Editing Detect Evil (section)

==The Moral Dilemna (or, Why Paladins Can't Actually Just Slaughter All Evil As Soon As They Detect It)==
Let's say your paladin uses ''detect evil'' and realizes half the seedy tavern the PCs are in is some lesser degrees of evil, along with maybe a few "darker" spots from those who are tapping more directly into dark powers.  If you think your paladin should start drawing a sword and mowing down folks, you just broke your alignment as well as your paladin code, and it's gonna take a thick rug to pray for that ''atonement'' later.  Why?

Because if you kill evil ordinary people, you just fucking helped the forces of supernatural evil in the cosmos, you fuckwit.  No, really, stop a moment and think.  Where do evil souls go where they die?  Straight to the Lower Planes... to become even more stuff and/or minions for evil deities, fiends, and others to use. Asmodeus thanks you for your service.

"But, but.. how am I supposed to do good if I can't just kill evil things all the time?"

You '''redeem''' evil people, genius.  Use diplomacy to get them friendly to you, then start changing their behavior in subtle ways.  Get them to help turn others, if not towards goodness, at least away from evil so that you deprive your actual enemies - the denizens of the Lower Planes who feed and grow powerful on the evil of ordinary people.  More than that, every good soul you save who makes it to the Upper Planes?  You just recruited them to the cause.  Some may take a while to climb the ranks, but that's why it's important to save as many souls as you can.

Keep in mind, fiends and most undead are totally legit kills.  Fiends are built of evil souls who already made their permanent choice of affiliation in the cosmos; they chose Team Evil, and they have to accept the consequences of that choice (i.e. getting cut down by that ''holy avenger'' sword).  Sure, a few might be redeemable, and that's a worthwhile challenge, but for the most part you needn't be concerned with attacking a fiend.  The trick is, ''detect evil'' can't penetrate a disguise, so you have to stalk a bit and figure out why the town blacksmith has an aura like that of a pit fiend.  And killing the undead is generally considered the tactic of "kill them all and let the gods know their own", since a lot of them get made against their will; they only get Neutral Evil alignment because they are given that unnatural urge stuff like eating flesh, drinking blood, draining life energy, etc.  However, even if it looks rotting, you need to pop ''detect evil'' anyway, just to be absolutely sure.  It might be one of the few non-evil undead that do actually exist out there, or it might even be a deathless being (who are similar, only infused with a burst of positive energy instead of negative energy). It could also just be a really gross looking peasant. Better safe than sorry, anyway.

DMs reading this should absolutely give their paladin players these opportunities when the party gets some downtime between adventures.  Remember; paladins do not really covet wealth. So long as they save souls and stay Lawful Good, their big reward in the Upper Planes is already there waiting on them.  The more souls they save, the more friends they'll have up there, and probably get even better promotions for it (just as devils get them for damning more souls).