lunar2
2013-01-17, 03:31 PM
so i had this awesome idea of 4 advanced elite chain devils grappling and pinning a balor (read something about a chained demon, went to the next logical step). now, an elite 16hd chain devil would have a starting strength of 19 (15 base +4 racial). they would gain +2 strength from levels, for 21 max strength. this is exactly the strength i want them to be at, because any stronger and they can actually damage the balor, which negates the scenario.
16 bab +5 strength + 4 improved grapple = +25 grapple, versus the balor's +36. assuming the chain devil animates 4 chains, and each chain aids its grapple check, it gets up to +33, which is much better. so, each chain devil manages to grapple and pin the balor separately. assuming the balor is capable of breaking a pin (obviously, since he's still better than their individual grapple checks), does he have to break each pin separately, or does he get one check to break all 4? i'm of course hoping he has to break each separately, since then the chain devils can hold him indefinitely, because he doesn't get enough actions to break all 4 pins before they can re-establish them (he could break all 4 pins in a single round, but he'd have no attacks left to do anything about it, and the chain devils would each get 4 chances to re-establish their pins before he gets another turn).
the scenario, of course, is that a relatively low level paladin must choose whether to release the chain devils by killing the balor (assume this particular balor has no ranks in concentration, so it can't use its SLAs to defend itself), or whether to release the balor by killing the chain devils (their chains are already occupied helping to hold the balor, so they are defenseless, as well).
either way, the paladin must free an evil outsider from this stalemate (he could just walk away, which would be the "correct" answer, but he probably wouldn't think outside the box like that). this is purely hypothetical right now, and even if i ever used it, i'm not looking to make the pally fall, just give him a tough dilemma to chew over. not that this setup would be used when the party is too low level to fight any of the enemies, so trying to kill them all is not a valid strategy.
16 bab +5 strength + 4 improved grapple = +25 grapple, versus the balor's +36. assuming the chain devil animates 4 chains, and each chain aids its grapple check, it gets up to +33, which is much better. so, each chain devil manages to grapple and pin the balor separately. assuming the balor is capable of breaking a pin (obviously, since he's still better than their individual grapple checks), does he have to break each pin separately, or does he get one check to break all 4? i'm of course hoping he has to break each separately, since then the chain devils can hold him indefinitely, because he doesn't get enough actions to break all 4 pins before they can re-establish them (he could break all 4 pins in a single round, but he'd have no attacks left to do anything about it, and the chain devils would each get 4 chances to re-establish their pins before he gets another turn).
the scenario, of course, is that a relatively low level paladin must choose whether to release the chain devils by killing the balor (assume this particular balor has no ranks in concentration, so it can't use its SLAs to defend itself), or whether to release the balor by killing the chain devils (their chains are already occupied helping to hold the balor, so they are defenseless, as well).
either way, the paladin must free an evil outsider from this stalemate (he could just walk away, which would be the "correct" answer, but he probably wouldn't think outside the box like that). this is purely hypothetical right now, and even if i ever used it, i'm not looking to make the pally fall, just give him a tough dilemma to chew over. not that this setup would be used when the party is too low level to fight any of the enemies, so trying to kill them all is not a valid strategy.