Mearls Monster Makeover: Beholder

[Cthulhudrew]

Eh, I think I would simplify it a tad more. Eliminate the barrage ability, first. Second, eliminate the DC22 caster check to cast spells within the central eye effect, and make it effect all (Su) abilities, in addition to spellcasting.

If you make it affect all Su abilities, then you run into the problem of it disrupting its own eye rays, which was the reason for the change in the first place.

I'm not entirely sold on the "new" version here. For one thing, some of the choices made seem really arbitrary to me. For example, Mike Mearls points out the Beholder's disintegrate ray as one that needs to be looked at, and then when he does, he simply notes that it is an archetypal power of the Beholder and thus it stays. Seems to me the same argument can be made for pretty much all of the Beholder's other powers, and doesn't really advance the poitn of redesigning it.

Also, count me as one who isn't quite sure what function adding the barrage ability brings to the table.

 

[Sidekick]

Hmm I kinda like it. The flavour is somewhat missing, but like someone said this was a mechanical exercise more than a flavour one. The barrage is an interesting and neat idea, I just don't know if its a GOOD idea. Only playing it in a combat will really be able to tell. I also feel that the whole anti-magic thing is a bit too weak. I like the anti-spell casting idea, but it needs some form of dispel (as mentioned above).

Admittedly I don't typically use normal beholders for the glut of save-or-die rays.

Hmm anyone feel like running two combats, one against each Beholder version vs an appropriate leveled vanilla party of 4?

 

[Bagpuss]

I personally thought the whole point of he original beholders anti-magic eye was to give an area where the players were safe from all the other scary eye stalks.

 

[Soel]

I am quite happy with this version.

Barrage is a good mechanic that gives the beholder the logical response mechanism that a creature that sees in all directions should have. Well done in this regard.

I do think some of the other eye powers could stand another look (stone to flesh is one I would have kept in there.) I dig the anti-spellcasting ability as a dm, because its easier to handle.

 

[delericho]

I don't like it.

Firstly, I don't agree that facing is a big problem in the case of the Beholder, since it doesn't use shields, can move equally well in all directions, and is immune to flanking. So, while I can see the problems with flanking in the general case, I don't see why they're an issue here.

Secondly, while I generally dislike save-or-die effects, unless and until there's a new edition they are going to be a feature of high level games. And since the Beholder is a CR 13 creature, that places them amongst the high level foes. Therefore, I don't think an obsessive need to remove all such effects from the Beholder is warranted.

I also disagree with the assignment of Charm Monster (and perhaps Fear too) as a save-or-die effect. If the DM and players trust one another, I see no reason not to allow the player to continue to run his character while charmed. True, this will take monitoring by the DM, and perhaps an occasional (very occasional!) over-ruling of the player's choice of action, but I don't see why it shouldn't work. Also, I don't see how you can really run a successful high-level game without trust between DM and players.

However, there are some things I do agree with. The Beholder's anti-magic cone is a real pain. Likewise, the eye stalks do need some rethinking.

In fact, dealing with the anti-magic cone isn't perhaps as bad as is feared. Provided the DM has access to the character sheets, there is no reason he can't put together a set of stats for the character without magic. There are relatively few modifiers that can then apply to the characters at that point (rage, fatigue, a few others), which could be handled on the fly. Still, that requires the DM to do yet more prep work, and isn't a perfect solution in any case. I don't have a better solution, but I don't think Mearls' proposal is the way to go (from a 'it just feels wrong' perspective).

For the eye-stalks, I think the save DC is too low, especially if the Beholder also has to hit. I further think that Inflict Moderate Wounds should be replaced, probably with Inflict Serious or even Inflict Critical Wounds (it's not the flavour of the ability that's wrong - it's the damage done. So, increase it!). Charm Person is redundant if you have Charm Monster. And Finger of Death and Flesh to Stone should be replaced. In at least one case, I would go for Hold Monster, since although it does remove the PC from the game, it also allows a save each round, so isn't an all-or-nothing proposition (well, not quite). I'm not sure about the others - part of me wants to suggest Ray of Enfeeblement, but that's a spell that I've found particularly complex to apply on the fly.

 

[Gold Roger]

I like it and if my high level one shot gets going, I'll use it.

My first thought when reading the barrage was wtf. But after a quick second reading I've already got it memorized. It's extremely simple once you got behind the wonky text.

I think he learned from the Ogre Mage not to remove the flavorfull out of combat abilities.

I love the way the eyestalks work now. It seems effectively instead of ten different eyestalks, it now has two eyestalks of each type. While I think it's not completely ideal to remove the antimagic field and flesh to stone, I certainly understand and agree with why they where removed. Since these spells themself need to get overhauled a bit, I don't think we will see stone to flesh and antimagic free beholders in the next edition.

I don't like how the antimagic ray is pretty much just a wonky variant of SR.

All in all, I feel about like I feel about the redone Ogre Mage- all in all it's very well done, except for one detail (I didn't like limiting the Ogre Mages Invisibility per day).

 

[Henrix]

I like it, maybe except for the blast ray, that was a bit lacking in flavour. Keep the flavoour and make it a negative energy ray, perhaps?


The barrage ability is particulairly good! (But might need a bit more work and vareful wording.)

Often the party meets just one BBEG, like a beholder, and having two initiative counts available for different actions really make it interesting.

And it really fits the image of the beholder firing of rays all the time! Excellent!

 

[Jedi_Solo]

I will say I hesitantly like it.

His reasonings for the changes seemed good, which is the real point of the article anyway, so from that aspect the new version works.

I wasn't too sure about its ability to choose energy types of the rays until I saw that those would be the only five rays it got.

The barrage ability needs to be reworded slightly (if only to clean up just a tad more) but I like the idea of the rays just flying every-which-way throughout the entire combat round.

I would need to see it in action before I pass final judgement on it, but the orginal was wierd enough that it needed a makeover to make fit better inside the rule set.

 

[pawsplay]

Stinkeroni.

Barrage is a terrible idea. Why not just give it rays and movement in one turn?

And what's so hard about antimagic zone? you can pull the ubuffed modifers off a character sheet on the fly. AC = 10 + dex + size + armor + shield, right?

The new version is simply not beholder flavored.

 

[diaglo]

words of advice for Mike Mearls: Don't mess with the Happy Fun Ball.