Can you naturally devolve a monster?

[3drinks]

A Beholder's CR is 13. We all know how to increase a monster, usually by HD or class levels to raise it's CR. Can you do the reverse to lower a monster's CR? Say, for example, to set up such an encounter for a party with ECL 1 - 3? How would one go about doing this, and what would it entail?

Just a thought i had after listening to Critical Role (s1e44, the 2nd Beholder fight).

[The Viscount]

You could always use a few Eyeball Beholderkin from Forgotten Realms Campaign setting.

[Segev]

In the case of Beholders in particular, there are variants that are lower in power (Lords of Madness has a nice selection).

Another way to handle it would be to use a particularly maimed one; cut down the number of eyes and lower his HD, and he's less of a challenge. Pick and choose the lost eyes carefully to remove the most screw-you ones that would make the fight just end.

A third way would be to have a full-powered Beholder, but have him want something other than to kill and eat the PCs. Maybe he's testing a new set of charmed minions, and just offers some mild support to keep the PCs from "cheating." (If the PCs win too handily, he might break out his charm rays, and dispatch the party on quests for him if he wins by total-charm-out.) Or maybe he's busy on some other important (or "important" but only to him) task, and devotes fewer eye rays to them. In this case, their objective can't be "kill the Beholder," since he'd take that seriously, but if they just need to evade or get by him....

Making it a social challenge works, too; a Beholder vs. a level 1-3 party is a TPK waiting to happen, and anyone who knows enough to recognize a Beholder probably knows it. The challenge then becomes keeping the Beholder from WANTING to kill them while achieving their goals, and maybe running away successfully if they fail to keep the encounter non-hostile. Again, the Beholder just charming the whole party and then becoming their Quest-giver is always an option, should hostilities break out and he not kill them all right away.

[3drinks]

My original thought as I typed this was to bring it's HD down to 3 or 4, and change up it's spell suite - magic missile, sleep, colour spray, and maybe some disrupt undead in case the party has a minionomancer type. Maybe a Scorching Ray which is a long term offensive ray until it reaches near it's book listed power...

The idea is to give the party the feeling of defeating a beholder, but obviously the real thing is way too potent for a starting party. Bonus, as the PCs level and it doesn't die, you can scale it with them. Instant recurring, iconic bbeg.

[Psyren]

There are a couple of other ways you can weaken monsters:

1) Negative templates - some templates exist solely for the purpose of making monsters runty or anemic, like the Young template.

2) Apply penalties - the easy way to do this is to apply Bestow Curse or Greater Bestow Curse on the monster before the PCs show up. Maybe it triggered a trap, found a nasty item (which you can include in the monster's treasure for added hilarity) or displeased its boss in some way and got punished.

3) Unfavorable circumstances/terrain - This one's trickier because the PCs have to realize the disadvantage and take advantage of it themselves. You also have to be careful that it's something that favors the PCs. For example, sticking a dragon in an AMF will definitely weaken the dragon (no SLAs/breath) but it will weaken the PCs far more, so the result is a net gain for the dragon. Be creative and you can find ways to asymmetrically tip the scales in the PCs favor, like having an undead monster attack the party near some hallowed ground that they can use against it; this is likely to hurt the monster and unlikely to hurt the party.

4) Remove abilities - Someone suggested maiming the beholder, e.g. removing some of its eyes or even the big central one. You can use the Called Shot rules to damage it ahead of time or simply cross out certain parts of the statblock. Think scalpel here though, not hatchet, otherwise you might as well just use a different monster entirely.

5) Use a different monster entirely - if you find yourself applying more than one of the ones above, chances are you started with the wrong monster for the level of challenge you wanted, so consider looking for something closer to the actual CR you're trying to get to.

[Mike Miller]

A Beholder's CR is 13. We all know how to increase a monster, usually by HD or class levels to raise it's CR. Can you do the reverse to lower a monster's CR? Say, for example, to set up such an encounter for a party with ECL 1 - 3? How would one go about doing this, and what would it entail?

Just a thought i had after listening to Critical Role (s1e44, the 2nd Beholder fight).

I have reversed the advance-by-HD process before. It does work, although higher level abilities may be problematic. As your later post showed, you already have ideas to replace the eye rays. If you are willing to do the backwards "advancement" process, go for it.

[daremetoidareyo]

Throw some npcs in the group, have higher level abilities eat through them, split experience more ways

[unseenmage]

Level drain, disease, and poison can do a lot to debuff an otherwise strong monster as well.

IIRC isnt there a blind beholder in an adventure or novel somewhere?

Hitting the beholder with suboptimal templates that remove or weaken its superpowers can work too.

Sure that Effigy beholder doesnt have an antimagic eye cone but it can still startle your players and hint at future eye based awfulness to come.

[Quarian Rex]

Ever taken a look at Oslecamo's Improved Monster Classes (http://minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=270.0)? He generally breaks monsters down into a class with levels equaling their CR, with all the abilities broken down/adapted as appropriate. I'm pretty fond of using these as mutants/savants and using them along side the normal race.

Might be useful for you.

[Segev]

My original thought as I typed this was to bring it's HD down to 3 or 4, and change up it's spell suite - magic missile, sleep, colour spray, and maybe some disrupt undead in case the party has a minionomancer type. Maybe a Scorching Ray which is a long term offensive ray until it reaches near it's book listed power...

The idea is to give the party the feeling of defeating a beholder, but obviously the real thing is way too potent for a starting party. Bonus, as the PCs level and it doesn't die, you can scale it with them. Instant recurring, iconic bbeg.

Well...

If you want them to have the feeling of defeating a Beholder, why not wait until they're of the appropriate level? Build anticipation in the meantime by setting it up as an NPC antagonist that keeps sending wandering screwjobs their way.


Why do you want them to "have the feeling of defeating a Beholder" at this specific point in time/the game?

[Thurbane]

Usually the only RAW way to do this is if a monster has a "monster class" progression table, such as the Ambush Drake (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fc/20060728a). If a DM wanted to throw a less powerful/younger Ambush Drake at the party, he could, for instance, use the 2HD version at CR 1, which wouldn't have all the abilities of the version printed in MM3.

AFAIK no such official progression exists for a true Beholder, but as Quarian Rex pointed out, you could use Oslecamo's Improved Monster Classes as a guide.

[Tvtyrant]

Beholders specifically are tricky because they have so many actions. Reducing the number of eye rays and taking out the Save or Dies is probably sufficient, so no death, disintegrate, or petrification. Honestly they are fragile enough you don't really need to lower their HP much, just the DCs (I had an Eye of the Deep almost off a level 6 party because none of them could make their saves against being blinded.)

[AvatarVecna]

Unfortunately I forget where I found it, but I ran this little adventure for my college group that was basically "party stumbles across a half-delved dungeon, finding dead members of the previous part along the way". At the end was a heavily-injured beholder with a number of eyes ripped/sliced off, and despite the AC/Saves, it ended up balanved enough for the lower-level party. Could do something like that.

[Thurbane]

Unfortunately I forget where I found it, but I ran this little adventure for my college group that was basically "party stumbles across a half-delved dungeon, finding dead members of the previous part along the way". At the end was a heavily-injured beholder with a number of eyes ripped/sliced off, and despite the AC/Saves, it ended up balanved enough for the lower-level party. Could do something like that.

There may be other precedent for that sort of thing.

IIRC, in Shattered Gates of Slaughtergarde, there is a blind Mountain Troll that has a reduced CR.

[Telonius]

IIRC, there's a powered-down Vampire in Chapter 2 of the hardcover version.

[ShurikVch]

The "Salvage Operation" adventure in Dungeon #90 have Sick Old Giant Squid with CR 4 - it have just 30 hp, reduced natural AC, and ability scores 10/8/6/1/12/2

How about Bleeder Beholder (Dragon Compendium) with CR 8?
Or, maybe, Gauth (Monster Manual) with CR 6?