Hi there, I'm a fairly new DM, and I am running Baldur's Gate, Descent into Avernus for a group of 7 players. I was discussing the game with one of my players, and when I explained that you can make deals with Devils, he got very excited at the prospect. I told him that the more advantageous the contract for him, the cost would be more disastrous as well. He asked for an example and I explained that his soul would be the ultimate deal.
He basically shrugged and said, "Oh well, im not using it."
What would be a mechanical way to make selling your soul, or other such costs of a fiendish contract more potent, so that all my players don't just sign over their soul for the benefit, and then not worry about the results after the campaign is over?
Well my two cents would be that you could approach this a few different ways. Seemingly the risk for a PC selling their should on a contract would be the eventual collection of that soul leading to the potential of that character being 'claimed' by the devil during the campaign-where unless broken by the characters he would become an NPC or a villain essentially.
You could have him have to make wisdom saving throws or some such at crucial moments to determine if he loses control for a bit or that the devil speaks through him. You could have radiant based healing magic injure him or some other more minor, flavor based consequences.
My personal opinion were I to do something like this would be a situation like a situation where the player makes a contact with a devil and the devil grants them their wish in a way they were not expecting. Plenty of content and lore out there in mythology and stuff around being careful what you wish for.
Now admittedly I have not read the Descent into Avernus content but I hope some of this helps!
At low levels, the deal the character makes seems beneficial to the player, because they have little to lose.
As the character levels up, and the player becomes more invested, now you have something hanging over them, something they may want to consider breaking -- and will have to learn how to, or make another/different deal (perhaps with another infernal faction and get involved in politics).
So now they have a sword of Damocles hanging over them.
To prevent others from jumping into deals, you could start having prospective devils/infernal beings begin to offer, then look at the one character, and say "no, we want no part of this". It doesn't have to really mean anything but helps ratchet up tension.
my $.02 hope it helped some.
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"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"
Well, it turns out they WERE using it. They just didn't notice it humming away in there.
Automatic alignment change to Lawful Evil because their soul doesn't belong to them anymore. If you use bonds, flaws and ideals, assign them new ones to reflect their new management. Obvious consequences for clerics, paladins, divine soul sorcerers, non-fiend warlocks. I've personally ruled that non-fiend warlocks can't even make deals with devils; their souls are spoken for and no longer theirs to sell. But even if they can, they can't do it without totally rejecting their patron.
While they're in Avernus, show them over and over that the souls trapped in the soul coins who are burned alive as fuel and then obliterated for all eternity are the lucky ones. Row on row on row of lemures are fed into a meat grinder of demons for the amusement of devils and that's going to be them.
Some of it, you might have to see what use they make of their newly contracted powers before you can find a really Faustian way to screw them over.
I don't really know, but i'm just gonna say words and maybe it'll help you think of something.
Perhaps the devil could possess them occasionally and they are no longer in control of their own actions, the devil uses them to perform certain tasks and they wake up covered in blood having unknowingly killed a bunch of young jedi in training, yeah star wars.
You can have a contract with varying levels. So if you invoke the first level you get certain benefits and certain disadvantages. Invoke the second level, third level the benefits and disadvantages increase in severity, etc.
Perhaps the Devil the character signed a contract with has rivals or enemies, and now the character finds them self in a tough spot because of this. What specifically, i'm not sure exactly...but is all the trouble the contract is causing really worth it? who knows...
Remember, they're also under the effect of Geas spell until the contract is fulfilled, that means the Devil doesn't have to hold up their end of the bargain until they are satisfied, and if they break the contract, bad things happen.
What would be a mechanical way to make selling your soul, or other such costs of a fiendish contract more potent, so that all my players don't just sign over their soul for the benefit, and then not worry about the results after the campaign is over?
I notice this a lot in various posts. Please do not interfere. It is NOT your character, so don't play that character or try to change it!
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Cedo nulli, Calcanda semel via leti. Parvi sed magni.
On one level, this sounds like a player that hasn't bought into the basic premise of the campaign that 'Hell is Bad' and that selling a soul is a bad thing. This is what makes this difficult to handle as a DM. So while I would say that making an example of the player is possible, it isn't real fun and it will likely cause friction. But it seems you might already have that.
Mechanically...well, once you get to Avernus, you might as well take his soul. All the devils focus on him in combat as he marked. If he got a great boon; that's wonderful, then find a bigger devil to attack the player. Have the devils, lure a pack of demons on the party. The Devils hire yugoloths, etc. The other potential allies don't trust him, and don't want to help. It might not happen day 1 of arriving...but perhaps later on.
Other gotchas might in the contract. Perhaps the boon and the deal only works on the prime material plane; so he has to leave to take advantage of it (should have read the fine print). Perhaps his experience now goes to the Devil; so his peers level up, and he doesn't. Perhaps he can't heal any damage via magic, and just keep wearing on him.
But no matter what method you choose, again he should have a real bad feeling that he is missing something when reading the contract itself. Or, let him make a knowledge check and let him see the flaw for what it is; all deals with Baatorians are bad deals.
But you are the DM. Ultimately the Baatorians could just say 'nah...you aren't worth my time. I'll just dump you in the Styx instead.' You are under no obligation to offer one, or even offer a good one at all.
I must say this sounds a lot like a player that doesn't care too much about roleplaying, since most often the reluctancy starts there. Also other players in the group probably would interfere if/when they get to know. Selling your soul to the devil in that campaign, IS good enough reason for any good aligned character to kill him (unless you have a evil party). That should probably be pointed out to the player.
Remember that as soon as you've sold your soul to the devil, you really should take care to prove yourself more useful to the devil alive than dead.
Thank you all for your input. Gave me some ideas on how to handle this when it comes up. My group is not very role-play heavy, as most of them are first time players. They give it their best shot but they haven't quite gotten the hang of making decisions that don't result in gaining items, gold, mechanical decision, or just a funny moment. Im not opposed to allowing them to make deals that let them get cool boons, but I want them to have to trade something of value in game to gain it.
No problem. If you want to put some more focus on role playing, this could be an opportunity (although that's completely up to you). Have a talk with the player and explain him that if he dies, he will suffer. Doesn't his character care about that. A little more subtle way of showing it, would be to have someone the care about die, and let them somehow experience how their soul is being dragged into Avernus to serve som horrible master. Since essentially all the people of Elturel is sold to the devils, just make your pick there.
And sorry for not having some more hands on advice, we play quite roleplaying heavy, and if one of my players sold his sold to a devil, I would'nt start to look in the system, but rather just use my imagination to make things really bad for the character in the long run. Remember - devils are the masters of contracts. Unless your character has a sky-high INT and some skills to back it up, he won't be on the good side of that contract.
Perhaps the character loses their soul and begins to develop any particular qualities of the undead. Perhaps they have voices, howling, screams in their head and disadvantage of checks like perception. Perhaps they have limitations when acting in ways that might reduce anyone's pain, they can't administer healing or do anything to help or assist anyone else. Perhaps when they try anything noble they need to save against hold person. Perhaps they don't have saving throws when opposing a devil.
The sale of the soul should be the last of a series of steps, so, maybe for a simple thing the Devil requests a simple (to the devil) thing in exchange, killing a rival, stealing an item etc.
Next level the Devil requests that the player gather a soul for it, so get me x many souls and I will give you this.
next level is the players soul itself, but, remember once the Devil has access to it's soul once it dies, the Devil will want to speed that process up. So the player may say, what does it matter if the Devil gets my sould when I die, and then next session realise that means the Devil will do all it can to make that happen far far sooner then it should.
Personally I'd run it that the soul is the conduit that joins the player to the character. A character with no soul is no longer a PC, but an NPC that may be aligned with the devil or may just aimlessly drift around until they fade away. Character loses their soul => you lose the character.
One consequence of selling a soul could be a risk of going mad. The devil has no reason for wanting the character to preserve their sanity as that might help them avoid the contract's consequences.
Mechanically speaking, you could have a character who's soul has been bargained to a Devil have no Wisdom anymore, meaning it would fail any Wisdom check and saving throws. Or have disadvantage to them.
Hi there, I'm a fairly new DM, and I am running Baldur's Gate, Descent into Avernus for a group of 7 players. I was discussing the game with one of my players, and when I explained that you can make deals with Devils, he got very excited at the prospect. I told him that the more advantageous the contract for him, the cost would be more disastrous as well. He asked for an example and I explained that his soul would be the ultimate deal.
He basically shrugged and said, "Oh well, im not using it."
What would be a mechanical way to make selling your soul, or other such costs of a fiendish contract more potent, so that all my players don't just sign over their soul for the benefit, and then not worry about the results after the campaign is over?
Well my two cents would be that you could approach this a few different ways. Seemingly the risk for a PC selling their should on a contract would be the eventual collection of that soul leading to the potential of that character being 'claimed' by the devil during the campaign-where unless broken by the characters he would become an NPC or a villain essentially.
You could have him have to make wisdom saving throws or some such at crucial moments to determine if he loses control for a bit or that the devil speaks through him. You could have radiant based healing magic injure him or some other more minor, flavor based consequences.
My personal opinion were I to do something like this would be a situation like a situation where the player makes a contact with a devil and the devil grants them their wish in a way they were not expecting. Plenty of content and lore out there in mythology and stuff around being careful what you wish for.
Now admittedly I have not read the Descent into Avernus content but I hope some of this helps!
At low levels, the deal the character makes seems beneficial to the player, because they have little to lose.
As the character levels up, and the player becomes more invested, now you have something hanging over them, something they may want to consider breaking -- and will have to learn how to, or make another/different deal (perhaps with another infernal faction and get involved in politics).
So now they have a sword of Damocles hanging over them.
To prevent others from jumping into deals, you could start having prospective devils/infernal beings begin to offer, then look at the one character, and say "no, we want no part of this". It doesn't have to really mean anything but helps ratchet up tension.
my $.02 hope it helped some.
"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"
Well, it turns out they WERE using it. They just didn't notice it humming away in there.
Automatic alignment change to Lawful Evil because their soul doesn't belong to them anymore. If you use bonds, flaws and ideals, assign them new ones to reflect their new management. Obvious consequences for clerics, paladins, divine soul sorcerers, non-fiend warlocks. I've personally ruled that non-fiend warlocks can't even make deals with devils; their souls are spoken for and no longer theirs to sell. But even if they can, they can't do it without totally rejecting their patron.
While they're in Avernus, show them over and over that the souls trapped in the soul coins who are burned alive as fuel and then obliterated for all eternity are the lucky ones. Row on row on row of lemures are fed into a meat grinder of demons for the amusement of devils and that's going to be them.
Some of it, you might have to see what use they make of their newly contracted powers before you can find a really Faustian way to screw them over.
I don't really know, but i'm just gonna say words and maybe it'll help you think of something.
Perhaps the devil could possess them occasionally and they are no longer in control of their own actions, the devil uses them to perform certain tasks and they wake up covered in blood having unknowingly killed a bunch of young jedi in training, yeah star wars.
You can have a contract with varying levels. So if you invoke the first level you get certain benefits and certain disadvantages. Invoke the second level, third level the benefits and disadvantages increase in severity, etc.
Perhaps the Devil the character signed a contract with has rivals or enemies, and now the character finds them self in a tough spot because of this. What specifically, i'm not sure exactly...but is all the trouble the contract is causing really worth it? who knows...
Remember, they're also under the effect of Geas spell until the contract is fulfilled, that means the Devil doesn't have to hold up their end of the bargain until they are satisfied, and if they break the contract, bad things happen.
Take away elements of free will and the player will start wanting their character's soul back real fast.
The character tries to do something against the Devil's demand - now they have disadvantage.
They level up and want to do one thing? Ah, well, the devil has plans for them to take a different path.
The character finds a cool magical item? Ah, well the devil wants it, so go ahead and toss that bad boy in the fire.
I notice this a lot in various posts. Please do not interfere. It is NOT your character, so don't play that character or try to change it!
Cedo nulli, Calcanda semel via leti.
Parvi sed magni.
On one level, this sounds like a player that hasn't bought into the basic premise of the campaign that 'Hell is Bad' and that selling a soul is a bad thing. This is what makes this difficult to handle as a DM. So while I would say that making an example of the player is possible, it isn't real fun and it will likely cause friction. But it seems you might already have that.
Mechanically...well, once you get to Avernus, you might as well take his soul. All the devils focus on him in combat as he marked. If he got a great boon; that's wonderful, then find a bigger devil to attack the player. Have the devils, lure a pack of demons on the party. The Devils hire yugoloths, etc. The other potential allies don't trust him, and don't want to help. It might not happen day 1 of arriving...but perhaps later on.
Other gotchas might in the contract. Perhaps the boon and the deal only works on the prime material plane; so he has to leave to take advantage of it (should have read the fine print). Perhaps his experience now goes to the Devil; so his peers level up, and he doesn't. Perhaps he can't heal any damage via magic, and just keep wearing on him.
But no matter what method you choose, again he should have a real bad feeling that he is missing something when reading the contract itself. Or, let him make a knowledge check and let him see the flaw for what it is; all deals with Baatorians are bad deals.
But you are the DM. Ultimately the Baatorians could just say 'nah...you aren't worth my time. I'll just dump you in the Styx instead.' You are under no obligation to offer one, or even offer a good one at all.
I must say this sounds a lot like a player that doesn't care too much about roleplaying, since most often the reluctancy starts there. Also other players in the group probably would interfere if/when they get to know. Selling your soul to the devil in that campaign, IS good enough reason for any good aligned character to kill him (unless you have a evil party). That should probably be pointed out to the player.
Remember that as soon as you've sold your soul to the devil, you really should take care to prove yourself more useful to the devil alive than dead.
Ludo ergo sum!
Thank you all for your input. Gave me some ideas on how to handle this when it comes up. My group is not very role-play heavy, as most of them are first time players. They give it their best shot but they haven't quite gotten the hang of making decisions that don't result in gaining items, gold, mechanical decision, or just a funny moment. Im not opposed to allowing them to make deals that let them get cool boons, but I want them to have to trade something of value in game to gain it.
No problem. If you want to put some more focus on role playing, this could be an opportunity (although that's completely up to you). Have a talk with the player and explain him that if he dies, he will suffer. Doesn't his character care about that. A little more subtle way of showing it, would be to have someone the care about die, and let them somehow experience how their soul is being dragged into Avernus to serve som horrible master. Since essentially all the people of Elturel is sold to the devils, just make your pick there.
And sorry for not having some more hands on advice, we play quite roleplaying heavy, and if one of my players sold his sold to a devil, I would'nt start to look in the system, but rather just use my imagination to make things really bad for the character in the long run. Remember - devils are the masters of contracts. Unless your character has a sky-high INT and some skills to back it up, he won't be on the good side of that contract.
Ludo ergo sum!
No mortal character ever winds up on the right side of a contract with Devils.
Perhaps the character loses their soul and begins to develop any particular qualities of the undead.
Perhaps they have voices, howling, screams in their head and disadvantage of checks like perception.
Perhaps they have limitations when acting in ways that might reduce anyone's pain, they can't administer healing or do anything to help or assist anyone else.
Perhaps when they try anything noble they need to save against hold person.
Perhaps they don't have saving throws when opposing a devil.
The sale of the soul should be the last of a series of steps, so, maybe for a simple thing the Devil requests a simple (to the devil) thing in exchange, killing a rival, stealing an item etc.
Next level the Devil requests that the player gather a soul for it, so get me x many souls and I will give you this.
next level is the players soul itself, but, remember once the Devil has access to it's soul once it dies, the Devil will want to speed that process up. So the player may say, what does it matter if the Devil gets my sould when I die, and then next session realise that means the Devil will do all it can to make that happen far far sooner then it should.
Personally I'd run it that the soul is the conduit that joins the player to the character. A character with no soul is no longer a PC, but an NPC that may be aligned with the devil or may just aimlessly drift around until they fade away. Character loses their soul => you lose the character.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
One consequence of selling a soul could be a risk of going mad. The devil has no reason for wanting the character to preserve their sanity as that might help them avoid the contract's consequences.
I have a simerlar issue my charatar made a deal with a devil. What should i do???????????????????
Spider acolyte
cultist
“keep your enemies close and you gnomes even closer”- definitely, 100 percent, not gnomeish78
Mechanically speaking, you could have a character who's soul has been bargained to a Devil have no Wisdom anymore, meaning it would fail any Wisdom check and saving throws. Or have disadvantage to them.
"Oh well, im not using it" ? This player must not know what a soul is. Only dead people have no soul.