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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lorne" data-source="post: 3307231" data-attributes="member: 48763">Two options come to mind, given the time constraints you've described.The first involves 'thinking like a beholder.' Everyone seems to have concurred that the heroes have challenged the creature and placed some doubts in its mind about its ability to dispose of them with typical ease. While wanting to avoid future combat, moving the lair and other precautions are prudent steps for the creature to take, I don't think we've explored the possibility that the beholder may be ticked off and dead set on crushing these vile humanoids for daring to attack it.Were I the beholder, I'd use the petrified hero as bait for a trap (as was eloquently suggested earlier), and wait for the heroes to return. While I wouldn't set traps in the strictest sense, I might strategically place reflective surfaces - alchemically treated for deflecting magic - along their route of approach, and fire a ray or two from a position of cover to soften them up. Alternately, I may devise a way of separating the party and firing all my rays at each in turn; while the party may be tough enough to challenge it as a group, a beholder is a tough customer one-to-one.A second option is a combination of an earlier suggestion - the creature requiring a lock of hair from each hero - with an old Dungeon adventure that ran at least 15 years ago. The old adventure involved a low-level mage who worked as a traveling barber. If a client happened to be a burly, low-level warrior, he saved hair clippings as a material component for a special variant of a monster summoning spell that allowed the barber to 'summon' the PC! Typically, the barber would summon the hero to cut firewood, clean his wagon, or perform some other menial task, and, as a summoned creature, the hero was compelled to obey.What if the beholder researched a similar spell, and could periodically summon the party to do its bidding? It wouldn't affect the timetable of your current adventure, but it sure could make a mess for the party later.Thanks for reading,Lorne</blockquote>

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