The idea of someone losing part of their soul makes my mind go immediately to Warlocks(or anyone who sold their soul) needing to find a replacement because theirs is you know kinda damaged
@@malhawkeye6427 if you are talking about that scene in Avengers it had nothing to do with Ironmans heart the staff never touched him it touched the Arc Reactor and Loki didnt know about it so he was confused by it not working
Actually, I've seen donation drives for footwear for the poor called "Soles for Souls," and thought that would be a nifty name for a shoe store catering to hags, where of course they pay for stuff with... well, you get the picture.
I would just like to know why you bother with 5e? It is just a less terrible version of 4e. You covert these monsters from 3e and you only seem to make them worse. Everything going to 5e just seems watered down. I know the powet scale is lower in 5e. But what is the point. 5e was a mistake and like 4e. Its a shameless attempt to sell more books just like 4e that it quickly and clumsily replaced. It is worse than the constantly updated college text books. At least the text books aren't pale imitations of thier predecessors.
A good way to nerf the steal ability is to do the Medusa thing where if they fail the save it dosnt insta kill or they failed the save by 5 then insta gibbed
Fiends from all three planes line up to claim said souls. On an interesting note what would happen if in this blood war what if a third secret faction benefited from devils fighting demons besides Night Hags. What if Hades is part of a larger realm known as Gehenna. Now that would be intriguing.
@@zacharygadzinski3147 That faction is called Mortals. Mortals benefit immensely from the Devils keeping the bulk of demon-kind busy fighting them and not invading us.
I agree. There are far too few Save or Die effects in the game. For balance, I’d say limit Attacks and Actions that can insta-kill a PC to one or two uses per day just to avoid DMs being able to spam insta-kills. Not that this particular move can be spammed. Like you said, you get 3 saves to avoid it.
i would also add if the party often gets bad save rolls but somehow gets decent combat a chance ot return the dead to life with one soem magic thats hard to comeby two digestion, even a soul eater needs to take time to rest and digest the meal. so give them maybe 6 turns being real generous but im gonna say the part has bad luck overall that session so even a complet failing of that things devour can be recovered but of corse that person may take soem disadvantages to being revived persay and have for maybe a good time. visions od death of anything near em or even know like if they are ANYPLACE in visal of the styx they just KNOW the many ways every soul currently in the river died and their lives for a time and if back to mortal relm they suffer this feeling of disconnection to both their body and the world for a time. so some rp there for extra.
@@implodingfruitz8093 basicly what i had in idea for the thing eats ya soul ya dead, BUT if the critter excapes for to long ya digested and erased but if the party kills it ya just need to be revived because now ya just another soul in the styx. maybe the party can even jar ya till they can get you revived but if they cant freeze ya body or prevent it from rotting to badly that revival becomes really hard to imposable like than ya just a soul in a jar with no return. but that idea there gives even more posabilitys like a dragon born hastily had its souls shoved into a statue of its kind to give it a form to animate to avoid losing a valuble combatent...
It's less of a "Monster Of The Week" but one thing I would love to see a video on that I can't find online anymore was a forum thread called "Gods Of The Mirror-verse." Even if you can't find it I'm sure you can imagine it, like there was a version of Corellon Larethian as a Lawful Evil deity as "Furhur God Of The Elvish Reich," Tiamat (Chaotic Good) as "The Rainbow Dragon," & Bahamut (Lawful Evil) as "The Uranium Dragon" (they had him as Iron, but I think Uranium would be more unique just as there aren't a bunch of platinum dragons running around." The Gods of Gnomes were lead by the humorless Carl Coaldust. Even if you can't find it how would you flesh out the Gods of the Mirrorverse?
Ooh! I like the idea of an AO from the mirror-verse that has found away to trade places with original lord AO. And now the world is dealing with an overgod who instead of keeping order aims to destroy it. Honestly I like this idea with any god. Like Bahamut has been unknowingly replaced and now his church are committing evil acts in his namesake.
Towards the end of the video he mentions in the statblock that fragments are left due to how messily they “eat” and you can be rezzed but you come back… pretty messed up since large chunks of your soul are missing
There's a lot of potential with this one to me! Especially with going into someone's soul was half eaten idea! like maybe half of their moral in life is gone or they constantly feel like they need to find another soul to merge their own soul with to feel whole or just due to their emptiness now they are cursed with being half demon? somehow! I don't know but it's really fun to think about! These videos are also really nice and makes me want to play D&D again! :D
These guys would probably be hunted by the servants of our homebrew's death goddess. They are known as ferriers, and act much like Charon in Greek mythology. I could see some of these on the barges they use to carry souls across the Bone River, occasionally nailing these creatures with harpoons to hang them up and beat them with their punting poles like hideous pinatas.
Reminds me of the head hunters from eclipse phase. If one of them manages to grapple you, then you *need* to get it off of you, otherwise it *will* kill you And with a head hunter you don't even get a saving throw, you can only pray that your party can get your severed head back before the head hunter carries it away, otherwise well, there ain't no coming back from that.
I would maybe consider giving it a hitpoint count like powerword kill or something like make the devour soul do x amount of damage on a failed save and if the PC drops below 100 HP it's killed
I always loved the Astradaemon from Pathfinder it's horrible, deep-sea look always caught my eye. So having a stat block for one in 5e, especially from you, is sweet. Though I'm curious for your reasoning in making it a devil. Pathfinders Daemons are Neutral Evil, and use names like Astradaemon, Cacodaemon, etc. So why not just make it a Yugoloth? (or in this case, Astraloth)
Honestly, fitting it in to the Yugoloth (loth?) class of fiends might have been the truest conversion, they just seemed SO different from all the others, but yeah, throwing these guys into that cast of creatures is super reasonable.
@@DungeonDad also, being a devil completely goes against the role u suggest in the video, as a devil would not break cosmic law and one that did would be on the shit list of both asmodeus and the powers of good and no devil would want to draw the lord of all devil's ire by working with one of them, so yugoloth or demon would be far more fitting, plus the creature looks like something otherworldly like something potentially tied to the far realm, which demons and the abyss have strong ties to
Yeah everyone forgets the neutral evil fiends, which is WOTC's fault for focusing so heavily on the Abyss/9 hells to the exclusion of everyone else. There are 7 lower planes, guys. And the other 5 all have unique fiends with their own hierarchies and quirks too. Fiends don't have to be pigeonholed into Bateezu/Tanari society
At least according to the Forgotten Realms Wiki Yugoloths have even been called Daemons in official D&D products before. It's possible they had those names before the satanic panic and started being called Yugoloth's at the same time Demons were changed to Tanar'ri and Devils to Baatezu except the names were never changed back, possibly because Daemon is indeed a very confusing name.
@@ChaoticTabris You're absolutely correct. Aside from the mezzodaemon and nycadaemon first appearing in the module D3 Vault of the Drow and then the 1e Fiend Folio, most of them were introduced in the 1e Monster Manual II. And yes, the daemons, devils, demons, and demodands were all renamed for 2e.
I got to use the wee beasty once. An hour into the game a TPK happened, as the do, so I had the party wake up dead on a soul barge that was soon to be attacked by a pair of these. Ultimately after killing them and piloting the barge to its destination, the boatman was slain during the melee (the Rouge had nothing to do with it he swears), and a few other complications later they were able to parlay their heroics to be able to go back to the land of the living.
Great video as always. Recently started campaign two for my group who are level 12 after a 2 year campaign. Decided on a larva mage as the villain after your video on them and have been casually mentioning how they notice what appear to be maggots dispersing from an area after a major plot point happens. I'm having a hard time keeping a straight face as they go "Wtf, worms again? Didn't we see those before?"
I would guess that because this thing is a Devil it would know how to bargain properly. So it would be interesting if when it ripped out the soul of a player or an important NPC, that the astradaemon was able to hold onto it and blackmail the party into doing what it wants in order to get the important soul back. The party could be way out matched and be forced to follow the ultimatum, or try and kill the astradaemon to get the soul back.
Oh boy, I can't wait to be, digging around in the banks of the river sytx for clay to create my first gloom golem only to be beset by an Astradaemon lol!
The colorful lanky fish head design is my favorite astradaemon design, but I do like that Planar Adventures cover gave alternate more xenomoprh like take on astradaemon :D
Okay so idea for a mid-high level campaign. The players are all souls floating in the river Styx. They were all adventurers in separate parties who got tpk'd or is otherwise unable to be revived. They arent done though and want to return to life. And it starts with an Astradaemon fishing them out of the river to be delivered to its boss.
I think the fact that in Pathfinder the bite attack does a grapple and drains a level, as to which I think is where you can help put a key note that its mouth is bad. Given how souls work in the dnd lore of hell or demonic, as it looks like these guys are the "Soul-divers" of the dnd hell world
oh man i can imagine a great intro to the monster the party being hidden behind a bluff and watching a guy using feign death on the ground and the monster just comes up and sucks his soul out no question .....perfect.
If this creature did get ported to 5e when it first came out the consume soul ability probably would have been turned into a variant of a life drain attack so the creature would take damage and their max hp would be lowered by the amount until a long rest if generous, greater Restoration if less so, and they would regain hp equal to the amount of damage they did
Save-or-sucks *can* be pretty bad to experience if handled improperly. In my oldschool games, creatures with such abilities tend to use them as a last resort; "I've not been able to defeat this foe with ordinary means and must now rely on a high risk, high reward ability/spell out of depseration". This keeps things fair and exciting (creatures in my games flee or surrender whenever it makes sense for them to do so, based on the situation and the specific type of creature). Even archmages will often rely on damage-dealing spells for enemy removal over save-or-sucks, because they are reliable even if not as potent. Besides, if halved damage from a fireball would not slay a character, but full damage would... that's also a save-or-die scenario. It's just that instead of some unusual circumstance (for combat) such as a heart attack causing your demise, your flesh is being incinerated by flames and ripped apart by the force of a shockwave from the explosion. And it's actually worse than a save-or-suck, since many do not have any effect if the target saves, while the fireball in this example is still dealing damage (just, half as much).
Not an angler fish. That right there is a Viperfish. Happens to be one of my favorite creatures irl. The tooth to head ratio is nuts in some of them. And the second jaw seen in a lot of fish is like a modified tongue that can drop through the jaw after death and look really gnarly.
Really cool if a powerful lich used it to collect souls or a cult trying to bring back a devil, the Astradaemon's old master. Maybe they are collecting souls for a ritual and using the cult for it's own ends. Maybe the cult worships them too and brings sacrifices of powerful souls for them to collect.
I think that I'd implement the "CON save or die" as levels of exhaustion for each failure, giving my players just a little bit more time to get away if they can.
Okay, now I'm actually waiting for my players to suffer a TPK because of this video. I got an idea for a dead party to end up in the River Styx, and be plucked from there by the Raven Queen, or some other death entity, and offered a chance to win back their life, or another boon if they choose, if they do them a favour. The favour would be hunting down an Astradaemon that is raiding the river.
Breaking from grapple can also be achieved with Misty Step and Dimension Door. It’s 2 of my WIP Bardritch Knight’s favorite spells for a reason. (College of Swords) Honestly, I can’t wait to try him out!
More daemons would be awesome but I would say the quintessential daemons, the four horsemen of the apocalypse. They have stats in the bestiary 6 of pathfinder and they are Awesome!!
Here is how to make one of these guys 100000000% more terrifying if you have really high level players Give it the ability to teleport. You can basically put this in anywhere Give it to him as a bonus action, action, legendary action. But my favorite idea is to give it to him as a mythic action Imagine if your party finally brings this thing down and as it falls into the river stix souls gather around it healing it's wounds as it stands up. It then disappears and suddenly a horrid crunch is heard from the back line as the clerics lifeless corpse is suspended in it's hideous jaws.
Instead of the save or die affect, it should force your sole out of your body. Your body then drops unconscious, and your soul is now grappled and acts the same as someone under Astral Projection.
After seeing this, I already have an idea in a Greek Myth campaign I am building, where you have to enter Hades' Realm of Erebus, and have an encounter with one of these.
I'll probably swap out the save or die ability for absorbs 1d4 or 1d6 charisma, and gains 1d4 temp HP times the CHA points devoured. Dangerous, but not awful; with the CHA coming back once the creature is defeated and the stolen part of your soul returning to you. Very cool dungeon dad. Ty
Considering the brutality of the effect, but also how at that point resurrecting is also no big deal, I think the better way to go about Devour Soul is when it grapples someone, don't take actual damage, but they do go limp similar to Astral Projection. Everyone can see an etherial form slowly leaving the victims body. It is a brutal effect, so it should be obvious to everyone that you need to do something ASAP. Once separated the tether needs to be cut by the creature. The character is then dead. However it can then take another turn to consume the soul, which makes resurrection impossible.
You could make the soul steal thing a process just by using the normal death saves if they lose their first saving throw. That way the “meal” part is something the players can do something about.
If you wanted to use this in a lower level campaign, you could change the "one save means death" to a tug of war, of sorts. Failing a save deals tons of damage, but describe it as when the beast rips its jaws away, the players soul beginning to come with it, its astral form stretching away from its mortal one, looking like a feral dog ripping out the stuffing from a pillow. Another interesting way to do it would be to give players exhaustion with every fail, or make the players make death saves WHILE THEY ARE STILL ALIVE!
Plus I really like the mental imagery of the barbarians ghost being slowly ripped out of his body, his eyes beginning to fade of life as his flailing ghost struggles against the maw of the beast
There were a 3.5 Class called the Demonbinder or somethig like that... it could summon demons devils and the like with an expensive ritual and a very hard skill test... so fun and deadlywhen it failed! Fast forward the party was at the end of a campaing, lv 18. To prepare for war the demonbinder called an Astradaemon and binded it to the Antipaladin's armor making one of its abilities usable by the player. At the War, the antipaladin killed lot of weeklings with area effects and increased his strenght to such a high stat it could grapple a titan. OP but was extremelly costy and fun.
I understand the reasoning for the Save or Die. It doesn't really "mesh" with 5e's design philosophy, but I understand it. I'd personally change it to a crap ton of Necrotic damage that reduces max HP and kills the target if their Max HP is lowered to 0, similar to wraiths or wights. Maybe make it so that the Astradaemon can repeat this Necrotic succ each round it's grappling the target, and even make it be half damage on a successful Con save so even if your dice are hot you're in serious danger.
Great video! Always cool to see pathfinder monsters! Not lot pathfinder video on TH-cam. 👍 Ps Also could you do a video on Slaymate? I found out about them on a review of the 3rd dnd movie.
The way I have been thinking about the losing part of your soul and being brought back bit is maybe by having moments where that character becomes kinda..."inert" I guess. You can have a functioning body and mind, but no soul, no life. Maybe the character becomes vulnerable to possession effects because of it. Like they aren't possessed when they come back, but they take a penalty on saves against possession-type effects until they can somehow restore their soul. And when they sleep, they might not really fall asleep anymore, they instead kinda just go lifeless. In that state, they still heal back up and regain spell slots as usual if taking a long rest, but they can't be woken up anymore until their long rest is over as the piece of their soul drifts off to reconnect with the rest of it. And because this is basically like the character just hitting a stasis and not really sleeping, they don't gain actual rest from completing a long rest, so the fatigued and exhausted conditions can't be lifted through sleep anymore, only through any effects, spells or items that remove those statuses.
There is an old monster known as a phantom angler and it has a few things that are note worthy. First it has a 15 foot movement on land, second it can project glowing burning orbs that vanish at the end of their turn, third they are able to create illusions that take the form of something or someone that an entity finds attractive and is lured to. The illusions are always glowing and if you're blind it won't affect you and it can create a flash that can blind anyone who sees it about a 50% chance of causing blindness in anyone who sees it within a 100 foot radius. The blindness lasts for one D3 rounds and the angler can do a new flash every one D3 turns. The illusions can be used at will and even if you make a save your still likely to fall for it again if you're not blind. The player acts like a mixture of charmed and extreme infatuation in that they will actively seek to go to the angler. The creature is large and its glowing orb has great value for magic users and in crafting of ever glowing items.
“The people who will be in melee are going to be your fighters, paladins, barbarians” -me playing a Dex-based Monk rogue dodge tank with minimum con: ._.
I personally have never faced these things, but I know players who have. They're nasty. The ironic thing was one PC that fought one, managed to keep its soul, only to lose it during the next fight, to literally, the grim reaper (Bestiary 5). And that one is far, far worse. There's no resurrection with that one.
I love your show, Dungeon Dad! But I do have a few knits to pick with the way you have presented this monster. 1. You mention the River Styxx and from what I know (and albeit that is very little when it comes to Pathfinder) the River of Souls is not the same thing as the River Styxx and seems to mostly wind around the Boneyward in that particular (and weird) cosmology. Now I know you are converting this creature and them hunting along the River Styxx probably makes the most sense for what they are but this brings me to... 2. You said "like any devils in the nine hells" or something close to this I have honestly slept since first watching so my apologies if its a missquote BUT these are not devils. Even if you convert them over to 5e I am not sure why you would make them devils or ignore that daemons (aka yugoloths) exist and have their own place in the Lower Planes. As daemons, these guys seem only meh to me, I prefer more wheeling and dealing and devious daemons like the Arcanoloth but them being daemons means they should be found in ANY of the lower planes really, from Hades to the Abyss to the Nine Hells and Carceri, the Gray Wastes and so on (but especially in Gehenna one might argue). These are minor picks and only because my hackles raise and my ear perk when I heard the word "daemon" :) But your shows are excellent please keep u[p the good work and bringing us old monsters!
I run save or die things by giving my party a heads up about it *a lot* before they fight it "this creature is known to devour the souls of those in its grasp" stuff like that, so it's their fault usually if they get in a place the affect can be used on them
So I realize this was posted 2 years ago, and I haven't got all the way through the video yet...but one open plot hook just jumped in my mind could be perhaps a particularly stubborn spirit refuses to be exorcised, banished, removed. So someone got the bright idea to bring one of these things into the material plane to deal with it. Not understanding the true nature of the Astradaemon. They think it's like some sort of minor soul eating elemental or something. Players could help with the summoning ritual or it could be a rival adventuring party vying for a contract with the baron/king. Then before the ritual is complete they catch wind of what it is they are trying to summon (local legend, actually reading the "forbidden tome", concerned clergy, etc...), now the PCs have a choice to try to stop the ritual. If they fail, the Devil does what it's brought in to do, then breaks its bonds and starts feasting... Do the PCs let it just run amok? Do they try to stop it? Can the ritual of summoning be undone?
I was mostly on-board this until I saw you classified these as devils. They should be yugoloths. While Pathfinder has more daemons than D&D has yugoloths, they're basically called 'daemons' in Pathfinder because D&D made-up the word 'Yugoloth' and didn't release it as Open Game Content. This is also why Pathfinder has Azatas instead of Eladrin and Agathions instead of Guardinals. Though some of the monsters were released as Open Game Content (ghaele, bralani, leonals, vulpinals), the collective subtype names were not. While Paizo changed the suffix on their individual Yugoloths when converting them to Daemons, some Agathions still have their legacy names from being Guardinals, such as the leonals and vulpinals. Daemons are quite different from Yugoloths lore-wise though, as Pathfinder's Daemons desire to destroy souls while Yugoloths are more mercenary. I've been mostly on-board with the conversions I've seen so far, but I didn't much care for this one. In addition to being made a devil, the CR was reduced and the movement speeds were reduced. Also, it was associated with the River Styx/River of Souls, and I don't know why that association was made. There's some artwork of an Astradaemon on the cover of Pathfinder RPG: Planar Adventures that is quite good (IMO).
As a 'part of your soul is missing' post eating you could represent it as a point of exhaustion that does not go away for xdy+z days with the number of and what type of die depending on just how much soul was taken (Like 1d4+1 if they tore the soul to shred but only actually consumed a small chunk. 2d12+7 for a much more of it consumed. Makes gives it a more mechanical effect that could be lifted with a greater restoration. Not that the soul is recovered in that time period, but the spiritual shock of such a deep yet nonphysical injury needing time to recover. Actually recovering/restoring the soul would certainly be a McGuffin of a quest chain -- solving puzzles to regain a piece of yourself. You could also be mean and make it a stat-drain ability, like it permanently lowers an important non physical stat for that character (like wis for a druid/cleric, Charisma for a paladin/bard/sorcerer, con for fighter/barbarian, Int for Wiz/artificier etc etc) by like.. Two points until an Rp journey point is made or a deal is made with some greater power (without necessarily forcing Warlock upon the player) to give them a fragment of their own/a spare soul they had laying around/a volunteer spirit etc etc. Maybe They have to hunt down a specific creature and part of their soul replaces the missing pieces.. (For instance, if one takes down a gloom golem they can coat their skin in the clay and absorb the energy used to make it, or perhaps they hunt down a beast of the unseelie court and have runes painted on their body with its blood. You could even do things like give them a feat for going through these routes or just a one use per day ability that only those who have lost part of their soul and replaced it on top of giving them back their lost stats thematic to what they had to do to regain the bit of soul -- they lived in a sort of half-state for a while and went forth to replace what was lost.
it also depends on the campain and how revives are handled . using such a strong ability in a game where you on top have a chance of revival is deminishing stakes. depending on them you can just nerf the death ability another time like adding a mechanic to it . it can only use this ability when the target is under certain life% . that would make its analytical sense to find the easiest target more interesting . now maybe you could add a flavor like giving it a visible glare to recognize its focus or maybe the party member feels their soul being pulled and they could make a wis or int check to understand how this monster favors and what might happen when you get too weak in its surroundings .
With the soul devour consequence I would make it to where they roll a D100 to see how much of the soul was eaten or remaining. If you want to be mean have them roll 3 times and they get disadvantage on how much is left or if you want to be nice give them advantage on how much is left. Then depending on how much soul is remaining have holes in their memory and actions. Maybe make it to where Since they lost part of their soul they cant fully remember all their spells or prayers or maybe their faith is just challenged meaning it is less powerful when used. It would be a good role playing chance to make it where the victim just loses some memories of what happened. Maybe the victim has a secret vault locked away behind a specific spell that not only can they no long remember but they can no longer cast. So you have to go through the realms trying to find out how to break this binding placed on this magically enchanted lock. Maybe make it where they break an oathbound contract and have to fight the legal problems that come from it from the cosmic binders of that contract.
Idea, warlock tries to make a pact to ensure he cannot die, summons one of these bad boys and tries to make a deal. The devil agrees to keep his soul from the river Styx and the warlock agrees. Poor warlock just got lawyered into selling his soul for nothing.
I'd arguably make the soul actually stay in the body for a while before being entirely consumed, like... let's say digesting food. If the party manages to kill the beast in a set amount of rounds, then the soul returns to the body, maybe with some parts of it missing. Maybe there is some amount of memories lost or maybe the person is not as passionate as before. Maybe they are not much emotional for a while.
Pathfinder player here, so I'm not familiar with D&D lore, but are Daemons not a thing in D&D? Admittedly, I've attempted to correct or explain the differences to the folks I play with numerous times, but in PF there are numerous kinds of fiend. Devils (LE) and Demons (CE) are the more widely known, with Devils residing in Hell with their strict hierarchy and rules while Demons spawn from the Abyss and delight in destruction for the lulz. You also have the Qlippoth (CE), the original inhabitants of the Abyss before it learned how to create Demons from the souls of mortals and the Velstracs (LE) of Hell with their pursuit of the perfect sensation. The lesser known fiends include the Asuras (LE), Demodands (CE), Divs (NE), Oni (LNCE), Rakshasas (LE), and of course the Daemons. Daemons (NE) come from the plane of Abbadon, and their "Schtick" is the destruction of life itself. The want to plunge the Great Beyond into oblivion and would probably destroy themselves afterwards to complete their work. I've always loved to read about the differences between the various fiends and their goals, and how they'd interact with each other, but I've found Daemons to be among the most terrifying, perhaps only surpassed by the Qlippoth. Perhaps that's part of the reason I love Psychopomps (N) so much.
This is really interesting. I've since been a little bit more educated on pathfinder lore but at the time of making this video I had no idea how daemons fell into the system.
I wouldn’t say the Death Watch ability lets it see the a creature’s hit points, but rather what HP percentage it’s at. You worded it that it allows it to see how close to death something is. Theoretically a Mouse with 1 hit point is just as close to death as a level 20 Barbarian with 300 hit points.
Astradaemon devours most of a players soul. Player gets resurrected. Now that giant hole in their preverbal heart is a magnet to all kinds of spirits looking to take over a living body to fulfil their unfulfilled desires from before they passed. Repeatedly traumatizing the character not just because they feel somehow incomplete, but because ghosts keep trying to take over their half empty vestal. And maybe to ease things up a bit they can slowly regenerate parts of their missing soul, never fully healing butakin to a raw wound healing and scaring over. Maybe they go insane trying to graft parts of others souls to theirs in an attempt to fill the void, but like a badly matched organ transplant their body/soul rejects the foreign body. leaving them sick and crippled spiritually until someone casts a wish spell to reconstruct their missing parts.
I'd say it would be thematically appropriate, if you're trying to avoid the instant death being part of it in your game, to instead have its bite prevent resurrection if killed by it. IT ATE HIS SOUL! Makes it frightening for a different reason.
I think my dm used one of these as a named demigod of yuan TI we had to encounter it at lvl 7.. it actually ate our druid. Ad was instead soul digesting them. But ultimately able to move about.. we ended up ice storming them from inside
Do remember Astradaemon arnt Devils, you said at one point “one of these devils serving in a court of a higher devil” they’re Daemon, which are the servants of the four horseman of the apocalypse
So the main differnces are that they dont have immunitys to the things ghosts normally do just resistances also they have disadvantag on con and str saves
@@nmraven-gx9gt hm not TOO bad also quite a nice few advantages, im shure there are other downsides to them being specital like posably needing to avoid anything holy at all costs if they wish to keep their ectoplasm in place :P
Maybe the devour soul action can only work on creatures with, say, up to 10 current hit points, or are extremely low, like 10%. Just so they can't obliterate a level 20 barbarian instantly with a single unlucky roll. Maybe decrease the DC to resist it, with it going up as your HP goes down: Maybe it starts stupidly easy to resist- say, 10 or 11, and as your HP goes down, it can go up to 12, 13, and so on, until it reaches say... 19. It's only a concept, so it's very nebulous right now.
I'd put it as: in order to restor the soul eatten the specific devil who did it must be killed (in they're home plain) then not even True Resurrection can be cast upon the victim but a Miracle, Wish or Alter Reality cast by an at least 21 level caster/manifester could, in any case the resurrected will always loose 1d2+1 levels instead of only one cause of the soul lost, rarely low level campaigns will come that far to recover a character.. but for high to epic level fellowships its a fucked up way to loose 2 to 3 level with no scape for one or more characters, 1 or 2 more than a common Resurrection. No item or spell can avoid this. (By the way.. 1d2 is flipping a coin representing a dice value)
I would use it to show the PC’s that they aren’t invincible and shouldn’t be stupid. “Don’t go to the River Styx” and when they do a couple PC’s almost insta die
I use them as a plot point if you die and then get brought back to life you roll a d20 and on a 5 or lower one of these manifests Because it was about to eat that soul.
So, for the curious: Note that the name of this beast is the AstraDAEMON. Not DEMON. Daemons and Demons are two different creatures. While Demons are representatives of various sins, Daemons are meant to represent methods of death. Hydrodaemon? Drowning. Meladaemon? Starvation. The Astradaemon is a very interesting take on this, as they are representatives of those who died due to negative energy or level drain. This is super interesting, because now it's not only suffused with them to make them Astradaemons in death, but it also makes up a majority of their Spell-Like abilities: Enervation, Energy Drain, Vampiric Touch...
'why do solars have a fly speed of 150 ft' I guess you could say they have *godspeed*... ...Ill let myself out
well done XD
Hilarious
I know I’m a bit late here… but that was absolutely glorious you magnificent bastard.
Buh dum tish...
Heh
"No more dungeons left to loot"
I mean I'm bettin god has at least one treasure room
The idea of someone losing part of their soul makes my mind go immediately to Warlocks(or anyone who sold their soul) needing to find a replacement because theirs is you know kinda damaged
Wow. This is dope.
Semi-related. I’m also getting Loki being unable to manipulate Ironman’s heart cuz he doesn’t have one.
@@malhawkeye6427 if you are talking about that scene in Avengers it had nothing to do with Ironmans heart the staff never touched him it touched the Arc Reactor and Loki didnt know about it so he was confused by it not working
@@skarletfenrir6979 Oh! I missed that. Thanks
There's a potential joke in there somewhere about sole and how that sounds like soul, but I felt it was a bit too fishy to include.
Yeah it’s probably for the best, but that’s solely my opinion
Actually, I've seen donation drives for footwear for the poor called "Soles for Souls," and thought that would be a nifty name for a shoe store catering to hags, where of course they pay for stuff with... well, you get the picture.
@@tomkerruish2982 I'd be so ready to give away my soul if I saw this store as a player
Thats hilarious! Iv been playing D&D since the late 80's and iv got to say, your fresh look at monsters is unique & entertaining.
I would just like to know why you bother with 5e? It is just a less terrible version of 4e.
You covert these monsters from 3e and you only seem to make them worse. Everything going to 5e just seems watered down. I know the powet scale is lower in 5e. But what is the point.
5e was a mistake and like 4e. Its a shameless attempt to sell more books just like 4e that it quickly and clumsily replaced. It is worse than the constantly updated college text books. At least the text books aren't pale imitations of thier predecessors.
A good way to nerf the steal ability is to do the Medusa thing where if they fail the save it dosnt insta kill or they failed the save by 5 then insta gibbed
Welcome to the Soul Market!
Hag has wears, if you have souls.
Fiends from all three planes line up to claim said souls. On an interesting note what would happen if in this blood war what if a third secret faction benefited from devils fighting demons besides Night Hags. What if Hades is part of a larger realm known as Gehenna. Now that would be intriguing.
A khajiita hag?
@@zacharygadzinski3147 That faction is called Mortals.
Mortals benefit immensely from the Devils keeping the bulk of demon-kind busy fighting them and not invading us.
Yugoloths rub hands and hands and hands together
@@zacharygadzinski3147 Yugoloths. NE fiends and mercs of the lower planes. They work closely with/against the night hags, often
I love your confusion over the fact that literal Archangels are unreasonably fast
I agree. There are far too few Save or Die effects in the game.
For balance, I’d say limit Attacks and Actions that can insta-kill a PC to one or two uses per day just to avoid DMs being able to spam insta-kills.
Not that this particular move can be spammed. Like you said, you get 3 saves to avoid it.
For this creature it could be a set amount of necrotic damage.
i would also add if the party often gets bad save rolls but somehow gets decent combat a chance ot return the dead to life with one soem magic thats hard to comeby two digestion, even a soul eater needs to take time to rest and digest the meal. so give them maybe 6 turns being real generous but im gonna say the part has bad luck overall that session so even a complet failing of that things devour can be recovered but of corse that person may take soem disadvantages to being revived persay and have for maybe a good time. visions od death of anything near em or even know like if they are ANYPLACE in visal of the styx they just KNOW the many ways every soul currently in the river died and their lives for a time and if back to mortal relm they suffer this feeling of disconnection to both their body and the world for a time. so some rp there for extra.
Would be more balanced if when the monster is killed the soul returns to the owners body with 1 hp. Like the soul escapes the creatures stomach
@@implodingfruitz8093 basicly what i had in idea for the thing eats ya soul ya dead, BUT if the critter excapes for to long ya digested and erased but if the party kills it ya just need to be revived because now ya just another soul in the styx. maybe the party can even jar ya till they can get you revived but if they cant freeze ya body or prevent it from rotting to badly that revival becomes really hard to imposable like than ya just a soul in a jar with no return. but that idea there gives even more posabilitys like a dragon born hastily had its souls shoved into a statue of its kind to give it a form to animate to avoid losing a valuble combatent...
It's less of a "Monster Of The Week" but one thing I would love to see a video on that I can't find online anymore was a forum thread called "Gods Of The Mirror-verse." Even if you can't find it I'm sure you can imagine it, like there was a version of Corellon Larethian as a Lawful Evil deity as "Furhur God Of The Elvish Reich," Tiamat (Chaotic Good) as "The Rainbow Dragon," & Bahamut (Lawful Evil) as "The Uranium Dragon" (they had him as Iron, but I think Uranium would be more unique just as there aren't a bunch of platinum dragons running around." The Gods of Gnomes were lead by the humorless Carl Coaldust. Even if you can't find it how would you flesh out the Gods of the Mirrorverse?
Ooh! I like the idea of an AO from the mirror-verse that has found away to trade places with original lord AO. And now the world is dealing with an overgod who instead of keeping order aims to destroy it. Honestly I like this idea with any god. Like Bahamut has been unknowingly replaced and now his church are committing evil acts in his namesake.
Let us dnd nerds know if you find it okay?
The worst part about soul steal is that there ain't no coming back from that, you can't resurrect someone who had their soul consumed by a devil
thank you for helping me invent Soulsteel
Towards the end of the video he mentions in the statblock that fragments are left due to how messily they “eat” and you can be rezzed but you come back… pretty messed up since large chunks of your soul are missing
@@kingmasterlord thank you for giving me an idea to steal
except a wish spell
Demon
There's a lot of potential with this one to me!
Especially with going into someone's soul was half eaten idea! like maybe half of their moral in life is gone or they constantly feel like they need to find another soul to merge their own soul with to feel whole or just due to their emptiness now they are cursed with being half demon?
somehow! I don't know but it's really fun to think about! These videos are also really nice and makes me want to play D&D again! :D
These guys would probably be hunted by the servants of our homebrew's death goddess. They are known as ferriers, and act much like Charon in Greek mythology. I could see some of these on the barges they use to carry souls across the Bone River, occasionally nailing these creatures with harpoons to hang them up and beat them with their punting poles like hideous pinatas.
Reminds me of the head hunters from eclipse phase. If one of them manages to grapple you, then you *need* to get it off of you, otherwise it *will* kill you
And with a head hunter you don't even get a saving throw, you can only pray that your party can get your severed head back before the head hunter carries it away, otherwise well, there ain't no coming back from that.
I would maybe consider giving it a hitpoint count like powerword kill or something like make the devour soul do x amount of damage on a failed save and if the PC drops below 100 HP it's killed
Yes
I always loved the Astradaemon from Pathfinder it's horrible, deep-sea look always caught my eye. So having a stat block for one in 5e, especially from you, is sweet. Though I'm curious for your reasoning in making it a devil. Pathfinders Daemons are Neutral Evil, and use names like Astradaemon, Cacodaemon, etc. So why not just make it a Yugoloth? (or in this case, Astraloth)
Honestly, fitting it in to the Yugoloth (loth?) class of fiends might have been the truest conversion, they just seemed SO different from all the others, but yeah, throwing these guys into that cast of creatures is super reasonable.
@@DungeonDad also, being a devil completely goes against the role u suggest in the video, as a devil would not break cosmic law and one that did would be on the shit list of both asmodeus and the powers of good and no devil would want to draw the lord of all devil's ire by working with one of them, so yugoloth or demon would be far more fitting, plus the creature looks like something otherworldly like something potentially tied to the far realm, which demons and the abyss have strong ties to
Yeah everyone forgets the neutral evil fiends, which is WOTC's fault for focusing so heavily on the Abyss/9 hells to the exclusion of everyone else. There are 7 lower planes, guys. And the other 5 all have unique fiends with their own hierarchies and quirks too. Fiends don't have to be pigeonholed into Bateezu/Tanari society
At least according to the Forgotten Realms Wiki Yugoloths have even been called Daemons in official D&D products before. It's possible they had those names before the satanic panic and started being called Yugoloth's at the same time Demons were changed to Tanar'ri and Devils to Baatezu except the names were never changed back, possibly because Daemon is indeed a very confusing name.
@@ChaoticTabris You're absolutely correct. Aside from the mezzodaemon and nycadaemon first appearing in the module D3 Vault of the Drow and then the 1e Fiend Folio, most of them were introduced in the 1e Monster Manual II. And yes, the daemons, devils, demons, and demodands were all renamed for 2e.
I added them to my game specifically as guards who go out and catch escaped souls. Like if a devil defects
I got to use the wee beasty once. An hour into the game a TPK happened, as the do, so I had the party wake up dead on a soul barge that was soon to be attacked by a pair of these. Ultimately after killing them and piloting the barge to its destination, the boatman was slain during the melee (the Rouge had nothing to do with it he swears), and a few other complications later they were able to parlay their heroics to be able to go back to the land of the living.
Great video as always. Recently started campaign two for my group who are level 12 after a 2 year campaign. Decided on a larva mage as the villain after your video on them and have been casually mentioning how they notice what appear to be maggots dispersing from an area after a major plot point happens. I'm having a hard time keeping a straight face as they go "Wtf, worms again? Didn't we see those before?"
I would guess that because this thing is a Devil it would know how to bargain properly. So it would be interesting if when it ripped out the soul of a player or an important NPC, that the astradaemon was able to hold onto it and blackmail the party into doing what it wants in order to get the important soul back. The party could be way out matched and be forced to follow the ultimatum, or try and kill the astradaemon to get the soul back.
This is a really cool monster. So many plot hooks can be built out from this! Thanks man. Your channel is great. 😁
As many hazards as there are for disembodied souls in the D&D multiverse, sometimes I wonder if an afterlife is the exception, rather than the rule
Oh boy, I can't wait to be, digging around in the banks of the river sytx for clay to create my first gloom golem only to be beset by an Astradaemon lol!
The colorful lanky fish head design is my favorite astradaemon design, but I do like that Planar Adventures cover gave alternate more xenomoprh like take on astradaemon :D
Looks like reptile from the first mk movie
Am doing a plane walking campaign... I cant wait to use this thing!
Okay so idea for a mid-high level campaign. The players are all souls floating in the river Styx. They were all adventurers in separate parties who got tpk'd or is otherwise unable to be revived. They arent done though and want to return to life. And it starts with an Astradaemon fishing them out of the river to be delivered to its boss.
I think the fact that in Pathfinder the bite attack does a grapple and drains a level, as to which I think is where you can help put a key note that its mouth is bad. Given how souls work in the dnd lore of hell or demonic, as it looks like these guys are the "Soul-divers" of the dnd hell world
This guy kind of looks like a monster from an 80s sci-fi/horror movie. I love it.
My friend is a dm and in his game he had an astradaemon take the party to a powerful devil and were made to be interplanar bounty hunters
And this is how Tsothagguah stays relevant and lethal even amongst the other big bads of the Abyss like Orcus.
oh man i can imagine a great intro to the monster the party being hidden behind a bluff and watching a guy using feign death on the ground and the monster just comes up and sucks his soul out no question .....perfect.
What a cool monster concept
Also Daemons is another (yet, outdated) name for Yugoloths and but yeah it was clear they're not Yugoloths either
All Yugoloths are Daemons bun not all Daemons are Yugoloths?
@@beastwarsFTW maybe. Older editions were awesome but inconsistent af.
Oh wow I didnt expect an episode of river monsters
If this creature did get ported to 5e when it first came out the consume soul ability probably would have been turned into a variant of a life drain attack so the creature would take damage and their max hp would be lowered by the amount until a long rest if generous, greater Restoration if less so, and they would regain hp equal to the amount of damage they did
Save-or-sucks *can* be pretty bad to experience if handled improperly. In my oldschool games, creatures with such abilities tend to use them as a last resort; "I've not been able to defeat this foe with ordinary means and must now rely on a high risk, high reward ability/spell out of depseration". This keeps things fair and exciting (creatures in my games flee or surrender whenever it makes sense for them to do so, based on the situation and the specific type of creature). Even archmages will often rely on damage-dealing spells for enemy removal over save-or-sucks, because they are reliable even if not as potent. Besides, if halved damage from a fireball would not slay a character, but full damage would... that's also a save-or-die scenario. It's just that instead of some unusual circumstance (for combat) such as a heart attack causing your demise, your flesh is being incinerated by flames and ripped apart by the force of a shockwave from the explosion. And it's actually worse than a save-or-suck, since many do not have any effect if the target saves, while the fireball in this example is still dealing damage (just, half as much).
Honestly I love playing undead characters so this seems cool
Not an angler fish. That right there is a Viperfish. Happens to be one of my favorite creatures irl. The tooth to head ratio is nuts in some of them. And the second jaw seen in a lot of fish is like a modified tongue that can drop through the jaw after death and look really gnarly.
Could also be a goulper eel
I like the idea of a devil corrupting a good soul in to an abomination, and then unleashing it on the angels that come to rescue it
Really cool if a powerful lich used it to collect souls or a cult trying to bring back a devil, the Astradaemon's old master. Maybe they are collecting souls for a ritual and using the cult for it's own ends. Maybe the cult worships them too and brings sacrifices of powerful souls for them to collect.
I think that I'd implement the "CON save or die" as levels of exhaustion for each failure, giving my players just a little bit more time to get away if they can.
Okay, now I'm actually waiting for my players to suffer a TPK because of this video.
I got an idea for a dead party to end up in the River Styx, and be plucked from there by the Raven Queen, or some other death entity, and offered a chance to win back their life, or another boon if they choose, if they do them a favour. The favour would be hunting down an Astradaemon that is raiding the river.
Imagine one of these finding/being given a sleeping deity to nom on.
A Pathfinder monster? Nice.
Breaking from grapple can also be achieved with Misty Step and Dimension Door. It’s 2 of my WIP Bardritch Knight’s favorite spells for a reason. (College of Swords) Honestly, I can’t wait to try him out!
More daemons would be awesome but I would say the quintessential daemons, the four horsemen of the apocalypse. They have stats in the bestiary 6 of pathfinder and they are Awesome!!
Wait was that Bad Romance at the end 👍😆
I think the best way to balance that is that if the part manged to kill it they release all the souls it had consumed so dieing to it is not permanent
Here is how to make one of these guys 100000000% more terrifying if you have really high level players
Give it the ability to teleport.
You can basically put this in anywhere
Give it to him as a bonus action, action, legendary action.
But my favorite idea is to give it to him as a mythic action
Imagine if your party finally brings this thing down and as it falls into the river stix souls gather around it healing it's wounds as it stands up.
It then disappears and suddenly a horrid crunch is heard from the back line as the clerics lifeless corpse is suspended in it's hideous jaws.
Wait, the Soulmonger? I thought that was the MacGuffin from ToA
Instead of the save or die affect, it should force your sole out of your body. Your body then drops unconscious, and your soul is now grappled and acts the same as someone under Astral Projection.
After seeing this, I already have an idea in a Greek Myth campaign I am building, where you have to enter Hades' Realm of Erebus, and have an encounter with one of these.
fishing in the river Styx seems fun
I'll probably swap out the save or die ability for absorbs 1d4 or 1d6 charisma, and gains 1d4 temp HP times the CHA points devoured. Dangerous, but not awful; with the CHA coming back once the creature is defeated and the stolen part of your soul returning to you.
Very cool dungeon dad. Ty
Considering the brutality of the effect, but also how at that point resurrecting is also no big deal, I think the better way to go about Devour Soul is when it grapples someone, don't take actual damage, but they do go limp similar to Astral Projection. Everyone can see an etherial form slowly leaving the victims body. It is a brutal effect, so it should be obvious to everyone that you need to do something ASAP. Once separated the tether needs to be cut by the creature. The character is then dead. However it can then take another turn to consume the soul, which makes resurrection impossible.
I so plan on using it.
You could make the soul steal thing a process just by using the normal death saves if they lose their first saving throw. That way the “meal” part is something the players can do something about.
If you wanted to use this in a lower level campaign, you could change the "one save means death" to a tug of war, of sorts. Failing a save deals tons of damage, but describe it as when the beast rips its jaws away, the players soul beginning to come with it, its astral form stretching away from its mortal one, looking like a feral dog ripping out the stuffing from a pillow. Another interesting way to do it would be to give players exhaustion with every fail, or make the players make death saves WHILE THEY ARE STILL ALIVE!
Plus I really like the mental imagery of the barbarians ghost being slowly ripped out of his body, his eyes beginning to fade of life as his flailing ghost struggles against the maw of the beast
@@hexbystorm9671 hehehehe not so angry nog any more are ye.
I'd think of it like a dementor
Oh yeah, this is getting used tomorrow.
There were a 3.5 Class called the Demonbinder or somethig like that... it could summon demons devils and the like with an expensive ritual and a very hard skill test... so fun and deadlywhen it failed!
Fast forward the party was at the end of a campaing, lv 18. To prepare for war the demonbinder called an Astradaemon and binded it to the Antipaladin's armor making one of its abilities usable by the player. At the War, the antipaladin killed lot of weeklings with area effects and increased his strenght to such a high stat it could grapple a titan. OP but was extremelly costy and fun.
I need my DM to use this creature in my Descent to Avernus Game!!!
I understand the reasoning for the Save or Die. It doesn't really "mesh" with 5e's design philosophy, but I understand it.
I'd personally change it to a crap ton of Necrotic damage that reduces max HP and kills the target if their Max HP is lowered to 0, similar to wraiths or wights.
Maybe make it so that the Astradaemon can repeat this Necrotic succ each round it's grappling the target, and even make it be half damage on a successful Con save so even if your dice are hot you're in serious danger.
Great video! Always cool to see pathfinder monsters! Not lot pathfinder video on TH-cam. 👍
Ps Also could you do a video on Slaymate? I found out about them on a review of the 3rd dnd movie.
The way I have been thinking about the losing part of your soul and being brought back bit is maybe by having moments where that character becomes kinda..."inert" I guess. You can have a functioning body and mind, but no soul, no life. Maybe the character becomes vulnerable to possession effects because of it. Like they aren't possessed when they come back, but they take a penalty on saves against possession-type effects until they can somehow restore their soul. And when they sleep, they might not really fall asleep anymore, they instead kinda just go lifeless. In that state, they still heal back up and regain spell slots as usual if taking a long rest, but they can't be woken up anymore until their long rest is over as the piece of their soul drifts off to reconnect with the rest of it. And because this is basically like the character just hitting a stasis and not really sleeping, they don't gain actual rest from completing a long rest, so the fatigued and exhausted conditions can't be lifted through sleep anymore, only through any effects, spells or items that remove those statuses.
There is an old monster known as a phantom angler and it has a few things that are note worthy. First it has a 15 foot movement on land, second it can project glowing burning orbs that vanish at the end of their turn, third they are able to create illusions that take the form of something or someone that an entity finds attractive and is lured to. The illusions are always glowing and if you're blind it won't affect you and it can create a flash that can blind anyone who sees it about a 50% chance of causing blindness in anyone who sees it within a 100 foot radius. The blindness lasts for one D3 rounds and the angler can do a new flash every one D3 turns. The illusions can be used at will and even if you make a save your still likely to fall for it again if you're not blind. The player acts like a mixture of charmed and extreme infatuation in that they will actively seek to go to the angler. The creature is large and its glowing orb has great value for magic users and in crafting of ever glowing items.
Yup. AJ Pickett is right. This man needs more views and subs. Guess who Im binging on this weekend. XD
“The people who will be in melee are going to be your fighters, paladins, barbarians”
-me playing a Dex-based Monk rogue dodge tank with minimum con: ._.
This would be a neat resurrection arc. Oh jimmy died? Let's go break cosmic law and get him back
I personally have never faced these things, but I know players who have. They're nasty. The ironic thing was one PC that fought one, managed to keep its soul, only to lose it during the next fight, to literally, the grim reaper (Bestiary 5). And that one is far, far worse. There's no resurrection with that one.
fuck well he died a bad ass eather way because who can say they knew a man to die to a reaper but lived from a fisher of souls.
I love your show, Dungeon Dad! But I do have a few knits to pick with the way you have presented this monster.
1. You mention the River Styxx and from what I know (and albeit that is very little when it comes to Pathfinder) the River of Souls is not the same thing as the River Styxx and seems to mostly wind around the Boneyward in that particular (and weird) cosmology. Now I know you are converting this creature and them hunting along the River Styxx probably makes the most sense for what they are but this brings me to...
2. You said "like any devils in the nine hells" or something close to this I have honestly slept since first watching so my apologies if its a missquote BUT these are not devils. Even if you convert them over to 5e I am not sure why you would make them devils or ignore that daemons (aka yugoloths) exist and have their own place in the Lower Planes. As daemons, these guys seem only meh to me, I prefer more wheeling and dealing and devious daemons like the Arcanoloth but them being daemons means they should be found in ANY of the lower planes really, from Hades to the Abyss to the Nine Hells and Carceri, the Gray Wastes and so on (but especially in Gehenna one might argue).
These are minor picks and only because my hackles raise and my ear perk when I heard the word "daemon" :)
But your shows are excellent please keep u[p the good work and bringing us old monsters!
I run save or die things by giving my party a heads up about it *a lot* before they fight it "this creature is known to devour the souls of those in its grasp" stuff like that, so it's their fault usually if they get in a place the affect can be used on them
So I realize this was posted 2 years ago, and I haven't got all the way through the video yet...but one open plot hook just jumped in my mind could be perhaps a particularly stubborn spirit refuses to be exorcised, banished, removed. So someone got the bright idea to bring one of these things into the material plane to deal with it. Not understanding the true nature of the Astradaemon. They think it's like some sort of minor soul eating elemental or something.
Players could help with the summoning ritual or it could be a rival adventuring party vying for a contract with the baron/king. Then before the ritual is complete they catch wind of what it is they are trying to summon (local legend, actually reading the "forbidden tome", concerned clergy, etc...), now the PCs have a choice to try to stop the ritual. If they fail, the Devil does what it's brought in to do, then breaks its bonds and starts feasting...
Do the PCs let it just run amok? Do they try to stop it? Can the ritual of summoning be undone?
I was mostly on-board this until I saw you classified these as devils. They should be yugoloths. While Pathfinder has more daemons than D&D has yugoloths, they're basically called 'daemons' in Pathfinder because D&D made-up the word 'Yugoloth' and didn't release it as Open Game Content. This is also why Pathfinder has Azatas instead of Eladrin and Agathions instead of Guardinals. Though some of the monsters were released as Open Game Content (ghaele, bralani, leonals, vulpinals), the collective subtype names were not. While Paizo changed the suffix on their individual Yugoloths when converting them to Daemons, some Agathions still have their legacy names from being Guardinals, such as the leonals and vulpinals. Daemons are quite different from Yugoloths lore-wise though, as Pathfinder's Daemons desire to destroy souls while Yugoloths are more mercenary.
I've been mostly on-board with the conversions I've seen so far, but I didn't much care for this one. In addition to being made a devil, the CR was reduced and the movement speeds were reduced. Also, it was associated with the River Styx/River of Souls, and I don't know why that association was made.
There's some artwork of an Astradaemon on the cover of Pathfinder RPG: Planar Adventures that is quite good (IMO).
As a 'part of your soul is missing' post eating you could represent it as a point of exhaustion that does not go away for xdy+z days with the number of and what type of die depending on just how much soul was taken (Like 1d4+1 if they tore the soul to shred but only actually consumed a small chunk. 2d12+7 for a much more of it consumed. Makes gives it a more mechanical effect that could be lifted with a greater restoration. Not that the soul is recovered in that time period, but the spiritual shock of such a deep yet nonphysical injury needing time to recover. Actually recovering/restoring the soul would certainly be a McGuffin of a quest chain -- solving puzzles to regain a piece of yourself.
You could also be mean and make it a stat-drain ability, like it permanently lowers an important non physical stat for that character (like wis for a druid/cleric, Charisma for a paladin/bard/sorcerer, con for fighter/barbarian, Int for Wiz/artificier etc etc) by like.. Two points until an Rp journey point is made or a deal is made with some greater power (without necessarily forcing Warlock upon the player) to give them a fragment of their own/a spare soul they had laying around/a volunteer spirit etc etc. Maybe They have to hunt down a specific creature and part of their soul replaces the missing pieces.. (For instance, if one takes down a gloom golem they can coat their skin in the clay and absorb the energy used to make it, or perhaps they hunt down a beast of the unseelie court and have runes painted on their body with its blood. You could even do things like give them a feat for going through these routes or just a one use per day ability that only those who have lost part of their soul and replaced it on top of giving them back their lost stats thematic to what they had to do to regain the bit of soul -- they lived in a sort of half-state for a while and went forth to replace what was lost.
it also depends on the campain and how revives are handled . using such a strong ability in a game where you on top have a chance of revival is deminishing stakes. depending on them you can just nerf the death ability another time like adding a mechanic to it . it can only use this ability when the target is under certain life% . that would make its analytical sense to find the easiest target more interesting . now maybe you could add a flavor like giving it a visible glare to recognize its focus or maybe the party member feels their soul being pulled and they could make a wis or int check to understand how this monster favors and what might happen when you get too weak in its surroundings .
"Save or die"
*laughs in intellect devourer*
13:06 honestly I don't think you need to worry about Asmodeus too much for being in that hierarchy given... well he's the top
With the soul devour consequence I would make it to where they roll a D100 to see how much of the soul was eaten or remaining. If you want to be mean have them roll 3 times and they get disadvantage on how much is left or if you want to be nice give them advantage on how much is left. Then depending on how much soul is remaining have holes in their memory and actions. Maybe make it to where Since they lost part of their soul they cant fully remember all their spells or prayers or maybe their faith is just challenged meaning it is less powerful when used. It would be a good role playing chance to make it where the victim just loses some memories of what happened. Maybe the victim has a secret vault locked away behind a specific spell that not only can they no long remember but they can no longer cast. So you have to go through the realms trying to find out how to break this binding placed on this magically enchanted lock. Maybe make it where they break an oathbound contract and have to fight the legal problems that come from it from the cosmic binders of that contract.
Maybe instead of insta death, make like the banshee scream, it reduces them to 0 and incapacitates them
Idea, warlock tries to make a pact to ensure he cannot die, summons one of these bad boys and tries to make a deal.
The devil agrees to keep his soul from the river Styx and the warlock agrees.
Poor warlock just got lawyered into selling his soul for nothing.
That’s not an idea that’s just a pathetically comical tragedy.
@@malhawkeye6427 the greekest kind
the ending tune... was that Bad Romance?
I'd arguably make the soul actually stay in the body for a while before being entirely consumed, like... let's say digesting food. If the party manages to kill the beast in a set amount of rounds, then the soul returns to the body, maybe with some parts of it missing. Maybe there is some amount of memories lost or maybe the person is not as passionate as before. Maybe they are not much emotional for a while.
Pathfinder player here, so I'm not familiar with D&D lore, but are Daemons not a thing in D&D? Admittedly, I've attempted to correct or explain the differences to the folks I play with numerous times, but in PF there are numerous kinds of fiend. Devils (LE) and Demons (CE) are the more widely known, with Devils residing in Hell with their strict hierarchy and rules while Demons spawn from the Abyss and delight in destruction for the lulz. You also have the Qlippoth (CE), the original inhabitants of the Abyss before it learned how to create Demons from the souls of mortals and the Velstracs (LE) of Hell with their pursuit of the perfect sensation. The lesser known fiends include the Asuras (LE), Demodands (CE), Divs (NE), Oni (LNCE), Rakshasas (LE), and of course the Daemons.
Daemons (NE) come from the plane of Abbadon, and their "Schtick" is the destruction of life itself. The want to plunge the Great Beyond into oblivion and would probably destroy themselves afterwards to complete their work.
I've always loved to read about the differences between the various fiends and their goals, and how they'd interact with each other, but I've found Daemons to be among the most terrifying, perhaps only surpassed by the Qlippoth. Perhaps that's part of the reason I love Psychopomps (N) so much.
This is really interesting. I've since been a little bit more educated on pathfinder lore but at the time of making this video I had no idea how daemons fell into the system.
I wouldn’t say the Death Watch ability lets it see the a creature’s hit points, but rather what HP percentage it’s at. You worded it that it allows it to see how close to death something is. Theoretically a Mouse with 1 hit point is just as close to death as a level 20 Barbarian with 300 hit points.
Astradaemon devours most of a players soul.
Player gets resurrected.
Now that giant hole in their preverbal heart is a magnet to all kinds of spirits looking to take over a living body to fulfil their unfulfilled desires from before they passed. Repeatedly traumatizing the character not just because they feel somehow incomplete, but because ghosts keep trying to take over their half empty vestal.
And maybe to ease things up a bit they can slowly regenerate parts of their missing soul, never fully healing butakin to a raw wound healing and scaring over.
Maybe they go insane trying to graft parts of others souls to theirs in an attempt to fill the void, but like a badly matched organ transplant their body/soul rejects the foreign body. leaving them sick and crippled spiritually until someone casts a wish spell to reconstruct their missing parts.
I'd say it would be thematically appropriate, if you're trying to avoid the instant death being part of it in your game, to instead have its bite prevent resurrection if killed by it. IT ATE HIS SOUL! Makes it frightening for a different reason.
I think my dm used one of these as a named demigod of yuan TI we had to encounter it at lvl 7.. it actually ate our druid. Ad was instead soul digesting them. But ultimately able to move about.. we ended up ice storming them from inside
Do remember Astradaemon arnt Devils, you said at one point “one of these devils serving in a court of a higher devil” they’re Daemon, which are the servants of the four horseman of the apocalypse
so one of my players consistantly plays an (altered) ghost so some of those niche moves are interesting
so someone thats been dead but been stuck puppeting something living because they got no choice. he ya rip that ghost out of the pilot seat and MONCH
@@lechking941 not even pupateering something alive just a straight ghost
@@nmraven-gx9gt hm so what are their restictions than
So the main differnces are that they dont have immunitys to the things ghosts normally do just resistances also they have disadvantag on con and str saves
@@nmraven-gx9gt hm not TOO bad also quite a nice few advantages, im shure there are other downsides to them being specital like posably needing to avoid anything holy at all costs if they wish to keep their ectoplasm in place :P
Maybe the devour soul action can only work on creatures with, say, up to 10 current hit points, or are extremely low, like 10%. Just so they can't obliterate a level 20 barbarian instantly with a single unlucky roll. Maybe decrease the DC to resist it, with it going up as your HP goes down: Maybe it starts stupidly easy to resist- say, 10 or 11, and as your HP goes down, it can go up to 12, 13, and so on, until it reaches say... 19. It's only a concept, so it's very nebulous right now.
Gonna use this today💀 and it's a minion of one of the bosses😂
I'd put it as: in order to restor the soul eatten the specific devil who did it must be killed (in they're home plain) then not even True Resurrection can be cast upon the victim but a Miracle, Wish or Alter Reality cast by an at least 21 level caster/manifester could, in any case the resurrected will always loose 1d2+1 levels instead of only one cause of the soul lost, rarely low level campaigns will come that far to recover a character.. but for high to epic level fellowships its a fucked up way to loose 2 to 3 level with no scape for one or more characters, 1 or 2 more than a common Resurrection. No item or spell can avoid this. (By the way.. 1d2 is flipping a coin representing a dice value)
I might do something for the Devour Soul with major damage, say 10d8, and if reduced to 0 by this they die, but maybe not an instant death
Let's really talk about instant death effects. At the level you're fighting it, it would be really strange for a party not to have a way to revive.
Have you considered recreating the fearful Mattdaemon for 5e?
I would use it to show the PC’s that they aren’t invincible and shouldn’t be stupid. “Don’t go to the River Styx” and when they do a couple PC’s almost insta die
From the waist up it looks a lot like an Elden Beast.
I use them as a plot point if you die and then get brought back to life you roll a d20 and on a 5 or lower one of these manifests Because it was about to eat that soul.
So, for the curious:
Note that the name of this beast is the AstraDAEMON. Not DEMON. Daemons and Demons are two different creatures. While Demons are representatives of various sins, Daemons are meant to represent methods of death. Hydrodaemon? Drowning. Meladaemon? Starvation.
The Astradaemon is a very interesting take on this, as they are representatives of those who died due to negative energy or level drain. This is super interesting, because now it's not only suffused with them to make them Astradaemons in death, but it also makes up a majority of their Spell-Like abilities: Enervation, Energy Drain, Vampiric Touch...
Bind one to find a specific soul