How to remove possession?

[NeilP]

Hello everyone,

I'd like to pick people's brains here trying to maybe find a creative solution to a problem. How would you go about removing a possessing demon from a character, and following that, the material plane? (Destroying him would also be acceptable, of course :) )

Dismissal/banishment will probably not work, due to the demon's extremely high will save/HD, unless many different items that he hates can be found and presented when casting the spell.

I know from in-game research that the demon is an expert possessor with a variety of powers, all of which lead me to believe that he has the Fiend of Possession prestige class, just to give people an idea of his powers.

Any ideas, even the tiniest thing, would be most welcome.
Thank you all!

[Bad Wolf]

An item of Protection from Evil would probably be better, as it stops the fiend from doing anything, including getting back onto the Material Plane. Of course if you go into an Antimagic Field...

[Allanimal]

The Sacred Exocist PRC from Complete Devine has an exorcism class feature that “can force a possessing creature or spirit out of the body it inhabits”.
Will that work?

[NeilP]

@Bad_Wolf: Protection from Evil would protect from possession, but would it also remove the demon if he had already possessed someone?

@Allanimal : I thought of that while trying to find a solution, but the DC would be way too high for a successful exorcism, that demon is probably close to 30-40 HD.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Change the law -- or, at least, 9/10ths of it...

[Allanimal]

@Allanimal : I thought of that while trying to find a solution, but the DC would be way too high for a successful exorcism, that demon is probably close to 30-40 HD.

Ouch, yeah, the sacred exorcist will have a problem with that one... unless there are some shenanigans to boost the heck out of that class level check. I don’t know of any...

[zlefin]

Hello everyone,

I'd like to pick people's brains here trying to maybe find a creative solution to a problem. How would you go about removing a possessing demon from a character, and following that, the material plane? (Destroying him would also be acceptable, of course :) )

Dismissal/banishment will probably not work, due to the demon's extremely high will save/HD, unless many different items that he hates can be found and presented when casting the spell.

I know from in-game research that the demon is an expert possessor with a variety of powers, all of which lead me to believe that he has the Fiend of Possession prestige class, just to give people an idea of his powers.

Any ideas, even the tiniest thing, would be most welcome.
Thank you all!

what level of chars do you have to work with?

I'm also curious what does happen if the possessed char goes into an anti-magic field.

if you can arrange a way to kill the fiend; then kill the host and cast revivify. that'd force the demon out. you still have to deal with it of course.

[NeilP]

@zlefin: Nice idea! There's 5 of us, levels 18-21. We also have a cleric, so Revivify might do the trick, I hadn't thought of that... I think we might have a shot at taking him down in a fight, but we'll need to figure out a way to stop him from possessing a wall or the floor or something. Perhaps one of us could be waiting in the ethereal plane, ready to cast a dimensional anchor as soon as he's forced there.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Could you ask the DM about Perform (Exorcism) skill DCs?

Also, epic exorcism spells with stupidly high DCs. The more sanctified, consecrated, hallowed, and blessed stuff, as well as holy water, celestial creatures, and Good clerics and paladins you can have around to further boost DCs, the better.

[tiercel]

Good old dispel evil is specifically called out by Fiendish Codex I as being effective against demonic possession. You still have to beat SR and get the possessor to fail a Will save, but this appears to be a vanilla save (not modified by HD), and dumps the demon to its own plane.

For that matter, FCI has the first-level exorcism spell -- which might not be great unless Heightened, but it's also a vanilla Will save and is swift-action, so it's spammable (as long as you have Turn Undead uses to burn) while trying other spells. This spell doesn't drive it out of the plane, but does put a "no repo for 24 hours" clause on your freed victim. (OTOH, the possessor could still try to jump into something/someone else.)

You could spam Extended magic circle vs evil and keep the demon from doing anything for so long that it decides to hop out of its own accord, but again you'd still have the challenge of dealing with it / whatever it hops into next.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Telling someone "no" is the fastest way to get them to do something, so pull a head of Vecna gambit on it.

Craft a trap the soul gem with a Heightened Nystul's magic aura to block the spell's emanations, and find covert means to entice the demon into taking the gem. Cast various [Evil] spells on it, such as unhallow, plus permanency. Craft it into a per/day item of some useful spells the demon doesn't natively have access to. Make it seem like a very useful artifact for this demon in particular. Make it seem to have the ability to prevent a possessed creature from being exorcised. Dress it up as a very gaudy piece of evil jewelry, complete with carven bones and whatnot. Really work those Craft and Bluff skills. Secretly clear out a dungeon somewhere, hire a bunch of celestial creatures to guard it, build a few traps using the Tucker's kobolds school of dungeon design, to make it a lot more difficult than the creatures involved would indicate, without being terribly expensive. Make it seem quite difficult, but doable. Then spread rumors via the speed of bard. Since rumors are apparently FTL, word should reach it before long. It either goes itself or sends minions to retrieve it. Once it willingly takes the gem, it will trap the demon, leaving its host alone.

The main benefit of this plan is that the DM is more likely to allow it to succeed, especially if you make it an adventure all by itself.

[Bad Wolf]

@Bad_Wolf: Protection from Evil would protect from possession, but would it also remove the demon if he had already possessed someone?

No, it supresses them. So they cant really do anything. Setting aside the fact that some people may not want to be holding a fiend in their body and that it might escape if dispelled or carried into an Antimagic Field, it's basically the best way of stopping a fiend.

[thethird]

Impotente/Imprison possessor offer a Will save but are worth considering. Consider fleshbound (lifebound would be even better) plus one hit killing the host (you can resurrect It later)

[Nifft]

1 - Possessing fiends are incorporeal while possessing a target.

2 - Incorporeal creatures are always flying.

3 - Gust of Wind pushes flying creatures farther than non-flying creatures.

4 - Incorporeal protects from non-magical damage sources, and grants immunity to solid objects. Wind is not damage, and wind is not solid. Incorporeal creatures are not immune to gust of wind.

5 - Slap on a protection from evil after blowing off the fiend.

[zlefin]

@zlefin: Nice idea! There's 5 of us, levels 18-21. We also have a cleric, so Revivify might do the trick, I hadn't thought of that... I think we might have a shot at taking him down in a fight, but we'll need to figure out a way to stop him from possessing a wall or the floor or something. Perhaps one of us could be waiting in the ethereal plane, ready to cast a dimensional anchor as soon as he's forced there.

you'd certainly want to have a lot of buffs ready and prepare the environment for it. additionally, with any good plan, there's a chance the demon decides you've done enough prep it's going to lose and it'll run before you reach

in order to avoid it repossessing anything, you could all gather together inside a windowless forcecage on the plane of air (or some other plane with lots of empty space, maybe just do it on the ethereal plane directly). then as long as all of you are covered from possession there aren't any objects in the area and it's inside the forcecage with you. you could also cast dimensional lock beforehnad as well so it can't go ethereal and is forced out into its normal body, which would also block many other means of escape. not sure how the rules handle it if the creature is naturally too big for the forcecage but it was already present before the creature emerged.

[Jack_Simth]

Hello everyone,

I'd like to pick people's brains here trying to maybe find a creative solution to a problem. How would you go about removing a possessing demon from a character, and following that, the material plane? (Destroying him would also be acceptable, of course :) )

Dismissal/banishment will probably not work, due to the demon's extremely high will save/HD, unless many different items that he hates can be found and presented when casting the spell.

I know from in-game research that the demon is an expert possessor with a variety of powers, all of which lead me to believe that he has the Fiend of Possession prestige class, just to give people an idea of his powers.

Any ideas, even the tiniest thing, would be most welcome.
Thank you all!

Depends on what method of possession it's using. With Magic Jar (and anything that inherits from it), it takes a standard action to get out of a host. While unconscious, the demon can't take a standard action. And the demon uses the host's HP total, not his own. KO the host, then spam Dismissal from a wand (or any other suitable method) until the demon is out (rolls a nat-1). Note that if using the "Possess Creature" ability from the Fiend of Possession PrC, this does NOT work (demon's still awake... but can't control the host while it's unconscious, so maybe it does...)

@zlefin: Nice idea! There's 5 of us, levels 18-21. We also have a cleric, so Revivify might do the trick, I hadn't thought of that... I think we might have a shot at taking him down in a fight, but we'll need to figure out a way to stop him from possessing a wall or the floor or something. Perhaps one of us could be waiting in the ethereal plane, ready to cast a dimensional anchor as soon as he's forced there.

Just do it in a place where there's nothing to grab. Move the entire fight to the Ethereal.

[Crake]

There is literally a spell called dispel possession in ghostwalk. It is a 4th level bard, 5th level cleric/sorc/wizard, no save, no SR, automatically remove a possessing being from a creature spell, as if it had left the creature voluntarily.

[NeilP]

So many wonderful ideas here. I didn't think that my problem would turn from "how on earth are we going to we do this?" to "we've got this, but which of these ways do I pick?".

You people are awesome, thank you all so very much!

[Troacctid]

Magic Circle against Evil should suppress possession. Just find a friendly unicorn or celestial who's willing to hang around for a while. Planar Binding, or whatever. If the demon tries to hop bodies, then the celestial just strolls over and turns off their control over the new host too.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Imprison and impotent possessor on the host then find and destroy its body. Possession ended, demon dead.

[AnonymousPepper]

There is literally a spell called dispel possession in ghostwalk. It is a 4th level bard, 5th level cleric/sorc/wizard, no save, no SR, automatically remove a possessing being from a creature spell, as if it had left the creature voluntarily.

Yeah, this absolutely wins on sheer effectiveness, no question.

Go with one of the other more in-depth ideas if you want to give the GM some wiggle room to weave a story out of it, but if you just wanna get the fiend out, accept no substitutes. Bonus points for the shocked look on the GM's face when (s)he goes to roll the fiend's Will save and tells you to roll to pen its Spell Resistance and you tell them that it allows neither.

Incidentally, keep this one on the back burner and on a scroll somewhere just for instantly killing a dominate effect; it immediately nukes charm, dominate, and similar effects. Absolutely worth it. No save, no SR means it's just as effective on a scroll as it is from a spell slot. (For extra fun, throw it on a Schema or similar 1/day item.)

[sleepyphoenixx]

Incidentally, keep this one on the back burner and on a scroll somewhere just for instantly killing a dominate effect; it immediately nukes charm, dominate, and similar effects. Absolutely worth it. No save, no SR means it's just as effective on a scroll as it is from a spell slot. (For extra fun, throw it on a Schema or similar 1/day item.)

I'd say it's way too situational to put on a Schema. 5th level Schema aren't exactly cheap. I can see a scroll being useful, but mostly for the possession removal.
But unless you know you'll need it, by the time you can easily afford to cart around a ~1200gp oneshot item that may or may not come up (instead of buying something always/more generally useful) you're generally already immune to mind-affecting.

It's not that Dispel Possession isn't great at what it does, just that cheaper alternatives are almost always good enough.

[Psyren]

You should also figure out if your GM had something more specific in mind for you to deal with this creature - something more plot-focused like a ritual. This doesn't sound like a run of the mill opponent for you to just roll dice at and then collect XP, it sounds like a primary or at least significant antagonist for this phase of your campaign.

4 - Incorporeal protects from non-magical damage sources, and grants immunity to solid objects. Wind is not damage, and wind is not solid. Incorporeal creatures are not immune to gust of wind.

I'm not sure about this ruling - Incorporeal also gives immunity to being physically moved or manipulated. I'd say wind blowing them around would fall under that.

[sleepyphoenixx]

1 - Possessing fiends are incorporeal while possessing a target.

Fiends using Possession aren't incorporeal, they explicitly become part of the creature they're possessing.

I'm not sure about this ruling - Incorporeal also gives immunity to being physically moved or manipulated. I'd say wind blowing them around would fall under that.

The description of the Incorporeal subtype doesn't bring it up, it only mentions that no physical act can move or manipulate one, which Gust of Wind doesn't fall into since it's a spell.
But it's mentioned in the description of Wind Wall that it doesn't affect incorporeal creatures.

There's also these two bits from RC:

An incorporeal creature has no physical body. It doesn’t need to eat, drink, or breathe, and indeed can’t do these things since it can’t affect physical objects, even air.

Nondamaging effects affect incorporeal creatures normally unless such effects require corporeal targets to function (such as implosion)
or they create a corporeal effect that incorporeal creatures are normally unaffected by (such as web or wall of stone).

It doesn't come right out and say they're not affected but it's at least heavily implied imo, though i can see the room for arguing otherwise even if i don't agree.

[Psyren]

The description of the Incorporeal subtype doesn't bring it up, it only mentions that no physical act can move or manipulate one, which Gust of Wind doesn't fall into since it's a spell.

Why wouldn't it? And even if you rule that spells are somehow not acts, the rule there actually says action anyway.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Why wouldn't it? And even if you rule that spells are somehow not acts, the rule there actually says action anyway.

I'm not saying that spells are not actions, i'm saying they're not physical actions.

[Psyren]

I'm not saying that spells are not actions, i'm saying they're not physical actions.

"Spells" might or might not be. But I definitely think a gust of wind is.

[sleepyphoenixx]

"Spells" might or might not be. But I definitely think a gust of wind is.

You can read it that way, but imo it's not clear.
I actually agree with your interpretation, but from the RAW i've found i can see how someone could go the other way too.
The clearest bit we have is that passage on nondamaging effects i quoted, but afaik it's never clearly stated if incorporeal creatures are affected by wind or not.

[Zaq]

1 - Possessing fiends are incorporeal while possessing a target.

2 - Incorporeal creatures are always flying.

3 - Gust of Wind pushes flying creatures farther than non-flying creatures.

4 - Incorporeal protects from non-magical damage sources, and grants immunity to solid objects. Wind is not damage, and wind is not solid. Incorporeal creatures are not immune to gust of wind.

5 - Slap on a protection from evil after blowing off the fiend.

If you didn’t pull this out of the Dysfunctional Rules thread, you definitely need to submit it to said thread. That’s hilariously stupid, but even if you accept the argument that wind affects incorporeal stuff, there’s no way in Baator that’s intended.

[Crake]

Imprison and impotent possessor on the host then find and destroy its body. Possession ended, demon dead.

Whether this would work or not depends on the possession in question. FC1 possession leaves behind a body, but ghost possession, a few spells, and FF fiend of possession do not. Of course, having the fiend imprisoned and unable to affect the host is as good as having it gone, but both of those can be dispelled by an errant dispel magic intended to remove buffs or the like.