Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="ruleslawyer" data-source="post: 1778190" data-attributes="member: 1757">In case it wasn't clear, I think you mean Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed, which indeed does not use alignment.IMC, PCs get good and evil &quot;points&quot;; certain creatures, like [evil] undead and fiends, are just evil, and others good, while most folk are in a giant gray area, having failed to earn enough points, good or evil, to fall on one side of the fence. Anyone with a sufficient number of &quot;points&quot; registers as the appropriate alignment to a detect spell (in effect, your points are equal to the Aura of Good or Aura of Evil possessed by a cleric, paladin, or blackguard) and can be the target of a smite [alignment] ability. I keep the alignment descriptors for all spells. Law and Chaos are off the page as personal alignments, but very much there as cosmic forces; in effect, these are alignments that are possessed by outsiders only, but there are specific lawful and chaotic &quot;traits&quot; that can be possessed by certain monsters or landscapes, and even acquired by PCs.In short, I find some system of measuring conduct useful, whether it's an alignment, honor, or taint system. You could play without any of those things, of course, but I'd just ditch the paladin (and blackguard) class entirely and throw out all those alignment-based spells and effects. Check out AU for an example of how to do this. [Note, of course, that AU has the Green/Positive Energy vs. the Dark/Negative Energy, so it doesn't escape the opposed-effects idea either, just the specific &quot;good&quot;/&quot;evil&quot; nomenclature.]</blockquote>

[QUOTE="ruleslawyer, post: 1778190, member: 1757"] In case it wasn't clear, I think you mean Monte Cook's [i]Arcana Unearthed[/i], which indeed does not use alignment. IMC, PCs get good and evil "points"; certain creatures, like [evil] undead and fiends, are just evil, and others good, while most folk are in a giant gray area, having failed to earn enough points, good or evil, to fall on one side of the fence. Anyone with a sufficient number of "points" registers as the appropriate alignment to a [i]detect[/i] spell (in effect, your points are equal to the Aura of Good or Aura of Evil possessed by a cleric, paladin, or blackguard) and can be the target of a smite [alignment] ability. I keep the alignment descriptors for all spells. Law and Chaos are off the page as personal alignments, but very much there as cosmic forces; in effect, these are alignments that are possessed by outsiders only, but there are specific lawful and chaotic "traits" that can be possessed by certain monsters or landscapes, and even acquired by PCs. In short, I find some system of measuring conduct useful, whether it's an alignment, honor, or taint system. You could play without any of those things, of course, but I'd just ditch the paladin (and blackguard) class entirely and throw out all those alignment-based spells and effects. Check out AU for an example of how to do this. [Note, of course, that AU has the Green/Positive Energy vs. the Dark/Negative Energy, so it doesn't escape the opposed-effects idea either, just the specific "good"/"evil" nomenclature.] [/QUOTE]

Verification