Detect Evil and repentance

[D&D Bob]

<p>Imagine there is an evil assassin who has killed dozens of innocent people for profit who decides to repent and life a good life for the rest of his years. What would detect evil reveal about him between the time when he repented and the time when he "did enough good" to make up for his evil actions. (Which might be a very long time, how many puppies do you have to be nice to to make up for killing one person.) What are the ramifications of a situation where someone who would detect as being evil would try to always do the right thing?</p>
<p>If you rule that as soon as you repent of your past and try to live a good life that your alignment changes, what about a situation where you have a weak willed villian. Someone who will always feel guilty and earnestly repent of their actions, but who will go back to being evil as soon as there is temptation. What are the ramifications of a situation where a person who doesn't detect as evil might turn around and burn down an orphanage?</p>
<p>Any comments would really be appreciated. I'm just not sure what to do with detect evil in a game.</p>

 

[babomb]

If a villain honestly decideds to repent, I'd say he shifts immediately to neutral, then at some later point might shift to good.

As to your second case, well, there aren't any major ramifications because this can happen anyway. Neutral characters do commit evil acts, and even good characters do sometimes (but more rarely and generally not something as bad as deliberately burning down an orphanage). Also, the majority of the people in a society cannot detect evil. Paladins can detect evil at will, and clerics and high-level rangers can cast it only if they have it prepared. Anyway, killing someone "because he detected as evil" is not going to hold up in a court. Sure, your character might know he's evil, but that doesn't mean anyone else will believe him. Even if they do believe him, there's no law against being evil in your typical kingdom.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

If these situations come up often in your game, my advice would be to drop the Detect Evil spell for all "normal" critters. So a human wouldn't register with Detect Evil but outsiders and undead would.

Assuming you leave the spell in, I'd have the guy show up with an evil taint. That's why he's repenting as opposed to have repented.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

Watch out! This kind of topic really seems to get people going. I asked something related in this thread:

http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=71560

I've in the end decided that in my campaign, most people show as a gradient. Very few are wholly evil or purely good and it is tough to determine specifically how evil someone is. Most people will fall into that middle shade of grey area. Only outsiders, undead and the like would clearly radiate evil.