Fear Aura. Any creature hostile to the pit fiend that starts its turn within 20 feet of the pit fiend must make a DC 21 Wisdom saving throw, unless the pit fiend is incapacitated. On a failed save, the creature is frightened until the start of its next turn. If a creature's saving throw is successful, the creature is immune to the pit fiend's Fear Aura for the next 24 hours.
Magic Resistance. The pit fiend has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.
Magic Weapons. The pit fiend's weapon attacks are magical.
Innate Spellcasting. The pit fiend's spellcasting ability is Charisma (spell save DC 21). The pit fiend can innately cast the following spells, requiring no material components:
At will: detect magic, fireball
3/day each: hold monster, wall of fire
Multiattack. The pit fiend makes four attacks: one with its bite, one with its claw, one with its mace, and one with its tail.
Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +14 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 22 (4d6 + 8) piercing damage. The target must succeed on a DC 21 Constitution saving throw or become poisoned. While poisoned in this way, the target can't regain hit points, and it takes 21 (6d6) poison damage at the start of each of its turns. The poisoned target can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success.
Claw. Melee Weapon Attack: +14 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 17 (2d8 + 8) slashing damage.
Mace. Melee Weapon Attack: +14 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 15 (2d6 + 8) bludgeoning damage plus 21 (6d6) fire damage.
Tail. Melee Weapon Attack: +14 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 24 (3d10 + 8) bludgeoning damage.
How much does "holy water" have an effect on this and a Balor?
^This is from the description for a flask of holy water.
Both are fiends so as long you hit them with the holy water, they'd take 2d6 radiant damage. I'd imagine the damage would raise depending on how much holy water they're hit with. Would be cool to see a Balor or a Pit Fiend dropped into a pool of the stuff.
I know this sounds crazy, but I'm afraid of monsters.
This is pretty good! Here are a few of my immediate thoughts. Feel free to to disregard them:
To me, a Tail attack is almost the quintessential Legendary Action. Because it is an extra appendage that acts independently from the rest of the body, whipping around and such, I think it makes for a very flavorful type of action to occur on someone else's turn. The drawback in this case is that it does significantly less damage than the Mace, and we obviously can't replace it for the Bite (because the bite kicks ass), but we do want to make them prone, so why not add a DC 24 STR save (proficiency + strength bonus) to the tail attack? This is way cooler than simply being slugged with another weapon attack, and a saving throw is almost always better than an attack anyway, so I'd put it in place of the mace.
Another idea, which comes from the statblock, is to replace Charge (which I actually like, movement is always good) with a Fly. The dude has huge-ass wings, why not use them? Instead of knocking them prone with the Charge, how about giving all PCs within 10 feet a DC 24 STR save to avoid being knocked prone and pushed back (a la Gust of Wind) as it beats its mighty wings? Then it can fly 20 feet in whatever direction it chooses. Perhaps some light bludgeoning damage might be in order, too.
Lastly, the flavor text of the Pit Fiend describes it as a "general of the Nine Hells, leading its infernal legions into battle." Leaning into this, we can also draw from text elsewhere in the Monster Manual (page 67, I believe), which states that lesser demons can be "promoted" into more powerful forms by a demon of superior rank (although they are often careful about giving away too much power, lest they be overthrown). Given that this guy is probably the head honcho wherever he is, and most likely won't be fighting alone, I would give him this special action. To ensure that he gets to use it, add a Lair Action at the top of each round, wherein a handful of imps swoop in to join the fray. The party members, at this level, probably will not take them as a serious threat...until this happens:
Promote (3 Actions). The pit fiend targets up to 2 lesser demons that it can see within range. Each of those creatures then becomes a new fiend of the DM's choosing (as if it were the target of a True Polymorph) whose CR rating is equal to or lesser than 12.
if you are knocking someone prone then they should have to roll a strength save against some dc you come up with
I found mine in the middle of my Peach Fiend
I have a half pit fiend half drow character. It's pretty cool
you what ?
this changes make it a CR 21+ monster honestly
There are far better options for shapechange than this, with very limited innate spellcasting and abilities. It's moderately tanky and does OK damage, but that's about it. Meanwhile, Ancient White Dragons aren't really any better, with 10 INT/10 DEX, and poor WIS/CHA.
All good reccomendations! I was really aiming to keep it simple for the most part, providing some movement, some melee damage and then some more costly options if they wanted to burn through more legendary actions for a bigger impact at a cost to their choces across the round. If you wanted to go for something a little different, then by all means you could, these options work well enough for me however.
My only other notes are a) Charge is inclusive of their flying speed, I didn't specify which type of movement to allow the option, and b) instead of promote, which could be a bit cumbersome in battle, why not go for a command ability where they can command all other fiends/devils within 60ft. to make one attack as a reaction?
Thanks for the feedback, enjoyed the back and forth 👌
For sure yeah, I increase the CR reward if I use these changes, probably should have said that 😊
i met somebody in a d&d game who had married a pit fiend it was amazing
Nice one.
Oh by the way watch your gold around me.
The wording in its Fear Aura trait implies that a creature choosing to not fight the Pit Fiend is immune to the trait, because it states "Any hostile creature" which would mean you could simply not be hostile to it and sneak around it or whatever.
My level thirteenth party is about to die to one of these if I don't come up with a better strategy quick
Is a Level 10 Party High enough for the pit fiend.
What are some of your go to shapechanges?
Depends on your needs. “Best” is subjective. I prefer my players put some thought into what forms their characters would actually take on thematically rather than meta gaming and only looking at it as a stat block.
Arcane artillery: ranged spell attack, +13 to hit, range 150/600ft, 1 target, hit: 22 (4d10) force damage.
do you reckon that being able to use this 4 times as a multiattack is good?
it does less damage then everything but claw, and it’s not able to replace attacks.
overall, a good ranged option for my robo-devil