Know Alignment: Not Fair?

[Rodon]

In my opinion, and slap me if I am wrong, but the know alignment spell does kick RP in the butt sometimes. I have had a couple secretly evil characters outed very quickly because of that spell. It kind of ruins RP for evils who want to try to get on good peoples good side.
I am not saying that we should get rid of the detect alignment and know alignment spells, but I think there should be a heavy material component cost. People can use it willy-nilly and ruin the fun for an evil. And I know of a couple people at least who use that spell on anyone they do not know. Maybe I am just bitter, but I do think the cost to use the spell should be a lot heavier.

[Gwain]

As a player that frequently uses this spell, I have come to accept that fact that knowing an alignment is useless. There are people that are aligned to evil that could be defined as good by their actions, there are people that are good that are evil simply because of what they are done. In the most sense there are few if any players that can live up to their alignments. With that in mind, I use the know alignment spell simply to know for myself if I should be dealing with good or evil individuals, if I can trust them after the first meeting, if my Deity will punish me for interacting with them. The spell itself is not to found an inquisition, its more of a way to judge the aura. If you are a secret evil, then you can deny or dismiss the spell in itself as it cannot judge you accurately besides your overall design.What you do though, how you do it judges you, even when people know you are evil, they don't know how much or how little.

[Isaldur]

I primarily use the spell to determine if someone wishing to join a faith that has alignment restrictions (I.E. Clerics must be lawful) can even do so. You seem slightly bitter about this but let us not forget the spell works both ways. Evils can use it to ferret out any "secret good characters" just as easily as good players can use it to form an opinion of your evil.

The spell itself is leftover from when FK was more based off of 2nd Edition, and I'm fairly certain it's not even used in the later editions of 3e, 3.5e, and probably 4e.

Perhaps a suggestion on how to counter it would be more beneficial than an outright complaint?

Many of the detect alignment style spells such as Detect Evil, Good, Chaos, Law, etc all have drawbacks if you use them and are the polar opposite of the alignment you are detecting. I.E. Paladin McGoodyShoes casts Detect Evil on Rodon, but because Rodon's much higher in HD (Substitute with levels?) the paladin gets stunned by the strength of the aura.

Or you could always suggest they code and put in the Undetectable Alignment spell.

Or you can really think deep about just what playing a "secret evil" means in terms of difficulties and avoid anyone who can detect alignments like they are the plague, or come up with some crazy story about an ancient family curse that makes you seem evil.

[Raona]

Perhaps, unless (even if) grandmastered, there's a chance the spell gives the wrong result?

(Moreover, you are affected by something that prevents know alignment then being cast on you, until it wears off? "This individual's aura is obscured - someone must have already probed it recently.")

Brainstorming!

[Kallias]

Give supp item to deception domain faiths that allows you to set it.

[Gwain]

Mind blank could be used to thwart and alignment detection spell.

[Lathlain]

These are all highly suspicious activities, mind you

If an incognito secret assassin spy ninja stuns paladins with her mere presence, or if the wizened black-bearded archmagus of despair goes around casting mind blank, the chances that people will decide that they're a good sort after all are very slim!

My main concern with the rife use of the know and detect alignment is that people will be creating neutral followers of evil gods to get around it all. It even lets them into more places, so where's the bad?

Off-hand, my prefered solution woud be to remove the passive detect skills from the MUD entirely and just keep know alignment - perhaps with an increased reagent cost. This means the utility of the spell still exists for investigating suspicious behaviour, without allowing people to undo a lurking 'evil's' hard work simply by being in the same room as them with a detect spell habitually cast on themselves.

[Skeas]

Even as a persistant-spelled evil detector, I think that these spells should be removed from the game as they do indeed detract from RP- My cleric of Tyr (being very, very overzealous) will often judge people based on their aura and as much as I'd -like- to be able to RP with some deceptive evils, I'm too addicted to knowing what's going on to suddenly blind myself (maybe a nice immortal could remove the spell from my character, as I forget where I learned it). I DO think, however, that the paladins' version of perma-detect-evil should remain. It is a different matter altogether and when someone has gone through all of the knightly RP and earned their paladinhood, they are more mature players who will use the spell to further RP, instead of close the lid on what could be.

[Llaytan]

I would rather like seeing countermeasures that could be taken by these evils, like spells or items that makes those characters don't ping as evils, it makes much more interesting for both parts, as in which a good character might think that a character isn't evil because he isn't pinging as evil, otherwise he would be just more cautious, also it gives evil characters the chance to become ingenious at evading such scrying without removing this aspect from game entirely.

[Keltorn]

Unless I'm mistaken, there's already ways around spells like Detect Evil.

Nondetection
============
Abjuration
Range: Touch
Target: Noncombat
Syntax: cast nondetection <target>

The warded creature or object becomes difficult to detect by divination
spells such as clairvoyance, locate object, and detect spells.

This spell cannot be cast by a transmuter

I do not know if this works against Know Alignment, but it really should.

[Lathlain]

Access to nondetection is tricky for non casters, mind you - especially not for unknowns who are trying to get their evil little foot into the door of good-land! Even if a caster for it can be found, it has some pricey reagent costs and doesn't last terribly long.

More easily accessible countermeasures are a superb idea of course, but I'd still like to see some restrictions on the amount of people constantly detecting sinister auras (paladins excluded, as you rightly say - with the amount of effort they've put into things, it's only fair that they should be able to) and consequently scuppering the chances of most characters trying to play incognito. We all know that peoples' ability to react sensibly when evil auras are detected dimishes rapidly, so it's best to remove temptation in most cases

[Zuldere]

nondetection is listed as using Some gem powder. If so it is not overly hard to get but it may pass quickly.

[Elke]

It does indeed pass very quickly and uses a whole pinch of gem powder up outright.

[Kallias]

Note, no saving throw

Detect Evil
Divination
Level: Clr 1
Components: V, S, DF
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: 60 ft.
Area: Cone-shaped emanation
Duration: Concentration, up to 10 min./ level (D)
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No

You can sense the presence of evil. The amount of information revealed depends on how long you study a particular area or subject.
1st Round

Presence or absence of evil.
2nd Round

Number of evil auras (creatures, objects, or spells) in the area and the power of the most potent evil aura present.

If you are of good alignment, and the strongest evil aura’s power is overwhelming (see below), and the HD or level of the aura’s source is at least twice your character level, you are stunned for 1 round and the spell ends.
3rd Round

The power and location of each aura. If an aura is outside your line of sight, then you discern its direction but not its exact location.
Aura Power

An evil aura’s power depends on the type of evil creature or object that you’re detecting and its HD, caster level, or (in the case of a cleric) class level; see the accompanying table. If an aura falls into more than one strength category, the spell indicates the stronger of the two.

-------------------

It aligns fine with canon. If you want to "spy" as an evil, just be a good person for the wrong motives. What you do does not determine your alignment. Your motivations behind what you do is the real factor. Saying things like "people aren't playing their alignment" based on observation of action isn't a fair assessment.

My suggestion to any player of an evil character is to play the character as a good anyway. If someone says "Hey! You're evil!", it's a perfectly reasonable response to say "I've seen a lot...and I've been working with the Ilmateri to overcome the darkness that has rubbed off on me".

Evil doesn't mean absolutely evil to everything always. Pick why they're evil. If you're character is evil based on every sin, every possible flaw of humanity - you're character isn't playable (in my opinion). A character that is willing to kill a child for 1,000 gold is evil. That doesn't mean they go around kicking puppies into rivers. It just means their greed outweighs their morals...but that doesn't mean it outweighs their common sense. Does helping good aligned characters aid the PC in their search for power? To any evil PC who has the foresight to see behind the tenday, of course it does! There is this huge push of good vs evil in FK, like they're factions. It doesn't exist like that in canon. Personal rivalries, sure. Nations at war, of course. Most the time it's racial tensions between orcs/humans drow/elves, but they aren't factional warfare...it's just tit for tat little scuffles.

Evil characters and Good characters, the vast majority of the time, should be able to get along just fine...at least the nonmonsterous races.

DnD is meant to be a cooperative game. Alignment does not immediately exclude such. A wizard who detects evil (in canon) would witness hundreds of evil people just walking around in Waterdeep - most of which probably don't have the motivation or courage to break the law in any significant manner. The prima-donna hero who is virtuous "on screen" and a nightmare "off screen", can be evil. He can save orphanages every day, but if his motivation is entirely based on vanity...he's evil. Does that mean a paladin should never travel with him? Absolutely not. The paladin may be disgusted with the man's motivations, but since the motivation doesn't cause any harm to anyone else, he'd certainly tolerate the starlet like adventurer.

Bottom line. Alignment isn't so clear cut. Taking the results as some sort of factional affirmation, is the harm.

[Gwain]

In an ideal gameworld alignment affects four things. The people that should travel in your party, the faith you can join,the quests you should accept and most importantly where you could go. The problem with our game world is that we interact with other players, with other alignments. In the old days, doing so could net you into trouble with your patron or guild depending on the circumstance, it could also affect your hidden alignment. Today there are dozens more players and locals, there are players not too well versed in alignment rp or players that don't bother with it. The solution may be too difficult to find in a social sense, because people play in different ways.

I would be open to an alignment concealment that only works for pc driven detection spells. Anything else could abuse the system, such as using a hidden alignment to enter an area to train or any number of other abuses. There is nothing wrong with mobiles and ncp's identifying you, but pc's could stand to be fooled.

[Urival]

I personally despite the know allingment spell, for a while number of reasons, mostly the fact that it just BUTCHERS RP for anyone that evil and anywhere near waterdeep. I usally play charicters that are pretty easy to tell there evil without the spell, i mean, if you have demon horns, or tatoos of a evil gods symbol on your face its pretty noticable. But if i wanted to play a lawful evil thief of mask and everything is going well, everyone likes me ext ext ext, and then Joe Slappy, Priest of the Font strolls out and points a finger and says "hes evil", then walks away its pretty silly. Wich brings me to another small thing while the city of waterdeep is pretty much a good city, if you walked around the real waterdeep (i know that sounds stupid) with detect evil on you would see a decent amount of evils. Now ask yourself, would you randomly walk up to someone and point out to others that "he is evil" then walk off? I dont know how many times a see stuff like this, people tend to WAY overreact to pcs compared to npcs. If i saw someone detecting evil and trying to oust every npc within WD, or passing by PCs and just kept walking like they blow past npcs then that would be one thing....but its not. Similiar with situations of invis, btw i hate that spell because it causes the most rediculis reactions in people. Your invis and strolling past the market square, walking slowly avioding people, there is NO reason anyone would notice "the sounds of someone walking north" in a crowded loud city.....and yet, try it, Joe Slappy the Priest of the Font will be there and i GARENTEE for some reason, even though every npc in the world cant notice you, he will just randomly think up that there was to be someone invisable walking around. And his ludacris paranoia will cause him to detect hidden in a city thats well protected by guards.


edits - mind you, i play fighters pretty much exclusively, so i only watch this happen and think its stupid. ..........BTW love the idea of sup items, but lets be real, buy the time your supping for items, people know if your evil unless you completely aviod just about everything. And not because you have done anything evil, just because of good ole Joe Slappy.

[Saranya]

It aligns fine with canon. If you want to "spy" as an evil, just be a good person for the wrong motives. What you do does not determine your alignment. Your motivations behind what you do is the real factor. Saying things like "people aren't playing their alignment" based on observation of action isn't a fair assessment.

My suggestion to any player of an evil character is to play the character as a good anyway. If someone says "Hey! You're evil!", it's a perfectly reasonable response to say "I've seen a lot...and I've been working with the Ilmateri to overcome the darkness that has rubbed off on me".

*nod* There are some great threads on the forum about the nature of good vs. evil in FK-world. While perhaps not perfectly defined, the nature of the world gives a 'residue' to good and evil actions and thoughts that some characters are sensitive to. IMO, this makes playing the extremes so interesting for all the "grey" areas that can be found between "black" and "white." In any case, I do not see it impedes RP for goods or evils (or even those scruffy neutrals!)

[Elke]

Wich brings me to another small thing while the city of waterdeep is pretty much a good city, if you walked around the real waterdeep (i know that sounds stupid) with detect evil on you would see a decent amount of evils. Now ask yourself, would you randomly walk up to someone and point out to others that "he is evil" then walk off?

In a neutral society, you can say that one third of people will be 'sort of just enough kindness to be good', one third will be 'just enough petty low-grade spite to be evil' and one third will be 'not really enough kindness or pettiness to show up as either, really'. In standard D&D it's usually only clerics and paladins or blackguards that have enough of a devotion to Good or Evil to be highly noticeable on the radar.

That said, I would suggest that part of the reason for a PC to be noticeable is that they're, well, a PC. With levels. When someone Detects Evil on that merchant over there and finds them to be evil, the likely highest level of evil they've committed is shortchanging their customers, kicking beggars and bad-mouthing a few people. Whereas a PC is likely to have done much more evil evil things - like murder, for example. It's one of those things that's very hard to call and this is always a tricky spell.

In the case of a lawful evil cleric, well, they're a cleric. They've dedicated their soul to the very cause of evil, not just pushed over a wheelbarrow or roughed up an old man or two. Looking at the 3.5 spell in the SRD shows just how much that's the case.

[Keltorn]

Alignment
A creature’s general moral and personal attitudes are represented by its alignment: lawful good, neutral good, chaotic good, lawful neutral, neutral, chaotic neutral, lawful evil, neutral evil, or chaotic evil.

Alignment is a tool for developing your character’s identity. It is not a straitjacket for restricting your character. Each alignment represents a broad range of personality types or personal philosophies, so two characters of the same alignment can still be quite different from each other. In addition, few people are completely consistent.

I've always felt alignment is not based so much on what your character does as it is why he does it.

For example, I do not think someone becomes evil simply because they have kicked five beggars (three only gets you to neutral). I don't think that a certain number of random outbursts of gibberish should result in a chaotic alignment or driving on the correct side of the road a certain percent of the time gets you a lawful alignment. It's really all based more on the reasons you do those things. I mean, would we have any chaoticly-aligned people at all today if they died the first time they drove a car? Those examples might be a little extrme, though.

While there are plenty of video games that base alignment on actions, it can be an inaccurate system simply because it does not take motive into consideration. I once had a character that was under orders to kill a slave that had failed his master. Instead of striking him down, I went right after the master. You might think that character was doing a good thing, and the video game certainly did, but my character really just hated thay guy and refused to do as he was told. No one's the boss of him, see?

That being said, I really hope people are not considering having their evil character go save a bunch of innocent people simply so that they have a clear alignment before a big evil sabotage mission. They're doing it for entirely the wrong reasons, so they shouldn't be seeing an alignment shift that easily.

That said, I would suggest that part of the reason for a PC to be noticeable is that they're, well, a PC. With levels.

Yes! Exactly! PCs stand out in the crowd, and not just because they're flying, glowing, outfitted in colorful metal armour, and almost always armed. Their attributes alone should be enough to bring attention to them. After all, they are head and shoulders above the rest of society in strength, brilliance, speed, wisdom, toughness, beauty, etc. How does someone walking down the street notice the PC standing there while ignoring the hundreds of other people passing by? The PC catches your eye, as well he should.

When someone Detects Evil on that merchant over there and finds them to be evil, the likely highest level of evil they've committed is shortchanging their customers, kicking beggars and bad-mouthing a few people. Whereas a PC is likely to have done much more evil evil things - like murder, for example. It's one of those things that's very hard to call and this is always a tricky spell.

In the case of a lawful evil cleric, well, they're a cleric. They've dedicated their soul to the very cause of evil, not just pushed over a wheelbarrow or roughed up an old man or two. Looking at the 3.5 spell in the SRD shows just how much that's the case.

For anyone that hasn't seen how the spell works, have a look. The first table shows how those with more levels actually have a stronger evil aura, a perfectly good reason for noticing the evil high priest and not the evil shoemaker (he only makes left shoes, which is pretty evil but not enough for a stronger aura).

[Elke]

Elke wrote:That said, I would suggest that part of the reason for a PC to be noticeable is that they're, well, a PC. With levels.

I'd add to that that they are going to be more powerfully and potently -anything-, including good and evil.