D&D 5E Which of the Demon Lords put up a good fight?

[Eltab]

Which (if any) of the published Demon Lords have you used in your game?
Which ones made for a memorable experience? Were any of them especially tough, or easily overcome?
What would you change about them / their stats if you were to use them again?

If you used the 'battle royale' option in OotA, how did it come out?

Current sources: Out of the Abyss, Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, Baldur's Gate: Descent Into Avernus

 

[DWChancellor]

I've run Orcus. He runs reasonably well out of the box as long as he has his lair actions and his wand.

I amped up his hitpoints quite a bit though. You do need to adjust that for the output of your party if they've gotten lucky on equipment, etc. It is more important to stress the party in these kinds of fights than run it "by the book."

 

[aco175]

Any can be a fight if they have their minions around them. Kind of like a king would never travel without his knights, and personal bodyguard. He would have his casters and assassins around as well to hamper or scry and such. A demon lord that has fought off hundreds of attempts on his life should have a few plans up his sleeve.

 

[DWChancellor]

Any can be a fight if they have their minions around them. Kind of like a king would never travel without his knights, and personal bodyguard. He would have his casters and assassins around as well to hamper or scry and such. A demon lord that has fought off hundreds of attempts on his life should have a few plans up his sleeve.

Yes -- Orcus makes his own minions during the fight. It worked like a charm.

 

[Draegn]

Pazuzu was not friendly when he sicced demonic harpies upon the party that excreted toxic bodily waste on the paladins's armors. Not only did it stink and cause nausea it also worked like a rust monster's attack and dissolved the holy plates, turning them into so much slag.

 

[Arnwolf666]

I used Grazzt as written in ad&d monster manual 2. He was a very effective 2 weapon fighting the party with 4 attacks and his special abilities

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

When I ran Out of the Abyss, Demogorgon was a long, tough fight. But Zuggtmoy prior ended up being a fight where he party nearly went down. Where I could see the players' faces start to show fear and anxiety.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Ran OotA

They ran into Graz'zt about halfway though, with some good rolling on sneak attacks and Paladin crits they had him down to < 100 HP when they had to flee. They were 6-7th level and would have died but I was shocked at how hard they were hammering him.

They ran into Yeenoghu later on, around 9th level, and they were smoked. I rolled very well and they didn't makes some saves and 5 out of 6 party members were slain. The party rolled horribly and it was a debacle.

The fight with Demogorgon. I had Demo with max HP rather than average, something I did with all the demon lords. The party was 10-11th level. I think it took 3 rounds and it was a slaughter. Demogorgon went down hard. Paladin smite crits and great rolls by the rogue tore though his HP and they made their saves. Was a very anti-climactic fight as the prince of demons was far less threatening than the Beholder they had to fight not too long before.

Crits on attacks with a lot of bonus dice are brutal and make the fights crazy "swingy" IMO.

 

[MonkeezOnFire]

I ran Demogorgon against my party as written. Because two players were leaving overseas for school/work and I wanted to give the campaign some conclusion we had a time skip where the characters went to level 11 (from 7 I believe) and I gave each PC a tailored, powerful magic item. We had also originally generated the characters using 4d6 drop lowest and most characters were above what a standard point buy could get you. Feats and multiclassing was allowed. Pretty much any character option from official sources was allowed.

So Demogorgon alone vs 6 well equipped, level 11 PCs plus their followers (two 5th level fighters and a couatl summoned via the cleric's magic item). They defeated him but there were moments when it was scary. I did also play him rather dumb, spreading out attacks instead of focusing characters down. Mostly because I wanted to get through the epilogues in the same session after the fight, but I am also a bit of a softy DM.

Some notes:
-Because of the huge discrepancy of CR basically every attack from Demogorgon hit. It was rare for any of the PCs to make any of the saves.
-A round of tentacle attacks could easily bring a PC from full less than half, often near death.
-Opening with Feeblemind on the cleric genuinely terrified some of the players. Just not the player of the cleric as they knew their couatl summon could reverse it via greater restoration.

Overall I was satisfied with how the encounter played out. There was tension and fear but the way I played it nobody died and everyone got their own nice conclusion to the campaign. So overall I'd say bounded accuracy works pretty well if a party of lvl 11 PCs can take out a CR 26 creature with favourable conditions.

 

[Greenstone.Walker]

We ran a demon melee, with each of us players given one of the demon lords.

Orcus was by far the most trouble. He summoned a number of death knights which (at CR 17) killed two of the other demon lords (Baphomet and, I think, Yenoghu) without Orcus taking a single point of damage.

Demogorgon and Orcus then had a scrap, with a bit of damage supplied by Grazz't. Demogorgon won, but not by much, so when the PCs arrived they finished him off.

I –ing hate death knights.