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[NullForceOmega]

The problem with that assertion is that the ENTIRE cosmology of D&D is tied to the alignments.  Good, evil, chaos and law are real forces in the D&D multi-verse, they are not simple abstracts and never were.  I can agree that the use of the cosmological good vs evil and chaos vs law in character creation is sometimes problematic, but D&D has no grey in its moral system.

Sergarr:  From 3e Monster Manual, page 12:  Alignment:  Always:  the creature is born with the listed alignment.  The creature may have a hereditary predisposition to the alignment or come from a plane that predetermines it.  It is possible for individuals to change alignment, but such individuals are either unique or one-in-a-million exceptions.

[Sergius]

Whoa.  Let me stop you right there.  RAW only states that a barbarian that becomes Lawful loses their abilities.  Choosing to exercise a modicum of restraint, in and of itself, is not enough to become Lawful anything, or even Neutral anything; Chaotic or Neutral players can certainly justify restraining themselves from any acts.  Even if you adopt the principle of alignment strongly reflecting/straightjacketing personality (which, by the way, is also incorrect according to RAW), this is still especially true for Chaotic Good or Chaotic Evil, because these actually do have particular restraints "baked in" - specifically, a predisposition towards good or evil.  By RAW, the only class that explicitly loses its power for a single alignment-inappropriate is the Paladin (specifically, for a willful evil act).  Otherwise, alignment changes are up to DM interpretation.  Given your DM, I wouldn't say that's much of a consolation, but don't confuse your DM's behaviour (or your own beliefs; I saw nothing in your stories about the barbarian becoming Lawful, or even flirting with the idea) for the rules-as-written.

Sorry, but "Chaotic stupid" is a particular pet peeve of mine, almost as much as "Lawful stupid."

A barbarian doesn't need to act Chaotic Stupid. A barbarian can act as would thematically make sense for a barbarian that is not part of civilization and doesn't like getting manhandled by angry peasants who want to kick his face in or even if they just wanted to take his weapon, lock him up for no legitimate reason. You're reading WAY too much there with the "restraint".

Yes, a character wouldn't instantly fall by doing one Lawful action. But he can't consistently go about doing Lawful actions until his alignment shifts to Neutral and then Lawful. The requirement during play seems to be: having restraint = A HERO IS YOU. not having restraint when you're being bullied = TERRIBAD TOO BAD SO SAD YOU LOSE also you are evil because chaotic is evil and you're a jerk and you smell bad and should feel bad.

EDIT: Also, a barbarian rage is, in the written fluff, a "screaming blood frenzy" wherein (s)he "becomes reckless."  As far as mechanical effect, they do gain strength and constitution, but lose armor class and cannot use most charisma, dexterity, or intelligence skills or most manually-triggered magical effects.  That said, there is no restriction as per RAW on a raging barbarian choosing to inflict non-lethal damage.

Since the Confusion spell effect is completely separate from fluff saying "reckless" in a positive class ability, and the RAW explains exactly how you're being reckless (you're being reckless in your defense, obviously, and fine-motion tasks, which aren't required to swing a weapon at the intended target) I don't see how this could result in randomly killing a person that is your ally during combat. If this ability can make you randomly attack a Peasant ally, it can definitely make you randomly attack one of your own party, and you would see this stated in the rules somewhere, no doubt (it seems relevant during play!). And you wouldn't find out after the end of combat, surely, as your own teammate would definitely let you know with very colourful language.

Plus the part about nonlethal not being allowed not being RAW, it should be enough. The houserules that criticals (isn't a high roll t reflective of your attack being SO SKILLFUL that it dealt extra damage to vitals, it seems backwards to rule that doing extra damage due to a critical means you hit like some sort of drunken elephant which is why you dealt extra damage and also it has to be lethal... what?)

You could argue that for a barbarian, trying to incapacitate people doing clear assault and battery is a lot of restraint, yet chaotic enough to be Chaotic Normal as opposed to Chaotic IKEELYOU.

[Bohandas]

Because Alignment system is stupid bullshit which condones entire races as inherently evil, which gives the Lawful Good Paladins perfect justification to conduct genocide towards them, which makes it Lawful Stupid, and which generally replaces the good roleplaying (which is what D&D is about, because it's a fucking Role Playing Game!) with a scripted set of reactions, and which has spawned the whole "True Neutral is the real good" bullshit as the part of natural averse reaction to this system which glorifies genocide of the "inherently evil" races and labels it as "unquestionably good".

"Always Chaotic Evil" hasn't been a thing since 2nd Ed, as far as I know.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/demon.htm
"Alignment:    Always chaotic evil"

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/lycanthrope.htm
Werewolf:
"Alignment:    Always chaotic evil"

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/dragonTrue.htm
"Chromatic Dragons

Chromatic dragons form the evil branch of dragonkind. They are aggressive, greedy, vain, and nasty. "
"Alignment:    Always chaotic evil"

I literally typed in "Always chaotic evil" into d20srd hypertext search.

Don't forget demons!

[GiglameshDespair]

Yeah. You can punch someone in the face, and ow, they're hurt. If you're skilled and lucky enough, you can clonk them on the chin and they're out like a light (a critical hit). Doesn't mean you've just ripped out their throat.

[Sergarr]

The problem with that assertion is that the ENTIRE cosmology of D&D is tied to the alignments.  Good, evil, chaos and law are real forces in the D&D multi-verse, they are not simple abstracts and never were.  I can agree that the use of the cosmological good vs evil and chaos vs law in character creation is sometimes problematic, but D&D has no grey in its moral system.

Sergarr:  From 3e Monster Manual, page 12:  Alignment:  Always:  the creature is born with the listed alignment.  The creature may have a hereditary predisposition to the alignment or come from a plane that predetermines it.  It is possible for individuals to change alignment, but such individuals are either unique or one-in-a-million exceptions.

What about the elemental planes? Why are they not tied to alignments? Why can't I have an alignment of Firey Earthy, if the core concepts are just an abstraction for some metaphysical forces?

And the fact that it's almost always doesn't make it any better. It still reeks of slavery attitudes. The same "this race is entirely composed of dirty backstabbers, you can't ever trust any of them because practically all of them are bent on evil and you'd be better by murdering them first" shit.

The reverse is even worse: "This race is goody-two-shoes! It's genetically bent on goodness, but will still slaughter evil creatures without a second thought, because they're EVIL!"

[My Name is Immaterial]

The reverse is even worse: "This race is goody-two-shoes! It's genetically bent on goodness, but will still slaughter evil creatures without a second thought, because they're EVIL!"

That's not a thing. There are some monsters that are like that, but they make sense within their lore. Also, I am going to have to argue that LG =/= slaughter all CE. Mercy is a thing too.

[Sergius]

You can get rid completely of alignment as an attribute of most characters. If you want, you can keep certain things always evil (demons from hell or undead) at least from the purposes of spells. (Holy / Unholy?) without affecting the creature behavior anyway (and have Satan just trying to live happily with Chris). Personally I'd think that a zombie or skeleton is neutral since it's basically mindless or can be ordered to do either evil or non evil things (you can be "evil" (TM) as a requirement to raise undead, raise a skeleton and tell him to go around handing people money or something. does it always automatically pick up the nearest sword and try to unalive people?)

Then you have planes. So what? Keep the Chaos / Order / Evil / Good axis for whatever mechanical purpose you want, then give the denizens living in them more depth. Or keep the axis as a setting thing specifically for Planescape or settings where character actually, you know, travel to planes.

There's literally nothing stopping you from tossing alignment aside except a really small subset of spells (protection and detection?) which you can just rename to "protection vs undead and uh... burninating outsider?". Non-magical-aura-thing emanating creatures don't have an alignment, period.

It's really not that hard. "Planes are cool" is not a really good reason to get rid of it for non-divine/outsider purposes.

Heck, "The Planes" can be argued to be setting specific. Granted, they're "all official published TSR setting-specific", but still. It's a thing that's not mandatory. You can play "Mystara 3.0" or something and it doesn't have planes. I think Eberron also isn't, and some third party settings. Or just play a version of Forgotten Realms that is removed from the planar thing, at least as a setting. (pretty sure it's possible, there must have been a moment during Greyhawk and FR's existence during which Planescape hadn't been written and where the two weren't part of the same super-setting at all)

[Urist McScoopbeard]

I think the system is just a crutch, as has already been said. It's not strictly necessary.

[Tawa]

And who pays attention to "always Chaotic Evil" anyway? That went out the window when Drizz't showed up.

[Flying Dice]

It was only around in the first place because Nation of Hats stereotypes are easier for lazy people to manage than real people.

[Sergius]

I mean, you could argue that it is a vital mechanic that can't be excised. But it isn't... it doesn't do anything mechanically to the base rules that can't be ignored or removed. There's no "add +3 lawful points to your Strength" or "roll to hit from you Chaotic to-hit table".

It affects some spells? Spells can be added or removed at will. Swapping spells out of the list isn't even a houserule. If you want to do the legwork, change the spells. But even just purging them changes nothing. Casters don't get any reduced capabilities because some spells don't exist, they still get the same amount per day, and this already actually happens in some settings. Spells aren't base rules, spells are "stuff".

It affects some classes? Again, classes are not mandatory, even if they're called "Core Classes". Just remove alignment restrictions, or the classes altogether. Paladins already have a "code of conduct", simply put "don't do bad stuff" instead of "don't be Bad(TM)". If you don't want an Official List of Bad Stuff, just make add specific forbidden things to the list. Likewise, classes aren't rules, they're "stuff". Swapping classes in and out isn't a houserule either.

Monsters? Yeah, "stuff". Locations, planes, whatever.

You can still keep more tangible "axis", like Life/Unlife (positive/Negative energy) and just make up an Angelic/Demonic one for outsiders and planes if you want to keep them, and you're good to go.

[Bauglir]

There's no "add +3 lawful points to your Strength" or "roll to hit from you Chaotic to-hit table".

We can fix that.

[Sergius]

There's no "add +3 lawful points to your Strength" or "roll to hit from you Chaotic to-hit table".

We can fix that.

A game with rules like that would actually be kinda cool.

[Tack]

Paladins already have a "code of conduct", simply put "don't do bad stuff" instead of "don't be Bad(TM)". If you don't want an Official List of Bad Stuff, just make add specific forbidden things to the list.

No thanks.
I don't think I need a 'List of things that are evil'. That would rigidify the morality of the character even more.


Also I gotta say if a party has an option other than slaughtering an entire village (leaving, surrendering, etc) and they slaughter the village, that's an evil act, no matter which way you slice it.

[Bohandas]

The problem with that assertion is that the ENTIRE cosmology of D&D is tied to the alignments.  Good, evil, chaos and law are real forces in the D&D multi-verse, they are not simple abstracts and never were.  I can agree that the use of the cosmological good vs evil and chaos vs law in character creation is sometimes problematic, but D&D has no grey in its moral system.

Well, technically the puter planes are controlled by belief, so while good and evil and law and chaos have tangible existence, this is only the case because people believe they do. And these tangible forces also necessarily inherit any inconsistency that there may be in these beliefs.

Also, it's implied that in the ancient past (the time of the Obryiths and Baatorians) there was only law and chaos; that good and evil became relevent tangible forces later.