Good action for my Evil High Priest? (a bit long)

[NewJeffCT]

assuming that the EHP did his prep work, and by the looks of your story he did, how about the two slave girls be your gated fiendish huge eye tyrants of doom under a little disguise spell. The beholders AMF is a cone if i recall correctly not a gaze attack, so the pc's shouldn't realize immediatly why their magic is off just because one of the slave girls happens to be looking their way.

Good idea on the beholder disguised as a slave girl... and yes the beholder's Anti-Magic ray is a 150 foot long cone.

 

[NewJeffCT]

now, i just re-read my monster manual - the beholder can attack with all 10 of its eye rays each round? I didn't see anything that said "yes" or "no" on that in the description other than an attack or full attack is "eye rays and bite" and not "eye ray and bite"

 

[coyote6]

Yes, but only 3 per 90 degree arc (the details are on p. 25, in the section that's common to both the gauth and beholder). So no one person can get pasted by more than 3 rays at a time.

 

[Runestar]

Unless the PC is large, in which case the beholder hovers directly over, qaudru-sects him and nails him with all 10 (3 per quadrant).

 

[NewJeffCT]

Unless the PC is large, in which case the beholder hovers directly over, qaudru-sects him and nails him with all 10 (3 per quadrant).

Thanks - no large PCs, and since the game is pretty high level, the beholder's save DC for the ray attacks are likely pretty easy makes for the players. So, that may be a strike against the beholder there in terms of summoning.

Of course, there is no save vs the anti-magic ray.

 

[Runestar]

You may wish to consider the beholder variant here, which trades away the myriad of SoDs it gets (the designer admits they can be unsatisfying to play).

Design & Development: Monster Makeover: The Beholder

 

[Aran Thule]

Unless the PC is large, in which case the beholder hovers directly over, qaudru-sects him and nails him with all 10 (3 per quadrant).

I never understood why it couldnt use telekinesis just to lift if above it so it could target with all rays.

One problem with the slave girl trick, im sure someone in the party would have true sight up.

As for dominate monster, a simple protection from good spell will stop it working, or use the anti magic cone on the mage first.
Ooooo evil thought, cone the mage and send the returned paladin (or have the slaves as a pair of assassins with poisoned weapons)in to attack while the magic is negated.

Please let us know the end result and what your party thought of the ending, after all you have thrown at them it would be nice to hear their thoughts.

 

[NewJeffCT]

Most likely, if it is a beholder, I'll use the anti-magic ray to take down the sorcerer and one other caster (the psion or the cleric) and then sic some of the few remaining low level minions onto those casters to grapple them & hold them in place while slowly squeezing them to death (and any other low level minions will attack with their weapons as well...)

 

[coyote6]

Unless the PC is large, in which case the beholder hovers directly over, qaudru-sects him and nails him with all 10 (3 per quadrant).

According to the MM, "down" is one arc, so only three rays.

 

[Jhaelen]

According to the MM, "down" is one arc, so only three rays.

Yup! I initially thought it was possible to make a 'full blast' but (unfortunately ) FrankTheDM's nice images in the beholder tactics thread cleared that up.