how important is Alignment?

[Bolo_Grubb]

My current fighter is Neutral good, the only disadvantage I have noticed so far is "true Law" weapons. Are there other disadvantages?

Would it be better to go Lawful good? What are the disadvantages of that? Or what about True Neutral?

[Zengar]

There are very few effects of alignment in games beyond items with True Law, Axiomatic, True Chaos, Anarchic, Stability, Pure good, Unholy, and (technically) Holy. Of these, Stability is the most limiting, since it requires true neutral, but it is also the most limited in level scope. A +2 resistance bonus to saves and a +2 deflection bonus to AC is nice, but dosn't stack with other items that also provides such bonuses. (which aren't hard to find, and if you care about them you'll probably want higher than +2 once you can afford it)

Pure Good, True Law, True Chaos, and (if it existed in game) Pure Evil require good, lawful, chaotic, or evil alignment. (which we can't be, hence the lack of Pure Evil weapons) Of these, Pure good is the most important since it effects "any non-good" and there are only a few quests where you fight good aligned enemies but plenty where you fight lawful or chaotic ones. Axiomatic, Anarchic, Unholy, and Holy are slightly different than the preceding. These only work on the opposed alignment, but can be used by anyone but the opposed alignment. (so since we can't be evil, anyone can use Holy)

Neutral good Lets you use anything but Stability, True Law, True Chaos and Unholy. Shifting to either Lawful Good or Chaotic Good would add in the respective True weapons, but remove Anarchic or Axiomatic depending and give you some problems bypassing the damage reduction of some (fairly rare) monsters. Shifting to True Neutral gives you Unholy (once again, not many Good aligned enemies) and Stability, at the cost of Pure good. Lawful and Chaotic Neutral are probably the worst alignments as far as item support is concerned.

Of course, for a character with sufficient Use Magic Device skill, the picture changes to make True neutral the strongly preferred alignment. The "Pure" and "True" weapons simply can't be used without the proper alignment, but that can be bypassed with a UMD check. The Holy, Axiomatic, etc. however, give a negative level if uesed by the opposed alignment, which cannot by bypassed with UMD.

[Kaervas]

There are 3 kinds of alignment based weapons that I have seen.
> There are 1d6 specific types, like Pure Good, True Law, True Chaos, which deal 1d6 <alignment> damage to anything not of that alignment, and require you to match the item's alignment.
> There are 2d6 nonspecific types, like Holy, Axiomatic, Anarchic. They deal 2d6 <alignment> damage to whatever is opposed to them. Axiomatic is lawful damage to chaotics, Anarchic is chaotic damage to lawfuls. Holy is good damage to evils. There is no alignment restriction to equip these, however, if your character is of the opposite alignment to the weapon (good wielding unholy, lawful wielding anarchic, chaotic wielding axiomatic) you will suffer a temporary negative level, this cannot be removed as long as you are wielding the weapon.
True Neutral is IMMUNE to these types of damage, including Unholy that some mobs will use, as they are not opposed to any of them. They can freely wield any of these 2d6 nonspecific types without suffering the negative level penalty.
> Then there are 2d6 specific types which are quite rare. Example would be Absolute Law on the kama Rahl's Wrath. It's like True Law but 2d6 instead of 1d6. It does require you to be Lawful.


True Neutral is a flat requirement for Stability items, which come in 3 flavors granting +2 resistance bonus to saves and +2 deflection bonus to AC for regular stability, +4 for greater, and +6 for superior. No UMD is required to use Stability if not True Neutral, it simply does not function.

Any characters which are Neutral on the good/evil axis can use items with a "Taint of Evil" safely. Good characters take a negative level, Evil characters don't exist.

UMD will allow you to use alignment items that you are not able to use in normal circumstances.
The DC is usually 20, so if you will not be able to muster this level of UMD easily then you have to consider whether you would like to use 'Pure Good' items, for example Metalline of Pure Good to bypass many boss DRs before you manage to get your hands on something like Aspect of Mineral II Greensteel weaponry (Shroud raid crafting).

I direct you to two useful lists:
Monster DR Bypass Types (http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=178393) and Monster Alignment and Types (http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=122228)

[Bolo_Grubb]

so if I understand all of this, Neutral good is a pretty decent alignment to be and real reason to change it (through reroll or reincarnate).

[vVAnjilaVv]

Lawful Good also allows u to wear ChoasGuard Bracers without UMD if u ever had plans for them.

True Neutral allows a cleric to cast all of thier 4th level spells.

Neutral Good is a good learning alignment, it will let u use the Axiomatic and Anarchic as stated earlier. True Law and True Chaos are not that much of a loss aside from the fact that they add less levels to the ML of a weapon.

If ur going to have a nice UMD, neutral good is the best alignment I would think.....but either way it's a very flexible alignment as far as weapon usage goes.

[Favis]

and you alignment also limit you option to multiclass
as Paladin, Monk, Bard, Barbarian (and in the future Druid) only can be taken by some alignment

[vVAnjilaVv]

and you alignment also limit you option to multiclass
as Paladin, Monk, Bard, Barbarian (and in the future Druid) only can be taken by some alignment

Good point. Though as most suggest, u should play a pure class for a while before multi-classing. If u think building a pure class is hard, try making a succesful multi-class. Once u know ur stuff it's not to hard, but u can still mess up things really bad.

[Hafeal]

Aside from gear, there are enemy casters who use alignment based spells, however, I don't think it is worth concern.

[Zengar]

True Neutral is a flat requirement for Stability items, which come in 3 flavors granting +2 resistance bonus to saves and +2 deflection bonus to AC for regular stability, +4 for greater, and +6 for superior. No UMD is required to use Stability if not True Neutral, it simply does not function.

Ooooo, I somehow failed to notice that stability came in more than one flavor. I think I need to try and find a superior stability enchanted item for my rogue now...

[Dawn_Falcon]

That's only on Light and Darkness, a shield from Mindsunder. But my TN Fighter is still after one!

[Emili]

Simply put, if you plan on substantial UMD...

True Neutral

Allows you to use everything in the game.
Being hit with axiomatic, anarchic, holy and unholy has no effect on you
Stability - becomes an option to replace pretection items and resist items, Superior stability +6 deflection +6 resist currently exist on one item ... but that does not mean will always be.

If you're not going to plan UMD

Lawful good or Chaotic good both have excellent perks item wise... LG characters generally are easier to build AC into, but there are some nice items on either end.

[dyewell]

one notable benefit to good - ring of the ancients, 1 charge resurrection, is good only, no UMD check.

[Tuney]

Yeah but for a bard and rogue (Or anyone one else who gets UMD that high) who are true neutral, it is more of just of a free rez per rest then to someone who can't even use the raise dead scrolls... Though I hate to think about a group where you'd need to use that ring once per rest + scrolls.

I also though there was something from the abbot... but I think most people try to forget that raid exists hehe.