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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ARandomGod" data-source="post: 1484326" data-attributes="member: 17296">Sure, theft has a victim. On the other hand, how motivated are you by that person? Really, being motivated entirely by self can only be neutral. That's what neutrality IS. If you just don't care, one way or another, it's neutral. You don't care who or if it hurts, who or if it benifits. For it to be evil, you have care. Just because personal gain hurts somebody it doesn't have to be evil. It just can't be good.Or, really, it CAN, if you're doing it for good, depending on who and how much and why. Seriously it could be a desire for personal gain that doesn't "offset" anything, isn't a willingness to hurt another for it, but simply does not take that other's feelings into consideration in any way. That indeed is also in the PHB as a direct description of neutrality.Hell, the PHB descriptions have become quit vague, if you actually read and analyse them.As for the original question, ANY of the aligmnents could potentially be OK with stealing from the dead. That is, indeed entirely up to the characters point of view.Does the character seriously think that stealing from the dead would harm that dead? If so, and he's good, he would be against it. If so, and he's evil, he'd want to do it whether or not he'd personally gain from it.If so, and he just don't care, or perhaps if he just doesn't think about it --he's neutral.If he doesn't think it'll harm the dead, what, exactly, is his motivation for wanting to not do it? Whatever that is, it's not from a good/evil axis alignment.It could be from a lawful/chaotic alignment... But even then, a lawful person could take it. Does the law that the character is aligned to have rules about property and death? Can the dead be considered to "own" property? If not, then the lawful person shouldn't have any qualms with taking anything there.In fact, the paladins actions described above ("To which the paladin responds, "Here, let me help you open that so you can skull $#%$# the corpse." ") could actually be taken as chaotic evil. Chaotic, actively disobeying laws that very well might say that physical property belongs to the physical world (and a sensible, lawful, and GOOD law that would be. It's kind of evil to tie up wealth with the non-living, who should have gone on to their reward or punishment already). And evil... threatening a companion and forcing him to loose livlihood for no other reason than wanting to see him hurting. Yes, unless that paladin can actively explain away that malignant act (and it does sound like 1) he cared and 2) he was coming from a negative emotion and possibly even 3) he enjoyed the discomfort of the rogue, I'd say that the paladin could be up for an alignment audit.Additional point.Many seem to believe that stealing is inherently chaotic. This is simply not so. Claiming it is a lack of understanding of the word "law" A law is a set of rules. Nothing, other than a desire to live in an ordered and ruled way, is inherently lawful. There is no law saying that laws have to be against stealing. (Unless you make one, but that's by definition not an inherent part of law). In fact, there can be, and have been, cultures in which "stealing" is written into the law as something which is to be done, and therefore NOT stealing could and would be non-lawful.Actually, what exactly do you think taxes ARE?</blockquote>

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