Balors - Not as Strong as they're Cracked Up to Be?

[Khisanth the Ancient]

A balor can, using its physical attacks, deal a maximum of 67 points of damage in a round. A marilith, supposedly its inferior, can deal a maximum of 102 points of damage! What's going on here? Though the balor has 25 hp more than the marilith andsome extra spell-like powers (fire storm, implosion, and unhallow , for example) it's missing the marilith's powers of cloudkill, chaos hammer, magic weapon , and magic circle against good , and possibly others.

I think the balor was put in the top spot due to HD, and that very HD increase was because of its connectons to the Balrog of Tolkien and He of the Evil Eye, Lord of the Fomor, Balor in Irish myth.

 

[The Serge]

Two words:

Vorpal sword.

That instant kill sword the Balor runs around with can be murder (pun intended) on parties of all levels.

 

[Khisanth the Ancient]

The marilith just says, "weapon." What if a marilith had 6 +5 vorpal greatswords ?

That aside, it has to roll a natural 20 - then hit - to kill with that sword. Not much of a threat, especially since to confirm it'd have to deal with the full plate +5 - and don't forget the bracers of armor +8 and shield +5 that the PCs are going to have at 19th level. Oh, I almost forgot the ring of protection +5 !

 

[The Serge]

The marilith is not likely to have more than one vorpal weapon... if any at all. She's more likely to have weapons within her treasure maximum.

The balor, however, will have magic items in addition to the vorpal sword that may make it even more deadly within its treasure limit.

 

[Khisanth the Ancient]

Even so, I don't think that a merely +1 vorpal weapon is too much of a threat ... can you say "death ward"? IMO, if you don't have Keen, Improved Critical, or Augmented Critical, vorpal isn't too bad xcept in the high epic (30+) level range. I mean, it's probably a 1/40 chance .... and most combats don't last even 10 rounds (25% approx chance of a crit).