Planar Binding and Ally - In practice?

[Sudain]

What are your favorite stories of using Planar Binding in practice? We all know the game-breaking theory; I'm curious about how people actually have used it and their results.

I'm hoping to build a character based upon this but, only if the practice works out well.

[Mithril Leaf]

When I was making a dread necromancer, a scroll of lesser planar binding and lichloved let me make a massive horde of mindless undead to fill my halls with by binding Maurezhi from fiend folio. Animate Dead at will as an SLA.

[eggs]

I played a eidoloncer who made a schtick out of enslaving Modrons to mass-produce corrupted Inevitables. Kicking in the villains door with a couple Zelekhuts as backup seemed like a pretty badassed way of resolving the plotline. But that pretty quickly shifted into a secret lair full of fake Inevitables with no particular love of justice. For a while, the campaign turned into the party frontman teleporting into places where the party faced opposition, bringing a handful of inevitables in tow, making false claims of cosmic justice and beating the hell out of anyone who opposed him. The whole thing didn't sit well with Mechanus, and the campaign turned into a war between the Modrons and the party+Slaads+Inevitables (the latter groups somewhat conned into the conflict).

Planar Binding completely changed the course of that campaign, but it didn't break things in the way "breaking things" is normally used - its uses were mostly plot-based rather than tactical, nobody was upstaged, and we still had a workable plotline going (it was just probably different than the DM had anticipated.


And as probably a less good example, I played an evil Shaman in a party that was mostly massacred in a fight with some sort of earth-templated Dragon in a heavily trapped dungeon. The resources weren't available to raise the party, so instead I wound up shelling out a handful of treasures to Planar/Spirit Ally up some Devils, Ghosts and Snake-Sorcerer-things for the players to run while we finished the thing. After struggling through the beginning of the dungeon with a pretty typical party, the substitute outsiders and spirits tore the rest of it apart.

[Silva Stormrage]

Oh this one happened just recently for me. My players wished to bind a fiend to preform a ritual on one of them so he could become half fiend (The monster class which requires a ritual). They failed to bind the demon correctly (No dimensional anchor and the demon had teleport at will) so the demon simply teleported out unbound. The fiend asked for money or corpses of strong animals as he had animate dead at will in exchange for telling the group how to preform the ritual.

The group accepted the terms and bought several warhorses to give the fiend. When they had returned (About a day later, they had other things to do) they find the fiend on top of a huge pile or corpses including several people they knew in the city. The fiend asked for the corpses and the group refused instead deciding to attack the fiend. The resulting battle ended up costing them 2 out of 3 party members, the magical loot of one party member. And the fiend escaping.

All in all a fun encounter :smallbiggrin:

[Kelb_Panthera]

Oh this one happened just recently for me. My players wished to bind a fiend to preform a ritual on one of them so he could become half fiend (The monster class which requires a ritual). They failed to bind the demon correctly (No dimensional anchor and the demon had teleport at will) so the demon simply teleported out unbound. The fiend asked for money or corpses of strong animals as he had animate dead at will in exchange for telling the group how to preform the ritual.

The group accepted the terms and bought several warhorses to give the fiend. When they had returned (About a day later, they had other things to do) they find the fiend on top of a huge pile or corpses including several people they knew in the city. The fiend asked for the corpses and the group refused instead deciding to attack the fiend. The resulting battle ended up costing them 2 out of 3 party members, the magical loot of one party member. And the fiend escaping.

All in all a fun encounter :smallbiggrin:

Lady's and gentlemen, proof that the ultimate balancing factor is human error. AKA, "if schroedinger's wizard says the word 'oops,' the cat is dead."

[Sudain]

I'm so making a wizard called Schrodinger and giving him a cat familar.

[Spuddles]

Getting a fiendish familiar (fiend folio) via planar binding is totally worth it.

Had a player use planar ally to get an angel in a campaign once. It was like having a secondary badas baller cleric.

[Akal Saris]

Had a PC use planar binding to try and get lots of wishes. Basically spent about 2 hours laughing as NPC demons repeatedly rolled 20's to save, the PC failed SR, or the demon's Cha rolls won. Finally the PC gave up and summoned a bunch of abyssal drakes (kind of like demonic wyverns), and is now using them to breed an army of draconians for his evil horde.

[Arbane]

I'm so making a wizard called Schrodinger and giving him an undead cat familar.

Fixed your typo. :smallwink:

[Snowbluff]

I'm so making a wizard called Schrodinger and giving him a cat familar.

So you can use Science (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ForScience) to justify animal abuse? lol :smallwink:

[AntiTrust]

Through some DM flim flam I had bound a pit fiend using my malconvoker. I casually exclaim "don't worry about ole pitty over there, as long as I don't die he'll be bound to me for a while". A few hours later in a long forgotten temple a Nightwalker lurked, when the pit fiend spotted him he said "kill this one that bound me and you and I can have some real fun". One nat 1 save or die spell later and I was dead the pit fiend free. Fast forward a few rounds and I'm still dead, our fighter is dead and our wizard teleported out of there to save himself leaving the elven ranger to try and high tail it alone. She swims through an underground river we passed up due to poor swim checks and suddenly she started aging rapidly while the pit fiend (ageless) is on her tail. She makes it out in time to be a cripple old woman who the pit fiend toys with for a while before killing her. Man it was a great session...

[Starbuck_II]

The only way to get sneak attacking undead is binding a Babau then killing it and animate its skeleton.Because skeletons keep special attacks.
Dress them up as ninjas and your players wil never know why these undead can sneak attack.

[Sudain]

Through some DM flim flam I had bound a pit fiend using my malconvoker. I casually exclaim "don't worry about ole pitty over there, as long as I don't die he'll be bound to me for a while". A few hours later in a long forgotten temple a Nightwalker lurked, when the pit fiend spotted him he said "kill this one that bound me and you and I can have some real fun". One nat 1 save or die spell later and I was dead the pit fiend free. Fast forward a few rounds and I'm still dead, our fighter is dead and our wizard teleported out of there to save himself leaving the elven ranger to try and high tail it alone. She swims through an underground river we passed up due to poor swim checks and suddenly she started aging rapidly while the pit fiend (ageless) is on her tail. She makes it out in time to be a cripple old woman who the pit fiend toys with for a while before killing her. Man it was a great session...

lol Awesome.

I'm surprised more people don't have stories of acutally using planar binding. Is there a reason for it?

[Slipperychicken]

Had a PC use planar binding to try and get lots of wishes. Basically spent about 2 hours laughing as NPC demons repeatedly rolled 20's to save, the PC failed SR, or the demon's Cha rolls won. Finally the PC gave up and summoned a bunch of abyssal drakes (kind of like demonic wyverns), and is now using them to breed an army of draconians for his evil horde.

He wanted wishes and was binding Demons? Efreeti and Noble Djinni are far less trouble than that (no SR, not-that-good Charisma, no dimensional travel to worry about). Even if it breaks free, not like it's going anywhere. You can just pound it into the dirt and torture Intimidate it into giving you the Wishes. And get the Bard to do the talking (he was made for charisma checks), provided you can trust him.


And it even makes sense. No one binds demons into bottles, because that's crazy. People put genies in there, specifically so they can abuse them for wishes.

[Silva Stormrage]

lol Awesome.

I'm surprised more people don't have stories of acutally using planar binding. Is there a reason for it?

I would imagine that it is one of the most powerful spells in D&D. And it has a VERY high chance of backfiring if your not 100% sure on what your doing. Take my parties example up above. After summoning a demon and losing 2/3 of their party the character decided to summon ANOTHER demon. This time the demon broke free once again and nearly killed the last remaining party member. After killing that one he decided it would just be easier to bind a celestial being for the ritual he wanted.

I personally like using Planar Binding in a campaign where its just 1 player (Me) and 1 DM as there is no way binding some demons will cause the other players to become useless. One campaign like that I ended up binding around 30 vrocks every other week and just had them run rampant across a kingdom I was attacking to distract and harass the other side. I am quite confident if there was another player in that situation they might of felt a tad bit resentful at my characters ability to quite literally summon up an army almost at will.

[Corlindale]

I think it sees little use in many mid- or low-op campaigns because it has the potential to wreck game balance if your wizard travels along with a companion with CR equal to the party level for extensive periods of time.


I think the best way to use it from a game-balance perspective would be for errands that does not actually involve fighting alongside the party, but instead have it working "off-screen". For instance, if you have to go on a quest and leave your hometown undefended for an uncomfortable amount of time, bind a celestial and have it help protect the city in your absence.

[eggs]

I doubt it comes up much in lower-op games just because of all the digging around it takes to even use.

With most spells, you see a spell in the index, turn to the page, and know what it does. Requires skimming a paragraph or two.

With something like Planar/Spirit Ally/Binding, you see the spell in the index, turn to the page, leaf through all the monster books available checking for types, alignments and HD, then look through the SLAs available to those monsters, look those spells up, and then know what the Planar/Spirit Ally/Binding spells do. All told, requires skimming a few thousand pages for a good idea of their options.

Also, a lot of uses aren't super interesting. Binding a Nat and spamming passwall through a dungeon is incredibly useful, but it's not really something to discuss.

[Urpriest]

Another reason why it doesn't see much use in practice: most campaigns are low level. Campaigns that aren't low level are often either one-shots or games where leveling has been sped up, and thus have less downtime. Thus in general games high enough level for planar binding will often not give enough downtime to make good use of it.

[ahenobarbi]

I think it sees little use in many mid- or low-op campaigns because it has the potential to wreck game balance if your wizard travels along with a companion with CR equal to the party level for extensive periods of time.

That. The spell is so powerful it can ruin fun easily (see how easy it is to planar bind (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=135096)).

[Silva Stormrage]

That. The spell is so powerful it can ruin fun easily (see how easy it is to planar bind (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=135096)).


Ya the spell has great potential but is easily abusable. I like the flavor of binding a demon into your service but you should be either limited on what you bind or actually have to convince it. Usually whenever I dm I remove the charisma check to bargain with the demon. If you want a demon or fiend to serve you you need to convince it/offer a reward.

[golem1972]

My gestalt Archivist // Malconvoker used planar binding a lot. Even at early levels, a couple of scrolls can get you started. One of my faithful binds was a Bar-lgura demon. Snatch plus greater teleport at will equals abrupt jaunt that doesn't use my action. It also equals a weird sort of overland flight.

There's a bind for any situation and no real limit on number of binds. Permanent rarys telepathic bond + greater teleport equals Pokemon. (Don't burn xp for permanency, that's what binds are for.)

[Eldan]

I used two simple house rules that, from what I've seen, greatly reign in the power.

First, you can't cast any spells or similar effects on the creature between the time you bind it and the time it starts performing the service. Stops you from just dominating it. This is flavoured as the pact being powerful magic, that can only be made voluntarily.

Second, the creature always demands a favour of equal value in return. Again, sacred pact. Even if the creature wants to help you (e.g. it is a servant of the same god), it can't just give you a freebie. The balance of the multiverse demands an exchange.


It's remarkable how much longer players think about it when they have to actually do something in return for an ally.

[Psyren]

I would personally never use Binding, too much potential for screw.

Ally is another matter, but of course it's DM's choice what you get. You could GPA for a Planetar and end up with a Lantern Archon in theory.

[ahenobarbi]

I used two simple house rules that, from what I've seen, greatly reign in the power.

First, you can't cast any spells or similar effects on the creature between the time you bind it and the time it starts performing the service. Stops you from just dominating it. This is flavoured as the pact being powerful magic, that can only be made voluntarily.

Second, the creature always demands a favour of equal value in return. Again, sacred pact. Even if the creature wants to help you (e.g. it is a servant of the same god), it can't just give you a freebie. The balance of the multiverse demands an exchange.


It's remarkable how much longer players think about it when they have to actually do something in return for an ally.

Just one question: say a wizard planar binds some fiend, has it almost fulfill a contract but has the fiend destroyed before it can actually fulfill it. Is the wizard free from any obligation?

[Psyren]

^

Given that the universe itself is demanding the exchange, the Wizard would probably be on the hook for whatever was actually done.

[Anxe]

One of my players did Binding a lot. He had a list of imps he'd call on for answering questions using their commune ability. He also had a Glabrezu named Thug he'd occasionally hire for bodyguard work. Thug was paid quite well, so he didn't turn on the party.

[Eldan]

^

Given that the universe itself is demanding the exchange, the Wizard would probably be on the hook for whatever was actually done.

Aye. It's a law of magic. Services must be paid.
If a favour is not paid, it is passed on, with a blood debt added. To blood relatives, lieges, underlings, whatever there is.

[ahenobarbi]

Aye. It's a law of magic. Services must be paid.
If a favour is not paid, it is passed on, with a blood debt added. To blood relatives, lieges, underlings, whatever there is.

Ah, that makes sense, thanks.

[Eldan]

The players soon stop abusing it too much if it moves up the chain. Mess with a Quasit, and a Hezrou comes to call in the deal. Mess with the Hezrou and have his Nalfeshnee master at your door. And so on. If you do it long enough, well, Graz'zt always loves messing with upstart mortals in nicely artistic ways.

[ahenobarbi]

The players soon stop abusing it too much if it moves up the chain. Mess with a Quasit, and a Hezrou comes to call in the deal. Mess with the Hezrou and have his Nalfeshnee master at your door. And so on. If you do it long enough, well, Graz'zt always loves messing with upstart mortals in nicely artistic ways.

Looks like a reasonable/working/awesome fix for the spell group. If I ever DM D&D I'll remember it :smallbiggrin:

[roguemetal]

The players soon stop abusing it too much if it moves up the chain. Mess with a Quasit, and a Hezrou comes to call in the deal. Mess with the Hezrou and have his Nalfeshnee master at your door. And so on. If you do it long enough, well, Graz'zt always loves messing with upstart mortals in nicely artistic ways.
I agree with this part of your idea... Not so sure that the pacts need to be paid for though, just an awareness of consequence if related planar beings find out. And it shouldn't be too difficult for them either.

[Eldan]

Oh, sure. You can also imagine it that way.

Molydeus: "Assemble the Imp Legion! We ride to Gehenna, the Blood War awaits!"
Hezrou: "Master, there are no Imp Legions anymore! Mortal wizards bound them all to suicidal tasks!"
Molydeus: "Bring my my magebane mace."

[ahenobarbi]

I agree with this part of your idea... Not so sure that the pacts need to be paid for though, just an awareness of consequence if related planar beings find out. And it shouldn't be too difficult for them either.

"Equivalent exchange" should work. Especially if players know about Eldric Brothers

[Eldan]

Or the Dresden Files. Or various fairy tales. Or...

It's an old idea.