HMM: A different NPC (minor spoilers)

[Silent Ranger]

My PC's traveled to Skull's crossing and met Avaxial the Pit Fiend. After hearing his plea for freedom they were intrigued. Avaxial explained the process of how the dams drained his body to open the gates and release the water.
Here is where my PC's caught me off guard. The asked Avaxial to serve them for one year, in exchange they would free him and cast a restoration spell once a week to restore his lost hit dice.
One year of servitude to the PCs is a drop in the bucket for a Pit Fiend who was imprisoned for 10,000 year plus the restorations to help him recover his lost hit dice is a nice bonus as well. I don't see why Avaxial wouldn't jump at the opportunity for freedom.
I kinda like the possibility of having a LE npc Pit Fiend working (sorta) with the PCs and at the same time running his own agenda.
One problem I can see is the pc have taken up the running of Fort Rannick having a Pit Fiend walking around will certainly mar their reputations.
If Avaxial becomes a problem I can always have the campaign pause for a short time as the PCs run the fort until his year of servitude is up.
I'd like to play him as a surly employee who will do what is asked but nothing extra. Maybe I can play him to be so annoying or troublesome that they will release him from his contract before the end of the year. Some examples I've come up with is if asked to cast a fireball to catch some of the pc in the blast as well or in combat have him stand around doing nothing unless commanded to attack.
I'm looking for help as to possible problems and ideas for playing a surly Pit Fiend.

[wspatterson]

Well, you could have him fulfill the word but not the spirit of every order they give him. Unless extremely carefully worded, everything he does is designed to screw the party.
Let us not forget the true danger of having a devil in your midst: temptation. Come up with ways to tempt the party down the path to lawful evil & damnation.

[wraithstrike]

wspatterson wrote:

Well, you could have him fulfill the word but not the spirit of every order they give him. Unless extremely carefully worded, everything he does is designed to screw the party.

Let us not forget the true danger of having a devil in your midst: temptation. Come up with ways to tempt the party down the path to lawful evil & damnation.

That is what I was thinking also. Even though he is technically serving them, evil outsiders are not to be trusted, so he should be trying to get their souls or at least get them far enough on the path of temptation that their souls don't go to their version of heaven. The key is to not make it obvious.

I am sure they will get into trouble at some point, and unless they specifically define the word "serve" he could be trying to bargain with them for every little favor. You could also have the Pit Fiend find another caster willing to do the restoration so the PC's don't have as much weight on him, but that should be a secret until later on. Even with the other caster he is still bound to the agreement with the PC's. Just make sure the agreement is in his favor.

[tbug]

Don't forget that he's going to need to catch up with a lot of old friends and acquaintances. Just imagine the PCs walking in on him hosting a tea party. :D

[Grilm]

I think I would have him lie to the party by saying he will serve them. Then when he's released, he immediately teleports back to hell. Or will that not work?

[Oserath]

Don't forget that as a pit fiend, he has access to the Wish spell once per year. He could remove all his negative levels or any number of other things.

[Mudfoot]

He can serve them, while still betraying them to anyone else. And apart from the fat penalty on all his DCs, his SLAs are essentially unaffected. He can summon any devil up to CR19 1/day, greater teleport at will, scry, power word stun, etc. And he's very very smart. And very very nasty. And doesn't feel that he should be beholden to any mortal.

I think your PCs did a stupid.

[Kalshane]

Grilm wrote:

I think I would have him lie to the party by saying he will serve them. Then when he's released, he immediately teleports back to hell. Or will that not work?

A demon would certainly do something like that. Devils, on the other hand, are all about contracts and such. If the pit fiend agrees to do something, it would do it. Though, as others have pointed out, he will only do the bare minimum agreed to and will exploit any and all wriggle-room and loopholes present in their agreement, while also trying to tempt them into evil.

[Dividian4444]

Kalshane wrote:

Grilm wrote:

I think I would have him lie to the party by saying he will serve them. Then when he's released, he immediately teleports back to hell. Or will that not work?

A demon would certainly do something like that. Devils, on the other hand, are all about contracts and such. If the pit fiend agrees to do something, it would do it. Though, as others have pointed out, he will only do the bare minimum agreed to and will exploit any and all wriggle-room and loopholes present in their agreement, while also trying to tempt them into evil.

In our game (I'm a Cleric of Achaekek) I was able to converse with Avaxial and he promised payment if I set him free. Being L/E I suspended the magic long enough for him to teleport away. About 2 game years later I used a sending spell to get him to send me his Phistopholis and created a contract. I gained an Imp Consular servant and a Portable Hole. (not bad I thought)(I can submit the contract if you wish...e-mail me)