How many times...?

[Old Gumphrey]

I think werk stays neutral. Otherwise, alignment doesn't make any sense. Which is exactly why alignment doesn't make any sense, and I almost completely ignore it. For argument's sake, though, motive is what decides alignment. I feel like people don't understand neutrality. It means many different things, balance and lack of focus being chief among them. This character wouldn't turn evil the same way that if he spent his last copper and bought the lady a new shack he wouldn't turn good. He's neutral, until he repeatedly leans one way or the other.

 

[painandgreed]

It may be an evil act, but one evil act does not mean alignment change. So, it would take more than once, as if the N character only perfromed E acts and no G acts, then he'd be looking at slipping into NE territory.

Plus, throwing stuff, acting crazy, and not having the ability to listen to reason or follow reasonable requests is threatening. Go experience this in real life sometime and see if you feel threatened.

 

[dougmander]

The problem is that burning her face off is an extremely cruel and destructive act. A neutral character could have:

threatened to go to the local authorities (lawful neutral response)
thrown the garbage right back at her or joined right in throwing it at other people (chaotic neutral response)

Only an evil character would respond in a way that's more about showing how powerful and callous he is than about stopping the annoying person or removing oneself from her presence. A good-aligned PC would have put up with her abuse and tried to help remove whatever disease or curse she suffered from.

 

[Seeker95]

Your alignment is not "whatever you say it is". Your alignment is a reflection of your behavior, attitudes, and world views. If your character believes that burning someone's face off is an appropriate response to getting irritated, then your character is not "becoming evil from the one act". Your character is already evil.

Forrest Gump may have said that stupid is as stupid does. This does not apply to alignment. You are not evil because you commit evil acts. You commit evil acts because you are evil.

Your behavior is a reflection of your alignment. The DM has the job of assigning alignment to match the behavior the character is willing to do. The character rarely undergoes an alignment change. Rather, the alignment field of the character sheet is adjusted to reflect the actual alignment of the character.

If you're willing to do evil, you are evil. You do not "become" evil.

 

[Seeker95]

Go experience this in real life sometime and see if you feel threatened.

How you respond when you feel threatened is a good indication of where your moral compass points.

 

[Matafuego]

42.

 

[painandgreed]

How you respond when you feel threatened is a good indication of where your moral compass points.

Ya, so? We already know he's not good.

 

[diaglo]

Go experience this in real life sometime and see if you feel threatened.

i have numerous times. i didn't feel threatened. i felt pity.

 

[el-remmen]

The problem with this thread is that it is couched in alignment terms

Guess what? Alignment doesn't matter as much as your society and peers view your act (at least that is how I run it).

Everyone was appalled? Well, rightly so. . . Again, the retaliation was not commensurate with the original offense - generally people are appalled by such things and will call you "evil" or "cruel" and treat you as such even if you are not "fundamentally evil" in being or general outlook.

 

[Crothian]

I didn't think it was such a big evil.

<SNIP>

Doing evil to evil is people is still evil. And based on what you say here I think your character was evil before this incident, not neutral.