Aim for the Eye

[Secret Bard]

Hello, I am a DM for a group of somewhat new players, they have been playing for about a year now. In my next session, I am thinking about having them fight a beholder; for some this will be their first time experiencing one. Now after I describe what the creature looks like to my players, I fully expect one of them to say "I aim for that big weird eye in the middle". So my question is how would you rule this? Is it higher AC for aiming for the eye? And what if they manage to hit the eye?

Thank you for your time.

[Khedrac]

Older versions of D&D did explicitly have AC and hit points for the central eye, the eye stalks and the little eyes, so there is historical justification for doing this.

However, your best option is to gently remind them that D&D does not have called shot rules for a number of reasons (one of which is called True Strike) and that, though yes, it would make some sense to allow it for Beholders, it then would not make sense not to allow it for other creatures and, pretty soon, some opponent will be trying to do a called shot to their eyes - and everyone loses. (Just don't mention Hydras.)

If you do want to allow it for Beholders, then I think looking at the Hydra rules for sundering a head is not a bad place to start for the little eyes on their eye-stalks. What I would suggest though, is if they PCs can start destroying he little eyes, one by one, then the rules on which eyes an aim where will need relaxing.

[sakuuya]

If you want to use called shots (and Khedrac is right that they're generally a bad idea), first figure out the size of the targeted area and adjust the AC accordingly. I'm AFB and therefore don't have beholder stats available, but I'd guess that the central eye is probably Tiny or so, giving it +3 AC better than the Large beholder.

Second, rule that if a called shot misses its target area, it misses the creature entirely. That way, players have to weigh the risk of not hitting the higher AC versus the reward hitting the targeted area and getting some cool effect, rather than just always being rewarded for rolling well with no risk of losing efficacy otherwise.

As for the effect itself, I'd say in this case that an attack that hits a Beholder's central eye deals normal damage and suppresses the antimagic cone for one round--something that makes a called shot tactically viable but doesn't trivialize the encounter.

[Segev]

Model each "target area" as a wholly different creature in terms of AC and hp. They obviously move with the beholder itself.

For instance, give the central eye a +4 size bonus to AC over and above the Beholder's own. and a number of hp equal to 1/4 that of the Beholder itself. Destroying the central eye turns off the anti-magic cone, but has no other effect.

Each eyestalk has a +8 size bonus to AC over the Beholder's own, and has 10 hp. Destroying it prevents the Beholder from using that eye beam.

Destroying all eyes makes the Beholder lose All-Round Vision and makes it blind, but otherwise it doesn't suffer any ill effects from losing its eyes.

Removing all the hp on the central body still kills it; these extra "target zones" just add choice in strategy: do they spread out their damage and actions to target-remove specific threats, or do they just do maximum damage to the creature itself to kill it faster?