Demon Pretenders

[Chazar]

How different are undead from demons? Does smite or that blood-spell "banish demon" only affect Demons like Moloch or also undead like VQs? What about the holy low-level mass spell "banishment"?

[spirokeat]

From my understanding...

the conditions of 'undead' and 'demonic' are similar only in the ability for wielders of blood and death to lead.

In terms of damage they are entirely different, hence banishment as the description states, will work on both, but dust to dust for example only works on undead not demons.

There are a number of spells intended for undead only, as it would seem the massing of undead is far more prominent than demons.

Spiro.

[Endoperez]

Demons and undead were't separated until DomII, and they share many traits. However, there are some differences.

Undead are usually cheap and from weak to mediocre with few exceptionally good ones (wraiths, banes, their commanders). Undead are easy to mass, except those few really good ones. All undead have encumberance of 0, so they do not get fatique. Many undead, but not all of them, are mindless.

Most demons are elite types but have next to no equipment. They have very high abilities (att/def/magic res. of 18 plus very high hp... ). Demon knights come with good equipment, but there are no national mages capable of summoning them. Other demons might have a weapon but have no armor. They have good natura protection, and although it helps it does not protect them if they get hit. Unique demon commanders are very tough mages that often have special abilities and/or come with magical equipment build-in. I think demons have low encumberance but no 0, so they will fatique out if the battle takes long enough.

There are spells and items that are deadly against undead, demons or both undead and demons. For spells, nature Maggots kills undead, blood Banish Demon demons, Wither Bones, Dust to Dust etc. death spells devastate undead. Priests have Banish versus undead and Smite Demon vesrus demons. Both are negated by magic res. and better undead and all demons have so high magic res. that priest spells only rarely work versus them.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Chazar:
What about the holy low-level mass spell "banishment"?

This works on both demons and undead.

[Taqwus]

One note: if you're an undead pretender leading an army of non-undead, then you risk being the focus of every anti-undead spell the enemy throws.
Some of them can be quite brutal -- if you're not ethereal, then Maggots can be surprisingly dangerous, for instance.

[En Forcer]

Now here's a thought...

What about giving an amulet of focus and a rune smasher to a priest? And maybe a druid's eye as well?

Does the penetration value apply to holy spells?

[Cainehill]

Originally posted by En Forcer:
Now here's a thought...

What about giving an amulet of focus and a rune smasher to a priest? And maybe a druid's eye as well?

Does the penetration value apply to holy spells?

Yep. Hence a H5 priest gets better effect using banishment / smite demon than the lesser ones. Also, communion can help (especially for Pythium) and the items you mention.

Sadly - those items are also very important to many unholy priests, as their undead for some reason want to resist their beneficial spells, many of which magic resistance negates easily.