hamstard4ever
2007-12-09, 06:04 PM
Like many people, I don't particularly like a lot of alignment restrictions. Some of them are just plain arbitrary and should be tossed outright. However, there are still quite a few alignment restrictions which do make some sense; I can see where they're coming from, but I think they're overly strict in their implementation.
So I had this thought, hey, it would probably be reasonable to allow players to burn a feat to circumvent certain alignment restrictions. That seems too punitive given the limited number of feat slots characters get, though; a player who just had a cool character concept for a chaotic monk or lawful barbarian would be paying heavily without getting much of anything to show for it, while a powergamer might happily cough up a feat in order to pull off some multiclassed monstrosity with conflicting alignment requirements.
This is pretty much the exact opposite of what I was going for, so I figure that these alignment restriction feats should probably add some minor tangential benefit, not large enough to be a particularly optimal feat choice in and of itself, but just enough that a character actually has something to show other than a wasted feat slot. This represents the fact that such characters are, by nature, exceptional individuals. Your average chaotic-minded person is probably not going to be able to pick up the art of the Monk no matter how hard they try. The few that do manage to reconcile their chaotic outlook with the strict discipline of the Monk, though? That is some serious Zen crap right there, and it should show.
So, just some examples to start things off:
Harmonious Chaos [Alignment]
You have an intuitive understanding of the delicate balance between law and chaos and your role within that balance, able to perceive the patterns that exist even within randomness.
Prerequisites: Chaotic alignment
Benefits: You may freely gain monk levels regardless of your chaotic alignment.
Additionally, your seemingly wild and random movements confound the more rigid thinking of others. Against a lawful targets the DC of your stunning fist ability increases by 1, and you gain a +1 bonus on attack rolls against lawful opponents made as part of a flurry of blows.
Normal: Chaotic characters cannot gain monk levels.*
Special: If you qualify for this feat when leveling up and have a feat choice available to you, or if you are creating a 1st-level character, you can choose to concurrently take a level of monk at the same level that you take this feat.
*I tend to houserule that monks have an alignment requirement of any non-chaotic rather than any lawful, thus neutral monks should not need to take a feat.
Disciplined Rage [Alignment]
You are able to channel your inner fury into a trancelike state of fierce concentration, becoming rigidly focused on the destruction of your enemies.
Prerequisites: Lawful alignment
Benefits: You may freely gain barbarian levels regardless of your lawful alignment and can use the barbarian's rage ability as normal.
Additionally, in your intensely focused state you can avoid the less calculated attacks of others. While raging, you gain a +2 bonus to AC and a +2 bonus on saving throws, cumulative with the normal bonuses and penalties for raging. Both these bonuses apply only against attacks made or effects created by chaotic creatures.
Normal: Lawful characters cannot gain barbarian levels and are unable to rage.
Special: If you qualify for this feat when leveling up and have a feat choice available to you, or if you are creating a 1st-level character, you can choose to concurrently take a level of barbarian at the same level that you take this feat.
Moral Killer [Alignment]
Though you have a great respect for life, you understand that sometimes it is necessary to kill to save the lives of others. It is a terrible burden, but you are willing to shoulder it so that others don't have to.
Prerequisites: Good alignment
Benefits: You may freely gain assassin levels regardless of your good alignment.
Additionally, the strength of your conviction lends your attacks a terrible potency against the less pure of heart. Against evil enemies the DC of your death attack increases by 1, and you gain a +1 bonus on attack rolls when sneak attacking evil opponents.
Normal: Good characters cannot gain assassin levels.*
Special: If you qualify for this feat when leveling up and have a feat choice available to you, you can choose to concurrently take a level of assassin at the same level that you take this feat.
*I tend to houserule that assassins have an alignment requirement of any non-good rather than any evil, thus neutral assassins should not need to take a feat.
Liberated Champion [Alignment]
Where others rely on adherence to strict ethical codes to keep them from straying from virtue, you have the sheer drive and zeal to remain committed to the cause of good without limiting yourself to arbitrary rules.
Prerequisites: Non-lawful alignment
Benefits: You may freely gain paladin levels regardless of your non-lawful alignment and are not subject to loss of paladin abilities for your non-lawful alignment or actions. You are still subject to other aspects of the paladin's code.
Additionally, your individualistic sense of justice lends you strength against tyranny and coercion. You and all allies affected by your aura of courage gain a +4 morale bonus on saves against compulsion effects.
You lose the following spells from your paladin spell list: detect chaos, protection from chaos, magic circle against chaos, dispel chaos. In their place, add the following spells to your spell list: detect law, protection from law, magic circle against law, dispel law.
Normal: Non-lawful characters cannot gain paladin levels and lose all paladin abilities.
Special: If you qualify for this feat when leveling up and have a feat choice available to you, or if you are creating a 1st-level character, you can choose to concurrently take a level of paladin at the same level that you take this feat.
Tarnished Champion [Alignment]
In spite of your moral shortcomings, you have been chosen by celestial forces for reasons you do not understand for a destiny you cannot comprehend, sworn to service of an ideal you struggle in vain to live up to.
Prerequisites: Lawful neutral, neutral, or chaotic neutral alignment
Benefits: You may freely gain paladin levels regardless of your non-good alignment and are not subject to loss of paladin abilities for your non-good alignment or actions. Small acts or associations of evil consistent with a neutral alignment will not cause you to lose paladin abilities, but you are otherwise subject to the paladin's code of conduct and lose all paladin abilities if your alignment becomes evil or if you commit a grossly uncharacteristic act of evil.
Additionally, your lack of conviction gives you a somewhat more intuitive understanding of evil. When using your smite evil ability you may add your Wisdom modifier in addition to your Charisma modifier as a bonus on your attack roll.
Normal: Non-good characters cannot gain paladin levels and lose all paladin abilities. A paladin who willfully commits even a minor evil act is subject to loss of paladin abilities.
Special: If you qualify for this feat when leveling up and have a feat choice available to you, or if you are creating a 1st-level character, you can choose to concurrently take a level of paladin at the same level that you take this feat.
I don't want to turn this thread into yet another alignment debate, so I will say upfront that I will likely ignore out of hand any arguments about the merits of the alignment system as a whole as well as arguments about the validity of any of the alignment/class combos above. However, any comments about the crunchy bits would be appreciated. The example feats above aren't set in stone ideas; I just made them up to give some idea of the scope I was thinking of. Are any of the example bonuses altogether too small to be remotely worth the feat investment at all? Are any of them so powerful that they completely overshadow characters that meet the normal alignment requirements (doubtful)? I'm also not really certain about the alignment-dependent nature of most of the bonuses; should I keep them, or are the alignment targets too arbitrary and limited?
So I had this thought, hey, it would probably be reasonable to allow players to burn a feat to circumvent certain alignment restrictions. That seems too punitive given the limited number of feat slots characters get, though; a player who just had a cool character concept for a chaotic monk or lawful barbarian would be paying heavily without getting much of anything to show for it, while a powergamer might happily cough up a feat in order to pull off some multiclassed monstrosity with conflicting alignment requirements.
This is pretty much the exact opposite of what I was going for, so I figure that these alignment restriction feats should probably add some minor tangential benefit, not large enough to be a particularly optimal feat choice in and of itself, but just enough that a character actually has something to show other than a wasted feat slot. This represents the fact that such characters are, by nature, exceptional individuals. Your average chaotic-minded person is probably not going to be able to pick up the art of the Monk no matter how hard they try. The few that do manage to reconcile their chaotic outlook with the strict discipline of the Monk, though? That is some serious Zen crap right there, and it should show.
So, just some examples to start things off:
Harmonious Chaos [Alignment]
You have an intuitive understanding of the delicate balance between law and chaos and your role within that balance, able to perceive the patterns that exist even within randomness.
Prerequisites: Chaotic alignment
Benefits: You may freely gain monk levels regardless of your chaotic alignment.
Additionally, your seemingly wild and random movements confound the more rigid thinking of others. Against a lawful targets the DC of your stunning fist ability increases by 1, and you gain a +1 bonus on attack rolls against lawful opponents made as part of a flurry of blows.
Normal: Chaotic characters cannot gain monk levels.*
Special: If you qualify for this feat when leveling up and have a feat choice available to you, or if you are creating a 1st-level character, you can choose to concurrently take a level of monk at the same level that you take this feat.
*I tend to houserule that monks have an alignment requirement of any non-chaotic rather than any lawful, thus neutral monks should not need to take a feat.
Disciplined Rage [Alignment]
You are able to channel your inner fury into a trancelike state of fierce concentration, becoming rigidly focused on the destruction of your enemies.
Prerequisites: Lawful alignment
Benefits: You may freely gain barbarian levels regardless of your lawful alignment and can use the barbarian's rage ability as normal.
Additionally, in your intensely focused state you can avoid the less calculated attacks of others. While raging, you gain a +2 bonus to AC and a +2 bonus on saving throws, cumulative with the normal bonuses and penalties for raging. Both these bonuses apply only against attacks made or effects created by chaotic creatures.
Normal: Lawful characters cannot gain barbarian levels and are unable to rage.
Special: If you qualify for this feat when leveling up and have a feat choice available to you, or if you are creating a 1st-level character, you can choose to concurrently take a level of barbarian at the same level that you take this feat.
Moral Killer [Alignment]
Though you have a great respect for life, you understand that sometimes it is necessary to kill to save the lives of others. It is a terrible burden, but you are willing to shoulder it so that others don't have to.
Prerequisites: Good alignment
Benefits: You may freely gain assassin levels regardless of your good alignment.
Additionally, the strength of your conviction lends your attacks a terrible potency against the less pure of heart. Against evil enemies the DC of your death attack increases by 1, and you gain a +1 bonus on attack rolls when sneak attacking evil opponents.
Normal: Good characters cannot gain assassin levels.*
Special: If you qualify for this feat when leveling up and have a feat choice available to you, you can choose to concurrently take a level of assassin at the same level that you take this feat.
*I tend to houserule that assassins have an alignment requirement of any non-good rather than any evil, thus neutral assassins should not need to take a feat.
Liberated Champion [Alignment]
Where others rely on adherence to strict ethical codes to keep them from straying from virtue, you have the sheer drive and zeal to remain committed to the cause of good without limiting yourself to arbitrary rules.
Prerequisites: Non-lawful alignment
Benefits: You may freely gain paladin levels regardless of your non-lawful alignment and are not subject to loss of paladin abilities for your non-lawful alignment or actions. You are still subject to other aspects of the paladin's code.
Additionally, your individualistic sense of justice lends you strength against tyranny and coercion. You and all allies affected by your aura of courage gain a +4 morale bonus on saves against compulsion effects.
You lose the following spells from your paladin spell list: detect chaos, protection from chaos, magic circle against chaos, dispel chaos. In their place, add the following spells to your spell list: detect law, protection from law, magic circle against law, dispel law.
Normal: Non-lawful characters cannot gain paladin levels and lose all paladin abilities.
Special: If you qualify for this feat when leveling up and have a feat choice available to you, or if you are creating a 1st-level character, you can choose to concurrently take a level of paladin at the same level that you take this feat.
Tarnished Champion [Alignment]
In spite of your moral shortcomings, you have been chosen by celestial forces for reasons you do not understand for a destiny you cannot comprehend, sworn to service of an ideal you struggle in vain to live up to.
Prerequisites: Lawful neutral, neutral, or chaotic neutral alignment
Benefits: You may freely gain paladin levels regardless of your non-good alignment and are not subject to loss of paladin abilities for your non-good alignment or actions. Small acts or associations of evil consistent with a neutral alignment will not cause you to lose paladin abilities, but you are otherwise subject to the paladin's code of conduct and lose all paladin abilities if your alignment becomes evil or if you commit a grossly uncharacteristic act of evil.
Additionally, your lack of conviction gives you a somewhat more intuitive understanding of evil. When using your smite evil ability you may add your Wisdom modifier in addition to your Charisma modifier as a bonus on your attack roll.
Normal: Non-good characters cannot gain paladin levels and lose all paladin abilities. A paladin who willfully commits even a minor evil act is subject to loss of paladin abilities.
Special: If you qualify for this feat when leveling up and have a feat choice available to you, or if you are creating a 1st-level character, you can choose to concurrently take a level of paladin at the same level that you take this feat.
I don't want to turn this thread into yet another alignment debate, so I will say upfront that I will likely ignore out of hand any arguments about the merits of the alignment system as a whole as well as arguments about the validity of any of the alignment/class combos above. However, any comments about the crunchy bits would be appreciated. The example feats above aren't set in stone ideas; I just made them up to give some idea of the scope I was thinking of. Are any of the example bonuses altogether too small to be remotely worth the feat investment at all? Are any of them so powerful that they completely overshadow characters that meet the normal alignment requirements (doubtful)? I'm also not really certain about the alignment-dependent nature of most of the bonuses; should I keep them, or are the alignment targets too arbitrary and limited?