(PF) The removal of alignment

[Roxxy]

I came to the conclusion long ago that my homebrew setting would function poorly with alignment, and I've recently solidified that decision. The world has too many issues in the forefront that are highly controversial in real life, and assigning the proponents moral alignments will end up politically biased, regardless of my best efforts. There are also a lot of situations where the identity of the moral option can be debated at length, and the countries I focus on have elections and free press/speech, encouraging people to open their mouths about what is and is not moral. A system with specific moral values isn't going to work for this world. It's going to be better in the long run to let players decide right and wrong for themselves.

Now, this brings some rules considerations. There is a good guide to solving them out there, but I forget where it was. I'm also uncertain of what rules considerations there are outside the divine spellcasting classes (which I may or may not remove do to difficulties rationalizing the existence of divine magic in my setting and the fact that Paladins would have a hard time fitting into this world). Can anyone help me with these rules issues?

[mephnick]

I'd like to know if there's a guide or list as well. I've been thinking about removing alignment completely myself.

People get hung up on it and it's mostly useless.

[Slipperychicken]

Without alignment, you might just tell Paladins that Detect Evil is more like "Detect Hostile Intent" (or axe the spell altogether), and they can smite basically anyone they get in a fight with, and their gods' hated enemies get the extra damage. They do get a buff because they can't fall for evil actions any more, although fall-worthy actions might be personalized for each god. They just have to act in a manner acceptable to their patron gods, like Clerics do.

Clerics might just serve their gods, who each have their own teachings about right and wrong. For example, some gods might say "Thou shalt not kill. Ever. Seriously, don't even defend yourself", some might say killing is only acceptable in some cases (maintaining order, hunting, defending the faithful, fighting demons), while more bloodthristy gods might encourage people to murder infidels at every opportunity.

I've been playing with non-divine classes, and they seem more or less unaffected by alignment. The cavalier might need a little something to differentiate it from the Paladin though.

[Angelalex242]

That's easy. Paladins are devoted to a god. Cavaliers are devoted to a King/President/whatever.

[Renegade Paladin]

First: It's a mistake to assume that just because two ideas conflict that one must be good and the other must be evil on the alignment chart. That's not true; it's entirely possible for good-aligned characters to disagree, good and evil characters to agree on certain things, and even for good/neutral nations to end up at war with each other. The nine alignments aren't prescribed certain opinions and personality types that all those of the alignment must share; that would be beyond silly. Your game could work just fine with the alignment system in place as long as you measure good/evil by intent and practical result rather than artificially assigning alignments to opinions.

That said, if you want to get rid of alignment anyway, you have your work cut out for you. Paladin and cleric stop working as written. You might as well get rid of paladin, and clerics need some other distinction to determine whether they channel positive or negative energy. Rangers and druids aren't affected so much (after all, they won't have alignment and there won't be alignment descriptors on spells, so the alignment-based restrictions in their casting simply won't apply), but you'll need to drastically rework the spell lists, arcane as well as divine. Protection from X won't exist anymore, for starters, so you lose a go-to spell to prevent and reverse mental control and possession. Magic circle against X is a major component in planar binding, meaning wizards will need some other way to keep called outsiders at bay while negotiating with them. Alignment-based damage reduction needs to change to something else (if you simply eliminate it you make monsters that have it much weaker for no tradeoff). The entire Outsider type will need reworking. The list goes on for days.

[Pex]

If you're going to get rid of Paladin the Inquisitor can fill the role.

Clerics really aren't affected except for specific spells. You can just adapt them to allies/opponents. Protection From Evil would get a boost as a Protection From Enemies in terms of Pathfinder mechanics since the bonuses can be used against more creatures, and Neutrals do not get a damage discount from Searing Light and similar spells. It might not be a bad thing.

If undead are not heavy in the campaign you could substitute Oracle for Cleric. You can still have formalized Churches for the gods if you want, or not. The key factor is the limited spells known so that a player has to choose specifically Protection From Enemy or Searing Light to limit the power.

[Angelalex242]

Alternatively, have the protection spells change to protection from a specific religion.

Protection from Heironeus.
Protection from Kord.
Protection from Hextor.
Protection from Nerull.
Protection from Atheists.
Protection from Agnostics.

And so on.

Or...

A stronger variant:
Protection from all religions but mine.

That is, the Heironeus cleric casts protection from other religions, and he gets the bonuses against everyone who doesn't follow his god.

Paladins do still function in an alignment free system, however. Just rip off King Arthur as much and as often as possible. I don't recall Alfred Lord Tennyson babbling on and on about Lawful Good and Chaotic Evil. Just the occasional 'false traitor knight.'

[lunar2]

paladins love them some generic smiting action. losing detect evil is fine, since its only real purpose was to tell the pally who to smite in the first place.

honestly, losing the relation to alignment is a net gain for pallies. a small gain, but a gain, nonetheless.

[Raven777]

Paladins can still function. "Protecting the innocent" and "abiding the law" are not concepts that are going to change over alignments being objective realities or not.

Smite will still be balanced by only being usable x times per day.

[Grod_The_Giant]

One way to keep alignment abilities semi-relevant is to only remove alignment from mortal beings-- outsiders are still paragons of Good or Evil, Law or Chaos as the case may be. (I think Next did this).

Otherwise... the paladin gets Detect Hostile Intent (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/detectHostileIntent.htm)(or nothing) and Smite Enemy. They can still be champions of good and chivalry without everything having [alignment] tags, and "black and white morality in a grey world" often makes for an interesting character. Clerics choose which energy type to channel. Protection From <alignment> and Magic Circle Against <alignment> either are only useful against outsiders, or get bumped up a spell level and work against everything. That should cover everything, I think.

[Angelalex242]

Well, let's not forget Paladins are Tier 5. Debuffing them is silly.

So let's leave it at detect hostile intent? Or even 'detect religions that aren't mine.'

[Ravens_cry]

Well, let's not forget Paladins are Tier 5. Debuffing them is silly.

So let's leave it at detect hostile intent? Or even 'detect religions that aren't mine.'

Well, what is a paladins religion? Unlike clerics of gods, Paladins don't have to worship any god at all. They can even venerate all of them for that matter.
'Detect other religion' both nerfs the ability while also not being what a Paladin is about, at least not in my opinion.

[Alleran]

Well, let's not forget Paladins are Tier 5. Debuffing them is silly.
Actually, I'd probably peg them as T4 in Pathfinder, with the buffs that they got.

There's a mythic path ability for PF that removes your character's alignment, for the record. It can have some... interesting... ramifications.

[Kelb_Panthera]

If I was worried that alignment would cause trouble if I tried to apply it to a game, here's what I'd do.

Divorce alignment from actions and mortal creatures. If it doesn't have aligned magic or an alignment subtype then it's not affected by aligned magic.

For example, while a wizard would be outright immune to all alignment targeting spells, a cleric would be vulnerable based on whichever god he chose thanks to the aura class feature, and a demon would be vulnerable to lawful and good magic because of its subtypes.

Basically the alignment line is stricken from character sheets and statblocks of all characters and creatures and the spells that interact with alignment become specialized magic that only interacts with divine casters and outsiders.

[Angelalex242]

...That unnecessarily debuffs divine casters.

Unless aligned magic like Holy Word affects EVERYONE without the Aura of Good class feature...

So when the cleric yells 'Sanctus!', everyone in radius except the local Paladin drops dead if they're 10 levels lower then he is.

[Kelb_Panthera]

...That unnecessarily debuffs divine casters.

Unless aligned magic like Holy Word affects EVERYONE without the Aura of Good class feature...

So when the cleric yells 'Sanctus!', everyone in radius except the local Paladin drops dead if they're 10 levels lower then he is.

Since we're firmly in the realm of houserules anyway that's fine. Make any that have an effect on neutral characters have that effect on all characters that lack the aura feature or an alignment subtype.

At the same time, those spells are strong attacks but their loss is trivial. There're a whole host of other options for blasting your enemies as a cleric, especially if you're not limiting yourself to the core rulebook.

[Roxxy]

First: It's a mistake to assume that just because two ideas conflict that one must be good and the other must be evil on the alignment chart. That's not true; it's entirely possible for good-aligned characters to disagree, good and evil characters to agree on certain things, and even for good/neutral nations to end up at war with each other. The nine alignments aren't prescribed certain opinions and personality types that all those of the alignment must share; that would be beyond silly. Your game could work just fine with the alignment system in place as long as you measure good/evil by intent and practical result rather than artificially assigning alignments to opinions. That still requires deciding who is good, evil, and neutral, however. I don't want to go that route, because this is a setting where elections and the free press abound. Could you imagine listing alignments for current American politicians (the issues in this setting are very often similar to the ones at issue IRL)? It would be a giant pile of flamebait, no matter what alignments I handed out. I want people to decide where to assign these moral labels, not assign them myself. This isn't really a heroic fantasy setting.


I'd like to know if there's a guide or list as well. I've been thinking about removing alignment completely myself.
People get hung up on it and it's mostly useless.I found it:
http://alzrius.wordpress.com/2010/11/01/removing-alignment-from-pathfinder-part-one-classes/

Otherwise... the paladin gets Detect Hostile Intent (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/detectHostileIntent.htm)(or nothing) and Smite Enemy. They can still be champions of good and chivalry without everything having [alignment] tags, and "black and white morality in a grey world" often makes for an interesting character.I kind of like that. Chivalry and absolute monarchy are dead, in favor of monarchs policed by popularly elected parliaments, a steady sword arm, good horse, and the finest martial education have been supplanted by a peasant with a couple months training and a rifle, and feudalism is a quaint memory, replaced by the factories, railroads, and mass communication. Thanks to magic, these changes happened a LOT faster than IRL. That certainly leaves room for some out of place holdovers from the "good old days" trying to hang on to their importance or just do what they've always done, even with a new world in front of them. I think I may keep the Paladin, specifically because it doesn't fit in well.

Actually, I'd probably peg them as T4 in Pathfinder, with the buffs that they got.I've never really gotten into tiers as a concept, but I'm working on changing how things work for both martials and casters (emphasizing movement, cover, and switch hitting and phasing out iteratives for martials [yes, I am aware of and intend to circumvent the massive wrench this throws in damage output], while removing automatic casting success and switching to a spell point system.) that will probably make the tiers very hard to apply in this case.

[WbtE]

I came to the conclusion long ago that my homebrew setting would function poorly with alignment, and I've recently solidified that decision. The world has too many issues in the forefront that are highly controversial in real life, and assigning the proponents moral alignments will end up politically biased, regardless of my best efforts...

Can anyone help me with these rules issues?

Are you keeping the planes, including celestials, demons, devils and so forth? If so, my advice is to go retro and use 1e alignment - in short, a way of describing the Outsiders with whom your character is aligned. Allow for the Seven Heavens to be divided on mortal issues that do not affect its war against the Abyss and you're golden.

[Seto]

Alternatively, have the protection spells change to protection from a specific religion.

Protection from Heironeus.
Protection from Kord.
Protection from Hextor.
Protection from Nerull.
Protection from Atheists.
Protection from Agnostics.

And so on.

Or...

A stronger variant:
Protection from all religions but mine.

That is, the Heironeus cleric casts protection from other religions, and he gets the bonuses against everyone who doesn't follow his god.

Detect X doesn't have anything to do with religion. I mean, sure, if you're the Cleric of an Evil Deity, you get an extra-strong aura. But Detect Evil detects evil atheists, evil followers of neutral gods, evil followers of evil gods, evil outsiders, evil magical beasts who don't care about a god at all... And it doesn't detect neutral followers of evil gods.
So I think you'd have to go with "Detect hostile intent". Or Maginomicon (sorry if I got your name wrong)'s Real Alignments system, it's meant to remove any objective judgment on right/wrong while keeping alignments.

[Jlerpy]

Were I to run D&D, I'd restrict alignments to those required. Paladins have to be Good, because that's the source of their power. A Cleric may be Good for the same reason.
Fiends have to be Evil, because that is their (super)nature.
But a thief has no alignment. They may be as selfish as they like, but they are not, as it were, elementally Evil or Chaotic.

Of course, if you don't want those kind of cosmic forces at work, go ahead and omit them.
I don't think Paladins make sense in such a setting though, so it makes most sense to omit them entirety.
Go ahead and get rid of things like Protection from Evil. Clerics have plenty of other options anyway.

[Dalebert]

Protection from evil could become protection from summoned creatures, or some such. It would no longer only protect against one type of summoned or the other.

[BWR]

I considered removing alignment at one point, but never did it. However, I would have let alignment-based divine effects as "target those The Lord doesn't like". Smite, detect, Holy Word, etc., work against those the god thought was in the wrong.

I ended up keeping alignment because it would have been difficult to run Planescape without real alignments.

[Dalebert]

I'm playing in a PF game with no alignment. The DM read an article on how to do it somewhere. I'll try to get the reference from him.

[Yerltvachovicic]

It was probably this article "Removing Alingment from Pathfinder":
http://alzrius.wordpress.com/2010/11/01/removing-alignment-from-pathfinder-part-one-classes/