Alignment Changes

Razarr69 · Post by **Razarr69** » Tue May 30, 2006 9:52 am

Is there a way to change your alignment in the game? It is easy enough on NS 3.5, but what about here?

Post by **Flailer** » Tue May 30, 2006 9:58 am

No - you're unable to change your alignment in NS4. While it would be good to allow your alignment to influence your actions and vice versa, it opens the door to some meta-gaming abuses we've wanted to avoid (mainly cheese builds like paladin-bard, paladin-blackguard, etc).

P. Fricebottle · Post by **P. Fricebottle** » Tue May 30, 2006 10:15 am

paladin-blackguard

Why do people think this build is so cheesy? In fact, thats the way its supposed to be. Blackguards are supposed to be evil members of an order of evil knights, in which most are fallen paladins with a few exceptions. Did no one play the first NWN campaign with that one chick?

Post by **Flailer** » Tue May 30, 2006 10:32 am

Primarily because a fallen paladin is supposed to lose all of the paladin bonuses - the blackguard bonuses are supposed to supliment that if you choose to be an 'evil paladin'. Instead, they end up stacking with the paladin bonuses due to a poor implementation by Bioware. Thus enters the cheese...

Razarr69 · Post by **Razarr69** » Tue May 30, 2006 10:42 am

Agreed. Any real DM (pen and paper, I'm talking) would strip all of your paladin abilities when you become 'Fallen Paladin', effectively making all of your paladin levels fighter levels without the additional fighter benefits (weap. Spec. and bonus feats) until you could correct the action that made you a 'Fallen Paladin'.

Death Dealer1 · Post by **Death Dealer1** » Tue May 30, 2006 4:11 pm

sooo....we find a way to disable all your class bonuses if you no longer meet the requirements. such as going chaotic or evil loses pally, going lawful loses bard..man that would be totally awesome. too bad it can't happen that way.

Lorkar1 · Post by **Lorkar1** » Tue May 30, 2006 4:25 pm

So am I to gather that if I have a Pally and I decide to slaughter peasants it will have no effect on alignment? If so, where then are the consequences for ones actions? Adversely if a Chaotic Evil toon decides to start helping others there is no consequence to that either? Aside from the Dungeon Police. If any of this scans then why would it matter what alighment you choose other than class restrictions. I remember the days of PnP if you ran counter to your alignment you were stripped, whipped then dipped. (Off on a tangent) If everyone wants toons to be in character then why would it be so wrong for a 6th level drow to go to FD to go where the killing would benefit him the most. Is it that far fetched that a neutral evil person would use every advantage that is available to him. Staying in character would demand that. Rules aside the darkness is an innate ability that is absolute impenetrable darkness. And I say rules aside because unless I am way off base the drow in NWN is influenced by the drow in menzoberranzan and Drizzt Do'Urden and all references to that darkness is that it is so dark and black as almost to be palpable. I mean in the drow series it talks about Drizzt learning to fight blind just to get used to fighting with his ability. So how does that equate to 20% concealment. If you want to keep the spirit of darkness intact make UV and darkness mutually exclusive. Try running around with no UV in darkness...talk about frustrating... nevermind navigating...and the fact you dont see anyone to attack until you are right on top of them. Personally I think darkness should degrade in direct proportion to how much sunlight there is. High noon should make darkness null and void in keeping with the spirit of the game. Darkness wasn't broken it just wasn't applied correctly. I say this without knowing the true headache of scripting something like this. Just my point of view. I dont really much care about rules of the game as much as I do the spirit in which its played.
Ok enough of the convoluted rant....

Post by **Mr. O'Dearly** » Tue May 30, 2006 4:47 pm

As for alignment changes. It would be wonderful if paladins lost their abilities if and when they acted out of their alignment... but, i highly doubt Bioware made this easy or possible to do. Its simply easier to restrict alignment changes altogether and overlook that aspect of roleplay.

As for the darkness, this issue was already solved. Drow darkness is how it is supposed to be:
Joran said:

O'Dearly said
lol, well, i think ive found the inspiration for the new darkness:
DnD v3.5 players handbook said:
Darkness
This spell causes an object to radiate shadowy illumination out to a 20-foot radius. All creatures in the area gain concealment (20% miss chance). ....
You say you want Darkness?

That is precisely what you have been given, just not Bioware's broken version.
bump for Draco

Well just took my drow out and tried the new concealment, he lasted about 30 seconds against 3 amazons. My drow is 32nd lvl , monk/fighter/SD and with "normal" darkness would last against that many.
IMO he is not worth the effort to even try and lvl anymore.

hehehehe... Another Drow completes a successful test of having their butt handed back to them in under 30 seconds by their chances being reduced to 0% survival as a dexer. I refer back to my post that started this thread.
The fact that the simple change of ONE ability completely demolishes your entire build and makes you unable to survive is a crystal clear indication that said ability is broken and overpowered.

Post by **Binkyuk** » Tue May 30, 2006 4:55 pm

why would it be so wrong for a 6th level drow to go to FD to go where the killing would benefit him the most. Is it that far fetched that a neutral evil person would use every advantage that is available to him

i think people misunderstand why this was so different from going up the MT at level 5 or similar. the only reason darkness was so effective on Frozen Reach was because frost wolves when confronted by it would sit there and do nothing, not even attack. This was exploiting an AI bug, which i believe is not allowed.

$chase$ · Post by **$chase$** » Tue May 30, 2006 6:22 pm

passes a prize

kingfatzo · Post by **kingfatzo** » Tue May 30, 2006 7:11 pm

Binkyuk wrote:
why would it be so wrong for a 6th level drow to go to FD to go where the killing would benefit him the most. Is it that far fetched that a neutral evil person would use every advantage that is available to him
i think people misunderstand why this was so different from going up the MT at level 5 or similar. the only reason darkness was so effective on Frozen Reach was because frost wolves when confronted by it would sit there and do nothing, not even attack. This was exploiting an AI bug, which i believe is not allowed.

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pWnd !

MasterYoda · Post by **MasterYoda** » Tue May 30, 2006 8:14 pm

$chase$ wrote: passes a prize

CHAASE IS MY HERO !!!!!

Death Dealer1 · Post by **Death Dealer1** » Wed May 31, 2006 12:21 am

explain to me how this went from changing alignment to everyone griping about drow darkness? darkness has no place in this thread so keep it out.

alignment changes would be great if it could be worked around properly.

kingfatzo · Post by **kingfatzo** » Wed May 31, 2006 2:25 am

Death Dealer1 wrote:explain to me how this went from changing alignment to everyone griping about drow darkness? darkness has no place in this thread so keep it out.

alignment changes would be great if it could be worked around properly.

aye it is pretty funny how little things slip into posts.... COUGH COUGH ...DOH! .....hrmmm nothing came to mind there