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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sunseeker" data-source="post: 7746236">That depends on where "alignment" ranks in your world.  I'll provide some sample ranks: Cosmic (like the laws of the universe), Godly (subjective definitions but with exemplars: the gods themselves), Mortal (completely defined by mortals aka "shades of grey"If Alignment is Cosmic, where even Gods who are LG/whatever must adhere to certain ways of acting, then no, alignment is not subjective.-In this context, Paizo would need to define what being any Alignment means.  If at least to the degree of Colossus' "4 or 5 moments".  Here, Codes of Ethics are unnecessary because what is or isn't good is universal.  With this system, Gods become actors of alignment.  When one of their followers steps out of line, the Gods do not punish him because they have violated some Godly tenents, the Gods punish them because the Gods must in order for the Gods themselves to remain their respective alignment.If Alignment is Godly, (and there is no higher Cosmic Alignment), then each God can have subjective definitions of good or evil, but there is communal consensus.  Asmodeus may consider killing angels to be a Good thing, but because most angels do good things, and most gods agree the things they do are good, Asmodeus's view is an outlier and therefore does not play into what mortals perceive as "goodness".  In this context, a God may choose whether or not to revoke the powers of one of their followers, since that God is at least, in a microcosm, defining what good and evil is for themselves.  A God not revoking the powers of one of their followers may provoke the ire of other Gods.  So here a God is more likely to revoke over a violation than not in order to maintain the status quo among the gods and their agreed-upon definition of alignment.If Alignment is Mortal (and there is no Godly or Cosmic Alignment) then a Paladin's alignment is as subjective as alignment is in real life.  One part "If there are no witnesses, it didn't happen." and one part "I can choose what parts of Alignment to follow as the situation calls for it."  In this context, Gods are likely non-interventionist except in extreme cases.  What determines if a God is good or evil is the same for humans: perception.  But a God is no more bound to revoke the powers of a Paladin over mass murder of babies than he is over jay-walking.The problem is that there isn't a strong push in ANY edition of D&D (or Pathfinder) to say where Alignment rests.  And to make it worse, it vacillates from setting to setting.  In the Forgotten Realms, for example, non-believers are punished by having their souls imprisoned in "The Wall", a metaphysical Sarlacc Pit where their souls are digested over a thousand years.  Even ostensibly good Gods support this system.  Why?  Because the power of a God is based on their number of followers, so all the Gods got together and said: "Hey!  Lets punish all the non-believers horribly in order to maintain our power!"  What part of that sentence says "good" to anyone? In other settings, like Greyhawk, Alignment is more Cosmic.  In yet others, Alignment is more Mortal.But yet, even in these settings, even in the rulebooks for these settings, Alignment is ill-defined.  If we're going to have alignment restrictions, they NEED to be more wide-spread than just the Paladin.  The Warlock, the Cleric, the Druid, the Monk, etc...  If alignment is Cosmic, every class should have alignment restrictions.  If alignment is Godly, then no classes should have alignment restrictions, but characters would based on their Gods.  If alignment is Mortal, then alignment restrictions are meaningless.</blockquote>

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