Beholder mage npc

[Runestar]

So I have a little free time lately, flipped through lords of madness and "rediscovered" the beholder mage prc. This got me thinking about the viability of a beholder mage as an epic foe.

A standard beholder beholder mage10 looks promising as a cr23 foe. You could potentially fire up to 10 spells/round as a free action, plus 1 swift action for 11/round. Granted, they range from cantrips to timestops (meaning their effectiveness varies, but your lower lv spells could easily be buffs or spells ignoring saves).

It does seem fairly fragile, though abberation HD is so cheap, so you can advance it a little, and use practiced spellcaster to pick up the slack.

I do have a few questions though.

1) How does it cast 10+th lv spells? Say it has acquired them via improved spell capacity or epic spellcasting. Is it unable to cast them (because its eye stalks can only cast up to 9th lv spells) or can it use a standard action to cast them the "normal" way, possibly giving it 12 spells/round?

2) Is there any way the beholder can move and activate its eye rays/spells on the move while shifting its arc of fire so it can effectively zap the same arc with all 10+ spells?

Has anyone pitted one against the PCs? What were your experiences?

[magic9mushroom]

So I have a little free time lately, flipped through lords of madness and "rediscovered" the beholder mage prc. This got me thinking about the viability of a beholder mage as an epic foe.

A standard beholder beholder mage10 looks promising as a cr23 foe. You could potentially fire up to 10 spells/round as a free action, plus 1 swift action for 11/round. Granted, they range from cantrips to timestops (meaning their effectiveness varies, but your lower lv spells could easily be buffs or spells ignoring saves).

It does seem fairly fragile, though abberation HD is so cheap, so you can advance it a little, and use practiced spellcaster to pick up the slack.

I do have a few questions though.

1) How does it cast 10+th lv spells? Say it has acquired them via improved spell capacity or epic spellcasting. Is it unable to cast them (because its eye stalks can only cast up to 9th lv spells) or can it use a standard action to cast them the "normal" way, possibly giving it 12 spells/round?

2) Is there any way the beholder can move and activate its eye rays/spells on the move while shifting its arc of fire so it can effectively zap the same arc with all 10+ spells?

Has anyone pitted one against the PCs? What were your experiences?

Beholder Mage is h4x. A Beholder Mage is Schrodinger's Wizard, and additionally can pull off really cheap tactics like "Teleport in, blast party, teleport back out before they get an action".

[Runestar]

By that time, I expect any party to be walking around with anticipate teleport up 24/7.

It is also one of the few creatures who actually has the edge on action economy and can match a standard party in terms of actions. A normal wizard npc has the hp of a rabbit and normally limited to just 2 spells/round (1 normal, 1 quickened), making him too vulnerable to disruption/counterspelling.

So does that make the beholder mage a fair cr23 challenge? Yes, it is obscenely powerful, but at that lv, your party are already breaking the rules anyways...

[magic9mushroom]

By that time, I expect any party to be walking around with anticipate teleport up 24/7.

It is also one of the few creatures who actually has the edge on action economy and can match a standard party in terms of actions. A normal wizard npc has the hp of a rabbit and normally limited to just 2 spells/round (1 normal, 1 quickened), making him too vulnerable to disruption/counterspelling.

So does that make the beholder mage a fair cr23 challenge? Yes, it is obscenely powerful, but at that lv, your party are already breaking the rules anyways...

If you're getting into epic... yeah. Epic is weird.

Yes, a Beholder Mage can match a party in Rocket Tag, but the problem is that Rocket Tag is a meat-grinder.

[The Glyphstone]

If you're getting into epic... yeah. Epic is weird.

Yes, a Beholder Mage can match a party in Rocket Tag, but the problem is that Rocket Tag is a meat-grinder.

Then again, an Epic enemy doesn't mean that the Party is Epic. CR23 is +4 (very difficult) or +3 (difficult) for a CR 19-20 party. It'd make a fine capstone boss monster for a top-level campaign. Still Rocket tag, but the Beholder Mage has more rockets.