The new archetypes and an omission that needs to be addressed

[Aelonwy]

Even if we do start dipping into more traditionally dark paths with some of these Archetypes, we still won't have Evil alignment in the game, and we have no plans to bring it into the game.

You could still have alignment restrictions on the new archetypes without having players access evil alignments. Do it the way warlock pacts are handled - Dark Apostate might disallow good but all other player alignments welcome.

[Arkat]

No to Evil Alignment for Player Characters

Evil Alignment lets people say "I griefed you raid/quest/whatever because I my player character is evil" rather than having to accept "I griefed you raid/quest/whatever because I, the player, am a git"

replace git with any appropriate word

Absolutely.

You could still have alignment restrictions on the new archetypes without having players access evil alignments. Do it the way warlock pacts are handled - Dark Apostate might disallow good but all other player alignments welcome.

This makes sense.

[droid327]

Barbarians, bards, monks and paladins are hit with alignment difficulties, but having a lawful good necromancer is just fine?

I think I saw a filigree that had smites and negative healing on it, so a lawful good necro/pali is okay but a lawful good bard is not?

I think those ones make sense, though. Barbarians are inherently freedom-seeking, they reject the order and structure of civilized society. Bards likewise have to be free to roam, they wont let themselves be tied down. They're inherently non-Lawful.

Paladins and Monks, however, are all about their place in the order and structure of their chosen lifestyle. You cant live a monastic life and not be Lawful. And you cant be a Paladin (as they exist in DDO) and not be Good. I'd be down for a Blackguard archetype that was locked into LN though.

However, Necromancy isnt inherently evil or chaotic in the way that those classes are inherently lawful or not. Its simply a tool, not a mindset or philosophy, and a tool can be used for anything the user intends it.

You could still have alignment restrictions on the new archetypes without having players access evil alignments. Do it the way warlock pacts are handled - Dark Apostate might disallow good but all other player alignments welcome.

Yeah I wouldnt be surprised if DA was alignment-locked out of Good, and they mandated that it was a specifically non-good archetype...but by the above logic, I wouldnt be surprised if it wasnt, either, and just let the player decide

[Uska]

With archetypes coming down the pipe
which includes a clearly evil character path (literally), one
of the early game design choices comes into question.

Early in game development, the choice was made to
exclude D&D's evil character alignments.

With that, the early game was true to it's word and excluded
evil player character options and mechanics.

That has long since changed.

The game now includes OBVIOUSLY evil
character trees and now evil archetypes.

This creates immersion lunacy.

Pally/Pale Masters
Lawful good evil clerics
Lawful good assassins

and so on

Evil alignments in D&D itself are gates
to prevent nonsensical evil/good heroes

In D&D
Assassins can not be good
Necromancers (Pale Masters) can not be good
Dark/evil clerics have to be evil

Since SSG is dead set on adding evil character trees
and evil archetypes it is time to also add
evil alignment

AND

properly restrict 'good' alignment characters
from using 'evil' skill trees.

also some 'good' align trees should be equally
restricted from evil player characters.

got to be fair.

No

[Uska]

In this case, can we get Blackguard as an archetype, instead of that lame Fisting Pally?

I don’t think so

[Uska]

Good and evil go hand in hand, there never is one without the other.

We are the good and fight the evil and I wouldn’t say they go hand in hand I say they always strive against each other

[Martininice]

nah, does not need to be addressed at all.

[fatherpirate]

Even if we do start dipping into more traditionally dark paths with some of these Archetypes, we still won't have Evil alignment in the game, and we have no plans to bring it into the game.

So I guess it is TABOO
fine.

your game, not mine.

[FuzzyDuck81]

So I guess it is TABOO

No, taboo is the noise made by ta'ghost.

[Annex]

Fatherpirate, you are right, but it cannot happen because it would unleash a tidal wave of grief. As far as I am concerned, many DDO characters are flat out evil, especially the ones who rely on negative energy. Many quests require some really evil behavior of our characters. However, adding evil alignments will only encourage the crazies and they are out there, waiting for an excuse.

Despite my hard stance on evil characters, I agree with FuzzyDuck81 with regards Assassins. I have always felt the Assassin tree is badly misnamed. Since day one, I have played my avatar and her associates as former special forces soldiers, based on the experiences of my dad and many of his friends who served in the military. They learned and did all sorts of crazy stuff. We just play at being awesome. They are the real deal. I never play in Shadowdancer because that tree is all wrong for a special forces character. We don't have a proper Epic Destiny tree for special forces type rogues at all.

[Pandjed]

The non-evil alignments in DDO are a tool for writing quests and setting up a narration. It's much easier and smoother to write PCs facing forces of evil like Vecna, the Lord of Eyes, Lolth, Vaunt, and the like when they aren't the lot that share the morals of these villains (like lust for murder, no regard for mortal life, greed, enjoyment of making the life of others miserable, hunger for destruction, etc.).
Quests are made with the idea in mind, that the character has an intrinsic motivation to do that quest (as being a survivor of the Last War lured by riches and fame in Xen'drik and a lack of other skills that can be applied in a regular life), and the quests are mostly linear, which means restricting actions, and with the "goodish" values as a base line, it's easier to let make them sense.

"A Lesson in Deception" is a great example, where you're walking a linear quest with a "goodish" reason, you want to save people generally while also finding the bad guy, even though you have to abandon other people while doing so or losing your allies in return. Now imagine how easy all of this comes undone, when you run it with a character that puts itself so much in front, that it's willing to make other people consciously suffer for their benefit. Then try to imagine to re-write the quest to adher to both types of characters, and every minute you spend writing and thinking becomes a day of development time. Now consider that most people won't even read the quest properly during their first run. Worth it? Not in my books.

DDO is just a P&P group with several DMs that decided they don't want to write stories for evil characters, and that's absolutely OK.




Alignment restrictions for certain classes come straight from the license of D&D 3.5e and can't be ignored that easily, as it's part of the identity of said edition. Yet archetypes actually are a work-around that.

Archetypes are not just 1 different enhancement tree, though. They can have different class feats (for example, a Warlock Archetype that has new pact choices, or limits your pact choices to something thematically appropriate), different spellbooks (for example, a Bard that focuses more on illusion spells at the expense of its sonic options), replace more than one tree or all of them (for example, a Druid that is a pure caster and forgoes its Wild Shape forms), and even different alignment restrictions (for example, a Paladin that would very much like you to NOT be lawful good).

Do I believe that playing a good necromancer is easy in the P&P? No, while there is one argumentation I'd be almost OK with (so far), these methods are really "not good" in my books. Would I put an alignment restrictions on one of the base trees for a class (so training core 1 requires certain alignment)? Heck no, that'd be far worse. If you're annoyed by lawful good necromancers in DDO: Blame PM being a tree for every wizard, not that it exists.

[Memnir]

I have to admit I find the argument against Evil carries significantly less water with me sinince Dark Ap was announced. This makes the house rule against it make a lot less sense, and is one I'd have to argue at the table were this pen and paper.

In the end, it makes no difference to me one way or the other if Evil alignments were added to the game. I'd not play the alignment because I don't enjoy playing the bad guy, or even the anti-hero. But, I think this decision of DA puts a lot of stress on SSG's position not to.

[Oxarhamar]

So I guess it is TABOO
fine.

your game, not mine.

It's not taboo at all there are legit reasons why not

At least it's been addressed not the first time

[Impaqt]

Alignment in this game means next to nothing.
Not sure why SSG is against it at this point really.

But hey, if you want to be evil, go neutral and then put in your bio that you are actually evil. Its essentially the same thing.

[Buddha5440]

Barbarians, bards, monks and paladins are hit with alignment difficulties, but having a lawful good necromancer is just fine?

I think I saw a filigree that had smites and negative healing on it, so a lawful good necro/pali is okay but a lawful good bard is not?

Maybe remove alignment from the game.

Almost no-one in this MMO actually plays their alignment. Which is why I refer to it as an MMO rather than an MMORPG.

and let's face it... we're all Chaotic Neutral anyway

[fatherpirate]

2 things

Griefers will grief regardless of alignments.
It is silly to think otherwise.

With D&D alignments, It would only be fair if you
1) Use them all as given IN ALL VERSIONS OF THE RULES FROM THE
VERY FIRST Ed. TO CURRENT.

2) or use NONE OF THEM. No alignments at all.

To use some and not others is arbitrary.

[Oxarhamar]

2 things

Griefers will grief regardless of alignments.
It is silly to think otherwise.

With D&D alignments, It would only be fair if you
1) Use them all as given IN ALL VERSIONS OF THE RULES FROM THE
VERY FIRST Ed. TO CURRENT.

2) or use NONE OF THEM. No alignments at all.

To use some and not others is arbitrary.

2 it's not arbitrary at all there are legit reasons

1 no version of the rules other than decided on by the DM in this case the devs is required for fairness

On fairness the alignments available or not are available or not to all players that's 100% fair

not including evil doesn’t has anything to do with fairness

By default, it's actually by the rules.


There's also the practical matters that most of our quests assume that you're of a heroic nature.

I've played or run many campaigns where evil characters were permitted, and they can be a lot of fun, but it's a house rule to permit them. My very first 3E character was actually an evil ranger, created mostly because rangers had to be good aligned in 2E.

If you follow that quote you will see that it's following the rules of 3.5 YW

[Madja]

With D&D alignments, It would only be fair if you
1) Use them all as given IN ALL VERSIONS OF THE RULES FROM THE
VERY FIRST Ed. TO CURRENT.

One thing that is mentioned in a lot of the D&D official guidebooks is that is that the rules are meant as guidelines and that you're encouraged to adapt them to your own desires. In this case our DM does not want evil characters in their campaign.

[mr420247]

1 iconic 8x 11 arche **** done x3s whats the problem

[mutantspacegoat]

Evil is as evil does.