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<blockquote data-quote="Maerdwyn" data-source="post: 46547" data-attributes="member: 835">But what I'm saying is that a paladin has the *capability* of doing not only questionable things which are approved by his church or called &quot;good&quot; by the DM.&nbsp; Even a paladin who has been the epitome of goodness for every second of his life up to this moment could decide today to murder 19 babies and become a blackguard.&nbsp; Regardless of its likelihood, the *capability,* -- the *possibility*--&nbsp; is there. If the spell doesn't look at how a character has in fact behaved in the past, but rather only at the potential of how the character could possibly behave in the future (the capability to commit a listed evil act), every single creature with enough intelligence and free will to have an alignment in the first place should register as &quot;evil,&quot;&nbsp;&nbsp; in fact &quot;strong evil&quot; (because every character has the capability of doing really, really bad things or of becoming a cleric of Iuz, etc.) to a Detect Evil Spell. If capability to commit evil acts is the mechanic by which the spell works, I'm just not sure how it could be a useful spell.&nbsp; IMHO, it's just not the way the spell should work.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Maerdwyn, post: 46547, member: 835"] But what I'm saying is that a paladin has the *capability* of doing not only questionable things which are approved by his church or called "good" by the DM. Even a paladin who has been the epitome of goodness for every second of his life up to this moment could decide today to murder 19 babies and become a blackguard. Regardless of its likelihood, the *capability,* -- the *possibility*-- is there. If the spell doesn't look at how a character has in fact behaved in the past, but rather only at the potential of how the character could possibly behave in the future (the capability to commit a listed evil act), every single creature with enough intelligence and free will to have an alignment in the first place should register as "evil," in fact "strong evil" (because every character has the capability of doing really, really bad things or of becoming a cleric of Iuz, etc.) to a Detect Evil Spell. If capability to commit evil acts is the mechanic by which the spell works, I'm just not sure how it could be a useful spell. IMHO, it's just not the way the spell should work. [/QUOTE]

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