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I am currently running a Kingmaker campaign. One of my players is playing an Inquisitor. One of his game goals is to build up his character's religion in the kingdom, and I'd like to accommodate him. He wants to do things like convert the NPC leaders and townsfolk. Any advice on how to handle preaching attempts and long term conversion?
The rules talk about Diplomacy improving a person's attitude by steps, saying the improvement lasts 4 hours, or longer subject to GM discretion. I hesitate to allow a single Diplomacy roll to result in the permanent improvement of attitude, let alone permanent conversion to a religion, but I'm not sure how else to handle it. How many rolls should it take? Or is there some other method you'd suggest?
A secondary question... I'm not sure how prominent Erastil turns out to be later on in the Kingmaker adventure paths. Is there going to be some conflict if my player builds up a religion worshiping a different deity than Erastil?
Depends on the nature of the new religion.
Normally conversion comes through a combination of crisis and charity.
Whenever something happens that causes someone to have doubt in their faith (or they're just kinda in a low point in life) that's when someone is most susceptible to conversion.
Conversion should then probably be done through a combination of prothelitization (diplomacy check) and charity (direct, or indirect help in whatever problem their facing)
In terms of dealing with attitude: Diplomacy can be used to increase their favor by one step, and during this time have them do a couple of things for that NPC that would make their new outlook on them permanent.
Think of this as similar to how in Mass Effect a series of conversations unlocked a Loyalty mission, and completing that mission would give you benefits later on. Doing something similar (with any number of loyalty missions that you feel appropiate for each NPC) would provide some fun for the party.
I would make it kind of like the leadership feat -- basically put he's got to live up to the hype -- not doing so simply kills it on the outset. Once he's established himself as an actual follower of what he claims he starts gaining a "religious" score -- doing things like regularly helping NPCs above and beyond quests by offering free healing help around town, working in a soup kitchen, handing out alms, and the like helps him gain more points on a weekly basis (almost like a weekly craft or profession check). The community will have a default 'religion' score and as his increases in comparison to the inate score he starts gaining more membership -- since the other religions in the area are doing the same thing there should be a basic percentage he simply can't change based on the other religious leader's actions, without extraordinary work on his behalf.
Now when he starts wanting to convert specific individuals it should cost him on his religion score -- most people take a dim view of 'targeting' someone for conversion (for good reason) but after the hit to the score he gets to make a weekly check -- almost like a diplomacy check, each time he succeeds he increases the person's attitude towards his faith by a step (but no more than a step per week) while special things like actually raising someone back from the dead for free might raise it a level for 'free' (other than the cost of the raise dead or what not).
Given time and effort his religious base will help him in return with things like free healing, donations of labor or gold for special projects or other sorts of support -- but asking for more assistance than his current 'religion points' allow would probably entail taking a hit to his score and still needing to make a successful check of some sort.
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Converting people to one's faith is not something that is done overnight. More so in a world where there is no internet or other faster means of spreading information.
Hence the use of missionaries in the past and present to spread one's faith.
You can allow your player to work on influencing the town folk, but only from a RP point of view. These NPC leaders and town folks are not going to just drop whatever religious view they have and join your player's over a diplo check.
Try to make it such that if that player wants to win the people's heart, he has to perform actions that impresses upon the NPCs.
For example, slaying a certain monster and taking it back as a trophy, or going some act of kindness, like healing townfolks that are wounded or hurt.
By becoming a hero/role model, he can influence the NPCs to share his religious views as well.
On the other hand... he could go all "preacher of doom" on the NPCs. This will use more of a mix of diplo, intimidation and even bluff. He could scare the townfolks into believing that certain events are threats to their lives and safety, then convince them that the only way to safe their lives/souls is to believe in his/her god. (This can work for even good gods. The god is good, does not means his/her followers' methods are.)
The townfolk could start turning more and more towards the player's god. They could start with simply asking the faith's clerics and religious leaders for advice. Later they may wish to take marriage vows under the blessing of the faith and so on.
Missionary work is a long process, so the player should NOT expect that the townfolk, mass converting to his religion by the end of the 1st, 2nd or even 3rd book. However he could have sow the seeds to faith and in a number of years, the majority of people in the town could be of the player's faith.
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Edit: This is for EVIL characters:
On an extra note, there are ways to quickly and forcefully convert people to a faith. This has been done in the past in real life and is a sad and tragic part of human history.
Quickly and forcefully ways include, brain washing people, using "re-education" camps or other meas to indoctrinate people into believing that the ideals presented to them is the best and most right way. They may not even feel forced! Using a combination of peer pressure, strong personalities and activities that reinforce, imprint and erode ideals as needed, a person could be made to think that the ideals imprinted on him/her is natural. They could even start pressuring others to join.
Other even more crude methods include, taking children when they are young and make them under an upbringing that imprints the ideals of the faith on them. (Some natives populations in real life were on the reviving end of said methods in the past.)
IF your player is playing an EVIL character or may be a LN one, they could use such brain washing on a smaller scale. Forcefully converting some of the town folk to his view, then once he has a power base, work on turning the rest of the town folk. Make them face a "join or die" pressure from their fellow town folks.
Of course, this is IF your player/s are Evil. :P
Wow, lots of great ideas here! I tend towards keeping it simple. I think I'll model it on Diplomacy, since that's the closest match anyway. The Diplomacy skill can be used pretty much whole cloth, I think, with a few tweaks. First, the descriptions of the steps would have to be adjusted slightly to reflect faith rather than how much you are "liked." Instead of hostile, they would be devout members of another religion already, which would be the default starting point. Instead of unfriendly, they would be perhaps doubtful about their current religion or just semi-devoted (or neutral). Instead of indifferent, they would be open to new ideas. Instead of friendly, they would be fledgling members of the new religion, and instead of helpful they would be fully converted to the new religion.
Then I also really like Jeranimus's idea of doing two acts of charity (free healings, gifts of food or money, eliminating threats, etc.) to make the new outlook permanent. This shouldn't be too terribly difficult to work in, since the Kingmaker adventure provides ample opportunities for this kind of stuff already. It could occur during any of the kingdom phases, or as the result of one of the existing quests or encounters.
I would also say you could only ever move one step at a time, and you could only try once a month. I'd probably apply some bonuses and/or penalties to the Diplomacy roll for various things similar to the Leadership score. Perhaps factor in how closely related or opposed the old religion is, the reputation of the character, and his stability.
I think I would use this for both individual NPCs and for whole communities, except that for communities the degree of your Diplomacy success would determine what percentage of the community is converted--probably never as high as 100%.
How does that sound? Any flaws or other ideas?
Charm person is an insidious way to win converts in D&D. It lasts a long time, and not only can it break the initial ice but you can effectively force the victim to renounce their beliefs without even realizing that you're messing with them. A few good opposed Charisma checks later and you've got the makings of a small cult (keep in mind that it sets them to Friendly so your Diplomacy checks are even more likely to succeed now).
I'm not suggesting this an innately good method to use at all. It's definitely screwing with free will, but it can have its uses. I once had a psion who managed to convert a drow using charm abilities, which ultimately ended up with her no longer needing to keep the drow charmed for her to be on good terms with her.
In case you're wondering how it all went down, the party ended up in a terrible scrap with a group of drow who ambushed them. During the middle of the encounter she managed to charm one of the drow and forced her to stop fighting. After the fight, she refused to kill the drow in this state. She took the drow aside, and explained exactly what had transpired. She explained that to avoid killing her, or her harming her or her friends, that she had altered her mind so that she wouldn't hurt them. Now due to how Charm works, the drow takes this in the absolute best method possible, and is now frightened that her new friend would be in danger from her if she were to break free of the spell.
So the drow ended up traveling with the party behind the scenes (the psion didn't ask her to participate in combat or anything), and the drow willingly allowed the psion to renew her charm whenever it would be close to expiring (willingly failing her saving throw and lowering spell resistance as needed). Over time, the friendship became a real one, and the drow experienced a life that was better than the one she had. In the end, the drow was finally freed from her charm and had real friendship with the party who had essentially given her a new chance at life instead of killing her. So over the course of several adventures (with downtime between) her alignment shifted from Evil to Neutral to Good, and she even acquired a good deity.
Now Charm person and its kin can be used in a much more forceful and devious method, but this character used it to make peace and begin the process of communication, which ultimately ended in a peaceful conversion for the betterment of everyone involved.
In AD@D first edition, about 12 years ago I think it was, I did something simular in a Dragonlance campaign. One of the ways I got people to follow my God was to actually put up the money to build a church in some promenate areas. Of corse doing things like healing or cureing sickness in a village will make you look sincere as well.