Alyrium Denryle wrote:The contract was only to deliver a mage of pure heart to the demon. SO you "capture" an good mage(or tell him the situation and get him to come along) then you "deliver" the mage to the demon, with a full repetoire of banishment spells if applicable, or other spells if not.
contract is TECHNICALLY fulfilled
Assuming "deliver" means "bring to my home plane", which it should, then Banishment won't really do much.
Also, I'd imagine that the demon would be expecting the mage to resist, and probably has a method of restraining him once he has arrived.
I'd also wonder what mage would let himself be taken in such a manner that, if he failed in this one in a million shot of beating a demon one on one (and let's be honest, this is a fiend we're talking about, that's a tough bastard right there, especially if he's on his home plane), he would either die or be used in the creation of an abomination that would result in untold suffering. Why not stay at home, or attempt to raise an army against the fiend? Just because someone is good and pure, doesn't mean that they're going to be willing to throw their life away on a whim.
I liken this to the example of the fifth level paladin versus the Ancient Red Dragon with standard issue captured princess. The Paladin knows that the Dragon is going to kill the princess, in fact, he's watching from not-so-far away (hidden, either by magic or by skill) as the dragon gets ready to strike the killing blow on the bound princess.
According to some people, the Paladin should rush to her rescue, no matter the odds, because it is the right thing to do, never mind that they would both die anyway (and quite possibly take the party down as well). This is what I would like to call the "Stupid Good" argument. This argument is also applied to villians who do abysmally stupid things, like slaughter a town because, well, that's so EVIL.
However, I would argue that the Paladin should not have to throw his life away, and still be following the Paladin's code and his own alignment. He should know he stands no chance against the massively powerful dragon now, but he might make it his quest from that point on to slay that dragon, some day, and some day soon. So he pulls out all the stops, hunts for powerful artifacts of legend or lore that would help him in defeating this dragon, perhaps even amassing an army under his command.
So back to the wizard, truly pure of heart. He could be an archmage defending a nation against the forces of darkness, and without him, the nation's defenses would crumble, causing unimaginable death and destruction throughout the lands. Perhaps he is a parent, and is raising the next generation of archmages or heros. All of a sudden, a group of raggedy adventurers comes up and says, "Hey, yeah, you know, you've got a pure heart, right? How about coming with us to hell? See, we, uh, made a deal with a devil, and our souls are forfeit if we don't bring you down there."
"Are you mad?"
"Hey, just memorize some spells, and you'll be fine, you know? When you're done, you can just come back and everything's fine."
"And if I don't come back? What then? Will you raise my children? Will you keep my country safe? Or will you sell those to a devil as well?"
"Um...er...."
"Get out!"
"But we need you! The devil's building an abyssal war machine!"
"You want me to be a part of an abyssal war machine? Why should I not have you arrested right here and now?"
"Because, um...er...well...we want to stop him."
"By giving him what he wants?"
"Sort of...yeah."
"GUARDS!"
Unless the party, the mage, and those knights are epic level, they are going to get seriously boned. Check out what a Fiend is capable of on the Material Plane. It only gets worse on its home plane, where reinforcements are literally coming out of the walls.