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Obviously if I go around killing babies, I probably know I'm evil. But if I'm incredibly selfish, only care about myself, lie/cheat/steal, etc. (other borderline neutral acts) does my character know if they're evil?
Obviously there are detect alignment spells/abilities that show you, but if I don't have the ability to do that and no one has ever told me do I (I the character) really know what my alignment is?
Yes.
[Citation Needed]
Both. Alignment is something that exists in the game world. However, your character doesn't necessarily know their alignment at any given moment. Paladins and clerics likely do sense when they might stray off the path as they radiate a powerful alignment aura and many gods give subtle signs of their displeasure. Many characters may not know what an alignment is if they do not have any religious or planar knowledge.
Based off of the number of spells and items that work around detecting/ hiding, protecting against and what not I would say that a character knows what their alignment is.
Alignment in D&D originally meant what team signed on to (and you were expected to behave according to the tenets of your team). Hence the name, alignment. It still remains many of those characteristic, but has increasingly evolved to encompass more and more description of behavior and morality, rather than just what cosmic forces you approve of.
So the answer is probably, it depends. If your character is actively promoting team 'LG' and has some real desire to honestly make sure he embraces that ethos, then he certainly has plenty of ways available to confirm that he is indeed lawful and good. If on a different extreme, your character more or less believes that lawfulness and goodness are indeed proper, but is lazy, selfish and rebellious (most people fail to live up to the ethos they believe is proper) he could well be neutral or even evil and not be aware of it. While their would be ways he could find out, unless he tries to or someone calls him on it, he wouldn't necessarily know, and people are very very good at deceiving themselves and rationalizing behavior.
Any character that has an enhanced aura (paladins, clerics ect.) would almost certainly know their alignment as they very much retain the alignment in the original sense of the word: what they are aligned with.
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Any character that has an enhanced aura (paladins, clerics ect.) would almost certainly know their alignment as they very much retain the alignment in the original sense of the word: what they are aligned with.
Just pointing out that your aura isn't necessarily your alignment. For instance, I can be true neutral and worship a NE deity and have an evil aura while not being evil.
Just pointing out that your aura isn't necessarily your alignment. For instance, I can be true neutral and worship a NE deity and have an evil aura while not being evil.
Any character that has an enhanced aura (paladins, clerics ect.) would almost certainly know their alignment as they very much retain the alignment in the original sense of the word: what they are aligned with.
True. I didn't get into clerics not matching their God, and in some sense such a character has two alignments, they chose a team, but aren't fully following their teams rules. I would expect in most cases they would believe themselves to to have the same morality as their deity, but have failed to live up to the precepts they preach.
I have always kind of felt that making a cleric that doesn't match the Gods alignment is weird in any case. But it is certainly allowed by the rules.
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Haven't seen one of these in a while
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I think the answer just depends on the character you want to play and the relationship between you, your GM, and the way they mess with alignment.
If you want to play a dude who is evil as sin but thinks he's a good person (I slay goblin babies so they cannot get the chance to harm others kind of deal) you can. So long as your GM is on board and you make that character interesting and engaging to you as the player, the GM, and your party.
Second it kind of revolves around what your GM wants to do in their game and how they use mechanics to put that. Like in my home games I have players punch out the alignment they think their character is and put it on the sheet and then I keep track of what it is as they play. We usually have a sort of training curve at start where I will restate something back to them or help them understand where certain actions fall on the alignment spectrum but from their I track it and they find out when it comes up. Makes the detect alignment spells both more useful since it's the most definitive answer you'll likely get but at the same time makes fiendish monologues more tempting when they say stuff like, "Look don't trust that spell, you register the same and yet you're doing the right thing correct? Trust me."
But again all that works because it makes alignment work well for me and my players. In other games the big beacon of alignment likely might be what the GMs and players want.
You are probably aware of your own alignment. But you may also try to deceive yourself, people do that often or try to justify their behavior as being less bad than it actually is.
The easiest thing to do is not write any alignment on the page and when it comes up for alignment based spells let the GM tell you how the spell affects you. The only exception being classes with strict alignment requirements. Such as paladin, cleric, and other divine casters that must be within a certain range of their deity. I would exclude monk, barbarian, and others which have partial alignment restrictions (must be lawful, can't be lawful).
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By the rules, I would say it is dependent on level, class, and creature type.
If you are human, less than 5th level, and don't have Aura as a class feature (not a Cleric or Paladin), then you probably are not going to definitively know your alignment. Testing for your alignment is harder since the normal Detect spells do not register an alignment. There are still plenty of ways to determine it, but it isn't as easy.
If you are human, 5th level or higher or 1st level or higher and have Aura as a class feature, you would know if you care. Think of it like a modern person knowing their blood type. There are easy tests for it, so if you want to find out you can. Others are likely to know even if you don't.
When someone is in the common case of being too low level to show an alignment, it could still be provably determined via testing using magical items. Items that cause a negative level when wielded by the wrong alignment is at least one way to do this, I'm sure there are others.
I'd say it's character knowledge to a limited extent. My barbarian doesn't think of herself as chaotic neutral. After all, just because she's a devout Gorumite doesn't mean she'll just grab a random apple that she wants to eat and not pay the merchant, or burn down a cathedral while forcing the bard to sing an old Elton John song. But as part of her history she resents class structures and most forms of actual governmental coercion, and while the party as a whole was introduced by said cleric being their de facto parole officer, she was the one surrounded by four large guards. So she knows she's not very lawful, and she's not a total jerk to everyone, but she doesn't care enough to go toppling evil dictatorships.
She would likely notice were she to get too lawful in action ('You just don't feel as angry as you used to ... ') since there's a game mechanic involved (lawful barbarians don't really exist).
However, as earlier said, you can delude yourself. And self-justify. Of course, if you have to keep self-justifying what you do compared to how you say you live, that might in and of itself mean something ...
Overall, there's some awareness, but you can lie to yourself anytime.
I tend to assume that my character knows their alignment as well as they can feel their deflection bonus. Afterall they're a githyanki samurai reskinned as a gnome alchemist.
By the rules, I would say it is dependent on level, class, and creature type.
If you are human, less than 5th level, and don't have Aura as a class feature (not a Cleric or Paladin), then you probably are not going to definitively know your alignment. Testing for your alignment is harder since the normal Detect spells do not register an alignment. There are still plenty of ways to determine it, but it isn't as easy.
If you are human, 5th level or higher or 1st level or higher and have Aura as a class feature, you would know if you care. Think of it like a modern person knowing their blood type. There are easy tests for it, so if you want to find out you can. Others are likely to know even if you don't.
When someone is in the common case of being too low level to show an alignment, it could still be provably determined via testing using magical items. Items that cause a negative level when wielded by the wrong alignment is at least one way to do this, I'm sure there are others.
See Alignment works on a level 1 commoner and is first level for wizards.
See Alignment works on a level 1 commoner and is first level for wizards.
I hadn't noticed that spell.
Weird that they would allow this for Alchemist, Bard or Wizard/Sorcerer but not for any of the divine casters. Almost as strange as where the spell comes from, Ultimate Combat.
I agree that as written it should work on anything -- even allowing you to check for true neutral alignment.
Now you just have to find an arcane caster that you trust for spiritual matters.
I'm thinking if he doesn't know what alignment he/she is... it's probably neutral... unless they perform evil deeds and think they are good or vice versa, you probably know who you are as a person.