![]() ![]() ![]() But especially if the beholder has vertical room to maneuver, keeping it out of reach of melee fighters, it could use its Antimagic Cone as a “fourth eye ray” by repositioning itself so that it could aim that cone at one or more spellcasters while leaving other opponents outside the cone, where they’ll be susceptible to eye rays. When I first contemplated beholder tactics, I assumed (without even being fully aware of it) that the beholder would identify the best position in its lair and hold it-and that position would be relatively far from its opponents. I was also skeptical when I first saw the subsection heading, “Use Antimagic Freely,” but there’s an important insight here. But this would be an exception to the rule. Maybe if the members of a party differ substantially in power-say, if that fighter is level 12, while all her companions are level 10 or below-it will focus an eye ray on her even if she’s not an optimal target of it. But given that the rays fire at random, the beholder can still make intelligent choices about whom to aim them at, and I think it’s going to aim them wherever they have the greatest expected effect. The stat block says, “at random.” We can construe this as one of the ways in which the beholder, an aberration, behaves aberrantly. This time, when forced to choose between an implication of the Monster Manual and an implication of Volo’s, I side with the Monster Manual. Given that a typical adventuring party is made up of characters of comparable ability, why would a beholder forgo the chance to do full damage with that Enervation Ray by aiming at someone unlikely to resist it? Is the fighter really that much more of a threat than the wizard in back? Especially since the beholder can float off the ground, out of the fighter’s reach, but within range of the wizard’s spell attacks?Īlso, why would such a mastermind be firing off its eye rays at random? If it really did deem that fighter to be such a threat that it had to focus on her to the exclusion of her companions, why wouldn’t it choose a Sleep Ray to hit her with, rather than an Enervation Ray? Even a very tough fighter is going to have second thoughts after taking damage from a disintegration ray, an enervation ray, and a death ray.”Īs intelligent as a beholder is, why would it use an enervation ray against “a very tough fighter”? That fighter is going to have a good chance of making a DC 16 Constitution saving throw and halving that damage. Volo’s informs us, “A beholder analyzes its opponents, makes note of armor, weapons, and tactics, and adjusts its strategy to eliminate the most dangerous threats as quickly as possible.” That, by itself, is not necessarily a contradiction, but then it goes further: “A beholder can fire multiple eye rays on its turn, and it might use all of them in succession on its most dangerous foe. Per the beholder stat block in the Monster Manual, “The beholder shoots three of the following magical eye rays at random (reroll duplicates), choosing one to three targets.” Based on this, I concluded that the highly intelligent beholder would aim those randomly selected rays at the opponents least able to resist them. Since this blog’s focus is on tactics, I’ll concentrate on that.įor the most part, everything I said in my original analysis of beholders stands, but there is one small, implied contradiction. It contains material on determining a beholder’s appearance and behavior, the layout and contents of its lair, and even where baby beholders come from (it’s suitably weird). Volo’s Guide to Monsters is thorough in its treatment of beholders, in terms of both tactics and flavor. ![]()
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