

[Willfor]

What happens if I ditch alignment?

The entire world falls into the ocean via a series of earthquakes, and lightning bolts. Then the entire ocean falls into the volcanoes as magma pours forth to purge the world. Then the entire volcanoes fall into the gates of the Abyss, and the end of the world draws nigh.

[Brought to you by the Concerned Citizens for Alignment Preservation]


Honestly though, I don't think you're going to run into any problems with the way you're going with it.

[Emmerask]

I disagree. Faith alone suffices to gain power (clerics don't need a deity to gain spells and domains).

Just let them do whatever they want. They can already do it without the mask of a patron, so letting them do it with patrons enables more interpretative possibilities.


How can you disagree with something that is entirely setting and allowed resources (books allowed) dependent ? :smallconfused:

[Skorj]

As the last guy said it messes up paladins, certain spells, and incarnum. If you as the DM are willing to alter or just straight up remove those though you should be fine.


I solved that by adding the concepts of "sacred" and "profane". Anyplace I needed D&D's mechanical concepts of good and evil (and they do seem to be scattered throughout the rules), I substituted sacred/profane for good/evil. The difference being, sacred/profane only applies to specific monsters, not the players or NPCs or the like. That way the flavor of Smite, Prot/Evil, etc stayed (and IMO it's an important part of D&D) without interacting with character alignment.

That seems to work well: everyone gets that undead and demons and the like are profane, and players seem OK with the narrower use of "Protection from Profane" and the like as more undead/extraplanar-specific.

No one seemed to even notice the lack of the few law/chaos spells.

[Drazik]

alignment is more like guidelines than actual rules, anyway.

[MukkTB]

Can get away without alignment. You can get away without telling the PCs their alignment. Can use descriptive terms every time detect alignments spells are cast instead of reducing to the alignment system. Can just dump alignment spells for the most part.

Keep absolute alignments for outsiders. It adds to their flavor.

[prufock]

There are certain magic items you'll have to pass over, and some spells that won't work properly, as others have said. Paladins et al lose Detect Evil and such, but not really a big deal.

I'd still leave DR the same, and have weapons capable of being holy, unholy, chaotic, or axiomatic for purposes of overcoming DR. Just because alignment doesn't apply to characters, doesn't mean it can't be an ability or feature of some things.

Alternatively, change the alignment system to a system of allegiances. You can still have characters, creatures, items, and spells that affect good/evil/law/chaos allegiances, but now your more grayish neutral characters can have allegiances to, say, kingdom, or guild, or preserving the sacred book of Telos, or whatever. These bring in more "realistic beliefs and motivations" as you put it, while still allowing for evil people to read as evil.

Of course, personally, I like alignment as long as your character isn't 2-dimensional because of it.

[nyarlathotep]

Oh just one other thing of note, witches that choose good hexes (slumber, cackle, flight, etc.) are very different in power than ones that take bad hexes (smell children, nails).

[Yora]

Of course, personally, I like alignment as long as your character isn't 2-dimensional because of it.

Alignment can work just well if you create the characters views and behaviors first and assign the fitting alignment lable later.

The big point against alignment is, that it doesn't really add anything to the game. Well, alignment discussions and the need to find magic ways to hide the alignment of evil characters.
But there's no gain. If you want weapons and spells that target demons and devils, make them target creatures with the (evil) subtype instead of evil alignment.

But what does the game gain compared to when you make all humanoids PCs and NPCs have neutral alignment?

[John Campbell]

We ditched alignment for everything except actual cosmic forces - outsiders with alignment subtypes and gods with alignment domains, basically. This affects very little.

Divine casters need to have a deity supplying their power, and they need to adhere to the sort of behaviour their deity expects, or they'll lose their powers. Paladins can follow any deity, not just Lawful Good ones, and smite isn't alignment-dependent; it works on anything, but if you go around smiting stuff your god doesn't want smote, you're gonna lose it.

Spells and other effects that work on alignment we either eliminated entirely, or genericized. It doesn't break anything if you turn the protection from (alignment) and magic circle against (alignment) spells into just protection and magic circle of protection. The effects you really want them for aren't alignment-dependent anyway, and the alignment-dependent effects pretty quickly end up overridden by cloaks of resistance and rings of protection and whatnot. And "no save, just die/suck" spells like holy word and blasphemy are broken and need to go away anyway.

[Arbane]

But what does the game gain compared to when you make all humanoids PCs and NPCs have neutral alignment?

Moral ambiguity? You have to actually decide how to treat people based on their actions and qualities rather than which spells they ping. :smallwink:

[Yora]

No, I meant when you have the opposite and have spells that go ping when someone is a bad person, unless he cast undetectable alignment.

[Lord Raziere]

Moral ambiguity? You have to actually decide how to treat people based on their actions and qualities rather than which spells they ping. :smallwink:

Or invent the spell "Detect Moral Ambiguity"

[Dr.Epic]

Alignment isn't necessary. It add some flavor and mechanics to the game, but I've played enough without it to know is not crucial. Alignment can still exist as a abstract concept and in the opinion of the players, but it just won't effect the builds, combat, and such.

[Morph Bark]

Are you ditching it entirely or switching over to a different kind of system? Gogo, Blue and Orange!

I'd make a new version of Protection against [alignment] and the like though, considering they do have their uses (in binding outsiders for example). And perhaps give classes that have Detect [alignment] as spells or such instead get a kind of Detect Hostile Intent.

[Andreaz]

How can you disagree with something that is entirely setting and allowed resources (books allowed) dependent ? :smallconfused:

Because that's the default. Any setting that says otherwise is deliberately changing rules.

[stainboy]

Alignment is not a necessary part of the D&D/Pathfinder system, although it's in enough places that you have to devote some thought to modeling things like DR/[alignment]. If your game isn't going to incorporate a lot of outsiders and such, a lot of your work is done already.

We removed alignment entirely when we designed Legend, and nobody's complained so far. It's certainly easier when you're designing a system from the ground up, though.

You don't necessarily have to change anything about DR or outsiders. Depending on context, Evil can be either a moral outlook, a weapon property, or a type of outsider. DR/Good for example refers to a weapon property. You don't beat it by being nice to people, you beat it because your sword is powered by angel phlebotinum.

[Lvl45DM!]

Bards Monks and Barbarians will also have to be slightly reflavoured. I'm sure there are more but while the idea of a Lawful Barbarian makes alot of sense Lawful Bards and Chaotic Monks seem a bit screwy to me but its not a big deal. You'll have to make sure you players get it though and punish them if they don't. No killing orcs cos 'orcs are evil'

[hewhosaysfish]

I solved that by adding the concepts of "sacred" and "profane". Anyplace I needed D&D's mechanical concepts of good and evil (and they do seem to be scattered throughout the rules), I substituted sacred/profane for good/evil. The difference being, sacred/profane only applies to specific monsters, not the players or NPCs or the like. That way the flavor of Smite, Prot/Evil, etc stayed (and IMO it's an important part of D&D) without interacting with character alignment.

That seems to work well: everyone gets that undead and demons and the like are profane, and players seem OK with the narrower use of "Protection from Profane" and the like as more undead/extraplanar-specific.

No one seemed to even notice the lack of the few law/chaos spells.

Sorry, I know you meant this seriously but when I think about a "Protection from Profanity" spell, I imagine a wizard casting something which automagically dubs bleeps over what the foul-mouthed party barbarian is saying...

[Leon]

Plenty of other games get along just fine without it so you are not going to lose much aside from less headaches

[Zombimode]

Bards Monks and Barbarians will also have to be slightly reflavoured. I'm sure there are more but while the idea of a Lawful Barbarian makes alot of sense Lawful Bards and Chaotic Monks seem a bit screwy to me but its not a big deal. You'll have to make sure you players get it though and punish them if they don't. No killing orcs cos 'orcs are evil'

Uhm, when you ditch aligments, you no longer have things like "chaotic" monks or "lawful" bards and barbarians. You just have characters.

[The Succubus]

No, we can't do this!

If we ditch alignment, what will people have to argue about in the OoTS section of the forums?! :smalleek:

[Yora]

How Belkar dies, and what the Monster in the Darkness is. These discussion should last until the comic is discontinued. And well beyond.

[Xiander]

How Belkar dies, and what the Monster in the Darkness is. These discussion should last until the comic is discontinued. And well beyond.

Also, v's gender.

[Yora]

Discussing running gags that clearly are meant to have no answer is kind of redundant.

But so are most alignment discussions. :smallbiggrin:

[Xiander]

Discussing running gags that clearly are meant to have no answer is kind of redundant.

But so are most alignment discussions. :smallbiggrin:

Redundancy never stopped theoretical optimisation either, just saying :smalltongue:

That said I have been thinking about writing down my thoughts on alignment... I wonder if anyone would care to read them.

[The Succubus]

Redundancy never stopped theoretical optimisation either, just saying :smalltongue:

That said I have been thinking about writing down my thoughts on alignment... I wonder if anyone would care to read them.

What would happen is people would read the first sentence of it, disagree completely, blow it out of all proportion and context before the thread descends into the kind of anarchy that needs the mod equivalent of a tactical nuclear strike. :smalltongue::smallamused:

[Xiander]

What would happen is people would read the first sentence of it, disagree completely, blow it out of all proportion and context before the thread descends into the kind of anarchy that needs the mod equivalent of a tactical nuclear strike. :smalltongue::smallamused:

I know, and yet i still entertain he idea of trying... Ambition is a wonderful thing.

[Arbane]

One thing if you ditch alignment - most gods probably ought to have some sort of Code of Conduct they want their followers to stick to, even if it's just "Tithe often" and "No eating babies on Fridays."

[eulmanis12]

One thing if you ditch alignment - most gods probably ought to have some sort of Code of Conduct they want their followers to stick to, even if it's just "Tithe often" and "No eating babies on Fridays."

but all the other days are ok right?
Phew.