Its a pretty valid complaint and I think it joins the ranks of BG1, SoA and ToB in having a bit of a shaky ending.
Still, you are a half-god, I had a few +3 weapons, I conviced caelar to help, and its the plot. Those points cant dismiss your criticisms sure, but I think they offset them slightly.
Also from a real world point of you youve got to look at it as beamdog having to use the assets available to them.
Animating a brand new powerful demon who is better suiting to being the primary antagonist would have been awesome but I have no clue how practical it would have been for them to do this.
Also using a bogstandard lesser model would have been as underwhelming as both the demon knight and nebassu from TotSC.
Its not perfect. Nothing is. I still think the final fight with Irenicus in SoA sucked badlyn and far preferred fighting him in his real form.
Frost, you are making a mistake in conflating a story property based on the Forgotten Realms with a computer game based on the Forgotten Realms. The stories feature things like a lone single-class fighter of less than 10th level being able to survive in the Underdark for months, a multiclass fighter with no wizard levels soloing a Balor, a party with no spellcasters at all being able to defeat an adult/old White Dragon in its lair in a straight fight, epic level wizards who are far less capable and versatile than most player-controlled 12th level wizards in a tabletop environment, and other disparities that are arguably more at odds with the actual game system on which everything is based than anything you see in either Baldur's Gate or Neverwinter Nights.
It's not as though there isn't precedent for something like this happening in the Infinity Engine games either, considering that you do something even more outrageous in Planescape: Torment--you walk into Avernus with a statistically much weaker party that includes a Succubus and is led by a character who cannot wear anything other than Dustman Robes or a loincloth, question the Pillar of Skulls, and waltz out none the worse for wear.
Also, how did you fight Behlifet with an 18th level party and what is your source that he is a greater devil that is more powerful than a Pit Fiend? In my last run of Icewind Dale on Core difficulty my 6 man party was at just above 1,310,000 XP, placing most of them at around 12th or 13th level, except for my Thief who was just under 16th level. Based on this and the network of minions he had at his disposal, I was under the impression that he was a mid-ranking evil outsider like Yxunomei that was being temporarily boosted by possession of the Crystal Shard.
Frost, you are making a mistake in conflating a story property based on the Forgotten Realms with a computer game based on the Forgotten Realms. The stories feature things like a lone single-class fighter of less than 10th level being able to survive in the Underdark for months, a multiclass fighter with no wizard levels soloing a Balor, a party with no spellcasters at all being able to defeat an adult/old White Dragon in its lair in a straight fight, epic level wizards who are far less capable and versatile than most player-controlled 12th level wizards in a tabletop environment, and other disparities that are arguably more at odds with the actual game system on which everything is based than anything you see in either Baldur's Gate or Neverwinter Nights.
It's not as though there isn't precedent for something like this happening in the Infinity Engine games either, considering that you do something even more outrageous in Planescape: Torment--you walk into Avernus with a statistically much weaker party that includes a Succubus and is led by a character who cannot wear anything other than Dustman Robes or a loincloth, question the Pillar of Skulls, and waltz out none the worse for wear.
Also, how did you fight Behlifet with an 18th level party and what is your source that he is a greater devil that is more powerful than a Pit Fiend? In my last run of Icewind Dale on Core difficulty my 6 man party was at just above 1,310,000 XP, placing most of them at around 12th or 13th level, except for my Thief who was just under 16th level. Based on this and the network of minions he had at his disposal, I was under the impression that he was a mid-ranking evil outsider like Yxunomei that was being temporarily boosted by possession of the Crystal Shard.
If you are referring to Drizzt, he was probably higher than level 10 while in the underdark. In fact i contend that he gained most of his class levels while down there because after he leaves 99% of the time he is fighting orcs and low level humans. He fights almost evenly with wraith form Zaknefein so he must have been at least level 14 before leaving the underdark. Are you referring to drizzt soloing a balor? He won with plot device sword I already mentioned this. Is that white dragon the one that drizzt and wulfgar fought? Cause again they won only because of plot device ceiling icicle.
Epic level wizards along with every other character in the stories are translated into a stat sheet based on their story feats. That's why I keep saying that people's ingame anecdotes don't count when they talk about how their level 7 defeated a balor because that sort of thing simply doesn't fly in the "lore". punpun anyone? Actual story characters don't powergame like that and that's why people like elminster had useless levels like 1 level fighter 2 level thief 3 level cleric in his 3rd edition stat sheet. If you were being realistic in a PNP game then your character would only pick up skill points and levels based on what sort of things they have been doing before they leveled up. Game systems are supposed to supplement story telling not the other way around. If the lore says X character is more powerful than Y character, but the game stats says otherwise the lore takes precedence. For example if we use world of warcraft as an example are you gonna tell me that neptulon is stronger than ragnaros because neptulon is level 100 while ragnaros is level 60 when they should be around equal in the lore? Or if you reach level 100 and go back to a level 60 dungeon and 1 shot everything are you going to tell me that in the story sense your character is actually stronger than the elemental lord of fire. Simply put in game stats and stat sheets are a guide line, which you use to gauge general power levels based on what the lore says people should or should not be able to do.
The point is the hero simply walked into hell and killed Belhifet + his allies without any sort of preparation / plot device whereas in all the examples you made there were actual plot reasons for their victory. So what happens here is not believable and is bad writing.
How do you end at 12 or 13? I didn't play the EE much and I've lost my original non ee game save files. but on my EE game my characters just got to the severed hand and are already around level 10...which is like around 20% or less into the game I believe. Did you just decide to only take into account the highest number i stated in my original post? I said "15-18" not a flat 18. Also I said "around 17" in the rest of my posts. So in my typical playthrough I my characters are at around 15-18 depending on the classes. So 16-17 on average depending on my party composition.
If you look Belhifet up online, online sources will say that he is a balor. Now whether he is a balor or a pitfiend has always been kind of inconsistant. If you check out the IWD cutscenes he refers to himself as a demon, the narrator tells us that he is a demon, but then tells us that he got banished to hell. Dragonspear establishes for a fact though that he is a baatezu. However balors and pitfiends are basically around the same power level so it doesn't really matter whether he is a balor or a pitfiend for this topic. Because whatever he is he is definitely one of those 2.
Anyway if you don't trust online sources lets take into account what kind of demons there actually are.
Basically Belhifet's nemesis was a marilith which is classified as a type V demon. (yes first edition I know but the demon types and how powerful they are in comparison to each other are basically the same between editions) All the class V demons are some kind of marilith, Belhifet is clearly not a class V demon or its devil equivalents so he must be a class VI which are "balors". Which makes sense because that's what he is listed as under whatever websites talk about him. Certainly he can't be weaker than Yxunomei or he wouldn't be her nemesis much less the final boss. And even if he was weaker than her he doesn't fit the description of Type IV's either or their devil equivalents so I say that there is no doubt that he is a type VI demon. Thus Belhifet is either a balor or a pitfiend as stated by the online sources.
In either case lorewise neither Belhifet nor Yxunomei are lowly "mid ranking evil outsiders". Aside from the demonlords/archdevils they are basically near the top of the hierarchy simply because they are type V and VI demons/devils respectively. And being a balor Belhifet must at least have a minimum effective level of 17 or so.
So now that I've explained why he is definitely a balor/pitfiend I will also mention that because Belhifet is a relatively unique nonvanilla devil and has actual feats and accomplishments in the lore, and access to the help of that organization he is in as was discovered in the siege of dragonspear he must therefore be stronger than your average run of the mill pitfiend.
I am going to attribute that to the planescape setting itself however. in planescape it seems like most sentient beings are "civilized" to some degree and are actually busy doing this or that or sitting in a city on their plane and aren't just lying en-masse in wait behind a rock to jump out and kill you. I mean it has to be this way since that entire setting was about.. visiting other planes, and planar politics to some degree. Well I mean you still can and do get attacked obviously but its not to the extent of how it is in other settings where if you walk into hell you immediately get jumped by an army of cornugons who seem to have no other purpose but stand around until someone shows up. I mean I am not that familiar with the planescape setting as a whole but that's the general picture I get of the settingfrom reading some of the sourcebooks and playing PST
I feel like OP played in Story mode, I didn't have any +3 weapon and it was indeed troublesome for me as I had to use the Enchanted Weapon spell. If you killed him with your fists well either you were a lvl 12 monk(you weren't) or you played in Story mode and indeed that fight seemed much easier than it was.
The Shining Lady is a considerable help in that fight as she tanks and has a very good thaco, she can also heal you. Plotwise it seems reasonable that with the help of the Shining lady a full group of lvl 8-12 adventurers can take on Belhifet considering the amount of preparation that you have beforehand.
I think Belhifet would have been more interesting and fearsome if he had a short duration aoe cc (think Buffet Wing) as the shining lady and some summons were able to tank him fairly well.
Saying stuff like "Charname > belhifet> caelar" really is ignoring everything to make a bad point. Charname isn't supposed to be solo at that point but with 4 or 5 people, Caelar wouldn't be able to take on Belhifet solo but she isn't alone anymore.
We could always load up the stats of Belhifet in both IWD and SoD to see what the difference is.
Regardless, killing Belhifet is not a plot hole. He's not Bel, he and he's not a member of the Dark Eight. He's likely a pit fiend with a unique appearance (Pit Fiends require +3 weapons to be hit in 2e, same as Belhifet). A pit fiend, unique or not, is absolutely an appropriate challenge for a level 10 to 12 party (especially as the BBEG).
@Frost I really don't mean to poke my nose in on this, but I guess I am going to anyway.
A story is a story. I appreciate you attempting to bring Table top stats from your Second Edition DMG and your monster manual into Baldur's Gate: SoD written well over 20 years after the release of said DMG/Monster Manual, but unfortunately I can't agree.
I ran a campaign a couple years ago where a character by the name of Skarda (from the module "Skarda's Mirror") was actually a minion of the elemental evils (Introduced in another module I forget the name of, not from the "Temple of Elemental Evils") which was a level 10 module where you actually go into a demi-plane off the negative material plane and defeat the elemental evils.
I also ran a campaign once were I threw an ancient red dragon at a party of 7 over confident level 10's to attempt to kill them and had my ancient red dragon toasted due to some really lucky rolls and great pre-planning by the party. Does that make my campaign unbelievable? Maybe. Was it fun to play in? I think all 7 of my players would have told you hell yes.
Realistic and true to "cannon" is one thing. These games are not supposed to be an accurate representation of your DMG and Monster Manual from 2nd edition. They're a story...and with all good stories, they require you to embrace the world view of the story teller. Maybe you're too young for this, but you sound like the kind of guy that watched the matrix and said "OMG, That's such Bullshit, there's no way Nero could have dodged a bunch of bullets like that!"
OH, and BTW, if it makes you feel any better? The games were Vetted by WotC.
Don't get me wrong, you're more than free to not like the game because Bhelefet wasn't level 17 with an armor class of -10 like his stat block in a book told you it should be. Others are going to enjoy the fact that as a half god of the child of murder you delved into the first level of hell and defeated a greater devil (Demon? I keep forgetting which is which...I think devils are in hell and demons in abyss right?) as one of your accomplishments for the heroism of your character.
I'd argue both are pretty unbelievable since we're in a fantasy setting in a non-existent universe, but I will not deny you the right to your argument that the "realism" of the encounter is broken based upon the levels and skills of the PC's compared to what AD&D says they should have faced.
I personally appreciate the creativity of the story, but I also don't deny the lack of strict adherence to the AD&D manuals.
I'm guessing Drizzt Do'Urden's appearance in BG:EE bugs the living S**T out of you too?
Well... I like your comment, but I really have to agree with the OP in this. This is not just a story. This is a RPG - and, more than that, this is D&D. D&D players really would appreciate if you retained the accurate stats of monsters.
You shouldn't take a Dragon and give him the stats of a Wolf, so a Lv. 1 character could fight him. It seems to me you used the same logic in this case... But, of course, in a lesser degree.
Also, Drizzt in BG1 had accurate stats. He was a Lv. 15 Fighter with really great equipament.
If you are referring to Drizzt, he was probably higher than level 10 while in the underdark.
In 3e, he was only level 16 outside the underdark. So you may be close, but I have a feeling it was lower. Might have to prod Bob on the question if I get the chance.
I feel like OP played in Story mode, I didn't have any +3 weapon and it was indeed troublesome for me as I had to use the Enchanted Weapon spell. If you killed him with your fists well either you were a lvl 12 monk(you weren't) or you played in Story mode and indeed that fight seemed much easier than it was.
The Shining Lady is a considerable help in that fight as she tanks and has a very good thaco, she can also heal you. Plotwise it seems reasonable that with the help of the Shining lady a full group of lvl 8-12 adventurers can take on Belhifet considering the amount of preparation that you have beforehand.
I think Belhifet would have been more interesting and fearsome if he had a short duration aoe cc (think Buffet Wing) as the shining lady and some summons were able to tank him fairly well.
Saying stuff like "Charname > belhifet> caelar" really is ignoring everything to make a bad point. Charname isn't supposed to be solo at that point but with 4 or 5 people, Caelar wouldn't be able to take on Belhifet solo but she isn't alone anymore.
your reading comprehension is bad. 1) I Said Belhifet should be immune to anything below +3, which are almost nonexistant in BG1. there are a few but are really rare. 2) Because Belhifet should have these immunities I then said if I can hit him without +3 weapons I must have +3 God hands and therefore I ripped him apart with my bare hands because that is what it would have taken to beat him. and therefore if the hero were capable of beating a balor equivalent with his bare hands it is impossible for low level mooks to kidnap him later. -Note. since you seem to take things out of context/literally saying I must have taken him down with my bare hands is a joke derived from the fact that Belhifet is weaker than he should be and the character is way stronger than he should be at this point in the story. 3) Gameplay Mechanics =/= power level of character in the lore 4) Caelar can't tank Belhifet in the cutscene, not when you first enter the area, and not when she gets 1 shot. As such what happens during gameplay where she helps you = noncanon. Caelar is not that strong. The charname strode into hell with confidence he should not have had and took out Belhifet without even a hint of doubt that he wouldn't in the dialogue.
Fact that you clearly skimmed 3 lines of the original post and took even that out of context, means that you deserve no further response.
I remember my +2 bullets being ineffective. Or is ranged weapon being able to damage being determined by the launcher now (was +1 sling)?
Regarding her dying in a cutscene, that might well have been because she basically gave up hope.
Belhifet can be hit with +2 in this game. I just checked with 3 different weapons
Caelar clearly wanted to kill Herphernaan if she gave up she would have just stood there being despondent. She was kind of in a berserker rage the whole time since going into the portal so her giving up didn't happen.
I might have found it acceptable if a level 10 party killed a pitfiend outside of hell due to special plot related circumstances. But you literally walk into hell, wade through a bunch of devils, then walk into his throne room, then kill Belhifet permanently in a straight up confrontation at level 10. This sort of thing simply cannot happen. Level 24+ characters in novels (basically archwizards capable of casting level 9 and epic level spells), and even greater deities cannot just walk into hell like this with the intention of going in to kill a specific devil without either getting wrecked or being forced to retreat very very quickly. A level 10 on average party doing it? Not even remotely possible.
To make matters worse, after you kill a pitfiend on his home plane in his own fortress, you get kidnapped by a bunch of low level mooks. How does this even happen if you can kill pitfiends in hell.
Let me put this into perspective for you again, If you were capable of doing what you did in this game ie kill pitfiends in their own castle on their home plane, then you can walk up to irenicus and snap his neck right now. Because that is the level of power that they essentially granted the character through their plot via feats and accomplishments when they used Belhifet in this manner.
It is just bad storytelling no matter how you try and spin it.
It is just bad storytelling no matter how you try and spin it.
No it's not. It was probably the coolest part of SoD, and there were a lot of cool parts.
Disagreeing without being able to present a logical explanation of why it does not screw up the plot does not give your post any weight or credit. If your reason is "because its cool" .. well why don't I replace Belhifet with Asmodeus. That's cooler right? Screw the story, screw the lore. Bigger is cooler. Hells lets use Ao instead, that's even cooler right? We beat Ao because we are the big bad hero capable of killing things that we shouldn't be able to even touch.
We could always load up the stats of Belhifet in both IWD and SoD to see what the difference is.
Regardless, killing Belhifet is not a plot hole. He's not Bel, he and he's not a member of the Dark Eight. He's likely a pit fiend with a unique appearance (Pit Fiends require +3 weapons to be hit in 2e, same as Belhifet). A pit fiend, unique or not, is absolutely an appropriate challenge for a level 10 to 12 party (especially as the BBEG).
Why don't you go and look up the challenge rating of a pitfiend before you say this kind of nonsense. appropriate for level 10? lol. Does your DM let you build punpun characters?
Based on your interpretation of monster power levels then I suppose you think the dark eight and their armies is an appropriate level 15 encounter?
@Frost I really don't mean to poke my nose in on this, but I guess I am going to anyway.
A story is a story. I appreciate you attempting to bring Table top stats from your Second Edition DMG and your monster manual into Baldur's Gate: SoD written well over 20 years after the release of said DMG/Monster Manual, but unfortunately I can't agree.
I ran a campaign a couple years ago where a character by the name of Skarda (from the module "Skarda's Mirror") was actually a minion of the elemental evils (Introduced in another module I forget the name of, not from the "Temple of Elemental Evils") which was a level 10 module where you actually go into a demi-plane off the negative material plane and defeat the elemental evils.
I also ran a campaign once were I threw an ancient red dragon at a party of 7 over confident level 10's to attempt to kill them and had my ancient red dragon toasted due to some really lucky rolls and great pre-planning by the party. Does that make my campaign unbelievable? Maybe. Was it fun to play in? I think all 7 of my players would have told you hell yes.
Realistic and true to "cannon" is one thing. These games are not supposed to be an accurate representation of your DMG and Monster Manual from 2nd edition. They're a story...and with all good stories, they require you to embrace the world view of the story teller. Maybe you're too young for this, but you sound like the kind of guy that watched the matrix and said "OMG, That's such Bullshit, there's no way Nero could have dodged a bunch of bullets like that!"
OH, and BTW, if it makes you feel any better? The games were Vetted by WotC.
Don't get me wrong, you're more than free to not like the game because Bhelefet wasn't level 17 with an armor class of -10 like his stat block in a book told you it should be. Others are going to enjoy the fact that as a half god of the child of murder you delved into the first level of hell and defeated a greater devil (Demon? I keep forgetting which is which...I think devils are in hell and demons in abyss right?) as one of your accomplishments for the heroism of your character.
I'd argue both are pretty unbelievable since we're in a fantasy setting in a non-existent universe, but I will not deny you the right to your argument that the "realism" of the encounter is broken based upon the levels and skills of the PC's compared to what AD&D says they should have faced.
I personally appreciate the creativity of the story, but I also don't deny the lack of strict adherence to the AD&D manuals.
I'm guessing Drizzt Do'Urden's appearance in BG:EE bugs the living S**T out of you too?
Well... I like your comment, but I really have to agree with the OP in this. This is not just a story. This is a RPG - and, more than that, this is D&D. D&D players really would appreciate if you retained the accurate stats of monsters.
You shouldn't take a Dragon and give him the stats of a Wolf, so a Lv. 1 character could fight him. It seems to me you used the same logic in this case... But, of course, in a lesser degree.
Also, Drizzt in BG1 had accurate stats. He was a Lv. 15 Fighter with really great equipament.
More importantly Drizzt wasn't a lore essential cameo that you had to kill to progress the plot line like Belhifet. In fact Drizzt clearly survived into BG2 so even if you attacked him in BG1 it doesn't actually mean anything. Whereas Belhifet is 100% dead in the canon lore
Only my main mage with a +3 staff and minsc with a +3 2h and safana and viconia with +3 missles could hit him when I fought him. Nothing else worked.
Also even after casting lower resistance he shrugged off all magic.
If I didnt have a metric shiznit ton of extra heal potions and asked caelar to assist I would have been decimated.
Oh and this was on core rules too.
stop latching onto gameplay mechanics and arguing from personal anecdotes based upon your experience inside the game. this is the last time I reply to a post that is arguing this from a gameplay mechanic point of view. I've stated so many times why gameplay mechanics cannot be used to gauge the power of characters in the story. Character levels , challenge rating, lore feats can give you an idea of how strong something is compared to something else. A stat boosted character purposely created to survive an encounter in a video game environment does not. Lore Trumps Gameplay
The only fact that matters is that Belhifet is dead. You kill him permanently in the story. I don't care if you had a difficult time killing him because of gameplay mechanics. The character's actions by charging into hell and the cocky dialogue/ nonexistence of dialogue where he doesn't think he can win is evidence that Belhifets death was a sure thing in the minds of your character.
You did not kill Belhifet because you had preparation, plot device like drizzt's anti demon sword, or a preexisting plan. You killed him in a straight up fight. Meaning that the main character had no doubt that he was stronger than a pitfiend. The dialogue gave no indication that your character had any reservations or any thought that he might lose.
Belhifet appeared in a non level appropriate encounter then got killed. 2 of 3 scenarios had you killing Belhifet wtihout aid from Caelar thus establishing that your character is stronger than a pitfiend. Then you got abducted by mooks in the middle of nowhere end of story.
If killing Belhifet wasn't mandatory, like that drizzt encounter. Then there wouldn't be a problem. But he is a story line essential kill thus there is a problem.
Drizzt was not a mandatory plot related cameo that you had to kill, Belhifet is. Both are not level appropriate encounters but only Belhifets encounter creates a problem because it establishes in the canon that you killed him. Whereas drizzt did not actually kick the bucket in the canon so you may or may not have attacked him. Is this understandable to you?
Comments
Still, you are a half-god, I had a few +3 weapons, I conviced caelar to help, and its the plot. Those points cant dismiss your criticisms sure, but I think they offset them slightly.
Also from a real world point of you youve got to look at it as beamdog having to use the assets available to them.
Animating a brand new powerful demon who is better suiting to being the primary antagonist would have been awesome but I have no clue how practical it would have been for them to do this.
Also using a bogstandard lesser model would have been as underwhelming as both the demon knight and nebassu from TotSC.
Its not perfect. Nothing is. I still think the final fight with Irenicus in SoA sucked badlyn and far preferred fighting him in his real form.
Thems just the breaks says I.
It's not as though there isn't precedent for something like this happening in the Infinity Engine games either, considering that you do something even more outrageous in Planescape: Torment--you walk into Avernus with a statistically much weaker party that includes a Succubus and is led by a character who cannot wear anything other than Dustman Robes or a loincloth, question the Pillar of Skulls, and waltz out none the worse for wear.
Also, how did you fight Behlifet with an 18th level party and what is your source that he is a greater devil that is more powerful than a Pit Fiend? In my last run of Icewind Dale on Core difficulty my 6 man party was at just above 1,310,000 XP, placing most of them at around 12th or 13th level, except for my Thief who was just under 16th level. Based on this and the network of minions he had at his disposal, I was under the impression that he was a mid-ranking evil outsider like Yxunomei that was being temporarily boosted by possession of the Crystal Shard.
Epic level wizards along with every other character in the stories are translated into a stat sheet based on their story feats. That's why I keep saying that people's ingame anecdotes don't count when they talk about how their level 7 defeated a balor because that sort of thing simply doesn't fly in the "lore". punpun anyone? Actual story characters don't powergame like that and that's why people like elminster had useless levels like 1 level fighter 2 level thief 3 level cleric in his 3rd edition stat sheet. If you were being realistic in a PNP game then your character would only pick up skill points and levels based on what sort of things they have been doing before they leveled up. Game systems are supposed to supplement story telling not the other way around. If the lore says X character is more powerful than Y character, but the game stats says otherwise the lore takes precedence. For example if we use world of warcraft as an example are you gonna tell me that neptulon is stronger than ragnaros because neptulon is level 100 while ragnaros is level 60 when they should be around equal in the lore? Or if you reach level 100 and go back to a level 60 dungeon and 1 shot everything are you going to tell me that in the story sense your character is actually stronger than the elemental lord of fire. Simply put in game stats and stat sheets are a guide line, which you use to gauge general power levels based on what the lore says people should or should not be able to do.
The point is the hero simply walked into hell and killed Belhifet + his allies without any sort of preparation / plot device whereas in all the examples you made there were actual plot reasons for their victory. So what happens here is not believable and is bad writing.
How do you end at 12 or 13? I didn't play the EE much and I've lost my original non ee game save files. but on my EE game my characters just got to the severed hand and are already around level 10...which is like around 20% or less into the game I believe. Did you just decide to only take into account the highest number i stated in my original post? I said "15-18" not a flat 18. Also I said "around 17" in the rest of my posts. So in my typical playthrough I my characters are at around 15-18 depending on the classes. So 16-17 on average depending on my party composition.
If you look Belhifet up online, online sources will say that he is a balor. Now whether he is a balor or a pitfiend has always been kind of inconsistant. If you check out the IWD cutscenes he refers to himself as a demon, the narrator tells us that he is a demon, but then tells us that he got banished to hell. Dragonspear establishes for a fact though that he is a baatezu. However balors and pitfiends are basically around the same power level so it doesn't really matter whether he is a balor or a pitfiend for this topic. Because whatever he is he is definitely one of those 2.
Anyway if you don't trust online sources lets take into account what kind of demons there actually are.
Basically Belhifet's nemesis was a marilith which is classified as a type V demon. (yes first edition I know but the demon types and how powerful they are in comparison to each other are basically the same between editions) All the class V demons are some kind of marilith, Belhifet is clearly not a class V demon or its devil equivalents so he must be a class VI which are "balors". Which makes sense because that's what he is listed as under whatever websites talk about him. Certainly he can't be weaker than Yxunomei or he wouldn't be her nemesis much less the final boss. And even if he was weaker than her he doesn't fit the description of Type IV's either or their devil equivalents so I say that there is no doubt that he is a type VI demon. Thus Belhifet is either a balor or a pitfiend as stated by the online sources.
In either case lorewise neither Belhifet nor Yxunomei are lowly "mid ranking evil outsiders". Aside from the demonlords/archdevils they are basically near the top of the hierarchy simply because they are type V and VI demons/devils respectively. And being a balor Belhifet must at least have a minimum effective level of 17 or so.
So now that I've explained why he is definitely a balor/pitfiend I will also mention that because Belhifet is a relatively unique nonvanilla devil and has actual feats and accomplishments in the lore, and access to the help of that organization he is in as was discovered in the siege of dragonspear he must therefore be stronger than your average run of the mill pitfiend.
I am going to attribute that to the planescape setting itself however. in planescape it seems like most sentient beings are "civilized" to some degree and are actually busy doing this or that or sitting in a city on their plane and aren't just lying en-masse in wait behind a rock to jump out and kill you. I mean it has to be this way since that entire setting was about.. visiting other planes, and planar politics to some degree. Well I mean you still can and do get attacked obviously but its not to the extent of how it is in other settings where if you walk into hell you immediately get jumped by an army of cornugons who seem to have no other purpose but stand around until someone shows up. I mean I am not that familiar with the planescape setting as a whole but that's the general picture I get of the settingfrom reading some of the sourcebooks and playing PST
The Shining Lady is a considerable help in that fight as she tanks and has a very good thaco, she can also heal you. Plotwise it seems reasonable that with the help of the Shining lady a full group of lvl 8-12 adventurers can take on Belhifet considering the amount of preparation that you have beforehand.
I think Belhifet would have been more interesting and fearsome if he had a short duration aoe cc (think Buffet Wing) as the shining lady and some summons were able to tank him fairly well.
Saying stuff like "Charname > belhifet> caelar" really is ignoring everything to make a bad point. Charname isn't supposed to be solo at that point but with 4 or 5 people, Caelar wouldn't be able to take on Belhifet solo but she isn't alone anymore.
Regardless, killing Belhifet is not a plot hole. He's not Bel, he and he's not a member of the Dark Eight. He's likely a pit fiend with a unique appearance (Pit Fiends require +3 weapons to be hit in 2e, same as Belhifet). A pit fiend, unique or not, is absolutely an appropriate challenge for a level 10 to 12 party (especially as the BBEG).
You shouldn't take a Dragon and give him the stats of a Wolf, so a Lv. 1 character could fight him. It seems to me you used the same logic in this case... But, of course, in a lesser degree.
Also, Drizzt in BG1 had accurate stats. He was a Lv. 15 Fighter with really great equipament.
1) I Said Belhifet should be immune to anything below +3, which are almost nonexistant in BG1. there are a few but are really rare.
2) Because Belhifet should have these immunities I then said if I can hit him without +3 weapons I must have +3 God hands and therefore I ripped him apart with my bare hands because that is what it would have taken to beat him. and therefore if the hero were capable of beating a balor equivalent with his bare hands it is impossible for low level mooks to kidnap him later.
-Note. since you seem to take things out of context/literally saying I must have taken him down with my bare hands is a joke derived from the fact that Belhifet is weaker than he should be and the character is way stronger than he should be at this point in the story.
3) Gameplay Mechanics =/= power level of character in the lore
4) Caelar can't tank Belhifet in the cutscene, not when you first enter the area, and not when she gets 1 shot. As such what happens during gameplay where she helps you = noncanon. Caelar is not that strong. The charname strode into hell with confidence he should not have had and took out Belhifet without even a hint of doubt that he wouldn't in the dialogue.
Fact that you clearly skimmed 3 lines of the original post and took even that out of context, means that you deserve no further response.
Regarding her dying in a cutscene, that might well have been because she basically gave up hope.
Caelar clearly wanted to kill Herphernaan if she gave up she would have just stood there being despondent. She was kind of in a berserker rage the whole time since going into the portal so her giving up didn't happen.
I might have found it acceptable if a level 10 party killed a pitfiend outside of hell due to special plot related circumstances. But you literally walk into hell, wade through a bunch of devils, then walk into his throne room, then kill Belhifet permanently in a straight up confrontation at level 10. This sort of thing simply cannot happen. Level 24+ characters in novels (basically archwizards capable of casting level 9 and epic level spells), and even greater deities cannot just walk into hell like this with the intention of going in to kill a specific devil without either getting wrecked or being forced to retreat very very quickly. A level 10 on average party doing it? Not even remotely possible.
To make matters worse, after you kill a pitfiend on his home plane in his own fortress, you get kidnapped by a bunch of low level mooks. How does this even happen if you can kill pitfiends in hell.
Let me put this into perspective for you again, If you were capable of doing what you did in this game ie kill pitfiends in their own castle on their home plane, then you can walk up to irenicus and snap his neck right now. Because that is the level of power that they essentially granted the character through their plot via feats and accomplishments when they used Belhifet in this manner.
It is just bad storytelling no matter how you try and spin it.
Based on your interpretation of monster power levels then I suppose you think the dark eight and their armies is an appropriate level 15 encounter?
More importantly Drizzt wasn't a lore essential cameo that you had to kill to progress the plot line like Belhifet. In fact Drizzt clearly survived into BG2 so even if you attacked him in BG1 it doesn't actually mean anything. Whereas Belhifet is 100% dead in the canon lore
Also even after casting lower resistance he shrugged off all magic.
If I didnt have a metric shiznit ton of extra heal potions and asked caelar to assist I would have been decimated.
Oh and this was on core rules too.
The only fact that matters is that Belhifet is dead. You kill him permanently in the story. I don't care if you had a difficult time killing him because of gameplay mechanics. The character's actions by charging into hell and the cocky dialogue/ nonexistence of dialogue where he doesn't think he can win is evidence that Belhifets death was a sure thing in the minds of your character.
You did not kill Belhifet because you had preparation, plot device like drizzt's anti demon sword, or a preexisting plan. You killed him in a straight up fight. Meaning that the main character had no doubt that he was stronger than a pitfiend. The dialogue gave no indication that your character had any reservations or any thought that he might lose.
Belhifet appeared in a non level appropriate encounter then got killed. 2 of 3 scenarios had you killing Belhifet wtihout aid from Caelar thus establishing that your character is stronger than a pitfiend. Then you got abducted by mooks in the middle of nowhere end of story.
If killing Belhifet wasn't mandatory, like that drizzt encounter. Then there wouldn't be a problem. But he is a story line essential kill thus there is a problem.
Drizzt was not a mandatory plot related cameo that you had to kill, Belhifet is. Both are not level appropriate encounters but only Belhifets encounter creates a problem because it establishes in the canon that you killed him. Whereas drizzt did not actually kick the bucket in the canon so you may or may not have attacked him. Is this understandable to you?
Did you read the title of this thread?
Otherwise, carry on.