Beholder - "solo monster"

[Bullgrit]

I just went through and watched the D&D4 videos that WotC created back before D&D4 was released.

Something that struck me was the interviewer mentioning to the Beholder, "...they're making you into a solo monster. You'll be able to take on a whole party of adventurers all on your own."

The Beholder gets all emotional at that.

When were beholders not able to take on a whole party alone? I can't recall ever seeing more than one beholder in any single encounter in all my years of playing D&D. Have you ever set up or encountered multiple beholders in one battle? How'd it go?

I'm just now sitting here imagining a company (squadron?) of beholders floating across a battlefield zapping soldiers with their eye beams. That could be totally awesome!

Bullgrit

 

[Dragonbait]

I played through the Sundering of the Weave campaign in the Forgotten Realms. We ran into a number of beholders.

Spoiler Alert:

Spoiler

There was only 2 instances of solo beholders. All other beholders were teamed up with other monsters. We generally won initiative and killed them long before they could do anything. The only time a beholder was a threat was when he had two huge giants with him that prevented us flanking him.

Still.. Every time we saw one of those things my blood ran cold...

If memory serves there was also a Monster Arcana series during the 2nd ed days and the beholders were one of the monsters studied in the series. There were many encounters in those adventures where the PCs fought multiple beholders.

I'm just now sitting here imagining a company (squadron?) of beholders floating across a battlefield zapping soldiers with their eye beams. That could be totally awesome!

Check out the beholder's spelljammers. A squadron of beholders that could all shoot their eye rays into a single beam to create large-scale death rays.

 

[coyote6]

When were beholders not able to take on a whole party alone? I can't recall ever seeing more than one beholder in any single encounter in all my years of playing D&D. Have you ever set up or encountered multiple beholders in one battle? How'd it go?

IIRC, Deep Horizons has some multiple beholder encounters. The PCs more-or-less pwned the solo beholders (though the sorcerer did fail a save & got disintegrated; the cleric had recently acquired a scroll of true resurrection, though, so that didn't last long). Beholders in 3.5e just didn't have a lot of hp to go with all their offense, and the panoply of attacks tended to draw heavy fire immediately. So everyone would unload their biggest attack as soon as they had the chance.

Multiple beholders, or beholders with allies, were much more dangerous.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I don't know what adventures it where, but we definitely went against multiple Beholders in some adventures. In 3.0 times, Antimagic Fields and Admantite weapons where our weapons to deal with them. Worked great.

 

[Dragonbait]

Multiple beholders, or beholders with allies, were much more dangerous.

Exactly. In 3.5 (especially when you start adding splat books) the beholder was a paper tiger on its own. Give it other monsters and a place that was hard to reach and suddenly it is 10-eyed Death incarnate.

 

[Obryn]

Yeah, I ran Banewarrens for my players under 3.0/3.5 quite a while ago, and all the dwarven Wizard needed to do was get behind him and cast Flesh to Stone.

Most anticlimactic battle EVAR.

-O

 

[coyote6]

That reminds me -- another group of characters had a heck of a time with a solo beholder that stayed up high and ducked in and out of a system of tunnels (that it had made). Eventually, though, they got the upper hand (somewhat literally, IIRC; I think some of the PCs got into the tunnels and out flanked it -- ISTR the dervish getting a full attack off, and that being about it for Mr. Big Eye).

The 3.x versions just didn't have the hp or AC (IIRC) for a stand-up fight, and being outnumbered makes a hit-and-run fight much harder.

 

[vagabundo]

I made the mistake of sending a beholder up against my party in 3.x in a restricted tunnel environment. He got squashed in five second flat - but he did freak every one out, which was cool.

 

[AllisterH]

How many monsters WERE capable of being called Solo type monsters anyway?

 

[Dragonbait]

How many monsters WERE capable of being called Solo type monsters anyway?

Most seemed "Solo" types only because they could lock down a certain class so they took forever to kill. Monsters that were ethereal were like this at low levels. Golems, and so on could be like this too.

Dragons could be solo monsters until the PCs obtained weapons that fed on their weakness (like a lot of Cold-based spells, attacks and weapons vs. a red dragon).

I did have an instance of a single spined devil taking on and taking OUT a whole PC party because of its obscenely high AC and damage output.