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Archives of Nethys

Archives of Nethys

Pathfinder RPG (1st Edition) Pathfinder RPG (2nd Edition) Starfinder RPG

Rules Index | GM Screen | Player's Guide
Gamemastery Guide / Chapter 4: Variant Rules / Alignment Variants / Major Changes

Rules Adjustments

Source Gamemastery Guide pg. 185
Alignment restrictions no longer exist in either major variant. You can replace them with edicts and anathema, if necessary, and make the following other adjustments.

Aligned Damage

Source Gamemastery Guide pg. 185
If you’re using the no alignment variant, remove or replace aligned damage (chaotic, evil, good, and lawful damage), which requires significant adjustments for creatures like angels and devils that were built with a weakness to aligned damage. One option is to replace them one-for-one with new damage types like “radiant” and “shadow” that don’t have any moral assumptions. Another option is to simply change the damage type needed for creature weaknesses to some other damage type on a case-by-case basis. A third option is to remove the weaknesses, reduce the monsters’ maximum Hit Points, and call it good. No matter what you do with creatures, you’ll also have to replace abilities like the champion’s that deal aligned damage in a similar way, or remove those abilities.

If you’re using the moral intentions variant, you can replace chaotic, evil, good, and lawful damage with a single type of damage called aligned damage, which harms those with intentions directly opposed to those held by the character, as determined by you as GM.

Detection

Source Gamemastery Guide pg. 185
Alignment-detecting effects don’t exist. In the moral intentions variant, you might replace such an ability with one that detects whether a creature is following its own intentions, or to detect others with similar intentions to the creature using the ability.

Traits

Source Gamemastery Guide pg. 185
Alignment traits don’t exist, and anything that has those traits loses them. Effects that require the traits to function, like protection, don’t exist.