10 thoughts on “Another attempt at a D&D staple, complete with custom move. What to you people think, too dangerous?”

  2. I assume the original intention was the beholder’s magic eye rays could do all kinds of effects, so it’s not too much of a restriction… except, on a 10+, the GM has to explicitly state which powers the eyes have (so the player can choose which one is lost).

    The stats seem good, though. I’d be inclined to unpack the moves a little more “Enslave the living” and “Utterly destroy those it cannot enslave”, for example. 

  3. Rather than a complete custom move that uses “roll+attack stat” (which doesn’t really work that great), I’d make the custom move something like this:

    “When you attack the Beholder, on a hit, you can choose to destroy one of its eye stalks instead of dealing damage.”

    It’s not quite the same move, but it’s simplified and IMO much more elegant. It also doesn’t need a miss condition since the GM is obviously going to be able to make miss = Beholder attacks you.

  4. Alex Norris beat me to it. “Roll + [attack stat]” is too clunky for my tastes. I was going to suggest the exact same damage substitution move as he did. Of course that means a character can destroy an eyestalk with a single point of damage. That’s only a problem if you think they should withstand more damage, but it’s easy to fix if you want to. Just rspecify a certain amount of damage in the trigger, like this “When you deal X or more damage to the Beholder…”

    I think your Beholder is missing something though. The write up says they shoot a different magical ray from each eyestalk, but I feel like there aren’t enough monster moves to reflect that. I feel like there should be a separate move for each magical ray. That would also tell the GM how many eyestalks it has, and allow them to track which powers it still has available.

    You could also make the eyestalks a separate monster with their own entry. That would allow you to reduce the number of moves the central body has, as well as tell GMs how many hit points the eyestalks have.

  5. I don’t think giving eyestalks HP or separate monster entries is going to be a good idea in play, really. It’s going to be complex enough tracking which eye does what and which one’s been cut off. I do agree with you on giving it a monster move per eyestalk, though!

  6. Well, I didn’t mean each eyestalk should be it’s own monster entry. Just make two entries; one for the central body and another for the eyestalks as a group.

    The central body would have moves about biting foes and using its anti-magic ray. The group of eyestalks would have 8 moves, one for each magical ray. The way I see it, when an eyestalk gets taken out, the GM can just cross off that move. That seems like an easy way to track what powers are still available.

  7. Thanks for the feedback, all. I updated the stats with +Alex Norris’s much more elegant move (with a precision about which power is lost) and tried to make the monster moves and instinct clearer. I didn’t want to give it more moves to stay within the ‘normal’ parameters (call it a design challenge if you will =)

    In any case, I wouldn’t make a move for each eye. It’d be fastidious for one, and I think it’s more fun to let the GM make them up. It’ll keep players on their toes while reflecting the range of different ‘beholder-kin’ from 2nd edition. 

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