Bloodstorm Blade (or How to Throw a Mancatcher)

Every now and again you come across an ability that strikes fear into your heart as a DM. A lot of the most crippling combos in D&D are not obvious and require quite a bit of fanangling to pull off, but the very worst were somehow designed that way. When the guys over at WotC were writing Tome of Battle they apparently didn't feel like the whole book was powerful enough, so they included this little jewel of a prestige class. I won't bore you with all the details, but if you read the following ability and don't immediately seize up, you need to go re-read it until you do.

Thunderous Throw (Ex): Beginning at 2nd level, you build up incredible tension as you ready yourself to throw your weapon, which becomes visible around you like heat waves. When you release your weapon, that power rushes out with your weapon. As a swift action, you can choose to treat your ranged attack rolls with thrown weapons as melee attacks for the rest of your turn. You use your melee attack bonus, including Strength bonus, feats, and so forth, to determine your attack bonus for each attack as normal, but you apply the standard modifiers for range penalties. Attacking into melee, through cover, and so forth incurs the standard penalties. In addition, you can apply 1-1/2 your Strength bonus to damage if you wield the thrown weapon with two hands, and you can use Power Attack with your thrown weapon attacks (adding two times the number subtracted from attack rolls as a bonus on damage rolls when throwing a two-handed weapon).

Obvious benefits aside, this means that you can do anything with a thrown weapon that you can do with a melee weapon. Like, say:

• Trip
  
• Disarm
• Spring Attack
• Use Maneuvers
• Charge
• Grapple Them With a Mancatcher/Pincer Staff

That's right, folks. Mancatch from a distance. In a previous article I discussed the benefit of a 1st level spell by the name of Guided Shot, which eliminates range increment penalties. Can you imagine a perfect 50' Mancatcher throw that grapples your foe?

Alright, alright. I hear some of you going "That's insane!" but I hear others murmuring that it's not really that much more powerful than some other PrC abilities, which granted is true. The Bloodstorm Blade, however, isn't ready to give up just yet.

Blade Storm (Ex):At 10th level, you can hurl your weapon as a full-round action to make it seem as if you are attacking a dozen foes at once. You become the center of a storm of steel as your thrown weapon flies out to strike a foe, returns to ricochet harmlessly off you, then flies out to attack another foe. You can make a ranged attack with a thrown weapon at your highest attack bonus against as many targets as you wish. You can attack each target just once with this attack, calculating range and cover penalties from your position on the battlefield.

Holy crap, Michael! What is this, a per day ability?

When you use blade storm, you lose th use of one Iron Heart strike you have readied for the current encounter, just as if you had initiated the strike (except you do not also gain the strike's normal effect). Once you use this ability, you can recover the maneuver you expended and use it normally.

FACEPALM! So wait, WotC, you're saying that I can throw a single mancatcher at every living thing in 50' and grapple it too!? This is the sort of nonsense that caused a collective welcome sigh of relief from a large portion of the community when the far more structured 4th edition surfaced.

Can you think of funnier weapons for the Bloodstorm Blade to throw? I'm interested if you can!

Stormwind Disclaimer: The Future Looks Grim for Fools

Have you ever met a Halo Player that thought Sniper Rifles were bullshit, and that anybody who uses them is "bad" at the game? Whether or not you sympathize with this man (I do not), it seems like a good analogy at first when you move it over to D&D, doesn't it?

When Sn1perzR4Nubs hosts a game, he turns sniper rifles off. Most people never notice. Those who do notice find other ways to play the match. Everyone is happy. Does this prove that Sniper Rifles are overpowered or unfun? No. It only proves two points.

1. Halo is fun even without Sniper Rifles
2. Halo had the foresight to allow players to customize their gaming experience
   

Dungeons and Dragons is, in a lot of ways, similar to this aspect of Halo - there are a lot of tools at the disposal of players and DMs that some players don't like. Attempting to suggest that all aspects of Halo are balanced (Ever used a needler? They suck. No, stop protesting. They're awful. Just because you killed someone with them doesn't mean they don't suck.) is foolish, and the same connection holds true with Dungeons and Dragons (First player of mine to take Toughness will have to beware this blog's title). But the analogy breaks down here.

While Halo has some low double digit number of tools available to the player, Dungeons and Dragons has thousands and thousands of different character options available to its participants. While each DM has a rough idea of what he finds fun or acceptable, the options aren't a small drop down list on a single menu - they're a plethora of options contained in a multitude of publications. It is unlikely that your DM has read them all; impossible that he would remember them even if he had. I cannot express the importance of what I am about to tell you in keeping a campaign fun for everyone.

It is the player's responsibility to use these resources with respect and maturity and always keep in mind the DM's expectations when it comes to character creation.

It is not the DM's responsibility to ban every single feat, race, prestige class, or item that he doesn't want in his game. If the DM bans a way for you to achieve a certain effect, it is disrespectful to find another way. Your DM has banned it for a reason. It is not to piss you off. If it is, he is an asshole. I doubt he is an asshole. Well, he probably is an asshole - but probably not for this reason.

I say all of this for a very specific reason - there is a great amount of animosity in the gaming community over the rollplaying vs roleplaying debate. At the peak of this debate, Tempest Stormwind of the WotC boards very famously outlined the fallacy that the enjoyment and implementation of character optimization absolutely in no way hinders story, character development, or roleplaying. This is a fact - I myself enjoy character optimization, but often use my skills in this area to create mechanically a thematic idea of a character I have written in my head.

In many of the upcoming posts I will be displaying mechanically powerful or silly abilities. Many of them are not intended to ever see a real D&D field. My next entry will literally be about a man who can grapple every living being within 50 of him with a single, medium sized Mancatcher simultaneously. If you play this build, you are not playing D&D in good faith.

This blog is not a tool for you to ruin your DM's next campaign by reverse engineering a psionic lion's charge-ing half-ogre who is leap attacking with his monkey gripped sugliins on the back of a magebred dire swan. This is your only warning.

Also, Sniper Rifles are part of the game. Learn to play Halo! :)

Five Weapons You'll Wish You Knew About Earlier

If you don't look at your splatbooks you are wasting the Exotic Weapon Proficiency feat. The Siangham just isn't cutting it for me, and soon it won't for you either.

1. Harpoon - 1d10 (20/x2), 30' Range Increment (Storm p.107) - If a Harpoon deals damage, it becomes lodged in the target (Reflex Negates, DC = 10 + damage). While lodged, the target is at ½ movement & cannot run or charge. The thrower holding the Harpoon’s 30’ rope can keep the target from getting away by making an Opposed Strength check. Removing the Harpoon requires two hands & a Full Round Action and deals the damage again unless a Heal check vs. DC 15 is made.
2. Pincer Staff - 1d10 (20/x2), Reach (Underdark p.64) - Similar to the Mancatcher from Complete Warrior, except it does 1d10 lethal instead of 1d4 subdual. You can grapple with it from 10' away, and not be grappled yourself. Is this not stupidly good? Combine with Bloodstorm Blade for complete nonsensical fun (Note: I will write an article about this later this week).
3. Sugliin - 2d8 (20/x2), Reach (Frost p.76) - Attacking with the Sugliin requires a full-round action unless you take another feat, but this weapon seriously deals 2d8. On top of that, it's a stick with a bunch of antlers on it.
4. Net - No Damage, Touch Attack, 10' Range Increment (PHB p.117) - Ok, so this weapon doesn't deal any damage, but with a simple ranged touch attack you entangle an enemy and can force them to stay within 10' of you. An entangled foe can't charge, takes a -4 to dexterity, -2 to attacks, and moves at half speed. And, as a ranged touch attack, you can probably just skip the exotic weapon feat anyways.
5. Exploding Crossbow Bolts (DR348 p.87) - This ammo requires an exotic weapon proficiency, and must be fired from a heavy crossbow. It has 75% of the normal crossbow range, but when it strikes a target it EXPLODES and deals 2d12 damage to the target and all adjacent enemies (DC 20 for the target, 15 for adjacent enemies).

Not all of these weapons are balanced, and I don't give out promises that your DM will allow them. But they're good for a laugh or for teaching your DM that just because WotC published it, doesn't make it fair, balanced, or even sane. (Exploding Crossbow Bolts!?)

What are some of your favorite totally ridiculous Exotic Weapons? (real, or homebrew?)

Scoundrelous Moves: The Jump Skill

WotC's Complete Scoundrel focused heavily on the skills a scoundrel uses to get what he wants, and by and large it was a Complete Warrior for skill monkeys. Far too often, however, players forget that even without the variety of skill tricks introduced in the book, skills are an incredibly useful tool in combat as long as you use a little ingenuity in their application.

(Note: Pathfinder did us the favor of jamming together several 3.x skills into a smaller list. The relative skill for you here is "Acrobatics", but today we'll primarily be focusing on the jumping aspect of that skill.)

Jumping has obvious benefits, such as not falling into a pool of lava or clearing that horrific thousand-foot drop into a pit of advanced dire ropers. This requires no imagination, and is not the sort of benefit you need to imagine when picking your skills. That sort of obstacle is easily cleared by anyone in the group having the required skill, a piton, and a rope.

Imagine the following scenario, however. It's still an easy one, but just walk with me and we'll get where we're going.

Imagine for a second that all that green muck is rough terrain. Your friend is at -6 HP and the enemy is nearly dead, but unless you can take him out he's all set up to coup de grace your ally. Now it doesn't take much of an imagination to create a solution here, but it bears mentioning that if you try to move through the muck to your friend you can reach him with clever use of diagonals and end up right at 30 feet of movement used. You could heal him, but he would still be the enemy's primary target.

You could, on the other hand, take a quick step back and make a simple DC 20 jump check and completely clear all of the difficult terrain, landing next to your foe with a standard action to spare. As the rules state that horizontal movement via a jump still counts as regular movement, you can't jump further than your movement speed in any one round, but you can avoid all of the hassles that walking creatures are faced with. If this isn't starting to form new ideas in your head, let me help.

High-Flying Acrobatics

Did you know that you can tumble while jumping? Yes sir! You could tumble while leaping between two boats with an angry Kraken in the middle threatening all those scary squares in between. Similarly, you could tumble in the air from the bank of a river to land in the center of a group of enemies without being subject to the crippling movement and difficulty penalties that come with tumbling through difficult terrain.

The vertical distance traveled while horizontally jumping does not count towards your total. If you can muster up large jump check totals, you can literally jump so high above your enemy that you effectively move through their square without provoking. A check result of 40 is sufficient to totally clear the square above an opponent, much to their certain dismay.

Combat Jumping for Maximum Frustration

CharOp Math Time!: 7th Level Character - 10 ranks + 5 Strength + 9 Item. With minimal effort (some boots of striding and springing) you have an average result of 34. Combined with a 1st level potion (Jump) you've now got an average result of 44.

A spring attacker that can muster jump checks like this should keep in mind that for every 10 feet your speed is above 30, you get a +4 to jump checks. A spring attacking barbarian with boots of striding and springing would more likely have an average jump check of around 50 at that level. In an urban environment, he could literally leap off of a building, hit someone with a power attack, and then SPRING back up onto another building!

Pathfinder monks, who receive a class bonus to jump checks, can spend ki points to gain a +20 to jump, and speed increases, could be quite nightmarish. Imagine for a second a battle over a river where a monk could hit you and then leap over the river, forcing you to cross over the bridge or wade through the water over and over until you gave up.

The Ballsy Jump

Having a high jump check opens up a few more courageous maneuvers, primarily aimed at casters who think they're the only ones who can fly. I recall a situation where a psion was suspended over a rushing rapid, and I thoughtlessly jumped 25 feet over the raging waters to grapple her, suspending both of us above the waters and subsequently making her absurdly easy prey.

Some feats to make jumping more fun:

• Battle Jump - Think "Dragoon" from the FF series, and land for double damage with a leap from above.
• Vault - If you're into actually wielding a lance or spear for the Dragoon flavor, this feat will make jumping over even huge enemies a much easier task.
• Leap Attack - This is actually one of the foundations of the ubercharger. Since Battle Jump makes the maneuver a charge, combining these two feats can actually create absolutely bone-shattering damage totals.

Conclusion

Many other uses of jump are up to the situation and the DM. Your DM might let you, in a narrow alleyway, jump from wall to wall for some sweet ninja climbing. Or perhaps you could swing from a chandelier. Tell me rockers, got any good jumping stories?

Google Fu Proves that Players Listen, Too.

Has anyone ever noticed that the vast majority of content on these blogs, pretty much through and through, is one DM to another? I've come across some evidence that suggests that a sizable portion of our audience is, in fact, regular old players. Don't believe me? Let's do a little experiment.

First, google "Rocks Fall Everyone Dies". 6th hit.

Next, google "Rocks Fall Everyone Dies DM Tools" Pretty good. I can hear all of you saying, "But Michael, that search result doesn't support your theory at all."

Next, google "D&D Novacaster". Rocks Fall is the ONLY result. If you google Novacaster, you'll learn that Novacaster is a website database framework. You'll also notice that Rocks Fall is the only hit for the novacaster in a D&D related fashion pretty much anywhere on google. If you seperate the search term to "nova caster" you'll still be hard pressed to find another D&D related hit.

But what does this prove, you ask? It proves that with the collapse of the giant framework of D&D articles on the gleemax boards, there is a giant lack of organized content available on google for players. There is a vortex of people searching for things like nova casters - something that we have had several hits for according to my google analytics - they pretty much stumble onto my article for DMs on how to beat down nova casters. Ouch.

Spenser and I have an interesting relationship in the D&D department because our relationship largely consists of me creating horrifying characters that forced him to improve his technical DMing skills, and then him smugly destroying a character of mine forcing me to improve my character building skills. In the mix, we discovered slowly how to gain the real enjoyment from this wonderful game. I would be lying, however, if I said the majority of my experience in this came on the DM side of the screen.

Spenser is the undisputed King of DMs, and I seek to contend with him no longer. From now on, most of my articles will be aimed at players and how they can improve their characters, from a mechanical and creative standpoint. I think the audience is there, but we'll just have to see. This is a far more comfortable arena for me to write in, so I figure this way you guys could get more articles. Between my new articles and the articles I plan to occasionally write for DMs, I can roughly promise a new article every day.

How 'bout them apples.

Sunday Hooks - Dealing With Debt Edition

"'I'll give you this much,' Mr. Reggie said, and pushed a folded sheet of paper across his desk to Sheridan. 'You might get along with this guy. He calls himself Mr. Wizard, but he's a shitbag just like you. Now get out of here. I'm gonna have you back in here in a week, though, and I'll have your markers on this desk. You either buy them back or I'm going to have my friends tool up on you.'"
--Stephen King, "Popsy"

• The PCs are in debt. A new tax law was retroactively put in place by the government while they were on an expedition and, as prominent adventurers, their wealth is a well-known fact. When they return to town, they find that any permanent residence they once held has been auctioned off along with all the possessions they didn't carry out of town with them. Ironically, when they have no where else to turn to scrounge up the money to pay off their debt, the city's illicit underworld opens up to them, offering to replace their stolen possessions and high-paying jobs if only they'll bend (or break) their morals.
• The PCs' recent exploits have pissed off a major crime boss, and he's not the kind of guy who lets things go. Many people throughout the PC's city owe him a favor, and sometime much more than that, and he's got them all gunning for the PCs. The stupid and inexperienced ones attack immediately, and are most likely laid low by the PCs, but soon experienced assassins are on their trail. The only hope for the PCs is that each assassin wants to be the one the make the kill, and thus have reason to attack each other as well as the PCs. Can they escape the crossfire alive?
• It is a poorly kept secret that those who fail to pay off their debts to Mr. Wizard's Gambling Hall often go missing soon afterward, though few know where they end up, and the general assumption is that they are killed and thrown in the river. This is not that case. The luck ones are drugged and shipped to slave colonies in foreign lands. The unlucky, those who are in some way unfit for grueling manual labor, are subject to Mr. Wizard's eldritch experiments. Those who are foolish enough to dig deeper into the disappearances may hear hushed rumors of amalgamations of cogs, fungi, and flesh strapped to examination tables.

What Night of the Werewolf Taught Me About Intrigue

Recently I participated in CivFanatics.com forum's Night of the Werewolf XXXI, a variant of the popular Mafia party game. In this variant, the players were members of a secret council devoted to an evil religion, each of us belonging to a secret sub-faction vying for power. Needless to say, things got lethal fast.

Despite having a good run, I was killed evening five, and immediately put my DM mind to work figuring out how to recreate the sense of paranoia and intrigue inherent in Mafia games in a game of D&D. After all, paranoia is its own adventure hook; if the players pick out their own enemies, targets, and goals, the DM doesn't have to do it for them. And that's a good thing.

Here are my ideas on how to create an atmosphere of paranoia:

• Give each PC his or her own secret goal
  And don't necessarily make all of them complementary to each other. This gives each PC a reason to question each others' motives as well as keep certain facts to themselves if it furthers their own ends.
• Give the PCs no clear-cut allies
  Sure, there will be NPCs who help them, but they each have their own motives, just like the PCs, and it's clear that they'd turn on the PCs in an instant if it got them closer to their goal.
• Force the PCs to depend on each other and the NPCs
  Despite their mistrust, the PCs, for whatever reason, must work alongside each other and the other NPCs to achieve their goals. As powerful, dangerous individuals, the PCs do have to have a strong reason not to just kill everyone and be done with it.
• There are the bad guys, and then their are the bad guys
  In this midst of this mess of paranoia and deception, there's an individual (or group) who's even worse than the rest, and is probably slowly killing off everyone else. Obviously, they must be stopped if the PCs are to reach their goals.
• Remember to have something for the meatshields to do
  Keep in mind that, except in rare cases, not everyone in the party will have the skills to participate fully in the lies and deceptions of an intrigue-based adventure. Make sure their are ample skulls to bash for those in the party who only get to fully participate in combat.

Do the DMs among you have any other tips for successfully adding an element of intrigue to your games? And players, any memorable cloak and dagger operations you care to recount?

Races of Ralsenna: Crystalkind

Crystalkind

Crystalkind were once members of the other races, but are now something different. They have been exposed to livecrystal, the psionically-charged crystalline structure that gives the crystalkind their unique appearance and often drives them slightly mad. Whatever qualities a crystalkind has from its birth race, they all share two qualities: A penetrating loneliness born of alienation from their community, and undeniable psionic strength.

Personality: Crystalkind are often isolative and secretive, even from others of their kind. Because they are used to being seen as outsiders, they often hold others at arm’s length, not showing hostility or rudeness but neither being very friendly. Usually it requires a very amiable person to pierce this barrier, and over time it is possible to gain a crystalkind’s trust. Even under ideal circumstances crystalkind can be somewhat eccentric, a side effect of the psionic charge held in their crystals.

Physical Description: Crystalkind are physically identical to members of their race of origin with one exception: The sharp crystals that sprout from the crystalkind’s body. The crystals cover most of the crystalkind’s forearms and shoulders, and often cover parts of the creature’s back, chest, and face. Most of these crystals form a relatively thin crust over the creature’s body, but the growths on the arms and shoulders have a tendency to jut four to six inches from the crystalkind’s flesh. These crystal growths sometimes glow, especially when the crystalkind is experiencing strong emotions, though not enough to provide any significant illumination.

Alignment: Crystalkind have the same alignment tendencies as their race of origin, though show a slight preference toward chaotic alignments, a tendency that is even more prominent in crystalkind who take up adventuring.

Religion: While many crystalkind maintain a personal reverence for whatever religion they paid homage to before their transformation the majority join the Disciples of the Shattered Stone, a generally peaceful faith with many sects who all pay homage to the will of the livecrystal itself.

Language: Crystalkind speak the languages of their race of origin and often learn Terran and Undercommon so they can more easily navigate the subterranean world.

Names: Crystalkind generally have whatever name was given them before they became a crystalkind, although they sometimes choose new names to demonstrate the significance of the change they’ve undergone.

Chosen Names: Darkstone, Glowbeard, Rockskin, Sapphire, Shardface, Shatter.

Adventurers: Crystalkind often find themselves adventuring as they feel less welcome at home and grow less stable, they often take mercenary work and other dangerous occupations. Sometimes a crystalkind can actually regain the favor of their community by defending it with their newfound power.

Crystalkind Racial Traits

Sidebar: Why the 6 Int Minimum?

Because the livecrystals sustain themselves by feeding on the psychic energies of their host, they require a certain level of cognizance before they can grow.

Should the host's Intelligence drop below 6, the crystals grow brittle and break up over the course of 2d4 weeks, during which time the host still has a chance to raise its Intelligence and revitalize the crystals.

• Template: “Crystalkind” is a template that may be applied to any of the living base races. The base creature must have an Intelligence score of 6 or greater. The base race retains all its normal traits and gain those listed below.
• –2 Dexterity: The crystalline growths that sprout from the crystalkind’s body slow its movements and reaction time.
• Crystal Body: The crystalkind’s natural bonus to armor class improves by +2. However, the crystalkind also gains sonic vulnerability.
• Naturally Psionic: The crystalkind receives 1 power point, plus an additional 1 power point for every 5 hit dice it has (this is in addition to power points the crystalkind may have gained through class levels). The crystalkind also gains knowledge of the crystal shard power. Its manifester level for this power equals its hit dice.
• Jagged Shards: A ridge of shard crystalline shards grows from the crystalkind’s forearms. These shards can be used as natural weapons that deal 1d6 slashing damage (1d4 slashing damage for Small characters) with a ×3 critical modifier. If the crystalkind successfully damages a target that has an Intelligence score of 6 or greater with this attack, the target also gains the crystalkind traits over the course of the next 2d4 weeks unless it makes a successful Fortitude save (DC 10 + half the crystalkind’s character level + the crystalkind’s Int modifier).

5 Music Videos That Could Be Campaign Settings

Everyone once in a while I like to challenge myself to come up with interesting and cohesive game material based on seemingly random sources of inspiration. Previous examples of this include most prominently my Sunday Hooks, but the root of much of my gaming inspiration is just observing the things around me and reinterpreting it as game material. In this vein, I was watching some music videos on YouTube earlier this week and thought man, this would make a baller campaign setting. And voilà, this post was born; below, I have five music videos for your viewing pleasure (I hope), and accompanying each is a campaign setting seed. Let's jump right in:

1) Be Your Own Pet - Adventure

Setting Seed: There is no peace between the races. Humans dominate the material plane, and hunting the "lesser" races for sport (and, in the more savage parts of the world, food) is relatively commonplace. Kindly nobles drink from dwarf-skull goblets, and women spend exorbitant sums on supple elf-skin boots and bodices. In this world, non-humans live like animals, fleeing the advance of man.

2) Beck - E-Pro

Setting Seed: The material plane is long gone, destroyed by some forgotten power. The remains of civilization roam the abstract planes, their minds never completely capable of comprehending the strange geometries and consciousnesses that seep around and often through them. Still, they live on, carving out areas of cognizant stability from the vast chaos of the planes.

3) Gorillaz - Feel Good Inc.

Setting Seed: The surface world is a rotten, industrialized carcass, a ghost of its long-gone pristine beauty. The rich live in hedonistic pleasure palaces at the tops of towers that reach past the clouds, filling themselves with the food and drink and material goods still produced by their slave legions below. The only true beauty, however, remains in chunks of clean earth rent from the surface long ago by mages, who hold them aloft still, keeping them from the corruption below.

4) Black Eyed Peas - Meet Me Halfway

Setting Seed: There are many worlds, and the races have spread themselves thin across them. The power inherent in the world is always present as well, and it is a strange day when one doesn't encounter natural magic, though this throws an eldritch veil one's path as well, and once a step forward is taken, it is difficult to take it back. It is a lonely life, but one is showered in constant ephemeral beauty.

5) Eurythmics - Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)

Setting Seed: A powerful guild of oneiromancers have gathered and combined their magics to divine the every want and need of the populace. They outclass every other guild quickly, and amass such a wealth so suddenly that they are able to oust the kings and lords that rule their consumers. Once this is accomplished, they put a stranglehold on the population by sending fatal nightmares to dissenters and reading every secret desire of their dream-slaves. Only the barbarous fringe of civilization has not yet succumbed to this control.

Alright, that was fun, right? Well, here's the real challenge: Use all five to come up with a cohesive setting seed. This challenge I give to you DMs out there, but here's mine: The oneiromancers still control much of the population through their dream-reading, they have captured many of the numerous worlds. In addition, they've nearly eradicated the other, stronger-willed races in brutal genocide. Most of those who are still free wander alone, seeking out others to spend their meager existence with. The few places where the free dare to gather are usually no better than the dream kingdom, as powerful autocrats rule from their sequestered thrones, living in disgusting hedonism. Those with magical talent often even tune into the distant wavelengths of the dream kingdom, escaping their blasé existence by terrorizing the helpless dream slaves. The universe is a terrifying place where the free rarely remain so for long.

Anyone else want to take a crack at it? Feel free to choose your own videos to base you setting seed on.

Three Tier Alignment

I was reading an article over at Dungeon Mastering, where the question of whether your character's actual alignment is how she acts or what she thinks she is. The author, Krystal, answers that it's how your character acts, and within the context of a normal game, I tend to agree. However, it got me thinking about D&D alignments in a new way.

Three Tier Alignment

The idea behind three tier alignment is that a character doesn't have a single solid alignment that the player can confidently point to. Alignment is a murky matter that a player has to think about when he or she acts in-game. The three tiers are as follows:

1. Perceived by Self: The player decides this based on the character. This is only a representation of how the player thinks his or her character is acting, and is not the character's alignment for the purposes of spells and abilities.
2. Perceived by Others: This is how NPCs think of the PC, as decided by the DM. This can be influenced by other NPCs or the PC's own actions, and the player should only be made aware of this alignment with a successful Gather Information (Diplomacy in Pathfinder) check to discover what people are thinking. This alignment informs how new NPCs see the PCs. Like first tier, this is not the PC's true alignment for spells and abilities.
3. Actual: This alignment is decided by the DM based on the PC's actions, and is only magically discernible. For the purposes of spells and abilities, this is the alignment you use.

While much more complicated, this system is much more dynamic and forces the PCs to think about their actions and how they may impact both their second and third tier alignments.

Has anyone used an alternate alignment system? How did it work out?