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Phosphate
2012-04-25, 08:24 AM
While alignment is objective in D&D 'verse, I don't think that's the end of the discussion there. Sure, a character's efforts, motives, ends, worldview and justifications play a role just as important as the actual tangible consequences of his actions (i.e. how Roy is "trying, which is worth something").

But while this is nice fluff, the crunch is that of hard alignments. Which I intend to change with these new character aspects right here:

Self-Justification: If you have a base Int score of 16 or higher, you may take levels in any class ignoring the alignment restrictions.

If you have a base Int score of 20 or higher, you may ignore any code of conduct imposed by any of your classes, and all multiclass restrictions.

Pragmatism: If you have a base Wis score of 18 or higher, you may cast spells with alignment descriptors that are opposed to your alignment.

If you have a base Wis score of 22 or higher, you may remove the alignment descriptors of your spells entirely. Also, you do not receive negative levels from wielding aligned weapons opposed to your alignment.

Malleable Personality: If you have a base Cha score of 20 or higher, you may treat yourself as being 1 step away from your actual alignment when faced with all effects that are based on alignment, except for wielding aligned weapons (i.e. Detect X, Protection Against X, X Word, Dictum, Unholy Blight etc.).

If you have a base Cha score of 24 or higher, you may treat yourself as being of any alignment when faced with all effects that are based on alignment, except for wielding aligned weapons.

Self Righteousness: If you have a base score in all your mental stats of 18 or higher, you may Atone yourself once per week. There is no XP cost.

Lord Raziere
2012-04-25, 08:54 AM
I like these things, shows how complicated this stuff can get and how morality can be bent towards anything if your creative enough.

DonQuixote
2012-04-25, 09:16 AM
I tend to run it such that every character has two alignments.

Your "perceived" alignment is how you view yourself. This governs what classes you can take, how your own abilities affect you, and so forth. Gods might still disagree with you, depending on how egregious your behavior is.

Your "actual" alignment is how your actions square up in terms of D&D's objective morality. This governs how the spells and abilities of others affect you. A paladin can smite evil, even if the evil thinks that it is good.

Phosphate
2012-04-25, 09:32 AM
I tend to run it such that every character has two alignments.

Your "perceived" alignment is how you view yourself. This governs what classes you can take, how your own abilities affect you, and so forth. Gods might still disagree with you, depending on how egregious your behavior is.

Your "actual" alignment is how your actions square up in terms of D&D's objective morality. This governs how the spells and abilities of others affect you. A paladin can smite evil, even if the evil thinks that it is good.

That's better than RAW, but still pretty restrictive.

Also, I would imagine that for paladins, clerics, favored souls and others like them perceived=actual, right?

DonQuixote
2012-04-25, 11:07 AM
No, there's no reason to restrict those classes even more. So long as the paladin acts sufficiently like a paladin, he keeps his powers. If he commits evil acts in the name of good--so long as he can rationalize them--he takes no penalty.

Now, if the player gets really out of line, the gods will intervene. Willingly slaughtering an entire village while proclaiming yourself to be lawful good...well, that tends to aggravate the deities who actually are lawful good.

Lord_Gareth
2012-04-25, 11:27 AM
If you're going this far, why bother using the traditional axis in the first place and not an alternate system like my Color Wheel or D20 Modern's Allegiances system?

Phosphate
2012-04-25, 12:25 PM
If he commits evil acts in the name of good--so long as he can rationalize them--he takes no penalty.

Why doesn't he? His power doesn't come from within, it comes from a deity, the deity can cut off his "supply" of divine power whenever he's being un-paladiny, regardless of what the paladin believes.


If you're going this far, why bother using the traditional axis in the first place and not an alternate system like my Color Wheel or D20 Modern's Allegiances system?

1. Because they're a major change, not something that fits quickly and neatly within the classical game.
2. Because a lot of spells and classes would have to be reflavored and maybe even altered mechanically.
3. Even if I did use your color wheel or the allegiance system, I would probably still add something to the effect of "high mental stats add versatility to alignment".

Lord_Gareth
2012-04-25, 12:34 PM
Why doesn't he? His power doesn't come from within, it comes from a deity, the deity can cut off his "supply" of divine power whenever he's being un-paladiny, regardless of what the paladin believes.

Oh for the love of -

I get sick of having to say this on EVERY THREAD THAT INVOLVES PALADINS EVER, but here I go AGAIN:

Paladins are gods-optional. Their power flows from the immutable force of righteousness that is manifest in the D&D universe and is independent of any deity of any name, face, shape, or description. In theory, any given god should feel honored that a being as pure as a paladin chose to support their cause and religion.

Don't believe me? Read the class entry. Unlike Cleric, no mention is ever made of Paladins needing to worship gods EVER.

Seriously. Ten years of 3.5, AM I THE ONLY PERSON WHO NOTICED THAT?

[/rant]

Phosphate
2012-04-25, 03:08 PM
I'm not talking about godless paladins. Of course it doesn't apply to them.

Reluctance
2012-04-25, 03:32 PM
Just because you can convince yourself that genocide is a good thing doesn't compel anybody else to agree with you. Gods will cut off your powers, magic artifacts will still twist in your hands, and actual Good aligned people will strive to stop you. Especially in a high heroics/high fantasy setting where Good and Evil (along with, for some reason, the poorly defined forces of Law and Chaos) are tangible things. I'm not liking the idea that spells of pure Good shouldn't be effective against powerful fiends, who can just rationalize away the effects.

That, and in the real world, people of average intelligence are more than happy to pick up on rationalizations for why things that have no rational benefit are in fact Good. Consider the popularity of the Lawful Stupid paladin trope. Or basically any political act that harms a fair number of people to no actual benefit, all because some hysteria is whipped up. (Furthermore, I'd wager that the people whipping up the hysteria are rather bright, doing it for some unrelated purpose, and rather evil in spite of their having the stats to supposedly handwave things away.)

What it comes down to is this. If you dislike objective morality, strip it out. (I know 3.5 makes it hard, but it's better than trying to leave it half in the system.) Alternately, scrub alignment from the character sheet and have alignment-based effects only apply based on subtypes or class features that specify an aligned aura. Your system sounds like a lot of extra work - and stat tax - just to halfass a position of not liking alignment.

Amechra
2012-04-25, 03:41 PM
My personal favorite, which a friend and I came up with after a reasonably long discussion, is that every human is True Neutral, with anyone who has a differing alignment gaining that alignment subtype.

Because, quite frankly, if you are going to separate things up, you better point out how alien someone who is say, Neutral Good.

They aren't a nice person; nothing says they have to be nice... sure, they make Mother Teresa look like a person who kicked puppies in front of crippled children while laughing, but they will probably be incapable of communicating with other beings.

And Lawful? Forget just having a personal code; a Lawful person would make someone with OCD look all loosie-goosie.

Another thing I'm working on is trying to port Intimacies over to DnD, just because they are far more definite than any alignment system. Eh, they'll end up being very similar to Allegiences, but oh well.

Yitzi
2012-04-25, 04:52 PM
Better idea: Any and all alignment restrictions on classes, and limitations on spells based on personal alignment, can be waived if the DM rules that this is an exceptional case such that the reason for the restriction does not apply. Also, the alignment rules from BoED are thrown out, because they're totally absurd.

After all, just because a cleric of Pelor is able to justify things to himself doesn't mean Pelor is going to accept his justification. And a Lawful Good cleric of a LN deity might still be unwilling to channel evil energies even for the sake of good (if he would be willing, that's where my idea kicks in), and a Desecrate spell is going to be innately evil no matter who casts it. Malleable personality makes no sense at all; someone who has a certain set of values isn't going to change it even if they can (as then they might act in a way that would horrify who they used to be.)

A large part of "fixing" alignment is simply recognizing that alignment isn't a crunch concept; it's a fluff concept with a handful of crunch applications. As such, it's naturally subject to fluff-sort rules.

TuggyNE
2012-04-25, 06:16 PM
Pragmatism: If you have a base Wis score of 18 or higher, you may cast spells with alignment descriptors that are opposed to your alignment.

If you have a base Wis score of 22 or higher, you may remove the alignment descriptors of your spells entirely. Also, you do not receive negative levels from wielding aligned weapons opposed to your alignment.

So, what, all clerics ignore alignment restrictions on spells and weapons? :smallconfused: I don't think this is a step forward. At all.

I would personally prefer a reworking of the alignment system, rather than patches like this; either redefining L/G/C/E with coherent, consistent, predictable, and mutually exclusive definitions, or using something else.

hamishspence
2012-04-25, 06:23 PM
I don't think an evil alignment should exclude the possibility of Good behaviour. A character whose evil deeds are "for the good of the many" might spend much of their life doing Good- it's the fact that they do evil deeds at all (serious ones, fairly often) that matters.

Evil should not exclude Good behaviour. Similar principles could probably apply to any alignment- though it might be harder to justify a Good person exhibiting a lot of Evil behaviour.

Amechra
2012-04-25, 06:41 PM
I don't think an evil alignment should exclude the possibility of Good behaviour. A character whose evil deeds are "for the good of the many" might spend much of their life doing Good- it's the fact that they do evil deeds at all (serious ones, fairly often) that matters.

Evil should not exclude Good behaviour. Similar principles could probably apply to any alignment- though it might be harder to justify a Good person exhibiting a lot of Evil behaviour.

Well, I'm talking about the true extremes, where you are pretty much inherently evil or good, or whatever.

Steward
2012-04-25, 08:44 PM
I really like this idea, but I just have a quick question / clarification about the whole, "you can use evil weapons now" thing. What if the weapon is an intelligent evil item? Do those still have the opportunity to resist being used by a Good-aligned master, for example?

hobbitkniver
2012-04-25, 08:46 PM
I like these. Anything to make the alignments less stiff and simple. Even with the Good vs. Evil and Law vs. Chaos, it still seems too black and white.

Phosphate
2012-04-26, 08:18 AM
First, this is what I'll have to say. I'm perfectly OK, and actually like the objective morality of D&D. I just think it needs to be a tad more varied. Which is why doing away with it altogether seems pointless to me.

And fluff with some crunch properties IS CRUNCH.


After all, just because a cleric of Pelor is able to justify things to himself doesn't mean Pelor is going to accept his justification.

Obviously. A deity can strip away a cleric's powers anytime he wants, I'm not changing that. Actually, the ORIGINAL rules seem weird to me: so just because a cleric is LG, Pelor is forced to empower him all the time? Really man, I don't even like Ur Priests ;).


And a Lawful Good cleric of a LN deity might still be unwilling to channel evil energies even for the sake of good (if he would be willing, that's where my idea kicks in), and a Desecrate spell is going to be innately evil no matter who casts it.

You missed the point. The action of casting Desecrate is STILL evil. I'm not saying the action is somehow altered, but that you don't get evil points simply by using a spell just because it has the [evil] descriptor. Also that you're not a good person just for using [good] spells.

For instance, without Pragmatism it is an EVIL action to cast Protection Against Good on yourself when one of your allies is dominated and attacks you.

However, regardless if you have Pragmatism or not, Using Holy Word to murder dozens of true neutral commoners is still evil.


Malleable personality makes no sense at all; someone who has a certain set of values isn't going to change it even if they can (as then they might act in a way that would horrify who they used to be.)

If you have a really malleable personality, you DON'T have certain sets of values. And if you do, they're very permissive, few, and wide apart.


A large part of "fixing" alignment is simply recognizing that alignment isn't a crunch concept; it's a fluff concept with a handful of crunch applications. As such, it's naturally subject to fluff-sort rules.

There's no such thing as fluff rules, which is why it's fluff. And it's not a HANDFUL either, alignment affects a lot of areas of the game, especially if you play with a lot of divine magic.


So, what, all clerics ignore alignment restrictions on spells and weapons? :smallconfused: I don't think this is a step forward. At all.

It's a step forward in terms of realism, but a step back in terms of balance. Pick what you think is more important.


I would personally prefer a reworking of the alignment system, rather than patches like this; either redefining L/G/C/E with coherent, consistent, predictable, and mutually exclusive definitions, or using something else.

Even if they had consistent definitions (and good and evil actually do, it's law and chaos which provoke headaches) you'd still be hard pressed if you had to follow a single line, without "tendencies" and all that. And as I said, I like the current alignment system, with only a few amends.


@Steward: It's a weapon, dear. It's used for killing things. Killing things is evil. Evil is not one big happy family of hideous monsters who would never harm each other. An evil sword would have just as much fun eviscerating a Black Dragon as it would decapitating an angel.

Yitzi
2012-04-26, 09:30 AM
Well, I'm talking about the true extremes, where you are pretty much inherently evil or good, or whatever.

When you think of the true extremes as the classical case of an alignment, you're going to run into the sort of problems that make alignment be so problematic for some people. The whole point of alignment is that you're sorting the huge variety of behavior patterns into only nine boxes, so naturally you're going to have a lot of non-pure cases.


I just think it needs to be a tad more varied.

Why? What's wrong with having nine boxes to approximate someone's moral and ethical position, and then letting the rest be freeform?


And fluff with some crunch properties IS CRUNCH.

That's really a definitional question. Whether it's fluff or crunch, the fact remains that the driving force behind it is the fluff, and it's therefore very subject to case-by-case DM modification.


Obviously. A deity can strip away a cleric's powers anytime he wants, I'm not changing that.

So then why would you allow an evil cleric to be a cleric of Pelor?


Actually, the ORIGINAL rules seem weird to me: so just because a cleric is LG, Pelor is forced to empower him all the time?

I don't see that as the original rules.


You missed the point. The action of casting Desecrate is STILL evil. I'm not saying the action is somehow altered, but that you don't get evil points simply by using a spell just because it has the [evil] descriptor.

1. The above-WIS-22 clause does remove the [evil] tag, which is what I was responding to.
2. If you're channeling evil powers, you should get "evil points". If it's a sufficiently good cause, you should be able to do it anyway without becoming non-good (although that level of end-justifies-the-means might preclude a Lawful alignment, but that's the DM's decision), but it still moves you toward that direction (possibly less than the result moves you toward good, though.)


Also that you're not a good person just for using [good] spells.

Definitely; you're also not a good person just for doing a few good deeds. So it's ok if casting [good] spells is an inherently good act; evil people can still do it. (An evil cleric might be unwilling to handle raw Good in that sense, and an evil deity is probably incapable of granting that power, but evil people can still do it.)


For instance, without Pragmatism it is an EVIL action to cast Protection Against Good on yourself when one of your allies is dominated and attacks you.

Firstly, it would make a lot more sense to cast it on the ally. :smallsmile:

Secondly, I could see ruling that because the motivation for the attack is coming from the dominator (presumably evil), PfE works and PfG doesn't.

But thirdly, and most to the point, it is an evil act: You are channeling raw Evil in order to protect yourself. It's not so evil that it's not worth doing for the greater good according to many (although a Paladin/Wizard who does it would probably lose their paladin powers and need atonement), but it is an inherently evil act.

Fourthly, your rule would provide undesired ramifications, such as that if a Neutral person cast Unholy Aura, Protection from Evil would not give a bonus on the save against it. If you really want to go that route, simply say that the character can cast alignment-subtype spells without it affecting his alignment. (I'd still say that that should be based on the situation and the character's personality rather than just his WIS score, though.)


If you have a really malleable personality, you DON'T have certain sets of values. And if you do, they're very permissive, few, and wide apart.

Firstly, that should have nothing to do with your CHA score.
Secondly, even if you fit that description, you're going to be very uncomfortable channeling the raw essence of "strong and restrictive value system" in order to cast Protection from Chaos, possibly being unable to do so if you have to handle it the way a cleric does (and as for getting Olidammara to grant you that energy, forget about it; he can't handle it himself). You could change your own personality to have a stronger set of values and then you'd have no trouble casting PfC, but that essentially means changing your alignment and then you'll be unwilling to change back (since your new values will say you shouldn't.)


There's no such thing as fluff rules

Of course there is. Fluff rules aren't of the written-down or mechanical sort, but things still have to make sense in an in-game manner.


And it's not a HANDFUL either, alignment affects a lot of areas of the game, especially if you play with a lot of divine magic.

Outside divine magic there are only a few, most of which can probably be adjusted on a case-by-case basis (a nonlawful monk is probably acceptable, a personality that can accomodate both monk and barbarian probably is not.)

For divine magic, the real issue is that you're essentially channeling power through your soul; if that power is one that conflicts with your own personality, there are going to be problems. Maybe you can allow it to be used at a price (probably either damage, a temporary CL penalty, or CHA damage), but it's not going to be easy. (Spells with a descriptor that oppose your deity's alignment are simply not going to work, of course.)


@Steward: It's a weapon, dear. It's used for killing things. Killing things is evil. Evil is not one big happy family of hideous monsters who would never harm each other. An evil sword would have just as much fun eviscerating a Black Dragon as it would decapitating an angel.

It's still not going to like acting for the side of good; I'd say that normal rules for an intelligent item being used for purposes it disagrees with would apply here.

Steward
2012-04-26, 09:57 AM
@Steward: It's a weapon, dear. It's used for killing things. Killing things is evil. Evil is not one big happy family of hideous monsters who would never harm each other. An evil sword would have just as much fun eviscerating a Black Dragon as it would decapitating an angel.

OK, fine, but that was just an example. Does your argument still hold true if a good intelligent weapon was used by an evil character to kill innocents? If a good-aligned deity creates a sword to help a paladin defend a village from a rampaging demon horde, would that sword be just as happy eviscerating small children as it would be fighting off that demon invasion?

I really think that, as the rules are written, an intelligent item --of any alignment -- would at least want to resist.

My question was to clarify if this feat would still give an intelligent item the ability to resist being used in a way completely opposed to its own wishes.

Reluctance
2012-04-26, 03:29 PM
This reminds me of a personal alignment question I have. Wide neutrality vs. narrow neutrality.

It's easy to picture alignment as a 3x3 grid, where the population sorts evenly with 1/3 lawful, 1/3 neutral, and 1/3 chaotic. When actually discussing it, though, the actual arguments tend to tilt either narrow neutral (those who lean towards an alignment count as that alignment are that alignment, neutrality requires either focused balance or utter lack of aligned actions), or wide neutral (an aligned character must be an exemplar of their alignment, since anything else is neutral).

I still think that wedding a poorly-defined moral system to the rules is foolish, but you might be better served by better adjusting your neutrality expectations than trying to say that only certain people, who happen to have a class that runs off a certain stat, can ignore certain inconveniences while everyone is stuck with them.

Plus, again, alignment-based outsiders. A solar certainly has the stats to ignore alignment. For a being of pure Good to become a blackguard seems like it would smash the intent of your rules, even though it's a perfect expression of the mechanics. Alignment-based outsiders tend to be high-level foes, with correspondingly high stats to match.

hamishspence
2012-04-26, 03:53 PM
This reminds me of a personal alignment question I have. Wide neutrality vs. narrow neutrality.

It's easy to picture alignment as a 3x3 grid, where the population sorts evenly with 1/3 lawful, 1/3 neutral, and 1/3 chaotic. When actually discussing it, though, the actual arguments tend to tilt either narrow neutral (those who lean towards an alignment count as that alignment are that alignment, neutrality requires either focused balance or utter lack of aligned actions), or wide neutral (an aligned character must be an exemplar of their alignment, since anything else is neutral).

While it's third party (the only third party 3.5 book I happened to buy before they got rare) Quintessential Paladin 2 described two of the three variants you mention quite well-

"evenly balanced" where for Evil and Neutral it's about a third of the population for each:

Low Grade Evil Everywhere
In some campaigns, the common population is split roughly evenly among the various alignments - the kindly old grandmother who gives boiled sweets to children is Neutral Good and that charming rake down the pub is Chaotic Neutral. Similarly the thug lurking in the alleyway is Chaotic Evil, while the grasping landlord who throws granny out on the street because she's a copy behind on the rent is Lawful Evil.

In such a campaign up to a third of the population will detect as Evil to the paladin. This low grade Evil is a fact of life, and is not something the paladin can defeat. Certainly he should not draw his greatsword and chop the landlord in twain just because he has a mildly tainted aura. It might be appropriate for the paladin to use Diplomacy (or Intimidation) to steer the landlord toward the path go good but stronger action is not warranted.

In such a campaign detect evil cannot be used to infallibly detect villainy, as many people are a little bit evil. if he casts detect evil on a crowded street, about a third of the population will detect as faintly evil.
and "moderately wide Neutral" where Neutral is most of the population, and Evil (and Good) are rare:

Evil As A Choice
A similar campaign set-up posits that most people are some variety of Neutral. The old granny might do good by being kind to people, but this is a far cry from capital-G Good, which implies a level of dedication, fervour and sacrifice which she does not possess. If on the other hand our granny brewed alchemical healing potions into those boiled sweets or took in and sheltered orphans and strays off the street, then she might qualify as truly Good.

Similarly, minor acts of cruelty and malice are not truly Evil on the cosmic scale. Our greedy and grasping landlord might be nasty and mean, but sending the bailiffs round to throw granny out might not qualify as Evil (although if granny is being thrown out into a chill winter or torrential storm, then that is tantamount to murder and would be Evil). In such a campaign, only significant acts of good or evil can tip a character from Neutrality to being truly Good or Evil.

if a paladin in this campaign uses detect evil on a crowded street, he will usually detect nothing, as true evil is rare. Anyone who detects as Evil, even faintly Evil, is probably a criminal, a terrible and wilful sinner, or both. Still, the paladin is not obligated to take action - in this campaign, detecting that someone is Evil is a warning, not a call to arms. The paladin should probably investigate this person and see if they pose a danger to the common folk, but he cannot automatically assume that this particular Evil person deserves to be dealt with immediately.

It didn't mention narrow neutral "true neutral is rare" though- maybe because the PHB's alignment chart places humans in that slot- it's the "typical" alignment for them, even if it's not much more common than the others.

Yitzi
2012-04-26, 10:40 PM
This reminds me of a personal alignment question I have. Wide neutrality vs. narrow neutrality.

It's easy to picture alignment as a 3x3 grid, where the population sorts evenly with 1/3 lawful, 1/3 neutral, and 1/3 chaotic. When actually discussing it, though, the actual arguments tend to tilt either narrow neutral (those who lean towards an alignment count as that alignment are that alignment, neutrality requires either focused balance or utter lack of aligned actions), or wide neutral (an aligned character must be an exemplar of their alignment, since anything else is neutral).

That's mainly because people are often overly "idealistic" in their definitions. (There's a reason my original suggestion included "throw out the BoED".)


I still think that wedding a poorly-defined moral system to the rules is foolish

I don't think it's that hard to define, at least in the "I know it when I see it" sense. Good people try to help others, evil people will seriously harm others if it suits their purposes, neutral people tend to avoid harm but don't help much. Lawful people follow a strict code of behavior (whether their own or an independent authority's), Neutral people follow a loose code of behavior, and Chaotic people take each situation on its own merits.


but you might be better served by better adjusting your neutrality expectations than trying to say that only certain people, who happen to have a class that runs off a certain stat, can ignore certain inconveniences while everyone is stuck with them.

Definitely.


Plus, again, alignment-based outsiders. A solar certainly has the stats to ignore alignment. For a being of pure Good to become a blackguard seems like it would smash the intent of your rules, even though it's a perfect expression of the mechanics. Alignment-based outsiders tend to be high-level foes, with correspondingly high stats to match.

True.