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You all need levels in Inquisitor (Infiltrator archetype) ASAP (1 level is enough except for deity-based casters who will need the 2nd level ability)
No way is Bluff or Diplomacy ever be high enough that not a single Paladin will use Detect Evil on your party.
Also, it is easier to infiltrate people one by one. This way, if one blows his/her cover, it does not immediately destroy the cover of the rest of the party.
Maxing Sense Motive would be good too. Just so you know when the time for an "unfortunate accident" has come.
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Other things...
- Try to find a patsy. In case it looks like your team will be caught, or perhaps even as a preemptive measure, include a patsy in your group, someone who you will peg as "the" betrayer. At an appropriate time or possibly as needed, let this sacrificial goat be revealed as having been working to destroy the church all along, using your group as patsies. This may involve...
- Being willing to take a hit. This becomes far more believable if you are clearly hurt by this person. It becomes less likely that you were working with them from the start if for example he offed one of you. This may mean ...
- You may need a second patsy. This person would be the actual first sacrificial goat whom you feed to the patsy first mentioned. The set up would be to let the aforementioned patsy believe this patsy is going to give everyone up and must be silenced. Meanwhile you will have revealed your suspicions to the appropriate authorities. Through a simple misunderstanding they would have been guarding you when all along, poor patsy #2 was the real target.
- Take out a BBEG. Not just your rival clan turned zombies. Do some research and find someone whom this church wants brought to justice. You could use your rival gang zombies as an introduction so that you wind up on the church's radar. Make a show of "aw shucks, just doing the greater good" so they remember you. Then ruthlessly hunt down one of their prime targets. Big points if you bring them to justice instead of offing them yourselves. Then you can play with your patsies.
Once you are in, since you are looking to turn them, keep in mind the key to tempting a religious person off the path... find what, if anything, they hold at least as dearly if not more dearly than their faith, then set their faith in opposition to that. Someone has a less than honorable sibling that is in dire need of help? Make that situation a little worse, whisper some soothing words about how the faithful's god will be okay with it, then nudge them off to help their sibling. They can justify it to themselves long enough to make the path a little easier with the next nudge. And so on.
The truly righteous will never budge. For the rest, remember that you aren't making them fall, you aren't even convincing them what they are doing is right. You're just helping them tell themselves that what they want is actually within reach if they just compromise, and then smoothing that compromise over. Blur things. Keep things gray, never black and white.
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Oh... and for those that may seem like the truly righteous, before you give up hope, make sure they aren't just self-righteous. Pride is the key there. Those that are propped up on the prongs of adulation among the faithful will be quick to note the failures of their brethren. For them you just want to show that you are aware of your own failings, striving to do better, absolutely humble and looking to them for inspiration. Heap praise on them, but subtly. Stoke whatever embers burn in their chest that yearn for the praise of others.
Then once you've got things nicely warmed up, use it. Find some hidden evil, suggest it to them. If they take the bait they will do your work for you. Extra bonus points if you point them at one or both of your patsies because then you'll seem to be doing the church's will AND you will be in good with someone with esteem within the church.
But when it's time to go all out, point them at their brethren, especially anyone whom you've managed to turn already. They'll do the rest and the whole assembly will fall to pieces.
Thanks for the positive feedback. I promise, I do not carry a pitchfork nor do I sit on anyone's shoulder. ;)
@TheFacilitiesGuy - To turn a paladin all the way into an anti-paladin, you have a LONG road ahead of you, because you essentially have to finagle the paladin into believing they DESERVE to be an anti-paladin.
Take the self-righteous paladin discussed earlier. If you go down the road with them as planned, you may be able to get them to start a purge within the church. The most likely result will be that at the end they will have fallen, lost their paladin status and become what amounts to a fighter. There is a small chance, if things go right for you and you can twist their emotions, that they will go all the way toward CE and become an anti-paladin. For that, you'll have to twist their shame and self-loathing into a hatred for everything they stood for, a hatred for those who blame them. Pride is their weakness and you might be able to get them convinced they are absolutely in the right and how dare the church and the forces of good condemn them!
You've picked a difficult task if that is your goal. Good luck! :)
I was kind of going the reverse with one of my characters a while ago, I was un-eviling an Evil church. The key is to latch onto an aspect of the faith that can be pushed in a different direction while still being true to the god.
I was creating a schism in the church of Asmodeus. I was a LN Cleric of Asmodeus and following his aspect as a God of Laws and Contracts. So I was slowly moving my local branch of the faith towards being "Church of the god of Lawyers" instead of "Church of the god of tyranny."
It was going pretty good until the party got slaughters by Wraiths.
I've always wondered if the Lawyer's Heresy had managed to spread beyond Varisia.
In your case latch onto a part of the Lawful Good faith that can be pushed towards the LN. Once you have that first heresy in place you need another one that still fits the faith to move another step towards LE.
A 2 step shift like that is going to be tough though, cause as soon as they start loosing Divine Powers they are going to wonder what they have done to cause god to turn away from them. If you can get an evil god to pick up the slack without them noticing that could help.
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A 2 step shift like that is going to be tough though, cause as soon as they start loosing Divine Powers they are going to wonder what they have done to cause god to turn away from them. If you can get an evil god to pick up the slack without them noticing that could help.
This one is easy actually. The will of the gods is a mystery. Surely the loss of divine powers is a test by our deity to see how truly faithful we are. Anyone who says otherwise is surely one of her enemies, likely a traitor sold to rival deities.
This self-blinding worked (and works still) wonders in all faiths of the real world. I fully expect it to work in PFRPG too.