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Message: <blockquote data-quote="fusangite" data-source="post: 1911713" data-attributes="member: 7240">Even if you put it this way, it's really a matter of hair-splitting. If I am a paladin and I wish to continue gaining levels in this class and continue to use its various magical abilities, alignment is absolutely proscriptive. I suppose I'm not forced, in your model to keep being lawful good but only in the most academic sense. If I want to continue laying on hands, riding my special mount, smiting evil and having a bonus to saving throws, I have to keep being lawful good. So, what do I need to do in order to not lose all these powers? I have to behave in a lawful good way consistently. Similarly, if I'm a barbarian, the rules pretty much force me to keep behaving in a non-lawful way; otherwise I'll lose the ability to rage, etc. etc. Your argument that alignment is not proscriptive is essentially the same as saying the Criminal Code isn't proscriptive. After all, I'm still free to kill people. I'll just have to go to jail if I do. If you are a barbarian, bard, cleric, druid, monk or paladin, alignment does effectively restrict your course of action.But even if I accepted your assertions about alignment here, it does not address my actual issue. We went over Thomas Paine's career earlier in the thread -- can you tell me if he was chaotic or lawful. Let me generalize further: can you tell me in any meaningful way that does not directly contradict the text of the Player's Handbook what the alignment of any of the signatories of the Declaration of Independence was?You're just practicing sophistry here. Whether he is chaotic because he does those things or he does those things because he is chaotic in no way pertains to the substance of my argument. What I am actually arguing is that the alignment mechanic is self-contradictory and that point you have avoided altogether.</blockquote>

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