Last thursday my group confronted Lord Valanthru/Orbius in Oblivion. We had a 5 round stalemate and stopped the fight because it was too late. The battle will continue next thursday, but I fear it will continue this way:
Our cleric had cast an Antimagic field on him. And all other PCs are near him to profit from it. Thus my lovely Orbius hovering below the celeing is unable to do anything with his eyestalks. And the characters are unable to cast spells (because of the two antimagic fields) to do anything except firing some X-bow bolts which are unlikely to hit the beholder. Orbius's spittle is useless, only immobilizing the enemy. Orbius won't come down to bite them, because this would be certain death Orbius would likely only survive in melee for 3 or 4 rounds. The cleric's antimagic field lasts for another 100 minutes or so and no one seems willing to step out of it to fire a devasting fireball or something like that and sacrifice himself (hehe) when Orbius' turn comes in the round.
Kind of stalemate here. Kind of boring up until now and I have no glue of how to continue the fight. Should Orbius takes his chances and come down to bite? Should he try to immobilize the rogue with his spittle and then come down and bite? Any ideas? Thanx
My party composition:
Human sorcerer/dragonmage (fire) 13
Elf rogue 13
Dwarf fighter 10/rogue 3
Dwarf cleric if moradin 13
Our cleric had cast an Antimagic field on him. And all other PCs are near him to profit from it. Thus my lovely Orbius hovering below the celeing is unable to do anything with his eyestalks. And the characters are unable to cast spells (because of the two antimagic fields) to do anything except firing some X-bow bolts which are unlikely to hit the beholder. Orbius's spittle is useless, only immobilizing the enemy. Orbius won't come down to bite them, because this would be certain death Orbius would likely only survive in melee for 3 or 4 rounds. The cleric's antimagic field lasts for another 100 minutes or so and no one seems willing to step out of it to fire a devasting fireball or something like that and sacrifice himself (hehe) when Orbius' turn comes in the round.Kind of stalemate here. Kind of boring up until now and I have no glue of how to continue the fight. Should Orbius takes his chances and come down to bite? Should he try to immobilize the rogue with his spittle and then come down and bite? Any ideas? Thanx
First of all, why would it be useless for Orbius to paralyze the characters? A paralyzed character is frozen in place and unable to move or act, has an effective Dexterity and Strength score of 0 and is helpless. That’s not too bad. It also paralyzes them for 3d6 rounds.
So if I were the beholder I would start to paralyze the cleric (hopefully for him he has cast freedom of movement), followed by those characters with ranged weapons (ignore the wizard). Then bite them to death (that would take a considerable time, but since the characters have no magic protection they are likely not so difficult to hit) using flyby attacks (remember that his bite also paralyzes).Or if all the characters are paralyzed (it’s a fortitude DC23 save) I would bull rush one of them outside the antimagic field (it’s only 10’ radius) and then use my rays on him.
Just a thought.
Peter
Disintegrate the floor beneath them.
Telekinese stuff (up to 325 pounds) and drop it on them. Or disintegrate the roof supports and bury/crush them (getting out of the way first, of course)
Just some ideas,
CEL
Have the beholder use his cloud spells to fog up the floor. Cloudkill is 20' high, so even a 10' antimagic bubble won't keep the PCs from being unable to see what Vhalantru is doing next. This will certainly add to the tension, especially when they hear things happening above them. It will also prevent the PCs from shooting arrows at the monster.
Then have the beholder use his disintegrate rays on the ceiling, as suggested in the previous post and have him fling things at the PCs with telekinesis. Since the PCs are in the antimagic bubble, a lot of their defenses will be down, so they should be relatively vulnerable.
Here's my take:
Continue to use the paralyzing spit on them until they're all paralyzed, then its game over for them since he could drag them out of the field and destroy them one by one, or even coup de grace them in the field with his bite. Don't forget with that antimagic field, they can't retreat out the way they came (the oblivion doors need magic to open).
Tossing stuff with telekinesis is a good one, too.
Last tactic, don't be afraid to have Orbius retreat if he seems ineffective. He can turn and disintigrate upwards til he hits the surface while facing his antimagic eye down to prevent pursuit. He can always show up later when the PC's aren't so prepared, to take his revenge (perhaps before the events of Foundation of Flames, or even afterwards with the cagewrights).
Continue to use the paralyzing spit on them until they're all paralyzed, then its game over for them since he could drag them out of the field and destroy them one by one, or even coup de grace them in the field with his bite.
As a full-round action, you can use a melee weapon to deliver a coup de grace to a helpless opponent. You can also use a bow or crossbow, provided you are adjacent to the target.
Continue to use the paralyzing spit on them until they're all paralyzed, then its game over for them since he could drag them out of the field and destroy them one by one, or even coup de grace them in the field with his bite.As a full-round action, you can use a melee weapon to deliver a coup de grace to a helpless opponent. You can also use a bow or crossbow, provided you are adjacent to the target.
I'm not entirely sure why you're quoting the coup de grace rules here, did I make a mistake somewhere?
Perhaps you thought I meant coup de grace them with the spit, in which case I'm sorry for the confusion. I simply meant that after they were all paralyzed and thus, helpless, he could fly down to them in one round, and in each subsequient round, take the full round action coup de grace with his bite attack.
That does seem kind of cheap, but if it's his only option...
I don't think a bite is a melee weapon despite being a melee attack.
I don't think a bite is a melee weapon despite being a melee attack.
I think that might be thinking a little too technical. I find little difference between killing someone with a knife, and killing someone with a mouth of them.
When faced with these technical intricacies, I find it best to think about what is most reasonable. If you can coup de grace someone with a sword, you can coup de grace someone with a mouth full of teeth, or razorsharp claws, or a slam. It would be unrealistic otherwise, I think.
Imagine the beholder biting off someone's head. :)
Valanthru has Cloudkill Conjuration (Creation) 3/day at caster level 15 as a spell-like ability. Spell resistance does not apply to this spell. It lasts 15 minutes (150 rounds). PHB p. 210 "A living creature with 6 or more HD takes 1d4 points of Constitution damage on your turn each round while in the cloud (a successful Fortitude save halves this damage). Holding one's breath doesn't help . . ."
Antimagic Field PHB p. 200 "The effects of instantaneous conjurations, such as create water [which is also a Conjuration (Creation)], are not affected by an antimagic field because the conjuration itself is no longer in effect, only its result."
One could make the argument that an antimagic field would not stop the cloudkill. So, even if everyone saves every round, they'll still take a minimum of 1 point of Constitution damage each round. That will force the PCs out of the stalemate and Valanthru can react to whatever they do.
[threadjack] Bite coup de grace
Once pinned and helpless, lions use their bites to crush the windpipes and break the necks of their prey. This attack happens swiftly, like a standard action. Cheetahs don't have the jaw strength of lions. Cheetahs have to hold on and literally choke their prey to death. This attack takes longer, more like a full-round action.
I'll be sure to tell the next cheetah who is choking me to death that he's not allowed to because that's a coup de grace and he isn't allowed to use a bite to do that. I'll remind him that he's free to claw me to death, though, as long as they're standard attacks.
If someone is paralyzed and all they're allies are also paralyzed, you can be coup de graced by anything. Valanthru can telekinesis chewing gum into nostrils and a big wad into PCs' mouths so they can't breath and suffocate if he wants.
[/threadjack]
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I don't think a bite is a melee weapon despite being a melee attack.
All creatures with natural attacks are considered 'armed'.
As to the OP, so they've got a stalemate. Good for them.
Now what?
The Antimagic Field won't last forever.
A few arrows per round aren't going to make the difference, after passing through his main ray.
Stalemates can be good, occasionally. Too often, the PCs see a monster, and want to roll for initiative,and never get to know the intricate background of the campaign that the writer sweated over.
This is the perfect opportunity to actually have that grandstanding speech, and throw in some exposition. You don't normally get the chance to do this, so make the most of it!
As to his tactics; well, the PC's magic will run out. His won't.
That makes it more favourable to him to wait them out.
Have him carve out huge chunks of masonry as he taunts them, preparing a pile of ammo (assuming he hasn't already got a pile, of course...). Once it's flying through the air, antimagic doesn't mean squat. Momentum is king.
Thans for your suggestions. For those interested, here the summary of thursday's night beholder fight:
Orbius tried several times to spit and paralyze the characters. No problem with the touch AC. Unfortunately all the characters he attacked made the saves. EVERYTIME. So after reconsidereing, he disintegrated the ceiling to rain it down onto them. There was some success. During the 4+ rounds of rain of stones, the characters responded by moving out of his antimagic field and do something with the cleric (still having antimagic field on him), delaying until all others have acted and then going back to them so all were back into his antimagic field. Do something meant: the sorcererss got a lucky shot with emporered/maximized flaming lances which hit because of the previous round casting a spell which adds +10 to a caster check to overcome SR (don't know the spell's name any more). The thief (sorry rogue) went invisible then firing some arrows. This brought Orbius down to around 120 hp. Orbius then made the error to come down from his floating position under the ceiling to bite that annoying sorcererr who made all the FOR-saves. He bit her. She made the save once again. Now the fighter/rogue and the rogue flanked Orbius, hitting him for some 60 points of damage. Orbius decided to flee. He floated back to under the celeing and disintegreted a whole. His move still sllowed him to fly 10 feet in. Now the thing that surprised me: all the PCs took radied actions: After the beholder would disintegrate another part of the ceiling but before moving up that new part, the sorcerers would teleport above him. Fortunately (for the PCs) Orbius was looking down to cover his retreat, so this antimagic eye meant no harm. The sorcererss also had activated her cloak of flying to stay aloft. After teleportation, the thief spent his action to jump unto the beholder. His four attacks all hit and killed Orbius.
I'm sure there were some rules and things I have forgotten (for example: I'm not sure if you can teleport into midair - I think this is not allowed), but I led the players be creative. It was cinematic and it was exciting and the combat was fast and furious and I don't wanted to slow it down because of flipping through the pages of books.
The only thing that bogged me was that damned sorcererss and her saves. The minimum she rolled naturally was 17 and she had three 20s in a row. Next time I will examine her die in case it is a loaded one *hehehe*
Awesome.
It can be really fun, as a player, when you get to be really creative and have it work out nicely.
I forget that sometimes when I switch chairs and DM, so good for you! Well played.
Nice to see how a 'stalemate' situation turned into a memorable and creative fight. Well done.
A creature or object brought into being or transported to your location by a conjuration spell cannot appear inside another creature or object, nor can it appear floating in an empty space. It must arrive in an open location on a surface capable of supporting it
Technically, no they can't teleport into mid-air. However, it could be argued that Orbius is a valid support.
If you want a 10 foot cube of rock to fall on somebody, you have to transmute a 10 foot cube of air. ;)
IMarv
That's about conjuring creatures. However, the description of teleport says: This spell instantly transports you to a designated destination (a place you know well, because you can currently see it), and when "On Target" you appear where you want to be.
Just my thoughts