Beholder - "solo monster"

[Raven Crowking]

But isn't using the terrain to your advantage something that even KOBOLDS do and shouldn't be just a beholder thing?

Sure.

But the smarter you are, the better you can use it. And beholders are smarter than kobolds by far.

Also, the ability to disintigrate things at will means that, with almost no effort, a beholder can reshape underground terrain to meet its needs perfectly.

In fact, when the PCs are crossing the narrow bridge to reach the beholder, rather than target a PC, the beholder should simply disintigrate the bridge. After all, the beholder can always charm and/or strongarm others into rebuilding it if he wants. (And he does want, because that bridge trick is such an easy way to deal with interlopers -- the beholder can fly down at its leisure to pick through the corpses.)


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

A simple bottleneck isn't going to work well for Mr. B.

Only if one assumes that Mr. B wants to take the PCs in a fair fight.

What if Mr. B creates a bottleneck it can fly under, and then removes the floor? After that 100-foot drop, the party is likely to be both scattered and wounded, if not dead. Because it can disintigrate whatever it wants, whenever it wants, this is child's play for Mr. B. He then merely needs to create a new tunnel to renew the trap, possibly having minions seal off the old one, possibly leaving it open as a warning to adventurers.

The bottleneck also might be there for the PCs to face a charmed monster, an area effect trap or spell, etc.

When Mr. B is ready to use its eye rays, it can do so from behind cover, with small openings disintigrated into the stone to allow it to shoot rays down the few open paths. Again, setting this up is almost effortless for Mr. B.

Mr. B has a lot of inherent options and the brains to use them; he is not simply a simpleton!


RC

 

[Chainsaw]

If I recall, the 2E beholders came in different HD flavors.. the highest HD beholder was kind of a grand overlord schemer with lots of intelligence and toughness, no? Presumably in situations where beholders were being thrown at behold en masse, they were some sort of lower caliber or less intelligent sort?

I find that monster mileage varies depending on how intelligently or strictly played the beast is. They're probably not that tough if you're just playing them as another semi-intelligent beast with ray-gun type range attacks... but if you're playing them as near-genius level intelligence, they're probably supposed to be a bit tougher, right? I mean, it's not going to be sitting in a square room with a door waiting on six guys to show up and kick its butt, right?

 

[Mark Chance]

I've used beholders as solo monsters before. Just tweak them a little. Don't add HD. Add hit points. This makes the beholder more durable without skewing its BAB, saves, ability DCs, et cetera. I also generally rule that a solo monster automatically makes X number of crucial saves, where X equals the number of PCs it faces.

 

[Votan]

I also generally rule that a solo monster automatically makes X number of crucial saves, where X equals the number of PCs it faces.

This is an interesting solution to the 3.X save or die syndrome but it might be pretty harsh on a wizard or sorcerer with just a few such spells left!

In that sense, I like the 1/2/4 approaches to making critical saves either easy or less dramatically important.

 

[amerigoV]

Warm and fuzzies from RtToEE:

long hallway in the Recovered Temple - I had a beholder and the 8 elite ogres (I think F4s) together. Put the ogres in front with the antimagic ray focused on them and the party. The orgres damage goes down by 1 (+1 large greatclubs) and I think the AC went down 1. Party buffs - nerfed.

Great fun was had by the ogres beating the crap out of the party with no healing, buffs, magic. If the party managed to get out of LOS and teleport/Dim Door to the other side, well, THEN they got to deal with Beholder.

Had two campaigns and used it each time. Both were epic battles.

 

[Iron Sky]

The first beholder I ever ran was in 2e, one of the neutral guardian ones. The party chatted with amiably for an hour about the ancient key it was guarding, being a beholder, stuff like that and ended up liking it so much that they didn't want to kill it.

Of course, then the PC on watch spotted the BBEG of the campaign coming to get the key as well, so the PCs had to attack it. It turned two to stone, then the monk jumped on top of it and pulled all its eyestalks off...

In my last 3.5 (SH campaign), the PC ran into another beholder and ended up chatting it up for a while as well (the "Polite Beholders" in my sig). Strange, I'd totally forgotten about the connection until just now. Only Beholders the PCs have fought in any of my games, they talked with for a while before fighting.

 

[Mark Chance]

This is an interesting solution to the 3.X save or die syndrome but it might be pretty harsh on a wizard or sorcerer with just a few such spells left!

Might be, but I tend to frown at casters who put too much stock in all-or-nothing spell effects.

In that sense, I like the 1/2/4 approaches to making critical saves either easy or less dramatically important.

"1/2/4 approaches"? I'm not familiar with that term.

 

[Votan]

Might be, but I tend to frown at casters who put too much stock in all-or-nothing spell effects.



"1/2/4 approaches"? I'm not familiar with that term.

Sorry, bad articulation in typing. 1/2/4 meant D&D editions 1 and 2 plus D&D 4th edition. All had a different "save or bad things happen" mechanic. In 1st and 2nd edtion, tough creatures simply always made their saves. In 4th edition, they reduce how bad the bad things are (requiring multiple failed saves for to be petrified, for example).

In D&D 3.X, the system is fragile to an arms race between saves and spell DCs because both can be altered by prestuige calsses, magic items and feats. If the spell DC gets too high then the mage drops everything with a single spell, all of the time. If the saves get too high (say massive multi-classing) then spells cease to be a threat.

This is a hard baalne point to maintain.

WHat you really want, in my opinion, is a small chance for a "save or bad things happen" spell to work. So the party can cheer when the enemy mage is taken out by a lucky finger of death but the mage KNOWS he is gambling. The 1st and 2nd edition approach, given saves fail on a 1, is not a bad compromise but the odds seem pretty low. Still, it allows for the desperate spell when the party is about to be overrun.

These rolls, I'd do in the open to increase drama.

So I guess I might replace "this creatures makes X saves automatically" with "this creature fails the first X saves only on a 1 . . . and I roll in the open".

But I like the idea behind the mechanic.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

IN ADnD 2nd edition Beholders were always alone when we faced them...

... and there was only one tactic: charge in and kill before too many of your friends died... the same advice as i gave a friend who tried clever tactics hundreds of times and didn´t make it...

actually: it was the same advice i gave him when he faed illithids...

i hope a solo beholder fight in 4e will a bit more cinematic