The Balrog Killer Challenge

[Firechanter]

Similar topic to the "Century Fighter", only this time a bit different.
Picture the LOTR scene where Gandalf stands up to the Balrog.
Now imagine this was not LOTR, but D&D 3.5 or PF1.
Instead of a Balrog, take a Balor as listed in the respective system.
Instead of Gandalf, it's your Wizard PC going toe to toe with the demon.

It's your job to buy your fellowship time to escape, and anyway you want all that juicy XP for the Balor for yourself.
The Balor is not abyss-bent on catching your fellows, he'll be confident enough to snack you first and then go after your buddies. However, he will use all the powers and abilities available to him to kill you.

What is the minimum level you want to be to take him on, and how will you manage to kill him?
Please include your chance of success in your analysis.

Rules:
3.5: Point Buy 32
PF1: Point Buy 25
Race: Core races or Aasimar
Equipment by WBL. You can buy published gear, combine slotted items per the usual rules, or you can make your own with Crafting feats.
If you craft consumables, you can pick whatever Caster Level is available to you.

Sources: ideally, stick to Core and splatbooks; avoid Dragon Mag, Web sources or similar. For 3.5, ideally stick to Core and Spell Compendium spells for brownie points.
No Leadership or the like. You can summon, call, bind or whatever you are able to, however.

Your build does not need to resemble Gandalf, but if you feel like beating up things with sword and staff or throw burning pinecones, go nuts.

Arena: as Moria - you encounter the beast on a narrow stone bridge over a bottomless chasm, then there's also an endless stair, it probably doesn't really matter since the Balor can teleport and fly anyway.

You were aware that encountering a Balor that day was within the realm of possibilities, so you may have prepared your spell selection accordingly.
You can have buffs with a duration of "minutes per level" or longer up and running, but you have to cast them yourself / use your own consumables.

The arena is yours. Have fun, but try to do it with style. ^^

ATTN: please absolutely NO discussion what race, class, stats or level the original Gandalf would be or have.

[Zanos]

I'll take the extremely lazy and obvious option, and make the X number of pit fiends that serve me for days/CL called with greater planar binding kill the balor for me. If I feel like watching the fight I can cast mind blank and invisiblity on myself, or just watch it on pay per view via scrying. Maybe I can sell seats to Blood War Live(tm) to make some cash. I don't expect many points but hey, it's core and gear and stats hardly matter beyond having an 18 in intelligence to cast 8th level spells. There is no real cap to how many pit fiends we can bind other than our spell slots, and really pit fiends are about as strong as a balor individually. Shouldn't need more than 2 or 3 to approach a 100% success chance. So, level 15?

You could also just be level 17 and cast gate to make any outsider with up to 34 HD(including another balor) come and solve the problem for you. That costs 1,000xp, but you should easily recover way more than that by soloing an ECL+3 encounter. Having a balor fight a balor probably doesn't give the best odds unless your support it yourself with casting, but you could always call up a Celestial Very Old Gold Dragon to solve the problem for you.

[Maat Mons]

Does the Balor use its at-will Dominate Monster to bring an army to the fight? Does he Dominate the allies I'm trying to protect and force them to fight me? Is there a good defense against his at-will Blasphemy?

[Firechanter]

Fair questions. If we stick close to the original scenario, then no: the resident goblins are scared ****less and have fled the scene when the Balrog announced himself; the companions are probably out of range and I'd expect them to have something like Prot from Evil up anyway. Though of course it would spice things up if the Balor made some friends along the way. ^^

[Edreyn]

Any other limitations? Can I cast Gate and call eagles or some friendly Mayars in?
Or use Time Stop, get away from the bridge, then crush the bridge and let gravity do all the work?
Or just use an array of spells to get away, something to improve speed and to ignore attack of opportunity, then again crush the bridge.
Or fly\leap\teleport and crush the bridge?

Yeah, it comes that the best solution is to destroy the bridge, like it was originally, but to prepare in advance, to avoid falling yourself.
Or, something to push him off the bridge, some of Hand's spells.

[Segev]

Remember that part of the question is to determine the lowest level you can manage this. So if you think you’ve got a flippant solution based on casters being overpowered with this “one weird trickspell,” then you should see if you can come up with a lower-level build/solution.

And the reason I call out the flippancy of the response is mainly that it’s kinda boring, while the challenge itself, taken seriously, could lead to some interesting designs.

While it’s still a pat build by this point, I actually wonder if an ubercharger or other massive-damage not-a-primary-caster build wouldn’t be better for this, since I believe the ridiculous damage numbers come online earlier. And balors are still vulnerable to hit point damage.

[Firechanter]

Any other limitations? Can I cast Gate and call eagles or some friendly Mayars in?
Or use Time Stop, get away from the bridge, then crush the bridge and let gravity do all the work?
Or just use an array of spells to get away, something to improve speed and to ignore attack of opportunity, then again crush the bridge.
Or fly\leap\teleport and crush the bridge?

Well, Gate would certainly be possible, but it has already been mentioned in the first reply and requires a pretty high level (17). I was hoping for lower-level solutions; currently Greater Planar Binding at level 15 seems to be in the lead.
Blowing up the bridge or pushing him off won't help unless you also incapacitate the Balor; those buggers have a Fly speed and at-will Teleport.

And even if you manage to incapacitate him and cast him into the abyss, keep in mind that in D&D fall damage caps out at 20d6 and a Balor has >300HP. It might be enough to get away, but expect being grappled by a flaming whip and dragged down with the demon so you get to go into melee while falling a couple of miles.

The biggest danger is probably that a Balor can use Power Word Stun at will, and you probably won't have the required >150HP to be immune to it, especially not as a Wizard. In 3.5 there are items against that, but in PF I am not aware of any such equipment. If you know any, please advise.

Edit: Oh and btw, Balors have True Seeing, so just hiding via Invisibility is not going to cut it.

[Altair_the_Vexed]

No-one has mentioned Pun-pun.

[Firechanter]

Dammit, I forgot to include "no stupid cheese" in the entry post!

[satorian]

A Mailman should be able to deliver a big enough sonic package by level 15, when the second Practical Metamagic comes online. Flavor the Sonic Orb as you bellowing, "You Shall Not Pass!"

[daremetoidareyo]

It appears that disarming is a viable strategy with some dimension door/shadow pounce paired with some critfishing on his own vorpal sword

[legomaster00156]

It appears that disarming is a viable strategy with some dimension door/shadow pounce paired with some critfishing on his own vorpal sword

Crit-fishing doesn't work with vorpal weapons. They explicitly require a natural 20, not a confirmed crit.

[Lirya]

A pathfinder sorcerer can probably kill the balor at 12th level. Battering Blast scales like crazy as you pump caster level (Gifted Adept trait, orange prism ioun stone, bloatmage initiate, varisian tattoo, spell specialization, crown of the kobold king, alter of nethys), and orc-bloodline arcana + blood havoc means you deal +2 damage/dice. Blood intensity increases the dice cap by your Charisma modifier while blood piercing gives adds Charisma to spell penetration. Add dweomer essence for another +5 to spell penetration (so you succeed on a natural 1). Wayang Spellhunter acts as a metamagic reducer so you can Empower one and Quicken another for 4 blasts dealing (10d6+20) x 1.5 force damage each and four blasts dealing 10d6+20 each. An average of 550 damage means you can roll a few natural 1s and still be ok.

All that is left is optimizing initiative and ranged touch attack bonus until you win (which could still be a challenge) and hope the balor is within 75 ft.

[PrismCat21]

It's an unfair comparison.
The pit fiend and Balor are basically interchangeable, since I believe the pit fiend was originally a Balor itself, but had to change it's name sure to copyright stuff.
Gandalf is a wizard in the LotR world, but only vaguely resembles DnD wizards. You'd be much more accurate finding a Celestial to represent him, it at least a 'holy' template of some kind.
LotR magic is basically only done by Angels and Demons.
If the top of my head, I'd suggest a Ghaele, though I'm sure their are better options.

[BaronDoctor]

I'm thinking something cheesy. Something to boost save DCs and CL enough to make Wingbind (Wiz4) + Slide (Wiz1) work. Wingbind is Ref and Slide is Will, so I'll admit those are high barriers, but something in me really wants to go for the classic play of shoving it off the edge.

Wingbind is only breakable by Disintegrate (not a balor specialty) and an escape artist check (the reflex save is a bigger hurdle, really). Slide would take a Will save and would only scooch the thing 5 feet, but it's a narrow bridge. If you'd rather go for Telekinesis to Bull Rush the thing, that's probably more reliable.

I'm not sure how much you'd need to pull it off, but that would solve the flight issue. Now, the teleport is another problem, but...I dunno. I like the Looney-Tunes solution.

[daremetoidareyo]

Crit-fishing doesn't work with vorpal weapons. They explicitly require a natural 20, not a confirmed crit.

Audacious attempt at level 1, go into fate spinner with the luck and cat domains, and dip sword sage for clinging shadow strike, bam there's like 25% chance if you disarm him. Sword sage prolly helps with the disarming too. Better lucky than good feat. You roll 3d20, and you have 3 rerolls (or more with fate spinner reroll cheese), and you can keep either a 1 or 20 to activate vorpal. That's a greater than 50% chance of a 1 hit kill if you succeed on the disarm. I imagine the whole thing could be viable by level 12-14.

[Calthropstu]

quickened web + hungry pit. 6th lvl slots. So required level 11th. Bag of holding, enlarged to huge size opening.Place opening over pit, dispel pit forcing balor into bag, dropping bag into portable hole. Balor is destroyed.

[Firechanter]

quickened web + hungry pit. 6th lvl slots. So required level 11th. Bag of holding, enlarged to huge size opening.Place opening over pit, dispel pit forcing balor into bag, dropping bag into portable hole. Balor is destroyed.

That sounds like quite a lot of stuff to do in one round. And if you can't do it all in a single round, what would keep the Balor from just teleporting out of the pit?

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

ECL 15 (achievable at an earlier level with lower reliability): Human, Beguiler 1/ Spellthief 1/ Wizard (Necromancer) 3/ Ultimate Magus 10; Master Spellthief, Quicken Spell, Split Ray, Twin Spell, Ocular Spell, Arcane Thesis: Enervation, Sanctum Spell, Metamagic School Focus (Necromancy), Weapon Focus: Ray. Dex 26 (18 +2 levels +6 enhancement), two Lesser Metamagic Rod of Maximize, BAB +6.

You have a trick prepared ahead of time, as follows:
Enervation with Arcane Thesis (+2 caster level, -1 metamagic cost per metamagic feat but not lower than the spell's level)
Sanctum Spell (+0 metamagic, effective spell level 3rd)
Lesser Rod of Maximize (+0 metamagic, can be applied to spells of 3rd level and lower)
Split Ray (+2 metamagic)
Twin Spell with Metamagic School Focus, using Augmented Casting from UM (+0 metamagic, costs a 3rd level Beguiler spell slot)
Ocular Spell (+2 metamagic)

That's a +4 metamagic cost but five metamagic feats, which reduces it to taking a spell slot of the spell's actual level which is 3rd. He casts that twice, storing one in each of his eyes for up to 8 hours. He can do this at least three times per day so he's sure to have one.

Caster Level for all classes is the sum total of each class's effective spellcaster level (8+1+13) with a +4 from Ultimate Magus and +2 for Arcane Thesis for 28 total. You can't fail to overcome its SR 28.

Your ray attack bonus is +6 BAB, +8 Dex, +1 Weapon Focus for +15 total vs its touch AC 16, you only miss on a 1 (5%).

He has Moment of Prescience which he uses to gain a +25 to his initiative check (RAW an initiative check is a Dexterity check which is opposed by other initiative checks, and thus an opposed ability check), for a total of +33, he gets a 34 if he rolls a 1 and the Balor gets a 31 if it rolls a 20 so he's guaranteed to go first.

He has Contingency cast to Teleport him away if an area of effect occurs which he believes will deal enough damage to kill him.

So he wins initiative and spends one full-round action to fire four rays from his eyes, each of which inflicts eight negative levels. If only three of the four hit (i.e. he rolls a 1 on one of the four attack rolls) he inflicts 24 negative levels, automatically killing it. Its death throes goes off and his Contingency teleports him out of range before he takes damage from it.

Chance of success: greater than 99%, as he only fails if rolling two or more 1's on four attack rolls.

[Evoker]

Perhaps Plane Shifting them would work? It's available at level 9 to clerics. Wis save and spell resistance are obstacles, but a Plane Shift scroll of Caster Level 17, heightened to level 9 (3825 gp) might work. Knowledge Domain to read a scroll of quickened true strike (caster level 9, cost 900 gp). Then you just need to pass a dc 18 caster level check with a +9 bonus, and a dc 28 caster level check with a +19 bonus (17 + Spell Penetration feat). Those are both slightly better than fifty-fifty. And a concentration check DC 24 to cast defensively (13 from skill, +4 from 18 Con (Bear's endurance + base 14) gives a 50/50). The will save is the sticking point. 19 at base. Spell focus and Greater Spell Focus for +2. A 24 (18 at start, 2 ASI, Owl's Wisdom ahead of time) Wis is another +7. DC 28? The balor has an OK chance of failing that. The real sticking point is being able to go before the balor. 20 dex (16 to start, cat's grace) for +5 isn't gonna cut it. But improved initiative will make up the difference, mostly. It'll be +11 vs +9.

So you need to make like... 5 50/50s, about. But it "Can" be done at level 9, or even lower. The necessary scrolls "Could" be bought by a level 4 character. But their odds would be much worse, with a much lower chance of succeeding casting defensively, casting any of the spells, and having only 3 feats (assuming human). For good odds, going up a few more levels would allow you to buy a +6 wis item, possibly a +1 CL ioun stone, and pick up a few more useful feats. But all in all, this seems like an OK way to pull it off in only core.

[Calthropstu]

That sounds like quite a lot of stuff to do in one round. And if you can't do it all in a single round, what would keep the Balor from just teleporting out of the pit?

You can't teleport out of a pit spell because it is an extra dimensional space.

[Maat Mons]

You can turn the 50/50s for scroll activation and overcoming spell resistance into guaranteed successes with the Arcane Mastery feat (Complete Arcane). The feat not only lets you take 10 on caster level checks, but also (per the errata) do so in combat.

The 50/50 for Concentration can be turned into a guaranteed success with the Steady Concentration feat (Races of Stone).

[Evoker]

You can turn the 50/50s for scroll activation and overcoming spell resistance into guaranteed successes with the Arcane Mastery feat (Complete Arcane). The feat not only lets you take 10 on caster level checks, but also (per the errata) do so in combat.

The 50/50 for Concentration can be turned into a guaranteed success with the Steady Concentration feat (Races of Stone).

I was sticking to SRD core only with my answer, for some extra challange and to differentiate my answers. Clearly, there's many other options with more books, as have been proposed by other posters. But that arcane mastery feat is pretty nice, as it completely invalidates "level appropriate" spell resistance with the help of spell penetration and possibly greater spell penetration. Anything that can turn a 50/50, or even a 25/75 chance of losing your action to SR into a 0% is pretty nice, and easily guaranteeing casting scrolls 9 levels higher than you are is a nice extra perk.

[Endarire]

Even "Pazuzu, Pazuzu, Pazuzu" for a wish or few at level 1 is doable, regardless of Pun-Pun.

[Sinner's Garden]

It's also both a decidedly uninteresting response ("make somebody else solve it for me!") in the tactical sense and completely insane ("Gandalf turned to evil because he was too lazy!") in the strategic one.

[Firechanter]

You can't teleport out of a pit spell because it is an extra dimensional space.

Oh, does it count as EDS then. Okay, then it's worth thinking about optimizing Save DC so the Balrog won't just Reflex+17 out of it. ^^

[Kaleph]

What about wings of flurry + circle magic? I'm AFB, but possibly a wizard 5 / red wizard of thai 5 / shadowcraft mage 3 could work (being a wizard specialized in illusion, and affiluated to the illusion "sect" of the red wizard should fulfill the alternate entry requirements for non-gnomes).

[Psyren]

Is there a good defense against his at-will Blasphemy?

A silence effect automatically beats that, though of course it could interfere with your own casting.

[tyckspoon]

A silence effect automatically beats that, though of course it could interfere with your own casting.

'Be Evil' is of course the easy answer, and clearly the best from an optimization standpoint, as it both requires no build resources to do and opens up a few potentially useful things (like using Vile feats, there's some pretty choice effects you can snag there that are either difficult or very expensive to get otherwise.)

[upho]

Since balors are pretty basic brutes and AFAIK therefore also far more easily taken out by high-op martial types than casters in PF, does "Gandalf" really have to be based on the wizard class which is poorly suited for the PF version of this challenge?

For example, if he can be something as seemingly basic as a human straight fighter, he could reliably one-shot several balors as long as they can be within a 35' radius centered on (Large size) "Gandalf's" position at the end of his charge in his opening turn*. At 9th level (assuming PF's WBL guidelines which says a PC with multiple crafting feats should have an effective WBL increased by 50%).

*The balors won't die in the first round, but they'll be cowering for an average of about 8 rounds. So they'll drop their weapons and be unable to do jack. Of course, this "Gandalf" can simply keep scaring the crap out of them at his leisure during those rounds to prolong the cowering duration up to at least up to an hour.