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Message: <blockquote data-quote="bardolph" data-source="post: 4369902" data-attributes="member: 2304">Ah, my bad.  I thought you were talking about 4e.Fair enough.  What you've essentially created are situationally superior versions of otherwise reliable spells.  Choosing the alignment-keyed versions has everything to do with how much they know about the campaign.  If the party is all Good, then taking the "special" version of Cure Light wounds simply gives a flat bonus to everyone.  I suppose this is a reward for the party deciding to all pick the same alignment.  Likewise, for spells that situationally do more harm to enemies depending on their alignment, again all they need to do is know what kinds of encounters you are going to put them through, and choose their powers accordingly.Let me put myself in their situation.  If you were my DM, I would guess that if you're going through all the trouble to make these nifty alignment-based powers, you wouldn't punish me for choosing them, so I would choose them with a reasonable expectation that you will be sending Evil-aligned creatures against us most of the time.This is what I mean by "gaming the system."  What you're doing is creating the illusion of choice.  However, it's not a real choice if one choice is clearly superior to the others.  In this case, you're giving a subtle message to your players: "choose Good, and choose my powers, and you'll get a bunch of free bonuses."  While it's certainly possible that your players may defy you anyway and pass up your carrots, I don't see what you've accomplished with all of this.  If you want your players to all be Good, then require them to be Good, and be done with it.  No need to build an elaborate system of incremental rewards in order to entice them into it.Actually, I think alignments are precisely that: neat little philosophical boxes.  And, by your earlier posts, I thought you agreed with this sentiment.4e is nice because you can opt out of the alignment system by picking "Unaligned."  However, if you want to be "aligned," then go ahead and pick an alignment.  Everybody wins.I see alignment differently.  Alignment determines your actions, not the other way around.  If you want to be a morally complex being, then "Unaligned" is a much better choice for you.</blockquote>

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