Quasqueton said:
A paladin meets a stranger in the wilderness. Detect evil reveals that the stranger is evil....Does evil (as detected by spell or ability) mean Evil? Or do you beleive there are degrees of evilness, passive evilness?
*Snickers at Piratecat's reply....*
The way I usually look at it is this: If it's an orc, a goblin, something like that.. it's probably dead. If it's a person or otherwise normally 'not automatically a foe of mankind creature', then....
Yes, the spell reveals them to be evil. They're beyond what most people think of as 'bad' - the guy that cheats on his wife, the man who steals from the beggers cup, the woman who gives false measure at the market, the kid who beats a dog.. all those people could be and probably are Neutral; they're doing evil and good acts as the normal course of their life permits. The kid who beats the dog may go home to help his sick mother. The merchant who cheats the miller may also repent and decide to donate bread to the local Pelor church.. these people do 'bad' things, and even some things that are indeed 'evil'; they may murder and rape and whatever.. but they haven't done these things enough or with evil enough intent to drop down to the 'evil' catagory.
The kid who beats the dog for the pure pleasure of the act, to hear the helpless whines and yelps, who kicks the dog back even as the small thing tries to move to him and expose it's belly, wondering why the hurting doesn't stop even though it's submitted; the kid who likes seeing something smaller and weaker than him submit to him, and then watches with a smile as the life leaves the furry body.. who lays awake replaying the images and sounds in his mind and wondering what it might be like to, say, do that to one of the smaller kids in the neighborhood.. ok, then he's crossed over to Evil.
The merchant who cheats the miller, and who also cheats those who come to him for loans. She knows that they can't pay back the money they've borrowed, and still she refuses to lower her rates. She knows that she's the wealthiest person in town willing to lend to these ragged farmers, and that now.. they owe her. She owns them in a way, and the law is on her side. Maybe she even told them the consequences of what would happen if they failed to pay promptly, but it doesn't matter. She has power over them now, the power to have them tossed out of their homes, have the miller's handsome son marry her to pay off his family's debts, to take revenge on the fishmonger who spit at her when she was a child.. OK, she's crossed over to Evil as well.
Even so, the Paladin might not be sure of these things, depending on how experienced or paranoid he is. There are a lot of things that might be messing up his power, god-given as it is. So he probably adopts the stance of 'wait and see'; the person has detected as Evil and now 'bears watching'. He knows there is corruption at this person's heart; that they have in that indefinable means given themselves over to hatred, petty revenge, joy in the pain and misery of others; they actively work against the things most would consider Good: community, health, happiness, peace and safety, consideration, etc...
I'd say he certainly has the option of dealing with that person in some way. Probably not killing them outright, if for the sole reason that they may be part of a group of evil people.
