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I assume the caster level for a paladin's detect evil is equal to her paladin class level, right? (It doesn't say in the PHB but I think it's very, very likely.)
The reason I'm wondering is that one of my players has a paladin whose detect evil might have to beat a nondetection spell soon.
Hm. Of course, if she keeps trying for a few rounds, she'll eventually succeed. (The opposing CL isn't that much higher than hers.) Oh well. It's not important that she fails.
For creatures with spell-like abilities, a designated caster level defines how difficult it is to dispel their spell-like effects and to define any level-dependent variables (such as range and duration) the abilities might have. The creature’s caster level never affects which spell-like abilities the creature has; sometimes the given caster level is lower than the level a spellcasting character would need to cast the spell of the same name. If no caster level is specified, the caster level is equal to the creature’s Hit Dice.
I would venture to suggest that if the result of using Detect Evil on a creature protected by Nondetection is different from that of using it on a Good creature, then Nondetection is pretty much useless ...
The paladin's player might choose to try again if she was required to roll a d20 unexpectedly, and thus knew there was something unusual going on. Thus, you should roll the caster level check before the game and note the result.
The paladin's player might choose to try again if she was required to roll a d20 unexpectedly, and thus knew there was something unusual going on. Thus, you should roll the caster level check before the game and note the result.
Right, my assumption is that the paladin suspects something's up if she tries to detect evil. I don't think she's likely to do so "just in case" or even routinely. If I'm wrong about that and she does more casual scans then yes, she's unlikely to keep trying.
Otherwise, it might be like when I did a virus/spyware scan on my computer a few days ago because a game slowed down inexplicably: I didn't find anything on the first try but since I suspected something was there I kept searching. (I was wrong in that case, BTW, but that's beside the point.)
Now, the paladin (and her player) isn't as paranoid/perfectionistic as I am and so might well not keep trying in any case (or even try in the first place, for that matter), but since it's not my character I can't know in advance either way. Also, more paranoid PCs might encourage trying again if they know what the paladin is doing.
Hm. On a second thought, you're probably right that she won't keep trying, even despite my thoughts above - this paladin is very young and inexperienced and doesn't have a very suspicious/paranoid personality. Yet.
By the way, keeping to try might not be a very good idea anyway since the target might notice she's staring in his general direction. Given that this particular target
can detect thoughts, has nondetection active because he's worried about things like detect evil, and is 6 CRs above the PCs' current level (though they might gain some levels before getting suspicious of him)
, it's even less of a good idea but my players of course don't know that.
Fortunately, I think I can rule out metagaming. If I want to keep a roll secret, I use my laptop. Since I'm often looking things up on it anyway, my players wouldn't even notice. (They're not even at my table.) Not that my players are very likely to metagame.
![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
but that's beside the point.)
