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We recently converted my home game from 1e to 2E, and one player has a Paladin of Serenrae who is missing his old ability to Detecf Evil at will. He recently multi classes to Sorcerer and picked up Divine Lance as a Cantrip. Since good damage only harms evil aligned creatures, he’s taken to shooting creatures with Divine Lance as a sort of poor man’s Detect Evil.
Putting aside the first time he did it, when he actually talked someone into consenting, which seems sort of crazy, but the target was sure he wasn’t evil, do folks agree that doing this unprovoked to a non-combatant is an evil act?
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We recently converted my home game from 1e to 2E, and one player has a Paladin of Serenrae who is missing his old ability to Detecf Evil at will. He recently multi classes to Sorcerer and picked up Divine Lance as a Cantrip. Since good damage only harms evil aligned creatures, he’s taken to shooting creatures with Divine Lance as a sort of poor man’s Detect Evil.
Putting aside the first time he did it, when he actually talked someone into consenting, which seems sort of crazy, but the target was sure he wasn’t evil, do folks agree that doing this unprovoked to a non-combatant is an evil act?
Think of it this way. You're going to put a gun to each person's head, and pull the trigger. You have no idea whether the shot is going to be a blank or not.
How many people would let you do this?
How many people would think that this scenario is crazy?
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We recently converted my home game from 1e to 2E, and one player has a Paladin of Serenrae who is missing his old ability to Detecf Evil at will. He recently multi classes to Sorcerer and picked up Divine Lance as a Cantrip. Since good damage only harms evil aligned creatures, he’s taken to shooting creatures with Divine Lance as a sort of poor man’s Detect Evil.
Putting aside the first time he did it, when he actually talked someone into consenting, which seems sort of crazy, but the target was sure he wasn’t evil, do folks agree that doing this unprovoked to a non-combatant is an evil act?
As with most things in the game, the actions themselves aren't really alignment defining, but the intent behind said actions certainly are.
I mean, it's not really an evil act if the Champion believes the target is evil, but that comes with a matter of the Champion having probable cause to jump to that conclusion. A Champion throwing Divine Lance out willy nilly most certainly isn't lawful, as even if the Divine Lance isn't harmful to the target, it's certainly a matter of breaching privacy. And if it is harmful, then the Champion is assaulting someone who isn't proven guilty of a crime, or actively threatening innocents, and as such would be anathema to them. Not to mention legitimate authority would be called on said Champion and unless the Champion is extremely high level, will be overwhelmed by the city guards and thrown in jail for assaulting a civilian among other things.
Being adamant and fervent in your dedication to wiping out evil doesn't give you the right to breach privacy as well as potentially assault someone. Championhood isn't a free pass to be a dick and go looking for trouble, it's a privilege to help make the world a better place for those who don't have the ability to do so themselves. And this display of power is a very poor example of this, one that I imagine would be admonished by their deity.
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Seems kind of reckless. He could end up killing a low level character or hit a high level character causing his own death.
He killed an innkeeper with this stunt tonight. The innkeeper was a member of a shoggoth worshipping murder cult in an isolated, lawless village, so I didn’t really press the issue, but it sort of felt like murder.
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A number of problems. He could kill someone that was just a greedy miser. Evil, but enough for a death sentence? Maybe he just cheats on his taxes and is a compulsive liar.
I also believe that regular people will not stand for someone coming in a town and using magic against people that they don’t understand. Exactly the kind of thing that will form a lynch mob with torches and pitchforks to deal out some peasant justice, or at least make him unwelcome in most places.
Most people do not understand the subtleties of Magic so whether he can justify it or not it is going to look like murder to most people.
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Sarenrae: Anathema create undead, lie, deny a repentant creature an
opportunity for redemption, fail to strike down evil.That third clause there seems to be a big issue with those actions. Maybe it was an evil creature, but killing it without at least figuring out if it wanted to be redeemed is something I'd definitely say would go against Anathema if done repeatedly.
Love it. Have him speak to the family who tell him how they were trying to change and get out of a bad situation but he had trouble controlling his impulses. Wracked by guilt and take away his powers for a while.
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As with most things in the game, the actions themselves aren't really alignment defining, but the intent behind said actions certainly are.
In a universe in which good and evil are objective facts rather than subjective opinions, it seems to me that intent only gets you so far. Whether or not you believe with all your might that killing an innocent is a good act, it isn’t. It’s evil. The wrinkle in this case is that the innkeeper wasn’t innocent.
I mean, it's not really an evil act if the Champion believes the target is evil,
What does it matter what the Champion believes? And for that matter what does it matter if the target is actually evil? Having an evil alignment doesn’t mean it’s not evil to kill you.
Not to mention legitimate authority would be called on said Champion
In this particular case the authority figure in the village, the priest of the Shoggoth cult had just died after siccing a group of Deep Ones and a Gug on the party in order to kidnap some for breeding stock and sacrifice the others to the Shoggoth. So no one was going to investigate. But, yeah, I agree it was an unlawful search and seizure.
Your GM and you can rule good and evil however you want in your game. There aren't RAW rules for this, and even if there were this is something you control completely. You can decide however you think will make the most fun game.
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I think there's a reason detect alignment is an uncommon spell, because of players constantly spamming it on everything in sight. Yeah, it was a fairly major class ability that was kinda supposed to be spammed, being at will and all, but it got old
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You could say that only actively Good are not harmed by Good damage. Neutral creatures take half damage. And say the opposite with Evil damage, full to Good heroes, half to Neutral creatures. Then you could scare him by saying that the Evil damage didn't hurt as much as you thought it would... are you sure you are still good?
Where does it say that only evil creature take damage from good?
I see a few creature that are weak to good damage, but I don't see where it says divine lance won't hurt a unicorn.
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Love it. Have him speak to the family who tell him how they were trying to change and get out of a bad situation but he had trouble controlling his impulses. Wracked by guilt and take away his powers for a while.Sarenrae: Anathema create undead, lie, deny a repentant creature an
opportunity for redemption, fail to strike down evil.That third clause there seems to be a big issue with those actions. Maybe it was an evil creature, but killing it without at least figuring out if it wanted to be redeemed is something I'd definitely say would go against Anathema if done repeatedly.
Ha! Or take it a step further and have the victim's good-aligned spouse and/or child try to get justice by personally executing the murderer.
When will the pain and death stop? Why did this 'supposed' paladin have to start such misery?
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Where does it say that only evil creature take damage from good?
I see a few creature that are weak to good damage, but I don't see where it says divine lance won't hurt a unicorn.
Under damage types on page 452
ALIGNMENT DAMAGE
Weapons and effects keyed to a particular alignment can deal chaotic, evil, good, or lawful damage. These damage types apply only to creatures that have the opposing alignment trait. Chaotic damage harms only lawful creatures, evil damage harms only good creatures, good damage harms only evil creatures, and lawful damage harms only chaotic creatures.
yeah, i'd probably go the superstition route, and have people be REALLY freaked out to be hit by magic and be "unaffected". eventually people will get scared and try to do something about him.
The player is casting offensive spells at random people... with a somatic and verbal component so hardly subtle.
Further more, while alignment is absolute from a mechanical perspective, people of the world will generally see it in subjective hues. Not to mention distrust in the spellcaster and quite possibly lack of faith in the caster's faith (pun intended).
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I think a lawful good or neutral good character might have a big problem with hurting someone who hasn't committed any crime just because they have evil within their heart. Having an evil alignment isn't illegal and doesn't justify violence against that person.
Its also, just kind of excessively paranoid to zap everyone you see in case they are evil (not to mention that you have to hit for it to work, and if you don't hit you might not even know the difference in character between them taking no damage and the spell not penetrating their armour).
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Is someone guilty just because they have evil thoughts, or do they have to commit actual evil deeds?
If someone may be evil, but you don't know if they're actually guilty of anything, do they have to "self-incriminate" by undergoing a possibly lethal experiment? Someone who's maybe evil but hasn't committed any crimes could still die.
Using Divine Lance that way doesn't seem very lawful or good to me. Now, chaotic evil people can also use divine lance and I guess for them it's a great acid test...
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yeah, i'd probably go the superstition route, and have people be REALLY freaked out to be hit by magic and be "unaffected". eventually people will get scared and try to do something about him.
I don’t think it even qualifies as superstition to refuse to let someone cast an offensive spell at you in the first place. These are people who live in a magical world, so when someone says “I want to cast a spell at you that could injure or even kill you, it’s totally rational to say no. If he talks someone into it, I don’t necessarily see their being upset by it not harming them, though, because by that point I figure he’s convinced him of how it works.
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Is someone guilty just because they have evil thoughts, or do they have to commit actual evil deeds?How can anyone be evil if he doesn't commit any evil deeds ? O_O
That's something philosophers have been fighting over for centuries. Is a good deed done with selfish/evil intent good or not? Is someone who does evil things for good reasons evil? It's all rather complicated.
In Pathfinder, you can be evil just because your statblock says so. Doesn't mean you've done any harm (yet).
In the justice system most of us are used to, you're not guilty of anything if you thought about doing a crime but didn't do it.
Don't turn Divine Lance into Thought Police. Unless you're Evil and want to weed out the undercover Chaotic Good infiltrators in your cult.
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I think there was an earlier thread about this same question. I would still say the same thing now that I did then, that a character who is walking around attempting to murder people, to see of it works, is not a good character, regardless of what used to be written on their character sheet.
I love this!
A paladin could use Divine Lance as their first action in a combat with an opponent they are not sure is evil. If they're unaffected, maybe diplomacy or subdual is in order.
As for using it randomly while walking around town: definitely an unlawful act, likely evil too.
Using it in rare situations where you want to prove one person is not evil: that's awesome and creative. If you had a known evil shapeshifter in the group, for example, I think everyone would agree a quick Lance test would be in order.
Seems like you should have a high level lawful evil guy somewhere, who never broke the law.
The gets a bunch of town guards to round up the PC for assault.
Glibness, illusory disguise, magic aura, misdirection, greater clandestine cloak, greater hat of disguise, ring of lies, etc., all to protect your BBEG from being found out too early in the plot--all defeated by divine lance.
That seems like it would be a problem to me.
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Is someone guilty just because they have evil thoughts, or do they have to commit actual evil deeds?How can anyone be evil if he doesn't commit any evil deeds ? O_O
Alignment is a pretty tricky and subjective thing, but I think someone "with evil in their heart" could be evil. For example, think of a serial killer. Are they evil once they've started killing people. Definitely. Are they evil while planning to kill people? Probably. Are they evil before they've planned to kill someone, maybe they just have violent thoughts or have the seed of their evil deeds in their mind? I don't know, and this seems like a GM decision.
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Do we know what it looks like to take Good damage? If it's not obvious, the damaged creature could make a bluff check to hide the fact?
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@Gaterie: it's an old discussion, but a new game. Let me see how alignment works nowadays.
Your character’s alignment is an indicator of their morality and personality. There are nine possible alignments in Pathfinder, as shown on Table 1–2: The Nine Alignments. If your alignment has any components other than neutral, your character gains the traits of those alignment components. This might affect the way various spells, items, and creatures interact with your character.
Your character’s alignment is measured by two pairs of opposed values: the axis of good and evil and the axis of law and chaos. A character who isn’t committed strongly to either side is neutral on that axis. Keep in mind that alignment is a complicated subject, and even acts that might be considered good can be used for nefarious purposes, and vice versa. The GM is the arbiter of questions about how specific actions might affect your character’s alignment.
If you play a champion, your character’s alignment must be one allowed for their deity and cause (pages 437–440 and 106–107), and if you play a cleric, your character’s alignment must be one allowed for their deity (pages 437–440).
Your character has a good alignment if they consider the happiness of others above their own and work selflessly to assist others, even those who aren’t friends and family. They are also good if they value protecting others from harm, even if doing so puts the character in danger. Your character has an evil alignment if they’re willing to victimize others for their own selfish gain, and even more so if they enjoy inflicting harm. If your character falls somewhere in the middle, they’re likely neutral on this axis.
Your character has a lawful alignment if they value consistency, stability, and predictability over flexibility. Lawful characters have a set system in life, whether it’s meticulously planning day-to-day activities, carefully following a set of official or unofficial laws, or strictly adhering to a code of honor. On the other hand, if your character values flexibility, creativity, and spontaneity over consistency, they have a chaotic alignment—though this doesn’t mean they make decisions by choosing randomly. Chaotic characters believe that lawful characters are too inflexible to judge each situation by its own merits or take advantage of opportunities, while lawful characters believe that chaotic characters are irresponsible and flighty.
Many characters are in the middle, obeying the law or following a code of conduct in many situations, but bending the rules when the situation requires it. If your character is in the middle, they are neutral on this axis.
It seems your alignment is to a large degree determined by what you think and feel, not what you do. You absolutely can be evil without actually doing any nasty deeds. Whether it's because you didn't have opportunity, were scared of the consequences or whatnot.
It's still the classic paladin's dilemma: what do you do with people who are evil but haven't commited crimes? Is it just and good to punish them anyway?
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We recently converted my home game from 1e to 2E, and one player has a Paladin of Serenrae who is missing his old ability to Detecf Evil at will. He recently multi classes to Sorcerer and picked up Divine Lance as a Cantrip. Since good damage only harms evil aligned creatures, he’s taken to shooting creatures with Divine Lance as a sort of poor man’s Detect Evil.
Putting aside the first time he did it, when he actually talked someone into consenting, which seems sort of crazy, but the target was sure he wasn’t evil, do folks agree that doing this unprovoked to a non-combatant is an evil act?
Think of it this way. You're going to put a gun to each person's head, and pull the trigger. You have no idea whether the shot is going to be a blank or not.
How many people would let you do this?
How many people would think that this scenario is crazy?
That's basically going all salem witch trial on people. I am going to shoot this at you and if it does not kill you then you are freed. I honestly could see hell knights going this route but few other good characters would use it in this fashion.
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We recently converted my home game from 1e to 2E, and one player has a Paladin of Serenrae who is missing his old ability to Detecf Evil at will. He recently multi classes to Sorcerer and picked up Divine Lance as a Cantrip. Since good damage only harms evil aligned creatures, he’s taken to shooting creatures with Divine Lance as a sort of poor man’s Detect Evil.
Putting aside the first time he did it, when he actually talked someone into consenting, which seems sort of crazy, but the target was sure he wasn’t evil, do folks agree that doing this unprovoked to a non-combatant is an evil act?
Think of it this way. You're going to put a gun to each person's head, and pull the trigger. You have no idea whether the shot is going to be a blank or not.
How many people would let you do this?
How many people would think that this scenario is crazy?
If you have a gun to someone's head, the difference between bullet and blank is mostly academic. At that range, blanks are quite sufficiently deadly.
Which is completely tangent to your point, just one of those gun myths that irk me.
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We recently converted my home game from 1e to 2E, and one player has a Paladin of Serenrae who is missing his old ability to Detecf Evil at will. He recently multi classes to Sorcerer and picked up Divine Lance as a Cantrip. Since good damage only harms evil aligned creatures, he’s taken to shooting creatures with Divine Lance as a sort of poor man’s Detect Evil.
Putting aside the first time he did it, when he actually talked someone into consenting, which seems sort of crazy, but the target was sure he wasn’t evil, do folks agree that doing this unprovoked to a non-combatant is an evil act?
Think of it this way. You're going to put a gun to each person's head, and pull the trigger. You have no idea whether the shot is going to be a blank or not.
How many people would let you do this?
How many people would think that this scenario is crazy?If you have a gun to someone's head, the difference between bullet and blank is mostly academic. At that range, blanks are quite sufficiently deadly.
Which is completely tangent to your point, just one of those gun myths that irk me.
I think it's worth bringing up every time, even if it saves just one life ever.
All that would have to exist, would be ways of fooling the process, most likely via false positives, which could make someone take damage even if they were not inherently evil. That would make people trusting this as a method of detection, something that would seem inappropriate under most circumstances.
Some things like. What if a tiefling or half fiend had the evil trait, even if it might have a good alignment. Origin for one trait, by ancestry, while the other as an active belief. There also could be [may even be, I haven't hunted down specifically] spells that impart evil or good traits to someone temporarily for purposes of deception, or other manipulation.
I believe that there is fool magic device, which can trick a magic device at least that you meet a criteria that you don't. Can that be used to avoid damage in a case like this? Especially, if you know it is coming?
What if by eating Vile-berries, you get a +1 bonus against Necromantic effects, but you also are temporarily tainted by the Evil trait? [potentially impacting spell casting, for instance] What if Vile-berries are a common fruit in a village, and part of many of their staple foods?
One thing that wasn't always completely clear in 1st edition was when someone qualified for the Evil trait. Technically, for instance you only got your Alignment descriptor aura if you were rather high level, unless you were a cleric or divine spellcaster. Then there were some things like undead and/or outsiders from the lower planes that were naturally evil that had it.
It seemed like some rules were written assuming that you had to have that level of alignment to be affected by such things, and then other rules seemed to imply that the evil peasant would be impacted. [my guess being some developers actually probably operated with one assumption, and others the other, but it might have been a 3.5 vs. pf1 thing, and I didn't know how to differentiate it]
I myself think that casting a damaging spell to determine if someone is an alignment is definitely offensive. And as someone else mentioned, people who don't know exactly how the spell works, may not trust the caster to say... see he hurt, so he is evil.
After all, WHO is to say the caster isn't Evil and actually casting Divine Lance and doing Evil damage, claiming that the fact they took damage, that the poor good peasant is evil, leaving the insinuation that the peasant committed the crime the false paladin actually committed. Are the villagers going to trust the armored stranger that has blood on her sword, or their neighbor of 20 years, when the stranger accuses them because the stranger just suddenly was able to blast their friend hurting them, that they deserve to be punished further?
I do remember on the other hand being generally willing to cast disrupt undead spells even when people were in melee with other unread, since if you accidentally hit your companion, it wouldn't hurt them. [unless perhaps one of them was secretly a Dhampir] ehehe
I'd want to make it something that wasn't as easy as just Divine Lancing people, for instance, because otherwise why wouldn't the Chellish just Divine Lance everyone with Lawful damage to insure they root out all the rebels. [not that doing that wouldn't prompt some neutrals to potentially thing they have gone too far]
At a minimum, someone like the former Vigilante type character can probably maintain an alternate alignment. You might even be able to make a mechanically multiple-personality individual who may have different mechanical alignments while they are in various personalities. Were creatures might, especially when first stricken only have their evil alignment when in their cursed form, until they accept their new nature.
These could all make the spell less reliable in certain circumstances, which could make it not considered a valid, authoritative test for honorable justice.
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Some things like. What if a tiefling or half fiend had the evil trait, even if it might have a good alignment.
In 1E there were alignment subtypes, that triggered alignment-contingent
effects.Alignment damage in 2E is keyed to the “opposing alignment trait.” I’m not sure if that means ONLY the creature’s alignment, or if there is a separate set of traits that correspond to the old alignment subtypes.
Can that be used to avoid damage in a case like this? Especially, if you know it is coming?
I certainly hope it can, because that’s a very cool idea.
What if by eating Vile-berries, you get a +1 bonus against Necromantic effects, but you also are temporarily tainted by the Evil trait?
The 1E Infernal Healing spell had this effect. “ The target detects as an evil creature for the duration of the spell and can sense the evil of the magic[.]”
I myself think that casting a damaging spell to determine if someone is an alignment is definitely offensive.
Without consent, anyway.
And as someone else mentioned, people who don't know exactly how the spell works, may not trust the caster to say... see he hurt, so he is evil.
In this case the PC was casting to inform himself and his party, who would believe him. But, yeah, people who aren’t at least friendly, and maybe even helpful, would be skeptical at best.
I'd want to make it something that wasn't as easy as just Divine Lancing people, for instance, because otherwise why wouldn't the Chellish just Divine Lance everyone with Lawful damage to insure they root out all the rebels.
Divine Lance has only been around a couple months. Maybe House Thrune hadn’t thought of it yet. Maybe you just gave Her Infernal Majesty a great idea.
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That's basically going all salem witch trial on people. I am going to shoot this at you and if it does not kill you then you are freed.
The fact that the Divine Lance Test is, as far as I can tell, accurate and reliable, is a meaningful distinction as compared to historical witch-finding methods.
I honestly could see hell knights going this route but few other good characters would use it in this fashion.
Wandering around casting it capriciously is almost certainly not Good, and arguably Evil. Doing so other than in a lawless area is almost certainly illegal. I don’t have a hard time imagining even a Lawful Good regime whose law allows the Divine Lance Test under specific circumstances. It would basically be just another aspect of the state’s monopoly on violence.
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There already is at least one spell which gives good vulnerability to a creature that doesn't have it. So I'd say there is already grounds for being able to fudge the results of the test, which makes it a pretty questionable tactic.
Also, getting someone to consent to the test might be difficult even if they are good or neutral. Why? Because most people have done something crappy and harbor some guilt over it. I'd posit that most people who aren't actively dealing with divine magic (or even empowered by it) probably don't know their own alignment. Most people probably like to think they are good. But how do you know? How do you know that you aren't secretly evil deep down because you've cheated on a spouse or bought stolen goods? How sure are you? Sure enough to bet your life on it?
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Glibness, illusory disguise, magic aura, misdirection, greater clandestine cloak, greater hat of disguise, ring of lies, etc., all to protect your BBEG from being found out too early in the plot--all defeated by divine lance.
That seems like it would be a problem to me.
The simplest fix in my mind is for it to be errata to also affect neutral targets with half damage.
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I feel like it's especially a problem for a Sarenite, as Sarenrae advocates redeeming evildoers if at all possible. You can't convince someone to mend their ways if you've killed them while testing whether they're evil or not.