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<blockquote data-quote="Lord Pendragon" data-source="post: 1278078" data-attributes="member: 707">This is a great thread.&nbsp; My one semester of philosophy in college doesn't come even close to giving me the background to participate in the heavier philosophical debate, but great stuff nonetheless.I can say that IMC, I am actually more generous with the results from Detect Evil.&nbsp; I allow it to give the paladin a general sense of the purity of an individual's soul, and detect evil objects and auras as well.&nbsp; It hasn't been a problem at all because,*&nbsp; The paladin is not an absolute, Judge-Dread-type authority.&nbsp; He's a non-ordained member of a Lawful-Good church.&nbsp; As such, he doesn't have the authority under God to pass a death sentence in most cases.*&nbsp; Paladins are not the majority.&nbsp; If everyone could Detect Evil then everyone would trust in its power, and could verify if a paladin is telling the truth.&nbsp; But only paladins and spellcasting priests can do so, which are not the majority in the game world.&nbsp; Thus, it takes more than, &quot;I detected he was evil!&quot; to convince a magistrate of a divine license to kill.*&nbsp; Exactly because I allow Detect Evil to work so broadly, the paladin cannot use it as a way to mark targets.&nbsp; Most evil NPCs he comes across are only mildly evil, and thus easily and quite possibly redeemed.&nbsp; And even those that are strongly evil may have political connections that shield them...I like Detect Evil, and have used it to create interesting situations in game.&nbsp; The paladin was once at an auction where one of the items up for sale, a green-metal (yep, that metal,) morningstar was for sale.&nbsp; To the paladin's surprise, it showed as evil.&nbsp; But when he went to try and confiscate it, it had already been sold to an old man, who thought the paladin was crazy when he claimed the weapon was evil in and of itself, and refused to part with it.&nbsp; The paladin couldn't very well kill the old man for having the morningstar, even though it was truly and plainly evil to his divine sight.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Lord Pendragon, post: 1278078, member: 707"] This is a great thread. My one semester of philosophy in college doesn't come even close to giving me the background to participate in the heavier philosophical debate, but great stuff nonetheless. I can say that IMC, I am actually more generous with the results from [i]Detect Evil[/i]. I allow it to give the paladin a general sense of the purity of an individual's soul, and detect evil objects and auras as well. It hasn't been a problem at all because, * The paladin is not an absolute, Judge-Dread-type authority. He's a non-ordained member of a Lawful-Good church. As such, he doesn't have the authority under God to pass a death sentence in most cases. * Paladins are not the majority. If everyone could [i]Detect Evil[/i] then everyone would trust in its power, and could verify if a paladin is telling the truth. But only paladins and spellcasting priests can do so, which are not the majority in the game world. Thus, it takes more than, "I detected he was evil!" to convince a magistrate of a divine license to kill. * Exactly because I allow [i]Detect Evil[/i] to work so broadly, the paladin cannot use it as a way to mark targets. Most evil NPCs he comes across are only mildly evil, and thus easily and quite possibly redeemed. And even those that [i]are[/i] strongly evil may have political connections that shield them... I like [i]Detect Evil[/i], and have used it to create interesting situations in game. The paladin was once at an auction where one of the items up for sale, a green-metal (yep, [i]that[/i] metal,) morningstar was for sale. To the paladin's surprise, it showed as evil. But when he went to try and confiscate it, it had already been sold to an old man, who thought the paladin was crazy when he claimed the weapon was evil in and of itself, and refused to part with it. The paladin couldn't very well kill the old man for having the morningstar, even though it was truly and plainly evil to his divine sight. [/QUOTE]

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