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Would it be confusing for players to give an NPC character 2 different alignment auras?
For example if an evil wizard had a midlife identity crisis and starts on the path to redemption (with a few small acts of good).
Or
Someone that WAS good at heart, but turned evil over the weight of years.
Would it be really far off to give such characters 2 auras? A "main aura" that detects as evil and a "lesser aura" of good?
Same for Law and Chaos.
Would it be confusing for players to give an NPC character 2 different alignment auras?
For example if an evil wizard had a midlife identity crisis and starts on the path to redemption (with a few small acts of good).
Or
Someone that WAS good at heart, but turned evil over the weight of years.
Would it be really far off to give such characters 2 auras? A "main aura" that detects as evil and a "lesser aura" of good?
Same for Law and Chaos.
Yes.
I think I'll clarify. Alignment in DnD is strictly digital - you have Good/Neutral/Evil and Lawful/Neutral/Chaotic. You can't be half-good half-neutral, because that's not how the system works.
The evil wizard stays evil until he becomes neutral until he becomes good.
His aura would show based on what his alignment is at that current time. If a evil character was attempting to redeem himself sincerely he's probably already neutral. So he would loose the evil aura as he is no longer evil. And if the character had redeemed himself already after a life of evil and is now good...well then he's good. And his aura would reflect this. It would not show up as both good and evil.
Now, there is magic that can mask or change a person's aura but I don't think that's what your asking about.
In short, yes, in my opinion this would be an unfair thing to do to players because it doesn't conform with the current rules. If you want to inform your players that the rules no longer function in that manner before you use this on them then it would probably be okay. But the baseline assumption is your aura depends on your current alignment (barring magical interference).
Keep in mind that for the most part if person is not sufficiently high level they do not have an aura to begin with. Clerics or paladins are the only classes that have an aura at low level. A paladin always has an aura of good, but the cleric has the aura of their deity’s alignment.
There is a word for a person who is good at heart, but turned to evil, and that is corrupted. This person is no less evil because he started out good. Many truly evil villains started this way including many anitipaladins.
The wizard on the path of redemption may not be evil anymore. If he is truly on the path of redemption his alignment probably shifted to neutral on the good/evil axis. At which case he no longer has an aura of evil. He may not have become good yet, but is probably no longer evil.
As a player, I'd also wonder how alignment-related effects such as spells work on the NPC, for example dispel X, protection from X, magic circle against X, chaos hammer and its equivalents and so forth.
I believe there have been other attempts to introduce mid-range alignments and scaling between alignments to indicate that a being is just on the cusp of one alignment or square in the middle of it. That might be something that would interest you.
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It was just a thought on alignments after reading a novel.
Here is a hypothetical example:
Say there is a character who is truly good to her friends, neighbours, people of other goodly races, etc. And by good, I mean REALLY GOOD. She is selfless, caring, loving, helpful, everything you expect of a paladin or paragon of good. And her race could be human, elf or dwarf, some goodly race.
BUT! This same good character is exceptionally cruel to say... drows, which an almost universally evil race. When drow raiders, raid and murder, many good folk in some towns on the surface. She not just defeats them and chase them away. She tracks these drow raiders back to their cities and goes out of her way to make sure these drow raiders get to see their young children get killed slowly and painfully in front of their parents. She even goes as far as to r*** and desecrate the drows that she killed, before and after she has killed them. And she burns down and commits genocide on the entire Drow city for the crime of attacking and killing good folk. She then hunts down any drow survivors and kill them, after they have been given a glimmer of the hope of survival. She then ensures that all the souls of the dead evil drows, get destroyed instead of being allowed to reach the afterlife.
And to "justify" her actions, lets have her whole clan and family got r***, desecrated, killed, have genocide committed on them and their souls destroyed by raiders from the above city of drows, when she was just a young child.
Now, she only does such actions, like r** and genocide only against an evil race like the drow. To other good races, she is kind, merciful and seen by all as a defender of the good destroyer of evil.
For the above character. What alignment should she be? Good? Evil? Neutral? Jumps back and forth based on the opinions of those around her? She is evil to drows and good to humans, elves and dwarves?
As a GM, how should I "classify" a character like the one above? What alignment should she have?
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I would say characters who engage in both good and evil acts fall into the Neutral category. PC or NPC.
If you're interested, there's a guide for that sort of thing.
I'm also of the opinion that this proposal would be quite confusing and not in line with the way alignment currently works. On the other hand if an individual was possesed by an outside influence (not just dominated, charmed or the like)then that may be a case where someone could detect as 2 different alignments.
Note about the cleric aura: it's based off of their deities alignment and may be different from their own. For example a N/N cleric of Abadar (L/N) would detect as Lawful.
Aura (EX): A cleric of a chaotic, evil, good, or lawful deity has a particularly powerful aura corresponding to the deity's alignment (see detect evil for details).
Edit: If the creature has another soul in an item (like a gem from the spell Trap the Soul then the detect alignment spell may trigger from the soul in the item seemingly giving the creature owning the item different alignments.
This character has turned evil. Originally she was good, but at some point she crossed the line and became what she hates most. Killing the drow who raided the town is fine, even chasing them down after the raid is not really a problem. Killing the children and torture is when she starts to become corrupted.
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Actually, there is the possibility for conflicting alignments at the same time.
Creatures with actively evil intents count as evil creatures for the purpose of this spell.
So, a Good character who is currently acting with Evil intent will detect as both Good and Evil.
Also, if a Good character was under the effects of an Evil spell (for example under the effects of Death Knell), you would detect them as Good and Evil.
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+1 to Samasboy1. You can detect as both in specific circumstances.
Actually, there is the possibility for conflicting alignments at the same time.
Creatures with actively evil intents count as evil creatures for the purpose of this spell.So, a Good character who is currently acting with Evil intent will detect as both Good and Evil.
Also, if a Good character was under the effects of an Evil spell (for example under the effects of Death Knell), you would detect them as Good and Evil.
Very true and good find :-) one question i do have is that would they register as both if they had a spell onbthem such as protection from evil or etc? In detect good spell it states that someone with one of those spells would detect as good but would they detect evil with same spell active? Is it really both or is it either or?
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@Samasboy1,
So you CAN be detected as having 2 different alignments!?!
I guess its only on a short term basis. The dectection of "evil" would only last as long as the character has "actively evil intents".
Mummmm..... so, does this means if a paladin found out that her boyfriend is cheating on her and she has murder on her mind, she would detect as both good and evil? For as long as she really wants to kill that 2-timing cheat of a boy friend of hers?
Note: I'm going to assume things like smite evil and protection of evil, only works on the actual alignment of a creature. Not on such short term thoughts.
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I would say characters who engage in both good and evil acts fall into the Neutral category. PC or NPC.
If you're interested, there's a guide for that sort of thing.
Hummm.... I may actually get this thanks.
Been doing some reading lately and realize that alignment is a really messy subject.
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Very true and good find :-) one question i do have is that would they register as both if they had a spell onbthem such as protection from evil or etc?
Well, if a Good character has Protection from Good cast on them, then Detect Good would detect the character's alignment, and Detect Evil would detect the spell's alignment radiating from the character.
So yes, they would detect as both Good and Evil, but Detect Good only sees the Good and Detect Evil only sees the Evil.