Deals with the devil?

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yeah, I don't think you are any worse off than you were in older editions of D&D. "Grant a Wish" was pretty open ended and still required the DM to come up with the limitations. You're no worse off now except players no longer KNOW that the devil can do basically anything. In fact nowadays it probably can't. Kind of puts you in a better position actually...

Most of what a low level devil is likely to be able to do is either physically do stuff itself or give you information. It might be able to use a ritual of some kind, etc.

 

[Mr. Teapot]

What kind of stuff could low level devils offer?

Robot Hands?



Seriously, devils can offer whatever you'd expect the devils to offer in other media: Wealth, power, fame and women who can launch boats with their face are popular choices. Devils being devils, these things often don't work out as well as the pactmaker thinks they will.

There's no good way to codify these sorts of things into hard and fast rules, so the 4e designers didn't try. You just have to get a sense of what would make a good narrative, possibly with a good twist surprise to it. Go read some books and watch some movies where people make deals without realizing the conesequences, and see what you can steal.

 

[msherman]

Thanks for all the tips. I've already written up some dialog notes for the scenario that have an imp offering a PC basically whatever he wants: "A golden fiddle? Knowledge beyond your wildest dreams? Everlasting youth? Clockwork hands? Yes, anything." I'll leave it to the player to decide if he wants to make a deal, and what he asks for, and then figure out how an imp could try to make good (err, evil!) on the bargain.

And yes, this actually is going to happen during combat -- the imp is part of a strike team with a spinagon and 6 legion devils, assigned to get a mcguffin that the PCs are carrying. The spinagon is in command, and wants to just kill the PCs and take the mcguffin. The imp resents working for such a dolt, and when he discovers that there's a tiefling in the party, he'll offer the tiefling a deal, as long as the PCs kill the spinagon for him. Of course, the part where the imp fulfils the PC's wish will happen after the fight (probably over a long period of time, depending on the wish).

 

[lukelightning]

Some characters have gotten their wishes granted by devils. They are called infernal pact warlocks.

Pit fiend to peasant who "accidentally" freed him:
"For releasing me from my prison, I shall grant you a wish."

Peasant: "I wish for ultimate power!"

Pit fiend: "It shall be granted!" *zap.... turns a level 1 peasant into a level 1 warlock*

Peasant: "I said ultimate power! Sure, I can zap some things but I want godly powers!"

Pit fiend: "I have given you ultimate power. You are now free from your life as a dirt farmer, free to strike out in the world on a path that may very well lead to your immortality.."

 

[Roger]

Based on how you want to run things, in terms of mechanics, there's two subsystems I'd consider ripping off:

1. Disease tracks. Do X and you'll be fine (or better than fine), but don't, and things start getting worse in a hurry.

2. Artifact concordance. A bit more complex, but might work out well to reflect an infernal, Dark Side of the Force sort of deal.


Cheers,
Roger

 

[Mr. Teapot]

Based on how you want to run things, in terms of mechanics, there's two subsystems I'd consider ripping off:

1. Disease tracks. Do X and you'll be fine (or better than fine), but don't, and things start getting worse in a hurry.

2. Artifact concordance. A bit more complex, but might work out well to reflect an infernal, Dark Side of the Force sort of deal.

If you want a mechanical reflection of this, you could have the PC start multiclassing into Warlock...

 

[Wednesday Boy]

So, off the top of my head: During a famine, a witch is having troubles keeping her family fed. So she cuts an infernal deal for Everlasting Provisions. It's a small pig with the face of a man. Every morning she slaughters it and cooks it up, then boils its bones and arranges them in a small casket. Overnight, the pig reconstitutes. Unfortunately, they soon discover that they can no longer consume regular food...

That's sick, Roger. Brilliantly twisted!

 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

My friend (and sometimes DM) has the idea that the devil could give the player an additional (or replacement) power or feat which is just slightly better (or a boost to the player's existing powers or feats). Everytime the player uses it, the DM makes notes - use it a certain amount of time and something bad happens.

This works better for a gradual slip into damnation, though.

If I were to use my friend's system, I would make something mildly bad happen after so many uses. I would also then offer to offset the bad thing if the player does something for the devil (something not openly evil, though the ultimate consequence of such might be - for example, a minor theft which has major repercusions). If he does this, give him an even better power and keep track of the uses. After a certain number, apply the earlier "slightly bad" thing permanently, give the character a new pretty bad thing, and offer another "favour" to do the devil to ignore the new bad thing - the favour now either more obvioulsy evil, or something innocent where the player is aware of the consequences of the last "innocent" deal he made. And continue that progession as long as is appropriate.

 

[Lizard]

Very slightly off topic, but in my 3.5 game, the PCs were fighting a Sylvan Lord, and thanks to a timely Dimensional Anchor managed to get him into a bargaining position. I had no intention of him surviving the fight -- he was mostly a speedbump enemy -- but there he was, and they demanded of him certain information which was pretty much otherwise unattainable. It struck me that given Generic Fey Magic, he would be able to find this information out, and so, he did.

The best thing, really, in the absence of guidelines, is think about the kinds of "off camera" resources someone with the general power level of the NPC should, logically, have access to. High level beings in D&D (any system) have a LOT of power. Even if they can't do things personally, they can logically have friends or allies who can. In 4e, look at what Rituals can accomplish, and assume the existence (or just write it up, in full detail) of a Ritual which can do what the PCs ask. Likewise assume that the devil in question won't have the resources (ability/money) to cast rituals much above his own level, so, for a 10th level devil, assume he can accomplish anything which a 10th to 12th level ritual could. There's enough rituals out now that there's sufficient data points to figure out what that should be.

 

[Runestar]

Even in 3e, wish was quite limited in what it could grant (unless you interpreted the whole "SLAs have no xp costs" clause very liberally, in which case then it becomes very broken, since every pit fiend would then own a ring of infinite wishes). So there didn't really seem much a pit fiend could achieve with its wish SLA in bargains anyways.

Just curious, was my DM the only one who had the pit fiend use wish to duplicate AMF in combat?