Align Weapon Spell

[smootrk]

Quick question:
Does Align Weapon spell only grant one aspect of alignment (good, evil, law, or chaos)?
or
Can Align Weapon make the weapon have a true alignment ( lets say Lawful & Good)? or does one need 2 applications of the spell to get Lawful and Good on the weapon?

The spell description uses the word 'or' (but is not clarified by a clause like 'one of the') & the description says, "as you choose". My thoughts say a true alignment, as this is likely how weapons like Holy Avengers get their alignments?

What say the Rules Gurus?

 

[Infiniti2000]

The use of the words "or" and "respectively" make the meaning pretty clear from my viewpoint. Good, Evil, Lawful, or Chaotic. It's not "Good, Evil, Lawful, and/or Chaotic". You choose one. To align a weapon for Lawful and Good, you'd need to cast two spells.

 

[the Jester]

I agree with Infiniti2000. Choose one.

 

[MatthewJHanson]

I think the "or" is important in this case. You can make the weapon good or lawful but not both.

Fortunatly, since I don't know any monster who has more than one alignment component for DR it will only really matter if end up fighting two differnet monstes at the same time. (Like a demon and his slaad friends).

Regarding Holy Avengers, those are perminant magic items and thus play by different rules.

 

[smootrk]

Cool. Thanks for opinions on that. One aspect of alignment it is.

 

[Hypersmurf]

To align a weapon for Lawful and Good, you'd need to cast two spells.

The second one wouldn't work. The spell 'has no effect on a weapon that already has an alignment'.

-Hyp.

 

[Infiniti2000]

The second one wouldn't work. The spell 'has no effect on a weapon that already has an alignment'.

-Hyp.

In my defense, I merely said 'two spells', not which ones. On the other hand, if you houserule align weapon to actually work like it's intended, then chances are the weapon doesn't actually have an alignment.

Edit: And then you get into the debate about same effects, blah blah blah, so let's not go down that path.

 

[smootrk]

My confusion came about because of the the "as you choose" phrase. What if I choose LG.

Now for 2nd casting upon an already aligned weapon. Can you really count 'good' (and I mean, just 'good') as a true aligned weapon. I would HR a second casting affecting the other axis of alignment (law/chaos, or good/evil) as being ok to apply, but not good & evil, as that would simply cancel out.

 

[nittanytbone]

You could get a doubleheaded weapon and make one side "good" and the other side "lawful."

 

[Infiniti2000]

Rulesy response: The problem with align weapon is that as worded, it grants a weapon an alignment. Unfortunately, having an alignment does not make one overcome DR. For instance, a human with the alignment of LG does not overcome DR/lawful or good. Additionally, the spell specifically does not work on something with an alignment, so you could not cast it twice.

The best way to houserule this spell is to say that it aligns the weapon (does not grant an alignment) to one of four choices: lawful, good, chaotic, or evil, and multiple castings of the spell stack. (e.g. change the 'makes a weapon' into 'aligns a weapon as'.) I see no reason to limit it to one of lawful/chaotic and one of good/evil. If someone wants to spend that much time and resources to align a weapon thusly, let them. The cases where it's needed are very rare anyway.