Help Our DM has gone Rat Bastard on us

[Olgar Shiverstone]

You need cover or concealment to hide, don't forget.

T-minus 4.

 

[diaglo]

that is what Vlad is for. gotta use those big burly humans for something.

 

[Sir Elton]

1. Negotiate with the Beholder.

If that fails . . .

2. Negotiate with the GM.

If that fails . . .

3. Pray to Gary Gygax that he may strike down your GM before he rolls against your character.

Play it out in true Heroic Fashion. After that, reroll characters.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Ironically, the beholder wasn't the most dangerous encounter of the session ... but I'll let diaglo tell the story.

 

[DrNilesCrane]

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). Also, breaking free of the grapple chews up the Beholder's actions, meaning less nasty eye rays killing off PCs. Not sure if that would help: can't imagine the halfling vs. beholder grapple would work as well, but when I saw a PC do it by leaping on the beholder and holding on while it levitated 200' over a vast field of green slime...ahhhh...good times!

 

[Berandor]

You know what you could have done?

Get two meat shields up to the beholder, and two spellcasters out free of the antimagic cone who fire off damaging spells.

To do maximum damage, the beholder steps back, closes his eye, and dets off seven eye rays (party conveniently spread out). Sadly for him, he'll miss a bunch of touch attack rolls, and the few he makes, the PC will make the save.

At the start of the next round, additional damage and a crit from one character brings the beholder down before he can retreat out of range.

Then beat a retreat before the "reinforcements" show up...

 

[diaglo]

You know what you could have done?

Get two meat shields up to the beholder, and two spellcasters out free of the antimagic cone who fire off damaging spells.

To do maximum damage, the beholder steps back, closes his eye, and dets off seven eye rays (party conveniently spread out). Sadly for him, he'll miss a bunch of touch attack rolls, and the few he makes, the PC will make the save.

At the start of the next round, additional damage and a crit from one character brings the beholder down before he can retreat out of range.

Then beat a retreat before the "reinforcements" show up...

funny you should say that. i think that is almost exactly what we did.

the beholder fired off.

3 at Grishelm, Alya.. the guide and the bard. grishelm was injured.
2 at Calrom the ranger. one miss and one save. minimal damage.
and 3 at Fiddle, Darian, Sully, and Vlad. Fiddle was the only one not attacked. He missed Sully. and vlad and darian saved. vlad's was the charm. darian still took pretty hefty damage.

i played fiddle and darian for the session as darian's player has changed work schedules. i tried to use his normal MO. which is searing light. hit both times. once in the partial light for 19hp. and once for a crit for 39hp.

i had fiddle trying to get into position with vlad and cut off retreat by the ball.

alya and calrom both fired very high on their multishots. but didn't penetrate the natural armor. alya rolled 24,21,9 and calrom 23,21 and vlad rolled real low. both archers would've hit if at the time they weren't in the no magic zone.

sully 15d6 a ball of lightning on the ball 59hp damage. save for half .. 29hp.

alya had previously hit the ball from one of the earlier rounds.

so spell total was 87hp and melee/missile total was 7 or so. = 94+

 

[Berandor]

funny you should say that. i think that is almost exactly what we did.

That's because I quoted and rephrased your DM from the other thread

 

[diaglo]

That's because I quoted and rephrased your DM from the other thread

yeah after reading your post and replying. i got to thinking and found Olgar... RAT BASTARD...Shiverstone's thread

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

I predict they haven't seen the last of beholders ...