Pesky little Balor

[rrealm]

Yeah, but if you're grappling (rather than grappled by) the Balor, would you still take the fire damage?

It doesn't matter whether you initiate the grapple or not. Once someone has made a successful grapple check, both parties are grappled. Afraid so, you take the fire damage.

 

[rrealm]

Tell us the results!! Did the stones weaken him enough or did you end up rolling out a few new characters? How willing was the DM to allow for you to find druids with the ability to summon the elementals and make alliances with celestial beings?

 

[Leviticus]

Final Battle!

Ok, sorry it took me so long.

Here is what happened, I think it was because my DM is a little to concerned about destroying us and not at all concerned with the fact that he is playing with some what intelligent players...

Here is breakdown of our party:

Jardeth - Human Monk
Killandel - Elven Cleric/Ranger
Bracken - Half Elf Rogue/Ranger/Horizon Walker
Humphrey - Human Wizard/Rogue/Arcane Trickster
Sam - The Astral Deva

So, we just killed the dragon and cut its heart out and we were about to start looting the treasure. Our party was in pretty good shape, nothing a few cure spells could not take care of. Jardeth was polymorphed into a treant and Killandel was 9'8", due to a Righteous Might spell. We did not want to dip the stone into the dragons’ blood, without doing some research first.

Thanks WizarDru!

But you still have to ask yourself: if completing the task threatens him, why isn't he stopping you? If it was important enough to kill the mage, why then did he challenge you? How much did you really know about the mage, for that matter? I think you're being had, chad. You need a few divination spells to suss out the right track, methinks.

So we were just beginning to loot the hoard, when all of a sudden who should appear...the big bad Balor and, oh, about 15 Vrocks...and 2 nasty half fiend offspring. After we got over the initial shock of the DM bending us over after a hard fight that used most of our spells, we took the first few hit from the Vrocks and the Balor dispelled Jardeth to hell (he was normal again). We then moved to Sam who very quickly cast his innate ability to plane shift and got us the hell out of there. I could really tell that our DM was upset that we got away, bastard wanted us dead...

We ended up back on Krynn (yeah), but only for a day. We play where Krynn, Faerun, Greyhawk, etc are all on different planes that are accessible to the players. I makes for some fun interaction with other PC's and NPC's.

The next morning, Killandel cast Commune and found out that the destruction of the stones would definitely hurt the Balor, most importantly, his Spell Resistance.

We also found out that the stone allows the Balor to scry on the individual who holds the stone as well as the individual on the Balor. Bonus for us!

We prepared ourselves for the final show down, which we hoped would go like this:

Buff up (Bulls Strength, Bear's Endurance), Resist Energy, Protection from Energy, Polymorph, Cast obscure object (so the Balor could not detect us), Plane Shift back, Scry on the Balor, enlarge ourselves, cast righteous might, destroy the stone, teleport in and kick his ass.

Well, everything went as planned, almost. We arrived back on the original plane to discover that the entire town that had hired us to protect them was destroyed. Completely flattened and burned to the ground, no survivors. Angry Balor=dead civilians...

Well, we cast the spells, used scrying on the Balor, and prepared to destroy the stones. So now, this is what we all looked like:

Jardeth and Bracken – Treants
Killandel – Mind Flayer (w/ Righteous Might)
Sam – Hill Giant
Humphrey – Enlarged

All with:
Bull’s Strength, Bear’s Endurance, Resist Energy, Protection from Energy

We destroyed the stone and Teleported in.

Know before I describe the fight, I have to say that there may be some discrepancies, but we worked with what the DM gave us, knowing that he probably would cheat (not really, he would just make it impossible), and utilized everything that we had at our disposal.

The room:

Balor in the center of the room, 2 half fiends flanking him about 20’ away, 15 Vrocks guarding the entrance about 60’ away and 20 Dretches holding the human slaves hostage about 30’ away.

1st round – Surprise

Jardeth – Grappled and won
Killandel – Joined grapple freely and won the check. Attached 1 tentacle.
Bracken – Attacked with his Rapier of Puncturing, hit, drained 4 CON.
Sam – Cast Holy Word on the 20 Dretches that were off to side with their human slaves, killing all of them
Humphrey – Readied an action to attack Balor when he casts a spell

2nd round

Half Fiend #1 – Started to cast a spell, Bracken and Humphrey smacked his ass with their AoO. He lost the spell.
Jardeth – Held grapple
Killandel – Attached all 4 tentacles
Half Fiend #2 – Same as #1, except Sam hit her. She lost her spell.
Sam – Waded into the Vrocks.
Balor – Tried to cast Greater Teleport
Humphrey – Hit Balor with readied action, causing 28 points of sneak attack and normal damage with his newly acquired cold iron dagger.
Balor – Failed his Concentration check by 2
Vrocks – Attacked Sam
Bracken – Readied an action to attack Balor when he casts a spell

3rd round

Half Fiend #1 – Said “Screw you guys, I’m going home” and ran away.
Jardeth – Held Grapple
Killandel – Sucked the Balors' brain out! Mmmmm…
Half Fiend #2 – Attacked Humphrey
Balor – Exploded into a 100 HP flash of light
Most saved for half, but either way, the Resist Energy and Protection from Energy saved those who failed (This was a question we had, it says flash of light, not fire…either way though, we still survived the damage).
Sam – His task was complete, he left. 10 of the human slaves died, the other 10 had fled far enough away from the blast.
Humphrey – Attacked Half Fiend #2
Vrocks – Left
Bracken – Attacked Half Fiend #2

4th round

Half Fiend #1 – Escaped
Half Fiend #2 – Surrendered

So, when then proceeded to loot the place, as well as the Half Fiend’s quarters. Our less than LG characters killed the bitch afterwards…because she is bad and tried to kill us.

We then cast plane shift and went home, because our employers were dead.

I know that there are things that happened in the fight that may be wrong, that is were you all come in, if you want to. It should have been a mess, but it went of without a problem (too easy). Either way, damn it was fun!

Feel free to comment on things you liked or did not like.

Later.

 

[The Forsaken One]

I enjoy foiling such a ratbastards plans ^_^

 

[coyote6]

Heck, I think your GM was a sweetheart.

Whenever damage reduction completely negates the damage from an attack, it also negates most special effects that accompany the attack

I'm not sure, but I would think that would apply to a mind flayer's extract ability, and probably the rapier.

(Of course, if the polymorphed cleric/ranger managed to do 16 pts of damage from a single tentacle, or managed to somehow make the tentacle a cold iron tentacle . . .)

 

[Saeviomagy]

I'm not sure, but I would think that would apply to a mind flayer's extract ability, and probably the rapier.

The rapier's ability is to cause con damage with a touch attack - dr doesn't help against con damage.

Grapple attempts are certainly not stopped by DR, and nor are other attacks which don't cause damage in the first place. Like the illithid's brain-suck. If he starts with tentacles attached, the fiend's brain is gone.

Mind you, if I was your DM, I'd be having fun with the idea that the illithid PC got more than just nourishment out of that brain...

 

[Taneel BrightBlade]

good job

 

[Squire James]

You know, as a DM I cringe whenever another DM puts the PC's up against a monster they shouldn't beat, and then ignores half that monster's abilities to allow an easy scry-buff-teleport win!

Balors have constant True Seeing! They see obscured objects. They see invisible scry sensors. Their +38 Spot should insure they DO see everything they CAN see. If the Balor was aware of the scrying ability of the stone, he should have detected the PC's scrying and counter-scryed the PC himself. He and his gang teleport in during round 2 or 3 of their buffing efforts.

Failing that, he would certainly have one of his Vrock underlings cast Mirror Image on him (which they can do at will) at all times. Potential grapplers will probably grapple an image or two before they get to him. I believe Int 24 is enough that he has considered scry-buff-teleport and grappling strategies!

The 30 Vrocks alone should have been a TPK. There should appear to be about 200 of them (to be fair, maybe there really were only 5 or so, and Mirror Images made them seem to be 30). Several of them use Stunning Screech each round, a few others start up a Dance of Ruin, and the others attack anyone who got stunned. Some of them may think to cast Heroism on themselves (or perhaps they expended it attacking the village).

 

[Chimera]

Way too easy. They certainly weren't acting their intelligence or abilities.

Killandel – Sucked the Balors' brain out! Mmmmm…

"Dude! You sucked out HIS BRAIN!! That is just plain gross."

So, are Balor brains habit forming?

"I just loved the feeling...the taste! I've got to have more brains!" (gives his 'friend' an odd look, grabs him by the head...)

mmm...brains...

 

[Piratecat]

Whether it was "too easy" or not, it's great learning how things came out. Thanks!