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.
No.
you dead.
Xanathars says that a party of 6 level 10s would have a CR14 as a boss, 15-6 at most.
4 level 17s, 5 level 16s or 6 level 15s should be able to win this boss fight
About 2 levels below that you’ve got a tough boss you could still beat.
A lv10 parties only hope of survival is either running, or abusing its lack of legendary resistance.
to paralyse it so you can run away.
I true polymorphed into this :)
That bite is brutal, that plus a hold monster? Hells no, I'd rather face a dancing blade IRL instead....
The fact that it has no legendary actions or legendary resistance is kind of bizarre for its CR rating.
Legendary comment
I think that Pit Fiends not being legendary is a good thing. Sure it means that it's not acting outside it's turn, but it also means that a 20th-spellcaster isn't losing anything by casting shapechange except for detect magic, hold person, and wall of fire which require concentration.
Someone said that a basic Pit Fiend would be a Duke, which doesn’t really match up with my own memory. Any one of them was powerful in their own right but there were superiors to every Devil. The Pit Fiends themselves had officers, and that line went up to the Dark Ministers, the 8 Generals in absolute charge of the Blood War. Outside of the war were the actual nobility of Hell, more detached from the war effort and intent on their own success and serving their masters: the Barons, Viscounts, Earls and Counts, and Marquesses. Above them were the 9 Dukes for each layer of shell, each one representing one facet of that Lord of Nine’s authority in Hell (War in Avernus might have the perfect Field Marshal, the Weapon Manufacturer, etc.). And above the Dukes sat the Lords of the Nine, Archdevils that answered only to THE Lord of the Nine, Asmodeus.
This is definitely not what I wanted to read while my 10th level party is fighting one.😂
Did you make it out alive?
Yes, but based on this stat block the DM definitely nerfed it for us. Didn't seem to have fear aura or magic resistance.
Party of 6, Evocation Wizard, Homebrew Sorceress, Celestial Warlock, Twilight Cleric, Barbarian (think he might be a homebrew as well?), and a Battle Master Fighter. So losing the magic resistance was an obvious game changer for us.
In 5e's messed up CR system each CR is supposed to be a good challenge for a party of that level (like CR 5 is supposed to be a decent fight for a level 5 party of 4), this is CR 21, while yes there are ways to whoop any monsters ass at a lower level than its CR there are still some limits, basically, nope
In this case as well as many others, an argument can be made, that the statblock presented here is the base, the foundation of an NPC character for the DM to create.
You can always just use the standard statblock of course, but nothing stops you, the DM from running away with a creature and adding features to it to your heart's content.
Legendary resistances and actions are there to create appropriate boss fights for the characters, since one counters instant-kill abilities and the other is to balance action-economy in favor of the monster.
On the other hand pit fiends can be used as ultimate monsters within an invading force of devils or guards to an archdevil, etc. in which case having legendary options would burden the encounter a bit too much, as the archdevil would already have those.
I'm currently preparing an encounter with a Stone Giant Dreamwalker that I've modified to have like 7 different lair actions (phases) all with their own legendary actions.
I'm definitely having 3 of these bound to a pact working as Head Smiths in a dwarfen kingdom. Smith fiends you could say :)
Oh and because they are literally smithing, smelting and crafting since like 400 years, they all have bad a$$ magical armour, a 2 handed infernal smithing hammer and a personalized tail spike. Nice, AC of 22 and immune to crits. Big Hammer means +16 to hit as well as 2d12 +10 base +6d8 fire damage attacks. The Tailspike makes it +16 to hit and 3d10 +10 and 4d6 fire damage.
I have a hunch that a bunch of Dwarfen Miners are Fiend Warlocks but I cannot say why. This clearly elevates them to Legendary monsters. Let me put on 3 legendary actions and resistances to the stat block. They had to learn eldritch blast by watching all these warlocks. Now they can as an action or 2 legendary actions cast Patronic Eldritch Blast with 4 blasts each doing 2d10 +7.
This should be enough of a in universe deterrent for everything below like CR 35 to attack that place without an army xD
Name suggestions for my Smith Fiends?