Mod to Bring Back Alignments

[SpaceWombat]

Anyone know of any mods existing or in works which aim to bring back the alignment mechanics of the IE games?

[Raz]

There would be no point in trying to put alignments in this game when it completely ignores alignments anyways. Not only does the game ignore alignments, trying to force it to not ignore it wouldn't work neither because no modder is going to sit and change all the cutscenes and conversations in this entire game to fit an alignment system.

[FunkyMonkey]

I haven't heard of any.

What would you wish out of a mod like that exactly?

[Soft-Hands]

Originally posted by Raz:

There would be no point in trying to put alignments in this game when it completely ignores alignments anyways. Not only does the game ignore alignments, trying to force it to not ignore it wouldn't work neither because no modder is going to sit and change all the cutscenes and conversations in this entire game to fit an alignment system.

Honestly I wonder why it was removed in the first place. It's not like the game doesn't have moral or immoral actions, or doesn't keep track of or lock certain dialogue options for quests, classes, and races. Alignment is such an central part of D&D that removing it just seems strange and pointless. It'd be like having a Fallout game without guns, or removing usable magic from TES. It changes nothing about the setting or world, only neuters the player's ability to interact with that aspect via game mechanics.

[Cass]

Originally posted by Soft-Hands:

Originally posted by Raz:

There would be no point in trying to put alignments in this game when it completely ignores alignments anyways. Not only does the game ignore alignments, trying to force it to not ignore it wouldn't work neither because no modder is going to sit and change all the cutscenes and conversations in this entire game to fit an alignment system.

Honestly I wonder why it was removed in the first place. It's not like the game doesn't have moral or immoral actions, or doesn't keep track of or lock certain dialogue options for quests, classes, and races. Alignment is such an central part of D&D that removing it just seems strange and pointless. It'd be like having a Fallout game without guns, or removing usable magic from TES. It changes nothing about the setting or world, only neuters the player's ability to interact with that aspect via game mechanics.

I don't understand. What would alignments actually add?

[Hobocop]

Alignments have basically no mechanical impact in 5e (zero class restrictions, spells and magical items no longer care about it outside of an extremely tiny handful), so there's not much reason to have a whole system to track it.

[alanc9]

The IE games had alignment mechanics?

I remember a Reputation system which was pretty easy to manipulate. When did alignment do anything?

[Hobocop]

Originally posted by alanc9:

The IE games had alignment mechanics?

I remember a Reputation system which was pretty easy to manipulate. When did alignment do anything?

Arbitrary class restrictions based on alignment.

Plus, you couldn't even change it outside of character generation outside of extremely specific situations.

[alanc9]

Right. Thanks.

Sometimes I forget how many stupid hoops I've jumped through because those were the rules.

[Raz]

Originally posted by Soft-Hands:

Honestly I wonder why it was removed in the first place. It's not like the game doesn't have moral or immoral actions, or doesn't keep track of or lock certain dialogue options for quests, classes, and races.

You physically just answered one of the reasons why it isn't in the game... It wouldn't make any logical point in putting it in the game if it isn't going to serve a function. The other reason it got axed is to make it actually have a function in the game required way too many resources to account for every potential combination and permutation for an alignment much like how they would need to think through every permutation of Paladin with their gods and what god would consider what action something Oath breaking worthy.

Originally posted by Soft-Hands:

Alignment is such an central part of D&D that removing it just seems strange and pointless.

I am a baby in DnD mechanics but even I can tell Alignment mostly matter for the enemies, not so much the players until a DM makes it matter. This is a video game. There is no DM that can change up the scenarios to account for our actions. Its static, immutable. Mechanics that require a fluid reactionary response does not happen in video games because of limitations.

[jonnin]

I don't miss it. It was a big mix of nonsense and reasonable, but most of it was nonsense.
First off, immediately it gets off on the wrong foot: instead of sensible words like 'order vs chaos' which is well understood, they chose 'lawful' which is confusing until you realize it just means 'order' and obeying laws / rules etc is only a small part of it. I mean, take me as a IRL person.. I appreciate the rule of law and that society requires laws and enforcement of them to prevent anarchy, and I am totally not an anarchist. And yet personally I am chaotic, not that I run around breaking laws, but in that I am undisciplined and disorganized etc. Even on the job, writing software, I cannot follow basic formatting and other conventions while I am thinking about solving the problem at hand, and I have to go back and fix it before turning it in ... my mind is full of butterflies.

Some of the parts that were weird are the class restrictions which seemed to be randomly applied ... a discipline themed warrior (the monk) wouldn't function well as chaotic; a daily ritual of exercise and meditation etc ignored in favor of doing whatever your mood suits. Ok... so maybe this system is onto something? Lets see.. a rogue can be the party scout and lawful (ignoring half the class skills like lying, stealing, etc in favor of dungeon useful abilities like hear noise and disarm traps) ... not so weird, but keep going: the studious and well trained mind of a brilliant wizard can be a chaotic butterfly chasing free spirit, but a studious bard who memorizes complex plays and pieces of music can't be orderly... the only way to be the divine champion of a deity is if you are ONE specific alignment combo no matter what the deity represents, and your barbarian may follow a complex tribal life with traditions and rules and behaviors that all scream orderly yet he can't be that way because rage means chaos?!

It felt like a half complete system where things were done completely by the whims of Gary on whatever day he was working on whatever class and it only got worse with other people contributing to it with more classes and ideas.

[Panda]

It’s kinda hard to code inside of the game, you already have good-good, neutral-good, neutral paladin which have an impact during your roleplay, adding alignments and consequences are really troublesome and quite time consuming.

It could be good to bring back gods for paladins though.

[Raz]

Originally posted by Panda:

It’s kinda hard to code inside of the game, you already have good-good, neutral-good, neutral paladin which have an impact during your roleplay, adding alignments and consequences are really troublesome and quite time consuming.

It could be good to bring back gods for paladins though.

Gods for Paladin follow the same problem as an alignment because now you need to consider what would be breaking your Oath to that God which was the reason they directly gave for scrapping it.

[Panda]

Originally posted by Raz:

Originally posted by Panda:

It’s kinda hard to code inside of the game, you already have good-good, neutral-good, neutral paladin which have an impact during your roleplay, adding alignments and consequences are really troublesome and quite time consuming.

It could be good to bring back gods for paladins though.

Gods for Paladin follow the same problem as an alignment because now you need to consider what would be breaking your Oath to that God which was the reason they directly gave for scrapping it.

I mostly want it back for Selunite paladin which is still in the game and Shadowheart still has quite an amount of dialogues/interactions with it.

I guess they can just lock “evil” gods for paladins, some lazy coding but pretty valid option to save “divine power” after dialogue choice.

[SpaceWombat]

Originally posted by FunkyMonkey:

I haven't heard of any.

What would you wish out of a mod like that exactly?

Just to give enemies and companions an alignment attribute which could be used as a flag for new spells, equipment, or as a tracker for dialogue choices. I always thought spells like detect alignment were cool as well as certain weapons getting buffs or penalties against different alignments. The idea of some items not being usable unless you change your alignment was also interesting, especially in PS:T.

All it would do would add extra roleplaying potential that's tied to real game mechanics instead of headcanon- something BG3 desperately needs when compared to the IE games.

I get that people think it was restrictive of a system but I feel like it actually made your choices matter in a way that's absent in BG3... not to mention that huge chunks of D&D lore really don't make sense without the context of alignments.

[Ghost]

Originally posted by Panda:

I guess they can just lock “evil” gods for paladins, some lazy coding but pretty valid option to save “divine power” after dialogue choice.

Paladin alignment restrictions haven't been a thing since 3.5e. They're also not tied to the gods anymore.