Beholder's Eye Beams

[kerbarian]

In our Eberron game, a single Anti-Magic Ray spell (from Spell Compendium) enabled ONE character to take out a beholder by himself.

The PC ran into an arc not covered by the AM eye of the beholder, and shot him with an Anti-magic ray. There's no saving throw, unless you target an object. The beholder tried to fly away (since it was less than useless in a 13th level battle) but the same PC summoned a pair of celestial giant eagles, and RIPPED HIM APART. By themselves.

I'd say that, given the 13th level characters out there, that the "tilt and pan" trick is not too overpowered for what the beholder is up against.

The beholder might have failed its save anyway, but you misread the spell. A save of "Will negates (object)", doesn't mean that there's no save for creatures. It means that a will save negates the effect (for any target), and the spell is capable of targeting objects. From the PHB, p.177:

"Negates: The spell has no effect on a subject that makes a successful saving throw."
"(object): The spell can be cast on objects, which receive saving throws only if they are magical or if they are attended ... (This notation does not mean that a spell can only be cast on objects. Some spells of this sort can be cast on createures or objects.)"

 

[Arnwyn]

For that matter, where does it state that a Beholder has a minimum forward speed, or good maneuverability?

Guh... what?

Speed: Fly 20 ft. (Good)

I couldn't find Good Maneuverability in the MM.

Next best thing:

Fly
A creature with a fly speed can move through the air at the indicated speed if carrying no more than a light load. (Note that medium armor does not necessarily constitute a medium load.) All fly speeds include a parenthetical note indicating maneuverability, as follows:

Perfect: The creature can perform almost any aerial maneuver it wishes. It moves through the air as well as a human moves over smooth ground.
Good: The creature is very agile in the air (like a housefly or a hummingbird), but cannot change direction as readily as those with perfect maneuverability.
Average: The creature can fly as adroitly as a small bird.
Poor: The creature flies as well as a very large bird.
Clumsy: The creature can barely maneuver at all.

And in the SRD (and DMG):

Table: Maneuverability
Perfect Good Average Poor Clumsy
Minimum forward speed None None Half Half Half
Hover Yes Yes No No No
Move backward Yes Yes No No No
Reverse Free -5 ft. No No No
Turn Any 90°/5 ft. 45°/5 ft. 45°/5 ft. 45°/10 ft.
Turn in place Any +90°/-5 ft. +45°/-5 ft. No No
Maximum turn Any Any 90° 45° 45°
Up angle Any Any 60° 45° 45°
Up speed Full Half Half Half Half
Down angle Any Any Any 45° 45°
Down speed Double Double Double Double Double
Between down and up 0 0 5 ft. 10 ft. 20 ft.

Sadly, there is a dichotomy (using KarinsDad's words) when it comes to flying creatures, whether we like it or not. WotC really screwed the pooch with the flying rules - and we can see a clear consequence to that botching of rules when we look at the beholder. They did try to mitigate that with the wording in the Beholder's MM entry re: it's eye rays and the number of "arcs" - but it's not worded very well either.

Ouch!

 

[Henry]

The beholder might have failed its save anyway, but you misread the spell. A save of "Will negates (object)", doesn't mean that there's no save for creatures. It means that a will save negates the effect (for any target), and the spell is capable of targeting objects.

I'll be darned - that's twice that spell's been misused in our group. The first time, we missed the part about "the target is not affected by magic in any way", and now, I missed the save. He might've failed it anyway, because it was about a DC 23 or so, but for some reason I was thinking there wasn't one!

Ah well -- third time's the charm.

 

[KarinsDad]

Guh... what?

Originally Posted by Monster Manual
Speed: Fly 20 ft. (Good)

Which page and which section of a page is this on? I could have sworn I looked all over pages 25 and 26 and could not find a maneuverability listing for a Beholder. I suspect that it is there. It's a bear getting old and going blind.

 

[Infiniti2000]

But where does it state that forward (as a direction in the game) refers to the Beholder's direction of travel and that this direction changes as the beholder's direction of travel changes?

Whoa, easy, I never required the 'forward' arc to be a direction of travel. I think we are confounding arguments here. The inclusion of flying/maneuverability is only included in this discussion as another example of a type of 'facing' in D&D, as explicitly defined in the rules. This is not combat facing as per the variant, but a type of facing where directions (north, south, etc. or up, down, left, etc. or whatever you want to term it) are important.

For flying, it is important to know which direction you are heading, because to go in another direction requires a certain amount of turning and whatnot. Without these rules, feats like wingover are useless and rules like minimum forward speed are meaningless.

Now you are arguing just to argue.

That time, yes, and I'm glad you took it for the joke it was meant to be.

Forward arc does not. Forward is used here to define a different direction than up, down, left, right, or back. It is not used to indicate a direction of travel since the Beholder is not forced to travel.

I completely agree. A beholder can travel in the direction of his 'backward' arc for instance.

The actual existance of the arcs, however, are a type of facing. Which arc points where is critical for the beholder. Not allowing the arcs to be rotated makes no sense to me at all (and I do not think you endorse that idea either, which would mean something as stupid as the beholder only being able to disintegrate north-facing walls) and not allowing the beholder to rotate arcs in movement is unnecessarily restrictive.

It's unnecessary because the rules on flying do not restrict it. And the rules in the beholder do not restrict it (IMO). You merely disagree with this last point, do you not? I have one more analogy to make after your response to this.

 

[Sithobi1]

It's on page 26, right at the top of the stat block, where speed is normally found.

 

[KarinsDad]

I completely agree. A beholder can travel in the direction of his 'backward' arc for instance.

The actual existance of the arcs, however, are a type of facing. Which arc points where is critical for the beholder. Not allowing the arcs to be rotated makes no sense to me at all (and I do not think you endorse that idea either, which would mean something as stupid as the beholder only being able to disintegrate north-facing walls) and not allowing the beholder to rotate arcs in movement is unnecessarily restrictive.

The Beholder can rotate the arcs. It can do it once per round as per the rule:

A beholder can tilt and pan its body each round to change which rays it can bring to bear in an arc.

It's unnecessary because the rules on flying do not restrict it. And the rules in the beholder do not restrict it (IMO). You merely disagree with this last point, do you not? I have one more analogy to make after your response to this.

We should be careful to not use the words "facing" and "direction" interchangeably.

Directions do exist in the game. You can walk north, a Beholder can fly up, cover can protect versus attacks from the east, etc.

Facing does not exist in the game (again, shy of some obscure special cases). And, the Beholder rules do not explicitly add facing to the game. They add arcs. The difference between arcs and facing is that arcs used with facing rules change direction as the facing changes and/or the creature moves. Arcs used without facing rules maintain the same direction, regardless of the movement of the creature.


I'm trying to understand your position here. Do you think that Beholders can from 150 feet away fire all 9 rays at a target? If so, how does this match the following rules?

During a single round, a creature can aim only two eye rays (gauth) or three eye rays (beholder) at targets in any one 90-degree arc (up, forward, backward, left, right, or down). The remaining eyes must aim at targets in other arcs, or not at all. A beholder can tilt and pan its body each round to change which rays it can bring to bear in an arc.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

Actually, you'll find that free actions are taken "while taking another action normally".

As another example, if you rule that a free action cannot be taken during another action, you'll find it very difficult to draw arrows (free action) during a full attack (full round action)...

Excellent point.

Now I just find myself wondering, if a beholder was meant to be able to fire all of its eye beams at any target, what was the purpose of adding in the note about firing arcs in the first place?

 

[Arnwyn]

That's exactly what I'm wondering.

So what have we got, here? Can a beholder rotate in place and fire all (some?) of it's eye beams in the same cardinal direction, or not?

Let's say a beholder and the PCs are 60' apart. The beholder currently has it's main anti-magic eye facing (arrgh! "facing"!) the PCs. On it's initiative, can it rotate 90 degrees right (5' of movement according to it's maneuverability) and fire 3 eye beams at the PCs (free action), then rotate another 90 degrees right (another 5', the central eye is now directly opposite of the PCs) and fire another 3 eye beams (again, a free action), rotate another 90 degrees (5' again, for a running total of 15' movement so far) and fire 3 more eye beams, and then end it's turn with a final 90 degrees of movement (5' for a total of 20' of movement, and it's now back to "facing" the PCs with it's central eye)?

Or what? In melee, would that rotation (if it can even be done) cause AoOs?

Gah. *sob*

 

[Infiniti2000]

The Beholder can rotate the arcs. It can do it once per round as per the rule:

Why is it once per round? The beholder can tilt and pan as much as its maneuverability allows.

What rules in the beholder description are using to restrict the beholder's movement? He has Good maneuverability and yet you are saying he cannot use that maneuverability. None of the rules you've quoted would imply that.

I'm trying to understand your position here. Do you think that Beholders can from 150 feet away fire all 9 rays at a target? If so, how does this match the following rules?

It matches well with it. The beholder can fire only a certain number of eye rays per arc per round. But, he can change the positioning of those arcs.

At the very least, based on what you said in this last post, the beholder could target 6 rays on one opponent. He can tilt/pan once per round, right? And yet, your statements here would leave me to believe that you think he can't even do that much. Please explain this inconsistency.