How to stop blasphemy?

[Question]

Lets say we have a ECL 20 party trying to take on a balor. The balor uses blasphemy. Dazed for 1 round. The balor can spam this -every round-, automatically dazing the entire party with no chances of a saving throw, so all he needs to do is to do this constantly after summoning some demons who get free hits in and will eventually win because the party cannot do anything.

High SR to block this isnt really available till epic levels, the cloak of resistance only gives SR 21, and the balor gets past that about 95% of the time.

Its even worse if we assume the party has LA with monstrous HD. A ECL 20 astral deva for instance is automatically paralyzed for several minutes with only a 50% chance of blocking this everytime.

 

[Hammerhead]

First of all, slap some negative levels on the Balor to take down his caster level. Or the party spreads out to avoid being caught in the area of effect. Or use Greater Spell Immunity to block the Blasphemy, or ready a counterspell against the spell-like.

 

[Question]

I thought you cant counter spell spell like abilities? Greater spell immunity.....yep that would work.......will need to bring that up.

 

[Iku Rex]

Silence

 

[Quartz]

How about Wishing yourselves immune?

 

[pawsplay]

Blasphemy is a forty foot spread centered on the balor. So presumably, a single character or spellcaster 45 feet away could ready an action to disurpt. Since blasphemy is a spell-like ability, the balor could be forced to make a Concentration check and would likely abandon the tactic quickly.

Summon Monster IX can be used to summon evil creatures to fight on your behalf.

Keeping the party spread out more than 40' is not a bad idea.

Archery. Using holy bows with bane vs. evil outsider arrows. Even your wizard, using Quickened True Strike, can play this game.

As for SR, holy aura gets you a 25, which the balor would occasionally fail to penetrate. But have you looked at the spell, spell resistance? A 20th level caster can grant SR 32. In fact, if you'll notice, the mantle of resistance grants SR 21 at a caster level of 12th for 90,000 gp... a level 20 version (SR 32) would cost only 200,000 gp, and is a non epic item!

Your astral deva is in for a bad day. On the downside, they are vulnerable to blasphemy as described. On the upside, they probably won't die, since sooner or later, they're going to fail that Will save at -4 and get banished.

 

[Drowbane]

20th level and the majority of your party isn't immune to stunning effects yet?

...Since blasphemy is a spell-like ability, the balor could be forced to make a Concentration check and would likely abandon the tactic quickly... make the check everytime...

 

[Question]

20th level and the majority of your party isn't immune to stunning effects yet?

How would a party at 20th level be immune to daze/stunning effects?

 

[Iku Rex]

Spell resistance

Mass spell resistance (SC, Clr 7) can give the entire party SR.

 

[Sejs]

Be evil?