Resolving problem with pentagrams and wish contest of wills

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by warhorse11h

ITL LE pg 80 says that a demon may not enter or leave a pentagram or attack across the border of a pentagram. But that leaves what seems to be a valid question. Does a teleporting being pass through barriers or simply disappear from one place and reappear in another? If so, can the demon escape to attack the wizard by teleporting out of the pentagram.

No. Teleporting is the standard way demons move. So there would be no reason for the rules to mention wizards using pentagrams when summoning demons if they were near-zero obstacle to them. Therefore, clearly pentagrams block teleportation across them.

Originally Posted by warhorse11h

Also, a pentagram cannot stop a physical attack from a non-magical creature. So, if the demon materializes outside of the pentagram and picks up the party's barbarian and throws him at the wizard standing in the middle of the pentagram, does the barbarian hit the wizard and knock him out of the pentagram, or does he stop when he hits the pentagram?

Yes. That's why the standard approach mentioned is to summon a demon inside a pentagram. Of course, one might also assume a pentagram blocks a wizard from summoning across it, unless the wizard himself is inside the pentagram too. If it also blocked the contest of wills, and especially if the contest of will involved having to be adjacent to the demon, that would help a bit, but still a 4d attack is vastly more survivable (especially with the Legacy dying rules) than the original result of being immediately killed.