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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lonely Tylenol" data-source="post: 2862404" data-attributes="member: 18549">Since when have paladins been authorized to declare that a person is or is not evil?  If the person shows up on Detect Evil, he's evil.  If he doesn't, he isn't.  This is why paladins have Detect Evil at will as a spell-like ability: to eliminate confusion by making alignment issues perfectly clear.  The fun thing about an absolute system of metaphysical morality, such as the one inherent in D&D, is that a person's alignment is objective and not a matter of opinion, even if the opinion belongs to a paladin...which is why that damn paladin from OOTS is due for a fall soon.If a paladin has a problem with the other party members acting in a Neutral fashion, that's another story.  Associating with neutral characters does not violate the paladin's code, even if they perform evil acts from time to time. Heck, even a good character could get away with selling an evil magic item without affecting his alignment if he doesn't make a habit of it.  Any paladin worth his salt would, of course, protest over the sale of evil magic items, but he has no authority to declare the party to be evil (his spell-like ability would argue the point against him) just because they happen to be performing a single questionable act.  I'd probably consider the paladin in violation of his code if he did anything like attack the party (Loose Canon [sic] Paladin Syndrome), but probably not if he stole the item to destroy it.  He has an obligation to destroy the item, but the most he's really able to do is to try to convince the other party members to give it up, because if they're not evil, he's not really authorized to dispense ad-hoc justice.If the paladin disappears in the night with the Sword of Evil, he's following his code.  If he kills good or neutral party members in his mindless desire to destroy the SoE, he's violating his code.  If he roughs them up to steal the sword, that's treading on thin ice.</blockquote>

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