Deal with the devil

[Adjoint]

In particular, I'm thinking about pit fiend Avaxial in Skull's Crossing.

The AP mentions that he is willing to offer his offer about the dam in exchange for his freedom. However, the PCs are able to get the necessary knowledge with appropriate skill checks, and they may want to make a different deal with the devil. And Avaxial is definitely desperate.

My question is, did you ever allow the PCs to make a different deal with the pit fiend, and how did it turn out for them?

[Ckorik]

I had the pit fiend offer it to them telepathically - so the characters wouldn't know exactly what was happening 'officially'.

One of the players jumped into the machine before anyone could accept :)

I was willing to grant a single wish, call on the devil for aid at a future date, or even negotiate something more....

This makes a good candidate for the wizard true name discovery also - you could use a weakened pit fiend at various levels and work the true name into the deal - obviously take alignment considerations into account and attempt to turn the character ... that's part of a 'deal with the devil' after all.

If the players had accepted the wish or call for aid I wasn't going to call the action 'pure evil' unless the results of the aid were used to that end - I figure the devil is at this point willing to actually be helpful to get out with his existence.

[The NPC]

...In the pale moonlight?

[calvsie]

So two players actually are contracted with him in my game for power. In particular our one Sorceress basically humiliated him while he was trapped in the dame, so he is trying to manipulate them into killing her. He has become way more involved in the plot than he was suppose to be... :-/ I'm not sure I would ever allow it to go this way when I run it for my other group.

[Enomiel]

By the time my party was all the way down Skull's Crossing, our bard was already beheaded by the skull ripper, with no means to resurrect her handy (no cleric, best remaining healer was a paladin).

As Avaxial is mentioned to feel everythings that happens in the structure, he was of course aware of the death and promptly offered to "reattach your little friend's head and makes her functional again".

For the paladin wasa real conundrum: he couldn't make a pact with the devil but he still wanted to save his friend! The fighter didn't like the bard and was all for letting her in this sorry state (role-play reasons behind this, not a dick move) and the ranger didn't care either way. In the end the rogue put an end to the debate by jumping in the circle without warning accepting the deal to save the bard (he his the most benevolent of the group and wouldn't suffer not to save her when he could have).

With this Avaxial and promptly kept his end of the bargain: the bard was in one pieces again if unconscious... BUT, as the paladin attempted to "lay of hand" her back to her senses, he indeed waked her up by the pain he inflicted upon her. At this point the group realized that she was being made a "functional" undead being and she now had all the associated trait even if her alignment stayed unchanged.

The bard's player was thrilled with the impromptu development and the paladin's player lamented on allowing the devil's deeds to unfold so much that he declared the pitfiend his nemesis taking an oath to thwart his plans whenever possible starting with restoring the unwilling bard to the living world.

[GM Lamplighter]

I figured that Avaxial was truly desperate, and wouldn't hold back on anything within his power to offer. Going in, I thought that it was unlikely that anyone would accept, but I wanted to see if anyone would waver as the offers got better. Alas, they through a deer into the other circle instead...

[The Shifty Mongoose]

I didn't say "Wish" as in the spell, but rather Avaxial offered one favour, to be called in at a later date, by the one to let him out. To avoid regret, he cautioned the leaderless group into a unanimous decision.

The character who shook his talon and let him out now has a small tattoo-like burn scar detailing his full name, title, and sigil. He can use those to specifically call him up at a later time. Depending on if it's Lesser/Regular/Greater Planar Whatever, he'll have dealt with some amount of level drain by that time.

Complications arise due to the fact that the character who made the deal is a Pride Illusionist, and thus does not have Planar Binding on his spell list; and the oracle who could learn Planar Ally is NG and didn't want to release Avaxial in the first place.

I'll make another post when/if they call in that favour.