The Great Unholy Sword Debate

[Codragon]

A situation to consider:

There are two very similiar CG rogues who are best buddies. Today one has just "gone over the edge" to CN.

The unholy sword that once burned him for 2d6 extra points of damage the day before now does no extra damage. Yet his CG friend's flesh continues to burn by the sword's unholy might.

+2d6 damage to +0 in one day

I just can't buy that.

What do you folks think?

 

[Crothian]

Maybe it should take a little longer then one day to switch alignments.

 

[Squire James]

Maybe you should start using more Lawful weapons.

 

[Darkness]

A situation to consider:

There are two very similiar CG rogues who are best buddies. Today one has just "gone over the edge" to CN.

The unholy sword that once burned him for 2d6 extra points of damage the day before now does no extra damage. Yet his CG friend's flesh continues to burn by the sword's unholy might.

+2d6 damage to +0 in one day

I just can't buy that.

What do you folks think?

Two words: Darth Vader!

 

[Wolfspider]

I think it's a marvelous way for the character and his companions to realize that he's lost his purity of spirit.

 

[Cullain]

This is why the entire concept of alignment makes my secular humanist skin crawl.

Cullain

-This message has been paid for by PAADD, the people against alignment in D&D.

 

[Wolfspider]

Then it's a good thing that the great majority of creatures in Dungeons and Dragons aren't secular humanists. The gods might get a bit upset otherwise.

 

[Striderman]

I'd buy that the damage he takes from the sword changes suddenly like that. His shift of alignment may have been gradual, but there must have been some point at which it had definitively crossed the line to CN. Near as I can tell, an aligned weapon doesn't care how much someone fits into the alignment, just as long as he/she is or isn't the alignment it likes/hates. So why _would_ the weapon do partial damage for a while before it changes completely? If you do want to do something like that, then maybe it would be better to say that the sword does 1d6 to neutral, and 2d6 to good, and none to evil. that might make more sense.
As for people who want to eliminate alignment in DnD, if you want to, then go for it, but even if you don't make a rule out of it, you do realize that you are still using an alignment, don't you? you are still playing that character according to some alignment of some sort, so what's the big deal in declaring it? It's a wonderful role-playing aid. Not that you need alignments to know how to play your character, but it is a convenient definition of your character's morals and ethics. Like they say about classes in so many games, they aren't limiting, but defining.

 

[Someguy]

IT BURNS!!!

He must realaizer that something had to of happneed, and this is further truth that he is slipping, slowly falling into the dark...


It could be used as plot hooks... The sword is wipsering into him now...whereas it wasn't as before...or not as subtly...

 

[SableWyvern]

It could be argued that the sudden transformation of the swords attitude is not the most realistic.

But this is D&D, and furthermore a situation where adding "realism" would require stupid amounts of bookkeeping etc...

There are already enough people who don't like alignments. Imagine the attitudes if a character was Chaotic86%:Neutral14%/Good40%:Neutral60% (and thus took only 40% damage - until he burnt down the orphanage, becoming Chaotic89%:Neutral11%/Good16%:Neutral84%, and then only took 16% damage).