So my party member sold his soul to Baal the archdevil again....

[Samficher1]

So my friends charecter we'll call him hellboy, has a problem. Part of his backstory is he had sold his soul for one night of pleasure and became hellbred. He realized the error of his ways and on his way to atone when he was killed. He managed to claw his way out of hell but without ownership of his soul. After we saved a town from total annihilation from an undead horde he was deemed worthy by the other gods he was able to get his soul back. (Also he's lawful evil but not in the traditional evil genius take over the world sense, more along the lines of I will bring order to this world at any cost kind of sense)

Skip ahead a month or so in game and we are on an island that and my necromancer accidentally created a grave knight(think lich with a phylactery as it's armor that is tough to destroy permanently one of the few ways is to drop it into a volcano) we killed it but it would regenerate eventually. Since we didn't have the means to destroy it quickly enough ourselves one of the few options trapped on a literally god forsaken island was use his lesser planar ally to summon something and get it to take this armor to the positive energy plane to be destroyed. So we perform the ritual and Baal shows up. One of the only things that he wants is to get hellboy's soul back. Longer story short we worded the contract poorly hellboy signed the contract not stipulating when Baal had to destroy the armor and didn't get Baal to sign the contract either in which case Baal took the armor for himself making him more even powerful. The only bright side is that the contract has to be prominently displayed in hell where hellboy has to collect the contract in order to get out of the deal.

TL;DR One of my party members made a deal with an archdevil we worded it poorly and it all went sideways what can we do to get his soul back again?

[haruhiko88]

Kite the check and do it again with something else. Sell his soul to something else for the first contract to be null and void and make a better deal, something along the lines of "You can have his soul when he dies."

[Helaman]

would such an experienced outsider settle for such a chump contract? Remember the common legal practice that legal ambiguity in the contract favours the one who did not write the contract for additional fun.

[DalmarWolf]

Um you said Baal did not sign so it's not a valid contract then.

[mswbear]

if both parties didn't sign it isn't a legal and binding contract. as a Devil, Baal would be bound by law.

[Corodix]

Lesser Planar Ally can only summon a create of 6 HD or less, can't it? So how did you summon an archdevil with that?

And as the others said, if Baal didn't also sign the contract then it's not a legal and binding contract.

[Samficher1]

We were able to summon Baal using lesser planar ally because the spell states "you request your deity to send you an outsider (of 6 HD or less) of the deity's choice. If you serve no particular deity, the spell is a general plea answered by a creature sharing your philosophical alignment." Since hellboy has no particular deity and his domain is law all lawful outsiders apply. Our DM interpreted this as the deity can send a 6 hd or less creature but they don't have to they can send a more powerful creature or in this case show up themselves if they have a particular interest in the person that's doing the summoning.

[Dustyboy]

Samficher1 wrote:

We were able to summon Baal using lesser planar ally because the spell states "you request your deity to send you an outsider (of 6 HD or less) of the deity's choice. If you serve no particular deity, the spell is a general plea answered by a creature sharing your philosophical alignment." Since hellboy has no particular deity and his domain is law all lawful outsiders apply. Our DM interpreted this as the deity can send a 6 hd or less creature but they don't have to they can send a more powerful creature or in this case show up themselves if they have a particular interest in the person that's doing the summoning.

No offense but why in hell would baal be interested in meeting you over something so trivial as a soul? (Or magical armor)

Sounds like your DM doesn't think things through... and allows double sales ect.
*Edit*
On that note, why didn't the player just chose tiefling fighter, or monk, or gunslinger.....

those would be hellboy (American action hero brawler)

*Edit again*
So who's the necromancer again? you or hellboy?

[rorek55]

its the GMs world, Baal can be interested in this mans soul if he dam well pleases, who are you to question a deities motives ;) (maybe the man is in some prophecy against Baal?)

anyway. as others have said, if Baal didn't sign, its not a legal binding contract, so he does not have your soul. no prob.

[Samficher1]

Ok, I apologize for taking so long getting I talked it over with my GM. Also for some of these explanations it's worth noting we are using the D&D pantheon with some changes by the the GM.

@Dustyboy
I am playing the necromancer.
Hellboy isn't trying to actually play Hellboy that's just my nickname for him to keep things less confusing.

Some further clarification as to what happened after he sold his soul to Baal the first time:
1. He got out of hell somehow, (he hasn't revealed this to the rest of the party) but his soul was technically still in the possesion of Baal.
2. Met up with our group
3. We saved a city from total annihilation
4. Pelor, along with many of the other gods, summoned us to his throne room
5. Hellboy was judged and found to be redeemed and was granted his soul back from Baal

Also the reason, as far as I know at least, that Baal wants Hellboy's soul back is because he liked it as a play toy or maybe he just hates losing things that he considers his I'm not sure.

After talking it over with our GM we are slightly less screwed as we thought we were. He explained it like this:
Baal has the contract but he doesn't necessarily have to follow it.
If he doesn't abide by the contract however, IT IS NULL AND VOID.
So we are slightly less screwed than we thought we were initially, but we still have the issues of having to go to hell to get Hellboy's soul back.