"Tactics in Action"--maybe I'm just getting too old, but this sounded boring as hell.

[Felon]

So WotC gives us this Tactics in Action article, which is supposed to be an accounting of some kind of nail-biting rip-roaring battle. It's designed to illustrate how brilliant tactics can win the day, even against a monster whose Challenge Rating outstrips the player character's average level.

Man, more articles like that, and I could seriously be tempted to give up on D&D. :\

From wherre I'm sitting, the battle was completely lopsided, and the cunning tactics of the players basically amounted to cherry-picking the most bogus buffs they could gleam from a dozen different sourcebooks. One Knowledge skill roll tells the players what spells to expect the balor to toss, and one greater spell immunity gave them ironclad protection against them.

Even when the balor actually manages to do some damage in melee, it's all effortlessly brushed away by spells (revivify, moment of prescience, and fortunate fate). Put aside the author's attempts to make balor sound like a fierce opponent, and it becomes evident what a one-sided cakewalk this ECL 20+ battle was. The players not only walk away without casualties, they sound pretty much unscathed except for a few empty spell slots.

And this is the guy Gandalf took a week to beat? Lame.

But maybe that's just me...?

 

[Morrus]

Sounds like my group.

 

[pogre]

If your players are a bunch of tacticians this is exactly the kind of battle they want. My group would probably enjoy it a great deal.

 

[Felon]

Tacticians? These are rinse-n'-repeat tactics. When isn't greater spell immunity going to be a great options against foes with spells or spell-like abilities? When isn't fortunate fate a must-have spell? When battles become scripted, they become boring.

Here's why the fight's a yawnfest IMO: the author describes it as "a mighty battle, and one that felt like it could swing either way as the rounds passed by." But that's not true at all, is it? In actuality, the fight was signed, sealed, and delivered before it was started. It reminds me less of a scene from a good work of fantasy than it does of some MtG players building their decks.

 

[Aust Diamondew]

A balor vs 4 level 16-17th characters if they both have equal preperation should be about a 50/50 fight anyway probably with 1-2 dead PCs even in the case of a victory. With the amount of preparation and luck the PCs got by the looks of it's not suprising they got away unscathed.

They weren't so much brilliant with their tactics, they were just well prepared and lucky.
Even if one of them had been killed by the exploding balor (instead of getting saved by some weird spell) at that level the PCs probably have acess to true ressurection meaning, death doesn't really hurt anything except your cash.

 

[DevoutlyApathetic]

Eh, the Balor was pretty dumb. To bash away with spells of lower than 8th level after you've discovered that three of them are protected by Greater Spell Immunity isn't a great play.

 

[chitzk0i]

Really VirgilCaine

With a Knowledge (the planes) check result approaching 45, the party's new wizard also deduced not only the general traits shared by all tanar'ri demons, but also that the balor had a number of spell-like abilities beyond the ones the party was previously aware, such as power word stun.

Deduce? What? I thought Knowledge checks represented knowledge, not guesswork.

 

[Dakkareth]

[/i]
Deduce? What? I thought Knowledge checks represented knowledge, not guesswork.

Ahem ... Knowledge: Balors have stun. Knowledge: Our enemy is a Balor. Deduction: Ergo our enemy has powerword: stun.


*stretch*

 

[Schmoe]

It sounds to me like it was very good preparation coupled with some luck in the form of two criticals and the Dispel. I have no problem with players using the resources they have to prepare for powerful opponents. In fact, I wish my players would do this a little bit more (Ok, we're going to be fighting an Ice Devil. Why do I want to prepare an elemental resistance spell?). With some different luck, like a dispelled Greater Spell Immunity, the party would have been in a much more precarious position.

My question, though, is this: How in the world does Revivify put someone's head back on?

Revivify
"...while repairing somewhat the damage to the body. This spell functions like raise dead, ..."

Raise Dead can't put your head back on, so neither can Revivify. For that matter, neither can the Heal from a Fortunate Fate spell. So despite the cries of "cheese", at least one character should have been dead at the end.

 

[DevoutlyApathetic]

It sounds to me like it was very good preparation coupled with some luck in the form of two criticals and the Dispel. I have no problem with players using the resources they have to prepare for powerful opponents. In fact, I wish my players would do this a little bit more (Ok, we're going to be fighting an Ice Devil. Why do I want to prepare an elemental resistance spell?). With some different luck, like a dispelled Greater Spell Immunity, the party would have been in a much more precarious position.

My question, though, is this: How in the world does Revivify put someone's head back on?

Revivify
"...while repairing somewhat the damage to the body. This spell functions like raise dead, ..."

Raise Dead can't put your head back on, so neither can Revivify. For that matter, neither can the Heal from a Fortunate Fate spell. So despite the cries of "cheese", at least one character should have been dead at the end.

Yea, how about the 10d6 points of damage that the corpse doesn't get a save against? I think that'd push things a bit past the limits of Raise Dead.

I'm curious what happened to the Balor's quickened telekinesis and why he didn't seem to go airborne. That and repeatedly imploding the mage.

This is looking more and more like the '5th level party takes down Huge Dragon' where the dragon was poorly built/run/whatever.