D&D without alignment?

[0-hr]

I'd like to drop alignments so I need to figure out where alignment is currently needed for an existing game mechanic (so I can House Rule accordingly).

My initial list is

Alignments affect mechanics with:
Class alignment restrictions (ie. Paladin = lawful good)
Clerics need to match their dieties
DR for many outsiders
Holy/Unholy and Anarchic/Axiomatic or intelligent weapons



The following types of spells rely on alignment:

Detect Evil
Protection From Evil
Dictum and other alignment-targeted harm
Align Weapon
Summoning restrictions (ie. lawful clerics cannot summon chatoic creatures).
Spell subtype restrictions (ie. good clerics cannot cast evil spells)
Non-detection and scrying have minor alignment factors




Are there other important places where alignment is needed for game mechanics? Just core and "Complete Books" should be enough to cover my campaign since I'm looking for general cases rather than every specific item.


If someone else has already adressed this issue, please give me a pointer to the material.

 

[smootrk]

Taint (corruption and depravity) rules might allow many classes to still function with minimal changes, while being able to remove the actual alignment issues. For instance, Paladins might be warriors dedicated to fighting against Tainted Beings (Demons, Devils, Undead and the like all being such) - and they use Detect Taint, Smite Tainted, etc. as substituted abilities.

Check Unearthed Arcana for games without alignment, or specifically for the Taint mechanic, I believe Heroes of Horror has the latest flavor of those rules.

Anyway, just a suggestion.

 

[Doghead Thirteen]

I'd like to drop alignments

Dude, you've got me hooked on the spot... First thing I scrapped back in '95, it seemed like an approach with no bearing on reality.

Especially that mouthwash about race determining whether someone is a good guy or a bad guy - grr!

You'd be amazed how much of a game system is completely unaffected by alignments.

 

[Ry]

Here's my house rule:

Alignment is not used; for the purpose of the rules, members of PC races are always treated as being True Neutral. Classes with alignment requirements waive those requirements and members of those classes have no danger of losing their class abilities, regardless of how they act, what they intend, or what the results are. Evil and good are subtypes that apply to many outsiders, special non-PC humanoids ("demonoids"), some dragons, several magical beasts, lots of undead, and a few energy creatures. Detect and protection spells apply to these creatures, and still apply to spells where an alignment aura is important, but these do not have bearing for normal PC races.

 

[0-hr]

Is there a potential problem with the DR of many outsiders? If alignments are uncommon, then people will tend to not have Holy Weapons or Bless Weapon Oil - making DR 10/Good much more powerful than your 'standard' campaign.

I've thought of using sub-types in place of alignments (with everone else mechanically "Neutral"). I'd probably give clerics a subtype if their diety had the indicated domains, and I'd still leave the Paladin code of conduct in place - but that's just me.

My big concern is with blance issues. I can see DR 10/good being more powerful, Detect Evil and Dictum less powerful, etc... Neither of these are game-breaking, but I want to make sure that there isn't anything else important out there that I'm overlooking.

 

[Ry]

Why would those items not exist? The spells would still exist, so the items could still be made.

 

[LoneWolf23]

Here's what I think... Keep Good, Evil, Chaos and Law, but turn them into Subtypes for Supernatural creatures of the appropriate type. Spells that affect Alignments would instead affect those Subtypes.

Paladins, for exemple, would have the Law and Good Subtype as a result of their Divine abilities, and could Detect and Smite creatures of the Evil subtype.

 

[Tonguez]

Alignments affect mechanics with:
Class alignment restrictions - these are flavour codes certain classes must maintain a code or lose powers
Clerics need to match their dieties - this works in reverse the dieties represent alignmnets and so their priests must conform (this means gods are more active in 'monitoring' their clergy)
DR for many outsiders - all outsiders have alignment DESCRIPTORS which might be different from their alignment. Keep the descriptors (this might mean that the Neutral good reformed succubus still detects as evil but thats her fundamental nature not her alignment)
Holy/Unholy and Anarchic/Axiomatic or intelligent weapons - see Outsiders



spells that rely on alignment:
Either go with
1.the DESCRIPTOR only limitation (ie spells only affect witht eh right Descriptor)
or try
2. Detect spells have a specific list of creatures that the spell affects, use this list for all alignmnet-affecting spells
eg Detect Evil

• 
  * Evil Creatures
  *Undead
  *Evil Outsiders
  *Cleric of Evil Diety
  *Evil Spell or Magic Item

Are there other important places where alignment is needed for game mechanics?

There is NO WHERE that alignment is required in the game and in fact even the detect evil spell does NOT mention evil alignment (it does refer to Good alignment)

 

[0-hr]

the detect evil spell does NOT mention evil alignment (it does refer to Good alignment)

If you're suggesting that Detect Evil does not detect creatures of evil alignment, you had better head over to the rules forum and support you case (because I'm not doing a very good job of it).

 

[StGabe]

We don't use alignments. The biggest issue for us was losing all of those Cleric domains. But really, it's been good riddance. For the most part, in our compaign, the monsters that would normally be just regular monsters are in fact playing the role of the "outsiders" and so they tend not to be heavily alignment-based.

You will also want to tweak the classes a bit. Paladin's specifically have a lot of alignment based abilities and, arguably, are somewhat "balanced" by their strict adherance to an otherwise annoying alignment. You will want to tune them a bit. In our campaign, paladins are pretty much completely different and based on the specific "house" (read as God) that the paladin follows.