Post/Author/DateTime	Post
BrainInAJar 11-15-05, 09:08 PM	Page 6 of the Explorer's Handbook features a graphic in which an adventurer is struck down by a Beholder's eye ray. Now, doesn't it make logical sense that Sharn would be totally screwed if a Beholder or two came to town? Not a single person in Sharn would be powerful enough to take down the Beholder before its antimagic cone causes the magic keeping the towers up to fail, meaning thousands of people would die as one of Sharn's gigantic spires crashes to the ground. How then are Beholders viable in the world of Eberron? As DM, would you use Beholders in your Eberron game? It seems that since they are shown in an official supplement for Eberron, Beholders are a potential threat for adventurers, so the low level excuse is not applicable. Beholders - Yae or nay?
Siran Dunmorgan 11-15-05, 09:29 PM	There is at least one beholder living in under-Sharn already, as I understand it. The creature takes a somewhat proprietary interest in the city, and would be seriously put off if another one moved in and started erasing towers. Fortunately, beholders seem to be rather territorial, and tend to respect one another's boundaries. Remember, beholders in Eberron aren't ravening destruction machines: many of them are calm, philosophical creatures. They're still generally lawful evil, but their inclination is to work within existing systems, rather than simply impose their own. The creature under Sharn is more inclined to "tinkering" with the city's politics and economy than any other single factor. Note that the above is an extrapolation from the Beholders entry of the "Iconic Monsters" section of the Eberron Campaign Setting. The cities with which the beholders described there are associated are not specified, but it seems reasonable to believe that they would include Sharn. —Siran Dunmorgan P. S. You're right, by the way. Sharn would be in serious trouble if one or more beholders decided there shouldn't be a city there anymore. Remember that the daelkyr used them as the ancient equivalent of artillery, and they fill that rôle admirably.
Setsuna Moto 11-15-05, 09:53 PM	In the D&D Eberron Dragonshards computer game (fairly new release) I had to fight 4 beholders in the first 3 levels I believe. They seem to be very common in Khyber, especially in deep frontier areas such as Xen'drik. I have never heard of a beholder battle in an urban setting on any D&D world. They tend to stay underground in vaults, underdark, ruins, etc. If you try to rationalize fantasy you will give yourself a headache. Keep beholders underground where they belong and save the asprin for tax season :)
Solarious 11-15-05, 10:28 PM	Disintigrate on a few key Flying Buttressess, Anti-Magic Cone a cluster of critical ones, troupes of Charmed and Dominated minions carrying doomsday devices.... thus, the rationale is that: Beholders 1; Sharn 0 :evillaugh Correct? :evillaugh
zambuka 11-15-05, 10:29 PM	Not a single person in Sharn would be powerful enough to take down the Beholder before its antimagic cone causes the magic keeping the towers up to fail, meaning thousands of people would die as one of Sharn's gigantic spires crashes to the ground. Salient bit hilighted for convenience. Certainly there is not a single person in Sharn who could deal with a beholder. But there are organisations that wield enough manpower, magic and gadgets to make any large and nasty creature like a beholder think twice about running riot in Sharn. A beholder could get into Sharn and do some damage. But it wouldn't be able to devastate the whole city and unless you have a few beholders working in concert I doubt their anti magic ray can cover enough area to do anything more than just shake up a few towers. It is a common mistake made with Eberron. Just because NPCs are not high level doesn't mean that powerful creatures and people can run roughshod across the world. That power vacuum that so many seem to think needs to be filled with Elminsterish guardians is already filled by powerful organisations. The houses wield huge amounts of power both politically and resource wise. Various druid organisations have access to some rather beefy allies. Nations have well equipped armies with some rather devastating war machines that are pretty much uneffected by anti magic stuff. Dragons have a civilisation that is capable of producing trustworthy mercenaries for hire. Elves have a powerful pantheon of ancestors wielding godly powers. So to answer your question: Beholders are a perfectly viable nasty to have floating about in Eberron without having to worry about them taking over the world.
Solarious 11-15-05, 10:34 PM	Certainly there is not a single person in Sharn who could deal with a beholder.True, true. Discount not also, the possibility of a Beholder's Charm and Domination effects on people who then infiltrate said organizations... mucking the gears up... only the PCs get a chance at really disrupting it's plans... :plotting: After all, Mind Flayers don't have a monopoly on evil abberant genius, although they are often the best at it. :smirk: Oh, the possibilities! :schemes:
zambuka 11-15-05, 11:41 PM	True, true. Discount not also, the possibility of a Beholder's Charm and Domination effects on people who then infiltrate said organizations... mucking the gears up... only the PCs get a chance at really disrupting it's plans... :plotting: After all, Mind Flayers don't have a monopoly on evil abberant genius, although they are often the best at it. :smirk: Oh, the possibilities! :schemes: Nice idea. They must however compete with all the mechanations, espionage, backstabbing and downright sabotage that occurs internally to such an organisation. This is just in-house and doesn't even take into account the friendly interhouse espionage that undoubtably occurs. It is a great idea though because no-one would really notice a difference in all the background noise, and there are always the PCs who happen to be in the right place at the right time to deal with this whole thing. appropriate :schemes: :evillaugh
BrainInAJar 11-16-05, 12:20 AM	Well, upon discussion with my group, we've decided that really, the only way to stop a rampant beholder or two would be to get about 400 low level mages to spam them with magic missile. Unless, of course, they're Beholders with Elminster's Eversmoking Pipes, in which case Sharn is totally and utterly screwed. Their AC of 20 means low level archers will have trouble hitting them, sword users are entirely out of the question, and even with the mages, the beholders could probably neutralise half of them with the antimagic cone anyway. The creature under Sharn is more inclined to "tinkering" with the city's politics and economy than any other single factor. He must be floating under there with his eyes shut, then, or else Sharn would have collapsed years ago. ;)
zambuka 11-16-05, 12:56 AM	Well, upon discussion with my group, we've decided that really, the only way to stop a rampant beholder or two would be to get about 400 low level mages to spam them with magic missile. What about WF Titans? One or 2 of those, the city is bound to have them for defense if not house Cannith. If you could get the beholder to ground level no more problems. (weighted nets anyone?). Go for neutralising attacks that use ranged touch instead of normal attacks. Nets are sounding like a rather useful and mundane way to deal with beholders, just gotta use a few to give you time to get it to melee range before it disintegrates them. Alchemists fire is another option, non-magical fire. Enough of these rained down on the creature will seriously give it something to think about. A few tanglefoot bags smashed on its head to tie down the eyestalks so it can't target properly. Use a few archers as distraction while a few skycoaches hauls some large loads of rocks into place to rain on the creature. Cannith is likely to have one or two tricks up its sleeve for just such an occasion and will charge the city a small fortune to use it. Acid is another option. Burning pitch as well. How 'bout dropping a swarm of vermin on top of the thing? A swarm of venomous creatures? Or if things are really bad how 'bout making a big sacrifice and dropping a whole building on top of it? If spamming magic missiles is the only way you can think of for dealing with a beholder then, sorry, but you really aren't thinking that hard at all. I've got a few more ideas running through my head still, mostly using mundane items and some good tactics. He must be floating under there with his eyes shut, then, or else Sharn would have collapsed years ago. ;) The AM ray isn't permanent. It will disable a magic device while the beholder is staring at it but the moment it looks away it all goes back to normal. A beholder's AM ray just plain and simply is not going to be big enough to single handedly take out Sharn. Its AM is also blocked by intervening obstacles just like other ray type effects so hanging about underground ain't gonna do squat to Sharn above.
BrainInAJar 11-16-05, 01:32 AM	What you fail to consider is that all of these have to actually hit the beholder. Dropping stuff from above is really not that effective, especially considering that these things fly as their main mode of transport. A beholder would simply bite or disintegrate a weighted net. A 1d6 swarm is pretty useless too. In 10 rounds, that's a lot of Flesh To Stones, Disintegrates, Charm Persons, and Sleeps. And honestly, in such a dense and poulated city such as Sharn, do you really think collapsing a building would be a good idea? It's bound to hit at least one other tower on the way down. Either that means a crapload of dead commoners, or a loss of one or more towers, and no beholder death. And I state again, WF Titans have to actually reach and hit the flying beholder. These things are intelligent. They're not gonna be stupid enough to let themselves be attacked by ground based enemies. The AM ray isn't permanent. It will disable a magic device while the beholder is staring at it but the moment it looks away it all goes back to normal. A beholder's AM ray just plain and simply is not going to be big enough to single handedly take out Sharn. Its AM is also blocked by intervening obstacles just like other ray type effects so hanging about underground ain't gonna do squat to Sharn above. Unless, of course, the beholder was in the Pits, the most advantageous place to act as puppet master. What's in the Pits? The bases of some towers. What does antimagic cone do? Temporarily dispels the magic supporting the towers. QED.
Zedium 11-16-05, 01:54 AM	I doubt a beholder is stupid enough to go around collapsing towers though. Seeing that if you bring down a tower of significant size, it is bound to hit you on the head sooner or later. And not even a beholder's flight can help that. And on top of that, like stated above, there are plenty of powerful organisations in Sharn who do have some powerful individuals serving them. And also a common mistake is that there are no powerful individuals at all. They are just less inclined to help. The high priest of the silver flame in Sharn is a high level sorcerer for instance. And on top of that, Sharn has a few regiments of guards. A beholder has 93 hp, even though he has 26 AC, a natural 20 will still be able to put a dent in him. And a whole regiment is bound to score a hit once in a while. Also, you seem to forget that Sharn holds plenty of non-humans who call the place home and are willing to help if it otherwise means the end of their city. Especially the Daask has some pretty powerful humanoids that could help in defeating the beast or at least holding it at bay while arrows rain on it from above. A few ogres should be enough to help the poor people of Sharn. AND on top of that, Sharn has a few elite regiments of guards. Sure the Redcloaks and the such might not seem that powerful in an anti magic field. But they still pack more punch than the average character and they would probably have tactics based around avoiding the magic field. And if all else fails, well, this may seem a standard eberron responce: But this is where the players come in.
AlHazred 11-16-05, 02:51 AM	Unless, of course, the beholder was in the Pits, the most advantageous place to act as puppet master. What's in the Pits? The bases of some towers. What does antimagic cone do? Temporarily dispels the magic supporting the towers. QED. Er, the magic supporting most towers lies in the magical flying buttresses, which are not located in the base. QED.
a_psh 11-16-05, 03:18 AM	Not a single person in Sharn would be powerful enough to take down the Beholder before its antimagic cone causes the magic keeping the towers up to fail, meaning thousands of people would die as one of Sharn's gigantic spires crashes to the ground. Calderus. Tirashanna. Gath. Madra Sil Sarin if ordered to act. One of the Radiant Idols. The two rakshasa on a good day.
zambuka 11-16-05, 03:26 AM	What you fail to consider is that all of these have to actually hit the beholder. Dropping stuff from above is really not that effective, especially considering that these things fly as their main mode of transport. A beholder would simply bite or disintegrate a weighted net. With a touch AC of 12.. hitting the beholder with things like alchemists fire, tanglefoot bags or even a dumping of stone isn't really that much of a problem. It has a movement of 20' so the beholder aint that fast. Also notice I mentioned distracting it first? Still worried? A simple little 1st level spell will give your archers the edge they need. True strike. Sharn is big enough and there garrison well enough equipped that they would have more than a few eternal wands of true strike floating around. We know eternal wands are common enough in the Sharn guard that wands of featherfall are issued to guards who can't even use them so it is unreasonable to think that there isn't a reasonable supply of more offensive eternal wands in the military armoury. Heck.. use the true strike on the people dumping the loads of rock on the beholder. Wanna throw some tactics in to protect your archers? A couple of smoke sticks (undispellable cover), the true strike (negates penalty for cover as well as giving a +20 to hit) and you can do a lot of damage to the creature in only a few rounds. As for biting through or disintegrating the net; you did notice I did mention using a few nets specifically for this reason? And honestly, in such a dense and poulated city such as Sharn, do you really think collapsing a building would be a good idea? It's bound to hit at least one other tower on the way down. Either that means a crapload of dead commoners, or a loss of one or more towers, and no beholder death. Hence calling it sacrifice for when things get bad. And I state again, WF Titans have to actually reach and hit the flying beholder. These things are intelligent. They're not gonna be stupid enough to let themselves be attacked by ground based enemies. You did notice I mentioned using nets or something to get the beholder to the ground first? It won't be a casualty free battle, that's for certain, but the number of people and the available resources in Sharn mean they can take on quite a bit without the help of adventurers. Unless, of course, the beholder was in the Pits, the most advantageous place to act as puppet master. What's in the Pits? The bases of some towers. What does antimagic cone do? Temporarily dispels the magic supporting the towers. QED. As has been stated the magical supports are not in the pits. Those are just bog standard foundations. Well basically, the point is, there are plenty of ways a low level society can and will protect itself using low level magics, even using more mundane methods, against some of the more powerful creatures.
Just another user 11-16-05, 03:27 AM	Their AC of 20 means low level archers will have trouble hitting them, sword users are entirely out of the question, and even with the mages, the beholders could probably neutralise half of them with the antimagic cone anyway. He must be floating under there with his eyes shut, then, or else Sharn would have collapsed years ago. ;) only the central eye give the antimagic effect, beside its range is limited (150ft). A Gm could always rule that the towers in Sharn are built with some redundancy and fail safe so that a single dispel magic is not enough to make them crumble, and that the antimagic of a single beholder is not large enough to affect all the flying buttresses of a tower at the same time. A beholder should even be smart enough to know that when towers and spire start to fall there is no way to tell if they don't fall on him (like it is more probable it does BTW) I don't think a beholder would choose the direct attack route against the city.
Just another user 11-16-05, 03:32 AM	Unless, of course, the beholder was in the Pits, the most advantageous place to act as puppet master. What's in the Pits? The bases of some towers. What does antimagic cone do? Temporarily dispels the magic supporting the towers. QED. And what does happen then? The beholder is smashed under the falling towers, and with a INT of 17 he probably smart enough to not do it.
BrainInAJar 11-16-05, 03:39 AM	Er, the magic supporting most towers lies in the magical flying buttresses, which are not located in the base. That depends entirely on how much of the tower is located in the Pits. If the tower was thinner than normal, and began at a very low point in the Pits, then there may be a buttress that the beholder could reach without hitting complete and utter public view. Calderus. Tirashanna. Gath. Madra Sil Sarin if ordered to act. One of the Radiant Idols. The two rakshasa on a good day. First of all, CR of two beholders = 13 +2 = 15 CR of two Rakshasa = 10 +2 = 12 The Rakshasa would certainly have a tough time, especially if there were more than 2 beholders, but it may be possible. Chances are they wouldn't be able to arrive in time to save more than a few people in the 'disaster' area. As for the rest, could I have a page number reference please? I don't have time to flip through my whole book at the moment. only the central eye give the antimagic effect, beside its range is limited (150ft). A Gm could always rule that the towers in Sharn are built with some redundancy and fail safe so that a single dispel magic is not enough to make them crumble, and that the antimagic of a single beholder is not large enough to affect all the flying buttresses of a tower at the same time. Hence why I'm assuming that at there are at least 2 beholders at work here. Two or more Beholders could effectively disable a tower. Also, I think you mean contingency as opposed to redundancy. Still worried? A simple little 1st level spell will give your archers the edge they need. True strike. Sharn is big enough and there garrison well enough equipped that they would have more than a few eternal wands of true strike floating around. We know eternal wands are common enough in the Sharn guard that wands of featherfall are issued to guards who can't even use them so it is unreasonable to think that there isn't a reasonable supply of more offensive eternal wands in the military armoury. Heck.. use the true strike on the people dumping the loads of rock on the beholder. Wanna throw some tactics in to protect your archers? A couple of smoke sticks (undispellable cover), the true strike (negates penalty for cover as well as giving a +20 to hit) and you can do a lot of damage to the creature in only a few rounds. Unfortunately, each beholder can use each of their rays once per round, as well as their 150-foot antimagic cone cancelling out the effects of truestrike. That's a total of at least 20 ray effects, half of them being effectively Save or Die for the low level archers, the other half of the army is already crippled buff-wise due to the antimagic cone anyway. Personally, I think the ball is still in the beholders' court. The beholder is smashed under the falling towers, and with a INT of 17 he probably smart enough to not do it. And with an INT of 17, you'd think he'd plan it first, as opposed to simply wading in and smashing up some towers...
Just another user 11-16-05, 03:41 AM	Heck.. use the true strike on the people dumping the loads of rock on the beholder. True strike have a personal range, even with a wand you can't cast it over another person.
Just another user 11-16-05, 03:45 AM	And with an INT of 17, you'd think he'd plan it first, as opposed to simply wading in and smashing up some towers... With a 150 foot range there is not very much he can plan, if he goes near enough to affect the whole tower he will probably hit by the tower when it fall, unless you mean that he will not go for the "direct attack", that is exactly what I mean, there is very little risk of a beholder going godzilla in the middle of Sharn.
LaoKhanWei 11-16-05, 03:57 AM	12th level Cannith Wand Adept. Cannith HQ is located in Sharn, there are 12th level characters there, Wand Adepts come from Cannith. If it came down to it, a Cannith Artificer could be called in to deal with the Beholder. Cannith Wand Adept Artificer - One of the strongest classes in the game. Beholder - Has no chance.
Just another user 11-16-05, 03:57 AM	Hence why I'm assuming that at there are at least 2 beholders at work here. Two or more Beholders could effectively disable a tower. Also, I think you mean contingency as opposed to redundancy. no, I mean redundancy, like in flying buttresses built over a wide area and on different levels so they can 't be all targeted by a single area effect (or two),more buttresses than are really necessary and/or build a tower strong enough that can stand for some time even with the magic of the buttresses nullified.
Korhal_IV 11-16-05, 05:43 PM	Does an anti-magic ray suppress a manifest zone? Because if not, then Sharn's towers could probably take a few extra minutes before they start collapsing. I agree that it's going to be terribly difficult for a Beholder to sneak into Sharn without upsetting or alerting the current residents (including the Beholder who already lives there - as Beholders are so territorial, there's a guaranteed foe right there). There are also all kinds of ways to prevent an anti-magic cone from hurting so much - you could simply encase a flying buttress in supporting material and marble facades; now the Beholder's eye ray can't hit it, and the Beholder probably can't even find it. With dozens of flying buttresses holding up a single tower, it'll be a pain for a Beholder to identify and disable them all without giving the Watch ample time to respond. I also think there's some smart answers given here about how to respond to a Beholder's attack. Heck, a Beholder's not even very different from any other enemy, is he? His anti-magic ray just works faster on a floating buttress than a sledgehammer or eternal wand. Architects could build floating buttresses so that they're accessible only through interior corridors - the Beholder can go wandering in, but a Titan could come in right after him and the Beholder wouldn't have a lot of places to go to get away in those cramped quarters. While it's true that the Watch has very few people of level 10+, they do have many between levels 6 and 10. A squad of eight characters in that range could do some significant damage even if they don't kill the Beholder - and the Beholder may not be willing to get severely hurt for the purposes of dragging down a given tower. The Redcloaks are even stronger, and there's a variety of powerful characters in Sharn that could be willing to challenge the Beholder even if they're not law-enforcement or generally good people. I think there's a Gatekeeper in Sharn, and he certainly knows about Beholders, so even if he can't directly challenge the beast, he'll be able to get his hairy orc butt down to the Watch on the run and tell them all about the creature and its weaknesses. As someone mentioned, smokesticks are a relatively cheap item that provides full concealment against rays, slowing the Beholder down. Eventually even those low-level archers will crit. The Beholder's cone is most problematic, but it's only the central eye, which can only look in one direction. Bring in a few Watch squads with their artificers or magical apprentices, take the Beholder from all directions. Someone's going to be out of range of the cone. I think you need to work more on establishing why the Beholder's going berserk in Sharn before you can plausibly argue its success or failure in this endeavor.
Aneul 11-16-05, 05:58 PM	You bring up an exellent point, Korhal. If the beholder wants to take down one of Sharn's towers with its antimagic ray, can it really just blot out a portion of the manifest zone? I'd argue that the nature of the zone probably prevents antimagic from functioning on it- so the tower's wouldn't imidiately crumble to bits. If the zone could be disabled in portions, you'd have towers crashing down every time somone's area dispel hit a flying butress.
LaoKhanWei 11-16-05, 08:40 PM	Human Warrior 2/Fighter 4: 14 Str, 14 dex, +1 keen composite longbow (+2 str) Rapid Shot Weapon Focus (Longbow) Weapon Specialization(Longbow) Far Shot Taking a -8 to hit they can fire two arrows a round from 660' away with an attack bonus of +6 dealing 1d8+3 damage and threatening on a 19. They'll only hit a beholder on a critical, but they have a 10% chance to do so. let' just assume a squad of 50 of them would deal 5d8+15 damage to the beholder every round. With an average damage of 35 each round they'll kill it in three rounds. If they were set up in one spot and the beholder started heading straight for them as fast as possible it would travel only 180' before they kill it. Sharn is a death trap for a rampaging beholder. Snipers - 1 Beholder - 0
Dragom 11-16-05, 09:21 PM	Well, upon discussion with my group, we've decided that really, the only way to stop a rampant beholder or two would be to get about 400 low level mages to spam them with magic missile. Unless, of course, they're Beholders with Elminster's Eversmoking Pipes, in which case Sharn is totally and utterly screwed. Their AC of 20 means low level archers will have trouble hitting them, sword users are entirely out of the question, and even with the mages, the beholders could probably neutralise half of them with the antimagic cone anyway. He must be floating under there with his eyes shut, then, or else Sharn would have collapsed years ago. ;) I have to comment here... We're humans. The people in sharn are also humans. We know and thus so do the people of sharn know how to kill something like a beholder that's running rampant in a city like sharn. First you time the advance of the creature. Then you collapse a bridge it is passing under at it's slow drifting speed. Remeber kids their is nothing a signifigant amount of rock, propelled at a sufficient velocity cannot fix.
Solarious 11-16-05, 09:36 PM	Remeber kids their is nothing a signifigant amount of rock, propelled at a sufficient velocity cannot fix.Remember, also, that Telekenesis + Disintegrate > Falling Objects. :D And it is there, not their. [/Grammar Nazi]
a_psh 11-16-05, 09:45 PM	That depends entirely on how much of the tower is located in the Pits. If the tower was thinner than normal, and began at a very low point in the Pits, then there may be a buttress that the beholder could reach without hitting complete and utter public view. Flying buttresses are magical items. There's no reason for them to be all located at ground level. Given what the typical definition of "buttress" (which I know we aren't following exactly since we just made them a magical item anyway) is - it's a structure that goes up the side of a building, like so: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/2/22/Buttress_-_Palace_of_Westminster_-_London_-_England_-_040404.jpg/276px-Buttress_-_Palace_of_Westminster_-_London_-_England_-_040404.jpg These things aren't part of the foundations, they go all the way up the towers. Think of it as attaching magic anti-gravity stones to the sides of a building. Thus, I would assume that concentrating a 150-foot cone or two of antimagic will not affect things too much.
WolfHati 11-17-05, 12:12 AM	There's no denying a beholder could do a lot of damage in Sharn potentially, but it would be doomed regardless, as any one of the tactics herein listed would work, and probably all of them would be tried, perhaps at the same time.
PsionicMonk 11-17-05, 12:48 AM	also dont forget, you are talking about 100's of people, all that needs to happen is even a quater of them get a 20 on there roll, will automaticly hit the thing, even some lucky people will do crits. So the damage that can be done by a large crowed is very devistating. Plus it can not use its magic and support the anti-magic field at the same time, so either he is blasting something or he is stoping incoming magic. IMO, it would have to be a masive invasion of beholders, in which case there are bigger problems than just 1 city falling.
Just another user 11-17-05, 07:14 AM	also dont forget, you are talking about 100's of people, all that needs to happen is even a quater of them get a 20 on there roll, will automaticly hit the thing, even some lucky people will do crits. So the damage that can be done by a large crowed is very devistating. Plus it can not use its magic and support the anti-magic field at the same time, so either he is blasting something or he is stoping incoming magic. Actually, he can, his antimagic field work only on his front 45°, he can always use his rays toward his side and back, to not mention up and down.
il Kav 11-17-05, 09:00 AM	I think that Merrix D'Cannith (for example) could make some pretty automaton and smash the beholder quite easily... not to mention the 2 magic circles in Sharn (with 4 9-level wizards and several others), or the Redcloak Battallion (they rock!!!), maybe supported by the Blackened Book :eek: If I was a beholder, I would try to not upset them...
Sereno 11-17-05, 09:47 AM	The bases of Sharn's towers are also enormous, some of them a quarter-of-a-mile in diameter! The AM of the beholder's central eye only has 150' range, one couldn't blanket enough of a tower to completely nullify the flying buttresses which probably circle the upper levels of towers and support the bridges between. Maybe one could make a single buttress fail, perhaps collapsing a bridge, but a whole tower? Not a chance. Besides, as has been already pointed out ... there's plenty of ways for the citizens of Sharn to deal with a rampaging beholder.
Gurv 11-17-05, 10:09 AM	also dont forget, you are talking about 100's of people, all that needs to happen is even a quater of them get a 20 on there roll I just need to butt in here and point out that if a quarter of the people attacking roll a 20 on their attack rolls, then you need to find yourself some unweighted dice. :dice: I think the problem here lies less in whether a beholder could wreck Sharn. Obviously, it could do some serious damage. The real question is why a beholder's ability to do so it more important than, say, a dragon's. Or a demon's. My point is that there are many ways to destroy a city, magical or otherwise. Why would a beholder be more likely to rampage than any of these other threats? In-game logic sugests that if beholders wanted to destroy Sharn, then they would have long ago. Out-of-game logic suggests that unless the DM has a plot that calls for one to do so, then it won't be happening anytime soon.
makeshiftwings 11-17-05, 01:06 PM	You bring up an exellent point, Korhal. If the beholder wants to take down one of Sharn's towers with its antimagic ray, can it really just blot out a portion of the manifest zone? I'd argue that the nature of the zone probably prevents antimagic from functioning on it- so the tower's wouldn't imidiately crumble to bits. If the zone could be disabled in portions, you'd have towers crashing down every time somone's area dispel hit a flying butress. That's what I was going to say... I don't think the rules necessarily say that an Antimagic Field would stop a manifest zone; it certainly doesn't put out flames in the Plane of Fire or cause water to disappear in the Plane of Water, so why would it affect a manifest zone? And even if it did, causing a few square feet to become "heavy" isn't going to have that much effect when there's still a few square miles of light-gravity holding up the rest of the tower. Now, slowly disintegrating the entire base of a tower would probably work, but that will take time, and surely people would notice the tower shaking, suspect something is going wrong in the depths, and send their friendly local group of PCs to go investigate.
Kotiniemi 11-17-05, 02:23 PM	Not to take the argument about how powerful characters or beings are needed for taking someone down, I'd just like to remind about an oft-overlooked effectiveness of lowlevel characters - let's say archers. For background, I'm the GM of 7 players of which 6 play arcane casters and 1 divine caster. Along with them, they (at level 2) have a starting mercenary organization of 8 1.st level warrior henchmen - soon to be growing larger. The slow introduction is to remind that large amounts of low level characters can be terribly effective. Once the cleric can augment the troupe with some 20 more skeletons as well as a few more hirelings most somewhat higher level opponents are in big trouble. Divide the warriors and skeletons into teams that have either cover and or higher position+decent armor. That way cleaves, fireballs etc. won't destroy the entire party immediately. Then use flanking as well as concentrated fire on single opponents, such as the beholder. Out of the 40 attacks, 5% or 2 are pretty much bound to be hits against AC 20 (without any augmentation such as bless, aiding, flanking etc). Now, without arguing about AC of the target or any such bonuses, even against the highest level characters, quote PHB 3.5, 139 "A natural 20 is always a hit". So that's an numerical average of 2 hits per round for 40 attackers, if the AC would be greater than 20 (let's say a higher up player average of 28-30?, still works) and there would be no advantages for the attackers such as the aforementioned rear, flank, support spells, touch attacks etc. Should an aberration artillery piece like a beholder be actually spotted, I wouldn't limit the defence force to 40 units, or just 1.st level warriors and without leaders and magewright equipment and spells. And I feel it would go well with Eberron's low level theme. No single group of heroes can win a war, a battle - even a significant impact maybe, but not the war of hundreds or thousands. Spells run out and mass combat is very dangerous - even without Mobs from DMG, which could also consist of creatures other than angry humans. Hope this helps your dilemma a little, works for us. Yours kindly, Niko
LaoKhanWei 11-17-05, 02:52 PM	After 100 years of total war Breland's population is 3.7 million. Given the standard of living in Breland it seems reasonable that this number will rapidly increase if peace is to continue, but we're talking about right now... I think Breland could easily field an army of 500,000 troops. There aren't enough Beholders on Khorvaire to stand against a well organized Brelish army of that size.
Vrellum 11-17-05, 05:42 PM	Who needs high level guys. Take 200 1st level warriors with long bows (Sharn obviously has more powerful troops than these) and have them all shoot at the beholder. On the first round they should score 10 hits for 10d8 damage, average 45. If they all had point blank shot and rapid shot (not unreasonable for archers) they'd kill it in about a round (19 hits +1 crit for 99 points of damage on average per round and one dead beholder). Sure the beholder(s) is/are going to kill some of them but they only get 10 attacks per round and their attack is fairly short ranged. So the archers should be able to take them out pretty quickly. In short a beholder or two or half-a-dozen wouldn't dare openly assault a major city like Sharn because they'd get slaughtered.
Umlaut 11-18-05, 05:21 PM	Read the spell description for antimagic field. The towers of Sharn are not ordinary magic items, they are artifacts or eldrich machines and a beholder's antimagic field wouldn't do much against them. Trying to disrupt the towers at all would be very difficult considering the saving throw a magic item of any kind that size would get against most spells. Also, what about the numerous low level casters with magic missile: can we say ouch? There must be dozens of wands and other offensive magic items, so I don't think the people of Sharn wouldn't have a lot of trouble defending themselves.
LaoKhanWei 11-18-05, 09:51 PM	Psssh! Archers > Magic Missiles Magic can't be fired from 1,000' away.
Vrellum 11-18-05, 11:00 PM	Yep, who needs magic? A couple hundred commoners with crossbows would ruin their day.
Slagger the Chuul 11-19-05, 07:07 AM	Magic can't be fired from 1,000' away. And if you're going to need a natural 20 to hit, you might as well fire from the maximum distance since the penalties won't matter.
Just another user 11-19-05, 10:31 AM	Psssh! Archers > Magic Missiles Magic can't be fired from 1,000' away. Sure it can. Enlarged magic missile with a 4 CL, 800 +320 feet and is only a 2nd level slot.
Vrellum 11-19-05, 11:59 AM	magic missile's range is medium, not long.
HarmonysTwilight 11-19-05, 12:59 PM	Okay. I just re-read the beholders stats out of the MM1. First their touch AC is only 11, not 12 per someones statement. Second all their Eye rays are range 150'. It is a CR 13 enemy. I think that a beholder in the city would certainly warrant the expense of activating a couple of strike forces of the Redcloak Battallion. The standard Redcloak Battallion strike force per Sharn:CoT is EL12. 4 of these merit an EL 14. Each strike force is slated with recruits that are CR8 - CR12. They deploy wisely via Skycoaches and Soarsleds. They have wizards, fighters, rangers etc... These guys can shoot it to death! Fig 10 Redcloak Soldier, bab +10, Dex +2, MW Composite Mighty Longbow +1, is ALONE a total +13 to attack. The division sends a supporting magewright to use scrolls of true strik or wahtever it's called and +20. Only miss on a fumble, and alone against the beholders AC26 they hit on a 13+. On Soarsleds and Skycoaches they keep the high ground. Their Wizards Summon Monster low-level for a few flying antagonists to claw at the Beholders underbelly where they are safe from the eyestalks AND grant said high ground archers with a +2 flanking bonus. Now they are up to +16. 10 or better to hit. Now make those Redcloak Rangers Scouts (Comp Adv) and they run along Sharns skybridges, raining arrows on it AND getting their skirmish damage. I know they have to be in range of the eyestalks but a few 9th level castings of scrolls that boost saves and they are better off. Blus the beholders eyerays are touch attacks so a mass Fox's Grace saves lives. That's probably a last resort tactic. Answer this. With that kind of firepower in town why the hell would anyone else waste their lives trying to fight it? A lone beholder would have no chance in Sharn.
Just another user 11-19-05, 03:09 PM	magic missile's range is medium, not long. Enlarged acid arrow then. 800+400 feet and use a 3rd level slot
Korhal_IV 11-19-05, 04:22 PM	Let's recall that while a Beholder is CR 13, you don't need to be level 13 to take it on. A party of four level 9s can take a Beholder with reasonable chance of victory - although most if not all of them will die, hence the reason why DMs rarely run Beholders against level 9 parties. However, there's no such compunction about running Beholders against level 9 NPCs, such as the Redcloaks, and in Eberron once you reach level 9 you probably consider yourself so badass that without the metagame knowledge of the Beholder's CR, you'd probably consider yourself on par with the Beholder. So not only would the Redcloaks be willing and able to tackle the Beholder (and I'll leave more elaborate tactics out of this debate, lest we descend into the endless cycle of "my attack bonus is X so my damage over rounds will be Y" "NO! Because my AC is N, therefore M..."), but many other parties would be willing and able to tackle the Beholder - some elite groups out of the Digger's Union, Dragonmarked bounty hunters, glory-hungry noblemen with their armed escorts, etc. A Beholder would cause some havoc, certainly. Just like a dragon, a demon, or wizard of equivalent power. Would he bring towers toppling down? I think so, if by dint of Disintegration if nothing else. Would he have a real reason to topple a tower at the expense of his own life? Probably not. A Beholder might rampage his way out of Sharn, if he's in a rush, but he'd have no incentive to stick around and get picked off.