Planar binding fun

Archived from groups: rec.games.frp.dnd (More info?)

I've been creating a Sor13 in case my Mnk3/Ftr10 gets killed in City of
the Spider Queen and I've only just realized how much fun planar binding
can be.

It's like planar ally, only you don't need to pay, you get your own
choice of minion, and you don't have to play nice with them. W00t!

A planar binder Sor13 might almost have a leader-cohort relationship
built up with a creature such as a trumpet archon: whenever you go out
on a dangerous adventure, you call him. If your adventures tend to be
typical D&D evil-bashing, he shouldn't even be too mad afterwards for
your forcing him to come along you.

And if a trumpet archon isn't enough, cast planar binding again, call
another one. And another... until you have as many of these flying spell
resistant energy resistant outsider ECL 20 warrior-clerics as you need.

But there are some pretty twinkish things that can be done, even above
and beyond merely building an army of minions. For example, summon a
glabrezu and demand that he cast his 1/month wish for you for his
freedom. His Cha bonus is +5, while a Sor13 might have +7 and a circlet
of persuasion, for +10. That's about 75% chance to persuade the demon on
the first day!

So at 13th-level, you get a wish at the cost of a few sorcerer spell
slots and a pissed off glabrezu, who can't even plane shift to get
revenge on his onw. And if he manages, it's a CR 13 monster, nothing you
and your party shouldn't be able to handle.

But the really twinkish part is that you're able to do this a couple of
times *each day*. If you don't ask for a specific individual, but just
call "a glabrezu", you should get a different one each time, and
hopefully the new

Sure, you can build quite an army of enemies that way, but it's 2-3
wishes per day for a 13th-level character, at no material/XP cost
whatsoever. And you have an army of archons to defend you...

So that this wouldn't be just a rant, a couple of questions: any fun
uses (or abuses!) of planar binding/ally you have experienced? Any house
rules to prevent abuses? Any good non-obvious choices of monsters to
call?


--
Jasin Zujovic
jzujovic@inet.hr

Archived from groups: rec.games.frp.dnd (More info?)

Jasin Zujovic wrote:
> It's like planar ally, only you don't need to pay, you get your own
> choice of minion, and you don't have to play nice with them. W00t!

Uh huh. You don't have to offer them a reward, and they only have to
follow the letter of your task.

>
> A planar binder Sor13 might almost have a leader-cohort relationship
> built up with a creature such as a trumpet archon: whenever you go out
> on a dangerous adventure, you call him. If your adventures tend to be
> typical D&D evil-bashing, he shouldn't even be too mad afterwards for
> your forcing him to come along you.
>

While that's possibly true...

> And if a trumpet archon isn't enough, cast planar binding again, call
> another one. And another... until you have as many of these flying spell
> resistant energy resistant outsider ECL 20 warrior-clerics as you need.
>

That appears to be true again. I be hard pressed to find a way to stop
you as a DM, but I'd certainly make life as hard as possible...

> But there are some pretty twinkish things that can be done, even above
> and beyond merely building an army of minions. For example, summon a
> glabrezu and demand that he cast his 1/month wish for you for his
> freedom. His Cha bonus is +5, while a Sor13 might have +7 and a circlet
> of persuasion, for +10. That's about 75% chance to persuade the demon on
> the first day!

Plenty of easy fixes for that as a DM, #1 you get a glabrezu who's
already cast his wish. #2 It would definately get a +6 bonus on the
charisma check if you aren't offering some sort of recompense. #3 It
could fall in the "unreasonable commands" and never fail it's check.
#4 and my favorite: Note the part about subverting instructions?
Evilily subverted wishes are my favorite EVIL DM move to place on PCs,
and you are just asking for it here. In 2e I had some very high level
characters capture a cadre of Effriti, they all got 3 wishes. Only one
of them thought the subversion was barely better than not having the
wish at all, and that was only on one of his wishes. All the rest
eventually went through the trouble of having thier wishes undone with
another wish. Very expensive and time consuming, and a lesson well
learned.

- Justisaur

Archived from groups: rec.games.frp.dnd (More info?)

Jasin Zujovic wrote:

> In a real game, I would (I will?) call one archon, treat him real
> nice, possibly even offering a part of the loot as payment, possibly
> even agreeing with him to call him again when I need him (I'd prefer a
> "named" companion and helper to a Generic Archon #3).
>
> It's still wickedly powerful (the archon is a 14th-level cleric, plus
> he's a decent warrior, plus has assorted special abilities), but
> knowing all the spells needed to be an effective binder cramps the
> sorcerers style in other regards significantly; it could be argued
> that you effectively end up running the archon as your character and
> the sorcerer as cohort.

Turnabout is always fair play. A few days after you first summoned your
Archon, you're in the middle of a time-sensitive quest, when suddenly you're
drawn across the planes to a planar trap somewhere in the celestial realms.
Your friend the archon says "Hi, this is my friend [introduces an Aasimar
with lots of Sorcerer levels, CHA-boosting items and Greater Spell Focus
(conjuration)]. He was wondering if you'd do him a teeny little favour,
it'll only take a week or two."

--
Mark.

Archived from groups: rec.games.frp.dnd (More info?)

In article <3gdqpvFbugm7U1@individual.net>,
m.blundenATntlworld.com@address.invalid says...

> > In a real game, I would (I will?) call one archon, treat him real
> > nice, possibly even offering a part of the loot as payment, possibly
> > even agreeing with him to call him again when I need him (I'd prefer a
> > "named" companion and helper to a Generic Archon #3).
> >
> > It's still wickedly powerful (the archon is a 14th-level cleric, plus
> > he's a decent warrior, plus has assorted special abilities), but
> > knowing all the spells needed to be an effective binder cramps the
> > sorcerers style in other regards significantly; it could be argued
> > that you effectively end up running the archon as your character and
> > the sorcerer as cohort.
>
> Turnabout is always fair play. A few days after you first summoned your
> Archon, you're in the middle of a time-sensitive quest, when suddenly you're
> drawn across the planes to a planar trap somewhere in the celestial realms.
> Your friend the archon says "Hi, this is my friend [introduces an Aasimar
> with lots of Sorcerer levels, CHA-boosting items and Greater Spell Focus
> (conjuration)]. He was wondering if you'd do him a teeny little favour,
> it'll only take a week or two."

Planar binding only works on outsiders and elementals. There's no
"mortal binding" for outsiders to use on mortals.

Arguably, a tiefling or aasimar might be bound using planar binding, but
that should probably be disallowed too since it creates all sorts of
crazy ripple effects, I think...

Again, arguably, someone might research a "mortal binding" spell, but I
think: 1) that's just silly, thematically; 2) the mortal casters could
milk it for more of an advantage than any celestial sorcerer trying to
avenge his friend, so you'd be introducing new problems, not dealing
with the exisiting ones.


--
Jasin Zujovic
jzujovic@inet.hr