Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Does 5E not have characters select alignment?

as it doesnt seem we are choosing our alignments here.

You can choose alignment in 5E character creation, but there is no point in it unless you need it to help you role play. There are virtually no rules that have any impact on alignment, so it has functionally been removed as a gameplay feature.

The only time alignment is relevant in 5e as a game mechanic, is certain subclasses/races (I think) needing you to be evil, or some spells who change damage type if you're evil vs good.
For roleplay choices in conversations, alignments could maybe be implemented, with the tag system and all, but I don't really think it's necessary.

This is false. There are no subclass or race alignment restrictions in 5E. Practically, some of the Paladin subclasses require you to be good to maintain your oath, but alignment is never mentioned in the rules.

There are no spells that affect alignments in any way.

Alignment is one of those core mechanics in AD&D/D&D that people either hate or love. There are numerous long, involved and (needless to say) bitter debates about whether it is good or bad.

I'm not sorry to see it not implemented in BG3 because I'm a gamer who generally plays systems which do not have Alignment, and I'm not a huge fan of it. I would prefer the sort of PC moral code as used in DA, where your dialogue reactions determine what sort of morals you have and display (and thus how others react to you).

Back in the day, Alignment was tied into a lot of spells and magic items, of course, so it took some untangling for subsequent editions to de-emphasise Alignment. It was, consequnetly, unrealistic to expect it to have been removed in those earlier editions.

I just figured Larian hasn't implemented alignments yet. I disagree about people saying that is not important to 5e. It has guided character creation and lore as well as decision making in my tabletop games. Also it would make a whole host of spells useless if alignment was not implemented.

You can like or dislike alignment, but it is part of D&D.

In 5e Alignment has gone back to being a roleplaying aid for the most part. Thankfully it no longer has much in the way of mechanical heft.

There are some standout exceptions such as the Book of Exalted Deeds, Tome of Vile Darkness, and a handful of other things. But in these cases it's generally fairly easy to gauge a person's alignment for that purpose based on how they've making choices up til then.

In my opinion, the Personality Traits, Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws are much better RP guide than alignment ever was. And while the question of "what alignment are you?" has come up twice (once because Ravenloft and once because Book of Exalted Deeds...different campaigns), I mostly just don't bother with alignment until I need to in playing and in running I never even really looked at my players' alignments and told them I probably wouldn't.

Alignment will be added because people want it... but it won't have deep mechanics attached.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/763351879

• 24:05: Why no Alignment system? Because WotC is moving away from Alignment as a constraint on dialogue choices.
• 25:07: Alignment will be added to character creation, because some people want it, but don't expect a lot of mechanics attached to it.

It is a fairly sloppy RP guide and it was absolutely horrible when it had firm-mechanics tied to it....plus the community attachment that built up around it during 3.X tended toward the toxic. And there were lots of people using alignment as the basis for their "but its what my character would do" excuses for causing trouble in the group.

Again, there are no spells and abilities that have any rules for alignment. The only place alignment is mentioned in any 5E rules is in a tiny handful of legendary items.

Well there was always 'that player' who viewed CN as an excuse to be a complete dick. Having played many CN characters myself, 'that player' did a lot of damage to the alignment choice for the rest of us.

On the same note; I played a NE character whose outlook was cheerful and optimistic. The fact that he was an immoral, selfish opportunist, who wooed wealthy older ladies (he had amazing wooing skills) and cheated them out their money made him NE in my book. He was not, however, inclined to murder people for fun, and was even happy to help the helpless. Strictly by the alignment guidelines, he broke several codes that NE characters were expected to live by. It did, I am proud to say, rehabilitate my GM at the time to the possibility of allowing Evil characters in his games.

There are more magical items that go off of alignment than anything. Other than, there is Oathbreaker Paladin (DMG) that says you have to be evil. The only spell I can think of that can involves alignment is Glyph of Warding, which allows you to trigger based on alignment.

Alignment is part of 5th edition and it matters for both role playing and game mechanics.

This is a fans vs the IP owners issue. WotC removed alignment from 4th edition and fans sent many angry letters demanding it be reinstated. Unfortunately some 4th edition hangers on are in employed at WotC.

I forgot about the Glyph of Warding. I amend my statement: there is one uncommonly used spell that mentions alignment. 😂

Talisman of Ultimate Good, Talisman of Ultimate Evil, Book of Exalted Deeds, Tome of Vile Darkness, a handful of spells like Spirit Guardians, And one or two encounters here and there in published adventures. All of which can be easily adjudicated on common sense levels in games not using alignment.

Alignment is thoroughly and thankfully optional in 5e.

We have written alignments on our character sheets, but we really don't use them. Our Paladin is played as (slightly dopey) LG (the player, like me, is Old School), our Fighter is almost certainly CN or CE, I am CE (although I have written N on the sheet - Persec, you know), and I think the Cleric is NG or CG. The others are probably too new to D&D to have bothered thinking too much about their alignments so they could be anything.

I don't recall that alignment has been any sort of issue in the game so far (we're 10th level), and long may it stay that way.

Alignment was cool mainly for informing the Cosmology and Cosmogony of the game universe. I'm probably in the minority now but I still consider all the stuff from the first second and third editions of D&D to basically still be operating in the background at the story level. Its just not highlighted as a major feature of the character build anymore like it used to be. They still thump on the religious lore and whatnot in Faerun, but its not presented with the same organization Axis or relationship to the planes or like what happens when the character dies ala planescape themes.

I think the 5e approach is fine, its probably simpler on the player while not specifically negating the Law/Chaos Good/Evil way of thinking about stuff from the RP perspective. Just not as relevant to the mechanics now post 4th ed

Perhaps I've been getting my editions mixed up but there's also the spell Protection from Evil and Good in 5e, which is somewhat similar to the older spells except that it offers protection "against certain types of creatures - Aberrations, Celestials, Elementals, Fey, Fiends, and Undead" instead of a blanket protection against any NPC or monster with the appropriate alignment.

That said, I'd still rather have alignment implemented than not.

Yes, Protection from Good/Evil/Chaos/Law only affects dyed-in-the-wool beasties of that alignment now, effectively assuming that the listed creature types are of that alignment without worrying about their actual stats. It is certainly no good against the more background alignment of most characters or monstrous humanoids.

The same goes for Detect.

I don't like them. Give characters motivations, not these very basic and arbitrary moral labels.