Why 3.5?

[danielxcutter]

I recall someone saying something about the problem with 3.5e's balance not being that the casters can do things martials can't, but that if the casters aren't great at doing it the martials don't have jack.

Edit: Also, in the case of druids they literally have multiple class features stronger than some classes.

[RandomPeasant]

My issue isn't with the versatility some extremely powerful/broken specific spells (they're a problem, obviously, but not the one I think specialization could fix) but with the versatility of magic in general (and – more importantly in this discussion – the fact that classes like the wizard can use so much of it).

But then we're back to the question of what the data supports. And I just don't see how it supports this sort of conclusion. There are a number of natural experiments we have, and some simple thought experiments, that seem to me to close out most of the avenues by which this can be argued.

Is the problem casters that can change their spells from day to day? The Incarnate and the Sorcerer suggest, from both ends, that this is not the issue.

Is the problem that casters have a wide range of magical effects to draw on? The Beguiler and the Dread Necromancer suggest that this is not the issue.

Is it that there is a large range of spells? There's not a good natural experiment to point to here, but you can think about a thought experiment like "what's the shortest list of Sorcerer/Wizard spells you'd need at each level to be T1", and I think you could probably do that in a single-digit number of spells at each level.

Now, it is certainly true that if you took spells away from spellcasters they would become less good. You're not wrong about that, I just think you're dramatically overstating the degree to which a case can be made that it's the range of spells on the Wizard list (rather than small numbers of outlier spells) that produce balance problems.

Even if we removed or nerfed every single spell considered overpowered, casters would still be far more versatile than most non-casters.

Certainly. But then we get into the "is that a bad thing" side of the equation. A Wizard has tools that let him contribute to most combat or non-combat encounters. How effective he is will depend on the specific encounter and the specific Wizard, but it seems to me quite difficult to argue that "there are some encounters where a character has no relevant abilities" is a desirable state of affairs. Do you enjoy playing a Rogue against a horde of zombies, or a Warmage with no social skills in an intrigue adventure? Is it desirable to make those sorts of experiences more common?

forcing casters to specialize can help with the second part.

But again, the specialization dynamic you want already exists. A Beguiler is better at Beguiler-ing than a Sorcerer or Wizard can be. The relative dynamic you're asking for is the status quo, the issue is the absolute dynamic between casters and non-casters.

I recall someone saying something about the problem with 3.5e's balance not being that the casters can do things martials can't, but that if the casters aren't great at doing it the martials don't have jack.

My view is that there are basically two problems. The first is the (relatively short) list of spells that are genuinely broken. The game does not function if you play with RAW planar binding. polymorph has gotten enough layers of changes and errata that I'm not even certain what the RAW version is, but it is almost certainly abusable. The second is that non-casters are just completely deficient across the board. Even the ones that are relatively competent in combat are completely deficient at everything else. Tome of Battle is the closest martials come to relevance, and the non-combat utility it provides amounts to "scent", "flight ten levels after casters get it", and "short range teleportation". IMO, it seems really hard to look at the way casters work and the way martials work and conclude "the big problem here is the characters who get abilities that influence the setting and advance the plot". That's not to say casters have no problems, but I find it hard to take any solution that doesn't start with "we need to buff the hell outta martials" seriously.

[danielxcutter]

Well, initiators do get access to useful non-combat skills. White Raven's key skill is Diplomacy, for one. That's not to say you're wrong, just that they basically got a better deal than more or less every other martial in terms of non-combat viability.

[RandomPeasant]

Well, initiators do get access to useful non-combat skills. White Raven's key skill is Diplomacy, for one. That's not to say you're wrong, just that they basically got a better deal than more or less every other martial in terms of non-combat viability.

Eh. It's mostly "they get Diplomacy" (and the Swordsage doesn't even get that). Which, to be fair, is a top three skill. But they're still behind a Rogue, or even an Expert, in their skills. The big advantage they have is that they have a high enough level of native competence at fighting that they can justify spending more of their feats or wealth on non-combat stuff. And honestly, that's a pretty sorry state of affairs.

[Batcathat]

Is the problem that casters have a wide range of magical effects to draw on? The Beguiler and the Dread Necromancer suggest that this is not the issue.

How do you figure that? You said yourself that they're typically ranked a little lower than wizards (if still miles ahead of the non-casters), which sounds a lot more like evidence in favor of "forced specialization makes casters less overpowered" than against it, I think. How much specialization would be enough is obviously a matter of experimentation and taste.

Now, it is certainly true that if you took spells away from spellcasters they would become less good. You're not wrong about that, I just think you're dramatically overstating the degree to which a case can be made that it's the range of spells on the Wizard list (rather than small numbers of outlier spells) that produce balance problems.

Again, I'm not saying it would fix all the balance problems, it might not even fix most of them. But I stand by my conviction that it'd help (preferably in combination with nerfing those outliers).

Certainly. But then we get into the "is that a bad thing" side of the equation. A Wizard has tools that let him contribute to most combat or non-combat encounters. How effective he is will depend on the specific encounter and the specific Wizard, but it seems to me quite difficult to argue that "there are some encounters where a character has no relevant abilities" is a desirable state of affairs. Do you enjoy playing a Rogue against a horde of zombies, or a Warmage with no social skills in an intrigue adventure? Is it desirable to make those sorts of experiences more common?

I suppose it's a matter of taste. Personally, yes, I do prefer such situations to arise on occasion. But in any case I'm not saying casters should be helpless outside of their specific specialty, just that they shouldn't have a tool for every single occasion, either having to rely on other party members or falling back and approaching the problem some other way. Let's say that a wizard can contribute in 9 out of 10 types of situations and a fighter in 2 out of 10 types of situations (the numbers are completely made up, but I think they aren't that off) while I would prefer if all classes could help in 7 out of 10 types of situations or whatever.

But again, the specialization dynamic you want already exists. A Beguiler is better at Beguiler-ing than a Sorcerer or Wizard can be. The relative dynamic you're asking for is the status quo, the issue is the absolute dynamic between casters and non-casters.

Sure, it exists to some degree but it's not really that impactful since a wizard is still good enough at beguiling that the choice between "be really good at everything" and "be even more really good at some things but worse at other things" isn't very hard from a power perspective.

Besides, dial the caster versatility down far enough (preferably while also dialing up non-casters) and it affects the absolute dynamic as well.

[Raven777]

Fair enough, I suppose.

Out of curiosity, do the non-casters also give you MMO-vibes from the fact that they have to specialize?

Not at the time of playing them, no. But they were all less versatile, in hindsight. Less Skyrim and more WoW.

Gunslinger was super boring to play out of combat. Very limited toolkit. I sincerely hope no one has to suffer this much pigeon holing.
Alchemist (Vivisectionist/Beastmorph)? Super fun, thanks to being able to double dip as the stealth/skill/utility/butt monkey.
Archer Paladin? Super fun, thanks to being able to double dip as the party face (and the code roleplay bits inherent to Paladin, surprisingly).
Ranger? Fun so long as they're outdoors doing the tracking/survival schtick, not much to do outside combat when they're not in their element.
But I always had the most fun playing "what would Loki do?" every other game as Sorcerer, doing both the party face and the utility and my crafting/binding pet projects during downtime.

I sooooo wish I could mix and match Paladin and Ranger bits together plus a dash of stealth and make Batman, but alas, a mundane's class features can't be mix'd and match'd like the Sorcerer/Wizard spell list can. I think that's where 3.5's original sin lies: you really should have been able to customize a mundane's toolkit the same way you can customize a caster's.

[Batcathat]

I sooooo wish I could mix and match Paladin and Ranger bits together plus a dash of stealth and make Batman, but alas, a mundane's class features can't be mix'd and match'd like the Sorcerer/Wizard spell list can. I think that's where 3.5's original sin lies: you really should have been able to customize a mundane's toolkit the same way you can customize a caster's.

On that we can probably agree. I do tend to prefer class-less systems (or systems where classes are variable enough to be basically class-less) for pretty similar reasons.

[RandomPeasant]

How do you figure that? You said yourself that they're typically ranked a little lower than wizards (if still miles ahead of the non-casters), which sounds a lot more like evidence in favor of "forced specialization makes casters less overpowered" than against it, I think. How much specialization would be enough is obviously a matter of experimentation and taste.

But the difference between a Dread Necromancer and a Wizard isn't exclusively that the latter has a broader spell list. It's also that the latter gets a half-spell-level advantage on the former. But beyond that, saying "it would make them less overpowered" is a far cry from the original claim that simply making casters specialize would make the game meaningfully less imbalanced. Banning tenser's floating disk would make Wizards less powerful, but that doesn't mean it's desirable or appropriate solution to imbalance. A Fighter doesn't really have a meaningfully easier time arguing for his utility in a Beguiler/Dread Necromancer/Summoner (hypothetical fixed-list Conjurer)/Oracle (hypothetical fixed-list Diviner) party than a Wizard/Druid/Cleric/Artificer party.

say that a wizard can contribute in 9 out of 10 types of situations and a fighter in 2 out of 10 types of situations (the numbers are completely made up, but I think they aren't that off) while I would prefer if all classes could help in 7 out of 10 types of situations or whatever.

abs(7 - 9) = 2
abs(7 - 2) = 5

Why are you describing a goal that involves the Fighter moving two and a half times as much as the Wizard purely in terms of how we need to make casters worse? If your goal is, objectively, closer to the Wizard than the Fighter, why does this discussion always turn into "how do we make the Wizard worse" and never "how do we make the Fighter better"?

I sooooo wish I could mix and match Paladin and Ranger bits together plus a dash of stealth and make Batman, but alas, a mundane's class features can't be mix'd and match'd like the Sorcerer/Wizard spell list can. I think that's where 3.5's original sin lies: you really should have been able to customize a mundane's toolkit the same way you can customize a caster's.

Honestly, it's not even a matter of not mixing and matching, D&D (and this goes beyond 3e) has just been really bad at letting you play martial characters that are anywhere near as effective as they are in the source material. The Fighter not keeping up with the Wizard at 15th level is a problem, but the fact that the Fighter can't effectively be Aragorn at 5th level is also a problem.

[Psyren]

The Balor is unrealistically incompetent even outside that. I have some minor nitpicks, like not using Summon (though maybe that was the marilith) and opening with greater dispel magic instead of blasphemy, but the big issue is that it throws multiple spells into the spell immunity when that should not happen. When it sees the first spell fail, it should get a Spellcraft check (DC 28) to "Identify a spell that’s already in place and in effect". With the Balor's +30 to Spellcraft, that is impossible for it to fail. So at that point it should switch to using 9th level SLAs like implosion and dominate monster immediately, rather than wasting additional rounds on actions it has good reason to believe cannot succeed. Then, for some reason, it throws away the rest of implosion to close to melee with a hard target. That said, the overall result of the fight is not especially surprising. Five 16th and 17th level characters should be able to defeat a Balor. But the fact that they do so because it is played incompetently is not the argument for quality of playtesting it was present as.

There is nothing stopping you from tossing out listed tactics for a Balor (or any other monster) and playing it as much more cunning or genre-savvy; just be sure to raise the CR/EL if you do. The disconnect happens when you deviate from what the designers had in mind when they assigned the listed CR, but expect the difficulty to stay unchanged.

Disclaimer: I have not read the thread beyond the first page.

For me, the key selling point of 3.5 is mechanical diversity among PCs. The rules for playing a binder, warblade, and a dread necromancer are so wildly different that they don't even look like they belong in the same system. And yet, they can all play in a party together with something resembling game balance.

In my opinion, PF1 misses the mark on mechanically diverse PCs, at least if you are restricted only to Paizo content. Some non-Paizo PF1 content, particularly Interjection Games and Dreamscarred Press classes, bring the mechanical diversity I like to Pathfinder. I am disappointed that both of those companies have stopped releasing new content.

Paizo intentionally avoided making their own versions of Incarnum, Binding, Initiating, Psionics (well, mostly) etc in order to leave fertile ground for 3PP designers to play in.

I sooooo wish I could mix and match Paladin and Ranger bits together plus a dash of stealth and make Batman, but alas, a mundane's class features can't be mix'd and match'd like the Sorcerer/Wizard spell list can. I think that's where 3.5's original sin lies: you really should have been able to customize a mundane's toolkit the same way you can customize a caster's.

The seeds for this exist, thanks to systems like PF's Variant Multiclassing. They were a bit too cautious in places but you could experiment with something like that in order to mix together a Ranger and Paladin.

You could also make a custom PrC if we're sticking to 3.5.

[danielxcutter]

I do hear that 4e's got some good options for mixing abilities.

You know, it's amusing how many separate ways to do some kind of arcane gish exist in this edition. Possibly a major factor is due to most arcane casters being crap at it out of the box while divine casting has CoDzilla?

[RandomPeasant]

There is nothing stopping you from tossing out listed tactics for a Balor (or any other monster) and playing it as much more cunning or genre-savvy; just be sure to raise the CR/EL if you do. The disconnect happens when you deviate from what the designers had in mind when they assigned the listed CR, but expect the difficulty to stay unchanged.

This was a bad argument every time you made it before now, but one thing the article demonstrates pretty absolutely is that even the designers didn't think the listed Balor tactics were an inherent part of the Balor. Because obviously they aren't, and there's no rule citation anywhere that says they are. The Balor can use whichever of its abilities are most effective for achieving its goals. Doing so does not, and has never, changed its CR.

You know, it's amusing how many separate ways to do some kind of arcane gish exist in this edition. Possibly a major factor is due to most arcane casters being crap at it out of the box while divine casting has CoDzilla?

I think that's just because there's no core option (like there is for Paladin or Ranger). But, yes, it's a huge list. Probably the single most obvious concept to add as a core class for a new edition.

[danielxcutter]

I mean, I assume it has its abilities because it's expected to use them?

[Batcathat]

But the difference between a Dread Necromancer and a Wizard isn't exclusively that the latter has a broader spell list. It's also that the latter gets a half-spell-level advantage on the former. But beyond that, saying "it would make them less overpowered" is a far cry from the original claim that simply making casters specialize would make the game meaningfully less imbalanced. Banning tenser's floating disk would make Wizards less powerful, but that doesn't mean it's desirable or appropriate solution to imbalance. A Fighter doesn't really have a meaningfully easier time arguing for his utility in a Beguiler/Dread Necromancer/Summoner (hypothetical fixed-list Conjurer)/Oracle (hypothetical fixed-list Diviner) party than a Wizard/Druid/Cleric/Artificer party.

Sure, the imbalance between the existing Dread Necromancer and the existing Fighter isn't that much smaller than between Wizard and Fighter, but as I've already said, my hypothetical dream system would both include boosting the Fighter and making Wizards more specialized than Dread Necromancer or Beguiler. Saying that the fact that a Beguiler isn't balanced with a Fighter seems a little like lowering the speed-limit from 100 to 95 and then saying that lowering the speed doesn't increase safety since people might still die while crashing at 95.

Why are you describing a goal that involves the Fighter moving two and a half times as much as the Wizard purely in terms of how we need to make casters worse?

Because that's the part we're talking about? If the topic had been "how should classes be better balanced" rather than "could caster specialization improve balance" I would've focused on different things.

If your goal is, objectively, closer to the Wizard than the Fighter, why does this discussion always turn into "how do we make the Wizard worse" and never "how do we make the Fighter better"?

I suppose it depends on one's own perspective on the discussion, because in my experience this discussion usually involve people saying precisely that. Yes, making the Fighter better is important but so is making the Wizard worse. (In my personal opinion, obviously.) Having a system where everyone can do everything is better than one where only some people can do everything, but I prefer one where no one can.

[danielxcutter]

I suspect part of the reason "buff the Fighter" isn't as talked about as much is due to Warblade essentially being just that. Also Fighter has very little room to improve because it's basically nothing but Extra Feats: The Class.

[RandomPeasant]

making Wizards more specialized than Dread Necromancer or Beguiler.

What exactly are you basing that on? Because those classes seem totally fine, power-wise, to me.

Because that's the part we're talking about? If the topic had been "how should classes be better balanced" rather than "could caster specialization improve balance" I would've focused on different things.

But that's the part we're talking about because someone's response to a post about the broad sweep of options available in 3e was focused exclusively on the value of specializing casters.

Having a system where everyone can do everything is better than one where only some people can do everything, but I prefer one where no one can.

The real question is whether it's better to have a system with some 2/10s and some 7/10s or some 7/10s and some 9/10s. The focus on nerfing casters seems to push towards the former, which seems a lot worse than the latter.

I suspect part of the reason "buff the Fighter" isn't as talked about as much is due to Warblade essentially being just that. Also Fighter has very little room to improve because it's basically nothing but Extra Feats: The Class.

The Warblade is a pretty mediocre buff to the Fighter. It's good enough that it's hard to make a caster that beats it as a frontliner without expending serious effort, but not so good as to be overall competitive. And it's still pretty abysmal outside combat. Even allowing for the much greater variation in what "non-combat encounter" means at different tables, I'd be hardpressed to imagine myself wanting a Warblade over even a Rogue, let alone a Cleric, Sorcerer, or Dread Necromancer.

[Psyren]

I mean, I assume it has its abilities because it's expected to use them?

Of course, and the Monster Manual tells you the circumstances in which it is assumed to do so. For example: "If the balor does not deem itself seriously threatened, it conserves abilities usable only once per day and uses blasphemy instead."

You can deviate from that and have a Balor open with summoning backup or casting Implosion regardless of perceived threat, but then you're deviating from what the designers explicitly intended.

This was a bad argument every time you made it before now,

Declaring an argument you don't like to be bad is still not a refutation.

but one thing the article demonstrates pretty absolutely is that even the designers didn't think the listed Balor tactics were an inherent part of the Balor. Because obviously they aren't, and there's no rule citation anywhere that says they are. The Balor can use whichever of its abilities are most effective for achieving its goals. Doing so does not, and has never, changed its CR.

Tactics are themselves a rule citation. They are part of the "Combat" section of the monster entry for that reason.

CR is only the starting point for encounter difficulty. The final number, which I mentioned above, is Encounter Level (EL). That takes into account everything, from the base monster abilities and tactics to the features of the terrain and even the number and capabilities of the PCs. So even if you argue that the CR doesn't change by adjusting these variables, the EL still can (and in many cases will.)

[RandomPeasant]

Tactics are themselves a rule citation. They are part of the "Combat" section of the monster entry for that reason.

And where is the rule that says deviating from the creature's tactics entry changes EL? I'll give you a hint, there's not one. If there was, you'd cite that, and you wouldn't need to complain that I called your non-argument bad.

[Psyren]

And where is the rule that says deviating from the creature's tactics entry changes EL? I'll give you a hint, there's not one. If there was, you'd cite that, and you wouldn't need to complain that I called your non-argument bad.

DMG 39: "An orc warband that attacks the PCs by flying over them in primitive hang gliders and dropping large rocks is not the same encounter as one in which the orcs just charge in with spears. Sometimes, the circumstances give the characters' opponents a distinct advantage. Other times, the PCs have the advantage. Adjust the XP award and the EL depending on how greatly circumstances change the encounter's difficulty."

As explicitly shown in that quote, unexpected/superior tactics are considered a change in circumstance and you're expected to modify the EL accordingly.

[Raven777]

The only thing I would posit for certain is that as an Int 24, Wis 24 being, any given Balor should have sufficient knowledge and common sense to take near optimal decisions relative to their own goals and circumstances for their unique encounter.

[Elves]

If we're nitpicking that fight, DM seems to ignore its quickened telekinesis SLA which could disarm the melees in short order (just don't take the wizard's bow or he might start casting spells).

More telling is when the DM says he was impressed by the players' clever tactics. It's clear that many of the devs didn't have the strongest grasp on the system they created -- but if they did, they would have made a system that worked the way they wanted to play, which would be one with much less charm and depth (see 5e).

Also, remember this is 15-20 years ago. If you look at old threads, standards were lower in general then. We're sitting on 20 years of community knowledge.

[RandomPeasant]

DMG 39: "An orc warband that attacks the PCs by flying over them in primitive hang gliders and dropping large rocks is not the same encounter as one in which the orcs just charge in with spears. Sometimes, the circumstances give the characters' opponents a distinct advantage. Other times, the PCs have the advantage. Adjust the XP award and the EL depending on how greatly circumstances change the encounter's difficulty."

You'll notice this mentions the "tactics" section of a monster entry exactly nowhere. Are we also to conclude that a fight with two Balors requires special EL adjustment, since that's not a listed value for their "organization" entry? You'll even note that it quite clearly says "circumstances", which is a different word from "tactics".

The only thing I would posit for certain is that as an Int 24, Wis 24 being, any given Balor should have sufficient knowledge and common sense to take near optimal decisions relative to their own goals and circumstances for their unique encounter.

The really weird thing is that the conclusion of this argument is that it's totally fine for a 5-Int Dretch to do whatever the DM wants with no adjustment to EL, but cheating for a Balor to do so, because the latter has a tactics section and the former does not. If Psyren were arguing about some specific set of tactics, he might have a point, but the blanket "only the listed tactics count", when that is demonstrably not the way the designers used the monster is just puzzling.

Also, remember this is 15-20 years ago. If you look at old threads, standards were lower in general then. We're sitting on 20 years of community knowledge.

That's only sort of true. The original Cleric Archer (the ancestor of CoDzilla) predates 3.5. Plenty of people understood how to play effectively from the beginning (the first 3.5 shapechange infinite loop predates the printing of 3.5 shapechange), it just took a long time to break through the people who strenuously insist the Fighter is fine to even the degree it's happened today.

[Psyren]

If we're nitpicking that fight, DM seems to ignore its quickened telekinesis SLA which could disarm the melees in short order (just don't take the wizard's bow or he might start casting spells).

More telling is when the DM says he was impressed by the players' clever tactics. It's clear that many of the devs didn't have the strongest grasp on the system they created -- but if they did, they would have made a system that worked the way they wanted to play, which would be one with much less charm and depth (see 5e).

Also, remember this is 15-20 years ago. If you look at old threads, standards were lower in general then. We're sitting on 20 years of community knowledge.

Let's assume for a moment that this is correct, and the designers forgot about the suite of abilities they gave to a Balor when they were thinking through how a fight with it would go. If that's the case, why then are we treating the Challenge Rating assigned to that creature as absolute truth? Is the logic that WotC can't remember or utilize the abilities they gave the creature, but somehow got the CR perfectly accurate anyway?

The only thing I would posit for certain is that as an Int 24, Wis 24 being, any given Balor should have sufficient knowledge and common sense to take near optimal decisions relative to their own goals and circumstances for their unique encounter.

I've never subscribed to the idea that "high Int/Wis means a monster can't be shortsighted, or suboptimal, or self-destructive, or make tactical/strategic errors."

This goes double for creatures like outsiders - a smart fiend is still a fiend. They have a mindset (and indeed, an entire metaphysical makeup) that is wholly alien to ours. In D&D, even the gods can be petty or foolish make mistakes, so of course a Balor can too. This isn't to say they're stupid or easy to outsmart, but their outlook consists of an overriding worldview, desires and cravings that can be exploited by flexible mortals.

You'll notice this mentions the "tactics" section of a monster entry exactly nowhere. Are we also to conclude that a fight with two Balors requires special EL adjustment, since that's not a listed value for their "organization" entry? You'll even note that it quite clearly says "circumstances", which is a different word from "tactics".

1) It doesn't have to - that passage is explicitly about the same set of creatures changing their EL by using different tactics.

2) So you're saying that two balors should have the same EL as one? I definitely don't understand what you're trying to convey here

[Bohandas]

I'm pretty sure the tactics section isn't "this is always how this creature fights" it's "these are tactics it often uses"

and before this discussion I don't think I've ever seen it even suggested that the tactics section was part of its challenge rating

So you're saying that two balors should have the same EL as one? I definitely don't understand what you're trying to convey here

I think what they're saying is that if we treat things like the tactics, organization, and environment sections as part of the monster's CR calculation than 2 balors would not necessarily use the same calculation as 2 CR 20 monsters as it would constitute a special circumstance or possibly even a template

[danielxcutter]

I’m fairly sure most modules have monsters using atypical tactics without adjusting the EL.

[RandomPeasant]

If that's the case, why then are we treating the Challenge Rating assigned to that creature as absolute truth?

Things that might be wrong: the listed challenge ratings for monsters.
Things that are absolute fact that cannot be deviated from without fundamentally reevaluating the game: the tactics entries for monsters that have tactics entries.

This isn't to say they're stupid or easy to outsmart, but their outlook consists of an overriding worldview, desires and cravings that can be exploited by flexible mortals.

The "overriding worldview" of "following this exact list of tactical actions"? That seems ... implausible. Especially for a creature that is nominally aligned with Chaos.

1) It doesn't have to - that passage is explicitly about the same set of creatures changing their EL by using different tactics.

"Have a glider" is not a "tactic", it is a piece of equipment. If the standard Orc entry described them using gliders as improvised weapons, you might have a point, but as it is there's really no leg for you to stand on here. It says "circumstances" (which, again, is a different word from "tactics") and the thing it describes is equipment. There is exactly zero correlation between the source you cited and the point you are trying to make.

2) So you're saying that two balors should have the same EL as one? I definitely don't understand what you're trying to convey here

Well, it turns out someone else understood it exactly:

I think what they're saying is that if we treat things like the tactics, organization, and environment sections as part of the monster's CR calculation than 2 balors would not necessarily use the same calculation as 2 CR 20 monsters as it would constitute a special circumstance or possibly even a template

[Psyren]

I'm pretty sure the tactics section isn't "this is always how this creature fights" it's "these are tactics it often uses"

and before this discussion I don't think I've ever seen it even suggested that the tactics section was part of its challenge rating

I'm not saying that that section is inviolate law, or that any micro-deviation means you have to throw the listed CR out the window. But I am saying that there's only so far you can deviate from it before you've gone outside what the designers intended the creature to be doing in combat, when they came up with that number in the first place.

You might for example believe a Balor who uses hit and run tactics of teleporting in, stripping away all the party's buffs and teleporting away to heal up before it returns later until they run out of resources is more in line with its 24 Intelligence, but such an encounter is just not what the designers had in mind for those creatures, period.

[Raven777]

I've never subscribed to the idea that "high Int/Wis means a monster can't be shortsighted, or suboptimal, or self-destructive, or make tactical/strategic errors."

This goes double for creatures like outsiders - a smart fiend is still a fiend. They have a mindset (and indeed, an entire metaphysical makeup) that is wholly alien to ours. In D&D, even the gods can be petty or foolish make mistakes, so of course a Balor can too. This isn't to say they're stupid or easy to outsmart, but their outlook consists of an overriding worldview, desires and cravings that can be exploited by flexible mortals.

I agree. The Balor can have goals and circumstances and personal drives and flaws that justify different tactics. Even ones that will eventually prove self-destructive. It can desire to conserve ressources because in the Abyss a depleted Balor is free real estate for rivals. Or it wants to test the party's mettle because it is bored out of its mind. Or it can want to pull its punches because while it is bound to defend the dungeon, it desires nothing more than being beaten and freed from its binding. On the other hand, it can want to alpha strike the party with its biggest guns because it's been bound as a secured temple's guardian and it knows that party is almost certainly the only threat it'll face all year.

But once those goals are decided, I still believe high mental attributes (especially in both Int and Wis) mean it will select and execute the right Most Effective Tactic Available to achieve them. Attributes are supposed to model the character's mental and physical ability. Therefore, a supremely rational and wise creature isn't supposed to plan itself into failing its own goals. By the definition of both attributes it is supposed to easily assess the situation through Wisdom and then through Intellect easily formulate the appropriate logical chain of actions and counteractions linking its available means to what it wants to accomplish (aka, its "gameplan").

I'm not saying a Balor can't fight suboptimally relative to the powers at its disposal. What I'm saying is that when it does, it should be because that's its actual plan spurred from external goals and circumstances and individual personality traits. But a Balor that's done fooling around should be played as close to META as a DM can manage.

But, for all that matters, since the way the Balor ends up being played depends most on factors external to its own stat block, I don't think CR matches either the Dumb Balor or the Perfect Balor. I think it just... roughly falls in the middle, and the DM must sort the rest. Which is the Balor's CR supposed to model, anyway? Dumb Balor, Average Balor or Perfect Balor? Or even "Balor by the tactics we wrote", considering not all monsters have these?

[Seward]

But once those goals are decided, I still believe high mental attributes (especially in both Int and Wis) mean it will select and execute the right Most Effective Tactic Available to achieve them.[/I].

Sure. But no matter how smart it is, it can't base tactics on information it doesn't have, and parties can sometimes game that to positive effect, appearing to be something more obvious than what they're doing. Honestly if I was that Balor and had those outcomes I wouldn't immediately go to spell immunity as the most likely defense.

Although per your later comment about GM's influencing what happens, some of that is my lived experience off tactics against Balor-like threats at with ecl16 parties on both sides of the GM screen when playing Living Greyhawk. Spell immunity wasn't as popular as some other counters where I played. I agree with another poster that ignoring quickened tk doesn't jive with best tactics - TK is often a pretty useful std action for outsiders that have it, so not using it would imply from a in-world explanation unusual behavior and make you wonder if the Balor had been in other fights that day, or was conserving it against a future threat and that conservation was a bad call given the outcome.

In general yes. CR assumes imperfect information on both sides and often neither side able to prep, although as implemented it rewards parties that gather information before engaging (as you get full xp for the effort, but the fight itself is usually a lot easier than turning a corner and stumbling into a Balor and pulling out your "oh crap" tactics. OTOH, such scouting against an enemy like a Balor is nontrivial and generally expends resources and requires somebody in the party with a character build unusually good at information gathering, so that cost might show up in a party somewhat weaker than a bunch of optimized combat muscleheads that stumble into their fights and brute force their way out of trouble).

A Balor actually personally after the party is a much more dangerous proposition given the high int/wis and information resource available to it. its summoning capabilities alone and maybe some long range TK support could be incredibly dangerous to PCs either in a straight up ambush or worse, added in when they are engaged with some other threat. Such a Balor is usually the focus of an entire story arc though, not just one dangerous encounter.

[danielxcutter]

Honestly, Blasphemy is a pretty good opener. But I’d expect it to break out the high level SLAs pretty quickly because… why wouldn’t it?

[Seward]

Blasphemy is one of those spells that in 3.5 you have to just find a way around by L13 or so. Every Half-Fiend advanced with hit dice from a 3-4 hd/cr critter has a CL in the 20s and it will just TPK a party every time it is used.

We had an unfortunate period in Living Greyhawk where authors liked to do that, and players liked to abuse CL boosting cleric tricks to kick Holy Word into "end encounter" level effective caster levels too. In regions where this got especially bad, some GMs would basically let the players know that if they did holy word+boosted CL shenanigans, the GM would bust out every broken combination they could think of in response, in any encounter where it could apply. Writer guidelines started toning down the half-fiends (sometimes explicitly having the blasphemy already cast earlier that day, or similar).

But...enough stories remained with Blasphemy that parties with any expectation at all of facing evil outsiders or half fiends routinely at least had free movement on everybody (so you only have to contend with daze/weakness) Most such enemies can't spam it in the way a Balor can. But one common remedy is Silence. A lot of parties in that environment figured out how to work inside a silence field, or at least would routinely silence the beatsticks (useful vs enemy casters too) and try to scatter spellcasters out of the 40' radius so not too many could be dazed at once. Others did spell resistance or spell immunity to mitigate the damage.

In that kind of environment, opening with Blasphemy frequently resulted in a wasted action. Simply because it was so effective if not countered. If said Balor had intelligence that other critters who had fought heroes in this area often had counters to Blasphemy it might actually explain leading with a dispel, although that's always a risky call when only aimed at one target (you really need chain dispel or disjunction or something to strip enough defenses to inconvienence a CL16 party. Targeting only one enemy invites the rest to have a bunch of actions to mess with you for free, which might at minimum interrupt your followup blasphemy with a readied action.)

Basically the problem with anecdotes involving Balors or Dragons or Tier 1 classed BBEGs or similar "supposed to be super smart" enemies is that any anecdote that involves PCs winning, which will be nearly all of them, will be poo-pooed by a kibitzer claiming dumb tactics on the villain side. Which usually ignores the work the PCs put in to get that advantage, and also the BBEG's motivations, information limits, personality and potentially outside things PCs know nothing of, such as rivals, prior battles, etc. Many of those fights involve PCs choosing an approach that matches what they learned about the enemy. Not just Kn check vs monster weakness, but how they behaved prior to their final fatal encounter with the PCs.