Detect Evil Is Rape

[Ebok]

What does that mean, on EfU paladins can see evil all the time? It's an ability you have to consciously activate and focus on for several rounds. Why would the standards be any different than in the rest of the Realms? And even if you renounce the normativeness of canon material, it's still no argument to defer to "EfU authority" or server tradition.

Its a couple seconds to concentrate, another couple to wait for you to type something, another half a second to type /c detect evil, and thats not garaenteed to find them.

This is a Non-cannon server. Its close, and based of the realms but its no PnP. It cant be, its an online server subject to scripting limitations and automated to function without continuous dm oversight.

Detect Evil is a natural ability for paladins here. And they are in fact, required to make use of it. How they use that information is of course much more subjective.

[Iron Oligarch]

That Knight of Samular that you mention, Barehander, has a feat called "Veil of Cyric" that prevents him from being detected by DE. However, that's entirely irrelevant to this discussion -- EfU:A is decidedly not PnP, and it's barely the Forgotten Realms as things stand.

There are ways to foil DE, and while a paladin shouldn't blindly scream "this man is evil" for everyone to hear upon seeing one, it is most certainly not unconscionable for a paladin to utilize his gifts whenever he possibly can. If DE was meant to be conserved, the gods wouldn't allow you to use it an infinite number of times each day.

[Barehander]

OK, I was mistaken about how it actually worked. I saw no rolls, no emotes and no rounds of concentration, so I assumed it just worked infallibly. That's not my gripe, either.

My gripe isn't about Detect Evil per se. It's specifically about the misuse of the ability that you admit. To provoke some thought and make people consider it carefully the next time they use it. It may be necessary, but it's certainly not as necessary as its frequency suggests. It's almost always poorer RP than finding out the traditional way. Nobody's saying you can't use it, but you probably would have more fun if you didn't always resort to it straight away.

[Barehander]

It hardly matters whether we're PnP or Forgotten Realms or something else. The arguments are the same regardless. You can't hide behind the excuse of "this is EfU" and escape the responsibility of justifying your stance. Nothing is set in stone in canon FR or homebrew servers: you still have to keep checking whether the decision you made is justified and smart.

But anyway, I don't mean to say "this is how it is." Rather, this is one way to look at it, and it should be thought about. There's never a single "this is how it is" with anything in the world or in this game.

[Capricious]

I don't have a problem with the way DE is implemented here, however I'd like to dispel the myth that Protection from Good is a good counter for anyone but spell casters. The duration of potions simply is too short for it to be practical for blocking DE in most instances. I know, I've tried it.

Now a spell caster, especially one with Extend Spell, can certainly use PfG to hide their alignment rather effectively. Non-spell casters just need to deal with the fact that the paladins are going to know that they're evil.

[Mort]

That's were you are wrong. Detect Evil is currently used EXACTLY as meant for canon. For a campaign, the paladin could use his detect evil ability at all times as soon as he meets anyone.

However, in a persistent world, this can be somewhat problematic as the amount of people is amount to a small town such that most people know most people and so on....

As for your Blackguard of Cyric anecdote, Chosen of Cyric have access to a feat that grant them immunity to DE. Faithful of Cyric also have talismans, rewards for his faithful to protect from DE... A blackguard of Cyric would certainly have access to that.

Protection from Good protects from DE.
Clarity protects from DE.
Lesser Mind Blank protects from DE.

Some items protect from DE.

I would rather have Paladins being rare and prestigious than nerf DE. As I see it on the server, Paladins stupidly break their code by confronting strangers and insulting people that register as evil without have any proof, evidence, and so on. That's written in our faith guide:

Courtesy

A paladin must conduct themselves with a modicum of proper behavior. They are expected to be respectful of others. A paladin who routinely spreads slander and speaks ill of others behind their backs could lose powers. A paladin who engages in street brawls could lose their powers.

This does not mean a paladin has to be a nicey nicey patsy, they just must behave with a semblance of dignity. They are the 'elite' representatives of their faith and are expected to act as such.

For example, a paladin of Torm who spreads words around town about how much he hates a local Banite, and spreads tales about his ill behavior without proof, could lose powers.

On the other hand, if the same paladin openly speaks plainly of foul deeds comitted by the Banite, and urges others to be cautious against, or take actions against, the Banite, is fine.

Slander does include the overused "YOU ARE TAINTED". If someone walks on the street and tells me I'm tainted, I tell him to go fuck himself.

Seems to me you do raise a valid point, however, it is not a server design flaw -- but a paladins, in general, not respecting their Courtesy Code.

[Caddies]

Personally I love DE, it propagates some good RP. You might miss the occasional quest as an Evil guy but you also get a public enemy to work against; an immeasurably awesome trade-off.

[Barehander]

Oh, I don't mind DE - well, I think it's stupid and ruins RP 95% of the time in general, but that's just my freeform storyteller speaking. I'd be happy with no alignments at all. I don't mind the implementation now that it's clear. I want to provoke thought about paladin players personally use the ability, and why. Maybe I'm too much of an idealist, but I think playing a paladin is much like being one: you have to think about it all the time, seriously contemplate whether you'd really do X in good conscience and consider it Good, all the while reflecting that off of your deity's dogma. You should never fall back on old answers, because a paladin is never ready, never there yet, always on the way.

[ScottyB]

The PnP version is an at-will cone of the character's field of vision that persists as long as the paladin isn't doing some other action that disrupts their concentration (they're free to walk and talk, but need to make concentration checks if they enter combat or some other disruptive action occurs).

Ours is an at-will, one-shot radius that requires a concentration check in combat. (Cones are a pain to script without spell/item target locations, and pseudo-heartbeat scripts cause lag.)

Personally, I'd like a paladin's eyes to glow white for a few seconds after using DE, but that's just me and I just think it would look cool.

If someone walks on the street and tells me I'm tainted, I tell him to go fuck himself.

Reminds me of a homeless guy I encountered outside the L station last week.

[TheImpossibleDream]

Please remove detect evil so my chaotic evil cyrcist blackguard can quest with my friends paladin. It's okay cause I do all my blackguardery when he's not around.

Also if you can't do that please make it so that I can conveniently never use detect evil around my friends evil pc I can still quest with him.

Oh and add some items/make protection from good protect against it. Oh wait it already does...

[Pup]

What does that mean, on EfU paladins can see evil all the time? It's an ability you have to consciously activate and focus on for several rounds. Why would the standards be any different than in the rest of the Realms? And even if you renounce the normativeness of canon material, it's still no argument to defer to "EfU authority" or server tradition.

Actually this server does that all the time, whether for convenience, creativity, FR often just being plain stupid, or what have you.

Efu is not canon.

[putrid_plum]

hi my name is naga and i am cool because i make rude comments that make no sense on the topic because i don't really read what people wrote

[TheImpossibleDream]

hi my name is naga and i am cool because i make rude comments that make no sense on the topic because i don't really read what people wrote

Hi I'm plum I fail at reading too oh and I also just gained +1 to my post count without even having to come up with anything relating to the topic or specific quotes from it. Wicked awesome cool.

[Ommadawn]

Actually, I'd be happy to see paladins be a PrC/app only class, which would probably solve a lot of issues regarding ignorant or improper playing of said class.

[Drakill Tannan]

Just make paladins app-only in that case.