A new look at the beholder

[azhrei_fje]

For my revised beholder, you can only target an individual with 2 rays during any given turn, so if you hit everyone once you could only hit them again a second time during the readied action. I actually added the "quick spin" ability to allow the beholder a chance to react to attacks or spell casters once per round. Instead of specifying a specific trigger, the quick spin allows the beholder to determine the threat level of any particular attack/opponent, and then decide to use the antimagic cone or not.

Thanks, Mark.

I like your analysis of the beholder's likely tactics and I agree. It's an intelligent creature and I plan to play it that way (see below for ideas on traps). So, a few more questions for you (clarifications, really):

1. The elemental beholder's fly speed is listed as "good" so it can hover. It is your intention that it can "levitate" straight up and down, correct?

2. The critical effect for the Fire ray says that a Fortitude save negates the critical effect but the target takes normal fire damage. In the other sections you specifically listed the normal damage as "6d6" but not for Fire. I assume that you mean the same 6d6, correct?

3. I'm trying to come up with a trap that the various eye rays can trip. I'm thinking of a bucket of water on top of a door that the beholder can hit with the force ray to cause the bucket to fall. (I'll call this my indirect water element attack. ) Would you care to make any suggestions regarding this approach? In other words, how long for the acid to eat through rope, how much weight can the force effect push, and so on. My plan is to look up these kinds of things in various rulebooks (WotC or otherwise) and come up with my own answers, but if you wanted to share your opinion, I'd gladly take it! (And "thanks"!)

4. You mention in your "build description" that the deflection bonus would be +1/4HD, but in the following sentence you peg the touch AC at 10 and only include a deflection bonus of +1. Was that deflection bonus supposed to be +3, making the touch AC 12 instead?

5. Was it your intention for the elemental beholder to be able to shoot the eye rays in any direction and not hold to the "90-deg arc" restriction? (That was the impression I got from reading your original write-up.)

Now I'm going to load up some macro buttons in MapTool so that I can just click one to have it roll the touch attack and the damage (and include a note about the crit effect). And I need to pull out the ole' paint program and change the colors on the elemental beholder to match the theme of my campaign.

I think to add insult to injury, I may put some snipers with shortbows onto the balcony as well, probably 2-3 on either side. And have the beholder periodically use it's "readied" action to pick off someone planning to attack the snipers!

And never fear, I will post a recap of the encounter at the bottom of this thread (bookmarked for safe keeping). Thanks again, Mark.

 

[Gloombunny]

How does a beholder move at all if it can't fly? Tuck its eyestalks flat against its body and roll?

 

[azhrei_fje]

The original beholder description states that its body is naturally bouyant and so it can float around. It's not very fast, though; the fly speed is only 20 feet.

 

[mpauna]

Thanks, Mark.

I like your analysis of the beholder's likely tactics and I agree. It's an intelligent creature and I plan to play it that way (see below for ideas on traps). So, a few more questions for you (clarifications, really):

Thanks

1. The elemental beholder's fly speed is listed as "good" so it can hover. It is your intention that it can "levitate" straight up and down, correct?

Yes, with a fly speed of 20' (Good), a beholder can hover in place. Since Good maneuverability has Up/down angles of "Any", a beholder can move vertically, effectively "levitating". Do note however that while down speed is doubled (a beholder can drop down 40' as a move action), the up speed is halved (so a beholder could only "levitate" upwards 10' as a move action).

2. The critical effect for the Fire ray says that a Fortitude save negates the critical effect but the target takes normal fire damage. In the other sections you specifically listed the normal damage as "6d6" but not for Fire. I assume that you mean the same 6d6, correct?

Yes, that is correct. I will modify the stat blocks to clear this up.

3. I'm trying to come up with a trap that the various eye rays can trip. I'm thinking of a bucket of water on top of a door that the beholder can hit with the force ray to cause the bucket to fall. (I'll call this my indirect water element attack. ) Would you care to make any suggestions regarding this approach? In other words, how long for the acid to eat through rope, how much weight can the force effect push, and so on. My plan is to look up these kinds of things in various rulebooks (WotC or otherwise) and come up with my own answers, but if you wanted to share your opinion, I'd gladly take it! (And "thanks"!)

A standard rope has only 2 hit points and 0 hardness. Acid (and sonic) energy attacks deal full damage to most objects, so even an extremely crappy roll of 6 on the 6d6 acid attack of the lesser beholder would easily eat through a standard rope in a single hit. I would likewise rule that force attacks would also do full damage to most objects.
Since the force effect is loosely based on levitate (at 100 lbs per caster level) or telekinesis (at 25 lbs per caster level), those values would be a good place to start (and I used the 25 lbs for fine manipulation outside of combat). However, as an attack I am patterning the special critical ability more after the Awesome Blow monstrous feat or Snatch monstrous feat or even a ring of the ram. Although weight isn't mentioned in any of these, it might be reasonable to limit the weight to that of the beholder or the beholder's drag limit (figuring equal and opposite reactions), but that seems unnecessarily complex (how much does that target weigh???) and doesn't really add to combat. If, as a DM, you feel that something should get a benefit for being extremely heavy, then so be it
In my encounter, the terrain was pretty much just slapped together, so it started out pretty rickety. Easy enough to house rule that a combined acid blast and force blast would be enough to knock over columns or bring parts of the roof down, but I made it very easy for the players to get out of the way (6d6 damage from falling debris, Reflex DC 15 for no damage --- less damage than a cave in).

4. You mention in your "build description" that the deflection bonus would be +1/4HD, but in the following sentence you peg the touch AC at 10 and only include a deflection bonus of +1. Was that deflection bonus supposed to be +3, making the touch AC 12 instead?

OK, I guess I missed something as I was going back and reducing the beholder. Originally I was thinking something like a base deflection bonus of +1, and then adding an additional +1 for every 3 hit dice over 10 (which would have given a deflection bonus of +1 at 12 HD, +2 at 13 HD, up to +5 at 22 HD). Then I decided to simplify it a little bit, but that would flatten out the increase, so I flipped back, and forth, and finally I ended up twisted and entangled I will update the stat block and notes to reflect a +3 deflection bonus at 12 HD.

5. Was it your intention for the elemental beholder to be able to shoot the eye rays in any direction and not hold to the "90-deg arc" restriction? (That was the impression I got from reading your original write-up.)

Yes, the 90-degree arcs are gone. So is the cone effect for the anti-magic eye. Replace with a maximum of two eye rays per target per round. No need to remember where the arc boundaries are or how many eyes have been used for each arc.

Now I'm going to load up some macro buttons in MapTool so that I can just click one to have it roll the touch attack and the damage (and include a note about the crit effect). And I need to pull out the ole' paint program and change the colors on the elemental beholder to match the theme of my campaign.

I think to add insult to injury, I may put some snipers with shortbows onto the balcony as well, probably 2-3 on either side. And have the beholder periodically use it's "readied" action to pick off someone planning to attack the snipers!

And never fear, I will post a recap of the encounter at the bottom of this thread (bookmarked for safe keeping). Thanks again, Mark.

Once again, you are welcome and I hope you and your players have a fun time

Mark P.

 

[buzz]

I'm a player in Mark's Monday night game; my barbarian was one of the PCs that went up against this thing.

The rules discussion above makes my brain hurt, but I can say that this thing was a beeyotch and a half to take down. In the good way, of course.

 

[azhrei_fje]

Heh-heh, thanks, buzz. Any kind of feedback is great, especially on a creature like this one that had lots of development done on it 'from scratch".

Thanks again.

 

[ElectricDragon]

Your original conversion (elemental beholder) needs just one more modification. In the Epic Level Handbook, we learn that synergies increase with each additional 20 ranks in a skill. So, at 5 ranks the synergies are +2 but at 25 ranks they are +4 and at 45 ranks they are +6, etc.

So Spellcraft would get a +4 synergy from Knowledge (arcana) rather than +2.

Ciao
Dave

 

[Rvdvelden]

Resist acid 10, cold 10, electricity 10, fire 10, force 10;

This made me double over from laughing!

Immediately the OotS came to mind where V is trying to bring down a druid with some living trees, only to find out they can only be hurt by sonic effects, which he/she of course didn't prepare, like any normal spell caster.

Even force 10? You really like to make your players sweat, do you?

 

[buzz]

You really like to make your players sweat, do you?

You don't know the half of it, pal.

 

[azhrei_fje]

Heh-heh, yeah, I can tell this beastie is going to be a party killer! If played intelligently (which it's Int 19 says it should be) it can wreak havoc with a party that doesn't integrate their attacks.

As I mentioned, I'm planning on putting some low-level mooks in the room to keep the party busy. Maybe some hobgoblin or bugbear rogues shooting from complete darkness into the lit area where the party is. Shooting from 100% darkness should give them their sneak attack bonus (most of the party won't be able to see them).

(Oh darn. That's only good to 30 feet. I'll need to figure something else out. )