Are Commoners now immune to Detect Evil?

[Mathius]

Detect Evil Intent

There are creatures that are inherently evil. If they are under the 5 HD mark, then their standard evil aura is not enough to get the Paladin's (or what have you) attention.

But if the individual has actual malicious intent, then, however subtle, the Paladin will be able to pick up on it. Instead of the "Holy ! He's evil!" The Paladin will get a "strange vibe" or some gut feeling about the individual in question. But the perpetrator must be intending to do something of extremely evil intent such as rape, murder, grievously violent assault, blatant violent theft, or things similar. But just carrying around a cloud of "Touch me and I'll harm you" won't even pop on his radar.

 

[Roland55]

Hmm.

Like Scott Evil, they're "Evil Lite." "Not evil enough."

Oh well.

 

[pawsplay]

Are you going to trust the Sword of a Thousand Truths to a newb?



So if someone is evil, but has never really acted on it....they're not a nice person, but never killed anyone in cold blood or the various things Evil usually does, if they were sitting in the bar pondering how nice it would be to kill the owner and about 10 other people and a Paladin walks in and Detects Evil, should this man show up? If he should then go ahead and smite the whole world. Maybe he's LE and lives in an area w/a similar ruler so he has always fit in well.

That depends. Is the guy Evil? I would like to add that just detecting evil is not a reason to start smiting. Pre-emptive smiting is not Good, it's merely prudent and hence Neutral.

I'm not really interested in how many evil barkeeps can fit on the head of a pin. I want to know why the 5 HD leader of a goblin raiding camp is not evil enough to detect. I want to know why smite evil works on 1 HD evil creatures but a paladin has no way of knowing if the smite will work.

If the target does not contain enough Evil Gamma Rays to be detected, how does it contain enough Evil to be smited? How does the smite "know" the target is evil?

 

[BryonD]

That depends. Is the guy Evil? I would like to add that just detecting evil is not a reason to start smiting. Pre-emptive smiting is not Good, it's merely prudent and hence Neutral.

I'm not really interested in how many evil barkeeps can fit on the head of a pin. I want to know why the 5 HD leader of a goblin raiding camp is not evil enough to detect. I want to know why smite evil works on 1 HD evil creatures but a paladin has no way of knowing if the smite will work.

If the target does not contain enough Evil Gamma Rays to be detected, how does it contain enough Evil to be smited? How does the smite "know" the target is evil?

Numerous calibration studies have shown that the 5 HD leader is below the reporting limit. There is a deuterated surrogate detect evil method, but it is 4th level and has a casting time of 20 minutes, so no one bothers.

And the smite doesn't know it hit evil. The evil knows it was smitten.

 

[ruemere]

pawsplay,

it appears that the subtle change to alignment mechanic is that Evil (with capital E) represents tangible force, while evil is personal attribute. And from now on, detecting evil is about finding those with ties to Evil, while judgment of one's sins/personality/ethics is up to the characters.

For me, this changes represents a major shift toward more mature treatment of alignment in d20.

Regards,
Ruemere

 

[pawsplay]

Numerous calibration studies have shown that the 5 HD leader is below the reporting limit. There is a deuterated surrogate detect evil method, but it is 4th level and has a casting time of 20 minutes, so no one bothers.

Yet curiously, even trace amouns of evil react violently with smites and various spells.

Sorry, to me this just reads, "We don't want paladins detecting evil barkeeps any more, but we want them to be able to detect 6th level evil wizards." While I can sympathize, I do not agree. Too game-ish. Characters in game don't know how many HD something has... oh, wait, now they do, if it's non-neutral and has 6 or more HD.

They way I see it, you can leave the system as-is, meaning the paladin lives a difficult life in which he has to always wonder whether the barkeeper is going to poison his drink or whether he just uses the bartab to exploit his neighbors. Paladins understand that not everyone who is evil is a monster, in the sense of being an active threat who must be slain. They can just tell those who have made that final, precipitous lurch into being truly evil, beyond simple self-interest. This the Eberron system.

Or you can change things up and say detect evil now detects only supernatural evil. Not evil warlords, no matter how evil, unless they take a Vile feat or become imbued with evil power or whatever. Just Evil. You don't get an alignment aura unless you put on the Team Evil jersey. This is basically the Palladium fantasy system.

I think from a play standpoint, it's a problem that a low level paladin's foes generally do not ping evil, unless they are undead or an outsider, in which they probably do not need to be detected. For a paladin of level 1st-3rd, this ability amounts to little more than "detect evil clerics" and "detect monsters too tough to fight." Once the paladin gets to level 7-9 or so, now suddenly 90% of his foes are pinging evil. 5th level and lower foes who have actively evil intent are undetectable, but a 6th level foe who has actively evil intent can suddenly have such potentiality detected by the paladin.

Why is detect evil so sensitive it can detect actively evil intent, but not sensitive enough to detect 52+ encounters of standard difficulty in which an NPC acted from an evil standpoint?

 

[mxyzplk]

I think I dislike it. You run into a gang of cannibalistic orcs, and only their cleric pings as Evil?

If you run across a gang of cannibalistic orcs, why do you need a spell to tell you what to do?

 

[TripodMachine]

EDIT: Posted as wrong username.

 

[pawsplay]

If you run across a gang of cannibalistic orcs, why do you need a spell to tell you what to do?

Did I say I needed a spell to tell me what to do? I'm not really asking for problem-solving advice related to orcs, I am offering my observation that the spell as written does not seem to create the expected results.

 

[pawsplay]

There are creatures that are inherently evil. If they are under the 5 HD mark, then their standard evil aura is not enough to get the Paladin's (or what have you) attention.

But if the individual has actual malicious intent, then, however subtle, the Paladin will be able to pick up on it. Instead of the "Holy ! He's evil!" The Paladin will get a "strange vibe" or some gut feeling about the individual in question. But the perpetrator must be intending to do something of extremely evil intent such as rape, murder, grievously violent assault, blatant violent theft, or things similar. But just carrying around a cloud of "Touch me and I'll harm you" won't even pop on his radar.

That's not actually true, by the spell as written. If you have active evil intent, you are detected as an evil creature. Looking at the chart, we discover that evil creatures with 5 HD or less generate no aura.