| “ | You dare to approach, mortal? | ” |
Demogorgon, also known as the Prince of Demons, is one of the most powerful tanar'ri. His appearance is a pure representation of chaos and madness - a reptilian lower body with a huge, forked tail, forked tentacles in place of forelimbs, and twin baboon heads above his shoulders, each with its own intellect and name - Aameul and Hethradia. Its gaze alone can hypnotize other creatures or drive them to madness.
He is the Imprisoned One in Watcher's Keep. He can summon demon allies from the Abyssal Plane to aid him and is arguably the most powerful boss in the Baldur's Gate series.
Gameplay[]
Demogorgon's flailing arms act as a melee weapon and is a +5 enchanted item with a +5 THAC0 bonus and deals 1d6+5 crushing damage (plus 14 with strength bonus). Level drain is applied (save negates) and causes a disease effect (no save).
Initial Contingency (once): Stoneskin, Globe of Invulnerability, Aura of Flaming Death simultaneously. Always used at the beginning of the fight.
Summon the Infernal Host (once): summons two Marilith demons for 8 hours. Always used right after the Contingency. A text displays "Now you will pay, foolish mortals!"
Domination (available every 4 seconds): charms a tanar'ri for 8 hoursb. Only used against enemy tanar'ri. Bypasses magic resistance and cannot be dispelled. A text displays: "No! You shall not use my own against me!"
Gate in demons (using the innate spell SPIN548.SPL "Gate") available every 6 seconds: Summons four glabrezus for 8 hours. Heals self for 50 hit points and sets magic resistance to 90% for 3 rounds. Only used after the two initial mariliths have been killed and the number of summoned glabrezus is not greater than number of party members. A text displays: "Come, my minions!"
Death Spell (available every 2 rounds, 50% chance to use): only used if there is a summoned enemy whose level is below 10 within 15 feet.
Stoneskin (available every 10 seconds): only used if the previous Stoneskin is no longer active, or has zero skins remaining, and there is an enemy within 10 feet.
Beguiling Gaze (available every 2 rounds, 25% chance to use, 30-foot radius): targets are charmed for 1 turn (save vs. spell with penalty of 2), applies a 2-point penalty to save vs. spell and reduces magic resistance by 5 for 5 rounds. Can be dispelled. Only magic resistance penalty bypasses magic resistance. This is considered a 6th-level spell. A text displays: "Feel my beguiling gaze!"
Insanity Gaze (available every 2 rounds, 25% chance to use, 30-foot radius): confuses targets for 8 rounds (save vs. spell with penalty of 2), 50% chance to cause feeblemindedness for 8 rounds (save vs. spell), applies a 1-point penalty to save vs. spell and reduces magic resistance by 3 for 1 turn. Can be dispelled. Save vs. spell and magic resistance penalties bypass magic resistance. This is considered an 8th-level Enchantment spell. A text displays "Suffer under my gaze of insanity!"
Attack spells[]
- Implosion (no cooldownb, 1/3 chance to use)
- Finger of Death (available every 15 seconds, 1/3 chance to use).
- Unholy Word (available every 30 seconds, 50% chance to use): only used if nearest enemy is not of evil alignment
- Earthquake (available every 60 seconds, 1/3 chance to use): only cast on self
- Harm (available every 20 seconds, 1/3 chance to use): a special version of Harm that does not require attack roll. Sets target's current hit points to 1. Prioritizes target who is least injured and Cleric class is also looked for. Only used if an enemy is within 10 feet and has less than 50% magic resistance, even though this attack bypasses magic resistance.
Victory Conditions[]
- Demogorgon will end the fight when his hit points are below 30. A text displays: "NO! NOOOOO! THIS CANNOT BE!"
Notes[]
- As Demogorgon does not have any mage or cleric levels, all arcane and divine spells are cast at the lowest power level.
- Demogorgon's Domination ability does not work, because it uses the charm creature effect to which all demons are immune. This won't prevent the script from going through the motions though. It just won't actually charm the player's summoned demons, as was intended, but not coded properly.[1]
- Demogorgon's script, DEMOGOR2.bcs, suggests that Demogorgon was initially intended to cast Fire Storm, which had a cooldown of 100 seconds, but this was changed to Implosion later. However, the names of the cooldown timers were not changed properly, leading to Implosion having no cooldown. It is possible Demogorgon will cast this spell several times in quick succession from time to time.
Bugs[]
- Regeneration does not work. His 22 Constitution properly grants him 1 HP every 40 seconds, but the 6 HP per second regeneration is broken. The mod Ascension restores it to 10 HP/s in Hard mode.
- Demogorgon's melee attack will cause problems for spell casting party members upon a hit. The innate disease effect will frequently cause spell casting disruption because it elicits a disruption/spell casting interruption every second. This will occur even if the party member is fully protected from poison damage. The only way to really prevent this is for the target to not get hit at all, or if they are, to be protected from Disease effects altogether, such as the Ring of Gaxx or the Boots of the West provide.
Trivia[]
- Demogorgon's script also suggests that the developers had intended for him to be able to cast Time Stop once at the beginning of the fight. According to David Gaider, a senior designer at BioWare at the time, this fight was toned down for balance reasons before the release of the expansion. David Gaider's mod Ascension restores Demogorgon as it was initially intended.
Mod content[]
This section is about unofficial content that is only available via fan-made mods.- Portraits from Portraits Portraits Everywhere
Installation of the Sword Coast Stratagems and the Ascension Mods, and SCS's "Improved Fiends" component is the highest challenge level, restoring the original Demogorgon concept to the game (which was reduced before the original game's release, and not changed much in the EE versions). SCS and Ascension work together, and the SCS Mod author did much of the work and coding to modernize Ascension to work with the EE game. All of the info below is for both mods together. SCS by itself is actually less challenge than SCS + Ascension in this particular encounter.
Demogorgon (cast at 30th level):
435 Hit Points (could be as high as 585 on some difficulty settings)
Regenerate 10 HP/Second
-16 Armor Class (-20 while Aura of Flaming Death is up)
5 Attacks per round
-19 THAC0
Resistances:
100% Fire, Electricity, Poison
99% magic energy damage
90% magic resistance
50% Cold
10% Physical damage
Immune to Time Stop
Immune to all debilitating/disabling status effects
Immune to Spells level 1 through 7 (except Antimagic and Breach). Lower Resistance will be blocked, but Pierce Magic and Pierce Shield still work to lower MR.
Initial Chain Contingency, containing Protection from Magic Weapons, Aura of Flaming Death, and Spell Turning.
Initial Contingency, containing Stoneskin.
Stoneskin, once per two rounds
Protection from Magic Weapons, once per six rounds
Summon demons, once per two rounds; doing so also partially heals him (50 HP) and restores his Magic Resistance (sets to 90%)
Storm of Vengeance and Dragon's Breath (spell) once per day
Implosion, once per 30 rounds
Earthquake, once per 20 rounds
True Sight, Death Spell, and Unholy Word, each once per six rounds
Finger of Death, Breach and Spell Strike, each once per 3 rounds
Remove Magic and Teleport without Error, at will
Charm hostile demons, at will
Beguiling Gaze - Charm effect, reduces magic resistance by 5% and Save vs. Spell by 2. Can be used in same round as a spell.
Insanity Gaze: Confusion effect - reduces magic resistance by 2% and save vs. spell by 1. Can be used in same round as a spell.
Note from the SCS Mod Author:
In addition, Demogorgon has a gaze attack (either a charm or a confusion effect) which he can use each round in addition to his spells. The Beguiling Gaze ability is a level 6 spell effect, that does not bypass MR and can be negated with a Save vs. Spell with a -2 penalty. The Insanity Gaze is an AOE level 8 spell effect that does not bypass MR. It can be negated with a -2 penalty to Save vs. Spell. Note that these gaze attacks also reduce magic resistance and Saving Throws vs. Spells, and those cannot be blocked and have no save. The end result of this is a cumulative erosion of magic resistance and saving throws. When Demogorgon uses the gaze a text on screen says "Feel my beguiling gaze" or similar. My original version of Demogorgon also had a Time Stop usable once per day (as in Ascension), but I worried that this was too much; if you want to turn this back on, enter SetGlobal("DMWWDemogorgonTS","GLOBAL",1) at the console.
Recent update to the SCS, with or without the Ascension Mod has now improved the initial deployment of the first wave of fiends summoned - and will show in the combat log that Demogorgon initiates "Summon the Infernal Host". Your game difficulty setting determines if this component is enabled. If you see this message, you may have to deal with a Marilith, a Balor, one or two Glabrezu and a special fiend that looks like a Cambion/Demon Knight. This fiend is a unique creature with advanced spell casting abilities and is actually a level 20/20 Fighter Mage class with a 50% resistance to physical damage (however, an actual Cambion is a Devil and not a Demon, so this doesn't make sense lore-wise, but the Mod used the Cambion animation anyhow). The "Improved Fiends" component will also allow the Marilith and Balor and especially the unique Cambion to also self-buff with contingency spells, such as PFMW, Stoneskin and Shield.
Ascension also restores Demogorgon's innate Time Stop, which deploys not too long after the start of hostilities. Be warned, that a party member can be killed quickly by the Demon Prince's melee attacks during this period, unless the target is made invulnerable to magic weapons or other advanced protection. Expect at least 8-10 melee blows in rapid succession during the Timestop. Armor class will not offer any protection for a character that cannot move. Ascension also fixes the Demogorgon regeneration issue that is still unfixed in EE game versions. Note that there is a component that allows Demogorgon to get its time stop back as well but peruse the Readme for that information on how to do it.
Demogorgon's opening moves are to instantly (via contingency script) be buffed with Stoneskin (10 skins), PFMW, Aura of Flaming Death and Spell Turning. Next will come a Time Stop, and then during the time stop will be melee attacks, then possibly initiation of the "Summon the Abyssal Host" ability followed by more melee attacks on the closest party member. Once the Time Stop is finished a Storm of Vengeance will be cast by Demogorgon over itself and allied demons. Afterwards, a gaze attack and more melee strikes occur while the gated demon host self-cast their buffs and then advance to melee attack. The Cambion, after buffing, will try an Abi-Dalzim's Horrid Wilting and so on and so forth.
Tactics with SCS/Ascension Demogorgon:
- Traps dealing Magical Energy or Fire Damage (unmodded Set Spike Trap or Set Exploding Trap) will do zero or barely any damage to Demogorgon.
- Spells dealing Magical Energy damage such as Bolt of Glory, Holy Word or Harm won't work or do negligible damage. Not even worth trying.
- Any spell that has a disabling effect, will either not work, be resisted or the status effect is useless against Demogorgon.
- Use of certain weapons can help, such as The Answerer, which a great weapon to use, but if you are playing Watcher's Keep before Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal, then it won't be available.
- Any +3 enchanted weapon dishing Cold damage or Acid damage is extra effective.
- Carsomyr or the upgraded Purifier are very good against demons in general.
- Dealing physical damage rapidly and in sufficient quantity to surpass the beasts' regeneration rate is the most reliable way to defeat Demogorgon. It is vulnerable to all physical damage types. So, cut it, bash it, poke it, stab it, and pepper it with +3 missile fire.
- 2 Potions of Absorption provide a bonus of -20 to Crushing attacks, rendering Demogorgon's physical attacks largely meaningless. Since this does not help at all during the opening Time Stop, other means of protection are necessary.
- any Time Stop you cast is a Time Stop for Demogorgon, so unless you are solo'ing, that is a terrible idea. If you are solo'ing, it's merely a waste of time and a level9 spell slot. The Shadowdancer's Shadowstep is similarly to be avoided.
If the player has the Spell Revisions mod installed, and gates in a demon to use against Demogorgon, this mod uses a different dynamic to determine if the creature will join with the summoner, or not. It is likely that Demogorgon will be able to take control of this summoned creature, not with a Domination effect, but due to the mechanics of the SR demon control competition script. As Demogorgon has very high stats (especially Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma), it will probably convince the demon be loyal to Demogorgon, rather than the summoner. Summoning demons to fight the Prince of Demons seems like a risky and frankly not well thought out plan.
External links[]
- Demogorgon on the Forgotten Realms Wiki, a wiki for the Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting Forgotten Realms.
Gameplay (community)[]
- Main article: Demogorgon/Strategy guide by HenryNY
Defeat Demogorgon:
- The Thief Way: Before he shows up
- The Divide-n-Conquer Way: In direct combat
- The Good-Fight Way: In direct combat
- The XP Farming Way: Use him as a demon farm
- Screenshots of a full-scale battle
- A Few More Tips
- Solo the Prince of Demons
References
- ↑
RINGDEMN.itm