Do you allow the detect (alignment) spells in your campaign?

[LostSoul]

I have the detect spells find supernatural evil (including evil clerics).

 

[Left-handed Hummingbird]

I didn't ditch them completely. It's just that Evil and Good are extra-worldly concepts. So a demon would register, but not an absolute bastard mafia don...

This allows me to keep the concept without making it too easy on the players. And if I ever need a demon not to register, there are solutions...

Ditto.

 

[Vhane]

I changed alignment to something closer to Dragon Kings system. All pcs start at a baseline and I let actions dictate their alignment, this seems to work pretty well, I give them a chance to convince me otherwise on my opinion of their charicters actions.

 

[Altalazar]

I modified it without telling the players. Sometimes it just is no fun to cast a single spell to get a feel for what is going on. usually, though, the best method is to have the evil people working for good and the good people working for questionable motives and confuse the hell out of everyone.

In my game where I play a LG fighter named Just Jesus, my detect alignment is not a spell... which may get me in trouble with alignment, but I don't worry about that. Just Jesus knows the Path....

 

[Psion]

Slight modification I am playing with. I generally let the caster detect the presence of evil* pretty handily, but detecting evil* in an individual is rather iffy.

My recently instituted house rule runs like this. When detecting evil, make a wisdom check, +1/3 caster level (or class level if a class ability), + aura strength, +2 per evil individual past the first if doing a group scan. DC 20. Success results in revealing evil in the group or individual scanned. If there are different strength individuals, do multiple rolls

Example: The PC, a 3rd level paladin with 14 wisdom scans the bar for evil. There are 5 evil 1st-level commoners and a quasit. The commoners have an evil aura strength of 0 and the quasit has 3. The paladin makes two rolls, one at +11 for the commoners, one at +6 for the quasit. If the player makes the first roll, he will note that in the bar, there are about 5 dim evil auras and a somewhat brighter one... but won't be able to discern them exactly. If he narrows his focus to one of the evil commoners, his roll will only be at +3 and he will probably miss him.

In retrospect, perhaps 15 is a better DC. I am still toying with it.


Also, as with Vaxalon, evil alignment does NOT justify attacking someone.

* - Read this as $ALIGNMENT, natch.

 

[Black Omega]

Keep it straight from the book, but the issue rarely seems to come up. No real Good-v-Evil in Rokugan so even detecting someone as Evil wouldn't mean much. And the only time alignment was an issue, it was the chaotic people in trouble.

 

[Kesh]

I allow Detect spells, but with a caveat. Just because someone's evil doesn't mean they commited the particular crime you're investigating, and just because they're good doesn't mean they haven't done something wrong...

 

[Madfox]

I allow the spells and I have never had trouble with players abusing them. First of all, casting a spell in public can have serious precursions. Either the people around do not know what you are casting and then they will most likely react as if you are drawing a weapon. If they do know what you are casting, they will most likely consider you incredibly rude. Secondly, being evil does not mean much. It just tells the PCs that the person in question is capable of evil acts, not that the man is planning to do something nasty right at that moment. Thirdly, it tends to be rather unreliable. There are a lot of low level magics that can hide alignments. My favourite would be misdirection, which does not only hide alignment, but can make somebody else closeby register as evil.

 

[Hand of Evil]

But if that's how detect spells are supposed to work, shouldn't any being with free will detect as evil? Even a paladin, especially a PC paladin, has the capability to commit an evil act, right?

Yes that is right, but would it be an evil act if it is an approved action? Look to history, religions have always had exceptions, cats where killed out of hand in the dark ages as they were see as evil and no one could find them listed anywhere in the bible. During the conquest of the Americas, people were wiped out because they worshipped a snake.

 

[hong]

I didn't ditch them completely. It's just that Evil and Good are extra-worldly concepts. So a demon would register, but not an absolute bastard mafia don...

That's not a bad idea. It sounds like the Taint mechanic from WOT and Rokugan.