Let's get theoretical, Veeky Forums

Let's get theoretical, Veeky Forums.

Think of your favorite non-evil paladin/cleric character you have, if you have one.

Got one? Okay, so your holy man and his party is in between adventures and chose to spend some time in a sizeable city or town, filled with all kinds of different races.

So, you're going through your daily routine when you encounter a girl; she's reasonably attractive, of age, and is your prefered race. Now, for the sake of brevity I'll just ssy shenanigans happen and poof, you're beginning to fall for her. You even think you might be in love.

You both spend time together, and after a week or so the both of you sit around in a sparsely populated area. Then, out of habit or just because you can, you cast Detect Evil. Everything checks out normal...

...except for the girl, who pings as a feind. Uh oh. One Dispel Magic later, and her glamor falls. Boom, this grill is a succubus. Zone of Truth time.

She says she doesn't intend to suck anybody dry, she just wants to live peacefully and she really, really likes you, wink nudge.

So, assuming the DM isn't trying to bait you into falling, getting smote by your god, or magical realm, do you continue with the relationship knowing full well the ramifications of it? She's a succubus, so any hanky panky will likely result in a dead holy man, and even kissing her takes your breath away in the litteral sense.

>hightest

My TN leaning towards NG mystic theurge fits the bill.
That's shrug worthy. I have to prepare death ward, with extended probably. Maybe make an item that'll solve it more long term?

Considering the poor shit has less luck in love than a zombie(a specific one that actually found love in this campaign) this is fair game.

Cleric of a Dionysus type god.

Oh look. My god has left another one of his nymphs wandering around unattended.

I need to find a better organized god. Preferably one that can be sober for more than a few days at a time.

He would probably see her as something inhuman masquerading as a human because it's her job.

We also reskinned the Detect Evil spell into Detect Supernatural/Unnatural because fuck the alignment table.

Well, of the last three "non-evil paladin/cleric" types I've played (all of which were fun and interesting, and could be considered my "favorite"), they are, in reverse chronological order: a PF zen-archer/paladin, a PF cleric of Sarenrae, and a Living Greyhawk druid/sorcerer/arcane heirophant "Archbishop".

For the archer-din, she'd leave it in the hands of the local temple, or else try to see if the succubus could "prove" her mettle by converting. She'd also have caught the succubus a lot earlier (since Detect Evil is much easier for PF paladins, and while it's not illegal to by evil, it's against her personal code to associate with evil that is not trying to be redeemed).

For the plain cleric, he'd appeal to his goddess and attempt to convert her, and thus redeem her (though he'll make sure to keep a death ward handy, as well as a few of the higher level anti-outsider blasting spells, in case she can't be redeemed).

For the "archbishop", she'll just sick her dire tiger companion familiar on her, and be done with it.

Love is a mood. At least when you use the word that way. Invented by Hollywood.... a place where permanent commitment almost never happens.

So let's just get out of the way the fact that Twoo Wuv is just an excuse for people to think with their dicks and/or a lie we tell when were trying to be manipulative. If anything, the emotion should be the consequence of, not the prerequisite to, a happy marriage.

Ok as for this succubus. Wish or sacrifice her and get a druid to cast reincarnate on her. Done.

If she's serious, then this shouldn't be a problem. If she refuses, then she's probably playing a long game but even if she's serious AND refuses, what the hell is she doing "reforming herself" by getting mixed up in lies and romance and sex? I've seen this happen IRL and the guy always comes out of it having raised someone else's kids, with a huge alimony paymentand a case of herpes. A succubus who wants to reform needs to stay the hell away from love, sex, lies, and disguises.

If those spells aren't available due to DM Fiat, then a healthy, honest, non-socialist relationship is in order. Tell her you just want to be friends, that it's beat for both of you. Because in this case, it is.

Lol "best" not beat. Though typo has a point here too. :)

you must be fun at parties

He isn't wrong.

>unironically thinking love is a false emotion
it doesn't last but it exists

Lawful Hot Dickings.

Just handing 'em out.

My character thanks himself for his sudden desire to use Detect Evil, because reflecting on the past ~2 years, I haven't used DE when I was playing a paladin. Like, shit, son, I totaly forgot this fucking spell even existed. Oh, and the guy kills the girl, because if you are unsure if the evil-aligned character is evil- he/she IS evil.

Well, demons and such aren't known to be deceptive or underhanded, so I'd probably follow through with the relationshi-ahwaitaminute

Smite and Cleave. Or Smite and Banish, for less melee oriented servants of the divine. I really hope creatures like this don't exist in our world, and I'm saying that as a person of faith. Because if they do, apparently there are people who think they can have these beings of ageless and primordial darkness to dance to their tune. On the other hand, the number of 'good succubus, wat do' threads would diminish substantially, which is only barely not worth the loss of human lives/souls. Seriously, if you're just into the idea of a slut with horns and a tail, so be it. But that's not a really compelling rendition of a succubus, and certainly not worth a full thread.

Tougher than diamonds, rich like cream
Stronger and harder than a bad girl's dream
Make a bad one good make a wrong one right
Power of love will keep you home at night.

>my priest character is a girl
>in a modern setting where humans are the only race
>where detect evil doesn't exist
>nor dispel magic
>nor glamor
>nor zone of truth
>demons and fiends don't really exist either.
>gods probably don't exist.
Sounds more like it never happened and she's writing fanfic to me.

>Wish or sacrifice her and get a druid to cast reincarnate on her.
I don't think that actually works on Outsiders, if I'm remembering my extraplanar creature soulology correctly they don't "die" when you kill them, they just get banished back to their home plane, and if you kill them on their home plane they DIE die, like permadead GG no re.

Kill. The only difference between a succubus you want to kill and one you want to love is how good the succubus is at tricking you.

It's a good thing that my Paladin took unarmed as his primary means of combat then. Sword and board is for casuals.

>you're beginning to fall for her
Bullshit. My cleric is married to the law.

Being a demon is not explicitly illegal, but draining the souls of people is. Furthermore, so is trying to seduce a judge appointed by the church of the God of Order himself. This hellspawn would best be real careful about what she gets up to in this city, or she will quickly find herself before a court of law, which will most likely result in her being sentenced to a public beating from a +3 Cold Iron Flaming Burst mace.

[Lawful Neutral Intensifies]

This thread appears to have an adequate amount of DEUS VULT in it.

Yes.

In one of our campaign a a druid fucked a succobus while in his bear form (to better resist negative effects). They remanined friends after that.

Huh? I said love is a mood *when you use the word that way*.

Then I pointed out that love is a consequence of a committed, healthy relationship. When did believing in happy marriages become Literally Hitler?

I think you're confused about which of us is r9k here.

It's strong and it's sudden-- and it's cruel sometimes-- but it might just save your life.

That only just bearly counts.

>a demon of a kind that use mind altering magic to deceive people and seduce them is trying to seduce my character

DO
NOT
TRUST
DEMONS

EVER

like holy shit this is a fucking terrible idea, a CREATURE OF DECEPTION IS TELLING YOU WHAT YOU WANT TO HEAR WHEN YOU THREATEN IT

>what is zone of truth

>Bit of a coward and a pushover
>Pretty much never attacks unless he or the other part members are blatantly in danger
>Been bizarrely sympathetic to hostile undead in the past
>Took a vow of chastity and wears a divintly empowered chastity belt
Succubus waifu is a go

CLEAVE AND SMITE

There are very high level spells that can resurrect outsiders, I think it's like 9th though

The only cleric character that I remember fondly is the one that I accidentally made gay (it started as a table joke when we realized that "cleric of a war god's church which provides moral counseling/support to soldiers" meant quite a bit when these soldiers are stuck in the trenches for months, scared and lonely, and 20 miles from the nearest female).

Knowing this, I'd probably tell the succubus to go fuck themselves (metaphorically). That, or go along with it undercover to see if the succubus is being sincere.

Why would you not cast Detect Evil on anyone you start dating? Would save you a lot of trouble.

Well aren't you special

Oooopps.. Yeah I read reincarnate and it looked like it worked on anyone, but I didn't reread the Outsider type description:

> Unlike most living creatures, an outsider does not have a dual nature—its soul and body form one unit. When an outsider is slain, no soul is set loose. Spells that restore souls to their bodies, such as raise dead, reincarnate, and resurrection, don't work on an outsider. It takes a different magical effect, such as limited wish, wish, miracle, or true resurrection to restore it to life. An outsider with the native subtype can be raised, reincarnated, or resurrected just as other living creatures can be.

Though now that I am reading it, it seems like Wish will still do the job. You just have to wish the reincarnation into the rez.

The reason you need to do it as a rez is that Reincarnate is instantaneous rather than permanent. So while she could be transformed back, until/unless that happens, her true underlying nature has been permanently transformed. And it's her essential nature that's the problem.

Actually, I could see this as a campaign quest. She has to spend the campaign not using her powers and succumbing to her nature. That means honesty, no disguises, no romance, and no sex. She has to be chaste and true. Then at the climax she sacrifices herself in an act of Pure Good(tm).

Then gets rezed and reincarnated as an angelic being of some kind. Either as a chaste being of pure goodness, left to ascend to the higher planes. Or as the angelic waifu of the PC love interest, thereafter to enjoy missionary position sex within wedlock for the purposes of procreation only*.

* This actually is a purely christian view, and not even most christian denominations believe in sacred chastity the way catholics do. Jews, Muslims, and others see sex for pleasure as a commandment so long as it's between man and wife, with many (but not all) kinds of positions/acts being good.

Well, that would explain the romantic feelings, but after hearing out her story over tea, my paladin would kindly turn her down. The feelings we've had were falsely created due to her supernatural powers, for being both girls, this wouldn't have worked anyway.

A spell, that can be bypassed or countered by all kinds of other powers depending on the setting and plot.

Seriously, the danger of spells like True Seeing and Zone of Truth and Detect Evil is that people turn off their eyes, ears, and brains because The Spell Says So. By the time you're powerful enough to have one of these powers, you're probably encountering enemies who if they try hard enough can figure out a way to defeat them.

Haven't you ever heard of forbidden love?

My last paladin was a huge arsehole who, eventually, got smacked down by their patron for all their shit.

They would probably throw caution to the wind for the time being and when an opportunity presents itself, drag the Succubus straight to the nearest dedicated temple and bring their goddess up on speed-dial.

Assuming the Succy is genuine, the Goddess will probably allow it, complete with giving her specific directions to keep me from continuing my arsehole ways.

In game, they fell in love with a captive enemy, it was mutual and on bringing the Goddess up to speed, the above actually happened.

Meanwhile my last Cleric started in a triple marriage with the Bard and Sorceress and they all care for each other. Mostly they are really close friends, akin the siblings and the marriage was largely an in-character legal inheritance deal and a symbolic gesture that they would remain together no matter what.
This event wouldn't arise unless all three of us planned to make it a quartet.

There are several logical flaws in your narrative.

First, succubi don't have to drain anything from anyone. They do that by choice alone.

Second, a paladin knows that detect evil is fallible. They're very well aware that there are a host of low level spells that can not only prevent the detect evil ability but actually misdirect it. It's useful but rarely agaisnt anything humanoid.

Finally, magic resistance can prevent a zone of truth from working, and your average apaldin isn't going to trust that.

As always, vigilance, understanding, and an open mind will serve a paladin far better than spells and clever words.

Defeated by two of the lowest level spells in the game, - nondetection and misdirection. A piece of wood never lies to you user.

Detect Evil is an innate ability of paladins, she would have been detected immediately

depends on the system

Looks like it's time to redeem a succubus with The Hammer.
the hammer is my penis.

So a creature known for lying and deceiving lied to me about what she was and then said she wouldn't deceive me?
Yeah sure.
I don't smite her because of doubt but I stop the relationship and ask her to go, and perhaps if she is really benevolent one day our path will meet again

In 5e it's detect fiend/celestial. So you can tell if it's a demonic but you can't tell it's motivation. Detect Evil was a stupid spell and it's good they got rid of it.

She is a being of pure evil. There's no redeeming her and her definition of "love" is probably extremely selfish at best. Even if she truly loves my character, what's to stop her from hurting other people? What if her idea of love means hurting and killing innocent people for my good? What if she hurts or kills people because "they are coming between our love" or some other bullshit reason? It would be selfish and evil to keep a succubus around because "I might be in love".

My character would smite her back to the Abyss, then douse himself with a Create Water spell and insist he's not crying.

Christians have nothing against sex between man and wife.
At least, european catholics don't.

I'm playing a Redeemed Succubus Priest refluffed Great Old One pact Warlock to the only non-evil Patron that would accept me, an ancient goddess of darkness.

Holding hands, we run off into the sunset together.

>This actually is a purely christian view
Why do you confuse American religion with actual religion?

THOSE HIPS!
THOSE THIGHS!

I'm talking about the stereotype of missionary position only for purposes of procreation. Yeah it's mostly fallacious even for catholicism, but for some denominations it really is a thing.

Put another way, in christianity there's a long tradition of the "purity" of unmarried celebacy. Not that sex is forbidden, just that total abstention can in some denominations be perceived as virtuous in itself. In judaism, it's permitted in certain situations but mostly frowned upon. In Islam, my understanding is that it's considered actively sinful.

Unless fiends can be redeemed, it's smiting time.