Magical alignment shift and how to act upon it

[Baldin]

Hello Playground!

In my current group, where I am a player, we found a black pillar. My character walked around the pillar but failed to find an entrence, thus our favorite soul and I (fighter)(both level 1) went on and searched the surface for any hidden doors. After having touched the pillar for a few minutes we both had to roll a fortitude save and failed (both rolls under 10). This resulted in us both shifting our alignment one step to evil. Now we both were Chaotic Neutral and thus now are Chaotic Evil.

My question is, how much does my character notice this change?

A situation we were in last session was as follows. We entered a cave were we knew some goblins were, so after fighting some of them we opened a door that led into a kitchen. In this kitchen were some non-combatant female goblins and our crusader (LG) said "lets leave them be and continue". Now if I were still CN i would have done this, however im CE and reasoned that these goblins are evil aswell, and would only produce more evil goblins. Thus I went in and attacked them.

Now our crusader and cleric of palor stopped us (by attacking non-lethal and me attacking back lethal nearly killing the cleric due to a handaxe crit (luckely rolled low)). Because we are not a fan of PVP we stopped the fight after having both swung at eachother.

The question I have is, does my character know that he cares less for the lives of others, now that his alignment has changed, and would he respond to others telling him that happened?

TL;DR: If my characters alignment magicly shifts to evil, does he know this and not act to his new alignment if pressed by others?

Cheers
Baldin

[georgie_leech]

That's probably similar to how I'd play out that situation. Ultimately, yes, he could probably recognise that his Alignment (as short hand for his ethics, morals, and values) have shifted if it's pointed out, or even if they're particularly introspective. The question, though, is whether or not they view this as a bad thing and desire to fight against it. Get it undone at some point, maybe, but in the mean time just go with what they're new moral compass says is the "right" thing to do. With CE in particular, I have a hard time seeing them suddenly deciding to act like they care about people that have nothing to offer to them unless pressured by an outside force, such as a local Crusader or Cleric that you happen to know and trust (assuming becoming Evil didn't give you Chronic Backstabbing Disorder) pointing out that they don't want you to slaughter bystanders and are prepared to use force to... well, enforce that.

[Yahzi]

The question, though, is whether or not they view this as a bad thing and desire to fight against it.

Most alignment change items expressly state that the character will have no desire to return to their original alignment. Whether the character knows or not is an interesting question, especially if they live in a castle with Forbiddance cast on it (and who doesn't?).

In my world CE means that the character only respects strength. They aren't necessarily mindless killers; they just equate moral worth with power. Where we tend to assign moral worth according to intelligence (I won't hurt you because you can feel pain) CE assigns it to strength (I won't hurt you because you are as strong as I am).

But then my world doesn't have CN because I don't know what that means.

[Tragak]

The question I have is, does my character know that he cares less for the lives of others, now that his alignment has changed, and would he respond to others telling him that happened?

TL;DR: If my characters alignment magicly shifts to evil, does he know this and not act to his new alignment if pressed by others?

Cheers
Baldin

He would probably notice a difference between his previous "live and let live" CN outlook and his new "kill the b******s first" CE outlook. However, even if he does need to have it pointed out to him, he still wouldn't see it as a bad thing; he would probably tell himself (and the others who notice): "Lot's of people are uncomfortable with violence at first, and every military has to mentally train it's new recruits specifically to become comfortable enough not to die of hesitation in combat. Luckily for me, it looks like I just found a shortcut."

Since two characters just became CE, maybe one of you (perhaps the one with the higher WIS?) could role-play yours as noticing his new "improvement," while the other hasn't noticed yet, and the one who noticed on his own could be the one to point it out to the one who hasn't.

[Baldin]

Thanks for all the replies, Ill take them with me in our next session!

[Inevitability]

When a child becomes a teenager, his behavior shifts, as does his outlook on life. The child almost certainly notices this, although judging by most teenagers' behavior, doesn't care much. The same thing could happen here.

[Segev]

Shifting from CN to CE doesn't have to (though, with magic, can) change your feelings towards any specific individuals, nor towards your causes nor goals. You're already likely quite self-interested, caring mostly about your own desires and those of your companions, valuing your freedom and snorting disdainfully at the self-imposed limits of the Lawful when they allow that to stop them even if nobody is watching. You balked, before, at senseless killing, but were willing to do it if needs be.

Now, you won't balk at anything that seems expedient to your personal ends. Others whom you do not know personally are little better than ambulatory objects which could choose to be helpful or harmful to you. Still, your companions are largely known quantities, and you may still even value them and their esteem to some extent. You feel you've outgrown the petty foolishness of valuing the lives of others beyond how they can best serve you, but your allies do serve you, even if not in theory, by being there and supporting you.

If the LG fool wants to spare some goblins, it's not worth coming to blows with him over it. Do you gain something out of making him mad or hurt when you should be handling these monsters? No. If you're really worried about the goblins coming after you later, wait for the LG fool to not be paying attention, and finish them off. Maybe leave evidence that other goblins did it; that way he won't feel so bad about killing more of the little buggers.

You may well eventually come to find the LG jerk's self-righteousness is just unacceptable, but it's going to be a little more gradual a realization than "he wouldn't let me kill something! I should kill him!" After all, you worked okay with him when you were CN. Now that you're CE, it's mostly that you are less fettered by the silly notions you had before, and find his insistence on them all the more idiotic and restrictive.

As to whether you'd notice...well, if somebody points out behavioral differences, or you are introspective enough to recognize that you would have had more trouble coming to the straightforward conclusion before, you might. But whether you'd blame a magic item or not would be tricky to discern. With a shift only a single step along one axis, it's hard to pinpoint the first time you had a thought and acted on it in accordance with this alignment. After all, you've probably had them before. Noticing a lack of the CG type thoughts is even harder, as you'd have to figure out the last time your thoughts leaned that way, and would only even look if you noticed their lack.

[Umbranar]

A reply from the (now CE) favored Soul here. The group had another session last night and it was fun. We did what you suggested.
We value the party because they are useful (I`m a halfling and most of the party are strong front fighter types) and they are here to protect me.

We arrived in a grand city and went looking for a specific wizard that could help us in our quest to find another individual who could make another coin of power.
Long story short: we had to retrieve some of his his books that got stolen in exchange for more information. We went to an inn and found the people responsible.
The good character were all for talking to this guy and befriend him. It failed. So thats where Baldin and I stepped in. Having no problem with either burning the inn to the ground of hurting the thief for information we managed to get a confesion out of him through "torture" (he was cornored by us and I cast inflict minor wounds on him for every "wrong" answer and cast cure minor wounds for every "good" answer).

The good characters accepted what we did since it yielded results and we promised that we wouldnt kill the thief if he cooperated.
Thems were good times.

[Segev]

Behavior that could be N or E, and thus totally appropriate. I'd say the only thing that might really be different now than before (if you'd done this as a CN type) is that, instead of vague regret at having to resort to this, it's now at least a little amusing. Even if you're not a psychopath, evil does bring some measure of cruelty. Or at least UTTER callousness. So if you didn't enjoy it on some level, at least you found it easier because there's no pang of guilt or even wistful regret that this guy forced you to make him endure it.

Sounds like you guys had fun, though. Being more willing to go for the darker solution is a great way to RP the shift.

[Oko and Qailee]

This is slightly off topic.

But I just wanted to say you and your party seem to handle the situation very maturely.


As for alignment, I would say your character would at least get a feeling something is different in the sense that they're behaving different. Maybe the don't realize in the spur of the moment, but upon any sort of hindsight/reflection they would say "weird, I didn't enjoy kicking puppies before."