Asmodeus

[PrismCat21]

I'm currently in a gestalt campaign taking place in the Nine Layers of Hell. Me and 5 others are in a gladiatorial match each session facing stronger and stronger devils/demons purely for the enjoyment of the Nine Lords. Knowing this GM I believe we'll be facing all of the Nine at some point and would like some advice on how to get through their defenses in combat, especially Asmodeus.

We're using Pathfinder rules but anything from regular 3.5 is allowed. This is main'y just for kicks and giggles and aren't concerned with a whole lot of roleplaying or storytelling. - We had no idea what kind of a campaign it was going to be till we started

I'm a Dread Necromancer/Oracle (21 CHA) with the Life Mystery, focusing mainly on keeping eveyone else alive. Don't know yet if we'll be going into epic lvl's but would like to plan as if we aren't. Any suggestions for magic items and spells useful against the Nine would be much appreciated.

[Myth]

Wish/Miracle, Time Stop, Disjunction, Shapechange. I hope you have a full Arcane caster there.

[PrismCat21]

I'm pretty much the closet they got to a full arcane caster. The only other 'potential' has always played a barbarian, and honestly won't be able to grasp alot of what a spellcaster can do.

[Caliphbubba]

I'm pretty much the closet they got to a full arcane caster. The only other 'potential' has always played a barbarian, and honestly won't be able to grasp alot of what a spellcaster can do.

eh. you're either doomed or just probably doomed then.

really depends on what rendition of the Lords of the Nine the DM uses.

what else have you got in the party?

[Mando Knight]

Asmodeus will rock you like a hurricane. Gods don't mess with him. Some people think his promotion to godhood in 4e is just kicking him upstairs--that he was already powerful enough, and his "promotion" was actually a demotion, partly thanks to the additional restrictions to what he can do with mortals as a deity.

[Greymane]

Er. Hm. Asmodeus is a nasty opponent. Hope you don't have to fight the Interplanar Archaic version of Dr. Doom.

I highly recommend Time Stop and Celerity (have the caster find a way to make himself immune to being Stunned). Disjunction could be nasty, but if he has his Rod, and you nail THAT, you lose all your arcane power forever.

Can he be level drained? Twinned Empowered Enervations are also good.

Edit: I pretty much echo Mando Knight on this. Hope his terrible vision doesn't fall upon you, because he'll wreck you.

[RebelRogue]

I highly recommend Time Stop and Celerity (have the caster find a way to make himself immune to being Stunned). Disjunction could be nasty, but if he has his Rod, and you nail THAT, you lose all your arcane power forever.

Can he be level drained? Twinned Empowered Enervations are also good.

I'm pretty much the closet they got to a full arcane caster.

..........

[Greymane]

..........

Okay, forgive my reading skills. I recommend not fighting him. Ever.

[PrismCat21]

There is a Sorceror/Rogue. but like I said. The only thing this guy has ever played before is a Barbarian. The reason is, he's comfortable with that, he doesn't much understand anything else. He wanted to try a Rogue and just threw the Sorceror on for fun.

[Zaydos]

It really matters what rendition of Asmodeus your DM is using. The CR 27 version in FCII is vulnerable to level drain for example, he also has some pretty potent special abilities and Lv 20 Cleric casting but should still be able to be defeated by a well built team of non-epic characters; you just have to be able to reliably make DC 36 Will saves (or mind blank, lots of mind blank).

Other people use much, much stronger stats for him because the fluff for Asmodeus (pretty much the devil as Mary Sue) says he's the most powerful force ever and is just waiting a little longer before bringing down all the gods.

[DragonBaneDM]

Run dude runnnnn!!!

What are you guys down there to retrieve? Cause if your mission is to kill Asmodeus, I recommend finding whoever sent you on this task, and get revenge on them for almost killing you.

If you get out, that is. And if you do, it's cause Asmodeus planned it.

[Xefas]

I think your best bet at surviving this is a pretty simple strategy. However, it does assume that your party will be significantly high level (18+). After fighting through the previous eight Archdukes of Hell, I would *hope* you'd be that high a level, but you never know. You'll also probably need some means to win initiative with one of the characters in the party. If you can't get Celerity, or a magic item of Celerity, or something like Nerveskitter, you may want to invest in Improved Initiative at the very least.

Alright, so, this is a big gladiatorial arena. Asmodeus will step out to challenge you, initiative will be rolled.

As you win initiative, you have to yell something to the effect of "Lord Asmodeus, sir. I don't think you want to kill us. We managed to soundly wreck all of your underlings, eight of the layers of your domain sit leaderless, and I think we have more than proven ourselves capable champions. Wouldn't it make more logical sense that, rather than kill us, you just promote us to Archduke status and we rule as your faithful lieutenants for all time?"

And then, Asmodeus should probably say something like "Huh. Well, that was kind of my plan all along. Kudos for catching on so quickly."

And then you both win.

[Zaydos]

The thing is game mechanically Asmodeus isn't that strong. He has a powerful DC 37 save or lose a turn aura, and a DC 37 save or lose, and then he's a 20th level cleric with better saves, and no DMM. Oh and he has Power Word Kill. 4 on 1 though if you all have good enough Will saves (or Mind Blank to stop the mind-affecting save or lose, and Power Word Kill) he can be defeated by normal strategies. Game mechanically he's weaker than Deity and Demigods deities.

People forget this since most things written about Asmodeus are all about how he's an invincible evil mastermind who never makes mistakes and always has the perfect Xanatos Roulette (a.k.a. a Villain Sue). These don't make sense in setting even, though, as if they were true Asmodeus would have taken over reality as overdeity long ago. You could explain them as biased propaganda from Asmodeus himself which would make them make sense, but also imply that he has succeeded in controlling the lion's share of information about himself that has managed to leak out (strangely in keeping with his established fluff).

[Esser-Z]

These don't make sense in setting even, though, as if they were true Asmodeus would have taken over reality as overdeity long ago.

I dunno, I don't think Double P, praise His Scaliness, would allow that.

[Zaydos]

I dunno, I don't think Double P, praise His Scaliness, would allow that.

Ah but if you read half the fluff Pun Pun can only be part of Asmodeus's plan. Which is exactly why I'm saying the fluff is ridiculous, renders Asmodeus unusable in an actual game, and answers of you can't win because Asmodeus always does is based purely on that fluff and not productive to the question at hand.

[BeholderSlayer]

It depends in a large way which Asmodeus you come across. There is a Dicefreaks version that you wouldn't have a prayer to kill unless you were a 4 person party of ultra-cheesed out TO level 30+ wizards with 3.0e Epic Spellcasting in play. Heck, you might need more levels than that.

In that writeup, Asmodeus IS an over-deity. He has a Divine Rank of 18 and, while in Hell, has a Cosmic Rank of 21.

[Xefas]

People forget this since most things written about Asmodeus are all about how he's an invincible evil mastermind who never makes mistakes and always has the perfect Xanatos Roulette (a.k.a. a Villain Sue). These don't make sense in setting even, though, as if they were true Asmodeus would have taken over reality as overdeity long ago.

Sure they make sense in setting.

Take one of the Good-aligned Paragons. Say, Talisid. Talisid doesn't have to worry about much. A couple demons might show up now and again that he has to handle, and the occasional devil will try to corrupt one of his followers and he deals with that.

Asmodeus is simultaneously fighting the entirety of Good, along with the entirety of Evil that isn't him. He's even fighting against the Lawful Evil folk who all want him dead to take his position.

Talisid doesn't have to worry about the Neutral Goodies, as they all like him and want him to continue his benevolent rule. He doesn't have to worry about open hostility between Elysium and the other Good-aligned Outer Planes, though minor disagreements may arise. AND he doesn't have to worry about most of the Evil-aligned Planes because Asmodeus is already handling them.

Asmodeus has to be the perfect evil mastermind to be able to, at once:
1) Survive when all of his "allies" would like to kill him.
2) Fight a war against an infinite force with a non-infinite force to a stand-still (the Blood War)
3) Keep up his power base by corrupting the mortal souls of the Material Plane despite 5 Upper Planes working simultaneously against him
4) Fight the Forces of Good which all want him dead

And he does this all without divine powers. And he seems to maintain a social life at the same time (he had a wife and daughter, for instance). And he seems to think that, in the end, against these odds, he'll eventually come out on top.

Saying he's not an amazing evil mastermind is like telling someone they're not an amazing martial artist, because they were only able to hold their own against 30 dudes armed with semi-automatic sniper rifle grenade launchers, while naked and hand-cuffed, but eventually "only" got to a stalemate.

[Talon Sky]

As you win initiative, you have to yell something to the effect of "Lord Asmodeus, sir. I don't think you want to kill us. We managed to soundly wreck all of your underlings, eight of the layers of your domain sit leaderless, and I think we have more than proven ourselves capable champions. Wouldn't it make more logical sense that, rather than kill us, you just promote us to Archduke status and we rule as your faithful lieutenants for all time?"

And then, Asmodeus should probably say something like "Huh. Well, that was kind of my plan all along. Kudos for catching on so quickly."

And then you both win.

This. Simply this.

[Zaydos]

snip

Except Asmodeus isn't fighting all of the good guys. The archons help him in the Blood War, and the others spend as much time fighting the Tanar'ri as him (and he didn't need to do anything to cause either of these that's just in the nature of celestials). And Asmodeus doesn't handle the Gray Waste at all, in fact the Yugoloths are manipulating both the Baatezu and Tanar'ri into fighting the Blood War and somehow Asmodeus doesn't catch on (although the original explanation was that the Lords of the Nine didn't take part in the Blood War at all). The forces of the Abyss are never verified to be infinite, and flip-flop between "sages say they're infinite and spawn freely from the Abyss" and "they're limited by the number of mortal souls the Abyss gets" (last I knew all Tanar'ri but Succubi fell into the latter category and the Obyriths don't fight in the Blood War). The Tanar'ri are also busy fighting each other so only a finite fraction fights the Blood War.

Of your list of 4 things that say he's an evil mastermind #1 is true, with #2 being something hinted at as possibly true, #3 as patently untrue (the Lords of the Upper Planes actively try to keep the Blood War running to manipulate Asmodeus), and the same is true of #4. The fact that he is fighting in the Blood War at all shows that his plans aren't perfect like the 3.5 fluff likes to say (and 2e he wasn't fighting the Blood War, just let the Pit Fiends have their war to keep them distracted so he could hold his power). And I never said he's not a mastermind, just not "I have planned everything ever" and completely undefeatable like people like saying.

[Esser-Z]

Ah but if you read half the fluff Pun Pun can only be part of Asmodeus's plan.

This is true. Right up until the point where Double P does his thing and grants himself the ability to NOT be part of Asmodeus' plan. Alternatively, alters said plan to his own will.

[BeholderSlayer]

Why can't there be a discussion of this nature without Pun-Pun coming up? It gets old.

[Esser-Z]

Because 'X is fluffed as perfect at stuff' naturally leads into the thing that actually IS perfect at stuff.

[BeholderSlayer]

Not really. Pun-Pun is a theoretical exercise, and lacks fluff altogether. I don't see how the two coincide, at all.

[Esser-Z]

Asmodeus is said to be a perfect planner.

Pun Pun can grant himself the ability to be a perfect planner.

[Lord_Gareth]

All I know is that my version of Asmodeus has a +89 modifier to Perform (Dance).

[Xefas]

All I know is that my version of Asmodeus has a +89 modifier to Perform (Dance).

Would anyone be surprised if Asmodeus and David Bowie were the same person?

The facts:
Both are heavily musically inclined.
Both are sexy enough to make otherwise heterosexual men question their sexuality.
Both rule their own Outer Plane with an iron fist.
Both are often confused with deities.
Both are Goblin King.

[Dralnu]

Asmodeus is said to be a perfect planner.

Pun Pun can grant himself the ability to be a perfect planner.

Except if Asmodeus is a perfect planner and comes before Pun Pun, he would have a plan to stop Pun Pun from ever happening, or at least ever allow Pun Pun to reach a point where he can stop him.

A perfect planner who comes ahead of other perfect planners is the winner.

[Thalnawr]

Perhaps Asmodeus is PunPun Prime?

[Lord_Gareth]

Question - why is it assumed that Asmodeus is dumb enough to want to run all of reality? He's got enough problems with one plane, and what I've read of the Lord of the Ninth indicates that he is not only highly philosophical, but extremely practical. He understands what the Upper Planes do not; that without a balance, not only will nothing ever get done, but the whole system falls apart.

[BeholderSlayer]

This pdf is a good explanation of how I, personally, see Asmodeus.

I hope it's not copywritten, the pdf is accessible online for free, after all.