Variant Alignment System

[Space Crimes]

I wrote a concept of a new way of using the current alignment system for a campaign setting I'm creating. I don't currently have any players to give their opinion so I thought I'd toss it into the wild.

I've made a lot of Neutral characters recently as a silent protest of the current alignment system. I think it's weird that believing tyrants suck and that killing is wrong is enough to make your character glow with such Pure Good Energy demons can magically detect you and a wizard can cast a spell that prevents you from touching him. At the same time I like player characters casting Protection from Evil to stop something like a Succubus or some other creature that is by the lore evil incarnate from controlling their mind.

So I thought of this goofy idea. I'm shamelessly taking Unaligned from 4E D&D and making it the default for all player characters. Whether your character is a cowardly selfish thief or an honorable defender of the common folk you begin the game as Unaligned. The CRB states that the normal alignments are guidelines but not strict rules. But, I see players either putting their PCs in boxes or ignoring their alignment entirely. Unaligned is valid for every class and for the worship of every deity (which will also be very different in this setting).

A lot of spells and mechanics include alignment and I don't want to rewrite or erase them. I thought it would be cool if classes based on positive or negative energy could temporarily 'glow' a certain alignment when they use their powers. A paladin that uses Smite Evil would be Good aligned for a few rounds or maybe minutes. A cleric that casts a spell with the Evil descriptor or channels negative energy would likewise be treated as evil for a limited time. The Detect Evil radar wouldn't pick up on every petty thief and con man in the city but would rather be limited to evil outsiders and those who have recently cast evil spells.

Spoiler:

Alignment functions differently than a standard Pathfinder game. The 8 alignments that previously surrounded Neutral are still present. All references to 'Neutral' are removed. Neutral Good is now simply good, and Lawful Neutral just Lawful. Same with Evil and Chaotic. Additionally, there is the status of Unaligned. Mortal races, animals, and even most monsters are Unaligned. An alignment is a magical association with the power of good, evil, law, or chaos. It is not used as a tool to inform a character's personality or motivations. Some beings, such as outsiders, deities, and magical races are permanently aligned. A Lawful Good archon from the Bestiary still has the properties of both Lawful and Good at all times in this setting. Characters can become temporarily aligned through the use of class features, spells, or magical items. An Unaligned character who grabs a cursed item may become Evil aligned while it is in their possession even if they do not have a malicious personality and spells such as Protection from Evil and Detect Evil would affect them. A paladin who uses Smite Evil might be Good aligned for a few rounds while a cleric who casts the Holy Aura spell would glow Good for many days.

This shift in alignment is purely mechanical and would not force a change in attitude or personality right away. For most mortals use of aligned magic would cause a shift in character over time. If a warrior used a cursed sword that aligned the user Evil she could use it for months to protect the innocent people of her hometown but over time she would become more callous, selfish, and violent. The players are not forced to do this and could easily play a character that uses a power traditionally aligned against them. A necromancer who raises the dead as tools to help society rather than destroy it is as valid as a cleric who channels positive energy to heal his gang of bloodthirsty raiders. Whether or not an archon or demon would agree with these uses of holy/unholy energy is a different matter.

Any comments/ideas/concerns are appreciated!

[KestrelZ]

Basically you just removed the word neutral and divorced the trigger words of alignment from any morals or actions, is what I am reading into this. Either that, or watering it down so much as to render it somewhat meaningless, which isn't a bad thing as it might solve debates if your player base just argues morality all day.

The big problem is Pathfinder's magic system / class features.
It can be house ruled out. It has been done before in 3.5 with the world setting of "Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed", which had a different magic system to account for having no alignment system.

Long story short, it would take considerable effort to alter or get rid of the alignment system - though it can and has been done. I mean, you could just say every being has an aura color rather than an alignment. As long as you figure how this changes character classes, certain spells, and certain magic items (clerical channeling, smite, holy/unholy/chaotic/axiomatic items, etc.) then you are good to go.

[Space Crimes]

I'm not interested in removing alignment entirely. I still want something like a holy sword being able to have a greater effect on a demon and the Protection from X spells to be around. Although I see a couple holes. Prot from Evil is a lot less attractive if goblins/kobolds/orcs no longer have an alignment.

Would it be a cool concept if alignment ties you to a morality if you are say an evil outsider but the muddiness of using these aligned powers for any purpose was unique to humans and the other PC races?

[kadance]

You could drop alignment entirely and just use the alignment subtypes to govern spell effects.

1) Protection from Evil now only works against things with the [evil] subtype, etc.

2) Expand on who has a subtype (divine casters gain the subtypes within one step of their god, arcane casters that choose to have a subtype can access spells with that alignment/unaligned casters cannot cast spells with alignment types).

3a) Give magic items subtypes if thematically apporpriate or perhaps maching their creator's types, and have them passed on to their bearers (celestial mail is [good]). Maybe that headband of wisdom decorated with skulls and horns is [lawful, evil]! Wear it and be hurt next time you cast Hammer of Chaos.
3b) Wearing diametrically opposed magic items results in them damaging eachother or ceasing to function.

[insaneogeddon]

I think you're confusing cultural bias with morality and ethics.

These are separate. We live in a society quite distanced from cause and effect where even severely disabled people can easily survive yet with such expansive scope sociopaths can survive almost devoid of consequence by cycling through friends and occasionally jobs.

We are all basically neutral evil, we want,demand and expect most everything without consequence, happily perpetuate hypocracy, expect more and better from others than ourselves, feel mostly detatched and seperate from our surrounds as is the western scientific model and share brainwashing and peer pressure to these effects.

Such is not great grounds for altering an alignment system and to do so makes it arbitrary and biased. Its best to remove it.

Or if you believe (as the designers did for RP/poetic or metaphysical reasons) that underpinning the reality of the megeverse is good and evil/law and chaos (and in fact the megaverse itself are expressions of these dichotomys). Then alignment makes sense and basically all the arguments against it (which boil down to I wanna more cake, and his cake an I wanna it without consequence) amount to nothing but a lack of a grasp of fundamentals or any rapport or understanding of different (alignment based) philosophies and peoples that have made up 99% of human history.

There have been/are societies that condone torture, rape etc I am sure roleplayers from those societies would argue paladins should be allowed to or even be driven and divinely directed to torture and rape but that again would be a cultural bias as opposed to a grasp of the underpinnings of alignment and a morality that predates people as opposed to being contingent on our wanny wanny wants and as a culture our perverted, plageristic, fermented and jaded behaviors.