I'm currently working on the next dungeon for my campaign and I think it would be cool if a beholder zombie is the final boss of it (would also fit the story so far and maybe the players would clue in on some plot).
But i'm concerned about the beholder zombie's disintegration ray, the party is level 4 and at that level 10d8 damage is pretty much save or die, which i'm not a fan of.
Does anybody have experience running a beholder zombie? Maybe i should just lower the damage.
You could lower the DC of his rays or reduce the damage. I used a Zombie Beholder against a Level 5 Party, and I rolled the Dis Ray 3 times. They made their save, but in every case they would have been killed instantly. Or change the Rays he has. Some of the eyestalks are gone.
It's ultimately up to you if it kills them. You could DM it all normally and, in the worst case, if it reduces them to 0 hp, just say it reduces them to 0 hp and start making death saving throws. You don't even have to clarify or say that it is a disintegration effect.
That being said, you might be surprised how well a party can handle this: A) Players will be upset at losing a character, but they might soon think that it was a cool way to go out and get excited for a new character B) Players often have spells and items in store that you might have forgotten about - things that will help them revive said character
Story can also play into it, especially if the player is up to it: have a powerful NPC ask for a powerful item in exchange for resurrecting the party. Or have them need to go on a quest. The player can play a different NPC in the meantime - this being what they would have to be ok with. I've done this before, and it has always ended up that the player simply wants to play a new character in the end.
Which is the last point - ask your players ahead, in private, how they feel about their characters dying. If it's something epic like against a beholder, they might be ok with it! Don't keep the players too safe - they want to know that there are real consequences because it keeps the tension of the game real.
I have used beholder zombies twice. Though both times the parties were level 5 and up. In both situations the thing was destroyed before it even did any damage haha.
But I would suggest be mindful of who you target with it and consider maybe dropping and item to help them deal with that ray. The problem beam is a DC 15 dex save from memory. A more dexy character would have less issues with that. For items something like a scroll of death ward or something could be useful. Just an item that allows someone to go to 1hp instead of 0. Gives you a save target but makes the player crap themselves thinking about what would have happened if they hadn't picked it up.
We as a group have talked about a character dying and everybody was fine with it happening. I just feel it would not be fun if someone just gets disintegrated because of one failed saving throw... I also don't want to make the disintegrate ray not disintegrate, i have one experienced player in the group and i don't want her to think i'm pulling punches, because that would diminish the victory.
Maybe i just not use the disintegrate eye and just go with the other 3, but then i should maybe add some minions to the fight, otherwise the beholder zombie will just die, like TheHumanJester said.
I ran this against 4 level 6 PCs, but amped it up by giving it 2 legendary action eye rays. It also had a lair action (some light bludgeoning damage from tentacles that would pop up through the ground), and it could spawn zombies and make them explode.
It could have gone either way, but I think I rolled the disintegration ray 4 times and never got a hit. The enervation ray was more damaging. Only 1 PC went unconscious, right near the end of the fight. During prep, it seemed like a swingy fight, and I was prepared to have PCs die.
Party composition: Moon Druid, Eloquence Bard, Glory Paladin, Scribes Wizard. The party was probably at 80% resources when the fight started. At the end, the bard was down to 3 spell slots and no inspirations. The paladin had one spell slot and 10 lay on hands. The druid used both wild shapes and had 6 slots left Wizard had no slots, no manifest mind slots, and was the one who went unconscious. At the end of the fight, everybody else's hp was in decent shape. (Moon druid, of course, had full health lol. They were a giant elk nearly the whole fight.) The party also got a break halfway through the fight with a lovely Aura of Vitality, because one of the PCs opened an eversmoking bottle, which caused the beholder to retreat until (after the PC re-corked it) the smoke dissipated. (The fight was in a cave.)
Let's just say, ouch. So as a sub-dungeon, my own tangential story in CoStrahd, we had this dungeon that lead to an undead area. There was a miniboss fight at the end, and I envisioned a couple of things, but the Beholder-zombie was definitely the main course... as denoted by the foreshadowing symbol on the final door, described as "What looks like a cyclops skull sitting on a bed of snakes or something, hard to make out"... yeah, that's our beholder zombie, heh.
The minibosses were:
Wight as the brains of the outfit, sort of the boss (buffed up a tiny bit, dark energy bow).
Skeletal Equiceph, we love the look on the mini (sort of using the 5e skeletal minotaur stats, but 10 ft range, and 2d6+4 dmg).
Skeletal Minotaur, had the mini, wanted it to feel like variety, 4 different champions, let's go.
Beholder Zombie is the real treat, I mean threat, here. ;)
A little Background: My kid is running the 4 characters of the party, and I'll refer to the kid as "the kid/Kid".
Kid gets a peak of what's in there, roll init. The Wight says "we've been expecting you". The barbarian (as the kid has been not challenged enough) feels fine running in way ahead of the rest of the party. Mind you, he just got to level 7 for the party, the barb has the advantage on initiative (so that's where all the barbarian running in ASAP jokes come from I take it) and the fighter, the other tank, is in slow full plate way in the back. Oh boy here we go.
Barb - runs in
The Wight - shoots his longbow and runs to the side (my kid is great at AoE, I need to declump bad). Does 3 or 4 HP of dmg to the Barbarian .
Druid's turn - sure enough, he just learned firewall and blam... b/c of my jacked up dungeon being cramped due to big 10ft x 10ft baddies and using the puzzle-pieces from the DnD Boardgames, all my dudes had been in a nearly straight line. Good for the kid for recognizing a weakness. And well, he nailed I think only 2 of them since the Wight was able to run off to the side and the minotaur.skellie was just barely over to the side enough. Rolls nice damage, maybe 37 dmg or something.
Beholder.zombie - Disintegration ray! How or more like Why did I do this? Well my beholder.z for a moment seemed like he was going to be down to below half hitpoints due to the kid saying he did like 48 dmg (then caught his mistake) so I was in a slight panic that it'd get to do nothing. I reread the "random eye beam" and for a split second thought, maybe I should be rolling a d4, but I don't see that explicitly, so heck, I'll just pick random beams. Gotta be Disintegrate! The barbarian has advantage on dex rolls and a +2 Dex so, he'll make it... needed a 12 on the d20, kid got an 11. O_o I roll (on the main table still, not behind the screen like I often do... this is curse of Strahd and the kid knows it's deadly) well above avg on the huge 10d8, getting a 55 or better. Barbarian down to hardly anything. Shortly after I reread disintegrate and see (remember) it'll turn you to dust if it brings you to 0 HP. Oh boy, that was a close one.
And then I realize the two giant skeletons are right next to the barb. Oh boy oh boy-oh-boy-oh-boy, in the Scooby voice.
Warlock - hits the skeletal horsehead hard, but it's still standing at 5 HP.
Skeletal Equiceph - Was hit by firewall and warlock so down to 5 HP. I was planning on mostly using the minotaur.skellie stats. I look, OMG the dmg. Well this guy has 10 foot reach, so he's gonna be doing less dmg, we'll say 2d6 instead of 2d12. Roll... too much damage. OK phew phew, half damage on the barb (I seriously forgot in that moment). But wait... whose next....
Minotaur skeleton - I read his dmg again. Ruh roh, Raggy. Dude hits hard. Roll, hit... I get a 10 + 9 on the two d12 dice... ouch, plus a lot. Barb is down, and kid says "he's dead" b/c he recalls if you go below minus 12 you are dead dead (I think old 3.5e memories, huh? Or maybe level 1 HP rules or something). I'm like wait wait wait, let's double check 5e rules, I think it's different. PHEW, it's different, he's fine, just unconscious. O_o ... this is round 1, and the Barbarian's hitpoints are pretty important in most fights. And the fighter is Mr. AC, but the beholder.zombie doesn't much care about that. Yikes.
... OK, we call it a night, it's too late. That was just last night, and so tonight we will resume... what's-a-gonna-happen? Kid is stoked, "Don't have to hold back at all" he tells me, he's confident. He had just read up on the craziness of conjure things on the Druid at level 7, going to conjure 8 woodland beings or something crazy. We were joking that I think Dryads can themselves conjure up helpers, so you could make a massive silly army if you want. Heh, let's see.
Quick follow up to my first post... the party made it out alive on the 2nd night! Was a lot of fun.
In summary, one character went unconscious, but everything worked out. Looking back, if the beholder zombie had gone last and used disintegration after a character had taken damage from others, he might have been turned into a pile of dust which you probably don't want at that level at a typical table.
Advice to future DMs: make your rolls behind your DM screen 90% of the time. Sometimes you need to tweak outcomes for less "I randomly rolled disintegration constantly, and super high damage on it". Also consider the beholder zombie is not smart, INT of 3, so it can like be slightly unhinged and random sometimes in its actions... in other words, it does not need to focus down the most vulnerable Player Characters. And it does not need to smartly get out of the way of spells or such.
Don't forget to use this battle in particular to track the party's PC hitpoints invdividually, so if you have to tweak a damage roll, you know how far to go or not go.
Personally, I would replace the disintegration ray with some spell that is weaker but surprising, such as create undead or ray of enfeeblement. Also, you could replace the ray with another beholder ray. Finally, when in doubt, just replace the dex save with con, and make it blind the players.
Hi everybody,
I'm currently working on the next dungeon for my campaign and I think it would be cool if a beholder zombie is the final boss of it (would also fit the story so far and maybe the players would clue in on some plot).
But i'm concerned about the beholder zombie's disintegration ray, the party is level 4 and at that level 10d8 damage is pretty much save or die, which i'm not a fan of.
Does anybody have experience running a beholder zombie? Maybe i should just lower the damage.
Thanks!
You could lower the DC of his rays or reduce the damage. I used a Zombie Beholder against a Level 5 Party, and I rolled the Dis Ray 3 times. They made their save, but in every case they would have been killed instantly. Or change the Rays he has. Some of the eyestalks are gone.
It's ultimately up to you if it kills them. You could DM it all normally and, in the worst case, if it reduces them to 0 hp, just say it reduces them to 0 hp and start making death saving throws. You don't even have to clarify or say that it is a disintegration effect.
That being said, you might be surprised how well a party can handle this:
A) Players will be upset at losing a character, but they might soon think that it was a cool way to go out and get excited for a new character
B) Players often have spells and items in store that you might have forgotten about - things that will help them revive said character
Story can also play into it, especially if the player is up to it: have a powerful NPC ask for a powerful item in exchange for resurrecting the party. Or have them need to go on a quest. The player can play a different NPC in the meantime - this being what they would have to be ok with. I've done this before, and it has always ended up that the player simply wants to play a new character in the end.
Which is the last point - ask your players ahead, in private, how they feel about their characters dying. If it's something epic like against a beholder, they might be ok with it! Don't keep the players too safe - they want to know that there are real consequences because it keeps the tension of the game real.
I have used beholder zombies twice. Though both times the parties were level 5 and up. In both situations the thing was destroyed before it even did any damage haha.
But I would suggest be mindful of who you target with it and consider maybe dropping and item to help them deal with that ray. The problem beam is a DC 15 dex save from memory. A more dexy character would have less issues with that. For items something like a scroll of death ward or something could be useful. Just an item that allows someone to go to 1hp instead of 0. Gives you a save target but makes the player crap themselves thinking about what would have happened if they hadn't picked it up.
"Toss a coin to your [Insert class here]"
We as a group have talked about a character dying and everybody was fine with it happening. I just feel it would not be fun if someone just gets disintegrated because of one failed saving throw...
I also don't want to make the disintegrate ray not disintegrate, i have one experienced player in the group and i don't want her to think i'm pulling punches, because that would diminish the victory.
Maybe i just not use the disintegrate eye and just go with the other 3, but then i should maybe add some minions to the fight, otherwise the beholder zombie will just die, like TheHumanJester said.
I ran this against 4 level 6 PCs, but amped it up by giving it 2 legendary action eye rays. It also had a lair action (some light bludgeoning damage from tentacles that would pop up through the ground), and it could spawn zombies and make them explode.
It could have gone either way, but I think I rolled the disintegration ray 4 times and never got a hit. The enervation ray was more damaging. Only 1 PC went unconscious, right near the end of the fight. During prep, it seemed like a swingy fight, and I was prepared to have PCs die.
Party composition: Moon Druid, Eloquence Bard, Glory Paladin, Scribes Wizard. The party was probably at 80% resources when the fight started. At the end, the bard was down to 3 spell slots and no inspirations. The paladin had one spell slot and 10 lay on hands. The druid used both wild shapes and had 6 slots left Wizard had no slots, no manifest mind slots, and was the one who went unconscious. At the end of the fight, everybody else's hp was in decent shape. (Moon druid, of course, had full health lol. They were a giant elk nearly the whole fight.) The party also got a break halfway through the fight with a lovely Aura of Vitality, because one of the PCs opened an eversmoking bottle, which caused the beholder to retreat until (after the PC re-corked it) the smoke dissipated. (The fight was in a cave.)
Let's just say, ouch. So as a sub-dungeon, my own tangential story in CoStrahd, we had this dungeon that lead to an undead area. There was a miniboss fight at the end, and I envisioned a couple of things, but the Beholder-zombie was definitely the main course... as denoted by the foreshadowing symbol on the final door, described as "What looks like a cyclops skull sitting on a bed of snakes or something, hard to make out"... yeah, that's our beholder zombie, heh.
The minibosses were:
Quick follow up to my first post... the party made it out alive on the 2nd night! Was a lot of fun.
In summary, one character went unconscious, but everything worked out. Looking back, if the beholder zombie had gone last and used disintegration after a character had taken damage from others, he might have been turned into a pile of dust which you probably don't want at that level at a typical table.
Advice to future DMs: make your rolls behind your DM screen 90% of the time. Sometimes you need to tweak outcomes for less "I randomly rolled disintegration constantly, and super high damage on it". Also consider the beholder zombie is not smart, INT of 3, so it can like be slightly unhinged and random sometimes in its actions... in other words, it does not need to focus down the most vulnerable Player Characters. And it does not need to smartly get out of the way of spells or such.
Don't forget to use this battle in particular to track the party's PC hitpoints invdividually, so if you have to tweak a damage roll, you know how far to go or not go.
Personally, I would replace the disintegration ray with some spell that is weaker but surprising, such as create undead or ray of enfeeblement. Also, you could replace the ray with another beholder ray. Finally, when in doubt, just replace the dex save with con, and make it blind the players.
I have used the beholder zombie twice. And both times the party ran away. I know that doesn't solve your problem but I thought it was funny.
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