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

[Warmaster Horus]

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.
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Why? There are Drow-crafted weapons and no one complains (much) about them and their sunlight sensitivity. Just make it a tradition in your game that there are demon-forges that craft fine panapoly for evil dudes or the like. It's puzzling to complain that if you give creatures magic then you turn into a Monty Haul game yet say that having monster-attuned-only items is 'cheap'. Players will accept all kinds of flimsy fluff to explain that kind of thing away and will get even more excited when a 'real' magic item turns up.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

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.

Yes. Vampire movies come from the horror genre, not the action genre. Horror movies make you afraid for the protagonist, and that doesn't happen in a frontal assault. It's the difference between Alien (the alien could be behind you right now!) and Aliens (look at those ammo counters tick down! do the good guys have enough bullets to survive?!).

I'm not knocking action movies BTW. I love Aliens.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Why? There are Drow-crafted weapons and no one complains (much) about them and their sunlight sensitivity. Just make it a tradition in your game that there are demon-forges that craft fine panapoly for evil dudes or the like. It's puzzling to complain that if you give creatures magic then you turn into a Monty Haul game yet say that having monster-attuned-only items is 'cheap'. Players will accept all kinds of flimsy fluff to explain that kind of thing away and will get even more excited when a 'real' magic item turns up.

I see both sides of this. I personally wouldn't mind such items, and I don't think my players would, either....but it's easy to imagine some that might. If they see weapons that clearly have cool abilities, they tend to want those as a reward when they defeat the enemies.

I think in such instances, it makes more sense to put the ability in the creature rather than their gear. Why not just give the monster a +2 to hit and damage? Or in the case of more specific properties like hte flaming whip of the Balor, have the special property granted to the weapon by the creature.

Seems pretty straightforward.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

The solution to giving extra magic items to fiends is easy. Possession is 9/10th of the law: have the magic item radiate evil and narrate to the group that everyone can feel in their bones that to use the magic item is to risk being possessed by the spirit of the fiend. Then throw in some idea about a quest that could de-possess the item. If they want the item, they can go on the quest, otherwise the item isn't a problem.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I see both sides of this. I personally wouldn't mind such items, and I don't think my players would, either....but it's easy to imagine some that might. If they see weapons that clearly have cool abilities, they tend to want those as a reward when they defeat the enemies.

I think in such instances, it makes more sense to put the ability in the creature rather than their gear. Why not just give the monster a +2 to hit and damage? Or in the case of more specific properties like hte flaming whip of the Balor, have the special property granted to the weapon by the creature.

Seems pretty straightforward.

There can be story reasons for preferring to put it on gear. If suddenly all the pirates in the South Sea are 11th level Fighters, I'm going to be asking, "How did they get all that XP and from where?" But if a pit fiend is cranking out cursed magical armor which makes a pirate immune to non-silver weapons and cursed magical Vorpal Swords, I will be asking a different question, "How does this pit fiend manage to forge all this magical gear?"

Which story I find more compelling as a DM will probably determine which version I choose. If I want a story about trying to free the legendary artificer Dworkin of Amber from the Citadel of Nine before he floods the world with chaotic weaponry and topples civilization, I will choose the second.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

There can be story reasons for preferring to put it on gear. If suddenly all the pirates in the South Sea are 11th level Fighters, I'm going to be asking, "How did they get all that XP and from where?" But if a pit fiend is cranking out cursed magical armor which makes a pirate immune to non-silver weapons and cursed magical Vorpal Swords, I will be asking a different question, "How does this pit fiend manage to forge all this magical gear?"

Which story I find more compelling as a DM will probably determine which version I choose. If I want a story about trying to free the legendary artificer Dworkin of Amber from the Citadel of Nine before he floods the world with chaotic weaponry and topples civilization, I will choose the second.

It really depends how you craft the story. Would Frodo use a Morgul-blade or use the One Ring constantly? No. Come up with a cool conceit about a certain type of arcanum or the like and use it with restraint. Again, if it fits your vision, use it. If not, move on.

 

[Xeviat]

I feel like this is a consequence of 5E switching to much shorter fights. In 4E, a slug match between a typical (not heavily optimized) party and a solo took something like 6-8 rounds. Now it's more like 1-3. From what I remember of 3E (as it was my first edition and I was far less cognizant of the mechanics), fights were pretty quick too.

I get it, we don't want a drag out slug fest. Those are boring. But I'd like monsters to live long enough to do some cool things.


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[Chaosmancer]

Another thing with the Fiends... they disappear when destroyed, going back to their home planes. Isn't it common for them to take their gear with them? I don't expect most of us are letting the players grab the weapons and armor from devils, because that all goes back to the Abyss with them, kind of like the Warlock Pact of the Blade.

Then you just have to worry about the players going to the Abyss or the Nine Hells and killing them there and taking their stuff. And if you let a 9th lv party get away with that.... you deserve what you get I suppose.

 

[hawkeyefan]

There can be story reasons for preferring to put it on gear. If suddenly all the pirates in the South Sea are 11th level Fighters, I'm going to be asking, "How did they get all that XP and from where?" But if a pit fiend is cranking out cursed magical armor which makes a pirate immune to non-silver weapons and cursed magical Vorpal Swords, I will be asking a different question, "How does this pit fiend manage to forge all this magical gear?"

Which story I find more compelling as a DM will probably determine which version I choose. If I want a story about trying to free the legendary artificer Dworkin of Amber from the Citadel of Nine before he floods the world with chaotic weaponry and topples civilization, I will choose the second.

Yeah, this is very true. It all depends on what the goal is, and what matches the story, and how the gaming group will handle it.

Anything that can open up more story options is good, so as others have suggested, if using such "evil items" as the springboard for another adventure, that's great in my book.

 

[Valdier]

I'm doing it slightly differently... I have been slowly re-writing all the CR10+ monsters in the monster manual to actually follow the CR rules. The fact that Dragons have wildly differing CR numbers and often have the same effective stats is what started me down the path (Blue and Green Dragons were some of the most obvious that made me start looking at it closer).

I'm making direct MM page replacements to fit into my spiral bound monster manual (after all the pages fell out).