[3.5] How can I disguise my Alignment?

[Brauron]

I'm planning a one-shot for my friends (our usual DM expressed exhaustion and a desire to be a player for a change, so now each Friday we play in his campaign, and each Saturday one of us players runs a one-shot) and just to shake things up, I'm going to limit them to the Good alignments (this week's game has us all playing Evil characters, and the week before was a one-shot with Orc and Goblin PCs).

The adventure I have in mind involves the PCs encountering a small village that's being menaced by a large, supernatural hound (probably going to use a Barghest for this), and the PCs will hopefully investigate, try to eradicate the danger, and in the course of this find out that the local Church of Pelor is not what it seems -- it's been taken over by a small cabal of Clerics of Hextor (or another evil deity) who are masquerading as Clerics of Pelor and summoned the Hound to sow discord and suffering -- this small village is a testing ground for this tactic.

Now, if I limit the PCs to Good alignments, there's a good chance one of them will roll up a Paladin or a Cleric who can detect evil via spells or such. Which would cut the adventure short when they see that these "Clerics of Pelor" light up like christmas trees when Detect Evil is used near them.

Is there any spells or items I could give these clerics to mask their alignment and make them appear to be Lawful Good, or at least Lawful Neutral? I intend to roleplay them as friendly and trustworthy and hope the PCs won't suspect them right away, but I was wondering if there was anything I could use to supplement my theatrical skills.

I've also considered Undetectable Alignment, but I'd be willing to bet that if I used that and the PCs did an alignment check on the clerics, having the result come back inconclusive would be enough to trigger an attack on them.

[Zeful]

Epic level bluff check.

Otherwise Undetectable Alignment, Mind Blank.

[Meat Shield]

Even better, have some effect create random alignment auras for everyone, PCs, NPCs, etc. Make the Detect Evil completely useless and force them to use their heads for something other than a hat rack.

EDIT: sorry, that was a bit harsh. I just have a pet peeve when people use Detect Evil as a crutch and every random stranger they pass in town gets scanned.

[Riffington]

Misdirection

[Thane of Fife]

Have the clerics tell the villagers of some curse brought down upon the village - a sort of taint, if you will, which has corrupted the community. Hence, the clergy were forced to call in new specialists (the priests of Hextor).

The clerics have been busy working on the taint, so, while the villagers no longer detect as evil, the clergy do, now more than ever.

This is, of course, just a big cover story, explaining why the bad guys are detecting as evil without actually being bad.

Make sure the villagers tell the adventurers about this (try not to explicitly state that the priests detect as evil, as any player will immediately become suspicious. Instead, imply that the clergy have been slightly over-exposed. The clerics themselves can then use that story to explain if they're actually detected).

[Artanis]

There's always holding up a lead sheet.

[Reluctance]

Would Undetectable Alignment really raise that much suspicion? Wouldn't it just cause Detect Evil to fail to ping rather than hint that something's up? (It would raise suspicions if a more general alignment detection scheme were used, but who's actually going to use spell slots rather than a paladin's at-will ability?)

Otherwise, if you're up to houserule, you have two simple answers. The first is to make an item that cloaks a character with a clear alignment. The second is to find ways to disguise everybody's alignment. If dark rituals taking place cause the whole area and everybody within to detect as evil, that becomes an interesting flavor element that still holds the paladins back. The party still knows that something very rotten is going on, but it's that much harder to find out what and to stop it.

[Riffington]

Would Undetectable Alignment really raise that much suspicion? Wouldn't it just cause Detect Evil to fail to ping rather than hint that something's up?

This is entirely fair. I mean, how many clerics/paladins really go about casting "Detect Law" or "Detect Good" on people?

[Brauron]

*slaps forehead*

That's what I get for not thinking things through carefully. Detect Evil just divides those it's used on into "Evil" and "Not Evil", without going into detail.

A Ring of Mind-Shielding (8,000 GP) would simply cause them to register as "Not Evil," regardless of when they were scanned with Detect Evil and if they had time to prepare themselves for the scanning.

And for added evil on my part, have a couple low-level clerics who *are* faithful Pelorites, but who are too heavily indoctrinated to respect their authorities to speak out against these Hextorites-in-Pelor's-Clothing. They let these low-level clerics handle all the necessary healing in the village, and as "tokens of esteem" have given these low-level clerics Rings of Mind-Shielding, so that they don't detect as Lawful Good.

And then, when the party realizes that this supposed Church of Pelor is behind the hound-attacks and they attack...the first priest they encounter is a low-level, Lawful Good-but-shielded cleric.

[mabriss lethe]

Undetectable alignment should work just fine in this scenario.

Reread the description of detect evil and consider how it would function in the presence of undetectable alignment.

Detect Evil

You can sense the presence of evil. The amount of information revealed depends on how long you study a particular area or subject.

1st Round
Presence or absence of evil.

Undetectable Alignment

An undetectable alignment spell conceals the alignment of an object or a creature from all forms of divination.

As far as it goes, when someone casts DE in the presence of UA, the detect on the first round just wouldn't register any evil present, at least not from the character with UA up. It wouldn't ping as "inconclusive" it would ping as "no evil detected" That should be enough to put it to rest.

Edit: ne'er mind. you got it

[Telonius]

Master of Masks PrC. The masks will make the character appear any one of several different alignments. Put on an Angel mask, and your puppy-kicking cleric will seem clean as a baby Paladin. You could even play it off like they're a splinter group of monks that wear the masks for religious purposes.

[Brauron]

I'd just like to say, something about the picture accompanying the Master of Masks (in Complete Scoundrel, the picture is absent from the web link) gives me the heebie-jeebies and makes me wonder if it's going to haunt my dreams.

[Curmudgeon]

it's been taken over by a small cabal of Clerics of Hextor (or another evil deity) who are masquerading as Clerics of Pelor and summoned the Hound to sow discord and suffering -- this small village is a testing ground for this tactic.

Now, if I limit the PCs to Good alignments, there's a good chance one of them will roll up a Paladin or a Cleric who can detect evil via spells or such. Which would cut the adventure short when they see that these "Clerics of Pelor" light up like christmas trees when Detect Evil is used near them.

You're missing the obvious: don't have the Clerics be of Hextor or some evil deity; have them just worship a principal instead. Hextor is Lawful Evil, which isn't ideal for the purpose, but you could probably get away with this. Lawful Neutral is within one step of Hextor's LE alignment, so that's a perfectly reasonable alignment for these Clerics. They won't show up with Detect Evil, but would show up if somebody did a Detect Law spell, which is unlikely but possible.

A Neutral Evil deity is an even better choice, because then the Clerics can worship some true neutral principal. They won't show up on any alignment checks. Then only a Detect Good spell (probably the last choice of good characters) would show anything is amiss when the Clerics fail to register. Maybe the principal of Misdirection?

[vegetalss4]

A Neutral Evil deity is an even better choice, because then the Clerics can worship some true neutral principal.

actule clerics can only be true neutral, if their god are 8or if they worship a force instead of a god, of if the dm says so)

[Tengu_temp]

You're missing the obvious: don't have the Clerics be of Hextor or some evil deity; have them just worship a principal instead. Hextor is Lawful Evil, which isn't ideal for the purpose, but you could probably get away with this. Lawful Neutral is within one step of Hextor's LE alignment, so that's a perfectly reasonable alignment for these Clerics. They won't show up with Detect Evil, but would show up if somebody did a Detect Law spell, which is unlikely but possible.

A Neutral Evil deity is an even better choice, because then the Clerics can worship some true neutral principal. They won't show up on any alignment checks. Then only a Detect Good spell (probably the last choice of good characters) would show anything is amiss when the Clerics fail to register. Maybe the principal of Misdirection?

And why would neutral or lawful neutral clerics want to summon evil creatures to sow discord and suffering? I'd say it's you who's missing the obvious here.

Also, am I the only one who twitches every times he hears about clerics worshipping a principle, not a god, in settings with established pantheons? That's stupidly cheesy - "I want to get all the powers of a cleric without any obligations! Oh, and I get to pick my own domains, too." Yeah, there might be some people like that, but not the majority. These guys have mostly place in Planescape, not Faerun or Greyhawk.

[Telonius]

I'd just like to say, something about the picture accompanying the Master of Masks (in Complete Scoundrel, the picture is absent from the web link) gives me the heebie-jeebies and makes me wonder if it's going to haunt my dreams.

Yes. Yes, it will.

[Khanderas]

First off, spells that blocks detection spells, hinders it in a subtle way.
As in evil cleric with undetectable alignment does not ping "wierd".
This is because detect evil basically (though auras) asks, is this guy evil. yes/no. Yes = evil aura, no = not an evil aura. So said cleric would not be shown as having an aura, like any farmer, cow or chair. Unless there are evil chairs in your campain.

However I really like reply #5 's answer (Thane of Fife) where there is a plausable story behind it. If evil auras can be tainting inanimate object (for purposes of detect alignments), then there is nothing strange about said aura sticking to clerics who combat them often.

[Devils_Advocate]

That's what I get for not thinking things through carefully. Detect Evil just divides those it's used on into "Evil" and "Not Evil", without going into detail.

Not even that. It doesn't detect non-evil creatures at all, so you can't use it to scan for them like you can for evil creatures.

And for added evil on my part, have a couple low-level clerics who *are* faithful Pelorites, but who are too heavily indoctrinated to respect their authorities to speak out against these Hextorites-in-Pelor's-Clothing.

That's more what I would expect to see in a Lawful church. (Pelor is NG, don'cha know.) Maybe you should consider making the deity in question Heironeous (sp?) instead of Pelor. Hextor has a direct interest in undermining him, after all.

Also, consider how much they know. Obviously they don't realize that the other clerics are summoning a monster to terrorize people; if they're not willing to do anything about that, they're certainly not devout followers of Pelor! And that would obviously mean that they'd recognize their superiors as frauds, anyway. So, at most, they'd have some small reasons to be suspicious that the other clerics aren't quite doing things right. They're reluctant to question their superiors, but maybe someone asking the right questions could drag their misgivings out of them...

A Neutral Evil deity is an even better choice, because then the Clerics can worship some true neutral principal.

If they're worshipping a True Neutral principal, where does the Neutral Evil deity come in?

In any case, you seem to be confused about how the detect spells work. Creatures naturally detect as their own alignments, and a cleric detects as the alignment of his deity. So, for example, 7th-level Lawful Good Fighter and a 7th-level Lawful Neutral Cleric of Moradin each detect as both Lawful and Good. The fighter detects as faintly Good and faintly Lawful, while the cleric detects as strongly Good and strongly Lawful, even though he isn't personally Good at all. (Annoyingly, the strength of an alignment aura does not indicate how strongly a creature is of that alignment.)

[Curmudgeon]

If they're worshipping a True Neutral principal, where does the Neutral Evil deity come in?

Because the principal the Clerics adhere to doesn't care about the Law-Chaos or Good-Evil alignments. Maybe they care intensely about the Fire-Water axis, which would be truly neutral as far as the standard two alignment dimensions are concerned. They'd have no qualms about working with either good or evil deities if they had the right viewpoint as far as Fire and Water are concerned.

And why would neutral or lawful neutral clerics want to summon evil creatures to sow discord and suffering? I'd say it's you who's missing the obvious here.

Again, because it's not about sowing discord and suffering; it's about achieving a goal that's in line with what these Clerics worship. If there's suffering that's just part of life, and neutral Clerics accept that.

[quick_comment]

I just saw an episode of "My own worst enemy"

Mindrape. When the priests go out into the community, they are mindraped to actually be lawful good priests. When they come back (while in the community, they know nothing of the plans, or that the church is actually for Hextor) they are mindraped again to get their real mind back.

[Frog Dragon]

I just cooked this http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=97245 up. Anyway if you like it consider adding it in their spell list. Should solve that. If you're willing to go homebrew that is.

[Thurbane]

On a related note, what's the cheapest/easiest way to hide from scrying?

I was having a discussion with my DM who wants to play a guerrilla-style campaign at some point, where the PCs are fighting an occupying force in their homeland, but since the occupyers have high level casters, how would low-level guerrillas be able to hide from magical scrying?

[Doomsy]

I never payed attention to the rules for it that much before, but if what the previous posters are saying is right Detect Evil is actually far more valuable for evil characters and towns to use then good ones.

*beep*
"Not evil, huh? Walk away or eat this baby, troublemaker."

Best part is that you could probably hire neutral casters to do the door check if you could not swing it yourself.

[Curmudgeon]

The guerrillas could all be Shadowdancers with maximum ranks in Hide and Disguise, who shave off all their body hair and burn their hair and nail clippings. Scrying needs a know person to focus on, or a body part, likeness, or some possession of theirs. Thus the primary objective is to never become known to those doing the Scrying. Rogues (the most conducive class path to enter Shadowdancer) are good at avoiding having their possessions pilfered, so that helps. The secondary objective is to not provide much information if the Scrying succeeds.

As with all divination (scrying) spells, the sensor has your full visual acuity, including any magical effects.

The caster's "full visual acuity" means they'll need to make Spot checks vs. the Shadowdancers' Hide skills, and failure means the scryer just won't see anybody. A Hide check is free with movement, and you can always "take 10" outside of combat. Most of the time the Shadowdancers will foil the scryer. When the scryer's Spot succeeds they'll only see that day's Disguise result. Guerrilla communication should be done with sign language, because successfully beating the scryer's Spot will foil that, too. And keeping more than Scrying's 10' radius apart when having a sign language conversation means that the scryer can never discern more than half the conversation even when successful.

[Thurbane]

Thanks Curmudgeon, but I'm talking about the PCs being part of the guerrillas, and starting off at 1st level.

[Yahzi]

Not even that. It doesn't detect non-evil creatures at all, so you can't use it to scan for them like you can for evil creatures.

But Detect Good is not a good spell; it's just a divination spell. So any cleric with an INT score over 10 ought to get a Spellcraft DC 5 check to know never to cast Detect Evil to find enemies; merely cast Detect Good to find who your friends aren't.

True, they could be neutral, but who cares? That just tells you to cast another spell - assuming it matters.

[Altair_the_Vexed]

...snip...
A Ring of Mind-Shielding (8,000 GP) would simply cause them to register as "Not Evil," regardless of when they were scanned with Detect Evil and if they had time to prepare themselves for the scanning.
...snip... given these low-level clerics Rings of Mind-Shielding, so that they don't detect as Lawful Good.

The party are going to end up with a whole bunch of Rings of Mind Shielding (at 8000gp each) when this is all done and they've defeated the bad guys, of course.
I'd recommend that you make the Hextor gang all have a magical tattoo of Mind Shielding, so the party doesn't end up swamped with the rings.

(I recall a game I was running once where I used only NPCs modified straight from the DMG - every darn one of them had a Cloak of Resistance - my players ended up trying to make Tents of Resistance, Sails of Resistance...)

[Lord Tataraus]

What about planar motes? (Complete Scoundrel page 119) They are only 300gp a pop, 600 for the greater ones. Seeing that they are so cheap, they are probably not that hard to come by and as long as your clerics aren't too high level they are affordable cover ups, plus they make you detect whatever you want rather than as "undetectable" if a player tries to actually use detect good.

[Devils_Advocate]

I never payed attention to the rules for it that much before, but if what the previous posters are saying is right Detect Evil is actually far more valuable for evil characters and towns to use then good ones.

*beep*
"Not evil, huh? Walk away or eat this baby, troublemaker."

Well, of course. Because if you ensure that someone is evil, that means that she'll never harm her fellow evil beings. That's why the lower planes are united in harmony. The different types of fiends all get along with each other perfectly, because they're all evil.

But Detect Good is not a good spell; it's just a divination spell. So any cleric with an INT score over 10 ought to get a Spellcraft DC 5 check to know never to cast Detect Evil to find enemies; merely cast Detect Good to find who your friends aren't.

True, they could be neutral, but who cares? That just tells you to cast another spell - assuming it matters.

Huh?! I'm not following you here.

I was saying that you can't use detect evil to locate non-evil concealed creatures. You certainly can't use detect good to locate non-good concealed creatures, either!

Neither spell tells you whether someone is your friend or your foe.

[Collin152]

I just saw an episode of "My own worst enemy"

Mindrape. When the priests go out into the community, they are mindraped to actually be lawful good priests. When they come back (while in the community, they know nothing of the plans, or that the church is actually for Hextor) they are mindraped again to get their real mind back.

Better to use Programmed Amnesia for this. *Gasp!*

Why?
It specifically says you can put in triggers that set off memory alterations.
So you can program their false memories without recasting the thing.