Clerics can summon Pit Fiends at level 14. They can't summon Devas or cast Elemental Summoning until level 22. Devas and elementals may be more useful than Pit Fiends, but they take another 1.5 million XP to cast. That's a very big portion of the game in which Pit Fiends are the toughest summons a cleric can cast.
IMO you shouldn't need Pit Fiends in SoA save for a few very tough fights like the Twisted Rune. Even then a well equipped+leveled party is enough to beat them. Level 15 Skeleton Warriors and Mordenkainen's Swords are generally all you'll need in SoA. There's no denying a Pit Fiend's dominance in SoA or ToB for that matter, but it's more of a gimmick spell than a must use spell. I've played BG a long, long time and I've probably summoned a Pit Fiend maybe 10 times and half of those were to kill all the townsfolk.
I was looking at my old 2nd Edition Monstrous Manual the other night to wrap my head around all the demons but couldn't find an entry under "demons". Well, that's because they are divided up between Tanar'ri and Baatezu, two warring factions. It seems most of the glabrezus, balors, cambions, succubi, etc we encounter in BG/BG2 fall under Tanar'ri, while Pit Fiends seem to be the only representative from the Baatezu family, which is actually NOT considered "demon" but "devil". Semantics!
From Wikipedia: The release of the 2nd Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rule set brought a name change for the devils and their counterparts demons. Concerned about protests from religious groups and others who viewed the game as an entryway into Satanic worship, TSR, Inc. dropped the words "devil" and "demon" from all descriptors of the monsters,[2] substituting instead baatezu /beɪˈɑːtɛzuː/ and tanar'ri .[citation needed] This persisted until the rollout of 3rd Edition, when the original terms were reinstated. Since the change, the term "baatezu" has been retained as a specific subset of powerful devils.
I summon spam all day and make sandwiches while the world ends. I love summons because a lot of the really nasty spells get cast early, and thus are wasted on fodder spam. Often times the first to see the most dangerous enemies are the level 1 monster summons, followed by an elemental to hold the enemy while more are called behind them.
You get decent exp anyway during play, pit fiends are for the liches, demi liches and other assorted ne'er-do-wells who congregate around the +5 you won't hit me column, snickering as you try to get past their 1000th stoneskin.
Also, the sprite for the Pit Fiend in game doesn't look like a Pit Fiend at all (which is the most "satanic" of all abyssal creatures). The sprite looks more like the Barbed Devil: http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Barbed_devil
The original premise of Magic: The Gathering was you were a wizard that could summon minions to assist you or outright try to gun down the other player. Today, I'm not quite sure what is going on. But I digress.
The original premise of Magic: The Gathering was you were a wizard that could summon minions to assist you or outright try to gun down the other player. Today, I'm not quite sure what is going on. But I digress.
Today I don't know, but a couple of years ago you could be a Necromancer using animate dead-like spells on some particular creature, Jin-Gitaxias, Iona, or some other fun cards on turn one or two and simply prevent your opponent from playing. Another fun Magic deck then was the Elfball deck that would literally draw 45 cards in one turn on turn 2-3 and have approx 194847174 mana and play banefire to OS your enemy, or play Emrakul so that he conceeds.
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You get decent exp anyway during play, pit fiends are for the liches, demi liches and other assorted ne'er-do-wells who congregate around the +5 you won't hit me column, snickering as you try to get past their 1000th stoneskin.
1. Those who overrun their enemies with minions or summon one massive minion.
2. Those that destroy cities and armies with a list of apocalyptic spells the size of Kanye West's ego.
Unfortunately either playing style aren't 100% possible in BG in my opinion. Wait, what were we talking about again?
Another fun Magic deck then was the Elfball deck that would literally draw 45 cards in one turn on turn 2-3 and have approx 194847174 mana and play banefire to OS your enemy, or play Emrakul so that he conceeds.