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Frog Dragon
2010-12-12, 07:17 AM
Divine Deceiver

How can one deceive a deity? Some priest have found out how. They have perfected the art of a bluff great enough to fool even a god. They are the ultimate priestly infiltrators, managing to be the mortals to outsmart the deities. Their abilities at deceit allow them to fool all, all the while maintaining their dedication to their true deity. Few people know of the Divine Deceivers, for they do not let themselves be known. And few people would believe their beloved brothers in the clergy to be impostors. After all, Brother Michael is one of the most pious people one could ever meet. Right?

Prerequisites
Skills: Bluff 8 ranks, Knowledge: Religion 8 Ranks
Deity: Any that would approve of its follower impersonating other clergy.
Spellcasting: Ability to cast level 2 divine spells.

HD: d8

DIVINE DECEIVER
{table=head]Level|Base Attack Bonus|Fort Save|Ref Save|Will Save|Special|Spells

1st|
+0|
+0|
+0|
+2|False God, Impenetrable Lies|

2nd|
+1|
+0|
+0|
+3|Domain|+1 level of existing divine spellcasting class

3rd|
+2|
+1|
+1|
+3|Impenetrable Lies II|+1 level of existing divine spellcasting class

4th|
+3|
+1|
+1|
+4|Slippery Mind|+1 level of existing divine spellcasting class

5th|
+3|
+1|
+1|
+4|Impenetrable Lies III|+1 level of existing divine spellcasting class

6th|
+4|
+2|
+2|
+5|Domain of Enchantment|+1 level of existing divine spellcasting class

7th|
+5|
+2|
+2|
+5|Domain, Impenetrable Lies IIII|+1 level of existing divine spellcasting class

8th|
+6|
+2|
+2|
+6|Domain of Illusion|+1 level of existing divine spellcasting class

9th|
+6|
+3|
+3|
+6|Impenetrable Lies IIIII|+1 level of existing divine spellcasting class

10th|
+7|
+3|
+3|
+7|Great Deception|+1 level of existing divine spellcasting class [/table]

Skill Points: A Divine Deceiver gainst 4+Int modifier skill points per level.
Class Skills: Bluff (Cha), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Disguise (Cha), Heal (Wis) Intimidate (Cha), Knowledge: Any, taken separately (Int), Profession (Wis), Spellcraft (Int)

Weapon and Armor Proficiencies: A Divine Deceiver gains no new weapon or armor proficiencies.

Spellcasting
At every level after the first, the Divine Deceiver gains spells per day and spells known (if applicable) as if he had gained a level in a divine spellcasting class to which he belonged before entering this prestige class. He does not however, gain any other class features from the class.

False God
At level 1, the Divine Deceiver must choose a deity who to cheat. The Divine Deceiver acts as a faithful of this deity, and is granted spells by the deity, in addition to his own. However, this does not affect his spells per day, and only affects his abilities gained from this class. If the Divine Deceiver commits an act clearly against the conduct of his false god openly, he loses the domains granted by the false god.

Impenetrable Lies (Ex)
A Divine Deceiver has spent great amounts of time conditioning his mind to appear like a faithful of his chosen false god. He can feed any info he wishes to any ability, spell or power that could read his thoughts, and any alignment detecting ability either gives his original alignment, or any alignment a cleric of his false god could be. This ability functions against any spell, power, or other effect with a spell or power level of 2 or less.
At third level, this ability functions against abilities of level 4 and less.
At fifth level, level 6 and less.
At seventh level, level 8 and less
At ninth level, level 9 and less


Domain
At levels 2 and 7, the Divine Deceiver gains a domain his false god could grant.

Slippery Mind (Ex)
At fourth level, the results of the Divine Deceiver's mental conditioning strengthen. If a Divine Deceiver with slippery mind is affected by an enchantment spell or effect and fails his saving throw, he can attempt it again 1 round later at the same DC. He gets only this one extra chance to succeed on her saving throw.

Domain of Enchantment
A divine Deceiver can spontaneously cast any enchantment spell in their spell list from a domain slot of equal level.

Domain of Illusion
A divine Deceiver can spontaneously cast any illusion spell in their spell list from a domain slot of equal level.

Great Deception (Su)
At tenth level, the Divine Deceiver is immune to all divinations, alignment detecting spells and abilities, spells that might reveal lies, and no divination or similar ability spell, power or spell-like ability can reveal anything about him.


So yeah, I thought this concept up, gave it a few abilities, and there. Cleric PRC. PEACH! :smallsmile:

Keinnicht
2010-12-13, 07:41 PM
I suggest modifying Impenetrable Lies to scale with level. It's a little unreasonable that someone who could be as low as eighth level has the power to deceive even the most powerful information-gathering spells.

While it might seem necessary to do it all at once to prevent the God from finding his false worshiper, this seems pretty unlikely unless you live in a campaign with super, ultra, mega-involved gods. From my perspective, most gods are not going to bother checking the credentials of random clerics praying for spells.

I suggest giving him the same ability, but only able to do it to 0-3rd level spells. Then 4-7, at, say, sixth level, and then 8+ (To include epic) at 10th level.

You probably don't get enough godly attention to merit being able to block it until you're decently high level, and in the mean time you could figure your real patron deity is working to prevent the god from noticing you.

Alternatively, you could let him make a bluff check in order to do the same thing, with a DC of, say, 20+spell level.


The tenth level ability is fine, though. It's only giving him such a strong ability at such a low level. Even if you didn't change anything and bumped it up to sixth or seventh level it'd be fine.

Also, from a fluff perspective: Why? What do these guys do once they've infiltrated a church? Are they spies? Assassins? Guys who are just jerks and like to lie to gods? Are they generally good or evil? Are they chosen by gods/their church, or do they decide to enter without outside influence?

Plus, this could slide into alignment-bending strangeness very quickly. If they're spies, let's say a good god sends a good divine deceiver into a evil church to spy. How can you "fake" being an evil cleric without turning evil yourself? Aren't your fellow clerics of Erythnul going to notice you never joyously participate in the slaughter of weaklings with them? If you do participate, are you forgiven of the action since it was for the greater good? Seems pretty unlikely in the D&D alignment system.

Conversely, let's say a cleric of Orcus takes this class to enter a Church of Pelor, and foil their plans to get rid of more undead. Sure, he's a cleric of Orcus. Sure, he screws up their plans. On the other hand, the process of maintaining his image as a cleric of Pelor involves turning undead, healing townspeople, and doing numerous other "good" acts. Will he eventually become good, even though he is doing good in the service of evil?

Frog Dragon
2010-12-14, 05:52 AM
I made it scale. At tenth level, they can still screw up every divination ever, but before that, sufficiently high level stuff wins out.

As for fluff, these would be essentially spies, for various purposes. As for alignment and difficulties in playing spy, I'd feel that is for the DM and players to straighten out for their game. It really isn't all that different from any other spy scenario. I originally made this non-good only, but I decided there are enough reasons for the good guys to do something like this to evil gods. Still, most Divine Deceivers would probably be evil, and I wrote the fluff from the angle.