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Memorable Beholder solo encounters?
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<blockquote data-quote="Quickleaf" data-source="post: 7515557" data-attributes="member: 20323"><p>[MENTION=12731]CapnZapp[/MENTION] I've honestly never run a beholder fight, only some roleplaying with one back in AD&D. Just looked over the encounter in ToA, and several things popped out. </p><p></p><p>The fight is heavily influenced by the party's access to magical flight & how much metal armor they wear. No metal armor and plentiful magical flight makes the fight a lot easier than presented.</p><p></p><p>A beholder favors a long-range fight with ~120-feet to work with, and ideally some kind of obstacles for PCs to overcome / slow them down in approaching the beholder. Yet Belchorzh only has 50-feet from the top of the domed room to PCs on the floor. The iron sphere magnet trap serves as a potent obstacle, though with an easy way to overcome it. Also, in the event it becomes an "aerial" fight, the risk of falling for 5d6 isn't too bad for 9th+ level PCs, so I'd be tempted to make the room larger (more on that below).</p><p></p><p>A beholder wants to include as many creatures within its Antimagic Cone. Yet Belchorzh has to make sure not to look at the iron sphere magnet trap, lest it dispel the sphere's magic. Given that constraint and the cone maths, it can only target roughly 1/4 of the floor below at a time with its Antimagic Cone. However, if most of the party are not restrained & are flying via <em>spells</em> or magic items to reach the beholder, it would certainly ignore that constraint (since the fight is no longer on the trapped ground) and target all creatures in the room with its Antimagic Cone.</p><p></p><p>The frictionless floor doesn't seem to have any real purpose - it doesn't seem to be an obstacle to PCs trying to reach the beholder floating above nor does it risking sending PCs sliding into a trap. This seems to be an opportunity to increase the challenge of the encounter – what if the alcoves contain a trap that PCs could inadvertently slide into. Maybe the candles fire a <em>magic missile</em> (dealing fire damage instead of force) at prone creatures entering an alcove?</p><p></p><p>Because creatures magnetized to the iron sphere are restrained (thus suffering disadvantage on Dex saves), Belchorzh would preferentially target these restrained creatures with Petrification, Disintegration, and Death Rays (targeting Dex). I imagine the way 5e beholders work is you'd randomly roll which eye rays gets it gets that turn, and then apply those to targets of your choosing.</p><p></p><p>What if the polished marble floor making the room appear to be a sphere is an illusion, and the room <em>actually is</em> a 100-foot-diameter sphere? This makes the frictionless floor more interesting, as PCs would slide to the bottom of the "basin" floor (good luck climbing out!), increasing the range to the beholder from 50-feet to 100-feet. From that bottom point, the iron sphere would serve as cover (+2 AC, +2 Dex) for any ranged attacks against the beholder. Since the beholder only has Save powers (and would focus its Dex-based eye rays on PCs restrained to the iron sphere), it would ignore the cover provided by the iron sphere. Furthermore, this increases the risk of falling if magical flight is negated by the Antimagic Cone to 10d6, and potentially trapping the creature at the bottom of the frictionless "basin" floor.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Quickleaf, post: 7515557, member: 20323"] [MENTION=12731]CapnZapp[/MENTION] I've honestly never run a beholder fight, only some roleplaying with one back in AD&D. Just looked over the encounter in ToA, and several things popped out. The fight is heavily influenced by the party's access to magical flight & how much metal armor they wear. No metal armor and plentiful magical flight makes the fight a lot easier than presented. A beholder favors a long-range fight with ~120-feet to work with, and ideally some kind of obstacles for PCs to overcome / slow them down in approaching the beholder. Yet Belchorzh only has 50-feet from the top of the domed room to PCs on the floor. The iron sphere magnet trap serves as a potent obstacle, though with an easy way to overcome it. Also, in the event it becomes an "aerial" fight, the risk of falling for 5d6 isn't too bad for 9th+ level PCs, so I'd be tempted to make the room larger (more on that below). A beholder wants to include as many creatures within its Antimagic Cone. Yet Belchorzh has to make sure not to look at the iron sphere magnet trap, lest it dispel the sphere's magic. Given that constraint and the cone maths, it can only target roughly 1/4 of the floor below at a time with its Antimagic Cone. However, if most of the party are not restrained & are flying via [I]spells[/I] or magic items to reach the beholder, it would certainly ignore that constraint (since the fight is no longer on the trapped ground) and target all creatures in the room with its Antimagic Cone. The frictionless floor doesn't seem to have any real purpose - it doesn't seem to be an obstacle to PCs trying to reach the beholder floating above nor does it risking sending PCs sliding into a trap. This seems to be an opportunity to increase the challenge of the encounter – what if the alcoves contain a trap that PCs could inadvertently slide into. Maybe the candles fire a [I]magic missile[/I] (dealing fire damage instead of force) at prone creatures entering an alcove? Because creatures magnetized to the iron sphere are restrained (thus suffering disadvantage on Dex saves), Belchorzh would preferentially target these restrained creatures with Petrification, Disintegration, and Death Rays (targeting Dex). I imagine the way 5e beholders work is you'd randomly roll which eye rays gets it gets that turn, and then apply those to targets of your choosing. What if the polished marble floor making the room appear to be a sphere is an illusion, and the room [I]actually is[/I] a 100-foot-diameter sphere? This makes the frictionless floor more interesting, as PCs would slide to the bottom of the "basin" floor (good luck climbing out!), increasing the range to the beholder from 50-feet to 100-feet. From that bottom point, the iron sphere would serve as cover (+2 AC, +2 Dex) for any ranged attacks against the beholder. Since the beholder only has Save powers (and would focus its Dex-based eye rays on PCs restrained to the iron sphere), it would ignore the cover provided by the iron sphere. Furthermore, this increases the risk of falling if magical flight is negated by the Antimagic Cone to 10d6, and potentially trapping the creature at the bottom of the frictionless "basin" floor. [/QUOTE]
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