Alignments

Hello guys, I'm just a bit confused on alignments and I have an example and question. We went through the a campaign where a gnome takes the finger of one of our party members, As my character's job is to promote balance, She demanded that he also lose the same thing on his hand. She is a Lawful Neutral Monk. Would this be out of line with my Alignment? It certainly isn't against my backstory

This is for Pathfinder Society, I recognize the scenario it's coming from.

As a GM, I would allow it for LN if you justified it with backstory.

However, I had someone who was CG get a little carried away in that scenario, and then he wasn't CG anymore.

Yeah, He allowed it because my ENTIRE backstory is "To provide balance to the land" One of our characters lost a finger, I demanded he pay with his.

I'm curious what you do when your party kills a gang of thugs.

If the thugs are attempting to kill us, Then balance must be kept and we must attempt to kill them. My backstory is quite long, but the simple version is "Provide Balance, Protect the innocent" In that order.

I'm curious what you do when your party kills a gang of thugs.

Darn, my question was going to be what do you do when your party decides to donate money to an orphanage.

We burn it down :D

Sounds a lot more True Neutral than Lawful Neutral...

Sounds a lot more True Neutral than Lawful Neutral...

I would have to agree with you here. Balance in the land, to me, implies balancing law and chaos as well.

Hello guys, I'm just a bit confused on alignments and I have an example and question. We went through the a campaign where a gnome takes the finger of one of our party members, As my character's job is to promote balance, She demanded that he also lose the same thing on his hand. She is a Lawful Neutral Monk. Would this be out of line with my Alignment? It certainly isn't against my backstory

There's no such thing as 'out of line with your alignment'. Actions determine alignment, not the other way around. Simply roleplay your character; if your alignment changes, it changes.

CombatTacos wrote:

Hello guys, I'm just a bit confused on alignments and I have an example and question. We went through the a campaign where a gnome takes the finger of one of our party members, As my character's job is to promote balance, She demanded that he also lose the same thing on his hand. She is a Lawful Neutral Monk. Would this be out of line with my Alignment? It certainly isn't against my backstory

There's no such thing as 'out of line with your alignment'. Actions determine alignment, not the other way around. Simply roleplay your character; if your alignment changes, it changes.

The problem with this approach is alignment has distinct effects in PF. One of the (very few) things 4E did right was to finally uncouple alignment from class. For 35 years now, we've been told that alignment isn't a straitjacket, but merely an RP tool, and then been given mechanics that enforce a system that leaves itself open to considerable interpretation from a unilateral authority (the GM). I've played under GMs who insisted that a Paladin ever using their Lay On Hands on themselves when a party member wasn't at full health was a violation of their alignment and code, and I've played under other GMs who would let a Paladin largely get away with just about everything but a wanton murder spree and either require no penance, or let the Paladin off with a donation to their local church in an amount that wouldn't impact the finances of anyone above 1st level.

It wouldn't be as much of an issue if the mechanics themselves were as open to interpretation as the alignments are, but that isn't the case. A Monk who's no longer Lawful loses every aspect of their class except for their hit dice and attack bonus. To have class abilities, they have to function as a "powerful commoner" until the next level, where they can add the 1st level of a new class. A Ranger who's no longer Good aligned is a gimped Fighter, not even having Weapon Specialization unless they take a level of Fighter.

The reality of Damage Reduction that has alignment basis, as well as spells that directly target alignments, only reinforce the reality that alignment is anything but an RP tool: it's a distinct mechanic whose impact is left to GM fiat. It's not an issue if you've got a GM whose interpretation of alignment(s) agrees with the players', but if there's any disagreement, it puts players in the place where they either have to suck it up and play past it, or possibly destroy an entire gaming group because they just can't accept the GM's interpretation.

I realize that part of the enjoyment of 3.5, said enjoyment/passion being the foundation for PF's success, is an acceptance and passion for hard-coded alignment, but we can't say there's no such thing as "being out of line with your alignment", when the reality is something very, very different. One action may not (in most cases) change someone's alignment, but in 28 years of playing this particular game, I've seen far too many instances where a conservative estimation of alignment's effects can devastate a character, enough that the legacy beliefs have a noteworthy likelihood of carrying forth into this current iteration of the game.

A Monk who's no longer Lawful loses every aspect of their class except for their hit dice and attack bonus. To have class abilities, they have to function as a "powerful commoner" until the next level, where they can add the 1st level of a new class.

A monk who becomes nonlawful cannot gain new levels as a monk but retains all monk abilities.

A Ranger who's no longer Good aligned is a gimped Fighter,

Alignment: Any.

Silentman73 wrote:

A Monk who's no longer Lawful loses every aspect of their class except for their hit dice and attack bonus. To have class abilities, they have to function as a "powerful commoner" until the next level, where they can add the 1st level of a new class.

Core Rulebook, Monk wrote:

A monk who becomes nonlawful cannot gain new levels as a monk but retains all monk abilities.

Silentman73 wrote:

A Ranger who's no longer Good aligned is a gimped Fighter,

Core Rulebook, Ranger wrote:

Alignment: Any.

I'm willing to concede that my recollection may be in error on the particulars I called out (I'm at work, and don't have the rulebook in front of me). That said, don't just quote rules at me, engage me in the conversation. Otherwise I'm likely to dismiss anything you say out of hand. That's the sort of behavior that gets people kicked out of gaming groups I'm involved in, with a significant degree of mockery as they're heading out the door. ;)

Even worse, it doesn't invalidate my core argument here, which is alignment being a hard-coded rules component and not merely the RP tool that its designers keep attempting to convince players it is. A character class is functionally a learned, trained set of skills and abilities. The notion that you lose the ability to learn more of that class' abilities because your moral or social outlook changed doesn't hold a lot of water. I realize the RAW say something different, but therein lies the problem, and why I'm noting this: coupling class to alignment acts as a distinct straitjacket for the player, constraining possibly interesting personality development under the outerwear of hard-coded rules. Of course it can always be tossed out by the GM ("Paladins in my world can be of any alignment"), but that opens up a lot of problems since alignment is so tightly intertwined with fundamental elements of the game. Why would they detect evil if they aren't a paragon of good? Would a GM have to create an unaligned version of a Holy Avenger if the Paladin weren't Lawful Good? Why would they bypass Evil-based DR if they aren't, likewise, such a paragon of Good?

I think therein lies the problem, likewise: to uncouple alignment from class in PF would affect fundamental foundations of the game itself.

Removing alignment wouldn't be THAT big a hassle, really.
Most classes simply have no alignment restrictions.
Since the Paladin is so entwined with it, throw out the Paladin. Clerics are fine holy warriors anyway.
Do the above with any PrCs, based on how twisted up in alignment they are. If easily dropped, just drop it; if not, throw it out.
Change alignment-based DR to Magic.
Remove any spells and magic items dependent on alignment for effects.

That pretty much does it.

And, yeah, alignment is and has always been a crock.

Not totally out of line(wouldn't say its totally sane mind you), but I don't know anywhere where there would be an actual law like that. Law of the land/nature is usually neutral territory if I know my druids right.

Also, evil paladins wouldn't be champions of good I wouldn't think. We call them anti-paladins I thought.

As a side note, demanding that a comrade lose their hand, especially because of a faction mission, is not something I recommend doing. It doesn't sound very friendly...

Jiggy wrote:

Silentman73 wrote:

A Monk who's no longer Lawful loses every aspect of their class except for their hit dice and attack bonus. To have class abilities, they have to function as a "powerful commoner" until the next level, where they can add the 1st level of a new class.

Core Rulebook, Monk wrote:

A monk who becomes nonlawful cannot gain new levels as a monk but retains all monk abilities.

Silentman73 wrote:

A Ranger who's no longer Good aligned is a gimped Fighter,

Core Rulebook, Ranger wrote:

Alignment: Any.

I'm willing to concede that my recollection may be in error on the particulars I called out (I'm at work, and don't have the rulebook in front of me).

You're not erroneous in remembering the rules, per say, you're just remembering rules from previous editions of "the world's most popular table-top RPG" as opposed to the Pathfinder RPG.