In 3e, an alignment oddity which vexed several of my players said that paladins of deities like Chauntea or Helm would lose their powers if they adopted the
same alignment as their deity, i.e. became NG or LN. I always thought this was an awful rule, personally -- either the designers should have barred paladins
from worshipping non-LG deities in the first place or else they should have said NG/LN characters with "lawful good tendencies" were fine as
paladins. This is a judgment call, I admit, but it just never made sense to me that alignment should serve as that kind of straitjacket.
I thought these kinds of problems were gone with the advent of a new ruleset, and the promise that alignment would henceforth be confined to story/fluff with little mechanical impact and no straitjacket effect. But then I read the writeup for the new avenger class in the PH2 and discovered that deities are happy to embrace avengers who don't care about either aspect of the deity's alignment, or who accept both parts of the deity's alignment, but won't accept avengers who partially follow the deity's alignment. This means that if you're a follower of Bahamut who doesn't care about helping others or preserving civilization, great, you can be an avenger of Bahamut -- but woe to you if that service makes you care so much for others that you become Good rather than unaligned, because the only alignments he will accept are LG and neutral (unaligned).
Which brings to mind a couple of questions. First, on the "crunch" side of things, is my understanding of the rule here correct? Can it really be true that if your LG avenger of Bahamut starts having doubts about Bahamut's moral outlook, you're barred from drifting away a bit and becoming Good yet it is perfectly OK to jettison his tenets completely and become unaligned, with the rationale that a certain amount of detachment and disillusionment helps one to be a better bounty hunter?
Second, on the "fluff" side of things, why would such a rule make sense? Doesn't the PH1 say that G and LG are universally recognized as being on the same team despite minor philosophical differences whereas nongood alignments aren't on that team? Or is there a richer rivalry than that between G and LG, with profound disagreements that I'm just not remembering at the moment?
My impression at this point is that the designers have fallen into the old trap of mistaking personality quirks like disillusionment and detachment for alignment, just as they used (in 3e) to mistake personality quirks like personal discipline (monk) or wanderlust (bard) for alignment. Am I wrong?
I thought these kinds of problems were gone with the advent of a new ruleset, and the promise that alignment would henceforth be confined to story/fluff with little mechanical impact and no straitjacket effect. But then I read the writeup for the new avenger class in the PH2 and discovered that deities are happy to embrace avengers who don't care about either aspect of the deity's alignment, or who accept both parts of the deity's alignment, but won't accept avengers who partially follow the deity's alignment. This means that if you're a follower of Bahamut who doesn't care about helping others or preserving civilization, great, you can be an avenger of Bahamut -- but woe to you if that service makes you care so much for others that you become Good rather than unaligned, because the only alignments he will accept are LG and neutral (unaligned).
Which brings to mind a couple of questions. First, on the "crunch" side of things, is my understanding of the rule here correct? Can it really be true that if your LG avenger of Bahamut starts having doubts about Bahamut's moral outlook, you're barred from drifting away a bit and becoming Good yet it is perfectly OK to jettison his tenets completely and become unaligned, with the rationale that a certain amount of detachment and disillusionment helps one to be a better bounty hunter?
Second, on the "fluff" side of things, why would such a rule make sense? Doesn't the PH1 say that G and LG are universally recognized as being on the same team despite minor philosophical differences whereas nongood alignments aren't on that team? Or is there a richer rivalry than that between G and LG, with profound disagreements that I'm just not remembering at the moment?
My impression at this point is that the designers have fallen into the old trap of mistaking personality quirks like disillusionment and detachment for alignment, just as they used (in 3e) to mistake personality quirks like personal discipline (monk) or wanderlust (bard) for alignment. Am I wrong?
