Detect Evil: Should it return?
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Detect Evil -never- benefitted me when it was in use, and only ever added RP flavor. You're a paladin, you know they're bad, but you know that means very little. If anything, Detect Evil would harm me. It made it difficult to party, it would daze me if I was too low a level, and people would suspect -me- the paladin of being evil and making shit up.
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I mean.
If I see someone wearing evil, vile shit.
I'm gonna assume they're an evil, vile person.
Quite frankly, I think DE should just tell you if a person is carrying blood/bleak/infernal stones or OUB Evil/LE/NE/CE items.
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It's simple.
If you add Detect evil to the server…
Rings of non-detection should be added as well. (Rings that hides your alignment, and prevent scrying).
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@SpiffyHas:
You cannot accuse someone of being evil without documented evidence or reports.
Once you have 'detected evil' though you can go smite them and go "lo and behold this is an evil person that deserves smiting cos my god says so".
another issue with the DE function previously was that combined with tracking you essentially turned your PC into a radar that detected the location of all evil things on the map.
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If DE had the potential to turn paladins in to outlaw vigilantes, I'm for it.
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Honestly, I think the population of CoA at present is not conducive to Detect Evil. Sure, you can say "don't hang out with them" or "don't party with them" or whatever, but all that will really accomplish is making people stop playing paladins altogether. There just isn't enough of a pool to get away with it.
Secondly, a paladin outing someone as evil; People will listen, or should (atleast, NPCs should, PCs depends). This isn't 21st century USA, paladins are given this ability by the Gods (which yes, despite assumptions, everyone knows this to be the case), and everyone knows that they are incapable of going against their tenets without severe and very obvious repercussions that can be verified easily. Yes, being evil may not be against the law or result in punitive actions from a legal standpoint, but that doesn't people won't believe the paladin without proof.
Would you be unprejudiced with someone you were told authoritatively by god-knowledge was evil to the core, even if there was no real tangible proof of their actions? It's like saying "well, he has a fatal disease, I have no evidence it will harm you in any way, but it could. You should totally hang out with him". I really doubt a lot of people would want to take that risk. The church of Cyric openly exists in Cormyr, but is monitored by War Wizards 24/7, despite them never doing anything. It's like a crime waiting to happen, and pretty much everyone will see it that way.
All this will do is make more CN villains, because despite the arguments presented against such behavior, it's really not that easy to draw that fine line (I should know), and is often left to individual interpretation, despite rulings, which have never been particularly codified or consistent.
Third, DE already exists right now, as a DM tell in cases when we see "investigation" is turning into convenience. It's just not a player usable tool, but it hasn't been removed from CoA canon as far as I know.
Last, if you're going to add DE and add easy ways to counter it, then why bother at all? It'll literally be the first thing people do, unless they're new.
This was removed for a reason, and I still stand by the original reasons for its removal.
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I don't think DE button is needed. RPing with the community in a whole is fun, and no DM worth their grain of salt is going to make you auto-fall if you're out questing with evil right off the bat. I've played a number of paladins in my time, and a DM has always sent me tells IG about evil things or PC's near me. I've always been able to ask to sense evil things by asking a DM about it during certain events or scenes too. Paladin's still have the ability to detect evil auras, it's just not a mechanical button anymore.
I think the majority of times a DM sends me a 'detect evil ping' message is when I'm out questing with a bunch of people or whatever, and there happens to be an evil PC in our group who showed no indication that they were evil and was acting like every other average joe.
Just try to use common sense or deductive reasoning to find out who's trustworthy or not. If a DM notices you following the guidelines and such, they'll drop you hints. They're cool like that.
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Nope.
For one thing I can no longer send fun tells about the coils of a flame wreathed tongue wrapping themselves around the blackened tattered rag of a soul hanging in front of the detect eviling paladin when they DE a super chaotic evil dude.
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Well I mean I could, but it wouldn't mean much.
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Nope.
For one thing I can no longer send fun tells about the coils of a flame wreathed tongue wrapping themselves around the blackened tattered rag of a soul hanging in front of the detect eviling paladin when they DE a super chaotic evil dude.
Uh, Zool? How else are Paladin's suppose to know that the guy over yonder with demonic features, red piercing eyes, and adorning his outfit with black tentacle like clothing with the bloodied skulls of his victims sewn into it, is evil?
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It's a hard life, what can I say?
But yeah, inquire, follow, learn, investigate, and if totally required, request a DE from a DM.
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In my opinion, if players can do DE freely/at will, then I would say that DE should have some kind of faults in it.
On the other hand, if only DMs can tell a paladin that another player is evil, this should be irrefutable, god-given proof (at least for lawful paladins).
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Might be interesting to have a "detect good" feature. Paladins could tell if someone is good or not. Won't their face be red when they state everything on someone being evil, and they turn out to be neutral? No idea how one would script that though.
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Change the lower than 30 part to higher than 70. That's how you script it. :)
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I'd say it should return, but I would make a few changes to it. The first being that it should be area dependent, like say your in the slums where most evil people are, I'd say the overwhelming amount of evil should cloud the detect. Second, it should be used 1/per 2 levels of paladin so it can't be spammed over and over. And also, id say make the detect an aoe that affects both PC and NPC, then make it have a check like…
[Wisdom mod + Cha base mod + search skill+ 1d15 + 1/per 2 paladin levels] vs dc [bluff + 15 + 1/per 3 character/npc levels] (If that's even possible)
Then have the check be individually rolled per PC/npc affected by the detect. So say your check is 18 vs a dc of 20 for an evil pc/npc the message you would get is " You feel it is very likely this person has a hint of evil within" Or if the pc/NPC is good and you roll the same check vs 20 it might say " You feel it is possible that this person is not evil". However, the catch is because it's an aoe and it goes off of the check above, your paladin could accidentally think that a good npc/pc is actually evil making this unreliable to spam and make a paladin be forced to use judgment before deciding if a pc/npc is actually evil. Honestly just tossing ideas, I dont know if this is worth the effort or is even possible.
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Alas, with Detect Evil/Good there is no ambiguity. You're pretty much asking your god, "Hey, is this person evil?" and they give a very clear answer, "No, yes, overwhelmingly so".
Always thought it was fine to be left with DM tell to get an answer, only issue there is there isn't always a DM available to use the ability.
Also, think it was raised previous either in this thread or other threads, even if someone is Evil doesn't mean you either must refuse to work with them, kick them out of the party, refuse to take part in what must be done. However that is the grey area in which all debate happens.
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Thank you for raising this, you made me realize something.
While I am against its return on general, even if it would return, it should be pending until the silence is over. These are times when gods do not answer.
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They still grant spells and spell like abilities thats all it is AronFF.
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Alas, with Detect Evil/Good there is no ambiguity.
While this is true, since we are going through the silence perhaps we could make that a thing? Like that its more reliant on the paladin's abilities? Besides, there is technically a bit of wiggle room since abilities are made to suit the server. Like technically paladins should have this ability and had it in the past but it was removed because if affected players in a bad way.
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If DE had the potential to turn paladins in to outlaw vigilantes, I'm for it.
How about making detect evil a grantable or appable ability?
It's powerful. Why not eig?