| When DOES a character become Evil? After enough evil acts? When their intentions are evil? When even thinking of evil?
If a character can not become before they have acted that way, and people do play an evil character, then everyone should have some sort of background in which they point out these evil acts. As Thebis-Ra's story isn't evil in my eyes, he IS evil, in which case the paladin shouldn't be allowed to travel with him.
Now my point is; does the character have the right allignment? His intentions are evil, but his acts (as far as described) are not. Which would make him lawful neutral with evil intentions or something, or maybe even lawful good with evil intentions. The point of Detect Evil is to reveal the person's true being, which way a paladin at lvl1 can easily see through bad lies and such. At higher levels, when people get the ability to avoid detect evil, Sense Motive becomes more important for the Paladin to avoid working with the wrong people.
If you make it so a paladin can not judge a person without witnessing their actions, what use is Detect Evil at that point? If someone Evil does not radiate an aura before they act that way, why are they evil in the first place? I think the problem with this debate is more the way the allignment has been used than a problem with the Code. Why is one Evil again? Oh yeah, because they are acting evil more than they act good. The Paladin, a defender of Good, cannot travel with this person. This seems perfectly logical to me, unless the Paladin decides to take time and show the person the path of Good and keep the Evil person on the Good path. Now this can be very hard for a player to deal with; why listen to this Paladin, he can easily be ignored.
My suggestion is to add to the Code that a paladin CAN travel with someone Evil, but that he should try and keep him from doing Evil. Doing so would be way better than just sending the Evil one away, for this will strenghtened this person's hatred versus Good.
I would keep the way Evil is detected by Detect Evil, but making sure that the allignments are fitting. When Evil is detected it should be a warning, not something to confuse the Paladin (or Cleric, for the matter of detecting) with. People who choose to play Evil should be REALLY Evil in playstyle, not just by putting it on paper. Maybe a DM should see to it that their players play their allignment the right way, or risk an allignment change? This way the Paladin people will learn to trust the Paladin, as he can make sure the people they travel and work with do not have any intentions of backstabbing, stealing, etc.
In the case of Rogier the Paladin and Thebis-Ra the LE Fighter, Rogier detected his Evilness and explained everyone the way someone would radiate such an aura. Now, unless Thebis-Ra was able to deflect this whole story by saying how Good he was, with only one flaw to his Goodness; his hatred versus those Red Wizards. This would NOT make one Evil, but rather Neutral in my eyes. Thus radiating an Evil aura would show the Paladin that this person is hiding something, something big, something which would probably be a big risk to the party. However, Janos told me OoC that he didn't lie about his background, his intentions, etc. The Paladin seems false IC, because the allignment of Thebis-Ra wasnt applied right. If it had been the right allignment (non-evil), none of this would have been a problem.
Just my 2cp. =]. |