In Volo’s Guide to monsters, it says that “it has thought about what it and its minions must do in response to every situation”. Does that mean literally every situation and that the DM should have a plan that perfectly counteracts the characters’ plan? If so, they would be quite literally invinsible.
Not necessarily as it hard to plan for everything that can happen in a D&D session. It says that to take in consideration it's high alien intelligence, it's all-around vision and it's habbit to have contingencies and plan Bs for anything and everything to hardly ever be caught flat flooted
Nothing’s invincible. Beholders assume an acceptable level of risk. If a beholder is hit by a meteor, it considered the possibility that it MIGHT be hit by a meteor, but thought the opportunity cost of staying in its meteor-proof cavern in the Underdark was too high, relative to the potential reward of advancing its evil schemes.
A beholder isn't great at discerning which threats are significant, and which are crazy. But in general, if you're running one, it should probably foil the first and maybe the second plan the party uses, with some kind of "I knew you would do that" trick.
In Volo’s Guide to monsters, it says that “it has thought about what it and its minions must do in response to every situation”. Does that mean literally every situation and that the DM should have a plan that perfectly counteracts the characters’ plan? If so, they would be quite literally invinsible.
Just because it knows what its plan is in every situation doesn't mean it's aware of bonus information. Think of it like a poker player who has a plan for every possible combination of hand it's holding, cards on the table, money in the pot, etc. Having a plan for every possible poker situation does not mean:
The poker player's plan is a good one, or
The plan is necessarily optimal for the cards the other players are holding, even if it's relatively optimal for the cards they might be holding, or
The poker player has a good read on the other players in terms of their inclinations to do things like bluff.
"Everybody's got a plan until they get punched in the face." Mike Tyson.
Just because the beholder has a plan doesn't mean that the plan is actually going to work. Beholders are both extremely arrogant and quite crazy, which means that they can easily become overconfident in how well they've planned to deal with a given situation and make faulty assumptions about how things will turn out.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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.
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
In Volo’s Guide to monsters, it says that “it has thought about what it and its minions must do in response to every situation”. Does that mean literally every situation and that the DM should have a plan that perfectly counteracts the characters’ plan? If so, they would be quite literally invinsible.
Not necessarily as it hard to plan for everything that can happen in a D&D session. It says that to take in consideration it's high alien intelligence, it's all-around vision and it's habbit to have contingencies and plan Bs for anything and everything to hardly ever be caught flat flooted
Nothing’s invincible. Beholders assume an acceptable level of risk. If a beholder is hit by a meteor, it considered the possibility that it MIGHT be hit by a meteor, but thought the opportunity cost of staying in its meteor-proof cavern in the Underdark was too high, relative to the potential reward of advancing its evil schemes.
A beholder isn't great at discerning which threats are significant, and which are crazy. But in general, if you're running one, it should probably foil the first and maybe the second plan the party uses, with some kind of "I knew you would do that" trick.
And it should be *shocked* when they defeat it.
Just because it knows what its plan is in every situation doesn't mean it's aware of bonus information. Think of it like a poker player who has a plan for every possible combination of hand it's holding, cards on the table, money in the pot, etc. Having a plan for every possible poker situation does not mean:
"Everybody's got a plan until they get punched in the face." Mike Tyson.
Just because the beholder has a plan doesn't mean that the plan is actually going to work. Beholders are both extremely arrogant and quite crazy, which means that they can easily become overconfident in how well they've planned to deal with a given situation and make faulty assumptions about how things will turn out.
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.