3.5 Balancing Planar Ally (and Planar Binding)

[Aetis]

Hello, playgrounders.

I need some advice in how to balance Planar Ally spell. (and Planar Binding)

It's a 6th level spell, so a 11th level cleric gets access to it, and it costs bit of xp (250 xp) to use.

It also costs gold depending on the duration and risk of the task. (for example, a task that is min/lv costs 100g/HD of the creature, double cost if it's a very dangerous task)

Obviously, I wouldn't allow chained wishing or other abuses, but even without that, it seems pretty insane to me that a lv 11 cleric can spend bit of xp and 1200g ~ 2400g to hire an astral deva for few minutes for an upcoming fight. (or some other outsider; there are many powerful outsiders other than astral devas that can be called with Planar Ally)

And, if it's so easy to do, I see no reason why NPC clerics and wizards of lv 11 and higher wouldn't also employ an outsider or four for an upcoming combat.

Please help my game before it's flooded with angels and demons!

[eggynack]

Ally is pretty easy. The caster has very limited ability to control the outcome of that spell, so just give the caster allies that are either random or partially chose by you. Binding is crazy though. Dunno that the same thing can be justified. Some say they use the unreasonable requests provision, but I don't see that as justifiable in a lot of cases. Still, we're looking for balance, not necessarily logic, so that could be a good angle.

[Aetis]

I feel like the spell is either too good, or worthless, depending on how the numbers are changed around.

If the PC knew that his planar ally spell gives him a random ally ("a lantern archon??? really???"), then the spell would not be worth the 6th level slot.

I don't know where to draw the line for "unreasonable requests" for planar binding that would actually balance the spell.

[Extra Anchovies]

Complete Divine lists the three types of planar ally usually sent by each of the PHB deities plus Lolth, Kurtulmak, Bahamut, and Tiamat. There's also a table (p. 119) of possible allies to use for other gods, but it only includes stuff from the first Monster Manual.

[ace rooster]

How would you balance the PCs kidnapping/charming a mercenary and demanding they work for them? Or even simply hiring mercenaries. Do you think sending is OP because you can ask the king for more troops?

Called outsiders are NPCs, and should be treated as such. A planar ally spell is a request for aid, but the PCs may not be at the front of the queue. "All outsiders have more important things to do" is a perfectly valid response to a planar ally spell to do something low on the diety's priority list. If the diety is at war, any request would have to be very important to pull away high level outsiders from the front. If the diety thinks the PCs can handle it, no help will be given.*

Planar binding seems to have it better, but actually has it far worse. The existance of a mortal that is willing and able to interupt whatever a high level outsider is doing is a huge concern, particularly if they have important things to do that are time sensitive (most things in a war). Use of this spell is painting a bullseye on you back visible from 3 planes away unless you can justify to the outsider (and their superiors) that what you need it to do is more important to it that what it was doing before. It is worth commiting significant resources to neutralising a reckless binder, so one of the few times you would expect a planar ally to get a more powerful outsider than desired is to deal with a planar binding caster.

It basically has the same answer as a PC thinking that they can get tons of money by robbing a bank. They can... sort of...

One houserule I run is that all outsider spell like abilities draw power from their home plane. The combat implications of this are very slight, but it does mean that outsiders are reluctant to throw teleports around like candy.

* Worth making the implications of this clear to the players. As the DM, you expect the game to be winnable, so no diety would give more aid. If something happens however, such as a PC dying far from additional help, this may change. You can then DM fiat that the diety thinks that they do need help, and a level appropriate outsider helps until a ressurection or new PC arrives. This conveniently gives the dead PC's player something to play till they get back in proper. :smallwink: