Challenge Rating?

[Infiniti2000]

........They can't, but why would they have too? All it takes is focusing on a spot, then littering the area with darknesses.

Darkness is a touch spell -- specifically object touched. Some might even argue that the ground is not a valid target (I would allow it). Thus, each demon must cast darkness and touch the ground pretty much at its location. To cast it somewhere else, he needs to move (half-speed through darkness, not even making it out) first. If he teleports, then that's his action that round. This is not a quick process by any stretch of the imagination.

As soon as they are in favorable positions(via teleport), dispel the darkness and go sneak attack and summon crazy.

I see absolutely no reason to litter the field with darknesses just to dispel them. I don't agree with the term "crazy." Each of the two babau demons gets the chance to summon one more babau demon, at best equaling the party in numbers. And that's a total 16% chance (40% each). Not likely.

This does take actions, but you can't really do anything in magical darkness other than feel around or dispel it.

Darkness grants concealment, nothing more. The PCs can otherwise see just fine and target the demons with spells, weapons, etc. While the demons are hopping around putting darkness everywhere, the PCs are beating the snot out of them with missile weapons and spells.

All it takes is initiative and they effectively start the battle flanking and out numbering the pc's.

Flanking? Definitely not. One demon can teleport into position and then the other one can, but neither will act immediately. It would be more difficult to gain flanking while teleporting around than simply moving.

They weren't summoned, the pc's happened across a gate and the walked through(I should also say that since their summoning ability is figured into cr, if two babau's roll extremely well then two babaus become 4=cr 8). I can take 2 babaus, and given a single surprise round(they are the assassin demons, why would they jump around and make noise and wade into hand to hand combat without position) and destroy 4 level 10's

A simple protection from evil helps tremendously against the other babaus (though dispels could help). A simple daylight totally negates all of the darkness spells, thereby actually helping the demons by letting them sneak attack.

Anyway, we digress. My point is that I feel your assumption on the babau demon that it should be CR9 is incorrect. There might be some monsters out there that have the wrong CR, but not likely in the MM. I'll give an example of a non-MM monster that is way under-CR'd: the rilmani. I hate them with the burning passion of a thousand fiery suns.

 

[Gansk]

I'll give an example of a non-MM monster that is way under-CR'd: the rilmani. I hate them with the burning passion of a thousand fiery suns.

Hmmm.... I wonder why that is?

As for the babau, the easy way to take them out is to introduce them to their new arch-enemy: the vivacious dire tiger.

(Inside references for Infiniti only - please ignore and carry on)

 

[IcyCool]

gogo_jerrick, were you using the alternate critical hit system you posted in this forum earlier?

As a rule, if something seems overpowered, check the house rules first.

Aside from that, I'm absolutely shocked that two Babaus took out a party of 4 10th level characters. Even with fantastic rolling for the Babaus and poor rolling for the PCs. The only reason I could see for the players losing is through a mix of poor strategy and extremely favorable conditions to the Babaus. Could you explain in more detail the fight? Could you give a rough idea of what classes the PCs were? Were there any house rules that affected the fight?

If you can give us a better idea of what happened, maybe we can help more.

That being said, I don't think that Babaus should be a higher challenge rating.

Some of the critters in the Monster Manual 3 are under CR'd, so use them carefully.

Also, all dragons are under cr'd. This was intentional, so that dragons made for a hard fight. Keep that in mind when throwing them at the PCs.