Hellfire weapons from decent into Avernus make it so when a humanoid dies they get transported into the nine hells as a lemure. However i though that only souls that make deals can be damned? is there something im missing? 

My personal take on it is that any soul you kill with this weapon gets sent no matter the status of its soul.

Maybe those souls get sent there to be "processed..." perhaps you haven't made a deal - yet - that causes your soul to be damned.

I interpreted it much the same way as gamesii. Those struck down by hellfire weapons share the same fate as evil-aligned characters or those who either knowingly or unknowingly consign their souls. 

Hellfire weapons simply funnel the soul to the Styx, because that is the nature of the enchantment. If the person died naturally, only those evil would be sent to the Styx.

It's a horrible lore addition and basically blows up the background unless additional caveats are added to the weapon. Why bother making any deals if you can just fast tract people straight to hell? No bargains with hags or additional work required. Hell, you can just empty the material plane with these or set up farms where you kill baby kobolds as fast as they can reproduce. They destroy Asmodeus defence under the law and break the pact primeval. 

I'd say the weapons can't be used outside of the nine hells upon pain of eternal torture (or better yet, they don't exist). 

Well, here is a potential homebrew solution.

Neutralista says "the hellfire weapons funnel the soul to the Styx." Ok, and we generally agree that this is not the normal way it happens, and other divine powers in the universe would probably be unamused by this, as it is basically like steeling souls from their proper place/deity.

So, why not say that souls funneled this way are not bound to Baator in the traditional sense, meaning through some homebrew means the soul has the chance to escape Baator. Maybe they first need divine intervention, or perhaps PC's can somehow make this possible for one or more souls trapped this way. It is kinda up to the DM to decide what all is needed for this to happen, but how fun would it be to play a PC in an adventure where they are trapped in Baator and with a little help from their friends are trying to escape. Alternatively, in order to avoid having the party playing out different scenarios, they could all be escaping together, or they could all be trying to free one or more NPCs.

I think it was God of War II that started out with Kratos escaping from Hell. I have always thought this would be a fun scenario in D&D ever since.

Thanks,

Quote from Baaltharus >>

It's a horrible lore addition and basically blows up the background unless additional caveats are added to the weapon. Why bother making any deals if you can just fast tract people straight to hell? No bargains with hags or additional work required. Hell, you can just empty the material plane with these or set up farms where you kill baby kobolds as fast as they can reproduce. They destroy Asmodeus defence under the law and break the pact primeval. 

I'd say the weapons can't be used outside of the nine hells upon pain of eternal torture (or better yet, they don't exist). 

I mean, I certainly wouldn't want to make them widespread, but it's an interesting way to up the stakes a bit, particularly for a party that's hit the point where Raise Dead is an easy answer to a player death. Lore in D&D is fluid in any case, and sacrificing a being's soul in such a way that it goes to a specified patron rather than following the usual procedures is a common bit as well. There's plenty of ways for a DM to regulate how these crop up in their campaign, assuming they even allow it in the first place, so I'm not sure what all the furor is about.