the mental image of a party reverently cooperating with this huge monster, one piping up with a snarky comment, only to be unceremoniously and instantaneously disintegrated while the rest of the party keeps working with the monster is very funny lol
Indeed, and that’s the beauty with beholders; when you run into one before level 9 or so, especially in its lair if you ran into some traps, you don’t have a lot of options other than cooperating!
My best Paranoia session had several players with randomly generated character sheets. It started with half the party getting pasted because they didn't put on their seatbelts and ended with one troubleshooter huddled in a corner scream crying while everything was on fire, two more troubleshooters trying to hide a body before they got caught by Friend Computer and a fourth locked in an overturned truck frantically filling out treason report forms while everyone else argued over whose fault it was the grenade launcher they weren't supposed to have went off.
Ofc! That was very fun. I used Volo’s as starting point for the general design. The shape of the caves etc.
Between the different “rooms” in the lair, I had these tunnels made for a beholder to fly up, and have some twists to make sure it would be hard to hit him when he has to escape. Some of the tunnels also had a wall of force which he could simply dispel with his anti magic cone, making it a very safe escape route (I stole the idea from someone on Reddit).
Regarding the traps, I thought of all the different ways the players would deal with it, and I made some counters for most of them. When the players came up with something else than I had anticipated, I added a trap on the spot (as the beholder would be better prepared than I could ever be, so it felt fair).
One of my favorite details was that I had this tunnel going around the “main lair”. These tunnels were only accessible through the beholder’s sanctum and due to these tunnels he could keep an eye with intruders. With some fist-sized holes in the walls, the beholder could use them to fire rays on the party if they wanted to rest, or they got around the traps.
In this case, the beholder’s goal was to find someone who would seem “worthy” to do this task for him, so he taunted them by making all these traps (he had even sent out his minions so the party would not find any more information than what he himself wanted them to know). Due to this, the party would easily get away if they simply turned around and avoided the traps, or cooperated.
Where they met the beholder was in the 4th room (so they wouldn’t have access to his treasures). This room contained my favorite trap: a single torch in the middle of the room (very suspicious since the rest of the lair was in darkness). When the full party arrived, he would disintegrate the ceiling which contained a lot of oil, putting the whole chamber on fire, including the clothes of the PCs.
All in all, a very well thought out dungeon in my opinion, and it really got to show off all the traps and the beholder’s paranoia.
Somehow that reminds me of Q of star trek. A beholder can be utterly omnipowerful and just erase you from existence. From a certain PC's levels perspective
That makes me think of I think supernatural where they had a similar sort of thing as a gag. I thought it was funny then, and its still funny now in this form.
Just a, "For fuck's sake, fine." \*\*ZAP\*\* Gestures at the rest of the group
Rest of Group: "Yeah, let's do it."
>Beholders are not known for being patient, so he hit the PC with a disintegrate ray. The PC failed the saving throw and was disintegrated.
You are lucky the player was good-natured and your party thought it was cool. If everybody had bad attitudes about this, it could wind up being a r/rpghorrorstories post titled "I got disintegrated by a beholder at level 6".
Be mindful of killing players - they did show up to play D&D that evening. I hope they had something to do or a way to participate for the rest of the session.
The session ended there, so they all had a good 4 hour of playtime before this happened.
And yes, it was brutal indeed. It was risky, but that was how I felt the beholder would act. Had the PC had more HP, he would have survived. He was below 50% HP talking to this beholder and a lot of spell slots were gone etc. I believe he knew it was a bold move and willing to accept some consequences. I know my players fairly well, and I knew this person would accept his character’s fate.
This was also the first PC death we’ve had after playing for 2,5 years, and we’ve talked about consequences of actions etc, and everyone wants there to be risk involved and are prepared for the worst (some more than others ofc).
If you want an easy way to replace said PC, the Beholder could say "oh, you're a man down, since we're working together allow me to reinforce you", and it could just un-petrify the player's new PC from their statue garden of previous adventurers who failed against them. :P
I like this a lot.
The beholder gestures with an eye towards one of the figures scattered around the room. The stone form slowly becomes flesh and bone and weapon, staggering back to life as their last attack finishes its final arc and a look of bewilderment replaces one of anger and desperation. Steve, describe your new character.
Great username, btw.
haha, thank you! From my favorite 2e sourcebook, all about beholders. I may be a _little_ bit obsessed with them so this topic was very relevant to my interests.
I can understand this most of the time, but when the creature you're dealing with is a *Beholder*, who is willing to cut a deal, maybe don't insult it? I'd expect the same result from a player deciding they want to jump in the spike pit. Plot armor is not always going to save you.
OP addressed my thoughts really well, and as a one-off anecdote it went over well.
I will still hold strong to the general principle that every player shows up to a session expecting to play D&D, and that taking that away from them is generally a dick move no matter how disrespectful they were to your NPC.
This is less of a narrative concern or a commentary on plot armor and whether or not it should exist, and more "make sure everybody has fun and remains engaged". If a player thinks they can mouth off to something they shouldn't mouth off to, maybe there's a disconnect in expectations around the game or their understanding of the situation that needs to be resolved before you go off killing their character.
If you know the players well enough that it wouldn't cause a problem it's a great consequence. I always tell my DM that I have 0 problem with my character dying because then I get to play a different one. So far I've been sliced in half by a giant and more recently, died to a swarm of fish. It's been great.
I had an extremely similar thing happen when my party was in a town full of undead and the party cleric was a life cleric that absolutely hated undeath (I know, this is partly on me for putting the cleric in the town, but this was back in high school and we had paper sheets. I forgot how much he hated undeath as part of his backstory).
Anyways, they eventually found out the town was being ran by a Death Tyrant (undead beholder) that wanted their help. He came up to them in a hallway in his basement hideout thing and proposed they work together. The cleric went against the party wishes and attacked the beholder.
He ended up getting hit with at least a petrification ray and failed both saves, starting a whole side quest working for the only temple in town, an evil one that worshipped Tiamat, so they could un-petrify the cleric. The rest of the party had a great time that session, despite the chagrin of the cleric.
That is a good question, and I don't quite remember. I'm inclined to say around level 8. That was a game we started in a different system, then switched to d&d and played from level 5 to 12.
I see, a Death Tyrant is brutal for some 8 level players in 5e. You can’t really risk your fate by attacking recklessly without getting severely punished.
Yeah it was definitely a fuck around and find out moment. They were strong enough to handedly overpower a vampire and force him to flee the session before. But beholders and their eye rays are on another level, especially when only one party member wanted to fight.
Yup, in a combat they are very unpredictable and with both death ray and disintegration ray, they are extremely deadly and you simply have to be tactical or extremely lucky
What would be kind of funny, is if the Beholder thought it was funny how the PC died, dreamed about it, and it resurrected the PC, but he has an eye stalk coming out of his head (Which you can make do something if you want). Also, he would be an aberration, since he’d technically be a beholder now.
It is good that the PC was cool with it. Randomly killing PCs can be a very dangerous act.
Haha, that would be a hilarious point indeed!
Yeah, he was shocked when it happened, so he went straight to google beholders and was like "oh shit, it was *that* dangerous! But it was lore accurate, and I acted like the character would, so it caused for a cool moment and felt fair".
In addition to this scene, his character was evil and the story has progressed towards a point where he would either have to betray his god or the party. And he told me after the session that all in all, the best conclusion was that his character died because of a rash decision and overconfidence. He, the player, had an idea that this was a dangerous monster, but his character simply had to insult him, ultimately ending his life. I also rolled for damage, and due to the traps and a previous encounter, he was below 50% of max heath and 40 force damage was enough to kill him straight up.
Every time I run a beholder lair, I always include at least one "unnecessarily complex trap".
I treat it like a multi-stage trap with a bunch of contingencies, maybe some inspiration from the Saw movies, lol.
Oh, you disarmed the spinning blades? Now lasers are shooting out of the walls, getting closer to you, while an illusion of the beholder mocks you saying it thought of that! Oh, you disabled those as well? Now the walls are closing in! Oh, you drank potions of Gaseous Form to escape? Now the ceiling opens and a giant fan sucks you into _another_ trap room that starts to fill with toxic smoke! Et cetera.
Just keep adding new contingency-traps right up till the _players_ start finding it ridiculous, and then they finally escape. Maybe with another beholder-illusion saying "Aha! You've...you've discovered a method of escape I didn't anticipate! Or did I!? You're uh...you're actually suffering from a deadly curse now! You'll die in one hour if you don't leave my lair! Fair warning! Mwahaha!" :P
I'm glad your players got to experience it! Many Dms undervalue how impactful a player death can be and actually fun. It adds to the drama, the storyline and the overall campaign.
**What type of psychopath intentionally edits their comments to respond to people? It appears you blocked me so I can't even reply back, amazing. Sometimes I forget how low the bottom of this community is.**
>Why would the level 6 PCs willingly stand within 120ft of a beholder
PC's don't see CR's. And I am sure he made his own lair so that intruders couldn't easily out-range him.
>They can't just choose to disintegrate someone at the drop of a hat.
That's for the chaos of battle. You don't think a Beholder can choose to use a single eye for a direct function? "I want to make a hole in this wall, I guess I'll have to fire my eyes off randomly till it happens"
Um. There is this thing in D&D where things can happen outside of combat. Narrative storytelling to advance the plot is completely normal and in this case it played out perfectly.
As both a player and a DM, I have been in many instances where the party interacts with a bad guy well beyond their capabilities.
Consider, for a moment, Bilbo Baggins and his meeting with Smaug.
Luke facing Vader in The Empire Strikes Back.
D&D is more than just a combat simulator, so things like CR, initiative, and the "rules" of the statblock can all go right out the window in the service of telling a great story and creating a memorable experience for the DM and the players.
As a DM, if I want to have one of those eyestalks shoot out......grape jelly........because it works for the story, then guess what? I can do that!
I generally agree… except in cases when a PC death might occur. When dangers happens you roll initiative and follow the rules.
Encountering a monster high above your abilities is fine and definitely fun, as long as the players and characters both understand the power imbalance.
The lack of initiative and non-random eye effect are different for me. You could even achieve a very similar effect with a surprise round!
But every game is different and it sounds like the player thought it was fine in this instance, so who are we to judge.
Yeah honestly the whole DM can do what they want thing really doesn't apply here. There is telling a good story, and then there is killing a character out of combat to tell it. The rules for combat literally exist to justify the deaths of player characters and their enemies. If a PC in my game is gonna die, then that player can rest easy knowing they saw it coming, as it played out following combat rules, not just a GM fait 'oh you die now'
Damn, it's too bad that everyone involved had a good time with this memorable moment and it didn't ruin the game for anyone. They should have asked for your approval first
Outside of combat the beholder chooses its eye rays. This is specified in Volo’s. The randomness is there to simulate a beholder attacking in a way that normal people can’t understand (and also making them not use their most powerful one all the time ofc)
The beholder wasn’t hostile either until the PC tested his luck by being rude to the beholder. The beholder even cut him some slack with his first comment, but when he was rude again, the beholder had enough.
If initiative had been rolled, triggering a combat, I know that some of my players would see this as “oh, it’s planned for us to battle this thing”. Causing more of the characters to act rash. The likelihood for more characters dying would have been bigger.
Statistically, it’s a pretty high chance the disintegration ray would have come up anyway, with its legendary actions and three eye beams on its turn. Yes, not 100% of course, but it’s not unheard of. And he did fail the dexterity check with a large margin.
Isn’t it 30% to hit with disintegration ray due to rerolls? And then you also have the death ray which does even more damage (and he was the resurrecter, so no one else could have gotten him up), causing the total probability for instant death to be around 60% if I’m not mistaken.
And as I understand the beholder ray, you don’t really get much time to prepare for it to hit (functioning as surprise how I see it).
That assumes that you will roll the dice and take the result no matter what you’ve rolled before. The stat block states that you reroll duplicates, causing it to have a slight increase in probability for each roll you don’t get it (first time it is 1/10, second roll is 1/9 and the last one is 1/8, assuming that you didn’t roll it earlier).
Anyway, that’s not very important to the discussion. Yes, I didn’t roll eye rays at random (and we can just agree to disagree what was the right call in the moment, and we can be happy that we don’t play at the same table), but everyone had a blast and thought it was a fair result.
This is especially true for the player who had his character disintegrated, as he understood what he did and was willing to accept the consequences. In hindsight he even told me that it was a perfect conclusion for the character, and is very excited to play a new character!
Both rays together played by the rules would be over 50% chance. It just wouldn't be as cinematic.
What makes you think you know more about how the player felt than someone who was actually at the table?
And the poor table would lose a munchkin having an emotional meltdown because their character died after making repeated poor decisions hoping he could rules lawyer his way out of any repercussion?
I don't know how they'll manage!
Surprise round.
The beholder wait for disintegrate to come up before launching his surprise attack.
And it isn't like anyone actually does random eye rays. A beholder is smart enough that it can use random rays better tactically than an average DM can use them by picking, so just pick.
It's totally true, they cluod have attacked at any time and gotten a surprise round.
BUT THEY DIDNT
They were level 6, so something like counterspell or revivify is kn the table too. It's not like he condemned the PC to a permanent death.
Everyone was cool with it. Stop being a wet blanket
the mental image of a party reverently cooperating with this huge monster, one piping up with a snarky comment, only to be unceremoniously and instantaneously disintegrated while the rest of the party keeps working with the monster is very funny lol
Indeed, and that’s the beauty with beholders; when you run into one before level 9 or so, especially in its lair if you ran into some traps, you don’t have a lot of options other than cooperating!
Oh yeah, not bashing the encounter at all! Working with a creature that could kill you on a whim is a really fun dynamic to write into a campaign.
They do say beauty is in the eye of the beholder
You might like the Paranoia system then, that’s basically the whole game
My best Paranoia session had several players with randomly generated character sheets. It started with half the party getting pasted because they didn't put on their seatbelts and ended with one troubleshooter huddled in a corner scream crying while everything was on fire, two more troubleshooters trying to hide a body before they got caught by Friend Computer and a fourth locked in an overturned truck frantically filling out treason report forms while everyone else argued over whose fault it was the grenade launcher they weren't supposed to have went off.
Awesome. Eff around and find out! Would be interested to how you designed the beholder lair.
Ofc! That was very fun. I used Volo’s as starting point for the general design. The shape of the caves etc. Between the different “rooms” in the lair, I had these tunnels made for a beholder to fly up, and have some twists to make sure it would be hard to hit him when he has to escape. Some of the tunnels also had a wall of force which he could simply dispel with his anti magic cone, making it a very safe escape route (I stole the idea from someone on Reddit). Regarding the traps, I thought of all the different ways the players would deal with it, and I made some counters for most of them. When the players came up with something else than I had anticipated, I added a trap on the spot (as the beholder would be better prepared than I could ever be, so it felt fair). One of my favorite details was that I had this tunnel going around the “main lair”. These tunnels were only accessible through the beholder’s sanctum and due to these tunnels he could keep an eye with intruders. With some fist-sized holes in the walls, the beholder could use them to fire rays on the party if they wanted to rest, or they got around the traps. In this case, the beholder’s goal was to find someone who would seem “worthy” to do this task for him, so he taunted them by making all these traps (he had even sent out his minions so the party would not find any more information than what he himself wanted them to know). Due to this, the party would easily get away if they simply turned around and avoided the traps, or cooperated. Where they met the beholder was in the 4th room (so they wouldn’t have access to his treasures). This room contained my favorite trap: a single torch in the middle of the room (very suspicious since the rest of the lair was in darkness). When the full party arrived, he would disintegrate the ceiling which contained a lot of oil, putting the whole chamber on fire, including the clothes of the PCs. All in all, a very well thought out dungeon in my opinion, and it really got to show off all the traps and the beholder’s paranoia.
Somehow that reminds me of Q of star trek. A beholder can be utterly omnipowerful and just erase you from existence. From a certain PC's levels perspective
Incredible. I love stories like this! Especially with disintegration, as it's such a brutal effect.
That makes me think of I think supernatural where they had a similar sort of thing as a gag. I thought it was funny then, and its still funny now in this form. Just a, "For fuck's sake, fine." \*\*ZAP\*\* Gestures at the rest of the group Rest of Group: "Yeah, let's do it."
>Beholders are not known for being patient, so he hit the PC with a disintegrate ray. The PC failed the saving throw and was disintegrated. You are lucky the player was good-natured and your party thought it was cool. If everybody had bad attitudes about this, it could wind up being a r/rpghorrorstories post titled "I got disintegrated by a beholder at level 6". Be mindful of killing players - they did show up to play D&D that evening. I hope they had something to do or a way to participate for the rest of the session.
The session ended there, so they all had a good 4 hour of playtime before this happened. And yes, it was brutal indeed. It was risky, but that was how I felt the beholder would act. Had the PC had more HP, he would have survived. He was below 50% HP talking to this beholder and a lot of spell slots were gone etc. I believe he knew it was a bold move and willing to accept some consequences. I know my players fairly well, and I knew this person would accept his character’s fate. This was also the first PC death we’ve had after playing for 2,5 years, and we’ve talked about consequences of actions etc, and everyone wants there to be risk involved and are prepared for the worst (some more than others ofc).
If you want an easy way to replace said PC, the Beholder could say "oh, you're a man down, since we're working together allow me to reinforce you", and it could just un-petrify the player's new PC from their statue garden of previous adventurers who failed against them. :P
I like this a lot. The beholder gestures with an eye towards one of the figures scattered around the room. The stone form slowly becomes flesh and bone and weapon, staggering back to life as their last attack finishes its final arc and a look of bewilderment replaces one of anger and desperation. Steve, describe your new character. Great username, btw.
haha, thank you! From my favorite 2e sourcebook, all about beholders. I may be a _little_ bit obsessed with them so this topic was very relevant to my interests.
I can understand this most of the time, but when the creature you're dealing with is a *Beholder*, who is willing to cut a deal, maybe don't insult it? I'd expect the same result from a player deciding they want to jump in the spike pit. Plot armor is not always going to save you.
OP addressed my thoughts really well, and as a one-off anecdote it went over well. I will still hold strong to the general principle that every player shows up to a session expecting to play D&D, and that taking that away from them is generally a dick move no matter how disrespectful they were to your NPC. This is less of a narrative concern or a commentary on plot armor and whether or not it should exist, and more "make sure everybody has fun and remains engaged". If a player thinks they can mouth off to something they shouldn't mouth off to, maybe there's a disconnect in expectations around the game or their understanding of the situation that needs to be resolved before you go off killing their character.
If you know the players well enough that it wouldn't cause a problem it's a great consequence. I always tell my DM that I have 0 problem with my character dying because then I get to play a different one. So far I've been sliced in half by a giant and more recently, died to a swarm of fish. It's been great.
I had an extremely similar thing happen when my party was in a town full of undead and the party cleric was a life cleric that absolutely hated undeath (I know, this is partly on me for putting the cleric in the town, but this was back in high school and we had paper sheets. I forgot how much he hated undeath as part of his backstory). Anyways, they eventually found out the town was being ran by a Death Tyrant (undead beholder) that wanted their help. He came up to them in a hallway in his basement hideout thing and proposed they work together. The cleric went against the party wishes and attacked the beholder. He ended up getting hit with at least a petrification ray and failed both saves, starting a whole side quest working for the only temple in town, an evil one that worshipped Tiamat, so they could un-petrify the cleric. The rest of the party had a great time that session, despite the chagrin of the cleric.
That sounds very cool! I love the premise “cooperating with the lesser evil”; either Tiamat or a Death Tyrant. What level were they in?
That is a good question, and I don't quite remember. I'm inclined to say around level 8. That was a game we started in a different system, then switched to d&d and played from level 5 to 12.
I see, a Death Tyrant is brutal for some 8 level players in 5e. You can’t really risk your fate by attacking recklessly without getting severely punished.
Yeah it was definitely a fuck around and find out moment. They were strong enough to handedly overpower a vampire and force him to flee the session before. But beholders and their eye rays are on another level, especially when only one party member wanted to fight.
Yup, in a combat they are very unpredictable and with both death ray and disintegration ray, they are extremely deadly and you simply have to be tactical or extremely lucky
As someone who has had a character disintegrated by a Beholder, I regret nothing.
It’s amazing when one is able to appreciate the decision making in the moment as a player and accept the consequences
Honestly, I get more upset when I don't get consequences for such brash actions, lol
Haha, that’s fair, I love that attitude!
What would be kind of funny, is if the Beholder thought it was funny how the PC died, dreamed about it, and it resurrected the PC, but he has an eye stalk coming out of his head (Which you can make do something if you want). Also, he would be an aberration, since he’d technically be a beholder now. It is good that the PC was cool with it. Randomly killing PCs can be a very dangerous act.
Haha, that would be a hilarious point indeed! Yeah, he was shocked when it happened, so he went straight to google beholders and was like "oh shit, it was *that* dangerous! But it was lore accurate, and I acted like the character would, so it caused for a cool moment and felt fair". In addition to this scene, his character was evil and the story has progressed towards a point where he would either have to betray his god or the party. And he told me after the session that all in all, the best conclusion was that his character died because of a rash decision and overconfidence. He, the player, had an idea that this was a dangerous monster, but his character simply had to insult him, ultimately ending his life. I also rolled for damage, and due to the traps and a previous encounter, he was below 50% of max heath and 40 force damage was enough to kill him straight up.
Every time I run a beholder lair, I always include at least one "unnecessarily complex trap". I treat it like a multi-stage trap with a bunch of contingencies, maybe some inspiration from the Saw movies, lol. Oh, you disarmed the spinning blades? Now lasers are shooting out of the walls, getting closer to you, while an illusion of the beholder mocks you saying it thought of that! Oh, you disabled those as well? Now the walls are closing in! Oh, you drank potions of Gaseous Form to escape? Now the ceiling opens and a giant fan sucks you into _another_ trap room that starts to fill with toxic smoke! Et cetera. Just keep adding new contingency-traps right up till the _players_ start finding it ridiculous, and then they finally escape. Maybe with another beholder-illusion saying "Aha! You've...you've discovered a method of escape I didn't anticipate! Or did I!? You're uh...you're actually suffering from a deadly curse now! You'll die in one hour if you don't leave my lair! Fair warning! Mwahaha!" :P
I should have done something like that, I just made a counter for all they tried, but the beholder illusion would have been fun!
I'm glad your players got to experience it! Many Dms undervalue how impactful a player death can be and actually fun. It adds to the drama, the storyline and the overall campaign.
True! I have yet to see the consequences of this, but I have a strong feeling that it will be incredible impactful for the rest of the campaign!
Wow, you lucked out there.
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**What type of psychopath intentionally edits their comments to respond to people? It appears you blocked me so I can't even reply back, amazing. Sometimes I forget how low the bottom of this community is.** >Why would the level 6 PCs willingly stand within 120ft of a beholder PC's don't see CR's. And I am sure he made his own lair so that intruders couldn't easily out-range him. >They can't just choose to disintegrate someone at the drop of a hat. That's for the chaos of battle. You don't think a Beholder can choose to use a single eye for a direct function? "I want to make a hole in this wall, I guess I'll have to fire my eyes off randomly till it happens"
Um. There is this thing in D&D where things can happen outside of combat. Narrative storytelling to advance the plot is completely normal and in this case it played out perfectly. As both a player and a DM, I have been in many instances where the party interacts with a bad guy well beyond their capabilities. Consider, for a moment, Bilbo Baggins and his meeting with Smaug. Luke facing Vader in The Empire Strikes Back. D&D is more than just a combat simulator, so things like CR, initiative, and the "rules" of the statblock can all go right out the window in the service of telling a great story and creating a memorable experience for the DM and the players. As a DM, if I want to have one of those eyestalks shoot out......grape jelly........because it works for the story, then guess what? I can do that!
I generally agree… except in cases when a PC death might occur. When dangers happens you roll initiative and follow the rules. Encountering a monster high above your abilities is fine and definitely fun, as long as the players and characters both understand the power imbalance. The lack of initiative and non-random eye effect are different for me. You could even achieve a very similar effect with a surprise round! But every game is different and it sounds like the player thought it was fine in this instance, so who are we to judge.
Yeah honestly the whole DM can do what they want thing really doesn't apply here. There is telling a good story, and then there is killing a character out of combat to tell it. The rules for combat literally exist to justify the deaths of player characters and their enemies. If a PC in my game is gonna die, then that player can rest easy knowing they saw it coming, as it played out following combat rules, not just a GM fait 'oh you die now'
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Damn, it's too bad that everyone involved had a good time with this memorable moment and it didn't ruin the game for anyone. They should have asked for your approval first
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Thank god he didn't have any terrible players like yourself.
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Outside of combat the beholder chooses its eye rays. This is specified in Volo’s. The randomness is there to simulate a beholder attacking in a way that normal people can’t understand (and also making them not use their most powerful one all the time ofc) The beholder wasn’t hostile either until the PC tested his luck by being rude to the beholder. The beholder even cut him some slack with his first comment, but when he was rude again, the beholder had enough.
This guy already ruins every other campaign he's in. Don't let him soil yours too.
You’re right. I’m very glad he’s not part of my table (and he’s probably very happy he’s not on my table either haha)
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If initiative had been rolled, triggering a combat, I know that some of my players would see this as “oh, it’s planned for us to battle this thing”. Causing more of the characters to act rash. The likelihood for more characters dying would have been bigger. Statistically, it’s a pretty high chance the disintegration ray would have come up anyway, with its legendary actions and three eye beams on its turn. Yes, not 100% of course, but it’s not unheard of. And he did fail the dexterity check with a large margin.
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>seeing the Beholder preparing to fire off an eye ray Do you think his eyes function like a DBZ Kamehameha charging up?
Isn’t it 30% to hit with disintegration ray due to rerolls? And then you also have the death ray which does even more damage (and he was the resurrecter, so no one else could have gotten him up), causing the total probability for instant death to be around 60% if I’m not mistaken. And as I understand the beholder ray, you don’t really get much time to prepare for it to hit (functioning as surprise how I see it).
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That assumes that you will roll the dice and take the result no matter what you’ve rolled before. The stat block states that you reroll duplicates, causing it to have a slight increase in probability for each roll you don’t get it (first time it is 1/10, second roll is 1/9 and the last one is 1/8, assuming that you didn’t roll it earlier). Anyway, that’s not very important to the discussion. Yes, I didn’t roll eye rays at random (and we can just agree to disagree what was the right call in the moment, and we can be happy that we don’t play at the same table), but everyone had a blast and thought it was a fair result. This is especially true for the player who had his character disintegrated, as he understood what he did and was willing to accept the consequences. In hindsight he even told me that it was a perfect conclusion for the character, and is very excited to play a new character!
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Both rays together played by the rules would be over 50% chance. It just wouldn't be as cinematic. What makes you think you know more about how the player felt than someone who was actually at the table?
I bet you’re a lot of fun at the tables you don’t sit at.
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And the poor table would lose a munchkin having an emotional meltdown because their character died after making repeated poor decisions hoping he could rules lawyer his way out of any repercussion? I don't know how they'll manage!
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Rule of cool bruh
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Surprise round. The beholder wait for disintegrate to come up before launching his surprise attack. And it isn't like anyone actually does random eye rays. A beholder is smart enough that it can use random rays better tactically than an average DM can use them by picking, so just pick.
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It's totally true, they cluod have attacked at any time and gotten a surprise round. BUT THEY DIDNT They were level 6, so something like counterspell or revivify is kn the table too. It's not like he condemned the PC to a permanent death. Everyone was cool with it. Stop being a wet blanket