We’re in the midst of fighting a pretty high-level devil from Baator, and I so happen to have a Dismissal spell on hand (I’m a 6th Cleric, 4th Church Inquisitor). A co-player of mine told me that Dismissal banishes the outsider from the Prime Material for 100 years, but I don’t see that anywhere in the spell description. Is it true? Is there any advantage to actually killing the devil instead of just dismissing him? How long does killing him banish him for?
I agree there’s nothing about banishing for 100 years. The use of Dismissal isn’t that it binds or traps the extraplanar creature, it simply removes them from the field with one spell. The trick is returning to the Material Plane. If they have access to plane shift, they can come right back next round (though it’s unlikely they’ll return to the exact area they were dismissed from). But if they were summoned by someone on the Material Plane, they can’t return unless that person summons them again. In either case, it doesn’t kill the devil, and it’s very possible the devil might hold a grudge, but it’s also very possible that you’ll never encounter it again for the length of your campaign.
On killing devils, I may be wrong, but I’m pretty sure killing them just kills them, it doesn’t banish them back to its home plane. Killing them is, of course, a hell of a lot tougher than simply dismissing them.
Thanks for this. But I thought that in order to really kill an outsider, you had to kill them on their home plane? Doesn’t killing them in the Prime Material just send them back from whence they came?
If Dismissal simply sends them back to return next round, why wouldn’t I just Plane Shift them to the Arborea to make them miserable? What’s the point of the Dismissal spell existing?
Dismissal is a relatively low-level way of getting rid of an Outsider. The 99 year thing might have been something from an earlier edition - probably 1st edition. Not all Outsiders can Plane Shift back (in fact looking at the SRD, none of the ones in the MM can). In 3.0 and 3.5 D&D, demons and devils can be killed on the material plane - the key question is are they summoned, or called? Summon Monster is an example of the former, Planar Binding an example of the latter. Most big baddies will be bound, I would think - it means they can stick around longer than 1 round per level of the summoner.
To be honest, I don’t know. I’m at work, so I only have quick access to the SRD. If it’s in there, I’m not sure where to look. That’s going to depend on the exact setting, I think.
- Dismissal takes up a lower spell slot. Clr 4, Sor/Wiz 5, while Plane Shift is Clr 5, Sor/Wiz 7.
- Dismissal is ranged, Plane Shift is touch, the difference in which can be incredibly important.
- Dismissal also uses a special save formula: instead of just a Will save, it’s Will - target HD + your caster level. Plane Shift just uses Will. This means Dismissal is useful for getting rid of lower-level nuisances.
Basically, Dismissal is for waving your hand and saying “Go 'way kid, you bother me.” Plane Shift is for moving you and your allies or else for a risky but specific offensive banishment.
Having played since 1E days, I do seem to recall something along those lines. (Or, maybe, it was that a demon or devil killed on the Material Plane was unable to return to the Material Plane for 100 years. Anyway…)
That’s the big answer. What prevents them from just coming back the next round is that most of them aren’t capable of it. In general, they’d need to be able to cast Gate or Plane Shift, and that is a pretty uncommon ability.
Even for a high-level devil?
Generally not. Most fiends require a mortal to let them into the prime material, or have to find some sort of “natural” gateway between worlds. If they could travel to the prime material at will, there isn’t much to stop them from straight-up invading and overrunning the plane.
I do distinctly recall the “100 year” thing being mentioned in one of the early (possibly the first) Icewind Dale novels, but I’m not sure if it was ever a part of the official rule system.
Makes you wonder why devils never try to take up adventuring.
It’s in the script. If the various outsiders did anything sensible (well, if anybody did anything sensible), we’d never have a game. DnD3/3.5/4 are not good systems for simulationists.
Yes, it’s pretty uncommon, even for a high-level demon or devil.
Here’s the stat blocks for a pit fiend (the highest-level devil in the core 3.5 rules), and for a balor (the highest-level demon).
Spell-like abilities for a pit fiend:
Spell-like abilities for a balor:
The only thing on either list which could bring said demon / devil back after being dismissed would be the pit fiend’s wish (which he could use to duplicate plane shift, though not gate)…and, even then, it’s an ability that the guy can use once per year, so he may well have better things to do with it than come back to spank the mortals who just sent him home (which, frankly, may be where he wanted to be in the first place!)
Forgot to add:
In D&D3.5, plane shift doesn’t put you right where you want to be, anyway…
Though, if he really wanted to come back and get you, he could use wish to put himself back on the Material Plane, then greater teleport to return to the scene of the crime the following round. 
But, again, these are the very big bad boys who can do this (I would imagine that unique fiends, above and beyond the powers of the demons and devils in the MM / SRD, would be capable of getting back, as well). Anything less powerful than a pit fiend is likely to stay dismissed, unless there’s someone else (a very high level spellcaster, a unique fiend, a deity, etc.) who wants that guy right back there. And, if your 10th level characters are dealing with opponents at that sort of power level, you’re adventuring way above your pay grade.
If you go back to the 1st Edition Monster Manual, the intro to the sections on Demons and especially Devils talks about what happens when they are slain on the PM. There’s also an entry about Greater Devils that’s close enough to the 100 years.
Did you just mean evil outsiders? Because off the top of my head, coatls have Plane Shift at will, Titans have Gate at I think 1/day, and Planetars and Solars could use their cleric spellcasting for either.
Yes, I meant to say devils, specifically since that was what the OP was facing. Probably demons as well, too, for the reasons that Miller pointed out.
I’m pretty versed in the 2nd Ed. Planescape material and I know those resources mentions that an outsider can only be permanently killed on its home plane (I don’t think the lore has changed for 3.5). If ever slain on any other plane, its body will reform on its home plane in 100 years, where it will probably have some explaining to do (and possibly will be demoted for its failure). In effect it will still be permanently defeated unless some other means accelerates the reformation. If defeated on its home plane it will be permanently destroyed with no means of ressurrection (outsides can’t be ressurrected or recalled from death with any means).
Dismissal, banishment, etc. are temporary solutions at best. They will rid the battlefield of the outsider in question, allowing you to focus on other opponents, but nothing prevents it to find its way back to the Prime Material Plane through any means at its disposal. (Planescape allows fairly easy travel between planes through portals). Depending on the reason the outsider is on the PMP for, it can be fairly miffed with you for interfering with its plans. And maybe even bring some of his friends to help him out.
One instance where either spell is invaluable is when the outsider has possessed a victim. In that case, those spells force the outsider out of the victims body without harming the latter.
In any case, I say just slay the devil, unless you are overwhelmed and need a little breather. As DM, I would not grant full XP for defeating the demon when he is only banished.
We killed it, but not without difficulty. It turned out being a Malebranche, but I think the DM messed up the naming and we were actually fighting a Cornugon as I couldn’t find any 3.5 stats for Malebranche but Cornugon seemed very similar to what we were fighting.
Righteous Might and Dimensional Anchor FTW.
Malebranches come from MM2 and are nothing but brute force. Be glad it wasn’t a Cornugon. They’re much nastier pieces of work.
In 3.5, Wish or Miracle can raise an outsider, and there’s a lower-level spell from a splatbook somewhere that also works. I think they introduced the spell because some outsider races were showing up that were plausible for player characters, like Aasimar and Tieflings (and a few others).
This did in fact change for 3.0 and 3.5. If an Outsider is slain on a plane other than its home plane it is dead and gone.
There are spells to restore an outsider to life in the Spell Compendium.
The stats are in MM2. My experience with them is that the CR is seriously borked; it’s much too low. If playing 3.5, there’s also a conversion booklet WotC put out when 3.5 was released that updates MM2 to 3.5.
And outsiders don’t go adventuring because they’d never gain xp. The xp calculations use the ECL of the adventurer, cross-referenced with the CR of the challenge, and most fiends have an enormous ECL (a barbazu, for example, is ECL 12 which means it gains xp as if it were a 12th level character).