A Land Far Away

Now that the existence of the paladin's Detect Evil ability has been confirmed, I figured it would be a good idea to post the details of how it works. That way, we all know how to go about detecting and/or (not) being detected.
Detect Evil is both a spell and a paladin's "spell-like ability". I'll focus on the latter here.

• There's no in-engine or in-game actual implementation of the ability, so everything has to be handled with IC emotes and OOC tells.
• Players cannot demand that other players comply. Only a DM can do that.
• Spell-like abilities have no "components", a character only needs to concentrate to activate one. They can't be counterspelled, but do provoke attacks of opportunity.
• Detecting Evil has three phases, each taking roughly six seconds.
  1. The first round of concentration reveals whether there are evil auras present at all, in a 90° arc and within 60'. So keeping your distance or standing behind the paladin keeps you "off the radar".
  2. This round reveals the number or auras present, as well as the power of the strongest one.
  3. The exact strength and location of each aura, or strength and direction if there is no line of sight.
• Detect Evil only scans for evil auras. It does not detect traps, poisons or evil thoughts, unless they have an actual evil aura. Things with evil auras are:
  • Undead
  • clerics of an evil deity (regardless whether they are evil themselves).
  • evil Outsiders (I'm not sure if that means Outsiders with the [evil] subtype, or just any old Outsider who happens to be evil. If that's the case, Planetouched PCs would qualify.)
  • evil items
  • spells with the [evil] descriptor
  • evil creatures (again, I'm not sure if that requires the [evil] subtype, or just an evil alignment. Ask your DM.)
• Detect Evil is blocked by:
  • 1 foot of stone
  • 1 inch of metal
  • a thin sheet of lead
  • 3 feet of wood or dirt
  • the Undetectable Alignment spell (bard 1, cleric 2, paladin 2(!) )
• As always, the SRD has the exact details.

*clears his throat*

NOW AVAILABLE!!! LEAD LINED ARMOUR! GET YOUR LED LINED ARMOUR ONLY AT IRONBEARD'S SMITHY!

Tired of those pesky paladins always being able to root your evilness out? Tired of those pesky wizards always scrying you? FEAR NOT! For a one time fee of two hundred fifty gold, Garlus Ironbeard will line the inside of your armour with lead!

So what happens in a wooded area when detecting evil? Do you think it would dampen what can be detected?

Malacand wrote:So what happens in a wooded area when detecting evil?

My guess is that three feet of wood are three feet of wood. Alive, dead, trees, shrubs... anything goes. Probably straw and grass too.

I believe the target would have to be completely encased in wood (such as in a wooden structure with 3' thick walls and no windows or open doorways within the arc area) to be safe from detection. I would say the detection is capable of going around trees without losing signal strength, as it specifies situations where the character is not within line of sight.

Of course, on the counter-argument, there's:



But that may not be canon

danielmn wrote:*clears his throat*

NOW AVAILABLE!!! LEAD LINED ARMOUR! GET YOUR LED LINED ARMOUR ONLY AT IRONBEARD'S SMITHY!

Tired of those pesky paladins always being able to root your evilness out? Tired of those pesky wizards always scrying you? FEAR NOT! For a one time fee of two hundred fifty gold, Garlus Ironbeard will line the inside of your armour with lead!

Pfft. If 1 inch of metal is all it takes, your just going to see a huge upswing in the number of evil characters carrying around shields as big as Louens. Just crouch down behind that thing everytime a paladin come nears and you'll be right

Undetectable Alignment ---------priceless.

This is a cool addition, IMHO.


I hope it would lead to enhancement of RP between good / evil characters along with the emphasizes on opposed deities. Personally, I would really like to see more "tension" existing between 'good' and 'evil' deities, and 'detect alignment' might just be the tool for that.

I believe that PCs of 9th(?) level or higher also radiate auras of their alignment.

We should be careful about encouraging alignment-based friction though, both as a matter of Faerun being a pantheistic world and particularly as this is a CvC environment. Good and evil in Faerun is not the same as god vs. satan in our world. While a Christian or Muslim would never offer prayers to satan, even good people in Faerun would offer prayers to evil dieties...not the sort of prayers to ask for favors, but certainly 'prayers' to avoid the diety's wrath. Only a fool sails the seas without ever offering appeasement to Umberlee, for example, and everyone hopes Beshaba looks the other way. And don't forget, begetting strife is to serve the Black Sun after all.

The only way to get the "aura" of alignment is to be a divine casting class (cleric, paladin, etc), take an exalted or vile feat, or be an undead or outsider. General PCs (Fighters, Wizards, etc), even if they are super evil, still only detect on the lower end of the "Detect Evil" scale.

For that note, if you have evil (or good) in your alignment, then detect evil (or good) will be able to sense it, albeit it will be a weaker aura than that of the aura creatures.

And yes, having an evil thought won't detect. You could also have the guy that accidentally killed someone: he's a murderer, but he himself isn't evil, so he wouldn't detect.

As far as the stuff blocking detection, Undetectable Alignment is the catch-all of stopping it. The materials that block it have to fully encase you (aka, such as being in a room lined with lead, or armor with no air or eye holes). Hiding behind the tower shield will block the line of sight, but the spell will still tell you "hey, there is an evil guy in this general direction...oh look, there is a guy behind a tower shield".

fluffmonster wrote:
We should be careful about encouraging alignment-based friction though, both as a matter of Faerun being a pantheistic world and particularly as this is a CvC environment. Good and evil in Faerun is not the same as god vs. satan in our world. While a Christian or Muslim would never offer prayers to satan, even good people in Faerun would offer prayers to evil dieties...not the sort of prayers to ask for favors, but certainly 'prayers' to avoid the diety's wrath. Only a fool sails the seas without ever offering appeasement to Umberlee, for example, and everyone hopes Beshaba looks the other way. And don't forget, begetting strife is to serve the Black Sun after all.

Not every tension has to be directly connected to CvC.

Tension can be interpreted by characters trying to achieve different goals and being motivated by different reasons, if they are from opposing deities. Tension somehow exists with 'races', i can personally testify about it from my experience playing Grull, but i felt that it's less sensed with deities.

Of course everyone have hidden motives , and not all information is known to everyone. But it's hard for me to picture two openly evil and good characters from opposing deities co-operate with each other.


For example, i can't see tormite paladin and baneite blackguard joining forces just because they both hunt the same man(each one for his reasons). I know it's a game, and we all love each other OOCly, and players want to play with other people(and not be isolated) and we all want to take part in DM events. But if religion, deities and alignment will not play a part in how characters make choices , i think we will be losing significant part of the forgotten realms world.

3.5 SRD Detect Evil

I was mistaken...only cleric and select other divine casters radiate an alignment aura.

Note also that auras linger for a time depending on their strength, and an overwhelming aura can potentially stun the detector.

Divine agents (clerics, priests, palli's, etc) of opposing deities certainly should have real problems cooperating, but I have to agree with Fluff that we must try to "wrap our heads around" the multi-theistic world of Faerun:

The many gods are real and present and for any mortal to overtly attack or insult a god is foolhardy. I would expect most mortals (even clerics) to be very circumspect in their opposition to gods. I don't mean to imply that it shouldn't be a valid source for IC tension IG, but that PC's would be careful about how they manifest their opposition.

If a god is cursed or a temple or cleric attacked while I am overseeing, there will be a chance the nearby NPC's will react and the deity involved will notice.

I'm not advocating ignoring this rich source for RP IG, only that gods be treated like they are real and not casual props for RP bravado.

My PC cleric often offers thanks or respect to other gods when appropriate, and is very careful about how she opposes other deities and divine agents IG. I certainly wouldn't hold my clerical RP up as a shining example of how to RP faith IG, but IMO we should be mindful that Faerun IS multi-theistic.

Mono-theism is a modern concept that has no place in Faerun.

Complete Scoundrel's Handbook has a lot of lead-lined containers and whatnot described in its equipment chapters. Not like most PCs are of a size to jump into a saddlebag, but it might be a good place to stash your enchanted holy symbol, venom dripping dagger, garrotte and other things! Foils virtually any spell whose name starts with "Detect_____", same with Locate Object. A thief's delight, keep your hot loot in the lead chest under your bed until it cools off. I suppose someone with a stronghold could always construct a panic room with either sufficiently thick walls, or lead sheeting, to do their dirtiest deeds (demon summoning and whatnot). Even if your neighbours worship Tyr.

The IC tension between cmy PC and characters of other faiths has been a major tool for RP and character development. While there has been the possiblity of CvC, it has not been the primary result.

Rathalan's conversations with Barid have given my PC the opportunity for introspection (something his personality *rarely* allows for ).

The diametrically opposed types (theC-E followers of the Furies, for instance) are more difficult for me to deal with IC. I find it difficult to do exteneded RP with a PC that my PC knows has opposed goals, faiths, and personality. Unless forced into it by the DM team ( like in a plot where forced to choose "the lesser of two evils"),my interactions are going to be brief and terse.


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In NWN1, my character left a second level spell slot open at all times for an "undetectable alignment" placeholder.If you're gonna let off an aura and you don't want people to know, I recommend figuring out a way to mask your PC from divinations