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Message: <blockquote data-quote="takyris" data-source="post: 1548965" data-attributes="member: 5171">With the "Depends on the Game" caveat...Going by the book, you only get an Evil Aura if you:a) Are an evil person, defined in D&D-as-written as being more than just selfish and cruel.  An evil person in the rules as written would rather make a deal with a fiend than a celestial.  These people are inclined to actively try to hurt people.  In order to get "Evil" in D&D, you can't just be a selfish person.  Really. An Evil person is not just morally-challenged.  An Evil person feels uncomfortable in the town church because it makes his skin crawl, that filthy aura of goodness.  In any large city in a normal-magic campaign, a priest has probably Hallowed his temple with Detect Evil, and he can, barring magic, infallibly see which people are going to serve his deity and which people are going to go serve dark evil nefarious deities in hopes of becoming a demon or devil in the afterlife.  Or he can Hallow it so that anyone who is unrighteous in the eyes of his deity is stricken by the inability to speak (Silence, targetted to only affect evil people).b) You worship an evil deity -- see "a"So, based on the rules as written, if you see something that detects as evil, it's actually genuinely evil.  A paladin can rest assured that this is not just someone who drinks too much and cheats on his taxes.  This is someone who will, if given the chance, commit heinous deeds.  This is someone who is a murderer, in their heart if not in fact as of yet.  This person is evil.  A cruel person who is ruthless and heartless but who doesn't serve demons or devils or other magical evil-powered things (liches, evil dragons, etc.), and who doesn't go out of his way to inflict pain unless it is at least in some way merited, should never detect as Neutral -- maybe Lawful Neutral, for a hangin' judge who thinks that just killing anyone who commits a crime is the safest way to go, or maybe Chaotic Neutral for somebody who won't hurt innocents but will hack down and then torture anyone who attacks or interferes with him.This is, to the best of my knowledge, the way things work according to the rules as written.  Monsters with the "Usually evil" descriptor have been raised in a society that does its darnedest to drill evil ethics into their heads, such that they aren't just "Goblins trying to survive who have to compete with dwarves for food" -- they're malicious nasty creatures who enjoy the suffering of others and would sneak attack an angel if they thought they could somehow get away with it.Now, I personally toss those rules out. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />  I use d20 Modern's allegiances, which allow you to differentiate between somebody who is cruel and not-nice and selfish and somebody who worships and promotes evil.  The former has no real allegiance, while the latter is evil.  Only the latter would show up on the radar.Or I toss out most of the alignments as written.  Goblins and Dwarves fight all the time, sure, but most of both races are neutral.  Evil-whacking spells are culturally considered to be only useful against magical evil monsters, or against those who worship them, because "Evil" doesn't mean "Mean" -- it means "Wants to drown the world in blood".Again, let me note -- that's in the rules as written.  I toss those out, and if you're aiming for a shades-of-gray campaign, I advise that you do the same.  In a black-and-white campaign, the paladin won't encounter an evil creature unless he's either supposed to kill it, stalk it, or be frustrated by the fact that it's protected by deluded townsfolk.  In a shades-of-gray campaign, the paladin shouldn't be able to tell concretely that it's evil, either because it isn't, by its standards, or because that detection only works against creatures actually touched by dark magics, or because it's faulty (many magics can give false positives, evil creatures love to slap evil auras on ordinary folks, etc), or because it requires some major sacrifice to use it (paladin is blind for one day after killing creature it detected evil in, paladin loses Divine Grace for an hour after using the ability, paladin takes Strength damage, etc).  I'm not saying those are all great ideas -- but then, I'm not saying playing a paladin in a shades-of-gray campaign is a great idea, either. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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