What is my PC's alignment?

[Neronoxx]

So in our campaign i am playing a magus who views justice (the act of punishing those who do evil) as a law of nature. He is ruthless towards these ends however, as he views those who would stand in his way as the unjust, while his actions are sacrosanct. He has no problem killing people or even torturing them.
In the current campaign he has burnt down a warehouse district and an abandoned building( two seperate incidents) because they were being used by an anarchistic military group. Then he led an ambush on a caravan of these people, and brutally interogated a wizard.
His trail for revenge led him to an academy where he abducted a teacher for information. This information led him to a church, where he abducted an 8 year old girl (important to him) and lit the church on fire.
My question is this: what would you say his alignment be? He believes in justice for all, but justifies the means with the end. It may not be important, but i want some outside feedback.

[Googleshng]

I'd say LE. Possibly LN depending on the specifics.

[wraithstrike]

LE, LN. I am leaning toward LE due to the torture aspect. It does sound like an interesting antihero however.

[Steelfiredragon]

le or ln and a price on his head.

watch yer back

[FuelDrop]

Sounds like a Tautological Templar, probably LE with shades of LN.

[Larkos]

FuelDrop wrote:

Sounds like a Tautological Templar, probably LE with shades of LN.

Agreed. (TV Tropes FTW.)

[Gwaithador]

Lawful Neutral (trending towards evil).

[Lincoln Hills]

Since the class has no alignment restrictions, let your GM worry about it. Play the character the way you want to and let him worry about how that portrayal interacts with various spells.

[Deadmanwalking]

Yup, somewhere between LN and LE depending on what he does when not acting like a crazier Judge Dredd.

[Imbicatus]

LE because it is the middle ground between Serving justice above all else (LN) and using Torture, murder, and anything else in pursuit of your goals (NE).

[Goblin Hood]

quoting Lincoln Hills...

[Sarrah]

Core Rulebook wrote:

Good implies altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings. Good characters make personal sacrifices to help others.

Evil implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others. Some evil creatures simply have no compassion for others and kill without qualms if doing so is convenient.

People who are neutral with respect to good and evil have compunctions against killing the innocent, but may lack the commitment to make sacrifices to protect or help others.

Neronoxx wrote:

He is ruthless towards these ends ... He has no problem killing people or even torturing them ... and brutally interogated a wizard.

Definitely evil.

Core Rulebook wrote:

Lawful characters tell the truth, keep their word, respect authority, honor tradition, and judge those who fall short of their duties. Chaotic characters follow their consciences, resent being told what to do, favor new ideas over tradition, and do what they promise if they feel like it.

Neronoxx wrote:

he has burnt down a warehouse district and an abandoned building ... he abducted a teacher for information ... he abducted an 8 year old girl (important to him) and lit the church on fire

Definitely not Lawful.

I would classify your character as chaotic evil. Your character may be neutral evil favoring chaotic evil though.

[Kazaan]

The view that "Lawful = follows laws" is shallow and trivializes the potential depth of character. Simplest case in point is, "If a Lawful character enters a lawless land, does doing whatever they want count as being Lawful?" If there's no law, then, literally, nothing you do could be outside of said law. If you hold to your familiar laws, you're breaking the law of lawlessness of the land you are in. It's the Lawful Stupid argument from the other way; Stupid Good. You can have a personal or religious code that you follow that could very well hold many other legal codes in contempt. But you have a lawful code that you follow and guides your actions; it doesn't mean you must follow all lawful codes, especially the ones you are steadfastly opposed to because they violate your preeminent lawful code.

That having been said, an analysis of the character.

He believes punishing evil-doers to be an act of nature; something that simply happens as a matter of course. That, in and of itself, is a neutral view.

He's ruthless in his application; he thinks nothing of torture and threats to achieve his goals. That leans him towards evil.

He has a personal code (justice for all) which heavily drives his actions; that implies a lawful attitude, not based on religious or civil laws but personal laws that govern his behavior. He he believes that those who are not evil are entitled to justice, but he'll sacrifice their well-being if it means punishing evil; that means he puts the punishing of evil above the safety of others, but the punishing of evil is to promote the safety of others. I'd say that puts him square in neutral because he balances the two extremes.

Thus, he has a personal code that compels him to hunt down and eliminate evildoers and anarchists and balances the extremes of good and evil (kills evil to protect good, kills good to destroy evil) which makes him neutral. He's LN and he's walking a razor edge of morality between Good and Evil.

[MrSin]

He's chaotic lawful with a hint of evil good.

[Kazaan]

I've actually designed an optional alignment rule to reflect people who are so extreme between L/C or G/E that they don't even count as neutral anymore but, instead, count as both alignments. They'd ping both Detect Good and Detect Evil, for example, as well as fulfill both alignment codes (ie. a character who is beyond Law and Chaos could fulfill the Lawful requirement for Monk while, at the same time, be counted as Chaotic to worship Sun Wukong). However, it's a double-edged sword; just as a Half-Elf is vulnerable to both Human Bane and Elf Bane, such a character would be vulnerable to tools against both alignments (ie. vulnerable to both Holy and Unholy weapons).

[Neronoxx]

Kazaan... that was beautiful... i think you nailed this character exactly the way i have been playing him. 
There's a little bit more to him as well. 
He is called "The Seeker" by many in the campaign. After a successful raid of a powerful and influential church, the party decided to lay low for about a month. 
Seeker enters a brothel (his impromptu base of operations) but doesn't come out. Instead, a man called Solas Avari comes out. Solas Avari is the son of a wealthy merchant, but is frail and sickly, and so is considered by many to be a recluse. He is polite, caring and sociable and holds a position as a great philanthropist. 
Basically i am running with the idea of a Dr. Jekle and Mr Hyde persona, where Solas (actually just an alias) dons the mask and cloak, becomes seeker. This resulted from a tragedy in his past, that left the good-willed child unable to reconcile with the world,a a result a second personality was born, to reshape the world into something where evil is punished. 
The other PC's don't know any of this, nor do many people at all. Thoughts?

[James F.D. Graham]

I always figure the Law/Chaos axis to be less about following/breaking laws or even having/not having codes and more about internal consistency.

Given a choice, a Lawful character will choose an option. Given the choice a second time, they will choose the same option again.

What the choice is doesn't matter - that is what the Good/Evil axis determines. Heal/Harm, Go/Stay, Save/Sacrifice, Keep/Donate.. whatever.

The more lawful they are, the less likely they are to deviate from the choice.

Example using your character:

Would you burn down a building to root out the bad guy? The answer is yes.

Would you do it if the building wasn't abandoned?
Would you do it if there was a risk it could spread to non-involved buildings?
Would you do it if MAYBE there were innocents inside?
Would you do it if you KNEW there were innocents inside?
Would you do it if your friends were inside?
Your family?
etc.

A Lawful person would tend to keep answering yes. Insofar as it did not conflict with the other half of their alignment mind you.. a Good person would probably stop sooner on that list than an Evil one.

And of course, that list is just a few off the top of my head.. you can get really nuanced about it if you want.. "My friends ARE inside but they know I use this tactic and said it was ok but that was before we learned there might be an orphanage near by.." or whatever.

I also think that no sane person would ever be so Lawful that they would never EVER deviate. Nor could a person be so Chaotic that they had no morals at all and determined every action by chance.

So I guess.. for me.. to determine your alignment. Figure out your morals (Good/Evil) then figure out how flexible they are (Law/Chaos).

Just some thoughts.

[MrSin]

Neronoxx wrote:

Thoughts?

You might consider having a different active alignment for each personality. There's an alchemist PrC with a split personality that functions like that. Easiest solution to your alignment problems is to chuck alignment out mind you.

[Sarrah]

James F.D. Graham wrote:

Example using your character:

Would you burn down a building to root out the bad guy?
Would you do it if the building wasn't abandoned?
Would you do it if there was a risk it could spread to non-involved buildings?
Would you do it if MAYBE there were innocents inside?
Would you do it if you KNEW there were innocents inside?
Would you do it if your friends were inside?
Your family?
etc.

I totally agree with your line of thinking that a lawful person would consistently answer this line of questions the same way, but completely disagree with how you think that person would answer it. A lawful person would consistently answer no.

Lawful people are not sociopaths.

[Ed Reppert]

Kazaan wrote:

The view that "Lawful = follows laws" is shallow and trivializes the potential depth of character.

Y'ask me, the opposite of Chaos is not Law, but Order.

[James F.D. Graham]

Sarrah wrote:

I totally agree with your line of thinking that a lawful person would consistently answer this line of questions the same way, but completely disagree with how you think that person would answer it. A lawful person would consistently answer no.

Lawful people are not sociopaths.

fair enough. I say a Good person would say no. An Evil person would say yes.

and how consistently they do so determines the Law/Chaos portion of their alignment