Evil or just.........mostly evil?

[Goldmoon]

The character I am playing currently is very unlike most characters I play. She is a Bard who will be a chameleon and is pretty much out for herself because she feels most of the party is a bunch of retards. Long story short in the last session she stepped into some quicksand and managed to get out her whip in time and wrap it around a tree branch. (we had just met the new character, a dwarven druid not 10 minutes prior to this.) The Druid climbs the tree and tries to pull her up to him. He rolls a 1 on his strength check AND his balance check and falls head first into the quicksand. 3 rounds later I'm still chest deep in quicksand and the Druid is completely submurged and as far as my character can tell, dead. During my struggle I feel the dwarf near my legs. Like I said, I think he's dead so instead of letting go with one hand and trying to grab him (also remember we just met) I step on him to propel myself upwards. Based on this action the DM changed my allignment from NG to straight N. Im not mad, in fact I find it amusing but it it justified for that one action? Thoughts?

 

[Question]

Firstly your character should either be N, or CN in the first place......NG is not the correct term for someone who is pretty much out for herself. To be good you actually have to care about others, help them even if you dont get anything, so on and so forth.

Based on this one action, gonna say no, you shouldnt have the alignment changed, anyone would think someone completely submerged in quicksand is a goner. But i think you should have been N from the start.

 

[Goldmoon]

Firstly your character should either be N, or CN in the first place......NG is not the correct term for someone who is pretty much out for herself. To be good you actually have to care about others, help them even if you dont get anything, so on and so forth.

Based on this one action, gonna say no, you shouldnt have the alignment changed, anyone would think someone completely submerged in quicksand is a goner. But i think you should have been N from the start.

I toyed with the idea of CN but Im not really sure how to play it well and I dont want to screw it up, so I went with NG. I agree its not really fitting which is why I'm not mad about the change.

 

[irdeggman]

Firstly your character should either be N, or CN in the first place......NG is not the correct term for someone who is pretty much out for herself. To be good you actually have to care about others, help them even if you dont get anything, so on and so forth.

Based on this one action, gonna say no, you shouldnt have the alignment changed, anyone would think someone completely submerged in quicksand is a goner. But i think you should have been N from the start.

I agree with the assessment of the "starting" alignment.

But I do think this action should cause an aligment shift or at the very least an assessment of whether or not it should change.

Being a bard it can be asumed that the character has some understanding of how long one can hold their breath (part of that perform thing).

I don't know what your PC knows about dwarves or druids (either via languages which cna be used as a rough measure or via knowledge skills). But 3 rounds would seem too not be so long that a character would suffocate.

The dwarf made the attempt to "help" your PC while it appears no one else did. A good PC would have made the recipricating attempt to help here, IMO.

Now I do forsee a lot of in-party division forthcoming.

If the party was not "designed" for this then there will be a lot player-to-player clashes likewise. This could lead to a very uncomfortable playing situation and for this reason alone I would seriously look at whether or not this PC belongs with the group.

 

[IcyCool]

Well, it certainly wasn't a good action. Certainly feels pretty neutral to me. A good character, IMO, would try verify the status of the person they were thinking of using as a stepping stone, but either the "what if" factor or the guilt of doing that to a living person would eat them up. An evil person would definitely have done it, hoping that the person was alive. Your action seems pretty neutral to me. Now if this is the only neutral-esque thing you've done, then it doesn't really seem worth changing alignments (although I can see more weight being given to actions regarding PC's rather than NPC's).

Edit - How are you a bard without a chaotic alignment? I agree with question that what you are portraying is more like CN, and doesn't a bard need to be Chaotic?

 

[IcyCool]

But 3 rounds would seem too not be so long that a character would suffocate.

A character can hold their breath for a number of rounds equal to their constitution score (which will be larger than average for dwarves), before they need to start making con checks (which the dwarf will likely make the first few of).

 

[Goldmoon]

Well, it certainly wasn't a good action. Certainly feels pretty neutral to me. A good character, IMO, would try verify the status of the person they were thinking of using as a stepping stone, but either the "what if" factor or the guilt of doing that to a living person would eat them up. An evil person would definitely have done it, hoping that the person was alive. Your action seems pretty neutral to me. Now if this is the only neutral-esque thing you've done, then it doesn't really seem worth changing alignments (although I can see more weight being given to actions regarding PC's rather than NPC's).

Edit - How are you a bard without a chaotic alignment? I agree with question that what you are portraying is more like CN, and doesn't a bard need to be Chaotic?

House rule on the allowance of a NG bard.

 

[werk]

Im not mad, in fact I find it amusing but it it justified for that one action? Thoughts?

Hearing your story, it is just that one action, but we weren't able to see all of your play aside from that one, condensed, incident. How you interacted with others, what you said, what you did... This may be an isolated uncharacteristic act, or it might have just been the straw that broke his back.

If you have done nothing else to call your NG alignment into question, no, I probably wouldn't have changed your alignment a step. It sound like your DM is maybe placating another player's hurt feelings, or may be addressing multiple issues with your roleplaying.

I think stepping on a stranger, pushing him under quicksand so you can get out is either NE or LE. It is a very specific, selfish maneuver, with predictable outcome. If you were NG I'd move you one step closer to NE...so your DM is probably on track.

Straighten up, play a character that wants to be part of a team or go play solo

 

[Hammerhead]

How are you a bard without a chaotic alignment? I agree with question that what you are portraying is more like CN, and doesn't a bard need to be Chaotic?

No house rules are needed. Check the SRD.

Bard
Alignment

Any nonlawful.

 

[IcyCool]

No house rules are needed. Check the SRD.

I didn't suggest they were. I just thought they had to be Chaotic. Must've confused the non-lawful with the Barbarian Chaotic.

Cool, I had an idea for a Bard a while back and was trying to figure out how to shoe-horn it into a chaotic alignment. Now I don't have to.