Alignment Equality, please

[Xenostrata]

At the moment in the game, the best alignment by far is True Neutral. Almost all min/max builds have it, since it has the most advantages- no negative levels, easy access to holy/anarchic/axiomatic weapons, and slightly restricted access to pure good/law/chaos that can be more or less easily bypassed by a UMD score. Annoying enemy alignment-based spell effects don't work as well or at all, and the only builds I have seen that go for an alignment besides TN either did so for flavor, rp, or was a monk or paladin. People need a greater incentive to actually choose an alignment.

My suggestions -
Make holy like pure good (damages neutral characters, requires a higher umd score than pg), or, to avoid rendering someone's weapon useless, implement a attribute that was similar to pure good but does the same or more damage as holy.
Same as above, but for anarchic/axiomatic
Start dropping some good-aligned gear! What with supremely powerful evil items like the Litany causing negative levels to only good-aligned players, there should be good equivalents that punish users for their neutrality (or simply not be usable by non-good players).
Implement more quest mechanics based on alignment. Want to get that extra chest for the optional? Have the chat box only give the side-quest of saving the innocents to a good player, the option to steal back the priceless artifact to a chaotic character, or the option to capture the criminal alive to the lawful character. Make a quest more rewarding to someone who doesn't just take the easy way out when it comes to alignment.

[phalaeo]

At the moment in the game, the best alignment by far is True Neutral. Almost all min/max builds have it, since it has the most advantages- no negative levels, easy access to holy/anarchic/axiomatic weapons, and slightly restricted access to pure good/law/chaos that can be more or less easily bypassed by a UMD score.

Any alignment can wield a Holy weapon without penalties- only Evil alignments take penalties, and there are no Evil Aligned PC options.

On top of that, the "negative level" from equipping a Taint of Evil item on a Good character isn't even that big of a deal. The most serious aspect of the penalty is the loss of fewer than 10 HP, and if you can't afford to be down 6HP, you might have other issues to look at.

Make holy like pure good (damages neutral characters, requires a higher umd score than pg), or, to avoid rendering someone's weapon useless, implement a attribute that was similar to pure good but does the same or more damage as holy.
Same as above, but for anarchic/axiomatic

No, thank you. Alignment is a fundamental concept ingrained in the lore of the game. If you want an effect that does 2d6 damage (like Holy)m or has extra attack and damage (like Banes), you have to give up something.

The game is too easy as it is.

Start dropping some good-aligned gear! What with supremely powerful evil items like the Litany causing negative levels to only good-aligned players, there should be good equivalents that punish users for their neutrality (or simply not be usable by non-good players).
Implement more quest mechanics based on alignment. Want to get that extra chest for the optional? Have the chat box only give the side-quest of saving the innocents to a good player, the option to steal back the priceless artifact to a chaotic character, or the option to capture the criminal alive to the lawful character. Make a quest more rewarding to someone who doesn't just take the easy way out when it comes to alignment.

This I could get into.

[Xenostrata]

Any alignment can wield a Holy weapon without penalties- only Evil alignments take penalties, and there are no Evil Aligned PC options.
This was kind of my point, it is too easy as a neutral character to use aligned weaponry.

On top of that, the "negative level" from equipping a Taint of Evil item on a Good character isn't even that big of a deal. The most serious aspect of the penalty is the loss of fewer than 10 HP, and if you can't afford to be down 6HP, you might have other issues to look at.
It also reduces saves, spell pen, and gets you one level closer to being killed by level drain. Certainly not something you would want to be walking around with all the time.


No, thank you. Alignment is a fundamental concept ingrained in the lore of the game. If you want an effect that does 2d6 damage (like Holy)m or has extra attack and damage (like Banes), you have to give up something.
This is what I'm arguing for. at the moment, alignment isn't treated as part of who the character is, it's treated as what makes the best balance of gear the character can use. At the moment, the trade off for holy is that it only affects evil characters. I would much rather have the trade off be that it affects neutral characters but cannot be used by them.
The game is too easy as it is.
I feel that my changes wouldn't make the game easier, they would make it more varied. Getting holy weapons to affect neutral targets is hardly OP, especially when you make it so that all the True Neutral types out there can't use them so easily anymore.


This I could get into.

Comments.

[Jaid314]

- 2d6 to non-good targets does exist. it is called greater good (see here: http://ddowiki.com/page/Greater_Good ). similar effects exist for other alignments (not sure about evil, actually, but who cares). the wiki page indicates it *cannot* be used by non-good alignments, not sure how true that is; i've never had one to test with.

- more 'good' items would be nice. right now, we have *maybe* the greater good effect, and the ring that is a raise dead clicky (i wanna say it's ring of the ancestors?). i've not actually tested the ring either, mind you.

[Bodic]

you do understand that a TN takes good and evil damage both aswell as lawful and chaotic if half damage they are not immune.

and well the PG mod to a weapon is a loss w/o UMD my FvS has no UMD and is TN why half evil damage she really doesnt care about weapons as she uses a Green Blade but she does like the Light and darkness for +6 saves.

you want to change a basic core rule from 1.0 I am guessing you have never played tabletop.

[TheKaige]

Best sounding solution to me is either restricting Holy/Anarchic/Axiomatic weapons by alignment like Pure good weapons OR, what I would prefer, remove the alignment requirement on those weapons, but make it so that the effect changes based on your alignment in relation to the enemy alignment.

I.E.

Axiomatic, wielded by a lawful character: 2d6 damage Vs. Chaotic mobs, 1d6 Vs. Neutral Mobs
Axiomatic, wielded by a neutral character: 1d6 damage Vs. Chaotic Mobs, 1d3 Vs. Neutral Mobs
Axiomatic has no effect when wielded by a chaotic character (It doesn't even do law damage for DR purposes; remove the negative level however)

Then change Pure Goods/True Laws to the equivalent of getting knocked 1 step down (So Pure Good does 1d6 damage vs. Evil creatures, and 1d3 vs. Neutral creatures when wielded by a good character. A small nerf, but maybe in exchange allow absolute Good/Chaos to be random drop/craftable (Are they craftable? Can't say I've checked.)

Just how I see it. I don't think any amount of skill using magical items would aid you in wielding a divine weapon; the same skill that lets untrained magic users use wands is just not gonna cut it for faking your morality to use a divine object. I can't imagine Moses just rolling a UMD check to turn the staff into the snake, not actually believing in the power of God, y'know?

[samdsherman]

actual best alignment is chaotic neutral.

[altrocks]

I have never seen a Greater Good weapon in game. I believe that the Good Burst and Good Blast attributes replaced this in DDO.

We do have True Chaos and True Law weapons in game, currently. They are quite nice and useful if you have the UMD or alignment to do so. A great example is the epic CC scimitars.

Most caster and healer types tend to go TN because they don't have to worry about using weapons as much as melee toons do, but they do have to worry about negative penalties from using several useful caster items (and most can manage to fit in some UMD if needed anyway), and having an evil alignment is not an option.

I'd be all for having more alignment based equipment if they opened up the evil alignment to players. I mean, we get to be orcs now, so why not evil orcs? It's not like we do these quests out of the goodness of our hearts. We expect loot and end rewards and get pretty upset if all they give us is some paltry amount of gold for our time.

It's not a really important issue though, so I'd prefer that no devs spend any time on this at all.

[TheKaige]

I have never seen a Greater Good weapon in game. I believe that the Good Burst and Good Blast attributes replaced this in DDO.

Enduring Conviction. But I do believe that is the only Greater Good Weapon.

[altrocks]

Enduring Conviction. But I do believe that is the only Greater Good Weapon.

Ah, yeah, forgot about that one. Weak item.

[Truga]

Enduring Conviction. But I do believe that is the only Greater Good Weapon.

Dream Edge also has a chance of getting greater good... But good luck with that :P

[Matuse]

Ah, yeah, forgot about that one. Weak item.

You're kidding, right?

Vs elementals it does 1d8+5+7d6+str+whatever. On a 20 they get vorpaled.

Crit profile doesn't matter, since they can't be critted anyway.

It also makes mincemeat out of tieflings, fiendtouched, tharaak hounds, hezrous, and devil trash.

[Sarisa]

Greater Good has a UMD: 30 requirement, as opposed to Pure Good's UMD: 20. This, of course, only exists on Enduring Conviction and a certain Dream Edge.

Ring of the Ancestors requires a good alignment, and is UMD: 0. This means that it cannot be bypassed with UMD. Pre-Greensteel, it was one reason to go with the good alignment; but now the ready availability to end game players of Greensteel Raise Dead clickies for the non-UMD capable players makes a good alignment less desirable.

I would not object to more alignment specific, race specific, or class specific gear; as long as they do not dilute raid loot tables.

[Chette]

I would also like to see some more items with lawful or good alignment restrictions. We've got lots of great chaotic and evil gear (Marlith Chain, Litany, Chaos Blades) so it would balance it out a bit.

[danielost]

the only class in this game that should be affected by alignment is the paladin.