Build Advice - Homebrew Pit Fiend Class

[Greymane]

Link to the class in question: http://minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=1832.0

So I'm going to be playing in a Heroes of Battle sort of war game in the near future, and I've gotten the okay to use the character class, and I was hoping for a little advice on making the most of it. I was really excited by that early Bully ability, but I'm not sure how much I can abuse that since it's an Immediate action, so Imperious Command and Fear stacking could maybe be an option?

Otherwise the chassis seems to lend itself to focusing a lot on Natural Attacks, and I've never built that before. Rapid Strike feats are probably sound?

The fluff of the character (if it matters) is a betrayed, former servant of Zariel, deposed after Bel took over Avernus. He's hiding out in a mortal army on the Material plane, disguised as a human, supporting a mortal wife and children, and biding his time. He's hoping to gain power and influence, regain his lost powers after losing them on the torture racks, and return (someday) to Avernus and rescue Zariel and kill Bel.

EDIT: Probably help if I said what books were allowed, huh? Almost all of 3.5 is allowed. Third party and homebrew need to be presented and cleared with the DM.

[arkangel111]

That class is broken.
Minimum 102d4 (max 2024d4) with 1 ability at level 20 and it doesn't even take an action in combat. Granted that is over 1k rolls in 1 turn. Talk about stopping a game for 1 players turn.
Magic circle against good 20/day
Scorching ray 6 rays at 4d6 each 20/day

This class should never see the light of day. The class itself is broken if you want advice if say play something else, hell pun pun is at least legal might as well get that too since your DM clearly didn't read this farce of a class.

[JNAProductions]

That class is broken.
Minimum 102d4 (max 2024d4) with 1 ability at level 20 and it doesn't even take an action in combat. Granted that is over 1k rolls in 1 turn. Talk about stopping a game for 1 players turn.
Magic circle against good 20/day
Scorching ray 6 rays at 4d6 each 20/day

This class should never see the light of day. The class itself is broken if you want advice if say play something else, hell pun pun is at least legal might as well get that too since your DM clearly didn't read this farce of a class.

Did... Did you read it?

Because I just read it, and I don't see anything that gives it that.

Edit: OH THE SUMMONING!

First off, they have melee range. So, at Medium size, the most that can hit a Medium foe is 8.

Larger enemies can have more hit, but typically have higher ACs and HPs.

They then have only +2 to hit (meaning that, at level 20, you're looking at around 25 hitting IF THEY ALL ATTACK) for 1d4 damage.

Somehow, 50d4 damage sounds a lot less impressive, especially when you realize that's spread out among at LEAST 3 enemies.

But yes! You can do around 42 damage to a Medium foe as a standard action, assuming they have no DR.

[arkangel111]

Each creature gets 2 attacks and he can use it 2x for 20 mins each meaning at a 5% hit chance 102d4... but that is only 1 of the Summons. He has 3 different minionmancy abilities. Uncapped SLAs that might as well be at will, only profane dmg so it's worse. Full BAB, 4 wishes/day great fort and will saves, a ridiculous amount of boosts to stats. Compare to a normal pit fiend, and you can see the designer barely glanced at the entry, it is a pit fiend in name only. I only stopped on previous post cause I thought it was obvious how broke this is. its so bad i want to compare it to drako, if he made a class this might be it.

[JNAProductions]

Each creature gets 2 attacks and he can use it 2x for 20 mins each meaning at a 5% hit chance 102d4... but that is only 1 of the Summons. He has 3 different minionmancy abilities. Uncapped SLAs that might as well be at will, only profane dmg so it's worse. Full BAB, 4 wishes/day great fort and will saves, a ridiculous amount of boosts to stats. Compare to a normal pit fiend, and you can see the designer barely glanced at the entry, it is a pit fiend in name only. I only stopped on previous post cause I thought it was obvious how broke this is. its so bad i want to compare it to drako, if he made a class this might be it.

Ah, right, so we just assume that the Lemures (with 9 HP on average) survive for 20 minutes, and have enough targets to have every one attack?

See, I do have an issue with the 512 summons-I'd tell any player of mine "Don't do that. Like, ever." Not because it's TOO POWERFUL-far from it. But because it'd just be ANNOYING.

[arkangel111]

I never said they'd last long but it is a guaranteed 102d4. For practically no investment.
Round 1 let them charge, use your swift action for overlord and reset all of them to somewhere behind you. Guaranteed 102d4 each round, and you have wasted only a swift action. Even if it's split between multiple creatures that is still ridiculous for 1 swift action. Now you have your full turn minus a swift action.
You can even stock up on even more powerful minions with wish, create greater undead AND greater planar binding are both 8th lvl spells. PAO is as well.

[JNAProductions]

Its summons now have a permanent duration, but the Pit Fiend can only maintain up to twice his HD of summoned minions at any time.

Each Lemure is 2 HD, so that's 20 Lemures, for a total of 40 attacks. That's an average of 2 hits against anyone with AC 22 or better, with each hit doing 1d4 damage, so negated by pretty much any DR.

Now, it could spend a Standard Action to summon 512, again, which would give it more damage... But then it's using its standard action for subpar damage.

Edit: Allow me to put it this way. Which is worse... A Pit Fiend 20, or a Wizard 20?

The Pit Fiend is probably dang scarier in melee, and has more direct offensive power. But the Wizard has a POOPTON more versatility and strategic power.

[arkangel111]

yes, wizard is bad. So is this class. I'm just saying this class is all kinds of broken. It effectively has every bad spell a wizard has up to 8th level spells, with 4/day SLA wish. On top of that the class natively gives you...
+18 str +14 con +13 cha +4 to all other stats. (using wish)
DR 10 silver AND good so essentially DR10/- and a nat AC boost based on con
regeneration 10
SR 21 (don't forget the constant magic circle effect too and the unholy aura - and it effects everyone regardless of immunities even undead)
A grapple attack that is practically impossible to do anything against. (suppresses freedom of movement)
a poison attack (based on con) on each of its natural attacks (6 atks I think+constrict) that deals 1d6 str dmg on failed save with secondary effect of death (don't forget the 10/day blasphemy for 2d6 more str dmg no save)
10/day mass hold monster
Immediate action greater dispel magic 20/day
6/day quickened greater teleport (11th level spell)
oh and yeah lets not forget the complete invisibilty 20/day that nothing can see through not even true seeing unless you are within its reach which as already shown is not somewhere to be.

this is worse than a wizard. look at the number of total SLA's it has... 202/day if you were counting. With several abilities that break the game. Btw a stock wizard has 40 spell slots. yea more versatile, kinda, remember the 4 wishes, and the several summons can give you quite a few more spells too. The wizard can add a few more spells for high stats and ACF's and items but adding 162 spells per day before the DM just throws in the towel?

oh and let's not forget EVERYTHING is based on HD not on class level so if you don't want an ability feel free to multiclass with 0 downsides.

again wizard is broken but so is this.

He wants build advice for a broken class. here's mine. Play it but expect a game about as much fun as one with PUN PUN on the table. There is not going to be much of a challenge. If you want to have fun I suggest you play something else. Starting at level 3 you have invisibilty 3/day and can summon 2x for 2 lemures each meaning you literally have to do nothing until they die, at 6th nothing can see you no matter what for another 4 levels, but only clerics for 2 levels then the wizard can finally see you and the sorcerer gets it one level after that, but the next level you are gone again but this time for good.

This "class" is good for one thing, the end of campaign unique monster, it is NOT a PC.

[Greymane]

While I recognize that many of the classes that Oslecamo makes are pretty powerful, and I know the regeneration and the minionmancy possibilities are pretty strong, they're something the party Wizard could do, and do better. Which has been said. The DM's "norm" for this game has melee foes being ToB classes, and should it ever become known what my character is, I suspect Holy Silver weapons to start making the occasional appearance. Heck, one of the other characters is a StP Erudite, so I'm honestly not too worried about showing him up at the table.

While some options, like the Wishes, were a holdover from the original monster, they still have the "If you want to abuse this, you still need to pay Experience for it, regardless of it being an SLA" clause on it. So again, no better than a caster using Wish as well. And as for the Invisibility that nobody can see through and ignoring Freedom of Movement- that's a running theme many of the monster classes have. Mostly to stop a monster's schtick from just being overcome by one spell.

I fully expect to be pretty good in melee, but the SUMMON MY LEMURE ARMY isn't exactly a great use of my actions in combat at higher levels. They're not going to do much damage, not going to hit very often, and they're pretty squishy.

I think the class is pretty good, but is still beat by Wizards and CoDzilla pretty soundly. I think it's a strong Tier 3, contending with ToB classes pretty easily for the most part, and lacking Tier 2's sheer power. And sure, the class wouldn't be a fit for everyone's 3.5 game, but even in a Core only game I'd say the Wizards, Clerics and Druids have the advantage.

[TotallyNotEvil]

I will have to agree, it's just about ridiculous.

If you want a Pit Fiend, why not just play one? Perfectly fine for 18-20 gameplay.

[arkangel111]

First solid T2 arguably bordering T1. It has almost every spell the Sorcerer is going to grab anyways, or at least the top end good ones. It is arguably T1 because it is almost a druid knock off.
----animal companion - permanent summons
----Wildshape - huge boosts to all stats natively, flies and has a large size. not quite as versatile but you also have wish for PAO.
----Spells - more than anyone T1 or below could dream of.

Second - you cite ToB enemies as an excuse to play this character. can any of them see you? No one can. Can they stand up to your army of followers? Maybe. Can they approach you? Not likely. If they finally manage to get next to you, can they stand to lose 18d6 (avg 63) STR and still dmg you? ummm didn't think so. You must be new to playground because ToB is largely T3-T4, though with a very generous reading of IHS you can break the game.

third the STP erudite is powerful you got me there. granted his power is going to be at a minimum set to yours.

forth the class is broke you can simultaneously fill every role in combat and out with 0 prep. and this alone should tell you how bad it is. A wizard or CoDzilla could fill all of these roles too but not simultaneously.

Tank - d8+7 hp/lvl (233 hp), large size, and reach, DR, Regeneration (with the DR and regen your virtual HP is much higher)
DD - 6 attacks for 4d10+8d6+4d8+52 or avg 120, with reach and summons and AoE and single target profane dmg as well
CC - SLAs, reach, and Auras
face/sneak - 8 skills/lvl with ALL of the good skills, invisibility, SLAs and +6 mod for cha
Utility - SLAs, skills
Buffs - Auras, SLAs
Heal - oh wait think we found one. wish works and you have regeneration though but other than that you can't do it natively for your party. oh but wands are a thing and UMD is a class skill, cause why not, so kinda got this too.

*all this with no feats, or items and no stats starting above a 10. (except heal, which needs a wand)

In conclusion I stand by my original assessment. I don't honestly know what you want the playground to tell you. The class is broken. There are no feats you have to take to make this character do everything out of the gate. No items you must grab to make it work. no strategy you have to do to stay alive. this might be the only "class" that can waste a feat on light, med, and hvy armor, grab shield and tower shield proficiency grab a few exotic weapons too just because you can.

I mean if you must have a tip from the playground, any immunities a DM throws at you say nope doesn't apply to me and then rip them apart. check back in with us in a few weeks to tell us all about your cakewalk of a campaign. I mean if the DM spends 40 hrs a week designing encounters for you and your party he might present you with challenges but I think most of your fun will have to solely be in the RP, and puzzle realm (but only if it can't be wished past) because anything you have to roll for you might as well just put I WIN on all sides of your D20.

[Greymane]

First solid T2 arguably bordering T1. It has almost every spell the Sorcerer is going to grab anyways, or at least the top end good ones. It is arguably T1 because it is almost a druid knock off.
----animal companion - permanent summons
----Wildshape - huge boosts to all stats natively, flies and has a large size. not quite as versatile but you also have wish for PAO.
----Spells - more than anyone T1 or below could dream of.

If I was building a blaster sorcerer, I suppose. Permanent summons don't factor in until later on, where some of the other Tier 1 casters can do minionmancy better.


Second - you cite ToB enemies as an excuse to play this character. can any of them see you? No one can. Can they stand up to your army of followers? Maybe. Can they approach you? Not likely. If they finally manage to get next to you, can they stand to lose 18d6 (avg 63) STR and still dmg you? ummm didn't think so. You must be new to playground because ToB is largely T3-T4, though with a very generous reading of IHS you can break the game.

I cite that ToB enemies will be the norm for the game, and not Fighters, Monks or Rogues. And the lower tiers are using the Partial Gestalt variation of Tippy's balance suggestions (which I didn't mention, so I apologize, but the premise of the thread wasn't the game's houserules). So I suspect I'll be running into Warblade//Expert and Swordsage//Adept on more than a few occasions. I'm not using that as an excuse, but informing everyone of the general power level.

I'm told many of the encounters will be battles with troops. While I might be individually powerful, I can't fight a war by myself, though I can bring in reinforcements twice a day. Consequently, since it looks like I'll be party leader, my ducking away and hiding will kill whatever morale mechanic the DM is using, according to him. So the invisibility is a little less useful. I also need to keep what I am a secret, as most of the nations in this game, I'm told, are good aligned. Summoning devils and showing what I look like, could get me killed/Banished in short order. So relying on my natural weapons isn't going to happen except under circumstances where I can hide it. That doesn't help a more general evaluation of the class, of course, but is important in my case.

I also don't think the poison and disease is going to matter. Most encounters end before the secondary damage comes up, but it could matter if I fight an enemy powerful enough to fight and then escape, I guess. Assuming I get to fight under circumstances where I'm in my natural form.


third the STP erudite is powerful you got me there. granted his power is going to be at a minimum set to yours.

Well, then I guess it's good we're on even footing, then.


forth the class is broke you can simultaneously fill every role in combat and out with 0 prep. and this alone should tell you how bad it is. A wizard or CoDzilla could fill all of these roles too but not simultaneously.

Tank - d8+7 hp/lvl (233 hp), large size, and reach, DR, Regeneration (with the DR and regen your virtual HP is much higher)
DD - 6 attacks for 4d10+8d6+4d8+52 or avg 120, with reach and summons and AoE and single target profane dmg as well
CC - SLAs, reach, and Auras
face/sneak - 8 skills/lvl with ALL of the good skills, invisibility, SLAs and +6 mod for cha
Utility - SLAs, skills
Buffs - Auras, SLAs
Heal - oh wait think we found one. wish works and you have regeneration though but other than that you can't do it natively for your party. oh but wands are a thing and UMD is a class skill, cause why not, so kinda got this too.

*all this with no feats, or items and no stats starting above a 10. (except heal, which needs a wand)

In conclusion I stand by my original assessment. I don't honestly know what you want the playground to tell you. The class is broken. There are no feats you have to take to make this character do everything out of the gate. No items you must grab to make it work. no strategy you have to do to stay alive. this might be the only "class" that can waste a feat on light, med, and hvy armor, grab shield and tower shield proficiency grab a few exotic weapons too just because you can.

I mean if you must have a tip from the playground, any immunities a DM throws at you say nope doesn't apply to me and then rip them apart. check back in with us in a few weeks to tell us all about your cakewalk of a campaign. I mean if the DM spends 40 hrs a week designing encounters for you and your party he might present you with challenges but I think most of your fun will have to solely be in the RP, and puzzle realm (but only if it can't be wished past) because anything you have to roll for you might as well just put I WIN on all sides of your D20.

I'd argue it doesn't approach Tier 1 due to being unable to reinvent itself on a daily basis. It lacks that versatility, but with Wish being a daily option, I see the argument for Tier 2. Maybe I'll suggest the Wish be a fluff thing, and can only be granted to mortals and not to be used for my own benefit. Assuming we ever even get to that level. Especially because you continue to cite that as the crazier power. Which it probably is, I assume it was left on the class because the original monster had it.

Though, I appreciate the effort everyone gave with their input. I apologize if I wasted anyone's time. I'll consider playing something different.

[noob]

Most of the classes features that things gets does not synergize well with feats.
You can get the sla metamagics and get that sla to sur feat then you will not really have a lot of feats that directly improve that class.

[arkangel111]

Ultimately I think you are under estimating the power of this class. Which to me says your DM might be also. I am just trying to help you be aware of the true power behind the class so you can make an informed decision.
When I first saw your post it was near the bottom with zero replies and several views. I thought I'd at least point out to you why.
Most of the time people ask what kind of character you plan to play and then give feat and strategy options based on what you want or what your build currently lacks. With this class, feats are just flavor text. Items are just there. Strategy doesn't matter. There is no advice to give, in essence you can call your build perfect. Yea you can grab pwr atk and boost your dmg more, grab an SLA metamagic and blast better, but you don't need to. You could take nothing but skill focus and this character will still tear things up with no effort, laugh at encounters and keep going. Even if you happen to run into trouble you have several options to take a step back take 2 minutes to fully heal and waltz back into combat probably having exhausted less than 1% of your daily uses while the enemy is hoping for a 15 minute adventuring day.

[TotallyNotEvil]

Seriously, can't you play a normal Pit Fiend? That's not exactly weak.

[Greymane]

Ultimately I think you are under estimating the power of this class. Which to me says your DM might be also. I am just trying to help you be aware of the true power behind the class so you can make an informed decision.
When I first saw your post it was near the bottom with zero replies and several views. I thought I'd at least point out to you why.
Most of the time people ask what kind of character you plan to play and then give feat and strategy options based on what you want or what your build currently lacks. With this class, feats are just flavor text. Items are just there. Strategy doesn't matter. There is no advice to give, in essence you can call your build perfect. Yea you can grab pwr atk and boost your dmg more, grab an SLA metamagic and blast better, but you don't need to. You could take nothing but skill focus and this character will still tear things up with no effort, laugh at encounters and keep going. Even if you happen to run into trouble you have several options to take a step back take 2 minutes to fully heal and waltz back into combat probably having exhausted less than 1% of your daily uses while the enemy is hoping for a 15 minute adventuring day.

I was well aware that the class was powerful, moreso I was aware that not many feats really synergized with the class, since there's basically a handful of monster feats for improving natural attacks, and feats that add DCs to abilities and the like; so I can understand why it wasn't getting responses. What was unnecessary was your coming in here and railing about how OP it was, and then trying to insinuate I must be new around here because I couldn't see how OP it was. Which wasn't the point. I have no interest in defending Oslecamo's creation. It's powerful. I wasn't trying to argue it wasn't, and never said it wasn't in the OP.

I understand the points you were trying to make, and can appreciate the time spent to make them, but that was not the purpose of the thread.


Seriously, can't you play a normal Pit Fiend? That's not exactly weak.

While I'm certain my DM would allow that, IF the game was starting at around 18-20, but we're starting at around level 1. This base class fit the bill, fluff-wise, for the character, and didn't look like it would be overshadowed by the StP Erudite in the group. But like I said above, I can understand why there's not much advice to go off of. It's a 1-20 class, and feat choices for synergy are limited.

[noob]

I was well aware that the class was powerful, moreso I was aware that not many feats really synergized with the class, since there's basically a handful of monster feats for improving natural attacks, and feats that add DCs to abilities and the like; so I can understand why it wasn't getting responses. What was unnecessary was your coming in here and railing about how OP it was, and then trying to insinuate I must be new around here because I couldn't see how OP it was. Which wasn't the point. I have no interest in defending Oslecamo's creation. It's powerful. I wasn't trying to argue it wasn't, and never said it wasn't in the OP.

I understand the points you were trying to make, and can appreciate the time spent to make them, but that was not the purpose of the thread.



While I'm certain my DM would allow that, IF the game was starting at around 18-20, but we're starting at around level 1. This base class fit the bill, fluff-wise, for the character, and didn't look like it would be overshadowed by the StP Erudite in the group. But like I said above, I can understand why there's not much advice to go off of. It's a 1-20 class, and feat choices for synergy are limited.

Did you ever read savage species?
Any monster that have a level adjustment can be made into a class.
So you just have to convince the gm the pit fiend is a La+0 creature and then you get the power of a cr20 creature in 18 levels.

[Greymane]

Did you ever read savage species?
Any monster that have a level adjustment can be made into a class.
So you just have to convince the gm the pit fiend is a La+0 creature and then you get the power of a cr20 creature in 18 levels.

Well, that's also a matter of fitting it all into an 18-20 level progression, and statting it up. Which I could do. And looking at the monster, using the Savage Species method, I'd have many of the same abilities as the Oslecamo version anyhow. Except many of the Spell-Likes are At Will, I'd have better stat mods (+26 Str, +16 Dex, +16 Con, +16 Int +16 Wis, +16 Cha), more skill points, better Reflex save Devil Summoning gets worse; and we're omitting Bully, Burning Hands, Scorching Ray, Animate Dead, Overpower, Overlord, Duke of Hell, and (rightly) nerfing the crap out of how often Wish can be used.

I mean. Stretching out the MM Pit Fiend over 20 levels is going to look really similar, and better in some ways (stat mods), but losing on the weird special abilities from the homebrew one. It still has the huge suite of natural attacks, and still has many of the same problems that some people have pointed out as too good. I actually think the better stat mods would make everyone else balk a bit. I'm not sure using that version would be an improvement. But not bad food for thought.

[TotallyNotEvil]

I feel Savage Progression is definitely a better deal, for all parties involved.

You ultimately end up as a normal Fiend who has read a few Tomes/Manuals.

[arkangel111]

So. I have a write up of every change that would have to be done to change Oslecamo's Pit Fiend into an Actual Pit Fiend. It's long. Ultimately you get some increase to your stats, not as high as you were figuring but there is a stat increase all across the board. I think this is partly due to the fact that pit fiend does not obey normal monster rules since it was never designed to be played.
Ultimately the biggest problem with OPF is that he has given nearly every SLA a suped up version of quickened letting it be immediate, or an energy substitution to profane dmg thereby bypassing immunities, or removing level caps, or magus/duskblade-like channeling through weapons, or the biggest culprit straight up ignoring the rules, and in a few instances a combination of several of these. while none of these are that bad on it's own, the fact that OPF has an answer to nearly every item or class feature a party would have is what makes it broken. A few of the notable examples:

Invisibility ignores everything that bypasses invisibility, the only downside to this ability is that it is not greater invisibility.
Dispel magic is normally a standard action, OPF is Immediate. Meaning he can entirely shut down a wizard if he just leaves a swift action open on his turn to counterspell. most parties only have 1 dedicated spell caster.
Overpower lets him ignore freedom of movement, fear immunity, poison and disease immunity. Meaning The PC's cannot do anything against the pit fiend in melee.
Devil Bite lets him poison every natural attack, not just his bite, look above for the disgusting combo.
Unholy aura applies to everyone, except the pit fiends allies, even if you are evil.
Overlord lets him spend a swift action to surround every character with summons so they can then full attack.

This class was designed by someone who had no system knowledge at all OR maybe he had a lot and literally just wanted to say NOPE to anything thrown at him, it is not balanced even against another pit fiend. The wish 4/day is bad but at 20 a wizard/sorcerer/cleric could do it as well. In a toe to toe match up OPF beats APF everyday of the week no contest. OPF is designed to TPK a well prepared party, with little effort.

[JNAProductions]

Except it's meant to be played by players, and not used against them. So things like diseases? Don't matter as much. Most enemies will be dead long before diseases matter.