Pit Fiend, Aarnott (3.5e Monster)

''You may be looking for the SRD:Pit Fiend. This is a homebrew version.''

Pit Fiend


When mortals think of devils, the pit fiends are the creatures that are brought to mind. These creatures appear to be large humanoids with brilliant red skin. Their heads are adorned with massive horns while their bodies are cloaked in a pair of bat-like wings. A long, prehensile tail snakes from their backside. The mouth of a pit fiend is filled with sharpened fangs whose bite carries a virulent disease. A pit fiend stands over 12 feet tall and weighs 800 pounds.

Scholars pertain that there are sixteen standard ranks of baatezu and pit fiends are right at the top of this hierarchy.

Pit fiends are the generals of baatezu armies, the orchestrators of mass corruption and the bullies of their lesser devils. They appear as bestial, scaled humanoids twice the height of any human being with a pair of wings that it can wrap around its body. As venom drips from their fangs, fire wreathes the pit fiend's entire body.

Armed with superhuman combat prowess, the intelligence of a mighty wizard, an array of powerful abilities and usually the resources of a devilish army as well, pit fiends are incredibly dangerous foes. Powerful conjurers can summon a pit fiend to make deals. Contracts are usually written up in order to have the deal honored, but pit fiends are masters of such things and always have ways of perverting the contract to their own ends.

The next step up from pit fiend in the infernal hierarchy is the rank of duke. Only dukes are allowed to become an archdevil. The process of becoming a duke does not involve a ritual as other devilish ranks do; it just means that a pit fiend gains even more prestige.

Pit fiends are the most powerful of the infernal legions. They serve not only as the generals of Hell’s armies, but also as the lower nobility of the infernal courts. These monstrous fiends are only rivaled in power by the archdevils.

Strategies and Tactics
The pit fiend is a master of fear, darkness, fire, and poison: it is an unholy terror for sure. It specializes in fighting groups by means of divide and conquer.

Typically, a pit fiend will start a battle by flying into the middle of a group and launching a flurry of attacks augmented with burst of flames. It will then create an area of darkness and use that to single out a creature hopefully grappling with his tail. It will retreat when it is damaged heavily, using areas of total darkness to obscure its path and will plot means to single out party members and kill them after it has regenerated.

Just to be helpful, here is a list of abilities sorted by action type and when a pit fiend would likely want to use them:

Free Actions/No Action


 * Aura of Fear - Useful for flying into a clustered group and using intimidate check to scatter them in different directions.
 * Aura of Darkness - The "always on" 20% miss chance makes the pit fiend want to nullify enemies that don't use attack rolls first.
 * Improved Grab - There isn't really a good reason for a pit fiend not to at least try grabbing onto an opponent. It deals extra damage and the pit fiend can choose to release the opponent without taking an action on its next turn.

Swift Actions


 * Improved Grab (maintain grapple) - Perfect for the divide and conquer strategy. The pit fiend can grab a target it wants to kill first, keep it grappled with swift actions, and fly away, killing them once they are far enough away from the group that there is nobody to help. Since the creature is in a grapple with the pit fiend, ranged attacks can hit the creature rather than the pit fiend, which makes the grappled opponent like extra armor.
 * Burst of Flames - When the pit fiend is about to make a full-attack action or even just preparing to use its Fire Ring, burst of flames can add quite the punch. Even a fire immune creature will be vulnerable to fire after 5 hits, which not only powers up this ability, but will add some significant power to the swift action Firebolts and the Fire Ring.
 * Firebolt - A generally useful long range attack. Since it knocks enemies prone, it can be used in melee to get an extra attack in when they stand up. It is also a good ability for fleeing pit fiends to use because it can trip up opponents without slowing the pit fiend down.
 * Envenom - A good ability to use when in the thick of melee to shut down a creature for a turn. This helps the pit fiend take on multiple enemies by disabling one of them for a turn.

Move Actions


 * Improved Grab (maintain grapple) - Although this is not as good for a pit fiend to use to carry away an enemy, it is great for a pit fined in melee to keep a creature disabled and still allow access to its swift action abilities like Firebolt or to recharge Burst of Flames.

Standard Actions


 * Claw attack - Probably only used on a charge or when maintaining Improved Grab with a move action for a turn.
 * Intimidate check - Used to cause a shaken opponent to spend a round running, which is yet another way to divide a group.

Full Round Actions


 * Full attack - Generally, a pit fiend will probably divide its full attack in order to Envenom one creature to disable it and Improved Grab another to disable it. Most of the time, it will keep the tail attack separate, at the very least, since it doesn't care about heavily damaging creatures it is disabling: it will deal with them later.
 * Fire Ring - Usually a pit fiend saves this attack for when it has brought a few creatures into fire vulnerability and it can hit each of them.
 * Total Darkness - This ability is incredibly powerful in certain situations and the pit fiend is certainly clever at using it. It can be a great way for the pit fiend to effectively split up the party by blinding them so that they can't assist each other effectively.