DM help: class that can emulate a Paladin?

[GrumpyWizard]

Hi all, congratulations on Rich's thumb getting close to healed :smallsmile:

I need some pointers from you: I am DMming a game, where I've introduced an NPC who will infiltrate the party for a while, gathering info for the bad guys. I have my players believing he's a ~13th lvl paladin (party is similar level).

I do not have much time to prepare my games, so: who knows a nongood class that could pull off a believable paladin for a couple of weeks (the party may discover him if they are clever, but not if they remain casual)?

I introduced him at the end of last session, to act-out a deus-ex-machina saving the party from an ice devil (in my mind, he was in league with the devil, but that can be changed). I have already had his horse disappear after taking substantial damage (like a celestial mount would), and he has removed a panicked condition from a PC by 'mumbling something and touching your shoulder'.

My party will know about the most iconic abilities of the class, but not more. There's only one player who might start checking the paladin class for consistency after a while (and ideally, they might find him out this way).

Thanks a bunch! Always nice to lean back and let others do the work :smalltongue:

[DeltaEmil]

Fighter with Pious Templar prestige class from Complete Divine. Gets paladin spellcasting, smite ability that works against everything, and a few class features to make them a little bit more tough than usual, mainly, some weak damage reduction and Mettle which unfortunately works only against spells (unlike the Hexblade's Mettle, which works against any such attack).

Alternatively, a crusader from Tome of Battle. However, that class is more about smashing an enemy's face compared to the spellcasting paladin, and the player's might wonder why seeing the "paladin" smash somebody's face suddenly grants healing towards the party, and if a player character has a martial adept or ranks in Martial Lore, might instantly recognize it.

Then again, the crusader could be multiclassing...

[andromax]

Who says he has to emulate a Paladin?

Paladin of Tyranny/Slaughter (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm) are both evil.
May wish to cast Undetectable Alignment on yourself tho

[Gnomish Wanderer]

I once had a Fighter 8/Sorcerer 8 with a ton of magic items emulate a paladin. Though he was doing it permanently for popular image of the people and the order of actual paladins rather than just to trick a party.

[Fable Wright]

Crusader gets my vote. He passes off as nonstandard, possibly saying (OOC) he uses obscure feats/ACFs to use Lay on Hands when he attacks people.

You can also check this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=13826887#post13826887) thread for ideas.

[Fouredged Sword]

A class pretending to be another class? I suggest the go to of chameleon. By 13 they can smite and cast divine spells. Make the alignment neutral and I bet they do't even think to detect good rather than evil.

[Andreaz]

Cleric does everything.

[Fable Wright]

A class pretending to be another class? I suggest the go to of chameleon. By 13 they can smite and cast divine spells. Make the alignment neutral and I bet they do't even think to detect good rather than evil.

Mask of Gentility, from Exemplars of Evil. It makes you register as Neutral, so you actually can be evil without anyone noticing.

[Fouredged Sword]

But then everyone sees you with a mask on all the time:smalltongue:. Maybe have it custom magic itemed into a pendant or such and slight of hand it so it can't be seen.

[Ravens_cry]

Cleric does everything.
That would be my vote for simplicity sake. The Cleric I basically see as being the martial orders of a faith as opposed to the rank and file priesthood.

[Fable Wright]

But then everyone sees you with a mask on all the time:smalltongue:. Maybe have it custom magic itemed into a pendant or such and slight of hand it so it can't be seen.

Mask of Gentility is a feat, meaning it's an Ex or Natural ability that can't be seen or registered. In other words, impossible to detect.

[Hand_of_Vecna]

Cleric does everything.

Seriously it does. The only problem is it could easily be too good and never give any evidence at all he's a fake.

Combat Ability. Check.

Mount. Planar Ally.

Spells. Spells.

Turn Undead. Rebuke Undead. This could give a very small hint as undead will cower rather than run though in most dungeon rooms it will be identical.

Aura of Courage. Protection from X, either persistent or constant from an item or make it a chink in his imitation armor if he fails a save with good Will and maxed Wisdom. Hubris could easily lead him to not waste recsources imitating this ability.

Divine Health. Hope he never fails a save vs. disease.

Remove Disease. Silent Remove Disease, Focus for his real god tattoo'd to the palm of his sword hand. If he's infected with a disease he'll want to wait for a moment alone to cast on himself. The only real chance of discovery is one of the few monsters that's disease is genuinely threatening in battle.

Smite. Either, who says he isn't it's a relatively invisible effect,
or Holy Surge (DMG II) on his weapon.

[Diarmuid]

/snip...and he has removed a panicked condition from a PC by 'mumbling something and touching your shoulder'.

Are any of your players casters? Do they have Spellcraft? They should be able to determine easily what spells he's casting or if he isnt actually casting the spells he says he is.

Unless the PC's actually should know all of the IC abilities of a Paladin (and even then it gets very difficult with the plethora of ACF's avaiable) then it should be pretty tough for them to definitively say he isnt.

Catching him in a lie, or observing an obviously non-Paladin-like act is probably the only way they'd be able to concretely say it's not a Paladin.

A high Bluff skill is probably all you really need.

[GrumpyWizard]

Excellent, thanks everyone! Yes, I have to agree with Hand of Vecna's analysis. I'll go for a cleric to some god of trickery I think, then :)

Given all your input, the chance actually does seem very small that they find him out as a non-paladin. They'll likely find him out as an infiltrator when he needs to sneak out on them every so often to report, I guess. Which is good, so yay!

[GrumpyWizard]

Are any of your players casters? Do they have Spellcraft? They should be able to determine easily what spells he's casting or if he isnt actually casting the spells he says he is.

There's one sorcerer but he doesn't have too good spellcraft I believe. And even then, they will probably not be suspicious enough to try.

[Guizonde]

yay! something i can help with! :elan:

first question: you playing pathfinder or 3.5? i know that pathfinder's alignment requirements for paladins is straight loyal. you can pull off any good, neutral, or evil ones. heck, a LN paladin (like PF clerics) just has to choose if he'll harm (to go into LE) or heal (to go into LG). even then, it's more than viable to go LN with heal spells (to better pull the masquerade) and let him go evil afterwards. just the neutral aspect could foreshadow something's not kosher about him, after all.

as previously said, clerics are paladins++, so if you really don't want to have a true paladin, go that route.

i do believe that 3.5 has more than its fair share of less than true paladins (the shadow guard and grey guard comes to mind, being basically batman for action purposes)that'll allow an npc to bypass spellcasting and the attentions of the PCs.
oh, and remember a mantra from azure city:


good, not dumb
if you're a troper, you'll find the following to work well too:

-affably evil
-good is not nice
-light is not good
-dark is not evil
-utopia justifies the means

personnal story
as much as i loved playing paragons of goodness and saving kitties stuck in trees, my last paladin that a dm allowed me to play was irreprochable alignment wise (LG), but i've never played a bigger ass. insulting elves, torturing bad guys, being raucous in general, and basically being "the end justifies the means". not miko style, mind you. playing LG more like roy. i've never had so much fun being a stone wall in combat, or a jerk to anyone going against my "divine quest".

tl;dr explicited: a paladin is a divine warrior. that's it. you've got a credo, and you must stick with it, but even "ultra-well defined" leaves room for grey areas. it's not "generic bigot #X", it's your character to have his flaws, motivations, morality, etc.

[Lord Il Palazzo]

Are any of your players casters? Do they have Spellcraft? They should be able to determine easily what spells he's casting or if he isnt actually casting the spells he says he is.If this were an issue (which it sounds like it isn't) you could tell your players you're using the Pathfinder paladin, who can remove certain conditions while using Lay on Hands. Since Lay on Hands isn't a spell, I don't think there would be a spellcraft check to identify it.

Catching him in a lie, or observing an obviously non-Paladin-like act is probably the only way they'd be able to concretely say it's not a Paladin.Not necessarily. The Gray Guard PrC (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/prc/20070320) lets a paladin be a bit more ethically flexible as long as whatever they're doing is for a good reason, so getting caught in a lie wouldn't be the end of the world. If the character can convince the players that he was lying for a good reason, they should buy it if he explains the Gray Guard concept and convinces them that that's what he is.

[Hand_of_Vecna]

There's one sorcerer but he doesn't have too good spellcraft I believe. And even then, they will probably not be suspicious enough to try.

Why would this be an issue, he cast a spell, Paladin's can cast spells. If someone brings up Remove Fear not being a Paladin spell shrug and say "my bad, I thought it was" then ask if adding Remove Fear to the Paladin spell list seems like a reasonable house rule (then do it, why not? doesn't seem out of line).

Spellcraft identifies the spell cast and doesn't tell you how people are casting spells. The Core Spellcraft says you need to see the verbal and somatic components of a spell to identify it, outside core I believe its a -10 to identify a silent spell. So, that could identify a silent spell being shoved off as a Su a silent, still spell would be almost impossible without optimizing spellcraft.

Oh, and he should use Sending to make his reports.

[dspeyer]

There have been a few builds (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=252932&page=2) on that theme.

But generally, I'll throw in another vote for cleric.

[Darth Stabber]

You could try factotum, with some UMD + slight of hand you can wand/scroll some important things, and with opportunistic piety you can very easily mimic turn and lay on hands. The armor might be an issue, but just get glammered armor.

[GrumpyWizard]

yay! something i can help with! :elan:
Hehe


first question: you playing pathfinder or 3.5?
We play 3.5.

I kind of like to keep the game world a relatively simple place, so I tend not to use too much import-homebrew or other stuff my players won't be familiar with. That's why I believe I do prefer the cleric option. I can have him be non-good while still pulling off a believable paladin, and I'm even within core rulebooks. :smallcool:

I'll use silent cure to replace lay on hands. That'll work well enough. And thanks H_o_V, for pointing out the sending possibility, that's exactly what a guy like the 'paladin' would do I guess (and my players might remember the spell from when Nale wastes endless scrolls to contact the Order, hee hee).

[Mirakk]

My vote is also for a cleric. It's just too quick and easy to ignore as possibility.

Now someone else mentioned the lack of paladin spells, and someone else mentioned Paladin of Slaughter/Tyranny etc..

Hybridize both. I've done a Prestige Paladin of Freedom before in a campaign and it worked great. Grants access to the Paladin spell list without the annoying alignment restriction and relatively gimp level progression.

Doesn't change the power level or intent of the classes in question. Just makes them different. In fact, I'm surprised they didn't put a sidebar in about that in UA seeing they have these classes in the same source.

[Prime32]

Why exactly does he need to emulate an OOC class? Wouldn't any kind of holy warrior be referred to as a paladin in-game? And even then, don't paladins ever multiclass?

I mean, it's possible to have a member of the paladin class who's evil, doesn't have a mount, casts wizard spells from a spellbook, grows claws instead of smiting things, has favored enemies instead of turn undead, and sings instead of detecting alignments.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

The False Theurgy skill trick from Complete Scoundrel could come in handy for the cleric version in case the sorcerer ever wises up. It makes one spell you're casting look like another one to Spellcraft checks, so he could use it to make his cleric spells appear to be paladin spells if he needs to "prove" his paladinhood, make harmful spells appear to beneficial ones, and so forth.

[searlefm]

the only paladin substitutes iv used are these ones

The Soulborn
there a paladin that mist be non neutral get smite opposition that is smite for there opposing aliments so good/evil chaos/law and a week handful of incarnate magic, a halo, and glowing eye

and

The Favored Soul
there a paladin cleric cross there good if don't have a cleric and need another front line man or just if you want to look cool as hell
with yet another halo and winged this time

[Andreaz]

the only paladin substitutes iv used are these ones

The Soulborn
there a paladin that mist be non neutral get smite opposition that is smite for there opposing aliments so good/evil chaos/law and a week handful of incarnate magic, a halo, and glowing eye

and

The Favored Soul
there a paladin cleric cross there good if don't have a cleric and need another front line man or just if you want to look cool as hell
with yet another halo and winged this time

And they are not exactly great. The soulborn manages to suck harder than a paladin ever could, and the favored soul is to the cleric what the sorc is to the wiz...but a limited spell list hurts them more.

[the_archduke]

Ardent with life and guardian mantles makes an awesome paladin. Take wild cohort for the mount. I think there is a mantle with a smite on it too

[Waker]

There have been plenty of good suggestions about classes that can emulate the paladin, so I'll address the "discovering that he's not a paladin" part. Since he's supposed to be a spy and thus somewhat intelligent, perhaps the party would suspect him after they find some evidence (finding messages in enemy hideouts referencing the spy, not by his assumed name though) holes in his story, or even odd behavior for a paladin, like a violent temper when he's upset.

[JaronK]

Another fun option is the Binder, who can actually use a Paladin vestige that lets them summon a mount (Andras, 4th level), in addition to giving them riding bonuses and Smite Evil (or Smite Good). Combined with a few other appropriate vestiges, you could have a lot of fun. If you use the divine adaptation of Anima Mage, a Binder 1/Archivist 3/Anima Mage 9 could easily pass for a Paladin using Persisted spells to buff himself (Divine Power?) and Andras for the appropriate class abilities. You can even turn undead by binding Tenebrous.

Of course if he fails a binding check, he might be spotted... and he can't suppress the signs either. That could easily be a clue for them. He can try to explain them away of course. Andras has two tiny feathered wings as his sign (you can explain them as having a slight celestial ancestry). Tenebrous makes you always seem to be in shadow, even in the sun... that's tougher to explain. Might make the players curious.

JaronK

[nedz]

If this were an issue (which it sounds like it isn't) you could tell your players you're using the Pathfinder paladin, who can remove certain conditions while using Lay on Hands. Since Lay on Hands isn't a spell, I don't think there would be a spellcraft check to identify it.


Wouldn't this be a case of the DM lying to the players ?

Anyway,
You could use a Sorcerer who uses Illusions to fake everything.
As for why he can't use his lay on hands or something he could simply come out with lines such as "Well I happened across a wounded beggar this morning and used it upon him". Bluff is a class skill for Sorcerers.
You could use a Bard or Beguiler in a similar manner, though Sorcerer is more flexible.