MV Beholder

[Riastlin]

A few questions on the new beholder for those in the know and those who've run them.

1. The Triggered ability (at the start of each PC's turn) specifies that its a random ray attack, but what about the actual ray attacks on the beholder's turn? Are they random or does it choose? My reading is that it can choose, but wanted to make sure.

2. Anybody run this yet? I know PCat ran a reskinned version of it (which sounded exceedingly awesome) but I'm looking for any thoughts on this. It definitely seems to address a lot of the problems that solos have had since the start of 4ed, but I want to see if there are any problems I should be concerned about. I'm planning on levelling it up to throw it at my level 11 party. Obviously the modifiers and damage would need to be adjusted slightly but any other concerns? I plan to change the central eye to only eliminate dailies since an at will fest is not all that appealing.

3. Can it stand up on its own to 5 PCs? Or do I still need to give him some minions? The other potential problem here is my thought was to run him in a fairly tight space meaning he will likely get his triggered attack off on most PCs most rounds (or at least every other round for ranged attackers). Will this be too powerful for the beholder? Will this make up for not having extra monsters helping him? (There may be a 6th PC present for the fight). Will I even need to adjust the damage if I adjust the to hit bonuses?

Thanks in advance, I really want this to be an awesome fight that helps showcase how far the PCs have come now that they are Paragons. Their characters were grumbling that nobody had done anything about the beholder yet (long story) and I wanted to show them why the PCs were needed to clear him out.

 

[RangerWickett]

Yeah, on its turn it chooses which eyes to use.

I ran the old school beholder way back when 4e first game out, and it got defendered to death, after someone hit it with something to give it -5 to all attacks.

Beware of defenders. And because WotC still hasn't figured this out, solos are stupidly vulnerable to conditions. If you do use it as an actual solo, it needs a way to end conditions on it.

I'd recommend something like, it can spend a minor action to use its central eye to negate all conditions on itself (even things that don't allow saves, like being marked). Like, normally it emits a cone of power with its central eye to weaken others' abilities, but if it rolls its eye into the back of its head and looks inward, it frees itself from conditions.

I'd also keep the central eye power as is. Solos need all the help they can get. The party will just approach from multiple sides, and the blast won't hit all the time.

Give it some sort of high ground. Like if the battle area is vaguely circular, make one side have a high cliff, with ramps leading up around the edge of the area. At the front of the cliff, have some sort of small spire that the beholder can use to hide from ranged attacks. It can then use its terror and telekinesis rays to make people jump off the cliff, slow to keep melee guys from closing on him, and blindness to fend off ranged combatants.

And it's always a good idea with solos to have some 'second stage' planned for the combat. Maybe once the beholder is bloodied, its central eye falls out, rolls down the hill, and starts firing off random 'eye ray attacks' that hit everyone in close burst 5. The beholder can use its telekinesis ray to throw the eye around the room, which forces players who've figured out a good tactic to change gears. And the PCs can try pushing the beholder near its own eye so it hurts itself.

If you want to mix things up a bit for extra fun, make it so that whenever someone crits it, they roll a random eye to disable. Before the creature's bloodied, the eye is just out of commission for a round. After it's bloodied, a crit actually destroys the eye.

 

[Riastlin]

Good point about the conditions, that might not be a bad way to modify the central eye. That way, even leaving in the encounter power take away, its evened out by allowing the beholder to use the eye on himself instead of on the party.

Marks are certainly a concern though one of the two defenders is a swordmage so at least it would only prevent damage rather than causing damage and on top of that, the prevent is an immediate action. Don't recall off the top of my head if the pally mark is immediate or not (though obviously the -2 sticks regardless). I was hoping that making it a level 12 or 13 solo against the level 11 party would help to compensate for the -2 at least.

As for the terrain, the plan is that they are actually fighting the beholder in its tower (aberrant forces have invaded and occupied the region). One thought I had was to give the beholder phasing, showing that he's still partially tied to the Far Realm (or rather that he hasn't fully crossed over). That combined with 30' ceilings should hopefully give him some maneuverability and make for a more dynamic fight. The problem of course is if the fight goes up to the top of the tower. A fall from there likely kills the PC in question.

I guess at the very least I will include some minions or perhaps even a couple of standard critters of a level or two below, plus adding the central eye power to allow the beholder to remove a condition on him. I just wasn't sure how much help the new beholder would need. It still has 8 attacks + the central eye per round against a party of 6 (my normal though one player may miss the next session).

Another thought would be to leave central eye as is, but give the beholder a trait that lets it make a saving throw at the start of its turn as a free action (including against stun). Any other ideas?

 

[Daern]

a beholder eye rolling around the battlefield causing havoc is an awesome idea. The players will never expect it!

 

[Riastlin]

Well, finally got to run the encounter yesterday. Took a little longer to get to since the party got bogged down a bit in a previous fight.

Anyway, I leveled the beholder up to level 12 and adjusted the damage to match. I modified the beholder to allow it to make a free action (as a triggered action) to roll a save against any status effect other than a mark, quarry, etc. whenever said effect was applied. Additionally, I allowed the central eye attack to have an alternate usage to allow the beholder to remove one status effect (again other than a mark/quarry/etc.). My main reason for allowing those effects to remain was that I didn't want to mess too much with basic class features and potentially make a character feel useless.

In addition to this, I gave the beholder the ability to gain phasing on a recharge since this was taking place in its tower, with each floor being 7 x 7 and 30 feet high. I was looking for a way to give the beholder some mobility to spread the party out, etc. Finally, I decided that part of the beholder's inherent insanity was that it desperately wanted to be a mother. As a result, it had experimented on the previous parties and soldiers that had been sent to kill it and was able to use them to essentially hatch baby beholders with vaguely humanoid features. By the time the party reached it, the beholder had created dozens of tiny baby beholders that formed into a level 12 swarm to help in the fight.

The fight ended up being really fun I think. It still lasted close to 2 and a half hours due to tactical discussions and the like, but it never really felt like it was dragging or a grind. The pally missed the session so the swordmage had her mark on it the entire encounter, but still took plenty of damage and the rest of the party took plenty as well. The ranger ended at about 15 hit points and no surges left (having spent 3 in the encounter) while the sentinel was also out of surges and had no healing left.

The party had to use tactics pretty carefully, including taking several actions to make heal checks to allow saving throws. Both the sword mage and the ranger had times where they failed the first save on the Death Ray and the sentinel spent several rounds petrified. The fight ended up on the roof and twice the ranger had to save to keep from falling (and was successful both times even without needed the bonus added by the crenallations). By the end of the fight (the 4th of the day), just about everyone had been bloodied at some point and as stated two characters were without surges. The funny thing was that it never had to use its free save action or its central eye on itself. Only once was a status effect placed on it (and I forgot the save that time) but it only lasted a round.

All in all it played out really well. The players seemed to have fun and while they were grumbling about all the attacks it got, they were only half-hearted grumbles. I have to say that this was a pretty dang successful solo. I would still leave in the status effect saves and central eye variant, but otherwise, this is a really solid solo imho.