Mighty Servant of Leuk-o vs. The Nine Hells

[notthegiant]

I was thinking about the Mighty Servant of Leuk-o from TCoE. This thing is a beast - resistance to Piercing and Slashing, immunity to almost every other damage type, Magic Resistance, 10 hit points of regeneration per round, can't be polymorphed or sent to another plane. What would happen if you were to unleash this thing onto a massive pile of monsters - for example, a layer of the Nine Hells? I can imagine the situation would be something as follows: 17th level Sorcerer piloting the servant, Clone spell in reserve in case of death by devil, casting some buffs like Longstrider and Foresight, maybe some Glyph of Warding'd concentration spells like Haste. What kind of damage could the servant do to the armies of Hell?

[JackPhoenix]

Pretty insignificant one. Good luck getting anywhere important without being caught by infernal patrols first, then you kill few devils before they bury you in a pile of lemures. Or just rocks.

[kingcheesepants]

Pretty insignificant one. Good luck getting anywhere important without being caught by infernal patrols first, then you kill few devils before they bury you in a pile of lemures. Or just rocks.

30 strength, 300+ HP, 22 AC, immune to bludgeoning damage and basically all conditions including being grappled, stunned, incapacitated, or restrained. I don't think that this thing is going down nearly as easily as you think. Throw a pile of rocks on it and it simply bashes them away and continues same for lemures. Any simple head on attack is going to cost a lot of resources since the only things that do normal damage are force and thunder attacks and the only saves the thing is likely to fail are Intelligence or Dex saves. There are a handful of spellcasting fiends that can inflict force or thunder so they have a chance, but honestly not much of one because the servant's rocket punch will kill them well before they can kill it.

I had a group that fought one of these things and once they realized that there was a pilot it was actually a fairly easy fight, just dimension door into it and take out the driver. I imagine that the fiends would attempt a similar tactic. From what I can tell the only fiends with dimension door natively are ultroloths and arcanaloths but I'm sure that there are a handful of others with other teleport or phasing abilities that would let them get into the machine to attack the driver within. A much more efficient plan than sending waves upon waves of guys after the thing and at the end the fiends will have a nearly indestructible robot suit to play with, so win win in their book.

[Blatant Beast]

Genius idea notthegiant!

How many Pit Fiends does Zairel command?
Zariel, itself, has 580 HP or so, and double the Regeneration rate of the Mighty Servant.

The Might Servants leap seems like it would be fun. Rather than just trying to smash things, I think I would try to speedrun the Nine Hells, see if you could get to Malsheem.

Running around trying to find portals to the next lair, and smashing things in the way would be a blast.

[Dungeon-noob]

I don't think you can achieve much. You're not fast, you can only deal a very limited volume of damage, and pits contain you well enough. If needed, they can just assign a meatwall of lemures to contain you for functionally forever, it's not like they have a shortage of those.

[Blatant Beast]

Lemures?!

The Mighty Servant has:
Crushing Leap. If the servant jumps at least 25 feet as part of its movement, it can then use this action to land on its feet in a space that contains one or more other creatures. Each of those creatures is pushed to an unoccupied space within 5feet of the servant and must make a DC 25 Dexterity saving throw. On a failed save, a creature takes 26 (4d12) bludgeoning damage and is knocked prone. On a successful save, a creature takes half as much damage and isn't knocked prone.

The Mighty Servant also does not require a running start to leap.
You can not Grapple a Mighty Servant, but one could knock it Prone.

But Lemures are not knocking the Servant prone.

[Unoriginal]

I was thinking about the Mighty Servant of Leuk-o from TCoE. This thing is a beast - resistance to Piercing and Slashing, immunity to almost every other damage type, Magic Resistance, 10 hit points of regeneration per round, can't be polymorphed or sent to another plane. What would happen if you were to unleash this thing onto a massive pile of monsters - for example, a layer of the Nine Hells? I can imagine the situation would be something as follows: 17th level Sorcerer piloting the servant, Clone spell in reserve in case of death by devil, casting some buffs like Longstrider and Foresight, maybe some Glyph of Warding'd concentration spells like Haste. What kind of damage could the servant do to the armies of Hell?

Each layer of Hell is functionally infinite. Mortals have limits.

Best result you'll get is "kill a bunch of non-major Fiends, then Zariel takes the Mighty Servant of Leuk-o for herself".

Now if you were to target something or someone specifically, like one Archfiend in particular or the gate to Dys, you'd have a good chance to deal significant damage. For a while, at least.

[JackPhoenix]

30 strength, 300+ HP, 22 AC, immune to bludgeoning damage and basically all conditions including being grappled, stunned, incapacitated, or restrained. I don't think that this thing is going down nearly as easily as you think. Throw a pile of rocks on it and it simply bashes them away and continues same for lemures. Any simple head on attack is going to cost a lot of resources since the only things that do normal damage are force and thunder attacks and the only saves the thing is likely to fail are Intelligence or Dex saves. There are a handful of spellcasting fiends that can inflict force or thunder so they have a chance, but honestly not much of one because the servant's rocket punch will kill them well before they can kill it.

Bury it under a pile of rocks, and it bashes nothing because it can't move. Problem solved. It can kill one (or 9, with the jump) lemures per turn. Good for you, there's a million of them, it's not like Hells have a lack of those things.
And you don't need force or thunder damage, it's only resistant, not immune, to piercing or slashing. Bunch of archers can deal with it easily from a distance. An Erinyes outputs 3.525 damage against AC 22, piercing resistant target (the poison damage, of course, doesn't matter) with her longbow. A small company of a hundred Erinyes can reliably turn it into a mighty pile of scrap in a single turn. While not even being attacked back, because they can fly and outrange the fist.
It may look impressive in a squad-sized combat the game is focused on, but on the scale of armies? It's nothing.

[Unoriginal]

Bury it under a pile of rocks, and it bashes nothing because it can't move. Problem solved. It can kill one (or 9, with the jump) lemures per turn. Good for you, there's a million of them, it's not like Hells have a lack of those things.

And whenever a lemure is killed, it just reforms later.

[Polyphemus]

Zariel leads the Mighty Servant down a path of her choosing, using small groups of minor devils like breadcrumbs until it finds itself at the front lines of the Blood War. The demons, thinking this is just another infernal machine (not that they would particularly care if they discovered it wasn’t) start going to town on the thing, and are immediately what the Mighty Servant is chiefly fighting. Zariel, observing from a distance, smiles.

All according to keikaku.*
[Translator’s note: “keikaku” means “plan.”]

[Dalinar]

Zariel leads the Mighty Servant down a path of her choosing, using small groups of minor devils like breadcrumbs until it finds itself at the front lines of the Blood War. The demons, thinking this is just another infernal machine (not that they would particularly care if they discovered it wasn’t) start going to town on the thing, and are immediately what the Mighty Servant is chiefly fighting. Zariel, observing from a distance, smiles.

All according to keikaku.*
[Translator’s note: “keikaku” means “plan.”]

Assuming the pilot is willing to play ball, then yeah, I like this answer. She might have to get some blackmail material on them first or whatever, though.

[notthegiant]

Now if you were to target something or someone specifically, like one Archfiend in particular or the gate to Dys, you'd have a good chance to deal significant damage. For a while, at least.

Let's say we make a beeline to Zariel. Looking at her stat block, the ONLY damage she can deal is with her Flail. Looking at the average damage against AC 22, she deals a whopping... 38 damage per round. She could use one of her lair actions to frighten the pilot, but that threat can be removed with Protection from Evil and Good (no concentration w/ Glyph of Warding).

Now let's think some more about a Glyph of Warding setup. Glyph of Warding lets you, with enough prep time, cast spells that usually require concentration without needing to concentrate. You're a sorcerer, so you can cast Extended Spell, meaning for 2 minutes this thing has a bunch of buffs - Haste, Blur, and Mirror Image just to name a few. You also get See Invisibility in case she tries to hide.

Say you're a Divine Soul sorcerer. You then get a bunch of goodies like Bless and Shield of Faith (26 AC anyone?). If magic items are on the table, and let's say they are because this situation is absurd anyway, you can give the servant ANOTHER +3 to AC (and +2 to saving throws), with a Ring of Protection, Cloak of Protection, and Ioun Stone of Protection. 29 AC and disadvantage on Zariel's attacks means she deals a catastrophic, Archfiend-worthy total of... 8 damage per turn. What a joke. And even if she has Pit Fiend minions, each one can only deal around 2 average damage per round.

With Haste and Longstrider, using everything we have to dash as much as possible, the servant has 420 feet of movement per round. And... this isn't enough. If you start within 2 miles of her lair, before the smoke screen, you only get around halfway before your buffs run out. Fortunately, we can just Teleport. If you "carefully study" her lair, through books or scrying, you have a 75 percent chance of instantly warping into her lair Vaarsuvius-style. Alternatively, bribe a random devil to chip off a piece of her wall, and you have a 100 percent chance.

But we still haven't beaten her yet. We need to actually KILL her, instead of just getting there and being unhittable. With advantage on all attacks from Foresight and two attacks per round from Haste, we're dealing 71 damage a round, killing her in a gruelingly long one minute battle. But we're forgetting that she has Regeneration, 20 hit points a round, which might stall long enough to lose the buffs. But never fear! We still have our own concentration slot. Cast Holy Weapon on the servant's fist, and the 2d8 radiant damage (also bumps us up to 80 DPR) will completely negate this powerful fiend's regeneration.

BUT, again, what if she just runs away? We can't be having that, now can we? She has 150 feet of movement speed, and can teleport as a legendary action 120 feet anywhere she can see. With a well-placed cloud of fog from an Eversmoking Bottle, we can make it so she can't see anywhere, and therefore not teleport. We can then Grapple her. We have Advantage on ability checks, Bless, and a higher Strength score, so with 2 attacks per round there's a negligible chance that we fail to grapple her. Each turn, she can make one attempt to escape the grapple. Each turn using our action to Ready another grapple on the off chance that she escapes, we still deal enough average damage from our Haste attack to kill her in 11 rounds. If you feel like taking the risk, you can instead pump all your actions into attacks and hope she doesn't escape.

And that's that. One 17th level sorcerer with a month of free time, some dude's ancient robot, and a handful of magic items is reasonably capable of teleporting into Zariel's living room and wrestling her to death, and the only thing she can do is hope to run away.

[stoutstien]

She couldn't frighten the pilot due to LOS and total cover though she is pretty weak for lord to begin with.

[Blatant Beast]

Two Creatures can attune to the Mighty Servant, and both can activate the Construct and move it on their turn. The Mighty Servant is Voltron, and acts twice each round, up to activating two Opportunity Attacks

Pilot Composition can matter, a Rune Knight for example, can also use their Subclass powers to negate Critical Hits, and so forth.

As to the literal “Rocks Fall” defense…the Mighty Servant is a siege monster, it deals triple damage against objects. The Mighty Servant is doing an average of 108 points of damage against objects, with a single blow.

A large rock, (Resilient Object), has around 27 Hit Points. The Mighty Servant can destroy a Gargantuan Object with a single blow. Rocks can’t stop it. It might as well have a burrowing speed, given the Mighty Servant can literally rend the earth.

The Mighty Servant is immune to Bludgeoning damage, so it is not concerned with cavern collapses, or falling damage. It is a D&D Battlemech, with Jump Jets.

One can literally, punch your way into and up a mountain, climb out the summit, like a Kaiju, activate your Jump Jets, and Death from Above. If the DM adds extra damage for the distance, that can add up.

A Guard, has 11 Hit Points, companies of Archers, seem very susceptible to well…death.

[notthegiant]

Two Creatures can attune to the Mighty Servant, and both can activate the Construct and move it on their turn.

Completely forgot about this when I was writing my 7-paragraph essay. I guess Zariel is twice as screwed than I thought.

[Unoriginal]

Let's say we make a beeline to Zariel. Looking at her stat block, the ONLY damage she can deal is with her Flail. Looking at the average damage against AC 22, she deals a whopping... 38 damage per round. She could use one of her lair actions to frighten the pilot, but that threat can be removed with Protection from Evil and Good (no concentration w/ Glyph of Warding).

Now let's think some more about a Glyph of Warding setup. Glyph of Warding lets you, with enough prep time, cast spells that usually require concentration without needing to concentrate. You're a sorcerer, so you can cast Extended Spell, meaning for 2 minutes this thing has a bunch of buffs - Haste, Blur, and Mirror Image just to name a few. You also get See Invisibility in case she tries to hide.

Say you're a Divine Soul sorcerer. You then get a bunch of goodies like Bless and Shield of Faith (26 AC anyone?). If magic items are on the table, and let's say they are because this situation is absurd anyway, you can give the servant ANOTHER +3 to AC (and +2 to saving throws), with a Ring of Protection, Cloak of Protection, and Ioun Stone of Protection. 29 AC and disadvantage on Zariel's attacks means she deals a catastrophic, Archfiend-worthy total of... 8 damage per turn. What a joke. And even if she has Pit Fiend minions, each one can only deal around 2 average damage per round.

With Haste and Longstrider, using everything we have to dash as much as possible, the servant has 420 feet of movement per round. And... this isn't enough. If you start within 2 miles of her lair, before the smoke screen, you only get around halfway before your buffs run out. Fortunately, we can just Teleport. If you "carefully study" her lair, through books or scrying, you have a 75 percent chance of instantly warping into her lair Vaarsuvius-style. Alternatively, bribe a random devil to chip off a piece of her wall, and you have a 100 percent chance.

But we still haven't beaten her yet. We need to actually KILL her, instead of just getting there and being unhittable. With advantage on all attacks from Foresight and two attacks per round from Haste, we're dealing 71 damage a round, killing her in a gruelingly long one minute battle. But we're forgetting that she has Regeneration, 20 hit points a round, which might stall long enough to lose the buffs. But never fear! We still have our own concentration slot. Cast Holy Weapon on the servant's fist, and the 2d8 radiant damage (also bumps us up to 80 DPR) will completely negate this powerful fiend's regeneration.

BUT, again, what if she just runs away? We can't be having that, now can we? She has 150 feet of movement speed, and can teleport as a legendary action 120 feet anywhere she can see. With a well-placed cloud of fog from an Eversmoking Bottle, we can make it so she can't see anywhere, and therefore not teleport. We can then Grapple her. We have Advantage on ability checks, Bless, and a higher Strength score, so with 2 attacks per round there's a negligible chance that we fail to grapple her. Each turn, she can make one attempt to escape the grapple. Each turn using our action to Ready another grapple on the off chance that she escapes, we still deal enough average damage from our Haste attack to kill her in 11 rounds. If you feel like taking the risk, you can instead pump all your actions into attacks and hope she doesn't escape.

And that's that. One 17th level sorcerer with a month of free time, some dude's ancient robot, and a handful of magic items is reasonably capable of teleporting into Zariel's living room and wrestling her to death, and the only thing she can do is hope to run away.

1) it's not just a robot, it is an artifact in its own right. It being powerful against a single opponent is expected.

2) How is this Sorcerer setting up all those Glyphs to affect the Mighty Servant at once, exactly?

3) Zariel casts Blade Barier as a sphere around herself, granting herself +5 to AC and DEX saves thanks to the cover, and forcing the Mighty Servant to stand in or punch through the blades in order to hit her, with the Mighty Servant straight up unable to pass the save DC for this spell. On her next turn, she uses the Dodge action, negating the Mighty Servant's Advantage.

That will give Zariel's security more than enough time to gather and assist approprietely.

EDIT: Assuming teleporting in Zariel's throne room is even possible.

[notthegiant]

1) it's not just a robot, it is an artifact on its own right. It being powerful against a single opponent is expected.

Yeah, but you couldn't use something like the Sword of Kas or Wand of Orcus to kill an archdevil, especially as one 17th level character. Also, it's funny to imagine Zariel getting beaten to death by a robot in 2 minutes.

2) How is this Sorcerer setting up all those Glyphs to affect the Mighty Servant at once, exactly?

You can set up the glyphs so that they trigger when a specific creature (in this case, the servant) passes near them. From there, it's as simple as getting in the cockpit and walking near.

3) Zariel casts Blade Barier as a sphere around herself, granting herself +5 to AC and DEX saves thanks to the cover, and forcing the Mighty Servant to stand in or punch through the blades in order to hit her, with the Mighty Servant straight up unable to pass the save DC for this spell. On her next turn, she uses the Dodge action, negating the Mighty Servant's Advantage.

I hadn't thought about this. However, it's far from a foolproof plan. The servant can drag her so that she takes the damage but not the servant, or out of the barrier entirely. I'm not sure if a creature that's halfway in the barrier has the three-quarters cover, but even if it does then you can drag her out while staying in the smoke - the cloud is twice as big as the barrier after all. Not to mention that you could just take the slashing damage because you have 310 hit points and she deals 8 damage per round.
The dodge action would kinda work but not really. As I mentioned above, you can easily get twice as many attacks as I previously calculated by casting Simulacrum ahead of time for a second pilot. Even without advantage, this adds up to MORE damage per round than before. 4 punches per round without advantage has an average damage of 156, in fact! Zariel is dead in 3 rounds.

[JackPhoenix]

Now let's think some more about a Glyph of Warding setup. Glyph of Warding lets you, with enough prep time, cast spells that usually require concentration without needing to concentrate. You're a sorcerer, so you can cast Extended Spell, meaning for 2 minutes this thing has a bunch of buffs - Haste, Blur, and Mirror Image just to name a few. You also get See Invisibility in case she tries to hide.

You are a sorcerer. The glyph, however, isn't. You have one minute. And Mirror Image and Blur can't be cast on anyone else. And have you ever heard about Dispel Magic?

If magic items are on the table, and let's say they are because this situation is absurd anyway, you can give the servant ANOTHER +3 to AC (and +2 to saving throws), with a Ring of Protection, Cloak of Protection, and Ioun Stone of Protection.

You can't because all of those items need attunement (and proper anatomy). You can wear them yourself, but that doesn't help the servant.

Fortunately, we can just Teleport. If you "carefully study" her lair, through books or scrying, you have a 75 percent chance of instantly warping into her lair Vaarsuvius-style. Alternatively, bribe a random devil to chip off a piece of her wall, and you have a 100 percent chance.

You have about 0% chance, because the notion an archdevil warring against demons does not have measures against teleportation is absurd.

Cast Holy Weapon on the servant's fist, and the 2d8 radiant damage (also bumps us up to 80 DPR) will completely negate this powerful fiend's regeneration.

It will not, because the servant is not a valid target for Holy Weapon.

...with 2 attacks per round...
...our Haste attack....

Which you don't have.

Two Creatures can attune to the Mighty Servant, and both can activate the Construct and move it on their turn. The Mighty Servant is Voltron, and acts twice each round, up to activating two Opportunity Attacks
Pilot Composition can matter, a Rune Knight for example, can also use their Subclass powers to negate Critical Hits, and so forth.

Irrelevant to the OP.

As to the literal “Rocks Fall” defense…the Mighty Servant is a siege monster, it deals triple damage against objects. The Mighty Servant is doing an average of 108 points of damage against objects, with a single blow.
A large rock, (Resilient Object), has around 27 Hit Points. The Mighty Servant can destroy a Gargantuan Object with a single blow. Rocks can’t stop it. It might as well have a burrowing speed, given the Mighty Servant can literally rent the earth.
The Mighty Servant is immune to Bludgeoning damage, so it is not concerned with cavern collapses, or falling damage. It is a D&D Battlemech, with Jump Jets.
One can literally, punch your way into and up a mountain, climb out the summit, like a Kaiju, activate your Jump Jets, and Death from Above. If the DM adds extra damage for the distance, that can add up.

It may come as a surprise, but being buried under a tons of gravel is not much of an improvement compared to being buried under tons of boulders. The material doesn't disappear from existence just because you smash it into smaller bits. In fact, the smaller bits will probably fill the space more efficiently. Those pistons and gaps in armor, in particular, will look like they'll go wonderfully with that.

A Guard, has 11 Hit Points, companies of Archers, seem very susceptible to well…death.

Ok, and?

[notthegiant]

You are a sorcerer. The glyph, however, isn't. You have one minute. And Mirror Image and Blur can't be cast on anyone else. And have you ever heard about Dispel Magic?

Copied from Glyph of Warding's description:

Spell Glyph. You can store a prepared spell of 3rd level or lower in the glyph by casting it as part of creating the glyph. The spell must target a single creature or an area. The spell being stored has no immediate effect when cast in this way. When the glyph is triggered, the stored spell is cast.

You store the spell by casting it. Extended Spell affects a spell that you cast. And it says the spell has no immediate effect, not that it has no effect. Blur and Mirror Image target a single creature, so they're valid spells.

If the spell has a target, it targets the creature that triggered the glyph.

The target of the spell, when cast normally, is its caster. The spell has a target, so it targets the creature that triggered the glyph.
Also, Zariel doesn't have Dispel Magic.

You can't because all of those items need attunement (and proper anatomy). You can wear them yourself, but that doesn't help the servant.

Nothing in the rules says that the servant can't attune to a magic item. It has fingers for a ring, a body for a cloak, and a head for an Ioun Stone. Maybe the cloak won't work, but that only increases Zariel's DPR by a little bit, and theoretically you could give the servant a +3 Shield for an even larger bonus.

You have about 0% chance, because the notion an archdevil warring against demons does not have measures against teleportation is absurd.

This is a good point. Although to be fair, looking at the situation from a RAW perspective, nothing in Zariel's lair description says there's teleportation blocking, which is the kind of thing that would probably be put in there by WotC if they wanted it. I agree that it's not the most realistic part of the setup though. (Are there any published adventures that include Zariel's lair w/ teleportation blocking?)

It will not, because the servant is not a valid target for Holy Weapon.
It's ambiguous whether the fist counts as an Unarmed Strike or a weapon, given that it can attack at a range. However, an alternative strategy: Crusader's Mantle. Cast it from a Spellwrought Tattoo if you need to, or get your 5th level paladin friend to serve as the second pilot.

Which you don't have.

Whoops.
Redoing the math quickly, just 2 fist attacks per turn still does enough damage to kill her before your buffs run out. If you waste half of them keeping the grapple up then it gets a little close, but you don't NEED the buffs for the last few rounds given the servant's large HP pool. Have your paladin friend from earlier cast Crusader's Mantle again with his other spell slot to prevent the regeneration.

Irrelevant to the OP.

Actually, a rune knight would help the servant slightly, as I'm sure a lot of other class features can. Thanks, Blatant Beast!

It may come as a surprise, but being buried under a tons of gravel is not much of an improvement compared to being buried under tons of boulders. The material doesn't disappear from existence just because you smash it into smaller bits. In fact, the smaller bits will probably fill the space more efficiently. Those pistons and gaps in armor, in particular, will look like they'll go wonderfully with that.

The servant's massive strength would still allow it to escape far more easily. Not to mention that it's immune to Bludgeoning damage, like Beast mentioned, and can't be Restrained.

[Unoriginal]

So I checked Descent into Avernus, and it confirms that Zariel knows how to use magic symbols to make all teleportation impossible in a space.

It's mentioned in the cell section of her flying fortress, not her workspace, but it should be noted that you're not supposed to be able to fight her on her own bridge. I think it is telling that none of the methods proposed to enter the flying contraption involves teleporting.

However, it is noted that on top of the hundreds of devils manning the flying fortress, the bridge crew is specifically listed as:

-1 Pit Fiend

-6 Erinyes

-12 plate-armored Bearded Devil.

With Bone Devils flying nearby.

Zariel is also explicitly able to control her flying fortress with a thought, so she could just pivot it 90 degree and get the Mighty Servant to slide off.

[Blatant Beast]

It may come as a surprise, but being buried under a tons of gravel is not much of an improvement compared to being buried under tons of boulders. The material doesn't disappear from existence just because you smash it into smaller bits. In fact, the smaller bits will probably fill the space more efficiently. Those pistons and gaps in armor, in particular, will look like they'll go wonderfully with that.

Ok, and?

Where exactly are the gravel rules listed in the books?
The Mighty Servants hand can be used like a bulldozer.

This thread is a thought exercise. It is a topic that is meant to be fun.
Why are you trying to impeded people from having fun?

Raising valid concerns, is one thing, but pointing out a DM with hostile intent can kill anything, isn’t particularly insightful, nor is it useful.

If you want to point out impediments, at least put some thought and creativity in it….not literal rocks fall you die, and/or a bazillion Archers shoot the Mighty Servant, en masse, on a flat plain, and of course the Mighty Servant walks into the line of Fire and stands there, and dies.

Come on Jack, Unoriginal gave a serious and useful answer above…you can do it as well, the board believes in you.

It strikes me, the Mighty Servant might as well break the citadel and every other thing of Zariel’s it can get it’s hands on.

At 30 Strength , the Servant is as strong as Tiamat, and thus could free Elutrel itself, If I remember Descent into Avernus correctly.

[kingcheesepants]

Is there anything that can be done in order to keep the fiends from getting to the pilots? A thieves tools check, a knock spell, phasing or teleporting inside. These are all ways in which the servant can be bypassed entirely and the pilots removed from the picture. It seems to me like the cost of doing that is much lower than trying to fight head on and the reward is far greater too. A head on fight results in a bunch of dead devils and a scrapped robot, going straight for the pilot results in minimal casualties and a fully functional robot that they can control. Any reasonably intelligent creatures are going to be able to see that and act accordingly.

[Unoriginal]

Is there anything that can be done in order to keep the fiends from getting to the pilots? A thieves tools check, a knock spell, phasing or teleporting inside. These are all ways in which the servant can be bypassed entirely and the pilots removed from the picture. It seems to me like the cost of doing that is much lower than trying to fight head on and the reward is far greater too. A head on fight results in a bunch of dead devils and a scrapped robot, going straight for the pilot results in minimal casualties and a fully functional robot that they can control. Any reasonably intelligent creatures are going to be able to see that and act accordingly.

The robot rebuilds itself, so that part isn't a problem.

It's true bypassing the Mighty Servants and targeting the pilots is the optimal play, but Devils aren't the faction with the most options to do that.

[notthegiant]

Is there anything that can be done in order to keep the fiends from getting to the pilots?

Interesting problem!

A thieves tools check,

It depends on whether a devil, none of whom have thieves' tools proficiency AFAIK, can succeed on a DC 25 check while on top of a moving robot that is actively trying to kill them. Most DMs would probably at least impose disadvantage on the check for that.

a knock spell,

No devils have Knock to my knowledge, but I'll assume they do for the sake of the argument. This is a bit of a silly idea, but Knock only opens one lock at a time. So if you were to fasten the hatch with 9001 locks before the rampage, it can't be opened.

phasing or teleporting inside.

I don't think this would work because with 2 pilots there's no unoccupied space to teleport into.

[JackPhoenix]

Where exactly are the gravel rules listed in the books?
The Mighty Servants hand can be used like a bulldozer.

Where exactly are the rules for using the servant's hand like a bulldozer?

This thread is a thought exercise. It is a topic that is meant to be fun.
Why are you trying to impeded people from having fun?

Why are you? Oh, because addressing reasonable concerns would require actual thoughts, rather than listing a bunch of game mechanics? And being wrong about them, to boot?

If you want to point out impediments, at least put some thought and creativity in it….not literal rocks fall you die, and/or a bazillion Archers shoot the Mighty Servant, en masse, on a flat plain, and of course the Mighty Servant walks into the line of Fire and stands there, and dies.

Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot armies of Hells fight in level-appropriate-encounter-sized groups instead of, you know, like armies. And that they aren't allowed to employ their intelligence and experience and must instead charge everything to engage it in melee

Come on Jack, Unoriginal gave a serious and useful answer above…you can do it as well, the board believes in you.

Just because you don't like the answer doesn't mean it's not serious and useful. I find any plans relying on handwaving how difficult it would actually be to get through Hell's defenses, ignoring the literal legions of devils and expecting a military super-genius to just walk into melee range, alone, and lets herself be beaten up completely useless.

At 30 Strength , the Servant is as strong as Tiamat, and thus could free Elutrel itself, If I remember Descent into Avernus correctly.

At 30 strength, the servant can carry 1800 lb. 3600 if it's just lifting. I'm not sure, or care, what does "freeing Elutrel" entails, but it can't be too difficult.

[Unoriginal]

At 30 strength, the servant can carry 1800 lb. 3600 if it's just lifting. I'm not sure, or care, what does "freeing Elutrel" entails, but it can't be too difficult.

Elturel is a city Zariel dragged into Hell. Freeing it is not something you can do with STR.

The Mighty Servant would be able to break the chains wrapped around the city, given that its already high damage output is trippled against objects, but... doing that doesn't do anything on its own except attract attention.

[Blatant Beast]

Elturel is a city Zariel dragged into Hell. Freeing it is not something you can do with STR.

The Mighty Servant would be able to break the chains wrapped around the city, given that its already high damage output is trippled against objects, but... doing that doesn't do anything on its own except attract attention.

Freeing Tiamat is a potential wincon in the module, because Tiamat is powerful enough to break the chain that holds the city in place above the Styx.

Tiamat in Tyranny of Dragons and the reprint of the statblock in Avernus , (the only statblock available for Tiamat has a 30 Strength score).

Now, one is free to interpret that it is Tiamat’s Divinity and not her 30 Strength score, but it just happens 30 Strength represents the strongest beings in the multiverse.

If having a 30 Strength means you can’t break infernal chains, then we really all should prioritize Dexterity.

This is all a non sequitur , however, as the thread is about roaming the hells one’s Mighty Servant., and not running a module. Talking about the Chain from the module, is literally yanking our chain

To respond to Jack…Object Interactions are well detailed in the rules. The idea of a PC bending down and picking up a handful of soil is easy to adjudicate. A Mighty Servant uses the exact same rules.

Soil Compaction is not in the rules. Indeed the rules in the DMG for damaging objects states for DM’s to “use common sense”, when dealing with damage to objects.

This effectively means that every DM can use their own judgement, as any contact with a D&D Messageboard for more than 5 minutes will puncture the illusion that is the notion of “common sense”.

[Unoriginal]

Freeing Tiamat is a potential wincon in the module, because Tiamat is powerful enough to break the chain that holds the city in place above the Styx.

It's not freeing her, it's getting her to help.

And yes, Tiamat is powerful enough to break the chains, but a) it's not enough to save Elturel or get it freed from Hell b) she isn't using STR checks to destroy the chains.

Now, one is free to interpret that it is Tiamat’s Divinity and not her 30 Strength score, but it just happens 30 Strength represents the strongest beings in the multiverse.

30 is the maximum any being can have to a stat in 5e.

No one is saying that the Mighty Servant isn't as physically strong as possible.

If having a 30 Strength means you can’t break infernal chains, then we really all should prioritize Dexterity.

Complete non-sequitur.

This is all a non sequitur , however

Well at least we agree on that.

[Battlebooze]

Using Reverse Gravity on the Servant is a good way to tie it up for a minute while your army of demons use it as a metal pinata for their piercing ranged weapons.

[Chronos]

Zariel would have no problem at all with this thing. Her statblock doesn't have the tools needed, but that's irrelevant, because she's the ruler of an entire plane. If she's faced with a problem that requires a hundred erinyes to solve, well, she can do that, because she has command of whole armies of erinyes.