What Happens When a Devil Becomes A Pastry Chef?

hello and welcome to monster of the week the only show on the internet that thinks you can have your cake and eat it too go on you deserve it today we are talking about a very special monster the pie fiend those of you who've been around for a while know that every year on April fools I like to cover a monster who's a bit silly you know just doing a few Goofs and gaffs while also taking a genuine look at a creature from d and D's long and story past as we do in Years Gone by we've covered some absolute bangers in the goofy monster Department but this one might just take the cake or the pie if you will as always we're going to talk about this Monster's history both from a publication standpoint but also its ingame history and lore as well as some plot Hooks and ways you might be able to use this bad boy in your D and D campaign also as always I've converted this monster into fifth edition DND but not without a few shall we say adjustments but we'll get to that in due time for now cut yourself a piece of pie maybe grab some tea or coffee to go with it and prepare your brain to learn everything there is to know about one of the DND Monsters of all [Music] time so first and foremost yes this is an official DND monster published Through official channels for Dungeons and Dragons Third Edition however unlike the vast majority of monsters I cover on this channel it wasn't published in an old Adventure book or one of the magazines but rather on the internet all you need is a computer and a regular phone line they send you the software and give you 10 free hours to check it out back in the day the old Wizards of the Coast website used to host tons of Articles and pages that often contained content for the game that didn't really fit anywhere else it would often be stuff that was attached to projects which were cancelled but some of the work was already done or it would be things that were cut from Full releases because they either ran out of space or time but once in a while it would be something that was specifically created to be exclusively available online unfortunately all of these Pages were eventually taken down and the only way to access them is by using web archive tools like the way back machine hacker man he's the most powerful hacker of all time this at least allows us to see the text contained on the page which is all we really need but it does mean that whatever mysterious images were once contained within this article are now lost to time but thankfully the pie fend and all of its Associated stats are still intact because holy [ __ ] I love this monster well this is Jo news as a bit of a cheeky April Fool's post skip Williams better known as the co-creator of D and D third ition and the dude behind the sage advice column in Dragon magazine decided to post a new monster article detailing the stats and Ecology of the pie fiend and despite some vague similarities in body shape this thing is nothing like the pit fiend we know and love piie fiends are large in size standing about 12 ft tall with a Burly body to boot they've got all the classic telltale signs of a devil in their big leathery bat wings massive horns cloven Hooves and menacing disposition however piie fiends are also most often adorned in a leather apron and many parts of their body are dusted with a fine layer of white flow and yes it's definitely totally just flour now it's time to do some coke off the blade of a knife unlike most Devils who smell of fire and brimstone they wkak of cinnamon and spices and of course in place of a menacing weapon they use a massive rolling pin which is treated as a club for mechanical purposes now I'll admit when I first heard about this creature I fully expected this to be the place where its lore and mechanics came to an end like we get it its name sounds like pit fiend but it's actually a devil who makes pies isn't that silly Devils aren't supposed to make pies how innocent and Goofy of them the audacity to propose such a creature but the pie fiend isn't innocent and Goofy it's terrifying and scary the fact that you think it's silly is entirely by its infernal design only when your companions have been devoured by its minions the town burnt to descenders and you're left alone Burning Alive in a pie crust prison of the devil's making will you fully understand how dangerous this creature is but by then it will be too late happy April fools I was genuinely taken AB back by how much thought and effort went into the creation of this creature both for its lore and history stuff as well as its mechanics and its full stat block so let me tell you a bit about that within the world of D and D their existence is only known among Scholars who are extr extremely well versed in matters of the nine Hells and even then they're so rare that many sages believe them to be nothing more than a rumor this isn't helped by the fact that pend have the ability to change their appearance on the fly to that of a humanoid creature so as you can imagine confirming their existence is no small task from an in-game perspective this means that both in and out of game their very existence is largely unknown among most adventurers which is something the piie fend is happy to capitalize on and this is just great from a metag game perspect perspective right just think about it when you're trudging through the halls of a dungeon and see an old wooden Treasure Chest sitting unattended if you're even vaguely aware of fantasy tropes alarm Bells probably start going off that's a mimic and even if it's not there's no harm in being cautious as we approach because it's definitely a mimic right however when you've returned from the dungeon sitting around a Tavern table with your pals slamming a few pints and counting up the treasure you're probably not going to jump to Defcon one when the kind Old Woman Who who runs the bakery across the road brings you a freshly baked pie to thank you for protecting the town but you should be you should be real scared actually this should be the scariest thing that's happened to you today piie fiends are of course Devils which means that their primary motivation is the collection of mortal Souls both to fuel their magic and use as currency within the nine hells and despite their goofy aesthetic this is a role they take very seriously and it's a role they excel in they are exceptionally gifted manipulators do in part to their shape-changing abilities and often worm their way into unsuspecting communities in order to seow fear doubt and vice among Mortals but in order to understand just exactly how they do that and how effective they are at doing so we need to talk about what mechanical abilities this creature is actually capable of so let's just take a quick break from plotting the downfall of society as we know it and talk about what this bad boy can do hi beans are sincerely no joke well I mean they are literally a joke but you know what I'm saying clocking in at CR 13 they bring some real Hefty stats to the table Hefty Hefty Hefty while there is no official information given about where they stand in the hierarchy of the nine Hells going by their power level alone this likely puts them above chain Devils bone Devils orthon horned devils and arenes and leaves only six other Devils above them in fifth Edition at least as I mentioned they have the ability to change their shape and they do this by using an action called alter self which works exactly the same way as the spell of the same name except it also allows them to change their size to medium or small they've also got a club attack wherein they can flatten the target with a big ass rolling pin and of course they've got their most iconic attack the throw pie action and despite its apparent Simplicity this ability takes a a little bit of explaining so pie fiends as a bonus action can literally just summon a pie in the palm of their hand they can do this any number of times per day and the pie they summon can be of any variety I'm talking fruit pies meat pies custard pies cream pies the pies the limit and that's great they just have a literally infinite supply of Pies which is kind of wild when you think about it for too long if you're a dungeon master who's particularly concerned about preserving the economy of the world you live in you might want to put a governor on that but as written they just make pies when they want to and of course they can use these pies as a weapon to deal 1 D4 plus eight bludgeoning damage to anything they throw them at however they are also capable of conjuring special pies infused with fish Essence that have varying effects their bread and butter pie based Weaponry is either the cold pie or hot pie depending on their opponent one is infused with shards of ice from Stiga and the other is infused with Hellfire both pies deal an additional two D6 cold or fire damage respectively and have potential to continuously damage their target from multiple rounds until the cursed Pi filling is washed away with an action this works pretty much the same way as being on fire does except instead of dousing the Flames you're scraping off pie stuff due to the fiend's multi-attack this means every turn they can summon a pie of their choosing with a bonus action throw it at an enemy and then make two Club attacks or they can just simply make three Club attacks and call it a day if the pie fiend isn't after damage though it can instead opt to make a sticky pie which is described as being sort of mering ajacent this one doesn't deal extra damage but it will restrain the target indefinitely until they can break out themselves or douse the pie debris with acid to wash it away this is a much more situational option than just adding some extra damage to an attack but it's going to come in handy when the pie fiend is trying to shut down a specific opponent 100% lastly once per day it can craft a pie known as a sinfully delicious pie this pie is a bit different than the others as it's not intended to be used as a weapon any creature who takes a bite of this pie is overcome with fits of ecstasy that Force the creature to make a dc20 wisdom save and if they fail they're straight up stunned for a full minute in the original stat block eating this pie would affect you differently depending on what your alignment was if you were a good aligned character it would cause you to be overc come with a feeling of guilt as if you'd done something wrong but you weren't sure what and if you were an evil aligned character it would cause you to start literally dancing with joy in fifth edition alignment isn't as much of a big deal so I just simplified it to an effect basically equivalent to what it originally did however I do really like the flavor no pun intended of this pie making the one eating it act out of character just the thought that the edgy Assassin Rogue might take a bite of this pie and suddenly start dancing is hilarious to me or that the stalwart cleric might enjoy their piece and then feel overcome with guilt as if they've done something they weren't supposed to do in the original article there's actually a short story about a paladin who goes through this exact situation he describes the feeling of eating this Pie as better than being in the living presence of his deity so while not necessarily the most useful in combat it can be a brutal Ambush tactic if the pie fend can somehow convince someone to take a bite but even outside of combat and battle related purposes these pies are an invaluable resource to the fiend their taste is so supernaturally incredible that they often use them as a bargaining chip when convincing a mortal to give up their soul this is unlikely to be a Pitch that's accepted by Brave adventurers but your average commoner likely doesn't possess that same force of will or understanding of the cosmic ramifications that giving up their soul might entail in a more Sinister light this could even be considered something akin to fostering a substance addiction amongst the populace of a town and that's super evil but also definitely something that a literal devil would do now this creature stat block is a big one we've still got four more abilities to quickly go over here and one of them is a whole thing so let's just get right to it to start off it can use an action called heat wall this ability is on a recharge of 5 to six and it's pretty much the same as casting wall of fire except the wall isn't made of literal fire but made of heat the one major difference is that the heat wall is transparent so you can see through it it just looks like heat waves radiating off the surface of the area it covers and just like the spell it can be up to 60 ft long 20 ft high or it can be in a 20ft circle this is a great option if you've ever used the spell wall of fire on one of your D and D characters in the past I don't need to tell you why but it can not only cause a lot of damage it's also a brilliant way to control the battlefield and the flow of movement however it really shines in conjunction with the Pie's second ability make into a pie this ability Works in multiple stages first the fiend produces a sheet of buttery flaky pie crust baked on a buttery crispy crust then it hurls that sheet of crust at a creature it can see within 100 ft if the target fails their dexterity save they are restrained by the dough this is obviously not awesome no one wants to be restrained however the real kicker here is that if a creature covered in this pie crust takes fire damage from any source that Source deals the maximum amount of damage possible you can probably see where this is going if it uses this ability to restrain a creature in dough and then cast its heat wall ability in a circle surrounding that creature instead of taking the normal 5 d8 damage dealt by heat wall an average of 22 fire damage the target will instead just take 40 fire damage every turn they remain trapped which literally allows the pine to bake someone alive in just a matter of a few rounds and that's not even factoring in any other fire damage that might be coming from the pies being being thrown by the fiend or from other combatants who are also targeting the creature it has restrained so while it might be funny to get entangled in pie crust it will quickly become apparent that it wasn't really pie crust that the fiend threw at you it was crust for your [ __ ] casket rest in pie third on the docket is the pie fiend's waves of contentment ability this ability allows the pie fiend to conjure an alluring scent remniscent of freshly baked pies and pastries anyone who has a sense of smell and is in the area when this goes off must make a dc18 wisdom save or be Charmed by the pie fend while Charmed by the pie fend in this way the creature is overcome with a feeling of just Vibes and being happy with the current state of affairs they're totally content and they can take no actions it can only do this once per day and it's sort of meant as a tool in the pie fiend's back pocket that it can bust out to quickly end a combat that's not going its way or maybe even shut down a combat it doesn't want to take place before it even happens if the ched creature does take any damage the charm is immediately broken but this can be a great way for the fiend to either trap its enemies or simply cause a few of them to stop fighting allowing it to make a quick escape and all of that combined makes for a pretty interesting and dynamic encounter I think but there is one final ability that got a bit out of hand in my conversion of this monster so the original piie fiend back in third edition has an action called animate pi and this action functions exactly the same way as the animate object spells except it targets pies this is pretty cool I mean having a whirlwind of Pies floating around you that can be sent after your enemy is both Whimsical and terrifying so if you like this ability I encourage you to give your piie fiend access to animate object or any other spells you find thematic in fact leave a comment with your favorite spell that a pie fiend might be able to cast I'm sure there are tons of them out there that can be reflavored to fit this encounter perfectly and adding spells do monsters is always a great way to ratch up the tension if you're dealing with a party who might be a bit overleveled to face this threat but all that said I decided to take the concept of this action and push it just a bit further see devils are Infamous in older additions for summoning more devils and while that isn't as important to their identity in fifth edition it's always been something I found really interesting about them so rather than just animating pies within the room I gave my version of the pie fiend an action called animate baked goods this ability allows the pie fiend to permanently transform 1 D4 baked goods within 60 ft of it into a brand new creature I created specifically for this video the past strimp I know past strimp isn't even close to as good of a pun as pie fiend but frankly it's embarrassing how long I try to think of a better name for this thing and past strimp is what we're getting get what you deserve I think it does the job but if you can think of something better hit me up in the comments with your best imp pastry puns but with this decision it meant that I was now creating an entirely new creature to act as the pie fiend's Army minions so I did what any DM worth their salt looking to create some home brew does and I got cooking all right so today we're going to be baking up a brand new little creature to accompany the pie fend something that I'm calling the past drim I'm going to whip you up a nice unnamable horror from Beyond Past drims come in many shapes and sizes all of which are indicative of a delicious baked good you got your pies cookies cupcakes anything you can name can potentially be a devious little hell spawn but while they all may appear somewhat different they've all got the same stats and they're all created essentially the same way basically the pie can take any baked good and Infuse it with the sole of a moral mixing in a dash of infernal magic and of course the most important ingredient of all love and don't skimp on that infernal magic neither it's the only way to get a buttery flaky crust baked in a Buttery uh crispy crust once the little bastard wakes up it's going to be on the war path ready to assist the pie fend in any way it can which usually means Ming others with its stab attack it might be claws it might be a stinging tail doesn't matter all you need to know is that this dessert can and will do its best to get the blood inside another guy's body to be on the outside of the other guy's body nobody makes me bleed my own blood nobody of course it also has the false appearance trait meaning that while the past shrimp is completely motionless you can't tell whether it's just a little pastry or a literal devil waiting to gou your [ __ ] eyes out watching you but even in this docile State nobody is safe from the past rmp if you take a bite of this thing whether it's just you thinking you're taking a bite of a delicious pie or actually making a bite attack yeesh that's going to be a bunch of poison damage coming your way I mean come on it's made of fish Essence and Mortal Souls that ain't exactly keto friendly but what kind of Dingus bites a devil pie especially when it's walking around and not masquerading as a normal pie well you maybe similar to its creator the past shrimp can also emit an intoxicating scent that flows on the breeze smelling of baked goods and joy the one like the pie fiend anyone who catches a whiff of the scent is not made docile but compelled to use all their movement to get as close as possible to the Past shrimp and then if they've still got an action and they're standing next to it they have to make a bite attack against the little devil the worst part is that this attack always hits so yeah the past strip is going to take some damage but it ain't nothing compared to the damage it sends back the other way this ability also grants the effed creature a fly speed equal to half their walking speed so even if the pace trimp is up somewhere high like on a window sill or something anyone who catches a whiff of this pie is going to float on over it is worth noting that the forced movement doesn't say you have to walk so theoretically an affected creature could choose to use the slow moving fly speed they now have to buy some extra time but they're going to look like a goofy [ __ ] while they're doing it I want you to resist the urge to levitate off the ground and Float towards the pie doesn't seem too hard all these details come together in a nice little recipe that ends up with the pie fiend having a baker's dozen of minions to help it fight scheme and otherwise so Discord within their respective communities I think all the mechanics here have the potential to make this encounter both intense and highly memorable which is great but of course now we need to talk about just exactly how we would use this monster to tell a story and let's just say I've got a few [Music] ideas just using this monster as written there's lots of potential here for plot hooks involving a pie fiend using their ability to shape shift I could see a pie fend operating in a village as a kindly old grandma type who loves to bake things for the other residents little do they know the fiend's baking a subtly influencing their behavior and a long con to eventually collect all their souls it would then fall in the party to unmask the fiend and take them down and who knows maybe the party is called to this town because there's been strange things being reported there mysterious creatures in the night have been kidnapping the locals or causing some kind of Havoc these creatures of course would turn out to be the past stms all acting on behalf of their creator to add another layer to this perhaps there have been sightings or rumors of fish baked goods and these rumors have made their way back to a renowned scholar known for studying Devils they believe this could be the work of a pie fiend in proving that these creatures exist would be the discovery of a lifetime so they do what any wealthy scholar in that situation would do and hire a group of adventurers to go check it out offering them a massive reward if they can bring back proof of the Pie's existence you could even expand the scope of this and have the pie operating as the owner of a bakery in a major city by day they're nothing more than a normal Baker serving the city some fantastic baked goods but by night they're a soul stealing Menace with their hooks in several major players within the community maybe in instead of a bid for someone's Soul they have the local authorities at their beck and call controlling them with a pie Supply they simply can't get enough of I I couldn't have okay one more I'm going to have one more and then that'll be it and come to think of it isn't there another pastry based drug dealing plot within the pages of a D and D book I mean it's a book I don't talk about that much so you might be surprised to hear me say this but for those of you unfamiliar with curse of strad without getting into heavy spoilers there is a a certain hag who loves to Pedal what she calls Dream Pastries to the people of barovia in her case the pastries literally act like a hallucinogenic allowing the one eating the pie to escape the horrors of Raven LOF for 8 hours give or take and of course those pies contain some less than Savory ingredients so perhaps your pie fiend is doing the same thing just rip off that plot element wholesale except they're doing it in a city on the material plane or better yet if you're playing through curs of strad maybe a pie fiend is competing with The Hags by pedaling Confections of their own design in a sort of drug war but with pies another thing I thought of which isn't included in the original lore but I felt could be a really interesting addition to this creature's whole deal would be the inclusion of a recipe book I know that doesn't sound that exciting but stick with me for a sec something that is Canon which I haven't mentioned yet is that pie fiends all have a massive Sweet Tooth they love eating baked goods and will often find and steal unattended sweets replacing them with their own Creations this is partially due to the fact that they want to trick others into eating cursed pies for the bit but also they just like eating pastries and quite frankly I find it hard to hold that against them but this of course got me thinking what if every pie fiend had a prized possession a recipe book filled with dessert recipes both mundane and magical this book could act sort of like a spellcasting focus that enabled them to summon the pies they create at will perhaps allowing them to summon anything they have the rest recipe for in their book and that would add a whole new potential motivation to the pie fend I like the idea that anytime a pie fend catches wind of a new dessert recipe it hasn't tried before it feels compelled to add that recipe to its book perhaps it's even willing to break Soul contracts with an individual if they're able to provide the fiend with a rare recipe it doesn't already have and in that case perhaps the adventure is all about this party trying to help some poor sod get out of his contract by traveling to a distant land and procuring a rare recipe on behalf of the devil conversely if the party already has a rare recipe this gives them something to bargain with other than their soul and it also opens the door to other magical Confections if you've got any ideas for a baked good that has a new effect not already listed on its stat block perhaps you add that to its stat block maybe it's got a lava cake made with real lava or something that it can create that does a [ __ ] ton of fire damage or maybe they're after the recipe to make a magical Angels food cake that can heal wounds just so they can corrupt it and spread a powerful curse through the land and while all of that stuff might be interesting in varying degrees it also means that this spell book or recipe book becomes an object of immense value to the pie fiend so if someone were to steal this Tome they might be willing to trade just about anything to get it back even if your adventuring group isn't the party responsible for stealing the book perhaps they are tasked by the devil with returning the cookbook in exchange for passage to the nine Hells or the release of a soul contract or something else that they want or maybe they've been hired to steal the recipe book from another pie fend who lives in the area that won't share some super secret Millennia old recipe of Great Value the grand cookbook Heist sounds like a wild time RAR only in theaters Friday for those of you who are Avid dungeon dad enjoyers you may also be aware that these creatures are far from the only monster out there that enjoys Sweet Treats or the culinary art s Reef Giants a monster I covered a few months back are extremely fond of sweets if you haven't seen that video basically quick crash course they're Noble Giants that live solitary lives at the bottom of the sea in gigantic mansions with family names that stretch back thousands of years and they like pie a lot so there could be a connection there perhaps the pie fiend has a reef giant or maybe even a few Reef Giants under its control using the aforementioned drug pies as leverage or maybe the Giant is the impetus to this whole thing they ate one of the pie fiend's pies not realizing it was actually a past shrimp and got super sick so they called it their adventuring Party Pals to go check it out emphasizing that it was no mere food poisoning but a sickness of the Soul worthy of investigation that of course would require a previous connection with an existing Reef Giant and if you want to do that I made a whole video about them watch the other video the other monster that comes to mind is actually a dragon the brown Dragon to be exact they aren't specifically after dessert but all food in general which includes dessert I'm pretty sure Brown dragons go out of their way to taste new and exciting foods from distant lands at Great expense to themselves so perhaps a pie fiend could factor in there somehow in the brown dragon video I mentioned as a potential plot hook that they might task several groups with finding the most delicious dish on the plane and they would have a grand prize for whoever could bring them the most tasty meal and I mean I feel like a pie fiend sinfully delicious pie could would be a great Contender for the party to claim the number one spot and if that's what they're after now it's just a matter of tracking one down and if all else fails using the pie fiend as an unconventional NPC personality in a setting like plcape or spell Jammer could be really neat maybe the ship's cook on your spell jamming vessel is actually a pie fend or perhaps your pie fend just runs a really successful Bakery in sigil whatever the case and whatever you choose to do I truly love this monster I think it's very fun and silly and musical obviously that's kind of the whole point but I also think it has a lot to bring to the table no pun intended again I feel like there's like a thousand puns in this video but that aside it's a cool monster the encounter potential here is through the roof and it's also quite flavorful so even though it's meant to be played for Laughs I think it's got potential to make your party both laugh and cry I also want to give a massive shout out to this week's artist Tam you should follow them over on Twitter if you are on Twitter and you are not following them already because I basically went to Tam with nothing like there's a paragraph of text explaining what the original creature kind of looks like and they crushed that and then also when I came to them with this pastry devil idea they took it and just ran with it they gave me a thousand times more than what I could have expected I'm so happy with how all the artwork turned out here they're very cute but also a little Sinister which is exactly what I was after and if you like this monster and you want to use it in your game as always Linked In the description down below there's a Google Document it's got all the stats for both creatures everything you need is there and if you are one of my lovely patrons over on the dungeon dad patreon page you will of course find the dungeon dad Patron style stat block all the same information just a little bit more artwork a little bit more layout work a little bit more design it's very polished very neat very cool very fresh and it helps support the channel and what I do here so for those of you subscribed over there thank you so much speaking of patrons as always I need to give a massive shout out to our patron of the week this week's randomly selected Patron is Sterling Coleman thank you so much for the support my friend it means the most and thank you for watching as always if there's a monster from an older edition of D and D or Pathfinder or any other ttrpg out there or maybe it's just from a random website that doesn't exist anymore let me know in the comments down below or over the dungeon dad Discord in the creature suggestions Channel and it will be added to the master list and who knows you might just see it show up in a future episode of Monster of the week I've been chopping at the bit to cover this monster for like a year I discovered this very shortly after my April fools video last year so I'm so happy I finally got to talk about it I think it's absolutely wild and I really hope you enjoyed this episode because I had a hell of a lot of fun making it but in any case that's all I got for you this week happy April Fool's Day I hope you didn't get pranked on too hard and if you did that's just setting you up for a Vengeance Arc next year thank you for watching and I'll see you in the next one till [Music] then in the deepest layer of the Abyss something Beyond Comprehension hides away what she truly looks like no one can say but you definitely won't be able to get away from her by hiding under the covers is she a goddess or something much worse next episode pale night tune in next time for lots more fan service baked in a Buttery crispy flight

Channel: Dungeon Dad

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Keywords: How to play Dungeons and Dragons, dungeons and dragons lore, dungeons and dragons combat, d&d lore, d&d story, d&d online, d&d basics, d&d battle, dnd monsters, d&d monsters lore, dnd monsters explained, dnd monsters for level 1, d&d game breaking monsters, best d&d monsters, d&d cool monsters, creepy d&d monsters, d&d 5e custom monsters, classic d&d monsters, Dungeon Dad, Monster of the Week, D&D 5e, Dungeons and Dragons 5E, aj pickett, mr rhexx, D&D explained, homebrew

Id: Xlp1OMPYic0

Length: 31min 12sec (1872 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 05 2024