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[My Name is Immaterial]

Fun fact: In 3.5e, a paladin's Detect Evil spell-like ability will detect all undead creatures as evil, even if their actual alignment is neutral or good. Pathfinder corrected this loophole in the spell.

My first thought was of Belkar and his lead sheet.

[Jimmy]

Fun fact: In 3.5e, a paladin's Detect Evil spell-like ability will detect all undead creatures as evil, even if their actual alignment is neutral or good. Pathfinder corrected this loophole in the spell.

what the hell edition are you playing, I didn't get any of this from 3.5e

Here's the two versions:

3.5e: Detect Evil
Pathfinder: Detect Evil

Note that the 3.5e version doesn't specify Aligned for the Undead entry in the chart. Thus meaning, by RAW, that all Undead trigger Detect Evil. Also, another quirk of RAW is that, per the wording of the other Detect Alignment spells, undead trigger those too. Pathfinder fixed this oversight in the RAW by adding Aligned to the Undead entry.

tl;dr: RAW is silly.

[WillowLuman]

I've always found it hard to place certain people on the standard DnD alignment. What about a well-intentioned extremist? Someone who does bad things for good reasons? For instance, a religious inquititor who tortures people to get them to repent since they truly want to save their soul? What about a racist who truly believes that it's in the disadvantaged group's best interest to "stay in their place"? What about someone who would do any number of terrible things to protect their family and friends? Or someone who would sacrifice innocent strangers to resurrect people they cared about?

When I create content for DnD based games (NWN, etc) I tend to set everyone's alignments to some form of neutral (since law vs freedom is somewhat easier to categorize for me, though it's still rather nebulous). In practice, everyone believes that what they're doing is justified in some way, after all.

As for alignments being used on a cosmological scale (as basically "teams" or analogous to elements (evil/good/law/chaos being just as much arbitrary polarities as water/earth/fire/air or positive/negative), I've wondered about including a 3rd axis (light/dark) purely for the purpose of cosmological "teams." And maybe with dark tending towards secrets/introversion/calm and light tending towards the opposite.

[BlackHeartKabal]

For instance, a religious inquititor who tortures people to get them to repent since they truly want to save their soul?
What about a racist who truly believes that it's in the disadvantaged group's best interest to "stay in their place"?
What about someone who would do any number of terrible things to protect their family and friends?
Or someone who would sacrifice innocent strangers to resurrect people they cared about?

An inquisitor doing so sanctioned by the church would be lawful neutral or lawful evil.
That racist would be lawful evil.
The last two would be neutral evil.
It's up to interpretation, really.

[Harry Baldman]

In practice, everyone believes that what they're doing is justified in some way, after all.

True. But what their justification is determines their alignment. An evil person's justification implies that they are worthy and most everyone else is not. A good person's justification implies elevation of the needs of others. A neutral person's justification implies a focus on practical concerns.

And yes, that would presumably make your religious inquisitor chaotic good. Torturing people to save their souls is, on the whole, no worse than slitting the throats of travelers to redistribute their wealth to the poor. Internally, at least.

[Criptfeind]

3.5e: Detect Evil

Note that the 3.5e version doesn't specify Aligned for the Undead entry in the chart. Thus meaning, by RAW, that all Undead trigger Detect Evil. Also, another quirk of RAW is that, per the wording of the other Detect Alignment spells, undead trigger those too. Pathfinder fixed this oversight in the RAW by adding Aligned to the Undead entry.

tl;dr: RAW is silly.

This isn't silly when you realized that the core assumption in base 3.5 is that all undead are in fact evil. It's a facet of them in the same way all demons or devils are evil. Of course if you change it for your own campaign, or play in a setting where it's explicitly changed, then this spell probably needs to be changed as well (unless the base power, negative energy, is still evil and the undead are just resisting their base nature, in which case it still makes perfect sense for them to detect as evil.). But it's not silly, having to say evil undead is practically tautology.

[Dirst]

This has been an interesting discussion so far.  As someone who hasn't touched a d20 since the 1980s, just how baked into D&D are the alignments?  Spells like Detect Evil are still adjudicated by a human referee, so variations like detecting-only-really-evil-undead shouldn't be much of a problem.  Or having them show up as "evil" due to the unnaturalness.  Whatever makes sense in that world.  My recollection was that created undead were considered Neutral due to being mindless, but the DM would typically let a character detect the alignment of the spell animating them.

The last tabletop game I'd played was second edition Rolemaster, which isn't so much a game as a game construction kit for OCD gamemasters.  A handful of spell lists were labeled Evil, but it was up to the GM to determine what that meant.  They were somewhat more powerful, so I decided they were "spells maximizing power at the expense of safety" and thus soul-corrupting, but could be used by a "good" character under the right circumstances (which is to say with sufficient roleplaying by that player).  Except that they were expressly illegal in one of the countries, pretty much because they had rules about everything.

That world had a relatively simple cosmology with three main religions.
The first religion worshiped the God of Law, whose enemies were the God of Chaos and the God of Evil.
The second religion worshiped the Lord of Freedom, whose enemies were the Lord of Stasis and the Lord of Corruption.
The third religion worshiped the Master of Power, whose enemies were the Master of Conformity and the Master of Confusion.
As you might have guessed, they're all talking about the same three deities.  There was also a cult of "witches" who believed all three of them were facets of the same being.  That these "witches" were heretics was about the only thing all three major faiths agreed upon.

Would such a thing even fit into D&D?

[highmax28]

I made a world that was supposed to be made for a campaign but got scrapped that had religion of two dieties, both who gave clerics power, but never showed themselves. the world was also mostly humans, which is why the idea was scrapped for campaigns. The two dieties were essentially the god of Community, Industry and Creation and the other was Goddess of Beauty, Individuality, and Nature. The concept was two dieties who were both kind of neutral and not really good/evil but a slight hint of law/chaos, but even then, it wasn't that much. The two gods were twins and hated each other, and heir followers did that as well, but with their own followers, they were kind of laid back. Again, they never really directly intervened with their worshippers

[cochramd]

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[highmax28]

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But what truly is the definition of each of those? What does it mean to be good? Evil? Chaotic? Lawful? How far can we go with it until it's no longer what it is?

I like to think of us as the philosophical players who sit there and go "what does it mean to be <insert alignment>?" And if by that definition is true, then I wouldn't be yelled at by my rules lawyer for cutting off the head of a priest who molested a child and what was stabbed to death by vengeful spirits out of a fit of momentary fury. He says it's not chaotic but an evil act.

Also, I don't think the people here appreciate you talking down to us like you think we're idiots for discussing alignment, because I sure as hell dont

[AbstractTraitorHero]

Morality is a complicated subject and as such is is worth thousands of pages in my opinion.

[Jimmy]

This isn't silly when you realized that the core assumption in base 3.5 is that all undead are in fact evil. It's a facet of them in the same way all demons or devils are evil. Of course if you change it for your own campaign, or play in a setting where it's explicitly changed, then this spell probably needs to be changed as well (unless the base power, negative energy, is still evil and the undead are just resisting their base nature, in which case it still makes perfect sense for them to detect as evil.). But it's not silly, having to say evil undead is practically tautology.

Except when you realize that even in the core rulebooks, there are undead that are not evil.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/ghost.htm

Size and Type
The creature’s type changes to undead. Do not recalculate the creature’s base attack bonus, saves, or skill points. It gains the incorporeal subtype. Size is unchanged.

...

Alignment
Any.

[cochramd]

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[AbstractTraitorHero]

Wow congratulations by insulting everyone you have successfully made your opinion close to meaningless and were discussing  morality as it pertains to tabletop specifically dnd and asking what they truly mean what it means to be good or evil.

[cochramd]

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