best way for melee to fight devils/demons

[hong]

If you can dictate terms for the match then no flying and no spells. And pretty much the only way to do that would be playing off the devil's pride. They are lawful creatures after all and might abide by such an agreement unless threatened with death. Something along the lines of "What need would such a mighty lord of darkness such as yourself have for those tactics against one as lowly as I? Enjoy the satisfaction of rending my mortal flesh with claws and crushing my puny frame with your tail. There is no need to take to the sky when you can relish swift victory on the ground. Your mighty magics would be a waste against me."

In a stand-up melee fight your main objective would be pushing your Fortitude save through the roof against that poison. I'd also suggest using Expertise and staying mobile to avoid a full attack, since that means you'd avoid the bite/poison altogether as well as the chance at getting grappled by the tail.

Eh. The poison is easy-peasy. It's a DC 21 Fort save to negate, which means he only needs a 4 as it is. Add an endurance spell, and it gets even easier.

No, the one to watch out for is the fear aura, which is a DC 19 Will save. With a mere +9 Will, that's a significant chance of being turned into a quivering lump of jelly in the first round.

Assuming he can deal with this, the best tactic is to close in ASAP, and try to get off a full attack on the thing. Hasted,
he gets 4 attacks per round, with the last one a 50-50 chance to beat the pit fiend's AC of 30. If he can keep the fiend from running away, two rounds of this and it's toast. (Get the party cleric to cast magic weapon on the sword beforehand, so that it's blessed and negates the fiend's DR -- although personally I'd treat a sun blade as blessed already.)

 

[Darklone]

Get some freedom of movement against the hold person spells... or did I overlook that in your equipment?

Otherwise, the dispel magics will toast you without problem.

Forget buff spells... their only use is to keep him busy with one or two dispels. Though this could save you by allowing you to go into melee.

Don't forget his reach.

Think about Protection from evil... this would help against more summoned allies.

Hmm... the pit fiend could polymorph into something huge... oh oh.

 

[YuriPup]

Yeah but GMW would bring the sword to +5 (and the Lion Shield too, for a second one). How is your ranged setup? Getting a Mighty +4 bow and some arrows--with GMW turns that into a +10 (at 15th level) weapon system with something like +13 for you to hit and +14 to damage.

 

[hong]

Get some freedom of movement against the hold person spells... or did I overlook that in your equipment?

Otherwise, the dispel magics will toast you without problem.

Forget buff spells... their only use is to keep him busy with one or two dispels. Though this could save you by allowing you to go into melee.

Against spells cast at 15th caster level, a dispel magic requires a roll of 16+ to succeed (max +10 on the dispel check, remember). That's good enough odds to risk it, I say.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

What if your DM is using the revised pit fiend?

There isn't much info, but Quicken Spell-like Ability apparently lets you Quicken any ability, up to 3/day in total, and Mass Hold Monster sounds like a 7th or 8th level spell to me.

Then again, they didn't mention Dispel Magic or Greater Dispelling in the pit fiend's 3.5 description.

 

[Quasqueton]

And who was complaining that the current pit fiend wasn't tough enough?

Quasqueton

 

[00durrin]

I'm pretty sure he's using the Pit Fiend out of the MM
I doubt he even knows about the revised one
As for buffs and such...we're a party of melee fighters
(gladiator, weapon master, monk, arcane archer)
I'll be in the fight alone (whether it's to the death or until someone says mercy I don't know yet).
Interesting story, a genie named Teomo is after me because I killed him in a similar battle (that's my character's schtick...I get into one on one fights wherever I go. I'm a gladiator, what else am I supposed to do?).
The fight was until someone said mercy. My exhaust opponent feat made him drop and I killed him while he lay unconscious. He never said mercy so I figured I was in the clear.
Somehow he came back to life and he pops in and tries killing me at very inopportune times demanding what I took from him for "winning" by saying he never said mercy.
I'm hoping he won't pop in on this fight or maybe that he IS the Pit Fiend in disguise.

For more detailed info, you could go to my DM's website on our campaign.
www.wriphe.com/dnd
If you click on the far right timeline mark and then click on the flag that says "Reign of Kurse" it'll take you to the campaign page.

 

[Taren Seeker]

If you can't get some buffing spells put on you then you're probably done. Is there some NPC that you can buy them from?

It also depends on the terrain in the arena. If he has room to fly, then without a counter you have NO CHANCE. NONE. AT ALL.

If he can't fly, well, it's a longshot, but if you can wear that true sight mask (is it the one from MoF? If so then I think it has mind blank as well which changes the odds immensely) and can make a couple of Will saves, AND you can avoid getting grappled then you have a shot. I would definitely recommend a GMW on your shield so that if he grapples you you can at least rip off some decent damage by shield bashing and triggering the bite power. Actually, you can use the Sunblade in the grapple so that's good...but get a GMW on the shield anyways for the bites.

Don't go crazy with the expertise. The only physical attack you have to worry about is the tail slap at +14 since that's the imp. grapple.

If you can't get an SR spell cast on you to counter his Unholy Aura...well, it's going to be a long day. You may only need to roll a 4 to save against the str drain, but with the number of attacks you're hoping to be making...It would be great if you could buff your con up a bit. The spell will also jack his AC up to 34 which will make things a little tougher.

The fact is, the PF doesn't have great HP's. With a little luck (read: crits) you can take him down in the first round. Just make sure that if you can't get a good cleric to cast GMW then you stipulate that the first one to drop unconcious or dead loses. Otherwise his regen will guarantee him victory.

As for people who say you might be able to get him to agree to a duel with no spells, forget it The PF is not very dangerous in melee, you'd rip him a new one in short order. I'm sure he knows this.

If you could just get a few of the right spells on you this fight would end in a hurry. PF's aren't all that bad. My high level fighter has solo'd more than one PF without buffing, but he was geared more towards that kind of thing.

*I'm also wondering what kind of DM finds flying so annoying that he takes items away from a group but allows an item with constant true sight in...shrug*

 

[Gaiden]

If I were the DM, you would simply never be able to beat the pit fiend. He would have already considered all the tactics previously suggested and have ways of counteracting them. I mean seriously, this is one of the most powerful fiends in existance - aren't they the generals of the armies of hell or some such.

However, the above assumes you will play fair. Simply put, CHEAT! No matter what items you get, the pit fiend is going to figure out your strategy and dispel them. No matter what buffs you have on, again, the pit fiend will dispel them. Even if you play to the creature's ego, if I were DMing the LE fiend I would have him (in a rational scenario) reneg on all deals when he understands that the agreement was made on false pretenses. If you are able to taunt your foe and get him really angry maybe, just maybe I would have him not resort to spells. But he would still have multiple tricks up his sleave regardless.

No, your only chance is to cheat. This is not the same as getting some killer item or equipment (although an adamentium net combined with a tanglefoot bag could prove particularly useful against this foe). Go hire a mage to cast antimagic field centered on some miniscule object like a flea or some such. Then have him cast timestop right before the match and then teleport other to teleport the flee onto the fiend. No more spell like abilities so it is simply a matter of overcoming the fiend's mobility. Again, I would go with the adamentite net or tanglefoot bag. Key is to go for nonmagical items.

(IDHMBWM so I am not sure if my example would work, but I think you get the idea).

Another interesting tactic would be to cast polymorph any object on a flask of soveriegn glue and make it appear like whatever the fiend was planning on eating the day before. Then dismiss the spell when the fiend is swallowing. Not going to be able to use any of the supernatural abilities without the ability to use V components and he will slowly suffocate to death. Afterall, how many pit fiends do you know that just happen to carry around universal solvent? Dispose of the body (my favorite method is by consumption). The next day - the day of the match word can just spread that he chickened out. Believe me, your fame will spread.

I don't know exactly how this would work, but you might fight a bit more fairly and attempt to use the soveriegn glue on either an entangling item or some very hard mundane item to either permanently entangle the fiend or if you are lucky cut off its air supply.

I am sure you can think of something along these lines - it is your only chance.

 

[Gaiden]

Oh another thing - if you are unfortunate/foolish enough to fight it fairly, pump absolutely everything possible into AC with superior expertise - aka 15. This will make you unhittable (except for 5% of the time) and most certainly uncrit-able. You will have a much better chance of hitting it than it does you. You may even want to do this if you fight dirty.