Runestar
2010-04-12, 07:06 AM
So I have a little free time lately, flipped through lords of madness and "rediscovered" the beholder mage prc. This got me thinking about the viability of a beholder mage as an epic foe.
A standard beholder beholder mage10 looks promising as a cr23 foe. You could potentially fire up to 10 spells/round as a free action, plus 1 swift action for 11/round. Granted, they range from cantrips to timestops (meaning their effectiveness varies, but your lower lv spells could easily be buffs or spells ignoring saves).
It does seem fairly fragile, though abberation HD is so cheap, so you can advance it a little, and use practiced spellcaster to pick up the slack.
I do have a few questions though.
1) How does it cast 10+th lv spells? Say it has acquired them via improved spell capacity or epic spellcasting. Is it unable to cast them (because its eye stalks can only cast up to 9th lv spells) or can it use a standard action to cast them the "normal" way, possibly giving it 12 spells/round?
2) Is there any way the beholder can move and activate its eye rays/spells on the move while shifting its arc of fire so it can effectively zap the same arc with all 10+ spells?
Has anyone pitted one against the PCs? What were your experiences?
A standard beholder beholder mage10 looks promising as a cr23 foe. You could potentially fire up to 10 spells/round as a free action, plus 1 swift action for 11/round. Granted, they range from cantrips to timestops (meaning their effectiveness varies, but your lower lv spells could easily be buffs or spells ignoring saves).
It does seem fairly fragile, though abberation HD is so cheap, so you can advance it a little, and use practiced spellcaster to pick up the slack.
I do have a few questions though.
1) How does it cast 10+th lv spells? Say it has acquired them via improved spell capacity or epic spellcasting. Is it unable to cast them (because its eye stalks can only cast up to 9th lv spells) or can it use a standard action to cast them the "normal" way, possibly giving it 12 spells/round?
2) Is there any way the beholder can move and activate its eye rays/spells on the move while shifting its arc of fire so it can effectively zap the same arc with all 10+ spells?
Has anyone pitted one against the PCs? What were your experiences?