Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Gallacher_the_Horse 01-11-06, 10:43 AM	Hi everyone, I'm after opinions as to what happens to a beholder if you cast 'Blindness' on it and it fails its saving throw. I'm expecting at least one 'It's blinded', so that's that out the way :) I'd really welcome your thoughts and ideas please, as it seems that a fairly low-level spell could knock out a CR14 creature! Cheers, Gallacher the Horse
dok 01-11-06, 11:49 AM	The creature's eye beams still function just fine, as would its central eye's antimagic effect. However, the creature would suffer the effects of being blind: no dexterity bonus to AC, needing a listen check to locate targets, and suffering a 50% miss chance on all attacks. That means the eye beams would still be ranged touch, pinpointing the square of a creature in combat is a Listen DC 20, and the eye beams would suffer a 50% miss chance, but still be resolved as ranged touch attacks.
Gallacher_the_Horse 01-11-06, 12:15 PM	Thanks Dok, that does seem to be the obvious answer. My question really came from the description of the eye set-up from Lords of Madness, (if you are familiar with it) which gives this truly non-humanoid description - '000s of sheaves to the iris, up to a dozen lenses, three retina and multi-formation links, all of which course with magical energy. It just strikes me that 'Blindness', essentially there to deal with more basic, two-eye set-ups, seems mighty powerful considering its level. But thanks again; I guess I was hoping for something to lead me away from the standard DMG statement. Happy gaming!
Gallacher_the_Horse 01-11-06, 12:21 PM	I've been thinking about it knocking out a 'quadrant', so three eyes are blinded perhaps. And would a spell affect the anti-magic eye? As a side-line, what would happen if you cast 'Blindness' on a gibbering mouther, that can produce eyes seemingly at will? Gallacher the Horse
Shaunboy 01-11-06, 01:46 PM	I would say the Antimagic eye would see normally even with the blindness spell because ... it is .. antimagic. Aiming the other eyes would be a bit harder because they would be blinded but the creature would still be able to see with the antimagic eye. I would say if totally blindness is total concealment (a 50% miss chance) then blindness in the magic eyes would make using them a 20% miss chance because of partial concealment. -Shaun
Gallacher_the_Horse 01-11-06, 02:00 PM	Thanks Shaun, you've got me thinking. Perhaps 50% miss behind, 20% in front because of the central eye, because ... it is ... anti-magic. It sounds like it should be straightforward - maybe I've got myself too confused! :)
The Vorpal Tribble 01-11-06, 02:59 PM	For some reason I read this thread and the first thing to come to mind was a party meeting a Beholder and a psion manifesting Death Urge on it. It then turns all its eyes on itself. *WHOOMPH* Disentegrate 10 times at about an average of 45 points of damage per eye, x2 because they are automatic criticals, for about 900 points of damage in one round to itself.
Gallacher_the_Horse 01-11-06, 03:14 PM	For some reason I read this thread and the first thing to come to mind was a party meeting a Beholder and a psion manifesting Death Urge on it. It then turns all its eyes on itself. *WHOOMPH* Disentegrate 10 times at about an average of 45 points of damage per eye, x2 because they are automatic criticals, for about 900 points of damage in one round to itself. Well, either each eye would work - charm itself, turn itself to stone, cause wounds, disintegrate bits of itself and so on - not unlike a retributive strike with a Staff of Power - or nothing would happen, as its anti-magic qualities battled with the effects of the ten other eyes and it shuts down like HAL. :)
OamuTheMonk 01-11-06, 10:28 PM	I would say the Antimagic eye would see normally even with the blindness spell because ... it is .. antimagic. Aiming the other eyes would be a bit harder because they would be blinded but the creature would still be able to see with the antimagic eye. I would say if totally blindness is total concealment (a 50% miss chance) then blindness in the magic eyes would make using them a 20% miss chance because of partial concealment. -Shaun You've still got a problem. A Beholder that is blinded in all but it's Antimagic Eye (Which is kind of a silly idea, anyway) would still be forced to fire his eye-beams blind (total concealment), because it cannot fire into the cone of antimagic that emits from it's central eye. Central Eye looking at target=blinded ray-eye cannot fire at target. Central eye closed/not looking at target=blinded ray-eye firing into total concealment. Either way, the Beholder is firing blind.
Crinos 01-11-06, 11:01 PM	Thats actually interesting. I always figured Blindness was designed to be used against a creature with two eyes like a humanoid. So one could possibly rule that a Beholder is only blinded in two of his eyes. And as said above, never in his central eye.
dok 01-11-06, 11:25 PM	Let's go through this, one step at a time folks... The Blindness/Deafness spell (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/blindnessDeafness.htm) simply says "the subject is blinded". It doesn't say "it can't see out of two eyes", it doesn't say "it's eyes no longer work", it says Blinded. As in, the SRD-defined condition of Blinded (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/conditionSummary.htm#blinded). That condition says: All checks and activities that rely on vision (such as reading and Spot checks) automatically fail. Eye Rays are a Supernatural Ability, and as such are neither a check nor an activity based on vision, so they would not be affected. All opponents are considered to have total concealment (50% miss chance) to the blinded character. So attempting to hit a creature with an eye ray would suffer the 50% miss chance. The Beholder's antimagic cone, generated by the central eye is also a Supernatural Ability, and it would not be affected by the blindness. However, the antimagic cone extends outwards from the Beholder and does not encompass or touch the beholder in any way, so the antimagic cone would also not provide the beholder with any protection or relief from the blindness spell. (put another way, the beholder is always completely outside its own antimagic cone) The beholder can't see at all, but it's eye-rays and antimagic cone still work as normal. The beholder has to locate creatures with Listen checks, and suffers all the normall effects of being blind. The rules on this are cut-and-dry, folks. Find me a quote, anywhere in the SRD, DMG, or Monster Manual that supports any other position. Since someone asked about the Gibbering Mouther, I'll tackle that one too. the Description says "countless eyes and toothy mouths constantly form and disappear all over the creature..." However, once again I'll point out that the blindness spell says nothing about "eyes" or "visual organs". It says the creature is blinded. It doesn't matter how many eyes it has, or how they're shaped, Blinded = Blinded. the first thing to come to mind was a party meeting a Beholder and a psion manifesting Death Urge on it. It then turns all its eyes on itself. That is a funny image, but that's not how Death Urge (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/deathUrge.htm) actually works. The power is very explicit on what steps the creature will take to harm itself: If armed, the subject attacks itself as a full-round action. The attack automatically succeeds and deals damage as a critical hit. If unarmed, the subject moves adjacent to the nearest enemy and provokes an attack of opportunity, offering its opponent an opening, which the opponent may or may not choose to take advantage of. If the subject is unarmed and no enemy is nearby, the subject simply does nothing at all. A subject close to an immediate and lethal hazard such as a cliff or a fire might hurl itself off the cliff or into the fire instead of striking itself with a weapon. It lays out a simple series of steps. 1.) If armed, it makes a single attack against itself as a full round action that is an automatic critical hit. 2.) If unarmed with a nearby enemy, it moves into the enemy's nearest threatened square and provokes an AoO. 3.) If unarmed with no nearby enemy and no nearby threat, the subject simply does nothing at all. The beholder would use one eye ray on itself (probably disintegrate because that deals the most damage, and can still crit) and would be allowed a saving throw vs. the effect. death urge is one of those powers I hate people mis-reading; everyone seems overly eager to make it far more powerful than the 2nd level power it is simply by over-emphasizing one line of flavor text over an entire paragraph of explicit rules. Sorry to rant, but this is a case where the rules are pretty straightforward, and don't require a lot of 'interpretation' or 'opinion'. Things work the way they say they work. Spells do what they say they do, no more and no less. If the beholder had a Gaze attack, then blindness would be a problem. But the beholder's eye rays and antimagic cone aren't gaze attacks, nor do they even resemble gaze attacks.
IceFractal 01-12-06, 05:40 AM	Now Seething Eyebane - that would mess up a Beholder.
Slagger the Chuul 01-12-06, 07:50 AM	death urge is one of those powers I hate people mis-reading; everyone seems overly eager to make it far more powerful than the 2nd level power it is simply by over-emphasizing one line of flavor text over an entire paragraph of explicit rules. Don't you mean 4th level?
Gallacher_the_Horse 01-12-06, 07:30 PM	Thanks again Dok, but I think you may be taking this far too seriously and literally. And hey, the opening comment is completely unnecessary, considering everyone else has just joined in in the way I hoped, thinking creatively and even making me laugh. And I think you are wrong about the anti-magic cone not touching the beholder. It doesn't start from even an infinitesimal distance in front of the beholder, but from the back of the eye. The Lords of Madness book states that the magic-bearing evoculary 'feeds directly into one of the eye's three retinas and anchors in the iris sheath. The evocularies...transmit light and magic from the retina to the lenses and vice-versa.... The nature of an eye's evoculary configuration is believed to be what focuses the raw magic energy the creature generates deep in its brain to create its signature eye ray effects.' So the anti-magic ray forms at the back of the eye, passes through the lenses, thus touching them and is directed by those lenses, which must again be touching the ray to do so. And if the ray weren't touching the eye, why would closing the eye stop it? So thanks again for quoting bits and pieces to us, and showing the links, but those answers aren't enough for me. If they were, I wouldn't have asked for the creative thoughts, I'd have read a book, just accepted it without thinking things through and said to myself, 'It's blinded'. Cheers and happy gaming!
Gallacher_the_Horse 01-12-06, 07:42 PM	Thanks Oamu, for adding to the debate. I reckon that, as the anti-magic cone doesn't cover the entire field of vision of the central eye (check your own, you have about 170-175 degree vision) but a 150ft cone, the beholder could see out of the 'corners' of its eye, thus directing the rays. The effect flows through the lenses ( see my rather dull post quoting stuuf from L of M above) so doesn't cover the whole eye as it flows from the beholder. So maybe it can still see, as the lenses of the central eye, with their on-going anti-magic effect, that is halted by closing the central eye, are unaffected by the blindness spell? You've got me thinking even more! Cheers and happy gaming!
Eno_Badger 01-18-06, 08:36 AM	The most obvious answer to the Beholder verses Blindness discussion is that of course the spell works the Beholder becomes completely blind (an then cast a second spell to also make it deaf). Whilst it can maybe still 'see' out of its central eye its brain will get all confused as its sensory inputs go from 11+ to just one, so it tumbles out of the sky, allowing a very clever party to sneak up on it (avoiding its randomly firing eye rays) and beat the glop out of it. Easy. An alternative version is that it makes its saves and leaves smoking stumps were the party use to be. Anyway a more pressing question is what happens when a beholder(boy) looks at a beholder Nymph, does it then become blind?
WombleHunter 01-18-06, 09:10 AM	Thanks Oamu, for adding to the debate. I reckon that, as the anti-magic cone doesn't cover the entire field of vision of the central eye (check your own, you have about 170-175 degree vision) but a 150ft cone, the beholder could see out of the 'corners' of its eye, thus directing the rays. The effect flows through the lenses ( see my rather dull post quoting stuuf from L of M above) so doesn't cover the whole eye as it flows from the beholder. So maybe it can still see, as the lenses of the central eye, with their on-going anti-magic effect, that is halted by closing the central eye, are unaffected by the blindness spell? You've got me thinking even more! Cheers and happy gaming!You're thining about this wrong, I'd say. Regardless of what the Lords of Madness book says about the physiology of the beholder, the creature itself doesn't have any ability to shrug off or ignore spells that affect its sight. If it did, they would be in its entry in the Monster Manual. Furthermore, you seem to assume that the Blindness/Deafness spell is meant to target a creature's eyes, and even that it targets creatures with two eyes. Nothing about the spell says this; it targets one creature, not a part of a creature. If it targeted a creature's eyes, it would make that explicit. I;m not sure why you think that the spell is meant to do that; indeed, since it is Blindness OR Deafness that can be inflicted with the spell, I have always thought about it in terms of messing with the way the creature processes sensory information; blinding someone and deafening them (without causing them physical damage) are otherwise rather different tasks. In short, the physiology of the Beholder is irrelevant to the Blindness/Deafness spell, since the spell targets a creature and causes it to become blind, irrespective of ocular organs. The spell also specifies exactly what blinding means, as posted above - it won't affect the operation of the anti-magic cone nor the eye rays, other than the normal penalties ofr being blind. Frankly, I'm not sure why you have this problem.