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Okay, I posted this in the Paladin Blog thread but it was quickly buried under 700+ posts on whether Paizo was doing right or wrong by not putting non-LG Paladins in the Core.
What I want to know is this: Do Paladins in PF2 retain their detect evil ability? It wasn't mentioned at all, yet this is a class feature that's been around since the very first hardbound edition of AD&D. I don't mind if it's removed, I just want to know ... was it not mentioned in the blog because it's gone, or because it was an oversight, or because it's a selectable option, or what?
Can any designer reply to this question?
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Are you kidding?
It'd be AWESOME to not have that for Paladin.
They'd actually have to ROLEPLAY instead of using the EVILDAR ARRAY to discover the motivations and inclinations of PCs and NPCs, and they'd have plenty of coverage in the event that they were duped rather than having the MUST STOP EBIL alarm going on in their head every ten seconds.
It's a far more heroic story, after all, for a paragon of good to be duped into doing evil unawares and then making it right than side-stepping the whole thing because 'oh, that's evil, shouldn't touch it, or maybe even just preach that they're bad people and need to repent'.
Bring roleplay back to the forefront. Get rid of Paladin Detect Evil.
...and then the Code becomes a lot more powerful.
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Either make detect evil actually detect evil or get rid of it. Characters who have an evil alignment are EVIL. Wishy washy characters are called neutrals. Having detect evil does not give you a license to kill unless you are in a theocratic state and even then the rule of law would apply because paladins are Lawful as well as Good. Just like in real life guilt must be proven in most courts even if the evidence is suspect. All that detect evil does is give the paladin a heads up that something is amiss. Just have it use spell points and its all good.
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They have it as an option, though it kicks in more at the levels where characters actually have an evil aura to make it a more relevant choice, and as DeadManWalking says, it is much less of a black-and-white "Lord Evilor is the evil one now smite him" ability and more of "Something's not right about all of this and something evil is afoot, I can feel it in my bones. We'd better examine the evidence more carefully."
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Are you kidding?It'd be AWESOME to not have that for Paladin.
They'd actually have to ROLEPLAY instead of using the EVILDAR ARRAY to discover the motivations and inclinations of PCs and NPCs, and they'd have plenty of coverage in the event that they were duped rather than having the MUST STOP EBIL alarm going on in their head every ten seconds.
It's a far more heroic story, after all, for a paragon of good to be duped into doing evil unawares and then making it right than side-stepping the whole thing because 'oh, that's evil, shouldn't touch it, or maybe even just preach that they're bad people and need to repent'.
Bring roleplay back to the forefront. Get rid of Paladin Detect Evil.
...and then the Code becomes a lot more powerful.
...That's 100% fair, actually. It's definitely more heroic, and iconic, even, to see such a do-gooder get wrapped up into something more evil, or at least sketchy. I can see how some DMs or groups may have trouble with that aspect of play but I'd love to toy around with it more; not with the intent of having a Paladin fall, by any means, but it's good story telling.
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They have it as an option, though it kicks in more at the levels where characters actually have an evil aura to make it a more relevant choice, and as DeadManWalking says, it is much less of a black-and-white "Lord Evilor is the evil one now smite him" ability and more of "Something's not right about all of this and something evil is afoot, I can feel it in my bones. We'd better examine the evidence more carefully."
That sounds like a pretty marked step up over the current design on Detect Evil. Does this apply to all "Detect Alignment" abilities or just the class feature that Paladins are getting?
I for one approve of making it easier for a party ally to be secretly evil without jumping through a half dozen hoops, most of which must be magical.
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They have it as an option, though it kicks in more at the levels where characters actually have an evil aura to make it a more relevant choice, and as DeadManWalking says, it is much less of a black-and-white "Lord Evilor is the evil one now smite him" ability and more of "Something's not right about all of this and something evil is afoot, I can feel it in my bones. We'd better examine the evidence more carefully."That sounds like a pretty marked step up over the current design on Detect Evil. Does this apply to all "Detect Alignment" abilities or just the class feature that Paladins are getting?
I for one approve of making it easier for a party ally to be secretly evil without jumping through a half dozen hoops, most of which must be magical.
The paladin design is different than the spell, which is still less specific than the PF version but could be used to out an evil ally in a controlled environment...However! The paladin ability is also constantly active, whereas the spell requires forethought and preparation, and the spell isn't a given (as I said, we have better options for removing alignment entirely or deemphasizing if you want to do it, and part of that involves the ability to choose whether to include detect alignment).
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My disagreements with alignments aside, my main concern regarding detect evil, is whether Paladin's will still be able to Smite evil targets a limited number of times per day, and if so, will they have a reliable way of determining which targets are valid for the purposes of Smite Evil? Or will they just be stuck, unable to actually use their very limited pool of Smite Evil for fear of accidentally wasting valuable uses on encounters that turn out to have been totally neutral all along?
One way they could solve this is by making Smite Evil only count against your uses if it actually works. That'd introduce the problem of people using it to circumvent the restrictions on detect evil, though that could in turn be solved by making smite an explicitly verbal action that requires you to accuse the target of being smite-worthy. Loudly declaring the governor to be guilty of collaborating with demons just to check if he might be evil enough to do so would have some pretty serious repercussions if you happen to be wrong.
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My disagreements with the alignment system aside, my main concern regarding detect evil, is whether Paladin's will still be able to Smite evil targets a limited number of times per day, and if so, will they have a reliable way of determining which targets are valid for the purposes of Smite Evil? Or will they just be stuck, unable to actually use their very limited pool of Smite Evil for fear of accidentally wasting valuable uses on encounters that turn out to have been totally neutral all along?
We are firmly committed to the idea that you shouldn't have to waste your resources on "gotcha" moments like that. That's why we're much more interested in giving you smiting benefits without any need for a guessing game (let's be honest, even in PF1 it wasn't worth losing my full attack for the detect evil so I mostly just assumed the evil-seeming enemy was evil and it worked most of the time, Chrysalis Blacks aside, but it's still pretty frustrating when I waste it). However, the length of the necessary explanation was such that I didn't really have enough space to include it in the blog given the necessity of the other topics.
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That's why we're much more interested in giving you smiting benefits without any need for a guessing game... However, the length of the necessary explanation was such that I didn't really have enough space to include it in the blog given the necessity of the other topics.
Can you confirm if you have removed the damage bonus from smite?
I would actually approve, or if not remove the damage then a significant nerf. It was fine a lower levels, but at higher levels, especially with Aura of Justice, it was just too good against evil encounters.
I'm cool with detect evil coming online down the road. I hope they are keeping a certain level and condition of evil being required to ping?
Plan, that is actually part of the design, by making it come online later it is less 'incapacitate the user' or 'inconclusive results' and more 'YEP, THAT THAR IS PURE EBIL!'
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The paladin design is different than the spell, which is still less specific than the PF version but could be used to out an evil ally in a controlled environment...However! The paladin ability is also constantly active, whereas the spell requires forethought and preparation, and the spell isn't a given (as I said, we have better options for removing alignment entirely or deemphasizing if you want to do it, and part of that involves the ability to choose whether to include detect alignment).They have it as an option, though it kicks in more at the levels where characters actually have an evil aura to make it a more relevant choice, and as DeadManWalking says, it is much less of a black-and-white "Lord Evilor is the evil one now smite him" ability and more of "Something's not right about all of this and something evil is afoot, I can feel it in my bones. We'd better examine the evidence more carefully."That sounds like a pretty marked step up over the current design on Detect Evil. Does this apply to all "Detect Alignment" abilities or just the class feature that Paladins are getting?
I for one approve of making it easier for a party ally to be secretly evil without jumping through a half dozen hoops, most of which must be magical.
Oooo so it's more like "my Evil senses are tingling" rather than an Evil detecting spotlight?
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Oooo so it's more like "my Evil senses are tingling" rather than an Evil detecting spotlight?The paladin design is different than the spell, which is still less specific than the PF version but could be used to out an evil ally in a controlled environment...However! The paladin ability is also constantly active, whereas the spell requires forethought and preparation, and the spell isn't a given (as I said, we have better options for removing alignment entirely or deemphasizing if you want to do it, and part of that involves the ability to choose whether to include detect alignment).They have it as an option, though it kicks in more at the levels where characters actually have an evil aura to make it a more relevant choice, and as DeadManWalking says, it is much less of a black-and-white "Lord Evilor is the evil one now smite him" ability and more of "Something's not right about all of this and something evil is afoot, I can feel it in my bones. We'd better examine the evidence more carefully."That sounds like a pretty marked step up over the current design on Detect Evil. Does this apply to all "Detect Alignment" abilities or just the class feature that Paladins are getting?
I for one approve of making it easier for a party ally to be secretly evil without jumping through a half dozen hoops, most of which must be magical.
Yeesh, I can see a lot of folks taking their "sense tingle" as license to murder everything in sight.
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Yeesh, I can see a lot of folks taking their "sense tingle" as license to murder everything in sight.Oooo so it's more like "my Evil senses are tingling" rather than an Evil detecting spotlight?The paladin design is different than the spell, which is still less specific than the PF version but could be used to out an evil ally in a controlled environment...However! The paladin ability is also constantly active, whereas the spell requires forethought and preparation, and the spell isn't a given (as I said, we have better options for removing alignment entirely or deemphasizing if you want to do it, and part of that involves the ability to choose whether to include detect alignment).They have it as an option, though it kicks in more at the levels where characters actually have an evil aura to make it a more relevant choice, and as DeadManWalking says, it is much less of a black-and-white "Lord Evilor is the evil one now smite him" ability and more of "Something's not right about all of this and something evil is afoot, I can feel it in my bones. We'd better examine the evidence more carefully."That sounds like a pretty marked step up over the current design on Detect Evil. Does this apply to all "Detect Alignment" abilities or just the class feature that Paladins are getting?
I for one approve of making it easier for a party ally to be secretly evil without jumping through a half dozen hoops, most of which must be magical.
A FALL IS FOR THEM!
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Yeesh, I can see a lot of folks taking their "sense tingle" as license to murder everything in sight.Oooo so it's more like "my Evil senses are tingling" rather than an Evil detecting spotlight?The paladin design is different than the spell, which is still less specific than the PF version but could be used to out an evil ally in a controlled environment...However! The paladin ability is also constantly active, whereas the spell requires forethought and preparation, and the spell isn't a given (as I said, we have better options for removing alignment entirely or deemphasizing if you want to do it, and part of that involves the ability to choose whether to include detect alignment).They have it as an option, though it kicks in more at the levels where characters actually have an evil aura to make it a more relevant choice, and as DeadManWalking says, it is much less of a black-and-white "Lord Evilor is the evil one now smite him" ability and more of "Something's not right about all of this and something evil is afoot, I can feel it in my bones. We'd better examine the evidence more carefully."That sounds like a pretty marked step up over the current design on Detect Evil. Does this apply to all "Detect Alignment" abilities or just the class feature that Paladins are getting?
I for one approve of making it easier for a party ally to be secretly evil without jumping through a half dozen hoops, most of which must be magical.
People already do that, and as the bird pointed out, if they're Paladin they're probably gonna fall.
I don’t really expect Detect Evil turning into holy Spidey sense to result in any more sudden murder than the original did.
Yeah, even in first, smiting everything that detects as evil is a great way to fall sooner rather than later.
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"Evil senses tingling" is a lot more workable tbh because it prevents the Paladin from slowing down the game by scanning everything and everyone. And it will probably only go off in the presence of an actual evil aura (eg, a fiend) or active evil intent (someone wants to commit murder), and not go off in the face of passive evil (someone's just a selfish jerk).
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"Evil senses tingling" is a lot more workable tbh because it prevents the Paladin from slowing down the game by scanning everything and everyone. And it will probably only go off in the presence of an actual evil aura (eg, a fiend) or active evil intent (someone wants to commit murder), and not go off in the face of passive evil (someone's just a selfish jerk).
*nods*