D&D 5E Ways for a demon to go incognito around a paladin, without being unfair to a player

[RangerWickett]

I'm planning an adventure where there's a succubus afoot causing trouble, but while people are suspicious a demon is responsible, no one knows for sure. Bad stuff just keeps happening. The party needs to meet various characters in the town, gather clues, and figure out the common element, and then confront the succubus.

Thing is, the party has a paladin, and I want to make sure that the mystery isn't subverted by him deciding on a lark to use Divine Senses when they meet the disguised succubus. There will be other little demons around working for the succubus, so it's not like the ability will be useless, but I want a way for the succubus to hide her true nature without it being wholly unfair to the PCs.

Ideas?

Edit: See here for an update of how it went - D&D 5E - Ways for a demon to go incognito around a paladin, without being unfair to a player

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I'm planning an adventure where there's a succubus afoot causing trouble, but while people are suspicious a demon is responsible, no one knows for sure. Bad stuff just keeps happening. The party needs to meet various characters in the town, gather clues, and figure out the common element, and then confront the succubus.

Thing is, the party has a paladin, and I want to make sure that the mystery isn't subverted by him deciding on a lark to use Divine Senses when they meet the disguised succubus. There will be other little demons around working for the succubus, so it's not like the ability will be useless, but I want a way for the succubus to hide her true nature without it being wholly unfair to the PCs.

Ideas?

Lead. Or, you could use this magic item from Explorer's Guide to Wildemount.

 

[tetrasodium]

Amulet of Proof against Detection and Location?

 

[Charlaquin]

Nustul’s Magic Aura

 

[Oofta]

Amulet of Proof Against Detection prevents divination. I would rule that it would prevent the paladin's detection.

 

[cmad1977]

The “non detection” spell is pretty powerful in this regard I think. Might not quite apply.

 

[Kobold Stew]

Nystul's Magic Aura is what the spell is built to do --- that seems a natural way of doing it.

Alternately, if the Succubus has one of the other little demons with her (in a cage, whatever), then that would give the appearance of a "false positive" for the Paladin. I'd go with the spell.

 

[D1Tremere]

1st: Cover. Keep a wall of things between them. 2nd: Arcanist's Magic Aura (or Nystul's Magic Aura), a 2nd lvl basic spell. 3rd: Technically an amulet of proof against detection and location wont help, because Divine sense isn't technically divination magic, though a Ring of Mind Shielding may?
The key thing to remember is that such a creature is smart and cunning. If they know there is a paladin they may avoid them, or take steps to keep that particular character distracted and off balance. They will use human contacts to help, and may even be in a position to throw another lesser demon under the buss to protect their secret.

 

[Slit518]

The succubus wears an item, maybe a necklace, a ring, an earing. The item is magic, and it hides information such as alignment, nature of creature (aka being undead or a demon), as well as is resistant to Detect Magic from any Spell Slot of 3rd level or less used.

 

[Richards]

Perhaps the succubus, knowing there's a paladin in the area and she'll likely have to interact with him, uses a charmed flunky in her place when dealing with him. Throw on some illusion magic so the flunky looks just like the succubus and have her use her telepathy to "hear" the paladin and feed the flunky the lines of how she should respond. That way, the paladin will never have actually been in the same room as the succubus and might not even suspect that was ever the case. And it has the built-in possibility of the PCs figuring out the ploy and getting suspicious, so it's not an automatic "DM win" (which can be taken as a "screw over the PCs" maneuver and which you're actively trying to avoid).

Johnathan