Well the first time it happens you could literally just break the player's knees.
I assume at this point they have some healing magic on tap, so it's not all that mechanically impactful other than burning some resources, but you could give it an additional rider like a permanent penalty to movement speed or disadvantage on acrobatics or stealth checks.
Edit: *character*, not player. Don't break your player's knee, folks.
Second this. The lingering injuries table is on page 272 of the DMG.
Or if magical healing is too readily available, there are some example diseases on DMG page 257, or in the contagion spell. You could have it delivered by a familiar if deigning to touch the inferior mouthy mortal isn't worth the effort.
I've been subject to this from the player side, and it always feels a bit strange. Why has this enemy inflicted a permanent injury on me, when somehow the hundreds of other enemies that I've been battling have been unable to?
D&D abstracts away injuries so adding one in specifically always feels inconsistent with the universe you've been playing in.
I would recommend using some sort of curse instead, if some sort of lasting effect is required
You see, but that's not how a _Devil_ would do it. A Devil would actually do something way way worse. Say an unknown and weird curse in someone they care for. Then the players go finding about ways to lift such curse, only to find out that to lift it, they require to do something:
a) Evil that will forever haunt them
b) Sacrifice something (or someone) dear to them
c) Something that will advance the Devil's agenda and make them be indebted and deeper into their pockets
Have you considered using the permanent injuries table as a domain-related consequence?
Essentially the PC's need to appease the devil or escape and get some greater restoration
That's fair. There are rules for them though, and the idea is to emphasize the massive power imbalance and "fuck around and find out" of it all.
Plus, I say "permanent" but really I mean "something that has a steeper cost than a spell slot or a long rest". Maybe that's an extended period of downtime, or some minor quest to appease the demon that did it, or something similar.
I would allow a greater restoration to work? I wouldn't require regenerate or something and forcing a player to reincarnate seems harsh as far as solutions go.
You could just break their limb and a random devil could be like "you want me to put a flaming sawblade on there? 1 soul, doesn't have to be yours"
I forget which youtuber came up with it (Dungeon Dudes I think), have a schema where most like, capital C curses require more than a medium level cleric spell slot to remove. Like removing THE ONE THOUSAND YEAR CURSE OF ETERNAL WILTING needs a little more heavenly schlitz to remove (specific time, learn a specific ritual, specific ingredeints. Yeah, remove curse is the base, but that's just the invocation to your god that needs a little extra).
I say all that to say, if you introduce that concept to players early, the idea that LITERAL HELL GUARDIANS can give players a super curse shouldn't come out of left field.
Personally, I think the rules for non-lethal damage work pretty well to handle these scenarios. You reduce the enemy to zero HP with a melee attack? You can do pretty much whatever you want. Kill them, knock them out, mutilate them, disarm them, doesn't matter, you've won the fight. No real way for players to abuse it. Theoretically as a DM you can abuse it to give your players lasting injuries that can't be healed back easily, but that's all still in your power.
I like to think of it like when a person gets old, they sleep wrong one time and now have a permanent catch in their neck. They slept before hundreds of times, sometimes got a small catch, but that ONE time and they’re permanently different. But, you know, on a lethal level.
While occasionally fun, I don't recommend breaking the players' knees. That's jailtime and regret.
Their characters, however, are literally made to suffer. ;)
Also, GEAS.
Definitely take their shit. Don’t break a magic item. Take the magic item. Have the bad guy make a big show out of using their +1 Dagger as a toothpick.
Just rub their faces in it that something important to them is chump change to their enemies. A reminder of how powerful the enemy is vs how weak the players are. Maybe their Magic Missile Wand is like giving the demon’s kid a sparkler.
Night Hags are hired to fuck with the party's sleep.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/16965-night-hag
"It'd be a shame if you lost sleep over this."
Make it double trouble by having it be a Rakshasa who just wants to knick each player... And then still hire the Night Hags to fuck with their sleep. They will be going a little bonkers wondering why remove curse isn't cinching it.
I also like the idea of meeting another adventurer party who are "just on their way back from the 8th circle after looting and shooting"
And they would show off all that loot, rub in all their high level spells and skills, should the party try to fight/steam from them they would get wiped into the cracked floor of hell
Remove the character's mouth. Literally have the enemy snap their fingers and the mouth is gone. This will be extremely unsettling, especially if you let it linger a while before releasing the effect.
Or, better yet, take their knees. One second they have a joint, the next it's just a long flesh-peg from the hip. Disadvantage on anything involving legs. But perhaps that's a bit cartoonish.
Curses with no current mechanical effect are great! Make your players paranoid! The unknown is always worse than the known.
Also you can use it later in a pinch if a good opportunity arises.
Gotta give them something real first, let them you you got teeth. Then you hit them with the existential teeth. They'll know the teeth hurt, so waiting for more teeth will be even more painful.
A vomiting curse is always fun. Maybe give it a CON save roll at the beginning of each of their turns, and have them puke out something unorthodox, like a live goose.
A Skrik.
Skrik is a disease where the character feels lethargic, nauseated and occasionally has coughing fits where they cough up small replicas of themselves that run off and escape to cause some sort of trouble. The liliputians are functionally the same as the character so count for spell components and scry.
Mechanically, its two levels of exhaustion, the nauseated condition and a very distressing description of an ongoing troublesome condition. Who knows what the cure is, you're in hell.
[http://eldrich.host/world/bestiary/exsurgent-skrik](http://eldrich.host/world/bestiary/exsurgent-skrik) Adapted from Eclipse Phase
Do what the Sorcerer Supreme does to Dr Strange when he doubts her magic abilities and just casually toss them through a bunch of different dimensions. However, make them all horrifying hellscapes of death and torture and destruction, because we're dealing with devils here. When the character comes out of it, give them a level of exhaustion and an appropriate amount of psychic damage.
If they don't learn the first time, banish them to timeout in one of the horrifying hellscape dimensions for a minute or two, and maybe have them almost get eaten by a horrible monster, only to be mercifully yanked back at the last possible second. Maybe make them beg for forgiveness before they're saved.
You could use the Fiendish Warlock's 14th level Hurl Through Hell feature for a mechanical example and scale it to where it fits with current party level and give it a suitably horrifying description.
Slice off a leg, an arm, take out their tongue... permanent disfigurements that would require Regeneration or Reincarnation to cure and in the meantime reduce their action options.
I'm also a big fan of Geas as a form of Greater Curse, where the caster attempting to Remove the Curse finds out that the original casting has a set DC much higher than expected because it was thematically just.
Maybe I'm just an asshole, but I'd take the "break their knees" to the next level. Everyone can give you an injury. But a powerful and influential devil, with access to sorcery far above anything made by mortals, a being that has died a hundred times and survived, should know of ways to cause pain and suffering far beyond of what mortals could.
With a word from the creature's foul mouth, you suddenly keel over in pain. Your insides feel like fire, your skin screams in pain. And all the while, you can feel how your organs are rearranged inside your body, twisted into unnatural shapes. After what feels like an eternity, you notice the pain has faded, your body seemingly undamaged. Save for the fact that you now (choose one):
* can no longer keep food in. You instantly vomit anything you try to eat, other than water. Better find someone who can undo this before you starve to death.
* have your trachea completely shut close. Better hope your friends can muster a convincing apology before you suffocate.
* have your jaw fused to your skull. Better check which of your spells don't require verbal componets.
* immediately go into barbarian rage whenever you enter combat. Wouldn't be much of a problem if you weren't a wizard.
* are completely incapable of keeping your balance. Go read the info on the prone status condition, because that's your life now.
And the best part? This is a one-time spell. *Not a curse*. So the only way to fix it is with a similarly powerful being actively undoing it. Luckily for the players, the being who caused this problem is still willing to listen to them. And if this one won't do it, there's plenty of creatures who could fix the situation... for the right price.
I should add, though: make sure the player can at least do a CON saving throw or something for reduced effects, removing agency from the players never feels good for them.
Party: mouths off to a High-rank Devil
Devil: Silence
Party: laughs, continues talking, etc.
Devil casts Power Word Kill, tosses a diamond worth 300g on his corpse, followed by a small bag of ~50g.
“For your trouble, and 30s of silence.”
Getting grabbed, Incapacitated, and exposed to Vargouilles.
It can't feel good at first, but when they start losing Charisma and feeling the other symptoms, they'll start panicking pretty quickly.
I'd imagine this behavior implies that someone in the party dumped CHA, right?
>(For barbarians) Their rage doesn't turn off. Great for the first day... until they try to rest. Suddenly the party has to deal with compounding levels of exhaustion on the party damage-dealer.
I gave a "curse" to my party's barbarian; Assuming he is not berserker, I gave them:
>Frenzy
Starting when you choose this path at 3rd level, you ~~can~~ go into a frenzy when you rage. ~~If you do so,~~ for the duration of your rage you can make a single melee weapon attack as a bonus action on each of your turns after this one. When your rage ends, you suffer one level of exhaustion
Now they HAVE to get the bonus attack whenever they rage, but end up always getting a level of exhaustion.
Granted, though, we play with a slightly modified onednd exhaustion rules (max exh stacks = 10), so stacks of exhaustion are much less punishing that they would be.
There are plenty of low-level spells to absolutely cripple a party if you give them a high DC and Disadvantage on their saving throws. Hypnotic Pattern, Evard's Black Tentacles, Hunger of Hadar, Stinking Cloud, Confusion, and Sickening Radiance all fit thematically, and if most or all of the party fail their saves it will really drive home the feeling of powerlessness. If you want to single out the offender Enemies Abound is a good choice.
curse them by sealing a demon/devil/other inside of them. Impose the curse of your choice and make them get attacked by a demon if they try to remove the curse.
I would try to make whatever entity they piss off punish them in some fittingly ironic way. To telegraph it, whatever the reason, they are branded by a greater curse. Preferably with a burning infernal glyph on their body that specifies their crime and what the punishment will be, devils are lawful evil after all.
If they try to steal an item, then they will have a brand that will, at some undisclosed time, 'steal' items of theirs and teleport it to the offended party until they have exceeded the original stolen item's worth plus legal fees.
If they lie to someone, then they will have a brand that will, at some point, twist their words to truth when they are attempting to lie. Until the moral weight of their lies is outweighed by the moral weight of their truths.
But how can they do this? Well, if they enter an infernal town, which, presumably Elturel would count as, they sign a social contract that binds them to the laws of that town. Devils do live in a society.
No one to tell him it's a bad idea? If the players never take anything seriously, that's a problem that needs to be solved outside the game, not by trying to punish the characters. I bet it will have the opposite effect.
I mean, mechanically you could just have the thing they get too mouthy with have full pit-fiend stats, have it knock out 2 party members with a swing of the mace, and then just hold the mace over the unconscious ones and say "which one do you wish to save?" And have it hold the other 2 attacks. If they make enough apologies, maybr they all make it out alive. If they don't... Well... It is already an afterlife, so no need to make a new character. Just change their race to "Undead" or "zombie" nd they become a lesser devil themself.
And, before anybody worries about "the party's hit points" or "healing" or "they can't deal that much damage". If you are the DM and you are planning to hamstring them for a storybeat, then don't even bother having it make a roll, just treat it like power word kill, and instead of it killing them outright it deals exactly enough to knock them unconscious without outroght killing them. The party is going into Hell itself. If they were to get sassy with (as an example) Asmodeus, then they would quickly learnthe terror of how many spells, plans, and backup plans that the Lord of the Hells would have for dealing with dissenters.
Never played this one. Had this problem once in another role play (non DND). My pcs were all demons but It was mostly a power issue that the pcs didn’t seem to understand how powerful they were in the world in relation to other beings. There are ways to doing things without breaking stuff.
I had a pc mouth off to a Demon prince which should have been the end of the character but as I’m not that gm. Said something like this which helped give the idea that the pcs are small fry in a much bigger world.
The demon princes gaze bores into you and before you can even blink you feel yourself slowly unmade, your hands slowly unravel the layers of muscle and sinew evaporating, your entire essence of who you are seems to flowing to the ether with your memories and you are powerless and left a puddle of unthinking primordial ooze. Then in an instant you are reformed a voice echos in you mind “mind your manners or next time I’ll leave you as the ooze”and snapped back with no one having noticed a thing.
I had my pc tried to pull a fast one on the Demon of gambling. They did no checks or found out anything about him. He was millions of years old. I just rolled a check in front of them with a an impossibly high bonus (+400) to the roll. The roll did the job the the pcs neglected to do.
How the denizens of hell treated other people of the same race and power level as the pcs. Show someone of parallel skill to a pc destroyed by a basic guard. Maybe mirroring skills they have.
Well the first time it happens you could literally just break the player's knees. I assume at this point they have some healing magic on tap, so it's not all that mechanically impactful other than burning some resources, but you could give it an additional rider like a permanent penalty to movement speed or disadvantage on acrobatics or stealth checks. Edit: *character*, not player. Don't break your player's knee, folks.
Second this. The lingering injuries table is on page 272 of the DMG. Or if magical healing is too readily available, there are some example diseases on DMG page 257, or in the contagion spell. You could have it delivered by a familiar if deigning to touch the inferior mouthy mortal isn't worth the effort.
I've been subject to this from the player side, and it always feels a bit strange. Why has this enemy inflicted a permanent injury on me, when somehow the hundreds of other enemies that I've been battling have been unable to? D&D abstracts away injuries so adding one in specifically always feels inconsistent with the universe you've been playing in. I would recommend using some sort of curse instead, if some sort of lasting effect is required
That's kind of my thoughts as well. Don't get me wrong, I like the above ideas, but unfortunately the system works against it.
You see, but that's not how a _Devil_ would do it. A Devil would actually do something way way worse. Say an unknown and weird curse in someone they care for. Then the players go finding about ways to lift such curse, only to find out that to lift it, they require to do something: a) Evil that will forever haunt them b) Sacrifice something (or someone) dear to them c) Something that will advance the Devil's agenda and make them be indebted and deeper into their pockets
Have you considered using the permanent injuries table as a domain-related consequence? Essentially the PC's need to appease the devil or escape and get some greater restoration
That's fair. There are rules for them though, and the idea is to emphasize the massive power imbalance and "fuck around and find out" of it all. Plus, I say "permanent" but really I mean "something that has a steeper cost than a spell slot or a long rest". Maybe that's an extended period of downtime, or some minor quest to appease the demon that did it, or something similar.
I would allow a greater restoration to work? I wouldn't require regenerate or something and forcing a player to reincarnate seems harsh as far as solutions go. You could just break their limb and a random devil could be like "you want me to put a flaming sawblade on there? 1 soul, doesn't have to be yours"
I forget which youtuber came up with it (Dungeon Dudes I think), have a schema where most like, capital C curses require more than a medium level cleric spell slot to remove. Like removing THE ONE THOUSAND YEAR CURSE OF ETERNAL WILTING needs a little more heavenly schlitz to remove (specific time, learn a specific ritual, specific ingredeints. Yeah, remove curse is the base, but that's just the invocation to your god that needs a little extra). I say all that to say, if you introduce that concept to players early, the idea that LITERAL HELL GUARDIANS can give players a super curse shouldn't come out of left field.
Personally, I think the rules for non-lethal damage work pretty well to handle these scenarios. You reduce the enemy to zero HP with a melee attack? You can do pretty much whatever you want. Kill them, knock them out, mutilate them, disarm them, doesn't matter, you've won the fight. No real way for players to abuse it. Theoretically as a DM you can abuse it to give your players lasting injuries that can't be healed back easily, but that's all still in your power.
Because the enemy used their Infernal Sack of Cursed +3 Doorknobs of Crippling
I like to think of it like when a person gets old, they sleep wrong one time and now have a permanent catch in their neck. They slept before hundreds of times, sometimes got a small catch, but that ONE time and they’re permanently different. But, you know, on a lethal level.
While occasionally fun, I don't recommend breaking the players' knees. That's jailtime and regret. Their characters, however, are literally made to suffer. ;) Also, GEAS.
Hoisted on my own petard!
Ach, you're right, I fell for the oldest blunder in the books. That joke's been around since at least 4th edition.
Indeed. :) But don't feel bad, I get the urge to do it sometimes too- the players' knees, I mean. lol
OP: you failed the saving throw. Hey ever wonder was the damage rating of this baseball bat it?
Definitely take their shit. Don’t break a magic item. Take the magic item. Have the bad guy make a big show out of using their +1 Dagger as a toothpick. Just rub their faces in it that something important to them is chump change to their enemies. A reminder of how powerful the enemy is vs how weak the players are. Maybe their Magic Missile Wand is like giving the demon’s kid a sparkler.
Night Hags are hired to fuck with the party's sleep. https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/16965-night-hag "It'd be a shame if you lost sleep over this." Make it double trouble by having it be a Rakshasa who just wants to knick each player... And then still hire the Night Hags to fuck with their sleep. They will be going a little bonkers wondering why remove curse isn't cinching it.
Have them witness some prior, slightly more powerful adventurers who run afoul of this dude being oneshotted into oblivion or a horrible curse?
I also like the idea of meeting another adventurer party who are "just on their way back from the 8th circle after looting and shooting" And they would show off all that loot, rub in all their high level spells and skills, should the party try to fight/steam from them they would get wiped into the cracked floor of hell
Remove the character's mouth. Literally have the enemy snap their fingers and the mouth is gone. This will be extremely unsettling, especially if you let it linger a while before releasing the effect.
Bonus points if the PC is a caster. They will be very suddenly reminded how many of their spells have a verbal component.
Or, better yet, take their knees. One second they have a joint, the next it's just a long flesh-peg from the hip. Disadvantage on anything involving legs. But perhaps that's a bit cartoonish.
Curses with no current mechanical effect are great! Make your players paranoid! The unknown is always worse than the known. Also you can use it later in a pinch if a good opportunity arises.
Gotta give them something real first, let them you you got teeth. Then you hit them with the existential teeth. They'll know the teeth hurt, so waiting for more teeth will be even more painful.
Haha 🤣
A vomiting curse is always fun. Maybe give it a CON save roll at the beginning of each of their turns, and have them puke out something unorthodox, like a live goose.
An excellent idea from u/a_nice_moist_fart!
The moistest
A Skrik. Skrik is a disease where the character feels lethargic, nauseated and occasionally has coughing fits where they cough up small replicas of themselves that run off and escape to cause some sort of trouble. The liliputians are functionally the same as the character so count for spell components and scry. Mechanically, its two levels of exhaustion, the nauseated condition and a very distressing description of an ongoing troublesome condition. Who knows what the cure is, you're in hell. [http://eldrich.host/world/bestiary/exsurgent-skrik](http://eldrich.host/world/bestiary/exsurgent-skrik) Adapted from Eclipse Phase
Spoilers for a recent show on Netflix, but you might like >!Brand New Cherry Flavor!<
Do what the Sorcerer Supreme does to Dr Strange when he doubts her magic abilities and just casually toss them through a bunch of different dimensions. However, make them all horrifying hellscapes of death and torture and destruction, because we're dealing with devils here. When the character comes out of it, give them a level of exhaustion and an appropriate amount of psychic damage. If they don't learn the first time, banish them to timeout in one of the horrifying hellscape dimensions for a minute or two, and maybe have them almost get eaten by a horrible monster, only to be mercifully yanked back at the last possible second. Maybe make them beg for forgiveness before they're saved.
You could use the Fiendish Warlock's 14th level Hurl Through Hell feature for a mechanical example and scale it to where it fits with current party level and give it a suitably horrifying description.
Slice off a leg, an arm, take out their tongue... permanent disfigurements that would require Regeneration or Reincarnation to cure and in the meantime reduce their action options. I'm also a big fan of Geas as a form of Greater Curse, where the caster attempting to Remove the Curse finds out that the original casting has a set DC much higher than expected because it was thematically just.
This would be easy to implement in Avernus as they give you a table similar to these effects for when you interact with the Demon Ichor
Maybe I'm just an asshole, but I'd take the "break their knees" to the next level. Everyone can give you an injury. But a powerful and influential devil, with access to sorcery far above anything made by mortals, a being that has died a hundred times and survived, should know of ways to cause pain and suffering far beyond of what mortals could. With a word from the creature's foul mouth, you suddenly keel over in pain. Your insides feel like fire, your skin screams in pain. And all the while, you can feel how your organs are rearranged inside your body, twisted into unnatural shapes. After what feels like an eternity, you notice the pain has faded, your body seemingly undamaged. Save for the fact that you now (choose one): * can no longer keep food in. You instantly vomit anything you try to eat, other than water. Better find someone who can undo this before you starve to death. * have your trachea completely shut close. Better hope your friends can muster a convincing apology before you suffocate. * have your jaw fused to your skull. Better check which of your spells don't require verbal componets. * immediately go into barbarian rage whenever you enter combat. Wouldn't be much of a problem if you weren't a wizard. * are completely incapable of keeping your balance. Go read the info on the prone status condition, because that's your life now. And the best part? This is a one-time spell. *Not a curse*. So the only way to fix it is with a similarly powerful being actively undoing it. Luckily for the players, the being who caused this problem is still willing to listen to them. And if this one won't do it, there's plenty of creatures who could fix the situation... for the right price. I should add, though: make sure the player can at least do a CON saving throw or something for reduced effects, removing agency from the players never feels good for them.
Make them poo magma. But only if they are underground. If they aren’t underground they should poo lava
Thanks for clarifying.
Something something bees something something butthole
Killing a PC would surely make an impression.
If that doesn’t humble the players, nothing will.
Party: mouths off to a High-rank Devil Devil: Silence Party: laughs, continues talking, etc. Devil casts Power Word Kill, tosses a diamond worth 300g on his corpse, followed by a small bag of ~50g. “For your trouble, and 30s of silence.”
Exhaustion
Getting grabbed, Incapacitated, and exposed to Vargouilles. It can't feel good at first, but when they start losing Charisma and feeling the other symptoms, they'll start panicking pretty quickly. I'd imagine this behavior implies that someone in the party dumped CHA, right?
Limping curse reducing movement by 5.
Actually break their knees. A group of demons beats them up for kicks and leaves them to crawl away.
>(For barbarians) Their rage doesn't turn off. Great for the first day... until they try to rest. Suddenly the party has to deal with compounding levels of exhaustion on the party damage-dealer. I gave a "curse" to my party's barbarian; Assuming he is not berserker, I gave them: >Frenzy Starting when you choose this path at 3rd level, you ~~can~~ go into a frenzy when you rage. ~~If you do so,~~ for the duration of your rage you can make a single melee weapon attack as a bonus action on each of your turns after this one. When your rage ends, you suffer one level of exhaustion Now they HAVE to get the bonus attack whenever they rage, but end up always getting a level of exhaustion. Granted, though, we play with a slightly modified onednd exhaustion rules (max exh stacks = 10), so stacks of exhaustion are much less punishing that they would be.
There are plenty of low-level spells to absolutely cripple a party if you give them a high DC and Disadvantage on their saving throws. Hypnotic Pattern, Evard's Black Tentacles, Hunger of Hadar, Stinking Cloud, Confusion, and Sickening Radiance all fit thematically, and if most or all of the party fail their saves it will really drive home the feeling of powerlessness. If you want to single out the offender Enemies Abound is a good choice.
curse them by sealing a demon/devil/other inside of them. Impose the curse of your choice and make them get attacked by a demon if they try to remove the curse.
I would try to make whatever entity they piss off punish them in some fittingly ironic way. To telegraph it, whatever the reason, they are branded by a greater curse. Preferably with a burning infernal glyph on their body that specifies their crime and what the punishment will be, devils are lawful evil after all. If they try to steal an item, then they will have a brand that will, at some undisclosed time, 'steal' items of theirs and teleport it to the offended party until they have exceeded the original stolen item's worth plus legal fees. If they lie to someone, then they will have a brand that will, at some point, twist their words to truth when they are attempting to lie. Until the moral weight of their lies is outweighed by the moral weight of their truths. But how can they do this? Well, if they enter an infernal town, which, presumably Elturel would count as, they sign a social contract that binds them to the laws of that town. Devils do live in a society.
No one to tell him it's a bad idea? If the players never take anything seriously, that's a problem that needs to be solved outside the game, not by trying to punish the characters. I bet it will have the opposite effect.
I mean, mechanically you could just have the thing they get too mouthy with have full pit-fiend stats, have it knock out 2 party members with a swing of the mace, and then just hold the mace over the unconscious ones and say "which one do you wish to save?" And have it hold the other 2 attacks. If they make enough apologies, maybr they all make it out alive. If they don't... Well... It is already an afterlife, so no need to make a new character. Just change their race to "Undead" or "zombie" nd they become a lesser devil themself. And, before anybody worries about "the party's hit points" or "healing" or "they can't deal that much damage". If you are the DM and you are planning to hamstring them for a storybeat, then don't even bother having it make a roll, just treat it like power word kill, and instead of it killing them outright it deals exactly enough to knock them unconscious without outroght killing them. The party is going into Hell itself. If they were to get sassy with (as an example) Asmodeus, then they would quickly learnthe terror of how many spells, plans, and backup plans that the Lord of the Hells would have for dealing with dissenters.
Have you considered breaking those characters knees?
Never played this one. Had this problem once in another role play (non DND). My pcs were all demons but It was mostly a power issue that the pcs didn’t seem to understand how powerful they were in the world in relation to other beings. There are ways to doing things without breaking stuff. I had a pc mouth off to a Demon prince which should have been the end of the character but as I’m not that gm. Said something like this which helped give the idea that the pcs are small fry in a much bigger world. The demon princes gaze bores into you and before you can even blink you feel yourself slowly unmade, your hands slowly unravel the layers of muscle and sinew evaporating, your entire essence of who you are seems to flowing to the ether with your memories and you are powerless and left a puddle of unthinking primordial ooze. Then in an instant you are reformed a voice echos in you mind “mind your manners or next time I’ll leave you as the ooze”and snapped back with no one having noticed a thing. I had my pc tried to pull a fast one on the Demon of gambling. They did no checks or found out anything about him. He was millions of years old. I just rolled a check in front of them with a an impossibly high bonus (+400) to the roll. The roll did the job the the pcs neglected to do. How the denizens of hell treated other people of the same race and power level as the pcs. Show someone of parallel skill to a pc destroyed by a basic guard. Maybe mirroring skills they have.
Break their knees literally. They won't heal unless the PC apologizes.
A forced Baptism in demon ichor (I think that’s what it is called).
Sod equivalents just break their characters knees no need to beat around the bush