I need beholder tactics

[ChefOrc]

What's the best way to use a beholder's antimagic cone? If a beholder keeps its central eye open against a group of PCs, it seems to me that it hinders it more than the PCs because it cannot target the PCs with its eye rays, whereas they can just take a move action in their turn to get out of the cone, and then use magic.

What are your best beholder tactics?

 

[Henry]

The biggest thing to remember is (A) try to put the party in a spot that's disadvantageous, and (2) a beholder chooses whether to open or shut its eye once a round. The best plan is to open combat with the eye shut, hitting with all ten rays if possible, and then opening the AM eye.

The other thing to remember is to use the natural flying effect to cause hardship. Though many parties can fly, they can't necessarily do so all the time, unlike the Beholder. The beholder, using Flyby Attack, and his ability to hover, turn, etc. can be one hell of a target for a party.

Perhaps one good tactic is to fire, open eye, back off, close eye, fire again, open and back off again, etc. After all, the rays have a range of 150 feet, and most engagements take place well inside of that. (if using a battlemat, that's 30 squares!)

I don't see the "run into their midst and sow confusion" as being a good tactic, because even with the AM cone, some fighters and barbarians out there will have about a +15 to +18 to hit you, and cleaving that aberrant beastie to goo in melee.

 

[Infiniti2000]

IMO, the biggest thing to remember is that the eye rays are FREE actions. You can take them at any point in the middle of other actions. Thus, a beholder should be able to target all eye rays every round. Concentrate them on one opponent until that opponent is finished, and keep going.

The second biggest thing is location. A beholder's lair is typically the only place it will want to be encountered. Anywhere else and it would be on its guard and likely flee quickly if presented with any reasonable force. It would easily identify the 'adventurer' type and escape, probably before they even notice it.

For some excellent ideas on lairs, I highly recommend the 2e adventure modules by Thomas M. Reid: Eye of Pain, Eye of Doom, and Eye to Eye.

 

[Bad Paper]

spoiler alert

Deep Horizon spoiler alert, in case anyone cares about that sort of thing.

I turned the party's druid to hamburger.

In case you don't know the desmodu, they are these [kinda silly] Large two-weapon-fighting bat-people. You can find them in the MM2.

The party decided to explore a little hard-to-reach room (ceiling height 10', maybe?). Dire-bat-shaped druid plus the flying wizard cruise into this little area. Lo and behold, two desmodus are on watch in the doorways, and behind the pillars, plunk out some arrows, call for help.

Druid wildshapes into dire bear and moves up to protect the wizard, other PCs start filtering in to the room (via flying, spider climbing, etc). Original desmodus drop bows, draw weapons, step up. Two more desmodus show up.

There's some fighting. The druid is of course untouchable (AC about 36). The fighter in full plate has a pretty darn high AC, too.

Then the beholder showed up, big eye open, blanketed enough of the room to matter. The fighter's AC was comparable to (or even better than) the desmodus', but the druid dropped to 16. Two desmodus' full attacks later, and she's dying. The wizard was the only one available to drag her out of there, but as he was doing it, they butchered her into little pieces.

So the trick with beholders is: 1) minions with lots of attacks 2) cramped space 3) delay the arrival of the antimagic cone by a couple of rounds. This will get your party engage a certain kind of strategy that will likely get them killed.

PS: The druid is played by my wife. I am such the RBDM.

 

[ChefOrc]

Thus, a beholder should be able to target all eye rays every round. Concentrate them on one opponent until that opponent is finished

I don't think so because the MM says:

"During a single round, a beholder can aim only two eye rays at targets in any one 90-degree arc. The remaining eyes must aim at targets in other arcs, or not at all"

 

[Krelios]

<Begin "Back in my day" Rant>
They have significantly weakened the Beholder in the latest editions. I remember when the AM cone didn't interfere with its own eye rays (which could all point forward if they wanted). Why should parties even fear the Eye Tyrants now?
<End Rant>

The Beholder is definatlely best served by minions/slaves. Particularly ones that have been magically coerced into putting themselves into greater danger than they should specifically to set up the Beholder's abilities.

My personal favorite is using the Antimagic cone to cover its melee minions while blasting foes that maneuver around the cone with eye rays as appropriate. If your PCs can reach the beholder, be sure it's high in the air where flying spells will be dismissed dramatically.

 

[Michael Silverbane]

One thing that I've found is a pretty useful tactic is to use the disintegration ray to split up the party. Inside the beholder's lair, have a big room (preferrably underground) that has lots of columns in it. The columns serve three purposes.

1. They break up the room so as to limit straight line movement (i.e. the beholder won't be charged by the scary fighters in that first round, because there'll be something in the way of the charge.

2. They provide cover. Now, this works both ways, providing cover for the evil adventurers, as well as for the nice beholder who is, after all, only defending his home and his well-being. However, the beholder can simply disintegrate the cover and blast whoever is behind it if he feels the desire to do so. Also, the cover bonus to AC is not as effective against the beholder's touch attacks as it is the archers' regular attacks (with some exceptions).

3. The columns are holding up the ceiling, and when strategically disintegrated, can cause cave-ins that will split up, hamper, or even damage the party of evil adventurers. Usually, fighters will want to get close to the beholder, while beholders will want to stay back and lob spells at him. In this case, drop a cave-in between the fighters and the casters, cutting off the fighters from their magical support (now you can use your rays on them to full effect) and separating the spell casters from their meat-shields so that you can deal with them at your liesure.

Later
silver

 

[Gansk]

I don't think so because the MM says:

"During a single round, a beholder can aim only two eye rays at targets in any one 90-degree arc. The remaining eyes must aim at targets in other arcs, or not at all"

I interpret to mean:

1) Assign eye rays to each 90 degree arc beforehand.

2) Keep track of facing (you have to for the central eye anyway).

The beholder has good maneuverability, so turning in place 90 degrees eats up five feet movement. But since the eye rays are free actions, it can perform double move actions each round, twisting and turning to get all the eye rays on a single target if it so chooses and has movement left over.

 

[Mouseferatu]

I don't think so because the MM says:

"During a single round, a beholder can aim only two eye rays at targets in any one 90-degree arc. The remaining eyes must aim at targets in other arcs, or not at all"

Check again. The gauth can only aim two at a single target. The beholder can aim three.

 

[Mouseferatu]

And if you want a TPK, throw three coordinated beholders at the party. Two take turns opening and closing their antimagic eyes, blasting away with free actions in the split second between, while the third hangs back with readied actions to taget any spellcaster of the party who has, himself, readied an action to cast at the brief instant when both AM eyes are closed. Done properly, with an appropriately selected environment, you'll wipe out a party of higher level than the CR of three beholders suggests.