A Barbarian's Guide to BEHOLDERS in Dungeons & Dragons

Inside the chamber, a row of sarcophagi lie against the wall, and two small waterfalls pour from near the ceiling into large basins below. I’m going to sneak in and check out the sarcophagi. I bet there’s loot inside! I’ll stay by the door and cover his retreat when things go bad.

The rest of you? The fighter has it right. I’ll stay by the door and be ready. You guys are all scared-y cats! I’m going to help with the sarcophauguseseses! Hey, that’s not nice. Fat Cat and I go in, too. As you investigate the sarcophagi you hear a low growl fill the chamber.

And then, from BEHIND the waterfalls emerge two floating creatures with a multitude of eye stalks and large central eyes. Holy crap, we’re screwed! No, you’re screwed. I duck out the door. Indeed, I cast fireball to cover our hasty retreat. Fighter, as you manage to slip out the door, one of the creatures aims an eye stalk at the Rogue, and a beam of green energy blasts him in the chest.

Yeah, I’m going to keep running… Wizard, your fireball spell…does nothing. Nothing whatsoever. But – But – But, fireball always works. Well not today. Barbarian, Druid, Fat Cat – what are you doing? I – I hate to do this, but I’m going to leave Fat Cat behind as a sacrificial offering to cover my escape and run.

Yeah, this is probably a good time to run. I grab the wizard and drag him out with me. You manage to run away, but the Rogue and Fat Cat are left behind to their fate. I can’t believe I did that! Hey, look at the bright side. At least the Rogue is dead.

Hey! Welcome to the DM Lair. I’m the Barbarian, and I’ve been a dungeon master since I learned how to count. On this channel we give practical dungeon master advice that you can implement at your game table. Today in the Lair, I’m going to give you loads of information about beholders—history, lore, all that good stuff—and advice for using them in your game.

And the advice that I’ll be giving you is very special, too, just like me. But first, I just want to remind you that my Kickstarter, Into the Fey, has launched, and it’s not open very much longer. So please click the link below to pledge your support for a glorious adventure module featuring lots of new fey creatures, new fey magic items, and even new fey spells.

It’s got lots of really cool art in it, professionally made dungeon maps, dice bags, t-shirts, and even Tactical Tokens. So, if you don’t want to get struck dead by a beholder’s eye beam like the Rogue, you should click the link below and pledge your support today.

The views and opinions expressed here are those of the Barbarian and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the DM Lair. Any offensive or threatening statements given by the Barbarian are of his opinion and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual or anyone or anything.

That said, we can’t control what the Barbarian does, so you should probably still pledge your support to the Kickstarter just in case. Okay, that’s enough threatening you fine folks. Let’s talk about beholders now! Once upon a time, there was a beholder named Timmy.

Now, Timmy was the first beholder ever and he didn’t know where he had come from. So Timmy set off on a quest to discover his origins, where he had come from, who his family was, and the purpose of life. First he came upon a Rogue, sneaking down a back alley with a bag of treasure slung over a shoulder.

Timmy asked the rogue if he knew where he had come from and who his family was. But the rogue snickered and said he didn’t. He could tell him though that beholders loved to blast people with their eye beams, usually focusing fire on the greatest threat, such as the Fighter.

You see, splitting eye beams among the different players is dumb and no intelligent maniacal beholder would ever do that. Only dungeon masters who took excessive mercy on players foolish enough to pit themselves again powerful beholders. The rogue also said that rolling randomly for eye beams is dumb, and that Timmy should always pick the ones that he likes the most.

So Timmy chose the disintegration eye beam for the Rogue and killed him dead. As Timmy continued his journey of enlightenment, he came upon the Fighter, swinging his katana about with wild abandon, going all murder hobo on innocent townsfolk. So, Timmy followed the advice of the Rogue and hand-picked the best rays to use against the fighter: Death Ray, Disintegration Ray, and Petrification Ray, all of which target Dexterity, something the fighter is bad at.

You see, Timmy had learned that boasting an Intelligence of 17 means you’re not stupid in combat. Even if the players whine about it afterwards. Anyway, with the Fighter dead, Timmy continued his journey and discovered Gary the Intern. Now, Gary the Intern was off the clock when Timmy spoke with him, and the pathetic little kobold refused to help Timmy out until the next work day had begun.

Gary the Intern tried spouting Union rules and all that, but Timmy didn’t care. He used his Charm eye ray to get the little kobold to squeal. Gary then told him that beholders liked to eat lots of carrots and humanoids with good eyesight because it made their eye rays even more deadly.

So Timmy ate a plate full of carrots with Gary the Intern on the side. But it didn’t help, and the kobold’s crunchy scales gave him indigestion and lots of gas. Timmy the beholder got all bloated and was feeling very bad, and the bloating caused him to drift higher and higher and off towards a forest.

As the bloating wore off and he descended into the forest, he found himself before a Druid with an enormously fat kitty cat as an animal companion. The druid told Timmy that the secret of life was to stay at least one hundred feet above his enemies at all times.

He explained that since a beholder’s eye rays have a range of 120 feet and most attacks and spells from PCs wouldn’t be able to effectively reach him, it was the best way to fight. And then Timmy could also mock the dumb fighters and barbarians who didn’t have any ranged weapons.

Or who chose crossbows which only get one attack per round. Melee types are really dumb, you see. Now, Timmy was worried that his enemies might find a way to make him fall from the sky. However, the druid pointed out that Timmy has the hover ability, so most things that would normally knock flying creatures out of the air wouldn’t work on beholders.

Timmy thanked the druid for his wise advice, patted Fat Cat on the head with his telekinetic ray, and floated off, making sure he stayed at least 100 feet in the air at all times. As Timmy floated along, he came across a powerful warlock hovering in the sky with bolts of purple electricity crackling all about him.

The beholder asked the warlock for ancient forbidden lore that might help him discover the secret of life. However, when the warlock—who would not speak—began to write on his whiteboard, it gave poor Timmy a headache, what with all his eyes trying to read that itty bitty writing.

So Timmy decided to take a nap, and he dreamed of himself actually. And then, when he woke up, there were five more beholders just like Timmy all around him. It was at this moment that Timmy realized how extremely paranoid he was, and he feared that these beholders might discover the secret of life before he could.

So a big huge battle broke out with eye rays being flung ever which way. Sadly, the warlock was caught in the middle of it and died. But the good news is that one of the Timmys survived and continued on his quest. Next, Timmy the Beholder came across a powerful Wizard smoking a pipe and waving a wand.

However, all the wizard’s spells were useless as long as Timmy looked at him with his central eye. The wizard said he knew beholders’ secret weakness and that he could show Timmy if he shut his central eye. So, Timmy did so, confident that if he died he could just dream himself back into existence.

The wizard cast Blindness on Timmy, expecting that it if the beholder couldn’t see, it couldn’t target any of its eye rays and would be really easy to defeat. However, the dungeon master intervened after realizing how lame it would be for a level two spell to completely defeat one of the most powerful and iconic creatures in the entire Monster Manual.

Instead, the dungeon master ruled that blindness only caused ONE random eye stalk to be blinded. And this made the wizard sad, and he quit the game. Finally, on his quest to discover the meaning of life, Timmy came upon the amazing and illustrious Barbarian who possesses all knowledge in the multi-verse.

After weeks of listening to the Barbarian reveal all manner of lore and secrets about beholders, the Barbarian revealed the meaning of life to Timmy. He explained that beholders are just giant meatballs with strands of spaghetti dangling from them. And at the end of the strands of spaghetti were smaller meatballs.

The meaning of life was to find someone worthy of having the biggest spaghetti dinner ever and then to GET IN THEIR BELLY! So the Barbarian ate Timmy, and everyone lived happily ever after. Don’t forget to check out my Kickstater, Into the Fey, at the link below before a giant meatball hits you in the face.

Also follow me over on Twitch for chill live streams where we hang out, talk D&D, and even paint minis together. Let me know what advice you have for fighting beholders. Next week we’ll be talking about the top ten most OP spells and what to do about them.