New devil idea: blue devil

[Yqatuba]

So I have an idea for a new devil: the blue devil (azuragon) which would be a devil representing sadness and despair. I figure it would have crushing despair and overwhelming grief as spell like abilities and maybe have an aura that suppresses morale bonuses. I imagine CR about 10 or so. Can anyone help?

[Bjørn Røyrvik]

Right now you are asking other people to do all the work for you.
That makes you look lazy and generally annoys people.

If you create a first draft of the monster and ask for critique and suggested improvements, you will get a lot more and better respnses.

[Xenocrat]

A blue devil would be one that failed to get into a better caste of devilhood and had to settle for its current status while trying to convince everyone it's actually great, and excel in only one narrow field of endeavor while being roundly hated by the rest of the multiverse.

[Yqatuba]

Ok here goes nothing

Blue Devil (Azuragon)
CR 10
LE Medium Outsider [devil,evil,extraplanar,lawful]
Init: +7, Senses: See In Darkness, Perception: +8
AC 23 (+3 dex, +10 natural) touch: 13, flat footed: 20
Hit Dice: 11d10+44 (115 hp)
Saves: Fort +8 Ref+8 Will+ 10
Aura: Despair (30 ft) (dc 22)
Speed: 30 ft
Melee: 2 claws +17 (1d8+5)
Space: 5 reach: 5
Spell Like Abilities (CL 11)
At will: Crushing despair (dc 17)
3/ day: Overwhelming Grief (dc 18)
1/ day Terrible Remorse (dc 20)
Ability Scores: STR 20, DEX 16, CON 20, INT 12, WIS 16, CHA 20
Base atk: +11 CMB +16 CMD 29
Feats: Iron Will, Improved Initiative, Ability Focus (despair aura)
Skills: Bluff +16, Intimidate +14, Perception +8, Sense Motive +16, Stealth +12
Languages: Celestial, Common, Draconic, Infernal, Telepathy 100 ft

Special Attacks: Aura of despair (su): a blue devil emits an aura of intense despair and sadness, any creatures entering or starting their turn within 30 feet of a blue devil must make a will save (dc 22) or have all morale bonuses suppressed and be unable to gain any new morale bonuses for as long as they remain in the aura plus 1 minute after. A creature that successfully saves is immune to that blue devil's aura for 24 hours. The save dc is charisma based.

Description: This creature looks like your stereotypical devil i.e a skinny humanoid with horns, instead of red however it is a deep blue color.

[Dave Justus]

Aura of Despair is something that exists already for Anti-Paladins and others. The mechanic there is a -2 to all saves, no save against the aura itself. Personally I think that is a better mechanic.

My issue with negating morale bonuses is that it is a hugely variable negative. Some classes and parties won't even notice it, while others will be severely impacted.

Unless I am missing something, your attacks bonus is 1 higher than it should be.

You don't have the typical devil defenses in the stat block, are those just not listed or do you not plan to include them.

I find improved initiative to be a bit weird on a 'sadness and dispair' theme, but that isn't a huge deal.

[Mudfoot]

I thought a Blue Devil was a weirdness magnet. To my mind, a despair devil would appear as a black dog.

[Yqatuba]

Dave Justus wrote:

Aura of Despair is something that exists already for Anti-Paladins and others. The mechanic there is a -2 to all saves, no save against the aura itself. Personally I think that is a better mechanic.

My issue with negating morale bonuses is that it is a hugely variable negative. Some classes and parties won't even notice it, while others will be severely impacted.

Unless I am missing something, your attacks bonus is 1 higher than it should be.

You don't have the typical devil defenses in the stat block, are those just not listed or do you not plan to include them.

I find improved initiative to be a bit weird on a 'sadness and dispair' theme, but that isn't a huge deal.

I did forget to put the devil defenses (as well as give it dr and sr)

If you mean it's attack bonus on claws your right its 1 too high

What would you recommend instead of improved initiative?

I also think it should have more special powers than just the aura but can't think of any. Anyone have some ideas?

Also are it's skills right? I'm really bad at that part.

[Yqatuba]

Mudfoot wrote:

I thought a Blue Devil was a weirdness magnet. To my mind, a despair devil would appear as a black dog.

The name and idea is based on an idiom "having the blue devils" meaning being sad/depressed. It's basically a metaphor turned into an actual monster.

[Dave Justus]

Skills, except maybe perception, rarely matter to most monsters anyway.

You could give it weapon focus (claw) to keep the attack bonus.

[Yqatuba]

Ok, I present the blue devil take two:
Blue Devil (Azuragon)
CR 10
LE Medium Outsider [devil,evil,extraplanar,lawful]
Init: +3, Senses: See In Darkness, Perception: +8
AC 23 (+3 dex, +10 natural) touch: 13, flat footed: 20
Hit Dice: 11d10+44 (115 hp)
Saves: Fort +8 Ref+8 Will+ 10
Immune fire, poison, mind-affecting effects; Resist acid 10, cold 10; DR 10/Chaotic OR good; SR 21
Aura: Despair (30 ft)
Speed: 30 ft
Melee: 2 claws +17 (1d8+5 plus slowing claws)
Space: 5 reach: 5
Spell Like Abilities (CL 11)
At will: Crushing despair (dc 17)
3/ day: Overwhelming Grief (dc 18)
1/ day Terrible Remorse (dc 20)
Ability Scores: STR 20, DEX 16, CON 20, INT 12, WIS 16, CHA 20
Base atk: +11 CMB +16 CMD 29
Feats: Iron Will, Ability Focus (slowing claws), weapon focus (claws)
Skills: Bluff +16, Intimidate +14, Perception +8, Sense Motive +16, Stealth +12
Languages: Celestial, Common, Draconic, Infernal, Telepathy 100 ft

Special Attacks: Aura of despair (su): a blue devil emits an aura of intense despair and sadness. This functions as the antipaladin ability except it has a radius of 30 feet rather than the usual 10

Slowing Claws su): anyone struck by a blue devil's claws must make a will saving throw (dc 22) or be slowed for 1 round, as the spell. The effects are cumulative. A creature that makes a successful save is immune to that blue devils slowing claws for 24 hours. The saving throw dc is charisma based.

Description: This creature looks like your stereotypical devil i.e a skinny humanoid with horns, instead of red however it is a deep blue color.

[Danny StarDust]

At 11HD, shouldn't he have 6 feats instead of the listed 3? Perhaps a quickend spell-like ability?

[Pizza Lord]

Quote:

Slowing Claws su): anyone struck by a blue devil's claws must make a will saving throw (dc 22) or be slowed for 1 round, as the spell. The effects are cumulative.

Does this mean you want to stack the –1 penalties for each hit? Or did you just mean the duration increases by 1 round per additional hit?

You should consider giving the blue devil a darkness (or deeper darkness) spell-like ability maybe 3/day. As devils, they can See in Darkness so may as well just have that as a bit of battlefield control.

You should probably add a note that blue devils are unaffected by the spell-like abilities of other blue devils (possibly their Slowing Claws effect as well). This lets a pair or group use their crushing despair abilities without worrying or hindering the others.

You should give them a ranged attack, even a very simple one, like a sling or snowball (I know they aren't cold-based, but something along that line of power).

Most devils can summon others of their kind (and some of the suggestions below work well with blue devils in pairs). You should note this (especially if there is a chance of failure, like 'Summon blue devil (80%)' or something.

In regards to the aura of despair (and there are a few different despair auras, not just antipaladins'; mummies for instance), you might consider changing it. I would mostly do this because these creatures will be stacking penalties (at least with some of the feat suggestions below) and it might get too crippling. I would suggest going with your original thought of suppressing morale bonuses. Something along the line of maybe halving all morale bonuses (round down, minimum 0). That would keep the monster from being a total 'downer' (they still are, just not super-crippling, only mitigating). Another option, would be for the aura to deal damage to creatures within it (possibly including the blue devil, possibly not) based on the number of [emotion] or morale effects affecting the creature. Something small, but steady, like 2 hit points per effect. This means someone affected by a bard's performance, a bless spell, and the blue devil's terrible remorse would take 6 damage (or some appropriate number for the CR) at the start of their turn. Multiple effects of the same type (ie. being affected by two crushing despairs, even though the effects don't stack) just count once and multiple auras from multiple blue devils don't stack (only take the damage once at the start of your turn).

Feats:

Like Dave Justus suggested earlier, the feat choices are important. I am glad you changed them. You had three that basically just altered Stat blocks (Improved Initiative, Iron Will, and Ability Focus (Aura)), when you can basically just alter or up the stats to reflect the desired ability and use the feats for useful or interesting things to make encounters more memorable or challenging. For instance, you can always just add a line in the Aura of Despair (or whatever you call it) that it includes a +2 racial bonus to the DC.

It looks like you have some extra feats:

Disruptive Spell-Like Ability (crushing despair) synergizes well (3/day). It is an area effect and anyone affected must make a concentration check to cast spells within the next round (and the crushing despair adds a penalty to the check to do so).

Extraplanar Conjunction looks like it might be interesting. This means that blue devils in pairs would have their spell-like abilities' DCs boosted if adjacent (misery loves company).

Feign Curse might also be fun or interesting. You would have to give the blue devil 1 rank of Spellcraft and also take the Deceitful feat, but with its +16 (11 ranks of Bluff and +5 to Charisma presumably), that's a DC 31 Sense Motive or Spellcraft to detect the ruse. At 11 ranks in Bluff, this will affect their next three rolls. It works really well in conjunction with crushing despair either before (to make their checks likely to fail) or after (to make sure that other spells land).

Intoxicating Flattery could be a valid choice if you go with Deceitful. This makes speaking with blue devils dangerous, since after one minute, they can really mess up your Will saving throws to let their other debuffs land if combat occurs later. Their skill at flattery might also explain why they can survive with other devils despite being so unusual, different, and a bit depressing.

Scarring Spell-Like ability (crushing despair) would be along the lines of Disruptive Spell-Like Ability above (3/day), but would boost your chance of landing your other [emotion] abilities (plus they're getting a penalty from crushing despair) as well as any other blue devils with you (at a slightly lower penalty). I don't really recommend this over the other options though, since you're already getting a lot of penalties to targets and this might be overkill when you could go for something different, but the option is there.

Spell Drinker is an option for boosting staying power (slightly). You've already given them Iron Will as a prereq. Granted it doesn't synergize with their SR, but if they save they can gain 1d8 + spell level temporary hit points. Since they are above 10 Hit Dice, this is doubled. It would potentially give them a slight boost in some situations.

Umbral Shift would be an option if you give blue devils a darkness spell-like ability (it specifies darkness not deeper darkness). In pairs (or more), this means blue devils could do interesting tactical strategies in combat, possibly making it more exciting or challenging. One could approach a target, strike them and slow them, then swift action swap with another who was delaying/holding, who then takes a full-round action (granted, that's just two attacks), possibly stacking slow, or moving into position, casting and then swapping places with a blue devil that has a readied action or a reach weapon to catch foes rushing into the darkness.

[Yqatuba]

OK blue devil take 3
Blue Devil (Azuragon)
CR 10
LE Medium Outsider [devil,evil,extraplanar,lawful]
Init: +3, Senses: See In Darkness, Perception: +8
AC 23 (+3 dex, +10 natural) touch: 13, flat footed: 20
Hit Dice: 11d10+44 (115 hp)
Saves: Fort +8 Ref+8 Will+ 10
Immune fire, poison, mind-affecting effects; Resist acid 10, cold 10; DR 10/Chaotic OR good; SR 21
Aura: Despair (30 ft)
Speed: 30 ft
Melee: 2 claws +17 (1d8+5 plus slowing claws)
Space: 5 reach: 5
Spell Like Abilities (CL 11)
At will: Crushing despair (dc 17), Deeper darkness.
3/ day Disruptive crushing despair (dc 17)
3/ day: Overwhelming Grief (dc 18)
1/ day: Scarring ovewheling grief (dc 18)
1/ day Terrible Remorse (dc 20), Summon (level 4 1 blue devil 50%)
Ability Scores: STR 20, DEX 16, CON 20, INT 12, WIS 16, CHA 20
Base atk: +11 CMB +16 CMD 29
Feats: Iron Will, Ability Focus (slowing claws), weapon focus (claws), Scarring spell like ability (Overwhelming grief), disruptive spell like ability (crushing despair), Extraplanar conjunction.
Skills: Bluff +16, Intimidate +14, Perception +8, Sense Motive +16, Stealth +12
Languages: Celestial, Common, Draconic, Infernal, Telepathy 100 ft

Special Attacks: Aura of despair (su): a blue devil emits an aura of intense despair and sadness. This functions as the antipaladin ability except it has a radius of 30 feet rather than the usual 10. In addition, any morale bonuses enemies in the aura have are reduced by half (minimum 0) for as long as the remain in the aura. This is a mind affecting effect.

Slowing Claws su): anyone struck by a blue devil's claws must make a will saving throw (dc 22) or be slowed for 1 round, as the spell. The effects are cumulative. A creature that makes a successful save is immune to that blue devils slowing claws for 24 hours. The saving throw dc is charisma based.

Description: This creature looks like your stereotypical devil i.e a skinny humanoid with horns, instead of red however it is a deep blue color.

Notes: the slow being cumulative means it lasts for an extra round with each hit. I didn't want to give it a +2 racial bonus to its slowing claws as that kinda seems like cheating to me, as it gives them all the benefits of a feat without taking a feat slot. Also can anyone think of a better appearance for it? I just picked the first thing that popped into my head based on the name.

[Ryze Kuja]

Those ability DC's of 17 and 18 seem pretty low. If you're going for CR10, an average lvl 10 PC will already have a Cloak of Resistance +2 or +3, and probably have high saves around 11-15 and low saves around 7-10 before party buffs. I'd consider making those DC's either 1, 2, or even 3 higher.

[Adjoint]

Ryze Kuja wrote:

Those ability DC's of 17 and 18 seem pretty low. If you're going for CR10, an average lvl 10 PC will already have a Cloak of Resistance +2 or +3, and probably have high saves around 11-15 and low saves around 7-10 before party buffs. I'd consider making those DC's either 1, 2, or even 3 higher.

The DCs of the spell-like abilities taht mimic spells are determined by the formula DC=10+(spell level)+(Charisma modifier).

Metamagic doesn't affect the DC. Overwhelming Grief, Crushing Despair and Terrible Remorse are 4th level spells (even though bards can use it as 3rd level spells, their level on sorcerer/wizard spelllist take precedence), so with Charisma score 20, the DC for all of them should be equal to 19. You can make them higher by increasing Charisma or with Spell Focus feat.

[Pizza Lord]

Ryze Kuja wrote:

Those ability DC's of 17 and 18 seem pretty low. If you're going for CR10, an average lvl 10 PC will already have a Cloak of Resistance +2 or +3, and probably have high saves around 11-15 and low saves around 7-10 before party buffs. I'd consider making those DC's either 1, 2, or even 3 higher.

True, and they are higher as Adjoint pointed out. The aura of despair will also lower all saves by -2 as well. So it's not really too bad. Extraplanar Conjunction will also boost these when in pairs. From there, once one effect lands, it snowballs.

[Yqatuba]

Adjoint wrote:

Ryze Kuja wrote:

Those ability DC's of 17 and 18 seem pretty low. If you're going for CR10, an average lvl 10 PC will already have a Cloak of Resistance +2 or +3, and probably have high saves around 11-15 and low saves around 7-10 before party buffs. I'd consider making those DC's either 1, 2, or even 3 higher.

The DCs of the spell-like abilities taht mimic spells are determined by the formula DC=10+(spell level)+(Charisma modifier).

Metamagic doesn't affect the DC. Overwhelming Grief, Crushing Despair and Terrible Remorse are 4th level spells (even though bards can use it as 3rd level spells, their level on sorcerer/wizard spelllist take precedence), so with Charisma score 20, the DC for all of them should be equal to 19. You can make them higher by increasing Charisma or with Spell Focus feat.

I thought crushing despair was 2 and overwhelming grief was 3 till I saw your post and looked them up. Weird