Running demons as psychic entities-need brainstorming/rules help!

[Sollir Furryfoot]

Hey everyone, in my current campaign I'm trying to do something a little bit with devils and demons. The material plane my campaign is on is mostly sealed shut from the outer planes and sees very few true outsiders so evil mages artificially create new ones. Its hard to create a demon from scratch (the spirit is there but the body would require a lot of magic to make) so they instead use a host. Basically the steps to conjure a demon are the same-Lesser Planar Binding will do the trick, but in order for them to leave the circle and sustain themselves past the fabric of reality they need to possess a mortal, humanoid body (generally a morally weak person to begin with). Summon Monster spells are generally unaffected since they only create a temporary creature (which isn't a real demon anyways).

The PCs are only level 6 so up until this point I've just been running lesser demons, primarily Babau at them. Quasits possess animals and serve as familiars for Diabolists and such (Quite useful to arcane spellcasters with detect magic at will, Knowledge: Arcana and Spellcraft +6 for Aid Another actions, and Commune 1/week). I let the demons keep all the same physical and mental stats they have in their normal form including natural armor, maybe allowing natural weapons if the humanoid form has them (Babau lizardfolk for example have been fine)-explaining this through the demon's will/power enhancing their humanoid forms...if the demon spirit were exorcised from their hosts some of the frailer ones would simply crumple if not healed before.

I'm running into trouble with making this believable with higher-powered demons. I like the idea of someone who looks like a human but has the arcane power of a Hezrou or Balor, not to mention the strength and resilience of one! But so many of these demons are dependent on their larger bulk for attack options (whether a Glaberzu's large pincers or the Marillith's 6 arms or the iconically flying Vrock demons). I'm unsure if there's a work-around way at this or maybe if I should just deduct their CR by a point or two, maybe giving them a few extra spell-likes at will to compensate? Or does the idea simply break down at higher levels, becoming overly silly?

 

[Nifft]

Why not allow those who kill enough to mutate / transcend into larger types of demons?

For example, when an Babau kills its 20th mortal (and feasts on his soul energy), it gains the option to turn into a Vrock. When it has killed its thousandth mortal... it's Balor time.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Creamsteak]

Even though I already think you'll know this angle, I think the mechanics that surround inspired possession are a fairly legitimate way of templating the effects of this. The methodology for constructing these templates seems fairly simple to me. I'll call them Proxies, as they act as a demonic avatar of sorts. You can't actually kill the demon residing within, so much as banish it back to the nether. You can kill the host, but that doesn't harm the invading spirit. This example doesn't work for the "rabbit turned into a quasit" but for any of the humans I think it could be valid.

Dark Proxy Template
"Dark Proxy" is a template that can be added to any living, corporeal creature with an Intelligence score of 4 or more and nongood alignment (referred to hereafter as the base creature). The progenitor can be any Demon with a Charisma score of 4 or better that has established contact with the base creature.

A Dark Proxy gains the following abilities.

- Ability Scores: A Dark Proxy adopts the mental ability scores (Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma) of the progenitor, if they are higher than those of the base creature.
- Profane Body: A Dark Proxy gains a profane bonus to Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution equal to the progenitor's Charisma modifier.
- Spell-like Abilities: A Dark Proxy gains full use of all of the progenitor's spell-like abilities (but not its extraordinary or supernatural abilities).
- Exorcism Vulnerability: The progenitor inhabiting a proxy is subject to a dismissal spell, an exorcism, or a similar effect. Use the total of the vessel's character level and the progenitor's Hit Dice for the purpose of determining whether the spirit resists dismissal or exorcism.
- Combined Skill Ranks: A Dark Proxy combines the skill ranks of the progenitor and the base creature. All of the progenitor's skills are considered class skills for the proxy.
- Skills: The Dark Proxy gains a +8 racial bonus on listen and spot checks.
- Challenge Rating: Bebilith, Dretch, and Quasit (+1, minimum 2); Babau & Vrock (+2, minimum 5); Hezrou & Nelfeshnee (+3, minimum 8); Glabrezu, Marilith, and Succubus (+4, minimum 11); Balor (+5, minimum 14). These are rough estimates and should only be used as a temporary guideline.
- Alignment: As the progenitor.
- Level Adjustment: -

That's step one. Step two would be breaking the half-fiend template into 3 or 4 parts and making it a template a creature gains through extended time as a Proxy being. Eventually the creature would reach full half-fiend/dark-proxy status, and be fairly comparable to the original creature in power. You would never gain certain abilities (multiple arms), but I think that can either be handled by by a "total transformation" process, or dropped.

Also, alternatively, you could couple the two ideas together and build a seperate template for each demon. A "Succubus Proxy" and a "Marilith Proxy".

Example: Diablo, from the Diablo series of games. The demon lords Diablo, Mephisto, and Baal each travel to the mortal world, are bound to objects called soulstones. The demons trick mortals into jabbing the stones into their body, establishing a powerful connection that slowly turns the creature into the demon. It seems relevant that the more powerful the subject is, the more powerful the demon seems to become. For example, one demon has the body of the most powerful monk of his time, another of the most powerful sorcerer (arguably ever) in the setting, and the third of a nameless warrior that fought his way through a massive dungeon and conquered the same demon that took his body later. Similarly, when diablo lived in a small childs body, he was powerful, but nothing like his full-blown form.

Taking the whole idea to its logical conclusion, you could get quite a bit of content out of it. You could include Celestial proxies, to mirror the demons. Then there would of course be various "typical" examples of NPCs that have the templates applied to various degrees.

 

[Evilhalfling]

Don't know if this helps but I created (never used) a pit fiend trapped in the body of an 8-yr old girl. Str 6, dx 12. I left most pit fiend powers, SR, DR, regen. Dropped the blasphemy to 1/day. This still left this creature a formidable foe. Cutting the con or AC too much made her a glass cannon, perhaps I haved both 169 hp, AC 25 (29 w/unholy aura)
Mass hold person dc 27, power word stun, quickened fireball, fear aura. Meteor swarm1/day
perhaps she had a dagger, but was more likely to loot helpless foes and teleport away. She was CR 13 if she wasn't willing to lay down destruction, perhaps cr 15 if she breaks out fire and meteors.

I thing you have to reconsider the CR, and tone down the abilities that fall too far outside the target. I think a vrock screeching, dancing and spewing spores is iconic enough, and blaphsemy croaking wart covered humans works as well. Mariths might hestitate to posess a mortal, without thier natural form all the have is blade barrier and TK.
Galbrazu have a larger bag of tricks - including true seeing, they might lose 2cr due to a toned down physical form.

Have you considered making summon Dretch power a summon monster effect? while keeping the larger summon for some sort of possession ceremony?
11-24 dretches showing up for <2 minutes would be a useful tactic, and since they are already on the list for summon monster ....

 

[Set]

Why not allow those who kill enough to mutate / transcend into larger types of demons?

For example, when an Babau kills its 20th mortal (and feasts on his soul energy), it gains the option to turn into a Vrock. When it has killed its thousandth mortal... it's Balor time.

Cheers, -- N

This could even be a more insidious process. The demon possessor can't just warp by main force the body of the host, it's got to manipulate the original owner of this body to commit acts that are more 'demonic.' (i.e. chaotic and evil acts)

The more the demon can twist the original owners soul into a reflection of it's own demonic soul, the more the demon can twist the host-body to reflect the body of the demon!

The demon has to use suggestion and manipulation to do this, it can't just 'take the wheel' and kill a bunch of people, although these sorts of tactics are great ways of 'breaking the spirit' of the host-body. In a situation where the host may not even know that he is possessed, the demon might 'sleepwalk' his body out and kill his family, then allow him to wake up covered in his loved one's blood, convinced that *he* did this somehow, and using similar techniques, some subtle, some gross, to try and debase the original host, giving itself free reign to similarly twist the host-body to suit it's own needs.

The demon might start out only able to manipulate the dreams of it's host, or perhaps cause mood swings like an Emotion spell. As it's hold increases, it might be able to Suggest courses of action to it's host, and as time progresses, it will be able to affect other people with these abilities, all without the host's conscious awareness (if it's being sneaky. Some might enjoy tormenting their host with the knowledge of the evil growing within them!), so that people that the host just dreamed about being unreliable start behaving unreliably! (The demon causes the host to dream about his wife cheating on him, as part of the plan to get the host to murder her, to break his spirit, and during the next day, the demon has Suggested to the wife that she spend a little extra time talking to that burly woodsman that's been dropping off the firewood for the winter, while Suggesting to the woodsman that it's 'okay' to put his hand on her in an inappropriate-looking way while they haggle over the price for a rick of wood.)

 

[Sollir Furryfoot]

Nifft -> That sounds like a pretty cool idea, though I'm not sure how to measure it mechanically. I mean, I'd imagine they'd first advance HD as per normal but they may be perhaps allowed to change. Each demon IMC is associated with a deadly sin (depending on the demon, though types of demons sometime lean a certain way) and special ones advance by possessing stronger hosts.

Creamsteak -> The Dark Proxy template is really helpful, as you said, it's not quite right for the "final" product of the humanoid but it does help fix one of my main problems. Initial possession would start out similar to the Dark Proxy-the victim only begins with a fraction of the demon's powers. After some arbitrary amount of time, perhaps when the proxy has inflicted enough vile deeds the demon is able to boost the proxy into something much more suitable (full physical scores, natural armor, etc... but not all the attack forms, they're still humanoid), this would allow me to avoid having to make templates for each particular demon.

A problem I foresee about using the template for rank and file demons would be the amount of spell-likes/abilities that demons have. It's already enough to keep track of on their own, much less adding in the host's powers, and then if you have multiple types of demons on the field! However, a major plot point is that there are several special demons in the world who do get stronger along with the host, they're aligned to a deadly sin and while most of them have at least moderately strong hosts to begin with, there's always at least one person who is a perfect host for a particular sin. (There's an unusual Incubus of Wrath who's preppin' the party's ranger, allowing him to become stronger until he becomes a stronger host, and a Glaberzu of Greed in the past who gained about as much power as a balor by melding with a psionic host) Stat-wise I just take about half of the victim's levels and add them on to the demon, adding in the elite array of stats along the way-so the Incubus in the example is also a Warrior 1/Duelist 5 (the original host might've been a Fighter 5/Duelist 5 or something).

Unlike demons though, it seems the quori were designed with possessing folks in mind (abilities like Inertial Armor help make the CR stick since the template itself doesn't grant much AC), which is one reason why they're such slick villains.

Evil Halfling -> Poor little girl, awesome BBEG though. PC's definitely know what's wrong when they try to subdue them, only to find out they have huge natural armor bonuses (even if it might not look like they do at first glance). Toning the CR down eventually seems like the right way to go, which actually fits well because the campaign world's top is level 12 for most NPCs (a few special ones levels 13 - 16 but they're far and few between). I haven't considered the dretch aspect and was thinking about taking away their summon ability entirely, though reserving it to allow them to further along more possessions is a *very* tempting prospect. Thanks for bringing the idea to the table!

Set -> That could definitely be a plot point later in my campaign, it sounds pretty nasty. I'm mainly concerned right now about statting the villains "right" so I don't have to retcon myself too much in the future.

 

[Sollir Furryfoot]

As a sort-of tangent, Teleporting effects are severely hosed in this campaign and I think I'm going to take away the random Summoning abilities that demons have (though I think I'll let them use it in order to help further possessions thanks to Evilhalfling's comments but it still won't be a combat ability). In exchange each demon of at least moderate power is associated with a deadly sin (dependent on the individual demon instead of the demon's breed) and produces an Aura around them that reflects their nature.

A Greed-oriented demon produces an aura that makes others have to make a Will save before using an expendable item or similar (such as a Wand or Potion of Cure Moderate Wounds), a Lust demon's opponents must make a Will save or take a penalty when grappling, Wrath demons opponents are allowed to enter a Rage effect for "free" but must attack the nearest target. The rules for this all are kind of nebulous at the moment, I just detail them as I make the demon but if anyone has dealt with someone like this before or just has any ideas, help would be appreciated. I'm thinking that stronger demon's auras might even be beneficial in some aspects, but nothing that would help you versus that particular demon. Maybe even different levels of auras depending on how strong that demon is?

 

[Nifft]

Nifft -> That sounds like a pretty cool idea, though I'm not sure how to measure it mechanically. I mean, I'd imagine they'd first advance HD as per normal but they may be perhaps allowed to change. Each demon IMC is associated with a deadly sin (depending on the demon, though types of demons sometime lean a certain way) and special ones advance by possessing stronger hosts.

Write up a 20 level class based on each sin. There's your demons -- mechanically, "possession" becomes just a bunch of (possibly non-associated) class levels stacked on top of the base critter. This adds HP, saves, special abilities, etc., and it works on monsters and humanoid NPCs alike.

Since the "possession" levels stack on top of the victim's previous state, you preserve the idea that more powerful hosts -> more powerful demon.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Sollir Furryfoot]

That sounds like a neat idea, maybe I can come up with more of a 5/10 level prestige class (statting out 20-level classes sounds too scary for me since I'm always determined to make my stuff balanced). I'm still struggling for ideas with regard to sins like Gluttony and Sloth though, even if you consider the former to be wasting things of all sorts I'm not sure what kind of combat benefits that could have without getting too rules-clunky.

P.S. Don't forget to post that chanegeling NIfft!

 

[Nifft]

Gluttony: drains stuff. Item charges, spell-slots, ability scores, whatever.

Sloth: slows and fatigues / exhausts. Plenty of spell-like abilities in that theme.

Cheers, -- N

PS: Am looking over changeling; will post when done!