D&D 4E Beholder Eye Of Flame

[AlHazred]

And here's the Beholder Eye of Flame from the 4E Monster Manual. It's a pity that, with all the creative juices they have access to there, this is the best they can come up with for a lower-powered "theme" beholder. They had more creativity under 3E and 3.5.

4E Beholder Eye Of Flame

[Chimera 12]

And here's the Beholder Eye of Flame from the 4E Monster Manual. It's a pity that, with all the creative juices they have access to there, this is the best they can come up with for a lower-powered "theme" beholder. They had more creativity under 3E and 3.5.

I believe the Eye of Flame (or maybe Eye of Fear and Flame, my memory's fuzzy) actually is one of the classic lower-powered beholderkin dating back to AD&D 2nd Edition at least. They could probably have just put in a lower-powered 'standard' beholder instead, but then I believe that that wouldn't change the nature of your complaint any. ;)

[AlHazred]

The Eye Of Fear And Flame was a monster that first showed up in the AD&D Fiend Folio. He was an undead guy with two gems in his eyesockets -- one shot fireballs and the other one caused fear.

My thought was just, if you're going to have beholders with "theme" power sets (fire, ice, etc.) then you might as well go hog wild. Give him Wall Of Flame and Burning Hands (fire attacks with different special effects). Make him sort of a half-fire-elemental beholder. Something along these lines.

Not, "I guess we'll just give him three eye rays instead of 10, and change his Eye Ray Frenzy to a Fiery Burst. That makes total sense!"

[Chimera 12]

The Eye Of Fear And Flame was a monster that first showed up in the AD&D Fiend Folio. He was an undead guy with two gems in his eyesockets -- one shot fireballs and the other one caused fear.

My thought was just, if you're going to have beholders with "theme" power sets (fire, ice, etc.) then you might as well go hog wild. Give him Wall Of Flame and Burning Hands (fire attacks with different special effects). Make him sort of a half-fire-elemental beholder. Something along these lines.

Not, "I guess we'll just give him three eye rays instead of 10, and change his Eye Ray Frenzy to a Fiery Burst. That makes total sense!"

Ahhh, okay. I never did get the Fiend Folio (nor indeed anything else from AD&D1 other than the Player's Handbook and, I think, a module or two much later), so I guess I let the name fool me.

I still suspect that there's precedent for the Beholder Eye of Flame, mind. I doubt they just made that one up from whole cloth for shits & giggles. It's just that (A)D&D has such a long and varied legacy of oddball monsters, many of whom I've doubtlessly never encountered, that I couldn't point at one right now and tell you "that one's it."

[Susano]

AlHazred, ya gotta send me these guys!

[AlHazred]

You have my permission to host anything you want that I post on the Boards. These guys seem a little sparse, but that's because there's not much for me to add. I guess I could put in a Powers/Tactics section; I'll get on that. But the description of these guys (and, in fact, everybody in the Monster Manual) is, like, two to four lines of text. No "Ecology of..." sections. No "We'll put the setting info in the text." Not even the incredibly brief bits of the original AD&D Monster Manual with their throwaway one-line plot/setting bits that made it such a goldmine for GMs to use.

Anybody remember the "Drow" description in that book? "The 'Black Elves,' or drow, are only legend. They purportedly dwell deep beneath the surface in a strange subterranean realm. The drow are said to be as dark as fairies are bright and as evil as the latter are good. Tales picture them as weak fighters but strong magic-users." From those four sentences grew the behemoth that is the D&D Dark Elf industry, featuring dozens of books about a drow ranger, several setting books, and a whole fetishy subcultural archetype.

I just don't see that happening with any 4E D&D product, which is sad. But also opens the door for Hero and a plethora of good alternative RPGs.

[Susano]

You have my permission to host anything you want that I post on the Boards.

Well, the trick is finding it all.

[Susano]

You have my permission to host anything you want that I post on the Boards. These guys seem a little sparse, but that's because there's not much for me to add. I guess I could put in a Powers/Tactics section; I'll get on that. But the description of these guys (and, in fact, everybody in the Monster Manual) is, like, two to four lines of text. No "Ecology of..." sections. No "We'll put the setting info in the text." Not even the incredibly brief bits of the original AD&D Monster Manual with their throwaway one-line plot/setting bits that made it such a goldmine for GMs to use.

Anybody remember the "Drow" description in that book? "The 'Black Elves,' or drow, are only legend. They purportedly dwell deep beneath the surface in a strange subterranean realm. The drow are said to be as dark as fairies are bright and as evil as the latter are good. Tales picture them as weak fighters but strong magic-users." From those three sentences grew the behemoth that is the D&D Dark Elf industry, featuring dozens of books about a drow ranger, several books, and a whole fetishy subcultural archetype.

I just don't see that happening with any 4E D&D product, which is sad. But also opens the door for Hero and a plethora of good alternative RPGs.

I was very, very annoyed to see the 4E Monster Manual win the gold Ennie for the best monster book last GenCon, beating out a book I'd help create (Creatures Anathema). The latter had so much flavor to it, it wasn't funny. The former was really just a boring list.

[Mister E]

I was very, very annoyed to see the 4E Monster Manual win the gold Ennie for the best monster book last GenCon, beating out a book I'd help create (Creatures Anathema). The latter had so much flavor to it, it wasn't funny. The former was really just a boring list.

The Ennies are a popularity contest from a cross-section of jack.


And here's the Beholder Eye of Flame from the 4E Monster Manual. It's a pity that, with all the creative juices they have access to there, this is the best they can come up with for a lower-powered "theme" beholder. They had more creativity under 3E and 3.5.

I really liked the intra-species xenophobia of beholders introduced in Spelljammer, where the only thing beholders hate more than you is other kinds of beholders.

[AlHazred]

The Ennies are a popularity contest from a cross-section of jack.Well said. I don't think the Ennies have even registered on my gaming radar for at least four-five years. They meant something when Eric Noah was still semi-active in the hobby; now they mean about as much as the various award shows in Hollywood. Probably even less.


I really liked the intra-species xenophhobia of beholders introduced in Spelljammer, where the only thing beholders hate more than you is other kinds of beholders.I'm pretty sure that's where the idea of several subtypes of beholders really gelled. I mean, they had a kind of pseudobeholder (the Gas Spore, I believe) in the AD&D Monster Manual, and Ed Greenwood introduced I think one alternate type in the Forgotten Realms -- the Gauth, which had mouths at the end of its stalks instead of eyes. But in Spelljammer, they pulled out all the stops.

[rsbrehm]

NOO! omg we are trying to get away from D&D 4th edition. lol

hmm.. beholders, yum.

-Shaun

[Narf the Mouse]

If you upload the character to the character vault (Main site -> Hero Designer - Characters), you can auto-paste it into any post by [ hd = # ] Text [ / hd ], where # is provided after upload - That will auto-paste a html character sheet. I say this because text formatting is hard (for me) to read.

[Susano]

It's also up on my website.

[AlHazred]

Hmmm... not really working for me. I'll have to play around with that.

[Narf the Mouse]

What, specifically, is not working?

[AlHazred]

That was strange. Didn't seem to work the first time. Ah, well, time to fix threads.

[Narf the Mouse]

Yeah, forgot to note that it takes a few seconds to process, so the first time, refresh after posting.

[AlHazred]

Okay, I modified the Beholder considerably.

There is a much better fit for the Central Eye power of the 4E beholder. In the APG, they include new options for Change Environment, including Stunning. In game terms, when someone's hit by the Central Eye beam, they need to make a CON Roll or be Stunned. Since it's an Instant Power, they are only Stunned for their next Phase; the beholder has to hit them again in order to do it to them again. This is a better fit for the 4E Condition the attack is supposed to impose.

In 4E D&D a big deal is made about Conditions, that is to say, combat-effecting conditions that apply to your opponent (or yourself). Most special attack powers impose a Condition or two, and many defenses remove them. The Condition the beholder Central Eye Power imposes is "the target is dazed until the end of the beholder’s next turn." Dazed as a condition means "You grant combat advantage. You can take either a standard action, a move action, or a minor action on your turn (you can also take free actions). You can’t take immediate actions or opportunity actions. You can’t flank an enemy." There's no specific Hero equivalent to this. However, since Hero System gives more Phases to act during combat than D&D, I figure Stunning is a decent fit. Plus the attack as written does no damage, which fits the special effect of the Change Environment better.

I also applied the Beam limitation to the slots in the Eye Rays Multipower (forgot to do that before).