Arrrgh! Alignment change

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My lawful Neutral monk is now lawful Good! Uggh. Just by completing some quests that weren't necessary to the plot. And I did it for the money too! I guess the game assumes that if you're not greedy and always asking for more money (I sometimes do, but not always) you must therefore be good. It's not like I did it for free. Oh well. So, do I have to kill someone to go back to neutral? Anyone know?

 

Alignment change is what my Lawful evil monk is all about, I planned on starting off evil and greedy, and by the end be a good guy, as much as it sickens me.

 

I had the same problem with my Druid. I rectified the problem by killing some innocents (Hey, they were sleeping on the streets ). Although you can't seem to be able to kill the kids though. A message against child abuse, perhaps.

 

I'm not totally sure how the Alignment thing works it doesn't make alot of sence to me.
for example
is there anything you can do to change your status of chaotic or lawfull?
i would think killing a goblin that surrenders would push you more toward chaotic as it is a vigilanty act and not lawfull and since killing an evil creature can't really be considered good or evil.
or perhaps excepting a bribe not to kill someone would push you toward chaotic
changing from good to evil is easy changing from chaotic to lawfull is not

 

One of the easiest ways I found to get Evil points was to shake everybody I could down for money. If you get the "I'm collecting for..." dialogue option I found this was good for 3 evil points per "collection". Check your Char. sheet to see how far over the line you've drifted, I was able to get my Druid back to True Neutral by Chap. 3.

 

So, if you keep trying to get money you become evil? Uh-oh, I better warn BlackCat before it's too late!

Also, can you change between law and chaos? I'm thinking of getting a CE character that slowly becomes Good as the game progresses

 

Thanks for the tips! Guess I'll have to act 'evil' for a while just to get back to being neutral I guess the game assumes that there is only good or evil, and being neutral is being good 50% of the time and evil 50% of the time. It doesn't seem to recognize being neutral in the true sense of the word (or the alignment).

I haven't seen anything that changes the lawful or chaotic portion of your alignment.

 

I'm curious as to what changes your chaos/law statistic. Im currently going goodie-goodie, and ive had a 85 on my lawful stat for as long as I can remember. Has it yet been determined?

 

I don't think you can change wgether your lawful or chaotic, becuase of certian alignment restrictions for some classes, but i could be wrong.

 

I thinik you can actually because I read (Manual I think) about monks it says you can't level up any more if you become no longer lawful (probably in the game) Anyway I'm sure I've seen it somewhere

 

I'm reviving this topic because I feel compelled to comment after playing the game and having been annoyed by it

While the idea of shifting the alignment according to your actions is a very good idea, the implementation is very poor to say the least.
If they wanted to get realistic a little, everytime you barge in some random house and start looting chests/drawers/etc you should shift towards evil. Towards the end of chapter one <spoiler> I unleashed a very powerful creature of malevolent evil on Faerun </spoiler> (it even says so in the journal ) yet there's no shift towards evil alignment? It's as if the modules are made to shift your char to good no matter what, unless you are roleplaying a a truly, really evil char.
All the rest are good
So I have to go threaten a small kid or blackmail a poor victim of the plague just to remain neutral *sigh*

PS: Of course as per Gnolyn's argument, if there were neutral choices to make that'd still let you finish quests/gain power etc, it'd be much better but it seems it's been disregarded as well.

[This message has been edited by Invoker (edited July 16, 2002).]

 

I would say this should shift you towards chaotic rather than evil.

 

Actually, it could probably be either a shift to chaotic or evil, depending on the motivation. If the reason is 'just because' then it's a chaotic action. If it's for the money, then it's an evil action.

Of all the elements of P&P RPGs, the one that doesn't translate well to CRPGs is alignment. There's really no way that the system could determine what the PCs motivation is for taking a certain action, it just has to assume the most obvious. I really don't like the assumptions used in the single player campaign included with NWN though. Simply being 'not evil' automatically translates to a shift to good! It really makes it difficult to roleplay. For example, my character was a lawful neutral monk. He really has no need for the money to begin with (except for the odd bit of really nice equipment). So when I started, unless being paid was automatic, he didn't ask for money. This wasn't because my character was 'nice', but he just didn't have a use for it. Soon enough, he's lawful good Now, he's a money gruber trying to get every penny out of everyone he comes across - still lawful good, but slowly returning to neutral.

 

You guys were discussing actions that will shift your alignment earlier. Just out of curiosity what happens if you kill the Gold Dragon and return her eggs to the Red Dragon (can't remember the chapter, haven't gotten that far actually.) Anyway, does the game treat that as an act of utter evil (if I were DMing and a character kills a good dragon I'd probably shift their alignment toward evil (unless they had a damn good reason.))

 

Motivation in this case could mean that this is not an evil act.

In either case entering a house and stealing from it is IMHO not being Lawful, thus it should always represent a shift away from Lawful.

The alignment shifts should take into consideration the current alignment status of the character. For example a 100/100 LG character should get a greater shift from stealing than a 0/0 True Neutral.

I also agree that it's a flaw that there are no Neutral acts.
Perhaps this is because the alignment system is really not a good way of modelling ethics.

[This message has been edited by Earl Grey (edited July 17, 2002).]

 

Well, a Lawful Evil PC could have a very "good" excuse for breaking into a house and stealing. As could a neutral character (any of the neutrals).

I think alignment works well for a gaming mechanism - it's not meant to be Meyer's Briggs or anything It's just that there's less freedom in a CRPG, even NWN. And there's no DM in the single player campaign.

I also agree with your relative shifts idea (greater or lesser shifts depending on current alignment). Again though, hard to implement in a CRPG, but easy enough for a good DM to handle.

 

I've never tried this, but can the DM client be used to do alignment shifts? That would make the game a bit better if it could.

Regardless, I'd say that this is a pretty good idea. This is a role-playing game, and you should have to act your alignment or it gets changed.

Correct, a computer can't always determine the motivation behind something, but as to the above example, that sounds like something a neutral character would do (in one of the 3e DnD supplements, it states that neutrals simply seek to help themselves). Certainly not a lawful neutral, but still.