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The tyranny of the majority is something that needs to be avoided too.
What you're describing isn't so different from a witch hunt.
A witch hunt is blind
If somebody says
"we are definitely going to catch the killer, but we could speed up things by doing so"
There is nothing evil.
Careless trivialities masquerading as forensics and investigion leading to damage and death that serve no purpose would indeed be evil.
]It is true that they could catch the killer without usng that strategy, but it true as well that they will definitely speed up things by doing that well.
No, this is 100% fantasy you have made up to defend your argument. It isn’t true in the slightest.
They will investigate, they will seek for testimonies, they will try some stakeout, and more stuff.
Ya’know, the stuff that actually brings about useful evidence and clues.
Since you mentioned a witch hunt I know for sure ( assumption ) that you know it. Can you see the differences between a witch hunt and this situation?
Can you?
All of what you have put forth will not lead to answers not justice in the slightest, but a witch hunt that will most likely end in lynchings.
You repeating “it’s not a witch hunt cause I say so” doesn’t make it true.
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Could you explain, how, what I set up is torturing people ( and I said "it would speed up", not it would "quick lead". The former needs to at least imagine what the duration would be with or without the "torture" )?
Torture (from Latin tortus: to twist, to torment) is the act of deliberately inflicting severe physical or psychological suffering on someone by another as a punishment or in order to fulfill some desire of the torturer or force some action from the victim.
This is 100% torture. You're using the threat and function of REAL violence with at tool that will seriously if not fatally injure a full 1/3 of all Characters in the game world. Even the act of THREATENING to use Divine Lance to try to ferret out "the Evildoers" is potentially torturous, especially if the person is unwilling.
I wouldn't be having a PC shift their Alignment for this but it is worth noting that it is almost CERTAINLY Anethama to the Serenrae since you're not even offering the potential positives the chance at redemption, instead you opt for a test that can potentially or otherwise seriously harm innocent people. Just because someone might be NE doesn't mean they're not perfectly innocent and law-abiding productive citizens of who-the-hell-cares.
If somebody says"we are definitely going to catch the killer, but we could speed up things by doing so"
There is nothing evil.
Things are explained for what they are.
It is true that they could catch the killer without usng that strategy, but it true as well that they will definitely speed up things by doing that well.
It's not true, because if you don't know whos doing it they could just hide.
Maybe in a small village in a remote place where you're sure no one is coming into town in the middle of the night and doing the evil deed, and you can be absolutely positive it's one of the town's 50 people, then maybe that will speed things up.
Now think about a town of thousands, with people going in and out every day. How will you round them up? How will you know you've tested everyone? How do you know when you've caught your culprit (you don't by the way, you only know you caught an evil person).
Meanwhile during your Inquisition the likely culprit has went into hiding.
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You’re inflicting lethal damage/possibly death on someone just to find out their Alignment. That’s torture.
For absolutely no gain or progress in an investigation.
Well, if your main concern is that the people could be killed ( didn't get you were referring at this until now ), that's if we follow RAW there could be way harder consequences ( but in primis there won't be this possibility at all, even at lvl 1 ).
But, if explained the idea the dm would allow you to deal 1 good damage, then there won't be any death or torture.
"I know I can use a cantrip, but could i use it with less power just to see if a person is evil or not? I don't intend to kill anybody, as you can imagine, but this could semplify things"
As for the progress, we simply disagree ( I partially agree with you, as I stated before, since your is a valid outcome. Guess "but what if..." would be what I'd be wondering interrogating myself about using that or not. I'd consider the possibility to lower the victims by doing that, while you are sure that you could achieve the same result without such a system ).
Well, I guess everything is now clear for me ( I also think your answers cover for probably all other users which pointed out what you claim ).
Moving the goalposts by bringing in houserulings, but not by much. You're still inflicting lethal damage (for superfluous information), that's torture.
Of course we disagree, you're trying to justify torture just to make it okay, not out of a need for justice. There's numerous other methods and pathways people could take in an investigation that would yield actual results. Diverting time and resources for torture to find out irrelevant personal information is not only time and resources wasted initially, but down the line as you now polluted the mind of the fellow investigators and townsfolk as well that will lead them going after false leads rather than searching for the actual killer and evidence.
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You’re inflicting lethal damage/possibly death on someone just to find out their Alignment. That’s torture.
For absolutely no gain or progress in an investigation.
Well, if your main concern is that the people could be killed ( didn't get you were referring at this until now ), that's if we follow RAW there could be way harder consequences ( but in primis there won't be this possibility at all, even at lvl 1 ).
But, if explained the idea the dm would allow you to deal 1 good damage, then there won't be any death or torture.
"I know I can use a cantrip, but could i use it with less power just to see if a person is evil or not? I don't intend to kill anybody, as you can imagine, but this could semplify things"
As for the progress, we simply disagree ( I partially agree with you, as I stated before, since your is a valid outcome. Guess "but what if..." would be what I'd be wondering interrogating myself about using that or not. I'd consider the possibility to lower the victims by doing that, while you are sure that you could achieve the same result without such a system ).
Well, I guess everything is now clear for me ( I also think your answers cover for probably all other users which pointed out what you claim ).
Moving the goalposts by bringing in houserulings, but not by much. You're still inflicting lethal damage (for superfluous information), that's torture.
just a question ( to understand if i got it right )
If you can't trust me because you think I could be a demon in disguise ( something let you think that you could be right ), and I offer myself to be tested, because I want you to trust me, what would be your answer?
You wouldn't test me even it is me that is ask you to do so, wouldn't you?
Ps: you could also not doing that because you could have being even more suspectful towards me ( what's with his request... he's plotting something for sure... ), indeed, but let's leave this possibility...
This non-sequitur is irrelevant, and rather nonsensical.
Ok, even assuming that you can houserule that you can intentionally do only 1 hp of damage. You define that everyone has at least 2hp. So you know you can’t kill someone with it.
You are still technically attacking. But let’s say they are Honestly willing, and not contenting only due to leverage. Which if it was leveraged, not honest agreement I’d say it was pushed back into a more evil territory. But we will skip that for now.
So in the story you divine lance the innkeeper, who seems to be an elderly gent. The spell is cast and you watch him to see if he is hurt.
Nope, didn’t even flinch. Of course, that is because he has 50 hp and was ready for it and made a relatively simple deception check, and he actually enjoys pain, being a follower of zonKuthon.
So now he is exonerated, and killing can go on, potentially with the aide of the authorities hanging one or more innocent ( of the murders, not everything) individuals. Praise be to the torment and fear!
Can you use it as a sort of test. Yes, but it is not particularly ethical if you ask me, and there have got to more than likely be ways to trick it. After all items that require a particular disposition, can be tricked. Why wouldn’t someone expecting the divine lance, not be able to potentially trick it as well?
After ruminating on it, I think I actually like that easy access to detection is basically gone from PF2. Thinking back to various campaigns, honestly it only served to bypass the plot. Instead of having to pay attention to an NPC's words and deeds to determine if they were evil, we could just have the Paladin get a gut feeling and know for sure if they were evil. And don't get me started on the Inquisitor, and being able to flip through the various detects at will to exactly determine someone's alignment practically instantly.
Instead you now have to try and determine someone's alignment organically. If they do bad things they are probably evil. Even if their paper alignment isn't evil, if they are working in the service of evil, it should become apparent pretty quickly and your characters should respond in kind. Why should there be a magic bullet that allows you to know that someone is evil before they ever have a chance to do something evil?
Gives the game a bit of moral grayness that I think it benefits from.
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All of this discussion about how to use the divine lance to find murderers... however, there is a problem. It is a precise test (ie- it has consistent results against evil creatures), but it is not accurate (it doesn't tell you the person is a murderer, since the spell was never designed for that).
It all comes down to this: What if there are TWO evil people in a settlement? And only one is the killer?
You might say that this narrows down your suspects... but the first issue is that you might take the first positive result for evil as a false positive for 'murderer'. Once you introduce your dramatic, flashy spell as a solution, people want to "solve the problem" immediately. The evil person is locked away, and they might call off the search entirely since they 'already found the culprit'.
This might allow the actual serial killer to escape justice entirely. Even if you are cool with killing the first person because they tested evil, this still means that you didn't solve the problem. In fact, you interfered with the investigation and allowed the killer to run free.
The next issue is whether or not the actual killer tests positive for evil. While serial killers usually test positive for evil, there can be a lot of motivations to kill other than just sick pleasure. Who are the people being killed? Are there any connections? Would anyone have a motive- such as revenge- that could connect to the victims?
This is outside of the original serial killer scenario, but the problem with the scenario is that it can be hard to tell if you even have that scenario in the first place until after you find the killer and do the dramatic confrontation at the end of the detective story.
Even if the killings appear brutal and sick, they might not just be the result of a mad killer. If it is revenge, the killer might be acting as a copy cat for the original crime, killing the criminals in the say way an innocent victim was killed.