Help Our DM has gone Rat Bastard on us

[Darmanicus]

Diaglo, could you give me a link to yer SH please?

 

[diaglo]

Diaglo, could you give me a link to yer SH please?

try about halfway down this link: http://enworld.org/showthread.php?t=22106&page=17&pp=40

 

[BlackMoria]

This is after the fact, since you have probably played it out already.

In one beholder encounter, our party showered the poor beasty with tanglefoot bags. Using called shot rules, the majority of the tanglefoot bags landed on top to the beholder and gummed up the eyes pretty good. Beholder wasn't happy at that point and was even less so when we dog piled it.

Smokesticks work well to extract from the fight with the beholder. Throw smokesticks like crazy and smoke off most of the area and get the hell out of dodge quick, dumping smokesticks like flares from a fighter aircraft in hostile airspace, while on the run. We have used this tactic on several occasions to mess up monsters dependent upon range combat.

 

[azmodean]

Whoops, looks like I found this too late...

Well, I recently DM'd an adventure in which the party took on a Beholder using the grappling tactic and it worked well. Ranged attacks (such as all of the Beholder's rays) have a 50% chance of hitting either person involved in the grapple, so the Beholder has as good of a chance of hitting himself as the attacker (who can grapple and continue to attack with a small weapon).

This isn't correct, the footnote about firing into a grapple, "Roll randomly to see which grappling combatant you strike. That defender loses any Dexterity bonus to AC." is part of the entry "Grappling (but attacker is not)"

If the attacker is also grappling, this does not apply. Also, you do not lose your dex bonus to ac against a grappled opponent.

So, in short, the Beholder will not shoot itself with it's eye rays. (though it does need to make a concentration check each time it wants to fire one )

 

[coyote6]

So, in short, the Beholder will not shoot itself with it's eye rays. (though it does need to make a concentration check each time it wants to fire one )

Beholder eye rays are supernatural abilities; that means they never require Concentration checks. They also, FWIW, don't provoke attacks of opportunity, and can't be dispelled.

(Someone already pointed this out in Harmon's thread about my poor doomed beholder, but I thought it might be worth repeating, lest some hapless PC grab a beholder, proclaim "HA! With your puny Concentration check, you're doomed!", and then eat a disintegrate/finger of death/sleep combo.)

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

A wandering Threadcromaner strikes!

Note to Mike Mearls: Beholders are neither too hard to run, nor are its save or die effects un-fun for players. I offer this thread as proof.

 

[el-remmen]

This was a great thread I missed the first time around, but I am very glad it was resurrected so I could read it!

I dub this white necromancy!