Great boards guys, huge improvement!
Thanks, Mike. We definitely agree with the "huge improvement" assessment and are thrilled to have finally launched our new site!
I for one welcome any material that makes D&D a little more morally ambiguous. After all, most people would agree that real-world people are a blend of virtue and vice not easily pidgeon-holed into a D&D alignment.
In my own campaign, I do my best to obscure the lines, so I was interested to see this article. For instance, I make holy weapons effective against supernaturally evil beings, or at least very very evil mortals, not just every cutpurse and orc. I wondered what replacement paladins might get for detect evil though.
I enjoyed the article for fluff, but not for mechanics. It gave me ideas, but not material I (or anyone else, really) can use directly. Why? Because the spells rely on back story instead of mechanics. That's fine, when the DM is ready for it. But if a player whips out one of these spells in an area the DM has not prepared anything for...
And how do these spells work on the PCs? How "guilty" do any of the PCs feel? Alignment is easy, since each PC has an alignment. But guilt? Attitude? Does the DM get to randomly assign a level of guilt or type of attitude to each character?
Detect violence? If it came with a clairaudience/clairevoyance element that lets the caster *witness* the violence then it might be useful.
The spells in this article were flavor-fun, but mechanics-weak. Either the spells become a headache for the DM or a useless "no thanks" for the players.