So I was looking through Monster Core today, and I came across this gem. Similar to janni, and unlike janni it's a lot easier for the GM to twist. But it's certainly thought-provoking...
Phistophilus devils are capable of granting wishes.
Monster Core wrote: The contract devil produces an infernal contract for a single living mortal. This contract can grant a wide range of abilities and effects, akin to the power of a wish ritual but fulfilled to the letter by the contract devil.
To receive any of those benefits, the mortal must willingly sign its true name to the contract. At that point, the mortal’s soul is bound to the contract devil and Hell.
Wish states that divine ascension is one of the possible benefits:
Player Core wrote:
The target's wish can be anything, ranging from simpler wishes such as vast riches or the casting of a certain spell or ritual, to greater wishes like the destruction of an entire kingdom or ascension to divinity. The GM might decide a wish draws the attention of deities or other powerful creatures, leading to interference with the ritual or attempts to undo the wish. The power of the ritual alters reality to such a degree that even deities can't outright undo the wish, but they can react to the wish by sending servitors to take away the newly acquired riches, for example.
How would you run this as a GM, if a PC tried to sell their soul to a level 10 devil and become a god? Would it always go catastrophically wrong? Would the devil just refuse? What happens if you mind control the devil into thinking that this is a good idea? Are they even capable of making someone into a deity? Curious what people's thoughts are here, since it seems less "broken" and more "interesting".
I would definitely let them do it. Asmodeus can ascend other devils to the level of nessari, and even further, but the process is neither short nor comfortable. If someone wants to sign up to have their soul fast-tracked into an ort and then processed through torment after torment to eventually, thousands or hundreds of thousands of years later, come out the other side as an infernal duke ... sure, absolutely. Now, how long they may get to stay an infernal duke is more questionable, their peers will not look on such shortcutting and possible usurpation by this newcomer lightly, but that's an issue for the contractee to deal with in the future, no?
Heck, the signing devil may even be magnanimous enough to allow the adventurer to begin this journey only after they've died by other means, rather than right away. A few years, or decades, or even centuries isn't all that much time, really, and from a meta-narrative standpoint that gives the party plenty of time to research what becoming an infernal divinity entails, and then try to research ways to get out of it, which sound like great plot hooks.
Calliope5431 wrote: How would you run this as a GM, if a PC tried to sell their soul to a level 10 devil and become a god? The first thing to do with a character event like this is to determine how the change to the character would fit into the campaign.
Is the character going to continue being part of the campaign with the rest of the party? Is this the culminating event of the campaign? Is this a way for the character to retire from the campaign and let the player create a new different character to join the party with?
Because answering these questions will help with answering the next ones:
Calliope5431 wrote: Would it always go catastrophically wrong? Would the devil just refuse? What happens if you mind control the devil into thinking that this is a good idea? Are they even capable of making someone into a deity? It certainly doesn't need to always go wrong or be refused. Being turned into a deity would be either a character retirement or campaign end type of event. Something less impactful - the contract could be a justification for an immediate retraining of some feats to Witch Archetype. Or Sorcerer Archetype. Or even the new Exemplar class archetype once it is released.
There are other choices for even less impact to the campaign that would be possible. A boost of character wealth (especially if the party is behind the curve), information regarding the campaign's plot and other in-game world events.
The short answer is to work with the player outside of the game to determine together what the goal of this diabolic contract is and how it fits into the campaign rather than being disruptive to it.
The version I have on archives of Nethys says wish spell not wish ritual which would limit it to spell effects and things of similar power. This takes becoming a god off the table but I also think " fulfilled to the letter by the contract devil" means that it would be limited to things a contract devil could accomplish which probably doesn't include divine ascension.
As a result I think if you summoned a contract devil asking to become a god they simply couldn't do it. At most you might be able to convince them to help you make a deal with a more powerful devil or assist you with some other plan you have for power but even arch devils probably aren't going to be able to simply make you a god.
IF you want to become a powerful magical being that could probably be accomplished if the contract devil has the assistance of a tyrant devil but I think a tyrant devil is likely to simply try to kill you and take your soul. If you can some how survive and convince a tyrant devil to make you into a devil then you could become anything up to another tyrant devil but doing so won't be cheap. Based on the legacy stat block it would cost you at least 1024 souls to become a tyrant devil if they charge you at cost and they almost certainly will not. You will be likely paying allot more because they are going to want a significant profit and may be worried about creating a rival.
So this is the process of diabolic ascension to me
1) summon a tyrant devil
2) survive / defeat the tyrant devil
3) sign a contract with the tyrant devil to become a tyrant devil
4) acquire the lemures necessary for the transformation
5) pay your side of the contract
6) die and become a lemure to undergo the transformation into a tyrant devil
Failing this process at any step likely results in you becoming a diabolic servant of the tyrant devil or being destroyed entirely.
Solarsyphon wrote: The version I have on archives of Nethys says wish spell not wish ritual which would limit it to spell effects and things of similar power. This takes becoming a god off the table but I also think " fulfilled to the letter by the contract devil" means that it would be limited to things a contract devil could accomplish which probably doesn't include divine ascension.
Yeah almost everything that used to say "wish spell" now says "wish ritual" post remaster, in Monster Core. Which has a whole of interesting and wild consequences. This includes the fact that now resurrecting someone damned for making a deal with an imp (by accepting the imp's Infernal Temptation ability) requires exactly as much effort as becoming a god.
Because the wish ritual explicitly lists divine ascension as an option for what you can do with it.
That's why I'm curious what people think and how they'd GM some of this stuff, since diabolic deals to become a god haven't been things before!
It would depend on the situation and what sort of deific power the character was looking for.
A full 'class respec' might actually grant more power than any ascension/descent in the short term.
The bigger and more important thing is How does the contractor come out ahead?
Starting with that and going from there should provide a roadmap.
Calliope5431 wrote: That's why I'm curious what people think and how they'd GM some of this stuff, since diabolic deals to become a god haven't been things before! For a homebrew campaign, I'd probably GM the ritual/contract as giving them some initial reward merely commensurate with the spell rank (obviously not 'become a god'), and then try and think up a whole lotta plot hooks related to the price they had to pay and the process they'll need to go through to retire/become a deity. If it happened in a canned AP, really not sure. Maybe a single bonus thing and a single cost event related to some key encounter.
Solarsyphon wrote: IF you want to become a powerful magical being that could probably be accomplished if the contract devil has the assistance of a tyrant devil but I think a tyrant devil is likely to simply try to kill you and take your soul. If you can some how survive and convince a tyrant devil to make you into a devil then you could become anything up to another tyrant devil but doing so won't be cheap. Based on the legacy stat block it would cost you at least 1024 souls to become a tyrant devil if they charge you at cost and they almost certainly will not. You will be likely paying allot more because they are going to want a significant profit and may be worried about creating a rival. There's also questions of how much that newly minted tyrant devil would be you, too. You've got to share that headspace with over a thousand other souls; it's entirely possible your identity gets subsumed in the devil's creation.
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