Solo Monsters

[MindForge]

Okay. Solo monsters and the way they function is cool. Okay, a beholder floats into the hallway will once again terrify players. To the point where they might think twice. 3.x kinda ruined the beholder and almost all of the power monsters (can anyone say wtf happened to drow in 3.5).

Ok. 1 - The Eye Tyrant has an aura power of 5 that allows it to make an attack from a random eye (the entry has the eyes numbered) on the enemies turn if they are within line of sight and the aura range. That means that it will make attacks on the characters turns when they start. This thing will be bombing any player that wants to show their body to it.

2 - it can fire two eyes on its turn. If it is bloodied, it gets worse it has an eye frenzy (recharge 6) that allows it to fire 4 of its beams. Sure it has to roll a 6 to get the power back after it uses it but this alone could spell serious hell for anyone that wants some. The eye powers are also mean as hell - every one of them.

3 - need I say more... ok. The thing has 900 hp. It still has a central eye that takes a minor action to use. The beholder is going to spell havoc on any party it is unleashed upon. It is a 19 Solo Artillery monster.

When fighting a beholder I think people are going to really feel like they cannot get away from these eye beams. The entire fight will be trying to stay out of line of sight in order to avoid getting nailed every time it is their turn. It's like Jimmy the Warlord is going to have is work cut out getting shifts out and getting out of LOS himself to take down one of these things. Yes, the beholder will be a boss fight once my players get to 19... I think they will know it though, hopefully they do.

[Niko_Kaze]

:o I've never really thought of the drow or beholders being weak in 3.5.

[vithgard777]

:huh:really? The drow were made to be like any other race in power and the beholders could only fire one beam per round and both had low hit points. I would call that mega-weak.

[Scorch]

Yeah I have to agree with Niko, drow were quite a balanced race, not too strong or weak. And I always shuddered at the thought of fighting a 3.5 beholder, sure 1 ray per round, but is that an attack or a swift action firing the ray?

I remember it being extra hard as the beholder slows the primary fighters and moves back, before disintegrating the spellcasters, before slowly wearing down the fighters.

Still, 900hp. 4 rays. eye frenzy. whimpers. :(

[MindForge]

The new beholder owns, especially once it becomes bloodied.

The drow are now the vicious race I always liked them as. They were dumbed down in 3.5 to allow use as a player race, thanks to that dual scimitar wielding anomaly we all love to hate.

[Scorch]

Yeah I do like how it will catch PC's offguard, theres a lack of monsters that seem to do that. Personally, I like drow as a nasty anti-hero race, with their troublesome sadistic ways. I havent known them before 3.5 but I dislike them as a player race, they are just boring to play.

[Galadon]

Just my opinion, but I never played nice drow running games. And only met one player in years of playing who could use dual scimitars. My standard answer

"No you can be a drow."

[MindForge]

I have ran dozens of 'store' games with random people and I do not know how many people asked if they could play a drow. I usually said yes but I would say nearly 1/4 to 1/5 of my random players wanted to play a drow. These games rarely lasted more than 3 sessions. I am so glad that they have pretty much been removed from play as a player race. Yeah, I would definitely say that even at Cons I run into almost 1/5 of non-RPGA games including a drow in the group.

[Gorthaur the Cruel]

:huh:really? The drow were made to be like any other race in power and the beholders could only fire one beam per round and both had low hit points. I would call that mega-weak.


Lies. The drow were under CR'd for use as monsters and were completely gimped as PC's.

You see, they had spell resistance, had a bunch of useless spell likes, and weird ability scores. And they were LA +2.

LA+2 means that when the wizard is getting second level spells, you're happy with 1 magic missile. Very happy. You have anywhere from (average) 11 to 5 less HP than your human buddies, who got a feat out of the deal. Spell resistance doesn't stack, and it was laughable, since it didn't quite scale with level, so at the end of things it was a 5% chance to have a spell fizzle on you. This is cool in an MMORPG. In D&D, if you're relying on a 5% chance, it means you suck or your GM is a tool.

Beholders were scary in D&D, but they were given fewer hit die so they could be CR 13. They had the hidden awesome subtype, but by all rights should have about 10 or 15 more hit die to be utilized effectively. They were complex and awesome and scary and they had antimagic cone with no save... and were one of the few things that could shut down a wizard or cleric (prepared right).

In 4.0, drow were gimped yet again (I am glad, since like before, its hidden behind a cute little appearance and crappy racials) to discourage you from playing them... and beholders are insane party monsters. They too have the hidden awesome subtype but are now true solo monsters and oh man I love fighting them.

[Niko_Kaze]

For opponents drow where not gimped, having a CR = Character level + 1 isn't bad, and the SR does help and can be boosted.
"As Opponents" is the real measure here for what we are talking about, namely did they make the PC's shiver and think, "Maybe taking this adventure/quest wasn't such a good idea."

+ 2 DEX, - 2 CON, + 2 INT, + 2 CHA meant that they had skills, made decent wizards/sorcerer (beguilers are even better) and skirmishers (of various types). Magical Darkness can be very handy if a party hasn't perpared anything to handle it (and it does take magical light to handle it) and the Dancing lights and Farie Fire spells can be used to create distractions before and during combat from the darkness that the PC's can't see into. Granted a fireball has a chance but total concealment can be is still useful, and depending on how many drow there are and what spells their wizard uses you may not know which patch of darkness contains the wizard (indeed some of the extra patches could just hide nothing: no drow, no monsters just a spot of darkness to confuse the party) Don't forget to drop the Darkness on the party; it can cause them to stubble into a trap. Finally most darkvision things have a range and any drow that attacks when well lit... well they probably aren't living up to Lolth's standards anyways... unless it's a TRAP!

If a person wants to play a character with a LA, well that's just silly usually (the pixie and a few others are exceptions), but I sometimes allow it.