Does a summoned balor go boom?


Rules Questions


Topic.

Basically, if a balor is summoned and then killed, does its Death Throes go off, or does the end of the summoning just send it right back to the Abyss before Death Throes can go off?

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Yes. It goes boom.

When a Balor is summoned, it is real, it cannot even be summoned by Summon Monster IX, it has be be brought in by the Planar Binding things. Only creatures from the Summon Monster/Summon Nature's Ally range have that weird unreal aspect. Binding a demon brings the real McCoy along. That Balor you have just smited was a real Balor, with a name, a history and very convincing explosive death throes.


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You can't even use greater planar ally or greater planar binding to call a balor, as it has 20 Hit Dice, and the limit on these spells is 18 Hit Dice. But even if you could, it would not be a "summoned balor", it would be a "called balor". In fact there is no spell that summons a monster like a balor, so there should be no such creature as a "summoned balor".

You can, however, call a balor with gate, and it will be physically present and its death throes activeate when it is killed.


There are epic monsters that can use "summon" to summong balors, though. That's the ability in question here. The balor wasn't summoned or called or gated by a wizard, but was summoned by an abomination.

If it makes any difference, it's the Infernal from the Epic Level Handbook (though there are others that can summon balors with the universal monster ability "summon"). The Infernals is an (sp) ability called "Summon Fiend".

So does it still go boom if it is actually a summoned monster?

Scarab Sages

"Summon (Sp) A creature with the summon ability can summon other specific creatures of its kind much as though casting a summon monster spell, but it usually has only a limited chance of success (as specified in the creature's entry). Roll d%: On a failure, no creature answers the summons. Summoned creatures automatically return whence they came after 1 hour. A creature summoned in this way cannot use any spells or spell-like abilities that require material components costing more than 1 gp unless those components are supplied, nor can it use its own summon ability for 1 hour. An appropriate spell level is given for each summoning ability for purposes of Will saves, caster level checks, and concentration checks. No experience points are awarded for defeating summoned monsters.

Format: 1/day—summon (level 4, 1 hezrou 35%); Location: Spell-Like Abilities.
"

Looks like a Balor doesn't go pop when ported in via the Summon ability from Universal Monster Rules, since, just like a summoned monster from the SM I-IX spells, it would return from whence it came instead of really dying.


Summoning: No, I don't think it does. It isn't actually there: this has been described in different ways--summoning spells are often explained either as the outsider gets a "projection" of itself on the material plane, or that you are actually creating a temporary outsider out of the raw energy of the plane, and shaping it with your power. In either case, there isn't really a Balor there to explode.
Calling: Yes, it does explode.


This is actually a good question. Old 3.0 Epic rules aside, this is actually a possibility within the standard rules when you look at things like Nascent Demon Lords (Treerazer or Nightripper for example) or the newly presented full-blown Demon Lords (like Xoveron).

Put me down on the side of "Balor goes away before the death throes trigger". Since the Balor will be dismissed once it hits 0 hit point, while death throes doesn't trigger until actual death (-36 hp), I'd argue that the dismissal pretty much has to trigger first.

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Astral projections actually die, it just doesn't harm the orginal. If summoned monsters are just projections, the projection can still die and explode, but the original Balor would just wake up in the Abyss thinking 'that stung.'

More directly, the summoning rules are worded

Quote:
A summoned creature also goes away if it is killed or if its hit points drop to 0 or lower, but it is not really dead.

That might just be redundant. But the way I'm reading it right now is that if you hit a summoned Balor down to -36 in one go, it'll 'die', explode, and then disappear. (Or otherwise kill it outright with a slay living or coup de grace it while under hold monster or the like.)

If you merely hit it down to -12 or something, it'll disappear without exploding.

Grand Lodge

DreamGoddessLindsey wrote:

Topic.

Basically, if a balor is summoned and then killed, does its Death Throes go off, or does the end of the summoning just send it right back to the Abyss before Death Throes can go off?

It goes boom whether it's summoned or called. Then again there isn't any standard magic that can do either.

A Balor could however astral project itself to the Material plane, in which case it would act like a summoned creature. But that would mean leaving it's body defenseless at home.... not a pro survival move.


A Demon Lord could potentially summon a Balor (or three).

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