Balors Suck

[Shin Okada]

After a round of attacks from the holy bow and favored enemy, the balor will use telekinesis to try to rob the ranger of his weapon.

Balor is large sized creature (+4) and using a whip (+2). And Balor's STR is higher than it's CHA. So using whip for disarming could be better.

 

[Elephant]

Um. Balors have Blasphemy as an at-will spell-like ability.

Blasphemy causes anything up to 20 HD to lose its actions for the turn.

Therefore, 1 Balor plus any demonic or ranged ally = TPK. The Balor gets into range of all PCs and casts Blasphemy, and his ally chips away at the dazed PCs one at a time. It could take a while, but eventually all the PCs will die.

There are three possible defenses.

1. Spell Resistance.
2. PCs are spread out too much for a single Blasphemy to affect them all.
3. PCs win init and drop the Balor's caster level below their HD (or kill it in 1 round, I suppose).

I would suggest that Balor A does the Blasphemy while Balor B charges his first victim. The next round, Balor A does something else, and the two Balors start arguing.

B: "You were supposed to Blaspheme!"
A: "Blasphemy was getting boring. I want to shed their mortal blood!"
B: "I can't believe I have to work for such a putz!"

etc...

 

[Runestar]

A single silence spell negates blasphemy entirely...

 

[akbearfoot]

I have trouble with my suspension of disbelief that one balor would cooperate with another balor to kill off some mere mortals...In fact it makes more sense if the summoned balor were to try and HELP the PCs since if the gated balor dies then he is dead dead....less competition for the next promotion etc...

'What's this!? You interrupt my (insert evil deeds)! And for what? To step on these tiny insignifigant insects! How dare you!"

Gating in the lesser demons who would be pretty much have to be subservient, or else, seems to make a lot more sense to me....and removes the obvious auto-TPK scenario.



On the strength reduction......unless it says ability damage then it shouldn't be treated as such...Already you're talking about each character taking the worst of -2d6 rolled twice, and nobody getting an action for at least 1 round. Incidently, I think blasphemy should be replaced with something that isnt rediculously overpowered, badly edited, or clearly superior to its supposed counterparts. It's like giving a gatling gun to someone whos supposed to be equipped with a 6 shooter.

 

[Runestar]

I have trouble with my suspension of disbelief that one balor would cooperate with another balor to kill off some mere mortals...In fact it makes more sense if the summoned balor were to try and HELP the PCs since if the gated balor dies then he is dead dead....less competition for the next promotion etc...

From a RAW POV, the summon demon ability mimics the summon monster spell, meaning that the balor brought in this way has to obey its summoner, regardless of the command. So you won't have this sort of problem.

For example, there is nothing in the rules preventing a CE necromancer from summoning an astral deva and ordering him to slaughter everyone in the village.

 

[akbearfoot]

I know they have to follow orders, but have you ever seen how evil creatures are so good at twisting around the intent of a 'contract'... It seems strange to me that they can even gate in other balors in the first place...I can just imagine a war on a battlefield someplace in a lower plane where every round random balor who are the generals and leaders disappear and reappear someplace else only to loose control of all his troops. At the very least I would expect the summoned balor would exact a hefty price for his aid, and I dont imagine some of the most powerful outsiders around liking to owe favors.

Oops, I caught you in the area of my greater dispel magic...Oops I took a step backwards instead of forwards and now the good guys can flank you, that sort of thing. If the balor cast dominate monster on some 3rd party baddie THAT monster wouldn't be bound by the non-aggression rule.

Similar to the twisting I would expect of a Effreeti was granting one of my characters a wish, I would expect meddling..

That is all in the spirit of flavor, rather than RAW.

 

[Runestar]

That just ends up adding an extra level of complexity to the battle. I think the idea is that you can manoeuvre them like chess pieces. Like I said, it is a summoning ability, not a gating one.

Who really cares what happens between them outside of the 5 rounds they face the PCs anyways?

 

[Starbuck_II]

A single silence spell negates blasphemy entirely...

Only from casting; not from hearing.

 

[Runestar]

Only from casting; not from hearing.

Not quite. As a SLA, the blasphemy spell has no verbal or somatic component, so silence will not prevent a balor from using it. It does however, have the "sonic" descriptor, meaning that the target must actually be able to hear it to be affected by it. Thus, silence blocks out blasphemy and protects the PCs inside, because they cannot hear the blasphemy. Alternatively, the players can just plug their ears.

Yes, you heard me right - a 2nd lv cleric spell negates a 7th lv spell completely. That is a fairly common problem in 3e - abilities are either broken or useless depending on what sort of countermeasures are in place, few in-betweens.

 

[Crust]

Yes, you heard me right - a 2nd lv cleric spell negates a 7th lv spell completely. That is a fairly common problem in 3e - abilities are either broken or useless depending on what sort of countermeasures are in place, few in-betweens.

If I was DM, and I knew the party cleric prayed for this spell often, I'd augment my balors with quickened spell-like ability: blasphemy, bombard the cleric with greater dispels at range, then hit the party with a quickened blasphemy immediately afterward. During the following round, I'd use blasphemy/quickened blasphemy while the other balor (the one that was summoned, not gated) wades into melee, using the coup de grace where necessary.

After all, the demons should converge on anyone who appears capable of using banishment in any way. Holy symbols, an overall pious appearance, blunt weapons in conjunction with heavy armor, divine spellcasting (such as silence), etc. are all giveaways.

Also, keep in mind that a silence spell negates any verbal coordination between PCs, whereas the demons can speak to each other telepathically if within the radius of the silence. That's assuming the players role-play properly and avoid blurting things out that the PCs shouldn't be able to hear. That's something my players would do, and they'd feign ignorance in the process. Very annoying.