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

[Dualazi]

Of course issues could arise, but that is why I would advocate that all the items found by the characters be first used against them by monsters. And there is the interesting, in my opinion, limiter that takes some of the steam out of the Monty Haul style of campaign - attunement. Each item recovered from a monster isn't as much of a power boost to the party if a sizeable number of them require attunement, and since the intention of including magic items on the monsters is to significantly boost their power and the significantly powerful magic items require attunement, it kind of works out (or at least works better than it would in other versions of D&D).

Yeah, I would advise against that approach as well - either give the monster permanent items that the party can use once they defeat it, or boost the monsters by giving them expendable magical items so that the reason the party can't gain them after defeating the monster becomes that they didn't manage to prevent said usage (i.e. the party all saw the wand in the monster's hand and no one disarmed it, so the monster burned through all the charges it could, and maybe the wand turned to dust as a result), or that it makes sense the monster didn't have more (such as potions or scrolls).

I'd definitely go with the expendable option, as there are a lot of potions and scrolls that can liven things up without destabilizing things too much. I still disagree with the permanent items though, IIRC some magic items don't require attunement that really should, like generic magic shields and armor. Everyone rocking 3 attuned pieces of gear with a few bits and pieces on the side is going to exacerbate the issue, even in the flawed white room example up thread the characters aren't over-geared. Even redundant pieces of gear can be kept around in case the need should arise for that specific piece. Point is, in a discussion about how to make weaker monsters less so, you don't also want to be increasing PC potency, because it just turns into a situation of one step forward and two steps back, at least in my experience.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

...those of us who want to buy magic items...

You keep insisting on dividing us up into teams, and you keep putting me on the other team... and it is really strange to me because, for example, "those of us who want to buy magic items" includes me and my group.

Where we differ - You who want to buy magic items, and I who want to buy magic items - is in what we have done about it, i.e. I've used what WotC provided in the DMG to make a workable and satisfying solution for my group (it took me less than 5 minutes, including the time spent asking my players for their input on how to handle things), and you haven't - but you have loudly and frequently insisted that WotC basically have no idea what good design is for such rules, and that you will only accept alternatives if presented by WotC.

 

[cmad1977]

You keep insisting on dividing us up into teams, and you keep putting me on the other team... and it is really strange to me because, for example, "those of us who want to buy magic items" includes me and my group.

Where we differ - You who want to buy magic items, and I who want to buy magic items - is in what we have done about it, i.e. I've used what WotC provided in the DMG to make a workable and satisfying solution for my group (it took me less than 5 minutes, including the time spent asking my players for their input on how to handle things), and you haven't - but you have loudly and frequently insisted that WotC basically have no idea what good design is for such rules, and that you will only accept alternatives if presented by WotC.

What's this? A DM who takes responsibility for his game?? How dare you sir!


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[AaronOfBarbaria]

What's this? A DM who takes responsibility for his game?? How dare you sir!

Yeah, and I lean towards my players having their way rather than me getting mine, and often put less effort into my campaigns than the players put into their characters (because I have intentionally focused on learning how not to let not being prepared hinder the fun, as opposed to learning how to plan out a campaign and prevent players from not following said plan).

I'm definitely the odd duck of DMs.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

Trouble is, now he's just a frustrating dick that accomplishes nothing.

I'm sure Strahd can evade a confrontation forever, but why would anyone want to play it like that.

Have you ever seen a vampire movie where the vampire acts like a frightened weakling?

You paint a picture that is utterly incompatible with how everybody expects a vampire lord to act: with supreme confidence and arrogance.

The facts are simple. The stat block needs to support that arrogance by allowing the vampire to withstand everything the party can bring to bear for at least several rounds.

Since it utterly fails to do that, it is time to stop trying to talk yourself out of the stark fact that his stat block is severely underpowered. And really, there's nothing wrong with admitting it.

The first step towards getting WotC to produce books with sturdier stat blocks is acceptance of reality.

So does Dracula frontally assault a crucifix-wielding Van Helsing in the town square at noon? No. He strikes where and when he has the advantage.

You complain that he's too easy to kill then grouse about methods that that make him effective and hard to kill. His mobility using Legendary Actions, especially in Castle Ravenloft, large regen capabilities and the ability to Charm party members into attacking others, make him dangerous and hard to counter.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Well, my question is less 'is the Balor killable by level 9 characters', since that particular battle has been waged on here plenty of times, and more 'is it a problem if it can be killed by level 9 characters'. Assume for the moment that it is possible for level 9 characters to do that - what does the game gain or lose by that fact? Lots of people seem keen to focus on the CR, but that also seems irrelevant - the fact is that the Balor is the top-level Demon, the guy at the end of the Abyssal dungeon, the Cyberdemon of the Abyss. For that narrative, does the Balor need to be completely untouchable until the party is 'high level', or are you happy for him to be fightable (and killable) in the mid tiers?

[MENTION=6801369]UnknownDyson[/MENTION] said it decently well, it is a problem when the most terrifying and mythical of the demons can be killed by people who lore-wise should be concerned with much less threatening foes.

Nothing in my experience as a DM or a player (both of TTRPGs and Video Games) than a fight that is billed to be an epic conflict is instead a boring fight, where I can tell before we get halfway that there is no legitimate fear of us losing.

I want 15th level players hearing they are going to fight a Balor or a Pit Fiend, and them start freaking out a little and wondering if they are prepared to fight something so powerful. Instead, if they’ve seen the stats (I DM for a lot of young DMs who of course have read the books) or have fought other high-level demons (this is not a problem with only the Highest echelons after all) realize that with some minor prep they will win the day with marginal problems.

If you can’t scare your players when you say “Roll Initiative” then combat isn’t even worth having, because it’s just an hour of them proving they really are as ridiculously powerful as they think they are.




To address some of the more recent discussion.

Yes, I wish WoTC provided more support to make some of these creatures more powerful or tell us which strategies are preferred.

No, I don't expect they will actually do it anytime soon enough for my use.


So, I am resigned to doing things myself. Maxing HP instead of using averages, adding minions, adding special abilities, designing the environment. Because I want things to happen, but I don't have the inclination to wait for WoTC

 

[Warmaster Horus]

Just gonna jump in and say I think that feats/spells and whatnot are a serviceable way of adding potency to a monster, throwing items on monsters already deemed to be under-performing sounds the start of a monty haul campaign, doubly so for 5e where magic items aren't assumed. You could try and keep them from players by disintegrating when the monster dies, but I consider this a cheap cop-out and would be infuriating to most of the people I've played with outside of very specific circumstances.

Make these magic items only attuneable only to the villains, then. Sure, the players get them if they kill the monster, but they can't use them.

 

[shadowoflameth]

there are a couple of ways I see to deal with the 9th level vs. Balor 'problem'. The balor could bail, Plane shift or whatever when the party becomes a serious threat. Dramatically, if at least one party member was in serious shape so that it doesn't just feel like he was a weak opponent. Or in response to the 'cavalry' arriving. Either way, you can have your initial encounter with the balor when the party is at least high enough to last a round or two but not high enough to realistically defeat it. You could also have there be a way for the party to deal out of combat with it's appearance; The heroes defeat the priest who summoned it and take his holy symbol. The cleric in your party knows enough on his religion check or by the rogue in the party overhearing the ritual to banish it or send it away.

Then when the party is 9th or 12th or whatever, the balor is back and finds the party better prepared.

The other idea is that if you need the balor to just be more powerful to be terrifying to your party, tweek the creature. this is more work for the DM but some fairly simple to do stuff works great. Having a simple mind flayer be able to do Plane Shift on anyone not just (self only) as by the book allowed it to drop the barbarian in our game with one shot by sending him to the Far Realm. The Ulithralid is in Volo's guide. Our party is almost 16th and far outclasses it out of the box, but it was the underdark and I wanted to use it, so, a legendary mind flayer who had the potential to become an elder brain, had the elder brain powers, and an Extractor Staff with a living brain attached; The elder brain who formerly commanded it. While holding the (now artifact) staff, the Ulithralid is considered in its lair and can do the elder brains lair actions. Now that's a threat. So is the Half-Dragon Empyrean in our game. Allowed to be Gargantuan and having legendary actions, the various immunities and resistances and the very long range bolts make it a tough nut tactically.

Remember; the DMs job is fun, not to kill the party. It has to be challenging sure, but winnable.

 

[Jer]

Make these magic items only attuneable only to the villains, then. Sure, the players get them if they kill the monster, but they can't use them.

For many players this falls into the realm of "cheap cop out" as well. If those are your players then that would only make them mad.

If I need to give my monsters/NPCs items that I don't want the PCs to have then I give them cursed items. And cursed items in my worlds are not "-1 to attack and you can't get rid of it without a remove curse". No they're potent magic items that are better than a normal magic item but contain some horrible drawback that can only be prevented by giving the item what it wants. You want that +2 bonus to attack and damage? You have to give up a piece of your soul every day to the item. Represented as some loss of hit points at the start of every day or maybe a recovery die or maybe a temporary drop in Strength or Con for a day. After a few weeks of use the item starts demanding more - maybe double the recovery dice or hit points to get the same bonus. Or a drop in two stats. And then the nightmares and the whispering voices start to kick in...

(This will not work for all groups. My players want to play heroes and so are very averse to using magic items that have a wiff of evil around them. And I don't use this tactic much anymore because I realized its just much easier to raise the stats of the creatures directly to what I think they should be than it is to mess with the numbers by portioning out magic items.)

 

[hawkeyefan]

I want my Strahd to play the part of a classic vampire movie, not some blood-drenched horror-porn flick.

You don't have to agree to this desire of mine, but I would like your agreement in that the Strahd detailed in the book doesn't stand a chance of fulfilling that role given its weak stats.

You don't get much more classic than Dracula....and that does not describe him in any way. He terrorizes his opponents from the shadows and strikes only when it makes sense for him to do so. As soon as they do anything that harms hims or can keep him at bay, he flees.

I would agree with you that the stat block in the adventure does not match the play style you've chosen for Strahd.

This is effectively it for Strahd - I tried having a 'Vampire Wedding' event that the players got invited to, and he couldn't stay alive long enough to flee on his second action. Weak. I describe it here.

There's a lot going on in there....but I think not having Strahd immediately attempt to avoid the radiant damage and or sunlight is a huge mistake, and everything immediately goes back to that as the major influence in the battle. As soon as Rahadin entered and said the party was attacking and they had a sword that shed sunlight, Strahd should have been ready to run and simply allow his underlings to try and deal with the party. Perhaps move to the balcony above and assist his minions from there with spells and charming gazes.

Whatever you decided to do, having him remain to try and withstand the sunlight and full attacks from the party and spending ALL of his legendary actions on an attempt to charm a character that has strong saving throws was probably what led to his early demise.

Back on topic: I see that, generally speaking, people are happy to have monsters be fightable at low levels, but they don't like that it might be easy. I wonder if one way to handle that is to go back to the AD&D 'only +5 weapons can hurt this' idea; maybe not that directly, but something similar. So the Balor's stats stay unchanged, but only the God's Chosen or something can actually damage it. Thus when the players go into the Abyss and slay five, it is still impressive, because literally nobody else could have done it.

I personally agree that creatures like Balors and the like should not be easy for any but the most powerful and high level of parties. And even then, I don't think that "easy" is what I'd want to go for. I have introduced a few such demons as threats in my campaign, and used them against lower level parties. I used them sparingly, in brief encounters designed more to scare the PCs and test how the monsters would work. Saw a couple of areas of concern, so that I can be ready to deal with those later on.

I can't help but put it back on the DM. If your group is that effective, and you want to preserve the status of these monsters, then if the DM puts them up against a low level party for a real fight to the end, then the DM has created the situation where the status can be diminished. If a party of level 8 characters start mopping the floor with a Balor, then it's on the DM to have the Balor flee, and then return later on when things are more conducive to his victory.

If you don't want to risk this happening, then simply do not use such monsters against lower level parties.

I can play a goblin smart or stupid, but that's beside the issue. What's in the stat block is what I can see and what I can criticise. Just changing a single number like "Int 11" to "Int 21" makes no difference, or rather, no more difference than changing hp or dex from 11 to 21.

I think when people say this, they're not talking about the INT stat. They are talking about behavior. Have the creature behave like a thinking being rather than a suicidal source of XP.

If Strahd only works if run as a slasher antagonist, I require the book to contain specific advice on how to make it so. This might then deflect criticism about any perceived weakness, since it would give advice that makes up for those weaknesses: "Strahd never attacks when all PCs can bring their most potent attacks to bear against him". Perhaps the text tells him to make fly-by attacks through the walls, and discusses how he will react when the players (inevitably) start setting up readied actions. And so on and so on.

So without any direction on how to play Strahd, how come you decided on treating him like a brute? How did you come to that conclusion? Is that your default expectation for any monster?

Or did you look at his abilities and then draw that conclusion?

I find it really odd given how scrutinizing you are in so many ways....I would expect you to look at his stats and abilities, and perhaps more importantly, his weaknesses, and then determine a way to play him. I don't think it's a bad idea at all for them to provide some guidance on how to play Strahd...but without that guidance, I would expect an experienced DM....one who can see the flaws in the Feat system and with CR and Encounter design and so on....to look at the stat block and have a decent idea of how to run just about any monster.

Oh, and by the way....straight from the book:

Because the entire adventure revolves around Strahd, you must play him intelligently and do everything you can to make him a terrifying and cunning adversary for the player characters. When you run an encounter with Strahd, keep the following facts in mind:
- Strahd attacks at the most advantageous moment and from the most advantageous position.
- Strahd knows when he's in over his head. If he begins taking more damage than he can regenerate, he moves beyond the reach of the melee combatants and spellcasters, or he flies away (using summoned wolves or swarms of bats or rats to guard his retreat).
- Strahd observes the characters to see who among them are the most easily swayed, then tries to charm characters who have low Wisdom scores and use them as thralls. At the very lease, he can order a charmed character to guard him against other members of the party.