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In other breaking news:
"All wizards have to be geriatric old men, they must all have long white beards, and must wear long, Health-&-Safety-noncompliant robes, in bright colours, with at least two (2) stars, and two (2) crescent moons.
They must reside, or have offices, in a building that is packed from floor to ceiling with ancient clutter, which will never be alphabetized, categorized or catalogued, and which provides a nesting place for several families of vermin, which in any normal community, would have the building condemned, and subject to Compulsory Purchase Order and demolition.
They must possess a stuffed alligator, which they must hang from the rafters of their room. There is no purpose to this fixture, but the wizard is not allowed to reveal this fact to any who ask.
They must mutter to themselves, and portray atrocious short-term memory lapses.
If they are ever asked to cast a spell, they must initially refuse, warning of dire consequences, if the Cosmic Balance of Forces Beyond Man's Understanding were to be tilted. This refusal should then be retracted, as the wizard suddenly realises there are absolutely zero mechanical consequences in the rules, and go about the business of blowing all his wad in the first encounter.
Failure to display the correct lip-service to outdated concepts of fantasy will result in the wizard being stripped of their membership of wizard school, and the loss of spellcasting ability for a period of not less than 24 hours, or until they comply, whichever period is the longer."
-- Certain things you have to earn.What does that have to do with anything?
Entitled WOWbabbies want the privilege of barbarian class features without paying the price of having a different word written at the top of their character sheet, decent GMs must take a stand against these cheating children corrupting their verisimilitude with undeserved advantages
-- Certain things you have to earn.What does that have to do with anything?
i have no problems with lawful barbarians or chaotic monks. you shouldn't need a special class for it. hell, i have no problems with chaotic neutral paladins either, my issue with alignment restrictions, is that they stifle the creative freedom for specific concepts that use highly specific mechanical packages, when the fluff should be mutable. what about Chaotic Good and Neutral Good Paladins? what about lawful neutral and true neutral paladins?
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Alignment restricts do have a mechanical effect. Like, can't be a raging, smiting paladin (barbarian/paladin). Or a barbarian martial artist (barbarian/monk). Or an anti-paladin who likes puppies and hands out healing to orphans and nuns.
Also, spells. Some one comes up to you, whipping a sai around and doing kicks? Protection from Law will help. His buddy frothing at the mouth? Nail 'em with dictum.
Yes, there are ways to get what you are looking for (smite is in a cleric domain among others, and rage has many sources). And going straight by description (frothing mouth, armored warrior with a holy symbol) will not always work. But just like you target the slender, dark clothed guy slipping into and out of the battlefield with a Fortitude save inducing spell (and not a reflex based one), chances are good that you picked the right one.
Removing alignment restrictions- really, the talk is about removing alignment, period- will allow, perhaps encourage, lawful good assassins, good dread necromancers, and anti-paladins of honor and justice. Pull out the Book of Vile Darkness, because casting those spells are no longer bad. That dark creature sacrificing babies to its tentacle god? He's got the saint template from the Book of Exalted Deeds.
Maybe its because I am of a different school of thought. I always figured that when you created your character, you came up with his personality first, and then choose the alignment that was the closest. And then, you figured out how to make the rules match your character. No, you don't get everything you want by third level- somethings you have to earn. A raging, smiting paladin isn't a first level character, just starting his career bringing the holy wrath to wicked. He has to wait until at least second level, when he picks up a level in cleric with the destruction domain.
Wouldn't Beowulf be the poster boy for the Viking archetype of fighter? They get rage, too, you know.Talk to your GM. Any reasonable one will realize that alignment restrictions are BS and remove it.Play a CN Paladin instead with this logic!
Alignment restrictions have a purpose.
Doesn't mean they are always ideal.
One of the iconic RL literary inspirations for the barbarian, Beowulf, was, IMO, LG, which I think makes this particular alignment restriction a bit less than ideal.
Not really, no. Straight barbarian is a much better translation than Viking fighter. Besides a weaker version of the barbarian's rage (Beowulf probably deserves mighty rage), the Viking fighter's key abilities are better AC from a shield, and demoralizing in combat; Beowulf isn't big on the in combat trash talk and he uses a shield in only one of his three iconic fights (and then, for its greater fire resistance property, not for AC).
If you wanted the iconic literary inspiration for the Viking archetype, you'd really have to look to some of the ON saga heroes, not OE Beowulf who fits that class very poorly.
Alternately - besides the name - I think the Viking archetype would probably make a better translation for someone like Achilles, who does rage, is married to his shield, and often delivers intimidations and threats in combat. And the Greeks of epic poetry were basically pirates anyway.
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Talk to your GM. Any reasonable one will realize that alignment restrictions are BS and remove it.I am a reasonable DM who loves alignment restrictions.
That statement is an oxymoron.
Removing alignment restrictions- really, the talk is about removing alignment, period- will allow, perhaps encourage, lawful good assassins, good dread necromancers, and anti-paladins of honor and justice. Pull out the Book of Vile Darkness, because casting those spells are no longer bad. That dark creature sacrificing babies to its tentacle god? He's got the saint template from the Book of Exalted Deeds
Congratulations, you win the 'Hyperbolic non-argument of the day' award. That's such a ludicrous pile of gorgon droppings I can't even formulate a response. That's pure Insane Troll Logic.
(Especially since a game with no alignment would obviously not use alignment-based supplements like the BoED or BoVD ...)
Maybe its because I am of a different school of thought. I always figured that when you created your character, you came up with his personality first, and then choose the alignment that was the closest. And then, you figured out how to make the rules match your character. No, you don't get everything you want by third level- somethings you have to earn.
A little different maybe. Alignment is usually last on my to do list. I like thinking that class is a larger part of the character than alignment is. The class will determine what he can do in game and after I've made my character that's usually what I'm trying to match up with. Alternatively if I've made class first I then do personality and then alignment. Class will determine a lot more about what I can do in game than alignment will.
I think its important that your mechanics fit your character, and I feel sometimes that your alignment restrictions can interfere with a character concept. Sure some fit, but I'd rather people be free to do what they want than just say no.
Removing alignment restrictions- really, the talk is about removing alignment, period- will allow, perhaps encourage, lawful good assassins, good dread necromancers, and anti-paladins of honor and justice. Pull out the Book of Vile Darkness, because casting those spells are no longer bad. That dark creature sacrificing babies to its tentacle god? He's got the saint template from the Book of Exalted Deeds.
I don't think removing alignment restrictions turns players into sociopaths or encourages playing counter to the role either. A number of classes are just a pile of mechanics that would work pretty well with other alignments, others require just a minor adjustment, and some could really make a good backstory. Its sort of weird that by following laws you suddenly lose your ability to rage in combat, or that a well disciplined monk can no longer progress as a monk if he decides to break a few customs. Sure he does 100 pushups and meditates for an hour everyday during prep, but how dare he think out of the box! If your still running alignment you can still enforce alignment, and the baby sacrificing dude is probably not a lawful good saint.
Something important to remember is that even if you remove alignment, people are going for a goal and that classes and templates and the like still have expiations attached. A cleric is still adhering to tenets, paladins still have a code, saint's are expected to be saints and so on. There is no lawful good assassin, there's an assassin with a personality who has done what an assassin does(whatever that is!), and likely its something the player chose to be. A major difference is that he's no longer taking a step to consider what his alignment would be or do, but he may consider what does an assassin do and who do I want to be.
Everyones got a different idea about alignment imo. I'm usually pretty lax about it when I run. If you ever want to run against type first thing to do is talk to your GM. Easier to work it out with them than try and find ways around it.
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Removing alignment restrictions- really, the talk is about removing alignment, period- will allow, perhaps encourage, lawful good assassins, good dread necromancers, and anti-paladins of honor and justice. Pull out the Book of Vile Darkness, because casting those spells are no longer bad. That dark creature sacrificing babies to its tentacle god? He's got the saint template from the Book of Exalted Deeds.
Hey remember that time we started allowing lawful bards and suddenly all the heroes started murdering babies for fun? Neither do I.
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Congratulations, you win the 'Hyperbolic non-argument of the day' award. That's such a ludicrous pile of gorgon droppings I can't even formulate a response. That's pure Insane Troll Logic.
Since the beginning of this thread, you have stated your opinion as unassailable fact, with very little to actually back it up, in ways meant to annoy those who disagree. And then you say I'm using "Insane Troll Logic".
However, you did start by saying "talk it over with your GM", and I agree with that. Its the cornerstone of what a GM does.
I think its important that your mechanics fit your character, and I feel sometimes that your alignment restrictions can interfere with a character concept.
I can agree with you there. But for the most part, when I see some one who wishes to ignore a class restriction- be it alignment, feat, BAB, or what-have-you, its usually because that player wishes to have it all, right now, or setting up something sneaky in a level or two
For the record, I hate sneaky players. Intelligent players I love and reward (if you out smart me or do something I didn't think of you get bonus experience and a hero point). Sneaky characters I love. Sneaky players who try to twisted the game into their personal god-complex, I loathe.
I don't think removing alignment restrictions turns players into sociopaths or encourages playing counter to the role either.
"...encourages playing counter to the role..." was my point, though it seems I inadvertently accused those supporting removing alignments of playing monsters.
Exceptions exist. That is the premise of player characters, after all. They are exceptional people who don't fall in line with the rest of the game world. If they did, they would be playing commoners. But it is hard to break from the mold if no mold exists. A paladin/barbarian isn't (as) special if everyone can be that.
This is a fantasy game, and includes absolute stances, in so far as good vs. evil, law vs. chaos. Its part of the game, different from hit points and levels, but still part of the game. Could alignment be removed and still be as fun? I think it can.
But I'm not about to say its unreasonable not to remove them. D&D was fun back in the red book days, and has only gotten better. Pathfinder is, so far, the absolute best version of it. Every edition has been fun, and every edition has had alignment. THac0 went away, as did save vs. death and demi-humans being a class, but alignment stayed. No, not everything old should be kept just because "we always did it that way", but if its made it 30 years, maybe a little extra thought should be put into why its still around before removing it.
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Congratulations, you win the 'Hyperbolic non-argument of the day' award. That's such a ludicrous pile of gorgon droppings I can't even formulate a response. That's pure Insane Troll Logic.Since the beginning of this thread, you have stated your opinion as unassailable fact, with very little to actually back it up, in ways meant to annoy those who disagree. And then you say I'm using "Insane Troll Logic".
Yes, your engaging in ridiculous hyperbole is, in fact, Insane Troll Logic. Every single example you cited is pure gorgon-crap. There is no logical train from A to B, you go straight from nothing to OMG DISASTER with no connection between elements. Explain to me how 'no alignment' means ANYTHING you stated. Go ahead. You have exactly squat, sir, if even that much. Crying 'end of the world, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria?' Really?
Me? I've been playing without alignment for years. As soon as I dropped it, roleplaying improved dramatically. Characters were no longer lame stereotypes. People thought in terms of an actual personality, instead of saying 'well, I'm (alignment), so I must (do this)'. No more Saturday morning cartoon villains who gloat about how evil they are.
No more ambiguity or arguments. No pointless, meaningless restrictions. No black-and-white boredom. No white hats and black hats. That worked fine when I was ten; it's simply lame now to me, and I cannot think of a single aspect of the game that is improved by the existence of alignment.
No more contradiction. The rules say 'alignment isn't a straitjacket', then turns around and says 'act like this or you get hosed', which is the definition of a straitjacket. If creatures incapable of moral action are Neutral, why are mindless undead evil? The nicest thing you can say about alignment is that it's inconsistent, and that is not an attribute of good rules. Good rules are clear, concise and unambiguous.
It doesn't matter if alignment is objective in the game world, it's being interpreted by real people in the real world, which means it's every bit as subjective in the game. If it were objective, there would never be a discussion about it. It is simply impossible to quantify the unquantifiable, objectify the subjective, or define the undefinable. Scholars have been trying for millennia to do so, and have failed utterly; you expect game designers to do it? Or game players?
The only 'role' that matters is the role the player chooses for his character, the personality and flavor he gives it. Mechanics and roleplaying are unrelated; the game should not tell you how to roleplay your character based on his abilities.
THAT, 'sir', is my experience and my stance.
*puts shades on*
Deal with it.
It's reciprocal. You can either start with a personality concept and choose an alignment to match, or you can choose an alignment and build a personality that fits it. Personality drives alignment and alignment, in turn, drives personality because they're both parts of the same whole concept. Keep in mind that the only thing a Barb loses from becoming Lawful is the ability to take further Barb levels and the ability to Rage. He keeps everything else.
Don't worry Mr. Lawful Barbarian! You get to keep your HD and BAB, but you lost all your rage and therefore all your class features(rage powers). But look on the Brightside! You can take levels in monk now!
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You don't lose your rage powers... just the ability to Rage. So if you can gain Rage from some other source *coughragathialcough*, you regain your Rage powers. Would make for some nice Roleplay; ex-Barbarian turned Paladin of Ragathial.
Good roleplay, bad in practice though. Also makes no sense that you can rage and benefit from rage powers, except you just can't rage yourself... Which is weird. Why not just let you rage anyway? I mean people who are lawful can rage, just not barbarians. Vikings can rage! But not my barbarian who is a Viking. Just... weird.
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That statement is an oxymoron.No Zhayne, it's really not. People can have different tastes from you and still be reasonable.
Keep this to yourself or the internet will collapse.
Keep this to yourself or the internet will collapse.That statement is an oxymoron.No Zhayne, it's really not. People can have different tastes from you and still be reasonable.
But, if people who disagreed with me were reasonable they'd agree with me, naturally!
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Paladins of every alignment! Get 'em here! Courtesy of James Jacobs!
My gaming group used these back in 3.x. I wish they would update them to Pathfinder.
The paladin of tyranny, paladin of freedom, and paladin of slaughter from unearthed arcana were used too.
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What does that have to do with anything?Talk to your GM. Any reasonable one will realize that alignment restrictions are BS and remove it.I am a reasonable DM who loves alignment restrictions.
-- Certain things you have to earn.
No; that's not it at all.
Deities are simply reticent to bestow their beneficence upon those who ignore their strictures, let alone flout them openly.
Entitled WOWbabbies want the privilege of barbarian class features without paying the price of having a different word written at the top of their character sheet, decent GMs must take a stand against these cheating children corrupting their verisimilitude with undeserved advantagesFine. Have it your way. Flip Old Deadeye the bird; and we'll see if that Smite and those auras keep working.
Paladins of every alignment! Get 'em here! Courtesy of James Jacobs!
Well, not really: none of those non-LG classes are actually called "paladins".
Given cavaliers and all the other damaging archetypes now available to the game, I'm amused at the endurance of the perennial demand of the apocryphal some to play chaotic paladins or lawful barbarians or other similar concept-negations.
Maybe I missed it, but has anyone mentioned the Bloodrager?
It's in playtest, but it rages, and it has no alignment restriction.
Cats and dogs sleeping together slippery slope to heroic infanticide clerics giving their own gods the finger mere anarchy is loosed upon the world incorrect word at the top of your character sheet entitled video game players don't understand roleplaying aaslkajslkahhs
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A raging, smiting paladin isn't a first level character, just starting his career bringing the holy wrath to wicked. He has to wait until at least second level, when he picks up a level in cleric with the destruction domain.
You seem to be worried about the possibility that someone could game the system, by multiclassing two classes that would stack their attack and damage bonuses.
However, such a combination already exists, Ranger/Paladin.
Favored enemy on evil outsiders. Archery Combat style for maximising full attack smite opportunities. Send him into the Worldwound, and he'll be dishing out the hurt, with maximised damage potential against most foes.
The world must be overrun with these types, no?
No. Because while it looks good on paper at level 3-4, it rapidly goes down the crapper at later levels, when good abilities of either class are delayed, or fall off the table.
The same goes for these hypothetical Barbarian/Paladins, that everyone seems to dread. Getting a Str and Con boost sounds fine, when you start out, but wait till you find your ability to heal yourself and others is gimped, you only have irrelevant mercies, your channeling fails to dissuade CR appropriate undead, when it interferes with casting those swift-action buffs that populate your spell list.
If you want to maximise the potential of your PF Paladin, take another level of PF Paladin. If you want to maximise your PF Barbarian, take another level of PF Barbarian.
The reason so many people dipped two levels of Paladin in 3.0/3.5, was that the class features past that point sucked. That's no longer the case.
You're arguing for arbitary restrictions as a solution to a problem that no longer exists.
Zhayne, I appreciate the completeness of your response. I cannot say I disagree with your opinions and choice you made because of them, even if, taken as a whole, I would not make those same choices.
However...
THAT, 'sir', is my experience and my stance.
*puts shades on*
Deal with it.
This is awesome. It made me smile and laugh and say "Alright. Duly noted." I'm gonna leave it at I disagree with you, but if I were sitting at your table, I wouldn't complain.
You're arguing for arbitrary restrictions as a solution to a problem that no longer exists.
All forms of restrictions are arbitrary in the game, by its nature. Alignment is not tied to a number, and therefore seen as being less important and put on the chopping block. I'm thinking that if each character had a numerical bonus tied to its alignment (varied by class) removing alignments wouldn't come up very often.
Its not that I wholly disagree with your and others' opinion, its that I disagree with how you implemented the cure. I'd rather make an exception that make a houserule.
But the original conversation was about how to make a lawful barbarian, and I have jumped on the train that went far off that topic. So, I bow out. Thank you to everyone for your insights.
I'm amused at the endurance of the perennial demand of the apocryphal some to play chaotic paladins or lawful barbarians or other similar concept-negations.
Still haven't seen you show just how a lawful barbarian is a concept negation. Still interested to see how you are going to show that when (again) one of the archetypical literary barbarians is clearly Lawful Good.
I had a character concept that was close to the "lawful barbarian", but was a githzerai LN barbarian that entered a "battle trance" and not a "rage".
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Wait, barbarians get power from deities in your games? Seems odd...
Of course you're just being snide, knowing full well that I meant that in regards to the paladin example I mentioned. But anyway....
What you're asking for in a lawful-barbarian is a loyal Nixon square who also drop acids to tune-in/turn-on/drop-out. Or (as a more 90s analog), Conan wears a three-piece suit and drives a minivan to his 9-5 job after dropping the kids off at Soccer High as his sword slowly rusts away in the attic.
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To the OP : check with your GM what HIS take on Chaotic vs Lawful is and if he thinks it compatible with your concept. Everyone on this thread (including you and I) speaks for his/her own very personal view of what the alignments mean.
But in his game, your GM's opinion is the only that actually matters ;-)
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On the downside, lawfulness can include closed-mindedness, reactionary adherence to tradition, self-righteousness, and a lack of adaptability.So, tradition is lawful. In the core rules, there are three base classes which are largely about following tradition: monk, bard, and barbarian. Bards follow poetic and musical traditions, monks follow the teachings of a particular philosophy.
Barbarians, on the other hand, have virtually no fluff aside from "living how people have traditionally lived". Barbarians are the tradition class.
So, a better question would be
Is it possible to have a chaotic barbarian?
Slaine (who is pretty much the ultimate raging warrior) says Hi ;-)