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Message: <blockquote data-quote="takyris" data-source="post: 1550504" data-attributes="member: 5171">Hey, Thornir!This would be fine, except that the section to which you're referring is talking about how players should build their characters.  "Alignment is a tool for developing your character's identity."  So all of that "not a straitjacket" stuff is really just saying "You can still act the way you want to," not "People might just have 'Chaotic Evil' days once in awhile."If they detect as evil, then their general moral and personal attitude is that killing innocent people is fun and, if possible, the simplest way to solve a problem.Lawful Good: No problems there, especially with "Hates to see guilty go unpunished."  Opposes evil relentlessly, check.Of course not.  There might be Neutral creatures that are endangering innocents, too, and they've got to go as well.  Man-eating tigers and such.  And, by the definitions in the SRD, any person who detects as evil threatens innocents, either because they will kill someone as soon as it's readily convenient to do so, or because they're actively looking for the opportunity.  If you really want the paladin to be a redeemer rather than a smiter, you should take away the class' Smite Evil ability and give the paladin the chance to cast Atonement once per week instead.  That's a perfectly viable variant class, but according to the rules, redeeming evil people should only be a "If it's reasonable and you can do it while maintaining the safety of innocents" option, because letting innocent people get killed because you wanted to give a psychopath a chance to decide not to be a psychopath is, if not a paladin-breaker, at least a disappointment to your deity.I disagree.  By the rules, punishment is great for situations where capturing somebody is viable, but the paladin can't really capture someone out in the middle of the woods unless he's got a spare horse.  If you meet somebody out in the woods and they detect as evil, they're a threat to society.  They're either a bomb waiting to go off the first time somebody spills ale on their tunic, or a conscious threat choosing to harm innocents.  In either case, the paladin should either track them or attack them.  Letting them go is only a good paladinic idea if the paladin is on his way to do something very important and can't take the time to chase the guy.But, to reiterate, the guy is evil.  All that "not a straitjacket" stuff means that the guy is not prohibited from doing good actions and doesn't have to kick every puppy he comes across, and that your character doesn't always have to be perfectly in line with his alignment when you play your character as a PC.  Did you also note the part where it says: (emphasis mine)How can that be interpreted in any way except "if it's evil, it is a monster or villain, a potential threat to the innocent, and, since my job is to protect the innocent, I should roll initiative"?  I can understand "In middle of bar-crowd, and paladin needs to figure out more about this person, see what their connections are."  I can understand "Paladin should investigate this matter further."  That's great.  A paladin/rogue can certainly take an investigative approach to learn more about someone in order to figure out whether they need to be whacked immediately or traced back to some dark master, But this "They haven't committed a crime" jazz is a House Rule, because it goes against what's written in the SRD.  In the SRD, if it detects as evil, it's a monster or a villain.If you're making one-third of the villagers Evil because they aren't nice people, then you're altering the rules, and complaining that it doesn't work well is sort of like saying "Yeah, I decided to alter the driving instructions -- I don't put the clutch in before shifting anymore.  Hey, why does my car make that awful grinding noise?  Man, manual transmissions don't work very well."  If you change the rules and then something else breaks because of it, don't blame the rules.</blockquote>

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