Here is my dilemma, I need to kill a cleric. Pretty simple. Hard part is, it is another player.
Ok let me give you some background on my character first. His name is Lord Julian Dalanos. Level 5 Rogue/ Level 4 Assassin. Alignment was Lawful Evil. Deity is Mask. (Faeurun).
STR:11
DEX:18
CON:14
INT:16
WIS:10
CHA:16
HP 60
AC 20
Initiative +4
fort +4
reflex +11
will +2
Major skills include (with all modifiers ranks, and any mis bonuses ) Bluff 15, Disable Device 15, disguise 9, escape artist 16, hide 15, listen 8, move silent 16, open lock 12, search 14, sleight of hand 13, spot 6.
Feats: combat expertise, improved feint, two wep fighting, weapon finesse, armor proficiency light, simple wep proficiency, evasion, improved uncanny dodge, poison use, save against poison, trapfinding, trap sense. Sneak attack +5d6, death attack DC 17.
Important items and weapons: shortbow with MC arrows, MW short sword, dagger of bane human (+2d6 dice). A bag of holding (250lb).chain shirt and two vials of dragon bile poison. Mirror of soul trapping. ---IMPORTANT-- Ring of Mind Shielding (makes it impossible to detect thoughts, and force me to tell the truth with magic. It also hides my alignment). No one in the party knows I am evil.
Now a little info on the cleric. As I would never read another player's character sheet, I don't know anything about his stats. In character this is what my character knows. He is a cleric of Teer (spellcheck), level 8 all cleric levels. He has someone obtained a 15 (without any ranks) bonus to sense motive. He has an ability, granted through a wise, and DM approval, to be able to cast ANY cleric spell without preparation. Still limited to number of spells per day. He also has a nice mace.
Now here is the story, so sit back and enjoy because it is long.
The party consists of a Chaotic Neutral Oorog barbarian(Justin) (some weird type of orc) ECL 5, a Lawful evil rogue 5/assassin 4(me), lawful good monk lvl 5 (Varos), chaotic good lvl 1 sorcerer/ lvl 4 fighter (luvdik), lawful good paladin lvl 8 (luvdik again {old character}) and an NPC LVL 5 Chaotic Neutral Bard that is loyal to me, and finally the lvl 8 Cleric (Sam).
Me, Justin, Varos, Luvdik (old char), and Sam's characters have known each other in game for years and all trust each other and have never had a reason to not trust one another. The characters follow pretty likely outlooks on life. The barbarian is pure merc, the paladin and cleric are high rollers that hate anything not their god, my rogue follows his own set of laws, never betray a friend and do what you can to protect them, but if they cross you or another friend kill them. He is not a murderer and is an honest guy, but will lie if he needs to. He has no desire to murder or commit crimes for no reason, but is willing to do the job.
So long story shortened up to the good part. Party goes to a new realm to retrieve a magic key for a chest that has more magic goodies. The monk is an air guysan (spellcheck) and cant enter the realm without being expelled from it. So we trap him in a mirror of soul trap so he can come along as a helpful guide (dm's character). The mirror stays in my bag of holding at all times. All characters in the party (new and old) know the command word as to not get trapped in it and can pull people out of it. So we go into the realm, paladin get separated (ludvik wanted to make a new character and did). We find the new char, and rescue him from kobolds. His new char is the younger brother of his older character. At this time I have a loyal bard following me around (I earned him 1k gold for doing nothing and he pretty much loves me now). Cleric is technically not with us at this time, but will show up when the Sam plays again (next session). So we go and fight so kobolds and win. As we are leaving my character is seperated and knocked out. He awakes tied up next to the Paladin [old ludvik] (unconscious) and in front of an intelligent kobold (wearing rings of intelligence), telling him he wants him to work with him in his ring of thieves to make more money. I say it sounds like a good idea and I am always up for work. He then tells me to prove my loyalty I must recover an amulet the barbarian found earlier that he had hidden from the group. (At this time the barbarian literally was selling the amulet to a trader without anyone knowing). And the second part was to kill the Paladin (old ludvik) after he left. He then tells me that after I complete this he will give my ring of mind shielding back and welcome me as a partner. I agree after failed attempts to bargain for the ring in advance. He then leaves and I get free. I then wake the Paladin up and tell him everything that happened, but don’t tell him what was special about my ring. I tell him I have no intention on killing him (truth) and we have to find a way to fake his death and get the amulet and he agrees. We then start heading back to the town through a massive corn field that we know is filled with kobolds. He decided to detect evil and concentrate on it (may seem like player info but it wasn’t, our party is pretty "detect evil happy" and this was well within his characters thought process). So he then focuses in on the nearest evil, the guy next to him. His friend for the last few years who has literally saved his life on several occasions. Without warning he attacks me and is screaming at how I am evil and must die. During the fight I admit I am evil and tell him I have never once done anything ill willed towards him or anyone in the party (Literally the only "evil" act was to kill a man and his wife just to become an assassin ). So we continued the fight to the death in this cornfield. Now I imagined the music from Kirk and Spocks fight to the death playing the whole time, so you should too =P . So we fight, he catches the field on fire, I am doing damage, he smites evil, we keep bashing away, I am on the losing end. At one point I attempted to put him in my bag of holding to suffocate him. Didn't work, I was desperate. So I pulled out a wand we found earlier and used magic device with the hopes it did something useful. What happened was a miracle on my end. The wand was a wand with the power to shoot out a massive gust of wind. So I continued to use it hoping the charges wouldn't run out. It only cause 1d8 damage per hit due to the massive amounts of wind and getting knocked back, but it worked. A cheap victory but I was alive none the less. The field now burnt to the ground, my dead friend lay in front of me. So I carried his body to a clear area and dug him a grave. Removed his armor and weapons in order to give to his brother. I then performed a small funeral honoring him and said a prayer to his god in hopes that he would be kind to his Paladin in the afterlife. I then sat there and contemplated life for a good while. The traumatic experience weighing heavily on me. I thought to myself "How could my friend, betray me like that. After I have risked my life selflessly for him time and time again. Why would he turn on me, just because my soul was dark. Did he think he was better than me? Was he lying to my face of our friendship this entire time? He was Good and I was Evil and that was all he could see." So my new outlook on life was now different. I see Good (and in mechanics, Good aligned characters) people as weak. They hide behind their morals and beliefs to feel better about themselves, they are no better than anyone else. These people see the world as black and white, when it is truly grey. Hate fills my heart now for any Good person. I do not trust them, they will turn on me. I can only trust those that see the world for what it really is. Now my problems have gotten worse...the cleric and the monk, my "friends". They must die. They are just one moment away from stabbing me in the back. The orc...he will side with me. The bard is my minion, and the fighter can be twisted and converted to my own liking (My character was actually responsible for saving the fighters life from the kobolds, and the brother knows I am best friends with his older brother, so more affection points). The monk will be easy to kill. He is trapped in my bag inside a mirror. I can easily set a bomb in my bag, have it explode, thus ripping my bag of holding. This would release him from the mirror and send him to the plane of Limbo...but that is not enough, he must die. But that does not truly concern me. The cleric....he is alive and well and a fearsome fighter.
Sorry, went into a bit of a narrative there. Didn't realize it until half way and just went with it =D. AnyWHO. So my character then returned to town, giving the key to the gate guard (whole reason for attacking the kobolds was to retrieve the town gate key that was stolen before the guard was caught being a crappy guard and punished). Since my character was actually the person who agreed to find the key (no one in the party wanted to help him). He gave me a family heirloom (a necklace worth a few gold) and said that the town guard will look the other way for me if they can. So I made a new ally. I figure this can be helpful. So I went and spoke with the barbarian. I told him I knew he had the necklace and I needed it . He explained he sold it. I then offered him a deal that would make him tons of gold and we would split it between just the two of us 50/50, but he would have to get his hands dirty, very dirty. I then took a major leap of faith and exposed myself. I told him everything that happened in the corn field and how I killed the Paladin and have been evil the whole time. I then explained to him that I needed to kill the Cleric and the monk and possibly the ranger as well. We would split the loot, and possibly the land holdings they own (each of the original party was granted the Lord title from a duke we saved and given 10 acres of land outside of town, all near each other. He agreed, saying that he too felt they were weak for following the rules of Good. So now we plot. He is merely a cog in the machine that is my vengeance. I will not betray him and I regard him as a friend. But I am the driving force behind this plot. My goals are as follows. Top priority: Kill the Cleric and Monk. Secondary: Convert the fighter or kill him as well. If he discovers I killed his brother then he must die. Acquire the lands of the Cleric and Paladin.
Now as I see it the brother is the heir to the Paladin's land. I can easily establish him leaving his lands to me in his will and then killing him. But I can also convert him. I can state his brother was murdered viciously by kobolds. They desecrated his body. Send him into a rage and fuel his hatred. Slowly bringing him to see how the world is. (He is chaotic Good, just one step away). If not kill him. The monk owns some mines in town, but I don’t see us acquiring those lands. The clerics lands border my own , literally separated by a road. At one time we planned to set up a small town of our own. Each owning an in across from each other. His called Heaven and mine called Hell. Our town name would be purgatory. (My inn is already built, his is not). So those lands would be beneficial. The barbarian can have the Paladin's land if it came to it. Now as I said, the monk and fighter are not a concern to me but if you have any ideas I would love to hear them. I need every bit of help with the cleric. I want it to be discreet. No one should know of any of the murders but me and the Barbarian. I look forward to hearing your ideas, and I apologize is for some reason this post was done wrong in any way based off of forum rules. I literally just made the account after the game session ended so I could post this thread.
Final thing. We also plan on just killing the kobold because he is a weak and pathetic creature that does not deserve to be on the same playing field as us.
Thanks in advance.
On top of that I just can't approve of this, party PvP is usually bad for the game, especially if it happens because one player just decides his character now hates the others without much of an actual reason. The Paladin was Lawful Stupid(since evil =! must die right naow, a greedy innkeeper could be "evil" if he looks out only for himself, after all) but that doesn't justify the drama you're planning to cause. Not to mention the derailing of the entire campaign to live out some antisocial fantasy.
Paladins are not a typical example of good. They are zealous, fanatical. They take oaths that specifically dictate that they cannot work with evil creatures, and they must seek to end them to the best of their abilities. I don't know how prominant pallys are in your game world, but presumably your character would know at least some of this information, and it should probably have come up when thinking about his encounter with the paladin.
You can be less trusting and more guarded towards your good friends because of your experience with the paladin, but I think that immediately jumping to "I must kill them before they kill me!!!" is a little extreme. How do you even know without a shadow of a doubt that the monk is good? The cleric worshipps a good deity (I assume) so that's a pretty safe bet, but the monk?
Basically, I see two reasons why this might be a poor choice of action. Reason one is story wise. It seems your character may be becoming a hypocrite (since he's going off to kill his friends because they are a different alignment from him because his friend....tried to kill him....for being a different alignment...). I suppose he is evil, but the actual evil acts he performs are few and far between (as you stated). Now he's going to go murder his other friends after killing just the one affected him so profoundly?
Reason two is because PvP is rarely a good idea. It seems like it worked out wonderfully with your encounter with the paladin, but that's one of very few instances I have heard of PvP working out in the end. PvP can be very disruptive to the game, and I've even seen it end campaigns entirely. If you're dead set on this course of action, I would at least talk to the player of the cleric (and, heck, the DM as well) and see if your character's plans on killing them are okay with them (note that you're not asking if you can kill their characters, you're asking if you can try). If you can convince them that it would add to the story then they could agree to it. If they don't agree to it, then you were better off not doing it in the first place since it would likely lead to out of game resentment, hurt feelings, and just a general dissatisfaction with a game that previously seems to have been going very well. There are plenty of other ways your character can change based on the events with the paladin. What if killing his friend inspired him to change his evil ways so that he'd never have to kill another friend again? You don't need to use that suggestion it's just meant to be an example that there may be a less disruptive way to develop your character in this situation.
Nothing against you Mogar, I didnt really read the wall of text but might later ^^ its just a fad I notice way to much hehe.
And to be fair, the Paladin was probably in the wrong in that battle and it lead to a natural frame of mind. Was that the first time he sensed your aglinment?
.As to how to kill the cleric, as others have stated before me, it seems like a pretty tall order. How on earth did he get the ability to cast all spells spontaneously? That alone multiplies the difficulty by several figures. I'd say your best bet would be to somehow paralyze him, maybe with poison, and try to coup de grace him to death before he gets out of it. If that's somehow not an option, then the best time to strike would be after a battle in which he's exhausted most of his spells and you haven't taken much damage, but I don't know if you'd be able to beat him in a stand up fight.
Basically, short of making sure he can't do anything until you kill him, I'm unsure as to how you could kill an 8th level cleric that effectively has access to all cleric spells up to level 4 at all times. You're lucky he's not one level higher, 5th level cleric spells can be downright nasty. Even just up to level 4 will be a challenge though. If he has access to spells from splat books and/or dragon magazine then I weep for what will become of your character...
Edit: Speaking of poisons, do you have access to Complete Scoundrel? Because if so you may want to take a look at Blasphemix
get yourself a scroll of silence, wait til he's asleep without his armor, cast the scroll, stab him with sneak attack damage while he's down and hope for huge numbers.....heck, get a greataxe for the job if you can. With the scroll of silence, you can be as noisy and messy as you want, as long as you manage to kill him before he can take an action to wake the others, you get away with it. Also, the scroll of silence gives all of his verbal spells a chance to fail if he happens to wake up.
On the other hand. With that high sense motive, and playing fairly, he really should already see that you're hidin something/planning something/extra uncomfortable around the party. After all, thats what sense motive is, its 3.5s version of 4e's insight, which is basically the ability to sense the "out-of-place" - such as your friend trying to act like everything is normal while secretly plotting your murder.
Could sprinkle caltrops around his bed in case he wakes up, you never know. Won't help much but... meh.
Silence sounds like a pretty good option, though it won't stop all the cleric's spells, and since he has spontaneous casting that means he'll still be able to use all of his spells per day on you. It will limit his options significantly though.
I'd still like to know if you guys have access to anything other than the core rulebooks, especially with regard to spells? There will be significantly less to worry about if you do.
On top of that I just can't approve of this, party PvP is usually bad for the game,
Normally, I'd agree with this. But this cleric can spontaneously cast every divine spell he has access to. He needs to die.
And yes, coup de grace at night under silence is a time tested method of killing things much more powerful than you.
I suggested poison mostly because he's an assassin. They get bonuses to poison related stuff, right? Besides, while it may not be terribly effective, a weapon coated in poison is more effective than one not, no? You could always do one that hits wis (to make his spells less effective) or con (to make him die faster). If he saves, well, he still gets coup de grace'd
Silence sounds like a pretty good option, though it won't stop all the cleric's spells, and since he has spontaneous casting that means he'll still be able to use all of his spells per day on you. It will limit his options significantly though.
I'd still like to know if you guys have access to anything other than the core rulebooks, especially with regard to spells? There will be significantly less to worry about if you do.
Wisdom damaging spells can actually stop him from casting spells, since you have to meet a wisdom requirement to cast each spell. A 1D4 wis damage can remove one to 4 spellcaster levels, which in this case makes him largely reduced to low level magic, much more manageable then a full power celric and makes him effectively a weaker Fighter.
Wisdom damaging spells can actually stop him from casting spells, since you have to meet a wisdom requirement to cast each spell. A 1D4 wis damage can remove one to 4 spellcaster levels, which in this case makes him largely reduced to low level magic, much more manageable then a full power celric and makes him effectively a weaker Fighter.
The cleric is level 8, which means his highest spell level is going to be level 4. If the OP's stats are any indication, he'll have an 18 in Wisdom (at least), which is likely bolstered by a magic item to 20. So 1d4 Wisdom damage will "limit" him, at best, to level 6 spells.
Now, it could reduce his save DCs by 2, which is useful, but definately not remotely close enough to make him "effectively a weaker Fighter."