Dead Scribe
First Post
Die in a fire. Alignment is more useful for online arguments than for D&D.
Riiiiight, because rebranding "Neutral" as "Unaligned" makes alllll kindsa difference.
I don't mind alignments - 3, 5, 9, 10, whatever - so long as:
1) they have no common (or uncommon) mechanical effect (every 1st level Cleric isn't casting Protection from Evil and demons aren't shouting Unholy Words), and what mechanical effects there are aren't organized like 'team alignment' perks, but rare, like the very occassional 'pervasive aura of evil' in a tomb, or an artifact that'll only function for a given alignment.
2) 'Unaligned' is always a choice.
Is this true?it's easy enough to collapse down from 9 to 5, 3, any lesser number. Harder to go the other way.
Is this true?
This may be true - although I would argue that stripping the alignment-related magic out of 3E is not a trivial matter - but in any event seems a little orthogonal to my question.From a game mechanics standpoint, yes- it's almost always easier to trim away things you don't like than it is to HR new stuff in.
If I don't want alignments in a game, I can easily excise everything that ties into it. If a creature has significant abilities tied to alignment, I can either chose to give the creature new ones or not use that creature.
If I want to add them to a game that doesn't have them, I have a lot of mechanical things to figure out, including assessing whether a bonus or penalty is sufficient, what creatures will have significant abilities tied into them, and so forth.
I would argue that stripping the alignment-related magic out of 3E is not a trivial matter -