make up a false god or carry a few pieces of wood and call them "wands" and cast your spells through these. and say you have other magical items like magic stones to channel energy, or a magic boot to cast bless ect... say you are a wizard.
Birthmark trait so your holy symbol isn't visible. Prehaps pretend you are an oracle of some sort instead?
Very little you can do about your alignment at level 1 unless the DM provides you with something.
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I really hate this kind of heavy-handed railroading of character concept in a DM. Lawful Evil can be the most honest and trustworthy character in a party and still be roleplaying the alignment properly. By forcing you to lie to your party, he is making party in-fighting much more likely when they find out you are a Cleric of Asmodeus. Just because you selected the Trickery domain is no justification for being a pathological liar with your adventuring party.
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This sounds like an interesting r/p challenge. I would love to know how it works out if you manage to pull it off. The ideas here are great with the holy symbol trait or a tattooed holy symbol for 100 gp would get around this as well. Healing will be an issue but I did a party healer back in 3.5 with a true necromancer and just memorized heal spell.
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I really hate this kind of heavy-handed railroading of character concept in a DM. Lawful Evil can be the most honest and trustworthy character in a party and still be roleplaying the alignment properly. By forcing you to lie to your party, he is making party in-fighting much more likely when they find out you are a Cleric of Asmodeus. Just because you selected the Trickery domain is no justification for being a pathological liar with your adventuring party.
I agree. It's unfair of your GM to demand that you play your character like this - he can suggest it, but coercion is lame.
If you must, the easiest thing to do is pretend to be a cleric of a different, probably LN, deity. There is relatively little mechanical difference between two clerics after the positive/negative energy choice. You'd just need to watch your use of domain spells and powers.
Domain spells aren't even that big of a deal as long as the domain spells are cleric spells - someone would have to be watching what spells were cast throughout the day very carefully to notice something was odd. Domain powers might need to be used a little more carefully though.
I too am strongly against a DM telling a player how to roleplay his character. It seems like you had personality for your character already.
Let your DM you know you want to play THAT character not some other one.
I'll add another vote against the DM dictating how someone should RP their character. Heck, Asmodeus has a long-established reputation as the evil god who will team up with the good gods when it's in his interests to do so (Rogavug, Worldwound, Hellknights, etc).
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Have the birthmark symbol trait or get the tattoo holy symbol so that you can access your powers and spells, but wear the holy symbol of some other god (like Abadar). Make sure you have the knowledge (religion) and perhaps some Bluff going so you can keep abreast of what following another god means and make the motions should you need to pantomime it.
The church you set up could, on the surface be to Abadar, but in reality, holds allegience to Asmodeus. Subtly shift the normal church actions and symbology towards Asmodeus. Over time it'll be a country following Asmodeus before they even realize it.
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Carry a wand of CLW. Evil or good, it's on your spell list so you can use it without a UMD check, and it'll keep the rest of the party from thinking too hard about you.
Do you plan to do much channeling of negative energy? If not, you could just dump CHA and then they wouldn't ask why you aren't channeling. And then you get more points to spend on Wisdom and Strength and stuff!
If you do want to channel negative energy, it's not a deal-breaker. Abadar's clerics do that too quite frequently. I'd also recommend carrying a crossbow as your ranged weapon, since that's Abadar's favored weapon. Just be careful to call it ABADAR'S favored weapon, not YOUR DEITY'S favored weapon ;)
I really hate this kind of heavy-handed railroading of character concept in a DM. Lawful Evil can be the most honest and trustworthy character in a party and still be roleplaying the alignment properly. By forcing you to lie to your party, he is making party in-fighting much more likely when they find out you are a Cleric of Asmodeus. Just because you selected the Trickery domain is no justification for being a pathological liar with your adventuring party.
While I agree with your railroad comment, it's frakkin' Asmodeus. Lies are kinda one of his things...
This may not end well. I think you need to discuss this with the DM and the other Players OOC.
If the players are mature, they will go along and not act inappropriately. If they are not mature, then you shouldn’t be doing this.
what would I say as soon as they realise that I cannot spontaneusly cast cure spells! I guess I would have to memorise some cure spells...
Unless you need to pretend to be Good, there's nothing incongruous about a LN Cleric of Abadar or any other LN God choosing to Spontaneously Inflict rather than Spontaneously Cure - they are both valid choices.
Hell (ahem), you can just MAKE UP some random God, and as long as your Know:Religion (or Bluff) is higher than anybody else's, you should be able to create some plausible explanation for why this is really a God that other people do actually worship... or be inspired by the Shimye-Magalla 'janniform' (merged deity) of Shelyn-Gozreh (from Mwangi) but just MAKE UP your own equivalent. You should be able to prepare a good story ahead of time with research, Taking 20, and you can 'update' that story when your Know:Religion ranks get high enough.
Or just pass yourself off as a Separatist Cleric if somebody notices something weird with Domain Powers/Spells (you don't actually have to be one yourself). Or there is no reason you need to ever utter the name 'Asmodeus' in their presence, you can just pokerface it and introduce yourself as the Cleric of Civilization and Righteousness and leave it at that, they probably won't even ask any more. If they do, you can either lie (see above), or not actually lie but deflect the question by talking about another God of Civilization/Righteousness without actually stating that is the God you worship.
The birthmark holy symbol is a good way to not need to carry around/present the holy symbol, although they could see the birthmark somehow...
I wouldn't worry about the Detect Evil thing, although you could be LN Asmodean if you want, if it comes up you can play drama queen and make a bunch of Know:Religion/Planes/Arcana/etc rolls and act like you think it must be some malevolent force trying to control you or spying on you, ask the GM how long it's been going on for :-), that sort of thing, convince the party they all need to use defensive spells like Protection from Evil and that sort of thing. In other words, abuse their trust ;-)
Of course, if you are pretending to NOT be an Asmodean Cleric, you have to have a plan on how you will act (publicly/privately) when you do encounter Clerics or other followers of Asmodeus.
I think in the interests of out-of-game comradery, that you shouldn't try to screw over the other players or otherwise act Evilly against them, there's no reason why you can't be LE and a loyal friend... Going against that into PVP territory is what makes this sort of thing problematic in out-of-game interpersonal terms, but if you're not going there (and the GM is aware of that limitation) then it should be OK IMHO.
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I really hate this kind of heavy-handed railroading of character concept in a DM. Lawful Evil can be the most honest and trustworthy character in a party and still be roleplaying the alignment properly. By forcing you to lie to your party, he is making party in-fighting much more likely when they find out you are a Cleric of Asmodeus. Just because you selected the Trickery domain is no justification for being a pathological liar with your adventuring party.While I agree with your railroad comment, it's frakkin' Asmodeus. Lies are kinda one of his things...
You have a point, but any DM who is the instigating factor behind intra-party deception is opening a can of worms. If the party never finds out, the player never betrays them, and it's treated as a long-con undercover agent work, then it will be fine. But if the cover is blown, the party will never trust that character again. I have seen too many games devolve over the years because players were not upfront with core details about who they were.
That said, there is no one playing a Paladin in the group or even Lawful Good, so it's less likely to be an issue.
Since the OP is okay with the concept change, I'll just recommend to always keep in mind that your party is your tool to be able to successfully carry out your mission. While your first loyalty is to gaining power in Cheliax, you are Lawful Evil. Be as upfront and honest as possible with your party, and remember that the best lies have a core of truth in them. But because you are nice to your allies, make an extra effort to be ruthless to those who oppose you. Follow the letter of the law to come out on top.
As to specifics, I agree with the suggestion to cary wands of CLW.
EDIT: It also might help to observe the traditional rites of halfling manhood.
The biggest hurdle to playing an evil character is trust.
There cannot be mistrust in a party. It creates inter-party conflicts and raises the question why the members associate with the others. Even in a party full of good characters, this can be a major problem.
Tell your GM that being dishonest to the party is not a good thing. Illustrate to the party that they can trust you. Be a lawyer or be LN.
Its cool that the OP is down with the GM's idea. I will still strongly advice both of them to rethink deceiving the other character and even more importantly the other players. You said the group is not experienced with a Evil game, strengthening party cohesion and not potentially weakening it will be the best bet, IMO. As others have said at least get an okay from the players