Couple of beholder questions

[shilsen]

1. Since a beholder can use its eye rays as free actions, could it use a number of its eyes and ready an action to use one which has not been used? I'm especially thinking of a beholder using its eyes and readying one to disrupt an enemy spellcaster.

2. Activating the antimagic cone is a standard action, correct? So a beholder could conceivably use its eye rays and then turn "on" the antimagic cone in the same round, correct?

 

[UltimaGabe]

I could be wrong, but...

1. I don't think it's a Free Action to use an eye ray- I think it's a standard action to use all ten in a single round, with the limitation that only three (or something) can be aimed in a single direction, unless that direction is up. Or something.

2. No, it's not a Standard Action- if I'm not mistaken, it's a free action, but can only be taken at the beginning of the Beholder's turn. So, every turn, he has to decide whether he's gonna have his eye open, thus limiting his eye rays, or keep his eye closed.

 

[shilsen]

I could be wrong, but...

1. I don't think it's a Free Action to use an eye ray- I think it's a standard action to use all ten in a single round, with the limitation that only three (or something) can be aimed in a single direction, unless that direction is up. Or something.

It wasn't clarified in the 3e MM, but the 3.5e one specifically says that each of the beholder's "small eyes can produce a magical ray once per round as a free action".

 

[nhl_1997]

According to the errata (p. 2)...
"The eye attack is a free action. Increase its bite attacks by +5."

Yes, a beholder can ready an eye attack, but it can only ready a single eye attack, and it takes a standard action to do so (not very efficient although it could use up to nine of its eyes before readying the final eye or it could simply delay) This is based on the Readying an Action description on p. 160 of the PHB.

Also, as previously mentioned (quote from the MM p. 27)....
"Once each round, during its turn, the beholder decides whether the antimagic cone is active or not (the beholder deactivates the cone by shutting its central eye)."

That statement does not specifically state that it's a free action, however, since it does not specifically state something to the effect "A beholder can only take a move action during any round in which it switches the cone from on to off or off to on," I think it's reasonable to assume that activating and deactivating is a free action (limited to once per round during its turn.)

 

[Saeviomagy]

Ouch. That means that a beholder can fire 3 eye rays, then turn around and fire 3 more at a group within a single arc...

 

[nhl_1997]

Ouch. That means that a beholder can fire 3 eye rays, then turn around and fire 3 more at a group within a single arc...

In theory, yes that is possible. In my opinion though, that is undermining the spirit of the rules. I easily could be misinterpruting the intention of the rules, but I see the Eye Rays text description as mostly "fluff" designed to explain why a beholder can only aim three eye rays in a single arc. The important "rule" is that there is a three ray maximum for each arc.

Just my opinion (I have no basis or rules support for that opinion).

 

[shilsen]

In theory, yes that is possible. In my opinion though, that is undermining the spirit of the rules. I easily could be misinterpruting the intention of the rules, but I see the Eye Rays text description as mostly "fluff" designed to explain why a beholder can only aim three eye rays in a single arc. The important "rule" is that there is a three ray maximum for each arc.

Just my opinion (I have no basis or rules support for that opinion).

That's pretty much the way I see it too.

 

[der_kluge]

The Beholder represents some of the strong failings of the combat system in d20. Mainly that it's a creature where facing is important, yet there aren't really any rules for facing within the system.

This is also a creature that absolutely has to be played using miniatures and a grid. Otherwise, it's just impossible to adjudicate where the beholder is, and what rays he can use, and where his cone is pointing to at any given time.

The other thing that's important to remember about the beholder that isn't intuitively obvious (at least not to me initially) is that the Beholder can't shoot anyone with it's rays in front since the anti-magic cone negates the ray. Unless you rule that the Beholder can close it's central eye at will, and I'd probably argue with that one if the DM tried to do that to me. Allowing that would also bump the CR up quite a bit.

The other question that arises with this creature is can the beholder turn as a free action? In my last campaign, the party was fighting two beholders, and during one round, I had the beholder facing a particular direction and the other tried using his ray. The player pointed out that the other beholder was in an anti-magic zone and couldn't. So, I simply rotated the first beholder 90 degrees to rectify the situation. I ruled that anyone could simply change their facing as a free action. If anyone could do that easily, a Beholder could.

The other annoying aspect of the Beholder is that you have to keep track of which rays are located where. If certain rays are on the right side of the creature, it's just not fair to the players if they happen to be on the left side of the creature to get attacked by a ray that's been attacking people on the right side. So, you have to keep track of which ray is where. And 10 rays can't be divided by 4 facings, so that's another annoying aspect of this creature.

So, in short, coming from someone who has ran multiple Beholder encounters in our last campaign, Beholders are dangerous, and complicated creatures.

 

[Dr_Rictus]

The Beholder represents some of the strong failings of the combat system in d20. Mainly that it's a creature where facing is important, yet there aren't really any rules for facing within the system.

To me that means that the beholder represents a failure of creature design, not the combat system. There's no need for "facing" to be important to a creature with eyestalks all around its body, the antimagic eye notwithstanding.

 

[Dr_Rictus]

The other thing that's important to remember about the beholder that isn't intuitively obvious (at least not to me initially) is that the Beholder can't shoot anyone with it's rays in front since the anti-magic cone negates the ray. Unless you rule that the Beholder can close it's central eye at will, and I'd probably argue with that one if the DM tried to do that to me. Allowing that would also bump the CR up quite a bit.

Since the central eye creates a zone of anti-magic, I don't see why it isn't intuitively obvious that it can't shoot magic rays into it.

Also, the rules explicitly say that the beholder gets to decide whether the antimagic cone is active only once per round, on its turn. So no, it cannot just blink while it's shooting, and the rules do cover that situation.

The other annoying aspect of the Beholder is that you have to keep track of which rays are located where. If certain rays are on the right side of the creature, it's just not fair to the players if they happen to be on the left side of the creature to get attacked by a ray that's been attacking people on the right side. So, you have to keep track of which ray is where. And 10 rays can't be divided by 4 facings, so that's another annoying aspect of this creature.

Both problems are based on the unnecessary interpretation that the limitation of three rays per arc is because of which eyestalks are on which side of the creature. It could just as easily be because more than three eyestalks in the same 90 degree arc just get in each others' way (and in fact, I seem to remember that the book actually says that, though I could be wrong).

So no, you don't have to keep track of which rays are located where.

Really, it seems to me that for the most part you're making things harder for yourself by overcomplicating what the rules actually say.