Using Detect Evil/Good

[BSF]

Detect Evil indicates that Undead ping as Evil. I am not sure, but I believe Tonguez is using the criteria of whatever the Detect Evil spell pings as evil will be affected by the other alignment spells. If I am wrong, I am sure Tonguez will clarify soon.

Tonguez - Your campaign sounds interesting. Out of curiosity, do you run with demons/devils/undead/etc as one of the major sources of villians? Or are you running a game where they are rather rare?

 

[Hypersmurf]

Detect Evil indicates that Undead ping as Evil. I am not sure, but I believe Tonguez is using the criteria of whatever the Detect Evil spell pings as evil will be affected by the other alignment spells.

Non-Evil Undead ping as Evil, too. But that doesn't make them fit the criterion of "evil creature" for the other spells. Likewise a Neutral Cleric of an Evil deity; neither the Neutral Undead nor the Neutral Cleric would be adversely affected by a Holy weapon, but both register on a Detect Evil.

-Hyp.

 

[DMScott]

Detect Evil indicates that Undead ping as Evil.

That's one interpretation, but certainly not the only one. Equally valid: it indicates that if an undead critter is of evil alignment (and thus detects as evil), it has a separate line on the chart to consult for aura power.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

I would say all this confusion and nitpicking demonstrates E-B's thesis is correct: playing Detect Evil with the PHB definitions works and you only have to make contortions when you start reinterpreting the alignment system.

 

[WayneLigon]

Paladins hacking down people because they detect as Evil is not really a problem I've ever had. At best they use it as a tool to determine who can be dealt with. The merchant in the marketplace detects as evil? Then it's probably best to avoid him. Certainly he bears watching, though.

Why? He's done enough evil acts or contemplated evil enough that he's moved from neutral to evil. It's not enough that he's a liar and a thief who puts his thumb on the scale to cheat his customers, or knowingly gives false weight and measure, or mixes in sawdust with the flour to make up the weight. Any of those are certainly not good acts but even taken together are unlikely to damn him. If that was all he did, he'd be neutral, perhaps downward-trending towards evil based on how often and to whom he cheats. In other words, he can be a bad and nasty person without being evil, per se.

But he detects as Evil. So,...somewhere he's committed enough acts that he's slipped over the line. So... he bears watching. What else is he involved in? He's a merchant: maybe he deals with slavers, or sells poisons on the side, or is a serial killer. Who knows? Boom, instant adventure hook.

What number or quality of acts move a person from good to neutral to evil? Is it possible to do a single act so terrible that you move all at once? Can a person who starts out as truly good to begin with even imagine an act so terrible as to move him instantly to the evil side? Or has he been backsliding all this time? That's why we have GM's instead of computer software

Book of Hallowed Might has a pair of feats that can, with time, move someone back and forth along the Good-Evil axis. Maybe if you wanted a rulesey crunchy thing to say how long it took someone to fall or rise, you could base an ad hoc system off those.

 

[jessemock]

Sure it does. And it does so explicitly in the case of every creature other than humans.

From the 3e MM p. 12. "Alignment, this entry giest hte alignment that the creature is most likely to have.... Usually: The majority (more than 50%) of these creatures have the given alignment.

Now, I suppose I'm carrying my analysis of human society over from the days of 2e when humans actually had a listed alignment but in most societies it would be "Often neutral."

In no case, is human society likely to be more strongly alignend than "Usually X".

So, from your interpretations of alignment guidelines from two outdated editions, along with your personal assumptions about the ethical systems normal to humans in pseudomedieval fantasy worlds, 'evil' doesn't mean "evil enough to deserve death," because that would mean too many people would deserve to die.

That's ridiculous, but okay: what percentage of the population does deserve to die, then? I mean that if four out of ten people commit atrocious murders, do you only execute one, because forty, thirty, or even twenty percent of the starting population would be too many?

You want to formulate an ethical reductio ad absurdum: evil can't always mean 'deserving of execution' because the consequences are ethically unacceptable: too many people would deserve execution.

First, this is wrong, because it relies on false premises: you might prefer that all human D&D societies enjoy the same distribution of alignments among their populations, but, unfortunately, your preference does not make it so.

Second, it doesn't follow from the fact that, say, thirty percent of the population deserves execution, that thirty percent of the population will actually be executed. There is no ethically unacceptable conclusion here.

I believe the problem with the reasoning in this debate is that it's moving backwards: the rules have already established that those of evil alignment (and, yes, often neutral) deserve extra violence, if not death. That's the foundation. If a particluar NPC's or PC's deeds don't merit all of the consequences attendant to an evil alignment, then he's not evil. That's black and white, and it is precisely the reason why Detect Evil is a licence to kill.

 

[Hypersmurf]

That's one interpretation, but certainly not the only one. Equally valid: it indicates that if an undead critter is of evil alignment (and thus detects as evil), it has a separate line on the chart to consult for aura power.

So why don't the other lines read "Creature", "Outsider", etc?

And does that mean that a neutral cleric of an evil deity doesn't show up in your campaign, since he's not of evil alignment and thus the table is never consulted?

-Hyp.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

I believe the problem with the reasoning in this debate is that it's moving backwards: the rules have already established that those of evil alignment (and, yes, often neutral) deserve extra violence, if not death. That's the foundation. If a particluar NPC's or PC's deeds don't merit all of the consequences attendant to an evil alignment, then he's not evil. That's black and white, and it is precisely the reason why Detect Evil is a licence to kill.

Please do show me in the rules where it says that. It does not seem to be in my copy of the PHB.

 

[Tonguez]

Why?
Vampires don't have the Evil descriptor.

Only outsiders have alignment descriptors.

Geoff.

In the core rules only Outsiders have the descriptor however some third party Shadow Dargons, fey and elementals also have the descriptor

 

[Tonguez]

Detect Evil indicates that Undead ping as Evil. I am not sure, but I believe Tonguez is using the criteria of whatever the Detect Evil spell pings as evil will be affected by the other alignment spells. If I am wrong, I am sure Tonguez will clarify soon.

Tonguez - Your campaign sounds interesting. Out of curiosity, do you run with demons/devils/undead/etc as one of the major sources of villians? Or are you running a game where they are rather rare?

Yep I use copious lots of fiendish and celestial creatures (including half-x) but actually don't use many undead other than disembodied types and the occasional ghoul (I only used Viktor the vampire as an example cause I had just finished watching Underworld ) I've never used a Vamp imc .
And yeah I pretty much use the detect evil list as the default in deciding on what is/isn't affected