A perplexing battle lies ahead

[CLTigurius]

Long story short our dm has decided to toss us into what I believe to be a stressful situation. I belong to a 4man party. It consists of the following:

Human Wizard Level 12, School of magic - War

Wood Elf Cleric level 12, Domain - Life

Tiefling Sorcerer level 12, Draconic Bloodline, run by the DM(?)

Dragonborn Oath of Vengeance 11/ Hexblade warlock 1


The situation is this. We have come upon a shaft 100ft deep, after many attempts to peer into it using many different ideas we have found out that we are facing 1 Death Tyrant and 1 Beholder this weekend.

How on earth are we going to face this? Any Ideas? I appreciate your assistance in advance. Im at a loss.

Thanks!

[ImproperJustice]

More details would be helpful.

Otherwise: Find a way to get your Paladin in melee range as they Smite the things until they all fall down?

[Eldariel]

What resources (particularly spells) do you have available? Either way, with all Beholderkin the first order of business is negating their ability to look at you; you want darkness or fog or some such to ensure they can't pew you out (optimally something they can't antimagic eye away). Then get in there and boompuff them until they don't move. If you move first, you could just try to save-or-X them as they don't have Legendary Resistance at least by the book but you might want to plan for the case DM where is liable to alter them (Death Tyrant at least should have it IMHO). However, if they do, you can always default to Telekinesis and Bigby's (but grapple doesn't obviously disable their eye rays very hard and they have ways to get rid of the spell so it might not be the best use of your action). Death Tyrant does have a decent set of immunities but it's not immune to Banishment-type effects (though I recommend against Banishment specifically since they have Cha-save proficiency) nor the Polymorph-line. Beholder is funny in that it lacks Con-save proficiency so do nuke it with whatever you happen to have handy to take it out quick (Polymorph is a good standby). Disabling the Beholder is necessary to remove the Antimagic Cone (thus making your other disables and fogs and such stick) so this might be a good first move.

You could try Polymorph on Death Tyrant too but that's less likely to work (though with 20 Int and +4 Proficiency, you'd still have a respectable DC 17 SoD giving it a 45 % chance of failing). I suggest either using a damage-based approach or a save-based one but either one should probably be mixed with vision denial of some kind as your primary offensive/defensive strategy since your enemy is particularly effed by it.


So yeah, overall, Wizard should try to Polymorph Beholder if they get the chance (Cleric can also try to Contagion - Mindfire or Slimy Doom would be nice) and then somebody remove vision and get in there to beat up on the (hopefully lone) Eye Tyrant with everything you've got. Best case would be to get some speed going (perhaps Phantom Steed) to try and get the Cleric to Contagion the Beholder while the Wizard Polymorphs the Eye Tyrant, giving you an out to disabling both of them round 1. If you do manage that, then you just burst down the Beholder and figure out how to deal with the Eye Tyrant in a safer environment (drag the frog or whatever you turned it into out of its lair and into some extremely harmful place before the duration ends). But that's hard. Black out 'n' bash with summons and friends is the next best option.

EDIT: Just to be clear, the Beholder is probably more dangerous than the Death Tyrant thanks to the antimagic cone, while the Death Tyrant's eye does little or less. It's also more vulnerable so I'd say everything points to "kill/disable the Beholder, then worry about the Eye Tyrant".

[Fable Wright]

Beholders are extraordinarily weak to the Blindness spell.

Fog Cloud/Darkness is a perfect counter, because if you're in it, they need to rely on the Antimagic Cone to target you... and they can't blast anything in the antimagic cone. Death Tyrants just don't even have the option of Antimagic Cone-ing.

So pop a Darkness on the Paladin, let them self-Haste, and let them jump on the Death Tyrant and smite the undead. Since the Tyrant is now surrounded by Darkness and has an angry paladin on them, they can't really target the rest of the party. Meanwhile, the rest of y'all can just focus fire down the regular Beholder.

If you're still worried, just have the Cleric prepare Freedom of Movement and cast it on anyone who matters. IIRC over half of the Beholder's nasty eyebeams including petrification are just shut down by Freedom of Movement.

[Mr Adventurer]

If the party thinks they are outmatched, why don't they leave?

[Chaos Jackal]

Beholders are extremely powerful, if they can shoot their eye beams. If they can't, they're no big deal.

As such, Blindness, Darkness, Fog Cloud and the various walls, as well as invisibility effects, shut them down hard, because even though the regular beholder has a constant antimagic cone, said cone also blocks beholder rays. So as long as you stick into your effect, whether or not it's suppressed doesn't matter. Just make sure to be out of the cone when you're casting, given that there's three primary casters there.

Don't rely on healing, 'cos death tyrant.

And as it's been said, trying to polymorph or banish or use any other form of temporary hard removal to put one of the enemies out of the fight will work wonders.

Then smite the toothy grin off their faces.

If they try to run away, nuke them from range. You have plenty of artillery, so if they try to escape they'll be punished heavily for it. Remember to get back into your concealment (or have it move with you if it's Darkness on an object), you don't want them to turn around and roll a disintegration and a death ray at you.

Admittedly, a lot of this comes down to initiative. With its loss and a bit of bad luck you could be looking at a dead teammate. Getting the drop on them if you can might serve to alleviate this.

Or, if you don't feel like fighting and have alternatives, you can just take your leave, though I suspect that's not an option.

[da newt]

I find it handy to take refuge in the beholder's anti-magic gaze - it can be like a damage free zone for you. Find ways to use that to your advantage.

[Anderlith]

Buy as much flour as you can from the local village & by whatever magical means you can conjure. Then set it on fire. Fine particulates circulating in air makes a truly scary fireball with no magic needed

[stoutstien]

Beholders are slow moving artillery units that have egos bigger than anything else. It recommend taken a more social approach first. They are fiercely territorial against others of it's kind. Having a beholder and a death tyrant in the same general vicinity?
Play your cards right you won't even have to make an attack roll.

[firelistener]

Beholders are extraordinarily weak to the Blindness spell.

Fog Cloud/Darkness is a perfect counter, because if you're in it, they need to rely on the Antimagic Cone to target you... and they can't blast anything in the antimagic cone. Death Tyrants just don't even have the option of Antimagic Cone-ing.

So pop a Darkness on the Paladin, let them self-Haste, and let them jump on the Death Tyrant and smite the undead. Since the Tyrant is now surrounded by Darkness and has an angry paladin on them, they can't really target the rest of the party. Meanwhile, the rest of y'all can just focus fire down the regular Beholder.

If you're still worried, just have the Cleric prepare Freedom of Movement and cast it on anyone who matters. IIRC over half of the Beholder's nasty eyebeams including petrification are just shut down by Freedom of Movement.

This sounds like a pretty solid strategy. In addition, targeting the Death Tyrant first helps with the party's endurance should there be a need to heal at some point in the fight. The Death Tyrant's negative energy cone prevents regaining hitpoints.

[CLTigurius]

What resources (particularly spells) do you have available? Either way, with all Beholderkin the first order of business is negating their ability to look at you; you want darkness or fog or some such to ensure they can't pew you out (optimally something they can't antimagic eye away). Then get in there and boompuff them until they don't move. If you move first, you could just try to save-or-X them as they don't have Legendary Resistance at least by the book but you might want to plan for the case DM where is liable to alter them (Death Tyrant at least should have it IMHO). However, if they do, you can always default to Telekinesis and Bigby's (but grapple doesn't obviously disable their eye rays very hard and they have ways to get rid of the spell so it might not be the best use of your action). Death Tyrant does have a decent set of immunities but it's not immune to Banishment-type effects (though I recommend against Banishment specifically since they have Cha-save proficiency) nor the Polymorph-line. Beholder is funny in that it lacks Con-save proficiency so do nuke it with whatever you happen to have handy to take it out quick (Polymorph is a good standby). Disabling the Beholder is necessary to remove the Antimagic Cone (thus making your other disables and fogs and such stick) so this might be a good first move.

You could try Polymorph on Death Tyrant too but that's less likely to work (though with 20 Int and +4 Proficiency, you'd still have a respectable DC 17 SoD giving it a 45 % chance of failing). I suggest either using a damage-based approach or a save-based one but either one should probably be mixed with vision denial of some kind as your primary offensive/defensive strategy since your enemy is particularly effed by it.


So yeah, overall, Wizard should try to Polymorph Beholder if they get the chance (Cleric can also try to Contagion - Mindfire or Slimy Doom would be nice) and then somebody remove vision and get in there to beat up on the (hopefully lone) Eye Tyrant with everything you've got. Best case would be to get some speed going (perhaps Phantom Steed) to try and get the Cleric to Contagion the Beholder while the Wizard Polymorphs the Eye Tyrant, giving you an out to disabling both of them round 1. If you do manage that, then you just burst down the Beholder and figure out how to deal with the Eye Tyrant in a safer environment (drag the frog or whatever you turned it into out of its lair and into some extremely harmful place before the duration ends). But that's hard. Black out 'n' bash with summons and friends is the next best option.

EDIT: Just to be clear, the Beholder is probably more dangerous than the Death Tyrant thanks to the antimagic cone, while the Death Tyrant's eye does little or less. It's also more vulnerable so I'd say everything points to "kill/disable the Beholder, then worry about the Eye Tyrant".


We are tapped out. When we first found the hidden room with a shaft in it we had just killed several drow and their minions. Before that 6 Drow Shadow Assassins. We opened the hidden door, opened the shaft and attempted to send down my familiar as a spider. It was killed immediately. We then tried my arcane eye, it was immediately nuked. We then sent my summoned Invisible stalker down to check it out, he was not long for this world as his time was running out. He went down and was seen immediately and shot with a disintegration ray but resisted and came back up to report that he saw the death tyrant and the beholder.

At this time although we have been conscripted to destroy the unknown threat, we are tapped out. This is my first time playing a wizard. I actually normally play thieves because well...they are awesome. Im not tapped out but attempted to play a controller and have little in terms of nukes available. The sorcerer normally just flattens people and the paladin is a beast.

I respect the dm, he is a friend and I do not want to bash him. I believe he is giving us a very difficult mission and may intend to kill us, he may have ran out of ideas, he may want to run the entire Undermountain campaigns. I am just refusing to lose.

[CLTigurius]

Beholders are slow moving artillery units that have egos bigger than anything else. It recommend taken a more social approach first. They are fiercely territorial against others of it's kind. Having a beholder and a death tyrant in the same general vicinity?
Play your cards right you won't even have to make an attack roll.

We are actually formulating a plan to do this. We will cast guidance on the paladin who will try his best not to paladin rage and attempt to use persuasion against the beholder who apparently is coming up the shaft ( its kinda small but meh). He will attempt to convince the beholder that the death tyrant has hired him to kill him.

[CLTigurius]

Buy as much flour as you can from the local village & by whatever magical means you can conjure. Then set it on fire. Fine particulates circulating in air makes a truly scary fireball with no magic needed

I do not know how that would work but my wizard is from a noble family who runs the agriculture of the kingdom....I can get the flour.

[CLTigurius]

Beholders are extremely powerful, if they can shoot their eye beams. If they can't, they're no big deal.

As such, Blindness, Darkness, Fog Cloud and the various walls, as well as invisibility effects, shut them down hard, because even though the regular beholder has a constant antimagic cone, said cone also blocks beholder rays. So as long as you stick into your effect, whether or not it's suppressed doesn't matter. Just make sure to be out of the cone when you're casting, given that there's three primary casters there.

Don't rely on healing, 'cos death tyrant.

And as it's been said, trying to polymorph or banish or use any other form of temporary hard removal to put one of the enemies out of the fight will work wonders.

Then smite the toothy grin off their faces.

If they try to run away, nuke them from range. You have plenty of artillery, so if they try to escape they'll be punished heavily for it. Remember to get back into your concealment (or have it move with you if it's Darkness on an object), you don't want them to turn around and roll a disintegration and a death ray at you.

Admittedly, a lot of this comes down to initiative. With its loss and a bit of bad luck you could be looking at a dead teammate. Getting the drop on them if you can might serve to alleviate this.

Or, if you don't feel like fighting and have alternatives, you can just take your leave, though I suspect that's not an option.

Yes its not an option. He said a beholder with true seeing is coming to get us.

[Anderlith]

I do not know how that would work but my wizard is from a noble family who runs the agriculture of the kingdom....I can get the flour.

So basically a cloud of flour is incredible flammable & when ignited is a whole lot hotter than you would think. Ever heard of sawdust fires? Flour fires are worse. If you’d like, google “flour bomb” on YouTube if you don’t mind possibly being added to a watchlist. I know years ago the Mythbusters had an episode on it. You’re a wizard, have intelligence & apparently have an agricultural background, it’s not unlikely that you would know about flour bombs as a character. So gather up a bunch of it & drop it down the shaft in such a way as to aerosolize it as best as possible (a few holes in the sacks & maybe a gust spell for good measure) then drop a torch. (I would abstain from fire spells as the magical nature might give it reason not to behave the same as an open flame. Be sure to stand far back & possible inside a rope trick or other abjuration.

[rel]

Yes its not an option. He said a beholder with true seeing is coming to get us.

True Seeing negates invisibility, darkness and illusions. It does not allow one to see through fog, mist or smoke whether magical or mundane.

Cloud the air and beat the now ineffective beholder to death with its own eyestalks.

[Phhase]

How large is the room below? Can you see the beholderkin directly below you? I suggest:

1. Carving out some boulders and dropping them down the shaft.

2. Diverting a river into the shaft.

3. Is there anything you need beyond the shaft? If not, collapse the shaft.

[Eldariel]

At this time although we have been conscripted to destroy the unknown threat, we are tapped out. This is my first time playing a wizard. I actually normally play thieves because well...they are awesome. Im not tapped out but attempted to play a controller and have little in terms of nukes available. The sorcerer normally just flattens people and the paladin is a beast.

What spells do you have available? That's what this comes down to. If you're a controller, that's perfect! All the spells I listed are controller spells and you only need a single good one for this job; even first level Fog Cloud can potentially do it though second level Blindness and fourth level Polymorph would be big game as well.

[Chaos Jackal]

As others have said, truesight does nothing against cover. So it'll work through Darkness and Invisibility. Not so much against clouds and walls.

The flour fireball is a meme strategy by this point. People tend to believe flour is the next C4, when in fact it's little more than a big firecracker, unless we're talking truly massive quantities in enclosed spaces. Like being in a mill or something. There was a thread recently regarding this very same thing (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?602063-Flour-The-poor-man-s-Fireball). If something as readily available as flour was so destructive you'd see a lot more of it used in explosions.

But since this is D&D you could depend on your DM winging it (although I don't see how someone who gives truesight to something normally fought through blinding effects will allow shenanigans like flour fireballs), though that would still require you to find enough flour in the next 40 seconds. At least you'll have the enclosed space. But don't depend on it.

So I'd say stick to the clouds and walls options if you have the spells available, or the high risk, high reward diplomacy and deception option mentioned earlier in the thread. It's not that uncommon for DMs to throw seemingly impossible or very hard fights at the party, then add in a hidden "I win!" button. Turning them on each other could be just the way to go, and it's something very reasonable within D&D lore, given that the average beholder is a paranoid tyrant with an ego bigger than its Death Ray damage.

[Chronos]

You've got a high-level Cha-SAD paladin and two people capable of casting Bless. With saves like that, you shouldn't even need to do anything special to defeat beholderkin. You should be able to mop the floor with them even if they'd taken you by surprise.

Sure, toss in a Fog Cloud, too, since you know it's coming and can. It'll make the already low chance of losing someone even lower. But it matters very little, and there's nothing here to worry about.