How would you do this? Illusion? Teleport? Invisibility?

[Morrus]

Need answer fast - I leave for the game in about 30 minutes.

In my game tonight, the party will be facing off against a rather nasty pit fiend.

However, I'd like to spice the encounter up a little. I'm seeing this pit fiend as a really intelligent, manipulative sort, able to appear how he wishes (at first he won't even appear as a pit fiend - I'll make him more human-like, though he'll reveal his true form and kick some ass later in the encounter).

I'd like him to do that old movie-style "I'm over here", "No, I'm over here" thing, disorienting the players who aren't entirely sure where he is. One minute they see him up on a ledge, another minute he's down the other end of the room.

I could just have him teleporting about, but that doesn't sound very mysterious or scary. Half the players can do that themselves anyway! So I figured maybe making it some sort of projected illusion, he himself being invisible elsewhere in the room.

How would you handle it? I'd like this fight to be quite atmospheric, and I want to highlight the devilish nature of a pit fiend; he comes from Hell, after all! He ain't just a big critter who you just hit a lot.

 

[Saagael]

Maybe split this into a 2-part fight:

Part 1 has the players fighting 3-5 creatures, but the trick is that there is really only 1 creature; the pit fiend. He can teleport between the creatures, taking over that body at will. Each creature can move on his turn, but he can only occupy one of them at a time, so they're rushing around trying to find which one he's currently occupied. Each body has the hit points of a normal monster.

Part 2 starts when there's only 1 vessel left, the pit fiend takes his true form and fights as normal; still with his teleporting around for fun, with just less finesse.

 

[OnlineDM]

Agreed. The Gnome Illusionist from Monster Vault has a power along these lines that lets it split into three copies, only one of which is real. I'd give the Pit Fiend the same ability, with an at-will free action to make any or all of those copies (plus himself) visible or invisible. So, there's only one real Pit Fiend, but he has lots of copies and he turns their visibility on and off.

Naturally, it should be really hard to tell the real one from the copies.

 

[Morrus]

Oooh, I didn't think of the gnome power. That could work if I beefed it up and made it much larger than 5 squares!

 

[Roland55]

Darn it, got here too late.

I was going to suggest that, every time he re-appears, you slightly change his appearance -- making him resemble his true self, more and more closely.

That'll get 'em.

 

[Breaks]

Darn it, got here too late.

I was going to suggest that, every time he re-appears, you slightly change his appearance -- making him resemble his true self, more and more closely.

That'll get 'em.

Cool suggestion, though it would require a lot of research and planning to accurately verbally depict a slow transition into pit fiend-hood without coming out and saying, "he looks a little more like a pit fiend this time," which would give it away.

I'm curious to hear what he ended up going with