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<blockquote data-quote="Felon" data-source="post: 502339" data-attributes="member: 8158">Thanks for the responses! Here's what I tend to think on the matter:1) No, they can't. This opinion is based on simple speculation, but I have a feeling that if this question was run past Skip Williams, he'd simply say that for game purposes a creature's &quot;up&quot;, &quot;down&quot;, &quot;forward&quot;, &quot;back&quot;, &quot;left&quot;, and &quot;right&quot; arcs are factors relevant to the creature's position relative to the environment it's in, not to its personal orietation. In other words, just because you're lying down on the ground, you can't call the direction that your feet are pointing &quot;down&quot; and the direction that your head is pointing to be &quot;up&quot;. The ground is down, the sky is up. 2) Firing the eyebeams count as free actions, and the beholder can fire one eyebeam each round, regardless of whether it's slowed, hasted, etc. From how the entry reads to me, the beholder can make a bite attack (a standard action in and of itself) and move and still fire its beams. All you have left after a standard action and a move action are free actions, ergo the beam attacks are free. 3) I doubt the beholder has the option of shutting the central eye, firing away with its beams, and then re-opening its eye all in the same round. Common sense would dictate that that's a rather simple, straigtforward tactic that the beholder could physcially perform within the space of one round (especially if we're just talking about a bunch of free actions), but the rules trump common sense. The rules state that you get to declare each round whether the central eye is &quot;open&quot; or &quot;closed&quot;. Now, that may still make the following a legal set of tactics:Round 1: The eye is closed at the beginning of the round. Fly over your targets (assuming they're clustered together), fire all beams, and afterwards declare the eye to be &quot;open&quot; and pointing down on them. The antimagic cone remains active until the beholder's next action.Round 2: Declare the eye to be &quot;closed&quot;, and then fire the beams away. The antimagic cone is inactive until the beholder's next action.Round 3+ : Repeat the actions performed in Rounds 1 &amp; 2.Anyone have any major objections to those calls? And does anyone know where exactly to post something so that someone official can't help but notice it? There are a LOT of messageboards on the WotC site after all.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Felon, post: 502339, member: 8158"] Thanks for the responses! Here's what I tend to think on the matter: 1) No, they can't. This opinion is based on simple speculation, but I have a feeling that if this question was run past Skip Williams, he'd simply say that for game purposes a creature's "up", "down", "forward", "back", "left", and "right" arcs are factors relevant to the creature's position relative to the environment it's in, not to its personal orietation. In other words, just because you're lying down on the ground, you can't call the direction that your feet are pointing "down" and the direction that your head is pointing to be "up". The ground is down, the sky is up. 2) Firing the eyebeams count as free actions, and the beholder can fire one eyebeam each round, regardless of whether it's slowed, hasted, etc. From how the entry reads to me, the beholder can make a bite attack (a standard action in and of itself) and move and still fire its beams. All you have left after a standard action and a move action are free actions, ergo the beam attacks are free. 3) I doubt the beholder has the option of shutting the central eye, firing away with its beams, and then re-opening its eye all in the same round. Common sense would dictate that that's a rather simple, straigtforward tactic that the beholder could physcially perform within the space of one round (especially if we're just talking about a bunch of free actions), but the rules trump common sense. The rules state that you get to declare each round whether the central eye is "open" or "closed". Now, that may still make the following a legal set of tactics: Round 1: The eye is closed at the beginning of the round. Fly over your targets (assuming they're clustered together), fire all beams, and afterwards declare the eye to be "open" and pointing down on them. The antimagic cone remains active until the beholder's next action. Round 2: Declare the eye to be "closed", and then fire the beams away. The antimagic cone is inactive until the beholder's next action. Round 3+ : Repeat the actions performed in Rounds 1 & 2. Anyone have any major objections to those calls? And does anyone know where exactly to post something so that someone official can't help but notice it? There are a LOT of messageboards on the WotC site after all. [/QUOTE]

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