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Talon Sky
2010-05-14, 11:48 PM
I was DMing a 3.5 session tonight, which included a Drow Paladin (don't ask) fighting other drow. At one point, the party spellcaster casts Light....subsequently blinding all the drow, including the Paladin.

He asked if he could use Detect Evil to 'sense' his enemies. I let him do it, but I was just wondering how well this should have actually worked.

graeylin
2010-05-15, 12:00 AM
i would have ruled it much like detect magic, or detect thoughts... not so good. spend a round getting tuned in, then the person moves out of your cone....

spend another round getting tuned in.. and gone.


Also, your pally should realize that just because something hits on "detect evil" doesn't make it his enemy/bad guy.

a neutral cleric of an evil deity will register as bad or possibly even worse than an evil wizard, or even an evil cleric of neutral deity. perhaps not much difference, but a critical one, to the people involved.

senrath
2010-05-15, 12:01 AM
Per RAW? No, he couldn't.


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.

Note that that's only on the third round of concentration.

OldTrees
2010-05-15, 12:01 AM
Drow are only blinded in bright light (Daylight spell or stronger. Not Light IIRC)

Drow are only blinded for 1 round.

Detect Evil takes 3 rounds to reach full benefit
1st rd. Presence or Absence (y/n are there evil creatures in range)
2nd rd. Number of Auras (# of evil creatures)
3rd rd Location of each Aura

all in all I think you made a mistake blinding the drow but made a good decision to reward creative thinking. Since the detect spells never get past approximating Blindsense I would rule that they are independent of eyes.

Ravens_cry
2010-05-15, 02:48 AM
The way I thought of it as like a mental HUD overlay, an aura if you want to get mystical. Your mind interprets it as a visual image, even if it has nothing to do with actual photons. This would work better with the Pathfinder detect evil Paladin ability, as it works like the spell. . .after three rounds of concentration on the first round.

KillianHawkeye
2010-05-15, 04:33 PM
The way I thought of it as like a mental HUD overlay, an aura if you want to get mystical. Your mind interprets it as a visual image, even if it has nothing to do with actual photons.

There's nothing in the spell's description about exactly how you are detecting the evil, so there's certainly nothing wrong with describing it via visual stimulus. Personally, I'd like to see a DM try to describe a creature as sounding or smelling evil, instead. :smallamused:

Ravens_cry
2010-05-15, 05:00 PM
There's nothing in the spell's description about exactly how you are detecting the evil, so there's certainly nothing wrong with describing it via visual stimulus. Personally, I'd like to see a DM try to describe a creature as sounding or smelling evil, instead. :smallamused:
That would be nice piece of fluff for a feral kind of character, say an orc or bugbear paladin, as crazy as that sounds.
"He smell rotton, like carcass too long in sun. All rot and worms."

Lord Vukodlak
2010-05-15, 06:43 PM
There's nothing in the spell's description about exactly how you are detecting the evil, so there's certainly nothing wrong with describing it via visual stimulus. Personally, I'd like to see a DM try to describe a creature as sounding or smelling evil, instead. :smallamused:

Theirs an evil in the air I can smell it, oh wait thats me.

Altair_the_Vexed
2010-05-15, 07:07 PM
Simple answer: No. Detect Evil doesn't work like that.

It takes three rounds of concentrating to know the location of an evil aura. That sort of rules out using it to spot foes in combat.

If I was feeling really generous - like maybe I declared a character blind when actually the rules say he'd not be blinded for more than one round, and I wanted to make up for my silly mistake - I'd let a character use detect evil to know which square an enemy was in, and so get to attack them, although still with full concealment.

krossbow
2010-05-15, 10:02 PM
That would be nice piece of fluff for a feral kind of character, say an orc or bugbear paladin, as crazy as that sounds.
"He smell rotton, like carcass too long in sun. All rot and worms."



Oh come now, everyone knows the dark side smells like cookies!

Coidzor
2010-05-15, 10:14 PM
Oh come now, everyone knows the dark side smells like cookies!

Well, no, not really. They have cookies though. Because they murder bakers and ninja their sweet loot.

The Dark Fiddler
2010-05-15, 10:26 PM
That would be nice piece of fluff for a feral kind of character, say an orc or bugbear paladin, as crazy as that sounds.
"He smell rotton, like carcass too long in sun. All rot and worms."

"Evil smells like... kind of like wine that's turned to vinegar with a bit of old burlap thrown in. But Good smells like newly-cut grass and fresh-from-the-oven oatmeal raisin cookies!" (http://rustyandco.com/comic/critical-missives-7/)

Talon Sky
2010-05-16, 10:25 PM
Drow are only blinded in bright light (Daylight spell or stronger. Not Light IIRC)

Drow are only blinded for 1 round.

Detect Evil takes 3 rounds to reach full benefit
1st rd. Presence or Absence (y/n are there evil creatures in range)
2nd rd. Number of Auras (# of evil creatures)
3rd rd Location of each Aura

all in all I think you made a mistake blinding the drow but made a good decision to reward creative thinking. Since the detect spells never get past approximating Blindsense I would rule that they are independent of eyes.

Hmm, two rules I guess I never took into consideration. I always assumed for a Paladin that Detect Evil was a natural or continuous thing, and as for the blinding, I rolled a d4 for the number of rounds, and had him do the same. That happens in my games from time to time, when I realize I don't know the exact rule I'll make something up like that on the spot. Saves us from flipping through books all the time, and besides....in my game, the rule of cool usually goes :smallbiggrin: