Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Inspired_Mage 07-05-05, 08:13 AM	Hi All, OUr DM has stated that we may be going into a city of Beholders shortly and I am a little worried as all our PC's are inexperienced and have never before fought a Beholder, our DM on the other hand is very experienced and Beholders just happen to be his favourite monster. I am looking to see if anyone has any helpful hints and tactics on how to fight the things as I really dont wanna lose this character. Our party consists of the following and we range between 5th and 7th level at the moment: Mystic Thuerge (elf)- PC Dragon Disciple (human)- PC Devoted Defender (Gold Dwarf) - NPC Rogue (Tiefling) - NPC Bard (Gnome) - NPC Cleric of Gond (Gnome) - NPC
Mula 07-05-05, 09:21 AM	Lords of Madness offers a few tips: If you can, buy a scroll of antimagic field. That should help against the beholder’s eye rays. You should also try to stay as close to each other as possible to minimize the rays’ effectiveness. Anything that obscures the monster’s vision is also useful, such as smokesticks and summoned air elementals that can form whirlwinds, creating obscuring clouds of dust and debris. Ranged weapons, particularly powerful ones such as composite longbows, heavy crossbows and thrown weapons in the hands of strong characters, are very handy. If the beholder’s antimagic cone prevents you from using magic spells and items, at least you’ll have powerful ranged weapons with which to hammer it down—especially if the monster can fly away from your melee reach.
Inspired_Mage 07-05-05, 09:55 AM	Great Stuff!! I appreciate the feedback, if any other tricks or anything come to mind then please let me know. Also, my party always seem to lack tactics coming into fights against almost all our enemies (prominently Drow) and we have tried to devise tactics for our fights but as im sure we have all found out we usually have to fight a battle on the DM's terms in areas we are not always familiar with, does anyone else try and devise tactics for "unknown" situations or do you just try and take it as they come?
dragonheart 07-05-05, 10:38 AM	something else to remember - when you are in the antimagic cone of the beholder its own eye rays don't affect you. one potentially interesting tactic is to cast spiderclimb on a fighter and then dimension door on them so they jup to directly under the beholder (where its eyerays don't work) then have him "climb aboard and start chopping" he is going to get ycky from the stuff comming out on him but ..... As for preplanned tactics I'm a firm believer in scrying magics - you can cover a lot of ground with a crystal ball in one hour and at least have a knowledge of the lay of the land and what is living in it. Several of my mages have created things like wands of scrying or wands of clairvoyance for just this purpose. Also having a SOP and standard order helps a lot. basically you want to start picking the grounds as much as possible and knowing waht the ground is and who is there is the key - more scrying!!!!!
Mula 07-05-05, 10:39 AM	Well… you should always try to take advantage of the battlefield. Cover is great: a frail spellcaster can just drop to one knee behind a rock or other relatively low barrier and gain +4 cover AC and an additional +2 on AC against ranged attacks. If an enemy comes within melee reach (but on the other side of the barrier), you’ll still have a +2 bonus on AC (since you’ll suffer a –2 on AC against melee attacks because you’re on your knees). You can also use animals for this purpose. :)
createvmind 07-05-05, 03:42 PM	Thats kind of low in level to fight beholders but it can be done, use non-magical items that can restrict its movement and hold it in place. As was stated before, COVER, if no cover, then don't bother engaging it unless you have some beyond your level magic items, etc......Reach and ranged weapons are a bonus as they may keep you out of it's ray range, sunder attacks against it's eye stalks if its allowed in your game. Besides magical obscuring spells and items try bags of mundane powder and other irritants that may cause it blindness. Get your mitts on some poisoned items that affect Dex, Str, Con and pray for good rolls. If someone manages they can try to grapple and pin eyestalks to actually point at the beholder itself, negating it using that ray..........worth a shot ;)
createvmind 07-05-05, 03:49 PM	I see alot of suggestions that should be well beyond access to 5th-7th level players especially if they have a relatively good DM, lets try and think within the means of the level of players. Crystal balls are by far not common magic items just available for scrying, my PCs are 12 level and they know if they ever come across auch an item it better remain a secret. Even good mages may turn the other cheek and hire someone to procure the crystal ball from pCs only around 6 level.
Inspired_Mage 07-05-05, 04:30 PM	Yeah I actually had achat with the DM tonight, by the sounds of itm it is more likely a beholder liar rather than a city of the things, so im guess lots of underlings and then a final encounter against a beholder.
primemover003 07-05-05, 09:03 PM	Since everything a beholder is gonna throw at you is a Ray, you should stock up on potions of Blur or any spell that provides a miss chance from Concealment like Obscuring mist, Fog Cloud, or Darkness. The less often the beholder hits because of the miss chance is the less you need to make saves! Anything that'll boost your poor saves. Fighters need to boost Will saves vs. Charms, compulsions, slow, and Inflict spells. Wiz/Sor/Rog/Brd need to boost Fort against disintegrate, Finger of Death, flesh to stone, etc.. Watch the TK ray too. A Clever DM will put you in the AMF and pick up objects to hurl at you with that ray, like boulders or chests of treasure, small creatures...
Inspired_Mage 07-06-05, 04:18 AM	Am i right in saying that if you hit with a spell that can blind a creature (like Glitterdust) and it fails its saving throw, would it then blind all the creatures eyes, except the anti-magic eye due to it being a magical blindness, thus rendering the creature unable to attack with any of its rays?
Crust 07-06-05, 02:15 PM	Great Stuff!! Also, my party always seem to lack tactics coming into fights against almost all our enemies (prominently Drow) and we have tried to devise tactics for our fights but as im sure we have all found out we usually have to fight a battle on the DM's terms in areas we are not always familiar with, does anyone else try and devise tactics for "unknown" situations or do you just try and take it as they come? As adventurers, you're always going to be fighting on the enemy's ground. Whether it's a beholder lair, a drow enclave, or a dragon's lair, you're usually fighting on the enemy's terms, not your own. After all, beholders and their henchmen aren't attacking your home town. You're attacking theirs. Awesome tactic ideas. The most important thing to remember is that, as was mentioned earlier, you'll be getting hit with rays, so do everything to avoid them. If you can avoid the rays with blur and smoke sticks, great. Use cat's grace to increase dex, use dodge, and find cover. Next, worry about your saves, because unlike ray spells like scortching ray, you get a saving throw to avoid the ray's effects if it should hit you, so do whatever you can to boost saving throws with spells or items. You have a rogue, so take advantage of sneak attacks. That rogue should be invisible and within 30 feet to use a ranged sneak at least once in the encounter. Use the bard to bolster PCs with spells and songs, use spells to provide miss chances and increases to dex, put powerful ranged weapons in the hands of the warriors, and find cover.
CuttinCurt 07-06-05, 05:24 PM	I agree with several of the posters here when I say that 5th to 7th level is not going to cut it and you best start making a new character. A city of beholders? 5th to 7th level? I might want to turn around and go another direction. As a 5th to 7th llevel character, if I knew in character, that I was going to be fighting Beholders, and had a chance to know what those were and what they can do? I would not even go close to that city. each eye ray has a caster level of 14 and a dc save of 17 minimal. some are fort, some are reflex, some are will, and if this DM knows these creatures and are his favorite monsters, then he will know exactly which eye ray to use on who, and he gets 4 rays a round. I fear, and rightfully so I think, that your group will be easilly down by two characters before you can blink on your first beholder, and another character will be willingly serving the beholder and defending it. I hope I am wrong, but I know beholders. They are not to be trifled with at such low levels.... CC I know you asked for tactics, so here is a good one... Retreat! :D I guess one other question is this... will you be fighting Gauths or Beholders or beholder kin. Perhaps that might stop some babble as we assume you mean the main big creatures called Beholders....
createvmind 07-06-05, 07:36 PM	:Running to give last words of comfort to the bold adventurers:, I strongly suggest you as PC's have a roundtable and stall this underground expedition and try and gain at least another level or two. Stock up on all things relative to fighting underground and on a more realistic note, look for another DM because you've stated that your DM has "favorites". Thats not so bad but sucks when the DM doesn't have patience to wait till you are of proper level to handle his favorite monsters, and you've all ready fought drow????? :confused: Ohhh and if you do eventually encounter the beholder/s it also has a bite so don't focus just on ray attacks, Beholders bite, bull rush and overrun. Also don't count on treasure to be easily accessable if DM is playing Beholder correctly, they usually lair where landlubbers can't reach. Godspeed
createvmind 07-06-05, 07:58 PM	:P Am i right in saying that if you hit with a spell that can blind a creature (like Glitterdust) and it fails its saving throw, would it then blind all the creatures eyes, except the anti-magic eye due to it being a magical blindness, thus rendering the creature unable to attack with any of its rays? Here's how I would do it, scenario's Main EYE open at time of casting. PC cast glitterdust (obviously not in it's antimagic field) and the Beholder fails saves and is now blind. Remaining PCs get attacks or movement and those within its main eye vision are seen by beholder, flanking and sneak can occur because it only has forward vision now. Beholder on its turn closes main eye and fires it's rays at targets that it knows location, I would give it -3 to hit because even though it saw targets, its not seeing when firing ray. PCs go again..........etc. Main eye closed PC cast glitterdust and beholder fails and is now totally blind. PCs go and sneak attacks and movement/actions can occur Beholder opens main eye to see whats going on and try to find targets and now has antimagic cone up. PCs go it reverts more or less to top scenario until spell wears off. MY beholder in a situation like that would just remain out of range as any intelligent beholder would do, and they are very intelligent. Hope you don't encounter a gouger
Inspired_Mage 07-07-05, 04:14 AM	I agree with several of the posters here when I say that 5th to 7th level is not going to cut it and you best start making a new character. A city of beholders? 5th to 7th level? I might want to turn around and go another direction. As a 5th to 7th llevel character, if I knew in character, that I was going to be fighting Beholders, and had a chance to know what those were and what they can do? I would not even go close to that city. We had a gaming session last night and just began a new adventure and it looks like we will not be venturing into any beholder city/liar anytime soon, our DM would never tell us when exactly we are going to fight a specific creature, but I think we wont be meeting a beholder now until at least 13th level. As for meeting drow, we havent found them that difficult as of yet but we have only met 1 high level drow and he was a 9th level mage (he killed one of our fighters with a phantasmal killer spell) but other than that we didnt really struggle against them. (I believe the module we played was a converted 2e module called 'Shadowdale' where we had to go into a closed off part of the Underdark and clear out any creatures we found which happened to be drow.)
CuttinCurt 07-07-05, 10:27 AM	13th level sounds more right for the true beholder. Besides the CR on the creature being 13 for the generic type out of the MM1, they are highly adjustable, and a DM who has the abberations book can really make a city of beholders quite interesting and deadly. Although, a true "city" is not realistic, but rather, an enclave of different beholder kin is more realistic, if that word could ever be used with AD&D. An enclave of 20-30 beholder types are not unknown, but very rare, and as Beholders dont really get along with eachother, you have to put one of those elder orbs in there to keep things in order, or the enclave will be killing themselves off one by one. Take to heart the fact that your DM has decided to wait on this, but dont count out some beholder kin here and there. I put a spectator (Magic of Faerun) in a special spot guarding some treasure for a necromancer, and that little crit almost took out two guys in a 6 man group of 5th level characters. (yes, all of the characters were 5th level) It was not there to kill them, but they felt they had to have the treasure, and as they didnt know about the 150 ft. telepathy on that sucker. Anyhow, take each encounter with a beholder kin as training for this eventual encounter with the city of beholders. It will help, even if they dont have the full powers of a true Beholder.... CC
createvmind 07-07-05, 11:58 AM	Hmmmmm, Not claiming to be the best DM ever but I wish I could DM a few games for you guys so you could really know a healthy respect for your enemies. A drow mage alone, highly unlikely and definitely wouldn't engage you if he thought he would be in for a fight. Who doesn't have other drow under him to answer is beck and call very unlikely (unless you guys somehow prevented this). A drow mage who doesn't attack with area attacks, use darkness, keep ample distance between you and himself and doesn't flee at first sign of battle going against him, super unlikely. Yes there is a luck factor, he could have botched or someone could have critted but for a drow male to make level 9 is in itself a feat. He would not risk himself like that, would you? Also who does that drow work for????? And who currently has or had the drows belongings, man I'd have a ball with all the options available here, nothing unites drow like having a drow get killed by rothe dung...what they call humans :D Hopefully your game will evolve and you can keep posting different scenarios so we can see how it progresses. Have fun.
Inspired_Mage 07-07-05, 01:56 PM	Well I didnt mention it before but that mage did escape, he killed our fighter, laid a few traps in his chamber then teleported out before we could even get close enough to hit him. Out of all the spellcasters we met (wizards and priestess's) we did fight along the way i think we only managed to kill 1, they usually head behind darkness or levitated out of the area and once their fighters started to drop then they all ran away (which kind of annoyed my character a bit due to him worshipping Shevarash). We are now currently helping out the farmers nearby Highmoon (i think) near the Thunder Peak Mountains with a problem they are having being raided by orcs/ogres and lord knows what else, after that who knows?
Iver Gearsham 07-10-05, 09:46 PM	Shrunk Items (Shrink Item spell) are cool tools for changing a battlefield to your liking. With a ring of Minor Spell Storing 18,500 gp or so you can give the ability to use Shrunk Items to all your party members. The bonfires you can shrink down can be made to emite vast amounts of smoke with green leaves or grasses for long periods of time. You can have halfwalled fighting platforms made of iron or wood that will give you a +1 to hit and damage hight bonus and a +4 AC cover bonus from two or more directions. Shrunk pools of oil to cover large areas forcing balance checks DC 15 to move at half speed that you can light on fire or be burning to begin with. Huge iron cages are very small in the cubic feet of actual matierial but ocuppie space and limit enemy movments and are a place to lock them up later. If you need to take a dead friend or monster keeping them shrunk makes them portable and they don't rot.
ClobberinTime 07-11-05, 09:17 PM	Not sure about the bizarre shrinking suggestions, but here is my 2 cents- Mirror image is good, I don't think anyone got that one. Like some one said putting the Beholder in the dark is a good idea. 20% miss chance on everything. One Idea I just had today is that anyone with Quick draw should be able to throw multiple javelins of lightning, also always carry a couple of scrolls of spells that are too high for you to normally cast and trade a 10% chance not to funcion for really zapping the enemy. 1 shots are good also wands with one fireball that are not spell completion so you can shoot 6 5 die fireballs at once at the beholder, each one should cost about 700gp or so. Or necklaces of missles.
Iver Gearsham 07-12-05, 08:03 AM	Not sure about the bizarre shrinking suggestions, but here is my 2 cents- It is for this next quote as they expressed problems with the shape of the battlefields the DM gives them as they have no way of altering that quickly in an inprovisational maner I just tried to give them some options. Originally Posted by Inspired_Mage Great Stuff!! Also, my party always seem to lack tactics coming into fights against almost all our enemies (prominently Drow) and we have tried to devise tactics for our fights but as im sure we have all found out we usually have to fight a battle on the DM's terms in areas we are not always familiar with, does anyone else try and devise tactics for "unknown" situations or do you just try and take it as they come?
Brom Greenstar 07-12-05, 08:13 AM	back in 2nd ed i played in a party that had access to the spell boulders to pebbles, so when we were going to fight a beholder we armed our halfling slinger with the "special ammo" (shrinked boulders with a light spell), she sneaked the beholder and attacked the beast with the stone the moment it realized he was being attacked by a brilliant missile it focused its antimagic ray on it... smashed beholder. Be warned it doesn't work all the time, i lost my ranger to a desintegrate ray from a beholder mage that didn't had a central eye