Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Draco Strang 11-29-04, 12:28 PM	Is it just me, or have alignments gone out the window regarding character creation? If i remember correctly, certain classes have certain alignment restrictions. For example, barbarians have to be chaotic or non-lawful (i forget which), rogues cant be lawful (makes sense...they're stealing stuff) and cases like that. I've seen a lot of posts on boards like Character Optimization and the Class/Prestige class that say stuff like "Well first take two levels of monk, and then switch over to rogue for the sneak attack and evasion, and then 1 level of wizard for mage armor and the familiar, and then you need to take Paladin so you can smite." I've played for close to 10 years now, and my groups have usually followed alignment rules and restrictions, even if they are a tad disjointed and nonsensical. They're still a fairly important part of the game. As I have understood it, alignments are an indication of what a character stands for, and has a minor hand in guiding their actions. It isn't merely a tool or restriction to be manipulated and changed so as to gain different class levels. What's your take on this? Am i being too archaic and bah-humbug, or does anyone else feel the way I do?
CzarGarrett 11-29-04, 12:34 PM	Generally, as both DM and Player, I feel, outside of alignment restriction stuff, alignment winds up being the general persona of a character. Paladins have to be LG, there's very little leeway here. If a Paladin kills a random woman, he's going to suffer, badly. However, if a Fighter is LG and randomly kills a woman, then he might suffer a bit, but not nearly as bad as a Paladin. Plus, the fighter can do good stuff afterwards and get back to being LG without any loss of abilities or the like. A Paladin who loses abilities, loses them forever. The classes that aren't "Must be lawful" or "cannot be evil" or anything like that can be rather flexible with alignment.
sambudak 11-29-04, 12:37 PM	Rule Zero ain't always a hero.
salamander 11-29-04, 12:42 PM	"Well first take two levels of monk, and then switch over to rogue for the sneak attack and evasion, and then 1 level of wizard for mage armor and the familiar, and then you need to take Paladin so you can smite."This can all be done, by the book, without having to change alignment in the course of the game, as long as you start out as Lawful Good. Monks must be lawful, Paladins lawful good and neither Rogues nor Wizards have an alignment restriction (btw, stealing is not compulsory for rogues). I find several of the alignment restrictions, especially the one that says bards have to be non-lawful, rather dumb. But we still enforce them in our game, and we play our characters according to the alignment they have: it's not just a meaningless statistic that only comes into play with certain spells or abilities. If alignments get changed, it's because the DM says so, never the player - so if you want to change your char's alignment in order to be able to take levels in a class with a restriction, your only chance is to roleplay going to that new alignment really well and hope the DM picks up on it.
Draco Strang 11-29-04, 12:45 PM	Oh, I agree completely. If you are a rogue and suddenly "find Jesus" so to speak, then you could certainly become a paladin later on in life. (There would have to be some RPing and a good reason to, of course) What angers me is the people that blatantly just flip-flop their alignments to min-max their characters, and I was wondering if this is becoming the norm at DnD tables throughout the world, or just the guys that post on Optimization?
salamander 11-29-04, 01:00 PM	I'm sure it's not just the Optimization guys, but it depends mostly on how the group (and specifically the DM) treats alignment. A lot of DMs give XP for good roleplaying. Good roleplaying for most of those DMs includes playing to your alignment. If that's the case with your DM, it's likely that you're not going to be switching alignments willy-nilly. But there are also DMs that pay attention to alignments only when it comes to spells (the Protection from X spells, or cleric spells that are restricted to clerics of specific alignments, etc.) or abilities (Smiting, etc.). Obviously, if your DM is like that you have much less incentive to attach any importance to your character's alignment and to sticking with one.
Bluebrush 11-29-04, 01:02 PM	Do remember that being a rogue does not imply that you're up to no good. You could, for instance, be a particularly artful politician or soldier, who manipulates events for a noble cause. Think Blackadder and the guy from "Yes Minister", only doing things for noble purposes. Alternatively, you could be a spy for a good organisation. Not nescessarily a "drop from ski lifts and break the necks of generic soldiers" spy but maybe someone who pretends to be an accountant and passes on secrets of the financial dealings of an evil organisation.
Thorak 11-29-04, 02:37 PM	My group's a good example of "alignment conflict". We have myself, your typical if a bit bull-headed and forthright (but not holier-than-thou or overly righteous) paladin, playing the LG schtick to the hilt. We've got the true neutral Sorceror, who looked on in regret as I torched that Book of Vile Darkness (at least, we suspect that's what it was, I didn't let anyone read it). And we've got the (now) Chaotic Neutral barbarian, who's 17 (the character), is the only surviving member of his tribe, and has been through hell for his age, and who just snapped in our campaign. Also a NG Cleric of Pelor who's waffling a bit for reasons we're unsure of, and a (I suspect) rogue who's alignment is anyone's guess; he just joined the party a few sessions ago (the player isn't new, just new to this campaign, he took a break), all I know is "not-evil". At a time when we're cleaning out a hideously evil temple and just got attacked by a demon of some kind. I understand as a player exactly why the other player had his character snap, and it was perfectly in-character. And my character, seeing the burlier barbarian giving up and wanting to leave, did what came naturally and told him to suck it up. And narrowly dodged a punch. And then called him a coward, and only narrowly (thanks to an NPC) avoided catching a greataxe in the gut. While the sorceror watched on, silently wishing he had some popcorn. The cleric and rogue's players weren't present for this session, though the DM was doing a decent job of involving them in it. Here, we had one case of alignment change; the Barbarian shifting from TN to CN. Because he's fed up with honour and all that bullcrap, and doesn't give a darn about what he "should" do any more. The rest of us, despite the growing conflict, aren't shifting. Earlier in my Paladin's career, he might have similarly snapped and Fallen to some extent. And perhaps even tried to fight fire with fire, so to speak, and gone the route of the Blackguard. But I had a darn good IC reason for that, and it hadn't been planned from day 1; I've been planning him to go Kensai. Of course, I'm also questioning my Paladin's reasons to stay with the group beyond this temple; we have no hard obligations in any way besides this one, and he's having issues enough with various members that I think I might have to retire him solely for party cohesiveness. I can't keep his mouth shut about things like his opinions on his companion's 'cowardice', even though I as a player are aware of the reasons for it, my character either isn't or doesn't consider them valid. But that's my group; we play alignment as worldviews that change only under pressure, and we're freely going to screw out characters deliberately if the situation and their alignment and personality calls for it. Just like the barbarian's going to have a hissy fit and stalk off trying to get out, my character's going to call him a coward and lose almost all respect he'd earned for him. One of many reasons I think one of the two needs to go bye bye, and my paladin's fitting less with the rest than the barbarian generally is.
Salla 11-29-04, 03:24 PM	I still know a lot of people who think 'Rogue' equals 'Thief', myself ... I call it revisionitis. I, personally, am not a big fan of alignment restrictions for base classes, and have thrown out most of them (although I've thrown out a few base classes as well).
crazysamaritan 11-29-04, 05:44 PM	I'm sure it's not just the Optimization guys, I just want to mention that one of the unspoken rules in that forum is that you keep alignment shifts to a minimum. Someone will speak up if you forgot to mention your shift from LG to NG if you didn't, and several will disagree with your build if it calls for more than two shifts (especially good to evil to good shifts). It's true many poeple try to do that, but the Char Op seem to consider it a cheap way of doing things.
SammasterT 11-29-04, 06:44 PM	Well, I think that the alignment restrictions are, for the most part, poorly thought out and/or based upon prejudices and stereotypes. Or perhaps the alignemnts are poorly defined, or have been over-complicated. Or perhaps I'm just stupid ... The stated requirement that barbarians must be chaotic, or have to be non-lawful, for instance. Are all civilized folk lawful? Hardly, In fact, the very word law comes from a group of folk history deemed "barbarians" .... the vikings, the Danes to be specific. And really, show me a society where the chief ethic is impulsiveness and individualism, and I'll show you a society that either doesn't exist or is on the verge of breakdown. An in fact, you will find far more freebooting, impulse driven hedonists in a civilized society then you ever will in a "barbarian" society, because living close to nature takes far more organization, planning, teamwork and mutual consideration for one's neighbour and neighbourhood than your average, highly alienated city-slicker, who is constantly fighting, disagreeing, competeing, ignoring and/or negelcting his neighbour, will ever appreciate. For a while I couldn't figure out how a rogue, or more precisely a thief, could be lawful. But then the question arose, are lawful folk required to enquire and follow the law of every land they travel through? Might be a good idea, but what about when laws of one land conflcit with those of another? Which set is "more lawful"? Obviously, there is no way of determining this without a sharp cultural prejudice, in which one culture becomes the standard that all others are judged by. That would take a lot of ignorance and/or arrogance on someone's behalf. So, that being the case, "lawful" must mean something more complex than "heeds the law". Likely it has to do with ones approach to life. A lawful person is thoughtful, not impulsive. They will tend to think things through, set goals, plan carefully, align and organize themselves with others, and will generally prefer a structured approach to life. They are likely to be well aware of the value of laws, and even moreso of the strength of a well orgnaized community (ie. the strong arm of the law), but do they do not necessarily follow this or that body of law. One might think of the mafia, a criminal mastermind, a methodical serial killer, a shrewd business man who knows all of the loopholes, etc. Each are an example of a, ahem, "lawful" criminal. Sure its an oxymoron, but only because "lawful" is a poor choice of words. Likewise, I don't see why a bard can't be lawful. I have heard some people talk about the creative process, and while this is indeed true, artists differ. Some like to orgnaize their work, their utensils, others are slobs about it. Either way, their is also an artists patrons to consider ... who tell where, when, and what ... and who will patronize some other struggling artist if you can't produce. I would figure that mages would certianly require alot of thoughtfulness, organiztion, cooperation, in order to master their vocation, so seem to be natural non-chaotics.
Androlphas 11-29-04, 06:52 PM	You are not alone in your sentiments, Draco Strang. Changes in both class and alignment have to be explainable story-wise in my campaigns. Same thing goes for prestige classes. Want a new alignment? Roleplay it. Want a new class? Where did you have the opportunity to learn it? A little off topic, access to desired base classes/prestige classes makes for a good non-monetary reward. For example: Purple Dragon Knight Captain (to PC fighter): "Arthos, I am really impressed with the way you and your friends assisted us in ousting the Troll King of the Storm Horns. We could use someone like you among our ranks. Interested?" Arthos (PC fighter): "I appreciate the offer, but my place is with my companions." Purple Dragon Knight Captain: "Well, the offer stands. We could always use an agent abroad to aid us in detecting threats to the Crown." Arthos: "May I sleep on it." Purple Dragon Knight Captain: "Certainly." Note: Arthos the fighter started out as Chaotic Good. The player told the DM he was interested in pursuing the Purple Dragon Knight prestige class. He meets all the requirements, but noticed the Chaotic part of his alignment didn't fit the non-chaotic requirement. During the past adventures he roleplayed his character a little more respectful of laws, authority and such. The DM deems that the player has done a good job and thus allows an alignment change to Neutral Good as well as presents an opportunity for entrance into the prestige class. And they all lived a happily ever after...until Orcus showed up out of nowhere!!!! hahahahahahaha :P
crazysamaritan 11-29-04, 08:06 PM	Well, I think that the alignment restrictions are, for the most part, poorly thought out and/or based upon prejudices and stereotypes. Or perhaps the alignemnts are poorly defined, or have been over-complicated. Or perhaps I'm just stupid ... The same goes for the classes. It merits mentioning, though, that the book describes them as achetypes, instead. Different words, effectivly the same meaning.
Thorak 11-29-04, 09:59 PM	An addendum to the "barbarians shouldn't have to be chaotic" argument; the barbarian with the temper in my group I posted about is a variant that's well-suited for that type, since we agree. Instead of a "rage", they have a "focus", which enhances all combat abilities, even AC, but only against a single opponent a round. And he gets tunnel-vision, making him pretty oblivious to anything else. It's a penalty that has to be roleplayed a bit, but we're good about screwing our character because it makes sense.
SammasterT 11-30-04, 12:23 AM	An addendum to the "barbarians shouldn't have to be chaotic" argument; the barbarian with the temper in my group I posted about is a variant that's well-suited for that type, since we agree. Instead of a "rage", they have a "focus", which enhances all combat abilities, even AC, but only against a single opponent a round. And he gets tunnel-vision, making him pretty oblivious to anything else. It's a penalty that has to be roleplayed a bit, but we're good about screwing our character because it makes sense. There might actually be alot of real world historical reasons for this, once one stops looking down on the culture that gave us the berserker, ie. Norse-Teutonic, as ours so often does, and we start intelligently criticizing the sources for our knowledge. I don't want to get into all of the technical stuff, but suffice it to say that the "vikings" were the elite fighting force of their age, renowned from Norway to Constantinople. And the berserkers were consider elite fighters amongst the vikings. Now, in real world combat, especially those involving swords and spears, cooler heads prevail. Its a matter of fact that a well trianed and disciplined fighter will beat an angry fighter 9 times out of 10. This is why we make our oppenents angry. So they will do stupid things and make mistakes we can capitalize on. You don't get to make too many mistakes when sharpened steel is involved. And you get to make even less when, like the berserker and their cultural predecessors the Heruli, you fight without armour and only a cloak for protection. It is said of these ancient fighters that neither fire not iron could hurt them. How is this so? Well, as the lack of armour indicates, they relied on speed and grace. Iron cannot cut, fire cannot burn, what they cannot touch. No other way holds water in the harsh glare of reality. The preChristian Teutonic folk were also renowned for using subtle psychological tactics to paralyze and intimidate their oppenents. One such was called the doning of the "aegishjalm" or the "helm of terror". These mind games are probably where the myth of the berserkers rage comes from. On the one hand, they are intimidating their opposition. Andfailing that, they are fooling them into thinking that they are themselves raging and reckless fools. Even the name of the chief god of the berserkers, Woden, means "master of" (-en) "fury, madness, inspiration" (wod). So ,whatever it was, it went far beyond common rage.
Ramius_Mordale 11-30-04, 12:58 AM	To answer you back to your first post SammasterT, the reason why they were called barbarians was simply to say they were unhuman compaired to the opposing civilization. It's called propaganda, and it started the day someone picked the first stone up and hit Bob with it, then said, he is a monster. It's an act to dehumanize the opponent to make them look like "monsters" that don't deserve to be called civilized by the opposing civilization. The reason why the classes are the way they are is because they are fitting in with a certain archetype not a historical fact. For instance, you could play a barbarian and use the fighter class instead. People think you are a barbarian but you are a LG Fighter and lead a tribe of people. You dress in wolf and bear skins and trap your own food. Or you could be a ranger instead of a fighter or barbarian. But the word barbarian is another name for a savage. Now about the example of the bard being neat and organized. Alignment doesn't mean a total "law" about it. What they are saying is that for social norms artists are just considered "rebels" against the whole. They don't fit into the normal category. That doesn't mean they are hap-hazzard flakey nuts that can't hold their schedules together for five minutes. Just means they are not ones to follow the flow of society and accept its way as the right way. Honestly, I don't see what the big deal is really. If you want to play a barbarian fighter, use the Unearthed Arcana that gives you variants on the classes. Or you could just do the wierdest thing ever since slice bread and actually have cross class skills that you take and take a class completely different! :crazy: :blink: Such as maybe playing a LG Fighter that is called a Barbarian just because he hails from the north where those people come from. Holy shooting stars, you mean I'll have to take move silently and hide and survival as cross-class skills surely you jest! :P :D Anyways, that's just my opinion. Good day to you all. :tiphat:
crazysamaritan 11-30-04, 12:42 PM	But the word barbarian is another name for a savage. Not origionally. It was a word for foriegner. It was simply assumed that the foriegners were less-developed. That gave a reason for hating them or for ignoring them. So Barbarian is closer to the now common useage of the word Alien.
SammasterT 11-30-04, 02:08 PM	Honestly, I don't see what the big deal is really. If you want to .... Well, honestly, there is no big deal, really. Personally, I'm quite capable of thinking outside the box and doing away with alignment restrictions, and other rules, I feel are inappropriate. Just my opinion. :D
Ramius_Mordale 11-30-04, 06:51 PM	crazysamaritan: Yeah now that you mention it you're right about that, but it later came to imply savages and the like. SammasterT: You are entitled to your opinion of course, but I wasn't directing my whole remark to you. What I was saying is that people get too bent out of shape over the whole alignment restrictions when there are rules already avaliable for taking care of that issue, or they just want to min/max their character up the wahzoo because they want a cheap character without penalty. And I'm not saying anybody here does that, but I've heard this arguement before and the person was just looking for a way to be incredibly cheap with their character. Plus, I'm just too lazy to worry about it and change the alignments. :P :D But whatever works for you folks. Have a good day. :tiphat:
Bluebrush 11-30-04, 07:38 PM	Not origionally. It was a word for foriegner. It was simply assumed that the foriegners were less-developed. That gave a reason for hating them or for ignoring them. So Barbarian is closer to the now common useage of the word Alien. Fun little fact I read in a book. (So it must be true.) The greeks invented the term for anyone who didn't speak greek. Because if they didn't speak greek their words sounded meaningless to them. Just a load of "Blah blah blah" or, as the greeks put it "Bar bar bar". Hench "Bar-bar-ian."
Nurgan_the_drunked 12-01-04, 10:12 AM	I knew it was somehting like that, but more along the lines of they couldn't speak greek, and so the greeks decided that they probably bleated like sheep instead: "Baaa baaa" But yeah, alignments needn't be forced, but they do give that class a strong flavour, which you can lose if they're removed. If a player gave a good description and background for a chaotic monk, I'd let them if I was GMing. If it was really good. Maybe.
skywyze 12-01-04, 11:03 PM	Being born and raised in Norway, I've had a lot of history lessons about the vikings, and one thing we learned early on was that berserkers (directly translated: Ber = bear, serk = skin, for the bear skin they wore) were not only lawful, they were the very paragons of lawfulness. They were the enforcers of the traditions and beliefs of their community and were often called upon as judges and even tacticians (though religious dogma made for rather poor tacticians, in retrospect ;) ). So saying berserkers can't be lawful is complete bull, historically speaking. With that out of the way, berserkers in DnD are not necessarily the berserkers of history. In DnD I believe the word berserker refers to a fighting style rather than a life style - one that is based on inner turmoil and rage rather than finesse and tactics. That's just my take of course, and personally I'd like to see "alignment restrictions" be changed to something like "alignment recommendations". That way people could make realistic characters without having to sacrifice character optimization in the process. You want to be a barbarian monk? Fine, just explain to me how you'd combine the inner peace of the monk with the inner turmoil of the barbarian. If you can do that, then in my opinion you deserve the freedom to do it.
TheGnomishWizard 12-01-04, 11:15 PM	There are only 3 classes that actually have an alignment restiriction. All the others have only a section stating the "typical" alignment for the class. Barbarian- Must be chaotic (but if the become non-chaotic they only lose rage class feature I believe) Bard- TEND to be chaotic because of their nomadic life style Cleric- Has no alignment tendencies Druid- Must be neutral Fighter- Has no alignment tendencies Monk- must be lawful (if they become non-lawful they lose no abilities but can't advance further in the class) Paladin- Must be lawful good (loses all abilities should he cease to be lawful good) Ranger- Has no alignment tendencies Rogue- TENDs to be chaotic (not all rogue steal so a lawful rogue is perfectly reasonable, in fact I personally enjoy playing lawful neutral rogues) Sorcerer- TEND to be chaotic Wizard- TEND to be lawful
Ogre Mage 12-01-04, 11:37 PM	A correction-- For Barbarians, the only alignment restriction is that they cannot be lawful. (PHB, 24) They DO NOT have to be chaotic. You can perfectly well play a NG barbarian if you wish. I can understand the non-lawful restriction. Lawful characters tend to a) be strongly inclined to live by the rules of civilized society and/or b) be disciplined and fastidious in their personal "rules". Barbs tend to be neither. The other classes with alignment restrictions are clerics (must be within one step of their deity), druids, monks and paladins. The other classes have NO alignment restrictions, although the PHB does make some suggestions (bards tend to be chaotic, etc.) You could very well play a LG rogue, though that would be a strange character.
Draco Strang 12-02-04, 03:17 AM	Being born and raised in Norway, I've had a lot of history lessons about the vikings, and one thing we learned early on was that berserkers (directly translated: Ber = bear, serk = skin, for the bear skin they wore) were not only lawful, they were the very paragons of lawfulness. They were the enforcers of the traditions and beliefs of their community and were often called upon as judges and even tacticians (though religious dogma made for rather poor tacticians, in retrospect ;) ). So saying berserkers can't be lawful is complete bull, historically speaking. With that out of the way, berserkers in DnD are not necessarily the berserkers of history. In DnD I believe the word berserker refers to a fighting style rather than a life style - one that is based on inner turmoil and rage rather than finesse and tactics. You learn something new every day. Damn.
salamander 12-02-04, 07:57 AM	There are only 3 classes that actually have an alignment restiriction. All the others have only a section stating the "typical" alignment for the class. The other [aside from Barbarians] classes with alignment restrictions are clerics (must be within one step of their deity), druids, monks and paladins. The other classes have NO alignment restrictions, although the PHB does make some suggestions (bards tend to be chaotic, etc.) You could very well play a LG rogue, though that would be a strange character.Bards are restricted from being lawful. No typical tendency, a flat-out restriction.