Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 tyrrell Jul 03, 2010 10:40:09	Wednessday night my character's party encountered a Balor , a Balor with extra hit dice, better SR, quickened spell like ability: blasphemy,  and probably a few other neat tricks that we didn't get to see. It was there to deliver a mesage to the party.   My (chaotic) character, not one to give chaotic evil things of this power an opportunity to ...well do anything, threw an otto's irresistable dance on it and the party went to town on the rest of the encounter (cloud giant stats reskinned as super sahaugin) with the paladin simiting the bejesus out of boogie balor.  When the Balor was put past 0 hp with subdual damage for the last bit (the paladin has the ability to see how close things are to death) my character threw out a many jaws and the party hid behind 20' of  stone and the sorcerer's wall of force as the beast's death thtows made a heck of a big blast. The issue is that summoned deamons don't actually die when they're slain on the material plane and this one through dirty looks made it clear that he was not at al happy with me ("dude, I was just the messenger"). I'm not fond of the thought of my character (5 wizard/ 10 incantatrix/ 3 archmage he's got a big spellbook and proabaly the ability to learn any spell additional that he needs) getting jumped by this thing when he's on the toilet. My original plan was to use planar binding then Otto's irresistable dance, I'd use metamagiced up enervations to give it negative levels and therefore it saving throw penalties until the warpreist manages to plane shift it to the negative material plane to be consumed to nothingness. Of course planar binding doesn't work on critters with more than 18 hit dice.  Is there a way to get this thing gone for good?  Notes: It is clear that this Balor is not the main story and we're not going to mess up the narrative by dealing with it in a calculated and coldly efficent manner. The DM has a fondness for calculated and coldly efficient Other party members include a cleric 12/ war preist 5, 13 rouge/4 fighter,  level 17 goliath barbarian, paladin 7/hunter of the dead 10, sorcerer 8/ elemental savant 10(elemental savant was house ruled to be full caster level) (and possibly a level 18 half orc monk who is exceedingly well optimized, and a level 4 war wizard, level 4 favored soul, level 10 mystic theurge but the theurge player is awat from the game for a few weeks and the Monk's story is about to reach its completion alowing the character to find his deserved rest)
#2 lormador Jul 03, 2010 13:34:06	If it were me, I'd try using as much divination as possible first of all. Not Scrying and such- mainly clerical divinations, playing 20 Questions with Commune spells, using Contact Other Plane, and Discern Location. In most campaigns, this will be difficult or impossible for the creature to defend against. The goal of all this is to get it's name and learn the general pattern of its activities. In particular, any mortal casters it deals with, how it conducts business, etc.  It's a messenger, right? Then it's a matter of planting the bait. For this I recommend a spell originally printed in the Book of Vile Darkness called False Sending. You guessed it- the spell conceals the identity of the caster of Sending and replaces it with a false one. Ideally I wouldn't even do this directly- I'd get the identity of one of the mortals with business arrangements with the Balor, manipulate this guy with False Sending, and get him to request the Balor's help. Hmmm, possibly with the prospect of a special mission to eliminate you?
#3 urpriest Jul 03, 2010 19:19:19	An advanced Balor is, to my understanding, still not a unique being, and you have access to 9th level spells. Why not just use Gate? It doesn't get a save, and there's no cost (aside from the base XP cost of the spell) for ordering it to do something in the next few rounds, like, say, killing itself once you're out of range of the explosion.
#4 steelblue Jul 05, 2010 23:38:23	Okay, before I say anything constructive, I have to marvel at a level 18 wizard concerned about being surprised by a balor. WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA................ Okay, done. On to useful things. You have three options: kill it on its home plane, get it to come to you, or find a way to call - as opposed to summon - it. Calling: gate will probably not work - if you gate a unique being, like this specific balor, it is uncontrolled, and can decide whether it wants to come through the gate or not, so you'd have to bait it through. Good luck with that. And yes, any specific specimen is a unique being. You could gate random balors until you get the right one, but... uh... the, y'know, ABYSS might object. Your other options will probably not work against a balor. Planar binding would work except Greater is capped at 18 HD... maybe develop an epic version once you have epic spellcasting, if you feel like you can wait that long. Getting it to come to you... well, obviously that takes some effort. Extensive use of divination to learn about it would be appropriate for baiting it or hunting it at home, so you should plan on that anyway. Lormador gave you a pretty good outline on a way to bait it once you know about it. Me, I'm a fan of teleport bombing or tricking it to summon me. Use divination to catch it somewhere where you're not walking into a trap, kill it, and leave. You may want to ensure that whatever it works for won't take this personally, but that will be true no matter what. Actually, now that I think about it, there is a fourth option: put out a bounty on it. Make the bounty rich enough - say, a set of spells cast by you, like persist, contingency, or wish - and someone will probably go kill it for you.
#5 phaedrusxy Jul 06, 2010 10:08:11	And yes, any specific specimen is a unique being. That is certainly not the definition of "unique" that most people use. The tarrasque is a unique being, as are creatures like Asmodeus and most of the other Lords of the Nine, and other things with completely unique stat blocks like Demogorgon. A specific balor is certainly not unique, and most of the calling spells say you can call specific beings if you know them (including Gate itself). There are even stat blocks printed up in the Book of Exalted Deeds that are supposed to be examples of things to call with the Planar Ally line of spells. They have class levels and templates and all kinds of stuff.
#6 steelblue Jul 06, 2010 23:45:37	And yes, any specific specimen is a unique being. That is certainly not the definition of "unique" that most people use. The tarrasque is a unique being, as are creatures like Asmodeus and most of the other Lords of the Nine, and other things with completely unique stat blocks like Demogorgon. A specific balor is certainly not unique, and most of the calling spells say you can call specific beings if you know them (including Gate itself). There are even stat blocks printed up in the Book of Exalted Deeds that are supposed to be examples of things to call with the Planar Ally line of spells. They have class levels and templates and all kinds of stuff. Really? My name is Steelblue, and I am a unique being. There are other humans. Many are male, 6'2", with brown hair and hazel eyes. Some of those may even be named Steelblue. But even a clone of me using my name wouldn't somehow make me into someone not the sole example of myself, because it would lack my experiences, training, thoughts, and all that makes me myself, as opposed to PhaedrusXY. That makes me a unique being. If the balor you want is a specific individual, he is unique. Let me approach it another way. If you want a balor and you don't care which, you can call for a balor, and a balor you shall get, controlled and all. But if you want the balor who goes by the name XYZ, who was summoned to deliver a message to this particular party on this particular date, was "killed", and has had to reform on his home plane while contemplating thoughts of vengeance, you are most assuredly seeking a unique being. I don't say that a DM might not permit you to gate and control a specific balor, but RAW, using a practical definition of unique, is fairly obvious on this point. And yes, I believe I did mention Planar binding as a viable option... except for the HD cap. Gate, however, will only work in a limited sense because the results of calling for a specific individual are explicitly spelled out as being different from the results of calling for a generic creature. The only way you might be able to use gate to gain control of this balor is if you can use templates and histories and whatever to narrow down the subset of balors being called by your gate to a sufficiently small number that you have an acceptable chance of getting this guy. Sufficient divination might allow that.
#7 angellusmortus Jul 07, 2010 1:19:00	Become friends with or hire a Malconvoker (Complete Scoundrel). Their upper level abilities let them bind creatures of 2HD higher than the normal limit, thus bringing Balor's in range.
#8 steelblue Jul 07, 2010 3:20:38	Become friends with or hire a Malconvoker (Complete Scoundrel). Their upper level abilities let them bind creatures of 2HD higher than the normal limit, thus bringing Balor's in range. BINGO, I knew there was something, I just couldn't remember what. Here's me digging in Complete Mage... anyway, yeah, get a malconvoker9 to cast greater planar binding. Profit, if the balor isn't special to the point of having extra HD. Uhhhhhh, can't believe I forgot about malconvoker...
#9 phaedrusxy Jul 07, 2010 10:43:27	Really? My name is Steelblue, and I am a unique being. No you're not. You are not special. You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. You're the same decaying organic matter as everyone else. You're misinterpreting the definition of "unique". The term you're looking for is "specific". You are a specific human being. You are not a unique human being. There are over 6 billion of them crawling their way across this planet, and you're just one of them. Unique and specific are not the same thing. If you were a human with 6 functional arms, you might have a claim to being unique. But I doubt you are. In earlier editions of D&D, monster stat blocks had a "Frequency" line, and the stat block of the Tarrasque, Demogorgon, and all the gods said "Unique" there. That line in the Gate spell description has been around in almost the exact same form since those earlier editions. So even if the statblock line isn't there anymore, it's meaning is still clear if you know the history of the game.
#10 Omen_of_Peace Jul 07, 2010 10:56:10	Let me approach it another way. If you want a balor and you don't care which, you can call for a balor, and a balor you shall get, controlled and all. But if you want the balor who goes by the name XYZ, who was summoned to deliver a message to this particular party on this particular date, was "killed", and has had to reform on his home plane while contemplating thoughts of vengeance, you are most assuredly seeking a unique being. Your argument doesn't work: even if you don't request a particular Balor, by your own hypothesis every Balor is unique (every Balor can say "I am XXX and I am a unique being") - in fact, every creature is - and so the non-unique option of Gate doesn't work. At all.
#11 daniel678 Jul 07, 2010 11:11:37	Wednessday night my character's party encountered a Balor , a Balor with extra hit dice, better SR, quickened spell like ability: blasphemy,  and probably a few other neat tricks that we didn't get to see. Putting aside arguments about if a creature with generic stats is unique or not, this specific Balor is not a generic creature. It has better and possibly extra abilities.
#12 urpriest Jul 07, 2010 13:39:41	Wednessday night my character's party encountered a Balor , a Balor with extra hit dice, better SR, quickened spell like ability: blasphemy,  and probably a few other neat tricks that we didn't get to see. Putting aside arguments about if a creature with generic stats is unique or not, this specific Balor is not a generic creature. It has better and possibly extra abilities. One of these is a feat, and the SR may be hit-dice dependent (AFB atm). So basically we've got a balor with extra hit dice. At this point, there are two possibilities: either it has extra hit dice because momma balor was big-boned, or it has extra hit dice because some Demon Prince ordered up a custom model. Basically, it's either a member of a continuum of extra-HD balors, and thus nonunique (by Steelblue==nonunique standards, which I feel are the correct ones), or it's an extra-HD balor due to a specific, unique history. In the end that's a setting detail, and up to the DM. I'd suggest gating the thing in and testing this, with backup in case it's unfriendly, though I don't know if you'd be willing to sink the XP cost for a potentially useless (though informative) Gate.
#13 tyrrell Jul 07, 2010 15:17:56	Thank you all for the replies thus far.  Certainly one option that I'm looking at is step 1 locate creature, step 2 buff party step 3 locate creature again step 4 gate to the abyss step 5 kick the crap out of the Balor and go home But I'm more fond of step 1 gate the creature to me (depending upon uniqueness issues as adjudicated by my DM) step 2 kick snot out of creature step 3 use a bunch of energy draining and or send it to the negative material plane to extinguish it. My question here is if the Balor gets its levels drained from it is that any different that getting its hit points drained when it comes to reforming back on the abyss?
#14 urpriest Jul 07, 2010 15:53:36	My question here is if the Balor gets its levels drained from it is that any different that getting its hit points drained when it comes to reforming back on the abyss? Nope. Even if you steal it's stuff while summoned, it will still have its stuff back on the Abyss. The trick is that you're not summoning it, you're calling it, and when called it's as if it planeshifted over there, and it's just as killable as a native.
#15 angellusmortus Jul 07, 2010 16:01:35	Let me approach it another way. If you want a balor and you don't care which, you can call for a balor, and a balor you shall get, controlled and all. But if you want the balor who goes by the name XYZ, who was summoned to deliver a message to this particular party on this particular date, was "killed", and has had to reform on his home plane while contemplating thoughts of vengeance, you are most assuredly seeking a unique being. Your argument doesn't work: even if you don't request a particular Balor, by your own hypothesis every Balor is unique (every Balor can say "I am XXX and I am a unique being") - in fact, every creature is - and so the non-unique option of Gate doesn't work. At all. Yes, every Balor is unique...but you are only attempting to summon a specific unique being if you declare one by name. I'm honestly not quite sure, I can easily see both sides of the argument. Had the same problems when my Malconvoker started using Gate on epic creatures, trying to decide if the fact that there was only 1 made it unique, or if I had to be seeking that one...etc. Ultimately DM descrition IMHO. Oh, and by the way Phaedrus...love the Fight Club quote.
#16 tyrrell Jul 07, 2010 16:27:01	My question here is if the Balor gets its levels drained from it is that any different that getting its hit points drained when it comes to reforming back on the abyss? Nope. Even if you steal it's stuff while summoned, it will still have its stuff back on the Abyss. The trick is that you're not summoning it, you're calling it, and when called it's as if it planeshifted over there, and it's just as killable as a native. So if I use gate, all I have to do is kill it normally? (assuming that my DM doesn't adjust metaphysics away from the default presented in the game.)
#17 angellusmortus Jul 07, 2010 17:39:06	My question here is if the Balor gets its levels drained from it is that any different that getting its hit points drained when it comes to reforming back on the abyss? Nope. Even if you steal it's stuff while summoned, it will still have its stuff back on the Abyss. The trick is that you're not summoning it, you're calling it, and when called it's as if it planeshifted over there, and it's just as killable as a native. So if I use gate, all I have to do is kill it normally? (assuming that my DM doesn't adjust metaphysics away from the default presented in the game.) Correct. Any "Calling" spell actually brings the creature to you from their own plane, so if they die, they're gone for good. Gate, Planar Binding, and Planar Ally all fall into this category.
#18 steelblue Jul 07, 2010 21:58:10	"It's all in Plato, all in Plato: bless me, what do they teach them at these schools?" Your argument doesn't work: even if you don't request a particular Balor, by your own hypothesis every Balor is unique (every Balor can say "I am XXX and I am a unique being") - in fact, every creature is - and so the non-unique option of Gate doesn't work. At all. You're constructing a straw man argument by putting me in the position of having claimed that the non-unique option of gate doesn't work on creatures that are, by some measure, inherently unique. I never said that; what I said was that the results of gate depend on your calling criteria. Let's try a basic mathematical approach. If you seek something of which there exists a set with subsets greater than one, you are seeking something non-unique. So if you cast gate and state that you want a balor, you're not looking for anything unique; there are lots of balors. However, if you cast gate and state that you want a specific balor, such that the only possible subset of the set you specify is that particular balor, you are seeking a unique being. The tarrasque happens to be the only tarrasque, so if you gate a tarrasque, even without adding additional criteria, there is only one possible subset of the set you've specified; namely, the tarrasque. If there were two tarrasques, there would be 3 possible subsets of the set "the tarrasque" and you would not be calling for a unique being. Phaedrus, as pop, hip, and pessimistically emo as your depressing perspective on humanity is, it's not really relevant. Extending the mathematical example above, I can say that if you gate Steelblue the human, you may get any of the various members of that set, since there are probably other humans who have the name or identity of Steelblue. You could add criteria to narrow your set, but once your set is narrowed to the point that you are gating *me* and *only* *me*, you are gating a unique being. Let's re-examine the definition of unique, shall we? "Existing as the only one or as the sole example." So of humans, I am not unique. Of Steelblues who are me, I am. Therefore, if the target of your hypothetical gate spell is humans, I am not unique, and should I happen to be gated, you could control me. If the target is me, I am unique, and you could not. Your argument about history of the game has more relevance, and I'm not sure I have a good answer, as prior to 3rd edition I wasn't a DM and didn't bother reading the books, so I really have no relevant knowledge. The best rebuttal I have is that with this argument, you are essentially talking about RAI, not RAW. And eventually any such question has to come down to the DM.
#19 urpriest Jul 07, 2010 22:23:20	Your argument about history of the game has more relevance, and I'm not sure I have a good answer, as prior to 3rd edition I wasn't a DM and didn't bother reading the books, so I really have no relevant knowledge. The best rebuttal I have is that with this argument, you are essentially talking about RAI, not RAW. And eventually any such question has to come down to the DM. By the way, there is some support for Phaedrus's position in 3.5 texts, though I'm having trouble finding it. 3.5 often refers to Archdevils etc. creating unique beings or promoting other beings to unique beings, whose statblocks are then presented, implying that in 3.5 unique is a keyword that refers to having unique statistics, not to being unique in the "I am the only Steelblue" sense. If someone remembers where to find an example of one of these that would be very helpful.
#20 steelblue Jul 07, 2010 22:54:52	Hmm... I've loaned out my fiendish codexes to another DM for campaign design atm, but that seems like the right set of books to check for that. I'll have to check once I get those books back. Good thought though.
#21 angellusmortus Jul 08, 2010 0:30:51	Phaedrus, as pop, hip, and pessimistically emo as your depressing perspective on humanity is, it's not really relevant. Extending the mathematical example above, I can say that if you gate Steelblue the human, you may get any of the various members of that set, since there are probably other humans who have the name or identity of Steelblue. I do agree with your mathematical example, although frankly I'm quoting you to call you out on being unnecessarily spiteful. Plus, he was quoting Fight Club, and in a relatively appropriate application. Relating to the pre-3.5 argument, I'm not sure either, I'll have to ask some friends who played before. Urpriest, I know on page 37 of the DM's guide there is a reference to the possibility of summoning specific creatures, even to the point that you could roll for the stats of "your" Fiendish Dire Tiger, etc. Of course, this suggests that technically every creature you could Summon (much less Call) could have unique properties, and thus be more in line with Steelblues argument.
#22 tshern Jul 08, 2010 0:59:55	Quicken SLA doesn't normally work for Blasphemy, so at least we are talking about a DM fiat Balor. Not sure if that makes it unique though.
#23 urpriest Jul 08, 2010 16:27:24	Urpriest, I know on page 37 of the DM's guide there is a reference to the possibility of summoning specific creatures, even to the point that you could roll for the stats of "your" Fiendish Dire Tiger, etc. Of course, this suggests that technically every creature you could Summon (much less Call) could have unique properties, and thus be more in line with Steelblues argument. That's a variant rule, so the most it's saying is that that isn't how summoning works generally, that summon monster spells can only bring generic creatures, and this is something I agree with. Calling is a different fish however. Looking it over, though, it presents some support to my claim: the variant is, very clearly, supposed to change only the summon monster/summon nature's ally spells. However, it says that, with this variant in place, you may want to enhance the capabilities of those creatures you regularly summon, and it tells you you can do so by using calling spells, from a list that includes gate. If gate could not be used to summon a specific creature then it could not be used for this purpose. Thus, gate can be used to summon specific creatures, and unique and specific don't mean the same thing in this context.
#24 steelblue Jul 08, 2010 22:32:26	... Gate can be used to summon specific creatures. The discussion is whether specific creatures are treated as unique or non-unique for purposes of determining the effect of the spell. From my position, if you gate Kulik the celestial eagle, it doesn't have to come unless there are two "Kulik the celestial eagle"s. I don't know why it wouldn't if you're going to give it a cloak of resistance and it works with you on a regular basis, but it doesn't have to. This doesn't really support anything one way or the other.
#25 urpriest Jul 09, 2010 10:47:24	... Gate can be used to summon specific creatures. The discussion is whether specific creatures are treated as unique or non-unique for purposes of determining the effect of the spell. From my position, if you gate Kulik the celestial eagle, it doesn't have to come unless there are two "Kulik the celestial eagle"s. I don't know why it wouldn't if you're going to give it a cloak of resistance and it works with you on a regular basis, but it doesn't have to. This doesn't really support anything one way or the other. I hadn't fully grasped the celestial part of the concept...you're right, they could be assuming that the thing is your ally and will actually want to come visit you (and get a snazzy cloak of resistance). I don't think that's why gate is listed there, but you're right, it's just as consistent.