How to build a fallen angel?

[Bad Paper]

Lord of the Iron Fortress spoiler

I'm looking to introduce a new BBEG into my campaign; a fallen angel. My question is, if you were going to do the same, how would you create it?

It's not an angel, but there's a trumpet archon blackguard named Zalatian in the Lord of the Iron Fortress. You can look there for starters.

I disagree with frankthedm's changing his planetar's damage reduction. When I converted Zalatian, I kept his DR 10/evil. An archon's DR is a physical part of his race; it shouldn't change just because his alignment does. That would be like saying "well now that my elf is evil I will give it spell resistance like a drow." I think I kept Zalatian's subtype as [good], though I can't remember. Also, his home plane remained Celestia (for spell effects), even though he was thoroughly evil and living in Acheron.

You should think carefully about patron deity. For Zalatian, I finally settled on Surtr, Lord of the Fire Giants, for domains, favored weapon, and LotIF flavor. Slapping two levels of blackguard on top made him an absolutely gorgeous killer, and he turned the party's meat shield into a messy puddle.

 

[Talmun]

<snip> Otherwise, the Book of Fiends (from Green Ronin) - an excellent book, btw - has a template for this, too. <snip>

Second this…Great book and a very good Fallen Celestial template (Gregori anyone?)

 

[thorian]

Champions of Ruin has a fallen solar named Malkizid. He was a solar who was tricked by Araushnee (who later became Lolth) into betraying Corellon Larethian. He became a devil prince, but was then exiled from Hell by Asmodeus, and then became a Yugoloth lord.

He seems to have taken on mostly baatezu traits, despite previously being a solar.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

A lot depends upon what you think an angel or a demon is. If a demon is a fallen angel, then look up the appropriate stats and use them. A powerful fallen angel? Use a balor. A seductive fallen angel? use a succubus. (And if you want more smackdown ability, give her fighter, rogue, and blackguard levels).

If you don't want what you've done to be obvious, use an angelic description--give your balor long hair and a flawless complexion rather than a skull-like mask of skin and fangs and iridescent feathered wings rather than bat-wings. You'd need to be judicious with the information you gave out through knowledge skills--you'd have to say he's Malthandros, the fallen captain of Torm's legions rather that "a balor" and then give his qualities individually.

The point is that, under this view, outsiders are not simply like elves or humans--if their alignment changes, their appearance, and perhaps even their abilities do too.

The alternative point of view--that angels and demons are just races of beings like humans and elves is the biggest reason that I absolutely detested the planescape setting and most everything it touched. It robbed them of all their mythic significance. That, however, is the view that would allow you to stick DR 15 evil and epic on your BBEG by changing the solar's alignment without changing its abilities.

If you don't feel like choosing between those cosmological perspectives, you can ignore the question by picking D&D stats for your fallen angel from creatures that can ordinarily fight for either good or evil. The justicator is a particularly promising creature for this treatment--powerful enough to serve as the BBEG of a low-mid level campaign, angelic in appearance, but with stats suited to either heroism or villainy without any modifications.

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

One of my favorite characters to play was a Fallen Angel. Since "falling" implies losing a lot of power... I made him a CN Half-Celestial Aasimar with a few levels of Fighter and Rogue and near-constant penalties due to drunkenness. If I were willing to cripple myself that badly, I would have replaced the Fighter levels with ex-Paladin.