my group thinks that they can use the "detect evil" spell and/or ability as a "find all". i am the thought that if your evil but not currently planning or committing some form of ill intent that you would not be detected. i know paladins and clerics have auras that give away their alignment. is this just a D&D thing or is it not in pathfinder? if i am right could you link me to the information so i can show my group.
if detect evil worked like they say it does you could just walk through any town with "detect evil" on and kill anyone that registers and be able to solve any murder mystery.
how i think it works you have to catch the person in the act or planning of evil to have it register the person as an evil person. you see a man stabbing another/ the man is sitting at a table staring at his next target waiting for him to leave. so he can follow and slit his neck in the dark alley a block from his house, where he won't be seen. those sorta things.
Killing random people who detect as evil would generally be unlawful, and generally a Capital Crime. Also, due to Heritage and Religious ties, a neutral or even good person could detect as evil, as could anyone holding an evil item. Heck, if you time it just right, the recipient of that controversial healing spell can show up. At any table I have played in, that was considered murderhobo evil, against the strong protests of a player who has fortunately gone away.
Alignment auras are things that can be measured. It's as if your intentions (your ethos?) gives off a certain kind of radiation that can be studied or interfered with (think of the spell holy smite).
Take a look at the description for the spell detect evil. There's a table there that shows how powerful an evil creature has to be before detect evil works.
PCs can certainly walk around a town casting detect evil all the time and killing people they find as evil. There are a few problems with this.
#1: An axe murderer with 4 hit dice (or class levels) who isn't a paladin or a cleric will not detect as evil. So those people will get missed.
#2: Spells (and spell-like abilities) all produce visible manifestations. You might not play with this rule, but if you do, then casting any spell openly in public will invite general cries of, 'A charm person spell! Everybody get 'im!' When mind-control magic is easy to come by, everyone must assume that any magic they see is just that.
#3: Detect evil itself is not foolproof. Perhaps the dastardly noble or wizard gets a friendly bard to cast an undetectable alignment (or similar) spell on them every day. Maybe they just wear lead underpants.
#4: Say you cast detect evil, and you find an evil person. You go to the magistrate and declare, 'This person is evil!!' The magistrate must then ask: prove it. Detect evil (and zone of truth, and a few others) only give information to the spellcaster. They don't (by themselves) make with the big orange neon illusionary arrows pointing at bad guys. If you say someone is evil and must be punished on that basis, you then have to convince someone else to believe you.
#5: Say the town butcher is a 5th-level commoner and is evil. Fine, he detects as such and isn't wearing lead underpants and admits it when asked. Did he do anything wrong today? Nah, maybe he overcharged for some sausages, or maybe he just said mean things, or maybe he did nothing. Is that a capital crime? It probably isn't.
Again, it's your game. If your PCs are given the rightful authority to cast whatever spells they want, and have jurisdiction over a town that lets them kill anyone they 'need to', and everyone's okay with it...well, perhaps sometime soon some big-league adventurers from higher up the food chain will 'detect evil' on them!
Detect Evil wrote: An evil aura's power depends on the type of evil creature or object that you're detecting and its HD, caster level, or (in the case of a cleric) class level...
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Animals, traps, poisons, and other potential perils are not evil, and as such this spell does not detect them. Creatures with actively evil intents count as evil creatures for the purpose of this spell.
Detect Evil picks up anyone who is evil. For the purpose of this spell, creatures with evil intent are treated the same as evil creatures (that is, the spell registers both as Evil). You don't have to catch an evil person just before they are about to commit an evil act. It will pick them up at any time.
There are a few things which make this less amazing than it sounds.
a) It is easy to fool with magic - undetectable alignment hard-counters it, for example
b) Being evil usually isn't a crime (and if it is, why isn't everyone abusing Misdirection?). You can be evil and be totally within the bounds of the law. Murdering a random evil person, on the other hand...
c) Knowing who is and isn't evil doesn't make the entire plot magically reveal itself, especially when you don't know why those people are evil.
d) Detect Evil has a HD limit on most humanoids. Low level creatures will never register as Evil, even if they are in the middle of murdering someone. This means that mooks should be able to skate by undetected.
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Step 1: Post the actual rules text. Specifically, the table at the bottom of the page here.
There's no good way to format it but the short answer is that people (as in not undead, outsiders, or clerics or paladins (or someone with a similar aura)) only detect as evil if they have at least 5 HD. A level 1 Rogue who is reenacting Jack the Ripper does not detect as evil. They'd have to be at least level 5.
The "actively committing evil" rule (Creatures with actively evil intents count as evil creatures for the purpose of this spell.) would make anyone, not just Evil people, detect as evil. Even if they were Good. But not if they were too low level, as it only makes them detect as if they were Evil.
Most villagers are too low level to trigger Detect Evil. As Daw also pointed out, wandering through town and murdering people because "evil-dar" says so is both super Chaotic and super Evil. There's like half a dozen different ways for someone to detect as Evil when they personally are not. Killing someone who hasn't done anything wrong because a spell with a not insignificant failure chance says so makes you a self-righteous serial killer. In the specific case of a murder mystery, the killer may just not be Evil. Many a murder can easily be described as Neutral, perhaps even Good. The players certainly seem to be arguing that their version of serial killing is Good.
thanks bob for the link. i will read it a lot til it make sense.
"only detect as evil if they have at least 5 HD."
where is that line from?
The table.
"Aligned Creature> 4 or lower> none"
From the table: The first column shows Aura = NONE for the first row Aligned Creature of 4 HD or less. Unless the creature is a cleric, or a paladin, or an undead/outsider, or has 5+ HD, the aura is non-existent.
Being evil, commiting evil acts and commiting a crime are different things.
One can be really evil, being a selfish person who doesn't care for anybody but himself. Let's say a retired assasin who uses her knowledges to sell some alchemical items and some minor poisons to deal with plagues. She might be evil, but she's not doing anything evil.
Now we have a boss who makes his workers work really hard only to get rich, he doesn't care if they get sick or if they cannot see their families and he is very harsh on them. He is probably an evil man and what he is doing could qualify as something evil, but he is not commiting a crime (depending on laboral laws of course).
And then we have an average guy who goes on a rage and kills a person. He might not be evil but what he did f qualify as an evil act and is indeed a crime.
That's why Detect Evil is moral-wise not perfect.
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