A D&D questions for my friends that game in old school or new - When is the party ready to face a beholder?


Seriously, not "when they piss off the DM enough".

At any point where you realise the ratio of eyes to playtime is suffering.

the halfling says that he is not scared of anything.

I think once a character's saving throws have lowered enough to give them a 50-50 chance to save against most of its eye weapons and usually after LvL 10. It also depends on the Beholder, is it a fully healthy one, does it have all of its eye weapons available, where is it attacking from, does it have allies with it. After all it only gets ONE attack per round while a party gets multiple attacks and it only has 75 hit points max. Depending on the size of the party and initiative the fight could be over even before the Beholder gets an attack off. It’s not as fearsome of a monster as we are led to believe.

A beholder in 3.5 is a CR (Challenge Rating) 13, which means that a beholder is a CHALLENGE for a level 13 PARTY.

There are Gauths (lesser beholders) at a CR 6. Depending how the DM wants the survivability of the encounter to go or if the DM wishes to present the party with a choice of Fight or retreat, a party level 14 (All PCs are level 14) would be decently prepared for a Beholder.

Here are some stats on the 3.5 beholder

HD (hit dice) 11d8+44 (55-134 hp)

Flies 20ft per round (good)

Armor Class 26 (-1 size, +2 dex, +15 natural armor)

Attacks: Eye rays +9 ranged touch, bite +2 melee (2d4 dam)

Saves Fort +9, REF +5, Will +11

Abilities STR 10 (+0), DEX 14 (+2), CON 18 (+4), INT 17(+3), WIS 15 (+2), CHA 15 (+2)

A beholder can fire all 10 eye rays (at a caster lvl 13, and DC 17 for saves) in a round. It can also decide to keep its eye open or close it to turn on or off the cone of antimagic the central eye emits out to 150 feet. The cone when active will stop all magic effects within the cone including the beholder's eye rays.

The beholder cannot be surprised or caught Flat footed because of its all-around vision.

Never, would be my answer.