Detect Magic and Detect Evil

[Galannor]

Hi, everybody: the spells Detect Magic and Detect Evil say that the strenght of the auras detected can be lingering, faint, moderate, etc. (pp. 75 - 76 of the PHB 4th print.): how do you determine the actual strenght of these auras (I mean, if an aura is lingering, faint, moderate, etc.)? By the level of the spells for magic and by the level of the character for the alignment?
Many thanks,
G.

[Lord Dynel]

You could the HD listed for Detect Undead when deterring how strong the aura is of an evil creature: faint (1 HD), moderate (2-4 HD), strong (5-10 HD), and overwhelming (11+ HD). For Detect Magic, you can find the equivalent in the d20 SRD and use it (every magic item in it has an aura listed). Alternatively, you could use the above and extrapolate the spell level of the effect involved and make up your own aura. For example, a Ring of Friendship acts like a charm person or animal spell. The minimum level to cast that spell would be 3rd, so the ring radiates of a moderate aura. This requires a bit more thinking on the CK's part, though, so one needs to be ready with that information.

These are written much like their 2nd edition counterparts, but I can't recall a hard-coded method in 2e that dealt with this, either. Many items mentioned their aura, but few talked about its strength. 3rd edition has more comprehensible list, and if you really, really need to include the strength of auras, then I'd suggest referencing it.

Me? I scrap the "strength of aura" stuff and just wing it. The last time PCs cast select spells in a C&C game I ran, I only provided the presence or absence of magic and evil. That method worked pretty good in the 1st edition era, and it works good at my table, too.

[koralas]

You could look at it like a color system for Alignment...

Lawful = Blue - (Web color: 00FFFF)
Neutral = Grey - (Web color: 666666)
Chaotic = Red - (Web color: cc0000)

Good = White (not shown in white due to washout ) - (Web color: FFFFFF)
Neutral = Grey - (Web color: 666666)
Evil = Black - (Web color: 000000)

Thus:
L/G = Sky Blue - (Web color: 00FFFF)
L/N = Blue Grey - (Web color: 4080BF)
L/E = Dark Blue - (Web color: 000080)

N/G = Light Grey - (Web color: 999999)
N/N = Grey - (Web color: 666666)
N/E = Dark Grey - (Web color: 333333)

C/G = Light Red - (Web color: ff0033)
C/N = Greyish Red - (Web color: 996666)
C/E = Dark Red - (Web color: 660000)

What you could do is print out cards of the different alignments for use with different spells. Pull a color and describe it's intensity, faint, moderate, strong, overwhelming. The web color codes are provided since most drawing programs let you adjust your palette using those codes. Also, if you have a drawing program that can adjust the transparency level of a layer (like the free GIMP), you could print out on transparency sheets, adjusting the software transparency level between prints to get a washed out, translucent, to fully opaque print, and display those to your player. I've used this before, and the players took a bit to get used to it, but they enjoyed the visual rather than an explicit description. It also forced them to research what the aura's meant (alignment color system in this case) which became a micro-quest of it's own.

Also, as an alternative, you could show the Neutral arm as an absence of color instead of grey. Thus:

L/N = Blue - (Web color: 00FFFF)
N/N = Clear, blank, no color
C/N = Red - (Web color: cc0000)
N/G = White - (Web color: FFFFFF)
N/E = Black - (Web color: 000000)