Same here, I just do not understand that.

Dear Balin Players - I'll try not to spoil the things too much, but:
Yes, you can die with Balin in the initial events, that's actually very likely. You can even succeed, only to be invaded by pissed-off goblins. Or you can succeed without pissing off goblins, in both cases of success having to deal with the Balrog, which may or may not defeat you altogether, or you may kill it, surviving or dying.
Playing Balin is heavily reliant on your decisions and luck. Each decision has weighted consequences and adds or subtracts from your final success and state of things.
I'll just tell you that it's very much possible, I've done it twice and my friend has done it as well.
If you want to spoil your game, you can look through files to see precise mechanics, weights and chances, or you can just try your best, I'll leave it up to you.
If it won't hurt your pride, you can always save-scum and try to win that way.
Anyway, I certify it's completely possible, just hard.

It can be, though it's very difficult. got alliance with aragorn and defender alliance with elrond, then race against time to wipe out all orc of moria and hold all province in your hand - wait for balrog's dormant, and then you need sl to kill it.
defeat orc invader in game's start is the The simplest thing in this process.

Hi, sorry to revive this. I am having trouble surviving the initial event chain as Balin. I die at the lake every time with no chance to survive. I tried going alone, going with a couple of guys, and going with a large group. The result is always the same, I just die at the lake. Looking at videos of other people playing as Balin, I see they get options to let 2 other characters die in their place. I haven't seen this option.

Also sorry to revive this. Also ran into the same issue with Balin dying at the start. I'm talking only about the starting chain of events that lead to the lake. Setting the lore friendly options to be more flexible under game options seems to allow for RNG to actually allow him to live. First game I had immediately after changing this game rules after like five deaths was the first time I could actually play as the guy.

yall playing open beta right? Im a balin player <3

For anyone in the future that comes across this thread: It's all a small percentage chance you'll survive the event tree at the beginning. It sucks, but it is what it is.

This being said, I do think if the game detects that Balin is a player controlled character, remove the random chance of death. He has no heirs folks, if he is a player you need to save-scum till you survive, that's it. It's not fun, it's not enjoyable.