Gamemaster Tactics Masterclass: Beholders

[AuraSeer]

A beholder is smart enough to know its own weaknesses. It's not going to wander into melee range, unless it's feeling particularly suicidal.

No beholder should float within reach of the ground, ever, unless the ceiling is too low to avoid it. If enemies approach while it's under a low ceiling, one of the beholder's first actions should be to disintegrate a diagonal shaft, and float up through it.

 

[Quinn]

Use that Disintegration ray to create instant pits to keep PCs away from the beholder.

Alternately, make use the beholder's flying ability. If the melee guys cannot engage the beholder, it's going to be a much tougher battle.

There is no reason that a beholder HAS to use its central eye. Sometimes it's a better tactic to fight from cover where only the eyestalks can attack.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

AuraSeer:
Good idea but a Beholder must be careful about floating near the ceiling ... it doesn't have eye rays from below.


Quinn:
True, but if he doesn't kill the wizard outright with the ray attacks he is in trouble. A wizard or sorceror has a good shot of taking him out in a single round without any help from other PCs. Polymorph Other, Quickened Fireball + Fireball, Disintegrate, Flesh to Stone, Power Word (Stun), and Finger of Death are all game enders for the Beholder. A little cover won't help enough. Even getting off a Mass Haste or Cloudkill (if the Beholder in hiding in a tight space) is likely to shift the combat decsively to the PCs favor.

 

[GuardianLurker]

Traps. Lots and lots of traps.

Especially ones that are area-effect and triggered by a lack of magic.

Consider an acid filled pit covered by a wall of force that's had an improved phantasmal force cast on it. Set it in the appropriate stand-and-fight choke point.

Also, an area of reverse gravity lets the beholder fly upside-down near the ceiling.

And don't forget the old lurk-behind-and-above-the-entrance trick. Do it invisibly and you're pretty much guaranteed a surprise attack round.

Invert the lair - have the PCs enter high and have to cross a bridge to get to the path down. Suitably illusioned to look like cave tunnel, the little PCs should be beholder food in a hurry.

And, as I've said before never underestimate the hitting power of a large rock. 325 pounds from 200 feet up is going to HURT.

Remember too, that the Beholder will be able to ignore a lot of environments that are hazardous or lethal to the PCs. It can happily sleep in mid-air over an volcano's crater out of bow-shot. And it can even do it in an anti-magic field, since it's flight is extraordinary.

And tossed pebbles aside, beholders are cunning, malicious, evil monsters. Expect a lot of resource-draining encounters between the entrance to the lair and the beholder itself. Heck a few judicously placed anti-magic fields, dispel magic traps, and Morden's Disjunction traps should whittle even the toughest party down in a hurry.

And that's just a single beholder - can I use more?

 

[Tisvon]

Try and split the party up. That way you can blast one group with eye rays, while keeping another in your AMF. Another neat trick: have small eye holes in a thin wall. Oh, and if you see that the PCs have an AMF of their own, turn and run.

 

[AuraSeer]

AuraSeer:
Good idea but a Beholder must be careful about floating near the ceiling ... it doesn't have eye rays from below.

Are you sure about that? I thought the beholder description said 3 eyes at a time could fire into each arc, including down.

(However, I can't check that now, because the beholder stats seem to have gone missing from the SRD. Meh.)

 

[WattsHumphrey]

It occurs to me that invisibility in an area of beholders' antimagic would be particularly effective as well.

Team the beholder up with some creatures that have natural invisibility, or someone with dust of dissapearance (nonmagical invisibility) and there'd be the potential for some massive death.

 

[LokiDR]

First, the MM does say beholders can fire 3 eye rays down.

Second, does anyone have specifics on damage for dropping a 325 lbs rock on a person w/ telekinesis? Attack roll and damage would be great. Also, are there any good rules for dropping block with disintegrate? Cave-ins seem like overkill.

 

[GuardianLurker]

Summarized from the DMG, pg. 89:

Object________+1d6 per
200 pounds____10 ft
101-200_______20 ft
51-100________30
31-50_________40
11-30_________50
6-10__________60
1-5___________70

So, a 325 lb. object inflicts +1d6/10 ft +1d6/20 ft + 1d6/50 ft.

BTW, there's no cap to "Big Rock Damage"

So 325 lbs from 200 ft is:
20d6+20d6+10d6+4d6=34d6.
Average=119
Max=204

Of course, the beholder could always stack *multiple* of these things.

What's the load-bearing capacity of a wall of force?

Or, if you want real overkill, just drop a 10x10x10 ft cube of granite from the same height (approx 1400d6). Don't worry about saves. If the adventurers even have to save for half, they are nothing but flesh-jelly.

 

[AuraSeer]

Telekinesis specifies that throwing a heavy object, like a boulder, does 1d6 damage per 25 pounds. Since the beholder can lift 325 lbs, it will do 13d6 damage if it hits.

The attack roll is BAB + Intelligence modifier.