Beholder allies

[NewJeffCT]

I'm going to be running a series of encounters for my players tonight, finished off by an encounter with a Beholder Eye Tyrant.

What would be some good allies for the beholder for leading up to the encounter.

The beholder will be in an underground cavern, but outside is a hilly forest region with a river nearby.

The beholder is level 19, but I'm looking for encounters in the level 15-19 range.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I haven't read I, Tyrant in forever (never actually bought the book, though should have) but I recall beholders liking "brutes" (ogres and other such creatures, though not true giants as they're too big to fit in caves).

I think brutes of that level would work out quite well, along with perhaps a soldier to stick near the beholder and mark people. It's all about presenting more than one type of threat.

(In one of my most recent encounters, the boss was in essence an evil cleric, but his lurker minion stole the show.)

Unfortunately, in the mid- to late- paragon area, it's a little hard to find such creatures that aren't giants. Fortunately, giants that were huge in 3.x are often only large in 4e, so any sort of giant that might live in a cave or near a mountain should work. There's some ... inventive hill giants in MM3, but I think they're all low paragon, so you might want to touch up their levels.

At the risk of making the encounter really complicated, it's always fun to throw in something invisible or that looks harmless (the cloaker lord fits both; it's shadow shift ability lets its hide in the heavily obscured terrain at the top of a cavern, and it looks like a cloak). Unfortunately, this doesn't work for flavor reasons; the cloaker lord (a possible rival) is also a controller, giving it abilities too similar to what a beholder could have for its comfort.

What will the terrain look like? I seem to recall reading (for a beholder-only encounter, alas) in I, Tyrant about a cavern with series of vertical shafts that had been disintegrated in them, giving beholders an advantage even against flying PCs (since they could descend anywhere and fry them with eyerays). This could still work, even if only the beholder benefits. It probably sees its allies as throw-aways anyway.

 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Derro (from MM2) seem like a natural fit - basically, they are far-realms touched humanoids. You could describe them as a tribe of humanoids who worship the beholder as their God and have been warped as a result. They are mostly lower paragon, though, so may need to be levelled up.

 

[Quickleaf]

What about all those strong beholder-kin from 2e like the overseer (fleshy 14 HD "trees" with nasty spellcasting)? Beholder and Beholder-kin II (Monstrous Manual)
You would need to do a quick conversion but it could make for a thematically creepy encounter.

If you need something already made, however, the balhannoth (MM1; elite 13 lurker) would be a nice choice since it is immune to gaze/illusion powers and traps common to beholders, and it is an excellent lurker which can use hit and run tactics. I would just upgrade it to MM3 damage, maybe give it a few extra levels.

 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Actually, the balhannoth already does MM3 level damage when it is invisible, and given how easy it is for it to become invisible, I don't think you need to make any changes to it other than relevelling it as suitable. Indeed, the balhannoth, like the pre-rrattaed drake swarm, is one of the few MM1 monsters that meet or exceed the new damage expecations. Balhannoth's are nasty.

 

[contraserrene]

Take an Earth Titan and reskin it as a "huge headless stone construct." Its body is covered with aberrant mystical runes, carved with impossibly fine tools - an expert eye can tell you that the entire construct was carved from a single gigantic chunk of rock with disintegration beams.

Each construct is a level 16 elite brute. Pair it with a lower-level elite beholder, a level 13 Eye of Flame. The Eye of Flame rides around as the "head" of the construct, protected by a "helmet" of the same magical rock, allowing it to stick out its eyestalks and use its central eye, but giving it considerable protection. Say the Eye gains +5 to all defenses as long as the construct is alive.

The boulders the construct hurls are loaded into grooves along one arm; big enough to threaten a man-sized target, small enough that the construct can have plenty of them in the grooves. The boulders are actually stone spheres with eyes carved into them, like nascent beholders, and they burst into flame when they hit someone. Replace the "daze" effect with an additional 10 fire damage added to the regular impact. Combined with the Eye's "no hit roll required" ability to inflict flammability on things, this becomes more potent.

Make the Eye of Flame always go 10 before the Construct (they use the Eye's intiative roll to determine these numbers), allowing players to note things like "the Eye just made our Wizard flammable, so we need to keep the construct from throwing that fireball at him."

Give the combination several vulnerabilities...
1. If the Eye is dazed or stunned, so is the Construct it's piloting.
2. If the Construct has no Eye, it stands idle and helpless.

On the other hand, if there's more than one of these combos present and one loses its Construct while the other loses its Eye, the remaining Eye should totally be able to dart over and start piloting the intact Construct.

As a likely stunt, allow PCs to take over abandoned Constructs too, using telekinetic power, Thievery checks, or other tricks.

And, hmm, if a PC wants to jump up on the Construct's shoulder for an easier shot at the Eye, make that bypass the Eye's +5 defenses but at the cost of granting combat advantage to the Eye and the Construct.

Depending on your party's level and numbers, throw 2-3 of these combos at them at once and watch the fun.

 

[On Puget Sound]

PCs make splendid beholder allies. Always use the Charm ray first, against the defender.

 

[NewJeffCT]

Thanks everybody - encounters are over. it was very challenging. I went with Psi's idea above - using brute types - trolls & ogres.

It was a very challenging & interesting encounter - the PC rogue striker fell victim to the sleep ray and failed like 14 straight saves, despite having bonuses several times. it was amazing & frustrating - he'd roll a 1 or 2 on his save and miss it, then toss his d20 in frustration, and it would (of course) land on a natural 20... more than a few times. I was trying to think of some DM Ex Machina way to get him to wake, but was drawing a blank at the time.

One defender was tied up with the troll leader, while the other kept getting his with either confusion or terror. The shaman and wizard were both near death several times - on the disintegrate ray, he had 15 hit points left when it came time for me to roll his ongoing damage - the two d20s came up with an "8" and a "5" (we make those rolls on the table, so no fudging)