Baator

Baator
ID	AR1000
Location	Outer Planes
Appearances	Planescape: Torment

The Nine Hells of Baator is a lower plane ruled by both evil and absolute law. The Baatezu, devils native to the harsh environment, are organized in a very rigid hierarchical caste system. The devils continuously plot and scheme their way up the social scale with treachery and deception. Baator is one of the key planes involved in the Blood War.

Map

To view X, Y coordinates in-game, press L.

Click the map to enlarge it.

Walkthrough

Previous Area:
Outlands
Next Area:
Pillar of Skulls

If Black Isle had just thought of rusty red sandstorms blowing across the landscape, Baator could have been pretty close to the Hell dimension in Constantine

If the player has not been following a guide, or is playing a low level game, the Abishai here could conceivably cause problems. But then, if playing a low level game, the player probably knows to just run if there are problems

The spawn on the top right can have as many as five Abishai, but there is an outcropping of rock that Annah can hide behind. Backstab and back again to restealth, repeat, will whittle down their numbers, or just Body Pull. Fireballs will periodically rain from the sky, damaging a random party member. This will occur until the area is exited.

There are spoilers all through this wiki as a matter of course, but it cannot really hurt to let this one thing about the Damsel in Distress NPC be a secret. If the player must know, or has finished the encounter already, the text below is written in white font, so just select it to view it.

The Damsel in Distress is being menaced by a Green Abishai... as the party draws near, her body transforms into the shape of...An Abishai! Already startled, the party reels as...gasp! a bunch of Lemures spawn. Noooo! Right? No big. So that is why I said it could not hurt. If Annah approaches in stealth, the Damsel turns into an Abishai anyway, but cannot see through the stealth, and is then backstabbed. What happens if a player gets the timing right, and manages to backstab the Damsel in Distress? Well, as you might expect, since the damsel disappearing and the Abishai appearing are just two a spawning and despawning of two separate creatures, and not really the same creature, the damsel dies, for 15 XP, which means we can retire now, and the Abishai and the Lemures spawn just after. Now here is where it gets interesting. The Abishai has no idea that Annah exists, which sheds some light on stealth and backstab...It seems that backstab brings a character out of stealth the same way that opening a door does; NPCs do not see the unstealthing character until after they have fully unstealthed. And they do not react to a door being opened, but they do react to a NPC being killed. Since the Abishai was not actually present when the Damsel was killed, it does not react...This means that a character should be able to kill a lone NPC and then run past other unsuspecting NPCs; the attack does not drop characters out of stealth the way it does in other games. The 'menacing' Abishai can be pulled separately, but cannot be Body Pulled. So the puller must use a ranged attack; if the puller runs back out of sight of the menacing Abishai, the Abishai goes back and kills the damsel...and no respawn this time...

The Spawn points create, randomly, either a solo Cornugon, or a group of Black, Green, or Red Abishai, or a groups of the weak Nupperibos or Lemures. Except for the Cornugons and Red Abishai, they all drop poor quality loot, which the player is probably leaving on the ground by now, or will have to soon.

These are exact locations of the center of the spawn, but the spawns can be spread out over a large area. Being spread out is great for pulling if the party creeps along, but if running up to these locations, be ready for other members of the group that might be closer

• 2000, 700
• 2800, 430
• 4400, 1000
• 3700, 800
• 1800, 1600
• 1200, 2500
• 600, 2400
• 2900, 2100

The behaviour of some of the Abishai regarding stealth makes it seem as if they can See Hidden. Annah runs away, hides, and they still follow her. But it seems to be more of a bug than anything. They head towards the party if they are nearby, even if they are out of sight (which is a small bug in itself) and so the targeting of Annah as the last person who did them damage is just an Aggression code attached to this other dodgy code, neither of which was written with stealth properly in mind. They will also head back to their spawning positions, roughly, if something goes out of sight. The player may have noticed how the shadows are sort of laggy, and move in a jerky movement, all at once. Annah can fail her stealth because of being in sight, and then the shadows wrap around her and the Abishai will just walk back to where they were because she is out of their line of sight, even though she is not stealthed.

Return to Baator

Hopefully The Nameless One remembered to ask Fhjull Forked-Tongue about the way to get back to the Outlands, so he does not have to ask the Pillar of Skulls about it, as the price for their information is high.

If the Skulls called to nearby demons to attack the party in revenge for not getting Morte back into the Pillar, four Black Abishai are summoned by a Cornugon upon the return to Baator. They do not spawn in response to telling the Pillar heads of Fhjull's location, as one guide suggests; instead, this betrayal causes two cutscenes and a battle, and turns Fhjull permanently hostile.

Head west (left), fighting or running, past approximately three spawns, including one potentially right at the portal itself, to teleport back to the Outlands zone / Area. It is in the southwest (bottom left) of the map, at 700, 2400. To run past the spawn at the portal, wait for them to come to the party, and if necessary lead them further right/east, before running back around them

Next Area:
Pillar of Skulls and then back to Baator again, to Return to the Outlands

Notes

• Baator is considerably different in Planescape: Torment than in D&D lore. Image from the CGI intro to Baator. At the time of the making of PS:T, CGIs were known as FMV, for Full Motion Video

References

The Hive

Mortuary Area (Mortuary | Gathering Dust Bar | Mausoleum) • Northwestern Area • Marketplace Area • Smoldering Corpse Area (Smoldering Corpse Bar | Fell's Tattoo Parlor) • Alley of Dangerous Angles • Ragpicker's Square

Under the Hive

Trash Warrens • Buried Village (Pharod's Court) • Weeping Stone Catacombs • Dead Nations • Warrens of Thought • Drowned Nations • Tomb of the Nameless One

Other Wards

Tenement of Thugs • Alley of Lingering Sighs • Lower Ward (Great Foundry | Bones of the Night) • Clerk's Ward (Brothel for Slaking Intellectual Lusts | Civic Festhall) • Undersigil

Mazes

Player's Maze • Modron Maze • Black-Barbed Maze

Outlands and Hells

Outer Curst (Traitor's Gate Tavern) • Inner Curst • Curst Underground • Curst Prison • Outlands • Baator (Pillar of Skulls) • Curst Gone • Curst in Carceri • Curst Administration

Fortress of Regrets

Fortress Entrance • Fortress Main Hall • Trial of Impulse • Maze of Reflections • Fortress Roof