Imagin you are a Balor...

[Monsterknuffel]

... and allowed to take 1-2 epic feats, what would you choose ?

Normally this would be a problem which is nice to have, but i can´t decide somehow. the only really strong i found was epic spellcasting. but epic spells are... epic... quite to strong for the party now. And it´s the first time i work with epic level monsters.

Right now i am Dming Bastion of Broken Souls. The Cathezar is slain, the 2nd string (3 advanced balors) appear. if the 3 balors all come at once this can be kind a hard fight. But i am also thinking about the option to let them battle one higher level balor alone. maybe with some followers. So.. what would you choose ?

 

[Shin Okada]

Depends on their level. But when I play epic level games (usually in NWN/NWN2 PC games) Overwhelming Critical and then Devastating Critical.

But if I were you I don't use advanced Balor. Cathezar is CR 22 and 3.5e Balor is CR 20. 2 Balors are EL 22 encounter already. Also, if you let appear advanced Balor, Ammet may seem weak.

 

[Monsterknuffel]

I am awar of the 3.5 CR ^^ I already used Cathezar + summoned Balor
The tactic was distracting with the balor (dominating,which didn´t work ) and grabbing Dydds descendant with the Cathezar. => both were killed in about 3 rounds. The Cathezar couldnt reach the descendant because he was well defended. and the cathezar before he could flee was killed with about 150dmg in one round. (thanks to lucky dice rolls from the melee char). 3 pcs were nearly dead (5 to -8 hit points). The evil duo got killed with the wraith strike + power weapon combo. (wraith strike = touch attack, power weapon = damage is force effect) It was the third try to get the descendant.

Their weakness is long ranged combat. Which they can bypass with teleport. The party consists of 2 psions, 1 rogue/warblade 2wepaon fighting sneaker, a binder, and a Buff sorcerer (warweaver) with his warhulk cohort. (whichs makes about 50-100 dmg in one round).

The Pcs are now before the solar encounter, which will be their hardest (even harder as the cathezar) and are about lvl 18.

The problem with Ammet: i don´t think they will fight Ammet. And if, i will come up with a good idea then.^^ Ammet comes right after Ashardalon. The players will be severly weakened which makes the "maybe" Ammet encounter tough enough.

 

[Runestar]

The 3.5 solar doesn't really strike me as dangerous (if anything, its cr seems artificially inflated by its glut of SLAs/Spellcasting which it should not have the opportunity to spam. But let us know how that fight turns out, my party has never fought a solar before.

None of the epic feats strike me as being particularly useful to a balor. Nor do I think it can qualify for epic spellcasting anyways (SLAs =/= spells). Probably superior initiative for lack of a better alternative.

 

[Shin Okada]

The 3.5 solar doesn't really strike me as dangerous (if anything, its cr seems artificially inflated by its glut of SLAs/Spellcasting which it should not have the opportunity to spam. But let us know how that fight turns out, my party has never fought a solar before.

It is off-topic. But I am planning to run the same mod within few months and wondering if I should replace the Solar with something weaker.

The main reason is that now Solar's CR is 23 and thus higher than that of Titan she is caging. And 3.5e Solar has "DR 15/Epic and Evil" and regeneration which only Epic Evil weapon or Evil spells can cause lethal damages. It seems very hard to kill the thing for a non-evil party.

 

[Monsterknuffel]

Solar is very hard indeed. e.g the miracle -> time stop combo (what are 5k exp for a cr 23 creature if it kills the entire evil party and gains as much exp when they are dead.

They had an evil epic weapon, but they sold it :/ Blade of Fiery might from the Iron Fortress.

I will tell you how it went out, though i expect some dead Pcs (well they didn´t die much anyway ^^) and i won´t go easy on them, because they are 6 people with sufficient equipment to beat it imo. Maybe i will let away the acompanying Planetar^^

I will overthink the Crit Combo feats, though they also seem very badass. maybe somethink else. or just one of them^^

 

[Monsterknuffel]

Encounter is over^^



The fight took about 2 and a half hours but brought them to the end of their resources. They made it in 2 runs. The first one: The Solar startet with Miracle -> Timestop and buffs like Sublime Revelry, Spell turning and summon Elemental Monolith (Air). Then it attacked with its bow and it was even able to chop of ones head with a nat 20 confirmed ^-^ (the players wanted that i roll the greatsword rolls open, that everybody can see it ^^)
The Planetar was not able to do that much. It did cast Last Judgement. it was down, and later it threw a Flame Strike, a Dictum and a Holy word on the party, which banished some to the material plane.
The party nearly brought the Solar into unconciusness 3 times (about 10hp left) but heal and mass heal helped. They attacked with a number of odems from the Binder, masses of counterspells and dispells from the psion because of the globe of invulnerability, The Sorcerer opened his qiescent weaving, with heroism, snake swiftness and other stuff. including the white raven tactics which made their main melee fighter (ther sorc cohort) a Warhulk something, attack over and over again. (i was very greatful for the major cloak of displacement) The Solar attacked with it´s bow mostly + the dancing sword. Because of the counterspells i couldn´t bring up many aggressive spells. The sorcerer attacked with maximized empowered arcane fusion? (don´t know the exact name) combined with the Wings of flurry, for big amounts of dmg (about 150 with a failed save) After all their resources where used up, inclusive belts of battle, chrono charms etc etc. they fleed, taking the vorpal greatsword from the solar with them.
The second run on the Solar was a classical teleport kill which i didn´t stand a chance because of a high iniative buff from the sorcerer.
But in the end, they couldn´t have won against the Solar because of the Level difference. my players + cohorts are all 17-18. The Solar just needed to cast Holy Word. They would have been in the area up to -5 caster level and thoug they would have been deafened, blinden and paralyzed without save. But a normal Party for this adventure would at least be lvl 19 at this encounter, so they wouldn´t have to worry about that spell.^^
=> Solar down but not dead. It took them about 3 hours ingame to find speels with evil descriptor or an evil aligned epic weapon.


To the Feats: i think i will take epic dodge and maybe superior initiative.^^

 

[Runestar]

How are you able to duplicate time stop via miracle? Is it available as a 8th lv domain spell somewhere?

Good point about its regeneration though. I completely overlooked it (too used to good PCs facing foes whose defenses required good aligned weapons/spells to overcome).

 

[Monsterknuffel]

I used the 5000 exp part from the Miracle spell to gain the more powerful version of Miracle.

Yes it was very funny. "hmm the Solar is k.o, and where is the key ?Where is the gateway entrance ? *search search search search search*

 

[s-dub]

Is the summon elemental monolith spell's duration concentration, or concentration + X rounds?

I just checked online and it appears to be "Concentration, up to 1 round/level", so I'm wondering if the Solar had a feat/ability that allowed it to concentrate on a spell while fighting.