Suffocating A Pit Fiend

[Clefton Twain]

Let's say you have a party of adventurers. Said party encounters a pit fiend (grrrr, arrgh!). But none of the party members has any way to make a weapon blessed or holy (uh-oh!). So they go to town, hacking on the pit fiend until he's knocked unconscious from subdual damage (zzzzz...).

Could said party simply cover up the pit fiend's nose and mouth, then hack on him some more to kill him? If they keep beating on the pit fiend (poor guy), he'll always be subdued and if they keep him from breathing, he expires from drowning rather quickly because he can't hold his breath while unconscious. Even if he could, he'd still die, right?

--CT

 

[dcollins]

The FAQ basically says "yes" to this question, in the context of a chopped-up troll possibly starving or drowning. The ruling seems a little off-putting to me. I suppose the DM needs to adjudicate a success for "stuffing mouth and nose", since the FAQ only specifically mentions holding something underwater.

 

[Wippit Guud]

Do demons and devil breathe at all?

 

[Clefton Twain]

Fiends and Bad Breath

Do demons and devil breathe at all?

I haven't found anywhere to specify otherwise.

--CT

 

[Wippit Guud]

It doesn't specify if air elementals breathe or not, but if an earth elemental can sit underground, he ain't breathing much. It doesn't say if air elementals breath or not, yet air genasi don't have to breath, so it must be true.

 

[Samhain California]

a thought,

woudlnt be easier to pour water down their throat ,and invoke the drowing rules?

are water ballons that deadly?

--josh

 

[Elric]

Of course, it makes no sense that you can chop a pit fiend up into a million pieces and it will regenerate but if you knock it unconscious and pour water down its throat it dies...

I'm not sure if this works, but theoretically you could kill the Tarrasque without using a Wish spell if you could just drown it...

 

[Darklone]

Drown the pit fiend with holy water

 

[Quinn]

How did you inflict subdual damage on the pit fiend? Don't you need a +3 weapon to do any damage at all?

 

[isoChron]

I think you need a holy silver weapon to do damage without suffering a penalty to damage.
DR 15/holy silver: First 15 points of damage are ignored if the weapon is NOT holy and silvered.
So if you hit him with a normal (nonmagical) greatsword for 21 damage you substract 15 points because it can't circumvent the damage reduction. You still do 6 points of normal damage (not subdual !) to the mighty pit fiend.
If said greatsword is made from silver and has the "holy weapon" enchantment on it then it would do all the 21 points of damage.
You can kill a pit fiend with a stick as long as the stick does more than 15 points of damage in your hand AND YOU SURVIVE LONG ENOUGH ...
BYE