Paladins with detect evil vs. fiends with mindshielding

[Bastoche]

"Mind Shielding: This ring is usually of fine workmanship and wrought from heavy gold. The wearer is continually immune to detect thoughts, discern lies, and any attempt to magically discern her alignment.
Faint abjuration; CL 3rd; Forge Ring, nondetection; Price 8,000 gp."

Okay, so definitely no detection of alignment. If the Succubus had only recently put the ring on (1d6 x 10 minutes or less), a lingering dim aura would be detected, but with no way to link that to the Succubus.

All this is assuming that you agree that detecting "evil aura" is essentially a subset of detecting alignment, which I think is indeed the case, especially as the related Detect Spells are:

Detect Chaos
Detect Good
Detect Law

I suppose you could make the case that this is not actually detecting the alignment, but only on aspect of the alignment, but that seems to me to really be splitting hairs.

Undetectable alignment specifically says "from all forms of divination." And I'm pretty sure the "unamed" spell in the SRD ring of mind sheilding's description should (as in actually is) undetectable alignment.

Edit: Oh, I see. In the SRD they state "nondectection" as the generating spell. I'm about 90% sure in the DMG it states otherwise. I'm pretty sure it's a copy/paste mistake...

 

[Vurt]

To be a touch more specific, what has me hung up is the following:

Evil Subtype: A subtype usually applied only to outsiders native to the evil-aligned Outer Planes. Evil outsiders are also called fiends. Most creatures that have this subtype also have evil alignments; however, if their alignments change, they still retain the subtype. Any effect that depends on alignment affects a creature with this subtype as if the creature has an evil alignment, no matter what its alignment actually is. The creature also suffers effects according to its actual alignment.

That, and detect evil lists an "evil creature" as a separate category from "evil outsider", where presumably, "evil outsider" means something with the evil subtype.

Cheers,
Vurt

 

[reveal]

To create such item, you need to cast the spell "undetectable alignment". In the DMG, I thought it specify it's like having a "undetecable alignment" spell. I'm amazed it's not stated that way in the SRD since they mention the other 2 spells.

No, you have to cast nondetection, which is why it's mentioned in the creation info. It states nothing about undetectable alignment in either the DMG or the SRD. Both entries are exactly the same.

If undetectable alignment were needed to create the ring, it would say:

Faint aburation; CL 3rd; Forge Ring, undetectable alignment, nondetection; Price 8,000 gp.

 

[Bastoche]

To be a touch more specific, what has me hung up is the following:



That, and detect evil lists an "evil creature" as a separate category from "evil outsider", where presumably, "evil outsider" means something with the evil subtype.

Cheers,
Vurt

Mighty good point!

 

[Bastoche]

No, you have to cast nondetection, which is why it's mentioned in the creation info. It states nothing about undetectable alignment in either the DMG or the SRD. Both entries are exactly the same.

Yeah you're right! I just saw that. That's a load of bull... Hey! Eric's Grandmother is restraining me! I can't finish the sentence...

 

[Vurt]

Mighty good point!

I did say it was subtle. *GRIN*

Cheers,
Vurt

 

[Artoomis]

Undetectable alignment specifically says "from all forms of divination." And I'm pretty sure the "unamed" spell in the SRD ring of mind sheilding's description should/i] (as in actually is) undetectable alignment.

"Unnamed" spell?? The spell is indeed named, and it's Nondetection. Unless, of course, the DMG or errata lists another spell, which I did not check.

It does not really matter, anyway; the description of the ring makes it clear that alignments cannot be detected. There is no reason to go back to the underlying spell descriptions as that is NOT what the item does anyway.

I do not see any analysis of the Undetectable Alignment spell as being value-added here. Am I missing something?

 

[Bastoche]

I did say it was subtle. *GRIN*

Cheers,
Vurt

That Succubus is 8000gp richer. She can go buy herself a nice +4 cloak of charisma or something instead

 

[dcollins]

A paladin walks into a bar, and detects evil. The serving wench is actually a succubus with a ring of mindshielding. Does the spell pick her up?

No. The ring makes her "immune to... any attempt to magically discern her alignment".

 

[reveal]

I still say no aura would show up. Detect evil depends on alignment, not on subtype. Alignment is surpressed by the ring.