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<blockquote data-quote="THEMNGMNT" data-source="post: 9236104" data-attributes="member: 6809274">58th session of my Dragon Heist/Deck of Many Things mashup. This is the climax of the whole campaign!Three player characters of 11th level: Half-orc cavalier fighter, halfling swashbuckler rogue, and half-elf evoker wizard/grave cleric. With them is an NPC drow wizard--a romantic interest of the evoker.The characters are in the Xanathar's lair. The Xanathar has been transformed into an elder brain. So, yeah, they're fighting an elder brain beholder. As the lair collapses all around them.I've run one other beholder fight. It felt swingy. One character was disintegrated; others never even got scratched. So I wasn't really sure how this fight would go. I combined the stat block of a beholder with a few psychic abilities of the elder brain. I also ran them as two separate creatures, with different initiative counts. I did not use any legendary actions. Mechanically, the characters were fighting two monsters. On the whole, it went fairly well. The beholder's multiple eye rays let you spread the pain around and keep the environment dynamic.As the fight unfolded, the collapsing ceiling was a terrain hazard that required the characters to make Dexterity saving throws, with the damage going up each and every turn.The fighter wanted to cut off the beholder's eye stalks. I set a high AC for each stalk and gave them 10 hp. He managed to cut off 3 stalks during the fight. Really fun stuff. In the end, all the characters survived and the Xanathar was destroyed by relentless attacks from the fighter. It's been cool to see a high level fighter in action. They're formidable.The characters gained enough XP to reach level 12.Next session: Deck of Many Things!</blockquote>

[QUOTE="THEMNGMNT, post: 9236104, member: 6809274"] 58th session of my Dragon Heist/Deck of Many Things mashup. This is the climax of the whole campaign! Three player characters of 11th level: Half-orc cavalier fighter, halfling swashbuckler rogue, and half-elf evoker wizard/grave cleric. With them is an NPC drow wizard--a romantic interest of the evoker. The characters are in the Xanathar's lair. The Xanathar has been transformed into an elder brain. So, yeah, they're fighting an elder brain beholder. As the lair collapses all around them. I've run one other beholder fight. It felt swingy. One character was disintegrated; others never even got scratched. So I wasn't really sure how this fight would go. I combined the stat block of a beholder with a few psychic abilities of the elder brain. I also ran them as two separate creatures, with different initiative counts. I did not use any legendary actions. Mechanically, the characters were fighting two monsters. On the whole, it went fairly well. The beholder's multiple eye rays let you spread the pain around and keep the environment dynamic. As the fight unfolded, the collapsing ceiling was a terrain hazard that required the characters to make Dexterity saving throws, with the damage going up each and every turn. The fighter wanted to cut off the beholder's eye stalks. I set a high AC for each stalk and gave them 10 hp. He managed to cut off 3 stalks during the fight. Really fun stuff. In the end, all the characters survived and the Xanathar was destroyed by relentless attacks from the fighter. It's been cool to see a high level fighter in action. They're formidable. The characters gained enough XP to reach level 12. Next session: Deck of Many Things! [/QUOTE]

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