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2020-08-11, 10:20 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2012
5 level 6 pcs vs Flesh Golem and Zombie Beholder
As in the title, I consider this combination to be a boss battle in finale of a dungeon I prepared but I worry if it's not too strong, I heard Zombie Beholder can punch above his cr. Party is a Paladin, Cleric, Warlock with Paladin dip and a Rogue/Bard.
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2020-08-11, 10:26 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2015
- Location
- Maine
- Gender
Re: 5 level 6 pcs vs Flesh Golem and Zombie Beholder
how big of an issue for the party is the golem's damage immunity specifically to non magical weapons?
Last edited by stoutstien; 2020-08-11 at 10:26 AM.
what is the point of living if you can't deadlift?
All credit to the amazing avatar goes to thoroughlyS
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2020-08-11, 11:37 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2012
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2020-08-11, 11:39 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2016
Re: 5 level 6 pcs vs Flesh Golem and Zombie Beholder
I take issue with the fact that you didn't call it a Zombeholder.
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2020-08-11, 11:48 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2015
- Location
- Maine
- Gender
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2020-08-11, 01:12 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2014
Re: 5 level 6 pcs vs Flesh Golem and Zombie Beholder
My biggest issue with using this as a "boss battle" is that it's highly variable--with only one eye ray per round, if the disintegration ray gets rolled, the fight will have a very different character than if the Fear ray gets rolled. That's fine if your players have fought zombie beholders before and know what to expect from a beholder--if you roll Fear they will breathe a sight of relief at dodging the Disintegration bullet--but if they are new players, they will never even know what danger they were in. They might just think they killed a boring floating meatsack with a big mouth which tried to scare them and/or paralyze them.
Does any of this sound like it could be a problem for your players? Do you have a plan for telegraphing the monsters' abilities in advance in order to ramp up the tension? (Or are you going to just ditch the random eye ray thing?)
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2020-08-11, 02:12 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2017
Re: 5 level 6 pcs vs Flesh Golem and Zombie Beholder
In general disintegration effects should be a bit hands off at low levels-there is too much chance of someone instantly dying. I'd quietly switch the disintigration ray for the petrification ray (DC 14, turn to stone, repeat at end of next turn or it sticks).
In general, petrification effects both allow you to rescue the campaign from a TPK if things do go wrong while offering story hooks if someone does restore them, and also don't permanently kill characters.
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2020-08-11, 02:15 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2010
- Gender
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2020-08-11, 02:19 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2017
Re: 5 level 6 pcs vs Flesh Golem and Zombie Beholder
Overall, I'd say that this looks like a relatively easy encounter for 5 level 6 PCs. (You only listed 4 PCs in your description though). This is especially true considering the paladin bonus to saving throws from their aura which should help make it easier for the PCs.
The cleric likely has spirit guardians and spiritual weapon. The paladin has 2 attacks/round and smites. The warlock might be able to eldritch blast. The rogue/bard might be mostly a skill monkey but they still have sneak attack and spells.
All of the eye effects are single target. The paralysation and fear rays don't actually do any damage. The disintegration ray could instantly kill a character with less than 45 hit points.
This means that the entire encounter could be very swingy with the party winning easily 70% of the time, losing characters 20% of the time and having a TPK 10% of the time with really bad luck.
If the beholder rolls up the disintegrate ray several times in a row and each time randomly targets the weakest members of the party ... it will be over pretty quick. A d8 hit dice character with a 14 con has 45 hit points at level 6. This means that the only characters that probably can't die on the first round to disintegrate are the paladin and paladin/warlock. However, the zombie has terrible saving throws for everything except con.
The flesh golem is only hit points and dps. Damage can be substantial if they hit and this depends on die rolls, what character they attack and the AC of those characters. The flesh golem is probably doing an average of 13 hit points per round .. the party can easily destroy it before it does too much damage (bar good dice or crits).
Bottom line is that it will likely be fine but have a backup plan in place in case the characters get unlucky or the monsters roll particularly well. Make sure you foreshadow the significant risk represented by the zombie and its eye rays.