Evil DM PC cleric, how? 3.5

[Buddha's_Cookie]

In an up coming campaign I need this character to exist. He is a close friend to the party, and during the story may spend a long time with them (in party and combat). He is meant to be a bit of a secret antagonist to the party. If discovered he is meant to give a sense of betrayal to the party, that he fell to evil or was dragged to it by his new masters.

So my problem is two fold.

First - How do I build an evil cleric (necromantic bent?) in a low powered campaign. Max level is 5 + 1 multiclass (optional) = character level of 6. So it would be cleric 5/?1 or cleric 6/?0. Also I need to balance him so he does not hog the combat spotlight, so a support role? I think he should keep his ability to spontaneously heal (part of the cover?).

Second - How do I hide him within a party? The party will know him as a friend before they meet, but may be a bit suspicious of him. I was thinking of having him pretend or believe he is a cleric of Pelor, gods have not been heard in 1000 years, heralding the return of the gods.

So I am interested to hear your ideas. I may not respond to all of them, but I do note them, so thank you for your input.

[Talothorn]

If you meant "evil dm pc cleric", then this will be awful. If you meant "evil npc cleric", then this has great potential.

Use a amulet of undetectable alignment

Justify evil acts as contributing to the greater good, and start subtle. A little evil at first. Give the players some hints that everything is not as it seems, but don't make it obvious.

When it comes time to betray the party, if this guy is their friend, even if he is evil, he shoulfd offer them the chance to join him and/or at least not stand in the way.

Does the npc know he is evil? Is he misguided? Blinded by pride? What are his plans and why does it benefit him to betray his friends?

[AMFV]

If you meant "evil dm pc cleric", then this will be awful. If you meant "evil npc cleric", then this has great potential.


Can we not do the whole "DMPCs are always bad" vs. "DMPCs are sometimes okay" thing, last time that took months to die down. And it never really resolves.

Planar motes are an option. You could have him be a cleric of a LN or CN deity, then he'd have an aura of law or chaos that would be more potent than his aura of evil.

[Red Fel]

The nice thing about a Cleric is that, because they pray for their spells but know the entire Cleric list, you can have one set of spells while the character works with the party, and an entirely different set once your character emerges as an antagonist.

Towards that end, I would advise you to focus almost exclusively on buffs and tactical spells while with the party. This should help prevent your character from overshadowing the party, and make it all the more shocking when you unleash the big guns as an antagonist.

With regard to a more specific build, don't forget that straight Cleric is still a Tier 1 class. You can dominate fairly effortlessly if you want, and it's not terribly complicated to pull off.

If you want a more martial bent, you can always go with RKV, and break the action economy. If you want more LE with some useful tricks, you can grab Prestige Paladin (refluffed for evil), and add all Paladin spells to your Cleric prepared list. (In combination with RKV, this is actually extraordinarily potent, because Battle Blessing lets you cast Paladin spells as swift actions.)

With regard to hiding your character, first, avoid spontaneous casting. Because your Cleric is evil, he won't cast spontaneous cures, but spontaneous inflicts. Avoid this by avoiding spontaneous casting. It makes sense - combat healing is ineffective anyways. Focus your combat spells on downing an opponent, then use wands for easy out-of-combat healing. Remember that even though you can't cast them, cure spells are on your Cleric list. Alternatively, if you actually worship Hextor, (or if you want to refluff the class), you could go with Ordained Champion as a PrC, which means instead of spontaneously casting cures or inflicts, you spontaneously cast War spells. Which can be good or evil, so no worries there.

As an aside, avoid using your Domain Powers until after the Big Reveal. Players tend to notice if you use spells from a non-Pelor domain.

Second, don't have a Paladin in your party. You'll probably want to discourage the players from rolling a Paladin for two reasons. First: Almost anything your Paladin can do, this Cleric DMPC will be able to do better. This will make your Paladin sad, which hurts the fun. Second: Paladins have a tendency to actually use their Detect Evil ability. Unless you plan to hold onto an item of undetectable alignment, you're basically asking for it. So avoid that. Of course, if someone really wants to play a Paladin, don't stop him - that's suspicious. It just means you have to be more careful.

[cakellene]

Can we not do the whole "DMPCs are always bad" vs. "DMPCs are sometimes okay" thing, last time that took months to die down. And it never really resolves.

Planar motes are an option. You could have him be a cleric of a LN or CN deity, then he'd have an aura of law or chaos that would be more potent than his aura of evil.

Except he would still detect as evil, unless you block it. Clerics pinging evil is almost followed by an execution.

[AMFV]

Second, don't have a Paladin in your party. You'll probably want to discourage the players from rolling a Paladin for two reasons. First: Almost anything your Paladin can do, this Cleric DMPC will be able to do better. This will make your Paladin sad, which hurts the fun. Second: Paladins have a tendency to actually use their Detect Evil ability. Unless you plan to hold onto an item of undetectable alignment, you're basically asking for it. So avoid that. Of course, if someone really wants to play a Paladin, don't stop him - that's suspicious. It just means you have to be more careful.

Again just make him a cleric of an LN diety, he'll not ping as evil on detect evil, because his aura is lawful, not evil, at the very worst he'd ping as faint evil, which you can probably explain away, some kind of planar injury or something. Again if he was an evil cleric, he'd have a powerful aura.


Except he would still detect as evil, unless you block it. Clerics pinging evil is almost followed by an execution.

Nope, LN Clerics get regular hit dice aura, and lawful cleric aura, so that could be explained away, he's not pinging as an evil cleric, he's showing faint traces of some kind of evil, maybe he's "protecting an evil artifact" since those too ping as evil, or any number of things.

Secondly pinging evil is not illegal or grounds for execution almost anyplace, in any set of game rules I'm familiar with.

[Macros]

Can he not just cast "Conceal Alignment" each morning in private (or pass it up as part of his "morning buff routine") ? Sure, it can be dispelled, but this solution at least give the party a mean to accidentaly stumble on the truth, which is often a plus in my book.

EDIT : and it's true that "Detect Evil" is by no mean a good reason for initiate smiting, but if the guy pinging evil is a cleric, that raises several red flags, because odds are good we're talking about someone who's actively serving evil causes, and not some shmuck who's kind of a horrible human being.

[Red Fel]

Again just make him a cleric of an LN diety, he'll not ping as evil on detect evil, because his aura is lawful, not evil, at the very worst he'd ping as faint evil, which you can probably explain away, some kind of planar injury or something. Again if he was an evil cleric, he'd have a powerful aura.

This is very true. A classic example is a Cleric of Wee Jas (LN deity). They tend to come in all three Lawful flavors, and the Ruby Sorceress is particularly popular with Necromancers (due to her Death domain). So you could pull off an LE Cleric of Wee Jas. (Which coincidentally sets you up nicely for RKV.)


Nope, LN Clerics get regular hit dice aura, and lawful cleric aura, so that could be explained away, he's not pinging as an evil cleric, he's showing faint traces of some kind of evil, maybe he's "protecting an evil artifact" since those too ping as evil, or any number of things.

Secondly pinging evil is not illegal or grounds for execution almost anyplace, in any set of game rules I'm familiar with.

Pinging evil is not illegal or grounds for execution, true. But it ruins the Big Reveal, when the NPC sidekick exposes himself to the party (get your mind out of the gutter) as the villain. If you have to explain the evil away early on, it becomes a bit of an anticlimax. Better to avoid detection altogether and make it unexpected and awesome.

As an additional aside, Evil does not mean sinister or unfriendly. You can be a perfectly cheerful, friendly, utterly Evil monster. You can smile and laugh and make tea and be utterly delightful, even after the reveal. Heck, you can even be friends with the PCs. It makes the evil even more jarring.

[Buddha's_Cookie]

Thank you all for the fast response! With your input I now have a rough idea of how to handle his alignment, and the issues surrounding that.

@Talothorn

If you meant "evil dm pc cleric", then this will be awful. If you meant "evil npc cleric", then this has great potential. Yes, I did mean NPC. He will have class levels and such but he will also be active in the party.


Does the npc know he is evil? Is he misguided? Blinded by pride? What are his plans and why does it benefit him to betray his friends?
How I want to run this is he is a friend that was separated and converted by semi-demonic masters. While his masters work from the shadows the NPC is one of their active agents. I have not decided if he knows he is evil or if he truly believes he is a LG cleric or some such thing.

Question? Through powers of DM can I give him spontaneous heal anyway? I had an idea that the demon masters could grant that power and harbor the wound to reopen on the party later. Sounds odd to me, but also cool.

[AMFV]

Question? Through powers of DM can I give him spontaneous heal anyway? I had an idea that the demon masters could grant that power and harbor the wound to reopen on the party later. Sounds odd to me, but also cool.

It's terribly suboptimal but you could give him the healing domain, through that crappy feat, and then take a spontaneous domain feat.

It's also going to be much harder to hide a demon lord cleric, he'll need planar motes or an item of undetectable alignment, for absolute sure. Or you could give him a powerful evil artifact. Ergo he was stabbed by an abyssal sword and it's lodged inside him, that would give the aura of evil, and might even be strong enough to overwhelm his original aura, and he can't remove it, which is logical, at least enough for the players to buy it.

[Buddha's_Cookie]

I plan for the cleric's master to protect from alignment detection in one of a few ways. He shows and good or LG, he shows as nothing an absence of alignment (which is explainable), or shows neutral.

I think I want this cleric to believe he is a true cleric of Pelor or other good deity.

[AMFV]

I plan for the cleric's master to protect from alignment detection in one of a few ways. He shows and good or LG, he shows as nothing an absence of alignment (which is explainable), or shows neutral.

I think I want this cleric to believe he is a true cleric of Pelor or other good deity.

An amulet of non-detection will ping him as neutral, which is a no-go for a cleric of Pelor, it looks like Planar Motes are the answer to your question, they could be placed inside his body so he isn't aware of them, and Mindrape solves the belief problem.

[Buddha's_Cookie]

An amulet of non-detection will ping him as neutral, which is a no-go for a cleric of Pelor, it looks like Planar Motes are the answer to your question, they could be placed inside his body so he isn't aware of them
Planar motes would be if we went by the strict rules, which on paper sounds fine. What ever helps explain it to the party I guess.


Mindrape solves the belief problem.
Edit (blue for sarcasm):Mindrape, months of demonic torture, same thing really.

[Hurnn]

Except he would still detect as evil, unless you block it. Clerics pinging evil is almost followed by an execution.

Why? Simply being evil is not even close to enough reason for a paladin to kill someone. If he does he is now a substandard fighter, have fun with that.

Getting around the Detect Evil is easy enough several spells and items have you covered there.

Use the Item or better yet start him out good or neutral and have him slide into evil. by the time the party realizes it will be to late.

[HaikenEdge]

The detecting as evil thing might be gotten around if you play the character closer to Jesse Custer with a touch of Jack Bauer, and less goody-two-shoes. D&D judges character alignment by the means, not their ends, so if the cleric is played as having evil tendencies (torturing and murdering) for the greater good, he could conceivably ping evil and still not necessarily give off any warning signs.

I know some people will probably make the argument that murder and torture in the name of good isn't evil, and I can go for the murder part, in a world where there's detect thoughts and zone of truth, there are nonevil (but more resource heavy, in the sense of having to spend spell slots) ways to get information than just straight up torturing somebody.

[(Un)Inspired]

Second - How do I hide him within a party? The party will know him as a friend before they meet, but may be a bit suspicious of him. I was thinking of having him pretend or believe he is a cleric of Pelor, gods have not been heard in 1000 years, heralding the return of the gods.


Ok there have been a lot of good posts with advice as to what his build should be but no one has addressed the best most direct solution to this problem.

Have his pretend to worship Pelor but in reality he's worshiping... Pelor! Don't forget that one of DnDs best secrets is that Pelor is actually The Burning Hate, one of, if not the most, ruthless, vindictive, and secretive gods.

[Lord Vukodlak]

Nope, LN Clerics get regular hit dice aura, and lawful cleric aura, so that could be explained away, he's not pinging as an evil cleric, he's showing faint traces of some kind of evil, maybe he's "protecting an evil artifact" since those too ping as evil, or any number of things.

Secondly pinging evil is not illegal or grounds for execution almost anyplace, in any set of game rules I'm familiar with.

Its reason for the party not to trust or associate with him.

He's an evil cleric even if his deity is LN he'll still have a faint evil aura. It wouldn't take a genius to figure out the faint aura is his actual alignment while the strong aura is that of his deity.

No the best thing to do is just cast undetectable alignment everyday as it lasts 24 hours. People almost never cast discern alignment they just use detect X where X is the alignment I'm opposed to.(usually evil).

[AMFV]

Its reason for the party not to trust or associate with him.

He's an evil cleric even if his deity is LN he'll still have a faint evil aura. It wouldn't take a genius to figure out the faint aura is his actual alignment while the strong aura is that of his deity.

No the best thing to do is just cast undetectable alignment everyday as it lasts 24 hours. People almost never cast discern alignment they just use detect X where X is the alignment I'm opposed to.(usually evil).

Or Planar Motes, which could cause him to ping as good rather than TN.

[WbtE]

If you're going to say that he's been psychologically conditioned, why not play him as a sleeper agent? His substantial personality worships Pelor and is good, and detects as such. (Pelor or his agents continue to grant their misfortunate cleric spells in the hope that he will be healed of his condition.) However, there's a lurking "monster" within that can be triggered with the right commands. This personality worships some vile deity, is evil, and is not granted spells by Pelor - there's an entirely different set of magic for them.

[Buddha's_Cookie]

Again I thank you all for your input on the alignment and want it to stop here, before this thread becomes another argument on the alignment system.
*sigh*
And if it continues much more I will request a thread lock.

Now I have never built a cleric before in any table top game, so is there any advice on low level feats, weapon (if any) for support role, any skill recommendations, any daily spells that keep me looking LG. I am not looking for "use magic item X" because magic items are more along the lines of artifacts in my world, and will all be written by me.

[GreenETC]

Touch of Healing is a good feat, because that way you can get the fun healing stuff but without needing to give him Spontaneous Cure, since just one spell prepared fuels him all day. Just give him Spontaneous Domain and pick a cool non-evil domain, like the Strength Domain.

The hardest part will be Turn Undead, which if you're evil comes out as Rebuke, but you can always trade that away or just never make them fight undead, or just keep the HD too high to let it work.

[AMFV]

The hardest part will be Turn Undead, which if you're evil comes out as Rebuke, but you can always trade that away or just never make them fight undead, or just keep the HD too high to let it work.

Or you could just optimize the hell out of it, then command them to run once you've rebuked them, that way it looks exactly like a turning. In fact that would fit with the proposed necromantic bent.

It's much easier to fake turning with rebuking than the reverse.

[Lord Vukodlak]

Or you could just optimize the hell out of it, then command them to run once you've rebuked them, that way it looks exactly like a turning. In fact that would fit with the proposed necromantic bent.

It's much easier to fake turning with rebuking than the reverse.

Well if he's disguised as a neutral cleric he can rationalize channeling negative energy.

Rebuking is superior to turning. Undead who flee in terror just go deeper into the dungeon and may return in greater numbers while the one's who stand in awe can be beaten to death by the fighter types.

The only time turning is better is when your facing to many low HD undead, more then you could possible command. In that case outright destroying them is more convenient

[AMFV]

Well if he's disguised as a neutral cleric he can rationalize channeling negative energy.

Rebuking is superior to turning. Undead who flee in terror just go deeper into the dungeon and may return in greater numbers while the one's who stand in awe can be beaten to death by the fighter types.

The only time turning is better is when your facing to many low HD undead, more then you could possible command. In that case outright destroying them is more convenient

This is definitely true, rebuking is superior, and you can totally use it to fake as turning. From what I understand he's faking being a cleric of Pelor, after the demons converted him, so the fake rebuke/turning is probably the way to go if that ever comes up.

[ranagrande]

Does it have to actually be a cleric? In a game I ran I once had an evil archivist pretend to be a good cleric. It worked perfectly.

[Buddha's_Cookie]

Does it have to actually be a cleric? In a game I ran I once had an evil archivist pretend to be a good cleric. It worked perfectly.
I never thought of that... it is an interesting idea at least, but cleric feels right for this character.

So it looks like I will be rebuking undead (if any).

[Red Fel]

I never thought of that... it is an interesting idea at least, but cleric feels right for this character.

So it looks like I will be rebuking undead (if any).

Well, back to Cleric basics. As mentioned, avoid spontaneous casting, because nothing makes you look more evil than using a spontaneous inflict wounds. However, since curing spells are on your Cleric spell list, you could use them out of combat (I wouldn't), or even better, go for a wand. As mentioned, choose alignment-neutral domains, such as Strength or War, since those can be used for champions of any alignment. (Also, War sets you up for Ordained Champion, which I still think is a great PrC choice.)

As mentioned, you can Rebuke Undead and make it look like you're Turning them.

Apart from that, a lot of the alignment charade is attitude. People won't Detect Evil on you if they don't have reason to. Don't be over-the-top goody-goody, as that screams impostor, but smile and be pleasant and people don't think twice.

Wearing lead-lined gear also helps.

Now, appearing LG is a tricky thing, but you can always play on your players' biases to really pull it off. I speak, of course, of the Awful Good Paladin archetype. Clerics can do that too. If your players have come to expect that kind of atrocious behavior from a Paladin, you can act that way as a Cleric and they'll accept it as a given that you must be LG. It's a particularly nasty trick on inattentive players - be merciless and cruel, claim to be playing the "I'm good so everything against me is evil" card, and people will assume you're just doing a bad job of playing an LG-Pally alignment. In fact, you're playing an LE Cleric openly and right under their noses, and they won't even realize it.

And then, after the reveal, they will look back on your actions, Kaiser Soze style, and think, "Why didn't we realize it before?"

And you will smile, and say, "I'm surprised as well. I mean, I thought it was obvious he was evil."

[sjeshin]

Thank you all for the fast response! With your input I now have a rough idea of how to handle his alignment, and the issues surrounding that.

@Talothorn
Yes, I did mean NPC. He will have class levels and such but he will also be active in the party.


How I want to run this is he is a friend that was separated and converted by semi-demonic masters. While his masters work from the shadows the NPC is one of their active agents. I have not decided if he knows he is evil or if he truly believes he is a LG cleric or some such thing.

Question? Through powers of DM can I give him spontaneous heal anyway? I had an idea that the demon masters could grant that power and harbor the wound to reopen on the party later. Sounds odd to me, but also cool.

It sounds like an item or all day spell for undetectable alignment is the way to go for this if he knows he is evil. If he is, keep in mind you CAN cast healing spells. Whoever said you can't cast healing spells as an evil cleric is mistaken. You can not spontaneously cast them, but you don't have to show the party your spell list. Have him prepare a few. You may want to actually get away from buffing. What your evil cleric can NOT do is cast protection from evil, as it is a good spell. How will you explain that away when the party asks the cleric to prepare it? If you can find something to specialize in it will be easier to explain away.

[Buddha's_Cookie]

How will you explain that away when the party asks the cleric to prepare it? If you can find something to specialize in it will be easier to explain away.
Funny thing, my group does not ask about what spells our casters prepare. We have some level of trust in our team mates on that regard. While I can abuse this (to a point), I want to refrain from excessive abuse.


Now, appearing LG is a tricky thing, but you can always play on your players' biases to really pull it off. I speak, of course, of the Awful Good Paladin archetype. Clerics can do that too. If your players have come to expect that kind of atrocious behavior from a Paladin, you can act that way as a Cleric and they'll accept it as a given that you must be LG. It's a particularly nasty trick on inattentive players - be merciless and cruel, claim to be playing the "I'm good so everything against me is evil" card, and people will assume you're just doing a bad job of playing an LG-Pally alignment. In fact, you're playing an LE Cleric openly and right under their noses, and they won't even realize it.
This is actually incredibly clever I doubt my will notice, at first.