Lawful Rogues Anyone?

Absolutely agreed. There's no reason the Rogue class should have lawlessness as a prerequisite.

While I'm at it, I've never thought that the alignment restrictions on Barbarian and Bard were necessary.

on topic: The rogue class has no alignment restriction.

Off topic, Barbarians represent a primitive culture based on might is right, they do what they want, it makes sense to me, bards doesn't make sense to me.

Lawful rogues are quite possible as many other people posted.

I won't claim to understand why bards are required to be nonlawful. A bard singing praise for lords and lawful gods and generally being an upstanding citizen seems a completly valid concept to me.

Barbarians mostly stems from the class simply being missnamed in my opinion. Much like the rogue, when you get down to it, the barbarian, as pretty much all non-magic classes, is nothing but a skill set. It's just that they for some weird reason decided to label it a barbarian and attach fluff to it - yet other fluff is just as valid for the class' mechanics - for example, you could have a religious fanatic who flies into a frenzy facing the 'infidels'. Sounds like a case for barbarian levels to me, and could very well be lawful.

... or of course, even sticking with the flavour, you could have a honorable Barbarian who values the traditions and ways of his culture above everything else, always obeys his elders, et cetera.

Mind you, I think none of the alignment restrictions for classes that are not divine spellcasters make any sense. Why do monks have to be lawful? All explanations for that that I ever heard only made me wonder why the same doesn't apply to wizards, psions and all the other mentally disciplined spellcasters.

Monks are lawful strictly for the same reason that a barbarian is unlawful - this particular class is both a skillset *and* a lifestyle, since in the class description it is clearly defined that monks gain their "monky" (heh) abilities from rigorous training, meditation, and regulation of their minds and bodies. I personally believe this last one - the learning to regulate their thoughts (put aside worldly desires, focus on maintaining an internal "balance", etc) as well as their bodies is what truly requires a monk to be lawful. Basically, I think the monk class is WotC's way of letting you know that a non-lawful character could never endure the training and learning that a monk must go through.

Also, I think in many cases the alignment restrictions on classes come from the original stereotypes that the class is based on. The barbarian class, for instance is based on your typical nomadic "wildman"-like warrior who bears a disdain for "civilization" and favors superstition to factual knowledge. (not saying all barbarians should be this, just pointing out the stereotype that the class's abilities and description support as the idea that spawned it). For a monk, if you look at DnD monks through the ages they have always been portrayed very much like the real Buddhist monks that we have outside the game. Buddhist monks are - in my opinion - likely the very definition of lawful. They live lives of spirituality, obeying strictly the rules and laws of Buddhism even to the point of forsaking worldly desires and objects for the sake of spiritual enlightenment.

Also, don't forget that some of the alignment restrictions are there to prevent certain classes from mixing to a point. After all, a bardic monk would be pretty sick.

Anyway, just my two cents.

Yes, that is my job description exactly! Setting traps in mines! That's why I've been so busy lately and unable to play. So many mines to trap.

Lawful does not imply an adherance to every law, but to a code the character accepts and abides by. If the Lawful character is faced with two sets of laws, he remains true to his own. A paladin in Thay, for example, might still abhor the practice of slavery, which is a legal and socially acceptable practice in Thay.

Darth Vader was a lawful character.
Don Corleone was a lawful character.

Both adhered to a very strict code which tolerated no infractions of the code either from subordinates or themselves

Chaotic does not imply a disdain for every law, but for those laws the chaotic character does not like. The chaotic character places his own desires or opinions above any documented list of rules created by another. A meticulously neat and disciplined rogue, for example, may freely pilfer the pockets of others while looking with disdain upon those who engage in debauchery.

The Gray Mouser was a chaotic character.
Drizzt was a chaotic character.

While both were extremely disciplined, they placed their own codes ahead of that of their societies, and were willing to change the code when it suited them.

Lawful implies conformity, but not necessarily to every local law. A slaver in Cormyr can be a lawful character who lives under a set of laws which was never instituted in Cormyr.

Chaotic implies free-will, but not necessarily unpredictable or random behavior. A noble in Cormyr can be a chaotic character who places his own or his family's benefit ahead of that of his liege.

With this understanding of my opinion as a starting place, we can extrapolate. Rogues can run the gamut of alignments, from Don Corleone to Mouser. A Lawful Good rogue might be a military scout, a chaotic evil one a mugger in the nearby city.

As has been stated, the Barbarian is the epitome of chaotic. He may be entirely disciplined in his actions, working out and practicing his swordsmanship every day, but his motive for doing so is for his own personal wealth, power, and glory. (At best he's working towards the wealth, power, and glory of his tribe over any other folk.)

The Bard is another example of chaotic. How many of you are creative? I know a few. Does any of you who are creative perform the act of creation in collusion with others? Even a guitarist in a band plays many many hours alone before he begins to rehearse with his group. The act of creativity is a solo affair, and very often artists of any sort spend a great deal of time isolated, working out their own vision.

In essence, a Lawful character follows the code of his group, and tends to place the group's will and identity ahead of his own, while a Chaotic character follows his own muse wherever it leads him no matter what folks around him think.

A monk accepts the teachings of his order above his own observations and conclusions. If his teachings and observations conflict it's because he failed to properly observe or he failed to understand the lesson.

The Bard places his own observations and conclusions above any teachings. If his observbations and teachings conflict, it's because the teachings failed to include this exception to the rules.

In 3.5e they opened up the Perform skill so it can be taken cross-class by all classes and is no longer a restricted class, so all classes should be able to take ranks in Perform as of 3.5e.

The barbarian's rage isn't just "exhaustingly making himself stronger and tougher while sacrificing defense," it's a red emotional rage that drives the barbarian to feats of strength and will he wouldn't be able to accomplish if he were thinking clearly. His AC is diminished because he's reckless. He suffers penalties after the rage ends because he's exhausted from the exertion of the rage.

You can say that kind of thing is something that's learned but it's not something that's studied, and it's certainly not a discipline, it's the barbarian letting go of his anger, letting it loose to fuel and guide him.

A non-lawful person can fight unarmed and run fast. That person just isn't a monk. Improved Unarmed Strike is a feat that anyone can take. As for running fast, anyone can sprint on occasion, and in fact as far as that goes, barbarians get barbarian fast movement as well.

Personally, I hate the "monk-as-martial artist" class. I prefer the Western European scholar-monks. That is my mental image of a monk. They don't fight so much as they know about things.

I think the Western European monk is best represented by the Archivist class presented in Heroes of Horror. (It's a 20-level divine spellcaster class that learns spells similarly to a wizard and has a few buffing abilities like a bard to simulate calling out the weaknesses of recognized monsters.)

I'd prefer if the eastern-flavored monk class were renamed something like "the martial disciple" or something, but I still think the lawful restriction fits the class.

... lawful people can't get really, really angry?

I'm sorry, but that's just plain wrong. Quite the opposite, I'd say lawful people are actually more prone to get really mad at you. Just go badmouth something they believe in with all their lawfulness if you don't believe me.

The fanatic that furiously beats those opposing the system he supports into a pulp sure sounds like he's both lawful and raging to me.

On a side note, Barbazu's got rage, and they're lawful outsiders. They're right there in the very first Monster Manual, too, not in some obscure splatbook. So, if a lawful outsider can rage, why can't a lawful mortal?

On a sidenote, I wished the Archivist was in NWN. It'd be perfect for Brannon, much better then wizard/cleric.

This is probably the best redneck reasoning I've ever read on the forums, at trying to explain something

I have little choice but to concede to the POWER OF ROCK.

That said, though, I think that about "assassination is always evil" is a bit debatable. Certainly, killing people for money and no reason but that is evil, but unless we want to say "killing people in a D&D world is always evil," or in other words, "almost all PCs are evil," I don't see a reason why the assassin's skill set is in itself evil.

Skill at using poison and the ability to cause paralysis or instant death with a single blow doesn't mean you're going to go out of your way to cause unnecessary suffering each and every time you use them to kill someone, does it?

hmm yup!

And I'm with Munroe on this one myself *jumps on him to hug*

Command Undead with Smite Evil has nothing at all to do with singleclass barbarians. One is a minor reflavouring of a class whose only ability that has anything to do with being uncivilized at all is the fact that it gets Survival as a class skill. The other is randomly combining stuff, and wether it makes any sense or not has nothing to do with wether Barbarian alignment restrictions make sense.

Seriously, the barbarian class is a skillset, just like fighter, rogues and pretty much all other classes that don't have magic (and some that do) - the skill set in this case being 'tough warrior who ticks out and kills people'. It has not a single ability that is related to living in the wild and opposing civilization aside from a single class skill which is completely optional to take.

A martial class is first and foremost a metagame concept. To the characters, a fighter, a rogue and a barbarian are all 'guys who beat stuff up with a weapon one way or another'. Attaching any inherent flavour to a class whose abilities boil down to 'beat up stuff' is the mistake here.

If a player came up to you as a pen and paper DM with a character concept that would be perfectly represented by the barbarian class's mechanics, but he is not a Connan-wanna-be, would you tell him to pick another class? What if later, he comes back with his homebrewed 'Berserker' class whose only difference from the barbarian is that it has a different flavour text that boils down to 'warrior that flips out and kills people'?

Seriously, reflavoring a class is not a bad thing. Does someone here really want to tell me his immersion is ruined if another player uses the barbarian class to represent his warrior who gets really mad in battle?