Obscene Use of Detect Evil

[vikingson]

Some more food( ahem fuel) for thought :

As far as "evil" goes that may just be very dependant on culture and a specific deity. A paladin of Shelyn slaughtering the unarmed "pleasure slaves" ?
As opposed to say a paladin of Torag ? Or one of Abadar ?

What may be a "evil" and a "sin" for one deity, might be very much tolerable for another.

Just compare the varying Paladin Codes in "Faiths of Purity"

As far as I am concerned (and the campaigns I run, although my take has infected those campaign I play in, too ) "Detect Evil" is very much dependant on the portfolio and attitude of the deity granting the spell (and yes, that applies even to Evil deities).

Evil is, what is despicable to the creed of the deity (which the paladin pr priest is bound to uphold and follow). Not in absolute terms, but to THAT particular deity.

Which will differ. Killing a cow/bull is anathema to Hindu religion - it was a holy rite of respect and high veneration in antiquity all around the mediterranean basin.... So any one having killed a bull (an not rpeneted since) will show up as tainted by evil to a priest of Shiva around ehre.. but not to a priest of Zeus. Or one of Baal... or one of Ceres..

Yes everything with an [evil] subtype will set off the alarms, always.

As for "irredeemably evil" : Since it does run absolute counter to the concept of Free Will...so the Drow have no free will ? Because they worship demons ? Right.....so there are no good people in Cheliax because the goverment and nobility worships Asmodeus ?

Anyway, I shudder to think at the tenets of a paladin's deity, who condones the slaughter of unarmed, unresisting prisoners.

[Icyshadow]

Hecknoshow wrote:

Icyshadow wrote:

You aren't the only one.

However, the OP said that the Drow in his world are COMPLETELY irredeemable, so they basically have the Evil sub-type, which in turn means that killing them would be like killing Demons, Devils, or whatever evil outsiders that you might happen to come across. The heroes would be doing the world a favor by getting rid of them.

Actually I don't even use it with outsiders. I try to avoid absolutes in my games. There are always exceptions. Sure a good, or even neutral, Balor is reeeeaaaaly unlikely. But impossible in the entirety of creation, that just breaks my suspense of disbelief.

Edit: Spelling errors.

Actually, that's how I work it too. There are Fallen Angels, and Ascended Fiends. They are REALLY damned rare, but not an impossibility.

[Lobolusk]

Maybe a clarification is needed OP are you saying the Drow are genetically evil? with no hope of redemption at all? could they be brainwashed into becoming good? or is it impossible for them to do anything other than be evil?

When the OP says they are evil and irredeemably so I take that to mean Genetic evil. evil is in there very cells.

[cranewings]

VikIng, the Drow have free will, as far as what they do, they just can't pick what they are, and they are evil. If being able to pick good or evil is what free will is to you, then they don't have it.

[Ughbash]

SINCE in your world they are "unredeemable" then I would have no problem with them killing them. In fact letting them live would ahve been wrong since they wodu bring more evil into the world.

Take the weakest evil outsider, perhaps a dretch. Would you let it live because it does not constitute a threat to you? or would you destroy it so it could not harm others at a later date.

The good thing to do for an IRREDEEMABLE evil is to destroy it. Now if there is a chance they can be redeemed then the better deed might be try to redeem them.

[Shadowdweller]

Deadmanwalking wrote:

Bomanz wrote:

My bad. Doctors have never removed benign tumors ever. Thanks for rules lawyering my choice of wording. I should have said "growth" or "tumor" instead. Clarification noted.

here.

Not intentionally, they haven't. They remove a tumor because they think it might be malignant, if they know it's not they leave it be, since unnecessary surgery is a bad thing.

And it wasn't the wording, it was the fact that cancer really is just normal cells behaving in an 'Evil' manner, and is thus an awful analogy for what you were aiming for.

Ok, tangent though this is, this all is beginning to hurt my brain. For the record, people:

1) A tumor is just an abnormal lump of cells. They may be benign or malignant.

2) Cancer is ALWAYS malignant. A tumor is not always cancer.

3) No, cancer is not merely indistinguishable from normal cells by its behavior. (Though the malignant cells that survive the immune system do so because they are difficult for the body to distinguish from itself). There are at least two permanent genetic mutations in every cell that has become cancerous. Because they have genetic flaws, cancerous cells recover less easily from certain types of stress. That is the basis for radiation therapy.

4) Because the genetic code is copied during cell division, cancerous cells tend to produce MORE cancerous cells when they divide. The original analogy works fine.

[cranewings]

Ughbash wrote:

SINCE in your world they are "unredeemable" then I would have no problem with them killing them. In fact letting them live would ahve been wrong since they wodu bring more evil into the world.

Take the weakest evil outsider, perhaps a dretch. Would you let it live because it does not constitute a threat to you? or would you destroy it so it could not harm others at a later date.

The good thing to do for an IRREDEEMABLE evil is to destroy it. Now if there is a chance they can be redeemed then the better deed might be try to redeem them.

I think killing an irredeemably evil baby / peasant / noncombatant is like putting out a fire before it spreads.

[TriOmegaZero]

Or you can bank a fire and turn it to useful ends, like cooking and heating.

All about the circumstances.

[Ross Byers]

This thread is locked. Alignment threads are enough trouble when there not created purely to stir the pot.