Bastion of broken souls advice 3.5 beware some info in here

[Outcast]

My party are all lvl 18 and we are goin to play BABS ,still i think the quest will be way harder now.
Lots of creautures in this quest have gone up considerably.
Balors went to cr 20, solars to cr 23. What do you think should i make the encounters easier now because some encounters will rise from Cr19 to CR 22 or one even went up to CR 19 >CR 24/25
(solar and planetar)

 

[Halivar]

Easy. Use 3.0 monster stats.

Really, there's no need to so stringently stick to 3.5 rules if it's going to break the 3.0 module you're trying to use. In general, you should continue to use 3.0 monster stats for adventures that were playtested for 3.0, unless you have some experience writing your own adventures from scratch.

 

[Geoff Watson]

3.0 balors (and most of the high-CR demons) are pathetically weak for their CR.
I've been advancing them to double their hit dice and they still die like flies against a high-level group.

Geoff.

 

[gfunk]

3.0 balors (and most of the high-CR demons) are pathetically weak for their CR.
I've been advancing them to double their hit dice and they still die like flies against a high-level group.

Geoff.

Amen!

 

[GrayIguana]

Ditto

3.0 balors (and most of the high-CR demons) are pathetically weak for their CR.
I've been advancing them to double their hit dice and they still die like flies against a high-level group.

I'm glad to see someone else had this problem too. I thought it was just me. The group I DM for is at 16 to 17th level. They went up against two Mariliths, and just walked over them. It was embarrassing. Then they met the Balor for what was to be the grand finale. They stomped it so quickly, I thought I had to have been playing it incorrectly.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Easy. Use 3.0 monster stats.

I disagree. This won't solve the problem, and neither will advancing the balors.

Many high CR 3.0 creatures are not well-rounded. They might have good offense but poor defense, or they're too resistant to magic but fighters see them as practice dummies, etc. Simply bumping stats or advancing them rarely does the trick.

The new 3.5 fiends look a lot more balanced to me (I've used both the spined and bone devils, the former making a really fun encounter), and they look more well-rounded to me (eg adequate saves, AC, attack bonus, etc).

IMO you shouldn't use the new monsters either if they're likely to slaughter the players. Simply substituting a 3.5 creature if the CR hasn't changed should work well, but if the CR has changed you should probably use another creature of appropriate CR instead. So, instead of balors, use something that is actually CR 18

 

[Duke Frinn]

If you are willing to wait untill 3.5 actually comes out, the Marilith is now CR 18.

 

[Halivar]

Good point, SeveredHead.

I'd like to throw beholders at my players, but they're level 4. They'll just have to wait.

It seems appropriate, anyhow, that denizens of the abyss should be part of an epic campaign, not "undergraduate" work.