Alignment: pretty sure how it works

[Remathilis]

Interesting...

To follow up:

Good: Serving the common rights of all free peoples to do honorable things.
Law: Serving honor, justice, and the laws of the land.
Evil: Self-serving, depraved, greedy, or serving destructive powers
Chaos: Freedom, Liberty, Change, Luck or Chance.
Unaligned: Not really caring strongly about any one of those factors, just trying to exist and get along with others.

 

[Exen Trik]

I'm thinking "Unaligned" is going to be the default, and actually having an alignment is actually rare. Just being a generally good and lawful person doesn't make you Lawful Good, you are still considered unaligned.

Having alignment would mean there is a stated, specific connection to that alignment. A demon would be Evil aligned by his nature, and a paladin aligned to Good by way his oath.

 

[DreamChaser]

My read, and hope, is that alignment is now a supernatural thing reserved for followers of great entities (a warlock of the feywild might carry an aura of "chaoticness" while a cleric of bahamut might be infused with the goodness of his deity). Gods, immortals, demigods, etc will naturally be infused with some powerful energies as well. Ghost and other undead too.

Everyone else is not so simple. They are dynamic living forces unclaimed by any one agent. No pact ties them to chaos, no vows to holiness. Instead they live as they will, trying to do the best (or worst) they can.

Thus in terms of the PCs, clerics, paladins, and warlocks = aligned by orientation but not by nature.

Everyone else = unaligned by nature and orientation.

DC

 

[Njall]

Eh, "neutral" alignment in 3e never made sense to me, it always sounded like an oxymoron.
In 2e, OTOH, it was just plain stupid, IIRC.

 

[DreamChaser]

Eh, "neutral" alignment in 3e never made sense to me, it always sounded like an oxymoron.
In 2e, OTOH, it was just plain stupid, IIRC.

Yeah...enforced balance. Uh oh, good is getting the upper hand...I'd better go rape and pillage now.

3e it was the way out of the lazy player who didn't want to be held accountable for alignment.

I now await the explosion as the 2 people who "actually" played neutral for a reason other than laziness freak out

DC

 

[Njall]

Yeah...enforced balance. Uh oh, good is getting the upper hand...I'd better go rape and pillage now.

3e it was the way out of the lazy player who didn't want to be held accountable for alignment.

I now await the explosion as the 2 people who "actually" played neutral for a reason other than laziness freak out

DC

Ehy! In 2e, you had a good reason to play neutral:
Kill the bad guys, take their stuff and their xp.
Oh, noes, now good is winning! I'm afraid I'll have to kill the good guys as well.
And take their stuff.
And some more xp.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Yeah...enforced balance. Uh oh, good is getting the upper hand...I'd better go rape and pillage now.

3e it was the way out of the lazy player who didn't want to be held accountable for alignment.

I now await the explosion as the 2 people who "actually" played neutral for a reason other than laziness freak out

DC

You know, this isn't the write-up of Neutral in 3E. The write-up of Neutral is essentially, "I don't care." There's some mention of militant Neutrals, but that seems limited to "I don't care, and neither should you," instead of some kind of "preserve the balance" shtick.

 

[Emirikol]

We also now know that paladin's smitting (or at least what we have seen) is not linked to the alignment of the target.

Thank heavens for that. The sooner we get away from requiring 9 different "protection from/detect alignment" spells the better too.

jh

 

[Green Knight]

Ehy! In 2e, you had a good reason to play neutral:
Kill the bad guys, take their stuff and their xp.
Oh, noes, now good is winning! I'm afraid I'll have to kill the good guys as well.
And take their stuff.
And some more xp.

I knew a player who treated a Neutral alignment like so. If the PC's were the underdog in the encounter, then he'd stick around and fight. But if they had the advantage in the encounter, then his character wouldn't fight and he'd go outside and have a smoke.

 

[Someone]

My read, and hope, is that alignment is now a supernatural thing reserved for followers of great entities (a warlock of the feywild might carry an aura of "chaoticness" while a cleric of bahamut might be infused with the goodness of his deity). Gods, immortals, demigods, etc will naturally be infused with some powerful energies as well. Ghost and other undead too.

Everyone else is not so simple. They are dynamic living forces unclaimed by any one agent. No pact ties them to chaos, no vows to holiness. Instead they live as they will, trying to do the best (or worst) they can.

Thus in terms of the PCs, clerics, paladins, and warlocks = aligned by orientation but not by nature.

Everyone else = unaligned by nature and orientation.

DC

I wish I knew some god of players so I could pray for this to be true.