Beholders and Blindess

[Tharen the Damned]

So my Players will fight against a Beholder.
The Cleric had the idea to use Blindness/Deafness against the Beholder.
Will this work?
I think, if the misses his save he is blind, but his rays and the central eye still works.
He has the normal 50% miss chance and so on.

Or does this not work?

 

[glass]

So my Players will fight against a Beholder.
The Cleric had the idea to use Blindness/Deafness against the Beholder.
Will this work?

Beholders are living creatures, so a blindness/deafness spell can target them, and will render them blinded.

I think, if the misses his save he is blind, but his rays and the central eye still works.
He has the normal 50% miss chance and so on. Or does this not work?

Sounds good to me.


glass.

 

[Targos]

Good idea. It works, they have no special immunity to blindness. They are still free to blindly blast away with their eye rays and antimagic eye. Now blinding something that "targets" (as in no attack roll or area effect) opponents sucks a lot more. When line of sight is required you really need to be able to see.

 

[Infiniti2000]

Depending on whether you rule that the beholder himself is within the area of effect, opening the central eye may negate the blindness (a permanent effect).

Houserule
Personally, I like to change the eye rays around a little and sometimes give a beholder a dispel magic ray (only allowing him to target creatures, objects, or effect, not areas).

 

[Nail]

Depending on whether you rule that the beholder himself is within the area of effect, opening the central eye may negate the blindness (a permanent effect).

Can the central eye of a beholder be pointed at himself? (Or perhaps: when was the last time you were able to see your chin without a mirror? )

 

[Bauglir]

Can the central eye of a beholder be pointed at himself? (Or perhaps: when was the last time you were able to see your chin without a mirror? )

I wonder how many people just tried..

 

[Infiniti2000]

It's not that he needs to point the eye at himself, it's merely that the starting square of the effect includes (possibly) the beholder. From the magic overview on cones, we get: "A cone-shaped spell shoots away from you in a quarter-circle in the direction you designate. It starts from any corner of your square and widens out as it goes." The second part of this clearly indicates that you can choose any corner. If the beholder faces north, he could therefore choose either south corner and thus bathe himself in the antimagic field. The first part of this, however, says 'away from you' so IMO that means no, the beholder would have to choose one of the northern corners and thus can never affect himself in the AMF. That, of course, means that the beholder's AMF will never interfere with his other eye rays as long as they don't fire into the AMF area.

All I'm saying is that it's arguable, but not highly arguable. The odd consequence of actually choose a corner of the square is that someone in the beholder's space (e.g. grappling, 3 sizes smaller, tumbling) and being right in front of the eye isn't actually affected by the eye. So, if you have the AMF emanate from the actual eye (possibly from the middle of his square) is the central eye itself within the field? I.e. can he see from his central eye? What's the field of view? Can he target outside the AMF if his central eye FOV is wider?

 

[Nail]

...That, of course, means that the beholder's AMF will never interfere with his other eye rays as long as they don't fire into the AMF area.

I've not played (read: fought against or DMed) a beholder yet....but I've read examples in the storyhours. They all use this interpretation. Frankly, it's the one that makes most sense. (Not that "making sense" has any bearing in the Rules Forum.)

 

[Kilroy]

I wonder how many people just tried..

Ow, I just sprained my eyeball :/

 

[comareddin]

I wonder how many people just tried..

Hahaha I know I just did

Com