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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MNblockhead" data-source="post: 7053488" data-attributes="member: 6796661">Beholders are highly intelligent and extremely paranoid. They spend much of their time expecting and planning for incursions and attacks. A Death Tyrant has had AGES to plan it lairs to its advantage. It would know that their is a chance, even if small, that it could be turned by a cleric. It should have prepared for that. First, I can't imagine a beholder having any location in its lair without multiple avenues of escape, most of them designed for its unique shape and movement and difficult for non-flying creatures to follow. Second, it should have minions. It would include minions with a variety of resistances and immunities. It would have minions that are not undead and subject to being turned. I would say that it would train and instruct these minions that should it ever be turned that they hurt it. Give it damage to shake it out of being turned. Third, traps and mechanisms to control movement through its lair, designed for its form factor and abilities. I can see that their may be some story reason why a death tyrant may be a lone inhabitant of its lair, but it would still have designed traps, ways to trigger stone blocks or gates to slam shut as it floats past them, pits to open, etc. Fourth, escape routes may be designed to cause a small amount of damage so that if the reason it is escape is due to being turned, it can be shaken out of it. Also, how did this go down? Did the party walk in, turn it, and since it was turned move on. Or was it that because it was turned, they were able to kill it in one round? If it take damage it is no longer turned.  If the former, there should have been ways for it to hunt down the party after the minute passed and perhaps some traps and other obstacles to slow them down. If the later, even if it wasn't turned, it seems like they would have taken it out easily. As for the crit fail. Instead of fudging the roll, I would just ad hoc homebrew a bit and have fun with the crit fail. It is SOOO repulsed by the power of the cleric that is dashes at reckless speed and smashes into the wall taking the equivalent of falling damage based upon the distance moved before hitting the wall. This snaps it out of being turned. Also, why does it have to huddle in a corner.  Yes, some terrified creatures in real life act like that, some play dead, but some just go nuts racing from wall to wall, floor to ceiling... I'm think of birds or bats that get stuck inside a house.  Crit fail? No exit?  Have that beholder bounce around the room full-dash, keeping away from the cleric, and make all attempts to hit it a disadvantage. In the end though, the issue here was that the death tyrant got in this situation to begin with and that should never happen unless the players painstakingly took steps to force it into a corner by methodically discovery and eliminating all avenues of escape, in which case the final result would have been well earned and not seen as going easy on them. Also, don't be so sensitive to player comments. Some of my friends and I like to bust each other's chops. I guarantee that if they thought an encounter was poorly designed, I wouldn't learn of it by overhearing a telephone conversation. Lastly, not sure why the players would care that much. Are they really combat focused?  My players would have one HELL of a time having fun with the poor cowardly death tyrant. I just know they would come up with some sick joke to play on it. They know how to make their own entertainment--often at my expense. One reason why we use dice is so we can have these crazy moments. Sometimes you get a well matched, epic battle, other times its a TPK, and sometime--if the gods are well rested and paying notice to the party cleric--you get a cowardly beholder.  All three outcomes are worthy of a bard's song.</blockquote>

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