Faking Divinity

[Xar Zarath]

Hey playgrounders!

So which class do you think is appropriate to pretending to be an actual god and at which level?

Which spells do you think would suit the whole 'I am a god stchick' and why? Lets say you pretend to be a god in good ol' Forgotten Realms...how would you do it?(especially in a world where wizards, priests and actual gods are plenty!)

Some example of fake gods are off the top of my head; Razmir, a 19th level wizard in Pathfinder who reduced a city to ashes to awe the mundanes with his supposed deific wrath.

[nedz]

Beguiler — though any caster really.

[Mastikator]

Assuming you want lowest level possible, a level 1 commoner could pull it off. Think David Blane, no supernatural powers, just parlor tricks, claim divinity. There's no "detect actual divinity" spell or "see through clever mundane trick" spell AFAIK, so a clever level 1 commoner could do it with magic tricks.

Edit-
Or better yet, think The Wizard of Oz, a totally non magical random bloke who fools everyone into thinking he's this all powerful wizard.

[sideswipe]

a kobold paladin.

or a diplomancer/bluffomancer/errrr.... intimamancer? (you need all) so you can bluff that you are the most mighty being in the world short of the higher gods (don't piss off the alter reality gods) and you can diplomacy all sorts of benefits to worshipping you and for any people who disobey you you can intimidate them into repenting. if you gain enough followers you will gain divine ranks.

[Sian]

Charlatan PrC in Dragon #335 could prehaps pull it off ... specially if built onto a Changeling Rogue with racial substitution levels

[Xuldarinar]

When possible, I think almost no class does it better than the Fiend of Blasphemy.

[Elderand]

Wizard.....oh wait....you said pretend to be god, sorry my bad.

[Necroticplague]

Assuming you want lowest level possible, a level 1 commoner could pull it off. Think David Blane, no supernatural powers, just parlor tricks, claim divinity. There's no "detect actual divinity" spell or "see through clever mundane trick" spell AFAIK, so a clever level 1 commoner could do it with magic tricks.

Edit-
Or better yet, think The Wizard of Oz, a totally non magical random bloke who fools everyone into thinking he's this all powerful wizard.

Well, a divination spell can have "is X a god" as a valid question (quiet a few are limited to yes/no or one word answers), and a simple boosted Sense Motive actually is a "see through clever mundane tricks" skill. Combined with Clerics having it as a skill, having good reason to have high WIS, and spells to boost it, makes clerics very good at catching pretenders.

[Cruiser1]

When possible, I think almost no class does it better than the Fiend of Blasphemy.
Very similar to the Fiend of Blasphemy PrC is the Radiant Idol monster (SCoT). Both the PrC and monster have the following (Su) abilities: Blood Oath, Locate Cultist, Torture Cultist, Kill Cultist. The Radiant Idol also has Aura of Divinity (Su), which is very thematic. Therefore a more general way to fake divinity is through Wizard 17 or related Tier 1 class with access to Shapechange. (The Radiant Idol only has 11 HD so is easy to turn into.)

[heavyfuel]

a simple boosted Sense Motive actually is a "see through clever mundane tricks" skill. Combined with Clerics having it as a skill, having good reason to have high WIS, and spells to boost it, makes clerics very good at catching pretenders.

Clerics don't have Sense Motive as class skills. Is it stupid? Yes, yes it is.

[ArqArturo]

Ur-Priest. Why pretend to be a god when you can give the gods the finger?.

[Mastikator]

Well, a divination spell can have "is X a god" as a valid question (quiet a few are limited to yes/no or one word answers), and a simple boosted Sense Motive actually is a "see through clever mundane tricks" skill. Combined with Clerics having it as a skill, having good reason to have high WIS, and spells to boost it, makes clerics very good at catching pretenders.

Just don't grant an audience with anyone who could disprove you, tricking people into thinking you're a god isn't that hard, lots of people have done it throughout history, probably some still do. And that's without any magic or special class features.

Also, just because someone could disprove the idea that you're a god doesn't mean people would believe or know about this evidence.

Let's put this in the perspective of a commoner, two people approach you, they each claim to be a paladin and both claim that they've done a "detect evil" spell on each other and say each other are evil and your sense motive tells you both are truthful, they both seem to have supernatural powers (but you don't really know what powers paladins actually have). Who do you trust? Only one of them can be a paladin, then again neither of them could be paladins, you have no way of knowing as a mundane commoner.

Any commoner with parlor tricks can trick others into thinking he's a god, the very few people with actual magical powers necessary to disprove this could be dismissed as "agents of evil and not to be trusted". All you need is deception, parlor tricks and to shield your followers from any evidence to the contrary.