Help with Planar Binding Spells

[moritheil]

I made sure to check with my DM to make sure he's letting it work as it should; some DMs treat it as they do wish, i.e. a way to screw with PCs, which is flat out wrong. After all, you are casting a high level spell, along with magic circle and probably dimensional anchor. It should be at least as useful as any other high level spell, given that it requires a fair amount of resources and time. The DM shouldn't treat every outsider like it's some sort of legal genious with the ability to slip out of contracts.

Hear, hear! Though in the case of the malconvoker, he might be conjuring baatezu, who are just that sort of legal genius

Creatures I think are good to bind, because of usefullness yet low charisma scores (this is only for lesser planar binding... my guy is only a 10th level caster):
Hound Archons, especially if you're routing out some evildoers as I mentioned above. Plus they can turn into dogs, so you can bring 'em around town without much notice.
Bearded Devil, great if you are just killing things and taking their stuff. Why would an devil object to killing?
Howlers: Big, tough, and DUMB.
Nightmares. Cha of 12. And if it dies in your service you can just animate it as a skeleton and have a flying skeletal horse (since skeletons retain any magical flight)
Elementals, as others have mentioned. But right now my mage can only call medium elementals, and they're kind of wimpy.

The nightmare thing is interesting. Elementals are wimpy, but you get them for days on end, and you get them safely. If you aren't satisfied with them, I recommend chaos beasts (8HD), though you should be sure to stay well away from them yourself.

I wasn't complete in my response to PS, so let me point this out now: I primarily stick to elementals because it's thematic, not only because they're wimpy: the sorcerer with hordes of elemental minions forced to serve against their will is the stuff of legend. (I always did like The Tempest.)

 

[lukelightning]

Elementals are wimpy, but you get them for days on end, and you get them safely. If you aren't satisfied with them, I recommend chaos beasts (8HD)

See, I'm stuck with lesser planar binding so can only bind 6hd of creatures; a medium elemental with its 4hd just doesn't impress me compared to my other choices. Once I get planar binding with it's 12hd limit, large elementals are definitely on the menu... tough, two attacks, DR 5/-, reach, all that fun stuff.

 

[Twowolves]

The one time this spell came up IMC, the cleric summoned a hound archon and tasked it with guarding a bound captive while the party moved on in their mission. After the time was up, he was to release her (long after the PCs were finished and gone). That was to get around the "no killing of surrendered foes" problem the cleric and paladin had while deep in enemy territory.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Give it a go. I'd love to see what happened. Shish kebab anyone?

I was sort of thinking about this line from Glabrezu:

Once per month, a glabrezu can fulfill a wish for a mortal humanoid. The demon can use this ability to offer a mortal whatever he or she desires—but unless the wish is used to create pain and suffering in the world, the glabrezu demands either terrible evil acts or great sacrifice as compensation.

So for evil guys who want to either (a) cause pain and suffering or (b) is OK with committing terrible evil acts or great sacrifice it isn't such an insane idea... playing into the glabrezu's desire to corrupt people with power or wealth.

Still not high on my list of plans though

 

[lukelightning]

Woo hoo! My mage just went up a level! Now he has planar binding with that sweet sweet 12hd limit! No more wimpy medium elementals and lemures for me!

Let's see....I have a 16 cha, with a circlet of persuasion for a +6 to my charisma check...if I add in the mask of the ideal spell from Complete Mage I'll have a +10 bonus on the check. Maybe I'll bind a leonal or a trumpet archon. Heck, I could even try for an astral deva. The tough part would be beating their will saves to actually call them...my planar binding spell has a DC of 23; these things typically have a will save of +10–12.

I'm focusing on celetial types, since the BBEGs were up against have DR/good.

 

[Wolfwood2]

Let's see....I have a 16 cha, with a circlet of persuasion for a +6 to my charisma check...if I add in the mask of the ideal spell from Complete Mage I'll have a +10 bonus on the check. Maybe I'll bind a leonal or a trumpet archon. Heck, I could even try for an astral deva. The tough part would be beating their will saves to actually call them...my planar binding spell has a DC of 23; these things typically have a will save of +10–12.

I'm focusing on celetial types, since the BBEGs were up against have DR/good.

I once used a Sending spell to send a request to a celestial to voluntarily fail its Will save, as we were about to fight a powerful evil outsider.