When they use their eye rays the rules say roll randomly. Is this because the Beholder doesn't have control of its eyes?
How do you play your beholders? Do you roll randomly or choose which ray to use to make the encounter more dramatic? Use the eye rays to change the environment?
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"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
Some of the eye rays are much more lethal than others. If the DM had control of which eye rays to use, the CR would have to be increased significantly.
When they use their eye rays the rules say roll randomly. Is this because the Beholder doesn't have control of its eyes?
Given that the beholder can still choose who it uses the eye on, that doesn't seem likely. It's probably to make sure a beholder fight is likely to involve all of its eyes, not just a small number of efficient ones. You could accomplish the same thing by having eyes go on cooldown after use but that would add a lot of extra tracking.
Given that the beholder can still choose who it uses the eye on, that doesn't seem likely.
It seems perfectly reasonable that a creature might have control over the target of the spell but not have control over which specific spell was emitted. It's certainly not the least believable feature of a Beholder.
Given that the beholder can still choose who it uses the eye on, that doesn't seem likely.
It seems perfectly reasonable that a creature might have control over the target of the spell but not have control over which specific spell was emitted. It's certainly not the least believable feature of a Beholder.
Each power is associated with a specific eye; in previous editions you could actually target specific eye stalks.
The rule is entirely to keep DM's from spamming the death ray. Only 3 of the rays actually cause damage so out of 8 statistically 1 should always be dealing damage when you attack on your turn, and if you use legendary actions 2 per round should statistically deal damage. That said I've had all deal damage and none of them deal damage before (I like running Beholders) .
Beholders have supernatural intelligence, so I run them as smart enough to assess the general makeup of your party and take educated guesses as to which PCs are best to target with each eye ray. It's also reasonable to expect that it's smart enough to understand racial differences (i.e. it's probably smart enough to know not to use its charm ray on an Elf, regardless of class), although it also might be arrogant enough to not care.
In practice, when I run beholders I jot down a quick list of each ray and save, and write down the PCs with the lowest bonuses to each saving throw in increasing order next to the ray's name. I still roll the rays at random, starting each ray on the PC most likely to fail. If they make the first saving throw, move on to the next PC on the list. If they fail that first saving throw I'll hammer that PC with the same ray whenever it comes up until they save, at which point I'll switch to the next PC on the list.
The only major exception I make to this strategy is in the scenario that one PC is clearly established as the source of danger. If a one character clearly represents the greatest threat then the beholder would probably turn the majority of its attention to that threat, even if the save percentage for the PC goes up.
This does not really add much to the discussion, but I ran my guys up against a Beholder Zombie (int = 3) last session. I had the players roll who got targeted, and what rays were used, and I also had them roll for the damage. Now, a full on Beholder would indeed assess which target is the easiest to kill, or the greatest threat, but the attack from the randomized eyes is indeed, just that. Have the players roll a D12 three times (with any necessary re-rolls), AFTER the DM CHOOSES the target(s).
Given the Intelligence of a true Beholder, it would most certainly focus fire, unless the target dies or is incapacitated in some manner, before all 3 rays are used.
Oh, and if the Beholder is played properly, expect at least one char to die, if the chars are less than 9th or 10th level, unless they do really well in the Initiative.
Beholders have supernatural intelligence, so I run them as smart enough to assess the general makeup of your party based and take educated guesses as to which PCs are best to target with each eye ray. It's also reasonable to expect that it's smart enough to understand racial differences (i.e. it's probably smart enough to know not to use its charm ray on an Elf, regardless of class), although it also might be arrogant enough to not care.
In practice, when I run beholders I jot down a quick list of each ray and save, and write down the PC's with the lowest bonuses to each saving throw in increasing order next to the ray's name. I still roll the rays at random, starting each ray on the PC most likely to fail. If they make the first saving throw, move on to the next PC on the list. If they fail that first saving throw I'll hammer that PC with the same ray whenever it comes up until they save, at which point I'll switch to the next PC on the list.
The only major exception I make to this strategy is in the scenario that one PC is clearly established as the source of danger. If a one character clearly represents the greatest threat than the beholder would probably turn the majority of it's attention to that threat, even if the save percentage for the PC goes up.
Stolen. Thank you for making my players' final boss fight even harder.
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Formerly Devan Avalon.
Trying to get your physical content on Beyond is like going to Microsoft and saying "I have a physical Playstation disk, give me a digital Xbox version!"
Beholders are supernaturally intelligent, it's true. But they're also nuttier than a walnut orchard, so them using their eye rays in what seems like a random pattern (but from their perspective makes perfect sense) is justified.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Beholders are supernaturally intelligent, it's true. But they're also nuttier than a walnut orchard, so them using their eye rays in what seems like a random pattern (but from their perspective makes perfect sense) is justified.
True, but they can do risk assessment, and focus on a target.
Of course, which is why they're allowed to target enemies of their choice instead of randomly rolling to see which available foe they target each round.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
I had a special run with my old group which was 4ppl. I brought in my gf, her daughter, her son and one the players wife. So we had a 8 person table. It was against a beholder.
They were all level 7iirc and it was by far one of the most fun fights we ever had.
I rolled in the eyes to make them random and took away disintegrate to be fair. I rolled on the charm ray so many times that I almost had the whole party charmed. But the tide turned in their favor and they won with no player deaths.
It was just fun. It would not have gone that way if I choose which eyes to use. Random is fun. Take that away and it can ruin the experience.
That rule is stupid. Beholders are considered to be geniuses. The pretty much can see in all directions and can still see you even when they are sleeping.
Properly played a Beholder has the capability of destroying most anyone in their path. Typically a beholder will analyze the party and have its minions attack in mass and if it does not retreat to watch it will go instantly for the strongest. Often leading with disintegration or anti magic
That rule is stupid. Beholders are considered to be geniuses. The pretty much can see in all directions and can still see you even when they are sleeping.
Properly played a Beholder has the capability of destroying most anyone in their path. Typically a beholder will analyze the party and have its minions attack in mass and if it does not retreat to watch it will go instantly for the strongest. Often leading with disintegration or anti magic
You're correct. But playing a beholder against weaker players and simply destroying them into a tpk is no fun.
While I hold to the fact that the general idea of D&D is to challenge the players, I also want people to have fun and be challenged at the same time.
So, I tend to randomly roll who gets attacked by what. Sometimes, that leads to excessively bad luck on a certain player's part, but I do make it obvious that I randomly choosing that player, whether it's from a Kobold ambush or a Beholder eyestalk.
That being said, I do randomly (and in my own mind) add a modifier to my "random" attack rolls towards munchkins. Cause karma.
So when beholders are born do they only have 1 eye stalk and as they grow up get another per CR level or some such?
No, beholders are "born" fully grown, poofed into existence via another beholder's dream because they warp reality
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Formerly Devan Avalon.
Trying to get your physical content on Beyond is like going to Microsoft and saying "I have a physical Playstation disk, give me a digital Xbox version!"
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When they use their eye rays the rules say roll randomly. Is this because the Beholder doesn't have control of its eyes?
How do you play your beholders? Do you roll randomly or choose which ray to use to make the encounter more dramatic? Use the eye rays to change the environment?
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
Some of the eye rays are much more lethal than others. If the DM had control of which eye rays to use, the CR would have to be increased significantly.
Given that the beholder can still choose who it uses the eye on, that doesn't seem likely. It's probably to make sure a beholder fight is likely to involve all of its eyes, not just a small number of efficient ones. You could accomplish the same thing by having eyes go on cooldown after use but that would add a lot of extra tracking.
It seems perfectly reasonable that a creature might have control over the target of the spell but not have control over which specific spell was emitted. It's certainly not the least believable feature of a Beholder.
Each power is associated with a specific eye; in previous editions you could actually target specific eye stalks.
The rule is entirely to keep DM's from spamming the death ray. Only 3 of the rays actually cause damage so out of 8 statistically 1 should always be dealing damage when you attack on your turn, and if you use legendary actions 2 per round should statistically deal damage. That said I've had all deal damage and none of them deal damage before (I like running Beholders) .
Beholders have supernatural intelligence, so I run them as smart enough to assess the general makeup of your party and take educated guesses as to which PCs are best to target with each eye ray. It's also reasonable to expect that it's smart enough to understand racial differences (i.e. it's probably smart enough to know not to use its charm ray on an Elf, regardless of class), although it also might be arrogant enough to not care.
In practice, when I run beholders I jot down a quick list of each ray and save, and write down the PCs with the lowest bonuses to each saving throw in increasing order next to the ray's name. I still roll the rays at random, starting each ray on the PC most likely to fail. If they make the first saving throw, move on to the next PC on the list. If they fail that first saving throw I'll hammer that PC with the same ray whenever it comes up until they save, at which point I'll switch to the next PC on the list.
The only major exception I make to this strategy is in the scenario that one PC is clearly established as the source of danger. If a one character clearly represents the greatest threat then the beholder would probably turn the majority of its attention to that threat, even if the save percentage for the PC goes up.
"To die would be an awfully big adventure"
This does not really add much to the discussion, but I ran my guys up against a Beholder Zombie (int = 3) last session. I had the players roll who got targeted, and what rays were used, and I also had them roll for the damage. Now, a full on Beholder would indeed assess which target is the easiest to kill, or the greatest threat, but the attack from the randomized eyes is indeed, just that. Have the players roll a D12 three times (with any necessary re-rolls), AFTER the DM CHOOSES the target(s).
Given the Intelligence of a true Beholder, it would most certainly focus fire, unless the target dies or is incapacitated in some manner, before all 3 rays are used.
Oh, and if the Beholder is played properly, expect at least one char to die, if the chars are less than 9th or 10th level, unless they do really well in the Initiative.
Stolen. Thank you for making my players' final boss fight even harder.
Formerly Devan Avalon.
Trying to get your physical content on Beyond is like going to Microsoft and saying "I have a physical Playstation disk, give me a digital Xbox version!"
Beholders are supernaturally intelligent, it's true. But they're also nuttier than a walnut orchard, so them using their eye rays in what seems like a random pattern (but from their perspective makes perfect sense) is justified.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
True, but they can do risk assessment, and focus on a target.
Of course, which is why they're allowed to target enemies of their choice instead of randomly rolling to see which available foe they target each round.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
I had a special run with my old group which was 4ppl. I brought in my gf, her daughter, her son and one the players wife. So we had a 8 person table. It was against a beholder.
They were all level 7iirc and it was by far one of the most fun fights we ever had.
I rolled in the eyes to make them random and took away disintegrate to be fair. I rolled on the charm ray so many times that I almost had the whole party charmed. But the tide turned in their favor and they won with no player deaths.
It was just fun. It would not have gone that way if I choose which eyes to use. Random is fun. Take that away and it can ruin the experience.
All interesting suggestions.
Do your beholders have specific powers from specific eyes or do the eyes act together to generate a random effect?
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
That rule is stupid. Beholders are considered to be geniuses. The pretty much can see in all directions and can still see you even when they are sleeping.
Properly played a Beholder has the capability of destroying most anyone in their path. Typically a beholder will analyze the party and have its minions attack in mass and if it does not retreat to watch it will go instantly for the strongest. Often leading with disintegration or anti magic
You're correct. But playing a beholder against weaker players and simply destroying them into a tpk is no fun.
While I hold to the fact that the general idea of D&D is to challenge the players, I also want people to have fun and be challenged at the same time.
So, I tend to randomly roll who gets attacked by what. Sometimes, that leads to excessively bad luck on a certain player's part, but I do make it obvious that I randomly choosing that player, whether it's from a Kobold ambush or a Beholder eyestalk.
That being said, I do randomly (and in my own mind) add a modifier to my "random" attack rolls towards munchkins. Cause karma.
So when beholders are born do they only have 1 eye stalk and as they grow up get another per CR level or some such?
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
No, beholders are "born" fully grown, poofed into existence via another beholder's dream because they warp reality
Formerly Devan Avalon.
Trying to get your physical content on Beyond is like going to Microsoft and saying "I have a physical Playstation disk, give me a digital Xbox version!"