Baldur's Gate : The Sword Coast Chronicles : NWN2 Persistent World

I think spells shouldn't shift character alignments the way some of them do right now.

When character uses spell with "heavy" descriptor, this should be probably recorded and maybe even reported to DMs, but it shouldn't actually perform the shift.

Neverwinter's 0..100 alignment scale is not even in original D&D books. And some classes could allow incredibly fast alignment shifts as well.

Agreed. I thought at one point the official policy was to shy away from alignment shifts on spells as well as quests?

It was some years ago (2011-2013 probably) but it seemed like sound reasoning at the time.

Valefort wrote:At the moment using the spell avasculate shifts you towards CE.

Is that not a bug ?
As far as i know, there is/was no way to shift a PCs alignment other than thru heavy RP.

Not a bug.

Theodore01 wrote:

Valefort wrote:At the moment using the spell avasculate shifts you towards CE.

Is that not a bug ?
As far as i know, there is/was no way to shift a PCs alignment other than thru heavy RP.

There are ways to shift alignment. Start spamming blood mage abilities, or one of the new warlock invocations (call shadow demons).

The big issue is that all shifts go to direction of chaotic evil, there are no shifts in any other direction, AND the amount of effort it takes to shift is too small.

For this kind of system to work every single player action should be judged, and instead of going from 0 to 100. it should be something along the lines of 0..1000.

If that is truely by design - so please add a way (like quests) to shift alignment for non-casters too.

Yeah. Quest alignment shifts, for those who can't cast spells to make the automated alignment shifts fair for everyone.

Additionally, alignment shifts in all the directions. Namely, lawful and good as well. Chaotic Evil isn't the only alignment people can shift to, despite what the current mechanics seem to suggest!

As well, if alignment shifts are going to deviate from the source material (Blood Magus), that should be clearly stated. For example, blood magus in source had nothing to do with chaos or evil (it was any alignment, barring lawful good in the source).

Bloodseeking Spell, Bloodwalk, and Awaken Blood should all (in this case) mention that they shift alignment. In addition (this was mentioned in another suggestion), tooltips should mention descriptors for spells like avasculate. Especially if they are homebrew, players should be made aware of information like that, since it isn't available in the source to refer to.

Alas my poor 22 charisma paladin/warlock! Had he only not played with shadow demons! Then he wouldn't have fallen from grace and gotten black guard! +6/6/6

Yeah, you have to be careful about alignment shifts because of things like Monk/Paladin mixing with Bard/Blackguard/FB/etc... Starting as a Bard and then shifting to become a Paladin and then shifting back (3b20) and ending on LG would allow for people to powerbuild (but frankly nothing really over what they get from BG).

In any case, while I thought it was cool when I saw alignment shift due to a spell the first time I do think this is one of those mechanics that, if you can't do all the way you shouldn't do at all. Let DM's and RP dictate alignment shifts, as opposed to spells and a one-way street.

metaquad4 wrote:Yeah. Quest alignment shifts, for those who can't cast spells to make the automated alignment shifts fair for everyone.

Additionally, alignment shifts in all the directions. Namely, lawful and good as well. Chaotic Evil isn't the only alignment people can shift to, despite what the current mechanics seem to suggest!

As well, if alignment shifts are going to deviate from the source material (Blood Magus), that should be clearly stated. For example, blood magus in source had nothing to do with chaos or evil (it was any alignment, barring lawful good in the source).

Bloodseeking Spell, Bloodwalk, and Awaken Blood should all (in this case) mention that they shift alignment. In addition (this was mentioned in another suggestion), tooltips should mention descriptors for spells like avasculate. Especially if they are homebrew, players should be made aware of information like that, since it isn't available in the source to refer to.

Frankly, the best idea would be "NO automatic alignment shifts anywhere". Shifts should be handled by DMs.

NegInfinity wrote:Frankly, the best idea would be "NO automatic alignment shifts anywhere". Shifts should be handled by DMs.

I always thought that was the case. Quests that used to change alignment were changed. I think this might be some mixuo during some of the updates.

I used to use avasculate a lot and never had an alignment change. Bloodmage abilities do swift the alignment but only once ( i play one dailym with no alignment shifts ).

Unless a desicion has been made to allow shifting alignment, avasculate should be fixed.

mrm3ntalist wrote:

NegInfinity wrote:Frankly, the best idea would be "NO automatic alignment shifts anywhere". Shifts should be handled by DMs.

I always thought that was the case. Quests that used to change alignment were changed. I think this might be some mixuo during some of the updates.

I used to use avasculate a lot and never had an alignment change. Bloodmage abilities do swift the alignment but only once ( i play one dailym with no alignment shifts ).

Unless a desicion has been made to allow shifting alignment, avasculate should be fixed.

Not just avasculate... Abyssal Might changes alignment to chaotic, evil or both. (though not every time, seems to be random). There may be others as well.

NegInfinity wrote:Frankly, the best idea would be "NO automatic alignment shifts anywhere". Shifts should be handled by DMs.

+1 agreed.

My old main used to be a BM and the shifts finally took their toll and I quit playing him as a BM. For me it was the chaotic shifts that did not fit the RP.

It is my opinion that we aught to have many ways to shift alignment with rules and guidelines (to keep things balanced) or they should be DM only.

I can confirm. I've played blood magus before, and I've also played around with a few of the new spells. Avasculate, Abyssal Might, and Blood Magus (and potentially more) all perform seemingly random autoshifts more than once (the shift can happen many times).

Also, @Neg, I agree. Automated alignment shifts should not happen, those should always be left up to the DM. I was just outlining that, if they are going to do autoshifts for one thing they need to balance it out by doing it for everything. Which is a stupid amount of work for something that is better left to a DM than a script (a script doesn't account for OOC usage, for example).