LurkMonkey
First Post
They have actually made their own version, named the coeurl after A.E. Van Vogt's creature. The stats can be found in their Adventure Path #22, The 'End of Eternity'
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Pathfinder 1E Pathfinder beholder
- Thread starter JRRNeiklot
- Start date
They have actually made their own version, named the coeurl after A.E. Van Vogt's creature. The stats can be found in their Adventure Path #22, The 'End of Eternity'
Alzrius
The EN World kitten
I'm not totally sure, but the coeurl seems to be closed content. Look at the bottom of the credits page from #22, and they list the copyrights for the works the creature appeared in, and thank the Ashley Grayson Literary Agency for permission to use it.
freyar
Extradimensional Explorer
I recall that one as being singled out as closed content, too.
Walking Dad
First Post
I would really like to see a 'pathfinderized' version of this beholder:
Design & Development: Monster Makeover: The Beholder
Design & Development: Monster Makeover: The Beholder
LurkMonkey
First Post
Yeah, it doesn't look like you could use it for anything publishable. I was just pointing out that they had done a remake of the 'displacer beast.' Although it is closed content the stats are useful if someone was looking for a Pathfinderized 'displacer beast' for their home game.
I think it would be a good idea for you to read the whole thread. Your take on beholder has several issues, which may have been absent otherwise:
- glass cannon - the beholder dies during the first round. It dies accomplishing nothing if it loses initiative within charge distance of a barbarian or fighter (low hitpoints). It dies (or is removed from combat) without doing anything if it loses initiative to a wizard with save or die spell due to abysmal arcane defenses.
- Baleful Eye (Su) features autopass DC (meaning - any spellcaster will ignore the DC). Additionally, the DC is calculated incorrectly as ability based DC goes as follows: 10 + 1/2 HD + ability bonus.
In this case base DC should be equal to 10 + 6 + 3 (=19), with +4 racial bonus: 23.
13th level Wizard is likely to have +7 intelligence bonus, with total modifier to spellcaster check being equal to +20.
Unfortunately, spell DC formula does not work for concentration checks, as spell DC is compared to D20 + base save + ability bonus, while concentration check replaces "base save" with level, which is usually around double of "base save".
IMHO, you should leave it as antimagic cone. It's simpler, involves fewer rolls and spellcasters are still free to walk away.
- Eye Rays (Su) should be more concise and clear. The number of rays should be listed in both creature statblock and defintion of ability. The names of the rays are confusing (Stun ray doing Charm Person, for example).
- Telekinesis Ray - just replace it with a Bull Rush ray, copy Black Tentacles mechanic and replace Black Tentacles effect with Bull Rush maneuver directed as per Beholder's whim.
- while we're at this, Beholder should use Charisma as its base spellcasting ability (it's not mandatory, but default monster building assumes Sorcerer as a base arcane class for monster abilities), and caster level should be listed in appropriate section of statblock.
- Sustained Barrage conflicts with action rules of D20. If you really want the creature to act multiple times per turn, you have immediate actions for this, and all you need to do is to state something like:
Sustained Barrage (Ex): Glaring Tyrant may, as an immediate action, fire an eye ray. It cannot use an eye ray it has already used during this round.
Regards,
Ruemere
One fix for this is to give the beholder the recommended number of hit dice (19 vs. 11). By default, this would make its caster level 19, and its effects based on caster level fairly insane (disintegrate damage would become 38d6, for example). So, cranking the HD would probably need to be accompanied by an arbitrary drop in caster level. That's doable, though a bit arbitrary.
Also, your adjustment for sustained barrage actually does a bit to solve this problem as well, as an immediate action allows the beholder to stop (at least one) charging barbarian, or what have you.
I must have copied that DC right out of the makeover text and never checked it.
Even so, some of your analysis is a bit off because caster level checks don't add ability modifiers in Pathfinder.
One of the points of the "makeover" is to eliminate the totally stupid notion that the anti-magic field shuts down all of the beholder's abilities. So, just restoring this ability to use an antimagic field doesn't cut it.
I suppose you could just add an exemption that "this particular antimagic does not affect the rays, so, nyah!", but this is equally questionable.
It occurs to me that the way Mike originally wrote this ability behaves almost like just giving the beholder spell resistance would. Solution might be in there somewhere.
Easier to use in combat, but makes the beholder nearly useless out of combat. "Let's see, the fragile object I need is behind this closed cabinet door. I guess I will use my Bull Rush ray and then... uh... glare at it."
Easily done.
The immediate action makes this ability a bit weaker (only one immediate action per round, rather than the two rays of the original version), but it adds some extra utility as well, so is probably a good idea.
38d6 means 133 hitpoints on average at DC23 (or near that).
Average Fighter 13th level is likely to have 102 hitpoints. My players at 13th level are somewhat privileged to exceed 160 in this regard (16 to 20 CON), with Paladin being over 200 and Barbarian closing on Paladin during rage.
The chance of either failing Fortitude roll is slim though.
And if they do, and die, there is a cleric with Last Breath in the vicinity.
It will not work as well as it should. Spoken from experience.
You're right, I have confused caster level check with concentration check. It's still too inefficient.
Well, it was a canon for Beholders to be somewhat handicapped by their antimagic gaze.
Mage hand. Just grant the spell to Beholder as at-will.
Regards,
Ruemere
Even so, I'm keeping it at 13th level casting. Doing 91hp twice each round (and then blasting for a bit twice more) will have to do.
With 19HD (and a +4 Charisma bonus from a charisma bump), the DC becomes DC 27. A 13th level caster will make that 35% of the time. That doesn't shut them down as much as as anti-magic would, but it also isn't shutting down the beholder at all.
Yes, it was; however being canon is not the point of this exercise. Someone asked for a Pathfinder-ized version of Mike Mearl's "makeover" version of the beholder. That's what I'm building. If you want a canonical conversion, there are a number of other Pathfinder versions mentioned earlier in this thread.
I have revised my page to contain these new changes. I'll test it out pretty soon, as my party will run into one of these things shortly. As this party has six 10th level characters (APL=11), a single CR 13 beastie should be "Hard" for them (CR=APL+2). We'll see.
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