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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Imaculata" data-source="post: 6825419" data-attributes="member: 6801286">As I understand it, the rules for the Beholder were always meant so that the creature needs to make a trade off between either attacking with his eyes, or hitting them with his anti magic field. The anti magic field does not dispel effects, it only suppresses them. So the central eye needs to stay fixed on them for the anti magic field to work. While they are in the field, any spells, potions and magic items stop working for as long as they are inside the field. Once they are out of the field, everything works again.So imagine a player plays a wizard, with a fly spell. The Beholder does a fly by attack, where its anti magic field passes over the wizard, and then the Beholder goes back into cover. That is not going to work. The fly spell is only temporarily disabled, but by the end of the Beholder's turn it works again. So that is not enough time to fall down. The rules require that the Beholder is committed to his action. So that means keeping the central eyes focused on the players for it to work.The rules don't say anything explicitly about him changing his facing multiple times to fire all his beams, and then ending his turn with the central eye focused on the players. But I think we can all agree that would be cheating, because you would be firing multiple times in the same arc. Keep in mind that a round is about 6 seconds. So how often could you realistically turn around AND attack within 6 seconds? Well countless times really. D&D normally does not take facing into account, because during combat you are probably constantly looking around. This is why the rules talk about arcs. A Beholder is always looking in all directions, but even if he turns around, the arcs are still in the same spot, so it doesn't matter.An example: A beholder flies towards a location in front of him, but there is a player to his right. He fires 3 eye beams from his right arc. Now what happens when he turns around to face the player? Can he attack the player again? No. It is still the same arc, despite him turning to face the player.Now suppose the beholder makes a 90 degree turn around the player, changing his position so that it flanks the player, after also shooting 3 rays into its right arc during its move. can it attack again now? Yes. The Beholder committed to a movement, so that he would be able to hit from a different arc. This would seem completely within the rules.If you are looking for more ideas on how to use Beholders, I recommend checking out the book Lords of Madness, which offers plenty of new feats and abilities for Beholders, along with new beholder types.</blockquote>

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