Just one thing that I dislike about the detect evil spell being able to detect things other than evil is with any Paladin who wants to do a smite evil. "Hey, I want to use a smite so I had better check if they are evil first... yup, they get a ping under my detect evil. I smite them. What, my smite has no effect? But I even checked first!" Giving extra information is fine as long as it doesn't reduce the spell's ability to detect evil. If it detected undead also, but gave a different reading so the Paladin could still know if they were evil or not, I'd be much more happy. Right now, since there are very few examples of non-evil undead it doesn't come up as a problem much, but playing in Eberron might change that since alignments are less restricted.
Useless spells because of durations
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Hypersmurf
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wilder_jw said:
That meaning is fairly important, I would think. 'Arrow' is fairly clearly defined - it's the ammunition used with a bow. As opposed to any other sort of ammunition or ranged weapon.
For example, the Manyshot feat explicitly works only with arrows. You can't use it to throw multiple daggers as a standard action.
'Arrow' is a defined game term. Like 'evil'.
Then what does "what they didn't exactly write" mean?
What they 'exactly wrote' was that Detect Evil detects undead creatures. 'didn't exactly write' doesn't enter into it...?
-Hyp.
Plane Sailing
Astral Admin - Mwahahaha!
To get back on topic...
I do agree that there are a number of spells, particularly defensive spells, which are now pretty useless because of their low duration. Death ward is the key one that comes to mind - it is so low that unless you are creating an ambush it is unlikely that you will have it prepared before the combat starts, and if it isn't up when that first death spell hits you... you might as well have not prepared it. I personally think that more of the various protective spells all ought to have a duration of 10mins per level to make them worth casting - otherwise they don't end up improving a PCs general capabilities, only their specific capabilities in a known situation.
Cheers
I do agree that there are a number of spells, particularly defensive spells, which are now pretty useless because of their low duration. Death ward is the key one that comes to mind - it is so low that unless you are creating an ambush it is unlikely that you will have it prepared before the combat starts, and if it isn't up when that first death spell hits you... you might as well have not prepared it. I personally think that more of the various protective spells all ought to have a duration of 10mins per level to make them worth casting - otherwise they don't end up improving a PCs general capabilities, only their specific capabilities in a known situation.
Cheers
Jeff Wilder
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Hypersmurf said:
You mean, except for Deflect Arrows, right? And protection from arrows? And so on and so on.
Nowhere -- nowhere -- in 3.0 was it indicated that undead were considered to have "evil auras," except for a single line on a chart in the detect evil spell description in which the word "evil" was left out.
By leaving one word out of a single entry on a chart, the designers apparently intended everyone to know something that went against everything else alignment related in the rules.
That is "what they didn't exactly write" means.
In 3.5, they "fixed" the problem. They gave mindless undead an evil alignment, even though the alignment system for creatures is all about having a mind. They explicitly gave clerics an "aura." In other words, they wrote rules reflecting what they say they intended all along.
And it's still not clear.
Assume you have a paladin who glances into a room in which a (non-core) Neutral vampire is at rest. The paladin concentrates for one round. Look at detect evil.
In the spell description, you discover the paladin "can sense the presence of evil. The amount of information revealed depends on how long you study a particular area or subject." Okay, good enough. He's going one round. So you look at the appropriate entry.
"1st Round: Presence or absence of evil."
Okay, easy enough: "No, you don't detect any evil."
Wait, aren't even Neutral undead supposed to register as evil? Well, supposedly, but you can't really be expected to know that because you have no reason to look at the "Aura Power Chart," which is the only place in which that is indicated.. Only if the paladin concentrates for two rounds or more is the reader of the spell even referred to the "Aura Power Table," and it is only in the "Aura Power Table" that someone can learn that even non-evil undead have "evil auras."
Don't tell me detect evil is "perfectly clear." It's not "perfectly clear," and it was even worse in 3.0.
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Jeff Wilder
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Plane Sailing said:
I think the game would be well served to have more defensive spells castable with a "swift action," such as feather fall is. Death ward is a perfect example. They should mostly be defensive spells, and all of short duration, of course.
It might be interesting to make a list of candidates.
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Hypersmurf
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wilder_jw said:
The name is not a mechanic. The mechanics show what the effect of Deflect Arrows and Protection from Arrows are.
Deflect Arrows deflects things that are not arrows. The name does not dictate the effect.
Detect Evil detects things that are not evil. The name does not dictate the effect.
What makes you think it was left out?
Especially given that it still works the same way in 3.5?
-Hyp.
Jeff Wilder
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Hypersmurf said:
As always, you have a prodigious grasp of the utterly obvious and the admirable willingness to state it vigorously and repeatedly in the face of absolutely no dispute.
Obviously the name do not dictate the effects. But in the case of a game mechanic so vital as the alignment term "evil," there should be a closer correlation between the name and the effect.
Uh, because it's, you know, not there? (Are you being serious? It's getting hard to tell.)
"Evil creature," "Evil outsider," "Evil magic item or spell." Then just "Undead." The word "evil" was "left out" (meaning "deliberately excluded," if that helps), which was the sole indication in the entirety of 3.0 that undead were intended to show up as "evil."
(In 3.5 we now have evil alignment for even mindless undead and specific "auras" for non-evil clerics. Those were the only two exceptions to the overwhelming general rule that in order to register as "evil," a "creature, object, or spell" has to be evil.
So they fixed the exceptions. It's still messed up, but considering that you snipped my pointing that out, without comment, I'll assume you recognize that. And at least they made some attempt to give meaningful indication in the rules of something they supposedly intended all along.
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Jeff Wilder
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Lamoni said:
I absolutely agree, but it's much less important in some cases than others, if you see what I mean. It's much more important in cases, like spells dealing with alignment, in which a central game concept is involved.
Hypersmurf
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wilder_jw said:
Ahh... it does. I was reading it as 'accidentally omitted'.
By 'show up', you mean 'register on a Detect Evil spell'?
-Hyp.
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