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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mpauna" data-source="post: 3753353" data-attributes="member: 21339">Yes, it sounds like the elemental-flavored beholder would fit your campaign just as it fit mine.  I wish you luck with it ...Although I originally statted out the beholder at a lower CR, I tossed those notes when I revised it to an appropriate level for my gaming group.  However, this is a quick attempt to revert ...The Elemental Beholder:Beholder                                                                   CR 13Usually LE Large AberrationInit +4;  Senses all-around vision, darkvision 60’, see invisible; Listen +5, Spot +24Languages  Beholder, common-----------AC 28, touch 12, flat-footed 26 (+0 Dex, +16 natural, +3 deflection, -1 size);  DR 5/-hp 136 (12 HD)Resist acid 10, cold 10, electricity 10, fire 10, force 10;  SR 23Fort +10, Ref +6, Will +13  (12 aberration hit dice +4/+4/+8, abilities +6/+0/+3, feats +0/+2/+2)-----------Speed 5 ft. (1 square), fly 20 ft. (good)Melee bite +8 (2d6+7 plus poison) (+9 BAB, +5 Str, -1 size, -5 secondary natural weapon)Ranged 10 eye rays +8 ranged touch (special, 19-20/*) (+9 BAB, +0 Dex, -1 size)Melee 10 eye rays +8 ranged touch (special, 19-20/*) and bite +8 (2d6+7 plus poison)Space 10 ft.; Reach 5 ft.Base Atk +9; Grp +18 (+9 BAB, +5 Str, +4 size)Atk Options Antimagic beam, eye rays, poisonSpecial Actions Quick spin-----------Abilities Str 21, Dex 10, Con 21, Int 19, Wis 16, Cha 15Feats (5 feats for 12 Hit Dice)Alertness (B) (+2 Listen and Spot)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)Skills (90 ranks for 12 HD at 2+Int)Concentration +21 (15 ranks, +6 Con)Intimidate +17 (15 ranks, +2 Cha)Knowledge (arcana) +19 (15 ranks, +4 Int)Listen +5 (0 ranks, +3 Wis, +2 Alertness)Search +23 (15 ranks, +4 Int, +4 racial)Spellcraft +21 (15 ranks, +4 Int, +2 synergy from Knowledge (arcana))Spot +24 (15 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 13), 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 13).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 6d6 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 18 negates the melting, but the target still takes the 6d6 acid damage).•    Cold:  The target is slowed for 1 hour (Will DC 18 negates the slow, but the target still takes 6d6 cold damage).•    Electricity:  The target is stunned for 1 round and is blinded and deafened for 1d6 rounds (Will DC 18 negates both the stunned effect and the blindness/deafness).•    Fire:  On a failed save, the target takes 26d6 points of fire damage (instead of the normal 6d6 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 18 negates the disintegration, but the target still takes the normal 6d6 fire damage).•    Force:  The target is flung away from the beholder.  The target travels up to 1d6 x 10 ft., and takes 1d6 points of damage per 10 feet traveled.  (Reflex DC 18 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 Constitution-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.Powerful Bite:  A beholder rarely uses its bite, focusing instead on using its eye rays to bring down prey.  Because of this, a beholder’s bite is always treated as a secondary natural weapon, incurring a -5 penalty on all attack rolls.  However, almost all of the beholder’s strength is concentrated on its powerful jaws, allowing them to add 1-1/2 the beholder’s strength bonus to damage.Poison (Ex):   Injury, Fortitude DC 21, 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 (CL 13)    {None} 2 Acid:    6d6 acid /    Melt (Str, Dex, Con: 4 damage)    {Reflex DC 18} 2 Cold: 6d6 cold    / Slow (1 hour)    {Will DC 18} 2 Electricity: 6d6 electricity /    Stun (1 rnd) and blind/deaf (1d6 rnds) {Will DC 18} 2 Fire: 6d6 fire / Disintegrate (26d6 fire)    {Fortitude DC 18} 2 Force:    6d6 force / Flung (target thrown backwards 1d6x10 ft.) {Reflex DC 18}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 325 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.Changing the CR:Base the effective caster level off of CR.  I.e.  CR 13 = caster level 13.  The caster level would affect the antimagic field, the greater dispel magic effect, and the disintegration critical effect (dropping the additional fire damage to 26d6).  The caster level also affects the weight of the objects the beholder can manipulate with its force rays outside of combat.Spell resistance should be pegged at CR+10, giving casters a roughly even chance of penetrating.Change the hit dice.  The Improved Monster CR Increase table (MM 294) shows a +1 CR increase per 4 HD added, but I think that 2 HD per CR seem more reasonable given the other changes.  So, CR 18 to CR 13 would lose 10 hit dice, bringing it down to 12 HD (the original beholder was CR 13 with 11 hit dice).  Changes to the hit dice would of course affect hit points, BAB, saves, feats, and skills.  (HD 12d8, BAB +9, Saves: +4/+4/+8, 5 feats, 15 skill ranks per skill).  This is a nice because the 12 HD gives us both the BAB and the feat to get Improved Critical, allowing us to average close to one critical effect per round (which should give us a chance to let the beholder be more memorable than just a damage dealing machine).For the three feats, I would drop Multi-attack (see discussion below), flyby attack (the eye rays are free actions, so it really only affects the bite), and Great Fortitude (its high Con already gives it a good fortitude save, and beholders are more known for strong will power than fortitude (their Reflex needs all the help possible)).Indirectly, the 10 hit dice would also affect the ability scores, as the beholder would not have increases for 16 and 20 HD.I would be inclined to drop either Str or Con (or both).  In this case, I took 1 point off of each.Indirectly, the 10 hit dice would affect the save DCs of the poison (10 + ½ HD + Con = 21) and the supernatural eye ray critical effects (10 + ½ HD + Cha = 18).I would scale the natural armor and deflection bonuses to AC back a bit.  My goal would be an AC equal to roughly CR+15 (giving a reasonably built fighter-type a reasonable chance to hit).  Lets say a base natural armor of 10 + 1 per every 2 HD (12HD:+16, 14HD:+17 16HD:+18, 18HD:+19, 20HD:+20  …).  The deflection bonus would be +1 for every 4 HD (12 HD: +3, 16 HD: +4, 20 HD: +5).  At 12 hit dice, we would have an AC of 28, touch 12 (+0 Dex, +16 natural, +3 deflection, -1 size).    This matches the desired AC of 28, and damage reduction should help further.For DR, I would assume DR 5/- up until 20th level when it jumps to DR 10/-.  I would keep the elemental resistances as is.I would not change the poison.  The 1d6 Dex initial damage is reasonable, and the continuing damage (1 minute paralysis) won’t happen until after 10 rounds, by which point the battle should be over.With a save for no effect of 18, all of the eye ray critical special effects have less than a 50% chance of beating a good save, and less than 75% chance against a poor save (assuming reasonable ability scores and resistance bonuses for level 13 characters).  I wouldn’t change the slow effect, as there isn’t much difference between a minute duration and an hour duration (it is a minor penalty easily countered by haste).  4 points to each physical ability score may hurt, but it would take more than 2 successful special criticals to take down an average character.  The disintegration effect drops to 26d6 (2d6 per caster level, average 91 hit points) plus the original eye damage.  I would probably change it to 26d6 on a failed save, or the original eye ray damage on a successful save, but still that will kill a lot of non-frontline characters with a single hit.  I would probably cut the distance for the force beam back to 1d6x10 feet (same as the throw distance for the snatch feet), and not bump it up until 20 HD.  (I also changed the force beam save to a Reflex save instead of a Fortitude save, as it seems more logical and helps gives a little back to the sneaky and light-fighter types.)  I would probably also remove the extra 6 rounds of being blinded/deafened until higher levels as well.Finally, normal eye ray damage.  We do not want two hits to kill a single standard character in a single round, and we can’t really rely upon energy resistance to help.  With a +8 ranged touch attack, a ray will have between a 75% to 50% chance of connecting against a normal character (given Dex and deflection bonuses).  A weak wizard might have as little as 32 hit points, but 50 to 60 is more typical.A warlock’s eldritch blast would be 6d6 at this level, while a scorching ray would be 3 4d6 rays (our beholder can only focus two rays on any one target).  Two 4d6 hits averages out to 28 hit points, while two 6d6 hits averages out to 42 hit points.  I would go for 6d6 at CR 13, giving us roughly 6d6 + 1d6 for every 3 hit dice over 10.As previously mentioned, it seems a little odd that the original MM treated the bite as a secondary natural weapon even though it is the only physical weapon used, and that the eye rays are free actions and thus shouldn't necessarily affect the bite.  I could really go either way on this, but I did make it more explicit with the "Powerful Bite" trait.  If I wanted to stray further from the original beholder, I would probably make it a primary weapon just to make the bite a bit more fearsome <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":-)" title="Smile    :-)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":-)" />Summing it up:My changes and your changes seem close enough (drop the CR, HD between 12 and 15, reduced ray damage), so I think that they seem reasonably for a CR 13 monster.  I haven't actually tried to pull out any appropriately level character to run it against, but would definitely be interested in hearing how it works for your group.One thing which I would definitely recommend is that you give your players knowledge checks as soon as they see it, just so their expectations aren't based off of those in the MM.  Even if they don't recognize it for the differences, I would point out that the fangs drip with what appears to be a poison and that the eyestalks have 5 differently colored eyes.When I ran the beholder, I actually pulled out 11 20-sided dice.  One big die for the central eye (just for checking to see if the greater dispel magic triggered), 2 red dice for the fire eyes, 2 white/clear dice for the cold eyes, 2 blue dice for the electric eyes, 2 black dice for the acid eyes, and 2 orange dice for the force eyes.  I also had two differently colored sets of 10d6 for eye ray damage.  It was very easy to go from target to target, pull out 2 20-sided dice at random (until it learned which characters were resistant to which energy types) and rolled.  Determining energy type was easy given the die colors, and I didn't risk using any energy type more than was allowed since I set the 20-sided dice aside until the beholders next turn.  As the fighters closed in, I started to use the force rays on them more than on the others, and when characters started ducking behind full cover, a pair of acid and force eye beams at the ceiling could rain down debris (6d6 damage, reflex DC 16 to avoid).Once again, have fun with it and let us know how it went.Mark Pauna</blockquote>

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