Balor's Dimension Door???

[Prince Setehrael]

So I was reading over the Balor's stat block and I noticed that it has Dimension Door and an innate spell at 10th level and at 5th level(at will).

Buf what is the purpose of Dimension Door heighten to 10th level?

The spell itself has only 2 levels.
4th - 120 feet and 5th - 1 mile.

So having a 10th level Dimension Door does absolutely nothing for the Balor. Would nit not be better to give it a 10th level Fire spell: Flame Strike or Fireball or something?

Or am I just missing something?

I'd love to hear anyone else's thoughts.

[Red Metal]

It makes it harder to counteract with dimensional anchor. To counteract a 10th-level dimension door, you would need a success with a 9th-level dimensional anchor, or a critical success with a 7th-level dimensional anchor, while a 5th-level dimension door only requires a success with a 4th-level dimensional anchor, or a failure with a 6th-level dimensional anchor.

[Gortle]

The answer to your question is the same as why you would take a level 7 spell slot with Improved Invisibility against it.

Counterspells and counteract checks in general.

To defeat Dimensional Anchor or an Anti Magic Aura?

[Prince Setehrael]

Ok. That makes sense and yeah that option completely flew over my radar. I'm gonna blame it on reading stat blocks at 3am.
Thanks for the input everyone.

[HumbleGamer]

As mentioned above, for counteract purposes.

Anchoring aura ( champion feat ) would easily deal with the balor lvl 5 dimensional door, so if the creature would like to live, it's a solid choice to have a lvl 10 dimension door in order to cast it while the hp drop below half the pool.

Plus, consider that investing one slot for a lvl 6 dimensional anchor, by the time the party will be facing lvl 19/20 creatures, is not a big deal, and helps the party if they want the enemies not to escape.

[Sibelius Eos Owm]

My party's sorcerer personally takes great satisfaction in Counterspelling all manner of fiends as they try to Dimension Door out of a fight.

[Perpdepog]

Sibelius Eos Owm wrote:

My party's sorcerer personally takes great satisfaction in Counterspelling all manner of fiends as they try to Dimension Door out of a fight.

It does feel pretty good.

[Ascalaphus]

I've used a Miracle to quickly drop a Dimensional Lock when a boss was looking like they might run for it. Their Contingency/L4 Dimension Door wasn't able to counteract that.