Beholder

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Beholder • Gauth

It floats before you, a bulbous body with a central, unblinking eye, and a large maw filled with daggerlike teeth. Smaller eyes, attached to wriggling stalks, sprout from the top of the orblike body.

Beholders are the stuff of nightmares. These creatures, also called the “spheres of many eyes” or “eye tyrants,” are deadly adversaries.

Beholders speak their own language and Common.

Combat

The primary weapon of both the gauth and the beholder is a series of deadly eye rays.

Eye Rays (Su): Each of a beholder’s small eyes can produce a magical ray once per round as a free action. During a single round, a creature can aim only two eye rays (gauth) or three eye rays (beholder) at targets in any one 90-degree arc (up, forward, backward, left, right, or down). The remaining eyes must aim at targets in other arcs, or not at all. A beholder can tilt and pan its body each round to change which rays it can bring to bear in any given arc.

Each eye’s effect resembles a spell (caster level 8th level for a gauth, or 14th for a beholder), but follows the rules for a ray.

All-Around Vision (Ex): Beholders are exceptionally alert and circumspect. Their many eyes give them a +4 racial bonus on Spot and Search checks, and they can’t be flanked.

Flight (Ex): A beholder’s body is naturally buoyant. This buoyancy allows it to fly at a speed of 20 feet. This buoyancy also grants it a permanent feather fall effect (as the spell) with personal range.

Beholder

A beholder is an 8-foot-wide orb dominated by a central eye and a large, toothy maw. Ten smaller eyes on stalks sprout from the top of the orb.

Combat

Beholders often attack without provocation. Though not powerful physically, they often plow right into groups of opponents to use as many of their eyes as they can. When closing with an enemy, a beholder tries to cause as much disruption and confusion as possible.

Eye Rays (Su): Each of a beholder’s ten eye rays resembles a spell cast by a 13th-level caster. Each eye ray has a range of 150 feet and a save DC of 17. The save DCs are Charisma-based. The ten eye rays include:

Charm Monster: The target must succeed on a Will save or be affected as though by the spell. Beholders use this ray to confuse the opposition, usually employing it early in a fight. The beholder generally instructs a charmed target to either restrain a comrade or stand aside.

Charm Person: The target must succeed on a Will save or be affected as though by the spell. Beholders use this ray in the same manner as the charm monster ray.

Disintegrate: The target must succeed on a Fortitude save or be affected as though by the spell. The beholder likes to use this ray on any foe it considers a real threat.

Fear: This works like the spell, except that it targets one creature. The target must succeed on a Will save or be affected as though by the spell. Beholders like to use this ray against warriors and other powerful creatures early in a fight, to break up the opposition.

Finger of Death: The target must succeed on a Fortitude save or be slain as though by the spell. The target takes 3d6+13 points of damage if its saving throw succeeds. Beholders use this ray to eliminate dangerous foes quickly.

Flesh to Stone: The target must succeed on a Fortitude save or be affected as though by the spell. Beholders like to aim this ray at enemy spellcasters. They also use it on any creature whose appearance they find interesting. (After the fight, the beholder takes the statue to its lair as a decoration.)

Inflict Moderate Wounds: This works like the spell, causing 2d8+10 points of damage (Will half).

Sleep: This works like the spell, except that it affects one creature with any number of Hit Dice (Will negates). Beholders like to use this ray against warriors and other physically powerful creatures. They know their foes can quickly awaken the sleepers, but they also know that doing so takes time and can delay an effective counterattack.

Slow: This works like the spell, except that it affects one creature. The target can make a Will save to negate the effect. Beholders often use this ray against the same creature targeted by their disintegrate, flesh to stone, or finger of death ray. If one of the former rays fails to eliminate the foe, this ray might at least hamper it.

Telekinesis: A beholder can move objects or creatures that weigh up to 325 pounds, as though with a telekinesis spell. Creatures can resist the effect with a successful Will save.

Antimagic Cone (Su): A beholder’s central eye continually produces a 150-foot cone of antimagic. This functions just like antimagic field (caster level 13th). All magical and supernatural powers and effects within the cone are suppressed⁠—​even the beholder’s own eye rays. Once each round, during its turn, the beholder decides whether the antimagic cone is active or not (the beholder deactivates the cone by shutting its central eye).

Beholder Society

Beholders are hateful, aggressive, and avaricious, attacking or dominating others whenever they can get away with it. They exhibit a xenophobic intolerance, hating all creatures not like themselves. The basic body type comprises a great variety of beholder subspecies. Some are covered with overlapping chitinous plates; some have smooth hides or snakelike eye tentacles; some have crustacean joints. But even a difference as small as hide color or size of the central eye can make two groups of beholders sworn enemies. Every beholder declares its own unique form to be the “true ideal of beholderhood,” the others being nothing but ugly replicas fit only to be eliminated.

Beholders usually carve out underground lairs for themselves using their disintegrate rays. Beholder architecture emphasizes the vertical, and a lair usually has a number of parallel tubes, with chambers stacked on top of each other. Beholders prefer inaccessible locations that earthbound foes can reach only with difficulty.

Gauth

The gauth, sometimes known as the lesser beholder, is a 4-foot wide orb dominated by a central eye. Six smaller eyes on stalks sprout from the top of its body. It is a rapacious and tyrannical creature that seeks to exact tribute from anything weaker than itself, and often attacks adventurers simply to acquire their wealth.

Eye Rays (Su): Each of a gauth’s six eye rays resembles a spell cast by an 8th-level caster. Each eye ray has a range of 100 feet and a save DC of 14. The save DCs are Charisma-based. The six eye rays include:

Sleep: This works like the spell, except that it affects one creature with any number of Hit Dice (Will negates). Gauths like to use this ray against warriors and other physically powerful creatures.

Inflict Moderate Wounds: This works like the spell, causing 2d8+8 points of damage (Will half).

Dispel Magic: This works like the targeted dispel function of the spell. The gauth’s dispel check is 1d20+8.

Scorching Ray: This works like the spell, dealing 4d6 points of fire damage (no save). A gauth creates only one fiery ray per use of this ability.

Paralysis: The target must succeed on a Fortitude save or be paralyzed for 2d10 minutes.

Exhaustion: This works like the spell ray of exhaustion (no save).

Stunning Gaze (Su): Stun for 1 round, 30 feet, Will DC 14 negates. The save DC is Charisma-based. Any creature meeting the gaze of the gauth’s central eye is subject to its stunning gaze attack. Since the gauth can use its eye-rays as a free action, the creature can use a standard action to focus its stunning gaze on an opponent and attack with all eye rays that bear on its foes at the same time.

Source: Monster Manual (version 3.5), page 25.