D&D 5E CRs and what is going on?

[FormerlyHemlock]

The Balor seems especially feeble though especially if he cannot leverage his flight & reach and eyballing the DMG would make him more like CR 12 or 13 (still easy though)

Coming from AD&D, it looks to me as if all the 5E Baatezu and Tanar'ri are missing all their special abilities, and they have terrible weapon resistance now too. At minimum I think all the Baatezu need regeneration back--ultra-regeneration (unstoppable except via holy water) was kind of their thing IIRC, just as teleportation was the Tanar'ri's thing. And I'd also be liberal passing out the spell-like abilities like Alter Self and Hold Person.

In order to be appropriately scary, the Balor should, at minimum, have the tactical flexibility to grab a PC with his whip and teleport him somewhere for a nice one-on-one beat-down session. Fortunately, 5E's CR standards allow you to add arbitrary amounts of mobility to a monster without changing its CR, so you can just pencil "and Teleport" into the MM Balor's multiattack entry. Then flavor his teleportation with a wisp of smoke, and watch the beginning of X-Men 2 where Nightcrawler attacks the White House, and you're ready to go!

 

[MonsterEnvy]

How did the Goristro get a 1 on it's banishment save. It has Advantage vs Magic.

 

[Quickleaf]

[MENTION=6800209]MontyKC1974[/MENTION] Did the party have a lot of resistance or immunity to fire going on? The Balor's DPR is around 99+ but that could easily be cut in half (or more) if most of the party had fire resistance/immunity.

So if your party of 6 had good tactics, good magic items, supporting NPCs, and fire resistance/immunity...AND the balor couldn't escape because of its anchoring to its jail, then yeah, it seems feasible the party might be able to defeat it with the sort of losses you described.

IMHO the Balor monster design, while technically yeah it's a CR 19, really doesn't live up to the monster's mythos and expected danger level. If I ran it I'd upgrade to a Legendary monster and add some sort of caveat about "demonfire" burning away fire resistance/immunity granted by spells and magic items.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

@MontyKC1974 Did the party have a lot of resistance or immunity to fire going on? The Balor's DPR is around 99+ but that could easily be cut in half (or more) if most of the party had fire resistance/immunity.

So if your party of 6 had good tactics, good magic items, supporting NPCs, and fire resistance/immunity...AND the balor couldn't escape because of its anchoring to its jail, then yeah, it seems feasible the party might be able to defeat it with the sort of losses you described.

IMHO the Balor monster design, while technically yeah it's a CR 19, really doesn't live up to the monster's mythos and expected danger level. If I ran it I'd upgrade to a Legendary monster and add some sort of caveat about "demonfire" burning away fire resistance/immunity granted by spells and magic items.

I myself gave it an extra attack with it's longsword and the Ability to cast Fire Storm once a day.


Also all demons that can summon by the monster manual can summon. So the Balor has a 50% chance of getting some Demons to help him.

 

[Quickleaf]

I myself gave it an extra attack with it's longsword and the Ability to cast Fire Storm once a day.

Reasonable upgrades. Though does the Fire Storm spell address the fire resistance/immunity issue I mentioned?

Also all demons that can summon by the monster manual can summon. So the Balor has a 50% chance of getting some Demons to help him.

It's listed as a Variant in the MM, meaning it's optional. I figured since he had demons trapped in some kind of dimensional prison that they were not able to summon other demons in his campaign.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Reasonable upgrades. Though does the Fire Storm spell address the fire resistance/immunity issue I mentioned?

No but it really does not need to. It's Fire Aura does 3d6 fire damage to those who attack it within 5 ft and those who start their turn within 5 ft. With Resist that's 5 damage on average. It's other fire attack is it's whip which deals the same amount of fire damage plus 2d6 +8 slashing.

The longsword is the primary source of damage. 3d8+8 slashing and 3d8 lightning. (Damage dice triple instead of double on a crit.) By Giving him a second longsword attack. His damage output vastly increased and it has nothing to do with fire. Even with resisance to fire they are still going to take a decent amount of damage to the fire. But the Longsword is were the true damage lies.

The reason I gave it fire storm was so that it would be able to more easily mow down groups of weaklings.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Reasonable upgrades. Though does the Fire Storm spell address the fire resistance/immunity issue I mentioned?

No but it really does not need to. It's Fire Aura does 3d6 fire damage to those who attack it within 5 ft and those who start their turn within 5 ft. With Resist that's 5 damage on average. It's other fire attack is it's whip which deals the same amount of fire damage plus 2d6 +8 slashing.

The longsword is the primary source of damage. 3d8+8 slashing and 3d8 lightning. (Damage dice triple instead of double on a crit.) By Giving him a second longsword attack. His damage output vastly increased and it has nothing to do with fire. Even with resistance to fire they are still going to take a decent amount of damage to the fire. But the Longsword is were the true damage lies.

The reason I gave it fire storm was so that it would be able to more easily mow down groups of weaklings.

 

[Uchawi]

With bounded accuracy and basic combat (without much tactical depth), you have to add more creatures, spells/special abilities, or complex terrain to challenge the party. The CR will not help. You will have to adapt as the DM. It will be harder if you are starting a high level campaign versus a low level, where you have some time to adapt and understand the parties strengths and weaknesses.

 

[mflayermonk]

You could add terrain effects.

The balor fights in a room with a super-heated iron floor that does 3d6 fire damage to anyone standing on it, per turn.
Oh and the room is covered in magical darkness.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

This is the game where plate armour makes you harder to hit remember.

No it makes you harder to damage.