the concept of alignments as objective, tangible forces and having a game mechanical presence annoys me so much that I'm considering removing it from my Sun's Garden campaign altogether, game-mechanically.
Caveat: alignment will still exist, but purely as subjective concepts and a guideline/flavor text. So player characters and npc's may still be described as lawful good, chaotic neutral, and so forth, but this exists purely as a guideline to their general motivations/loyalties, and is up to the individual interpretation of players.
Also, roleplaying is still important. Monks may no longer be forced to stay within lawful alignment, but they must still adhere to strict mental discipline (which I do not necessarily consider lawful, for example Vietnamese buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh teaches that ideology is the enemy of peace and mindfulness, in the context of the war). A druid's strongest allegiance is to the protection of nature over all other loyalties, and so forth.
I am aware of alzrius's guide for removing alignment from pathfinder and have skimmed it. For the most part I will take these rules into effect, but I also would like to build on and refine them, and also update them since the rules were written five years ago.
For example, I am concerned about the fact that for Paladins, "Smite evil" simply becomes "smite" and can be theoretically used on any creature. Thus I have decided that in the code of conduct followed by a paladin, there are rules restricting whom the paladin is allowed to smite. For example a code may require that a paladin smites only undead, necromancers, and criminals who have committed capital felonies against the law, and if the paladin were to smite anyone else, he may be demoted.
The project is still very much in the works.
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Fifth Edition removed alignment effect from the game, but the paladin oaths still kinda tended towards the lawful and/or good.
Fourth, on the other hand, pretty much said, "You're a paladin and you're True Neutral? Cool, God don't care, just don't abuse your powers too much."
Fifth Edition removed alignment effect from the game, but the paladin oaths still kinda tended towards the lawful and/or good.
Fourth, on the other hand, pretty much said, "You're a paladin and you're True Neutral? Cool, God don't care, just don't abuse your powers too much."
In my case, paladin oaths differ considerably depending on the god, and/or the order to which the paladin belongs. paladins generally believe that they're upholding righteousness and the natural law, and defending the greater good, but their oaths may not necessarily fit into the definition of lawful good.
This is pretty important for my campaign setting in which an empire has a prestigious order of paladins that uphold and enforce the tenets of the ecclesiastical state religion. But fundamental to this religion is the idea that elves are the children of the sun, that mortal races (humans, dwarves, halflings) are inferior to elves and exist to be the slaves, that orcs are a vile corruption of elvendom and must be eradicated, that it is the natural right of the elves to inherit the whole earth and to defend their sovereignty over the earth by any means necessary.
Thus the elven paladins are violent slavers, conquerors, and committers of genocide.
These tenets are likely to be considered lawful evil or possibly even lawful neutral, but it cannot be lawful good.
While doing some reading around, I found this suggestion on stackexchange, which I find attractive.
One way that I've seen this kind of thing run pretty successfully is that alignments are all relative to the person using the alignment-based effect. Basically, you replace Holy Word and it's ilk with Word of [Deity] that works exactly the same, but has detrimental effects against your deity's enemies rather than basing it on alignment. Detect evil will detect people just like it normally does, but it instead detects people diametrically opposed to your personal belief system.
This has the added benefit of allowing "evil" paladins. If I worship the god of murder, then I detect fellow murderers as "good", and town guards as "evil", effectively.
This requires some trust and a decent social contract with your players. Basically, they need to trust you when they use an alignment based spell that you know what the target's beliefs are, and whether or not they are opposed to the player.
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answered Sep 25 '13 at 6:07DuckTapeAl
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Poking this with a stick to see how it jiggles: If I'm a priest of Boccob the Uncaring and I cast holy word, does it have little effect on anyone, or does it hit everybody? – BESW Sep 25 '13 at 6:25@BESW: I'd guess it hits either people who aren't neutral, or people who aren't magi, or people who are both, or one of either. – Aesin Sep 25 '13 at 11:41
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It would hit anyone that is opposing the cause of Boccob, that is, anyone who opposes the spread and research of magic. More generally, it would hit anyone who threatens the church of Boccob. The intent is to keep it roughly as broad as Holy Word is by default while keeping the logic consistent with a realistic morality. For example, if a warlord is trying to pillage and burn a countryside that contains one or more Boccobite temples, he would be affected as if he were evil by Boccobite spells. – DuckTapeAl Sep 26 '13 at 1:13This is an interesting option since it reflects the reality of our various points of view. – Cypher Nov 5 '13 at 2:52
This idea is attractive to me, is consistent with my belief in the subjective and relative nature of alignment and I am inclined to use it, but the full game-mechanical implications aren't apparent to me yet.
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Concerning the Smite, just keep the Detect in synch with it. So, a Paladin will know through Detect whether his target is smitable in the eyes of his deity.
Note though that restrictions similar as those of Detect Evil should exist (ie, strength of aura) as well as some ways to circumvent the Detect ability (ie, Misdirection).
You will also need to define some "greatest offenders" in the eye of each deity. The paladin gets the double damage on the first Smite attack against those. Categories should be rather broad, in keeping with the Evil dragons, outsiders (Evil) and undead of the CRB Paladin ;-)
Do you know of the Arcanis setting for 3.5 ? They kept alignments, but gods did not have one (and had rather interesting and varied portfolios) and anybody could worship any god. And the holy champion base class of the god of judgement and fire had a nice Smite Heretic ability :-)
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I also run 5th edition and have switched alignment to a five color wheel system based on Magic the Gathering.
So characters' alignments are have a primary color and a secondary color: white/blue, red/green, blue/black, etc. It works pretty well to give the players a guideline from which to work with, without them feeling restricted by their alignment, since the colors are divorced from ethics.
You also don't run into the ethical and subjective problems of lawful and good. For instance slavery laws, or good churches requiring payment for their services.