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[Criptfeind]

Well, it barrier is pretty hard to define ether way, but I disagree with you. Straight up mind controlling someone and forcing them to give you everything isn't lawful, just because you're doing it though a contract doesn't make it markedly different from just forcing her to hand over all her stuff physically.

Although the urge for random destruction is more often found among chaotic people, and certainly a chaotic person probably has the type of personality that would indulge in such things more frequently, I don't think it's strictly a trait of the chaotic/lawful axis. A lawful evil person may just as well want to see the world burn, the difference (in my opinion) is the method used.

Edit: I mean, alignment stuff in general is pretty personal from person to person, thinking about it, I get what you mean, and that's a legitimate way to go with lawful/chaotic, it's just not my personal way, and I disagree that's the definite way.

Edit 2: If it is actually lawful to mind control people like this (which I guess it could be in some evil societies) then I'd certainly agree that doing so is lawful evil. But if it's not then it's not abusing the law, it's straight up breaking it.

[TempAcc]

Sounds pretty much standard neutral evil to me, as well. I mean, so far with the info given, he's done this and the only person who benefitted from it is himself and the party, while causing a great deal of problems for the lady.

Keep in mind that true neutral is easily the most iffy alignment ever. True Neutral characters are usualy either mindless animals that only do things of their nature or hellbent on "keeping the balance", so it depends a lot on the context of the situation. It does seem pretty evil, though.

It doesn't seem quite lawful evil, IMO. Straight up dominating someone is pretty much coercion, just magical instead of physical or moral, something quite illegal in most places, unless its in a universe in which that kind of coercion is legal, somehow.

Its not really "abusing contract law", its straight up breaking it by coercion of the other party, IE very unlawful.

On the druid guy: Seems pretty much chaotic neutral taken to its logical extremes. Extremely individualistic to the point of not perceiving or not caring about how his actions affects others. If he's getting pleasure from the harm he's causing with his actions, then its def chaotic evil, but if he's just doing these actions because "its just his thing" according to his nature/culture or because he simply cannot care have any empathy for his victims, then its probably a extreme form of chaotic neutral, in my opinion, at least.

[highmax28]

Lawful evil? I'd go neutral evil probably. Forcibly mind controlling someone is almost certainly not within the rule of the law. It's certainly a very evil act, and so worth an alignment shift, especially along the good evil axis (a weaker shift along the lawful chaotic axis), at least without extenuating circumstances. How far it shifts them is pretty dependent on the person in question and all their other actions and such, but I'd probably bump them down to evil pretty quickly, especially with repeated uses.

Edit: And about that druid people were talking about a week ago, if this was 3.5 I'd bust his ass down to chaotic evil and take away all his class abilities. Or if he could actually roleplay well and actually pull off having some type of mental illness I'd maybe let him stay true neutral, in the same way an animal is because of lack of mental facilities, but put a bestow curse effect on him that gives him -6 wisdom.

I'm pretty sure the player of the Druid has some social problems. Him and the party ranger's player keep fucking with each other because the Druid's player keeps flirting with him in real life and the ranger's player keeps fucking with the druid's player by reciting the Shrek Is Love, Shrek Is Life stories from memory. The Druid himself, however, has been living in a mountain cave for his whole life until he formed the party, so he also probably lacks the concept of social norms

[TempAcc]

Ye, lacking any concept of social norms or empathy would probably put him into an extreme form of chaotic neutral, rather then chaotic evil. Certainly not true neutral, though.

[Criptfeind]

Well, far be it for me to pass judgement on others fun Criptfeind says as he deletes his response and decides to start this post over again. It's probably not worth worrying about the alignment of anyone in this party.

[scriver]

I don't see why Lawful Evil people wouldn't break laws - Lawful does not equate law following people, just people who believe in a structured society or a strong personal doctrine. A Mafia Godfather type character who makes a living off of breaking laws, has people murdered, and other such mafiouse stuff, but who still keeps order in the criminal underworld, sets standards, and decides what his people can and can't do, is in my mind one of the archetypes of Lawful Evil. He cares about the "laws" of his society - the mafia - but doesn't give a shit about the judicial laws of the state he lives in.

Another iconic type of Lawful Evil is the kind that doesn't hold any kind of laws - social, moral, or juridical - to any regard, but will still not hesitate to twist the laws which advanced society needs to exist to his own advantage. He will break and corrupt laws for selfish gain, but then turn around and use laws to shield himself from blame or retribution. The laws of society themselves does not matter to him, only how he can use those structures to his own ends.

That kind of thinking is the reason I'm also leaning towards Lawful Evil for the wizard above. Sure, it's coercion, but that Kent very relevant as I see it - it's the part where the wizard will go through the trouble of abusing the legal framework of inheritance and wills to cover his ass that directs it towards the Lawful side.

[mainiac]

To make the opposite example, Ghandi is like the epitome of lawful good.  The dude literally wouldn't hurt a fly and had a very sophisticated moral philosophy of non-violence.  However he made a career of breaking laws.  He had very high moral standards that he followed but those moral standards told him to break laws.

[highmax28]

To make the opposite example, Ghandi is like the epitome of lawful good.  The dude literally wouldn't hurt a fly and had a very sophisticated moral philosophy of non-violence.  However he made a career of breaking laws.  He had very high moral standards that he followed but those moral standards told him to break laws.

And then he gets democracy and wants to nuke you more than a certain dictator that has become an infamous meme

[Criptfeind]

Well, I suppose yes, if the wizard has a strong personal code based around using magic to force old ladies to sign documents it could be considered a lawful act. But otherwise it's still not abusing the legal system, it's breaking it. It's not that the action is automatically unlawful, it's that it's not automatically lawful.

[TempAcc]

Criptfiend got it.
Lawful doesnt mean your character will follow civil/societal laws and never break them. A lawful character can be lawful by adhering to a personal code of conduct from which he/she will never stray from, or by never disobeying orders from his master (IE his master's orders are the law he follows), it all depends on the character and on the context of things.

But yea, unless said wizard has a personal code of conduct that makes it completely ok to dominate old ladies and make them give away their stuff, its not really an action one would consider lawful in the general sense. Since there's not enough context given that would make that action lawful, we must interpret it using general ideas of what lawful is in D&D. And according to whats generally known and assumed in regards to D&D alignment, that sort of action is very common to neutral evil characters, and very unlawful in general.

One of the things people should try to learn when handling character development and alignment, is that not everything needs to adhere to D&D manual alignment stereotypes. Those things are just meant to be a general guideline to how a character of a certain alignment should behave, but you can totally be creative about it without straying from your alignment, as long as there is some context to back it up.

For example, lets say we made a DF style Elf character who's a lawful good fighter. Lets say he lived for most of his life in an isolated tribe deep in the woods. According to his tribe's warrior laws, anyone that harms trees/plants is worthy of death, and he must eat humanoids that he kills in combat, and they believe that, by eating their enemies, they're saving their souls from certain suffering, and thus this is a good act. To most people, these actions would be indicative of a very strange chaotic evil/neutral type character, but since he's doing it because he's faithful to his tribe's laws, its a both a lawful and good action, so technically, he's still a lawful good character.
Of course, these things all depends on context and your GM not being a huge dweeb that wont accept any character that isn't a 2 dimensional medieval fantasy stereotype.

[AbstractTraitorHero]

Hey let's say we have a neutral evil character they have a choice to let a neutral good player die by inaction the evil character rescues said character even though it will greatly endanger them is that worthy of an alignment shift?

[kilakan]

Well, realistically since they are each players then the NE's motive could boil down to 'They are useful to me/my possession/an asset, and I don't want to lose something personally useful.'
Still NE in that case.

[Criptfeind]

Not really enough information. Evil people can still do good things for their own long term gain (purposefully choosing the good thing time after time because of the economics of civilization might lead to a shift in alignment though, lifes tough for those obligate evil types  ), I'd say that evil people are even allowed to have friends that they will bend their 'morals' for. In fact, that's personally the most interesting way to play an evil person I feel... But ultimately, unless the player wants this to be the start of a shift for his character, I wouldn't change his alignment over it, unless he did it over and over without other evil actions.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Frankly, it could be as simple as the NE liking the NG in spite of or because of their differences and it wouldn't warrant any shift.

Alignment shift is no simple task of virtue by degrees, it is a total radical reorientation of how they as a character perceive the world and essentially everything in it. I doubt that any one act, no matter how significant, would be enough to change alignment. You must first change as a person entirely, then it is possible to solidify that change through action.

[AbstractTraitorHero]

I'm talking more about saving them because they like or enjoy their company for example goodplayer has been evilplayers friend for years in game and the evil character genuinly likes good character but before now they have never in their life done something for another at the cost of their own convience.