How do YOU detect evil?

[radmod]

RAW paladin restriction on knowingly associating with evil adventuring buddies

a paladin will never knowingly associate with evil characters

Ah, but what if your god specifically tells you to do so? Which rule/concept has precedence? Your silly little code of conduct or a message from GOD?

 

[Dross]

Detect Evil is pretty much a useless effect.

The SRD states “A creature’s general moral and personal attitudes are represented by its alignment” Accordingly, the results of Detect Evil should be sketchy at-best in MOST instances simply because “evil” is a subjective opinion determined by one’s viewpoint/intent.

But it is not supposed to be subjective WITHIN the game. It is a measurable "talent" of someone. From the PHB pg 103 last 2 sentences in the fisrt paragraph under Alignment: "Good and evil are not philosophical concepts in the D&D game. They are the forces that define the cosmos." In the Good vs. Evil part it also says (in reference to neutrality): "While acknowledging that good and evil are objective states, not just opinions,"

Admittedly we APPLY it subjectively, which is a subtle but important difference.

 

[Dross]

Ah, but what if your god specifically tells you to do so? Which rule/concept has precedence? Your silly little code of conduct or a message from GOD?

Why call it a silly little code if (in theory at least) your deity is the one that gave it to you in the first place?

It is now becoming a DM approved/installed plot point and as such is outside the usual rules (maybe becoming a Rule 0).

 

[Vegepygmy]

Argument 1: "Evil is evil. Whether you are a monster with the evil subtype, just plain evil monster, evil cleric, or PC whose alignment is evil, your aura is evil. That's why there's a table!"

This one.

 

[Jhaelen]

In my interpretation of Evil, you can't be Evil unless you've acknowledged and accepted the fact that you've murdered a lot of people.

I guess that automatically includes adventurers?

How do you feel about someone ordering people to get murdered, without personally getting involved?

I'd also like to note that your interpretation doesn't have much in common with the way D&D alignments work. In D&D you're typically 'born' with a particular alignment. It's not so much defined by what you do, it's defined by what you are. (N)Pcs are a notable exception.

Really: Forget about trying to portray real(istic) persons with the help of D&D alignments. It's too simplistic. There's been billions of alignment debates and all of them come to same conclusion: You've got to agree to disagree about alignments.

 

[Jhaelen]

"Good and evil are not philosophical concepts in the D&D game. They are the forces that define the cosmos."

This! In D&D alignments are exactly like physical qualities: They can be detected and measured and (for most creatures) they are immutable.

 

[Persiflage]

Yeah, what you said: D&D alignments are by definition objective and not subjective. It's crazy and mixed-up, but the fact that Good and Evil are detectable "forces" with game-mechanical effects means that all sentient creatures - even neutral ones - are subject to some sort of objective valuation that places them at some independently-assessable point on the Good/Evil axis.

As a sentient being you possess "alignment" like you possess "mass": it's almost as though everything is at least partly composed of fundamental particles that register on a moral Geiger counter... Your ratio of goodions to badions determines how numerous spells and effects interact with you, and although performing certain types of actions (presumably listed in some cosmic Big Book of Rules) can cause the goodion-badion ratio of some creatures to shift, those unfortunates with an alignment subtype are stuck with the composition they're born with.

It's even worse than friggin' midichlorians

Trying to equate D&D with real-world morality is utterly futile.

 

[jefgorbach]

@Persiflage - true, however the "amount" of measurable/detectable alignment is negligible for most creatures (those with 10 or less hit dice) according to the Detect Evil table which is why I mentioned the effect is essentially useless in most situations.

Clerics and Undead are exceptions because they are closer/more in-turn with the source of their alignment. Likewise objects radiant stronger because of their enchantments.

 

[Persiflage]

I guess it's all down to how you play it, which is - I imagine - why the thread was started in the first place

The way I play it is that most PC's and NPC's haven't done enough "objectively-evil-stuff" to have accreted a significant quantity of badions: they hardly register on the moral geiger counter. However, the way I also play it is that creatures with an alignment subtype, clerics, paladins, blackguards and creatures who belong to races listed as always having evil alignments have a high enough badion particle component that they're always detected according to the table.

Meh, whatever, it works for me I've run it differently when the setting seems to demand it, Ravenloft being a particular case in point.

The weird thing about being evil in D&D is that it is a choice that makes sense, uncomfortable though that may be to contemplate. Evil creatures are judged by evil gods and go to evil paradise when they die, good creatures do the opposite. Evil people and creatures in D&D can just think of themselves as "Evil" and not worry about it: after all, there are just as many deities in most settings affirming Evil as a valid lifestyle choice as there are Good deities saying otherwise. It's only creatures who are supposed to act according to one philosophy and actually do the other who suffer, as they'll be judged harshly by their gods when they die.

 

[HoboGod]

I guess that automatically includes adventurers?

How do you feel about someone ordering people to get murdered, without personally getting involved?

Murder is murder, but only when it's murder. Slaying a dragon terrorizing the town: enacting the will of the town, Lawful. Killing a tiger that looks like it's trying to eat you: self-defense, Neutral. Ordering the assassination of your rival: murder, Evil.

I try to keep things simple. It may not be the way the rules interpret alignment, but it avoids many disputes I've had before enacting it. The Lawful/Chaotic alignment is how one decides their actions, via others or themselves. The Good/Evil alignment is the impact their actions tend to have in the preservation of life. This works if one believes life is fragile and even petty insults can be a dangerous weapon if used against the wrong person.