Magic and Alignment

[Evard]

In 3.5 DnD I hear how magic completely over shadow melee characters.. This is 100% true and I think how the game was made on purpose. So a way to even up the playing field could be combining the Alignment System and the Magic system.

When casting spell the magic user (arcane or divine) imparts part of them into the spell since the power is flowing into and out of them. Therefor lets have the spell always be alignment based. This is already done with cleric for the most part since they have good/neutral/evil auras and can't cast spells of opposite alignment on the C/L G/E scale.

Now lets say that if you have the same alignment or similar alignment then the spell recognizes the casters moral/ethical codes and views the target as the caster (in a way magic could).

When a magic user casts a spell, how effective the spell will be is determined by the alignment scale. The further away the alignment is the more effective the spell will be.

Example 1: A chaotic good wizard casts fireball for 10d6 damage on a group of Lawful Evil enemies, however there is an Lawful Good fighter (ally) surrounded by all of them and can't get out in time. The enemies take 100% of the damage from the dice rolled for the fire ball but the ally takes 50% damage due to having the good alignment and the spell recognizes that.

Example 2: If another ally/enemy that is Chaotic Good runs up before the fire ball hits then that person/thing will take 25% of the damage rolled by the dice for the fireball.

Also if an alignment is changed it takes 48 hours for your spells to "catch up" and change itself to your new alignment. This keeps a wizard from backstabbing someone out of the blue due to magical alignment changes that are forced on them :P

What do you all think? Any constructive criticism?

[Jane_Smith]

Moral ethics and religion have no place in the school of the arcane!!! /fistslams desk.

>.> My 2 cents.

[Yora]

I think that is much to complicated to keep track off.
Also, I think it doesn't really match that well with how arcane magic is usually portrayed to work.

[Evard]

Well changing how arcane is looked at may be what is needed. There are already lawful/chaotic and evil/good spells so having spells sync up to the caster makes somewhat sense lol

[Ashtagon]

If you're not planning on switching alignments to backstab your (former) friends, this actually makes magic even stronger, as there is no longer a need to tactically plan for an opening before fireballing the goblins.

[Lev]

There are already metamagic feats for this, check out book of vile darkness and book of exalted deeds for some leads.

[Evard]

Yes i know about the meta magic but the point is... The gap between the party wizard/fighter wont be as big due to all those nasty effects wont last/hurt so much.

The party wizard can't walk all over the other members due to (usually) having close alignments (groups are usually good, evil, lawful, chaotic together.. but not always lol)

So when there is a disagreement between Mrs Sorcerer and Mr Fighter... Both can hurt each other badly so it would be best to talk it out.

[Lev]

Yes i know about the meta magic but the point is... The gap between the party wizard/fighter wont be as big due to all those nasty effects wont last/hurt so much.

The party wizard can't walk all over the other members due to (usually) having close alignments (groups are usually good, evil, lawful, chaotic together.. but not always lol)

So when there is a disagreement between Mrs Sorcerer and Mr Fighter... Both can hurt each other badly so it would be best to talk it out.

That's the difference between a vidya game and dnd, in dnd fire is fire, in a vidya game fire is a sprite and a line of coding that hurts your enemies.

I suggest the game munchkin, get out their aggression there and if they have more then talk it out, if that doesn't work then they are jerks.

[Evard]

Well this would also effect battle, if the enemy is the same alignment as the magic user then the magic user wont be as effective unless they fall back and shoot with cross bow or focus on buffs

[Lev]

If you want it world-effecting due to alignment then just mod the existing alignment metamagic feats so they don't change the casting slot and give them away for free, or you could just use a variation of that and make it perm for all casters... though I think divine would work way better than arcane for that houserule.

[imp_fireball]

Yes i know about the meta magic but the point is... The gap between the party wizard/fighter wont be as big due to all those nasty effects wont last/hurt so much.

Thing is, this doesn't modify the balance of the caster in any way. It isn't always about party disagreements that lead to full out murder on paper. It's about the fighter being outclassed by the wizard to the point where they feel like they may as well not contribute or may even be slowing down the wizard.

Also, it's a bit of a fluff stretch. Just declare it a houserule that could apply to certain settings.