This supplement clocks in at 44 pages, including 37 pages of content. The interactions between alignment and the rules of Pathfinder are quite possibly the most criticized portion of the rules. Still, removing it is a nontrivial process. It’s easy enough to just say that everyone counts as True Neutral for rules purposes, and to remove the things that no longer have a function (like Detect Evil and aligned weapons). But removing elements of the core rules is tricky, because those rules are referenced in supplements. For example, many monsters get Detect Good as a spell-like ability, and alignment-based damage reduction is common. Making ad-hoc revisions to half the monsters in every monster manual ever written for the system is not something most end users want to do. Hence, this supplement aims to give a comprehensive set of adjustments to the core rules which make it easy to remove alignment-related rules from future supplements. After a brief introduction, the first major section of this book summarizes the ways in which alignment interacts with the core game rules. It is a whopping nine page list of things that need to be addressed later in the book if the supplement is to achieve its stated mission. This section is largely stuff you already know, so it seems a bit like a waste of space. However, as a digital-only product, space is not exactly at a premium. The next section is the heart of the book. Every game element in the core rules and some in the Advanced Player’s Guide which depends on alignment is modified. Some are simply tweaked, while others are given replacements (e.g., Magic Circle of Protection from <alignment> is replaced by a new spell called Magic Circle of Protection, so any class/monster/item which uses or gets Magic Circle of Protection from Evil by the core rules is instead modified to use Magic Circle of Protection). Base classes, prestige classes, spells, damage reduction, and items are all modified. The author also gives four new cleric domains to replace the alignment domains if you want each of the gods to keep the same number of domains. The entire process is quite succinct and easy to generalize to supplementary content not covered in this book. Once you have separated alignment from the rules, you have three options. Firstly, you can continue to use alignment, just without it getting bogged down in the rules. Secondly, you can stop using alignment and just focus on roleplaying. Finally, you can introduce an alternate “alignment” system of in-game morality without having to worry about how it interacts with the game rules.
The final section of the book presents three alternate systems of alignment, which are all easy to implement because alignment has been removed from the game rules. None of them are particularly original, but they are there. There are color illustrations scattered throughout this supplement. Short Term Use: Editing and rules language are very clear. The formatting is somewhat jumbled, possibly to reduce the page count at the expense of readability (reduced page count shouldn’t be a high priority goal for a PDF-only product). There is no table of contents, nor does the PDF come with bookmarks. For a 44 page PDF, that’s a real hindrance in learning the system. Once you’ve been using these rules for a while, they fit naturally enough into the rest of the game that you likely won’t need to reference this PDF at the table very often, but when you are first learning it the lack of bookmarks can be a problem. The fact that every rule in this book is meant to apply for entire campaigns also means that it is less likely you will implement it immediately after getting the book. Thus, its Short Term Rating is a 2/5. Long Term Use: This supplement makes short and elegant changes to the core Pathfinder rules, and does so in a way which continues to fit with almost all future and current supplements. You can expect to be using this product for as long as you are playing Pathfinder, and with very little to complain about it. Death to Alignment therefore earns a perfect 5/5 Long Term Rating.