Lord Pendragon said:Yeah, cut and dried.
Up = all 10 eyestalks.
Any other direction = only 3.
Not, "only 3 unless the beholder tilts itself," just "only 3."
As in, if a PC is anywhere around the beholder besides flying in the air above it, the beholder can only bring 3 eyestalks to bear.
*scratching head* If there's latitude to argue otherwise here, I guess I'm just too dumb to see it, so I suppose I'll bow out here and let the discussion carry on without me to hinder it.
Note that the MM does specifically say that the beholder can "tilt and pan its body each round to change which rays it can bring to bear in an arc". That could be read as saying that the beholder can, in fact, tilt its body towards the ground so as to aim all its eyestalks into the "upwards" arc.
As to why they'd mention the restriction if you could just aim all 10 eyes at someone? Two possible reasons:
- If the beholder is flanked by two opponents, it can't bring 5 eyes to bear on one and 5 on the other.
- After the beholder has selected arcs for its eyes, it can't change them until its next round, eg for AoO purposes.