Need help with aligment

[Venport]

I don't like the current mechanics behind alignment how do you think I could change it?



I want a low level evil charter to be able to fool a low level party or even a mid level one… Spells like detect evil prevent this especially if you have a paladin the party that detects evil at will… I don't know how your player perceive evil but mine kill it no matter what. And honestly it shouldn't work this way… Here is what I want to try and do… Keep all alignments it helps with charter goals.



1like eberron suggests) gods have better things to do then watch all their clerics and make sure they are being good. (unless they do something on an epic scale)



2: no detect evil spell.. I plan on giving Paladins something else in that place but not sure yet



3: Change paladins Smite ability make it so they can smite anything that has hurt an comrade or themselves (kind of like divine vengeance)



4: Clerics will have detect energy type on their spell list instead of detect evil and detect undead this will tell them if a creature is powered by positive or negative energy



5: no holy and unholy swords… this are just so powerful in most campaigns you will fight CE NE LE and N that 1 out of 4 that will not be affected by these kinds of weapon



This is just as start… any ideas on what else would need to be changed? Is there a better way to approach this change?

 

[domino]

Well, you could simply have them get in big trouble for just attacking a guy because he's evil. Plenty of people can BE evil without DOING evil, for fear of reprecussions, or simply not being all that evil.

 

[JimAde]

In my game, I say that the Detect X spells only work on creatures with that alignment as a type (generally outsiders) or clerics/paladins.

So the group paladin's Detect Evil would detect a demon disguised as a human, but not the upstanding member of the City Council who also happens to be the BBEG (unless he happens to he the High Priest of Hastur or something).

This works for the PCs too, so the head of the thieves guild can't just Detect Good on them and decide they're not really his kind of people.

 

[ARandomGod]

Well, alignments are highly controversial. I personally suggest that people not GET alignments unless/untill they've commited a fair amount to that alignment side. IE most people will detect as (and be) neutral. Therefore the Detect Evil spell will still be useful, but really only on higher level characters (or really, really nassty low level ones).

Second, let me tell you right now that whatever the GM decides about alignments is the way they are. And also whatever he decides is WRONG! Completely and utterly wrong. At least to someone, somewhere. ^_^

 

[Venport]

I like

I like the idea of Clerics or outsiders being detected only... but what about Holy weapons?? they seem to powerful...

 

[JimAde]

Not if they only work against the same types of creatures as the detects.

Actually I don't think holy weapons are too powerful even as written. Sure it's a lot of damage, but a lot of the enemies you face aren't actually evil. Many monsters are neutral (they're just hungry ). But you're the GM. If you don't like them, say they don't exist. Or raise their cost. Holy is already a +2 enhancement but you can make it +3 if you want.

 

[mrtauntaun]

In my campaigns, we've done away with alignment completly. We first came across this in the Wheel of Time RPG, which does not use alignment, and a big part of character chapter talks about that lack and it's implications. Very well done, IMHO. You can probably pick it up pretty cheap now, as it's been out quite awhile, assuming that portion is not OGL.

 

[CRGreathouse]

If characters in my campaign killed everything that glowed under a detect evil they'd have to kill an incrediable number of people -- it's not just the mass murderers and monsters that are evil, it's also the 'bad people' like Bill Ferney and the like who don't deserve death but are, at the heart, bad people.

There's a joke among my players that all doorwards are evil, since they happened to detect evil on three sequential ianitores. Certainly they shouldn't have killed them (they didn't) -- these were just ordinary people doing ordinary jobs. Sure, they took bribes and concealed illegal acts committed by their employers, they might steal on occasion, but they weren't particularly exceptional.

 

[Venport]

I just think that when one of my players enters the room he detectsc evil.... and knows who to trust and who to not trust... i knowt hat has more to do with law and chaos but it is to black and white for me... I know most people are nutral and almost all creatures are N with a appitite or protecting something... but so many of the creatures are evil and i don't like detect eveil... Smite concept of a paladin

 

[HERBO]

I think I have to throw a little nerdling might behind JimAde's take on the alignment mess. For players that see things in black and white, good and "soon to be smote," you need to have a convention that will preempt their sword waggling. My players and I have limited detect evil/good/law/chaos to those beings in the cosmos that embody that ideal. So JimAde is right on with the whole clerics and outsiders riff. For everybody else "evil" and "good" is just a measure of how selfish a person is. In my group we've adopted the term "chaotic me" instead of chaotic evil. You know that an evil individual, whilst being untrustworthy and most likely rotten to the core, is just looking out for number one. This doesn't necessarily make them glow like a preist of Hextor or a band member from Gwar. It would be a way for you to get a hand on those delicate "please don't kill my NPC even though he'd kill you for a dime" moments.

I like to throw the occaisional lawful good foil into my games. Its always fun to reveal weeks/months down the line that the person that the whole party hated and worked so hard to destroy was in fact a lawful and good person...just an incredible arse.

Cheers