Remove or loosen alignment restrictions on most faction gear
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Currently a lot of faction gear has alignment restrictions. For example..
Hardened Greywatch Plate - AC+1, Bluff +2, Intimidate +2, 5% vs Pierc, Bludg, Slash, 80% weight, OUB: LN, LE, TN, NE
Now I get that most of the Greywatch is going to LE or one step within it, but the factions for the most part are soft in alignment and going to have the odd members whose alignment is not typical. For example the old Crimson guard was basically CN/G, but had LG and CE members at one point or another. So I suggest the most faction gear (bar the odd deity based special extra) have there alignment restrictions removed to make them open to more concepts.
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Wholeheartedly agree with this. Was also going to use the Crimsons as an example; I'm not sure how the playerbase felt in general about our previous slate of factions, but it must be said that they were able to have and maintain distinct identities while also being much looser on alignment, and (as far as I can remember) having many fewer alignment restrictions on gear, with some having basically none at all.
This has the advantage of allowing much greater player freedom, and making the prospect of DM factions as the dominant focus much less chafing to people who seek to create interesting concepts that fit in with this landscape. I can see having concerns that this would be detrimental to the factions' overall identities, but as many examples in the past have shown, this is the kind of thing that can be handled through RP rather than mechanics---mechanical restrictions/gates on alignment are unnecessary when, given how heavy this server is on roleplay, and how experienced the playerbase is with it on average, one can always reasonably expect that social/factional consequences will wind up effectively being mechanical consequences.
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My look 'behind the curtain' has led to me thinking that without these restrictions players tend to just wear whatever is the most mechanically viable, despite it being the skin of innocent dead bunnies, or made of paladin tongues. I would be more for loosening up on this sort of thing if we could all agree that certain loots should be considered anathema to a given character. Rival faiths is the most obvious.
I flip flop on this so hard.
Alignment restrictions make sense when you take into account the type of PC these factions are after. Why would they cater to someone who does not share their values? The Greywatch is after a certain kind of person, as was the Crimson Legion. The gear reflects the expectations of those people.
Which is why I would say our current variety of factions are less exclusive.
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@Lord_Acererak said in Remove or loosen alignment restrictions on most faction gear:
Alignment restrictions make sense when you take into account the type of PC these factions are after. Why would they cater to someone who does not share their values? The Greywatch is after a certain kind of person, as was the Crimson Legion. The gear reflects the expectations of those people.
:hundred_points:
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I think this speaks more towards a general unavailability of decent gear unless your character concept fits specific archetypes due to faction gear being heads and shoulders above the rest. But there's already another Suggestions thread for that (ahem).
Faction gear being restrictive is alright, although I wouldn't mind seeing some loosening of requirements (like a single alignment step).
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House of the Morning and Greywatch are strongly influenced by the religious outlook of the faction leadership.
- Aster is an order of Paladins with a smattering of crusader types and Fighters. It is LG with NG added on
- Greywatch is a group of ultra law minded people backed up by the religious zealousness of its faction leader, Nahlo. The other religions/heresies that have found some things to align with the faction about are all Lawful. A pc in the faction doing what the faction is all about will soon find themselves shifting from any good alignment and the ultra application of the law is not fitting with the free minded or randomness of those embracing a chaotic mindset. This is why the alignments are restricted to non chaotic and non good. Not faction appropriate. If you really MUST be in the faction but don't want to be evil and/or Lawful then pick TN and let things develop ICly.
- Ravens follow a ruthless man who will stop at nothing to get what he wants. Any good alignment person who cares about their fellows and values the life of another or things like mercy, compassion, generosity, altruism etc (Good aligned) will soon find themselves at odds with many of the people in Tilverton and what the goals of the faction are.
Tl;dr
Faction have restrictions to provide clear cut examples and a road map to success for players. One of the comments from the previous versions was that the factions seemed to lack a focus or easily identified flavour for players to develop concepts around.
Retired
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@Prof-Misclick said in Remove or loosen alignment restrictions on most faction gear:
Tl;dr
One of the comments from the previous versions was that the factions seemed to lack a focus or easily identified flavour for players to develop concepts around.
This.
> !!!MOLES for the MOLE GOD!!!
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Most of the alignment restrictions are there because players wore elf skin cloaks as chaotic good elves.
Amusing as it was, just no.
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Unless you've made Faction gear out of Elf Skin, that's not really an issue.
Infact, the only piece of faction gear that is made of the remains of a sentient creature, the Raven's Beak Dagger, is one of their few pieces of equipment that isn't alignment restricted.
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@Prof-Misclick said in Remove or loosen alignment restrictions on most faction gear:
Faction have restrictions to provide clear cut examples and a road map to success for players. One of the comments from the previous versions was that the factions seemed to lack a focus or easily identified flavour for players to develop concepts around.
This
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It does seem like in some cases that it's a bit of an overcorrection but I think the relaxation of what factions can wear helps immensely with this problem. Still, factions should automatically prune out the more problematic concepts, even if I think there's a place in them all for more oddball concepts than we might initially assume.
While I would indeed like to see some of the loot opened up a bit I think this will become less of a problem in the future as we come around to the idea of (and implementing) the normalization of loot levels cost to where factions currently stand.
The band aid solution for now is to put in faction loot that is less restrictive but with less power behind it. I think that's a good compromise.
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So there is no misunderstanding or expectations, faction loot will not have their restrictions relaxed. We are however looking forward to what the community come up with for non faction loot that can be added to quests and drops. So thanks in advance for help with that.
