Mearls Monster Makeover: Beholder

[diaglo]

And this despite the fact that I really have to agree that the beholder is not my favorite creature. But when it comes down to it, when I do use beholders, I use them for one reason: to frighten players. Players KNOW that beholders have death effects. So it's one creature I can drop into the game when I want to produce an authentic fear reaction. If I castrate the beholder's death effects, I lose that.

here is an example: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=108218

and this is with 3.11ed for Workgroups

 

[Gold Roger]

Eh... I don't follow his logic on the facing thing. Have to institute spot modifiers? For facing? No, you really don't. A beholder is a creature with eyes facing all directions, so it doesn't need to turn its "head" quickly or anything... on could easily conclude that the beholder could only rotate slowly, thus confining facing considerations to such a creature. No need to extrapolate this to all creatures.

It seems to me like Mearls is falling into a trap I usually associate with, to be frank, ENWorld... that is, when one could make assumptions, making ones that fight against the existing ruleset rather than equally fair assumptions that support it. Yeah, sometimes this can be good for generating campaign ideas, but when it just results in rules instability, it's time to stop, back up, and make the assumption that supports the existing rules.

I think the gripe with facing on the beholder is that facing has been removed from the whole game has kept stuck with one monster, which is quite stupid. You can't say "combatant positioning is an abstract that doesn't indicate where exactly they are facing-the game asumes that characters in combat are constantly moving at least slightly and looking around" and then add "Here you have a monster whose mechanics rely entirely on where it is looking".

 

[BryonD]

What about flying and manueverability?

(Edit: Its just one more reason to get rid of "no facing")

 

[Psion]

I think the gripe with facing on the beholder is that facing has been removed from the whole game has kept stuck with one monster, which is quite stupid. You can't say "combatant positioning is an abstract that doesn't indicate where exactly they are facing-the game asumes that characters in combat are constantly moving at least slightly and looking around" and then add "Here you have a monster whose mechanics rely entirely on where it is looking".

Why is this stupid now? Just because you mock it?

 

[GreatLemur]

Charm Person is redundant if you have Charm Monster.

Yeah. That always drove me nuts, personally.

 

[Gold Roger]

Also a good point that the article seems to miss out on.
Not everything is a bag of HP and stats for a single combat. Sometimes there is actually a PLOT going on....

Where'd that come from?

Sorry, I find this argument silly. Because something has stats that are actually workable and well designed, the game has suddenly become a plotless hackfest?

Wanna frighten a group with a Beholder-set them against it at a lower level.

What about flying and manueverability?

(Edit: Its just one more reason to get rid of "no facing")

It is, in fact, another reason to get entirely rid of facing. I don't see why we need more than three maneuverabilities-can change only straight line/round, can change direction while moving 1/round, may fly however the heck it wants.

 

[Gold Roger]

Why is this stupid now? Just because you mock it?

Because it's completely inconsistent. I have no reason to mock facing, but a game that removes it, has to do so consequently and completely.

 

[Psion]

Because it's completely inconsistent. I have no reason to mock facing, but a game that removes it, has to do so consequently and completely.

The solution then, to allow for all possibilities in a fantasy world, would be to have facing.

And a dozen other painfully specific tracking mechanisms. Thus overcomplicating the game. That's not a good solution.

If you only have a few cases where a certain mechanic is needed, I hold you are better off focussing the detail where you need it. You can go too far with the "consistency" philosophy.

 

[Klaus]

The barrage ability really doesn't seem to make much sense. Rather than that, I'd like to see some form of special area attack which the Beholder can use in place of its individual rays, by firing all eyestalks at once. Something powerful enough to be worth giving up ten ray attacks, but that it wouldn't just use every round (or maybe give it a recovery time, like dragonbreath). How about:

Arcane Barrage (Su): As a full-round action, a Beholder may unleash a simultaneous barrage of arcane energy from all of its eyestalks at once. This ability blasts a 60-foot cone with disruptive energies. Creatures caught in the area suffer 10d6 force damage and are dazed for 1d3 rounds. A successful Reflex save halves the damage and negates the dazing effect. After unleashing this barrage, the beholder requires 1d4 rounds to recover its arcane energies before using the ability again, though it can continue to use its eye-rays as normal.​

The damage could probably be bumped up to 10d8, but I'm being conservative.

I also agree with the suggestion to give the beholder a targeted dispel magic as an eye-ray.

YOINK!

Me likey!

 

[Henry]

I thought some of the design ideas were interesting, but some seem kind of complicated. (The barrage thing and the multiple initiative turns, for one. When using initi cards as I do, that one would be too problematic for me.) I did like the simplification of Anti-magic ray, and the idea of using more than one type of eye ray from each stalk. Instead of the eye rays being inherent to each stalk, this version is like a "magic firehose" who spurts different effects each round from each nozzle, depending on setting.

Is anyone besides me reminded of a car wash where different soaps and waxes are available out of the hose based on dial position?