Anyone know where to find an adequate assessment or want to help me come up with questions to replace the alignment system and forever be done with this nonsense?
PENDRAGON has a system of Personal Traits and Passions that force a more and (perhaps) better role-play type experience.
Using actual personality tests is not something I'd recommend.
Why replace alignment with anything? It doesn't perform any worthwhile role in the first place.
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Atarlost wrote: Why replace alignment with anything? It doesn't perform any worthwhile role in the first place. For 3.PF it is critical in adjudicating certain spells, spell-like abilities, and similarly, certain magic items.
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I mean, I guess you could go with Meyers-Briggs and have Protection vs Introverts...
Kind of... it's more like a guidelines of how one's character acts. I have discovered my PC's Neutral Evil Necromancer has serious issues with the notion of killing people, which was an amazing turn of events. But it brought up when they were choosing alignment how I said "how far would you go in the pursuit of knowledge? Would you break the law? Knowing you would get caught? Would you sacrafice a baby?" And ultimately he decided that he didn't want to get caught and in trouble, but would essentially go to any necessary extent. He's just very anti-killing people, mostly for fear of repurcussions.
The pirate game we last played, I threw a totally different alignment system out there, one where Law and Good were defined through a pirate's code and your adherance to it.
Quark Blast wrote: Atarlost wrote: Why replace alignment with anything? It doesn't perform any worthwhile role in the first place. For 3.PF it is critical in adjudicating certain spells, spell-like abilities, and similarly, certain magic items. There's nothing to gain from having alignment spells. Failing to work against some targets doesn't actually make them more interesting.
Protection from Alignment, for example, just becomes protection from outsiders, summoned monsters, and mind control.
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The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, the Big Five personality traits, and most other personality assessments don't cover morality and ethicality at all, which is what you're asking about. You could try basing something off of the Moral Foundations Theory, which has six axes.
Moral Foundations seems nice as I have been debating increasing the number of axis to the alignment system in the past. Something like the Pirates brought up the freedom/oppression side of things, as well as the main difference between the primary factions which was Honor (hence lawful was actually sticking to a code of honor).
Hrm, I like it.
Each of these would also require a general insight toward their level of conviction toward the topic at hand. Sadly most of these are a means of breaking up the lawful/chaotic spectrum, while only really care/harm covers good/evil. I think that's a problem considering that there is both outward and inward aspects of that (covered with loyalty) and good/evil involves some aspects of gray within it (not nearly as much as law/chaos). I'll definitely need to expand on this somehow
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I don't actually have a problem with the idea of a Lawful pirate who is good to his word, loyal to his crew, and follows the pirate code.
Lawful does not mean "blindly and slavishly follows all laws."
A paladin of Iomedae, for instance, is not going to accept or respect the laws of Cheliax or Hell, and isn't going to be divinely punished for freeing a bunch of slaves, regardless of whether or not they were "legally" purchased.
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I agree, but mechanically pirates are to be "chaotic" in nature because they do not follow the overarching alignment system, which is far too basic to really cover things. As for things which use the actual alignment, a classifying breakdown to generate spectrums within the standard system is useful for me as GM, which still maintains a stronger illusion of a more gray system for by my players and myself, as well as remove certain restrictions from classes which I already have to.
Personally I do not see this world or the gaming world within this black and white system the game does. As an example, I feel strongly that acts using human psychology to manipulate others for your own gain is extremely evil, and yet I see google targeting advertising toward you based on previous searches or shopping, and I see grocery stores moving product around to confuse patrons into purchasing things they otherwise would not want. To me these are very distinctly evil actions which are viewed by many as proper or okay. History texts remember victors as freedom fighters, and losers as terrorists, but many within our own society are starting to see the folly in this and altering the terms, this doesn't alter the definitions of those groups, but heavily alters emotional connotations.
Darn it, my earlier edit didn't pop up.
Anyway, about the personal example, those individuals running these companies would view my outlook as subversive, leading to a chaotic alignment. But at the same time I also try to adequately follow social protocall and exist with my surroundings as best I can with a leave no trace attitude. To those I oppose the behavior of I am seen as a renegade, and a chaotic being, but to those who meet me in day to day I am a kind young gentleman. In this world that leads to alignment being subjective, based on the eye of the beholder. Where as in game terms merely moving from one kingdom to another could easily alter a Paladin's alignment to one which violates their class. Objective alignment just does not work fory own viewpoint, or that of my group. And behaving oneself based on alignment creates certain issues which are restrictive. Hence a personality/morality system for alignment instead of thr current system.
Again I'd need a work around on certain things but it would benefit myself and my players immensely
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Atarlost wrote: Quark Blast wrote: Atarlost wrote: Why replace alignment with anything? It doesn't perform any worthwhile role in the first place. For 3.PF it is critical in adjudicating certain spells, spell-like abilities, and similarly, certain magic items. There's nothing to gain from having alignment spells. Failing to work against some targets doesn't actually make them more interesting.
Protection from Alignment, for example, just becomes protection from outsiders, summoned monsters, and mind control. Yes, of course one can always dump everything alignment related.
My point in stating the critical nature of alignment in 3.PF is that dumping alignment isn't as simple as "just dumping it". One then has to also dump or re-define a great number of spells, spell-like abilities, and magic items. And also account for the interactions of the mass-dump/re-definitions.
And in my opinion, once you've gone to all that trouble, you might as well switch to a different RPG.
When I tried to create a role playing game, I used personality ranges.
Vow of poverty(Detects strong good)
Generous(Detects good)
Shares when needed
normal
Tight
Greedy(Detects evil)
Hoarder(Detects strong Evil and madness)
I'm not sure I can find the stuff, but you get the idea.
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Meh! people pay too much attention to other peoples alignment. people are far more complicated than that.
Keep the alignment system, it affects too many things to just dump it. What you do want to change is peoples attitudes to it.
For your character go with the alignment that's closest in broad sweepsto what you feel is right.
For GM's, and I cannot emphasise this enough, don't sweat it. Those 2 letters really don't matter that much when it comes to how a player is RPing their character. The alignments are broad and non-specific enough that you can justify nearly anything for any one of them, given the right circumstances.
Close enough is good enough and you have enough to worry about without arguing about the ramifications of a single act.
Alignments are guidelines not tramlines.
Quark Blast wrote: Atarlost wrote: Quark Blast wrote: Atarlost wrote: Why replace alignment with anything? It doesn't perform any worthwhile role in the first place. For 3.PF it is critical in adjudicating certain spells, spell-like abilities, and similarly, certain magic items. There's nothing to gain from having alignment spells. Failing to work against some targets doesn't actually make them more interesting.
Protection from Alignment, for example, just becomes protection from outsiders, summoned monsters, and mind control. Yes, of course one can always dump everything alignment related.
My point in stating the critical nature of alignment in 3.PF is that dumping alignment isn't as simple as "just dumping it". One then has to also dump or re-define a great number of spells, spell-like abilities, and magic items. And also account for the interactions of the mass-dump/re-definitions.
And in my opinion, once you've gone to all that trouble, you might as well switch to a different RPG. And yet I managed to do it in just a few pages of simple house rules. And my (anti-) alignment rules are less ambiguous/confusing/broken than the default alignment rules.
There aren't actually all that many rules in. Pathfinder that depend on alignment. Creating an original system is much, much harder.
Deranged_Maniac_Ben wrote: Quark Blast wrote: Atarlost wrote: Quark Blast wrote: Atarlost wrote: Why replace alignment with anything? It doesn't perform any worthwhile role in the first place. For 3.PF it is critical in adjudicating certain spells, spell-like abilities, and similarly, certain magic items. There's nothing to gain from having alignment spells. Failing to work against some targets doesn't actually make them more interesting.
Protection from Alignment, for example, just becomes protection from outsiders, summoned monsters, and mind control. Yes, of course one can always dump everything alignment related.
My point in stating the critical nature of alignment in 3.PF is that dumping alignment isn't as simple as "just dumping it". One then has to also dump or re-define a great number of spells, spell-like abilities, and magic items. And also account for the interactions of the mass-dump/re-definitions.
And in my opinion, once you've gone to all that trouble, you might as well switch to a different RPG. And yet I managed to do it in just a few pages of simple house rules. And my (anti-) alignment rules are less ambiguous/confusing/broken than the default alignment rules. As another person who's done this, I can say with certainty that it's not as difficult as you're making it out to be.
Alright so we have 2 people who have done this, and a couple nay-sayers including the statement that the current alignment system is fine.
To those who have done it, feel free to post your work it would be fascinating to see.
To the one person who said the current system is fine: Again, I keep finding major issues like the pirate paladin who is effectively breaking the paladin code for everyone else,and is still restricted from multiclassing into something like Dread Pirate according to the alignment system, despite honorable dread pirates being a thing within that ancient class. Blah to all that.
As for spells which affect alignments, again it would still work, I'd just need to fit morality/personalities into the standard alignment system as a bit of extra work on my end based on the player's results. Meh, not that big a deal.
As an aside, the only organisms I maintain the actual alignment of as a hard line for the lot of them are outsiders with alignment subtypes and unintelligent creatures. Everything else is fair game to be any alignment with a general predilection toward the alignment suggested. I even treat undead as the alignment of their creator/themselves without forcing them to evil.
Some became pirates by taking over a slave ship and killing the slavers. Slavery is more evil than lawful.
Oxylepy wrote: I keep finding major issues like the pirate paladin who is effectively breaking the paladin code for everyone else,and is still restricted from multiclassing into something like Dread Pirate according to the alignment system, despite honorable dread pirates being a thing within that ancient class. A pirate paladin isn't going to be like any other paladin. It is up to the player and GM to agree a code of conduct that works for their game. Everyone else can go hang for all their opinion ultimately matters.
Paladins of Torag are potentially far more likely to be in breach of the traditional paladins code than a pirate paladin for example. Coming up with a specific paladin code is much less work than that required to remove alignment.
Amending an entry requirement to a prestige class is an order of magnitudes less onerous a change than coming up with a paladins code.
KISS, the less you disturb, the less can go wrong.
Also, I would like to mention that Lawful != obeys the laws. In fact lawful and chaotic are some of the most poorly defined aspects of DnD/Pathfinder
You could proboly fix alignment by just dumping the L-C axis.
At that point it just becomes the whole caring/harm aspect of the MFT, or just good/evil. But honestly even good and evil are poorly defined as my other topic found through biblical history. Eh... I kind of have issues with this whole alignment system all around. Ethics is debateable, law and chaos is debateable. And everyone* is the hero of their own story.
*I know a guy who is not so there are exceptions to this, however the saying usually holds true.
Out of curiosity, I actually took the Meyers-Briggs as three of my characters:
Gulthor, my LN Hellknight, came back as an ESTJ, which is eerily perfect.
Frag, my NE goblin alchemist (20 INT, trained by a gnome, very sophisticated) came back as an ISTP, which as a follower of both Haagenti and Bharnarol obsessively working towards the creation of a philosopher's stone fits wonderfully.
Thorgle, my CG half-orc bard came back as an ENFP which also suits him incredibly well.
That's not really here nor there with regards to an alignment system, though.
What you could do is just broaden things a bit (including your own concepts of what Lawful, Chaotic, Good, and Evil *mean*) and make it so that instead of having a Lawful requirement as a paladin, it's simply non-chaotic - same for a monk. Something that requires a "good" alignment, you could open up to non-evil, and so on.
We've had non-chaotic houseruled for monks for some time with no problems. A Drunken Master, for instance, isn't exactly the shining example of tradition, honor, and discipline.
Deeply personal loyalties like,"Because, my Mom" lead to rules mush.
Rules mush is a bad thing. Everyone worships their own PC created god.
All spells are different and it takes days for the GM and player to negotiate each new spell.
Every trap has a page full of stats.
You don't want to go there.
I'm not a fan of the Unchained attempt at removing alignments that Milo v3 mentions. To me, they where mostly »Give them other names! Huh? You wanna get rid of metaphysical concepts in the rules? Well, you're on your own then«. Of course, you should check them out. Maybe you'll find them different.
There have, however, been other attempts. Check out this blog-post. You'll also need part two and three.
Alignment IS Personaliyt Assesment.
You asses the personality of the character you created, and then choose the alignment that is most fitting.
As a personality assessment it has proven time and time again to be a complete and utter failure.
Law and chaos effectively is just a hold over from the Roman Empire. People who lack large stone buildings were chaotic barbarians, which was in complete disregard to the laws and customs they fought and died for, customs that they held woth great conviction. Meanwhile the Romans would go back on their own word time and again because of the structure of their society. And yet they were lawful, and the barbarians chaotic.
Good and evil is also a subjective system, in one person's eyes doing good is forsaking a profitable craft to live as a pauper, traveling and bringing the word of God to others, healing the sick and feeding the hungry. Then throwing the merchants out of the temple and being killed on a cross for it.
Another's version of good is to gift a portion of their wealth to the temple, or help those in dire need. To fight for their country...
Do PFS Paladins begin games with less money than other classes to account for tithes? No.
The alignment system attempts poorly to give structure to something which is extremely subjective. And it really doesn't do so very well.
One of the first things we did as a group was to say hogwash to alignment restrictions for classes. It doesn't make sense in the slightest.
Which is why I want something more along the lines of does your character keep their word? Does your character actively try to be subversive toward laws and customs? Under what circumstances? Does your character have their own social ettiquate rules they follow? Does your character have issues with the notion of killing others? Where is the line drawn as to what is acceptible? When presented with a bunch of children who are orphaned by your actions, what would your character do? If death is not final, is it better to slaughter things and free them to their afterlife or to have them keep living?
Quark Blast wrote: PENDRAGON has a system of Personal Traits and Passions that force a more and (perhaps) better role-play type experience. I think Pendragon's use of its personality traits and loyalties/passions was very interesting - but you really have to use them to make them worthwhile. Ideally, they shift around as play reveals the character and, if you maintain certain high values (not necessarily easy to do), you gain benefits.
Goth Guru wrote: When I tried to create a role playing game, I used personality ranges.
Vow of poverty(Detects strong good)
Generous(Detects good)
Shares when needed
normal
Tight
Greedy(Detects evil)
Hoarder(Detects strong Evil and madness)
I'm not sure I can find the stuff, but you get the idea.
This has quite a bias to it.
There are a few things to consider regarding the "alignment" issue.
1) Pathfinder is predicated on objective alignment as fundamental forces of the universe. Good, Evil, Lawful, and Chaotic are as real and tangible in Pathfinder as Electromagnetism and Gravity are for us. Good and Evil aren't viewed as subjective moral dilemmas, but as how strongly you "resonate" with objective forces. Angels aren't just Good, they are made of Good. Devils aren't just Lawful and Evil, they are made of Lawful and Evil. The way we view morality and ethics in the real world is, fundamentally, at odds with the way Pathfinder depicts them.
2) In most cases, Alignment is a non-issue. Most classes and abilities aren't restricted by alignment so, even if your actions change your alignment, you generally don't care. There isn't any benefit to holding to a particular alignment over another.
3) The objectivity of alignment is further confounded by the association with Positive/Negative energy with those alignments. Negative Energy is considered as Evil as Evil Energy. You can't channel Positive if you're Evil and you can't channel Negative if you're Good. But Positive, Negative, Good, and Evil are four very distinct and different energies in Pathfinder mechanics.
4) Alignment ought to be reciprocal; your actions should affect your alignment and your alignment should affect your actions. It should be a moral struggle to shift from one paradigm to another, especially for characters like Outsiders who are literally made of the alignment energies.
Here are the ways to fix it.
1) Coexistence of subjective and objective alignments. Having Good/Evil/Lawful/Chaotic fundamental, objective energies is fine, but the attitudes of mortals who aren't literally fueled by these energies should be more subjective. Only if a mortal becomes fueled by an alignment energy should their behavior become objective and, by extension, explicit and codified. A Paladin, for instance, should be taking both Lawful and Good energies into himself and should be counted as having Lawful and Good as subtypes. A Cleric of a NE deity should be infused with Evil energy and gain the Evil subtype. Also, these subtypes should have a concrete effect on a character. Codify exactly what kind of behavioral pressures these subtypes exert and, if someone wants to act against these pressures, they must make a will save to do it, otherwise they can't bring themselves to it. If you're Evil subtype, you must make a will save to not "finish off" a downed opponent, for example. These alignments should also have certain beneficial effects. If you are Evil, you're not as "restrained" with your attacks so, for instance, an Evil caster's Fireball might be more intense because he's not worried about collateral damage, while a Good caster's Fireball might be less intense, especially if there are non-enemies within its area of effect.
2) Separate "morals and ethics" from Alignment. In real life, we typically don't self-identify as "Evil". Each side in a conflict views themselves as "the Good guys" and the other side as "the Bad guys". If the alignment energies aren't involved, it should be "Good vs Evil". However, there are ways to gauge morals and ethics in a similar axis-based system, but some adaptations will be required. Instead of Good vs Evil, try Cooperative vs Competitive. Cooperative morality believes in working together for the benefit of everyone; we rise together or we fall together. Competitive morality believes in, naturally, competition; for one to rise, another must fall. In the middle, replacing Neutral, we have Independent which believes you rise or fall completely on your own. For the other axis, we have Conservative vs Radical. Conservative ethics respects traditions, establishment, and safety. Radical ethics respects innovation, advancement, and adventure. This is probably the biggest shake-up because Conservative representing traditions and establishment actually reflects the behavior of most primitive, tradition-steeped tribes which, under the normal alignment system, would be considered Chaotic and home to the Barbarian mindset. These changes also mean that Paladins aren't relegated to one corner of the alignment chart; Competitive Paladins who view the rise of Good and Lawful civilization could, simultaneously, be Competitive and of the mindset that the forces of Evil, as well as those more mundane threats not based in alignment energies, must inherently fall in order for mortal civilization to thrive.
Blymurkla wrote: I'm not a fan of the Unchained attempt at removing alignments that Milo v3 mentions. To me, they where mostly »Give them other names! Huh? You wanna get rid of metaphysical concepts in the rules? Well, you're on your own then«. Of course, you should check them out. Maybe you'll find them different. You do realize "give them other names" is only one of the options given in those rules.... Getting rid of the metaphysical concepts can be done by totally removing all alignment mechanics (an option in those rules) or making alignmnet subjective rather than objective (an option in those rules).
Quote: Deeply personal loyalties like,"Because, my Mom" lead to rules mush. What are you talking about?
Oxylepy wrote: Which is why I want something more along the lines of does your character keep their word? Does your character actively try to be subversive toward laws and customs? Under what circumstances? Does your character have their own social ettiquate rules they follow? Does your character have issues with the notion of killing others? Where is the line drawn as to what is acceptible? When presented with a bunch of children who are orphaned by your actions, what would your character do? If death is not final, is it better to slaughter things and free them to their afterlife or to have them keep living? But changing the alignment system is making a huge structural change to (what sounds like) something that can be discussed on a dm to player or player to player level. Encouraging your players to engage with their characters' personalities and motives past assigning them an alignment doesn't mean the system needs to be discarded. Especially since replacing it would probably require far more convoluted mechanics.
For example, let's use your question about enemies' orphaned children. Now, putting aside how the encounter with the parent(s) went down since that can be an entirely seperate moral dilemma, how does this play out? Are the children present, or are the adventurers called out later to give their thoughts on it? Or is it an abstract fact that tonight some child is going to bed parentless? If it's the last one, I'd argue it's not about good vs evil, but about empathy, which is not intrinsically moral.
A freedom fighter trying to overthrow a dictatorship and a lord's champion who upholds the laws of their kingdom can both be LG (assuming these are two different territories), and opposing alignments like CG and NE might have drastically different motives but agree on a course of action- that's not a bug, it's a feature.
Deranged_Maniac_Ben wrote: Quark Blast wrote: Atarlost wrote: Quark Blast wrote: Atarlost wrote: Why replace alignment with anything? It doesn't perform any worthwhile role in the first place. For 3.PF it is critical in adjudicating certain spells, spell-like abilities, and similarly, certain magic items. There's nothing to gain from having alignment spells. Failing to work against some targets doesn't actually make them more interesting.
Protection from Alignment, for example, just becomes protection from outsiders, summoned monsters, and mind control. Yes, of course one can always dump everything alignment related.
My point in stating the critical nature of alignment in 3.PF is that dumping alignment isn't as simple as "just dumping it". One then has to also dump or re-define a great number of spells, spell-like abilities, and magic items. And also account for the interactions of the mass-dump/re-definitions.
And in my opinion, once you've gone to all that trouble, you might as well switch to a different RPG. And yet I managed to do it in just a few pages of simple house rules. And my (anti-) alignment rules are less ambiguous/confusing/broken than the default alignment rules.
There aren't actually all that many rules in. Pathfinder that depend on alignment. Creating an original system is much, much harder. And yet, there is exactly one campaign in the whole world that uses your particular homebrew fixes.
Serghar Cromwell wrote: As another person who's done this, I can say with certainty that it's not as difficult as you're making it out to be. And yet, there is exactly one campaign in the whole world that uses your particular homebrew fixes.
Note (1): For the rest of us, it's easier to switch to a different system.
Note (2): For the OP you could post, or post a link, to your "easy" fixes.
Pathfinder Starfinder Society Subscriber
Pathfinder Unchained has a couple of alignment related systems, including one for eliminating alignment entirely.
David knott 242 wrote: Pathfinder Unchained has a couple of alignment related systems, including one for eliminating alignment entirely.
Hmmm... I might be buying me another rule book. I keep hearing things about this that I like.
Something I want to do with my games is have them tell me what they want their alignment to be and then put their character through a very simple scenario:
"You're in a shop in the equivalent of a Mall. The owner just stepped into the back and the only other patron just walked out the door heading to the right. You see a coin pouch lying on the ground, probably belonging to the man who just left. What do you do?"
Their actions will help determine what their alignment actually is and then make their alignment somewhere between the outcome and what they initially wanted.
I always run alignments where Evil is Selfish, good is Selfless (or altruistic), and illegal acts are chaotic.
For those interested, here are some possible outcomes for each alignment:
Look into Morrowind and likely Oblivion's class suggestion systems. They ask questions and asign your class based on those answers, a few of them are very much morality questions that could work for that system.
Fallout 3 did it too during the early game classroom assessment.
I'm going to try to refrain from allowing my opinion or how I will go about this to sway the topic, it has had some good arguments in it for anyone else looking to do something similar. Whenever I generate a system I'll add it in here so that people will have access to it if they are looking for something to remove the subjective alignment system.
I will throw this out there: My system is in no way going to be nearly as grand as some of the other ones. They tried surgical extraction for the metastatic tumor of alignment, leading to something lengthy. I'm just going to make it look like alignment is gone.
Deadmoon wrote: Goth Guru wrote: When I tried to create a role playing game, I used personality ranges.
Vow of poverty(Detects strong good)
Generous(Detects good)
Shares when needed
normal
Tight
Greedy(Detects evil)
Hoarder(Detects strong Evil and madness)
I'm not sure I can find the stuff, but you get the idea.
This has quite a bias to it.
How many cats do you have? How many TV Guides?
In a world where diamonds are needed to bring people back to life, how many would you hoard? There are starving in America. Do you have a bomb shelter with enough food to feed thousands just sitting there?
Even if you are right, I don't think It's repairable. Also, if you want me to hide this topic, you just had to ask. You didn't have to be hateful.
'Nonsense?' The alignment system is not above some possible tweaks/expansions, but I've always found it way more convincing than most other personality/political/ethical assessments.
Quark Blast wrote: Atarlost wrote: Quark Blast wrote: Atarlost wrote: Why replace alignment with anything? It doesn't perform any worthwhile role in the first place. For 3.PF it is critical in adjudicating certain spells, spell-like abilities, and similarly, certain magic items. There's nothing to gain from having alignment spells. Failing to work against some targets doesn't actually make them more interesting.
Protection from Alignment, for example, just becomes protection from outsiders, summoned monsters, and mind control. Yes, of course one can always dump everything alignment related.
My point in stating the critical nature of alignment in 3.PF is that dumping alignment isn't as simple as "just dumping it". One then has to also dump or re-define a great number of spells, spell-like abilities, and magic items. And also account for the interactions of the mass-dump/re-definitions.
And in my opinion, once you've gone to all that trouble, you might as well switch to a different RPG. One has to revise two spells. All the protection spells are directly based on Protection from Evil and all the smitey spells have the same format with different conditions and numbers. In both cases it's trivial to have the alignment spells just work fully against everyone since that's the power level they're actually balanced for. The smitey alignment spells can retain their descriptors and on those grounds be limited as to which gods provide them, but that's just for flavor. Outsiders keep alignment subtypes and undead and dragons can gain them and smite and alignment weapon properties can act against those.
It's certainly far easier to remove alignment than to figure out which god should provide Protection from Introverts or figuring out which Meyers-Brigg personality types paladins and antipaladins should smite.
Quote: In a world where diamonds are needed to bring people back to life, how many would you hoard? There are starving in America. Do you have a bomb shelter with enough food to feed thousands just sitting there? You listed a mental issue as the furthermost evil on your list, and you expected a good response? Mental issues, especially ones that do not directly harm others (it can indirectly harm others and directly harm themselves though) are generally not consider Super Evil.
Also saying something is biased is not hateful. @_@
Oxylepy wrote: Alright so we have 2 people who have done this, and a couple nay-sayers including the statement that the current alignment system is fine.
To those who have done it, feel free to post your work it would be fascinating to see.
The amount of changes you have to make isn't going to fit a forum post. There are classes,magic items, spells, creatures, and sheafloads of mechanics based on alignment. It is what techies call a nontrivial task.
You might just want to pick up Monte Cook's Unearthed Arcana which essentially is 3.5 without alignment.
When I removed alignment from my settings, I found it made outsiders more interesting because they become less one-dimensional.
Quote: You might just want to pick up Monte Cook's Unearthed Arcana which essentially is 3.5 without alignment. Arcana Evolved/Unearthed actually, Unearthed Arcana was the Unchained of 3.5e.... They really could have named those better.
Drahliana Moonrunner wrote: The amount of changes you have to make isn't going to fit a forum post. There are classes,magic items, spells, creatures, and sheafloads of mechanics based on alignment. It is what techies call a nontrivial task. Sure it is. It's basically all just common sense.
All divine casters gain the cleric's Aura class ability and are treated as having that alignment. Those without gods obviously don't have auras just as clerics of true neutral deities already don't have them. Four level divine casters get the aura only when they get spells. Yes, that means a paladin of Abadar gets a neutral aura at level 4 to stack with the good aura he already gets exactly as written. This is not a problem.
Creatures with alignment subtypes retain them. Chromatic dragons gain the evil subtype (based on the paladin double smite list). Metallic dragons gain the good subtype (based on the antipaladin smite list). The Anarchic, Axiomatic, Holy, and Unholy templates now give alignment subtypes.
Anything previously restricted by alignment now isn't. Anything with variable effects based on alignment treat alignment-less beings in the way most favorable to the user/wearer/caster unless it is a cursed item. Cursed items with variable effects based on alignment effect the wearer/user in the fashion least favorable to him if he lacks alignment. If an effect has no explicit caster/user it's probably from an absent NPC, including deities in that category, and the GM decides what is the most favorable interpretation.
Yes, a paladin can multiclass into assassin or a lawful cleric into barbarian. There's a mythic ability called Beyond Good and Evil that already allows this sort of thing and allowing it into the non-mythic game isn't going to actually cause problems. If they can't roleplay a concept to the table's standard it should be nixed, but that's also true for concepts that are legal with the old alignment rules. A paladin can't multiclass into antipaladin because the latter is an alternate class of the former. A paladin can't multiclass into a cleric of an evil deity because deities have alignments and the paladin code prohibits associating with evil. When in doubt remember that deities are NPCs under the GM's control and can decline to empower divinely empowered characters who act against their interests.
If an effect says something is treated as having an alignment it is.
Detect alignment doesn't even need a wording change. It already picks up alignment auras and subtypes and otherwise cannot detect what doesn't exist.
If anything can't be adjudicated by those rules it's not core and can be safely banned unless it's plot important to the specific adventure you're playing. The GM can be expected to make one or two decisions per AP on that sort of thing, but I don't think anything's left.
There, easily in a forum post including examples of some "edge" cases that aren't actually edge cases if you just apply the rules logically as written.
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There are multiple guides and systems for making alignment a more entertaining part of the game available in this book.
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Atarlost wrote: Quark Blast wrote: Atarlost wrote: Quark Blast wrote: Atarlost wrote: Why replace alignment with anything? It doesn't perform any worthwhile role in the first place. For 3.PF it is critical in adjudicating certain spells, spell-like abilities, and similarly, certain magic items. There's nothing to gain from having alignment spells. Failing to work against some targets doesn't actually make them more interesting.
Protection from Alignment, for example, just becomes protection from outsiders, summoned monsters, and mind control. Yes, of course one can always dump everything alignment related.
My point in stating the critical nature of alignment in 3.PF is that dumping alignment isn't as simple as "just dumping it". One then has to also dump or re-define a great number of spells, spell-like abilities, and magic items. And also account for the interactions of the mass-dump/re-definitions.
And in my opinion, once you've gone to all that trouble, you might as well switch to a different RPG. One has to revise two spells. All the protection spells are directly based on Protection from Evil and all the smitey spells have the same format with different conditions and numbers. In both cases it's trivial to have the alignment spells just work fully against everyone since that's the power level they're actually balanced for. The smitey alignment spells can retain their descriptors and on those grounds be limited as to which gods provide them, but that's just for flavor. Outsiders keep alignment subtypes and undead and dragons can gain them and smite and alignment weapon properties can act against those.
It's certainly far easier to remove alignment than to figure out which god should provide Protection from Introverts or figuring out which Meyers-Brigg personality types paladins and antipaladins should smite. When it's your campaign, you can slice the rules however you like. If I were to use 3.PF, dumping alignment would not be on my list of things to do. It's harder than you make out.
In the campaign I currently run, no one wants to play a cleric or paladin type, like at all, and I'm not about to run a DMPC heal-bot. So ye gods and demigods are the fluffiest fluff ever hand-waved off stage. If ever a player wants to make a relevant PC we can figure out those details as we roll along. I can do that with no thought/no prep as I use 5E.
Recent threads in Homebrew and House Rules
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