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6 years ago ::
Sep 12, 2007 - 11:14AM
#301
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No. The fact that you can't choose to be a pitcher in hockey is exactly the point I'm trying to make. You also can't choose to be a Neutral Evil paladin in the 3.5 rules. It's simply not worth it to bemoan this fact, in either of the examples.
No you are avoiding the whole point entirely and making up an example that doesn't exist.
And we are not trying to change or fix the 3.5 rules. This is the 4.0 boards. The point is that an allegence system can better handle character construction.
Yes. That's precisely the point I was making. It applies to sports and it applies to roleplaying.
It's a straw man. You are bringing up something that doesn't exist.
Yeah, you can be deliberate and passive at the same time, but not with respect to the same thing. I may be deliberately driving 60 km/h qua 60 km/h, and only incidentally at the speed limit. In other words, I may choose to go at 60 km/h because that's the speed I wanted to go at, and this choice will having nothing to do with what the speed limit is. So I'm actively going at 60 km/h, but only passively going the speed limit.
And your also passively obeying the the law. That same driver passes the law enforcement with a radar detector and he will see that they are in compliance of the law. Thats what limits are. The threshold on what it legal. Same thing with being a Paladin. If you want to play a Paladin under 3e rules, your character has to be Lawful Good. So the player writes Lawful Good on thier character sheet and moves on to the next thing. A choice has been taken away because the class mandates it.
But, in such a case, if I'm not paying any attention to the speed limit, it makes little sense for me to complain about it. So I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here.
I guess then by your analogy, players shouldn't play attention to their alignment. But i'm pretty sure that's not likely the case.
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6 years ago ::
Sep 12, 2007 - 11:18AM
#302
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When you create your pc, you choose your alignment according to its background, then, playing the character, you enrich its background.
To be clear: the alignment is determined by both your background and your in-game actions.
To know what al your character is you have to read its bg and consider its past actions which took place in game.
Cite the rule or passage for this. it doesn't exist.
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6 years ago ::
Sep 12, 2007 - 11:59AM
#303
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Date Joined:
Jan 26, 2006
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Let's see:
There are a lot of gamers who like D&D and dislike alignment.
There are a lot of gamers who like D&D and like alignment.
The designers of 4e presumably want both groups to get what they want.
This seems to leave them with 2 options for 4e:
1. Allow DM's to choose whether or not to use alignment and support both choices (and maybe some in-between choices).
or
2. Redesign alignment so that both groups like it.
The second option doesn't look possible to me. If 4e proves me wrong on that, serious congratulations will be in order.
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6 years ago ::
Sep 12, 2007 - 12:13PM
#304
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Date Joined:
Mar 23, 2005
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Here's a bit of fuzzy logic: there's a succubus paladin built somewhere. This means you have a creature that is LG but has the evil and chaos subtypes. She's royally screwed because ALL the alignment based spells work on her, and yet I can play a necromancer that is TN and be immune to all of them. Now add to that I can play a racist elitest paladin who believes in genocide and is still perfectly LG (as long as the recipient is evil, who cares?). And yet a character who behaves the exact same way towards one of the core races is automatically evil (probably CE)?
The only time alignment has ever come up in any of my groups it either dealt with a paladin trying to force the rest of the group to do what they wanted, or it was a DM who banned evil characters wielding the +5/+5 DM Sword of Alignment Violation to force us into helping someone.
So far I haven't seen one instance of alignment actually helping a character, only causing problems. So why keep it?
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6 years ago ::
Sep 12, 2007 - 12:15PM
#305
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Cite the rule or passage for this. it doesn't exist.
I hope you're not arguing semantics, because I find this question pretty annoying.
page 103 of phb, the "alignment" section explicitly says "a creature moral and personal attitudes are represented by its alignment", then "choosing an alignment...means stating your intent to play that character in a certain way"
"Dm may decide to change that his alignment has changed to match his actions".
Now, where and when are a character's action and attitudes showed? during game at the table and in the background.
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6 years ago ::
Sep 12, 2007 - 12:36PM
#306
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Here's a bit of fuzzy logic: there's a succubus paladin built somewhere. This means you have a creature that is LG but has the evil and chaos subtypes. She's royally screwed because ALL the alignment based spells work on her
Well, she's a creature made of pure evil.
Being a water elemental pyromaniac doesn't make you immune to fire as well.
, and yet I can play a necromancer that is TN and be immune to all of them.
Necromancy IS NOT evil.
If he casts evil-aligned spells all the day he will necessarily become evil aligned, otherwise, if he spends his days not casting evil spells and not behaving as an evil person, he will keep his non-evil alignment
Now add to that I can play a racist elitest paladin who believes in genocide and is still perfectly LG (as long as the recipient is evil, who cares?).
D&d is for adventurers and is a rpg, if you want to play stupid, senseless and insane characters, do it.
Smite-on-sight is not roleplaying, is playing.
And yet a character who behaves the exact same way towards one of the core races is automatically evil (probably CE)?
Lotr:Sauron killed lots of people, humans killed lots of orcs and ogres, nevertheless a global-wide process at the international criminal court would have been a poor ending for such book.
So far I haven't seen one instance of alignment actually helping a character, only causing problems. So why keep it?
By extending this concept, taking away lots of other rules would help lots of characters...
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6 years ago ::
Sep 12, 2007 - 12:48PM
#307
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Since you seem to be so intent on actively misinterpreting every post I make (or in some cases just ignoring them when it's more convenient for you), I see no reason to reply to you.
And please, by all means, feel free to either misinterpret or ignore this post as you see fit.
So basically, you can't defend your own statements here:
Are there some options that are never available to me? Sure. But I don't waste time wishing I could play something not allowed in the rules of the game (or in the houserules of my group's campaign). That would be like wanting to be a pitcher in hockey. If I really wanted to be a pitcher, I'd play baseball. D&D, like any game, will have restrictions. I pick from what's available without fuss.
Translation: You can't play 3.5 D&D without alignments. You can't play it with a changed alignment system. So don't whine about it! Don't "fuss" about it.
Would I like to see more options in 4e? Sure. Am I happy that they're deciding to allow paladins of all alignments? Yes, quite. Do I think it's a good idea that alignment will no longer have a mechanical component? Absolutely.
Translation: I agree with you, the game would be better without alignment having game mechanical effects.
But given the game I'm playing right now (which would be 3.5), I let the system work for me by being open to what it has to offer.
Translation: But because the system is the way it is in 3.5E, I don't see a problem with playing within them.
My response was this:
Your post amounts to: "Thems the 3.5E rules. Follow em and don't whine. By the way, I'm glad they're making the exact changes you're clamoring about. BUT YOU MUST NOT SPEAK ILL OF THE CURRENT SITUATION!"[/quote]
How else are we supposed to understand your point? Your entire argument seems to point towards "The rules exist. So play by them. Stop whining."
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6 years ago ::
Sep 12, 2007 - 1:08PM
#308
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Date Joined:
Mar 23, 2005
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No, but being a pyro ice elemental doesn't suddenly make you vulnerable to cold spells either. (unfortunately the water elemental doesn't have cold subtype so I had to modify that statement)
The necromancer and paladin is me munchkinning the hell out of the alignment system to prove a point. Often the best way to hide villains from the paladin is to make them neutral bordering on evil (for the few ones that DON'T have mind blank or undetectable alignment or anti-scry automatically built in). <=partial cynicism
Also the way that many creatures are branded as always evil SOLELY to make them easy xp fodder for the pcs and so the paladin doesn't need to put any thought into what he's doing is the other point I was making.
And yes, we could also scrap the rules, the dice, and all concepts of class/race/whatever and it WOULD help all characters. But since we aren't I'm simply proposing the elimination of easily THE most broken section of D&D.
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6 years ago ::
Sep 12, 2007 - 1:09PM
#309
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I hope you're not arguing semantics, because I find this question pretty annoying.
page 103 of phb, the "alignment" section explicitly says "a creature moral and personal attitudes are represented by its alignment", then "choosing an alignment...means stating your intent to play that character in a certain way"
"Dm may decide to change that his alignment has changed to match his actions".
Now, where and when are a character's action and attitudes showed? during game at the table and in the background.
You are infering something that doesn't exist.
Now, where and when are a character's action and attitudes showed? during game at the table and in the background
This section about background here doesn't exist. This isn't about semantics, this is understanding the rules as writen. There are no rules about what the players background is or should be. When the character is first created background can be considered tabula rasa.
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6 years ago ::
Sep 12, 2007 - 1:13PM
#310
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Here is the allegiances "drawback": their influence is really limited, in a fantasy game universal principle held by alignments could be more concrete, have a greater influence, as it happens in d&d.
But it doesn't. Alignment doesn't offer any influence or advantage. EvilIdiot, you keep infering things that don't exist in the D&D Core rules.
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