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Message: <blockquote data-quote="fusangite" data-source="post: 1914594" data-attributes="member: 7240">What I said is "alignment functions to prohibit conduct." (See above) Your argument is that as long as alignment has no function, it doesn't prohibit conduct. I suppose that's true but not really relevant because we are looking at the operational functioning of a thing.It's like this. While it is true that "Joe is on the fifth floor" does not proscribe Joe's actions with respect to going to the third floor but when paired with "and anyone on the third floor- loses all paladin spells and abilities (including the service of the paladin's mount (PHB 44)- cannot gain new levels as a monk (PHB 42)- loses the ability to rage (PHB 26)- cannot progress in levels as a bard (PHB 30)- loses all spells and druid abilities (PHB 37)- can no longer use the intelligent magic item they have (DMG 269)- cannot gain any more levels in the prestige class Assassin (DMG 180)- cannot gain any more levels in the prestige class Blackguard (DMG 181)- gains one negative level every time they attempt to use their weapon (DMG 223-226)- becomes you vulnerable to detection by this spell (PHB 218-219)- takes additional damage from this spell (PHB 205, 210, 218, 220-223, 241-242, 249-250, 266, 278, 297, 303)- is immune to damage from this spell (PHB 205, 210, 218, 220-223, 241-242, 249-250, 266, 278, 297, 303)- cannot cast this spellit obviously does. Keeping your alignment is often an important thing to do. Failing to keep it has consequences. Consequences are what function to proscribe actions. Your argument goes as follows: as long as alignment change has no in-game effects, it is not proscriptive. But it does have in-game effects. Dozens of them. Furthermore, that's true of everything. Having a strength of less than 13 acts to prohibit you from taking the Power Attack feat. Thus, having a low Strength proscribes your from taking the Power Attack feat. I suppose you could argue that the feat and not the strength score functions to proscribe this but operationally, this statement is irrelevant and meaningless because the rules are an integrated whole.Yes. I will happily grant that if you systematically remove every single in-game operational feature of alignment, the system ceases to be proscriptive. But that's only because it has ceased to have any effects. Your argument is essentially: alignment only has in-game effects when it has in-game effects. Fair enough. I accept this. But what I'm interested in doing is discussing how alignment operates, how it functions. You have clerics in your game who need to maintain a particular alignment in order to keep their domains. Their alignment functions to proscribe some of their actions because of the threat of losing these domains (and possibly, depending on how your play, all of their spells).</blockquote>

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