Planar Ally, aka ARRRGH!

[Bauglir]

I understand that having wall of force at will is cool. But once the creature wasted its round using a wall of force, it gave them a round to dispel it and move together or to cast another densive spell, attack one of the PC's, etc.

A wall of force cannot be dispelled. Heck they even keep going inside antimagic fields. It takes a rod of cancellation, a sphere of annihilation, disintegrate or disjunction to get rid of one.

I don't think the planar ally can be dispelled either, as it's a calling effect and I believe that this means the spell is cast & finished when the ally appears, and it cannot be dispelled any more than a teleport can be reversed by later casting a dispel. (The spell's duration of Instantaneous seems to support this interpretation, although I wasn't able to find the calling definition with a quick browse of the srd)

This is effectively no different than a sorceror with a wall of force spell anyways.

Kinda. The Leonal has less spells to throw around, but it's a hell of a bit harder to kill than a level 11 sorcerer. Also note that the effect of the Leonal on combat is the result of one spell (plus a hefty investment of cash & xp granted), as compared to an entire party member (the hypothetical sorcerer).

Also how come none of them have ways of traveling like dimension door, blink, teleport ? What about other ways to flee the monster effectively making the PC's waste their money and xp on planar ally?

Wasted how? That Leonal's not going anywhere till the bad guys are dealt with.

No people with enervate, melf's acid arrow, etc? These spells avoid SR and enervate LOWERS it to a reasonable level if it works.

Firstly, MAA would just plink off the Lesser Globe.
Enervation:

Enervation
<trim>
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: Yes
<trim>
Each negative level gives a creature a –1 penalty on attack rolls, saving throws, skill checks, ability checks, and effective level (for determining the power, duration, DC, and other details of spells or special abilities).

Enervation is affected by SR, and wouldn't reduce SR if it did get through. (SR is a set value and doesn't scale with EL)

Leonel grappling vampire? Hello free drain attacks and lowering his SR and giving the vampire lots of bonus hps.

What melkoriii said

Lets assume no teleport powers why not stone shapes and such to mold holes in walls to get around? Between a few clerics i'd expect some sort of useful spells like that.

This will help to some degree, but they cannot do this at will, and will eventually run out of counters while the Leonal just keeps walling & fireballing.

I don't like the planar ally spells because they break the power curve. The prohibitive costs reduce the chance of this becoming a problem in a game but it does nothing to address the issues with the spells themselves.

 

[Wraithdrit]

Bauglir said most of what I was thinking. Lastly, the area was under a Forbiddance, so no dimensional travel was possible.

 

[Olive]

Is there any reason why planar binding couldn't do all the same stuff?

 

[Mephistopheles]

Is there any reason why planar binding couldn't do all the same stuff?

Planar binding could do it, but it's hardly a good bet for an 11th level caster trying to nab a Leonal. Even with a calling diagram it's only even odds. Planar ally will work so long as you don't make totally unreasonable requests of the called creature. I guess that's what you get for your 250XP.

<overanalysis>
Assuming I have all my numbers correct...

The Leonal may or may not fail the Will save and be called (it has about a 50% chance to make a Will save vs DC 21, assuming caster attribute modifier of +5 and no other DC modifiers). It would then very likely break out of the magic circle laid to trap it (80% chance of SR 28 beating the 11th level caster level check). If it failed to beat the caster level check it would then need to make a Charisma check vs DC 20 (assuming no caster Charisma bonus, about a 15% chance of success). Chances are better if a calling diagram is used. The calling diagram means the called creature can't use SR to escape, and also increases the Charisma check DC by 5 (to DC 25 in this case, impossible for the Leonal with a Charisma modifier of +2). This removes both avenues of escape for the Leonal so if it fails its Will save and is called into a calling diagram it is trapped.

All up an 11th level caster using planar binding to bind a Leonal has about an 8.5% chance of doing so successfully, or a 50% chance of success if a calling diagram is used. If no calling diagram is used the other 41.5% between outright failure (Leonal passing the Will save) and successful trapping results in a called but untrapped Leonal.
</overanalysis>

 

[Olive]

<overanalysis>

Not overanalysis, good analysis!

 

[Darklone]

Had a similar case where the players got a Branali Eladrin with Lesser Planar Ally... in an otherwise low magic campaign, this guy rocked. He was nearly invincible to the few spells flying around, let alone the weapons (considering mirror image and blur), caused heck of damage to evil things...

I really have no idea how your average level 6 group should be able to survive against such a CR 6 creature

 

[Wraithdrit]

I've really gotten over the sting of the Leonal ravaging most of my two big encounters with impunity. After all, the CotSQ module even says that this is one of the ways the drow react to the intrusion, they cast Planar Ally and send the resulting Demon after the players. Should be fun with the new demon rules in place. I think I will wait till after the party has a chance to purchase some new gear, but in general they are going to be hurting when that surprise teleports in on them.