Does alignment really "matter"?

[Dervrak]

Altthough the instruction manual issues some dire warning about sticking as close to your chosen alignment as possible or facing the "consequences". I've now played through all of Baldur's Gate I once and Shadows of Amn twice and have concluded that, unless I'm really missing something, alignment doesn't matter in the least.

You can literally play a Chaotic Evil Half-Orc Assassin who goes around acting as chivalrous as a Paladin, righting wrongs, helping the downtrodden and rescuing kittens from trees for the entire game with no "consequences" whatsoever. On the flip side, you could play a Lawful Good Priest of Lathandar who is the scum of the realm, robbing, cheating and killing their way through the entire game. In fact, even with Paladins and Rangers who can become fallen, that is based on reputation, not necessarily "acting true to your alignment" so you can STILL be a complete scumbag and solve every quest the "evil" way as long as you throw a few gold coins at the local temple every once in a while to keep your reputation from tanking. In fact I believe the only point until Throne of Bhall where your actions have any inpact at all are the "tests" at the very end where your alignment can change depending on if you take the "good" or "evil" paths, but then again since alignment doesn't really matter, it doesn't matter if it changes at this point either (except for the forementioned Paladins and Rangers of course).

[Hi my name is Duck!]

As far as I've seen alignment only matters for three things;
Roleplay
Certain classes are restricted to certain alignments
And of course Paladins and Rangers.
Edit: Alignment also has a small affect on prices iirc, Chaotic evil having to spend more than Chaotic Good, but like charisma the changes in price aren't that much.

[Brian Sirith]

http://baldursgate.wikia.com/wiki/Alignment

[Včelí medvídek]

To points above and things I dont see on wiki:

- alignment must be take into acccount for some gear restrictions (Robe of Archmagi, Drizzt scimitar.. few others)
- it decide bhaalspawn abilities
- availability of some spells and HLA is dependant on alignment and affect what turn undead does (evil charm undead while good roll to scare or destroy them)
- for NPC it determine their reputation needs and also behavior and comaptibility in general
- some dialogue options and choices MAY be dependant on alignment (I am not exactly sure if it is alway just rep)

Thats what comes to my mind atm. As reputation mechanic is overall way more important as you concluded, the alignment of main protagonist has mostly roleplaying and starting rep effect.

[Hi my name is Duck!]

Originally posted by Včelí medvídek:

- it decide bhaalspawn abilities

I thought the abilities were dependent on reputation and not alignment?

[Včelí medvídek]

Originally posted by Hi my name is ♥♥♥♥!:

Originally posted by Včelí medvídek:

- it decide bhaalspawn abilities

I thought the abilities were dependent on reputation and not alignment?

Hmm, may test it, but I keep average+ rep. even with evil chars and geting "evil" set always.

[Hi my name is Duck!]

Originally posted by Včelí medvídek:

Originally posted by Hi my name is ♥♥♥♥!:

I thought the abilities were dependent on reputation and not alignment?

Hmm, may test it, but I keep average+ rep. even with evil chars and geting "evil" set always.

Odd. I had a Lawful Good* Paladin and was getting the "good" set for most of the game, but around chapter four started to get the "evil" ones (despite having average rep for the most part) which led me to thinking it was more reputation based than alignment.
*Might have been neutral good, I'm too lazy to boot up the game to check.

[Včelí medvídek]

Originally posted by Hi my name is ♥♥♥♥!:

Originally posted by Včelí medvídek:

Hmm, may test it, but I keep average+ rep. even with evil chars and geting "evil" set always.

Odd. I had a Lawful Good* Paladin and was getting the "good" set for most of the game, but around chapter four started to get the "evil" ones (despite having average rep for the most part) which led me to thinking it was more reputation based than alignment.
*Might have been neutral good, I'm too lazy to boot up the game to check.

Hmm, acord wiki it should be indeed for rep below 9.. thats actualy strange to me as I usually keep my rep above 12 and I cnat remember any evil char that for exmaple would NOT get vampiric touch.

I tested it now and indeed it is rep based (at least very first power) - strange my memory is so blured but clearly it is:p

[Dervrak]

In my first playthrough of SoA, my main was a Lawful Good Cleric of Lathander. Of course I took the "good" option and sided with the Shadow Thieves. Just for the heck of it I went back to an old save and instead sided with Bohdi and the Vampires, I fully expected to lose my clerical powers, my Stronghold in the Temple of Lathander and maybe even struck dead by Lathander himself (considering the entire philosophy of Lathander is "we hate undead and dedicate our lives to exterminating them".) But I was a bit shocked and dismayed to find Lathander was apparently like, "You want to pal around with vampires and hang out in their tombs shooting the breeze? Well cool with me...by the way I see you just went up a level, here's some sick new spells. Light be praised, and all that."

By the way, there was an old mod floating around (not sure if it still available or works for the EE). But it added two new options to the get to Spellhold. One a really good option for parties that had a problem with the evil choice of siding with the Bodhi or the only slightly less evil (neutral?) choice of doing the Shadow Thieves dirty work. It allowed you to do various good deeds for the Paladins to gain passage. The second option was for REALLY evil parties that would say, "I don't give a damn about Imoen, let Irenicus do what he wants with her, not my problem all I care about is money and power. As I recall it had to do with siding with a group of assasssins who were planning to steal an artifact from across the ocean in Maztica, of course when the ship sets sail it ends up in a storm and has to stop at the same island Spellhold is on for repairs. allowing the game to continue as normal...

[Sam]

Alignment also matters for companions. If your main character goes too far to one extreme, other NPCs may leave (they will first start complaining a lot before you get to that point).

[Dervrak]

Originally posted by Sam:

Alignment also matters for companions. If your main character goes too far to one extreme, other NPCs may leave (they will first start complaining a lot before you get to that point).

But that is based on reputation, not your natural alignment, you can be Chaotic Evil with a party of do-gooders or Lawful Good with a party of evil tyrants. As long as you keep your reputation in the sweet spot of 9-12 (which can be easily manipulated with donations to the temple to increase it, or killing an innocent to lower it) your companions won't utter a peep. Now there are some really evil choices, at least in SoA, that will make some of the really goody-good characters such as Keldorn leave (killing the silver dragon comes to mind). But even that can be "dodged" by dropping said characters from the party then picking them up again after the deed is done.

[Brian Sirith]

Originally posted by Hi my name is ♥♥♥♥!:

Originally posted by Včelí medvídek:

- it decide bhaalspawn abilities

I thought the abilities were dependent on reputation and not alignment?

Rep not alignment, unless they changed something. Don't remember why but in a playthrough my LG char had a bad rep when he got the 1st ability and it was the "evil" one. After that when his rep went up he was getting the "good" ones.

I think in BG2 there are some points / dialogs where your actual alignment is taken into consideration but otherwise it doesn't matter.

Which is quite reasonable actually. You may have written "Pure evil -" on your ID but if you spend your time helping little ol ladies and taking down kitties from trees you should be viewed as a nice person. No one writes their alignment on their forehead for all to know. The only place it would hold is if some caster used a spell to determine what your real... lets say motives are.

[Včelí medvídek]

@OP - I believe best for your is to roleplay the game (its RPG after all) - hence play the reputation along alignment. So as evil char never raise it to 9 and above - the result could be more what you expect overall (even though far from perfect but if you think about it its realy hard think out many "heroic deeds" that are evil in nature and demanded by society - moreover build consistent story around them)

[Sam]

It depends on alignment AND reputation...e.g., evil characters love a low reputation and leave your party if it is too high; good characters love a high reputation and leave if it is too low. There is a cutoff that depends on alignment being "good", "neutral", or "evil" to trigger when party members become uncomfortable or outright leave.

You are right that reputation plays a factor, but that is because "alignment" is the up-front choice and "reputation" tracks how closely you align to that (at least in a mixed sense, though it conflates the good-evil and lawful-chaotic scales by using only one dimension to track both).

Source: http://baldursgate.wikia.com/wiki/Reputation

(Edited because I found a source to make a definitive statement)

[Damn_Monkey]

Player Alignment was poorly implemented and beyond having a few items and spells be restricted, it doesn't matter at all. But, considering the scope of the game and the tools available at the time, I guess they did the best they could with what they had.

[Black Sheep Inc]

In the sense you seem to be describing... sorta? Rangers and Paladins can become fallen of course, and there's at least one Paladin in BG who will attack your party if he senses any evil characters present. A few spells and items are alignment specific, and I think that's about it. Alignment's mostly an aesthetic choice with only a select few circumstances where it actually matters. Reputation, on the other hand, has a much stronger effect.