Baldur's Gate : The Sword Coast Chronicles : NWN2 Persistent World

renshouj wrote: ↑Thu Dec 18, 2025 1:12 pm The image you edited in is literally what I said: If someone wants to just tell you their alignment, they're free to do so. And I'm very confident that goat would agree with me here.

I understand you don't like the answer you've been given and you want to be able to use Detect Evil.

Trying to misinterpret what was said again shows need for clarification. You say it shoudn't be used at all without DM present. I say it shouldn't be enforced without DM present. Goat says it can be used and target of the spell can answer whatever which is exactly what I mean by it being used without enforcement.

Trying to present it as me not liking answer I was given feels like poor attempt at misleading the facts.

I'm definitely not in need of clarification! But since you won't hear it from me, I'll wait for someone more official to say basically what I already have said so that people can actually listen

Case where it can't be used at all without DM creates very strange narrative. I see no reason not to allow it as an option in situation where it can be handled by players. Especially with all the agency being on the targeted side and when it is not meant to be forced in any way. Simple sign of "hello this char can potentially detect stuff so maybe roleplay accordingly". As opposed to "yey it doesn't even exist on our server" as some players were misled to think.

Neither are prohibited attempts for intimidate, bluff or diplomatic rolls - they are just not enforced so I see no reason why it would be different in case of Detect Evil with it being prohibited entirely without DM as opposed to non-enforced without DM present.

Trying to push for it's prohibiton entirely feels to me like an attempt to use low DM presence and their limited time/long response time to avoid the consequences completely both in narrative and mechanics of the system we all agreed to play in.

I will say that in NWN1 I found the challenge of finding work arounds for an evil character to get by that pally and cleric radar, rather enjoyable. There are spells and items that can keep you off the radar.

My character would also fake blushing and exit stage right when she didn't have the spells or items.. so everyone just believed she was crushing hard on the paladin and that became some very humorous and engaging RP.

Oarthias wrote: ↑Thu Dec 18, 2025 3:14 pm I will say that in NWN1 I found the challenge of finding work arounds for an evil character to get by that pally and cleric radar, rather enjoyable. There are spells and items that can keep you off the radar.

My character would also fake blushing and exit stage right when she didn't have the spells or items.. so everyone just believed she was crushing hard on the paladin and that became some very humorous and engaging RP.

Feels like very reasonable approach. Your example shows having some difficulty to hide alignment. Character had to use spells or items to hide it and took risks. Roleplayed it like a real challenge - effort was there, reason for possible suspicion was there too. Our current situation to me feels like "DMs never have the time so we're all happy to ignore existence of detection tools and don't need to RP any conscious effort to hide anything".

It feels out of place for dnd setting. Players are mislead to believe the spell/ability very existence was ICly ripped out of our server reality. Those are not new players mind you as it was impression of a long time player. All it shows to me need for clarification.

MissClick wrote: ↑Thu Dec 18, 2025 3:34 pm What gives you the impression that there is any ongoing evil roleplay that is absent of effort?

Both reaction of long time player trying to claim that "spell/ability" doesn't exist in our world and role-playing that it does is breaking server rules about "play your sheet" and attempts of people like renshouj seen earlier in this topic to enforce his own interpretation and introduction of tangled narrative give me such vibes pretty heavily.

There's more but mentioning it is counterproductive as such players rarely listen themselves to people without authority and tend to twist any attempts for civil discussion to their favor. In reality it's a simple request for clarification that doesn't need to be overly analyzed. Having clarification is better than not having it when there's evidence there's multiple players (including long-term ones) that interpret the rules differently.

Something on the side, and just to be clear.. and correct me if I am wrong... Detect Evil (And Good, Lawful, the other spells) is for an " Aura" of evil, right? And not alignment?

There are some ways to look at it the way I read it. Some evil wont have an aura.. and cannot be detected. Does an evil fighter doesn't have an evil aura based on the spells description alone? Does a corrupt politician? To me it is not clear. Neither emit an evil aura. The spell reads in 3.5 in the Player's Handbook: Round 1: "Presence or absence of evil." is a one line, description in the "Detetct evil" Spell. Then if you read the other rounds, it all becomes about Auras. A neutral character can have evil in their hearts... and a good character can too... Do.. they have aura's of evil? It doesnt really get into the details of how deep it goes. Again, and this is me just adding in for clarity... Personally, I think based on reading it.. the spell is meant for Aura's, not so much alignment. It can detect, according to the spell's chart: A creature with an evil aura, Undead, Fiends, and Clerics of Evil Gods, or Items with evil auras. It does not state it can be used on anything beyond that - so an evil rogue posing as a good cleric, can probably not be detected. That's how I read into it, anyways. Correct me if I am wrong!

As for the topic: A cleric of an evil god does have an aura (even if the cleric him or herself, is neutral, it seems) . A blackguard does. . . But since most clerics aren't likely to deny their faith and most blackguards are.. the epitome of evil itself, it -should- be obvious they are evil, or bend towards evil. If a Paladin comes across a cleric of Auril, or Umberlee.. you can probably, as the Paladin, want nothing to do with them, and that they are evil siding. For other characters hat have evil aura's where it is unclear, you can chalk it up to maybe not being detectable.. something has blocked the spell's ability off.

Now, and finally to a point Missclick made earlier: running around and detecting every player's alignment is simply not really plausible in a persistent world. The PnP version is meant for a party facing off npcs and monsters the DM has brought into the world. Such a spell can easily be abused without DM super version in our mod, and asking every person you cast it on would also be intrusive. For myself, I hate when people use skills and abilities like *Zone of Truth* to simply bypass any story telling capabilities. It exists on paper and in the world, sure.. but it shouldn't be used regularly if its going to take away from one's story telling, in my opinion.

Anyways after talking to DMs I will state this now.

Detect Evil does exist. But the spell must be used with a DM present and is often for events or plot relevant items and NPCs - not player characters.

Because we actually do have spells outside of the game defined: There is a rule that spells that exist outside of what NWN2 must be used with a DM present. So assume this spell falls there for now and that's final say now.

renshouj wrote: ↑Thu Dec 18, 2025 1:12 pm If someone wants to just tell you their alignment, they're free to do so. And I'm very confident that goat would agree with me here.

It was too heavily abused in the past. While I'm not going to stop a player from RPing. The spell itself cannot be cast and then you try to get their alignment. If they tell you, you can integrate it into your RP and abilities (Obviously within limits and lore) otherwise talk to the DMs first. The spell is heavily based on PnP not a PW and we don't want to blow up people's stories with a 6 second spell.

Perfectly clear for all interested. Thank you Goat. I have no further questions.

It has never existed on the server, at least as long as I've been around (so since late 2011). It hasn't been "abused", thus, because it has never actually been implemented. Not that treating it as it is in-setting would actually qualify as "abuse".

There's a lot of misconceptions about what Detect Alignment actually does. I invite you to read it:
https://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/detectEvil.htm

Essentially, it is detecting evil auras, and it's based on the hd of the character or caster level of the item (or class level in the case of divine characters like clerics). This means it isn't necessarily telling the caster whether a character is evil or not, but that they may be carrying an evil item, or is affected by an evil aura of some other kind (a spell, perhaps).

Recognise also, please, that in our case the table's numbers would be doubled, since that is how we treat levels narratively.

Now I also see people thinking it stifles RP or bypasses storytelling, which to me doesn't track at all. It stifles RP no more than Detect Poison does. Detect Poison lets me "bypass" various skill checks and the storytelling of figuring out whether someone (or something - food, drink, potion, etc...) is poisoned, if you want to look at it that way. Heal spell stifles RP because it lets you bypass the treatment of wounds and the RP of recovery.

Not having detect alignment leads to stupid situations like where the Radiant Heart was once lead by a favoured soul of Bane (claiming to be a paladin of Tyr) who was also Dreadlord of the Zhentarim secretly for several years. Now that is probably the most egregious case (which was forunately remedied by DM Narshe eventually), but it wasn't the last time something like that happened. RIdiculous infiltrations of organisations that shouldn't happen still do to this day.

I'm not going to point at anyone or anything in particular, of course, but imagine for example if a priest of Milil infiltrated a sect of clerics and blackguards of Iyachtu Xvim. Now, Xvimlar are hyper tyrannical (like the banites before them), and won't just invite someone to their sect without a proper background check. Indeed since the clerics can cast Detect Good, it makes a lot of sense that they would do that in regards to a new prospect.

Or Leiran trying to infiltrate the helmite Everwatch. You might easily see a Detect Chaos being cast in this case. Leira is admittedly dead, but the example stands.

Or, as is even more common, "secret" evils befriending paladins even if they aren't directly infiltrating (Yeah, I put "secret" in quotes, because in so many cases it is so poorly veiled that Detect Alignment wouldn't even be necessary, but to call it out will get a whiny accusation of metagaming. Good gracious, I have become jaded about this...).

And it's not like Detect Alignment doesn't have a potential counter. We even have Non Detection as a spell ingame (which a lot of people seem to think is doing different things than what it intends to do, but that's another topic).

All in all, you guys seriously need to stop seeing the setting we are playing in as getting in your way, and instead treat it as an opportunity to play within the framework presented. Limitation is the mother of creativity. Look at what Oarthias said.

I have a lot more I could say about why we should have Detect Alignment, but I'll leave it at this for now.

DM or DMless, would Non-Detection or other protective spells work?

If there are spells or abilities of this calibre, is there a source that we can add to our wiki?

Louvaine wrote: ↑Thu Dec 18, 2025 7:21 pm DM or DMless, would Non-Detection or other protective spells work?

If there are spells or abilities of this calibre, is there a source that we can add to our wiki?

Not sure if you're asking about spells we already have, or about spells that we might introduce.

We have Non-Detection. (It mentions "detect spells" specifically).

Spells we don't have, but exist in-setting, are spells like Undetectable Alignment. There's an Eberron source that has a spell called "Misrepresent Alignment", which is an illusion that does what the name suggests: Show you as a different alignment.

Nothing is 100% foolproof. No one gets an I-WIN button. Especially where DMs are concerned.

The below is from the Master Spy wiki.



I had suggested in discord about potentially homebrewing Detect Alignment, which I will repeat here, but effectively, it was that (homebrew) Detect Alignment would require approval from one's specific deity. That way it still requires DM supervision but also works narratively if a DM isn't available. You could also argue using detect alignment in PnP also still technically requires a DM, so to me it doesn't feel like that much of a departure, but I'm nowhere near the authority on this matter.

I also agree with Deathgrowl that the former Dreadlord infiltrating a paladin order is very stupid.

renshouj wrote: ↑Thu Dec 18, 2025 1:01 pm dont make up problems that dont exist

MissClick wrote: ↑Thu Dec 18, 2025 3:34 pm What gives you the impression that there is any ongoing evil roleplay that is absent of effort?

Thank you Deathgrowl for providing this much needed example that explains and validates my concerns:

Deathgrowl wrote: ↑Thu Dec 18, 2025 6:33 pm Not having detect alignment leads to stupid situations like where the Radiant Heart was once lead by a favoured soul of Bane

I was not aware of it. I feel if we'd be allowed to ask questions and expect clarifications instead of being straight up attacked for having different opinion on something our community would see less incidents like one mentioned.

Deathgrowl wrote: ↑Thu Dec 18, 2025 6:33 pm [...] but to call it out will get a whiny accusation of metagaming. Good gracious, I have become jaded about this...).

Exactly how I feel with constant mentions of metagaming describing perfectly well working mechanic that always existed in dnd and no DM ever before in my PnP sessions called meta. I appreciate learning that I am not the only person having issues with it.

That being said decision was made by the admin and there is nothing us players can do about it other than follow the expectations.