D&D 5E [5E] The few mechanical implications of Alignment

[Illithidbix]

(I posted this a while back on the WoTC forums and RPG.net, occurred to me that some people on Enworld might be interested as well.)

So, 5E is pretty light when it comes to rules and alignment intersecting.
But I suffer from an obsession with it given my a militant anti-alignment tenancies, so here is my attempt to find all the points where alignment matters for rules purposes. Which may be useful for people with a similar viewpoint to myself.
The total count is more than I initially expected, but mostly within the DMG.

Players Handbook
Very few.

Class ability or requirements – nothing I can find, even the paladin entry mentions: “Your oath and alignment might be in harmony, or your oath might represent standards of behavior that you have not yet attained.” – Which I personally think is pretty damn cool, I very much like concept and personalisation of the Oath myself.
(Although the Oathbreaker Paladin in the DMG "must be evil" - see below)

There are eleven mentions in Spells. And only one really is any case where alignment is more than personality.

Animal Shapes, Magic Jar, Polymorph, Shapechange, True Polymorph: All these spells mention you retain your alignment and personality, even for the spells where the mental ability scores are changed!

Conjure Celestial and Conjure Fey: Both specify that the summoned creature won't do actions that violate it's alignment.

Glyph of Warding "You can further refine the trigger so the spell activates only under certain circumstances or according to physical characteristics (such as height and weight), creature kind (for example, the ward could be set to affect aberrations or drow), or alignment."
(… However Symbol doesn't, despite having copy/pasted wording for much of the spell. Which is rather strange given Symbol is a 7th level spell and Glyph of Warding is only 3rd Level.)

Modify Memory “A modified memory doesn't necessarily affect how a creature behaves, particularly if the memory contradicts the creature's natural inclinations, alignment or beliefs.”

Nystul's Magic Aura: - “Mask- You change the way the target appears to spells and magical effects that detect creature types ...You choose a creature type and other spells and magical effects treat the target as if it were a creature of that type or that alignment.”

Spirit Guardians: Causes radiant damage if caster is good or neutral, necrotic damage if the caster is evil.

Very pointedly Divine Sense, Detect Good and Evil and Detect Thoughts does not reveal the target's alignment, so as far as I know there is actually no way for a player to directly determine another creature's alignment.
“Good” and “Evil” in a spell context mostly refers to Celestials, Fiends and Undead and sometimes also Fey and Elementals.

The list of pantheons and deities list their alignments but again this has no required relation to that of their clerics and paladins.


Monster Manual
Again pretty sparse; I've found nine monsters with mechanical implications of alignment. (Technically “lycanthrope” is five monsters)

Demilich: Lair Trait – The first time a non-evil creature enters the demilich's lair they take 3D10 necrotic damage.

Lemure: Hellish Rejuvenation: The lemure returns to life unless killed by a good-aligned creature with a bless spell cast upon them or it's remains are sprinkled with holy water.

Night Hag: Nightmare Haunting “if the target dies and if the target was evil it's soul is trapped in the hag's soul bag.”

Player Characters as Lycanthropes and Vampires: The character's alignment changes to that of the lycanthrope and lawful evil if they are turned into a vampire.

Rakshasa: Damage Vulnerabilities: Piercing from magic weapons wielded by good creatures.

Sprite: Heart Sight: If sprite touches a creature and magically knows the creature's current emotional state. If the target fails a DC10 charisma saving throw, the sprite also knows the creatures alignment. Celestials, fiends and undead automatically fail the saving throw.

Shadow: Strength Drain: If a non-evil humanoid dies from this attack, a new shadow rises from the corpse 1d4 hours later.
(Which is ironic, given that being evil apparently cuts down on manifestation of horrific undead horrors in very certain circumstances!)

Unicorn: Lair Traits: When a good-aligned creature casts a spell or uses a magical effect to restore hit points to another good aligned creature the target regains the maximum number of hit points.
Curses effecting any good-aligned creature are suppressed.

I think Heart Sight is kinda curious as it's the only a CR ¼ creature that posses a ability to allow them to directly detect a creature's alignment. No other monster or PC ability I have found allows this.
Even with angels; whilst Planateer's and Solar's Divine Awareness allows them to know if they hear a lie, the can't just know a creature's alignment.


Dungeon Master's Guide

The DMG contains by far the most mechanical effects of Alignment, most notably in the rules for Planes (which isn't much of a surprise given the Great Wheel is kinda based around Alignment) and some magic items.

Bringing Back the Dead (Page 24): A soul can't be returned to life if it doesn't want to be. A souls knows the name, alignment and patron deity (if any) of the character attempting to revive it and might refuse to return on that basis.

Loyalty rules for NPC Party members: When other party members act in a manner that runs counter to the NPC's alignment or bond reduce the NPC's loyalty score by 1D4.

Planar Rules

Psychic dissonance in Outer planes: CON saving throws at end of long rests to avoid exhaustion if Good or Evil creature is on plane off opposed alignment.

Mount Celestia: Blessed Beneficence; good-aligned creatures gain the benefit of Bless and Lesser Restoration spells whilst on this plane.

The following planes require Wisdom or Charisma saving throws after long rests spent on the plane or change your alignment.

Bytopia: Pervasive goodwill
The Abyss: Abyssal Corruption
Nine Hells: Pervasive Evil
Mechanus: Imposing Order.

Villainous Class Options - Oathbreaker Paladin
"A paladin must be evil and at least 3rd level to become an oathbreaker.
and
Oathbreaker atonement "A paladin who wishes to atone must first shed his or her evil alignment and demonstrate this alignment change through words and deeds".
- This seems a little odd as the concept of endeavouring to change alignment doesn't otherwise seem discussed anywhere else

Magic Items

Candle of Invocation: Benefits cleric or druid who's alignment matches the candle with free 1st level spell slots.

Deck of Many Things: The Balance card changes alignment. One of the least of your problems from putting this in your game.

Ring of Mind Shielding: Includes making you immune to magic that allows others to know your alignment.
Again noting that only a Sprite's Heart Sight seems to allow you to do this.

Talisman of Pure Good and Talisman of Ultimate Evil – No surprises here.

Sentient Magical Items and Artifacts
Too many to list, notably it's a key part of the conflict mechanic.

And given that two of the sample Artifacts are the Book of Exalted Deeds and Book of Vile Darkness, this isn't a surprise.


So really it's quite possible for alignment to never come up in a game, at least as rules are concerned.
Anyone able to spot any I've missed?

 

[Fralex]

Alignment is also mentioned in the background ideals, but ignoring the labels on the suggestions is pretty trivial.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Glyph of Warding [/B]"You can further refine the trigger so the spell activates only under certain circumstances or according to physical characteristics (such as height and weight), creature kind (for example, the ward could be set to affect aberrations or drow), or alignment."
(… However Symbol doesn't, despite having copy/pasted wording for much of the spell. Which is rather strange given Symbol is a 7th level spell and Glyph of Warding is only 3rd Level.)

I'm going to say that was an error in Glyph. Otherwise a simple 5th level caster would have the power of the almighty sprite, which obviously isn't intended.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

I guess the chainlock/paladin multiclass with the sprite familiar can check the alignment of every tom, dick, and harry he runs into. And without spending a spell slot either....

 

[iserith]

Cool list, thanks.

I don't mind if alignment has mechanical implications. In particular scenarios or campaigns, I offer Inspiration for playing to it (not unlike personality traits, ideals, bonds, or flaws) or link boons or perils to creatures with particular alignment - evil creatures standing on the Slaughter Stone gain advantage on attack rolls, as an example.

I just mind when the DM (or other players) uses it as a way to try to force someone to roleplay in a particular fashion. I don't stand for that sort of thing.

 

[Elderbrain]

Iserith, the whole point of choosing an alignment is that you are essentially stating how you are going to roleplay your character! Just as a player who selects the Wizard class is announcing that he intends to play an guy who casts arcane magic spells rather than, say, go about smashing foes with Barbarian rage (unless he multiclasses...), a player who announces that his character is Lawful Good is saying that he is going to play that character a certain way. Selecting the Lawful Good alignment (for instance) excludes the player from declaring that his PC is going to (say) rob the peasants walking down the road, at least if the player is playing his PC according to the alignment he freely selected. If not, he's not roleplaying properly, and should have selected an alignment that allows him to have his character do what he wants. What's the point of having alignments at all, if the allegedly Lawful Good PC can do anything his Chaotic Evil counterpart can do without penalty? If a PC wants to play his character in (say) a Chaotic Evil manner, fine... but he should not be allowed to do so and also claim his character is Lawful Good! You wouldn't allow a character to be defined as a "pirate" and then let the player tell you "Oh, and by the way, he's never been on a boat, knows nothing about seamanship, and is deathly afraid of water", would you?

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[iserith]

Iserith, the whole point of choosing an alignment is that you are essentially stating how you are going to roleplay your character! Just as a player who selects the Wizard class is announcing that he intends to play an guy who casts arcane magic spells rather than, say, go about smashing foes with Barbarian rage (unless he multiclasses...), a player who announces that his character is Lawful Good is saying that he is going to play that character a certain way. Selecting the Lawful Good alignment (for instance) excludes the player from declaring that his PC is going to (say) rob the peasants walking down the road, at least if the player is playing his PC according to the alignment he freely selected. If not, he's not roleplaying properly, and should have selected an alignment that allows him to have his character do what he wants.

Only in very broad terms. Alignment "describe the typical behavior of a creature with that alignment. Individuals might vary significantly from that typical behavior, and few people are perfectly and consistently faithful to the precepts of their alignment."

What's the point of having alignments at all, if the allegedly Lawful Good PC can do anything his Chaotic Evil counterpart can do without penalty? If a PC wants to play his character in (say) a Chaotic Evil manner, fine... but he should not be allowed to do so and also claim his character is Lawful Good! You wouldn't allow a character to be defined as a "pirate" and then let the player tell you "Oh, and by the way, he's never been on a boat, knows nothing about seamanship, and is deathly afraid of water", would you?

Yes, I would. I don't care how a player describes or roleplays his or her character as long as the player is pursuing the goals of play in good faith (that is, contributing to a good time for everyone and the creation of an exciting, memorable story during play). Alignment is just a descriptor that occasionally has some mechanical impact. It's not for me to point at someone's character sheet and tell them they can't do a thing because it doesn't fit the character's alignment or to declare the player is "not roleplaying properly." And I won't accept that from another DM either.

At best, I can reward players with Inspiration when they play to their alignment. Do it this way and a player knows that playing CE while having LG on their sheet is fine, but isn't going to get them any Inspiration. They're better off changing it to CE. Of course, I only make alignment eligible for Inspiration when I feel doing so contributes to the character of the campaign world e.g. Planescape or Ravenloft. Otherwise, I don't really give it a second thought.

 

[Ranthalan]

Some of my players worry too much about alignment. I keep telling them don't worry about it, it doesn't really factor into much. I tell them to play how they want to play, if they're not playing your alignment, I might tell them to change it on their sheet.

Was it Dragonlance that had the sliding alignment scale? IIRC, that actually did have some significant mechanical influence for wizards and clerics.

 

[MG.0]

Anytime someone has a question about alignments I direct them here

Edit:

I especially like to point out his #1 rule for alignment:

Rule #1 of Alignment
Actions determine alignment - alignment doesn't determine actions. It has to be that way or else alignment cannot work the way it's intended. One of the things people keep trying to do with alignment is use it to determine which of the nine alignments that a specific action is assigned to. "If my character does this is his alignment that?" or, "What alignment is it to do that action?" It's a discussion that constantly reappears. But trying to make such judgments is trying to run alignment backwards. If you take a characters specific action and say, "That's a LN action," or, "That action will make you CG," then you ARE effectively assigning specific actions to a specific alignment and almost always ignoring all context of the action. But get this hammered into your thick skulls - alignment isn't supposed to dictate your actions, so specific actions cannot be designated directly with a given alignment. If it did, players would have no say in any morally significant acts that their characters perform. Their characters choices would be removed and certain behavior and actions would be routinely dictated to them - forced upon them. Any time that a decision involved morals or philosophy, alignment would take over and make decisions for you, assumedly until such time as you intentionally decided to break with your characters alignment. In that case, nobody could ever be accused of having their character NOT behave according to alignment - they could only accuse the DM of failing to enforce alignment-dictated behavior. Players could even just have their characters do whatever they please and leave it up to the DM to keep their characters within a chosen alignment by allowing or disallowing any given action.