Beholder vs Beholderkin

[Hobbo Jim]

How many kinds of true beholders.are there? Is it just the one original big bad beholder? Also, are there any ways people can think of qualifying as one without being one?

[Aegis013]

From a fluff standpoint, all of the beholderkin are beholders. From a mechanics standpoint, in depends on what you're trying to get out of the Beholder-y-ness. Some things certain beholderkin qualify for other things they don't.

I'm taking a shot in the dark that you're interested in playing a Beholder Mage but don't want to be a regular Beholder?
If this is the case, I recommend talking to your DM about it for a workaround, since if a Beholder Mage is ok in your game, the usual cheesetastic entry methods should be fine (Polymorph Any Object on yourself twice into a Beholder, for example).

[afroakuma]

How many kinds of true beholders.are there? Is it just the one original big bad beholder? Also, are there any ways people can think of qualifying as one without being one?

Technically there are only two; the bog-standard beholder, and the elite stock it descends from, known as hive mothers or "ultimates." Advanced beholders are known as elder orbs. The specially-bred beholder type that runs a beholder spelljamming vessel is called an orbus. Variant beholders exist that look like a standard beholder but possess alternate eye-rays.

Now, among the various beholder-related entities, there are: Astereaters, Death Kisses, Directors, Examiners, Eyeballs, Eyes of the Deep, Gauths, Gorbels, Gougers, Lensmen, Observers, Overseers, Spectators and Watchers. Undead beholders include the Kasharin, Death Tyrant and Doomsphere.

[Segev]

If you want the most RAW-permissible way to get into Beholder Mage, you want to start as an Elan Psion. You only need one PAO, then, to become a beholder permanently. PAO twice is arguably not going to cut it, since the "first" PAO still has a duration related to the original form, and therefore, when it wears off, the second PAO's duration becomes related to the now-underlying original form, giving it a duration (which had already started ticking down from the moment it was cast).

Elan Psion has other benefits, too: you can go very quickly into Cerebromancer, and the Beholder Mage's spellcasting is a set of free actions; this means the psionic manifesting can happen alongside it. By level 15, you've got a caster level of 20 and a manifester level of 13 (maybe 15, if you spent a feat on practiced manifester), and you're casting one spell of every level from 0-9 each round as well as manifesting a psionic power as your standard action every round.

[RedMage125]

I second what Afroakuma said, but also want to add:

From a fluff standpoint, it depends on who you ask. If you ask a beholder, for example, then it believes that only other beholders that match its phenotype are "true" beholders, and that beholders that look different (be it eye color, scale color, or a certain shape of the head/body) are an inferior subspecies. And that's just talking about MM "beholders", and not even getting into beholderkin. All beholders are xenophobic and narcissistic. A beholder will only tolerate the existence of a beholder that looks similar to it, likely of blood relation (and even then, only at a distance).

But mechanically, afroakuma is correct. MM1 Beholders, Elder Orbs and Hive Mothers are about it. Anything else is "beholderkin"