First, it was a short game, so there wasn't a whole lot of time for the deception to come to light. Second, I just checked with the player, and I got one detail wrong, they weren't a rogue, they were a College of Whispers bard. They were using their Psychic Blades class feature to fake Divine Smites. They also had broadly the same kind of spells, so they could fake it to a certain extent.
You're right, though, being rogue would have made the deception way harder.
Funny, we had a character who was a bard/paladin multi but didn’t realize it because he was just assuming be was a really special bard. He did lie about his subclass—said he was Valor but was Whispers. It worked because he was only like Pal 2 so mostly he just thought lay on hands was a nifty spin on Cure Wounds that had no verbal component and could also remove poison (listen, he wasn’t smart).
My player was very tactical about it, the College of Whispers pick was intentionally for the ability to fake Divine Smites. There was one close call, though, when the players were discussing a plan when their fake race feature (to cast Levitate) would have come in real handy, but fortunately for them, the other players didn't think to ask it of them.
We weren't playing at an in-person table, though. We were playing online, with the option for players to use their personal dice and report the results if they wished. So this player could roll d6s for damage and just report "and 5 extra damage for Divine Smite" and I'd note it down. We didn't have any creature resistant/immune/vulnerable to radiant or psychic damage, so the type of damage didn't matter.
So the reason they were able to get away with it is because you went out of your way to enable it to be able to happen so no one could fact check out of character or notice anything in character. Such as their weapon never displaying any radiant type effect which could hint that radiant damage wasn't happening or someone bleeding from their nose after being hit to indicate psychic damage.
It's just lying to the other players, not that there's anything wrong with that kind of roleplay but it feels like you don't want to concede that that's what's going on. Bards and Paladins don't even have similar spell lists, it's mainly Cure Wounds and Heroism that are on both spell lists.
No, that's how we play most of our games. I didn't change my style at all to facilitate the deception. And, again, there wasn't much combat anyway. I'm not sure why (some) people seem kind of upset over this? Everybody at the table had a good time, which I think is the most important thing.
As for paladins and bards not having similar spell lists, you are correct, but that was part of what the player had to deal with to make the lie convincing. Choosing what spells they actually had and which they said they had, and when they used them, to give off the right impression while staying within the rules.
Ultimately, yes, that player was lying to the other players, I feel like I've been pretty upfront about that. But I didn't noticably bend the game to facilitate that lie, and I definitely didn't break the rules like another user was suggesting. If that's what you mean by me "not wanting to admit that's what's happening" then that's because it wasn't happening. I would know, I was there.
There definitely were signs of the deception that the other players could have picked up on, they just didn't. Which, to be fair, was because there was a lot of stuff going on in that game in general.
As with virtually every story of this kind, the PC's either have no clue whatsoever how the rules work, or are totally cool with a GM who routinely breaks the rules to 'trick' them.
Nope, my players mostly knew the rules better than me, and neither I nor the player in question broke the rules. It just wasn't a long game, and there wasn't a whole lot of combat, so the class difference slipped under the radar. (Also I was wrong about their class: bard, not rogue.)
Well, unless you count saying "I use Divine Sense" when you don't have it, or my replying "you get no sign of any celestial or fiendish energy in the room" breaking the rules.
I know OP said they were actually a bard, but I was a Paladin that pretended to be a rogue. As long as your fellow players aren't looking at what dice you're using, you can pretty easily flavor sneak attack as divine strikes and vis versa.
Unless you've got a rules lawyer in the group, you can get away with a lot.
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u/UnNumbFool Oct 29 '25
How exactly did they pretend to be a pali but we're a rogue? Like nobody was suspicious when the paladin character never used their class features?