D&D 5E Beholders, concentration, antimagic fields

flametitan said:

The validity of this tactic is still up in the air until I can find a proper ruling for shooting out of the darkness.

Click to expand...

Did you mean to do that or was it an accident?

It just occurred to me that there is nothing preventing slow beholders (20' movement per turn) beholders from acquiring fast elephants as mounts (40' per turn plus Dash for another 40').

A Behir or a Giant Elk would also be legal. I'm not sure which one is more hilarious; either way it reminds me of this guy:

Hemlock said:

Sure. But it's also good to know that "being caught alone" is an unusual situation for a beholder. That knowledge shapes its response: if it's caught in an unusually disadvantageous situation, of course it's going to retreat. The only question is whether it's going to retreat aerially or underground.

I'm interested in beholders from a DM/worldbuilding perspective, so plausibly modeling their habits and behavior is a big deal for me.

Click to expand...

Fair enough. I can agree that a beholder is probably going to have lots and lots of thralls doing its bidding, especially when on the surface, so being alone is unlikely.

I wouldn't think it that answer is exclusively aerial or underground. Most likely, the tunnels in its lair are carved in such a way that characters that can't hover is severely limited in mobility. That is, sudden erratic spikes, or areas where walking is fine for 50 feet or so, only for sudden 100 foot drops and the only way forward is more than the average jumping distance away. Even places that are more open might have only a couple 10 foot wide passages on the ceiling or near it.

These areas are great for a beholder, as it can prevent a player from flying towards it with its antimagic cone, while also enabling cover from an archer, forcing players to find other resources to enable the mobility to pursue it.

Just for information... when did the beholder's lair become so spacious that he can't simply float on the point of origin of Darkness and then shoot the ground/shoot the party?

Edit: By the way, pretty sure there's a tweet somewhere saying that disintegrate disintegrates chunks of matter if the target is big enough. There are also rules to "chunk" down in size massive objects just in case, so i'd rule it totally fair.

Edit 2: The party is the one covered, my bad. Should really stop posting late at night while having insomnia attacks -.-

Edit 3: Waaait... I knew my brain was not really failing me. Dispel Darkness and shoot people works Point of emanation can't emanate anything if the point is suppressed. Part of the party is exposed and ripe for picking, as is ground being disintegrated in 3...2...1...

According to the Monster Manual, beholder lairs are full of high-ceilinged chambers connected by vertical shafts. You can throw up darkness if you like, but you still have to get up the shaft somehow. Nonmagical means are slow, allowing the beholder to use telekinesis and drop boulders down the shaft. Magical means will quickly get you within a few feet of the top... whereupon the beholder pops out, opens its central eye, and enjoys the sound of splats from far below.

Plus, as ThePolarBear points out, darkness is suppressed if the point of origin is covered by antimagic. The beholder can aim its central eye so as to hit the carrier of the darkness effect, and then use its eye rays against whichever enemies are outside the antimagic field.