Remove detect evil

[I love cats]

Detect evil is lame and ruins intrigue in the sands of intrigue. Paladins can spam detect evil endlessly even the most paranoid user of PFG will be caught off guard or dispelled and exposed. It is absoloutely insane that the most subtle evil PC is exposed by level 4 paladin refusing to quest.


Remove paladins or their absurd detect evil spam or maybe if I want a truly subtle evil concept I will just roll out a neutral aligned PC for my subtle evil concepts. This joke needs to end.

[IKeepForgettingMyUserName]

There are items that block it. I don't think it'd be a hard app to pass to get one either.

[Whyleth]

First time Paladin, I can say it sucks on both ends sometimes for the same reason. But having a hard moral line is also fun to RP.
There is things you can get as said above, Protection from Good is one of those. I understand it takes a lot of diligence to keep it up.

[zerotje]

Detect evil is a dweeb mechanic but imagine if everyone has access to Paladin but end up helping evil characters with the excuse they ''didn't know''. That will also cause some priceless dweeb situations and perhaps steer Paladin into becoming app-only.

[Hierophant]

Honestly more of a player issue than a mechanic issue. Detect evil is there at a paladin's discretion. How they portray it is important so players don't feel like it's being abused to stifle roleplay.

[Ramc]

It is possible to religiously keep extended PfG for 8 months and not get caught out by paladins. It's like a little mini-game.

[Whyleth]

Honestly more of a player issue than a mechanic issue. Detect evil is there at a paladin's discretion. How they portray it is important so players don't feel like it's being abused to stifle roleplay.

I know I am not the best at this. I do find it really really awkward telling people the can't come questing, and I still have not found an easy way, personally in which to do so yet. It doesn't sit right with me being the one who puts constraints on groups like that. Please know I don't mean you ill will, or probably does any Paladin. Sadly its one of those things I have to take a hard line on.

[Fuzz]

I will say that the best compromise on this I've seen was to have Detect Evil instead be a radius detection type ability that you can only use once every few minutes and rather than zero in on specific people, it would instead report how strongly you feel an Evil presence around you.  This way if you're in a group of PCs, you don't immediately know who actually is the piece of shit, just that SOMEONE is.  If there's more than one person, the sensation is stronger.

Other than removing the instant "I CAST YE OUT, VILE SLIME" vibes that are often very weird to RP around, as stated in the thread, honestly this would enhance Paladin RP and make me actually want to play one... you're in a gathering and sense there's evil afoot... you'd want to know WHO is the evil person, so I could totally see Oathsworn trying to catch people alone to then determine if they're scum or not.

The other bonus in how it was used was that it could actually detect people stealthed around, but only, again, that it's a vague Evil presence somewhere.  If they happen to know for a fact everyone around them is goodly, that's one thing, but I actually saw this specific thing used to amazing effect by a player where his Evil PC actually ghosted another PC as a Paladin was doing that exact sleuthing routine of trying to figure out who is Evil.  They thought they were alone, but the ghosting stealther was sitting in the corner laughing it up as the Paladin wrongly proclaimed that some other PC was a vile piece of excrement and shoudlbe cast out of the city or whatever.


I wouldn't say that the stealther detection should necessarily be a feature, because 99% of the time it will just screw over Evil stealth gameplay when they already have such an uphill battle, but removing the targeted nature of the feat and instead having it just check everyone visible to the Paladin within a certain reasonably large radius would probably help.

[Don Nadie]

I, personally, do not see evil stealth gameplay as being that threatened by a paladin. Most paladins I've seen rp it in quite a decent way that leaves room for interpretation... And just because someone gives the pali "bad vibes" doesn't mean you inmediately trust the paladin... Or can afford to say no to the evil people! And the paladins need a decent tool to know who to quest with, imo.

Also, as Ramc says, its 100% possible to keep Prot. from Good up. I saw it. She just tended to be ever-so slightly delayed sometimes, because priestesses, you know. They are slow.

[putrid_plum]

This thread start mostly feels like a player getting called out for being evil and not liking it.  The ability is needed for the paladin class to work.  I have very rarely seen it used in a lame manner. 

Who says someone has to trust what a paladin says or even trust what a paladin is?  Roleplay will win the day here.  As always, this is efu and just be classy on BOTH sides of this.

[cmenden]

100% agree with DRD here

Detect Evil made more sense in past chapters, but with the Intrigue-focused design of V6, we should just ditch it

Beyond that, we basically have an awkward impasse where Players don't take alignment adjustments gracefully and DMs don't want to get screamed at when they try to enforce Good Behavior by tossing some alignment points at a Player who is willfully helping an evil PC under the excuse of "sure he murders orphans but every time I use DE he has PFG up so my PC is totally clueless!!!"

So... honestly classy behavior is the rarity to date, and pretending otherwise is silly. The feature should just be removed and if it was considered a balancing factor to justify paladin's buff class features, then those class features should be retooled to be in line with other classes

[caesaropapist]

i won't lie, having played a paladin for a large swathe of the chapter i think it's literally fine. people who get pinged by a paladin as evil don't exactly have a horde of CG assassins hunting them down instantly. "intrigue" doesn't come from alignment and your average PC does not care where you are on the G-E spectrum.


and frankly 90% of the people who are evil alignment abstractly don't even feel like they're really evil PCs.
(i think people should be forced to start neutral atp if you're not a paladin, so many people are just randomly evil for no discernible outside reason)

[thegn]

I have to agree. I really don't like how Detect Evil works, but I think a FORM of Detect Evil is imperative to the Paladin Experience. My favorite implementation I've seen of a Detect Evil is a little complicated but here's basically what it was... in line of the central theme of INTRIGUE:

- Detect Evil MUST target a specific character to work.
- Using Detect Evil is obvious and alerts the individual being "tested" that they're being detected for evil by the paladin
- Detect Evil has a chance to fail based on the other player's Bluff Score versus a Spot check by the Paladin (It can give false alarms, no alarm, etc. Keep them paranoid!)
- Detect Evil cannot be used on the same player more than once every couple IRL hours.

This kind of system would make Detect Evil not just an instant submarine radar for the Paladin, but an real ACT that can be witnessed by others and reacted to ICly. It'd create a lot of drama and intrigue, especially if a Paladin is checking someone well-known and respected (How dare they... does this Paladin really think the Legate is evil?!)

It'd create situations where the Paladin has to be careful and paranoid over who they bring to their party, and they'd rely not JUST on the Detect Evil, but also the RP of the people they're working with because their Detect Evil isn't an infallible god-sensor anymore.

This can probably be implemented as a player wand, in the same way of how searching other players' inventories works right now.

[Pandip]

Paladins should have high standards. They should not become "just another full BAB class with a hint of flavor." Being a paragon of goodness is a difficult but rewarding experience; being able to detect evil is an integral part of that experience.

Alignment is dumb and unwieldy, but removing Detect Evil will lead to more situations where paladins are trying to justify OOC actions with things like "but I'm trying to redeem them! uwu." Retooling the system seems like one of the least productive and interesting things a DM could devote scripting time to.

I promise you, however frustrated you are while playing an evil character who can't "quest crush!!" with a paladin, the paladins on the server are ten times more frustrated having to make their own quest crews or find justifications to deny people who made Evil characters to be edgy and then get offended when they can't trick a paladin into falling.

[Iconoclast]

It could be funny if there was a mandatory emote. Everyone sees you just suspiciously glaring all around.