Undetectable Alignment - Un-Useful?

[Curghann]

This spell reads,

Quote:

An undetectable alignment spell conceals the alignment of an object or a creature from all forms of divination.

If you're an Evil person and you're trying to avoid detection due to that, wouldnt "not able to determine alingment" be pretty much just as damning as "detects as evil"?

[The Dandy Lion]

Nope!

Alignment detection spells/abilities all rely on detecting auras of that alignment. All detect evil technically does is allow you to see evil auras - which undetectable alignment explicitly conceals from such spells.

People don't actually display an aura until they are level 5, unless they are a cleric, (anti)paladin or similarly strongly aligned divine character.

Additionally, at least to my knowledge, there is no such thing as a 'neutral' aura - true neutral characters project zero auras. Additionally, the vast majority of common folk are considered neutral, and aligned people are in-universe, pretty unusual (though I should find where that's explicitly stated).

So you'll come off as a regular Joe, more often than not. At the very least, that seems like the most reasonable conclusion.

[Curghann]

Haha, that makes total sense. I was just thinking of incorrectly.

In a room of non-evil, you simply dont detect anything. In a room full of non-evil and an evil guy with UA on, you still....dont detect anything.

Thanks for helping me see the forest for the trees. I knew I had to be missing something.

[Cpt_kirstov]

Yup! Also really good for things that can change shape or cast illusion on itself, turn into a N animal and cast undetectable alignment

[MeanMutton]

Curghann wrote:

This spell reads,

Quote:

An undetectable alignment spell conceals the alignment of an object or a creature from all forms of divination.

If you're an Evil person and you're trying to avoid detection due to that, wouldnt "not able to determine alingment" be pretty much just as damning as "detects as evil"?

Just to build on this - you're not detecting an alignment. You're detecting an alignment aura. There are only four: Good, Evil, Lawful, Chaotic. You can have any or all of those. Of instance, a demon that is a Paladin would have all four alignment auras (Evil and Chaotic from being a demon and Lawful and Good from being a Paladin). You could have none of those (low-level mortal, character that is N, outsider that does not have an alignment subtype).