Impact of alignment as a cleric?

[mikarddo]

Greetings,

I just noticed the stability item enchant and it got me wondering what if any meaningful impact alignment has on a (occ) cleric. The stability enchant certainly looks nice so I am half wondering if I made the wrong decision not going neutral.

[cdr]

The only reason in DDO not to go True Neutral is if your class restricts you from doing so. There's no real benefit to lawful or good; look up some previous threads if you're interested in more detail.

[Hobgoblin]

not really.

about the only things it will do for you are let you cast or not cast the four alignment spell (chaos hammer, orders wrath, holy smite and unholy blight?) and use stability items.

not a big deal either way

hob

[cdr]

not really.

about the only things it will do for you are let you cast or not cast the four alignment spell (chaos hammer, orders wrath, holy smite and unholy blight?)

Incorrect - true neutral can cast all of those. Only characters of the opposite alignment are prevented from casting the appropriate spell.

And Superior Stability is a huge deal. And to a lesser extent so is not taking damage from alignment-based attacks.

[Jaid314]

there are i think one or two things that need you to be a specific alignment. for example, only lawful characters can answer the questions in the daanvi room of prison of the planes, and only good characters (no UMD allowed) can use the ring of the ancestors (a raise dead clicky).

that said, the first is not a big deal at all, and the second, well... you're a cleric. of all the people in the game, you're one of the two classes that need raise dead clickies less than anyone else.

might be something else i'm missing, but overall... there's nothing wrong with true neutral.

[Drekisen]

True neutral really is a great alignment to choose because it has a bunch of perks to it especially if you can get to a 20 UMD, basically that would give you access to all alignment based weapons, allow you to cast all of your alignment based spells, keep you from a lot of forms of alignment based damage, and allow you to use stability in all it's forms. The last three perks will not need any UMD...that was for the weapon usage.

Sorry, I repeated a lot of what was said already, but just reiterating, if you want flexibility as far as alignment goes, true neutral is the way to go......I know many probably think of clerics as this shining beacon of light and would associate it with good and/or maybe lawfulness....but neither will grant you anything special aside from being able to use True Law and Pure Good weapons at low levels because ur UMD won't be high enough yet.

You will as a true neutral be able to use freely Anarchic, Axiomatic, and Holy weapons with no restrictions or need for UMD from level 1 tho, even tho getting these on a level 1 weapon I think is non-existent....but you know what I mean

By the way if you need something to bypass good you also have the option of flametouched and righteousness which have no alignment restrictions.

[Jaid314]

actually, now that cannith crafting is in the game, you can make pure good, true law, etc items with no alignment requirements (or at least, no UMD requirements to emulate the alignment, which is functionally the same thing). or you can buy them from others who can make them, if making is too much grind for you.

[Sarisa]

Either True Neutral for the above listed reasons, or Chaotic Neutral for slightly less damage taken from the Demon Queen. Other alignments are just for fun, or for fulfilling class requirements (Pali or monk splash).

[Goodheals]

Short story, I would recommend you go True Neutral.

So, in a nutshell, here is what non-neutral alignment does:

Pros:
Good - Allows certain weapons which do Good damage to evil enemies. UMD 20 is required to use most of these if not Good. A couple non-weapons require Good as well.
Lawful - Allows certain weapons which do Lawful damage to chaotic enemies. UMD 20 is required to use most of these if not lawful. A couple non-weapons require lawful as well.
Chaotic - Allows certain weapons which do Chaotic damage to evil enemies. UMD 20 is required to use most of these if not chaotic. A couple non-weapons require Chaotic as well.

That is basically the main pro of not being true neutral. Some of the items are quite good that they open up and until you get to 20 UMD you miss out on some stuff. However, by endgame, its pretty hard to not get to 20 UMD. So mostly, its of the most benefit while you level.

Here is what neutral does for you in a good way:
Stability items, these come in +2 +4 and +6 variants and are quite good.
Prevent all alignment damage. Some enemies do evil, chaotic, ect. types of damage. Neutral takes 0 from all this. Its a nice perk later on as more monsters do it later on.
No restriction on spells in divines case (relevant basically from levels 7-10ish, after that who cares)

So basically, unless your race requires it, the only real perk of not going neutral is access to specific gear before you reach UMD 20. Obviously this benefit will stronger for classes with low CHR and no access to UMD as a class skill, and those that care about weapon damage. Mainly, Fighters and Barbarians imo, can benefit from it a lot while leveling.

Also, its pretty cheap to switch alignment if you want for TP. I think its 395, so don't stress out about it if you for some reason think you make the wrong choice. Its also fairly unimportant overall. Good stat placement is way more important than alignment choice in almost every case of character creation.

Anyways, hope I helped!

[cdr]

Pros:
Good - Allows certain weapons which do Good damage to evil enemies. UMD 20 is required to use most of these if not Good. A couple non-weapons require Good as well.
Lawful - Allows certain weapons which do Lawful damage to chaotic enemies. UMD 20 is required to use most of these if not lawful. A couple non-weapons require lawful as well.
Chaotic - Allows certain weapons which do Chaotic damage to evil enemies. UMD 20 is required to use most of these if not chaotic. A couple non-weapons require Chaotic as well.

As already pointed out above, your points about lawful/chaotic/good weapons are moot - you can Cannith craft these and they come with no UMD requirement. There's a handful of named weapons, but I can't even think of a single one off the top of my head that you'd want to use.

[Cardtrick]

Prevent all alignment damage. Some enemies do evil, chaotic, ect. types of damage. Neutral takes 0 from all this. Its a nice perk later on as more monsters do it later on.

This isn't totally true. Enemy alignment damage works sort of like players'. Some of it (think Holy) only affects people of the opposite alignment. True neutral players are immune to that. Other alignment damage affects anyone not of that alignment (think Pure Good). True neutral players take damage from all sources of this type of alignment damage.

In fairness, though, the only significant source of the second type of damage that I know of is the Demon Queen, and even then neutral players take much less damage than lawful players (but more than chaotic players).

[Matuse]

Neutral also lets you use Touch Of Evil items (see: Litany) without penalty.

Superior Stability is +6 to your saves.

It's really the way to go.

[mikarddo]

Thank you all for the informative replies. I will consider spending a few TP to change to True Neutral.

[Drekisen]

As already pointed out above, your points about lawful/chaotic/good weapons are moot - you can Cannith craft these and they come with no UMD requirement. There's a handful of named weapons, but I can't even think of a single one off the top of my head that you'd want to use.

Sorry, but I would think ahead and look at history and more so think your example is risky....as Turbine loves to nerf things that are not WAI, I can't imagine why they would give us a freebie UMD bypass on PG, TL, and PC weapons....unless it's actually been stated by a dev this was intended.....has it?

[Habreno]

I wouldn't waste TP on a change, unless you really borked yourself. Any alignment works for a Cleric. True Neutral happens to be one of the better ones, but anything works.

[Sarisa]

This isn't totally true. Enemy alignment damage works sort of like players'. Some of it (think Holy) only affects people of the opposite alignment. True neutral players are immune to that. Other alignment damage affects anyone not of that alignment (think Pure Good). True neutral players take damage from all sources of this type of alignment damage.

In fairness, though, the only significant source of the second type of damage that I know of is the Demon Queen, and even then neutral players take much less damage than lawful players (but more than chaotic players).

Not as important to a Cleric than a melee, but the Demon of the Frenzied Blood from (Epic) Into the Deep uses Chaos Hammer extensively. Lawful characters take pretty hefty damage from him on epic (Neutral taking much less, Chaotic nothing), and more importantly are slowed. FoM does not work on the slow effect.