Bit too arbitrary?

It can't be as simple as that, right? Paladins just having a license to kill whatever their magic sensors register as bad.

So, how do you guys handle alignment detection?

>So, how do you guys handle alignment detection?
By the rules as written, which isn't in any way related to the Veeky Forums meme version where it works just like detecting scorpions with a UV flashlight.

Detect Evil does in fact just work, and the paladin should know the vizier is evil as soon as he sees him. The challenge is that "paladin" is not an in-universe thing, so like fuck is the king going to believe you unless you've proven you're good and trustworthy already.

I'm pretty sure it only works on vampires, monsters and clerics that have strong evil auras.

>The challenge is that "paladin" is not an in-universe thing
Nigga what?

Paladins do not exist. They are one-off heroes personally blessed by fate/god/etc. Even if there was a legendary hero in your setting whose powers included the ability to detect evil, which is the only way someone would know about their class features without metagaming, you would expect anyone who showed up claiming that ability to be a charlatan.

I mean, it's an ability that literally every single spellcaster can do right from level 1. I'm also wondering which setting you are talking about, as that's...not really how it's handled in D&D at all.

I mean, that's a bad example there.

A large part of that Paladin's story arc is devoted to the fact that her black and white beliefs on good and evil ultimately doom her to disgrace and death.

So her over reliance on detect evil isn't actually a good thing.

First off, Detect Alignment and Zone of Truth are low level spells that most casters have access to as low level mages.

Second off, nobody's talking about your OC setting where martials can defeat gods by tipping their +5 fedoras, we're talking about D&D and in D&D, Paladins arguably have just as much moral authority as the people who rule the country, especially if we're talking about classical LG shining knight Paladins.

Consider the following: If they ping as evil, you should probably keep an eye on them, but it comes nowhere close to meaning that they deserve to die for being, as you perceive it, misguided, unless they're like a cleric of a god of child eating, or a fiend, or something.

The point where you kill them is the point where you basically caught them red-handed AND came to conclusion they are irredeemable, redeeming them is not worth the trouble and time you could spend doing a lot good elsewhere, or killing them now averts imminent disaster. It is the point where having Detect Evil is also pointless because you can also kill a neutral or even good person on this basis, and it could still happen to be an overall good, if extremely questionable act.

Miko's whole character is pretty much an exploration of what it means and doesn't mean to be a Paladin, alongside O'Chul serving a similar role.

Later in the story, Durkon forces himself to take a similar stance to Miko about somebody in particular, but is much more justified in doing so. These two moments can be contrasted pretty well. I think what's extremely telling is that Belkar takes this as an opportunity to fuck with Miko(suggesting he is much more mischievous than malicious, much more chaotic than he is evil), wheras Malack takes it as a signal that he has to kill Durkon before Durkon kills him, when Durkon wasn't even saying that, necessarily.