Detect Evil

[Hypersmurf]

Well, ok, barring laws that have no meaning any more!

I'm betting if you legally shoot a Scotsman with an arrow in York, it'd have some meaning to the Scotsman!

See, quite a few of the laws on that site state "This law was repealed". Those ones don't. Whether that means they're actually still on the books, I'm not sure... you'd need to get an English Law scholar to look it up

If this person in the bubble can't *not* think about evil things, that's [evil] in my book.

It's not that he can't stop thinking evil thoughts. Just that he doesn't.

Maybe he alternates, spending some time thinking about puppies and razor blades, and some time thinking about cardboard, and some time thinking about how cool he'd look in a sombrero. He might even, once in a very long while, think about how he should probably send his Mum a thank you card for the lovely bubble.

But on balance, he's done nothing good; he's had very little in the way of good thoughts, and he's spent a lot of time plotting, dreaming, and fantasising evil.

The bubble isn't necessary - it was just there to remove variables. He doesn't need the bubble to spend his whole life not-doing-good. He's just a nasty person who hasn't actually acted on his evil nature.

That doesn't make him [Evil], though.

-Hyp.

 

[der_kluge]

On the way home, I couldn't help but think of the Catholic church. Now, in the Catholic church, I have "sinned" if I have had impure thoughts, masturbated, had premarital sex, or any of those things. In the Catholic faith, you would need to go to confession to atone for your "sins" to have them removed in the eyes of god. The Catholic God.

Now, I am not Catholic, nor would I want to be Catholic, but that's another matter entirely.

But, if a Catholic priest came up to me and casted "detect evil", what would he get? Let's see, I've masturbated (check), I've had premarital sex (check), and I've had impure thoughts (check). I've even used god's name in vain, eaten pork on Good Friday, and I've never fasted or celebrated Lent.

And to top it all off, I've never confessed or atoned for my sins. So, would the Catholic Priest see me as evil? I would think so, since in his view of the world, I'm about as evil a scourge as there ever was.

So, would a Catholic priest see me as evil or not?

Well, I wouldn't think so, but it does raise the question about whether or not different priests would get a different result concerning evil depending on their priesthood. If a priest of Bane cast "detect evil" on another prest of Bane would he get a signal? Do Bane worshippers consider themselves evil? Does a Muslim extremist consider a Christian evil? You betcha.

FWIW, there is a spell in Bluffside called Piety that tells the priest how pious the target is in the eyes of the god. So, in this example, that spell would come in particularly handy.

 

[der_kluge]

The bubble isn't necessary - it was just there to remove variables. He doesn't need the bubble to spend his whole life not-doing-good. He's just a nasty person who hasn't actually acted on his evil nature.

That doesn't make him [Evil], though.

-Hyp.

Well, if he can think of other stuff besides evil stuff, then I would agree - that wouldn't make him [evil]. But, as per my house rule of detect evil, it wouldn't detect him. Especially if he's never even committed an evil act.

Which begs the question, which came first, the act, or the evil alignment?

 

[DarkMaster]

Whatever. I changed my detect evil to work only on [evil] creatures to specifically avoid the absurdities that come with the alignment system. Others have pointed out the weirdness that comes into play if you allow it to detect people with evil alignments.

Absurdities that come the alignement system???? You are the DM for god sake, you decide who is evil, what are evil actions, evil motivations. The evil baker in the example above is clearly evil (in my standard) and should be identified as such by the spell, restricting it to [evil] is an absurdity. The evil fighter who killed thousands and thousands of innocent for pure pleasure would be immune to that spell???

There are currently a few threads about nerfing spell I think you should start your own

 

[dcollins]

Can people truly be evil the way that a devil or demon is evil?

Yes -- if they're a cleric of an evil deity or have 5 times the Hit Dice of any given demon or devil under consideration.

 

[der_kluge]

Even the fighter who killed innocents is problematic. He might just be insane.

Regardless, I think what is needed is a scale of alignment.

I propose the following. I think I may implement this in my campaign.

Seems to me that the majority of the world is probably just neutral. Your average peasant is just trying to provide for his family, and people go to work and go home everyday, and generally all is ok. There are a few who set out to do good, and there are a few who set out to do evil.

So, I propose something like this. Now, keep in mind, the main reason why I changed detect evil was to eliminate the fuzziness of the spell. I didn't like the arbitrary nature of it.

At one end of the scale you have Hilter. At the other end you have Mother Teresa.

So, if applied to a scale, you get 0=Hilter, and 100=Mother Teresa. Everyone starts life at 50 on the scale, and their actions, thoughts, whatever, either move them up or move them down the scale. Every time I download porn and mp3s off bearshare, I move slightly down the scale, but every time I donate money to a charity, I move slightly up the scale. So, all is good in life.

This isn't good enough for some, and they seek to go out of their way to do good, or evil deeds. So, doing these deeds and avoiding the opposite ones will move you the direction in which you want to go. So, a Paladin would be much higher on the scale than a thief, even if the thief is technically "neutral good".

There would also be a Law/Chaos scale, and it would work the same way. So, someone that does nothing but break laws all the time would be 0, and someone that upholds the law as sacred would be 100.

Now then, I would say that 25-75 is neutral on this scale. That is, if you are anywhere from 25 to 75, you would be considered neutral. If you are above 75 you are good, and if you are below 25 you are evil. Furthermore, if you are above 90, or below 10, I would actually go so far as to give you the subtype [good] or [evil]. So, the fighter who went around killing innocents all day long would be [evil], would be detected via detect magic, and would have a score of 10 or less.

 

[Geoff Watson]

Alignment is based on what the creature has done. If they have done enough evil to have an evil alignment, then they have done enough evil to deserve smiting.

Geoff.

 

[Parlan]

Alignment is based on what the creature has done. If they have done enough evil to have an evil alignment, then they have done enough evil to deserve smiting.

Geoff.

Is it? I thought the PHB described Alignment as intentionality-based: Evil persons are willing to kill for personal gain” etc.

Especially if you want to have more “real-world” like alignment issues (or at least more shades of gray), I think this is the key.

“Will Bob steal a loaf of bread to feed his starving children?” (Stupid question, almost everyone would.)

But, “if a guard catches Bob in the act of stealing, and Bob is likely to go to prison, would he be willing to kill the guard to escape?”

If Bob is willing to do this he is Evil, and will detect as such. He still hasn’t killed, but he WOULD be willing to.

If a Pally killed Bob purely on the basis of his alignment, they should fall from grace.

1.Bob hasn t committed any crimes yet. Maybe he never will. He has a potential to commit crimes.

2. He also has a potential to be redeemed. Maybe he’ll change his way of thinking and become Good. And wouldn’t that be nice?

Obviously this puts a bigger burden on the DM, but if only [Evil] creatures (i.e., irredeemably Evil creatures) are Evil, than there can be no redemption, and that would make some of the best stories impossible to tell...

 

[CyberSpyder]

^^-Such a person might be able to be redeemed - but a paladin would be quite a moron to just go traipsing off on the assumption that he's more likely to be redeemed than to act on his intentions. If the spell shows a propensity for engaging in evil acts, the only reasonable thing to do would be to take the person out of society until they no longer have that propensity. I.e., jail them for being evil, and rehabilitate them until they no longer detect as evil.

Alignment is based on what the creature has done. If they have done enough evil to have an evil alignment, then they have done enough evil to deserve smiting.

Geoff.

Unfortunately, even that is unclear, because of things that have set alignments. A newborn demon (are demons even born?) is EVIL evil before it's done anything at all.

The real question is, indeed, what exactly 'causes' alignment. There are three possible answers as I see it. The first one is past actions - your alignment is determined by the totality of how you have acted in your life. This interpretation, I think, best supports the 'innocuous evil' mode of thinking about evil bakers, because a person can become evil in a lapse of the past, and detect as evil while working his way back up to neutral, or even good.

The second is outlook - your alignment is determined by how you currently feel and act. Some of the methods of fast alignment change described in the rules seem to reinforce this view - I think it's a 'redemption' spell or somesuch that can offer a creature a chance to change its perspective and alignment simultaneously. In this view, however, outlawing Being Evil would be quite reasonable, and it would be hard to find to find an advanced society that wouldn't do it - any evil person would unquestionably be likely to hurt others more than help them, and thus a negative influence on society. This would be certain to anyone with the ability to detect alignment - build a standardized alignment-detecting device, and courts could be run quickly and accurately.

The third, mentioned in this thread, is somewhat less common - alignment as an indicator of future actions. Effectively, it's a reverse of the first view, where everything you have done determines your alignment - here, it's everything you haven't yet done. In this, of course, outlawing evil alignment would be one of the first laws laid down in the formation of a new society, because if someone is evil, they're without a doubt going to do something to hurt people to a significant degree.

So, yeah. My two cents, I guess.

 

[Hypersmurf]

This interpretation, I think, best supports the 'innocuous evil' mode of thinking about evil bakers, because a person can become evil in a lapse of the past, and detect as evil while working his way back up to neutral, or even good.

Heh. I have a mental image of a redemptionist paladin finally "getting through" to the serial killer, and making him realise that his past deeds do not make him irredeemable, and that he can turn his life around. The redemptionist paladin settles back with a smile as the serial killer leaves the building, knowing that he's set one more soul on the road to atoning for his sins, and eventually bringing his aura into balance, and even to goodness.

... and then a passing paladinbot hacks the poor fool into a fine mince.

-Hyp.