Author Topic: Good spells to use against Demons?  (Read 8196 times)

Offline Gavinfoxx

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Good spells to use against Demons?
« on: April 01, 2013, 04:22:04 PM »
Hi there, I was wondering -- say someone you are fighting has a penchant for Planar Binding demons.  Not Devils, not other fiends, not anything else you can Planar Bind, but 'Using the Planar Binding spell to Bind Demons'.

So far, he isn't using the spell optimally, focusing on lots of Vrocks... but still, what can a level 10 party (with a Wizard, a Druid, a Factotum, but no Cleric) do to combat Vrocks in particular?  What are some specific spells that are best at this??
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Offline WarlockLord

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Re: Good spells to use against Demons?
« Reply #1 on: April 02, 2013, 12:33:36 AM »
I'd recommend Banishment with as many holy symbols, vials of holy water, cold iron knives, etc. as you can carry, but you guys aren't high enough to cast that yet.

Possibly bust out some planar binds of your own.  Maybe look into that Perfect Summoning from BoED so that when he tries to planar bind vrocks, celestials show up to kick his ass?

There's always the old standby of magic jar if you can get it to stick: possess a vrock, bluff your way past the others, murder the caster on accident.

Might as well animate anything you kill.

You could also use baneblind armor, set to demons, to make your team permanently greater invisible to them.

I suspect there's some awesome demon-nuking spell I'm forgetting.

Offline Tr011

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Re: Good spells to use against Demons?
« Reply #2 on: April 02, 2013, 11:25:46 AM »
Arcane Sight tells you which vrock is an illusion and which isn't. Anticipate Teleportation (SpC) is useful to not get ambushed, while Teleportation-spells will help your party to get out of danger if necessary.
Bless kills the Spores and being deaf might help.

Offline Kaelik

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Re: Good spells to use against Demons?
« Reply #3 on: April 02, 2013, 02:55:00 PM »
You should probably have Magic Circle Against Evil prepared and cast often.

Not because it works on the called Demons, it doesn't, (well it grants some extremely minor benefits) but because every one of those called Demons has a percent chance of Summoning another or more demons. And all of those ones may be hedged out by the Magic Circle.

This provides two kickass effects, 1) it often negates summoned Demons from attacking you, which is especially good, because Demons tend to be more fightery than Devils and other outsiders. 2) It can at least help you determine which one is the summoned outsider, and which is the called outsider. Though it is not 100% that you will be able to figure it out, because of SR if nothing else.

Banishment is a sure win when you bullshit around with 60 Holy Symbols on a chain, but 1) level 10, 2) No Cleric, so it won't even be there until level 13.

Offline spacemonkey555

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Re: Good spells to use against Demons?
« Reply #4 on: April 02, 2013, 03:17:01 PM »
Ask your dm how he plans on the enounters working next level when your party is rolling with a dozen vrocks of your own as cannon fodder. That's pretty much the only tactic that might work against planar binding spam.

Offline Ithamar

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Re: Good spells to use against Demons?
« Reply #5 on: April 02, 2013, 07:18:34 PM »
BoED has lots of great spells that only work on evil creatures and have a greater effect if the creature is an evil outsider.  Are your casters good aligned enough to be able to cast exalted spells?

Offline Lo77o

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Re: Good spells to use against Demons?
« Reply #6 on: April 02, 2013, 08:44:52 PM »
BoED has lots of great spells that only work on evil creatures and have a greater effect if the creature is an evil outsider.  Are your casters good aligned enough to be able to cast exalted spells?

Made me giggle... You just have to be non-evil.

Same with vile spells. Thats non-good. So a Neutral Char can cast both vile and exalted spells.

Offline Gavinfoxx

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Re: Good spells to use against Demons?
« Reply #7 on: April 02, 2013, 09:50:43 PM »
We don't have enough of the associated spells in the Planar Binding combo to make Planar Binding really useful.  Of this list of spells:


Magic Circle Against Law (for the Formians and such)
Magic Circle Against Evil (for most of the evil things)
Enervation
Bestow Curse
Dimensional Anchor
Spectral Hand
Lesser Geas

We have 'Enervation', from the Wizard who would be doing the planar binding... and we are on a time crunch.  I'm mostly looking for useful stuff for the Factotum and Druid to do, mostly.
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Offline Empirate

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Re: Good spells to use against Demons?
« Reply #8 on: April 03, 2013, 04:14:20 AM »
Vrocks aren't that complicated really. Their special abilities can really get on your nerves, sure, but none of them are overpowering (except for one):

Greater Teleport at will means you will want Dimensional Anchor or, better yet, Anticipate Teleportation. You'll probably be ambushed at some point, and some of the baddies will probably be able to escape at other points, but it's not as if this ability will outright kill your party.
Mirror Image spam: any spell which causes multiple attacks all at once quickly counters this, as does closing your eyes combined with something to help you pseudo-see, like the Blindsight spell,
Spores: Bless, Remove Disease or Neutralize Poison; the latter provides immunity over a time period, so if you care enough about the spore damage, that's your go-to,
Stunning Screech: can get aggravating if there are many of them - Silence stops it cold.
Dance of Ruin: this can normally be disrupted by just killing the buggers before their dance completes, so be glad if multiple Vrocks waste 3 rounds to set this one up,
Summon Demon: Yes, please, do this! Waste a full round for a 35% chance of actually doing something! Sure, if it works, your party might be all "uh-oh...", but usually, this ability sucks except if used before combat even starts.
Fly speed: you ought to be used to this by now. Get a fly speed of your own. Remember you can trip flying creatures. Tanglefoot bags and the like also work well. Your Druid might want to prepare Wall of Thorns and trap the Vrocks in it, so they can't fly away.
Damage reduction: yeah, well, pack Good weapons, or the Bless Weapon spell, as DR 10/good can still do a lot of damage prevention at your level.
Resistances, immunities, and SR: none of these are of much consequence - SR is too low for the level, and energy damage shouldn't be a go-to when fighting outsiders, anyway.
Telekinesis: this is very open-ended and can get very bad, if your DM uses it creatively - this is really the main danger when fighting Vrocks, since they get it at will. Nothing to be done here except killing them quickly.

Vrocks can dish out some OK damage in melee, but they might still have trouble hitting a good tank, and their AC is subpar for the level. Focus-firing individual Vrocks in melee thus quickly brings them down. So I wholeheartedly recommend melee combat unless you have no good way of dealing with the Mirror Images. Stoneskin (if you can afford it) makes melee even better, since Vrocks can hardly scratch you when you have it up - they rely on multiple low-damage attacks. Remember that Vrocks have no True Seeing, so illusions are certainly another possibility. Suggestion and Charm Monster are options, since Vrocks only just have OK Will saves.