Antimagic Field Questions

[Markn]

Just an aside: why did the beholder not use the AMF eye ray and then take a 5' step forward so that it was inside the area of effect? Seems like something even a stupid creature would do, assuming it knew what its eye ray actually does!

Well, 3 reasons. 5' step accomplishes nothing as the PC's perform the same action and get out of the cone. Hell, if they need to you can use a move action to get out of the cone and still cast a spell outside the cone. It is actually VERY difficult to keep players in the cone since you have to choose an arc and the fact that AMF can be blocked by buildings and such... Second, at the beginning of the encounter I believed that AMF blocked line of effect and thus it is just as effective as having the PCs in the AMF. Third, I have run several beholder encounters recently and I've found that distance is a beholders friend as the cone gets narrower and effects less PC the closer they are to the beholder. At the end of the cone it is 150 feet wide and it takes much more movement to get out of the cone specially if you don't know where the cone is (which is something else I did wrong but thats another story)

BTW, thanks Hyp for the quotes and help.

 

[azhrei_fje]

Well, 3 reasons. 5' step accomplishes nothing as the PC's perform the same action and get out of the cone. Hell, if they need to you can use a move action to get out of the cone and still cast a spell outside the cone.

Oh. I wasn't trying to keep the players inside the cone, I was trying to protect the beholder from the effects of spells cast by the players.

I'm assuming that a beholder will have low-level minions to act as fighters, say a bunch of kobolds or something (pick the cannon fodder of the week). The beholder uses the AMF ray and the kobolds shoot their ranged weapons (the party gets no magical enhancements to AC including deflection or natural armor, and no magical enhancements to retaliatory attacks).

The beholder doesn't want to get zapped with a fireball or similar spell that is placed behind it, so it moves 5' forward (after the area of the AMF ray is established) and it can't be affected.

Of course, if AMF blocks line of effect, the whole thing is likely moot unless the spellcaster is in a spot that doesn't cross the field covered by the ray.

 

[Hypersmurf]

The beholder doesn't want to get zapped with a fireball or similar spell that is placed behind it, so it moves 5' forward (after the area of the AMF ray is established) and it can't be affected.

The beholder doesn't establish an area for the AMF; it establishes a direction.

Antimagic Cone (Su): A beholder’s central eye continually produces a 150-foot antimagic cone extending straight ahead from the creature’s front. This functions just like antimagic field cast by a 13th-level sorcerer. All magical and supernatural powers and effects within the cone are suppressed-even the beholder’s own eye rays. Once each round, during its turn, the beholder decides which way it will face, and whether the antimagic cone is active or not (the beholder deactivates the cone by shutting its central eye). Note that a beholder can bite only creatures to its front.

If the beholder points the cone west, then moves 5 feet to the west, the cone moves with it, since it is 'continually produced' by the central eye. It doesn't drop a cone of AMF once per round that remained in place while it moves elsewhere.

A beholder can't get its body into its own AMF effect.

-Hyp.