D&D 4E Revised 4E Beholder Central Eye trademark power from old editions

[Daniel D. Fox]

I would like to start a series of posts addressing 'sacred cows" of old editions of Dungeons and Dragons and bring them full circle into 4th edition.

One of the most perplexing changes was how they handled the zone of dead magic around the beholder in 4E. As a huge fan favorite, they gutted the trademark power of the beholder entirely from 4E, and replaced it with an ability that is non-canonical to the breadth and feel of older edition's beholder.

Here is my suggestion for a replacement the Beholder Eye Tyrant. Constructive criticism welcome!

Central Eye (Minor, at-will)
Range 10; +22 vs Will; the target cannot use encounter powers
with the power source Arcane, Divine or Primal until the end of
the beholder’s next turn.

Furthermore, you can refine it even more as such for a limited use power that extends to daily powers:

Central Eye (Minor, encounter; recharge on 5 or 6)
Range 10; +22 vs Will; the target cannot use Encounter powers
with the power source Arcane, Divine or Primal (save ends). If
the target fails its first saving throw against this power, the
target cannot use Daily powers with the power source Arcane,
Divine or Primal (save ends).

Both applications of this power allows characters with Arcane, Divine or Primal power sources to utilize at-will powers, so it fits within the key conceits of 4E. Thoughts?

 

[eriktheguy]

when 4e removed the beholder's central eye power they did so in the name of balance. They also destroyed a trademark creature for a new generation. I'm surprised by your thread because even though you returned the beholders ability, you did so in a balanced way. This new power could probably play out in a 4e encounter without breaking the game, congratulations!

The attack that disables encounter and daily powers seems to allow the player to use dailies until they make a saving throw (i.e. making the saving throw penalizes the character by disabling their dailies). Should the power not prevent the use of encounter AND daily powers until the save is made, and then only prevent them from using daily powers until another save is made?

 

[Mentat55]

You might check out the new beholder that WotC previewed yesterday. It had an antimagic ability that allows it to ignore zones. Maybe you could have a central eye ability that dispels zones and conjurations?

 

[CapnZapp]

I don't buy the idea that martial is non-magical while everything else is.

That arcane and divine power is magical is a long-standing tenet in the game, sure, but Primal?

In fact, to buy this idea, I would like a variety of monsters that negate all the power sources (singly or in groups). Until that comes true, I simply see no "fun value" in shutting down some, but not all, characters in a party.

The value of 4th Edition lies much in shedding old baggage, really questioning the worth of sacred cows and having the guts to slaughter those that aren't worth their while.

You will have to work more on the first - and most important - question: why should there even be an ability like this?

Just saying "because there was one before" isn't good enough, not by itself.

 

[Starfox]

If you want to shut down magic, I say that's all powers sources but Martial. So you shut down all the as-yet undefined power sources as well. I've made a few rituals that work this way.

For the beholder, on the other hand, I think it could simply shut down daily powers and/or encounter powers of all kinds. Call it a power-disrupting ray, say that it breaks a character's connection to his/her inner power. No reason to exclude martial powers from this.

 

[BendBars/LiftGates]

Reason it however you like, but WotC books never make monsters that explicitly reference PC power sources.

Consider the advantage that this gives to Martial characters. Previously, part of the idea behind the power that a wizard could wield was that the game would periodically neutralize his spells. In 4e, the game assumes that all PCs are equally competent all the time.

 

[keterys]

Yeah, why not something like
Central Eye (minor 1/round at-will)
Close Blast 5 (10 for the high epic ones); +Level + 2 vs. Will; target may not use daily powers or take the sustain action (save ends).

Pretty notable effect for everyone, and the sustain does affect casting types a lot more than melee, but in a pretty fair way. It changes your tactics around the beholder to account for it disrupting your plans without it just nerfing things into the ground.

 

[Eric Finley]

Or, similar to Keterys' suggestion, make it theoretically neutral by targeting Area or Ranged attacks without the weapon keyword.

Or, even more amusingly, tweak it to another canonical aspect of magic... "Target may not benefit from enhancement bonuses or use powers or properties on magical items until X." I like that - still terrifying but class-neutral.

Third option, of course, would be to use a variant of the OP's suggestion but then tweak beholders in other ways which give it a different form of nastiness versus exploits - maybe one of the eyes (some of the new ones are pretty redundant) burn off unused exploits on a first failed save, or inflict attack penalties on martial characters only, or whatever. My inclination would be to do some kind of confusion effect which lets it dictate your next standard action (save ends), where it is allowed to dictate basic attacks or at-will martial exploits; on the first failed save it can attempt the attack again to also dictate encounter exploits, and on the second it can do so again to dictate use of a daily exploit (after which the effect ends).

Oh, and, lastly... if you really want a true simulation of the beholder's old central eye, try this:

Central Eye (Conjuration, Zone)
Each beholder has two associated gaze border markers. At the end of each of the beholder's actions, move each marker into a space which is six squares from both the beholder's space and the other gaze border. They may coexist in this square with any creature or object, even solid rock - treat them as conjurations with phasing. Each time the beholder moves or is moved in any direction, the gaze borders move by the same amount; the borders may not be moved directly. If the triangle marked by the beholder and the two gaze borders includes any part of a character's square, and the beholder has LOS and LOE to that character, then that character may not use Ranged or Area attacks with the implement keyword, may not use magical item powers or properties, nor benefit from enhancement bonuses regardless of the source.

This last one is of course very powerful, especially in combination with the control-exploits one above it, but beholders ought to be nasty. That's the point.