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

[Bill Zebub]

Not just Nystul's, but she uses Nystul's to persuade the Paladin that she's actually a celestial on some top secret mission of good. After that she doesn't keep Nystul's up 24/7, but you (the DM) have to play her smart to keep from being accidentally discovered. E.g., getting behind total cover in situations where the Paladin might use Divine Sense again. Would be a fun game of cat and mouse. And when she's eventually revealed, telling the Paladin "oh, she's been casting Nystul's every morning" wouldn't be nearly as much fun as saying, "Nope...you could have discovered her almost any time." "Wait, what about the time in the crypt that I cast Divine Sense!?" "If you remember, she was out of the room, around the corner, 'checking for secret doors'."

 

[Quickleaf]

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?

One thing I did with a shadow demon a while back was that if it used the Hide action to conceal itself within a humanoid's shadow, it could move with that humanoid as a reaction. And while thus hidden, any attempts to detect the demon's presence (e.g. Divine Sense, or detect evil and good) would detect that humanoid as being a fiend, without detecting the actual shadow fiend. There were several weaknesses to this, such as moving faster than the shadow demon, using bright light at multiple angles to expose it, casting dispel evil and good on the humanoid, turning the humanoid invisible, even a darkness spell, etc.

I think you could do something similar with a succubus, so that any creature charmed by her appears as a fiend to Divine Sense or detect evil and good. How powerful you make this will depend on the weaknesses you create for it, but you might have it so that the charm effect TRANSFERS the fiendish radiation from the succubus to her victim, so as long as she has someone charmed, she won't be revealed to Divine Sense or detect evil and good. Another option would be that she still radiated fiendish evil, but anyone who has been charmed by here within some time span (e.g. 1 week) still radiated fiendish evil – so you end up with multiple suspicious parties, only one of which will be the succubus, creating a sort of mystery to solve.

 

[Tormyr]

Ring of Mind Shielding would hide the succubus. As a bonus, it can be invisible.

 

[Charlaquin]

Not just Nystul's, but she uses Nystul's to persuade the Paladin that she's actually a celestial on some top secret mission of good. After that she doesn't keep Nystul's up 24/7, but you (the DM) have to play her smart to keep from being accidentally discovered. E.g., getting behind total cover in situations where the Paladin might use Divine Sense again. Would be a fun game of cat and mouse. And when she's eventually revealed, telling the Paladin "oh, she's been casting Nystul's every morning" wouldn't be nearly as much fun as saying, "Nope...you could have discovered her almost any time." "Wait, what about the time in the crypt that I cast Divine Sense!?" "If you remember, she was out of the room, around the corner, 'checking for secret doors'."

Yeah, the best way to make Nystul’s feel fair is by only actually using it when it would make sense for the character to be expecting to be Divine Sensed. And then if she gets caught, she gets caught. Them’s the breaks.

 

[Asisreo]

Of course, Nystul's is permanent after 30 days and a succubus would probably want to appear humanoid (or celestial) without having to reapply it every day. So if a DM rules that the effect is permanent, I wouldn't be upset.

 

[Krachek]

Even if the paladin use divine sense, he is still the only one to know.
The demon can pretend to be subject to a curse, or the paladin want her bad, or anything that a demon could use to avoid being accused. The demon can already have seduce people and have trusted allies to protect her.

 

[J.Quondam]

I'd be tempted to run with nystul's magic aura, in potion perfume form. That might fit the nature of NPC especially nicely.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

Paladins detect demons. If you find/make a way for the demon to be undetectable...you are being "unfair to the player". Of course, this is IF you haven't already thought about how "supernatural creatures" operate in your world before. Or, to put it another way, if this is the first time anyone in the campaign has ever dealt with 'detecting' supernormal creatures like demons, angels, undead, etc...and you are now just "deciding" to make one of the key powers of a Paladin useless for "story reasons"...then yeah, definitely in the "richard move" category of DM'ing.

So, what to do IF this is the first time...but not make it "richard'ish"? Because the choice you make now will determine a LOT of stuff in the fiction of your campaign setting and game as a whole. It's not just "one and done"...you WILL have to live by this decision for a long time if not forever.

Me? I might be inclined to allow the Paladin's detection to go by the intent of the ability: "To not be deceived by supernatural entities like demons, angles and undead". I'd rule, if I was in your situation, that when a Paladin uses Divine Sense, he can detect the 'location' of these things within that 60'. But he can't pin-point it. So "Someone in this room...is a demon!"...but he couldn't just point into the crowd of tavern goers and say "She's a demon!". I'd rationalize it by saying that the more living things that are around...the more "diffused" the 'evil/good emanations' are...like looking through smoked or frosted glass.

This way the Paladin still gets to use one of his KEY abilities, but he has to use it/them at the best time. He does have limited times per day. And, if in any sort of settlement, there are going to be a LOT of living things within a 60' radius! I'm in a relatively sparse apartment building with only 12 apartments in it...but I'd still say there are probably at least two to three or even four dozen people (there is a second building that is right at the edge of that 60' from where I'm sitting now). So I may be able to say "That apartment or the one next to or above has a demon in it"...but I couldn't say "It's Soda, the cat!"

This sort of approach also leads to a game of "cat and mouse" with the Succubus using her "feminine wiles" to get people to vouch for her, protect her, or act/do suspicious things...planting particular evidence on other women, or causing fights between lovers/husband-wives, etc. It would still keep the Paladin as the primary "focus" of the Succubus, obviously, but might still allow her JUST enough time to pull off whatever goal she was working towards. A classic "who is the murderer?" type of thing.

Of course, IF the Paladin manages to somehow get her alone and away from everyone else, it would be painfully obvious she's a demon. But...the fun would be in seeing how the Paladin and other PC's sus out which person is the "demon" in the first place! I mean, c'mon...being called a "demon" by a Paladin has GOT to hurt a persons reputation in a community...one false accusation by the Paladin and his Party and some guy/gal's life is over; it'd be the equivalent of an FBI agent calling an elementary school teacher a "pedo who murdered at least 4 kids", bringing charges, then a couple days later saying "naaa...sorry...we were wrong". By then the damage is done; that teachers career is over; no more working for anyone, really. His rep on the internet and all the news headlines...still up for all to see. Forever. Even IF there's a retraction...those initial tweets/posts/articles are there....and how many people read past the headline anyway? Same thing in a small medieval town; once a witch, always a witch, even when the witch wasn't a witch.

The Paladin would have to be CERTAIN...or he/she risks doing FAAAAR more damage than the succubus could do by herself!

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Benjamin Olson]

I think the fair way to do Nystul's Magic Aura is simply to make sure that, if the right clues are picked up on, the PCs will discover the person using it is capable of using it. Make sure it is telegraphed that this specifically is a spell sometimes used in your world though, because many players don't seem to be aware of it existing, despite being available to any 3rd level Wizard and in the SRD (albeit under a generic name). It's a spell just not relevant to most characters because usually when players come up with a creative magical deception the DM doesn't want to spoil all their fun with someone casting detect magic. You probably don't want it to be a game about how encyclopedic a knowledge of the spell system players have, so you've got to educate them, or at least give them a reasonable shot at being educated in game about what you're doing.

Just the other night I called for an Arcana check when my players got nothing from detect magic on a clearly magical phenomenon, a statue talking from a magic mouth spell, and when they got a reasonably high score I told them it was very clearly behaving exactly like the magic mouth spell so the lack of a ping from detect magic probably meant Nystul's Magic Aura or the like. This element was included partly to explain why a city with a fair smattering of magically adept people were fooled by talking statues in their public square, but also to give sufficiently curious players (with a decent roll) a reminder of an obscure spell I intended the Wizard villain to keep using.

I think the same basic principle applies whatever spell, item, or plot magic you decide to hide this succubus with: just make sure they have a reasonable opportunity to be aware that whatever you are using exists in your world and sometimes has this effect. It doesn't have to be a guarantee. If they ignore obvious opportunities to investigate something or just get really bad rolls on whatever ability checks they need to make to gather the information, then tough luck, that's D&D. But their should be the reasonable opportunity to get the clues they need in game to not be fooled by your magical subterfuge.

Alternatively, just blindside them with it being a succubus with magical fiendish nature hiding powers, but do it at a level where a succubus getting the drop on them is not likely to end their adventures and have this be the way they learn about this phenomenon before a much scarier fiend pulls it on them later. All sorts of things become fair if you make them into actual useful learning experiences.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Nystul's Magic Aura is the way to go, and fortunately it can still be overcome so it isn't an automatic "I Win" button.

What the spell doesn't do is hide the spell itself. The recipient will register to detect magic, and an identify cast on them will tell you they are under the effects of Nystul's Magic Aura (though it won't tell you what it is actually doing to them). It can also be taken down by a dispel magic (and automatically, unless it's been upcast and your DM rules upcasting the way they should).

I would expect fiends that are planning on going into a situation where they might be subject to things like Divine Sense, if they are intelligent enough and have enough power/resources for it, and assuming they have time to prepare, would have a wizard cast it on them for 30 days first.