[Power] Better than a lead sheet...

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Shifting Philosophy
Telepathy
Level: Psion/wilder 3
Display: Mental
Manifesting Time: 1 minute
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: 1 hour/level.
Power Points: 5

You temporarily embrace a differing philosophy or ethical mindset and explore it in great depth, making it your own. Your alignment shifts one level in any direction. For example a Lawful Good individual could become Lawful Neutral or Neutral Good. This alignment is real in all ways and you are affected by spells and aligned-weapons as if you were genuinely of that alignment.

For the duration of the power all abilities based on a specific alignment to which you differ are lost. Acts directly opposed to your pre-manifestation alignment performed within the duration of this power have consequences at its end. For example a paladin that performs evil acts while of another alignment will find they have become ex-paladins.

Augment: For 4 additional power points you may shift your alignment in one additional direction, and the duration increases by 1 hour.

[Earthstar_Fungus]

So when this power is used, do you roleplay as the new alignment?

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Originally Posted by Earthstar_Fungus

So when this power is used, do you roleplay as the new alignment?

Considering how you have manipulated your psyche into a completely different mindset, I would say so.

[Maglor_Grubb]

This is realy cool. It makes the characters able to RP! :P

[Inyssius Tor]

Nifty.
Reminds me of the ending to this book... what was it... Wishsong of Shannara.

Spoiler

One of the main characters needs to do this in order to steal the source of the villains' power, which has Good-destroying traps all around it. Unfortunately, when she arrives at the evil Source, she is still evil (and doesn't really feel like destroying it so much as taking and using it).

[Icewalker]

I like it. It'd be pretty funny when the random wanderer the adventurers meet who detects as neutral good suddenly stabs them all in their sleep. Hooray evil plots!

[fireinthedust]

what happens to outsiders that use the spell? Would a Planetar transform into, say, an inevitable or an eladrin (or the NG version of th eladrin... mousteval? something like that)?

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Originally Posted by Icewalker

I like it. It'd be pretty funny when the random wanderer the adventurers meet who detects as neutral good suddenly stabs them all in their sleep. Hooray evil plots!

He wouldn't be detected as neutral good, he would be neutral good, and therefore not likely to just stab them.

what happens to outsiders that use the spell? Would a Planetar transform into, say, an inevitable or an eladrin (or the NG version of th eladrin... mousteval? something like that)?

They wouldn't transform (go from whatever an angel is made of to metal?), but I suppose they would gain the subtype of their new mindset, though not actually physically change.

[Peregrine]

Originally Posted by The Vorpal Tribble

He wouldn't be detected as neutral good, he would be neutral good, and therefore not likely to just stab them.

Yes, but once it wears off...

I was thinking about it, and thinking about whether a character would actually be capable of using this for any sort of deception. Evil characters who become non-evil to infiltrate somewhere in order to carry out evil plans might decide to drop the idea and go to the pub instead.

On the bright side, if the character doesn't find themselves suddenly unwilling to follow through, there's little to no danger of not being able to carry out the final bit of the plan (like the stabbing in their sleep). While he's NG, he might be quite determined not to do it, but the power will run out eventually. I don't know if he'd be able to use it again to further alter his alignment, and keep that up for as long as possible (trying to avoid 'going back to what I was'), but it'd run out eventually...

Then again, he might realise he's going to revert, and run away while he still can. It's almost an invitation to a Jekyll and Hyde sort of problem.

(Although I'm now getting ideas about a character forcibly turned to a new alignment, or otherwise unhappy with the change but having trouble going back, using this power to give themselves temporary solace from their 'madness'.)

Edit: Oh, by the way...

Originally Posted by The Vorpal Tribble

Augment: For every power point you spend you may shift your alignment in one additional direction, and the duration increases by 1 hour.

How exactly do you mean 'one additional direction'? I'm guessing that you mean one more step in either direction (any of the four possible directions, really, although taking steps in more than two directions is wasting power points), but that's not what it says -- as it stands, it implies that you can normally shift one step in one direction, and augmented, you can shift your alignment one step in two directions (i.e. diagonally). The difference is subtle, but under the latter, you can't go to an outright opposing alignment, because the wording implies you get more direction, not 'distance', on the change.

So does it just mean 'one additional step'?

[NullAshton]

You could simply Geas yourself before casting that.

[Marius]

I don't know, Psions have few powers known to waste a 3rd level power on something like this.

[fireinthedust]

I could see it used by an infiltrator: go neutral, just enough to get into a Paladin-run city with guardian wards on the gate; then pop back and zap something.
Also useful if they find a sword or item that damages aligned creatures. the blood war could easily have fiends going lawful or chaotic just to steal artifacts.

A module with alignment change is the Rod of Seven Parts, that pulls a character to LN and disrupts various alignment abilities from class levels; however, that item's probably more powerful than a 3rd level spell; but if the DM ruled that this could get the Paladin back to being LG rather than LN, the party could still use his abilities on their way to getting Atonement cast on him. Same if the character is a Barbarian who holds the "big shiny stick".

probably a power that'd be researched mid-adventure, but it could come in handy.