On The Paladin’s Use of Detect Evil

There was a debate raging in 2013 in the Pathfinder first edition community, on the Paizo rules forum, as to the nature of the paladin’s use of detect evil. The debate focused on the ability of those other than the paladin using detect evil to notice that he is using detect evil.

First, here are the verbatims, emphasis mine.

Detect Evil (Sp)

At will, a paladin can use detect evil, as the spell. A paladin can, as a move action, concentrate on a single item or individual within 60 feet and determine if it is evil, learning the strength of its aura as if having studied it for 3 rounds. While focusing on one individual or object, the paladin does not detect evil in any other object or individual within range.

Detect Evil

School divination; Level cleric/oracle 1, inquisitor 1, shaman 1
CASTING
Casting Time 1 standard action
Component V, S, DF
EFFECT
Range 60 ft.
Area cone-shaped emanation
Duration concentration, up to 10 min./ level (D)
Saving Throw none; Spell Resistance no
DESCRIPTION
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 table below. If an aura falls into more than one strength category, the spell indicates the stronger of the two.

1 Except for Undead and Outsider, which have their own entries on the table.
2 Some characters who are not clerics may radiate an aura of equivalent power. The class description will indicate whether this applies.

Lingering Aura: An evil aura lingers after its original source dissipates (in the case of a spell) or is destroyed (in the case of a creature or magic item). If detect evil is cast and directed at such a location, the spell indicates an aura strength of dim (even weaker than a faint aura). How long the aura lingers at this dim level depends on its original power:

Animals, traps, poisons, and other potential perils are not evil, and as such this spell does not detect them. Creatures with actively evil intents count as evil creatures for the purpose of this spell.

Each round, you can turn to detect evil in a new area. The spell can penetrate barriers, but 1 foot of stone, 1 inch of common metal, a thin sheet of lead, or 3 feet of wood or dirt blocks it.

Spell-like abilities

Spell-like abilities, as the name implies, are magical abilities that are very much like spells. Spell-like abilities are subject to spell resistance and dispel magic. They do not function in areas where magic is suppressed or negated (such as an antimagic field). Spell-like abilities can be dispelled but they cannot be counterspelled or used to counterspell.

Special Abilities

Usually, a spell-like ability works just like the spell of that name. A spell-like ability has no verbal, somatic, or material component, nor does it require a focus. The user activates it mentally. Armor never affects a spell-like ability’s use, even if the ability resembles an arcane spell with a somatic component.

A spell-like ability has a casting time of 1 standard action unless noted otherwise in the ability or spell description. In all other ways, a spell-like ability functions just like a spell.

Spell-like abilities are subject to spell resistance and dispel magic. They do not function in areas where magic is suppressed or negated. Spell-like abilities cannot be used to counterspell, nor can they be counterspelled.

If a character class grants a spell-like ability that is not based on an actual spell, the ability’s effective spell level is equal to the highest-level class spell the character can cast, and is cast at the class level the ability is gained.

Errata or Paizo Rulings (Rules as Written or RAW) and Developer Musings (Rules as Intended or RAI)

There are no errata on this topic, although Josh Buhlman made a mention on a related topic involving spellcraft checks to determine the nature of a spell.

Hey there Everybody]

The rules here are certainly not clear, because they generally assume that the act of casting a spell has some noticeable element. Notice I did not say component, because I think the rules are silent on parts of spellcasting that are codified components versus those that occur without any sort of codification, such as the wiggle of a finger, change in breathing and other flavor bits that happen when a spellcaster makes the magic happen, as it were.

Back to the topic at hand, since the rules are silent here, I think it is well within the GMs purview to impose a penalty to the Spellcraft check to identify a spell without components (V, S, M). Since there is no real increase for spells with just one, I would guess that this penalty is not very large, perhaps only as much as -4.

This is, of course, up to your GM to adjudicate.

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing

Agreement
There seems to be general agreement that:
1) Paladins can cast detect evil as a standard action, as the spell (three rounds to identify a specific target as evil), but also have a move action option to identify whether a specific target is evil. This is a change from D&D 3.5 where this required a full round, to allow paladins to determine if the targeted creature or person is evil, smite them, and then attack. Where there is doubt, the detect evil would be used to avoid wasting a smite.
2) Spell Like Abilities are not spells, but mirror the spell unless otherwise stated.
3) The paladin’s move action DE ability requires line of site, since it is targetted.

Disagreement
These are items that are not settled and subject to debate.
1) Whether a paladin’s DE ability is detectable in some way other than detect magic. For those who believe it is, they suggest a variety of ways that avoid contradicting the fact that SLAs have no verbal, somatic or material components, such as:
a) Paladin’s eyes glow
b) Paladin gets 1000-mile stare
c) Paladin glows
d) Paladin projects a cone of visible glowy light from his eyes
e) Paladin manifest floaty runes as per various Paizo art
2) Whether the ability’s “casting time” tie in indicates that it is cast, or whether the reference to SLAs being mental abilities that are activated takes precedence.
3) Whether spellcraft can be used to identify the act of the paladin detecting evil (see 1) above)

The point of the argument is to determine whether a paladin can detect evil with impunity, subject to the limitations of the move action. The visual is a paladin strolling through town or sitting in a tavern, casually scanning everyone they see. The implication being that such behavior, if detectable, could be frowned upon, illegal, subject to individual sanction for overt nosiness or provide actionable intelligence to someone observing the behavior.

Please note that creatures or people under level five do not have an alignment aura with the exception of clerics, paladins, extra-planar or undead.

• This topic was modified 2 years, 4 months ago by Hocho Militus (Tom).