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Message: <blockquote data-quote="FormerlyHemlock" data-source="post: 6678369" data-attributes="member: 6787650">A couple of sessions ago, my players got invited to join bounty hunter cleaning out a crashed beholder ship. They managed to take down 3 beholders (first one, then two at a time) by dragging them out into the open where the bounty hunter's giff mercs could shoot them to death with arquebuses. Last session the cleric's player couldn't make it, so the PCs were too scared to go in alone, and they wound up leaving. I told them that a few minutes after the bounty hunter went in, they heard a loud explosion, and that was it.So now I get to resolve what happens when 40 hippo-headed giff mercenaries invade a beholder stronghold with 24 beholders (but no hive mother), split into little groups of 1d5 beholders who no longer trust the other beholders. At first I thought this was going to be rough, with lots of dead giff, and then I reread the beholder entry and found that the beholders can only use their random eye rays on "targets it can see within 120 feet." Which means that Darkness makes this thing a cake walk. The merc wizard can cast Darkness on a giff's equipment; the giff goes in, grapples a beholder, and drags it out where everybody else can shoot it to death simultaneously. The beholder's 4d6 bite is basically a non-factor, and it's +0 Strength will make it almost unable to break free of a giff's +6 Athletics grapple.So here's my question for the hive-mind: assume that I'm not going to change the rule and let beholders shoot things under Darkness. What kind of nasty tricks could the genius-level beholders play to turn the tables? Prefer tactics which don't require them to cooperate in large packs, although once a few packs have died the last 12 or so should be willing to cooperate with each other to end the threat, in spite of their mutual hatred and distrust.So far the only ones I've got involve: 1.) digging pits and trenches with Disintegration to create barriers, 2.) collapsing tunnels behind the giff to suffocate them in earth, 3.) digging a tunnel straight up and then levitating up there so you can get behind the giff with Darkness, without him noticing you, and 4.) pincer-counterattack such that Darkness can only protect part of the giff column. Then hit the wizard, if possible, to decapitate the enemy force.If the beholders can't come up with better tactics that that I give them no better than a 50% chance of survival.</blockquote>

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