monster makeover - beholder
TRANSCRIPT
-
7/31/2019 Monster Makeover - Beholder
1/4
Design & Development
Monster MakeoverThe Beholder
Mike Mearls
We're hoping this column becomes your window into
roleplaying design and developmentor at least the way we
approach these things here at Wizards of the Coast. We'llhandle a wide range of topics in weeks to come, from frank
discussions about over- or underpowered material, to the
design goals of a certain supplement, to what we think are
the next big ideas for the Dungeons & Dragons game. All of this comes bundled with a healthy look at the people
and events that are roleplaying R&D.
It floats before you, a bulbous body with a central, unblinking eye, and a large maw filled with daggerlike teeth...
Monster Makeover: The Beholder
Welcome back to another installment of the Monster Makeover series! I originally intended this series to run for a
column or two (with the rust monsterand ogre mage), but the high volume of feedback encouraged me to take
another crack at it. Eventually, I'll talk about other development issues and subjects relating to D&D. For this week,at least, it's time to redo another monster.
The beholder is perhaps one of the all time most popular monsters in D&D, and certainly one of the games most
iconic. Its distinctive appearance and strange, deadly powers earned it a permanent home in gamerdom's collective
memory. Its appeared in D&D computer games, its miniature in the Deathknellset is one of the most popular
figures out there, and it even had a starring role in an episode of the D&D cartoon.
(Yes, for the whippersnappers in the audience, there was once a D&D Saturday morning cartoon.
Producers Note: In fact, its hitting DVD shelves this Decemberand look for your chance to win one
on this website, coming soon!)
Before we begin, special thanks to everyone who showed up for the
Monster Makeover panel at Gen Con. Your input was helpful in shaping
this article, and you guys provided a lot of good ideas. Thanks!
Problem 1: Facing
The beholder appears, naturally, in the Monster Manual. If youre
looking for even more options, take a look at Lords of Madness, with the
elder eye and other beholder variants. Plus, the recent original
adventure: Legend of the Silver Skeleton, provided the doorway of the
beholdera kobold-designed trap, bringing the powers of the eye tyrant
against anyone daring try to pass through.
The first problem with the beholder is that it suffers from facing. "Facing"
isn't some weird monster disease. Instead, its a fancy term for rules that
describe which direction a creature faces on the battle grid. The D&D rules keep track of location, and also use avariety of abstractions to remove facing. Facing sounds reasonable, but it has a multitude of ripple effects on the
rules. I like to think of facing as one of those rules that forces you to ask a lot of questions that youre much happier
just forgetting. Here are the issues that facing brings up:
It makes drawing line of sight more complicated. It's already annoying enough drawing straight lines to
determine charges and cover. With facing, you need rules to determine from where on a creature you can
draw that line.
It makes movement more complex, since we now have to differentiate between a character that moves
forward, backward, and sideways. If an orc is looking at the eastern wall, what happens when it starts to
move away from that wall? Does it have to turn around first? Can it move backward as fast as it moves
forward?
ter Makeover http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dd/20061028a
4 22/08/2010 0
-
7/31/2019 Monster Makeover - Beholder
2/4
Tangent Alert!: For more on save-or-die
effects, take a look at the Elite Opponents:
Medusas article, where alternate gaze effects
are considered.
Now you have to introduce Spot modifiers if you try to notice something in front of or behind you, but those
modifiers can't be too good. Otherwise, moving behind someone makes the Hide skill pointless. Yet if the
modifiers are too high, you could always surprise someone by approaching from behind. There might be
some benefit in creating a clearer distinction between Spot and Listen, but it likely isn't worth the complexity.
Shields become strange and annoying. Does a shield count if you attack someone from behind? Probably
not. But what about the Dexterity bonus to AC? Flanking provides a nice, easy means to provide a modifier
on attacks. Facing asks us to replace it with a plethora of modifiers, and maybe even another AC to track(shieldless AC).
Facing might pass the reality test, but it fails in terms of complexity, ease of use, and most important of all play
value. "Play value" is short hand for saying, "The time and effort needed to learn and implement this rule yields
sufficient amounts of fun." Is the game significantly more fun because we know which direction an orc faces? No. It
might be more realistic, but the game isn't more fun.
The tricky thing about facing, however, is that it applies to all characters and monsters during every round of a
battle. If a rule comes up a lot, it should be simple to learn and the easy to remember. On the other hand, if a rule
comes up only rarely then it's a pain to look it up every time. Thus, if a rule rarely comes up, it should also be
simple to learn and easy to remember. Complexity in rules is best kept away from the table. It's OK to spend time
reading over a character class to learn how it works, but in play you shouldn't have to flip through the book to make
things move along.
So, that's problem one. The beholder uses a weird set of rules to give him enough facing for his powers to sort of
work.
Problem 2: Save-or-Die
Problem two lies in the beholder's powers. Of his ten eye rays, five
of them are designed to force a player to sit and watch the game
due to a single die roll. When used too often, save-or-die abilities
are B-O-R-I-N-G. They're dull for both players and DMs. They bloat
the game, because each type of save-or-die needs some sort of
counter. Clerics are saddled with a number of spells that, outside of removing save-or-die conditions (paralysis,
poison, fear, and so on) have no role in the game.
For DMs, save-or-die abilities are even worse. There's nothing quite so anti-climactic as watching the big, evilvillain die to a single failed save on the first round of combat. Even worse, in many cases save-or-die abilities do
nothing on a successful save. If a DM fudges things to allow the villain to make his save, the players have wasted
their spell or ability without any benefit.
Of the beholder's five remaining eye rays, one of them is useless against PCs of a level appropriate to the party
(charm person), one inflicts relatively light damage (inflict moderate wounds), one is a generic utility option
(telekinesis), one inhibits the party's actions (slow), and one is a terrifying, powerful attack (disintegrate).
Let's look at each eye ray, render a judgment on whether to draft a new one or keep it intact.
An Eye For an Eye For an Eye For an Eye
Charm Person: This might seem inappropriate given the beholder's
CR, but it helps explain away a beholder's lower level allies and is auseful tool for creating the story around a beholder. With ten different
eye rays on a beholder, there's space for ones useful outside of a fight.
Let's also add a version that allows this ray to stun a target with a failed
Will save. During a fight, the beholder uses this ray to knock a target
senseless. Otherwise, it uses the ray to make friends with potential
vassals.
Inflict Moderate Wounds: This eye ray illustrates a subtle but
important issue with the beholder. It either kills you outright, or zaps a
10th-ish level character for about 15 points of damage. That's simply not
very interesting. It might be cool for a beholder to heal undead at range,
but it seems a little pointless to saddle an eye ray with a spell of
questionable flavor and utility. Let's replace this ray with one that inflicts
ter Makeover http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dd/20061028a
4 22/08/2010 0
-
7/31/2019 Monster Makeover - Beholder
3/4
6d6 damage, no saving throw. That gives the beholder a useful, generic
damaging blast. Let's make this a ray ability called blast ray, and the beholder can choose the ray's energy type.
Telekinesis: Another utility eye ray, telekinesis helps explain how beholders manipulate tools. Unfortunately, this
spell is really, really annoying in play. It has three different versions, each with radically different mechanics. Let's
keep this eye ray in place, but add a modification to make the DM's life simple. Now, a beholder can use this ray to
move a creature up to 20 feet; a Reflex save negates this movement. This ray is useful in moving fighters and other
melee guys away, and is a cruel combo with slow.
Slow: A powerful counter against melee types and casters alike, since it forces PCs to decide if they want to move
or attack. It stays.
Disintegrate: Another cool, iconic beholder ability. It stays.
That leaves us with the five save-or-die eye rays: charm monster, fear, finger of death, flesh to stone, and sleep.
These five abilities provide at least some of the motivation behind limiting the beholder's facing. After all, blasting
someone with five abilities that all require a save against death or incapacitation is brutal to say the least. Well, if all
the save or die abilities go away can we simply ditch the beholder's line of sight issue or at least make it more
forgiving. Let's ditch them, but modify the beholder's eye rays text to say the following:
Eye Rays (Su): Each of a beholder's eye stalks can produce a ray of magical energy. As a standard action, a
beholder can produce one ray from each eyestalk. It can target up to three rays at a single target. Each ray aimed
at a specific target must have a different effect, but a beholder can use the same ability twice per round.
For example, a beholder has 10 eye stalks. It encounters a party of four adventurers: a fighter, a cleric, a rogue,
and a wizard. On its turn, it uses three rays against two targets, and two rays against two other targets. It cannotuse any specific ray more than twice. It uses its rays in the following manner:
Fighter: Telekinesis, slow, disintegrate.
Wizard: Telekinesis, blast ray(cold), stun.
Cleric: Stun, disintegrate.
Rogue: Slow, blast ray(acid).
Hopefully, the double blast ofdisintegrate makes up for the lack of
save-or-die effects. Plus, the beholder has the chance to hand out two
stunning rays per round.
These changes also bring out another useful addition to the beholder. A DC
17 save for its eye rays is a little disappointing given its CR of 13. A PC with
a good save probably has around +12 or so, or a 20% chance of failing thesave. A PC with a poor save should have +6 or +7, or about a 50% chance
of failing. Those numbers seem a little low, especially since the beholder still
has to hit with its eye ray. Worst of all, it makes the beholder scale poorly.
Higher level PCs can laugh off the beholder's effects as they make save after
save.
The low save DCs are likely caused by the beholder's many save-or-die
abilities. I've removed those, so the save DC needs a boost to give the
abilities more bite and to make up for the loss of save-or-die. A +4 racial
bonus to the beholder's save DCs makes the eye rays more dangerous. A
character with good saves still makes that save more than half the time, but
the beholder can always choose to target PCs based on their good and bad saves.
Problem 3: Antimagic
So, the development pass so far has removed the beholder's facing issues while getting rid of its save or die
effects. There's still one thing to handle, the beholder's antimagic cone.
Antimagic fieldand similar effects are a pain in the butt. I could write an entire column on that spell, but I won't.
Let's just look at some obvious interactions it has with the beholder:
It shuts down the beholder's abilities. That doesn't make much sense.
It forces the players to recalculate a number of things on the fly, grinding the game to a halt.
It makes an already complex monster even more burdensome to run.
The design intent behind the antimagic cone is pretty clear. When you fight a beholder, it can shut down your
ability to cast magic spells. Why bother wrapping that in the complexities ofantimagic field? Instead, let's take the
ter Makeover http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dd/20061028a
4 22/08/2010 0
-
7/31/2019 Monster Makeover - Beholder
4/4
shortest route to our destination.
Antimagic Eye (Su): The beholder can focus its large, central eye on an area, disrupting all
spellcasting that takes place there. As a swift action, the beholder creates a 60 foot cone. Anyone in
this area who attempts to cast a spell must make a caster level check (DC 22) to successfully
complete the spell. This DC is Intelligence based and includes a +4 racial bonus.
Voila! The beholder no longer hoses his own abilities, pluswhen combined with slowthis ability can be really,
really tough on PC casters. Still, the beholder is missing that one, final piece to make him interesting. Let's add a
funky little ability to keep the adventurers on their toes.
Sustained Barrage (Su): Beholders continually seethe with arcane energy, allowing them to create a
sustained barrage of rays. A beholder rolls two dice for initiative and records both results. On a
beholder's initiative count, it can choose to take its normal turn or a special barrage turn. It may take
one normal turn per round and one barrage turn per round. On its barrage turn, the beholder may fire
its blast rayortelekinesis rays at any target within 60 feet. The beholder fires twice, using either ray
for each shot. It may fire at the same or a different target. The beholder cannot take any other actions
on its barrage turn except to delay.
Feedback
Let us know how this made-over beholder players for youdrop us a line at [email protected]. Wed also
love to hear your tales of beholders in action, from your past and present games.
About the Author
Mike Mearls is the dark hope of chaotic evil: young, handsome, well endowed in abilities and aptitudes, thoroughly
wicked, depraved, and capricious. Whomever harms Mearls had better not brag of it in the presence of one who
will inform the Demoness Lolth!
Evil to the core, Mearls is cunning, and if the situation appears in doubt, he will use bribery and honeyed words to
sway the balance in his favor. He is not at all adverse to gaining new recruits of any sort, and will gladly accept
adventurers into the ranks, but he will test and try them continually. Those who arouse suspicion will be quietly
murdered in their sleep; those with too much promise will be likewise dealt with, for Mearls wants no potential
usurpers or threats to his domination.
1995-2008 Wizards of the Coast, Inc., a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
ter Makeover http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dd/20061028a
4 22/08/2010 0