could an evil leader attract good followers?

[blelliot]

The bbeg I built for a game starting soon is a vampire lord. They get leadership as a bonus feat. I have an idea that he is so old, he's using a threefold way to complete his plan. One I'm thinking is to use his free feat in order to lead a church of a good god. He is using this church as a means of keeping the populace fed and clothed. I was just wondering if an evil person who posed as a good person could have actual good followers? (not including cohort, he's going to be in on the plot. What a twist!!!lol) any opinions would be appreciated.

[Crake]

The bbeg I built for a game starting soon is a vampire lord. They get leadership as a bonus feat. I have an idea that he is so old, he's using a threefold way to complete his plan. One I'm thinking is to use his free feat in order to lead a church of a good god. He is using this church as a means of keeping the populace fed and clothed. I was just wondering if an evil person who posed as a good person could have actual good followers? (not including cohort, he's going to be in on the plot. What a twist!!!lol) any opinions would be appreciated.

Yes, an evil character with leadership can attract good followers. The cohort cannot be opposed on the alignment axis, and recieves the leadership penalty listed for not being the exact same alignment, probably because they get a better insight into the character, being higher level and generally closer to them.

But regular followers are chumps, so they're easily fooled, and thus easily recruited.

[Captnq]

I never ran into any problems, I don't see why that would be a problem in game.

[Chronos]

Consider Girl Genius. Klaus Wulfenbach seems to be Lawful Evil, but he has followers of all alignments who are personally loyal to him (in many cases, because they consider the stability of his rule to be far preferable to the chaos that would reign without him). Though it probably helps that he's more lawful than evil.

[Runestar]

I don't see why not, if he is masquerading as a good person.

Now, the real question is if he was known to be evil, what might cause good followers to still follow him willingly, without falling?

[Angelalex242]

As usual, divine casters can't...they're obligated to root out evil wherever they find it.

Non divine casters, however, can do what they want. Maybe they figure by being part of his armies, they can mitigate the damage his evil would do.

[Psyren]

Sure he can. See also Renegade Shepard, D*ckHawke, Closed Fist Spirit Monk etc. All you really need is a greater threat, something to make him be the lesser of two evils. Either that, or good at hiding his true nature.

[Angelalex242]

The biggest bluff check in the world doesn't get around detect evil at will...

Though I suppose you could just stick a ring of mindshielding on him and call it good...

But then, that poor Paladin might wonder why his powers are slipping away for no apparent reason. (You can fool mortals with a ring of mind shielding. The gods? not so much.)

[Viros]

The biggest bluff check in the world doesn't get around detect evil at will...

Nitpick: The SRD page on epic skill uses puts emulating an alignment at a DC 70 bluff check.


Display False Alignment
The character can fool alignment-sensing effects by displaying a false alignment of his or her choice. Once set, a false alignment remains as long as the character remains conscious and awake. Setting or changing a false alignment requires a full-round action.

[Angelalex242]

Well, okay, I suppose a bard with maxed out bluff and a glibness spell who rolls high...

[Nocharim]

The biggest bluff check in the world doesn't get around detect evil at will...

Though I suppose you could just stick a ring of mindshielding on him and call it good...

But then, that poor Paladin might wonder why his powers are slipping away for no apparent reason. (You can fool mortals with a ring of mind shielding. The gods? not so much.)

The thing is, the vanilla paladin has to knowingly associate with the evil character to fall. As in, to actually know that he is evil and assist him despite of this knowledge.

Also, a paladin spamming detect evil gets boring to everyone involved along with the unfortunate side effect of being immersion breaking.

As for your previous post: Not all divine spellcasters are paladins nor are all paladins good.

Now for the original poster. Churches that are prominent to the campaign have a tendency to be instantly fall under the assumption of that they are either corrupt, controlled by someone corrupt or flat out evil by the players so often that its easier to actually use a genuinely good church as a snipe hunt for the players, although this tends to end up by an angry mob with torches and pitchforks chasing the players out for disturbing peace.
It would probably be more practical and discreet to feed and clothe the followers to have them operate one or more farms instead of something as high profile as a church, although it does provide for a decent ego trip for the vampire in question.