Goodman Games

In the game last night, the cleric tried the Detect Evil spell. She rolled decently (a 17). We discovered that this spell let her detect traps for the next hour! This seems pretty powerful to me--am I reading it correctly?

Yep, reads that way to me too, though I did notice it says, "inherently dangerous", which could indicate that traps that only capture someone, might not be detected.

Colin

Finding a trap is useful, but it still has to be disarmed.

True and true. But I still think that this is an over-extension of "detect evil". I just don't think it should apply to objects (unless they are cursed or evil artifacts/magical items). Would the spell detect a pool of quicksand, or a loaded crossbow? Both are "inherently dangerous in nature"... Perhaps the condition of opposed alignment should be extended to objects. Then it wouldn't detect any neutral objects (such as quicksand or a pit trap), but would detect objects with an opposed alignment.

Evil not being an alignment means that evil needs to be something in order for a spell to detect it - in DCC that something that defines evil happens to be "meaning to do you harm, or directly opposed to your ideals and beliefs."

It is a bit of a loose definition, in a way, because it means that something is evil to one human and not to another - but at the same time it is a more clear definition of evil than has ever existed in D&D, where an animal that was attempting to eat you, a construct trying to smash you to bits, and a diabolic hall of traps designed to kill in torturous ways were all exempt from any form of moral judgement about their actions regardless of the intent behind them - such as the intent of the person behind their construction and/or placement as devices with which to kill intruders.

As for various questions about what is or is not evil by DCC's definition, the answer usually comes easily just by reading the general description of the spell: creatures of opposite alignment, creatures considered unholy by your deity, and anything with clearly harmful intent, with intent being the key word - so a trap specifically constructed to harm someone is detected, but quicksand which has no more intent to harm you than any other bit of ground you my trip and fall upon is not.

I guess what bothers me the most is the duration of the spell: 6 turns. In the hands of my player, this turned into an "always on" spell (the spell check result of 14 is not that hard to get...). As a result, the cleric was able to automatically find all of the traps and hostile creatures in the dungeon. Not very fun for me (or the player who was running a Thief). I am considering a house rule to shorten it to 6 rounds.

This is just the sort of temptation that leads to deity disapproval. If you find that the spell is being overused, you can simply raise the PC's automatic disapproval by qualifying overuse as a sin. Expecting this to be "always on" should try the patience of the most forgiving god. The PC cleric should soon learn to mend his ways without having to change the duration of the spell.

Or the disapproving deity could just reduce the duration of the spell (to, say, 6 rounds... )

Sure. Gods, being gods, can do what they will.

As the book says, "Fear no rule".

RC

My player's Neutral cleric cast Detect Evil last night. What is the opposing alignment to Neutral? Should I ignore Lawful & Chaotic creatures & just allow the spell to detect threats to the cleric?

I would consider the nature of the deity worshipped to answer that question.

The deity is Amun Tor. I couldn't find any answers based on the description of the god found in DCC 35.

Opposing alignment is only one of the things which Detect Evil labels as "evil" and therefore detects, so yes you should ignore alignments in the case of what a neutral character gets out of the spell because there is no opposite to neutral.

So creatures that your deity doesn't like (as mentioned) and anything/anyone seeking to do harm to caster are still detected - and in my not really all that humble opinion, that last one is the most important form of detection.

Consider this: http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/ ... of-riddles

Yup. That's roughly the text I have.

So, in this case, I would go with TheNobleDrake, and, perhaps, consider anything that gives knowledge "too easily" (i.e., that destroys mystery without the petitioner needing to put in effort) as "evil".

Historically, Law and Chaos sort of represented "us" and "them" and OD&D was quite vague about how Law=Good and Evil=Chaos, or if this wasn't intended at all. In my campaign I tend to go with a simple alignment system where Good and Law are pretty much the same thing, while Evil and Chaos are pretty much the other thing. While this doesn't mean that DCC has to interpret alignment in this way, it might frame a starting point for discussion. AD&D expanded alignment into the more familar two-axis system where good-evil could be graphed against law-chaos to obtain more options. DCC returns to a more simplistic model, one similar to that of OD&D, and so I tend to look at it from a more global view rather than getting as specific as AD&D.

I would rule that a trap isn't good or evil, any more so than one could argue that gravity is evil since I could fall down and hurt myself. I think that the intent of Detect Evil is to identify the presence of evil creatures and evil artifacts if the artifact is sentient. Thus, I would rule that Elric's blade Stormbringer would be detected but a pit or spike trap would not.

I rule that the Neutral caster can detect both ways, but has to specify if he is detecting good or detecting evil.

Just to be annoying, I thought of an absurd way to extend the original argument of "inherently dangerous in nature"...

How about if a caster faced several foes and cast Detect Evil on them to determine which ones would hit with their attack rolls. Couldn't you argue that those particular foes are more "inherently dangerous in nature" than the rest? That way the party would know which ones to take out first.

Agreed. And it wouldn't work in my example above, either. Clearly this is an example of reading the words and not the intent of the rule.