It's possible to outlawyer a devil?

[Conradine]

I was thinking...
sure, devils are immortal, are ancient, have centuries of pratice in all kind of obscure legal matters...

but an average Harvester Devil has an Intelligence of 14.

A wizard of medium-high talent ( starting Int 15 ), venerable age ( Int 18 ), good experience ( level 8, 2 attribute increases, Int 20 ), under a Fox's Cunning spell ( Int 24 ) has a much more powerful mind. It's the difference between a grown man and a toddler ( 10 points ).

So, an highly intelligent character could brute-force his way through an infernal contract by sheer raw brain power?

[DeTess]

Depends on who actually writes the contract. If the Int 14 harvester devil actually only uses boilerplate contracts that have been double-checked by his superiors for loopholes, it'd be far more difficult to get through. Also, a very simple deal doesn't require great intellect to set up, but can be loophole free. "I will give you the power to save your friend, but after your death your soul belongs to me." is, apart form becoming immortal, pretty much loophole free.

[Morty]

It would also take far more than just a high intelligence score to outsmart a devil. Or a mortal lawyer, for that matter; law is a skill and simply being smart doesn't cut it.

[ngilop]

Yes. I believe to think otherwise is foolish.


I do not feel intelligence has much bearing on it.


One could be too dumb and somehow get one over on the fiend in their contract (I am pretty sure that is what happened in the story with deathclock)

[Telonius]

Fiendish Codex 2 has rules on this (page 25). If you want to do a "Daniel Webster" to save somebody's soul, you have to make a Diplomacy check, Knowledge (Planes) check, and Perform (Acting) check for both the prosecution and the defense. Add them up, highest score wins.

Two of those are Charisma-based. One is Intelligence-based. So, yes, it's possible to brute-force your way to a victory given a sufficiently high Intelligence score, but it's hard.

[Psyren]

Remember, there's three ways to win any trial.

"If you have the facts on your side, pound the facts.
If you have the law on your side, pound the law.
If you have neither, pound the table."

While it's certainly not easy, you can beat a devil in a trial using any of these three, even the third one. Particularly in a setting where the judge is not themselves a devil, like Faerun or Golarion.

[Conradine]

law is a skill and simply being smart doesn't cut it.

Being smart would mean having 2-3 points of Intelligence more than the opponent.

Having 10 points more means he's like a little child dealing with an adult.

[Psyren]

Being smart would mean having 2-3 points of Intelligence more than the opponent.

Having 10 points more means he's like a little child dealing with an adult.

Higher intelligence doesn't make someone immune to making mistakes, or even simply being wrong.

[DeTess]

Being smart would mean having 2-3 points of Intelligence more than the opponent.

Having 10 points more means he's like a little child dealing with an adult.

No, having 10 points more in intelligence means that you've got a +5 higher bonus on intelligence skill. If the one you're dealing with has 15 more ranks in profession(lawyer) than you do, they'll still outlawyer you most of the time.

[Morty]

Being smart would mean having 2-3 points of Intelligence more than the opponent.

Having 10 points more means he's like a little child dealing with an adult.

This seems like an assertion without any backing in the rules, flavor text or indeed any kind of common sense.

[Silly Name]

Being smart would mean having 2-3 points of Intelligence more than the opponent.

Having 10 points more means he's like a little child dealing with an adult.

You can be the smartest person alive, but if you've never studied law you aren't going to be able to win against a trained lawyer of average intelligence.

It's why the Knowledge skills are trained-only: Einstein wasn't a historian even if he was probably smarter than most historians, and he couldn't have been able to teach history, because intellect doesn't magically grant you knowledge.

[Kyutaru]

Also the way legal proceedings occur is intentionally obfuscated with regulations you need to know by heart because no one is going to remind you they exist in court.

Basically intelligence is near worthless to beating a lawyer or a devil. They are trained in a system built on deception and the exploitation of loopholes. They are already used to dealing with highly intelligent opponents. Those don't win, the highly paranoid ones do. Luring people into a false sense of security and victory is a basic strategy for both debate and law. The entire case is like one big trap the prosecution is trying to set upon you and every fact presented closes another escape route. It doesn't matter if you're intelligent or not when the walls are closing in and there's no way out. An intelligent person can try to look for creative solutions but first you need enough information and knowledge to even know what your options are.

The smartest man in the world stuck inside a moving trash compactor is very likely going to be a corpse soon.

[Zanos]

I think people get stuck on tropes that apply to average humans, rather than the heroic ones that exist in 3.5. Can a regular human get one over on a devil? Unlikely, borderline impossible. But then again, a regular human also can't rip a devils head off with their bare hands or slay them with a thought and a word.

So from the perspective of theming? Yes, a character of superhuman intelligence and skill at navigating technicalities and argumentation should be able to outlawyer hell itself.


Fiendish Codex 2 has rules on this (page 25). If you want to do a "Daniel Webster" to save somebody's soul, you have to make a Diplomacy check, Knowledge (Planes) check, and Perform (Acting) check for both the prosecution and the defense. Add them up, highest score wins.

Two of those are Charisma-based. One is Intelligence-based. So, yes, it's possible to brute-force your way to a victory given a sufficiently high Intelligence score, but it's hard.
I believe there's a 'gotcha' here in that if you aren't falsely accused, you lose regardless of the quality of your argumentation. Also, this section contains a hilarious picture of a pit fiend sitting at a podium and hitting it with a gavel, because he's the judge.

[Psyren]

So from the perspective of theming? Yes, a character of superhuman intelligence and skill at navigating technicalities and argumentation should be able to outlawyer hell itself.

Not to mention, there's a lot of degrees of devil. Outlawyering Random Contract Devil #365B is bound to be more achievable than outlawyering Mephistopheles or Asmodeus.

[Alcore]

absolutely


if the devil allows the contract to be revised according to the protest of the signee before signage a smart or observant person could quantify nebulous terms and plug holes in a contract. the stereo typical "deal with the devil" involves flashing a contract in their face and quickly swiping it from them once they lose a drop of blood on it. if both parties are allow to read and revise a "fair looking" contract can be had. Since mortals often undersell the value of a soul (and other immaterial things) it is hard to call them fair even if made to both parties satisfaction.

[Kyutaru]

So from the perspective of theming? Yes, a character of superhuman intelligence and skill at navigating technicalities and argumentation should be able to outlawyer hell itself.
Trouble I see with this is that case victory tends to rarely come down to argumentation or technicality unless both participants are highly experienced and equally competent attorneys. A much more common occurrence is that the law itself doesn't matter and what matters is the courtroom dance, which can be full of pitfalls that censure the truth. You may have the skill needed to argue in your favor but the legal system does not permit you to do so. You can only say things it allows, phrase things in a way that is permitted, ask questions that are allowable, and overall your hands and tongue are tied beyond this very narrow scope of acceptable procedures. Legal counselors make excellent use of these regulations to DENY people the ability to prove their case even if you truly are in the right with the law on your side and all the evidence you require. In the court of Hell you can expect 1000x as much trickery.

One would have to be an expert in Hell's legal procedures to avoid stumbling into the undoubtedly innumerable layers of behavioral traps that will risk having your facts dismissed, your witnesses unable to testify, your credibility lost, and even your presence removed (try defending yourself when in contempt of court).

[Zanos]

Not to mention, there's a lot of degrees of devil. Outlawyering Random Contract Devil #365B is bound to be more achievable than outlawyering Mephistopheles or Asmodeus.

Yeah, if the devil you signed up with is either a deity or on the footsteps of becoming one, you're kinda hosed unless you get another deity to intercede on your behalf. Even then I wouldn't favor your odds.


One would have to be an expert in Hell's legal procedures to avoid stumbling into the undoubtedly innumerable layers of behavioral traps that will risk having your facts dismissed, your witnesses unable to testify, your credibility lost, and even your presence removed (try defending yourself when in contempt of court).
Sure, but there's no reason a high level character with high mental stats with lots of ranks in planar and legal knowledge, who explicitly trafficks with fiends, wouldn't be able to accomplish this. Yes the game is rigged, but it's pretty hard to rig a game against someone who is objectively your mental superior and just as learned.

To be honest if all else fails, a sufficiently powerful party can just physically journey to hell and kill the devils holding you to retrieve your soul. You'll have to fight/avoid at least one pit fiend so it won't be easy, but certainly within the realm of possibilities for high level characters to raid a courtroom and retrieve a damned soul. Actually, that sounds like a pretty sweet adventure.

[MoiMagnus]

Is high intelligence enough? No.
Is it possible to outlawyer a devil? Yes.

It will depends on the circumstances.

While that's probably not what you meant by "outlawyering", in a human court of law in a small kingdom, a local skilful lawyer has probably more chances than a devil that have no familiarity with the local traditions and values, on top of lacking the empathy to fully understand the human judges and jury.

Intelligence is related to memory, meaning that a devil that has "only" 14 Int probably doesn't remember all the experience it could have accumulated through time. What was the main occupation of this devil during the last few century is very important to determine how skilful the devil will actually be at lawyering the particular issue.

Level of preparation is also really important. If you're very clever wizard had the time to investigate the devil in depth in order to target the points in which the devil is the most likely to make a mistake. Without preparation, you would also need a lot of social intelligence (so Charisma, and possibly Wisdom) in order to understand and exploit the devil's weaknesses while hiding your own weaknesses.

[Tvtyrant]

Well it needs to be. If someone didn't get away with it no one would try. We also know that people are terrible at gauging their own intelligence or caginess, so for every intelligent, charismatic archmagus who pulls it off you have 1000 people in over their heads. The devils might even send a bad negotiator from time to time so a normal person can win and tell all his friends, and when they go to repeat the process Mammon or Mephistopheles meet them to seal the deal.

[Morty]

Let's also remember that there's no such thing as an "intelligence score" in real life. It's a mechanical abstraction covering some, but not all, things people call "intelligence".

[Silly Name]

I mean, the best contracts anyway are those that have zero loopholes. I once pulled one on one of my players: they meet a devil that had been imprisoned (and which they accidentally freed), said devil offered to make a deal with them and one character took the chance. From then on the devil and him had a whole "exchange favors" thing going on for a while, everything being very fair and professional and friendly and 100% clear and the devil was even extra-careful to never demand anything excessively evil of the barbarian in question... until the character went into negative HP during a duel...

And the devil appeared, promising him that he could defeat the character's opponent in exchange for one last favor. "Anything", said our half-orc barbarian...

And thus began the plot arc to retrieve the barbarian's hijacked body, exorcise a devil and save the characters' headquarters from becoming the starting point of a fiendish invasion.

Short, simple contracts are way easier to exploit than long documents with tons of fine print and clauses because those things make people suspicious and instil into them the idea they can find a loophole. Good contracts are ironclad and avoid loopholes so that there is no chance your victim can try to dispute them.

Think of how Mephistopheles interacted with Faust, how the devil satisfied every desire of the doctor that had summoned him... With the knowledge that after 24 years of servitude, Faust's soul would end up in Hell. There was no lying, no hidden secrets. Faust damned himself of his own volition, and nothing's better than that.

[Vaern]

It surely wouldn't be a straight int check to outlawyer a devil. I don't think the game has a set system for handling legal matters, but I would use profession for drafting the contract itself and maybe allow forgery to be used as a written bluff check for masking little details between the lines. I'd make it either an opposed forgery or a search check to find those hidden details, and an opposed profession (lawyer) check to find a loophole in the contract that the devil could exploit to still get his way should he still sign it.

[Cruiser1]

Also, this section contains a hilarious picture of a pit fiend sitting at a podium and hitting it with a gavel, because he's the judge.
"Damned souls wishing to dispute the terms of their Faustian contracts must appear before the unforgiving baatezu justice Ashkult" (FC2 p25) :smallamused:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/62/af/60/62af60bd8b101bf259751f9e9eea5e5e.png

[Conradine]

If a small child ( just learned to speak ) has an Intelligence of 3, and an average Old character has an Intelligence of 12, then having 10 more points in Intelligence means being like an adult dealing with a child.

[Psyren]

If a small child ( just learned to speak ) has an Intelligence of 3, and an average Old character has an Intelligence of 12, then having 10 more points in Intelligence means being like an adult dealing with a child.

Where are you getting stats for small children from? I don't think the D&D stat system is suited for measuring the sapience of children. (Arguably not even those of dragons.)

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

Where are you getting stats for small children from? I don't think the D&D stat system is suited for measuring the sapience of children. (Arguably not even those of dragons.)

The DnD stat system also has people improving their hearing and sight pretty significantly as they age, which uhhhhh

[Psyren]

"Damned souls wishing to dispute the terms of their Faustian contracts must appear before the unforgiving baatezu justice Ashkult" (FC2 p25) :smallamused:

Yes, although that's in Greyhawk; in FR, Kelemvor judges Faustian bargains, and in PF, Pharasma. (In Eberron, all souls go to the same place no matter what they did in life IIRC.)

[Kyutaru]

The DnD stat system also has people improving their hearing and sight pretty significantly as they age, which uhhhhh

Don't forget memory and sex appeal. Bards over 70 years old are the best.

[Zanos]

The DnD stat system also has people improving their hearing and sight pretty significantly as they age, which uhhhhh
You can easily attribute this to more worldly knowledge than actual eyesight. Knowing what to look for rather than what you actually see. But yes, I agree that 70 year olds getting +1.5 to spot checks is...weird.

[Bullet06320]

I was thinking...
sure, devils are immortal, are ancient, have centuries of pratice in all kind of obscure legal matters...

but an average Harvester Devil has an Intelligence of 14.

A wizard of medium-high talent ( starting Int 15 ), venerable age ( Int 18 ), good experience ( level 8, 2 attribute increases, Int 20 ), under a Fox's Cunning spell ( Int 24 ) has a much more powerful mind. It's the difference between a grown man and a toddler ( 10 points ).

So, an highly intelligent character could brute-force his way through an infernal contract by sheer raw brain power?

not smarter, you just need to be a better lawyer

Profession: Barrister. Sharn City of Towers, page 132, 5 ranks in bluff or diplomacy give you a +2 synergy bonus

[Kesnit]

Feedback from a lawyer...



Depends on who actually writes the contract. If the Int 14 harvester devil actually only uses boilerplate contracts that have been double-checked by his superiors for loopholes, it'd be far more difficult to get through. Also, a very simple deal doesn't require great intellect to set up, but can be loophole free. "I will give you the power to save your friend, but after your death your soul belongs to me." is, apart form becoming immortal, pretty much loophole free.

I see two loopholes.

First, "save your friend" is not defined. At any time in the future, if the bargainer is unable to save said friend from anything, the contract is void as the devil failed to live up to its end of the bargain.

Second, "death" is such a loose phrase in D&D. Sure, maybe the devil gets your soul after the first death, but a Resurrection solves that. Once you come back to life, the bargainer has fulfilled their end of the bargain, and any subsequent death (even a permanent one) no longer send the soul to the devil.


You can be the smartest person alive, but if you've never studied law you aren't going to be able to win against a trained lawyer of average intelligence.

I have seen clients represent themselves and not do too bad. They may not win, but I can't say I would have won the case, either.


Basically intelligence is near worthless to beating a lawyer or a devil. They are trained in a system built on deception and the exploitation of loopholes.

*sheepish grin*


The entire case is like one big trap the prosecution is trying to set upon you and every fact presented closes another escape route.

Not true. I often can get evidence helpful to my client out through prosecution witnesses.


I mean, the best contracts anyway are those that have zero loopholes.

I suspect such an item does not exist. Modern day contracts are written by lawyers, and yet contract disputes come up all the time.


I once pulled one on one of my players: they meet a devil that had been imprisoned (and which they accidentally freed), said devil offered to make a deal with them and one character took the chance. From then on the devil and him had a whole "exchange favors" thing going on for a while, everything being very fair and professional and friendly and 100% clear and the devil was even extra-careful to never demand anything excessively evil of the barbarian in question... until the character went into negative HP during a duel...

And the devil appeared, promising him that he could defeat the character's opponent in exchange for one last favor. "Anything", said our half-orc barbarian...

That wasn't the cleverness of the devil. That was the foolishness of the barbarian.


And thus began the plot arc to retrieve the barbarian's hijacked body, exorcise a devil and save the characters' headquarters from becoming the starting point of a fiendish invasion.

Void contract. The devil took more than one favor from the barbarian (took control of the body, then actually used the body to further the devil's goals), which nullified the contract.


Short, simple contracts are way easier to exploit than long documents with tons of fine print and clauses because those things make people suspicious and instill into them the idea they can find a loophole.

Depends on the contract. Sometimes short contracts are better; sometimes they aren't.

In a D&D game I was in a few years ago, one of the PCs died. The DM allows players to make a "god call" to see if a deity will save them. The player was answered by the "evil god of clowns," who said he would bring the PC back if she would agree to "worship him." I tried frantically to get the player to accept there (she wasn't playing a divine caster and was already NE, so her god didn't matter), but she wanted clarification. The DM/"evil clown god" said she would have to take a divine caster class (which would have shot down her planned character progression).

Had she accepted the original offer, nothing the DM/"evil clown god" could say could have forced her to take a divine class. The offer was made ("worship me") and accepted ("ok, I will worship you") and there was consideration (PC would worship him and he would bring her back to life). Valid contract. Any further attempts to force her to take a divine class would breach the contract, freeing her from the original agreement.

[NigelWalmsley]

I see two loopholes.

It's way more than two. The most obvious loophole is that the contract doesn't specify a transfer of ownership for the soul if the devil dies, so you can be a good little adventurer and kill it before you die. There's also the question of what "ownership" means. If a devil has a technical claim on your soul, but you end up in one of the Upper Planes, what good is that going to do him? You can do that for most of the words, to be honest. Does "your soul" refer to your original soul, or can you steal someone else's and give the devil that? How long a term of ownership is implied? What happens if you die and get raised?

[daremetoidareyo]

I worked out a little diddy for this after doing my library of knowledge.

Paladin2/Marshal3/fortunes friend 5/justiciar of tyr 2
1 knight of tyr's holy judgement
3 survivor's luck
6 Dream Scion
7 bonus make your own luck
9 Dream of instinct, unbelievable luck

motivate intelligence, draconic aura of insight, motivate charisma
max as best as possible perform acting, knowledge planes, knowledge local, knowledge nobility, knowledge religion, bluff, sense motive and diplomacy. Consider also knowledge law and profession barrister.

Join covenant of light for a +2 to knowledge checks, Scrolls of uncertain provenance for 8000 gp give you +5 competence, get a brainmate for 10,000 for some more knowledges, check out the pact primeval for even more plusses. Then Hang out in hell for souls to arrive and present yourself as a public defender to souls that are there based on deals with devils.

The problem here is that you can't enter pact with devils yourself and then beat them at court. Because you're a stupid paladin.

----

Warlock 2/marshal 3
otherworldly whispers, beguiling influence/Motivate intelligence, draconic aura of insight, motivate charisma
breadth of knowledge, dreamscion, dream of instinct
You can make sacrifices to get devils to enter into faustian pacts with you. And you can then use your skills to avoid going to hell.

[porchdog]

So, an highly intelligent character could brute-force his way through an infernal contract by sheer raw brain power?

Yes.

Of course plenty of smart people can outlawyer nearly anyone.

But more then that, the devils DO want to loose every so often as part of the big picture. The devils don't want word to spread that ''they always win and everyone else always looses", that would be bad for business. They want the story to be more "it is possible to win", and even have a couple famous examples. That is far more tempting for people....as so, so, so, so many people will think that they are the "special" person that will outlawyer a devil.....and most of them will be wrong.

This is the same way Casino's for example, want a couple big winners every so often.

And if it does not happen naturally....they can make it happen....

[The Random NPC]

Second, "death" is such a loose phrase in D&D. Sure, maybe the devil gets your soul after the first death, but a Resurrection solves that. Once you come back to life, the bargainer has fulfilled their end of the bargain, and any subsequent death (even a permanent one) no longer send the soul to the devil.


You typically aren't allowed to be resurrected if someone else owns your soul, and there's still the argument that even if you're resurrected, the devil can just collect their property again. After all, even if someone steals your stuff and moves it to another plane, it's still yours.


It's way more than two. The most obvious loophole is that the contract doesn't specify a transfer of ownership for the soul if the devil dies, so you can be a good little adventurer and kill it before you die. There's also the question of what "ownership" means. If a devil has a technical claim on your soul, but you end up in one of the Upper Planes, what good is that going to do him? You can do that for most of the words, to be honest. Does "your soul" refer to your original soul, or can you steal someone else's and give the devil that? How long a term of ownership is implied? What happens if you die and get raised?

There's probably established general law to deal with transfer of ownership and interfering with the fulfillment of a contract is usually not allowed. There was an episode of Leverage where they took down a corrupt insurance firm by "proving" they never had any intention of paying out any policy. That (in addition to closing the firm) voided every contract the firm had. Of course, that's a tv show, but according to one of the writers (Jon Rodgers) every episode is at least theoretically possible.

[NigelWalmsley]

There's probably established general law to deal with transfer of ownership and interfering with the fulfillment of a contract is usually not allowed. There was an episode of Leverage where they took down a corrupt insurance firm by "proving" they never had any intention of paying out any policy. That (in addition to closing the firm) voided every contract the firm had. Of course, that's a tv show, but according to one of the writers (Jon Rodgers) every episode is at least theoretically possible.

I suppose it depends on if you believe contracts with devils fall under some broader body of Hell Law, or are individually specified. I could imagine either situation being plausible.

[Zanos]

I suppose it depends on if you believe contracts with devils fall under some broader body of Hell Law, or are individually specified. I could imagine either situation being plausible.
It's both. The Pact Primeval signed by the gods and Asmodeus grants the Nine Hells dominion over all Lawful Evil souls. However the mere act of signing a Pact Insidious or Pact Certain with a Devil is an overwhelmingly Lawful Evil act. So basically, they'll get you on a technicality every time because the moment your quill touched parchment you became Lawful Evil and not even a deity can save you, because they agreed to it. I believe one of the arguments out of it FC2 provides is the Devil not holding up their end of the bargain? So the best approach if you weren't coerced into signing the pact and did it of your own free will is probably to finagle some way to 'prove' you didn't get what you were owed in the terms.

I do like the idea of the devil as a false friend to lean on a bit more than a lawyer, but you can play them either or both ways.

[Silly Name]

I have seen clients represent themselves and not do too bad. They may not win, but I can't say I would have won the case, either.

I guess my point was more that if you have no advanced knowledge of a subject, you are highly unlikely to be able to school someone who's an actual expert on said subject, no matter how smart you are.
(That said my country's legal system is, to my understanding, very different from the US, so that is probably colouring how I see this topic)


I suspect such an item does not exist. Modern day contracts are written by lawyers, and yet contract disputes come up all the time.

Probably not, but I feel devils don't want to give mortals much a litigation chance so they'd try to make ironclad contracts rather than strings of loopholes. Not really something I think everyone should abide to, just how I tend to play them.


That wasn't the cleverness of the devil. That was the foolishness of the barbarian.

Anybody who makes a deal with a devil is a fool, be they a raging barbarian or a wizard thirsting for knowledge. The devil simply played into the bravado and thick-headedness of the barbarian: certainly an easier target than a clever wizard, but the devil almost got a planar invasion out of that, and a few months as a king among mortals. Not too shabby, IMHO.


Void contract. The devil took more than one favor from the barbarian (took control of the body, then actually used the body to further the devil's goals), which nullified the contract.

Way I see it (and explained to the players), the last favor was "ownership of your body". The devil was now free to do with his property as he wanted, much like how if I purchase a car from you it's not a breach of contract if I use said car to do something illegal. None of the players was quite so legally inclined as to travel to the Hells to dispute the contract. At least not when they could choose to face a single devil-possessed barbarian rather than the entirety of the Hells in their search of an infernal judge.


Depends on the contract. Sometimes short contracts are better; sometimes they aren't.

On second thought, agreed. I just figure most DMs don't want to cook up a thousand-pages legal document, so may as well lean on the short-but-effective idea.

[Kesnit]

You typically aren't allowed to be resurrected if someone else owns your soul,

Every soul has a destination, so every soul is owned by someone. But Resurrection exists, which means you can reclaim your soul.


and there's still the argument that even if you're resurrected, the devil can just collect their property again.

That wasn't part of the contract. The devil could have added the clause "I own your soul for all eternity," which would get around that loophole, but as given, death and the claiming of the soul once completes the contract.


After all, even if somene steals your stuff and moves it to another plane, it's still yours.

The contract was completed. Death done, soul delivered. Once the contract is done, a new contract must be entered in order to renew the terms.


There's probably established general law to deal with transfer of ownership and interfering with the fulfillment of a contract is usually not allowed.

There is no interference. The contract was completed as soon as the person died and the soul traveled to the devil. And then, under the rules of the world (Resurrection is a legal spell...), the person's soul was returned.


There was an episode of Leverage where they took down a corrupt insurance firm by "proving" they never had any intention of paying out any policy. That (in addition to closing the firm) voided every contract the firm had. Of course, that's a tv show, but according to one of the writers (Jon Rodgers) every episode is at least theoretically possible.

The difference is that the insurance firm planned to breach the contract. There is no breach here.


It's both. The Pact Primeval signed by the gods and Asmodeus grants the Nine Hells dominion over all Lawful Evil souls. However the mere act of signing a Pact Insidious or Pact Certain with a Devil is an overwhelmingly Lawful Evil act. So basically, they'll get you on a technicality every time because the moment your quill touched parchment you became Lawful Evil and not even a deity can save you, because they agreed to it.

The Hellbred race says "hi..."



I believe one of the arguments out of it FC2 provides is the Devil not holding up their end of the bargain? So the best approach if you weren't coerced into signing the pact and did it of your own free will is probably to finagle some way to 'prove' you didn't get what you were owed in the terms.

That was the first loophole I pointed out.

[Pinkie Pyro]

It would also take far more than just a high intelligence score to outsmart a devil. Or a mortal lawyer, for that matter; law is a skill and simply being smart doesn't cut it.

More to the point: Profession(Lawyer) is a wisdom based skill.

high INT would let you cite case rulings and laws and whatever for days on end, but without the wis to put it together it wouldn't matter.

And high wis characters tend to be the kind not to make deals with devils in the first place, but if one were too, Wisdom is what would give the biggest advantage.

[Silly Name]

Every soul has a destination, so every soul is owned by someone. But Resurrection exists, which means you can reclaim your soul.

I'm... not sure I follow this logic. A soul belonging to an afterlife doesn't mean there is an actual person (or extrplanar being) who can claim ownership of a soul. It's two different meanings of the word "belonging".

Most gods, I think, technically do own the souls of their followers, but let them be resurrected 99.9% of the time because that usually means a few more years of active worship and the mortal spreading the god's ideals and dogma... And people are more likely to worship a god that holds their loved ones "hostage" with no good reason.

Devils aren't as nice:


Devils allow very few souls to return to the Material Plane and live again. The only souls they release are those of committed and useful servitors whose eventual damnation is guaranteed, or those pried from their grasp through legal proceedings. Thus, when PC signatories of Faustian pacts die and want to be raised, reincarnated, or resurrected, a series of scenes set in Baator determines whether they are freed or ferried immediately to a hellish torture chamber. In the latter case, the character must be retired.

Further, the language of the Raise Dead spell specifies that in order to be raised, a soul needs to be willing and free, which implies a soul may not be free (trapped somewhere, bound to an item, or forbidden to return to life by the gods/devils/demons)

[Quertus]

Is high intelligence enough? No.
Is it possible to outlawyer a devil? Yes.


I think people get stuck on tropes that apply to average humans, rather than the heroic ones that exist in 3.5. Can a regular human get one over on a devil? Unlikely, borderline impossible. But then again, a regular human also can't rip a devils head off with their bare hands or slay them with a thought and a word.

So from the perspective of theming? Yes, a character of superhuman intelligence and skill at navigating technicalities and argumentation should be able to outlawyer hell itself.

Pretty much agree with this. Although the theme in many stories is that when fairly dull protagonists should be able to outwit devils, so I can see the argument in that direction, too.

(Still, RAW apparently has an answer for the math to use for… "court, *if* innocent"?)


Not to mention, there's a lot of degrees of devil. Outlawyering Random Contract Devil #365B is bound to be more achievable than outlawyering Mephistopheles or Asmodeus.

I would agree, except I've read modules that contain descriptions of those two's plans, and, I gotta say, they're idiots. Anyone who *can't* outwit those two probably shouldn't make it to 2nd level.

*Other* skilled devils, OTOH, I could certainly get behind them having significant skills.

[Tvtyrant]

Pretty much agree with this. Although the theme in many stories is that when fairly dull protagonists should be able to outwit devils, so I can see the argument in that direction, too.

(Still, RAW apparently has an answer for the math to use for… "court, *if* innocent"?)



I would agree, except I've read modules that contain descriptions of those two's plans, and, I gotta say, they're idiots. Anyone who *can't* outwit those two probably shouldn't make it to 2nd level.

*Other* skilled devils, OTOH, I could certainly get behind them having significant skills.

I believe it is also canon that they pose as each other and then follow through on bad plans to make each other look bad, and Mephisto gets angry that all of his good plans get attributed to Asmodeous.

They are more focused on each other then demons or mortals.

[Telonius]

More to the point: Profession(Lawyer) is a wisdom based skill.

high INT would let you cite case rulings and laws and whatever for days on end, but without the wis to put it together it wouldn't matter.

And high wis characters tend to be the kind not to make deals with devils in the first place, but if one were too, Wisdom is what would give the biggest advantage.

Profession (Lawyer) checks determine how many GP you can make by being a lawyer. Whether that matches up to how often you win while being a lawyer ...?

[The Random NPC]

Every soul has a destination, so every soul is owned by someone. But Resurrection exists, which means you can reclaim your soul.

I disagree, every soul having a destination doesn't mean every soul is owned. Furthermore, most Good owners (that is to say gods) are likely to allow a soul to be resurrected, but they still have the option to disallow it.



That wasn't part of the contract. The devil could have added the clause "I own your soul for all eternity," which would get around that loophole, but as given, death and the claiming of the soul once completes the contract.

It doesn't have to be a part of the contract, theft doesn't remove ownership, just possession.


The contract was completed. Death done, soul delivered. Once the contract is done, a new contract must be entered in order to renew the terms.

A new contract isn't needed, yes the contract is completed, but the contract is for ownership of the soul.


There is no interference. The contract was completed as soon as the person died and the soul traveled to the devil. And then, under the rules of the world (Resurrection is a legal spell...), the person's soul was returned.

The interference was about the murder of the contract's recipient of goods. Also, the person's soul wasn't returned, it was stolen.


The difference is that the insurance firm planned to breach the contract. There is no breach here.

Attempting to prevent someone from collecting the goods owed to them by the contract is a planned breach. If you never plan on delivering the goods or plan on stealing the goods upon delivery, you are entering into a contract in bad faith. Usually, that would void the contract, but the devil has a good chance of recouping their losses.


The Hellbred race says "hi..."

Hellbred are an allowed exemption in the Pact Primeval.



That was the first loophole I pointed out.

By your own logic, it's not much of a loophole. The contract specifies that after death the soul belongs to the devil and in exchange the devil will deliver the power to save your friends. As soon as the devil delivers that power, they have fulfilled their end of the contract. If something else prevents the use of the power, well, that wasn't a part of the contract.

[Jack_Simth]

I believe there's a 'gotcha' here in that if you aren't falsely accused, you lose regardless of the quality of your argumentation. Also, this section contains a hilarious picture of a pit fiend sitting at a podium and hitting it with a gavel, because he's the judge.Truth of your argument doesn't actually enter into it at all. Just the Diplomacy, Kn(The Planes), and Perform(Acting).

You're right that there's a gotcha, though:
"It is also possible for a defendant to win her case on merit, only to suffer condemnation to the Nine Hells for on unrelated grounds if her corruption score or obeisance score (see page 30) equals or exceeds 9. Much diabolical laughter then ensues."

Paladins will get tripped up on that. Specifically the Obeisance score. If a Paladin has resolved a dispute through lawful processes (2), followed a rule he considered stupid (3), sworn fealty to a leader he knew (1), and followed through on a lawful sentence of corporeal punishment (e.g., give a properly caught and tried thief ten lashings) (3), that's nine. And do keep in mind, there's nothing explicitly stating that the same one doesn't stack (resolved five disputes through lawful processes? That's a ten right there...).

[redking]

FR, Kelemvor judges Faustian bargains

Can you give me a book and page number for this?

[Zanos]

I knew there was a gotcha somewhere in there but forgot exactly what it was, good catch.

And yeah, the Obeisance/Corrupt acts are extremely stupid. I think even the Corrupt acts can get you in hot water for doing a handful of relatively mundane things over an 80 year lifespan because the points never dissipate. So if you cast an [Evil] spell like deathwatch 9 times over the course of your life, the Devils get your soul. Nice.

[the_tick_rules]

Can you give me a book and page number for this?

Fiendish codex II: Tyrants of the Nine Hells p. 23-32 is the section that should answer most of these questions.

[RifleAvenger]

I knew there was a gotcha somewhere in there but forgot exactly what it was, good catch.

And yeah, the Obeisance/Corrupt acts are extremely stupid. I think even the Corrupt acts can get you in hot water for doing a handful of relatively mundane things over an 80 year lifespan because the points never dissipate. So if you cast an [Evil] spell like deathwatch 9 times over the course of your life, the Devils get your soul. Nice. Personally, I think that the Paladin example is flawed if it's only the Obeisance score that is >9. Obeisance is supposed to quantitatively track Lawful behavior, so I don't see how Hell can claim, say, a low Corruption-high Obeisance LG paladin. Obviously, that sort of exact-language "or" is a very appropriate gotcha, but I don't see how it could survive scrutiny from LG and LN in-setting for long (and the RAI seems pretty clear to me; you have to be Lawful AND Evil for Hell to get you without a Pact Certain. Having a high-enough Corruption or Obeisance should force an alignment change).

As for the spells thing, at least at the table I play at, the GM is pretty explicit that [Evil] spells actively channel metaphysical Evil into the world via the conduit of the caster's own soul. The argument that casting [Alignment] spells isn't an alignment infraction is entirely table-dependent (which irked me badly in a PF class guide that claimed [Evil] spells didn't affect alignment, effectively suggesting players argue with their GM's). A table using these rules in the first place really wants Evil acts to stick anyhow.

The actual stupid part is how much following the tables on a setting-wide scale would likely shift the cosmic balance severely towards Evil and especially Law. While CE might get away with the Abyss being a metaphysical cancer, CN and CG would seem to be pretty depopulated.

[Jack_Simth]

Personally, I think that the Paladin example is flawed if it's only the Obeisance score that is >9. Obeisance is supposed to quantitatively track Lawful behavior, so I don't see how Hell can claim, say, a low Corruption-high Obeisance LG paladin. Obviously, that sort of exact-language "or" is a very appropriate gotcha, but I don't see how it could survive scrutiny from LG and LN in-setting for long (and the RAI seems pretty clear to me; you have to be Lawful AND Evil for Hell to get you without a Pact Certain. Having a high-enough Corruption or Obeisance should force an alignment change).In the specific case of Obeisance, it only removes your ability to wrangle out of a Pact Certain via the infernal courts, it doesn't inherently make you go there in the first place (that's corruption - which agreed, is a bit over the top).