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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sword of Spirit" data-source="post: 7444401" data-attributes="member: 6677017">How does poor Demogorgon, Prince of Demons, stand a chance against his rival Orcus? That question is rhetorical. The real question is how can Demogorgon’s stat block have any reasonable chance of putting up a fight against Orcus’s stat block on a flat featureless plane? The implicit statement is that I think Demogorgon’s stat block should have a chance. The hope is that someone can demonstrate where my interpretations of stat block 1 vs. stat block 2 are mistaken, and Demogorgon does have at least a 40% chance of victory. Here’s how I see it. (I’m assuming both demons are completely familiar with their adversaries capabilities.) Orcus can fly, and Demogorgon can’t, so Demogorgon can’t just get into a brawl with him (which is about the only way Demogorgon can deal damage). Demogorgon has a decent way of getting Orcus out of the sky…except that Orcus doesn’t need to give him a real chance to use it. Demogorgon can potentially use Beguiling Gaze to get Orcus out of the sky. Orcus even has fair chance of failing the save (though he does get advantage). However, in order to be subject to that save, Orcus has to get within 120’ and choose not to avert his gaze from Demogorgon. The only reason to do that would be if he needed to use some sort of hostile action within that range that required him to look at Demogorgon. He has no such need. And even if he did have such a need (such as to swoop in for a power word kill once he was sure it would work), his Legendary Resistance gives him 3 free successes. The only way Demogorgon gets Orcus out of the sky is the unlikely even that he gets Orcus to keep looking at him long enough to use up his Legendary Resistance and fail a save. And unless Orcus was within about 60’ horizontally, Demogorgon will have to use his entire turn moving up to him, not getting any attacks on him until the end of another creature’s turn. And that is best case scenario of assuming Demogorgon stunned him with a Legendary Action and is able to move up on him before Orcus gets a turn and flies away. And of course, after all that, Orcus probably just takes an opportunity attack and flies away. But Orcus has no reason to get within the 120’ range of Demogorgon’s oh so easily avoided gaze, because he can conjure 500 hp of undead at a 300’ range. Any undead. Think about that. (Let’s just say that he can’t summon liches, because Mellifleur says no.) He can custom pick whatever undead he wants in whatever quantities fit within those generous hit point totals, and send them shambling, screaming, and cavorting off to tangle with Demogorgon. The right 500 hp worth of undead will probably win outright. But if he wants to be really sure, he will pop off three create undeads, and then start casting unlimited animate deads to send an endless stream of zombies moving Demogorgon’s way. Yeah, that’ll do it! And what’s worse, I’m not even sure Demogorgon would win in a stand up brawl. Assuming they both just trade blows, Orcus does more damage (Demogorgon has no resistance to necrotic, while Orcus ignores it). He also has a better attack bonus for his primary attack. Demogorgon has better AC. His best chance is probably to use Legendary Actions to try to stun Orcus and wail on him with his multiattack (and spare Legendary Action when he gets him on the first try that round—if needed, assume there are a couple demons duking out in the distance so the lords can get all their Legendary Actions). Demogorgon probably has a decent chance here. It would take math I’m not interested in doing, but it at least looks like it would be close, so that would be acceptable… …if it weren’t for the fact that it means that in the best case scenario (that would be unlikely to actually come about) Demogorgon has an even chance. Please, somebody tell me there is something in the stat blocks themselves (of course Demogorgon won’t let himself get into this situation) that fixes this problem.</blockquote>

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