Coo beans
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Specifically they hit it with a few non-lethal blows (at -2) when the Balor was at low HP to knock him out.
Then they ran 150 feet away and had the ranger shoot him for the lethal shot and the explosion they now outranged.
Humbug.
To the Raven Black's point, did they do something to know that Balor's had an effect on their death?
If they did, this this is a pretty clever plan. Knocking the Balor unconscious without killing it and then getting far enough away.
If they didn't do something to know that Balors have a death effect (in game) then I would tell them the range for this Balor was 200 ft. And that they all need to make saves.
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If they had in character knowledge, good for them. If this was a clear case of using out of game knowledge, I'd ask them to stop it, because the arms race of the GM modifying monsters to counter this sort of thing is a lot of work for me and a road to suffering for their characters. And perhaps, as an example, suggest that they're lucky this Balor didn't have a debilitating death curse instead of their usual immolation.
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It would have been funnier if they had taken his body and thrown it in some monster room, then shot him blowing him up. Balor Bomb. High level character tactic.
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I remember fighting a balor two rooms off from what was probably gonna be the campaign's final bossfight. We'd also figured out that knocking it unconscious was a good idea, but I wanted to just toss it into the next room and the detonate it. Make it another monster's problem.
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The Balor taunted them ahead of the fight (first time they faced a Balor) that even if they managed to strike him down, he'd take them all with him by exploding, more or less.
The goal was to have the party not be completely blindsided and play with that explosion in mind.
But "knock him unconscious with 1-2 non-lethal attacks which lasts 10+ minutes and then run away and shoot up from extreme distance" didn't cross my mind.
Like Obi-wan Kenobi going "If you strike me down I'll become more powerful than you can possibly imagine" and then Darth Vader says "Okay," knocks him unconscious, and imprisons him in the Death Star.
I don't think they knew the exact distance either, they just ran to the extreme opposite corner of the cavern they were in just to be safe.
Just felt weird that a signature "on death" effect can be bypassed with 1-2 non-lethal hits at low HP.
Awesome from you and awesome from them.
Truly a tale for the ages.
Yeah, if the Balor taunted them and told them "if you kill me, it'll kill you too" then the players actions were at least somewhat reasonable.
Not fully RAW, but I would say that nonlethal damage would also count for its death throes ability. It's flavoured as a "revenge blow" kind of ability that does not exactly keep corner cases like this in mind.
My first instinct was to rephrase it to "when a balor falls unconscious...", but that would mean a Sleep spell would also work. Though now I have the mental image of a balor randomly flailing about whenever they go to bed :P
Point is, even in PF1 this was a weird issue. Orc Ferocity wouldn't work (among others), for instance, and I've had several fights absolutely ruined because fights ended much earlier or anticlimactically because a little love tap shut down their entire shtick. Such a creature's whole thing is that they can go on for longer than they're supposed to, and because of one little poorly-worded rules interaction, they don't. I don't consider myself a "mean" GM, but I would've absolutely let it do its death throes ability after going KO by nonlethal damage.
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Counterpoint to my own argument: the Reefclaw, probably the most famous low-level enemy with a similar ability, has the reaction "when it reaches 0 HP," so there's a difference.
Counter-counterpoint: sometimes monsters are written by different authors, who use different wording for similar abilities. Back in First Edition, both the Reefclaw and the Balor had the same ability specifically on dying, so in that sense Second Edition is the odd one out.
Counter-counter-counterpoint: while a lot carries over between 1e and 2e, you don't necessarily have to assume everything carries over 100% between editions, even on the same creatures/items/etc.
Also, on a different note: technically, NPCs can also use the dying rules, but are usually ignored to not have to deal with "is this enemy dead or not?" The players could have fought it normally, then when the Balor drops to 0 HP, run like hell as it goes through Dying 1 to 4 and explodes 3 rounds later. In that case, you could stay in initiative (especially if there's still other enemies present) and ask, "the enemy is down, what do you do?" and if they don't immediately scatter, have the Balor go boom anyways.
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Also, on a different note: technically, NPCs can also use the dying rules, but are usually ignored to not have to deal with "is this enemy dead or not?" The players could have fought it normally, then when the Balor drops to 0 HP, run like hell as it goes through Dying 1 to 4 and explodes 3 rounds later. In that case, you could stay in initiative (especially if there's still other enemies present) and ask, "the enemy is down, what do you do?" and if they don't immediately scatter, have the Balor go boom anyways.
That's a good point. Balors are just one example of "boss" monsters that explode, which can be kind of a downer if it happens completely out of the blue at the end of an AP volume. If you see them starting to glow brighter and brighter and have a bit of time to try to run (even as their minions also start running...) that could actually be a much more satisfying ending.