Make it require attunement.

Seems pretty vague and ambiguous. What defines a "source" as "strong"?

Interesting concept, but I think that you could flesh out exactly what it does a bit more.

Quote from Abelhawk >>

Seems pretty vague and ambiguous. What defines a "source" as "strong"?

Presumably the DM, as alignment wise you're either evil or you're not, but there's a huge scale of just how evil a person can be.

Someone who will hurt others to get ahead in life could be evil, an assassin who will kill for money is definitely evil, but so is a lich that wants to kill all living things in order to raise the largest undead army the multiverse has ever seen so that they can wage war on the gods themselves.

I really like this magic item; initially I thought rare might be too high, but if it were uncommon then most wizards would have one, so rare is probably about right actually. I just have to now hope that nobody else in my mostly neutral party doesn't get one and rumble my technically evil character (more on the lesser evil end of the scale, but still, they're not the most nuanced bunch when it comes to good vs. evil).

Personally I'd probably get rid of the range limit, and just leave it up to the DM what the needle points at and how accurately, or if it just spins around, e.g- in a city with a high crime rate it might struggle to discern any one criminal as the most evil. Though I get that the intention is probably for dungeoneering more than general use?

I like the overall idea! maybe one that, you choose a creature and it gives a vague idea of its intentions? that would be cool

 "Seems pretty vague and ambiguous. What defines a "source" as "strong"?"

(sorry I'm bad with the quote system)  With good and evil, it's hard to quantify because we don't have absolute good and absolute evil in our world.  So in this case, it's really up to DM discretion what is the evilest of evils, or the goodest of goods.  Since the item is always working and needs no attunement, I figured this was a decent way to balance it.  You can't know for certain if its tracking the pickpocket you want to catch, but it probably is pointing to Mordred the Baby-Eater as you wander his lair.  

"Personally I'd probably get rid of the range limit, and just leave it up to the DM what the needle points at and how accurately, or if it just spins around, e.g- in a city with a high crime rate it might struggle to discern any one criminal as the most evil. Though I get that the intention is probably for dungeoneering more than general use?"

I'm absolutely with you there.  I set the range limit to be more dependable in a higher population density area.  If it was 1 mile in the campaign I made it for, it would never change throughout most off the game.  Set the range limit to whatever makes the most sense for it.  Or hell, make it adjustable once per day with some minimum and maximum ranges so you don't have a free permanent detect evil/good.  


"I like the overall idea! maybe one that, you choose a creature and it gives a vague idea of its intentions? that would be cool"

I think someone made a variant which works that way.  It's pretty well done, and balances out its new functionality well.  


"Interesting concept, but I think that you could flesh out exactly what it does a bit more."

Thanks!  And fair enough.  I tend to like items that just do their thing and have a bit of wiggle room.  As I intended it, it works exactly like a normal compass except its magnetic north is the strongest evil or good person, place, or thing nearby.  As written, it ignores anything outside its range.  At any time it could be checked to see where its pointing.  It's more of a tool than a magic item. 


Make it require attunement.

For any variant that can give more details on where it points, or can be used to accurately gauged a creatures temperament, I could see that.  Personally, I felt it was such a niche item that it would feel more punishing to use than it would be fun to try to work out how to make it function as the player wants it to.  Fully up to you as a DM to set that in your game.

No idea what changed on August 5th, but thanks for the feedback everyone!  I want to make the best possible items to give my players, and every iteration improves that.

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Lol