A ring of nondetection works IIRC, but you can't afford it at 1st level.
Undetectable Alignment. It's a second-level cleric spell, though. If there's a bard in the party, however, they get it as a first-level spell.
Will "Undetectable Alignment" (School abjuration; Level bard 1, cleric 2, paladin 2) work ? Are the things that detect the aura covered under "All forms of Diviniation" ?
Creative Director
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It's not illegal to be good in Cheliax. If the authorities notice the cleric's aura, they might give the cleric the stink eye, but that alone isn't enough to arrest someone.Granted, but my fear was that if the authorities are actively looking for rebels, and the party is hiding in the slums disguised as peasants, then it would seem odd if one of the peasants has a strong good aura :).
I could probably get around this by just having them operate "outside" of the city, but I think it's more exciting to force them to stay inside of it and hide.
Well... if they're looking for rebels, wouldn't "chaotic" be a greater indicator of rebellion than good? Same situation applies, I guess... just a different set of spells to look for them.
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Granted you need to be level 8 before taking your first level in Master Spy. This dose function all the time and you can pick what alignment you detect as. The down side with none detection is you don't detect at all so they will know your hiding something.
Master Spy
Requirements
Feats: Deceitful, Iron Will.
Skills: Bluff 7 ranks, Disguise 7 ranks, Perception 5 ranks, Sense Motive 5 ranks.
Mask Alignment (Su)
A master spy of 2nd level or higher can alter her alignment aura to deceive spells that discern alignment (such as detect evil).
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Use of This spell has doubtlessly gotten many a svengali off the hook, and an equally many number of innocent people ONTO same hooks.
Are people going to be detecting an alignment, or detecting good/evil/law/chaos? If it's the latter, using a spell/ring that hides your alignment should work fine; the assumption will be that the person hiding their alignment is neutral.
I second that they probably wouldn't just arrest a character for having even an aura of a cleric of Chaotic Goodness (much less simply having that alignment as a non-Cleric), but if they have a hunch somebody in the area was somehow involved with X activity they don't like, and CG Cleric mysteriously shows up on their alignment detection radar amongst the crowd, they probably WOULD give them extra attention... Main question to me is why they would be using alignment detection to begin with if it only works against low level characters with auras, only reason to use would be if they suspect Chaotic CLERICS or high level Chaotic beings, random Chaotic(Good) NPCs wouldn't give them a reason to use it IMHO.
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For non-clerics over 5 HD / level, holding a handful of unholy arrows, and temporarily giving yourself enough negative levels to 'read' as 4 HD, could be a funky way to 'keep your light under a bushel.'
It even has a sort of narrative feel to it, like Yoda hiding on Dagobah, next to a place that was 'strong in the dark side.' so that it would mask his presence from those hunting surviving Jedi.
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May I be so bold as to suggest the "Use Magic Device" skill? One of the things it permits a character to do is to emulate an alignment. When used in such a way the skill check only has to be made once per hour.
The downside is that the required DC is rather high, so it would take a lot of skill ranks in that skill to pull it off on a regular/routine basis. And it would only work for the character who had the skill. But a character that did have the requisite amount of skill wouldn't have to worry about using magic items or spells to appear as whatever alignment he wanted to.
Of course, the low level characters could always have a higher level contact who was willing to cast the needed spells on them to hide their alignment as part of the operation. Might be less of a problem to do it that way, and thematically that ties them to a certain location so they can get those spells renewed on a daily basis.
Personally I don't see this as much of a problem in Cheliax. Now if your characters were in Geb then it might be a different story.
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I took a page out of Rich Berlew's playbook with a similar problem once. Had a strongly evil blackguard impersonating a paladin and had to hide his alignment, so he wore a ring of office that had been carried by numerous holy men over the years and had "soaked up" enough goodness over the years to emit its own powerful aura which masked his own. It had no magical properties other than that, and it imparted a coupe of negative levels to him, so he'd discard it when he was ready to reveal himself.
