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So, I've always played that detect evil automatically knows whether a creature has an evil alignment, but apparently the spell indicates that there is an aura strength of "none" for a 1-4 HD evil creature. Does this indicate that his alignment is undetectable?
Come to think of it, this spell has a lot of clauses I've never really looked at. "Creatures with actively evil intents count as evil creatures for the purpose of this spell." Interesting, so even a Lawful Good creature might, in the right circumstances, detect as evil.
So, I've always played that detect evil automatically knows whether a creature has an evil alignment, but apparently the spell indicates that there is an aura strength of "none" for a 1-4 HD evil creature. Does this indicate that his alignment is undetectable?
Come to think of it, this spell has a lot of clauses I've never really looked at. "Creatures with actively evil intents count as evil creatures for the purpose of this spell." Interesting, so even a Lawful Good creature might, in the right circumstances, detect as evil.
Unless he were a cleric or paladin he wouldn't detect as evil. Also he wouldn't detect as good, lawful or chaotic. Basically casting detect evil in a crowd gets you a lot of nothing unless its a gathering of undead, outsiders or clerics.
Is it stupid? It greatly reduces the risk of a paladin feeling he has to go around slaughtering every passing peasant with evil intent. And it makes it possible for the GM to surprise the players with characters who are secretly evil.
Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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Before you "fix" it for being "plain stupid," you might want to try to understand what the rule is designed to deal with. A paladin's detect evil ability completely destroys low level adventures where the identity of the villian is an open question. Instead of the paladin's ability resolving the entire adventure without a single roll, the party needs to investigate and identify the villian using their wits, skills, and other abilities. The paladin's ability is also very good in low level dungeons because it can be used through wooden doors and the like, allowing the party access to an easy to use enemy detection power.
That said, if those aren't the types of adventures you run, or you don't mind the PCs having enemy radar, by all means, fix away.
This:
Before you "fix" it for being "plain stupid," you might want to try to understand what the rule is designed to deal with. A paladin's detect evil ability completely destroys low level adventures where the identity of the villian is an open question. Instead of the paladin's ability resolving the entire adventure without a single roll, the party needs to investigate and identify the villian using their wits, skills, and other abilities. The paladin's ability is also very good in low level dungeons because it can be used through wooden doors and the like, allowing the party access to an easy to use enemy detection power.
That said, if those aren't the types of adventures you run, or you don't mind the PCs having enemy radar, by all means, fix away.
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Is it stupid? It greatly reduces the risk of a paladin feeling he has to go around slaughtering every passing peasant with evil intent. And it makes it possible for the GM to surprise the players with characters who are secretly evil.
That problem is fixed by the paladin losing all of his powers instantly when he murders an innocent evil commoner.
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Please tell me that was a joke.
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That problem is fixed by the paladin losing all of his powers instantly when he murders an innocent evil commoner.
Nice oxymoron.
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Take murder out of the picture, then:
If you remove the HD limitation on detecting evil, then the fact is that your Paladin can immediately notice that the king's advisor (who is in fact the BBEG) lights up as 'evil'; the Paladin is immediately obligated to reveal this information to his sovereign - and before your plot is off the ground, the king has had his agents follow the advisor, discovered his plot, and thrown him in prison.
Dont go into: " i kill him/her/it" just because it reads as "evil" in my spell. There are good reasons why this spells needs the evil to be "nutrished" to a certain point, before you are evil enough to be detected as such.
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Paladin's who kill things just because they ping evil absolutely do need to lose their powers, because they are not taking into account actual evil, just evil aura.
Situations where someone can ping Evil :
1) A Lawful Neutral Cleric/Inquisitor of a Lawful Evil god is a bounty hunter. Paladin pings the Inquisitor as he's tying up a teenage girl, pings the Evil Aura (from the god) and attacks. He didn't ping the girl, who also pings evil (she is a hag in disguise), or he did and she didn't ping because she's level 2 commoner who killed her parents and siblings and sold them in the family butchery to the townsfolk as jerky.
2) A NG farmer is standing over the man who raped his daughter, and in his heart he wants to murder the rapist. The rapist, being a coward, is pleading for mercy. The Paladin walks in, pings the farmer, who registers evil (for wanting to hurt and murder the rapist) and kills the farmer and releases the rapist who goes out and rapes someone else.
3) A LG paladin is carrying an Evil Artifact, he has to take it to a volcano and throw it in to destroy it. A LG Paladin pings him, senses evil, and attacks and kills the LG paladin.
There are a ton of other situations where pinging evil and killing it would be an instant and likely permanent fall.
Well I think that's just plain stupid, but I definitely agree that's how the spell works.
Initiating house-rule fix in my own game in 3... 2... 1...
As others have suggested, you might want to give this some thought first.
As it is written, the Detect Evil ability has limitations. Limitations usually add balance and interest to the game. If they didn't, then we could just give paladins a BAB of 100, the ability to cast 9th level spells right from the start, and they all start with CR 20 archons as cohorts. Nobody wants to play that, really, not in a game where everyone else is trying to tell a story and have an adventure and super-pally is just ruining all that. (I know, that's absurd hyperbole, but it illustrates the point).
So we have limitations, such as class balance, reasonable BABs, spells appropriate to class levels, and cohorts have to be acquired over time and scale with the character's level.
We also have limitations on Detect Evil, for the same reason: it adds balance and challenge to the game.
So before you hastily house-rule balance out of your game, think about the benefits of that balance first.
I imposed some corrections for paladins and detect spells for my home games because I don't like the rules as they are. Use them if you like.
1. A cleric’s radiated aura class feature is based only on parts of alignment that both cleric and deity share.
2. All religious classes gain at first level a Divine Connection. This Divine Connection does not allow talking directly to their god, but the character is aware of any action or item that could adversely affect his alignment and his standing with his deity, including magical effects. He acquires this information prior to performing such an action or becoming associated with such an item.
The Divine Connection thing is actually an item, the Phylactery of Faithfulness. I've just reskinned it to be a class feature. This leaves much less ambiguity about whether or not something is against the direction of your god, because this provides a mechanical check for a GM to have to mention something will be a problem before you act.
What's the point of having a class feature like Detect Evil if you want to make it not work to make 'investigative adventures more interesting.'? Either you're cool with Paladins being able to tell if someone is evil or not, this bait-and-switch is a problem.
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What's the point of having a class feature like Detect Evil if you want to make it not work to make 'investigative adventures more interesting.'? Either you're cool with Paladins being able to tell if someone is evil or not, this bait-and-switch is a problem.
The point is, that simple small acts of evil are fairly inconsequential. A Paladin should not detect every ordinary bad thought a person has.
Commoner's passing thought: "Ooh, that guy's wife is hot! I sure would like to have my way with her..."
Paladin: "Come with me, villain! I am dragging you to a magistrate on charges of adultery and rape!"
Paladins are not supposed to be the ultimate thought-crime prevention force, arresting every commoner who thinks about his neighbor's wife or stealing a chicken or cheating on his taxes.
There is REAL evil in the world of Golarion. Demons, devils, dragons, countless other monsters, high level arch-villains, evil priest/necromancers, etc. The paladin's ability detects all of this stuff just fine. No problems.
Leave the lonely commoner alone when he's fantasizing about his neighbor's wife.
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What's the point of having a class feature like Detect Evil if you want to make it not work to make 'investigative adventures more interesting.'? Either you're cool with Paladins being able to tell if someone is evil or not, this bait-and-switch is a problem.
Or, look at it another way.
If every villain can be instantly and errorlessly detected by each and every wandering paladin, there would be no villains. Or no paladins.
Example:
Commoner: Oh, sir paladin, help me! Someone kidnapped my daughter and is ransoming me to give my family heirloom away to get her back.
Paladin: Never fear, good woman, I see the culprit right over there. Your neighbor is the evildoer. I shall go wrest from him a confessoin.
GM: *grumbles and throws away 6 pages of adventure notes, clues, mystery-solving, and dungeon crawling*
Or:
Minion: Boss, are we ready to start our evil plan?
BBEG: Nope. There are three paladins in this city. If we start now, they will ping us with their evil-radar and arrest us before we have barely even started.
Minion: What can we do?
BBEG: I am sending assassins in the night, to catch the paladins while they sleep and their radar is off. Hopefully, they'll kill the infallible, unstoppable, inexorable paladins so that we can begin our evil plan tomorrow.
Quite simply, game world is much more fun with evil in it. Evil that can scheme and plot and pull off interesting evil deeds for us to solve and adventure and overcome. Super-paladins with an unstoppable class ability ruin much of that fun. So the potential super power is restricted to only working on the truly evil and ignoring all the minor-evil, just to keep things more interesting.
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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What's the point of having a class feature like Detect Evil if you want to make it not work to make 'investigative adventures more interesting.'? Either you're cool with Paladins being able to tell if someone is evil or not, this bait-and-switch is a problem.
I dunno - take it up with the designers. They've clearly rejected your simplistic black and white approach to detecting evil.
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Or use See Alignment, which works on every creature. Even the 1st level cultists.
If you want radar get Know Alignment. Wait I don't think that exists any more. Per the spell Detect Evil, you immediately detect the presence or absence of of evil but further concentration only specifically points out creatures/people with a strong enough evil aura. So you know evil is there but can only pinpoint major evil. That seems reasonable...besides...
Just because a person is evil in Pathfinder does not mean he actively does evil or deserves to die or go to jail. The basic definition of Neutral Evil is selfishness, always thinking of yourself first. Is that a crime? Should you die for that? Sure that can lead you to do very evil things but most Neutral Evil peasants probably lead the same life a neutral peasants or even good peasants.
Now undead, clerics of evil gods, evil outsiders ... all of these are going to do evil, its in their nature and the spell/abilithy picks them up right away.
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Nice oxymoron.
That problem is fixed by the paladin losing all of his powers instantly when he murders an innocent evil commoner.
I don't think it's an oxymoron at all. Just because he's evil doesn't mean he's guilty of a given crime. And surely there are evil actions that, while evil, aren't deserving of a death sentence?
Detect evil and Sense Motive work best as tools that give the characters clues, not instant solutions to the puzzles that face them.
That problem is fixed by the paladin losing all of his powers instantly when he murders an innocent evil commoner.
Is that really the most elegant solution? Wouldn't it be better for the paladin to know his own limitations and avoid such a frustrating doom?
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I don't think it's an oxymoron at all. Just because he's evil doesn't mean he's guilty of a given crime. And surely there are evil actions that, while evil, aren't deserving of a death sentence?Nice oxymoron.
That problem is fixed by the paladin losing all of his powers instantly when he murders an innocent evil commoner.
Unless there is a law against being evil, the lawful part of lawful good should be sufficient to discourage paladins from killing an evil person just because...
Thankfully, the only Paladins in my game thus far have all been Paladins of Sarenrae... the whole mercy and forgiveness angle seems to keep them from being humorless murder machines. I'd rather leave that to Judge Dredd.
That problem is fixed by the paladin losing all of his powers instantly when he murders an innocent evil commoner.Is that really the most elegant solution? Wouldn't it be better for the paladin to know his own limitations and avoid such a frustrating doom?
Paladins know nothing. Lawful-Stupid, remember? It's the GM's job to slap them down, strip their powers in the blink of an eye and it's the paladin's lot in life to live with that and never know why.
Paladins know nothing. Lawful-Stupid, remember? It's the GM's job to slap them down, strip their powers in the blink of an eye and it's the paladin's lot in life to live with that and never know why.That problem is fixed by the paladin losing all of his powers instantly when he murders an innocent evil commoner.Is that really the most elegant solution? Wouldn't it be better for the paladin to know his own limitations and avoid such a frustrating doom?
Plus the self-flagellation. Mustn't forget that!
I don't think it's an oxymoron at all. Just because he's evil doesn't mean he's guilty of a given crime. And surely there are evil actions that, while evil, aren't deserving of a death sentence?Nice oxymoron.
That problem is fixed by the paladin losing all of his powers instantly when he murders an innocent evil commoner.
An individual may not be guilty of a given crime, but the fact they are evil (and I mean evil, not merely someone who is good who has made some evil choices from time to time) is a clear indication they are not an innocent. Whatever crimes they may have committed may not be worthy of death, but not being worthy of death does not make one an innocent.
Now if we want to speak contextually of a specific crime or event we can say a person is guilty or innocent of that particular thing, but a person innocent of a given crime may still ping evil to the paladin for entirely different reasons. It is up to the paladin to do the investigative work to figure out what manner of justice should be dealt out to the individual for this or other crimes.
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Correct. You can ping evil for being an otherwise normal member of society who happens to be greedy and thinks all Varisians are thieves and deserve to be hanged on sight. You don't even have to kill or swindle a Varisian to show up on the evil-o-meter.
Alignment is a poor indicator of anything in Pathfinder--a quality carried over from pretty much every edition ever. I much prefer playing without alignment altogether. It frees the players from the temptation to pigeonhole their character personality and prevents a lot of arguments over something relatively inconsequential. Rules that actually care about moral or ethical character can be substituted with specific systems relevant to the paladin order, magic item, or spell in question.
You don't have to ever commit a crime or harm anyone to be evil. Good and evil are intent and character. A powerless and/or cowardly evil person may well never have committed a single crime, but still be evil.
What's the likely hood such a character or NPC who only thinks about evil things but never has the courage to act on them will hit high enough level to ping on the detect evil radar? If he isn't acting on them it is more likely he is neutral at any rate, despite his dark thoughts. Just like a person who frequently thinks, "I should make a donation to the orphanage" but never actually does so can't really be called a good person for it.
"...actively evil intents..." isn't someone who fantasizes about robbing a bank some time so they can be rich - but then never leaves their home. 'Actively' is they've actually made up a plan for doing so and are in the process of seeking to carry such an act out.
Also using your own words, intent and character.
Intent becomes a pretty hollow and meaningless word when not associated with an action. e.g. I did X with the intent of getting result Y.
Likewise a character trait is not much of a character trait if the trait does not, at least in part, drive the way a person acts or treats others. Can it really be said to be a character trait if it does not manifest itself? That manifestation may not necessarily be obvious, but if it does not define their behavior in some way then they don't really have the trait.
You don't have to ever commit a crime or harm anyone to be evil. Good and evil are intent and character. A powerless and/or cowardly evil person may well never have committed a single crime, but still be evil.What's the likely hood such a character or NPC who only thinks about evil things but never has the courage to act on them will hit high enough level to ping on the detect evil radar?Well, keep in mind: Many evil things are legal.
Foreclosing on the orphanage? Legal! Kicking people out on the street because they can't pay their rent? Legal!
Personally I'd rate both of these as more neutral. Nice? No. But not evil either. If I make my living renting out the orphanage building and I can't buy food because they haven't paid, is it evil of me to kick them out and find a new renter? Now writing the contract in such a way that someone who does not read all the fine print gets shafted, then using that against them to kick them out after taking their rent, that is evil.
I wouldn't categorically list bankers as evil - though you've probably got me with politicians :).
And yes it is possible to be evil within the bounds of a nations laws. A paladin will be bound not to do anything about such evils (if they are a member of said nation), but they will certainly chaff at them, and if within their influence, seek to have such laws changed. We can argue whether something is a crime from a individual nations laws or from the perspective of the divine good/evil moral compass of the paladins god. I was thinking more in the larger picture of the divine view.
None of which really gives the paladin who detects evil the right to go around smiting said evil (which I've never said they should be able to). A paladin ought to be making sure his actions are just, and that in carrying them out doesn't cause more harm then good.
If every villain can be instantly and errorlessly detected by each and every wandering paladin, there would be no villains. Or no paladins.
Or there would be ways to throw off Detect Evil such as Misdirection or Ring of Mind Shielding.
That problem is fixed by the paladin losing all of his powers instantly when he murders an innocent evil commoner.Nice oxymoron.
The tax collector just left the house. The peasant, who just lost 95% of his meager possessions, stands in the doorway, thinking "I kill that bastard... I'm going to take a knife and <insert gory image here> very slowly..." and many more similar thoughts. And yes, he would really do it if he weren't such a coward.
Along comes the paladin, uses detect evil on the peasant with the grim face, and notices an active evil intent. Takes out his holy sword and strikes him down.Of course, his action is justified, because there is no such thing as "innocent evil"...
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I really hate the thought-police murder hobo of self-righteousness that has become the expected Paladin.
In fact, some players and DMs are convinced you simply cannot play it any other way, and are also convinced the rules are support this idea.
I am dead serious.
I have seen faces that look like their brain is being electrocuted, when I explain that there is more than one way to play a Paladin.
I have to also explain, that I will not even play in any game with a Paladin, if this is the standard.
No, I would rather just walk away.
I really hate the thought-police murder hobo of self-righteousness that has become the expected Paladin.
In fact, some players and DMs are convinced you simply cannot play it any other way, and are also convinced the rules are support this idea.
I am dead serious.
I have seen faces that look like their brain is being electrocuted, when I explain that there is more than one way to play a Paladin.
I have to also explain, that I will not even play in any game with a Paladin, if this is the standard.
No, I would rather just walk away.
I feel this very often when aligntment is the tropic.
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I find it amazing that there's people who would allow their paladins to commit murder and keep their powers.
Being evil does not make you a criminal, and it does not make you guilty or deserving of death. Evil is an alignment, a perspective, and a motivation. A wise paladin would keep a keen, inquisitive eye on evil individuals, but to murder every evil individual he encounters? He's a serial killer, not a holy warrior.
You can have an evil alignment and never have committed an evil act. It just means you wouldn't be morally opposed to committing one. The paladin might want to try to convert you, or teach you the ways of good, but if he gets a "ping!" on his detect evil-o-meter and rolls initiative, he's a thug and a murderer, and would lose his gods-given righteous superpowers faster than you can say "Alignment is misunderstood by the vast majority of this playerbase."
There are people in this thread, I can tell, who would cry foul at the way my tiefling paladin is played. I have a close friend and a good RPer who feels personally offended that a demon-spawn can even be a paladin, worshipper of the goddess of forgiveness or not. Others remark "You know, you don't really act like most paladins" at nearly every table he's at - because sometimes, the cause of lawful good isn't a balancing act between wanton slaughter of everything "monstrous" and wanton preaching against everything "sinful" the other players do.
Of course, the prevailing attitude of "THERE IS ONLY ONE RIGHT WAY TO PLAY A PALADIN RARRRR" is why playing a paladin who'll disguise himself as a pirate and dangle the BBEG off a rooftop by his ankle to find out where the hostages are is so gratifying (he'd never actually drop the guy - but the villain doesn't know that!). Intimidate checks are the order of the day for him, not coup de grace attempts.
Right. And I guess that's the thing; you can easily make a person who is clearly evil and who isn't breaking laws, so the premise that detect evil breaks mystery stories doesn't work. Neutral people can be murderers, they just have to have what they think is a good enough reason, such as revenge, so that they are not really "killing innocents" from their perspective.
So I don't think the change was strictly needed, but at the same time, it does sort of help to just say "yeah, most people aren't discernably aligned."
Throwing your players for a loop and having the evil bartender be completely innocent, while the neutral housewife actually did the deed all along can go a long way to teaching them a valuable lesson about prejudice, jumping to conclusions, and the fact that alignment is more complicated than "hit the guys who glow red under paladin-light."
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You can have an evil alignment and never have committed an evil act.
The tax collector just left the house. The peasant, who just lost 95% of his meager possessions, stands in the doorway, thinking "I kill that bastard... I'm going to take a knife and <insert gory image here> very slowly..." and many more similar thoughts. And yes, he would really do it if he weren't such a coward.
Along comes the paladin, uses detect evil on the peasant with the grim face, and notices an active evil intent. Takes out his holy sword and strikes him down.
Of course, his action is justified, because there is no such thing as "innocent evil"...
This is where I'd disagree with both of you. Thinking evil thoughts does not make one evil. Acting on them does.
Does the paladin fall because he considers working with the evil enemy of the greater evil? Does he even require an atonement at that point? No to both. If he decides that for the greater good he will work with the evil enemy of the greater evil then he will need to make a periodic atonement, but considering and weighing the possible advantages/disadvantages does not cause the paladin any problems.
Thinking about making a donation to the orphanage, thinking about donating your time to a homeless shelter, thinking about raising money for children in third world countries, etc etc, does not make you a good person. Acting on any of those thoughts is what makes you a good person.
I mentioned this a couple posts up, which you may have missed, but until the peasant begins taking actions on those thoughts I don't believe he would even ping on the paladins radar. Evil thinking is not the same as "actively evil intents" IMO. When the peasant begins to act on those thoughts then he has actively evil intents. Prior to that it is a passively evil intent at best.
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Regardless, even someone who has committed evil acts is not a target of murder. Apprehension for their crimes? Perhaps, if they're guilty of a crime. Reform and attention, to help convert/improve them or prevent further evil? Certainly, if it is within your means.
A "positive" detect evil result is never enough justification for murder by itself. It's a clue and the start of a trail that might lead to an investigation, but it's not a sentence of execution.
I agree. I've never advocated wanton slaughter simply because they detect as evil. So if you'd lumped me into the "There are people in this thread, I can tell, who would cry foul at the way my tiefling paladin is played." grouping, well you were wrong :)
I agree that there is more then one way to play a Paladin. We play the whole thing pretty loose. And we usually require several repeated acts one way or the other for a character to change alignment or for a Paladin to fall. And they have to be blatant acts against their alignment. I purposefully add NPC's that buck the trend in my games. Lawful Evil is a perfect alignment for this. Evil that follows the rules can be incredibly frustrating for a party. Expecially if they are openly evil and dismiss the party or what they can do to him.
Lawyers, Bankers, Nobles, Merchants... they can all have a power base, be evil, and never break a single law (forclose on the poor after taxing them too much, Defending criminals they know are guilty and using scape goat laws to get them free, Over chargeing for needed goods because they have a monopoly, ect). I also tend to throw Neutral or even good creatures in front of a party that are usually always evil. A band of neutral goblins, a LG Worg, a roaming band of CN Gnolls. It causes my party to really have to stop and think before they decide to act.
Granted we also allow the alternate alignment Paladins (LG, CG, CE, LE) so most of the paladins we have are usually CG to avoid these issues. Not to mention it allows for almost every god to have their own paladin order.
Regardless, even someone who has committed evil acts is not a target of murder. Apprehension for their crimes? Perhaps, if they're guilty of a crime. Reform and attention, to help convert/improve them or prevent further evil? Certainly, if it is within your means.
A "positive" detect evil result is never enough justification for murder by itself. It's a clue and the start of a trail that might lead to an investigation, but it's not a sentence of execution.
I agree. Some examples below.
Torturing small animals.
Cheating on and/or beating your significant other
Theft through legal means (Tax loopholes, Fraud, ect)
Enjoying um... unseemly acts in the bedroom
Harming one's self for pleasure
Enjoying seeing other's suffering (but not causing said suffering)
Protecting those who do evil (Scumbag defense lawyers)
ect
All of these are LEGAL (at least in some areas). None of these are a cause to simply kill someone. All of them would cause someone to probably ping Evil. These are exactly why a Paladin cant simply detect and start swinging.
ITT: Babby's first deontological vs consequentialist debate.