A little over a year ago, I attended Mike Mearl’s Beholder Design seminar at GenCon. In that seminar, we discussed the existing beholder, its role, its abilities, and its place in the world of D&D. We also discussed various ways in which we could redesign the beholder to make it simpler to use in play while retaining all of the neat features which make a beholder what it is.
Now, over a year later, I was finally able to take what we had discussed, adapt it to my campaign, and actually see it up against my players. The funny coincidence is that while driving down to Indianapolis for GenCon, I was discussing this very beholder with a buddy of mine, and then here we go. Right on the main web page we have the new 4th edition beholder, with eyestalks of flame and all. This new beholder is quite similar to the one which I created and is undoubtedly built up from the many suggestions which were given during last year’s seminar, so after Monday’s session, “buzzmo” (one of my players) urged me to post this version for everyone to see (and to probably comment on).
The Situation:
The party consists of 5 characters, all 17th level. A paladin, a barbarian, a cleric, a wizard 16/cleric 1 (don’t ask
, and a rogue 14 / acrobat 3.
The party is in a pocket dimension off of the astral plane. Due to the whims of the pocket dimension’s ruler (a greater fire titan), teleportation and flight spells do not work, fire is enhanced, and cold is diminished.
The party has received directions to a “vault” which contains an object very detrimental to fire titan (in fact, it is the frozen heart of a greater frost titan which the party had defeated earlier).
The Encounter Area:
The “vault” is very large (as befitting a titan) and, like the rest of the pocket dimension, haphazardly built. I enjoy a good encounter with lots of varying terrain, so I created a large central platform where the “heart” hangs suspended inside a fiery force field. I added in pillars and other objects to hide behind, deep crevasses to fall (or be pushed) into, walls of energy to use or avoid, and lots of pockets of rubble, destruction debris, scaffolding, and even coins.
The Goal:
The party is close to the point where they will be taking on the greater fire titan. Obviously, obtaining the frozen heart should be difficult, but not as difficult as the final battle with the titan. Therefore, I wanted an encounter around EL 18 to 20. Given the importance of heart, I also want this encounter to be memorable. Since I had lots of terrain, I wanted a monster which could potentially push opponents into the pits (remember, no flying) or the walls of energy. On the flip side, I wanted the party to take advantage of all of the terrain features (specifically the cover) which was being provided.
I have never used a beholder before, but a souped up version with an elemental twist seemed perfect, so that is what I used.
The Elemental Beholder:
Beholder CR 18
Usually LE Large Aberration
Init +4; Senses all-around vision, darkvision 60’, see invisible; Listen +5, Spot +34
Languages Beholder, common
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AC 34, touch 14, flat-footed 34 (+0 Dex, +20 natural, +5 deflection, -1 size); DR 10/-
hp 274 (22 HD)
Resist acid 10, cold 10, electricity 10, fire 10, force 10; SR 28
Fort +16, Ref +9, Will +18 (22 aberration hit dice +7/+7/+13, abilities +7/+0/+3, feats +2/+2/+2)
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Speed 5 ft. (1 square), fly 20 ft. (good)
Melee 10 eye rays +15 ranged touch (special, 19-20/*) and bite +19 (2d6+9 plus poison)
Ranged 10 eye rays +15 ranged touch (special, 19-20/*) (+16 BAB, +0 Dex, -1 size)
Space 10 ft.; Reach 5 ft.
Base Atk +16; Grp +26
Atk Options Antimagic beam, eye rays, poison
Special Actions Quick spin
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Abilities Str 22, Dex 10, Con 24, Int 19, Wis 16, Cha 15
Feats (8 feats for 22 Hit Dice)
Alertness (B) (+2 Listen and Spot)
Flyby Attack (when flying, may take a move action and any other standard action during the move)
Great Fortitude (+2 Fortitude saves)
Improved Critical (eye rays) (double critical threat range)
Improved Initiative (+4 to initiative)
Improved Toughness (+1 hp per HD)
Iron Will (+2 Will saves)
Lightning Reflexes (+2 Reflex saves)
Multi-attack (secondary natural weapons take -2 penalty)
Skills (150 ranks for 22 HD at 2+Int)
Concentration +32 (25 ranks, +7 Con)
Intimidate +27 (25 ranks, +2 Cha)
Knowledge (arcana) +29 (25 ranks, +4 Int)
Listen +5 (0 ranks, +3 Wis, +2 Alertness)
Search +33 (25 ranks, +4 Int, +4 racial)
Spellcraft +31 (25 ranks, +4 Int, +2 synergy from Knowledge (arcana))
Spot +34 (25 ranks, +3 Wis, +2 Alertness, +4 racial)
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All-Around Vision (Ex): Beholders are exceptionally alert and circumspect. Their many eyes give them a +4 racial bonus on Spot and Search checks, and they can’t be flanked.
Antimagic Beam (Su): A beholder’s central eye continually produces a 150-foot beam of antimagic which can affect a single target. This functions just like antimagic field (caster level 18), suppressing any spells, spell-like abilities, and supernatural abilities affecting the target. Likewise, it prevents the target from casting any spells, activating any spell-like or supernatural abilities, or using the magical properties of a magic item.
Once each round, during its turn, a beholder may change the target of the antimagic beam. Unlike rays, the antimagic beam automatically affects the target as long as the beholder has line of effect to the target.
There is a 10% chance every round that the target of the antimagic beam suffers the effects of a greater dispel magic effect (caster level 18).
Eye Rays (Su): Each of a beholder’s ten small eyes can produce a magical ray once per round as a free action. Each eye ray deals 10d6 damage of a specific energy type (acid, cold, electricity, fire, or force). A beholder has two eye stalks for each energy type. During a single round, a beholder can aim only two eye rays at any individual target. Each eye ray has a range of 150 feet and damages any target it hits with a ranged touch attack. Instead of dealing double damage on a critical hit, a critical hit from an eye ray has a special critical effect depending upon the eye ray’s energy type:
• Acid: The target’s physical features melt away from the acid. The target takes 4 points of damage to Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution (Fortitude DC 23 negates the melting, but the target still takes the 10d6 acid damage).
• Cold: The target is slowed for 1 hour (Will DC 23 negates the slow, but the target still takes 10d6 cold damage).
• Electricity: The target is stunned for 1 round and is blinded and deafened for 1d6+6 rounds (Will DC 23 negates both the stunned effect and the blindness/deafness).
• Fire: The target takes an additional 36d6 points of fire damage. Any target reduced to 0 or fewer hit points is entirely disintegrated (as per the disintegrate spell) as the target is reduced to smoldering ashes (Fortitude DC 23 negates the extra fire damage).
• Force: The target is flung away from the beholder. The target travels up to 2d6 x 10 ft., and takes 1d6 points of damage per 10 feet traveled. (Fortitude DC 23 avoids being flung)
Note: If a target takes no damage from an eye ray because of immunities or resistance, it is unaffected by the special critical effect.
The save DCs for all special critical effects are Charisma-based.
Flight (Ex): A beholder’s body is naturally buoyant. This buoyancy allows it to fly at a speed of 20 feet. This buoyancy also grants it a permanent feather fall effect (as the spell) with personal range.
Poison (Ex): Injury, Fortitude DC 28, 1d6 Dex / paralysis (1 minute).
Quick Spin (Su): As an immediate action, a beholder may spin around, focusing the antimagic beam from its central eye upon a different target. Typically, a beholder will use a quick spin to try to catch a spellcaster in the antimagic beam just as the caster tries to cast a spell. However, a quick spin only has a 50% chance of actually interrupting a target’s action. For example, a beholder is focusing his antimagic beam upon the party’s wizard. The cleric begins to cast a destruction spell. The beholder sees the cleric and recognizes the somatic components of the spell. Desperately wanting to avoid being the target of such a spell, the beholder uses Quick Spin to refocus his antimagic beam on the cleric instead of the wizard. The beholder rolls a 17 on a d20 and manages to interrupt the cleric’s destruction spell before it was cast. If the beholder had instead rolled a 7, the cleric would have cast the destruction spell before being targeted by the antimagic beam.
See Invisibility (Su): A beholder’s vision is so good that it can even spot invisible creatures and objects.
Eye: Effect / Critical Effect {Critical Save}
Central: Antimagic beam (no attack required) / Greater Dispel Magic {None}
2 Acid: 10d6 acid / Melt (Str, Dex, Con: 4 damage) {Reflex DC 23}
2 Cold: 10d6 cold / Slow (1 hour) {Will DC 23}
2 Electricity: 10d6 electricity / Stunned (1 rnd) and blind/deaf (1d6+6 rnds) {Will DC 23}
2 Fire: 10d6 fire / Disintegrate (36d6 fire) {Fortitude DC 23}
2 Force: 10d6 force / Flung (thrown backwards 2d6x10 ft.) {Fortitude DC 23}
Outside of Combat:
With careful concentration, a beholder can use both force eye rays to manipulate objects in a manner similar to telekinesis. In this way, a beholder can move objects weighing up to 450 pounds around.
Beholders use their acid and fire eye beams to carve out passages to create their lairs.
Some beholders learn to use their eyestalks in hypnotic patterns to charm minions, but most beholders simply use threats, intimidation, and the promise of power to get others to serve them.
The Old Beholder:
At last year’s seminar, Mike Mearl’s asked everyone to write down everything they could remember about a beholder.
While everyone remembered a heavily armored floating ball with 10 eyestalks and a central eye, and everyone remembered the cone of antimagic, and some remembered eyestalks of disintegration, charm, and telekinesis, even altogether we could not remember all 10 eyestalk abilities. I would have thought that we would know more about the monster we were trying to redesign …
Next, we talked about the beholder’s role. Some thought “big boss monster”, others though “mind controller”, and in general everyone decided that it was a “screw everybody” monster. In the end, I think that everyone seemed to agree that “screw everybody” was what was really most memorable about the beholder.
How is the beholder supposed to screw everybody?
* Antimagic cone is equally effective against clerics, sorcerers, and wizards. (No saves)
* Charm person and charm monster turn warrior types against the rest of the party (Will saves)
* Fear, inflict moderate wounds, work against warrior types (Will saves)
* Disintegrate, finger of death, flesh to stone against non-warriors (Fortitude saves)
* All-around vision prevents sneak attacks from flanking, and high spot/listen skills make the beholder difficult to surprise, effective against rogues.
* A high armor class makes it hard for non-warriors to hit the beholder.
* Flight (especially coupled with antimagic) and telekinesis (Will save) prevent melee types from getting close to the beholder.
Altogether, the beholder has something against all of your classic archetypes except the ranged attacker (in an open area, an archer can easily stay outside of the beholder’s 150’ range, as can a magic user with medium and long-ranged spells). Some of the newer classes, such as the scout, actually do much better against the beholder than the main classes.
Goals for the Revision:
* Make the beholder easy to run (mainly, simplify the eyestalk attacks)
* Retain the versatility of the beholder
* Retain the strength against melee attacks and the weakness against ranged attacks
* Create a monster which can take on an entire party and last several rounds
The Revision:
The first thing was to replace all of the beholder’s eye rays with simple energy rays. By adding a special effect on a critical hit, I was able to add in some of the special abilities which make the beholder so fearsome (such as slow and disintegrate). The special abilities charm person, charm monster, and flesh to stone do not really fit any of the energy types, but losing them really doesn’t hurt too much.
Next, I removed the cone/arc complexity. The central eyebeam now focuses on a single target instead of being a cone. The beholder might not be able to catch the entire party in an antimagic cone anymore, but it can still focus on a specific spell caster. The “Quick spin” ability allows it to effectively catch a second caster each round, but it is risky and it allows casters to ready spells once the beam focuses on a different character.
Since the warrior types will no longer be affected by antimagic, I added DR 10/- to make the beholder much more resistant to any type of physical attack. I also added in spell resistance to make up for only targeting a single caster with the antimagic beam.
Since a beholder relies so heavily on its sight, I decided that the beholder wouldn’t have a good listen skill. I also added the see invisibility ability so it could easily locate invisible spell casters to target them with the antimagic beam. I considered making it a “Pinpoint Invisible” ability instead to allow a beholder to automatically know which square contains an invisible creature but still suffer the 50% miss chance (allowing invisible rogues to sneak attack since the dexterity bonus would still be denied against the invisible rogue). However, see invisibility is much simpler.
The missing Charm Person/Monster spells makes it more difficult for beholders to acquire minions, so I made Intimidate a class skill and added full ranks.
I wanted a more physically imposing monster, so I upped the beholder’s strength and constitution, and increased the bite damage (it is a very big mouth) and added poison. Since beholders simply float there, I dropped the dexterity down as well. I also increased the natural armor, added in a deflection bonus for its magical nature, and tossed on the Improved Toughness feat for the extra hit points.
The Execution:
In order to fully surprise the party with the new beholder, I started out the encounter with an illusion of a geomancer which they had faced before (and 4 robed guards). The beholder was concealed by the same illusion and positioned adjacent to the illusory geomancer, allowing him to use his eyestalks and make them appear as if the rays were coming from the geomancer. Glowing red eyes were used for the fire eyestalks, and a smaller version of a force ballista was used for the force eyestalks.
As soon as the party saw the room, they decided to skirt around the outside and then try to get to the central platform where the geomancer (and beholder) stood. The wizard was targeted by the antimagic beam and was quite confused when he moved away, but still couldn’t activate any magic. The cleric used an area of effect spell on the illusory geomancer, catching the beholder in its effect and ending the illusion. Once they knew what they were up against, the party made the best possible use of the various items of cover to approach the beholder (which couldn’t move very fast since all flight was negated). The barbarian was hit by the melt special effect, but since he had taken a lot of energy damage, a heal spell was used to recover it all as the barbarian and cleric ducked behind a pillar for full cover. Eventually, the spell casters were targeting the beholder with area of effect spells while staying behind full cover, and the melee types were adjacent to the beholder and full attacking. The only character which couldn’t do any damage was the rogue (a second character for one player) because of the DR.
The Review:
I think that the encounter went well, and it was certainly easier to run than some other high-level encounters. The party got to use the terrain to their advantage, and everyone was able to contribute to the beholder’s downfall while still suffering either significant damage or being caught in the anti-magic shell. The exception was the rogue, who couldn’t flank for sneak attack damage to bypass the DR. It would have helped if he would have tried to bluff the beholder to deny it its dexterity bonus, but I am seriously considering just having the beholder pinpoint invisible creatures, in which case the rogue could have gone invisible and sneak attacked.
The eye ray attack bonus of +15 meant that the beholder was hitting between 75% and 60% of the time (after buffing, the party’s touch ACs were all between 21 and 24). At 10d6, each hit was averaging 35 points of damage, which definitely sent the wizard diving for cover.
Now, over a year later, I was finally able to take what we had discussed, adapt it to my campaign, and actually see it up against my players. The funny coincidence is that while driving down to Indianapolis for GenCon, I was discussing this very beholder with a buddy of mine, and then here we go. Right on the main web page we have the new 4th edition beholder, with eyestalks of flame and all. This new beholder is quite similar to the one which I created and is undoubtedly built up from the many suggestions which were given during last year’s seminar, so after Monday’s session, “buzzmo” (one of my players) urged me to post this version for everyone to see (and to probably comment on).
The Situation:
The party consists of 5 characters, all 17th level. A paladin, a barbarian, a cleric, a wizard 16/cleric 1 (don’t ask
, and a rogue 14 / acrobat 3.The party is in a pocket dimension off of the astral plane. Due to the whims of the pocket dimension’s ruler (a greater fire titan), teleportation and flight spells do not work, fire is enhanced, and cold is diminished.
The party has received directions to a “vault” which contains an object very detrimental to fire titan (in fact, it is the frozen heart of a greater frost titan which the party had defeated earlier).
The Encounter Area:
The “vault” is very large (as befitting a titan) and, like the rest of the pocket dimension, haphazardly built. I enjoy a good encounter with lots of varying terrain, so I created a large central platform where the “heart” hangs suspended inside a fiery force field. I added in pillars and other objects to hide behind, deep crevasses to fall (or be pushed) into, walls of energy to use or avoid, and lots of pockets of rubble, destruction debris, scaffolding, and even coins.
The Goal:
The party is close to the point where they will be taking on the greater fire titan. Obviously, obtaining the frozen heart should be difficult, but not as difficult as the final battle with the titan. Therefore, I wanted an encounter around EL 18 to 20. Given the importance of heart, I also want this encounter to be memorable. Since I had lots of terrain, I wanted a monster which could potentially push opponents into the pits (remember, no flying) or the walls of energy. On the flip side, I wanted the party to take advantage of all of the terrain features (specifically the cover) which was being provided.
I have never used a beholder before, but a souped up version with an elemental twist seemed perfect, so that is what I used.
The Elemental Beholder:
Beholder CR 18
Usually LE Large Aberration
Init +4; Senses all-around vision, darkvision 60’, see invisible; Listen +5, Spot +34
Languages Beholder, common
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AC 34, touch 14, flat-footed 34 (+0 Dex, +20 natural, +5 deflection, -1 size); DR 10/-
hp 274 (22 HD)
Resist acid 10, cold 10, electricity 10, fire 10, force 10; SR 28
Fort +16, Ref +9, Will +18 (22 aberration hit dice +7/+7/+13, abilities +7/+0/+3, feats +2/+2/+2)
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Speed 5 ft. (1 square), fly 20 ft. (good)
Melee 10 eye rays +15 ranged touch (special, 19-20/*) and bite +19 (2d6+9 plus poison)
Ranged 10 eye rays +15 ranged touch (special, 19-20/*) (+16 BAB, +0 Dex, -1 size)
Space 10 ft.; Reach 5 ft.
Base Atk +16; Grp +26
Atk Options Antimagic beam, eye rays, poison
Special Actions Quick spin
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Abilities Str 22, Dex 10, Con 24, Int 19, Wis 16, Cha 15
Feats (8 feats for 22 Hit Dice)
Alertness (B) (+2 Listen and Spot)
Flyby Attack (when flying, may take a move action and any other standard action during the move)
Great Fortitude (+2 Fortitude saves)
Improved Critical (eye rays) (double critical threat range)
Improved Initiative (+4 to initiative)
Improved Toughness (+1 hp per HD)
Iron Will (+2 Will saves)
Lightning Reflexes (+2 Reflex saves)
Multi-attack (secondary natural weapons take -2 penalty)
Skills (150 ranks for 22 HD at 2+Int)
Concentration +32 (25 ranks, +7 Con)
Intimidate +27 (25 ranks, +2 Cha)
Knowledge (arcana) +29 (25 ranks, +4 Int)
Listen +5 (0 ranks, +3 Wis, +2 Alertness)
Search +33 (25 ranks, +4 Int, +4 racial)
Spellcraft +31 (25 ranks, +4 Int, +2 synergy from Knowledge (arcana))
Spot +34 (25 ranks, +3 Wis, +2 Alertness, +4 racial)
-----------
All-Around Vision (Ex): Beholders are exceptionally alert and circumspect. Their many eyes give them a +4 racial bonus on Spot and Search checks, and they can’t be flanked.
Antimagic Beam (Su): A beholder’s central eye continually produces a 150-foot beam of antimagic which can affect a single target. This functions just like antimagic field (caster level 18), suppressing any spells, spell-like abilities, and supernatural abilities affecting the target. Likewise, it prevents the target from casting any spells, activating any spell-like or supernatural abilities, or using the magical properties of a magic item.
Once each round, during its turn, a beholder may change the target of the antimagic beam. Unlike rays, the antimagic beam automatically affects the target as long as the beholder has line of effect to the target.
There is a 10% chance every round that the target of the antimagic beam suffers the effects of a greater dispel magic effect (caster level 18).
Eye Rays (Su): Each of a beholder’s ten small eyes can produce a magical ray once per round as a free action. Each eye ray deals 10d6 damage of a specific energy type (acid, cold, electricity, fire, or force). A beholder has two eye stalks for each energy type. During a single round, a beholder can aim only two eye rays at any individual target. Each eye ray has a range of 150 feet and damages any target it hits with a ranged touch attack. Instead of dealing double damage on a critical hit, a critical hit from an eye ray has a special critical effect depending upon the eye ray’s energy type:
• Acid: The target’s physical features melt away from the acid. The target takes 4 points of damage to Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution (Fortitude DC 23 negates the melting, but the target still takes the 10d6 acid damage).
• Cold: The target is slowed for 1 hour (Will DC 23 negates the slow, but the target still takes 10d6 cold damage).
• Electricity: The target is stunned for 1 round and is blinded and deafened for 1d6+6 rounds (Will DC 23 negates both the stunned effect and the blindness/deafness).
• Fire: The target takes an additional 36d6 points of fire damage. Any target reduced to 0 or fewer hit points is entirely disintegrated (as per the disintegrate spell) as the target is reduced to smoldering ashes (Fortitude DC 23 negates the extra fire damage).
• Force: The target is flung away from the beholder. The target travels up to 2d6 x 10 ft., and takes 1d6 points of damage per 10 feet traveled. (Fortitude DC 23 avoids being flung)
Note: If a target takes no damage from an eye ray because of immunities or resistance, it is unaffected by the special critical effect.
The save DCs for all special critical effects are Charisma-based.
Flight (Ex): A beholder’s body is naturally buoyant. This buoyancy allows it to fly at a speed of 20 feet. This buoyancy also grants it a permanent feather fall effect (as the spell) with personal range.
Poison (Ex): Injury, Fortitude DC 28, 1d6 Dex / paralysis (1 minute).
Quick Spin (Su): As an immediate action, a beholder may spin around, focusing the antimagic beam from its central eye upon a different target. Typically, a beholder will use a quick spin to try to catch a spellcaster in the antimagic beam just as the caster tries to cast a spell. However, a quick spin only has a 50% chance of actually interrupting a target’s action. For example, a beholder is focusing his antimagic beam upon the party’s wizard. The cleric begins to cast a destruction spell. The beholder sees the cleric and recognizes the somatic components of the spell. Desperately wanting to avoid being the target of such a spell, the beholder uses Quick Spin to refocus his antimagic beam on the cleric instead of the wizard. The beholder rolls a 17 on a d20 and manages to interrupt the cleric’s destruction spell before it was cast. If the beholder had instead rolled a 7, the cleric would have cast the destruction spell before being targeted by the antimagic beam.
See Invisibility (Su): A beholder’s vision is so good that it can even spot invisible creatures and objects.
Eye: Effect / Critical Effect {Critical Save}
Central: Antimagic beam (no attack required) / Greater Dispel Magic {None}
2 Acid: 10d6 acid / Melt (Str, Dex, Con: 4 damage) {Reflex DC 23}
2 Cold: 10d6 cold / Slow (1 hour) {Will DC 23}
2 Electricity: 10d6 electricity / Stunned (1 rnd) and blind/deaf (1d6+6 rnds) {Will DC 23}
2 Fire: 10d6 fire / Disintegrate (36d6 fire) {Fortitude DC 23}
2 Force: 10d6 force / Flung (thrown backwards 2d6x10 ft.) {Fortitude DC 23}
Outside of Combat:
With careful concentration, a beholder can use both force eye rays to manipulate objects in a manner similar to telekinesis. In this way, a beholder can move objects weighing up to 450 pounds around.
Beholders use their acid and fire eye beams to carve out passages to create their lairs.
Some beholders learn to use their eyestalks in hypnotic patterns to charm minions, but most beholders simply use threats, intimidation, and the promise of power to get others to serve them.
The Old Beholder:
At last year’s seminar, Mike Mearl’s asked everyone to write down everything they could remember about a beholder.
While everyone remembered a heavily armored floating ball with 10 eyestalks and a central eye, and everyone remembered the cone of antimagic, and some remembered eyestalks of disintegration, charm, and telekinesis, even altogether we could not remember all 10 eyestalk abilities. I would have thought that we would know more about the monster we were trying to redesign …
Next, we talked about the beholder’s role. Some thought “big boss monster”, others though “mind controller”, and in general everyone decided that it was a “screw everybody” monster. In the end, I think that everyone seemed to agree that “screw everybody” was what was really most memorable about the beholder.
How is the beholder supposed to screw everybody?
* Antimagic cone is equally effective against clerics, sorcerers, and wizards. (No saves)
* Charm person and charm monster turn warrior types against the rest of the party (Will saves)
* Fear, inflict moderate wounds, work against warrior types (Will saves)
* Disintegrate, finger of death, flesh to stone against non-warriors (Fortitude saves)
* All-around vision prevents sneak attacks from flanking, and high spot/listen skills make the beholder difficult to surprise, effective against rogues.
* A high armor class makes it hard for non-warriors to hit the beholder.
* Flight (especially coupled with antimagic) and telekinesis (Will save) prevent melee types from getting close to the beholder.
Altogether, the beholder has something against all of your classic archetypes except the ranged attacker (in an open area, an archer can easily stay outside of the beholder’s 150’ range, as can a magic user with medium and long-ranged spells). Some of the newer classes, such as the scout, actually do much better against the beholder than the main classes.
Goals for the Revision:
* Make the beholder easy to run (mainly, simplify the eyestalk attacks)
* Retain the versatility of the beholder
* Retain the strength against melee attacks and the weakness against ranged attacks
* Create a monster which can take on an entire party and last several rounds
The Revision:
The first thing was to replace all of the beholder’s eye rays with simple energy rays. By adding a special effect on a critical hit, I was able to add in some of the special abilities which make the beholder so fearsome (such as slow and disintegrate). The special abilities charm person, charm monster, and flesh to stone do not really fit any of the energy types, but losing them really doesn’t hurt too much.
Next, I removed the cone/arc complexity. The central eyebeam now focuses on a single target instead of being a cone. The beholder might not be able to catch the entire party in an antimagic cone anymore, but it can still focus on a specific spell caster. The “Quick spin” ability allows it to effectively catch a second caster each round, but it is risky and it allows casters to ready spells once the beam focuses on a different character.
Since the warrior types will no longer be affected by antimagic, I added DR 10/- to make the beholder much more resistant to any type of physical attack. I also added in spell resistance to make up for only targeting a single caster with the antimagic beam.
Since a beholder relies so heavily on its sight, I decided that the beholder wouldn’t have a good listen skill. I also added the see invisibility ability so it could easily locate invisible spell casters to target them with the antimagic beam. I considered making it a “Pinpoint Invisible” ability instead to allow a beholder to automatically know which square contains an invisible creature but still suffer the 50% miss chance (allowing invisible rogues to sneak attack since the dexterity bonus would still be denied against the invisible rogue). However, see invisibility is much simpler.
The missing Charm Person/Monster spells makes it more difficult for beholders to acquire minions, so I made Intimidate a class skill and added full ranks.
I wanted a more physically imposing monster, so I upped the beholder’s strength and constitution, and increased the bite damage (it is a very big mouth) and added poison. Since beholders simply float there, I dropped the dexterity down as well. I also increased the natural armor, added in a deflection bonus for its magical nature, and tossed on the Improved Toughness feat for the extra hit points.
The Execution:
In order to fully surprise the party with the new beholder, I started out the encounter with an illusion of a geomancer which they had faced before (and 4 robed guards). The beholder was concealed by the same illusion and positioned adjacent to the illusory geomancer, allowing him to use his eyestalks and make them appear as if the rays were coming from the geomancer. Glowing red eyes were used for the fire eyestalks, and a smaller version of a force ballista was used for the force eyestalks.
As soon as the party saw the room, they decided to skirt around the outside and then try to get to the central platform where the geomancer (and beholder) stood. The wizard was targeted by the antimagic beam and was quite confused when he moved away, but still couldn’t activate any magic. The cleric used an area of effect spell on the illusory geomancer, catching the beholder in its effect and ending the illusion. Once they knew what they were up against, the party made the best possible use of the various items of cover to approach the beholder (which couldn’t move very fast since all flight was negated). The barbarian was hit by the melt special effect, but since he had taken a lot of energy damage, a heal spell was used to recover it all as the barbarian and cleric ducked behind a pillar for full cover. Eventually, the spell casters were targeting the beholder with area of effect spells while staying behind full cover, and the melee types were adjacent to the beholder and full attacking. The only character which couldn’t do any damage was the rogue (a second character for one player) because of the DR.
The Review:
I think that the encounter went well, and it was certainly easier to run than some other high-level encounters. The party got to use the terrain to their advantage, and everyone was able to contribute to the beholder’s downfall while still suffering either significant damage or being caught in the anti-magic shell. The exception was the rogue, who couldn’t flank for sneak attack damage to bypass the DR. It would have helped if he would have tried to bluff the beholder to deny it its dexterity bonus, but I am seriously considering just having the beholder pinpoint invisible creatures, in which case the rogue could have gone invisible and sneak attacked.
The eye ray attack bonus of +15 meant that the beholder was hitting between 75% and 60% of the time (after buffing, the party’s touch ACs were all between 21 and 24). At 10d6, each hit was averaging 35 points of damage, which definitely sent the wizard diving for cover.
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