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ShortQuests -- Pocket Sized Adventures! An all-new collection of digest-sized D&D adventures designed for 1-2 game sessions.

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="CyberSpyder" data-source="post: 1403701" data-attributes="member: 12199">^^-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.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.</blockquote>

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