How would this effect the ending? Just be the same as ULE, be less good? Change ULE to be less good and make this the ultimate good ending?

It could go either way. It could just serve as an alternative to the Crown/Medal, just giving the usual score/ending you'd get as a Paragon and an Ultra winner. Or, it could serve as an alternative to the Chaos God Ending, a purely Lawful variant.

It was difficult to achieve True Strength in 1.1 due to having to prevent every single lawful creature from dying.
Post-Resurrection, the only slightly hard part is to find AOLS for Khelavaster (and even that can be easily guaranteed by starting on a certain date), so it is much, much easier than getting an Ultra.

If you start chaotic, can't you get the crown of chaos without performing any chaotic acts? Platinum girdle could then be a replacement for just the medal of chaos, and getting the girdle is surely a greater challenge than finishing Gaab'Baay's quests.

Presumably this still requires the ToTRR to be acquired, yes?

Grond

I'm uncertain as to the specifics - Gaab'baay's quests, I'm fairly certain, are chaotic themselves, at least the final one is. The ratlings quests, I believe, follow the same trend - though I could be wrong on that. Regardless, that would mean only initially-chaotic races could Paragon, which wouldn't be ideal.

JellySlayer

Absolutely, the TotRR should be mandatory for any ultra-like ideas.

Giving the ratling an artifact isn't a chaotic act. Given that there was reportedly an ultra/paragon run that involved luring Gaab'Baay to D:48, I would assume that giving all 6 artifacts isn't chaotic either. All races would be able to complete paragon if they start as chaos knight.

Summoning the Medal of Chaos is indeed a chaotic act in and of itself. That's why Gaab'Baay had to be lured to D:48 (during Darren Grey's run) - you have to get True Strength prior to summoning the Medal. (And afterwards, you can't actually wear True Strength or it will crush you to death)

I personally think having True Strength as a lawful alternative to the Trinity is just fine. Getting to D:50 without committing a single chaotic act is at least as difficult as feeding the ratling, fighting the dragon, and doing the crone's quests. As others have pointed out, you'd still have to do the blue dragon caves and the scintillating cave to get the TotRR, which is hard in and of itself.

Perhaps allow just having True Strength and nothing else and killing Andor Drakon be a vanilla "lawful end" comparable to the vanilla Chaos God (i.e, just the Trinity) end? I really like the idea of a paragon of order lawful ultra, though. The idea of your moral purity combined with the power of True Strength letting you pass the denizens of chaos unharmed ("they recoil in terror from the power radiating from the girdle!" or something) is very appealing, thematically.

I think this is a pretty cool idea.

That's what I was thinking as well. In addition to the inability for a truly lawful character to do an ultra, considering you have to start chaotic, and commit chaotic acts, I felt it was an appealing idea to have some alternative - and while it can be argued that it might remove some of the difficulty of an ultra, it would also lock out any chaotic quests, adding a touch of challenge. In addition, the hardest part of an ultra is the Trident, the Crown and Medal, while a bit of a lengthy process, are a decent amount easier in comparison.

Some kind of Lawful ending would be nice, at the very least - be it as you suggested, an alternative to the OCG ending, or as an alternative means of slaying Andor Drakon with the Trident.

Yes; my point was that satisfying the ratling can't be chaotic, since the crown of chaos must be retrieved before going to D:50 to get the girdle.

IMHO, the change should be the opposite - instead of allowing Paragons of Order to borrow powers of Chaos to get the Ultra ending, all the steps on Ultra should be increasingly chaotic, so that only a few can redeem themselves into Neutrality and even fewer - into Law.
If True Strength + TotRR were to grant entrance to the Chaos Plane, the ending should be far different from an Ultra - i.e. the world is still being destroyed afterward, only a bit later, or you being stranded in the Chaos Plane forever...

It's a great idea to allow TS + TotRR grant access to the chaos plane. But yes, the ending should somehow be different from a regular ultra.

More flavour endings is a good thing :)

I honestly don't think that Trident + Girdle should be equal ULE. I would welcome Girdle strictly being a replacement for entire Trinity for a lawful equivalent of OCG.

To get the trident you have to kill Filk. There is zero indication in the game that Filk is evil. Basically you are doing a contract killing issued by a shady character, that does not strike me as a paragon thing.

This really wouldn't be a problem if ADOM had a consistent system of penalties for attacking neutral things and explicit commands to attack quest-related baddies (Riurry, chaos diplomat and so on).

Sounds good to me. Hadn't thought about the filk issue.
However, if the Girdle replaces the trinity (and allows OLG), then killing Filk(or turning in his quest) should probably be changed to an _explicity_ chaotic act so that you can't get the girdle, so you don't beg the question of "why does the girdle let me enter the chaos plane without the trident but not give me ULE when I have the trident?)

That, or switching the Filk quest up a bit for prospective OLG seekers. Maybe getting told by someone else that the Mad Minstrel wants the chaotic Filk to be taken out. Perhaps by the Ice Queen, or Thundrarr, but only if you're eligible for an OLG at that point?

In addition, perhaps if you do enter the floor he's on as a truly Lawful character, he generates as aggressive to you? Similar to how Jharod spawns aggressive to Chaos Knights. The same could go for Riurry.

I support OLG. The idea of getting one of the most powerful artifacts in game and inability to wear it fighting chaos god are very disappointing.
On the other hand I don't think that platinum girdle should give ultra. I was always under impression that for ultra you have to do something dirty and something good and there is no way to avoid it intentionally.

P.S. never thought of killing Filk as of either lawful or chaotic thing.

I think that, by the ideas posted in this thread, that an OLG might be the better way to do this. Allowing the platinum girdle to grant access to the Chaos Plane is an interesting idea, and it could work well as a way to do an alternative, truly Lawful ending. Something along the lines of the purity of the girdle and the player allowing entrance without the Trinity - an ending based on being truly pure, rather than the questionable morality of a lot of an ultra.

I attempted getting the Girdle with a CK a few months ago with no success - I think the disqualifying factor was completing GB's quests (even though I did it at max chaotic alignment).

I think girdle alone should allow you to enter the gate but the ending should be something less satisfying than an ultra - the ToRR allowed the player to absorb the powers and without it the powers just get dispersed, maybe to the 2nd in command. It should be a positive ending but alluding to an additional breach at some point in the future.

Girdle + ToRR should allow for standard ultimate lawful ending - completing the Paragon tasks seem to be more difficult than getting both the crown and medal; this would also be consistent with the girdle allowing you to pass and the ToRR allowing you to absorb the powers. It would be even cooler to have a flavour ending where if you enter the Chaos plane this way but land the killing blow without the ToRR a "bad" ending would allow a chaos creature to grab the ToRR from your pack and absorb Andy's energy and strike you down in your weakened state.