Balors Suck

[Runestar]

I can't be the only one who has permanancied telepathic bond on my entire party...(though that can be dispelled). Likewise, blasphemy technically cannot be quickened (since a balor possesses only caster lv20 and can thus only quicken up to 6th lv spells).

Silence is far from foolproof, I agree, but it is the most efficient. I mean, the other solutions - greater spell immunity and spell resistance, aren't cheap and thus not practical to cast on the entire party.

 

[Shin Okada]

Silence brings serious problem on the party casters unless they can cast silent version of the spells on the fly. At that level, Mass Spell Resistance could be more practical protection spell. But this brings other problem, too. Party healer may fail to overcome SR when trying to heal his comrades.

 

[Crust]

Ah, balor's caster level... right. OK, so they both use quickened greater dispels and THEN use blasphemy. And I did say "verbal" communication, of course.

My bad. The only time I've ever done the quickened blasphemy was with an advanced paerilyon devil (from the Fiend Folio) who had a caster level of 24. She happens to be the major antagonist of my current campaign.

 

[Plane Sailing]

You may have already played this by now, making it moot, but you mustn't overlook the Balors quickened telekinises every round.

It could be used for violent thrust to augment damage, but it is much better used for grapple, bull rush and similar things. After all, it gets +33 on all its opposed grapple checks and stuff!

 

[Elephant]

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.

Um, the auto-TPK scenario comes up anytime there are two demons, one of whom has Blasphemy at will. It could be a Balor and a Dretch just as easily as it could be two Balors.

As for the politics, they wouldn't come up until after the battle - the second Balor is a summoned creature at that point, after all.

 

[Infiniti2000]

You may have already played this by now, making it moot, but you mustn't overlook the Balors quickened telekinises every round.

Not too late, just starting in a few minutes. I didn't forget the telekinesis which is why I had the other thread started (with only one reply, I guess telekinesis is as hard as I thought if only one person wanted to make a stab at answering questions). However, there's only 3 quickened telekineses, based on the feat; they're not infinite like the regular telekinesis.

Thanks all! I'll let you know how it went.

 

[Infiniti2000]

Thanks all! I'll let you know how it went.

First chance he got, the cleric gated in a solar. The balors fled. We then quickly decided that gate was broken (no 'duh) and limited the CR of the gated creature to be no higher than the caster level. Instead he chose a planetar because something like a radiant dragon would've taken too much time to build on the spot.

In short, the heroes survived and defeated both balors. The first one (Gated) teleported out at around 40 hp. The summoned one eventually exploded and only hurt the druid, her companion, and the fighter (thanks to a wall of force, I ruled the death throes was a burst). Out of all the sword attacks, I never got a 20.

Telekinesis was useful, but limited because it requires concentration. Every round the balors wanted to try something more effective, thus losing their concentration. The planetar was useful in tying up both balors for several rounds and her last action was waves of exhaustion, which failed to penetrate SR of one, but got the other. That seriously affected him as he got into melee with the druid (dire tiger, fully buffed with some other broken 9th level spell that grants haste and +10 on attacks and damage) and her animal companion that tripped him.