D&D 5E Balor vs Pit Fiend

A run a simulation for both over 40 rounds. Not because either would survive 40 rounds, but to get a good average damage per round, including crits.

Assumptions:
Everything hits
Balor could reliably hit 4 targets per round with the fire aura (might be conservative)
Pit Fiend didn't bother with Fireball since it's a DPR loss compared to just wading in and attacking.
No advanced tactics or anything, like teleporting. This is just to measure expected damage potential.

Balor:
CR 19
HP 262
Average DPR for all attacks is 141

This might be playstyle variance but I find that estimate implausibly high. Even if it somehow manages to hit with all of its attacks that's still only 60ish damage per round, so it would have to be inflicting flame damage on the PCs eight times per round, which will only ever happen in an extremely melee-heavy party who are all consistently hitting the Balor every round (eight hits probably means about three attacks per turn from about four melee-only PCs), which means that the Balor is about to die messily anyway.

Are you sure you really meant 141 DPR? Your assumptions above (four flame targets per round) would yield a DPR of only around 100, which still seems high but less implausibly so.
 

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Chaosmancer

Legend
If you had the two of them duking it out, the Pit Fiend would probably end up winning, because they are both immune to fire.

Balor's fire aura does nothing, and their official attack routine is lightning sword and fire whip, can't (by RAW) use the sword twice. Meaning the Balor is only pulling out 6d8+8 a turn. Though it crits big.

Pit Fiend (if it can't get Hold Monster to stick) is going to hit with almost everything, just losing out on it's poison and fire. So 4d6+8, 2d8+8, 2d6+8, and 3d10+8. Which is 6d6+2d8+3d10+32 damage every round.


Now then, about sending them against a party. I'd be incredibly cautious. Most groups can punch well above their weight class, especially against a solo monster. And frankly, both the Balor and Pit Fiend have low enough hp totals that a 9th level party could realistically drop them.

However, that is part of the problem. These guys are supposed to be second only to the God-like beings they serve. If they can be taken out by level 9, they may not fulfill that role of terror they are supposed to.

Alternatively, they deal enough damage and each has a nasty trick that could lead to a TPK.

The Pit Fiends poison is a huge deal, it hits hard and prevents healing, and if the Pit Fiend focuses all four attacks on a single party member, they average 120 damage, which will drop all but the absolute toughest 9th level heroes.

Balors on the other hand average less damage without their aura (only 59 with their two attacks), but if they can keep people in the aura and then explode, it can get real nasty.

Both would be way too terrifying with the minion support they are expected to have.
 

Chaosmancer

Legend
Also, in case you're curious, against two 9th level melee Champions with +1 swords and three 9th level archer Champions with +1 bows, the Pit Fiend wins approximately 90% of the matches, and the Balor wins approximately 0%. At best, the Balor can take down one or two PCs and then explode in a big ball of fire, maybe insta-killing another PC who is low on HP. That probably makes the Balor the right choice for a 9th level group for most players, unless your players really thrive on challenge.

I was using these stats:



Edit: I see I forgot about the Balor's flame aura, which would have killed the melee Champions slightly quicker--but the bulk of the damage is being done by the archers anyway, and they may very well get off a couple of shots before the Balor can close. The smart strategy for the melee champions might be to stay out of its flame aura (note that since the Balor's attacks both have more than 5' range, it can't use opportunity attacks to keep enemies within the flame aura) while Dodging or Helping the Sharpshooters do damage. Depends on the situation though.


Does this include the Balor's teleportation, or flight speed. Balor is smart enough to charge the archers. If he can teleport (which may take an action) or Fly dash (160ft) he can likely close on the archers, turning this into a melee instead of a ranged fight and making it much harder on the players. Unless they are in an absolutely huge area with no cover and we're talking sniping the thing from 600ft away.

Also, Balor Triple Crits, which I didn't know when I started looking at these two
 

Does this include the Balor's teleportation, or flight speed. Balor is smart enough to charge the archers. If he can teleport (which may take an action) or Fly dash (160ft) he can likely close on the archers, turning this into a melee instead of a ranged fight and making it much harder on the players. Unless they are in an absolutely huge area with no cover and we're talking sniping the thing from 600ft away.

Also, Balor Triple Crits, which I didn't know when I started looking at these two

The sim doesn't take account of distance at all--it basically assumes a tiny little 30' cavern or something. Archers back off to 10' before firing (doesn't trigger an opportunity attack because the Balor has no 5' attacks). Teleportation is a waste of an action, just gives the PCs more time to shoot it. Ditto if he Dashes while flying.

You're right, I overlooked the triple crit on the Balor's longsword. (Oddly, its flame whip doesn't get this extra damage.) Realistically, this is most relevant for finishing off downed PCs with an insta-kill. I don't think it changes the basic result, which is that the Balor is a deadly but plausibly fair fight for 9th level PCs, while the Pit Fiend probably is not.

I do think that both Balor and Pit Fiend are pretty lame compared to AD&D Balors and Pit Fiends, respectively. The fact that the 5E Pit Fiend cannot even teleport, let alone cast spells like Animate Dead, Disguise Self, and Suggestion, makes me gasp because it so limits their out-of-combat infiltration capabilities and plot potential. :) The omission is easily corrected though, as are their weapon immunities (Balor should fear cold iron) and the Pit Fiend's lack of regeneration.
 

UnknownDyson

Explorer
It depends. The Pit Fiend has greater action economy but both the balor and the pit fiend are immune to fire and poison. In a straight up fight the the pit fiend still has more attacks and thus does more damage. But with that being said, what you could do with the balor is have it drop the flame whip, (which is useless on the pit fiend) and have it two hand it's lightning blade. This would ensure that it does a lot more damage, and if the balor is able to get a crit, that could be the difference. Remember that the balor has 4e crits, so if it gets one it could do a ton of damage.

Also, to the OP's second question demons and devils absolutely hate each other. You should google D&D Blood war. It would most likely be kill on sight for either, unless there was some objective that they had that prevented them from acting on that hatred.
 
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Jer

Legend
Supporter
Also, to the OP's second question demons and devils absolutely hate each other. You should google D&D Blood war. It would most likely be kill on sight for either, unless there was some objective that they had that prevented them from acting on that hatred.

Even if you're not using the Blood War, balors and pit fiends should likely hate each other. They're two very powerful evil entities with their own agendas that are likely to come into conflict just due to the differences between a Lawful Evil view of the world and a Chaotic Evil one. Add to that the fact that they're both very powerful and used to being able to bully lesser beings into backing down and you have the makings of a brutal fight if they both try to go "alpha fiend" on each other. At best the pit fiend might be able to trick the balor into working for it, but the balor is going to be very angry when it finds out... and now I have an idea for an adventure that I'm going to need to wait until my PCs are higher level to run. I need to make some notes...
 

CTurbo

Explorer
Thanks for the answers guys. I can see now that the Pit Fiend does pretty much have twice the attacks that the Balor has which is a little weird. Seems like the high level Balor would get more attacks. As far as 1v1 goes, the Pit Fiend is immune to most of the Balor's best abilities, but the Balor is NOT immune to the Pit Fiend's Fear Aura. That alone should allow the Pit Fiend to win most of the time.

I think I'll have the party get confronted by the Pit Fiend early on when they wouldn't have a hope in hell of beating it only for it to be interrupted by a Balor who attacks the Pit Fiend and the party can escape during the epic battle.
 
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Thanks for the answers guys. I can see now that the Pit Fiend does pretty much have twice the attacks that the Balor has which is a little weird. Seems like the high level Balor would get more attacks.

You'd think they should, but 5E Balors are notoriously weak, because so much of their offensive power is tied up in their death burst.
 

discosoc

First Post
**Edit**
A double checked my math again after typing out this response, and now realize the mistake I made. I misread their multiattack as being Longsword x2 and Whip x1, when it should be just one longsword attack. I'm not going to adjust the rest of the post, in case anyone is curious, but my DPR value is about 20% to high as a result.
*******

This might be playstyle variance but I find that estimate implausibly high. Even if it somehow manages to hit with all of its attacks that's still only 60ish damage per round,

The sim I wrote doesn't bother with to hit values in DPR. It's purpose is to evaluate damage potential, not try and account for target AC's. Especially with a +14 to hit... But, a Balor that hits with all it's melee attacks is doing about 95.5 damage per round.

so it would have to be inflicting flame damage on the PCs eight times per round, which will only ever happen in an extremely melee-heavy party who are all consistently hitting the Balor every round (eight hits probably means about three attacks per turn from about four melee-only PCs), which means that the Balor is about to die messily anyway.

My estimate of hitting 4 targets per round with Flame Aura assumed 2 melee fighters that each hit the fiend twice. Remember, Flame Aura triggers both when someone strikes it, and for just being next to it when the Balor starts its turn. So that's generally going to be 3 triggers per person, or 6 triggers each round. Each trigger is 3d6 damage, for an average 63 damage per round of just the Flame Aura.

Are you sure you really meant 141 DPR? Your assumptions above (four flame targets per round) would yield a DPR of only around 100, which still seems high but less implausibly so.

I don't have the sim results saved (it's literally just a javascript-backed Google Sheets document I built to help me evaluate CRs for monsters), but I'll explain a bit of the math behind it. Keep in mind that it's not meant to simulate all the variances of combat or tactics or random swings in luck.

1. All damage is averaged.
2. Damage is evaluated for 40 rounds of combat. For monsters, I do this because it makes it easy to assume crit rates (2 crits per attack), and I can easily calculate how often something like a Breath Weapon recharges. For the Balor, this meant that out of the 120 attacks it makes over the 40 rounds, 114 deal normal damage, and 6 deal critical damage.
3. I then add damage modifiers that don't get multiplied with a crit, such as ability mods.
4. Damage totals are then divided by 40 to arrive at an average DPR.

In the Balor's case, it has 3 attacks plus the flame aura. The attacks do 6d8/6d8/5d6 and the flame aura is calculated separately (as above). Each hits 38 times and crits 2 times. The hits do 1,026/1,026/665 and the crits (Longsword crits are x3 rather than the normal x2) do 81/81/35. Flame Aura is doing 63 per round, or 2,520 in total. The only damage modifiers that apply now are the Balors' STR bonus of +8 for all 140 attacks, for a total of 1,120. Add all this up and you get 6,554 total damage over 40 rounds of combat. Which comes out to 163.85 DPR.

That total is actually higher than my first post of 141 DPR, and the reason is because my original sim forgot to factor the the 2 passive triggers of Flame Aura (ironic, I know).

Anyway, keep in mind that my sim is meant to be a balancing tool for a GM to evaluate the combat strength of a monster. I have another one written for character classes that goes further and actually accounts for hit chance against all AC's from 10-26, but that's not what this topic really called for.

Having said that, I can plainly see now that I need to update it to factor in just as many auto-misses (from rolling a 1) as it does crits, because the current build does not do it. Factoring the 6 misses into it lowers the DPR to 159.4.
 
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My estimate of hitting 4 targets per round with Flame Aura assumed 2 melee fighters that each hit the fiend twice. Remember, Flame Aura triggers both when someone strikes it, and for just being next to it when the Balor starts its turn. So that's generally going to be 3 triggers per person, or 6 triggers each round. Each trigger is 3d6 damage, for an average 63 damage per round of just the Flame Aura.

But why would the Balor ever start its turn with someone next to it? That would imply that they willingly stood within the flames on their own turn, despite being able to exit the flames without taking an opportunity attack.

In the Balor's case, it has 3 attacks plus the flame aura. The attacks do 6d8/6d8/5d6 and the flame aura is calculated separately (as above).

See, this is the root of our different results. We seem to be using different stats. The Balor I'm familiar with does 6d8+8 and then 5d6+8. I don't know where this other 6d8 is coming from. The Balor doesn't get two attacks with its Longsword.

The Balor doesn't make 140 attacks over 40 rounds, it only makes 80 attacks, so you're giving it way too much damage on the static modifier too. Instead of 1026+1026+665+81+81+35+2520+1120=6554 damage, 163 DPR, your method and assumptions should yield 1026+665+81+35+2520+640=4967 damage, 124 DPR.

So of the difference between our calculations, a small fraction (10 DPR or so) comes from ignoring to-hit, which is partially cancelled out to the tune of ~1.5 DPR by the fact that I overlooked triple-crits; between 22-63 DPR comes from differing assumptions about the value of the flame shield and the frequency with which it can be assumed to trigger; and 35 DPR comes from adding a second lightning longsword attack.

OP can look at those numbers and make a guesstimate as to which monster going to be appropriate for their party.
 

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