Eberron inconsistencies

[Pentius]

This one bugs the hell out of me, and is a huge inconsistency. How does a church with hundreds of paladins have evil priests that go unsmited? While there are ways to go about hiding an evil alignment, it's hard to argue that a low-level cleric or lay priest has the means to keep their nature concealed for any significant period of time from a paladin. The Silver Flame even has an Inquisition specifically to root these guys out. Maybe there's just so much selfish, looking-out-for-number-one evil around that smiting everyone who pings your evildar is unworkable.

I simply handle this one by cutting detect chaos/evil/good.law out of my game entirely, and giving paladins detect undead instead. In a world like Eberron, I dislike the idea of being able to spot evildoers at will, it detracts from the pulp/noir portion of the setting for me. Again, YMMV.

Yeah, it's one of the places the setting really doesn't quite work with the rules. I'd expect that there'd be less class-level Clerics that were evil, though, and more npc-class priests. It's not necessary for every member of the church to be a Cleric, and only Clerics have an aura of evil that can be detected by the old evildar. It's things just like this that used to lead me to cut detect alignment from my games entirely, too, whether it was eberron or not.

 

[Aaron]

This one bugs the hell out of me, and is a huge inconsistency. How does a church with hundreds of paladins have evil priests that go unsmited? While there are ways to go about hiding an evil alignment, it's hard to argue that a low-level cleric or lay priest has the means to keep their nature concealed for any significant period of time from a paladin. The Silver Flame even has an Inquisition specifically to root these guys out. Maybe there's just so much selfish, looking-out-for-number-one evil around that smiting everyone who pings your evildar is unworkable.

Well, when was the last time that a military/religious officer interrogated one of his fellow officer/soldier/priest etc. without a good reason, and outside the limits of a defined procedure?

In my campaign spells and spell-like effects like Detect Evil/good/etc. are seen as a part of such procedure, and, lato sensu, just like the polygraph.

According to Wikipedia "no defendant or witness can be forced to undergo the (polygraph) test" in the USA.

From where I come from the polygraph can't be used at all by anyone in any case, unless you voluntarily undergo it, and it has no legal validity even in that case. Besides, in my legal system we adhere to the "Nemo tenetur se detegere" principle (that is not the right to the silence, as Wikipedia implies translating from other languages).

By that principle a Paladin could never use his detect evil ability so freely. And even in that case he couldn't act basing his conduct on that spell, especially considering that the spell can be foiled.

Besides that, in the unlikely event that a Paladin uses his spell like ability on a fellow member of the church (which means that he had some suspects in the first place) we aren't talking about detect/*thump* paladins.

"Why do you hurt your fellow citizens?"
The innkeeper froze. "What?"
"I can see the greed swirling in your soul," Handor said. "Do you water down your ale? Charge three crowns when the price is two? Or worse?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," the man stammered. His eyes flickered down to Handor's blade.
"I am a paladin of the Silver Flame. I am sworn to fight evil in all its forms. My sword is for the fiends and monsters that deserve neither reason nor mercy. But you are no monster, and you can still find redemption."

Handor put his hand on the hosteller's shoulder.

"Consider your actions. Think about those you have harmed. Seek out a minister and cleanse your soul. The true darkness is rising, and if we are to survive we must all find a path to the light. If you cannot . . . then perhaps you are a monster, after all."

A cunny evil member of the Church could be advised to change his route, giving him time to take what it needs to hide his true intentions and scopes.

 

[Plane Sailing]

And wasn't the map scale reduced in the 4e Eberron campaign book?

I've not seen the 4e treatment, good for tEm if they've revised the map scale.

 

[Plane Sailing]

On the detect evil issue...

Paladin - "he is evil! Arrest him!"
Officials - "what is you evidence?"
Paladin - "my innate ability to sense evil has been triggered!"
Officials - "right..."

 

[wingsandsword]

Because near-universal literacy does not necessarily lead to democracy.

Pretty much. Modern real world democracy was the combination of centuries of philosophical development on the nature of political power, the very-long-term erosion of absolute monarchy and strict religious control by a rising economic middle class, and even then it took a few bloody revolutions (American, French, ect.) to take it from a small-scale experiment with local towns to a national-scale system of governance.

I'm trying to not go too far into prohibited political territory, but literacy is quite common in the real world in places where democracy isn't. There is no reason to presume any fantasy setting will have a modern democratic government.

 

[Aaron]

On the detect evil issue...

Paladin - "he is evil! Arrest him!"
Officials - "what is you evidence?"
Paladin - "my innate ability to sense evil has been triggered!"
Officials - "right..."

Not to mention that "being evil" doesn't mean "committing crimes".

Heck, in the Dragonshard article the Innkeeper could be evil because he waters down his ale (!).

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

The teleportation circle thing is a general issue as well, including why there aren't international consortiums in all RPG settings with magic, considering it only takes some Int to be a wizard, not just a high Int. Eberron tries to reconcile the rules in a "realistic" way. The quirks of economics, of social structures and needs, could have far-reaching consequences that aren't mentioned in the books, but end up explaining the things we're here complaining about.

Also, lots of smart people, but few can become wizards.

Okay, I got it: if there's widespread literacy, why isn't there widespread democracy?

Breland sort of has it, but the history of China suggests that mass literacy has little to nothing to do with democracy.

And why the heck are the Dragonmark houses the only ones with the monopolies? I mean, in theory anyone could be making money off magic item creation, or messages, or trains.

Any non-d'marked houses could have monopolies, but they can't step on the toes of the d'marked houses. So, you could have a monopoly on equipping adventurers for underwater travel, but you'll need to reach an accomodation with a d'marked house if you sell them the means to get to the sea they wish to go to.

Why are gnomes in charge of messages, while elves are in charge of illusions/shadow? I mean, gnomes are the illuionists, traditionally. Or inventors, and Cannith got that.

Because d'marked powers/items give greater economic value than racial powers/traits.

Why are there evil clerics in good religions when there's a plethora of low-level detect alignment spells? (ooh, that's a good one) Especially since the Silver Flame is all about rooting out evil? What, they're unaware of the idea of alignment when they have spells for this stuff?

I think I read a rule (an alternate one?) where clerics radiate the aura of their god, regardless of their own alignment.

On the detect evil issue...

Paladin - "he is evil! Arrest him!"
Officials - "what is you evidence?"
Paladin - "my innate ability to sense evil has been triggered!"
Officials - "right..."

One third of Eberron humans are evil. Paladins can't go on mass arrest/killing sprees.

The town bully is probably evil. Killing him is still vigilantism.

 

[RainOfSteel]

From Adventurer's Guide to Eberron, page 12:

The lightning rail gets its name from the electric bolts that jump between conductor stones (and to a coach when it passes over them).

It's contradicted later on. But this is the Eberron Inconsistencies topic. Woot!

Since nobody has mentioned it yet, one of the big inconsistencies with Eberron is the scale of the map. There was a lot of discussion about this when it was first introduced; the scale per the book is mind-bogglingly vast.)

How is being big inconsistent? The game is about big giant vistas, vast possibilities, a big wide world out there of mystery and adventure.

On the detect evil issue...

Paladin - "he is evil! Arrest him!"
Officials - "what is you evidence?"
Paladin - "my innate ability to sense evil has been triggered!"
Officials - "right..."

In a world where paladins are real, their abilities would be accepted as real without question.

The third line would be, "I am paladin of X and my testimony is sufficient."

The fourth line would be, "Right away, your holiness!"

Except maybe for the ignorant or the inexperienced "officials" of the milieu; they might not understand. If they gave the paladin trouble, they would probably get into trouble later on when their superiors who did understand found out, unless those superiors were the sort who wanted to stand against law and good, basically villains, of which there are plenty.

A trial would come up (or some type of review), and if no crimes were found, the paladin would then get in trouble for abusing his/her public trust. It would get reported to the paladin's religious superiors and might require atonement (at least to me).

If the paladin lied about what happened to convict the arrested man, in my opinion that would cause either an immediate and blatantly obvious warning (to the paladin) from the god in question, followed by a required quest and atonement, or an immediate loss of all powers, followed by a required quest and atonement while bereft.

One third of Eberron humans are evil. Paladins can't go on mass arrest/killing sprees.

The town bully is probably evil. Killing him is still vigilantism.

I think the basic idea was:

This one bugs the hell out of me, and is a huge inconsistency. How does a church with hundreds of paladins have evil priests that go unsmited?

It is not about whether evil bullies could continue to exist.

It is about whether evil priests of the same religion, possibly living in the same temple, could continue to exist.

Having a radically different alignment indicates carrying a radically different philosophy, which is heresy, which has basically been punishable by either death or excommunication for a long time. Paladins should be able to point this out to church superiors immediately, as well as serving to assure that the church superiors remained untainted.

In a world with illusions or other forms of magical concealment, there would undoubtedly be annual (or even more frequent) religious rituals designed to cleanse off all all such disguises, with participation being mandatory, leaving only the truth behind in order to keep the religion pure. At least a lesser artifact would be required to get by it, so any real "mole" would be a major character in the milieu. Like any good pulp novel, that person would be the bad apple corrupting everyone else too slowly to change their alignments all the way to evil (presumably), but still disrupting a religion by setting its adherents against one another over technicalities (which, historically speaking, are often the most contentious issues for religions).

 

[wingsandsword]

In a world where paladins are real, their abilities would be accepted as real without question.

The third line would be, "I am paladin of X and my testimony is sufficient."

The fourth line would be, "Right away, your holiness!"

Except maybe for the ignorant or the inexperienced "officials" of the milieu; they might not understand. If they gave the paladin trouble, they would probably get into trouble later on when their superiors who did understand found out, unless those superiors were the sort who wanted to stand against law and good, basically villains, of which there are plenty.

Gotta strongly disagree here.

1. How does anybody know anybody is a Paladin when they first meet them? It's not like you can read their character sheet or they have a Paladin ID Card they can pull out. So what if they are wearing shiny armor and carrying a sword and brandishing a Holy Symbol and are convincing about it. It could just as easily be a Fighter/Rogue (with maxed out Disguise and Bluff) or even a Warrior/Expert, as long as they were only emulating a low-level Paladin to begin with. A Cleric with the War and Trickery domains could easily pull it off for a while as well (heavy armor, swings a sword, carries a holy symbol, good at lying, can turn undead and cast some divine spells). Why would everybody know the details of the Paladin class so well they can pick out a fake so easily?

2. Why would Paladins automatically get law enforcement powers wherever they went? What if the faith the Paladin was a member of was not practiced, not known, or even not tolerated in the land they were in? Why does having one level in a character class give someone special social privileges? Do Clerics get special privileges on their own as well, what about Wizards? Druids? Monks?

3. Detecting as Evil is not a crime in and of itself. In all of D&D lore, the only place I can think of that had that as a rule was on Krynn. . .right before the Cataclysm (i.e. the Gods smited the whole world for the theocratic ruler being so presumptuous to make Evil alignment a crime in and of itself). Someone can be horribly Lawful Evil and play by all the rules of society, but twist those rules to their own ends and never break a law while being quite immoral, they'd detect as very Evil to a Paladin, but they've gone out of their way over they years to scrupulously obey the law.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Rainofsteel, you miss the point. No matter whonclaims to be able to detect evil, there is no proof. It is just one divine casters word against another. if one paladin says "he is evil" and another says "he is not", who do you believe? If one cleric says "that cleric is evil" but five of that guys colleagues say "no he isn't"...

There might be court appointed detect evil guys... But even they could be nobbled.

In a world of detect evil there will be no less need to produce *the evidence*. Independently corroborated.

Cheers