D&D 3.5 party will be facing a Balor. Can we trap its soul somehow?

[cagemarrow]

So our party is about to face off against a Balor who worships Nerull in the next session or two. We've already taken out its Marilith 2nd in command and questioned a number of its followers to know what we're up against. I figure my Artificer can use scrolls of Greater Spell immunity to protect ourselves from most of its powers but I want a way to prevent it from coming back from the Abyss after we kill it. Our Crusader and Astral Deva should have no problem taking it down, but we have had problems keeping the members of this cult from coming back from the dead.

I'd like to hit it with a Thinaum (material from Complete Warrior) headed crossbow bolt so when it dies its body and soul gets trapped instead of returning to the Abyss. I need a way for it to survive the explosion from the demon's death. Is there a way to neutralize its death throes in any way? Would a heightened darkness spell up to 9th level stop it since it's described as a blast of light? Or is there anyway to boost the hardness and hit points of the crossbow bolt to survive 100 points of untyped damage?

I've got about 75k gold of wealth by level to spend to make this happen. I'd love to hear other ideas anyone can come up with to permanently neutralize this enemy.

[Eldariel]

So our party is about to face off against a Balor who worships Nerull in the next session or two. We've already taken out its Marilith 2nd in command and questioned a number of its followers to know what we're up against. I figure my Artificer can use scrolls of Greater Spell immunity to protect ourselves from most of its powers but I want a way to prevent it from coming back from the Abyss after we kill it. Our Crusader and Astral Deva should have no problem taking it down, but we have had problems keeping the members of this cult from coming back from the dead.

I'd like to hit it with a Thinaum (material from Complete Warrior) headed crossbow bolt so when it dies its body and soul gets trapped instead of returning to the Abyss. I need a way for it to survive the explosion from the demon's death. Is there a way to neutralize its death throes in any way? Would a heightened darkness spell up to 9th level stop it since it's described as a blast of light? Or is there anyway to boost the hardness and hit points of the crossbow bolt to survive 100 points of untyped damage?

I've got about 75k gold of wealth by level to spend to make this happen. I'd love to hear other ideas anyone can come up with to permanently neutralize this enemy.

Antimagic Field is the easiest way to negate Death Throes; make sure it dies inside one (or any equivalent; Dead Magic Zone or such) and boom, no explosion. Thinaun works too. Other than that, you'd have to trap it somehow. Sadly a Crossbow head is very unlikely due to its small size giving it very low hardness and HP, but Thinaun is nonmagical so you can use it inside AMF. An attended weapon would only have to take damage on a nat 1 on the Reflex-save so some long reach melee weapon would probably be easier than AMF + Crossbow bolt; it's easy enough to ward the party from the Throes after all. Thinaun also explicitly limits itself to melee weapons - though of course, nothing stops you from using a Crossbow Bolt as an improvised melee weapon so you can at least make an argument. Same with throwing normally melee weapons; that ought to work just fine too.

False Edit: Oops, Balor Death Throes is actually Ex unlike literally every other incarnation of the ability. So AMF is not an option - you'll just have to either ability rip it or remove it surgically somehow (Polymorph the Balor into something else first?), or just brute force through it by making the save.

[cagemarrow]

Good catch on the melee thing. I didn't see that on my initial reading. Strange it doesn't just require the weapon to be touching the target when they die for it to work. Maybe I'll make one of the barbed spears from Frostburn with it then. At least then it will hold fast till one of the warrior types kills it.

We'll be fighting the thing in a region riddled with dead magic and wild magic zones. I saw that the ability was EX so that's why I was looking for alternative means of disabling it.

I've got a ring of evasion and the diamond mind abilities that let me sub saves for concentration checks so with the item rule that should be enough. Just have to try and avoid needing it until it's dead since I likely won't have a chance to refresh it.

I'll have to look into ability rip or maybe baleful polymorph I suspect both will be difficult to overcome it's saves. Best to have multiple options available though.

[Telonius]

If you know it's close to dead, you could have a caster ready an action to teleport everybody 105 feet away.

If you can somehow Call that particular Balor, you could be certain that it's going to stay dead when you kill it. Call, Dimensional Anchor/Dimension Lock (to prevent it from escaping), kill.

[Jack_Simth]

Unfortunately, only melee weapons can be crafted out of thinaun.

Dagger, Spear, Shortspear, Throwing Ax, Light Hammer, Trident, Sai: Melee weapons with significant metal that can be thrown right out of Core.

In the event that your Dungeon Master allows you to acquire a thinaun headed crossbow bolt, give each part member one or more one-shot traps of Resilient Sphere. Activate them right when the Balor dies, and the spheres will withstand the explosion. Each trap costs 1400 GP and 112 XP.

Alternately: Trap the beast without killing it. Binding and Trap the Soul are viable (bypass components via Shades for Trap the Soul).

[Eldariel]

Eh, just use Assay Resistance [Spell Compendium] or Quickened True Casting [Complete Mage] to completely negate its chance at successful SR and Polymorph Any Object it into anything and wreck its soul. PAO is high enough level thst it should have a decent chance at failing its save.

[Deophaun]

Is it important that you have the soul? Because if you can find a worshiper of Levistus you can have him cast bind to hell (FCII, pg 58) on the weapon with which you intend to kill the Balor days ahead of time.

[daremetoidareyo]

True. Though, even if a thinaun crossbow bolt is allowed, ammunition that hits its target is destroyed or rendered useless. If the bolt is just rendered useless, there's a chance to ensure its survival.

Regardless of the weapon type, Instant Summons and True Strike seem very useful. Each bolt or thrown weapon should have Instant Summons cast on it before the battle. They might need to buy some scrolls to accomplish this in a timely manner, save spell slots, and multiply the number of available bolts or thrown weapons. Each Instant Summons scroll costs 3275 GP, so it wouldn't break the bank.


Binding has a range of close and casting time of 1 minute, making it quite risky, but Enlarge Spell and scrolls would help.

Trap the Soul also has the range problem and Enlarge Spell solution.

Be the first party to ever fight defensively in the history of 3.5. You only need to persevere for 10 whole rounds

[ATHATH]

Be the first party to ever fight defensively in the history of 3.5. You only need to persevere for 10 whole rounds

Fight defensively? Nah, you just need to get a Dominate Monster off on the Balor so that you can command it to sit still for a couple of rounds while you cast your soul-trapping spell of choice.

I seem to recall there being a spell out there that can trap the soul of a dead creature in a talisman if said creature had the talisman on their person when they died. I don't remember the name of it, though.

[Captn_Flounder]

Can you divine the Balor's true name somehow? Because you can always Trap the Soul with a trigger object enchanted with Sympathy.

[legomaster00156]

Outsiders don't have souls.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Outsiders don't have souls.

Point of order: outsiders ARE souls. Their bodies are made from their souls.

So you can trap the soul or use thinaun, but it'll absorb the body in its entirety.

As such, ask your DM about it; if the thinaun absorbs the soul (and thus the body) of the balor, can it really explode after that? Make sure your Knowledge (Arcana) and Knowledge (The Planes) are boosted really high before you ask.

[Captn_Flounder]

Point of order: outsiders ARE souls. Their bodies are made from their souls.

So you can trap the soul or use thinaun, but it'll absorb the body in its entirety.

As such, ask your DM about it; if the thinaun absorbs the soul (and thus the body) of the balor, can it really explode after that? Make sure your Knowledge (Arcana) and Knowledge (The Planes) are boosted really high before you ask.

Saved me the effort of typing this exact thing. Thank you kindly.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Someone should transplant an oak tree to the balor's home plane (quite likely the Abyss) and cast acorn of far travel. Then Sleight of Hand to slip the acorn onto the balor. The balor counts as being on its home plane when you kill it. Just make sure to hit it with a dimensional anchor so it can't escape via teleportation -- this won't affect the effect of the acorn, but it will make it easier to kill. Then when you do kill it, you kill it for good.

[Jack_Simth]

True. Though, even if a thinaun crossbow bolt is allowed, ammunition that hits its target is destroyed or rendered useless. If the bolt is just rendered useless, there's a chance to ensure its survival.

Regardless of the weapon type, Instant Summons and True Strike seem very useful. Each bolt or thrown weapon should have Instant Summons cast on it before the battle. They might need to buy some scrolls to accomplish this in a timely manner, save spell slots, and multiply the number of available bolts or thrown weapons. Each Instant Summons scroll costs 3275 GP, so it wouldn't break the bank.


Binding has a range of close and casting time of 1 minute, making it quite risky, but Enlarge Spell and scrolls would help.

Trap the Soul also has the range problem and Enlarge Spell solution.

There's ways around most things, including casting time (and the need to get around the casting time). However: Wouldn't the one minute spellcasting while fighting a balor make for an epic memory?

[Jowgen]

For Thinaun, Harpoons (ideally of the Kuo Toa MMV variety) are your straight up friend, as they are spears (thus viable without raw fiddling) that stick in the enemy lest they waste actions to remove (which can kill them maybe but in this case probably not).

Your best cheesy friend is a Stirge Bolt, from A&E. Those stick in enemies and aren't destroyed upon hit. Just gotta make sure you kill it before it pulls the Bolt out. Also, not be blocked by DR in the process. For the the Force WSA is your only real friend.

[afroakuma]

Yeah, I'd say just use trap the soul. Or, if you aren't worried about high-level allies releasing it, imprisonment. You've got the money for trap the soul, just have to lock down its saves and SR. Note that thinaun makes no explicit objection to wish or miracle getting the trapped creature back, so really any method used is ultimately subject to the DM's interest in bringing the enemy back.

[daremetoidareyo]

A contingency spell paired with a dimension door could be used to move the party out of deaththrow range activating upon any balor slaying that may occur.

[Zanos]

I do want to point out that even when demons are destroyed off the abyss, their fall back into the swirling chaos of the abyss generally results in them being demoted and their minds warped. So demons aren't exactly getting out of death easy if you don't bind their souls. IIRC, Fiendish Codex I says that only the intervention of an Archdemon can prevent a demon from being demoted when it is slain.

Killing them in the abyss destroys them forever, so if you can find a way to send it to the abyss(or bring some Abyss to it) before it dies, that will destroy it permanently.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Killing them in the abyss destroys them forever, so if you can find a way to send it to the abyss(or bring some Abyss to it) before it dies, that will destroy it permanently.

On that note (and regarding the acorn of far travel trick), don't forget to add in a hallow effect under the tree, along with something really irritating (such as dimensional anchor or even greater bestow curse) to inflict on the demon that it won't recognize right away as coming from your party. If you use the acorn to inflict greater bestow curse on it, have one of the party's casters also cast greater bestow curse but with a different effect. Even if the balor were to recognize the acorn's GBC, the caster could taunt it and claim that he used Twin Spell or something to hit it twice for the price of one casting.

[cagemarrow]

I’ve already worked out with our DM that Thinaum will absorb the body and soul of an outsider upon death. It’s our group’s contingency if our Astral Deva ever gets killed. She’s wearing a poisoner’s ring made of the material for just that purpose. DM has ruled we can use regular raising magic on her if she’s in the ring but we don’t get the normal discount.

I fully expect him to rule the blast happens too quickly for the trapping to negate it on its own. I’m not terribly worried about everyone surviving the blast. Except for my character everyone has close to 200 hp.

In all honesty I don’t even really expect the demon to come back if we kill it but my character is super exalted good and trying his best to make the world a better place. Part of that is stopping demons who know how to come to the mortal plane on their own from doing so more than once. Especially since this one has a death cult under its sway.

We don’t have a lot of time to commission much in the way of magic gear. It will have to be available off the shelf, so to speak. Trap the soul is likely available as it's from the phb at least. Still I’ll need to hold it back as a last resort as I don’t want to completely trivialize the fight. If I ready an action for just after the killing blow it could work well though.

Spell Storing infusions give me access to upto 8 4th level spells from any list to spend on this. Greater bestow curse should be on there somewhere. As should Assay Spell Resistance. I’ll need to prepare both ahead of time. I’ve got a scepter of Dimensional Anchor already for our other caster to have ready to counter its teleport ability.

[afroakuma]

Still I’ll need to hold it back as a last resort as I don’t want to completely trivialize the fight. If I ready an action for just after the killing blow it could work well though.

I'd argue that having to perform what amounts to steps of a powerful ritual (assay spell resistance with it in your sights to penetrate SR, dimensional anchor or dimensional lock to prevent it fleeing, whichever of many methods you elect to use to lower its saving throws...) while a very irritable demon gives your efforts an unsociable reception is anything but "trivial." I find it more epic to have to end an active threat via means beyond simply smacking it with things until it stops moving. Just my two cents, mind.

You could, of course, roll with that - talk to your DM about battling the demon with a difficult ritual as opposed to just swordery with a thinaun finish, perhaps something your character has researched that will dissipate the demon's evil over time or otherwise seal it with greater potency than the comparatively fragile material options of thinaun/trap the soul.

[Deophaun]

You could, of course, roll with that - talk to your DM about battling the demon with a difficult ritual as opposed to just swordery with a thinaun finish, perhaps something your character has researched that will dissipate the demon's evil over time or otherwise seal it with greater potency than the comparatively fragile material options of thinaun/trap the soul.

Fortunately his characters is a good-goody-two-shoes, so good mindrape er... sanctify the wicked can be on the table.

[afroakuma]

Fortunately his characters is a good-goody-two-shoes, so good mindrape er... sanctify the wicked can be on the table.

[cagemarrow]

Sanctify the Wicked will have to wait for another time. If we can trap it we can attempt that in a safer venue. When we aren't surrounded by its army of followers.

Thanks for all the help.