Alignment Change

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magistrasa
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Alignment Change

Post by magistrasa » Sat Nov 17, 2018 5:23 pm

Under what circumstances do DMs change a character's alignment, and under what circumstances can a change be requested?

I ask because my own circumstances are that I had an idea for the character I play when I first created it, and chose alignment based on that idea - but now that I'm in the game, I feel like the character is totally different from what I originally conceptualized, from motivation to personality, and was wondering if it was possible to have the alignment adjusted to better fit.

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The Rambling Midget
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Re: Alignment Change

Post by The Rambling Midget » Sat Nov 17, 2018 5:54 pm

Ask whenever you feel like your character needs a shift. You'll have to explain why and what the circumstances of the change are, and they may want to observe you, to ensure that the change is warranted. They won't, however, give you an alignment change that will allow you to create impossible class combinations. (e.g. Paladin/Blackquard) And you'll have to delevel, if it moves your alignment outside of what's needed for your current classes.
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The GrumpyCat
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Re: Alignment Change

Post by The GrumpyCat » Sat Nov 17, 2018 6:14 pm

TRM is, once more, basically right.

Alignment shifts are a little case by case but some of the general points are.
a) We won't do illegal alignment shifts (e.g. Good Warlock, Chaotic Monk, Lawful Barbarian - ect)
b) We generally require a reason. Often this is a roleplay reason, though if it's very early on in your characters existance, we may accept the 'oops I clicked the wrong button' as an answer.
c) Again, with the possible exception of 'very early on mistakes' we won't shift your character more than one step in any direction. So your character can't go from LE to LG or CN. But can go from LE to LN or NE.
d) We ask that alignment shifts are, if not perminent, long term. We don't want to be getting requests for an alignment shift for your character second day, or even week. That doesn't mean you're stuck with your new alignment forever, but we ask that it's at least longish term.
e) If the alignment is obviously nonsensicle from the actions we've seen your character taking- we may want to hold off until we've seen your roleplay. So if your well known, baby murdering cyracist comes to us saying 'hi I want to be shifted to CN' we might say 'Uh, your roleplay hasn't really backed this up at all of late. We'd like to monitor you for a bit before allowing such a shift.'
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Re: Alignment Change

Post by Durvayas » Sat Nov 17, 2018 9:28 pm

In all my time playing this server, I think I've seen a LG paladin of Tyr get turned into a LE blackguard of Bane once. Thats the only two step shift I've ever heard of, and it was back when Benwick was a thing, and the RP was the culmination of a year long nemesis vs hero plotline.
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The GrumpyCat
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Re: Alignment Change

Post by The GrumpyCat » Sat Nov 17, 2018 10:07 pm

Yeah!

Uh, just to be clear - We only do one step at one time. So say you did want your LG character to become LE. That is possible, but it'd be a two stage request with a period in between. So we'd shift them to LN, then if the roleplay looked legit, to LE later on.
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Skibbles
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Re: Alignment Change

Post by Skibbles » Mon Nov 19, 2018 9:43 am

I had a LG paladin once step down to LN, and then to LE cleric/bg. It can be very gratifying, but it will take months of RP if it's anything like what I had to do.

(I highly recommend it, by the way, because you're likely to have a very memorable time in doing so.)

Otherwise you might find it easier to just remake the character.
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Re: Alignment Change

Post by Cerk Evermoore » Mon Nov 19, 2018 11:46 am

Has anyone ever heard of a paladin being shifted out of lawful good alignment due to IC actions or just being a bad example of a paladin? IE: Breaking laws? Summoning undead? Killing people for petty slights?

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The GrumpyCat
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Re: Alignment Change

Post by The GrumpyCat » Mon Nov 19, 2018 3:21 pm

In all the time I've been playing/DMing, I can only think of two instances (one of which was only heresay, I don't know how true it is) of that occuring. I imagine that there are more than two - I don't hear everything. But certainly in all the time I've been DMing, it's very, very, very rare.
We do of course monitor rp from all PCs but we are wary about forcing shifts on people, especialy wherein the shift would make the character illegal. Remember - in the above example, if I shifted your Paladin away from LG then they'd either loose all their paladin levels, or be forced to remake. That's a very harsh punishment.
So generally in cases where we see a breach of alignment rp we talk to the player first, maybe give them a few point shifts, keep the process gradule so they've lots of time to back off. and of course rpr rating is considered in these cases to.
This too shall pass.

(I now have a DM Discord (I hope) It's DM GrumpyCat#7185 but please keep in mind I'm very busy IRL so I can't promise how quick I'll get back to you.)

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