The subject says it all who do you think would win. I personally say the beholder the stories I've heard and seen about them makes me think it would win haven't looked up stats yet.
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Depends on how old the dragon is. Ancient Dragons are essentially super-tanky sorcerers. Which means smart dragons scry’n’fry.
Frankly, there are a ton of conditionals that can effect the fight. Realistically though, this is going to be rocket duel. Either combatant can effectively one-shot the other.
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If there were Beholders in Pathfinder, which there aren't, they'd probably be CR 13, around the level of a Young Adult red dragon.
Dragons have excellent resistances (both Spell Resistance and good saving throws), which mean it would probably survive whatever the Beholder tried to do to it, and the Dragon could take down the Beholder pretty fast.
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Well, let's take a quick look at the 3.5e beholder (CR13) versus say... a (Pathfinder) adult red dragon (CR14), I'd have to break it down like this...
A beholder had fly 20ft. The dragon has fly 200. Meaning the beholder can't get close to the dragon unless the dragon wants it to happen. Not a chance.
A beholder had nasty eye rays that reach 150 feet. The dragon has Int 16, which allows it to not act moronically.
A beholder had 93 hit points. The dragon has 7 1st-level slots, and knows magic missile. At CL7th, that's 98 hit points on average.
What if the dragon is hungry? Well, he also knows invisibility, haste, and has Power Attack. Sneak up, open up and have lunch. Average of something like 139 damage, and to hit it'd have to roll a 3, 5, 5, 7, 7, 7 to do it all. Heck, he'd do 99 without Power Attacking, and only need to not roll natural ones to do it.
Also, as Matthew has pointed out, the dragon has such high saves that he only fails against the beholder's rays on natural 1s. Literally.
Now. That's a 3.5e monster versus a Pathfinder monster, but as things currently stand, without serious reworking, the apex predator (dragon) has the deck heavily stacked in his favor.
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This thread reminded me that a long long time ago I wrote a short story about such an encounter as a school assignment when learning word-processing.
If I remember rightly (it was a long time ago), in my story the dragon (a blue dragon) emerged victorious. In AD&D (long time ago), the beholder had separate armour classes for its body, eyes and eyestalks. You could directly attack the central eye. So I think what happened in my story is that the dragon put out the beholder's central eye and then killed it with a breath weapon attack. In AD&D, a dragon's breath weapon did damage equal to the dragon's maximum hit points, although the dragon could only use its breath weapon three times per day. AD&D dragons also saved as though they had double hit dice.
I remember a thread over in the EN World boards where James recommended giving the Advanced template adjustments to most 3.5 monsters to get them to the appropriate Pathfinder numbers for their CR. (I.e., Pathfinder monsters are slightly buffed over their 3.5 versions to compensate for Pathfinder PCs being stronger.)
I'd still expect a dragon v. beholder fight to end in the beholder getting wrecked without a lucky break (like the dragon rolling a 1 on a save v. Charm Monster or Flesh to Stone).
The dragon could probably completely blind the beholder in two rounds if it decided to be a jerk and just sunder every eye.
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Important to remember, if the Beholder uses its antimagic eye on the dragon, it doesn't get its eyerays either.
Right. And a Beholder without magic is pretty unfrightening.
A dragon without magic is still an enormous lizard with claws, teeth, a tail, and the ability to fly.
"Go ahead. Stop us from using magic."
Important to remember, if the Beholder uses its antimagic eye on the dragon, it doesn't get its eyerays either.
And with the dragons multiple natural attacks compared to the beholders bite, the beholder is definitely better off not using the central eye.
One thing to remember about dragons is that in 3.5 D&D, they were (supposedly deliberately*) given a lower CR than they should of had. The general idea was that you never randomly encountered a dragon. You had time to prepare appropriate damage and defensive abilities for that dragon, making the fight easier. Dragons are actually stronger than their CR indicates. Pathfinder made some changes to dragons so even if that held true it might not be so in Pathfinder, however.
*It was one of those things that was supposedly done intentionally. Like intentionally including trap options inferior to other options to reward system mastery. Whether or not that is actually true or the designers of 3.X D&D just weren't too good at their job can probably be debated, however.
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It looks to me as if we're assuming that the dragon's fighting the beholder in open terrain, like a field or a big cavern.
Though even if the terrain favoured the beholder, it'd still have to bank on a single failed save on the dragon's part. (Are the eye rays spell-like, or supernatural? If the former, then it'll be even worse if the dragon has SR)
Another advantage dragons have, that isn't related to relative CR, is that they're marginally more willing to co-operate than beholders, each of whom see themselves as perfect and other beholders as poseurs. If you're comparing a beholder to, say, a metallic dragon, and this is part of a homebrew adventure rather than a hypothetical grudge match, the dragon can even have access to family, friends, or even a group of PCs the dragon is secretly helping.
If the dragon is old enough to have access to antimagic field the dragon casts it on itself (becoming immune to the few things the beholder can do that are at all threatening). The dragon then proceeds to melee the beholder to death with it's advantage in terms of number of natural attacks.
Or add the Eye King template to a dragon, and watch your players [DELETED] themselves.
(That template is 3PP, from Green Ronin's Advanced Bestiary, but it's probably the closest you're going to get to a Pathfinder beholder, given Paizo's stance on not releasing anything that even resembles Wizards' non-OGC monsters.)
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Important to remember, if the Beholder uses its antimagic eye on the dragon, it doesn't get its eyerays either.Right. And a Beholder without magic is pretty unfrightening.
A dragon without magic is still an enormous lizard with claws, teeth, a tail, and the ability to fly.
"Go ahead. Stop us from using magic."
"What happens when we turn the magic off?
Fascinating. It appears that you cease to be a terrifying beholder and become a fragile multi-eyed sack of fluids. While I?
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Important to remember, if the Beholder uses its antimagic eye on the dragon, it doesn't get its eyerays either.Right. And a Beholder without magic is pretty unfrightening.
A dragon without magic is still an enormous lizard with claws, teeth, a tail, and the ability to fly.
"Go ahead. Stop us from using magic."
"What happens when we turn the magic off?
Fascinating. It appears that you cease to be a terrifying beholder and become a fragile multi-eyed sack of fluids. While I?
That comic was exactly what I had in mind, yes.
RISE, RISE I SAY!!!!
Funny enough there is a "fight" between a Mind Flayer, Red Dragon, Beholder, and a young Elminster in Elminster Making of a Mage. The fight is described pretty well and all of the adventurers with Elminster were more scared of the Beholder than anything else. Also the Beholder was able to use the anti-magic eye and still use rays. Just saying.
You may rest again thread.
SInce this has been necroe'd, I'll ask my question, does the Beholder's central eye's antim magic effect dispel the dragon's breath?
Otherwise, an old enough dragon is quite able to physically destroy the beholder in spite of its eye rays, which might be nullified if the beholder has to use its anti magic cone to prevent the dragon from using its own spells, breath etc...
I'm recalling some module while you're farting around, you come across a dragon petrified by a beholder, then you encounter (some) trolls munching on the weakened beholder... can't recall the name immediately.