if you kill a Succubus or a barbed devil they go back to the home plane as I understand it. couldn't they just come back at attack the party later on the material plane?
They only go back to their home plane if they were summoned by a conjuration (summoning) spell. If they arrived on the Material thanks to a conjuration (calling) spell or plane shift, they die for real.
Summoned creatures return. Creatures that are called or bound actually do die for real. However, some settings have things like "only truly dies if killed on its home plane".
But even in the case of a summoned creature, there are a fair amount of limitations:
1. Most low to mid-range outsiders do not have the ability to leave their home plane under their own power. Doing so takes plane shift or the ability to make/locate a gate or portal to another plane. Such portals are almost always controlled by other outsiders. Otherwise, the creature is stuck until some foolish summoner brings them back.
2. Only the most battle-crazed or vengeance driven creatures are going to want a rematch with a foe or group of foes that has already defeated them once. Most devils will simply write it off as an obnoxious but acceptable loss unless the foe in question really shouldn't have won and it was only dumb luck favoring them.
3. Many settings (I am unsure at the moment if Golarion does, since my books aren't at hand) have consequences for creatures who do actually "die" on the material plane. They may reform on their home plane, but frequently are reduced in power or their reformation may take many years.
I believe the ankou's ecology mentions that fey can't die permanently in the First World, but that's the extent of such escape clauses in default Golarion as far as I know.
I am wanting to use planar binding to bring a succubus to achieve a NPCs goal, the price is a child. the party is going to be after the same guy if they kill him the succubus doesn't get the child, if she succeeds I assume the party will kill her to save the child. I need to know if this succubus by the core rules would be a recurring foe or a one time thing? I could be cool either way
If she actually dies, she'd die for good. Since she's intelligent, not Stupid Evil, and capable of greater teleport and ethereal jaunt at will, she's very likely to escape if things go south.
I will keep that in mind. I have tried this action before. she could bother the party for a while if they don't kill her. thank you
You're welcome; glad to help.
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Since an outsider's "Body and soul forms one unit" (as described in the Bestiaries), and the fact that, in one book in Skull & Shackles (avoiding spoilers) you can come across the corpse of an outsider, it looks like this:
If an outsider dies on their home plane (or possibly another Outer Plane), they get re-absorbed into the place, sort of like the Abyssal equivalent of bio-degrading. You probably couldn't rightly call any new outsider that appears after that "the same one".
However, if they die on the Material Plane, they're dead and can't do that stuff I mentioned above. I think that other outsiders of the same type would want to recover corpses if they're able to, or at least get a hold of mortal souls to recover any losses (whether by sanctification or damnation).
If you want a succubus as a recurring antagonist, and also want her to flee back into the Abyss, you could always have her keep around some last-ditch means of using Dismissal on herself and forgo the saving throw. Of course, getting back would be tricky, though desperately lonely demonologists are sadly never in short supply.
You could also have the succubus be a minion of a bigger, badder evil guy who arranges to have a limited wish or true resurrection cast to bring her back if she dies.
that is an option and could potentially work if they kill her. but what should I when they get stronger. they are currently a group of 7 level 7s. do I add class levels if I decided she makes a good antagonist?
oh to amend my earlier statement. I have never done this before. I cant type when I am tired.
Succubus have pretty high social skills if IIRC. She might try to trick the PC's into handing the child over instead of fighting. <---Just an idea. :)