How many exceptions can a Lawful character have?

[SangoProduction]

So, we all know the stick-up-the-arse paladin archetype, whose moral inflexibility leans harder toward Evil than their intent for just rules of action pulls toward Good.

The type of paladin who cuts off an orphan's finger for stealing bread (or submits them to authorities knowing such a penalty), because that's the socially agreed upon punishment for all theft of this caliber.

OK. A Good paladin possibly wouldn't agree with such a harsh punishment, just as a general rule. But let's just set that as the base.

What if losing a finger would result in being unable to perform their livelihoods, like a blacksmith or carpenter? What if they were coerced? What if it wasn't coercion, but unreasonable circumstances, like drinking from a private oasis while on the brink of death?

How many exceptions can a rule maintain until it's not even really a rule any more? How many exceptions can a lawful character maintain until they are neutral?

[Fouredged Sword]

"Ask your DM" is a new medication for treating "Alignment Restriction Confusion" syndrome.

"Alignment Restriction Confusion" syndrome happens whenever someone is unsure if an action would cause a paladin or other behavior restricted class to fall. It is frequently is caused by contradictory requirements and legalistic/moralistic debates of alignment.

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Ask your doctor if "Ask your DM" is right for you.

Side effects include
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[Telonius]

"Ask your DM" is a new medication for treating "Alignment Restriction Confusion" syndrome.

"Alignment Restriction Confusion" syndrome happens whenever someone is unsure if an action would cause a paladin or other behavior restricted class to fall. It is frequently is caused by contradictory requirements and legalistic/moralistic debates of alignment.

"Ask your DM" is the only cure for "Alignment Restriction Confusion". It gets to the root of the problem rather than just treating the symptoms.

Ask your doctor if "Ask your DM" is right for you.

Side effects include
constipation
Back pain
Deeper confusion
and in rare cases
Death

Now available in convenient Wondrous Item (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#phylacteryofFaithfulness) form, available wherever Holy Water is sold.


Ever so slightly more seriously, alignment is about habitual action, not single instances (unless they're really, really extreme). Single instances are more the domain of keeping vows (Paladin's Oath being the most infamous, but the Vow of ... feats, and even a Cleric's code of conduct could fall under that). How habitual does it need to be? Yeah, it's unsatisfying as an answer, but the DM really is the judge of that.

[Eldonauran]

How many exceptions can a rule maintain until it's not even really a rule any more? How many exceptions can a lawful character maintain until they are neutral?
A Lawful Good character generally sees the world through a lens of Order is 'good' and Good is 'good'. They prefer to see justice done but are also motivated by a sense of mercy and often sacrifice of themselves to help others (or to spare them from harm).

As a general rule that a have, a Lawful character cannot become less lawful until they start performing chaotic actions, and these won't result in an alignment change unless they are often enough or severe enough to cause a reasonable person to question if the character has had a change of personality. The same thing goes for a Good character becoming less good. While some people will immediately leap to the assumption of Evil if a Good character is ever caught performing an evil action, I don't operate under the impression that the character is perfect.

So, when does a Lawful character become non-Lawful? When about half of their decisions no longer follow a fairly rigid set of rules, and are more influenced by the individual situations and feelings of the character, than what those rules have already determined to be correct.

[tyckspoon]

How many exceptions can a lawful character maintain until they are neutral?

A rule that contains no allowances for discretion or alleviating or exculpatory circumstances was probably more Lawful Neutral-inspired to start with. IMO the examples given aren't a Lawful character stepping away from the Lawful part of their personality - they're a Good character raising objections to a law that doesn't take into account the Good viewpoint. Lawful Good wants the law to support what is just; it won't support laws simply because they are the law, and should not be facing "a character with your alignment wouldn't do that" challenges when they don't blindly apply unjust laws. (And note that a law need not be deliberately evil to be unjust - it simply needs to produce unjust outcomes when applied. Although a character that repeatedly encounters this situation may find themselves drifting toward Chaotic if their mindset ends up going from 'this law must be changed, but law is still a worthy ideal' to 'no law is worthy.')

[Learn34]

While there's sadly no end-all/be-all for Law and AnarchyChaos, as there is for Good & Evil, you can look towards the inflexibility laid out in the Books of Exalted Deeds & Vile Darkness as a baseline from which to develop similar Ethical (as opposed to Moral) alignment metrics. Which, off the top of my head, would lead the answer to your question towards ">0". The problem with the way morals (and presumably ethics) are laid out in D&D's FantasyLandTM is that when they stop being debatable philosophies and are instead measurable Cosmic Forces they become absolutes without room for compromise. There's a (singular) shade of grey, but the kind of stringent requirements laid out for both the Paladin's code and Exalted feats make pretty clear that anything less than absolutely Good (Lawful, in your case) actions are neutral.

Now, the writers themselves did a terrible job actually considering this and it shows in their various other writings but, to paraphrase BoED, "Them's the breaks". The example you give shows how the system breaks down when the axes are addressed separately, as a Paladin which works outside the bounds of the Law (not turning in the kid) because the Law is Evil is nonetheless willfully engaging in a Neutral act. It wouldn't, extrapolating as best I can from BoE/VD, progress to an act of AnarchyChaos until the Paladin actively attempted to subvert that Law and/or the legal system of which it is a component.

I will note RAW also lays the onus on the DM to make the Paladin et. al.'s experience enjoyable/not present the player a situation where they are penalized in game- or role/roll-play term for having, as you put it, a
stick-up-the-arse.

[zlefin]

There is no limit; a rule can have any number of exceptions; likewise for a lawful character. The question is how you make exceptions: does the code/rule have the exceptions built-in (set by the legislature or societal convention), or are you adding new exceptions whenever the rules say something you disagree with?

The former is no problem; the latter would trend chaotic.

Legal codes can be extremely long and detailed, especially the regulatory parts. Is a 50 thousand page law code lawful? I'd say it typically is.

[Fizban]

How many exceptions can a rule maintain until it's not even really a rule any more? How many exceptions can a lawful character maintain until they are neutral?
Can't answer the question until you define the rules they're operating under. Each Lawful person has their own set of rules which they believe in, which could be a long list of legalese, a short set of guiding principles, or even directly linked to an authority figure- their knowledge of whom could create an entire second set of expectations for them to anticipate.

And of course, even then it's not a question of number, but of what's actually going on. A highly lawful person forced into a situation where they have to make a bunch of exceptions doesn't stop being lawful until they stop resenting it. If they don't jump at the first (viable) opportunity to remove themselves from or otherwise solve the situation, then a case can be made that they've solidified a pattern of not being lawful.

Or in short, you don't change alignment until you've changed alignment. Without an obvious deliberate action to hang things on (murder, disobeying a direct order of your previously chosen authority, etc), until you can describe something as "and looking back, I think that's around the time I stopped caring," there's no reason to be changing the descriptor the universe is using.

If the player or DM can look at a certain point in a small gradual process and pick it out as the narrative moment that would be looked back on, they could declare the mechanical change at that point, but as always, alignment isn't some kind of gotcha.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

Setting this particular example aside, a LG character may actually have more explicit exceptions to a general clause in her personal code than would a similar NG character. She would want to be consistent and rules-oriented in the way she decides her more general rules do not apply.

Focusing on this example, if the LG character is a civilian, then it's not actually her job to enforce the law in every circumstance. Obviously it depends on the (fantasy) government, but it would be a weird law that obligates every citizen to report all crimes to the state (not just major crimes like treason), or weirder yet obligate every citizen to make a citizen's arrest. I think the LG thing to do would be to have the orphan return the stolen merchandise, apologize (if the shopkeep isn't an ass who would report her), lecture her on honest ways to make a living, and then buy her some food.

If the LG character is an official government agent who swore to uphold the law, and the laws were unjust at the time of the oath, then she made a bad decision. Barring some duress, a LG character cannot in good conscience swear to uphold unjust laws. She got herself into a mess and must trade off her love of law and love of good. If the laws became unjust after she swore her oath, the GM is deliberately creating a moral conundrum which is not supposed to be easy to solve.

[Devils_Advocate]

Multiple different competing standards of behavior endorse mutually exclusive courses of action all the time. And in a sufficiently vast universe, for every possible course of action, there will be some weirdo who claims absolute dominion over everything that exists and whose edicts demand that course of action. So not only is it impossible to always obey every rule, it's impossible to ever obey every rule and it's impossible to not always be obeying some rule.

And just having consistent principles isn't enough to make someone Lawful. There are lots of things that Chaotic Good characters won't do, like hurting innocents for fun. And Clerics of Chaotic Neutral deities have to be Chaotic but still have to follow their deities' codes of conduct. So the whole idea of a "personal code" as a substitute for external standards was always a pile of nonsense.

So, if being Lawful can't be about how frequently you incidentally follow rules, and also isn't about whether you deliberately follow any rules, then what does make a character Lawful? Well, it's quite simple, really. A Lawful character has a general respect for rules. And that includes having rules about how to decide which rules to follow when different rules come into conflict with each other. This really should be obvious, at least in retrospect. Deciding on a whim which standard of behavior you want to follow is hardly Lawful, is it? Being Lawful means having some sort of principles for making decisions like that!

And for a Paladin, doing no Evil takes priority. We're told that a Paladin falls for willingly committing an Evil act or grossly violating the Paladin code of conduct, but it's probably more accurate to say that willingly committing an Evil act is always a gross violation of that code. Uncompromising unwillingness to personally engage in Evil is at least as much a part of a Paladin's Lawfulness as it is a part of her Goodness. Because what Lawful behavior is varies from character to character, Lawfulness can mandate Goodness in some cases, and a Paladin is just such a case. So there really isn't any "Law versus Good" to be found there. The relevant Law is pro-Good.

Let's be clear that Lawful characters don't try to arrange for their obligations to come into conflict with each other so that they can ignore one obligation in favor of a higher-priority one. Lawful characters try to avoid that. Which means that it's part of your job as a Paladin not to e.g. promise distraught parents that you'll retrieve their children from a mine no matter what. At best, you may promise to try your best as long as doing so is not somehow incompatible with your various duties. And even that is really only okay because that's what you're required to do already, because you should always avoid taking on any responsibility that might conflict with the responsibilities you have already. Yeah, that's somewhat less than maximally comforting, but you have a duty to honesty and you really want to avoid a situation where one of these people later tries to take violent revenge on you because you wouldn't or couldn't deliver on your promise.

Even so, making an unconditional promise in that situation wouldn't be a gross code violation. But breaking that promise later might be even if another part of your code demands it, which is why you shouldn't make the unconditional promise in the first place, ya dig?

[Rynjin]

My interpretation of the Good/Evil scale has always been that the Good/Evil component takes priority over the Law/Chaos side of things.

A Lawful Good character is focused on doing good, tempered by a want to do it the "right way", within a structured bent and following all laws possible. However, the Good takes precedent. If following the Law would result in an unsatisfactory level of Good, then the Law can be set aside. I'd say that "maiming a child" is sufficiently non-Good an outcome that the Law component can take a backseat.

However, where a Chaotic Good and a Lawful Good character would differ is in how they might handle things. A Lawful Good character would probably try to lean on their authority, or appeal to leniency within the law; or if given the opportunity, simply not press charges or convince the guard to drop it in some other way.

A Chaotic Good character would have a more inherent contempt for the unjustness of said law in the first place, and would be more willing to come to direct conflict over it; to the point of perhaps fighting the guard trying to drag in the child, on the assumption that only a corrupt and thoroughly despicable individual would do something that would hurt said child.

[gijoemike]

My interpretation of the Good/Evil scale has always been that the Good/Evil component takes priority over the Law/Chaos side of things.

A Lawful Good character is focused on doing good, tempered by a want to do it the "right way", within a structured bent and following all laws possible. However, the Good takes precedent. If following the Law would result in an unsatisfactory level of Good, then the Law can be set aside. I'd say that "maiming a child" is sufficiently non-Good an outcome that the Law component can take a backseat.

However, where a Chaotic Good and a Lawful Good character would differ is in how they might handle things. A Lawful Good character would probably try to lean on their authority, or appeal to leniency within the law; or if given the opportunity, simply not press charges or convince the guard to drop it in some other way.

A Chaotic Good character would have a more inherent contempt for the unjustness of said law in the first place, and would be more willing to come to direct conflict over it; to the point of perhaps fighting the guard trying to drag in the child, on the assumption that only a corrupt and thoroughly despicable individual would do something that would hurt said child.

So a Lawful character follows a code of conduct and has a series of personal rules they follow. The Law of the land has NOTHING at all to do with that. In both of these cases when faced with an unjust law or extreme punishment, a Good character can say to the guard "We both know that this rule/law/guideline is overly harsh. Let it go and lets fix this so it doesn't happen again." Maybe it leads to a fight. Maybe it just leads to a conversation. A paladin is fine either way. Standing against the law of the land is neither chaotic or evil in this case.

[Vaern]

According to BoED, in cases where Law and Good are in disagreement, the paladin should always favor good, and then make efforts to undo corruption in the system and correct unjust laws to make them work towards good.
If the law is demonstrably unjust - for example, punishments are far more severe than the crimes they are punishing - the paladin should not be obligated to adhere to it. He shouldn't be ignoring or disregarding the law by any means in this case, but should rather be actively trying to change these laws to minimize the harm they can do to innocent people and to prevent the law from degrading into a tool for evil.
The paladin shouldn't be punished for being essentially forced to turn his back on the law to promote good, but BoED suggests he might want to get hit with an atonement spell afterwards anyway just for good measure.

[ezekielraiden]

To the self-consistent Lawful Good mind, Law is a method, while Good is an aim. LG preferentially uses Law as its method, and applies that method in as close to a totally consistent, rational, procedural manner as physically possible without compromising their aim, Good. If the current application of the method interferes with the aim, then the method has erred and must be corrected, through rigorous re-evaluation and modifications appropriate to the severity and immediacy of the error. For particularly extreme cases of dire and immediate consequences, even direct disobedience may be warranted if that is, to the best of the LG person's ability to determine, truly the only reasonable and consistent means to avoid catastrophic abrogation of the aim. Even a Paladin may foment revolution if the so-called "legitimate" authority is sufficiently horrific--but they only do so with deep reluctance and reflection, not ever as a preference.

Or, to phrase this as I have done elsewhere, laws by their very nature must have a function they serve. That's literally what laws are, they are pure telos. But, critically, laws do not SUPPLY their own purpose or function; that is determined externally, by the values of those who create the laws. Therefore, for a truly self-consistent Lawful person, it is required that they approach any legal framework with a set of values they consider appropriate for laws to support (even if that set is empty; to make no selection is, itself, still a selection). Laws which fulfill the function for which they were intended are thus acceptable laws that must be obeyed. Laws which fail to fulfill their function are defective and must be altered (or replaced) until they do fulfill their function, or eliminated if their function/purpose is impossible or otherwise not achievable. Laws which have unacceptable functions, based on the values of the Lawful individual, are worse than deficient, they are hostile and must be opposed so that acceptable laws (or a lack of law, as appropriate) may replace them.

Note that this does not make Law "subordinate" to Good in any meaningful sense; it simply recognizes that, to be Lawful at all, one must commit to some set of values first (again, potentially including the empty set), then evaluate laws based on whether their purposes conform to that set and whether the laws actually achieve the purposes for which they were designed.

As a result, the question is unanswerable because it begins from a faulty premise: that a Lawful Good person begins with laws, and then attempts to wrest a Good result from them. The process is much closer to the reverse, beginning from Good values, constructing a consistent behavioral framework, and continually reviewing whether that framework is actually working. "Exceptions," as long as they are presented fairly with reasonable effort at consistency and self-evaluation (within the limits of one's capabilities), are not a divergence from Lawful behavior: they are literally the process of a Lawful person behaving rationally.

The Neutral Good person doesn't mind if they sometimes behave inconsistently or fail to rigorously justify a course of action; yeah, it's nice to stand on firm footing, but as long as you achieve the good end, it doesn't really matter, does it? So much easier to just go for the good things when you see them rather than bothering with "purposes" and "aims" and all that formality. Keeping your word, for example, is valuable but not vital, because while it is likely to hinder you if you gain a reputation of breaking your word, having a reputation of keeping your word isn't worth it if that causes harm to others or otherwise opposes Good.

The Chaotic Good person says that the adage "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" (from Ralph Waldo Emerson) is merely scratching the surface. (Or, rather, holds that that phrase fails to capture the true thrust of Emerson's point by making it sound like consistency is ever valuable.) Do what is Good for each individual context and situation--no matter what that requires of you, even should that mean you break your word or completely contradict what you just said five minutes ago. Avoid absolutes and universals, because they are fickle and in need of constant repair; just go with what sounds right, in the moment, and you'll be doing all that can be asked of you.

[Nifft]

How many exceptions can a rule maintain until it's not even really a rule any more? Three.


How many exceptions can a lawful character maintain until they are neutral? Four = neutrality.


However it's important to note that many so-called exceptions are merely fractional in value, and thus don't count as a whole exception in and of themselves.

Only your DM can tell you when you're getting close to one of those magic numbers.

[tiercel]

Agreeing with posters above that Law is more about order than laws, per se.

Presumably, striving toward order, using order as a method, tends to respect laws whenever possible, in their own right (not just because of enforcement), but laws aren’t Law. Especially for a LG person, a question of applying a law would be something like “does this actually help order the world toward a greater good?”

I’d have a problem imagining a paladin actually justifying finger-loss-for-bread-stealing as serving a greater good.

A CG person might 1) focus on the immediate cruelty of this child losing a finger or 2) also want to bring down the whole system that would promulgate such cruelty.

An LG might see the flaw in the system itself as the greater evil first and foremost, and while certainly wanting to see the child saved/spared, might prefer to do so in a way that ensures all future petty thieves are treated with more justice (but while still having a system for punishing crime, just in a more proportional, compassionate way that encourages and allows for redemption).

[An Enemy Spy]

Alignment is defined more by internal motivation than external action. A Lawful Good and a Chaotic Evil character might do the exact same thing and it wouldn't be inconsistent for either of them because all that matters is why they did it. If alignments had rigid definitions that you had to follow, then there would only be nine possible characters you could play with all other differences being purely mechanical.

[Raven777]

How many exceptions can a Lawful character have?

As many as they need to function within the DM's plot and get along with the other characters and players at the table.

[Quertus]

As others have said, a truly Lawful mind places no limits on the number of exceptions that they can make - creating exceptions is the process of optimizing the laws, and *limiting* laws is the preview of Chaos, not Law.

[tiercel]

Alignment is defined more by internal motivation than external action. A Lawful Good and a Chaotic Evil character might do the exact same thing and it wouldn't be inconsistent for either of them because all that matters is why they did it. If alignments had rigid definitions that you had to follow, then there would only be nine possible characters you could play with all other differences being purely mechanical.

I partially agree with the first part: both motivation and action matter. Certainly if two characters are careful to obey a city’s laws, but the CE one only does so out of fear of being caught and punished by a powerful organized town guard and the LG does so naturally, they aren’t the same alignment….

…but those motivations will be presumably shown by what happens next, either when the characters leave town or grow in power enough to no longer fear detection or even retribution. Possibly the CE person was only biding time until pent-up true inclinations could be let loose… but maybe after all that time staying within the law they decide they don’t intrinsically hate the system so much and can look out for Number One just fine inside or outside the law (more NE) or even that they can get what they want without needing to or enjoying hurting others (more morally neutral).

If the CE person’s actions continue to be changed after the experiences in the City of Law, presumably they are flirting with alignment change. (Yes, it could be part of a long con, but even if so, how long can anyone act a certain way without it beginning to change them?)

Conversely, there are some actions a LG person might never be able to justifying doing, no matter the reasons, without actually changing their worldview/alignment.

Motivations absolutely matter, but sooner or later one has to question how real a motivation is that never sees expression.

But all of this strongly agrees with the second part above: no one alignment is just one thing, certainly. There are numerous ways that one can be LG or CE or whatever, and presumably some of them are closer to alignment boundaries (“CE with CN tendencies”) than others. Just because D&D by default defines some sort of dividing lines doesn’t mean there aren’t characters who live close to those lines.