Am I about to commit suicide?

[Jay Culnis]

My current character is trying to become a paladin. As far as he knows, it's his main goal in life if not his only goal; what the DM and I know is that his real goal is to please his mentor. However he has to overcome an obstacle, and depending on how he does it my DM said he will be able to become a paladin... but if he's not a good little boy he'll end up serving an evil god instead.

While pondering how I could possibly justify that, I realized it's impossible; he might, however, make a warlock's pact in order to help get his friends out of the mess they're in. And once I made that decision, I also realized that he has pretty good reason to take grievance with the god he wants to serve, but would gladly make a pact with them too.

So I actually have two questions: do gods count as fiends/celestials (depending on their alignment), and exactly how risky is it to surprise your DM that much? I know it really depends on the DM, but what are the odds they decide the god simply smites me down for my impudence?

[Unoriginal]

My current character is trying to become a paladin. As far as he knows, it's his main goal in life if not his only goal; what the DM and I know is that his real goal is to please his mentor. However he has to overcome an obstacle, and depending on how he does it my DM said he will be able to become a paladin... but if he's not a good little boy he'll end up serving an evil god instead.

While pondering how I could possibly justify that, I realized it's impossible; he might, however, make a warlock's pact in order to help get his friends out of the mess they're in. And once I made that decision, I also realized that he has pretty good reason to take grievance with the god he wants to serve, but would gladly make a pact with them too.

So I actually have two questions: do gods count as fiends/celestials (depending on their alignment), and exactly how risky is it to surprise your DM that much? I know it really depends on the DM, but what are the odds they decide the god simply smites me down for my impudence?

Paladins do not need to serve gods. The dedication your character has toward his goal/mentor is WAY more than enough to become a Paladin already.

So either your DM changed that, or your PC is getting bamboozled.

As for gods: some gods are also Patrons, and some gods are Fiends or Celestials. Asmodeus is both a god, a Devil, and a Patron, for example.

However, most gods wouldn't bother with a Warlock's Pact. The Cleric's arrangement is much more beneficial for deities.

As for striking you down: depends how much influence the god has on the Material Plane and on you.

[Greywander]

To your first question, making a pact with a deity to become a warlock is something I would find perfectly acceptable. Rather than pigeon-holing yourself into celestial or fiend, though, I would either take the patron that most appeals to you mechanically and refluff it to fit the deity in question or choose a patron that thematically fits your deity even if they aren't literally that patron. For example, a god of war would work perfectly fine as a hexblade patron, even though they aren't literally a hexblade. An archfey patron could easily represent a god of trickery, even if they have nothing to do with the fey. Et cetera.

To your second question, let me see if I've got this right. You were planning on taking levels in one class, but now you want to take levels in a different class instead, and you're afraid your DM will just kill off your character? Well, without knowing more about your DM all I can say is that this doesn't sound like normal DM behavior at all, so I wouldn't worry about it unless something about this DM in particular gives you a feeling that he might do something like this. As long as warlocks are allowed at your table I don't see any reason why this would be an issue.

[DevilMcam]

I am amazed by the number of people that don't talk to their DM in here...

Every choice (or posisble choices) I am making for my character building they know well-enough ahead of time.

If he knows i'm gonna have a level of warlock he is gonna prepare some things so that these abilities will be relevant.
If he knows I'm going to take a level in paladin he will probably arange so that lay on hand or divine senses will be relevant at one point.
If I sneakily take a level of warlock instead, well, the new cool stuff I have will be less cool according to the situation and we'll probably have to deal with things without the right tools...

You should probably talk about this with your DM.

[Unoriginal]

You should probably talk about this with your DM.

True. Seriously, the worse that could happen is that you'd decide to leave the table.