Sacks of HP

[5eNeedsDarksun]

So my players are moving into tier 3 and the campaign is going to rely on some enemies coming from the Devil section of the MM. I'm finding their abilities rather unimpressive. The Pit Fiend CR20 is the only one that has access to spells at all. The Bone Devil CR9 is absolutely useless from 15' plus away. The Barbed Devil and Horned Devil can Hurl Flame, which at least gives a range option, even if it is a bit unimaginative, and the Erinyes CR12 can do much the same with a longbow. I would rate the Chain Devil CR8 as the best of the bunch with it's Animate Chains ability and useful Reaction. The Ice Devil has one decent ability, Wall of Ice, that likely is good once per combat; that's a CR 14 monster!
The other DM in our group gave the Bone Devils a Darkness spell, which made them really scary and actually put their Devil's Sight to use. Anyway, just wondering if any of you had made attempts to make these things a little more interesting and effective?

[MaxWilson]

Agreed that the default 5E MM versions are underwhelming, although I do like the archdevils. You could steal the spell lists of Baatezu from their AD&D MC entries. For my part I've simply avoided using 5E devils because they are so uninspiring (except for the archdevils).

You should get Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes and see if the archdevils are more your style. A handful of Merregons plus an archdevil should be a fairly interesting challenge, due to the additional mobility and spellcasting.

Another fix could be to treat MM stat blocks as the devil "Commoner" stats and make a habit of giving class levels to various devils when you use them in an adventure, e.g. a Bone Devil Shadow Monk 6 would be interesting. Hmmm, maybe I should actually do that... It would make Baatezu feel more individualized, more full NPCs than combat speedbumps, which I feel suits their role in the game lore.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Put them in smallish rooms that you need to turn a corner to enter, making it impossible to engage them at long range.

Have them surprise the party by dropping down from above.

There's plenty of terrain advantages you can use to put them on favorable footing.

[Necroanswer]

That's surprising. I've only been a player in 5e and don't have the MM, but I do remember devils and demons to having pretty potent abilities in earlier editions.

In 1e they had these abilities:

Bone Devil: generate fear 5' radius, create illusion, fly, become invisible, detect invisible, fear(as spell), summon another bone devil (40% chance of success) all at will; create wall of ice once per day

Barbed Devil: pyrotechnics, produce flame, hold person and summon another barbed devil (30% chance of success) at will

Horned Devil: pyrotechnics, produce flame, ESP, detect magic, illusion, summon another horned devil (50% chance of success) at will; create triple strength wall of fire once per day

Erinyes: cause fear, detect invisible, locate object, invisibility, polymorph self, produce flame, summon another erinyes (25% cos) at will

Ice Devil: fly, wall of ice, detect magic, detect invisible, polymorph self, summon 2 bone or 1 ice devil (60% cos) at will; cast ice storm once per day

I don't think Chain Devil existed in 1e.

You could import some of those abilities. I would probably leave out the summoning abilities as they could get out of hand really quickly

[Zhorn]

When it comes to any creature in the Monster Manual (or Volo's/Mordenkainen's) I opt to borrow from any other creature of similar size/shape/characteristics to make a little more interesting.

It is of a Huge or bigger size with hands/tentacles? Now it has Fling and will grapple-throw medium creatures around like rag-dolls.

Is it a fast flyer? Flyby is now a feature it benefits from, and locking it down in melee is the challenge.

Big'n'strong flyer? Grapples and lift targets up in the air to drop later intentionally or even just for the fall damage they may take is they break out of the grapple.

Big toothy jaws? You can be damn sure it has a bite with a grapple effect tied in. Why would those things bite and just let go?
Are the jaws bigger than the target? Swallow is now on the table.

Demons with a big theme of fire going on? Fire Aura or Heated Body.
Poison/Acid in stead? Copy some of the Venom Trolls flavour.

Martial themes combatant? borrow the Hobgoblin's Martial Advantage., or some Battle Master maneuvers.

On the topic of PC class features, I steer away from class levels. Just take a couple of features here and there, don't worry about a full build. Just take the things that are interesting. PC classes are more complex that monsters, and if your are going to be running multiples, best to not bog yourself down with an overly detailed build.

[Eldariel]

Yeah, this is true for all devils. For whatever reason, Demons got some decent SLAs while Devils were totally left out to dry. I just use 3e spell-likes as their innate spellcasting; makes them much more varied enemies. As is, their big thing is their laundry list of immunities. They're supposed to be big bruisers that are really hard to take down due to being immune or resistant to most things but practically speaking, they run into the Tarrasque issue of not doing anything (or very much at any rate). Worst of all, they are indeed boring. If they had abilities I'd be fine with them not having SLAs but they weren't given interesting abilities either. They're just dull - which is pretty sad for the evil outsiders who hold off the hordes of the Abyss alone with their cunning and resourcefulness.

[Sparky McDibben]

I've used the following techniques to spice up my diabolical encounters:


Use their summoning ability (I pre-roll what they're going to summon, then usually have it hit on round 2 without costing an action)
Give them a bonus action, a ranged attack, or both
Allow them to cast spells as a legendary action if the players are fighting only one devil, or allow it to use minions (cultists, typically) to heal itself, again without requiring an action
Environmental effects! If the players are interrupting a ritual, make the devil either invulnerable or resistant to all damage due to something about the ritual (this can get tricky to telegraph right to the players, though)
Change the nature of the beast - I once used a devil that could possess people, and when it died, it simply left that body and tried to find a new one. Players didn't catch on until they had to fight their mom. Rough night.


As an example, let's take the chain devil (one of my personal favorites). The fluff makes it sound terrifying: "This ominous find wears chains like a shroud. Driving lesser creatures before it with its fearsome gaze, a chain devil animates the chains that cover its body as well as inanimate chains nearby, which sprout hooks, blades, and spikes to eviscerate enemies. Chain devils act as sadistic jailers and torturers in the infernal realms, relishing pain and living to inflict it on others." And yet, the crunch falls a bit flat: it has two attacks, a 1x/short rest ability that is super dependent on the environment, and a nifty fear reaction. So how can we jazz this up?

Well, I connect chain devils to Pinhead from Hellraiser, so I'd allow the chains to be used on any target the devil can see, provided they are within thirty feet of an area of darkness. I also allow the devil to make infinite chains, so it can grapple targets on consecutive rounds. I give it the darkness spell at-will as a bonus action, and I give it a bonus action to cause psychic damage to one target that it has grappled and is frightened of it (which makes the reaction ability a lot more useful).

This devil is a bit more useful. It doesn't have to engage you in melee - all it needs is line of sight and poor lighting, and it can ruin your day. Darkness still requires concentration, so clever players can disrupt its devastating combo, and the ability to grapple someone from range is incredibly useful even for a solo monster. Now let's look at giving it a more narrative ability - what if it were able to drag people through the source of its darkness spell and teleport them to its lair on the Material Plane? Useful for splitting the party (it has two attacks, assuming it can grab a couple of people and scram), or for taking hostage an NPC the players care about. It probably has minions - sad sacks who either believe they merit punishment or people who are offering their suffering as payment for a favor.

So, let's set up its lair. It has four great chains that dangle from the ceiling of an abandoned, dimly lit warehouse, with a ritual circle in the center of the chains, suspended by the chains about 20 feet in mid-air. Multiple rafters, ramp-like piles of debris, and the chains themselves offer ingress, and there are about a dozen cultists (as the statblock) suspended from the chains, with another four on the ground. The ones suspended in the chains are incapacitated, writhing in pain. The groundlings are combat-capable, and will fight to the death. If the heroes manage to hurt the devil, it can use its reaction to transfer all or half the damage (DM's choice) to one of the suspended cultists. If the total damage dealt to the cultist exceeds their hp max, the excess is lost.

Telegraphing is key for mechanics like this - have one of the suspended cultists scream in pain, and describe how the wound the devil should have take appears on them.

To defeat the devil, you can either a) kill all the cultists, or b) disrupt the circle.

The chained ritual circle is kept suspended by a lever in the upper rafters - getting to it and releasing it will drop the circle, shattering it and preventing the cultists from helping their master.

[Calimehter]

For Devils, my own headcanon is that the "base" devils are kept the way they are by the Archdevils (who *do* have lots of neat powers per Mordkainen's) who want to make sure that most of the lower devils only have the basic tools (usally just physical attacks) that they need to fill their standard line duties. When your minions are by the very definition of their being schemers who are looking to usurp you, why would you give the whole lot of them any more power than they need?

When an Archdevil or Pit Fiend or other higher-up needs to send a lesser devil on a mission that requires some initiative and some abilities beyond the plain-jane stat block they already have, they can do what they do already for mortal warlocks and grant the lesser devil(s) some special powers to help them out.

This way, "most" of the devils are just like their MM stat block, but a few special ones are easy enough to whip up when needed. I haven't had to stat much up just yet, but I am leaning a lot more toward just assigning an invocation or two (and maybe Magic Initiate: Warlock for a cantrip or two and another one-shot spell) as needed and not bothering to stat out a full set of warlock levels.

[No brains]

I was also underwhelmed by devils as a whole. It seems like demons got all the impressive powers.

If I had to take a swing at what the intent behind this was, I would say that the devils are meant to be played strategically and employed in overwhelming numbers. I think the idea is that the players would be going to war with an army that has theoretically infinite resources. The major downside of actually doing this is that it's a pain to keep track of so many resources as the DM. It almost makes sense that their goal in the Blood War is to stall demons forever.

A few ideas I had to enhance devil encounters:

Every devil encounter has a swarm of spined devils overhead. Though they could skirmish, their primary role is to serve as a telepathic relay that takes the players' every move and sends it to HQ. The players' tricks will work less frequently as units are shifted to counter them.

Even high level characters could be threatened by a mob of bearded devils. Although the saves on the abilities are not terribly high, bleed damage and preventing healing can make tanks sweat. A run of bad luck against a bearded devil pike square can get so much worse so much quicker.

A barbed devil actually has a decently high perception score. They probably do best as guards and lookouts. Being high up and hurling flames is a cheap tactic.

Chain devils are interesting enough on their own, but a chain devil that has a meta-understanding of its animate chains ability can take short rests in between uses to have more chains than usual by the time a party shows up. This works well with spined devil reconnaissance.

A bone devil is pretty unimpressive without their polearm, but with it, they can grapple at range and then fly their prey over a hazard. Characters who only have only 5' of reach have limited ways to retaliate.

Horned devils can shoot fire from the air. Boring, but practical. If there's cover they can fly to in the air, like a vaulted ceiling, they can be more of a pain. Weirdly, with their superior speed and strength score, horned devils can do more with a bone devil's polearm.

An Erinyes can hang back and fire arrows at extreme range to deplete the players' reserve of lesser restorations. Poison arrows come three at a time and poison until resources are expended. Just taking disadvantage on attacks and checks can be a strain. This can also keep a player from properly addressing a bearded devil's poison. An Erinyes with a rope of entangling can also do the one trick that makes bone devils worthwhile.

Ice devils have a straightforward and cool ability.

Pit fiends can fly and cast fireball at will. This is crime.

Always be aware that if the players are on the offensive, the devils have terrain advantages to cheese the most out of their abilities. Even something like an open top maze of 15' walls can give flyers cover whenever they want. Devils can exist comofrtably in extreme heat, extreme cold, or ambient poison. Permanent magical darkness could plausibly be a thing. A collapsing floor doesn't matter to monsters that can fly. Be diabolical with it.

Finally, a devil's ability to make deals means they probably have some backup from other intelligent beings that can tolerate lawful evil. Archmages, assassins, mind flayer arcanists, (slightly modified) Drow Spider Priestesses, yugoloths, blue/green dragons could potentially ally with devils. If any of them can cast darkness, then the devils have a use for their devil's sight.

I hope this makes the most of your encounters.

[MaxWilson]

I was also underwhelmed by devils as a whole. It seems like demons got all the impressive powers.

If I had to take a swing at what the intent behind this was, I would say that the devils are meant to be played strategically and employed in overwhelming numbers. I think the idea is that the players would be going to war with an army that has theoretically infinite resources. The major downside of actually doing this is that it's a pain to keep track of so many resources as the DM. It almost makes sense that their goal in the Blood War is to stall demons forever.

IMO vast hordes is more of a Tanar'ri thing than a Baatezu thing. Baatezu are strategically outnumbered, must rely on mobility, tactics and cunning to show up "the firstest with the mostest" in a given location and win locally, then pull out before Tanar'ri reinforcements can arrive to crush them. Historically their special abilities like regeneration have also helped here, and even in 5E the archdevils at least still have regeneration, so it makes sense that they'd do a large proportion of the fighting personally.


An Erinyes can hang back and fire arrows at extreme range to deplete the players' reserve of lesser restorations. Poison arrows come three at a time and poison until resources are expended. Just taking disadvantage on attacks and checks can be a strain. This can also keep a player from properly addressing a bearded devil's poison. An Erinyes with a rope of entangling can also do the one trick that makes bone devils worthwhile.

I definitely agree that it's very Baatezu-ish to use lesser devils as force multipliers for the greater ones. I'd generalize this even further to say "Baatezu other than Lemures don't typically fight to the 'death' unless they have a significant force advantage, 2:1 or greater, or have no way to escape." Tanar'ri however do, and that is why the Blood War is stalemated even though Tanar'ri outnumber Baatezu by 100:1 or more, because the Tanar'ri throw their forces away carelessly in tiny pointless attacks while the Baatezu stay unified and disciplined. If all of the Tanar'ri ever attacked at once in one gigantic coordinate attack the Baatezu would be crushed.