Should I change my character's alignment?

[Togath]

In a pbp I'm currently playing in, I recently started to wonder if I should change my character's alignment.
The character started out as a traveling battle chef, searching for a mythical pomegranate tree. Shortly after reaching town, I decided that kabob selling, while stable, was rather boring to play in dnd:smallwink:, so I decided to have him try to steal a few pieces of jewelry to help fund his search... At first I planned to have him only search out corrupt nobles, but after having little luck figuring which ones were, or where they were, he decided to just start stealing from any noble. He's stolen a necklace, an earring, and a ring so far, using summoned birds(from the Malphas vestige) to seek out, an enter open windows in the noble's district. He ended up trying to sell the jewelry at a jeweler’s shop in the town center, who immediately recognized the jewelry, since she herself had carved it earlier that week for the noble, and "offered my character a deal"(now I think she may have been a rat, or part of a sting), that if he brought her more, she would help him fence them, upon bringing her the second piece, she went into the back room for a few minutes... and then 5 heavily armed guards and a mid level psion(part of the city guard) showed up and attacked him after he tried to go invisible(which got countered) and then proceeded to try to stab one of the guards to death. After being locked in an anti magic cell, having broken the hinges to the door, and entering into battle with a new guard to heard the hinges breaking, I'm now trying to decide if I need to change my guy from neutral to something else.

I'm also trying to decide whether or not to have my character pin the guard and execute him, or whether to just knock him unconscious.

[hewhosaysfish]

I would say that it depend on how your character feels about what he's done. Or (since I don't think he actually killed anyone while trying to resist arrest) about what he nearly did.

And would he do it again?

[BowStreetRunner]

I would agree with hewhosaysfish. In fact, go watch Ladyhawke again (yes, I know by saying 'again' this assumes you have already watched it, but if you haven't you should have) and pay particular attention to the character Phillipe Gaston played by Matthew Broderick.

In this case, he is a Good thief, constantly making apologies (to God in this case) for what he finds himself having to do. You could certainly play a neutral thief in a similar way - just reminding himself constantly that he was given little choice in a particular situation and that he intends to go back to following his own moral code just as soon as he can find a way out of this mess. In fact, you could use the same sort of rationalization whenever he finds himself forced to play the hero and do good as well.

The only reason to change your alignment is if your character actually decides he likes doing things another way (good, evil, law, chaos) and wants to stick with that instead.

[Togath]

I'll have him stay neutral then(I also decided to have him knock out the guard rather then kill him, both for morality reasons, and because I used his last weapon to break the door)