The Lawful, the Chaotic, and the Neutral:

Alignment Choice and Your Character

by Brennie

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While creating your character, you may already have an idea of his persona. Have you decided that he will be an upright, noble do-gooder; or a wild, maniacal crazy man?  To reflect your character's mentality, you will likely be choosing an alignment to match. From a roleplaying perspective, that part's easy enough. But if you're like me, you'll find yourself asking, “How does alignment choice affect my character from a gameplay standpoint?”

Alignment plays both a more and less important role in Dungeons and Dragons Online than it does in its pen and paper counterpart. It is less important in that alignment does not restrict the actions or personality of your character. You can say, do, act, and simply be anything you desire to, regardless of your chosen alignment. What your alignment does affect is your class and multiclass selections, and your access to special alignment-restricted weapons, armors, and items.

Here is a Pros and Cons list of each alignment available to players:

Lawful Good:

• May have levels in Paladin, but not Bard or Barbarian.
• May wield weapons with True Law or Pure Good enchantments.  This is important because most of the enemies you will face in DDO are of the Evil persuasion, and a majority of those are also Chaotic.  Thus, a weapon with a good enhancement and lawful enhancement will do extra damage to a significant number of enemies throughout the game.  Furthermore, the longsword “Retribution” is a lawful good weapon, and highly sought after.

Neutral Good:

• May have levels in Bard or Barbarian, but not Paladin.
• May wield weapons with Pure Good enhancements.  While Pure Good is widely considered the best enhancement for weapons, you're hedging out the possibilities of Pure Chaos or Pure Law weapons, while gaining access to both Axiomatic and Anarchic weapons.

Chaotic Good:

• May have levels in Bard or Barbarian, but not Paladin.
• May wield weapons with Pure Chaos and Pure Good enchantments, and wear Iron Manacles.  While not quite as useful as Lawful Good for damage (because there are less lawful enemies, but still a few), there are some nice chaotic only items.

Lawful Neutral:

• May not have level in Bard, Barbarian or Paladin.
• May wield weapons with True Law enchantments.  This leaves you without the ability to use Pure Good weapons, which is arguably the most useful enchantment a weapon can have.

True Neutral:

• May have levels in Bard or Barbarian, but not Paladin.
• May not wield Pure Good, True Law, or Pure Chaos weapons or items. But, to compensate, True Neutral may use Stability armors, robes, and shields (Adding +2 Armor Class and Saves).

Chaotic Neutral:

• May have levels in Bard or Barbarian, but not Paladin.
• May wield True Chaos weapons, and use Iron Manacles.

I feel that I should make a note here about the Use Magical Device (UMD) skill. UMD, if high enough, may be used to bypass alignment restrictions of good, lawful and chaotic items, but will not function on Stability items.

The following is a list of known weapon and armor enchantments effected by alignment:

True Law: +1d6 damage to True Neutral/Neutral Good/Neutral Evil and Chaotic creatures. Bypasses Damage Resist/lawful.  Only usable by lawful characters. Is subject to UMD.

Axiomatic: +2d6 damage to Chaotic creatures.  Bypasses Damage Resist/lawful.  Usable by Lawful or True Neutral/Neutral Good characters.  Is subject to UMD.

Pure Chaos: +1d6 damage to True Neutral/Neutral Good/Neutral Evil and Lawful creatures. Usable only by Chaotic characters.  Is subject to UMD.

Anarchic: +2d6 damage to Lawful creatures. Usable by True Neutral/Neutral Good and Chaotic characters.  Is subject to UMD.

Pure Good: +1d6 damage to True Neutral/Lawful Neutral/Chaotic Neutral and Evil creatures.  Usable only by Good characters. Is subject to UMD.

Holy: +2d6 damage to Evil creatures.  Usable by all characters. Is subject to UMD.

Pure Evil: +1d6 damage to Good creatures. Not usable by any characters (You must be evil, which is not a character option). Is subject to UMD.

Unholy: +2d6 damage to Neutral and Good creatures (I do not know if good creatures even exist). Usable by True Neutral/Lawful Neutral/Chaotic Neutral characters. Is subject to UMD.

Stability: +2 AC and +2 saves. Can be found on robes, shields, or armor. Wearable by any character, but only take effect for True Neutral characters.  Is not subject to UMD.

And lastly, 2 notable alignment specific items:

Retribution:  +1 Holy True Law longsword of Pure Good. Obtained from the Threnal quests.

Irons Manacles: +4 deflection bonus to AC.  Chaotic only.  Obtained from Delaras Tomb quests.

As you can see, choosing an alignment is not only a personal choice based on your ideas for your character's personality, but it can also affect the choices you're able to make later on. Choose wisely!

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