best way for melee to fight devils/demons

00durrin · Mar 12, 2003

Let's put it this way. The Pit Fiend showed up after much trash talking by myself. It showed up ready to duel me, and the DM broke for the week. I assume next week the fight commences right away with no prep time.
Should I just roll initiative and run?

Taren Seeker · Mar 12, 2003

Gaiden said:
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.

Bad idea. His absolute best chance is to end the fight quickly and keep the PF from using his spells. He can out-damage the PF and has more HPs. If he jacks his AC up to the unhittable range, the PF will back off and start throwing Will saves at him. Also, if he dumps that much into AC he'll hardly be able to hit the PF at all. (it'll have at least AC 34)

If the PF is dumb enough to want to melee him, then I say encourage it and let it shed some blood.

As for your "if I were the DM" comment...there're limits to what the DM can do without blatant dues ex machina effects, which is a whole different kettle of fish. With luck, this fight is winnable.

Oh, and an AMF is also no good. The PF could tear him apart if he loses all of his magic. His AC and to hit bonuses drop like crazy while physically, the PF is unaffected. Also the PF's regen is ex. It would be cool though if there was some way for him to rig the contest, but without knowing more about the setup...*shrug*

Of course, this is all based on whether or not this is a stock MM Pit Fiend. If he's advanced or god help us a 3.5 PF then, well, it's game over man.

Stalker0 · Mar 12, 2003

00durrin said:
Let's put it this way. The Pit Fiend showed up after much trash talking by myself. It showed up ready to duel me, and the DM broke for the week. I assume next week the fight commences right away with no prep time.
Should I just roll initiative and run?

In the words of OJ simpson, "Um, yeah"

reichtfeld · Mar 12, 2003

While I have to admit that sovereign glue idea ranks up in some of the most desperate battle strategies I've read/heard about, spell-like abilities do not need any components to be used.

00durrin · Mar 12, 2003

I see the last two guys who responded are from Atlanta. That's where I'm from. Maybe I can come play in a campaign with you guys? Heh...Thanks for all the help folks. We'll see what we see. Our party fought a Dread Linnorm last week (with the help of about 200 sailors). I may have been bragging about how badass I was cause I managed to jump into his mouth/down his throat a little and practically solo him. I get what I get.

Taren Seeker · Mar 12, 2003

Stalker0 said:
In the words of OJ simpson, "Um, yeah"

Ditto.

I wouldn't even bother to do the "For King and Country" routine either.

It would be funny if this is that Genie screwing with you again though...hmmm, in that case, you could try one round before you run. At least you're immune to the 1st hold person.

But if you get close to him and feel that fear aura, voluntarily fail that save and run like the devil. Well, faster than the devil actually or else you're meat.

Tiberius · Mar 12, 2003

You're in trouble. Here's how I envison the combat:

Round 1: Summon Gelugon
Round 2: Meteor Swarm (24d6, for an average of 83 damage, no save), gelugon uses Cone of Cold (13d6, average damage: 53 on a failed save. You have a +9 reflex, so you have a 60% chance of saving against the DC 18 cone), so you're looking at two massive damage saves right there, in addition to having 14 hp left.
Round 3: Repeat Cone of Cold, finish with physical attacks, fireball, wall of fire, etc.

Good luck. Note that the first Cone of Cold may be used on round one, depending on whether your DM thinks that a creature brought into combat this way gets to act that turn or not.

-Tiberius

00durrin · Mar 12, 2003

they don't summon unless they feel threatened though right? otherwise it means they're a sissy. aren't they indebted (possibly) to creatures they summon? or am i thinking of something else?

Tiberius · Mar 12, 2003

I dunno. I've always seen it as (in the case of devils) they outrank the summoned creature and can order them about or (in the case of demons) are more powerful than the summoned creature and can thug them (with few exceptions, notably the succubus and the balor), so my fiends aren't shy about summoning others. I haven't read the summoning rules for a while, so it might very well say something about only summoning when threatened.

-Tiberius