Advice on Encounter

[Dubkor]

My party has come up against a beholder. Our last session ended with our party wandering in to its lair.

We're a level five party with five players, though our ECL might be considered slightly higher as our barbarian is a werewolf and our ranger became a lich. Aside from this we have a crusader, a druid and a rogue.

My thought is we need to attempt to flee as I see no way we come out having won or, well, living.

Does anyone have any counter point. Do we stand a chance at all?

[Red Fel]

My party has come up against a beholder. Our last session ended with our party wandering in to its lair.

We're a level five party with five players, though our ECL might be considered slightly higher as our barbarian is a werewolf and our ranger became a lich. Aside from this we have a crusader, a druid and a rogue.

My thought is we need to attempt to flee as I see no way we come out having won or, well, living.

Does anyone have any counter point. Do we stand a chance at all?

Talk to it? Trick it? Bribe it? Apologize profusely and leave quietly? Not every encounter requires combat.

Side note, how did a level 5 Ranger become a Lich? A level 5 Ranger has a CL of 2 (1/2 of 5, rounded down). You need CL 11 and Craft Wondrous Item (which requires a CL of 3) in order to craft a phylactery and become a Lich. Also, that's a +4 LA. Are you sure you don't mean some other Undead?

[ColorBlindNinja]

What kind of Beholder is it? The standard one from the Monster Manual?

Because that one will probably TPK a level 5 party.

[Dubkor]

Talk to it? Trick it? Bribe it? Apologize profusely and leave quietly? Not every encounter requires combat.

Side note, how did a level 5 Ranger become a Lich? A level 5 Ranger has a CL of 2 (1/2 of 5, rounded down). You need CL 11 and Craft Wondrous Item (which requires a CL of 3) in order to craft a phylactery and become a Lich. Also, that's a +4 LA. Are you sure you don't mean some other Undead?

It was kind of cool actually, even though it was the DM saving a new player...

We were exploring a city that was abandoned during a battle and we found a room where a magic user of some kind had been brought down while seemingly trying to reach a room. In that room we found a altar with an hour glass sitting on it. The ranger wound up taking the hour glass despite other characters saying we shouldn't touch it as the whole set up looked very evil. Later the ranger got caught in the area of effect for a spell that took them from max HP to below -10. They then had to choose between entering the afterlife or sacraficing their soul to the phylactory and helping the party survive the encounter.

Maybe a little broken, but it was a pretty epic moment and it's led to some really neat stuff as the ranger never wanted to be a lich. They feel like they've become a monster.

[Dubkor]

What kind of Beholder is it? The standard one from the Monster Manual?

Because that one will probably TPK a level 5 party.

Yep. Standard beholder.

[Friv]

Having more details about what caused you to wander in there would be good, but yeah. Negotiation or retreat are your only safe options here.

Now, if negotiation is impossible for whatever reason, and your party is aggressively opposed to retreat it is, just barely, conceivably possible for a Level 5 party with a good ambush to kill a lone beholder who is kind of arrogant and not expecting trouble. A typical beholder "only" has 93 HP, a flat-footed AC of 24, and a Reflex save of +5.

Your real danger is that beholders are Spot +22, and the highest Hide you can have at Level 5 is about +12. So the beholder's average Spot result is equal to the best possible hiding you can pull off, which makes an ambush almost impossible. But beholders don't inherently have Sense Motive, so your party might be able to trick it into thinking that they are allies long enough to get into position for a fight. This will require a ludicrous amount of luck and preparation.

Your druid can cast Bull's Strength and on the barbarian. Then the druid sets up a Snare, the rogue gets ready, and the Ranger casts Jump on the Barbarian. The barbarian gets pretty far away, and the others present themselves as minions and lure the beholder around the corner. At this point, the snare goes off and entangles the beholder, the Crusader triggers Leading the Charge and the ranger flanks the beholder. Then the Crusader yells and uses Leading the Attack to go after the beholder with a surprise attack. If they hit, they can do around 10 damage.

This werewolf Barbarian with a +1 two-handed sword and Bull's Strength, at Level 5 can probably were out, and then rage, and get their Strength up to +9, with a +14 base to hit for 2d6+15 damage. Using their boosted Jump they can charge and flank (attack up to +18) the now-Entangled, flat-footed, and demoralized beholder, whose AC is down to 22. The barbarian can power attack for 5, and still hit on a 6. If they hit, they will deal an average of 37 damage, taking off a third of the beholder's health.

The rogue then immediately sneak attacks from behind, for another average 14 damage, and the druid taps the Beholder and triggers Poison for an average of 5-6 Con damage, which reduces the beholder's maximum HP by 22. The beholder is now down to 12 HP. Hopefully the ranger is able to do that much damage.

Because if not, it's the beholder's turn and everyone is going to die.

[Red Fel]

Maybe a little broken, but it was a pretty epic moment and it's led to some really neat stuff as the ranger never wanted to be a lich. They feel like they've become a monster.

Fight the Beholder. All-in. Everybody fights. Until death.

This DM has apparently given your party plot armor. Either he saves the Ranger alone, and the rest of the players revolt over the nepotism, or he comes up with a way to save the entire party. Or, there's a very slim chance that you actually win, in which case, good job.

Seriously, when I heard "DM turned newbie into powerful Undead spellcaster to save newbie and save entire party," I heard "plot armor for everybody." Milk it.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Yep. Standard beholder.

Yeah, that's a TPK waiting to happen. Don't fight it. :smalleek:

[Dubkor]

I think the DM set this up as a unlikely encounter. We entered a dungeon, found a secret door and diverted from the obvious path, followed that path, found another secret door and diverted from the new most obvious path and ended up in its lair. I kinda think it's there to explain why the dungeon was so full of evil.

Also... our ranger is actually the Champion of the Wild variant.... they don't have spells.

[Dubkor]

Fight the Beholder. All-in. Everybody fights. Until death.

This DM has apparently given your party plot armor. Either he saves the Ranger alone, and the rest of the players revolt over the nepotism, or he comes up with a way to save the entire party. Or, there's a very slim chance that you actually win, in which case, good job.

Seriously, when I heard "DM turned newbie into powerful Undead spellcaster to save newbie and save entire party," I heard "plot armor for everybody." Milk it.

I don't think we have plot armor. The DM used a previous part of the story and a previous event in a way that fit the situation to give an inexperienced player a way out of a save or die situation that wasn't caused by their own recklessness without just fudging a roll to give us a pass.

I really don't think any of the players would be upset about inequality if the characters died but the ranger got saved that one time.

[Dubkor]

Also, perhaps calling them a lich was a little unclear. They didn't gain crazy magical powers or turn to a high level spell caster as part of it.

[Friv]

Fight the Beholder. All-in. Everybody fights. Until death.

This DM has apparently given your party plot armor. Either he saves the Ranger alone, and the rest of the players revolt over the nepotism, or he comes up with a way to save the entire party. Or, there's a very slim chance that you actually win, in which case, good job.

Seriously, when I heard "DM turned newbie into powerful Undead spellcaster to save newbie and save entire party," I heard "plot armor for everybody." Milk it.

Honestly that sounds like the opposite of plot armour; the DM presented a dangerous magic item, and then presented a save-or-die effect with a powerful consequence (you can choose to die, or you can choose to unleash evil on the world.) If anything, it sounds like the DM was hoping someone would take the hourglass and then eventually get killed.


Also... our ranger is actually the Champion of the Wild variant.... they don't have spells.

Well, that makes it worse, yeah.

But the main point of my breakdown was to show that if the party puts a good ambush together, and then all of their rolls go perfectly, you are probably still all going to die. Negotiate or retreat. Mark the beholder's lair as a problem for future you to deal with, and congratulate each other on knowing that it's there! Go and do research on it in town, that sort of thing.

[Mnemius]

well... there is the story of a beholder being beaten by a party that normally fought goblins, using just a bag of finely-ground flour, a spark from some sort of eyebeam, and a magically reinforced/sealed doorway...