CR 20 Outsider Bosses = Not all created equal?

[Angry Bob]

The Balor and the Pit Fiend are nasty opponents, but do more esoteric similar creatures measure up to their standard? How vicious are, say, Daelkyr from the ECS, the Kalaraq Quori from Secrets of Sarlona, and similar creatures? Can I set their encounters up as though they were one of the fiends, or do I need to shore up some weaknesses they have in comparison to the first two?

[nyarlathotep]

Daelkyrs like the tarrasque need to have their feats re-picked they are absolutely terrible. Other than that just give them some of the symbiotes from the fiend folio and they'll be fine.

The CR 20 quori should also have its feats repicked but those are not as dire and really if in combat should always be in swarm form. There is literally never a reason not to be.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Looking at the Daelkyr and Kalarak Quori, I'd say they're probably more challenging than the core CR 20 outsiders.

The Daelkyr can use mind fog, affect opponents with its confusion aura, and use quickened polymorph any object to turn someone's armor into green slime (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/dungeons.htm#slimesMoldsAndFungi). After that it can feeblemind spellcasters and use quickened insanity on anyone outside its confusion aura. If opponents turn out to be immune to mind-affecting, it can still use baleful polymorph, flesh to stone, and slow, and with haste it can easily reduce an opponent's dump stat to zero with a full attack. If the fight goes poorly it can dimension door to safety and fast heal for a bit, then get the drop on them later.

The Kalarak Quori is extremely dangerous. Between being incorporeal, its regeneration, its confusion-inflicting melee attacks, and psionic powers, it should be an extremely dangerous foe. Incorporeal creatures can fly around inside the walls and floor and emerge wherever they like, so it should never be caught in melee. It can lurk around spamming dispel psionics to remove any of the party's buffs. Its next course of action should then be mass cloud mind to make most of the beefier opponents forget it even exists, effectively removing them from the fight, and quickened psychic crush on someone who made the save for that. It can pop in and out of the wall spamming ego whip on someone to disable them early on if most of its opponents failed the mass cloud mind. Every two rounds it should move out of the wall and cast, then cast and move back into the wall to reposition itself, and it should never emerge within melee reach of anyone. It can quickened psionic blast and empowered energy wave in one round, or insanity and quickened psychic crush in one round. It could have used its focused mind seed on a powerful political figure and then charmed all the town guards so the PCs would be up against quite a few more than just the one outsider, many of whom they wouldn't even want to kill.

The core CR 20 outsiders are just melee brutes with a few mediocre spell-like abilities. They lack theme and leave little room for tactics. Many of the monsters that have been printed since then are far more interesting challenges if played intelligently, particularly those in the higher CRs.

[nyarlathotep]

I would agree with you furiou if not for two things. Both core CR 20s have blasphemy, greater dispel magic, and greater teleport at will and they both have 100% accurate summon abilities.

[Runestar]

The balor can be taken down with a sub-optimised lv16 party (as evidenced by wotc), so I doubt it is really worth its cr.

MM5 has the garngrath, which I like to think of as what the tarrasque should have been. How well it actually fares though...:smalltongue:

Fiendish codex also has a few cr20 demon lords. Interesting thing is that wotc significantly toned down their SLAs and made them more "tanky" compared to the pit fiend/balor.

What do you all think? Any experiences with them?

[Lans]

The balor can be taken down with a sub-optimised lv16 party (as evidenced by wotc), so I doubt it is really worth its cr.

Unoptimized parties should be able to take on CR+4 as a boss fight, expecially with prep or foreshadowing

[Runestar]

Unoptimized parties should be able to take on CR+4 as a boss fight, expecially with prep or foreshadowing

COme on, this unoptimised? :smalleek: The wizard's using a bow and the party even sports a healer!

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/tt/20050809a

[Alleran]

COme on, this unoptimised? :smalleek: The wizard's using a bow and the party even sports a healer!

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/tt/20050809a
That reads to me like the party won more because of luck than because of tactics. The way I would have done it (17th level Wizard), assuming I got the jump in an ambush:

Prep: Wizard uses a Strand of Prayer Beads, and activates the +4 CL one. He also has an Ioun Stone (+1 CL) and a Ring of Arcane Might (+1 CL, +1 save DCs).

Surprise Round: Wizard casts Limited Wish. The Balor now takes a -7 penalty on its next saving throw.

Round 1: Wizard casts Banishment, brandishing two holy symbols of powerful lawful good deities (have a cleric bless them for extra "Balor doesn't like this" appeal). That should provide a minimum of +4 to the DC to avoid it, +8 if the DM is feeling nice. The Balor now has to pass a save DC of 32, potentially 36, and it's taking a -7 penalty (knocking the +19 down to +12), so it needs to roll a nat 20. Save or go bye-bye, Balor.

(10 + 7 + 7 (let's say the Wizard has an 18 with a +6 INT item) + 1 (Ring) - 20 (Balor HD) + 23 (CL) + 4 (items) = 32)

The save DC can probably be bumped up further with other items (throw a fistful of lawful good deity holy symbols at it) or what-have-you.

Did I miss anything? It's late and I'm tired.

[Lans]

COme on, this unoptimised? :smalleek: The wizard's using a bow and the party even sports a healer!

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/tt/20050809a
The Balor didn't use its abilities effectively. He should have summoned another Balor, and used its TK.

Edit- Also the important part was the prebuffs wasting 3 or 4 of the balors turns.