Societies and Alignment Detection

[WhatGravitas]

Killing a group of people without cause would in and of itself be an evil act... You would sort of doom yourself to fail...

Yup. That's an important point:

A society who starts to use Detect Evil regularily, cannot be a good society - good people should value trust. A society using alignment detection all the time must be led by very paranoid leaders. Who probably start a conspiracy, start to plot...

Even ignoring the less than foolproof applications, a good society shouldn't intrude in such an aggravating way into people's privacy.

The only sensible use, is double-checking: You only use it on suspected perpetrators, to check high-ranking nobles (who can evade it), or to root out evil. Like the Blue Rose.

 

[Zeit]

Amusingly, Holy Word has the [Good] descriptor; as such, you would push your alignment toward good every time you cast it.

You nailed it. If this fails, summon a dozen celestial badgers every day and you are set on your way to sanctification.

 

[Phlebas]

IMC i follow the model (like BiggusGeekus and others) that only outsiders, undead and direct servants of a god/goddess/faith have detectable alignments - so that purging wouldn't be particularly effective. I might give regular users of evil spells a faint aura to make life interesting as well

If I played RAW though, i'd create LN empires with LN paladin variants promoting law and order at all costs (including alignment changes for the 'useful'). Cue robin hood / resistance style activities with a heavy price for failure....

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Amusingly, Holy Word has the [Good] descriptor; as such, you would push your alignment toward good every time you cast it.

And thus be less willing to murder neutrals.

 

[Kaodi]

In the real world, alignment detection would be worse than useless. Much worse.

Anyway...

The problem with societies based on outlawing opposing alignments is it is impossible to guess the consequences of most actions. A neutral good cleric of a neutral good god can use holy word on an evil yugoloth who is serving an archfiend, and is holding a sphere containing a powerful spirit that will destroy the world in this most horrific way possible. If the holy word causes the yugoloth to be destroyed, and it drops the sphere, shattering it, unleashing doom upon the world, a theoretically good act directly leads to the most despicable of evils. Reverse the situation, and an evil act could lead to the most wondrous of goods. While I think the proverb, " The road to Hell is paved with good intentions. " was probably derived as a tool for controlling the populace, rather than as a true warning, I doubt that cleric is going to be spending a lot of time basking in his deities radiance after death. Probably a lot of toiling at the crappiest jobs in Heaven for him or her.

As for alignment as a predictor of behavior... Good people sometimes do bad things, lawful people can break the law, chaotic people can uphold the law and evil people can be incredibly selfish without ever resorting to truly evil tactics. Lawful is not synonymous with authoritarian and chaotic is not synonymous with libertarian, though in both cases there is some correlation.

 

[Zeit]

And thus be less willing to murder neutrals.

They are not blue, so they are red. Red = smite.
That's how 3e alignment works as per RAW, to the best of my knowledge.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

They are not blue, so they are red. Red = smite.
That's how 3e alignment works as per RAW, to the best of my knowledge.

er, no. There's this big alignment called neutral. Holy Word et al is rare in effecting neutral as strongly as it does [opposite of sponsored alignment], and killing someone for being merely Neutral instead of Good is mindbogglingly Not-Good behavior by RAW or any level of common sense.

As for the opposite folks have suggested of Evil governments killing off the Good... I'm not sure I see it. To some extent, evil governments depend on an apathy of neutrality, but on the other hand they often rule through a fear that targets good inclinations. Consider the stereotypically Evil law set down by the Centuari of B5 : "If any Centuari is killed by the action of any Narn, the punishment shall be the death of 100 Narn, including the killers immediate family." While one could see it as merely encoraging the subjegated people to police their own, it is also a threat against those who would rebel against an evil government - you do not risk merely your own life with this action, we will take it out on the rest of your people as well! This is not a threat that will hold an evil individual in check, it is meant to raise the stakes for a neutral to good individual.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Also, Misdirection can be cast on someone else to change thier aura to say....an evil one.

So that goody goody paladin causing problems? Cast Misdirection on him and use an evil aura as the replacement aura. Do that before a "Detect Evil" pogrom and he's got troubles.

First you need to find an object with an evil aura, and they're not that common.

-Hyp.

 

[Kestrel]

I think the spell allows for you to use a person's aura as the misdirected one? So if you're evil, target one of your minions or even your own evil aura. (Of course, Im probably misreading the use of the word object in the spell description, the Target does say, Person or Object,)

(Yes, it would be difficult to do, but interesting if the villian could pull it off)

 

[Hypersmurf]

I think the spell allows for you to use a person's aura as the misdirected one? So if you're evil, target one of your minions or even your own evil aura. (Of course, Im probably misreading the use of the word object in the spell description, the Target does say, Person or Object,)

The target is what you cast the spell on - that is, the thing whose aura you wish to disguise. This can be a creature or an object.

What you disguise its aura as is the aura of a different object - always an object.


Target: One creature or object, up to a 10-ft. cube in size

By means of this spell, you misdirect the information from divination spells that reveal auras (detect evil, detect magic, discern lies, and the like). On casting the spell, you choose another object within range. For the duration of the spell, the subject of misdirection is detected as if it were the other object. (Neither the subject nor the other object gets a saving throw against this effect.) Detection spells provide information based on the second object rather than on the actual target of the detection unless the caster of the detection succeeds on a Will save.

You cast it on one creature or object - the 'subject of misdirection' - and then you choose another object within range.

So you can use Misdirection to make the paladin's aura that of a tree, or a rock, or a cup, but not that of an orc. You could use the aura of an unholy sword, which means the paladin would show up on Detect Evil - that's one of the rare objects that has an alignment.

-Hyp.