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

[MerricB]

One of the things that a good DM does is move the game along. I make plenty of mistakes when I'm DMing, but my players are having fun. Do you slow the game down all the time looking up rules? I'm so glad I don't play in your game.

This sort of preparation may seem old hat to all of you, but it also gives a good example to newer players of the sort of things you can do at high levels.

Incidentally, I would allow Revivify and Raise Dead to work in that manner. The body must be "whole", but the description mentions "missing body parts". The head wasn't missing! It was sitting next to the body. Reattach it (with duct tape - or just press it in the same palce) and the spell should work fine.

Note that the Balor _had_ assistance for the early part of the combat: a Mountain Troll that delayed the barbarian.

Cheers!

 

[tetsujin28]

To get back on his case again, why on earth didn't he use the DC27 dominate monster? Grab the barbarian or the dwarf and get them hacking at their erstwhile friends?

Would that work on (demi)humans?

 

[mhacdebhandia]

"This spell functions like dominate person, except that the spell is not restricted by creature type."

 

[MonsterMash]

Got to admit I didn't find it all that engrossing - it certainly bears out my dislike of non-core books for stuff and I thought that the Balor would have been able to do more - particularly summoning other demons as allies

 

[Numion]

It's too bad the DM in question didn't know the rules, but otherwise that was a good use of spells. One of the better fights I've played in D&D was an encounter with a beholder. We were playing 8th 9th level PCs, but we knew that we were going to fight a beholder. So the clerics prepared appropriate spells, like Death Ward and Spell Immunity, etc. . We were prepared, sought out the Beholder and used our 1337 tactics: my cleric prepared to cast Blindness on the beholder when it closes the central eye. Then we airwalked to smack it.

Kewl

I think it was one of the better combats ever. A plan to defeat a Beholder, and a good execution too.

 

[MerricB]

If I had been playing the Balor, then at the very least I would have used the quickened telekinesis every round - starting off with a telekinetic disarm of that wizards bow (I very much doubt that the wizard would be able to match the Balors telekinetic grapple check).

TK Disarm check, to be pedantic. Balor has +28, Wizard has... err... +2? That's nasty. I think Shoe should know about that.

To be fair to the DM, implosion is only usable once per day. To get back on his case again, why on earth didn't he use the DC27 dominate monster?

I'm betting on another Immunity there. Besides, a Magic Circle against Evil or similar protects utterly against dominate monster - it really isn't worth it.

Cheers!

 

[Thanee]

I looked in MoF, and it says "Clr 7 (Tymora)", which I guess means only priests of Tymora can have access to it.

No, it means, that the spell has been originally developed/used by Tymora priests, but now everyone has access to it. It's just a cleric spell like any other on that behalf.

In 3.5 they made some of those spells actually only available to the given faith via the Initiate rules.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Thanee]

Our 13th~14th level party had to fight a Balor recently, too. One casuality (besides the Balor). And that was a failed massive damage save on a natural 1.

The characters survived three rounds of Implosion, and something else, which I do not recall.

The Halfling Paladin did about 2/3 of the damage... and the Rogue did the rest when the Balor came crashing down stunned from a well-timed Fleshshiver, which also did some (falling) damage and disarmed the demon.

Definitely not Tolkien-esque...

Bye
Thanee

 

[MerricB]

Definitely not Tolkien-esque...

I don't know. Gandalf was only a 5th level magic-user, after all.

Cheers!

 

[VirgilCaine]

I don't know. Gandalf was only a 5th level magic-user, after all.

Cheers!

Heh?