I beat the balor, but I did not beat his deputy

Best fight in the game without any questions. It took me around 6 reloads before I was able to win this fight without any deaths. I never would have been able to do it if my sorceress didn't have break enchantment. I think I lucked out (or the game took pity on me) as in my last reload the Balor didn't summon another balor, but summoned 6-8 quasits instead.

Some questions.

1. Did Co8 make this battle harder? I can't see how a party 8-10th level could possibly win that fight.

2. What level of weapon do you need to hit the balor. I was loaded with +3 and never touching him. Lucikily, I never sold the frost brand weapon and even though I wasn't specialized in it, my fighter was able to whack him with it. Other than that and cone of colds/magic missiles nothing touched him. My summons were nothing more than meat shields.

3. Is chain lightning broken or have I just not figured out how to use it correctly. I cast it, target the enemies I want it to hit, then I hit the green button over the caster. Nothing happens. Does it take more than one round to cast?

4. I was totally unprepared for all of the fear spells they cast. Are there items/spells that make you immune to fear and charm (in case I replay)? It was kind of funny watching Elmo run all over the place screaming "run away!!!)

5. Now I only have the water plane and Hickory left before the finale. I know I'm vastly overpowered for Hickory, I think I will conquer it using only summoned creatures. Should be fun.

 

while i have no idea whether the balor has been buffed from its original toee state; according to the rules its a CR 20 (advancement listed as going up to 60HD at the extreme end)

and from memory it doesnt use most of its abilities like blasphemy, firestorm and so on...

Also i personally havent seen any vorpal 'procs' from its sword

PnP balor has damage reduction 15/cold iron and good, but theres no cold iron weapons in the game so the developers instead basically made it so that holy(good) weapons and cold weapons like icy burst or whatever will bypass the DR.

I have no idea what tweaks have occured and so on but my take is its basically underpowered compared to the rules; but grossly overpowered to pit against a lvl 10 party.

I beat him at lvl 10 with 8 PCs but it took me like 30 tries over the course of several days

As a little indication here's how your fight would go at level 10 if you attacked a 'real' balor:

(beware, longwinded random tangent)

lets say that the entire party manages to have better initiative than the balor (who has +11 )

you need an attack bonus greater than +19 JUST to be able to hit the Balor on a roll less than 20, so to be able to hit on a 10-20 you need a bonus of +29. Buffs may help a bit; but yeah... most of your melee attacks will fail. if you are 'lucky' enough to hit the demon, you take 1d6 strength damage unless you manage to fort save (DC26 - unbuffed lvl 10 fighter needs 20 exactly to save) thanks to the unholy aura.

The balor's touch AC is only 16, so rays are an option, along with other spells - if you can beat the spell resistance which takes a 14-20 if you have greater spell penetration; or 18-20 without any spell penetration -spell resistance monsters arent enormously common before level 10; but you may have the feat if you like it balor's arent exactly common at this level either

basically, even with a freakish run of lucky rolls; chances are you're going to have to face an attack by the balor, and the first attack he pulls out will instakill your whole party.

At will: Blasphemy. Every round, the Balor kills every creature of lvl 10 or below (Caster lvl 20-10=10) within 40 ft.

so yes... there is no realistic chance of a lvl 10 party having any chance against a 'real' balor

Of course; blasphemy is the ability that the Balor uses up front only when it doesnt take you seriously

If it actually thought you were a threat it would use its firestorm/implosion 1/day ability.

So, for a lvl 20 party, again assuming you dont manage to kill the balor before it attacks:

Implosion = kill a creature every round (for 4 rounds concentration) unless they fort save - unbuffed (no spell effects/items) lvl 20 wizard needs a 20 to save; fighter needs a 15.

Firestorm = 20d6 damage to whole party, reflex save for half damage

yum.

oh, and a quickened telekenisis which can be used as a free bull rush, trip, disarm, grapple, pick up one of the PCs and throw them at another one, drop them from great height, or into a conveniently placed lava pit... or throw a big rock or similar hard, dense object at a PC... lets say a conveniently placed piano hits a PC for 15d6 damage.

oh, and then round two starts

according to the monster description the balor doesnt usually start Meleeing until round 3.


but yeah thats a verrrry long winded way of belaboring a point on my behalf... i hope my maths isnt too off; im sure i made some mistakes somewhere there

balor being CR 20, according to the rules means that your average lvl 20 party should find the battle moderately difficult... In a crpg where you have the ability to save/reload, things can be skewed a bit though... buffs are a given, so that takes the sting off; and cruel attacks like the balor entangling a person in its whip and then flying upwards into the air before dropping the person, then dropping a fridge on his/her broken corpse with telekenisis might not actually happen.

 

I have found that if I give my rogue the cloak of midnight and activate it before the battle and move her behind the balor she does her complete series of attack plus the bonuses for sneak attack with the frostbrand

 

When using chain lightning I have never had a problem but I press the space bar after targeting what I want to hit, try that and see what happens

Wazsa

 

It's not just level 10 parties either.

Up to level 15 (Caster level 20 - 5), blasphemy automatically paralyzes for 1d10 minutes, which also means you're dead.

Above that, you're either dazed (20), or dazed and weakened (16 - 19). So if it were me trying to be mean about the balor encounter, I'd probably forgo the implosion, and have it try to summon another balor. If successful, one can blasphemy every round (meaning your guys never get to do anything), and the other can do whatever he likes. I've not played pen and paper, though (I just read about it so I can see what to wish for in crpgs), so perhaps my tactics are off (plus if it works, it's no fun for the players; they just die).

Of course, at that level, if you're aware you're going to be taking on a balor, you can take measures to protect yourself from blasphemy (and probably implosion, too), so you can win.

A level 10 party considering combat with a balor is pretty ridiculous, though, even without blasphemy (which, I believe, is widely acknowledged to be pretty cheesy).

 

Brilliant. That worked like a charm.

 

with fragrach or scather it's possible to have a single player out of a party defeat the balor. you, should have a few heal potions (when either of those two swords hit him the game bugs up and you can't end your round - so have a cure wounds potion, drag and drop it to the use button, and then you'll get a small prompt saying you don't have time left to do that action, then click cancle or go or whatever and the turn ends and goes to the next player's round), also buff him/her/them up with spell resistance, courage, stoneskin, and protection spells. i usually don't go after balor with more than two characters and maybe one PC. Usually a wizard, to buff up players, a cleric/fighter (stoneskin and fragrach or scather) and a figher/rogue (the other of the two swords).

Usually all 12th or so level will give you the spells you need to make the balor into punching bag.

sometimes one of his spells will do an instant kill. spell resistance helps those saving throws.

To get both fragrach and scather you can save thrommel, kill something, have him put fragrach on the dead character or into a chest, then pick it up and take it for your character.

it does not effect the knights showing up and giving you scather, unless the pc you have talk to them is holding fragrach. either drop it or give it to another character and then you'll get scather as well.

it's possible for a 5th level character to start tearing around the temple with fragrach. since you know where he is, you go their without any combat, save him, kill one thing or go to a chest you've opened, and make the trade.

 

with fragarach and scather also it's possible to get the AoO bug when attacking something that damages the attacker.


btw, you want cold and/or holy weapons to over come the balors damage reduction. There are some spells that help with over coming the his spells.

 

i usually solo the balor at around lvl 14 or 20, as cleric i just buff like crazy and get into melee or harm him a lot, as wizard i buff like crazy and keep running away casting cone of cold, polar ray and magic missiles until i have to get into melee. i havent fought him as a druid yet due to bad luck with bugs screwing up my druid games (no frag or scath, Evil for the win ;D)

i bet he's amazingly easy as a LG cleric though, with good and law domains.

 

This never worked for me, so I actually made it through the game without using either sword. How exactly are you supposed to do this. When my game jams due to the bug, I can't access my inventory to grab the potion and try to use it. I tried this in the final battle and Z summoned some Vrocks and they were using some sort of spore attack. The screen kept flashing that I was taking damage and then taking an attack of opportunity against the spores (like that would work) and then it would just hang. I could move the move, highlight things, etc, but for the life of me I can't figure out how I'm supposed to pop a potion. I'm guessing either I have a problem or I'm missing something totally obvious.

Just about the only weapon in the game that I have been able to use to fight the Uber bad guys was the frost brand. Everything else either wouldn't hit or wouldn't cause any damage. I was sure my crafted items were better than the frost brand. Oh well, I did have a rip roaring good time.

 

how I beat him (not sure if spoiler or I just got lucky)

I don't know if it was a game glitch or I got very lucky or what, but after 6 or 7 attempts and an equal number of reloads, I finally tried grease and it knocked him down. My dwarf fighter with cleave etc. was then able to keep wacking him with frostbrand until the balor died. The balor never even got up to fight back!

Sometimes it isn't the uber powerful spells that make a difference against seemingly impossible opponents!

 

Snook: Try the I key for Inventory while in combat.

 

Oh yeah... Which reminds me... That's a bug, you can
access your character's inventory even if it's not her
turn. This lets the player change weapons, etc. for free.

Has it been mentioned in Atari bugs?

 

That never worked for me as "I" was the only way I ever got into the inventory. After my attacks and then the multiple dialogs about taking damage and attacks of opportunity, I wouldn't be able to do anything. I tried I, I tried clicking on inventory, nothing works. Did I have to do it before it froze or at a certain time?