Advice on Demon Lord creation

[DeathmatchFM]

I'm running a Pathfinder game where the main antagonist is a Demon Lord who destroyed the PC's home planet. While the PCS are more likely to interact with his lesser generals and agents, I do want to give stats to their powerful master both to help me see where higher levels of the game go, and also to know what the Demon Lord is capable of.

Is there any advice I can get for statting a high level outsider? Specifically, any ideas about how to know how many SLAs and spells to give him, as well as special abilities? Also general home brew advice would be appreciated. I also want the fight to be fun, so advice on that would be cool too.

Thanks ahead of time.

[Cyrad]

Demonlords are demigods, which are usually CR 25 encounters. See the Treerazer from Inner Sea World guide as an example.

[Bardarok]

Well you could use the 3.5 deities and demigods book. But probably the easiest would be to take a balor or pit fiend (or nemesis demon or any other big bad outsider) and apply templates or class levels or both. A balor with 20 levels in anti paladin or cleric with the fire and death domains would work. Of course that would make a CR ~40 creature which might be a bit much if you actually want the PC's to beat him in a straight up fight. If you have a really long campaign planned or a built in achilles heel it would work out.

[Sauce987654321]

Demon lords range from CR26-30. There are a number of statted demon lords that you could get some inspiration from. Check the PRD's bestiary 4 for some demon lords.

[DeathmatchFM]

Thanks for the help so far guys.

I have seen the Demon Lords in the Bestiary 4 to use as some examples. They're helpful, but they all basically seem like unique creatures. So I wanted to know some help, I suppose, for figuring out how to plan a unique creature of that magnitude. Whether or not the PCs actually challenge this Demon Lord in a straight up fight or find another way to defeat him isn't my concern at this point in planning stages.

I'd also appreciate advice on homered that isn't necessarily mechanics related.

[Mechagamera]

You have to decide what your critter is the demon lord of. Is he the lord of defiling the dead, burrowing monsters, curse magic, stealing coworkers lunches from the office fridge? The concept sets up a lot of how to build the demon lord. The DL will have a bunch of powers related to that concept--I would just grab any sort of class feature, SLA, or spell that is even vaguely related to that concept. The concept also might suggest some defensive abilities and immunities.

Second, most demon lords of note have either a race (or races) or a type of demon that they are associated with. This helps with appearance, physical attacks, favorite weapons, and minions hanging around.

Auras are always good, since action economy is not often your DL's friend.

[DeathmatchFM]

I really appreciate the great advice, Mechagamera. Useful to know for a place to start. I may just go ahead and post the final result here if anyone is interested, and if I am fairly certain my players won't see it.

[Lord of Conflict]

I am interested, and given the time gap I would assume your players already ran into your demon lord. As some-one who wants to stat such a foe, but is at a loss I would greatly apricate seeing your end result.

[Goth Guru]

Since he destroyed a planet, he must have a destruction portfolio. An artifact mirror might be used to turn his power back on himself. He might have lost a toe or something, and an arrow of slaying made of a toe bone might be fashioned to slay him.

[Set]

Goth Guru wrote:

Since he destroyed a planet, he must have a destruction portfolio. An artifact mirror might be used to turn his power back on himself. He might have lost a toe or something, and an arrow of slaying made of a toe bone might be fashioned to slay him.

Steal from Superman's origin. Radioactive fragments of his home world...

No wait, just chunks of ore from the world he destroyed both resonate with his own destructive energies *and* are touchstones to the vengeful spirits of those billions of lives he snuffed out, two factors that can empower them to make fearsome weapons against him.