2.0 Beholders

[Thilindel]

Just from observation on ASSOC etc, it leads one to conclude that Beholders completely own Dragons for difficulty. Are they going to be this way for 2.0?

It has been consistant that beholders have a hidden 'c "group rape" room' spell.

[Gormal]

a lone beholder in a room <a> group of dragons

[Eilistraee]

Unfortunately, I cannot say I have observed anybody regularly 'two-manning' dragons. The same cannot be said for beholders. That said however, a critical element of beholders will be the fact that their eyebeams will be treated as rays, and thus requiring of a hit roll to have an effect.

As with many elements of the MUD you know, mob AI and processess will need to be evaluated for the new engine. Their abilities were coded based off of the D&D 3.0/3.5 information I had available however, and thus you will likely not see a great deal of variation in what they can do.

[Ragorn]

Is it that critical? Generally speaking, by the time characters are fighting beholders, attack bonuses are high enough that touch attacks are trivial (except against ultra-ultra-high Dex characters).

Beholders in D&D are a case of "lots of deadly abilities with low DCs." You could get hit with 6 eye beams in one round and make every save... but eventually you'll fail one, and when you do, you're dead.

[Eilistraee]

This is quite true Ragorn. The DC's on the eyebeams will be adjusted as well to more appropriately reflect the difficulty beholders are meant to present. This is part of the re-evaluation process that I mentioned above, but it does merit mention that the virtue of requiring an attack roll means that the beam can flat out miss, allowing players up to two options to avoid the effects.

I still also maintain that the current approach of a larger group to combating beholders is evident of the older style of approach, and that when approached differently they should be eminently defeatable.

As evidenced by smaller groups successfully defeating up to two beholders at a time to my knowledge.

[Gormal]

You can 2 man a beholder pair relatively easily. You could solo it with some patience as well. A solo beholder is soloable easily.

[Todrael]

Considering the fact that you only discuss 'one or two' beholders easily done by small groups, is it reasonable to assume that beholders are not currently balanced for larger groups, say in the form you see in Hulburg? Or is Hulburg uniquely balanced, or supposed to be tackled by small groups now as well?

[Eilistraee]

Hulburg consists of a number of subspecies of beholders, many of which have significantly weaker abilities than their full beholder kindred. When the changes were implemented, I reviewed Hulburg's encounters with the assistance of one of the zone leaders, and modified the loads where applicable to make a more even blend.

What we see with Hulburg is the full mishmash of beholder types, 11 different beholder and beholder-kin races. The first few efforts at Hulburg yielded some fine feedback that I implemented, however I haven't heard of any subsequent attempts and the few I witnessed utilized the standard zoning strategies and were firmly turned aside.

[moritheil]

and the few I witnessed utilized the standard zoning strategies and were firmly turned aside.

Taken out of context, this could be alarming because the wording seems to imply that something is inherently wrong with normal zoning.

I think that following the wording of the previous post, it might be best if someone with the staff confirmed a commitment to oldschool zoning. That last post could easily be construed to mean "twink hard or stay home."

[Eilistraee]

My previous statement means exactly what I said. Different strategies for assaulting beholders en masse are advised.

There is nothing 'wrong' with normal zoning. Is normal zoning FIC? Sometimes. Is normal zoning combat lure? Sometimes. Is normal zoning sitting in a safe room and luring mobs to you? Sometimes. There are any number of approaches to 'normal' zoning. Thus far, nobody has developed a strategy to approach beholders, with a zoning group, that has met with significant success.

Also to further clarify my point above regarding Hulburg, in many cases I did not need to change the loading of mobs at all. The author had already appropriately named the respective mobs as their kin type - types such as lensmen or gauth to name a couple. The powers of these kin were taken directly from tabletop source books, with some adaptation for applicability in the MUD environment.

[Tasan]

Also to further clarify my point above regarding Hulburg, in many cases I did not need to change the loading of mobs at all.

Except that zone was written for the beholders as they were then... and I don't think anyone could predict your exact implementation of beholder code to balance the zone. I realize steps were taken to rebalance it, but from what I saw, people didn't give up because it worked against "normal zoning" but that it exacted so much time v. reward as to make it undesireable to do it.

I think a lot of people want challenge that doesn't rely on random dice rolls to figure out the outcome. W/ ray to hit rolls the current incarnation of beholders should be much more fun to fight.

[moritheil]

Thank you for pointing out that your comments apply only to beholders.

I do wonder if there is some sentiment that assembling a huge group is somehow less legitimate than using timing and trickery to achieve victory. Perhaps in the past that was much easier, and therefore scorned, but these days getting a full 15 is not so easy.

[Sarell]

New beholders are just straight up freakin' cool. Adding the hitroll factor to them just may make them perfect! Will you still get a save versus the beam if it hits you? Beholders currently are not as tough as dragons in the game, but they should surely remain terribly cranky, they are a bit of a classic big cranky monster imho. I havn't done much Hulburg since the changes, but definately the risk and time VS reward went through the roof there. Having said that I'd still go if someone said 'hey, want to smite hulburg?'.

[Eilistraee]

Most beams also include a saving throw once they strike. A few of the straight damaging beams don't come with a saving throw, but the more interesting effects have both a hit attempt and a saving throw upon the successful resolution of a hit.

[Ifin]

One thing I really disliked about how Hulburg was handled was that stat changes and leaks that changes to the zone went in before the real changes did. The eq rules, but it was cakewalk to get the couple sets before hard beholders went in.

That aside, is it possible to make Hulburg !pop - or it might even balanced to make it !pop if it still pops - while we figure out group beholder strategies so maybe the only person who leads that zone might again? Testing against single/dual beholders is totally different than experimenting with a full 15 man group when your progress keeps getting reset.

Jot Invasion, Hulburg, and final MD fight are some of the better zones that seem to be lacking interest for good reason.

[Eilistraee]

That's not a bad suggestion at all. I'll speak with the areas honcho and see what can be accomplished.