are there any magic items that would allow a creature to use detect good and evil, or something like that to help them detect alignments? i'm trying to do something in the campaign i'm in right now and i'm probably going to need that to make it work
Nothing really detects alignments anymore, the Detect Evil & Good spell just reveals certain type sof creatures and areas that have been magcally consecrated/desecrated. You could use either medallion of thoughts or wand of magic detection as a base item and change the spell you can cast with them to Detect Evil & Good. Otherwise the Rod of Alertness would probably do it as well although it is a Very Rare magic item. If you did want the spell to also reveal alignments it probably wouldn't be that game breaking, just keep in mind that you can have creatures such as Rakshasa, spells such as Nondetection and items such as Amulets of Proof Against Detection and Location that can make someone immune to divination magi if the party do try to abuse it.
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Humans in MCDM's standard setting of Capital can sense magic as a default racial thing. You could very easily flavor something like this but I don't think there is an official item for it.
5E is different than previous editions as far as detecting alignments. The Detect Good and Evil spell just detects certain creature types (aberration, celestial, elemental, fey, fiend, or undead), so would not tell you if here was an evil human wizard in front of you. The Glyph of warning spell can be set to trigger by alignment...but can only be moved 10 feet...so if you want it to go off if an evil person enters your bedroom, sure.
Generally speaking 5e shies away from making other humanoids able to positively identify alignment at will, which I think is a good thing because it helps reflect that alignment is not some fixed pillar of their being and isn't even something mortals really have a solid handle on. Now, there are magic items that check/interact with your alignment, but they're few and far between as well as typically being high-tier stuff, like special relics of Good/Evil that will only work for someone with a compatible alignment, if not attempt to force a change. If you're the DM, you can of course homebrew and appropriate item for the campaign; if you're a player best bet is to talk to your DM about this idea. Generally speaking, any idea you have that falls outside what your current features and items allow per RAW is best run by the DM; trying to surprise them can bog things down and the DM attempts to sort out how your idea is going to interact with the plot they're running, and end-running them is generally just a bad idea that can create an adversarial dynamic at the table.
In a world that has access to such things, I'd wager over time language would have adjusted to accomodate it. Right? Even here in the real world, where such things aren't possible, everyone knows what a fireball is.
So, following that logic, there should be a one-word command that you could use when casting Command, which forces the target to state their alignment. And even if not, words - and thus one-word-commands - can be defined as we please. So, an interrogator could define 'when I Command you to declare, Red means you are Evil, and Blue means you are Good". Something like that. Similar for the other axis.
Maybe I'm overthinking it - but it does seem like magic would influence language in this way.
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Command doesn’t work with abstracts, it’s more like dog commands. And characters don’t read their own character sheets, so mortals are unlikely to view themselves as strictly defined along the alignment axes or have an accurate assessment of where they fall on it. Plus, language evolves based on what concepts people are attempting to express; magic and particularly knowledge of how it works is generally not presented as so well understood by the world at large that words for things that can only be perceived via magic would be understood and used by laypeople.
In a world that has access to such things, I'd wager over time language would have adjusted to accomodate it. Right? Even here in the real world, where such things aren't possible, everyone knows what a fireball is.
That’s debatable. I know some people who understand a “fireball” to be a ball of fire roughly the size of a baseball that hits a single target, others who envision a “fireball” to be a massive ball of fire like the kinds of energy attacks one sees in DBZ, and here in D&D a “fireball” is represented as a tiny spark that gets hurled to a point that then explodes into a massive ball of fire. That’s three very different interpretations of a fireball right there, and I’m sure some other people could come up with yet further variations of what a “fireball” means to them.
Command doesn’t work with abstracts, it’s more like dog commands. And characters don’t read their own character sheets, so mortals are unlikely to view themselves as strictly defined along the alignment axes or have an accurate assessment of where they fall on it. Plus, language evolves based on what concepts people are attempting to express; magic and particularly knowledge of how it works is generally not presented as so well understood by the world at large that words for things that can only be perceived via magic would be understood and used by laypeople.
Says who? It's a one-word command. Bam. That's all. Define one word that is 'the command to state your alignment' - then explain that command to the target, cast the spell. Easy-peasy.
Would that work? Entirely up to the GM. But I like the logic of it.
That’s debatable. I know some people who understand a “fireball” to be a ball of fire roughly the size of a baseball that hits a single target, others who envision a “fireball” to be a massive ball of fire like the kinds of energy attacks one sees in DBZ, and here in D&D a “fireball” is represented as a tiny spark that gets hurled to a point that then explodes into a massive ball of fire. That’s three very different interpretations of a fireball right there, and I’m sure some other people could come up with yet further variations of what a “fireball” means to them.
Of course it's debatable. But your example is nonsense. In any given game world, Fireball is Fireball. Doesn't matter what Fireball is in DBZ.
But yes, it's highly debatable.
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
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are there any magic items that would allow a creature to use detect good and evil, or something like that to help them detect alignments? i'm trying to do something in the campaign i'm in right now and i'm probably going to need that to make it work
Nothing really detects alignments anymore, the Detect Evil & Good spell just reveals certain type sof creatures and areas that have been magcally consecrated/desecrated. You could use either medallion of thoughts or wand of magic detection as a base item and change the spell you can cast with them to Detect Evil & Good. Otherwise the Rod of Alertness would probably do it as well although it is a Very Rare magic item. If you did want the spell to also reveal alignments it probably wouldn't be that game breaking, just keep in mind that you can have creatures such as Rakshasa, spells such as Nondetection and items such as Amulets of Proof Against Detection and Location that can make someone immune to divination magi if the party do try to abuse it.
Humans in MCDM's standard setting of Capital can sense magic as a default racial thing. You could very easily flavor something like this but I don't think there is an official item for it.
5E is different than previous editions as far as detecting alignments. The Detect Good and Evil spell just detects certain creature types (aberration, celestial, elemental, fey, fiend, or undead), so would not tell you if here was an evil human wizard in front of you. The Glyph of warning spell can be set to trigger by alignment...but can only be moved 10 feet...so if you want it to go off if an evil person enters your bedroom, sure.
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Generally speaking 5e shies away from making other humanoids able to positively identify alignment at will, which I think is a good thing because it helps reflect that alignment is not some fixed pillar of their being and isn't even something mortals really have a solid handle on. Now, there are magic items that check/interact with your alignment, but they're few and far between as well as typically being high-tier stuff, like special relics of Good/Evil that will only work for someone with a compatible alignment, if not attempt to force a change. If you're the DM, you can of course homebrew and appropriate item for the campaign; if you're a player best bet is to talk to your DM about this idea. Generally speaking, any idea you have that falls outside what your current features and items allow per RAW is best run by the DM; trying to surprise them can bog things down and the DM attempts to sort out how your idea is going to interact with the plot they're running, and end-running them is generally just a bad idea that can create an adversarial dynamic at the table.
In a world that has access to such things, I'd wager over time language would have adjusted to accomodate it. Right? Even here in the real world, where such things aren't possible, everyone knows what a fireball is.
So, following that logic, there should be a one-word command that you could use when casting Command, which forces the target to state their alignment. And even if not, words - and thus one-word-commands - can be defined as we please. So, an interrogator could define 'when I Command you to declare, Red means you are Evil, and Blue means you are Good". Something like that. Similar for the other axis.
Maybe I'm overthinking it - but it does seem like magic would influence language in this way.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Command doesn’t work with abstracts, it’s more like dog commands. And characters don’t read their own character sheets, so mortals are unlikely to view themselves as strictly defined along the alignment axes or have an accurate assessment of where they fall on it. Plus, language evolves based on what concepts people are attempting to express; magic and particularly knowledge of how it works is generally not presented as so well understood by the world at large that words for things that can only be perceived via magic would be understood and used by laypeople.
That’s debatable. I know some people who understand a “fireball” to be a ball of fire roughly the size of a baseball that hits a single target, others who envision a “fireball” to be a massive ball of fire like the kinds of energy attacks one sees in DBZ, and here in D&D a “fireball” is represented as a tiny spark that gets hurled to a point that then explodes into a massive ball of fire. That’s three very different interpretations of a fireball right there, and I’m sure some other people could come up with yet further variations of what a “fireball” means to them.
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Says who? It's a one-word command. Bam. That's all. Define one word that is 'the command to state your alignment' - then explain that command to the target, cast the spell. Easy-peasy.
Would that work? Entirely up to the GM. But I like the logic of it.
Of course it's debatable. But your example is nonsense. In any given game world, Fireball is Fireball. Doesn't matter what Fireball is in DBZ.
But yes, it's highly debatable.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.