So myself and my group have agreed (understanding that this fundamentally changes many of the game's rules and effects of abilities) that alignment should only be vaguely determined as in nobody is truly good, neutral, or evil. As such, I feel that a possible substitute for alignment (when alignment is needed for the sake of abilities and effects) is that the alignment of the adversary is decided by the defender/caster.
The basic idea came about from a paladin who fervently follows Ragathiel who could easily see many foes as highly evil when alignment typically wouldn't line up with that, for example someone who came on a sudden windfall of wealth in a small town and refused to share with others could be evil in her eyes and as such I would allow smite evil to be cast by the paladin. It must make sense for the attacker to feel this way about the opponent, so a rogue stealing for profit can't say that the priest trying to call the guard is evil.
I know that there are bigger things to consider like how circles of protection against whatever would operate but as a skeletal outline this seems to work fairly well since it applies to everyone. Nobody in the party has access to alignment specific abilities so the likelihood of cheese in that way is fairly small and can easily be house-ruled to prevent something overpowered from emerging. Side-note: Detect alignment spells or abilities don't exist and chaos/lawful is never chosen except by the DM
Tl;dr: When someone uses an alignment based ability, the person they are using it on has an alignment decided by the user of the ability/spell, IF IT MAKES SENSE IN THE CONTEXT OF THE SITUATION.
Sounds like it'd be tricky, and might lead to some disagreements at the table.
Is the Paladin a PC? What happens when someone views what he's doing as evil/non-good? Would he lose all paladin powers relative to that person?
It's an interesting idea. Sounds like it would be rather finicky, though. Seems like an idea that would be good to test out, with the caveat that it will change/be scrapped if it doesn't work well.
I'd be concerned for the paladin if he starts smiting someone just because they don't share their money.
For that matter, I'm not sure if 'not sharing money' would be evil, or just being a jerk. Now, if someone's child died because said person was too stingy to chip in money for plague vaccines for the town...
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Pathfinder treats alignments as universal absolutes despite our minds not being able to comprehend something like absolute truth. While interesting, I think having this kind of "subjective evil" is a mistake. It's extremely interesting to talk about and theorize about, but it makes for poor in-game mechanics. Somebody could justifiably smite the paladin or smite a harmless orphan or anything else if their mind was twisted enough.
In this case I would just avoid alignments and let smite just work on infidels(those who had a very different outlook) as far as the pally was concerned. Spells such as protection from evil would also work the same way.
Another idea is to allow the smite to do less damage vs nonevil enemies.
You could also replace smite with the ability Iroran Paladins get to replace it (Enlighted Paladin archetype on d20pfsrd).
Edit- with this post I have the latest post on ALL recent Advice threads, down to the right, for now. The powah!!!!! (Can you tell I'm bored tonight? :P )
Think you'd have to be careful on who/what, within the campaign/game are inherently evil and those just perceived by the paladin - and as wraithstrike mentions are just from rival/opposed faiths.
Having a potentially Dreddian holy warrior who suspects everyone harbours evil within their hearts and souls makes for an interesting rp'ing trope, but not a justification for engaging alignment based powers or mechanics.
I used to favour an alignment guide which I remember vaguely from one of the Dragonlance hardbacks - which suggested that you nail down your characters guiding principle - be it Law, Neutrality or Chaos (and the loose affiliation with spectrum of Good/Neutral/Evil) and from there charted/recorded deeds and actions that could be deemed on the above spectrum.
Worked as a decent indicator to how characters were being played in relation to their initially planned alignment... Allowed for characters to slide into a more relevant alignment for some characters, which also had ramifications if their faith/class/etc required specific alignments.
Interestingly Paulicus' example of a (good) character causing the death of a plague victim due to resistance to buying vaccine is an interesting one... but it would again be a matter of perspectives? The "greater good" is to purchase items and protection that will enable to group to destroy the pestilence cult who are causing said disease... Difficult is it small victories or winning the war that dictates "good or evil" in this case? Lawful Good with their orders might push for the grander scale with a heavy heart, while a Chaotic Good might even steal a vaccine to save the child?? My 2 runes worth :)
What about the person who got that money fair and square, perfectly legally. Itis his, no discussion about that. And now some stranger from out-of-town wants to rob it from him with violence?
Robbing people is evil.
Can he now smite the "Paladin"? Does the Paladin fall now? Or can the Paladin go full Bloodknight, stomping babies into the dust as long as he sees himself doing good by eradicating all communities who follow Calistra?
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"So myself and my group have agreed that alignment should only be vaguely determined as in nobody is truly good, neutral, or evil."
Nobody is only doing stuff in only one aligment-judgeable way. They are characters, and not two-dimensional charicatures. This is already given in the standart alignment system. Based on actions and general attitude you choose which alignment fits the character best.
Character deeds determine Alignment, not Alignment determines what you do. Alignment is not a straightjacket, but a generalising descriptor.
I agree with Paulicus, i'll give the party the run-down and if it causes trouble we can scrap it. The main reason this came up is because of the example pretty much, if someone (like a PC or anyone else for that matter) was caught or perceived as doing something evil why can't someone just use detect alignment and if it doesn't fall within their alignment take their word? It makes people being wrongfully accused basically impossible and if for example 2 paladins of good but conflicting orders tried to smite each other it wouldn't work. Awkwarrrrd. Anyway the paladin isn't a PC but the basics of this are pretty situational so we will try it out and see how it goes, at higher levels of play where things get DR/alignment and the like it could definitely make the rules confusing/hazy at times.
The main reason this came up is because of the example pretty much, if someone was caught or perceived as doing something evil why can't someone just use detect alignment and if it doesn't fall within their alignment take their word? It makes people being wrongfully accused basically impossible ...
Because people do not act with 100% accordance of their Alignment.
Road Rage: normal decent everyguy goes crazy-angry after being cut-off in traffic and drives the other car off the road in revenge, killing the inattentive driver that cut him off in the process. Then flees filled with shame.
--> Dudes general attitude to live hasnt changed, still LG. Wont trigger a Detect Evil, yet he still killed a man.
Strong Code: A Samurai has a strong ethical code of conduct. Is LN through and through. It is just that his old lord was killed by assassination and then usurped and he fights the new lords men. He is robbing the tax collectors to get eniugh money to finance and army to bring the rightful (to his code) heir, a nephew to the Throne.
--> Robs money, but still LN.
Wrongfully caught: Wifebeater and agressive drunkard gets caught up in a botched bank robbery when wanting to withdraw some cash. Gets mixed up with the robbers, because he wore similiar clothing by chance. Only real winesses are dead.
--> Still Evil, yet completly innocent with anything having to do with the bank robbery.
Drunken stuff: NG social worker gets drunk and steals a case of beer, because he was still thirsty, and the shops had closed.
--> NG, yet still a thief.
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Detect Alignment is only good for general attitudes, not for concrete judgements.
I can't really agree with this. The base alignments of pathfinder are universal truths: If a beings alignment is evil, then that means it is a threat to most other beings around it, and is deemed a (If in most cases minor) threat to existence as a whole. A good aligned being is deemed a benefit (If again in most cases minor) to existence as a whole. As a spell, smite evil calls down the wrath of goodness on an evil being, not what the person or even their god perceives as evil. An evil cultist cannot cast smite evil on, say, a cleric of Sarenrae for this very reason.
I can't really agree with this. The base alignments of pathfinder are universal truths: If a beings alignment is evil, then that means it is a threat to most other beings around it, and is deemed a (If in most cases minor) threat to existence as a whole. A good aligned being is deemed a benefit (If again in most cases minor) to existence as a whole. As a spell, smite evil calls down the wrath of goodness on an evil being, not what the person or even their god perceives as evil. An evil cultist cannot cast smite evil on, say, a cleric of Sarenrae for this very reason.
If we did use the system I have proposed it would surely have to be taken with a grain of salt, what you said about a cultist is absolutely true, he shouldn't be able to cast smite evil on the cleric but in an instance where a character that would generally have the good alignment would snap, doing something evil like attempting to slay his employer THEN a cleric could smite evil on him during the ensuing fight. I do understand that alignment can be read as a universal truth, but I feel as if that only applies to greater beings like gods. I don't necessarily disagree with anyone on this post, it's a difficult thing to pin down exactly how alignment should be interpreted. The idea I have is more to deal with difficult alignment situations, in the cleric vs. cultist situation abilities would function as usual since the cultist's "good" abilities have negative effects
Personally, I am an advocate of the "intent compared against a fixed morality" method of alignment.
e.g. Pally smites the man whom is rich off of a lottery when he insults the orphanage, who pulled all their money to be able hopefully afford food for another week, after the man refused to follow the edict of his god about giving to charity: the smite goes through as the man is obviously acting in greed (which his and the paladin's god is against).
e.g.(2) The Pally of a god whom is against necromancy smites a man who has won a lottery and is not donating the some or all of the money away because (and the paladin knows this) he is putting it towards his own research into necromancy and becoming a lich: the smite goes through as necromancy is universally evil
e.g.(3) same as 2 except instead of becoming a lich the man is looking into finding a way to reverse those turned into undead, back to life that doesn't require copious amounts of diamond dust: the smite does not go through as the man is not being selfish but not inherently selfless with the money.
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Ah, yes, of course. Clearly the man in scenario 1 deserved to be mudered in cold blood. Because murder is less bad than selfishness.
What the f~#!?
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It seems to me that it would be a lot easier to just remove the alignment references in the rules entirely and replace them with "friend" of "foe" as appropriate. I'm not sure if that's helpful, but good luck in whatever you decide to do.