Just wanna get people's thoughts on balancing on Balors. I've got one in mind for my group in a few weeks. There's 3 of them, level 11, a Moon Circle Druid, a College of Whispers Bard, and a Thief Rogue/Celestial Warlock. They all have reasonably above average stats (everyone has at least one 18 and only one negative), pretty high powered magic items, (The Rogue is using the Deathwalker's Ward from the Tal'dorei campaign guide as an example).
I've been going over the Balor in my mind. I feel like coming off the back of a long rest, they should be fairly okay with it. It's a rough fight, but I don't see too many things the Balor has that should result in a TPK. They've proven themselves capable of winning super high CR fights before, they took out a vampire at level 8 and an Adult White Dragon at level 10. I realise you don't know my party as well as me, but hopefully I can get some thoughts on whether I'm being overly optimistic about this one. I wouldn't normally check, but this is so high CR I figured it might be a safe bet to get some second opinions. Would be grateful for your input, thanks people. :)
A CR 13 Adult White Dragon would have been Deadly for 3 Level 10 characters (expected at least one character to enter death saves)
A CR 19 Balor is well past Deadly for 3 Level 11 characters (anything CR 14 and up is). Some thoughts about it:
Resistances and immunities should be manageable.
It can fly faster than most magic
It has 120 feet truesight, so any magical stealth is impossible.
Any melee characters take 10 damage a turn by being next to it, and an additional 10 whenever they hit it (Fire Aura)
It has advantage against any spell cast against it
It does not have any legendary actions or resistances, so it can be effectively planned against
A level 11 character has around 100 HP, and if the Balor hits with both attacks (reasonably likely) it does 59 damage, every 2 or 3 rounds someone will enter death saves, which seems like it could escalate quickly
so if your party has good ranged damage (with ranged spell attacks, ranged weapons, or Pole Arm Master cheese) and a way to mitigate some of the damage, they should do okay. Mundane stealth should also work reasonably well.
Hi DM's,
Just wanna get people's thoughts on balancing on Balors. I've got one in mind for my group in a few weeks. There's 3 of them, level 11, a Moon Circle Druid, a College of Whispers Bard, and a Thief Rogue/Celestial Warlock. They all have reasonably above average stats (everyone has at least one 18 and only one negative), pretty high powered magic items, (The Rogue is using the Deathwalker's Ward from the Tal'dorei campaign guide as an example).
I've been going over the Balor in my mind. I feel like coming off the back of a long rest, they should be fairly okay with it. It's a rough fight, but I don't see too many things the Balor has that should result in a TPK. They've proven themselves capable of winning super high CR fights before, they took out a vampire at level 8 and an Adult White Dragon at level 10. I realise you don't know my party as well as me, but hopefully I can get some thoughts on whether I'm being overly optimistic about this one. I wouldn't normally check, but this is so high CR I figured it might be a safe bet to get some second opinions. Would be grateful for your input, thanks people. :)
I use https://dhmstark.co.uk/rpgs/encounter-calculator-5th/ to get rough ideas on what a good challenge is. Its an encounter CR calculator based on the DMG rules for combat encounters.
A CR 13 Adult White Dragon would have been Deadly for 3 Level 10 characters (expected at least one character to enter death saves)
A CR 19 Balor is well past Deadly for 3 Level 11 characters (anything CR 14 and up is). Some thoughts about it:
so if your party has good ranged damage (with ranged spell attacks, ranged weapons, or Pole Arm Master cheese) and a way to mitigate some of the damage, they should do okay. Mundane stealth should also work reasonably well.
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