D&D 5E (2014) When Fiends Attack: Are Balors, Pit Fiends and Ultraloths too weak?

[hawkeyefan]

I am curious is this all boils down to the base argument or whether PCs and monsters should share the same mechanics, and if those mechanics should increase in complexity based on level. If there was anything 5E could change for the better it would be to build everything from the same building blocks. Otherwise if you have complex PCs and simple monsters it tends to get boring, or if you have monsters with arbitrary abilities like legendary actions and there is no PC equivalent, then the PCs become boring. Or at least you start to make comparisons.

I don't think that they need the same mechanics, but I tend to think that their complexity should progress pretty evenly. And although I think PCs tend to be (and should be) more complex, whatever the ratio of
Complexity from PC to monster should probably stay relatively even.

Meaning that the more complex PCs are (the higher the level, the more options used, etc.) the more complex the monsters should be. But I don't think that monsters really should be as complex as PCs...they're the Stars of the show, after all, and will be in every encounter in the campaign. Most monsters appear once or twice and then die. A few may linger for a good length of a campaign, it even then most of the time they're a behind the scenes threat. Very rarely do you have a monster or NPC that is introduced early in the campaign and then his difficulty scales with the PC progression through the campaign.

I rather like the slimmed down monsters of 5E. I do think that in some cases they were perhaps too slimmed down, but I find adjusting for that to be pretty simple, so I like it.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

True...the death explosion can be devastating. And I don't think the Balor is a slouch, by any means. But against an entire party...especially proficient players who have minmaxed their characters...I think they at least need Legendary Actions to balance things out.

The death explosion would be more impressive in a game which had different rules than 5E for healing and death. In 5E, the Balor has almost no chance to insta-kill even the party's squishy with its death burst (even if the squishy happens to somehow be within 30' of it when it dies). All that will happen is that the squishy goes down to 0 HP and then, especially if the Balor was a solo and so now combat is over, gets immediately healed back to at least 1 HP by the party bard/cleric/paladin/Healer/etc.

In 5E, combats are approximately winner-take-all. A Balor who could explode for 70 points of damage an action would be more threatening, because he could maybe take down a squishy and exploit that advantage (wizard is down! no more Wall of Force!) to pick off other weak characters afterward (let's finish off the cleric!). But alas, the Balor's only way to create the explosion is by dying, so he is never around to exploit the situation created by it, so the death burst winds up being far less threatening than an AD&D player would expect it to be.

 

[Draegn]

RE: Hemlock I have ruled that if a player is killed or reduced to 0 by the Balor death burst, that the character's soul is taken by the Balor and the character cannot be raised or healed unless a deal is made. This at least gives the Balor something of an incentive to fight it out to the end.

 

[hawkeyefan]

The death explosion would be more impressive in a game which had different rules than 5E for healing and death. In 5E, the Balor has almost no chance to insta-kill even the party's squishy with its death burst (even if the squishy happens to somehow be within 30' of it when it dies). All that will happen is that the squishy goes down to 0 HP and then, especially if the Balor was a solo and so now combat is over, gets immediately healed back to at least 1 HP by the party bard/cleric/paladin/Healer/etc.

In 5E, combats are approximately winner-take-all. A Balor who could explode for 70 points of damage an action would be more threatening, because he could maybe take down a squishy and exploit that advantage (wizard is down! no more Wall of Force!) to pick off other weak characters afterward (let's finish off the cleric!). But alas, the Balor's only way to create the explosion is by dying, so he is never around to exploit the situation created by it, so the death burst winds up being far less threatening than an AD&D player would expect it to be.

Good point. I do think that the Death Save mechanic and related rules make it incredibly difficult to actually kill PCs. I was envisioning a party on its last legs finally managing to kill the Balor only to have it explode on them, potentially knocking them all to 0 HP.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

RE: Hemlock I have ruled that if a player is killed or reduced to 0 by the Balor death burst, that the character's soul is taken by the Balor and the character cannot be raised or healed unless a deal is made. This at least gives the Balor something of an incentive to fight it out to the end.

Yep, that completely changes the threat profile of the Balor. Makes it very scary. I like it.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

I think that adding "and 1d6 shadow demons appear" to the end of the balor's death burst would add a lot to the encounter.

 

[Barolo]

(...) I'd like it to be about equal to a Pit Fiend in physical terms, which probably requires boosting its offense by around 100%. If a Pit Fiend fought a Balor to the death I'd want to be unsure which one would win.

Would it help for this purpose giving the Balor a second sword attack, totalling three attacks per round? How about making it let go of the whip and attack twice with the sword holding it two-handed? Maybe combining the two options, would it be competitive against the Pit fiend in a fight? I always felt the Balor was missing a third attack, as its rival's routine is four attacks.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Would it help for this purpose giving the Balor a second sword attack, totalling three attacks per round? How about making it let go of the whip and attack twice with the sword holding it two-handed? Maybe combining the two options, would it be competitive against the Pit fiend in a fight? I always felt the Balor was missing a third attack, as its rival's routine is four attacks.

A standard pit fiend wins against a standard balor 99%-100% of the time in my Monte Carlo sim. If I bump the balor up to two longsword attacks and a whip attack, the balor wins 28-36% of the time. If I bump it up to three longsword attacks and a whip attack, it wins 68-77% of the time. If I give it three attacks (its choice of longsword or whip), and have it use the longsword for all three, the balor wins 58-62% of the time.

So in addition to giving both sides spells like Teleport and Suggestion, etc., per AD&D precedent, I'd probably just give the pit fiend back its regeneration (5 HP per round) and give the balor three attacks (its choice) and call that "balance restored!" Balor has the edge in a straight-up brute force fight, but pit fiend has more options for winning through cunning, and in both cases they're pretty close to each other.

 

[Barolo]

(...) So in addition to giving both sides spells like Teleport and Suggestion, etc., per AD&D precedent, I'd probably just give the pit fiend back its regeneration (5 HP per round) and give the balor three attacks (its choice) and call that "balance restored!" Balor has the edge in a straight-up brute force fight, but pit fiend has more options for winning through cunning, and in both cases they're pretty close to each other.

Nice! I think the only different thing I would do was to give the Pit Fiend a bigger regeneration (maybe 10-15 HP per round) while reducing its HP a little bit (20 HD would give it a nice 250 HP). I feel like the regen should be higher to be relevant not only for flee-recover-comeback tactics, but also during face-offs. To one side, the HP reduction would make up for the extra regen as to not make the Fiend too tough, and to other side it would be aesthetically pleasing to me, as the Balor is bigger, but currently has lower HP.

 

[dco]

Really? You change his stats to something that will put an optimised party at risk of a TPK while doing nothing but make basic attacks while bouncing axes off his face for 3 rounds? - What do you think that statblock will do to a normal group when you play Strahd like Strahd?

Play Strahd as Strahd? Is that some kind of worthless riddle?

This is what Strahd can do with his action:
- Attack --> Multiattack unarmed
- Bite, only when the victim is grappled, restrained or incapacitated
- Charm.
- Summon some bats or rats.
- Cast a spell, dodge, help, ready... the typical actions.
Unless I'm missing something the standard attack is going to be a very used action.
16 AC, players can have 8+ attack as base, add spells, advantages, etc, 65% or more to hit Strahd.
Any player with counterspells can nullify the casting ability of Strahd.

Stradh is a worthless final enemy but there is another element, the lair actions, another thing that has been discussed in this thread and they come with their own problems. The first problem is that lair actions are only available in a determinate place, an inherent problem of that design, they can bring a lack of consistency and a vast difference of danger for the players depending on where they find their enemy. Luckily the players will fight Strahd in his castle, OK, he will not suck so bad.
In this case we have another problem, Strahd can be unkillable using the lair power of passing through solid walls, floor or celing in combination with his legendary action of move without OA and legendary saves. An easy tactic, move, action, player's action, legendary action move through wall, regenerate, repeat next round. Unless a player can deliver more damage than Strahds HPs in 1 action he can not die, he can also wait a day if his legendary saves or HPs are down, he is immortal and doesn't lack time, good luck killing him.

So we have 2 options:
- He dies easily in a pair of rounds of direct confrontation, if the players make their saves he could die practically without causing any damage as some DMs have reported. Players will be happy but tell you the villain was awful.
- He is invincible, your player characters die or go home bored, your players know how worthy were all those roleplaying sessions and reward the DM raising their middle finger.

Oh, invincibility using an appropiate tactic for a prince, soldier, conqueror and master vampire, so good design. <--This was sarcasm, Strahd is only another example of bad monster design, probably worse than bad. The only options left are to change him or use the instant-win tactic for some rounds and pretend that at some point he has a brain fart and decides to challenge the players face to face without subterfuges. Personally I prefer the option to make him tougher and challenge the players since the beginning face to face like a proper prince, soldier, conqueror and master vampire instead of running in and out like a cheating assassin.