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I can't imagine any Paladin worth the name, or many non-serial killers, who would be okay with somebody wearing a mask made of sentient persons skin, bonuses or no.
As for legal authorities, they'd (assuming a non-evil society) probably arrest on sight anyone wearing a people skin mask. I mean, just imagine Leatherface showing up at the tavern or the Duke's Ball or strolling down the street, even without chainsaw running, he's attracting attention and screams of panic.
Things don't have to be intrinsically evil for them to be wrong.
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What yukongil said.
I don't know if your GM allows the players to read the description of the items after it was identified, but the last row of the description would have me really preoccupied if I was a paladin.
I don't know how your group divides the loot, but if you do that based on the value, an option is to buy the item from the group and give it to the authorities.
What part of the Mask power is important for the rogue?
An item with the first power costs 2.500 gp, so an option would be to commission the production of a "Mask of hiding", +5 to stealth check and offer that and some money for the Stalker Mask.
BTW: do you know the background of the mask? Better research it.
I had been about to say no paladin should be cool with this, but then I got to thinking that using dragons as components for items is a time honored tradition without much complaint, so why shouldn't items made from other sentient creatures be OK?
But I guess if boils down to this: do you think Ed Gein (the OG Leatherface) choice of raw materials is OK or do you think it's abominable?
while I admit the lines blur with sentient monsters, there is something offputting about wearing the skin of something that looks, walks and talks like you do.
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Keep in mind, your local Good-Aligned(tm) church official can pay you a bounty for such evil trinkets so they can be recirculated back into the hands of evil, thus preserving the natural order of the world properly disposed of.
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while I admit the lines blur with sentient monsters, there is something offputting about wearing the skin of something that looks, walks and talks like you do.I had been about to say no paladin should be cool with this, but then I got to thinking that using dragons as components for items is a time honored tradition without much complaint, so why shouldn't items made from other sentient creatures be OK?
But I guess if boils down to this: do you think Ed Gein (the OG Leatherface) choice of raw materials is OK or do you think it's abominable?
if you want to blur it even further, you have even read some Japanese web novel?
In those people eat plenty of sentient creatures, to the point that the orcs tasting like pork is often mentioned.Sure, they aren't members of the same species, so it isn't cannibalism, but they are still sentient. A bit disturbing.
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Legal?
From a rules perspective, sure - if your GM allows it.
From a "laws of the community" perspective - it's probably something you keep disguised or hidden in most places. Don't know that you'll be arrested for having one but you will definitely be shunned.
From a "will my paladin fall?" perspective - depends on your paladin and her deity. In the particular case of the mask you found (as opposed to the generic mask in Ultimate Equipment) it's pretty clear the skins are from murder victims. You can rationalize a generic mask as "oh, this one came from people who died of natural causes." Not so much here. I'd probably have my paladin not fall, but be very vocally disapproving of the rogue keeping the mask. Maybe even try to get it away from the rogue for a proper burial. Basically, something Role-playing related.
honestly, there would need to be a legit table discussion about this. I'd have my Paladin walk away if the group decided to keep it and make a character more comfortable with someone wearing the skin of murder victims as a mask.
If my group as actual people saw no problem with someone wearing such a mask, I'd note that as a red flag for the eventual tell-all book I'm sure to write about one of them.
I think it depends on consent and local laws.
1) If the original face owners gave their consent to having their faces used for magic, everything's A-OK.
2) If the original face owners did not give their consent, then the inheritors of the deceased bodies according to law (family members, heirs, local Pharasman clergy, ...) can give their consent.
And of course it's fine to sell consent too, i.e. the faces can be bought or compensated by a mutually agreeable price after the fact.
Modern western medicine integrates other people's body parts into humans as well, whether in form of organ/skin/bone marrow/feces/... transplants, blood donations, (stem) cell therapy, or the like. There are quite a few religions/cultures who abhor such practices as well, but you wouldn't call these practices evil either. So it's a matter of perspective, custom, religion, law, ...
Welp, on one hand I'd like to say "who cares, it's a weird magic item, get over it and keep it", but on the other hand... in a realistic sense.... imagine you (yes you IRL) found a mask in someone's house that was made from stitched-together human faces-- any Good person (not just paladins) would cancel the rest of their plans for that day and take that mask straight down to a police station, and regardless of whether the mask had cool "technology" or "magic" or not.
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So we have just defeated the monstrosity at Fox glove manner and we looked through his loot and found a stalkers mask. It does not give off an evil aura. The party is a bunch of people who are chaotic neutral and I am running a paladin. My question is this. Is it legal to keep and use the stalkers mask? It is a mask made from other human faces. I want the party to ditch it to proper authority because it evidence of a serial killer but talking with my Pathfinder friends and the DM, we can't figure out the actual legality of it. They want to keep it because it helps the human rogue.
Tldr: is the stalkers mask legal to have and use? It is made of other human face, but is illusion based and does not have an evil aura
From a RAW perspective - it's in published material so it's legal.
Sure, your Paladin can keep it AND use it or another party member can use it. The GM should have taken it out of the scenario if he didn't want it in his game.
Will there be consequences? MwoHaaHaHa... yes, you'll be more powerful!
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It is game legal, as it follows the rules, but that doesn't mean that it is legal to own the item in the game setting.