How Low Can You Go? vs Boss Monsters

[foobar1969]

Hypothetical Scenario: Your FLGS is hosting an adventure challenge with prize money if the players win. They announce it's a 5E one-day one-shot with a high-CR boss monster fight, preceded by a few easier battles and traps.

The five contestants will be selected by bidding on the lowest character level to play. PCs each get a handy haversack, plenty of mundane gear, and a few character-appropriate uncommon or rare items.

You want to win the bid and win the prize. What level do you bid against a:

* beholder?
* lich?
* ancient red dragon?

[Kane0]

Hypothetical Scenario: Your FLGS is hosting an adventure challenge with prize money if the players win. They announce it's a 5E one-day one-shot with a high-CR boss monster fight, preceded by a few easier battles and traps.

The five contestants will be selected by bidding on the lowest character level to play. PCs each get a handy haversack, plenty of mundane gear, and a few character-appropriate uncommon or rare items.

You want to win the bid and win the prize. What level do you bid against a:

* beholder?
* lich?
* ancient red dragon?

Ancient red? Could probably do that with a party of 5 level 12s or so if he's not in his lair. Would get dicey though.
I say that because of this. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?437704-Could-I-get-a-CR-estimate)

Edit: The way you phrased this, I'm just waiting for a 'Well bargained, and done!'

[DracoKnight]

Hypothetical Scenario: Your FLGS is hosting an adventure challenge with prize money if the players win. They announce it's a 5E one-day one-shot with a high-CR boss monster fight, preceded by a few easier battles and traps.

The five contestants will be selected by bidding on the lowest character level to play. PCs each get a handy haversack, plenty of mundane gear, and a few character-appropriate uncommon or rare items.

You want to win the bid and win the prize. What level do you bid against a:

* beholder?
* lich?
* ancient red dragon?

Beholder: I would say. . . 8 or 9. . ..
Lich: 14, or maybe 15. . . .
Ancient Red Dragon. . . . the same?

[MaxWilson]

Hypothetical Scenario: Your FLGS is hosting an adventure challenge with prize money if the players win. They announce it's a 5E one-day one-shot with a high-CR boss monster fight, preceded by a few easier battles and traps.

The five contestants will be selected by bidding on the lowest character level to play. PCs each get a handy haversack, plenty of mundane gear, and a few character-appropriate uncommon or rare items.

You want to win the bid and win the prize. What level do you bid against a:

* beholder?
* lich?
* ancient red dragon?

Beholder: four 5th level characters.
Lich: four 8th level characters.
Ancient red dragon: four 8th level characters.

[foobar1969]

Interesting. I would have expected at least 1 level difference between CR 21 and CR 24. Are ancient dragons overrated in the MM?

Presumably spells are the factor here, so a variant spellcasting dragon should be a tougher fight. How much would 6 daily spells of up to 8th level boost the ancient red?


Beholder: four 5th level characters.
Lich: four 8th level characters.
Ancient red dragon: four 8th level characters.
Clearly Max is way ahead in the bidding, but I'm skeptical about actually winning the fight.

[choryukami]

You could only beat a beholder at level 5 played very stupidly. Heck, my players had trouble with it at level 13. Don't forget, it can fly and cast like 3 eye rays a round (+3 as legendary actions), and just keep its central eye on the strongest spellcaster.

And if you have any melees it can keep them between it and the spellcaster so they just fall out of the sky whenever they try and engage.

[CNagy]

You could only beat a beholder at level 5 played very stupidly. Heck, my players had trouble with it at level 13. Don't forget, it can fly and cast like 3 eye rays a round (+3 as legendary actions), and just keep its central eye on the strongest spellcaster.

And if you have any melees it can keep them between it and the spellcaster so they just fall out of the sky whenever they try and engage.

A 5th level party can take it, but they need to win the initiative. With both the Beholder and the Lich, an under-leveled party can win if it deploys the right countermeasures and deals enough damage in a short amount of time. If the fight goes past a few rounds, they're dead.

I wouldn't go lower than 5th level for the Beholder, because it has a fair amount of hit points and not getting a second attack with my martial party members would probably stretch the fight out too long.

The Lich at lower than 8th would be hard, pushing it to 7th level would deprive the party of much needed feats.

I'm mystified at taking out an Ancient Red with an 8th level party, though.

[Shining Wrath]

More information needed - in lairs? On an infinite featureless plane? Does the monster know it's about to fight PCs and can prepare itself or the battlefield?

A beholder or dragon who can fly up and hide in the clouds gets a lot harder to fight. A dragon who can just leave if things look dicey is nearly impossible to defeat.

[MaxWilson]

Clearly Max is way ahead in the bidding, but I'm skeptical about actually winning the fight.

It's not a sure thing by any means, but 8th level is high enough to make a fight of it. Much will depend upon DM style and how the encounters unfold. (E.g. terrain, goals for the fight--do you have to drive off the dragon as he's attacking you, or hunt him down and kill him amongst the clouds? The latter is much, much harder.)

8th level is high enough to have, for example, two Hasted Sharpshooters (Battlemaster 5/Diviner 3) as kiting provokers (with familiars to Help), a Sorcerer 6/Warlock 2 (Inspiring Leader + Spell Sniper; Agonizing Repelling Blast; Twin + Quicken spell) to do the Hasting, and a Cleric 1/Necromancer 7 with oodles of (Inspiring Leader'ed) skeletons for the main punch as well as Bless. In case of trouble, the necromancer grabs the sorlock and Dimension Doors away while the Hasted fighters and skeletons finish him off.

If your DM isn't inclined to be reasonable about finding skeletons to raise ("plenty of mundane equipment" ought to include weapons and bodies) you might have to change this strategy to something else. But 8th level characters have enough toys to play with to that I wouldn't view the fight as suicide the way I would with 4th level characters.

RE: spellcasting dragons, yes, that makes a huge difference. Against a spellcasting variant, I dunno, I'd bid maybe 16th or 18th? And I'd be uncomfortable about it too, if we had to do a frontal assault without knowing what his spell layout is. Honestly my first priority against a spellcasting dragon is to do some library research/scrying/probes for reconaissance to find out what he's capable of. Spellcasting dragons are much, much scarier than the vanilla meatsacks.


You could only beat a beholder at level 5 played very stupidly. Heck, my players had trouble with it at level 13. Don't forget, it can fly and cast like 3 eye rays a round (+3 as legendary actions), and just keep its central eye on the strongest spellcaster.

And if you have any melees it can keep them between it and the spellcaster so they just fall out of the sky whenever they try and engage.

Don't forget that it's a gimmick monster which is rendered totally helpless (except for its bite) by a Darkness spell. It can't even run away quickly. Beholders are scary when you encounter them indoors by surprise, and they're good boss monsters to a large pack of goblins or hobgoblins (no Fireballs for you PCs!), but a lone beholder by itself when you're expecting to meet it is not very scary.

[Shining Wrath]

It's not a sure thing by any means, but 8th level is high enough to make a fight of it. Much will depend upon DM style and how the encounters unfold. (E.g. terrain, goals for the fight--do you have to drive off the dragon as he's attacking you, or hunt him down and kill him amongst the clouds? The latter is much, much harder.)

8th level is high enough to have, for example, two Hasted Sharpshooters (Battlemaster 5/Diviner 3) as kiting provokers (with familiars to Help), a Sorcerer 6/Warlock 2 (Inspiring Leader + Spell Sniper; Agonizing Repelling Blast; Twin + Quicken spell) to do the Hasting, and a Cleric 1/Necromancer 7 with oodles of (Inspiring Leader'ed) skeletons for the main punch as well as Bless. In case of trouble, the necromancer grabs the sorlock and Dimension Doors away while the Hasted fighters and skeletons finish him off.

If your DM isn't inclined to be reasonable about finding skeletons to raise ("plenty of mundane equipment" ought to include weapons and bodies) you might have to change this strategy to something else. But 8th level characters have enough toys to play with to that I wouldn't view the fight as suicide the way I would with 4th level characters.

RE: spellcasting dragons, yes, that makes a huge difference. Against a spellcasting variant, I dunno, I'd bid maybe 16th or 18th? And I'd be uncomfortable about it too, if we had to do a frontal assault without knowing what his spell layout is. Honestly my first priority against a spellcasting dragon is to do some library research/scrying/probes for reconaissance to find out what he's capable of. Spellcasting dragons are much, much scarier than the vanilla meatsacks.



Don't forget that it's a gimmick monster which is rendered totally helpless (except for its bite) by a Darkness spell. It can't even run away quickly. Beholders are scary when you encounter them indoors by surprise, and they're good boss monsters to a large pack of goblins or hobgoblins (no Fireballs for you PCs!), but a lone beholder by itself when you're expecting to meet it is not very scary.

If the Beholder has its central eye open you do not have a Darkness spell. It's gone.

[CNagy]

If the Beholder has its central eye open you do not have a Darkness spell. It's gone.

That's why I prefer Blindness and a couple of spell casters; one fires off a cantrip at the Beholder to test if the central eye is facing in his general direction. If it is, then the other (preferably a Sorcerer) moves to a different position and casts Blindness with Heighten. The Beholder doesn't have a great Con save, and with disadvantage it's likely to fail. If it can't see, it doesn't fire off its eye stalks.

You can do it with just one spell caster, but in that case your sorcerer is casting the cantrip as an action to see if the eye is on him, then beeline to a different orientation if so (or stay right where he is if not) and cast Blindness with Quicken.

[Ruslan]

This format is never going to work, because there'll always be a jerk to bid a ridiculously low level just to guarantee his own participation in the game, shut out others of the possibility of playing, and die in the first encounter, making sure no one else can win money. Everyone goes home dissatisfied.

And to prove my point, I bid level 1. There you go.

[Shining Wrath]

That's why I prefer Blindness and a couple of spell casters; one fires off a cantrip at the Beholder to test if the central eye is facing in his general direction. If it is, then the other (preferably a Sorcerer) moves to a different position and casts Blindness with Heighten. The Beholder doesn't have a great Con save, and with disadvantage it's likely to fail. If it can't see, it doesn't fire off its eye stalks.

You can do it with just one spell caster, but in that case your sorcerer is casting the cantrip as an action to see if the eye is on him, then beeline to a different orientation if so (or stay right where he is if not) and cast Blindness with Quicken.

First question: how many eyes does Blindness affect? Some DMs might say "Two".
Second question: do you have room to maneuver? Beholders like lairs. Lairs that they have prepared. Lairs where you are simply not going to be able to get out of the central eye's effect.
Third question: what's the FOV of the central eye? It might very well be 180 degrees, in which case getting behind the Beholder may not be possible. 120 degrees is very justifiable. That makes your move tricky.
Fourth question: is there room for the Beholder to go up? Because if there is it can fly straight up until it makes its save and is no longer Blind.

[MaxWilson]

If the Beholder has its central eye open you do not have a Darkness spell. It's gone.

That doesn't help the beholder at all. Now instead of being immune to his rays because he can't see you, you're immune because you're in an antimagic field. He's still helpless. That's why a beholder needs minions in order for his antimagic eye to be truly useful--on his own he cannot exploit it except to divide and conquer, and the party can avoid division simply by sticking close together.

[CNagy]

First question: how many eyes does Blindness affect? Some DMs might say "Two".
Second question: do you have room to maneuver? Beholders like lairs. Lairs that they have prepared. Lairs where you are simply not going to be able to get out of the central eye's effect.
Third question: what's the FOV of the central eye? It might very well be 180 degrees, in which case getting behind the Beholder may not be possible. 120 degrees is very justifiable. That makes your move tricky.
Fourth question: is there room for the Beholder to go up? Because if there is it can fly straight up until it makes its save and is no longer Blind.

There's no helping it if a DM wants to screw you, but "blind" means "blind" --it doesn't mean "partially blind because this big bugger has a dozen eyes!"

The same sentiment applies to questions of lairs. Beholders like big, open caverns. If you want to screw over even a higher level party, having the Beholder floating near the ceiling and pinging you with eye rays can mess some people up. Since the question is "how low can you go vs these boss monsters?" my assumption is that we start in a reasonably neutral battlefield conditions: the Beholder is floating at ground level (but will not necessarily stay there) and combat that starts at range but not extreme range.

The field of vision of the central eye doesn't matter, because the antimagic effect is a 150' cone. The DMG says that a cone area of effect is as wide as it is long at any given point--if you are 30' from the Beholder, the cone is 30' wide where you are at, 25' wide, 20' wide, 15' wide, etc as you get closer to the Beholder. Even traversing the width of the cone and moving towards the Beholder (since you can't be sure which side of the cone you are on), you can reliably get out of the cone's area of effect with normal movement if you aren't out at very long range.

As for flying, it can't go high enough fast enough to get out of range, but assuming it immediately attempted to retreat, that would be the worst case scenario, yes. Earthbind is nice once that center eye is off, and Beholders suck at Strength saves.

[MaxWilson]

As for flying, it can't go high enough fast enough to get out of range, but assuming it immediately attempted to retreat, that would be the worst case scenario, yes. Earthbind is nice once that center eye is off, and Beholders suck at Strength saves.

Retreating out of range does not end a spell that's already cast, unless the spell says so explicitly. PHB 203, top of page. "Once a spell is cast, its effects aren't limited by range, unless the spell's description says otherwise."

[Vogonjeltz]

This format is never going to work, because there'll always be a jerk to bid a ridiculously low level just to guarantee his own participation in the game, shut out others of the possibility of playing, and die in the first encounter, making sure no one else can win money. Everyone goes home dissatisfied.

And to prove my point, I bid level 1. There you go.

Unless there are other rules in play, yes, congratulations, you've identified why there's virtually no chance anyone will win the prize money.

[MaxWilson]

Unless there are other rules in play, yes, congratulations, you've identified why there's virtually no chance anyone will win the prize money.

If this were a real contest, you could simply run the contestants sequentially in order of bid until one of them succeeded. (No fair watching someone else's attempt.) That way, the level one bid(s) just flame out quickly and you move on to the lowest realistic bid.

[CNagy]

Retreating out of range does not end a spell that's already cast, unless the spell says so explicitly. PHB 203, top of page. "Once a spell is cast, its effects aren't limited by range, unless the spell's description says otherwise."

That's not the issue. The problem is that if the Beholder makes it out to about 120 feet, the battle becomes harder to the point of being nigh unwinnable for the low level party. The party I have in my head deals its best damage at ground level (which is why Earthbind is so wonderful) and then slightly less damage as it lifts out of melee range.

[Shining Wrath]

That's not the issue. The problem is that if the Beholder makes it out to about 120 feet, the battle becomes harder to the point of being nigh unwinnable for the low level party. The party I have in my head deals its best damage at ground level (which is why Earthbind is so wonderful) and then slightly less damage as it lifts out of melee range.

Which was why my first response to the OP was "More information needed".

The cone as wide as it is long is a 45 degree FOV cone. A disintegrate fired at the cavern roof bringing lots of rocks down onto your head can kill you within the anti-magic field. More to the point, the Beholder keeps the spell casters spell-less while it destroys the rest of the party with rays.

You've also got to assume a Beholder in its lair can't achieve surprise, which they are actually good at.

That's why I think your level 5 party is unlikely to win.

[MaxWilson]

That's not the issue. The problem is that if the Beholder makes it out to about 120 feet, the battle becomes harder to the point of being nigh unwinnable for the low level party.

I don't see how. In the extreme case, you could have a party of wizards shooting (nonproficient, Dex 12) crossbow bolts at the beholder hovering 120' above, and they'd still be eating away 6.3 HP per round from the beholder, which leads to an inexorable loss on its part. In a more plausible scenario where you've got a couple of archers in the party they's probably more like 20+ damage per turn, which means the beholder is dead in nine rounds, three of which it has spent getting up to 120' elevation.

Its only real hope is to use the remaining six rounds to tunnel through the wall to safety. But that's where the question to the OP comes in: is "victory" defined as "beat the monster off", or "search-and-destroy"? The latter is much harder.


Which was why my first response to the OP was "More information needed".

The cone as wide as it is long is a 45 degree FOV cone. A disintegrate fired at the cavern roof bringing lots of rocks down onto your head can kill you within the anti-magic field. More to the point, the Beholder keeps the spell casters spell-less while it destroys the rest of the party with rays.

You've also got to assume a Beholder in its lair can't achieve surprise, which they are actually good at.

That's why I think your level 5 party is unlikely to win.

It's fine if you think the level 5 party is unlikely to win. The important thing is that I think they have a good shot if the DM is fair. I'm much more concerned about the lich and the dragon, frankly.

I'd like to see that cavern roof trick's geometry. Are you imagining the party standing under a giant stalactite or something so the beholder can just disintegrate the base? Presumably the beholder has spent months carving the ceiling into bizarre shapes and fractals for just this contingency?

If the spellcasters and party members are co-located and Darkness is in use, you can't keep one of them spell-less while you destroy the other with rays. That's the beholder's Achilles heel.

As for surprise: that's a question for the OP/DM. (And it cuts both ways. Pass Without Trace is quite good at generating surprise too, especially in the dark, and familiars are good at scouting ahead (especially when invisible). If you ever lose your link to the familiar, you know you've found the beholder.) Several people have asked for clarification as to the terms of engagement. Me, I figured I might as well submit an optimistic bid assuming that the OP is mostly interested in a straight-up fight and not a spy-vs-spy hunt through darkened tunnels.

Beholders aren't particularly good at generating surprise BTW. No Stealth proficiency. IME they sometimes get surprise based on lucky d20 rolls, but they're much better with just a readied action of "zap the first guy that comes through this hole in the floor".