So a player used 'wish' to become a Pit Fiend. What is it, and what happens next?

[trikkydik]

Sounds like your player just Wished themselves into becoming an NPC.

ROFLMAO!!!!!

That's exactly what it sounds like to me.

pit fiends normally have a limited amount of free will; they are Lawful Evil and they serve the dukes and archdukes of the Nine Hells.

That statement is highly accurate about devils.

Demons are known to be Chaotic Evil, when Devils are known to be Lawful Evil.

[goto124]

Yea, I warned him that such a wish would likely result in him becoming an NPC at best, and the player was ok with it. I'm currently planning on giving him one session to play with the results of this wish before I have PLOT happen and he rolls up a new character. I'm doing my research to figure out what kind of thing the PLOT should be, and what this kind of change would do to a person.

OP said this in the first few posts of the thread. Seems a few posters have forgotten or otherwise not read it.

[Logosloki]

As the player has already said they will accept that they will become an NPC, let them transform into a pit fiend with all the trappings, no monkey paw. They get a grace session where him and his former allies (or current allies, or minions, depending on what his inflated LE ego will call them) burninate through something big and fun and not exactly plot related. Then they have someone up in the hierarchy of Devils come along and give them the join me or die line and the player can decide whether to accept the sick hook up of being the underling of some new piece of up and coming devil or duke it out with the devil for a winner take all fight to the death. Win or lose or join the Pit fiend leaves this prime material coil and onto the high stakes planes where they get to bet their new army (or command the army of their boss) on some real estate.

Alternatively, the player becomes themselves after a while and now has a cool berserk button they can access via wish but only in PLOT circumstances.

TL;DR They are being cool with it, so let them have a little bit of fun and then the character gets on the bus.

[the_david]

The PC instantly dies and goes to hell. There he starts out as a petitioner/lemure and has to climb up to the position of Pit Fiend. Something that will take centuries...

[trikkydik]

The PC instantly dies and goes to hell. There he starts out as a petitioner/lemure and has to climb up to the position of Pit Fiend. Something that will take centuries...

Seriously, here's how i would DM the situation:

~PC- casts wish
~DM- "What do you wish for?"
~PC- "To become a pit fiend"
~DM- a gate opens before you, and Satan himself emerges from the other side.
~Satan- "Hmmmmmmm," With an evil grin. "I was told someone wants to make a deal with the devil. IS IT YOU!?" points toward PC
~PC- "Yes Satan, i would like to become a pit fiend."
~Satan- "Very well, step on through this gate and your desires will be fulfilled."
~PC- steps through gate
~DM- Gate closes, and satan tortures the PC for all eternity, your character is now dead.

Thank you for playing.

[The Glyphstone]

"Satan'? That's not the name of an archdevil or evil god in any D&D cosmology I'm familiar with.

[Bohandas]

I don't think wish is normally powerful enough to permanently transform a person into a devil.

Not a powerful one like a pit fiend at any rate. Perhaps it turns them into a lemure and over the centuries they work their way up?

[Âmesang]

"Satan'? That's not the name of an archdevil or evil god in any D&D cosmology I'm familiar with.

That's 'cause he lost out to Asmodeus. Book of Vile Darkness, page 143.

(Granted this is a fiend who got banished back to Hell by a pair of bards, so…)

[Gildedragon]

If it is 3.X retrain all their levels to the pit fiend class (savage species's or homebrew) keep playing

[Braininthejar2]

This looks to me like a typical case of "wishing for too much" - according to Epic Level Handbook, if the wish exceeds the power available, the spell should warp and do something weird.

- polymorphed, with the shape, and some stats, but no powers.

- covered in permanent illusion that convinces mortals and himself, but not devils

- riding shotgun in an actual pit fiend's head, getting tangled in his political schemes, while the devil is looking for a way to get him exorcised without revealing his predicament to his enemies.

- alternatively, body switched with an actual pit fiend, leaving him in an unfamiliar body, in the middle of a tangle of schemes he has no idea about, and with thousand horrible things ready to happen to him the moment he blows his cover (can he even speak infernal? A wizard might, but no mortal can speak high infernal and pass for a devil - it takes a horribly twisted OCD mind to handle the nuances of grammar) while the party only has a really angry (panicked?) possessed body as a clue to where to find their friend. Let's hope they like crazy rescue missions...

- turned into a low ranked devil on his way to be promoted... if he plays his cards right... for the next 10 thousand years or so. Still, for an evil caster, that would be a way around the whole "go to hell as a petitioner" problem.

[Randomguy]

What level are the PCs here?

As others mentioned, Wish can duplicate lower level spells. The best fit in 5th edition is probably polymorph, which would be able to turn him into a pit fiend for an entire hour, during which he doesn't have access to any of his fancy magic items, because they meld into his new form. (If he's not level 20 yet you may have to bend the rule about only being able to turn into creatures of less than or equal to your level).

[Segev]

This is great story fodder. I will point out, however, that he might get what he wants with minimal complications if he simply uses True Polymorph, instead. I recommend looking up that spell. Read it carefully and see if it's what is desired.

As to this question, one cool idea is to see if the plot of the campaign could be the work of a Pot Fiend behind the scenes. If so, transform him into a Pit Fiend for a time, then have him notice himself getting smaller. He shrinks to an Imp before too long. Let him keep his class powers, but lose the ability to cast wish. Let him slowly voluntarily give up class features and spells for more HD and devilish powers. Eventually, have a dramatic event cause him to be seemingly obliterated.

In reality, he was cast centuries or millennia back in time. The real boss of the game is, in fact, his Pit Fiend self. At least part of his motive is completing his own apotheosis.

[Gildedragon]

But if you want plot... What's the party's average alignment?

Quick and easy idea:
He becomes a pitfiend, ousting someone else in line for the powerup
He is a ruthless fiend and is upsetting the order of the Hells
A lesser demon enlists the party to help set the infernal machinery right

[Ninja_Prawn]

There's plenty of great information and suggestions here so I doubt you need any more, but you just inspired a scene in my head so I thought I'd throw it out there...

Spoiler: I Wish to be a pit fiend...

Show

No sooner have the words left your lips, than your awareness is ripped from your body and crammed into another. Your ears ring and your mind spins as a stream of new information pours into it. Yes, you recall dimly, a pit fiend has truesight and telepathy. You stagger backwards as you gain control over your new powers, and your vision resolves enough to make out your new surroundings. You are in some kind of ornate hall, filled with-

"YOU WILL PAY ATTENTION TO ME WHILE I AM BERATING YOU, RAHTAZBIXON!" Thunders an ear-splitting voice that seems to come from all directions at once, quickly followed by a burning slash across your chest.

You scrabble through your new memories for who this voice belongs to, what you did to displease them. It continues... "Your failures have gone on long enough. You have one last chance to save your sorry hide: you will go to Barovia and destroy that fool, Strahd. AND YOU WILL DO IT AS AN ERINYES! BEGONE!"

You feel yourself being teleported... and you are back with your old companions. You feel an odd compulsion to enslave them - and their looks of horror and revulsion aren't helping. And then you realise: you are stark naked, but for a Rope of Entanglement coiled around your body!

[Reboot]

This is great story fodder. I will point out, however, that he might get what he wants with minimal complications if he simply uses True Polymorph, instead. I recommend looking up that spell. Read it carefully and see if it's what is desired.

True Polymorph is 9th level though. Since Wish can only safely duplicate 8th level and below, you're back in the realm of "GM is expected to twist the wish". (Although there's the interesting point that the really bad prelisted side-effects - including the 1 in 3 chance of permanently losing access to Wish - apparently don't kick in even though you're going past the listed powers. "The stress of casting this spell to produce any effect other than duplicating another spell weakens you" doesn't specify 8th or below)

[goto124]

Guys? OP already stated that the player agreed to becoming an NPC, the GM just wants to create a nice story for the new Pit Fiend.

Yea, I warned him that such a wish would likely result in him becoming an NPC at best, and the player was ok with it. I'm currently planning on giving him one session to play with the results of this wish before I have PLOT happen and he rolls up a new character. I'm doing my research to figure out what kind of thing the PLOT should be, and what this kind of change would do to a person.

There is not need to make becoming a Pit Fiend PC-friendly, it's already covered by "player intends to roll up a new character". We only have to write a cool story before the player leaves the old pit-fiended-PC for good.

[Esprit15]

Personally, I'm a fan of the "Thankfully, we have protocols for this. You will be demoted to Lemure, and earn your power the proper way" route. Happiest ending, relatively speaking, while still being awful for the person involved.

[Rama]

So it would be more work, but upon reading the OP and a few of the suggestions, I had a thought.

I do like allowing the wish to go through, but with a delay. So it's an incremental change into a pit fiend.

Here's my monkey's paw catch suggestion: he's not just turning into a pit fiend. He's turning into a specific pit fiend. In other words, the wish has plucked the Pit Fiend Grazhak, servant of Bael (to use a random example) and shoved him into your hapless PC's body. Now the two fight mentally for dominance.

I'd also consider tying the actual transformation to the dominance. IE, the more the fiend takes control, the more he physically transforms. If the PC is completely dominant, he appears virtually human (or his race of choice) with some small Pit Fiend related benefits.

You could either run it as a lycanthropy style infection, where the change happens basically for the rest of the campaign and it's something he has to deal with; or you could set it as a target number that the Fiend will reach eventually, and when he does the PC's soul is consumed. Either way, he'd have to deal with the raging pit fiend in his head, strange otherworldly urges, and potentially even brief times when his body is not under his control and he wakes up in unfamiliar settings with who-knows-what going on around him.

It would take a fair amount of planning setup and does have the risk of putting too much of a spotlight on this player. But I think it could be a lot of fun too.

[Yllin]

I would like to warn you about OOC ramifications with whole that Demote To Lemure thing. I'm not considering the option the player is just tired of his character, sees no value in it and only wants to get away from it ASAP. But if he actually cares about the character, he is sacrificing something of importance in an interesting way, and probably looking forward to how it resolves. Player's expectations are likely very high, since you already basically told him "yes". Punishing him for the act and diminishing the results would probably lead to frustration.
In other words: it's the last scene for the character as a PC, make it epic. Although that Lemure thing might be epic as well, and definitely amusing.

[Segev]

True Polymorph is 9th level though. Since Wish can only safely duplicate 8th level and below, you're back in the realm of "GM is expected to twist the wish". (Although there's the interesting point that the really bad prelisted side-effects - including the 1 in 3 chance of permanently losing access to Wish - apparently don't kick in even though you're going past the listed powers. "The stress of casting this spell to produce any effect other than duplicating another spell weakens you" doesn't specify 8th or below)

I'm aware. The suggestion was not "make the wish cast true polymorph" so much as it was "suggest to the player that he use a different 9th level spell to achieve his purpose."

Now, if he's not CASTING wish, then that means he probably can't just choose to cast true polymorph instead. But in case it was an option, I wanted to point out the possibility.

[Ninja_Prawn]

But in case it was an option, I wanted to point out the possibility.

It's not, I'm afraid. The Luck Blade grants 1d4-1 Wishes (three when new), then loses that ability.

It's likely that the PCs are not particularly high levels here as well, which hasn't really been mentioned.

[Segev]

It's not, I'm afraid. The Luck Blade grants 1d4-1 Wishes (three when new), then loses that ability.

It's likely that the PCs are not particularly high levels here as well, which hasn't really been mentioned.

Ah, I missed that this was from a Luck Blade. My apologies.

[viking vince]

"Satan'? That's not the name of an archdevil or evil god in any D&D cosmology I'm familiar with.

Write up (for 1e) was in one of the earlier Dragons

[Temperjoke]

One thing that the OP mentioned is that they are in Barovia, playing Curse of Strahd, so it's not out of the question that he gets twisted into a variant of a pit fiend, maybe weaker than a regular one, due to the influence of the place. Since there isn't a way to escape Barovia unless Strahd is dead, he wouldn't be hauled in for questioning right away. If i recall correctly from what I've seen of CoS

Spoiler

Show

Isn't there a cult of devil worshippers that he could align with and be trapped in Barovia forever as an NPC? Then his status would be one of Strahd's rivals in that domain, prevented from being sent to the Hells by the influence of the Dark Powers who are the powers behind Strahd, but unable to leave after the adventure is over.

[ShaneMRoth]

The more I think about this concept, the more I like it.

A player is retiring his player character and placing that character into the custody of the GM.

A hero's story arc ends, and a villain's story arc begins.

The DM now has what I reckon to be an interesting BBEG for future adventures. But even if that doesn't turn out to be the case, the entire campaign now has a mythology that is almost certain to feel more authentic to players who participate in it.

That Pit Fiend isn't just some stat block. It's a character who was developed in context of the setting.

I don't see any game balance issues since I don't see a lot of players Wishing to turn their PCs into NPCs.

---

If this were my campaign, I'd make this Pit Fiend very politically unpopular in Hell. I'd assume that a long line of wretched souls had waited for their chance to advance to the status of Pit Fiend, and then here comes Wishy Wishington cutting to the front of the line.

He'd be working the overnight shift.

He'd be fetching coffee and bagels for 5,000 or 6,000 years.

He'd be the one refilling the Tarrasque's kibble bowl.

His car would have like the worst parking spot... as in there would be, like, an hour commute (even with Teleportation) to the office and people would constantly be putting "I heart paladins" bumper stickers on it.

No corner office for him. He'd just get a supply closet and would have to use the fax machine.

His corporate email would be [email protected]

Stuff like that...

[icefractal]

Man, does the word "Wish" just bring out an insatiable desire to make the results as unpleasant as possible or something? Because I'm amazed by the amount of responses like "they're a Lemure now", or "they're technically a Pit Fiend, but get stuck on menial duties for 1000 years", or "they just get tortured/destroyed instead".

I mean, the PC is retiring, and the player knows and is ok with that. They basically just used Wish to get a cooler exit scene. There's no balance concern here! It isn't actually a bad thing if a fictional character succeeds at something.


But anyway, some ideas:

* The PC begins to gradually change into a Pit Fiend, over the course of hours/days/weeks, depending what you feel like. As the physical transformation progresses, a mental one accompanies it - the character starts to become more devil-like in their thinking, more evil in their nature. After it progresses a bit, other devils become aware. Some would hate the newcomer, seeing them as cheating their way into power. Others would be impressed by their quick rise, or simply think that a new Pit Fiend without any existing alliances is a useful opportunity. So there'd probably be various recruitment offers to decide between, and some assassinations to fend off. By the end, they've either joined the army of some devil lord, or established their own territory in hell that they can defend against rivals.

* The PC blacks out, feels the sensation of moving a great distance, and then wakes up ... as a Pit Fiend. Specifically, as a Pit Fiend who's standing in front of a devil lord, with a scepter of dread energies pointed at them. But the scepter has already fired. The Pit Fiend whose body they now occupy screwed up big time and faced a severe punishment - complete annihilation of their mind and personality. Which created a nice vacancy for the Wish to insert the PC into. They could either swear allegiance to said devil lord and take up their predecessor's old position, or flee and strike out on their own. Either way, there could be some interesting meetings with people who knew the body's former inhabitant.

* The PC dies, and the soul goes to Hell, where the Wish causes a slightly glitch in the bureaucratic apparatus - their soul is used as the basis for a new Pit Fiend, instead of the one who was supposed to be there (let's call him Bill Zebub). If they can keep up the bluff that they're the real Bill, then they're not only a Pit Fiend but one in a pretty cushy position - command of an infernal legion, a nice fortress overlooking the lake of boiling blood, plenty of imps to kick around, etc. If they can't - then they're on the run from Hell's Auditors, facing annihilation or worse. But Hell is corrupt, of course, so if they can arrange a good enough bribe, or get under the umbrella of someone powerful enough, then it can all be swept under the rug.

[Slipperychicken]

Man, does the word "Wish" just bring out an insatiable desire to make the results as unpleasant as possible or something? Because I'm amazed by the amount of responses like "they're a Lemure now", or "they're technically a Pit Fiend, but get stuck on menial duties for 1000 years", or "they just get tortured/destroyed instead".

I mean, the PC is retiring, and the player knows and is ok with that. They basically just used Wish to get a cooler exit scene. There's no balance concern here! It isn't actually a bad thing if a fictional character succeeds at something.

Becoming a monster usually doesn't involve a happy ending. Maybe he could wind up like Fafnir, become a great and successful monster, but someday a great hero go to his lair and kills him.

[The Glyphstone]

Great Modthulhu: Even Wish cannot resurrect a thread this old from the dead.