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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pawsplay" data-source="post: 4938811" data-attributes="member: 15538">I wasn't trying to be evasive. I just thought it was obvious that if being able to detect HD thresholds was not the main point of detect evil, then the less obvious breakpoints there were, the better. My objection was that the aura of a 4 HD person would be imperceptible, not that it would simply be weaker.By 11th level, there's no telling what a character has done. Even if a character has been a squeaky clean paladin up to that 11th evil, if he suddently turns evil, it's probably significant. Obviously, no system is perfect. There really is not a good way to measure, ounce by ounce, how much evil someone has done. Simply being a petty thief does not lead inexorably to an evil alignment. He must have some capacity for Evil.If the 11th level evil thief and the 4th level serial killer both generate an aura, at least, that's a better result than the thief being observably evil and the serial killer not.Imgine prefacing the alignment descriptions with this: "In D&D, killing and eating humans is not considered especially evil, metaphysically, although it can certainly contribute to a person's alignment. Evil is more of a measure of personal power, filtered through an alignment. Hence, an 11th level thief who ruthlessly kills might have an aura that shows up as evil, as might a ruthless 11th level tyrant, but a barber who kills people and cooks them into meat pies, selling them to unsuspecting customers, doesn't have a strong aura of evil, despite having an evil alignment." Describe how I am forcing additional elements into the mechanic. What does that mean, exactly? I am fairly comfortable with Detect Evil detetcing evil (yes/no) and how many HD it has. Perhaps I am claiming that that a bowl is a spoon. Perhaps you are claiming that all halflings are actually cultists of Demogorgon. No, I am not claiming that. You would be detectable. As evil.All it really says is that really bad evil has lots of hit dice. Lesser evil is... not that evil. Doesn't sound very gray to me. Demons = bad, shopkeepers = who knows. Certainly, making the alignment system more confusing and less intuitive does remove some level of moral clarity. Adding under Lawful Good that LG characters endorse slavery and regularly engage in its practice would also have this result, while sharing the same problem of making it unclear what Good or Evil actually means.But that does not mean more shades of gray.Knowing that a shopkeeper is definitely Evil, but not knowing if he has done anything wrong or criminal, is very gray, and any gains you make from making the shopkeeper undetectable must be balanced against the shades of gray you lose. Making EVERYONE who detects as evil some kind of villain, antihero, or monster is not shades of gray, that's melodrama.According to you, being 11th level and evil will imbue you with the power of evil. What's the difference?No, I don't. The 3.5 version functions well, and hence I do not need to rely on anything more than it relied on. I like the "actively evil intent" clause, though. In my view the Pathfinder version is not as well-designed a spell as the 3.5 version. 3.5 is superior in another way; "dim" auras. Lingering auras had this strength, which was detectable. Maybe you don't like lingering auras. In that case, why not level a low-HD creature have a dim, detectable aura?Clearly, 3.5 allowed detect evil to detect very faint auras. If the Pathfinder version is based on the same basic alignment premises, and the only difference is that low HD creatures have auras weaker than Faint, then I would like to know why the Pathfinder version is not able to detect dim auras. If you remove lingering auras and add the active intent to cause evil clause, the spells function in basically the same way. Except the Pathfinder version says weaker evil creatures have no auras. Not even fiendish dire rats.</blockquote>

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