How can a low level player attain demon Lord?

[blasto652]

I was wondering if there were any rules in D&D 3.5 for a low level player becoming a demon lord.

The demon prince should give powers similar to a Balor or but appropriate for a lower-level party.

These rules dont have to be core and can be home-brew.

To clarify atm the party is around level 6 to 7 and will be most likely getting to level 12 in the next session.(They are fighting in a tournament with one on one opponents so they get all the xp to themselves).

I intend for the player to have gained something similer to a divine spark but have it instead be a demon lord spark. It would essentially be a level 0 spark where he would maybe gain a template or a prestige class called demon lord, and then work his way to demon prince at level 20 of that class. Along the way he would gaining power in the class. (With the party is around 6 to 7 now, there is only one player that will have this chance to become that class. The prize from winning the tournament will be the chance to become that class/prestige class).

Sorry for the confusion in all this i actually did mean demon lord seeing as i latter found out that demon prince was indeed a term used specifically for a demon that controls a level o the abys.I should have edited this to it that so again sorry for the confusion.

[Flickerdart]

There are no special benefits granted for being a Demon Prince, unlike divine ranks, which come with a whole bunch of stuff. If there were benefits, they would in no way be appropriate for a 7th level character.

[the_david]

Step 1: Be Chaotic Evil.
Step 2: Die.
Step 3: Work your way up from a pathetic Mane to a big bad Demon Lord.

Edit: Say, that would make an awesome recurring BBEG.

[Flickerdart]

Step 1: Be Chaotic Evil.
Step 2: Die.
Step 3: A demon eats your soul before it becomes a Mane. Whoops.

[the_david]

Step 3: A demon eats your soul before it becomes a Mane. Whoops.

Yeah, but the demon now advances to his final demon form which means your now part of a Demon Lord! Mission accomplished!

[Segev]

Yeah, but the demon now advances to his final demon form which means your now part of a Demon Lord! Mission accomplished!

Especially if you go with the theory that, since souls never die, the demon types that have more HD and power are literally amalgams of the souls the demon has consumed into itself over time to get that big.

[the_david]

You could build something similar to the paragon class from Unearthed Arcana, the stoneblessed from Races of Stone and the Ruathar from Races of the Wild. Are you sure this is what your player wants?

[John Longarrow]

Two sources for inspiration would be the DMG for Dragon Disciple and Savage Species for Monster Classes. Both should help you decide what your arising lord would get at each level. Remember that they should be advancing as Outsider, one of the best 'classes' you can get. Skill monkey and combat on one chassis with all good saves!

[Platymus Pus]

A demon prince is so because they HAVE power.
They aren't given it.

[Red Fel]

A demon prince is so because they HAVE power.
They aren't given it.

A good deal of this. Demon Princes are those who have sufficient power and force of will to take command of a layer of the Abyss, and hold it against challengers.

You are, in essence, asking: "How can a weak character bear a title indicating that he is immensely powerful?" Answer: He cannot, because he is not strong enough. How can a six year old win the World's Strongest Man competition? How can a quadruple amputee come in first in a 10K marathon? It is not within their abilities.

Now, if you want to add some sort of demonic aspect, that is manageable. There are templates. There are feats. There are all sorts of bonuses that a DM can grant to a given PC. You can do that.

But "Demon Prince" is a term of art. It means someone who is already strong enough to take over a piece of the Abyss. It's a title granted to those who have power, not a source of said power. A weakling, by definition, cannot possess a title that indicates phenomenal power.

[Flickerdart]

Yeah, but the demon now advances to his final demon form which means your now part of a Demon Lord! Mission accomplished!

Eating souls doesn't move demons up the hierarchy.

[blasto652]

sorry for the confusion all i have edited it to what i actually meant and found out (I had simply copied my question from a previous board where the admins edited it to fit towards the boards rules.)

[Flickerdart]

There is a balor monster class in Savage Species.

What aspects of being a balor do you want? Appearance? Weapons (flaming whip and vorpal sword)? SLAs? Summoning lesser demons?

[the_david]

A good deal of this. Demon Princes are those who have sufficient power and force of will to take command of a layer of the Abyss, and hold it against challengers.

You are, in essence, asking: "How can a weak character bear a title indicating that he is immensely powerful?" Answer: He cannot, because he is not strong enough. How can a six year old win the World's Strongest Man competition? How can a quadruple amputee come in first in a 10K marathon? It is not within their abilities.

Now, if you want to add some sort of demonic aspect, that is manageable. There are templates. There are feats. There are all sorts of bonuses that a DM can grant to a given PC. You can do that.

But "Demon Prince" is a term of art. It means someone who is already strong enough to take over a piece of the Abyss. It's a title granted to those who have power, not a source of said power. A weakling, by definition, cannot possess a title that indicates phenomenal power.
Well, there is the Test of the Smoking Eye in the Shackled City Adventure Path...

[blasto652]

I was planning for it to have a bit of both summoning (Not entire armies at first but latter down the line) and it would be able to summon either the whip or the sword (Having to choose at the beginning most likely )maby even have a few extra abilities like regeneration and command or somthing like that.

[Raishoiken]

There is the demon Lord template in dragon magazine #359

[charcoalninja]

Savage species has rituals that let you convert your PC onto monster races. I'd use that as inspiration.

[Crake]

Eating souls doesn't move demons up the hierarchy.

According to BoVD each soul is worth 10xp, so gorging yourself on several thousand souls will bump you up quite a few levels, and since demons have a hierarchy based on strength, not merit (like devils do) gaining a few levels WOULD move you up the hierarchy. This is actually something a player of mine did, took advantage of a combination of a) the god of time allowing them to time travel for the purposes of saving the world, and b) the fact that in the past the gods had just recently all died, but the material plane was not yet aware, so he took advantage of this by convincing an entire island of amazonians that he was infact their god (the fact that his character was a succubus monster class gestalted with beguiler who had access to glibness really helped. His far fetched story gave the tribal leader +25 on her check, and she was a level 20 barbarian with max ranks in sense motive, so it actually came down to the dice, despite a 12-13 level difference). He then.. uh.. made sure they all possessed some of his blood by spreading his seed across the entire island via a tribe of his offspring (the island is now all tiefling amazonians) and made a soulstone to collect all souls of beings with his blood on the island, hiding it, then coming back 1000 years later in the "present" to collect 1000 years worth of souls from an entire island that had gone unaccounted due to poor planar management at the time. He initially gave the souls to his succubus mistress (she had turned him into a succubus to begin with), but she decided that if she were to have a consort, he should be just as powerful as she was, and so he consumed all the souls and, at 10xp a pop, it was enough for him to hit 30HD right away. Gave him a cool transformation scene and everything :P

But yeah, that's the story of how one of my players, at level 7/8ish became a demon lord, practically entirely homebrew, sure, but that's what went down.

[Bronk]

A demon lord attains it's power through the conquest of a layer, naming itself demon lord, defending its title, generally getting the tacit approval of the abyss itself, and becoming a unique demon.

Now, I could very well be wrong, but I could have sworn that on top of all that, once all that happens, the demon lord gets some benefits on his layer, including the ability to affect the divinely morphic traits of the layer and restricting planar access in its general vicinity.

To get a low level demon lord, a demon has to set its sights low. It could set out to find the most uninhabited, least desirable and most out of the way abyssal layer to dominate... or it could go for the smallest instead. There's a flying ship called Demonwing that counts as its own abyssal layer. If a demon were to be powerful enough to take on the demons on board, perhaps, in your world, it could conceivably become a demon lord, then restrict planar travel to the entire ship at once, cutting off access to any potential contenders for its throne. (It would probably have to hide the ship too.)