need advice on a good trap for a Beholder's lair

I'm DMing the second half of Out of the Abyss, and the characters are going to face off against Xazax the Eyemonger nearby Mantol Derith.

I got five level 8 players and two "guests who want to try out the game" that im going to have them start at level 7. Together, that is a sizeable force against a CR13 Beholder.

My question is that im worried that the group will blow away this beholder easily. So to complicate it a bit i was considering adding the following trap (let me know if you think they are fair, and what other suggestions you got, thanks!):

1) Rock Trap - This beholder is actually expecting the attack in game, and has set up a falling rock trap above his lair entrance

What i really want/need is bright ideas from you people to liven this up or come up with something cool for a beholder. Im open to all suggestions. Lets hear them!

I would also appriciate spot/disarm DCs and saving throws, along with your suggestions.

Thanks!

Whenever I’m at a loss for a good trap, I always go to Grimtooth’s Traps. There's some really great, fiendish traps to be found in those books.

What I like in a trap is when it’s an obvious trap and the PCs need to figure out how to deal with it. In the case of your falling rock trap, I’d put the Beholder across a chasm, with only a narrow bridge crossing the bridge. On the bridge are several crushed and flattened skeletons, signaling that there’s a trap. The PCs can either rush across and risk the damage, or figure out how to disarm or avoid the trap. Of course, while they do that, the Beholder is free to blast them with its various eye beams. Now, if most of the party has ranged attacks, this trap isn't so effective....you could always add some cover for the Beholder as well in that case.

One of the big challenges starting around 5th or 6th level is PC movement becomes almost unstoppable, starting with fly and then throwing in things like blink, dimension door, and it only ramps up from there (teleport).

I was going to suggest a trap that made it hard for the PCs to make forward progress, giving the beholder time to do some damage or escape, but now I'm thinking that a trap that forces (or at least encourages) the PCs to willingly slow their own advance is not only more likely to have an appreciable effect, but is also even more sinister in implication.

So what about a trap that somehow freezes/stops/impedes/diminishes/hinders/cripples one very important or critical character, like the party healer. This forces the party to make a decision: keep pressing the attack on the beholder, or do something to help out the glue that holds this whole enterprise together?

With PCs at 8th (and thereabouts) level, straight damage dealers are no longer particularly effective (or as interesting). Without knowing what spells or similar mechanics you plan to access, is there a trap you can build that isolates, traps, or otherwise hinders one particular character that then forces the other players to make a difficult choice?

That strikes me as the kind of thing a particularly devious evil alien floating multi-ocular magical abomination would take great delight in devising.

Still learning,

Robert

First, read my notes on beholder lairs in this thread:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...-as-a-player&p=6771972&viewfull=1#post6771972

Beholders really don't need traps. You make the encounter more difficult by giving the monster better charmed pets, typically something that can act as an effective meat shield to give the Beholder more time to utilize its eye rays.

Traps are particularly hard to implement in a beholder lair because a well designed beholder lair forces players to try to fly to the beholder, which negates most sorts of mechanical traps that typically rely on pressure plates and the like. You also have to take care that the trap doesn't end up hindering the beholder's mobility. For instance, you might be tempted to string trip wires at the Beholder's flight level, but you'll have to be careful that this doesn't just trap the beholder in a small area it can be cornered. However, if you do use trip wires at flight level, you'll almost certainly catch players in the trap. Interesting traps could be anything from barrages of arrows to flung nets. Magical traps can always be triggered by magical triggers, but these tend toward cheese and I'd not use them against a lowish level party. The same could probably be said of 80' long trip wires or other improbable mechanical traps.

Anti-Magic ray and telekinesis both get more deadly if there are hazards in the environment to shove players into or drop them on if they dare use magic to try to traverse them.

Poison dart traps.

Your players will despise you. They may curse you to your face. They may even flip the table and throw your dice through a window.

Triggered by footfall or touching a wall, DC20 Perception to spot trap, +8 attack for dart, DC19 CON save vs. Purple Worm poison (12d6 damage halved with a successful CON save).

Have them set in random positions throughout the cave's entrance for about 50-100 feet. Whenever a character takes a step or touches anything in the cave, roll 1d6. If you get 4-6, they get another dart.

Then release the rabid cat swarm.

Literally every inch of the floor could be trapped, since beholders levitate

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Storminator said:

Literally every inch of the floor could be trapped, since beholders levitate

Click to expand...

Yup. The 2e supplement I, Tyrant had some good info about beholder lairs. What I recall:
- lots of vertical tunnels / 3d obstacles, especially spy holes in ceilings etc.
- strategical placement of enchanted mirrors that can reflect eye ray powers
- controlled cave-ins triggered by disintegrating a key wall or ceiling; also used as an escape route.

Storminator has it right. The floor only serves as a nuisance to a beholder. Therefore it should always be at least difficult terrain and often should be trapped or just hazardous (acids, molds, spikes). Then, when the party has to navigate over it via fly or such, anti-magic rays will drop them into it.

The main thing to remember is Xazax is floating in the middle of a 100' column, with a 20' pit filled with whatever you wish, should you decide to alter things slightly.

To start with you have to rule out all melee combat, so only ranged and spells are available (which will make things more difficult). You can also use the telekinesis to shove things into the pit, which will delay their actions, or consider having large rocks you can manipulate to shove multiple PCs into the pit at once (such as 3 who are next to each other).

You can also allow the Beholder to simply fly up, forcing a chase straight into the air (fly spell, or climbing required) when the Beholder reaches 20% or less hp to prevent a boring encounter. After that you can feel free to create anything you fancy.

Put mirrors in the lair.

Have a big mirror near the front of the lair that projects a magic aura but otherwise doesn't do anything but is so big and massive it creeps out the party and makes them waste precious time as they try to figure it out. Their arguing should alert the beholder to their presence.

Have another room with multiple mirrors, one of which is magically trapped to suck a PC into a prison dimension when touched. Alternately, it teleports the PC a mile away, well above the middle of a rather deep lake, filled with hungry beasties. The beholder, who fancies fish, uses it to go get lunch upon occassion.

Have mirrors in the beholder's lair so that it can provide itself cover but bounce rays to just about anywhere in the room.

Have a floor illusioned as a mirror, but it is in fact a spike pit trap with some nasty fungus on the spikes.

Have an illusionary floor hiding a gelatinous cube lair.

Have the beholder's chamber reached only through a one-way illusionary mirror. If the PCs get paranoid enough about mirrors they won't go through it and the beholder can zap them from the other side at leisure, creating confusion and doing quite a bit of damage.