Become a beholdermage is 4 easy steps

[AthasianWarlock]

So 3.5 has been around for about 30 years at this point so someone has probably figured this out before. I want to lay out how to become a beholdermage


Step 1:
Be an LE humanoid cleric of at least level 3
Step 2:
Contract lycanthropy from a warerat. You are ecl 5 (one the +1 LA)
Step 3:
Use 5th level wealth by level to aquire a candle of invocation and a potion of divine insight.
Step 4: summon an effreti. Cast guidence of the avatar and have him drink the potion of divine insight. Have him wish for you to turn into a beholder. By Savage species he will make a spellcraft check which will determine the probability that you gain the abilities of the creature you are being wishes into. This probability is (spellcraft check -20)5. Setting that equal to 100 and solving for the spellcraft check you get 40 to be the minimum spellcraft check to gaurrentee a successful transformation. Effreti has a +14, guidence of avatar gives a +20 competence bonus and divine insight gives a +7 for a minimum roll of 41.
Congratulations you are now a beholder. You are an abberition so you lose lycanthropy but you (presumably but maybe not) have xp above the level 3 threshold. You gain 1 level and possibly have 1 xp less than level 5.

Use the remaining wishes for:

Mask or misplaced auras
Ring of reduction

This will let you adventure with a party without constantly worrying about getting attacked by local towns people.

What I like about this is that it doesn't rely on POA tricks. This tricks while RAW, have the issue that you have to spend feats to aquire an antimagic eye or be a psion for supernatural transformation. Additionally a lot of DMs don't sign off on DMG p176 RAW that you can lose prereqs to prcs and remain in them, and it's easy for them to screw you over by having an enemy mage dispel you POA. You also get the full power of beholdermage since you have eye stalks. You can cast multiple spells as free actions and take metaray to cheat on metamagic costs. You also can fire all the eye rays everyround and can dump physical stats since they are replaced by the ritual. Even more additionaly you get a +15 natural AC.

[Allanimal]

So 3.5 has been around for about 30 years at this point

Uh.... according to Wikipedia, 3.5 came out in 2003. So 16 years, nowhere near 30.

Ok, back to the thread...

[pabelfly]

Uh.... according to Wikipedia, 3.5 came out in 2003. So 16 years, nowhere near 30.

Ok, back to the thread...

They probably spent some time on a plane with erratic time.

[Anthrowhale]

If I remember correctly, Beholders are LA -.

[Crake]

Step 3:
Use 5th level wealth by level to aquire a candle of invocation and a potion of divine insight.

Thats... not how wealth by level works. You don't just randomly manifest equipment when you level up. If you overlevel yourself too quickly, you can end up ECL 5 with no gear.

Also, side note, the spellcraft check in the wish spell ritual in savage species isn't a hard and fast rule, it's an example of a way that the DM can make the ritual unreliable and iffy, as it's intended to be. The RAW of it is "up to your DM on how the spell will actually function".

[Karl Aegis]

Oh no! I'm a Non-Player Character now! How will I ever level up?

[Buufreak]

... acquire a candle of invocation...

I take it you don't know about pun pun if this is your suggestion, and it took you 4 steps instead of 2. Cheesing a candle of invocation has been around for roughly a decade, if not longer. Nothing you are posting here is an original idea, you are just replacing the god part of "how to become" and replaced it with "beholder."

[Ramza00]

I take it you don't know about pun pun if this is your suggestion, and it took you 4 steps instead of 2. Cheesing a candle of invocation has been around for roughly a decade, if not longer. Nothing you are posting here is an original idea, you are just replacing the god part of "how to become" and replaced it with "beholder."

Agreed. This is theoretical optimization that would not see real play.

But hey if you actually tried it with your DM you can always play the FF7 Song "The Birth of a God" [aka the Jenova refrain / remix that plays when Sephiroth succeeds], only for your DM to counterattack with Omnislash. Now the translation of Omnislash loses something. It is called 超究武神覇斬, Chōkyū Bushin Hazan, lit. "Super Extreme Martial God Supreme Slash."

And then you two have your fun and you either play D&D again, or one of you gets so mad at the other that you no longer play with one another.

[Tvtyrant]

The classic entry is two scrolls of True Polymorph so you default to Beholder, and then enter as a Wizard. Also very cheesy, but somewhat less so.

The issue is your eyestalks lack eyerays to give up, which may or may not invalidate the class features.

[AthasianWarlock]

Oh no! I'm a Non-Player Character now! How will I ever level up?

The general rule is you can't play a race with a LA, but SS wish is an exception to the rule. You don't gain an RHD, feats, special qualities or attacks (generally). Likewise as far as I know if you ever used true mind switch on something that wasn't a humanoid you don't just turn in your character sheet.