I'm debating whether I need to give Gortio a ring of undetectable alignment when he's posing as Zenith's pop. One of my players' characters is a paladin and I imagine she'll detect evil. Now, I do occasionally have people show up as evil even if they aren't big baddies (and his "background" could even make them think he's trying to redeem his prior evilhood), but I'm a bit concerned they'll just bag the mission (which is OK for the campaign, but a pain for me as DM). Anyone have any experience with this type of situation?
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Well this is how I handled the situation in Cauldron as a whole. Because the Cagewrights have been working on this whole mess for quite some time and have quite alot of cash they would not want their plans constantly interupted by every paladin and do-good cleric who barges in following their senses. So basically I had them create a bunch of little magical items they hid around the city that "blurs" divinations. This prevents detect evil from actually ever picking up specific targets, instead the paladin is filled with very distant feeling of evil that they cannot quite locate no matter how hard they try. My PCs knew something was up because this only seemed to happen in Cauldron.
Now these items also had another good use that helped me fix a huge problem the makers of the adventure path left. You see as written the Adventure Path sort of writes itself into a corner. We the DMs are told that divinations fail when they are used on the Cagewrights and their plans and yet we are not told how the baddies do this. Then in "Thirteen Cages" all of a sudden Jenya has figured out a way to divine not only their plans but also their secret hideout!!! This is funny because Jenya is lower level then the PCs...
However, with these little magic devices divinations are cloudy and inaccurate in relation to Cauldron's future and the Cagewrights who live in Cauldron. My PCs actually started hunting down these devices recently but then...the volcano erupts! After "Foundation of Flame" I ruled enough of the devices are destroyed that Jenya is able to get a divination off (the PCs would be able to as well for the most part). I've also ruled that some NPCs are still carrying around these devices (they are small jewels) and thus the PCs can't just scry&port as they say. Hope this helps...
You may be forgetting that Dopplegangers are TN, and thus immune to Paladinal fingering.
Ah, thanks, Andorax, that does indeed solve the problem. I thought Dops were evil. That's what I get for not reading my Monster Manual.
I decided to drop Gortio in favor of using Adrick Garhtun, the Dwarven merchant from Lords of Oblivion. I figured it makes more sense continuit wise, giving the players the feel that they were 'played' from early on, and that Adrick would want to curry favor any way he could anyway.
I like that idea, Diafanus. I'll have to take a look and make a quick conversion. I'd been trying to remember if Gortio comes up again, and he doesn't seem to.
Yeah, that's why I changed that. It gives continuity, and yeah, I couldn't find Gortio mentioned after. What's the point of him being there as a Doppleganger if the PC's are destined not to find that out. I think seeing Adrick, pretending to be Zenith's father, and then finding out he lied, and they were duped again...