Beholders || D&D with Dael Kingsmill

So ... do you have a day job?? Because MCDM should really hire you to help write their upcoming monster book. Or, you know .. .just on a permanent basis. Yea. That would be super cool. ;)

Love this design - keep up the great work!!

So I just found this channel and binged a bunch of your videos and there are just SO. MANY. GOOD. IDEAS. Like, I've been on hiatus from d&d for several reasons one of which was just an overall lack of inspiration or motivation and now these videos make me want to run a beholder. And a displacer beast. And witches. And the list goes on. For this video in particular when you mentioned the eye rays from a monster manual beholder all kinda doing the same thing that was exactly the kind of opinion I had. Such an awesome and insane amount of ideas. (So far your traps video is my favourite though. :P)

💐

The beholder doesn’t need true sight because of their antimagic cone ability. It should remove the invisibility of the heroes. I think its more scary that way, like a child hiding under a blanket and the adult just removing the blanket entirely instead of just knowing the kid is there.

Brilliant. As always. :)

CANNOT WAIT to throw this at my players in the bottom of a crumbling keep a meteor from space destroyed. The beholder came on the meteor maybe? Who knows.This is awesome.

I feel fey have an innate connection to the stream of magic- like sorcerers, where a beholder is closer to a wizard in it's expansive knowledge, always searching for more

Omar's great!

OMAR IS GREAT !!!!!

Omar is great!

Omar is great! at making us comment on cool videos :)

Omar is just the coolest.

OMAR IS GREAT!!!!!

Omar is Great!

Omar is great!

I love these videos, they’re a breath of fresh air compared to a lot of the d&d videos I see. Most I think get far too bogged down with the mechanics and what’s “good” but what you said about thinking about the metaphorical implications of certain monsters has completely revamped how I think about monster encounters.

Wait, are you a West Wing fan, too ?!

OMG, I would love to watch the beholder battle, then the following session where they have been body swaped !

Old sci-fi radio dramas have the main characters talking to themselves about their discoveries. I could imagine a similar feel, but a bizarro uncanny version

This... is kinda evil, but I kinda want to use this thing in my Dungeon Crawler Classics game which I'm working on with a group of online Friends. Granted I will have to tweak the things to work in the system (Weird Dice such as d3s, d7s, d24s and d30s are a thing in that game), but Dungeon Crawler Classics give way to more dire effects and more chaotic effect (Perma Wizard corruption is a thing such as forever rotting or always puking slugs when talking... ooorrr you can have a wizard doing both because they rolled a Nat1 multiple times and don't have much luck to burn to pass it) which players will have to expect to stay during the rest of the game. So with a Beholder just being... Absolutely chaotic would be everyone's nightmare and something that would be delightfully fun.

This was a joy to listen to, thank you so much Dael!

You are most certainly too young for this reference, but this idea reminds me of a kind of spirit from Werewolf: the Apocalypse called Nexus Crawlers, which were basically spirits from way out, and who could manipulate reality at their whim. Very similar vibe going on to the Daelcore Beholdor.

I’d much rather fight this as a player. Seems safer

"If it isn't a metaphor then why so many eyes"
I think the world of you Ms. Kingsmill but...the reason for so many eyes is so many random directions for death rays to come from !
Imagine if it only had the eyestalks it needed .Three eye stalks, meh that isn't an aberration that is an abbreviation. ; )

"2 more of these monster videos coming out it the next couple of weeks..."
Sitting here 3 months down the line... Mmh.

I really like the idea of Beholders having different eyestalk powers. Like, there could be a table of 100 stalk powers, and you pick ten from the list.

One of the things I like about Beholders are their supreme arrogance and belief in their superiority. They even have two brains, one of which is filters out information that would contest the idea of their superiority.

А я руками пару таких слепил! Отличные твари вышли 😤👍

Beholder Lore from the standard books dosent work for me... 50 different types and even these nice sociable city living beholders... Bah no thx... THIS though... this works! Thanks so much! <3

M only addition to the inspired idea of the beholder as scientist is that it "talks to itself" but that being from another realm no one can understand it, EXCEPt from mind controlled thralls who repeat its thought out loud in their own native languages.

Perhaps if you spend too long near the beholder you too wind up automatically speaking aloud its alien thoughts.

So theoretically, can you use your new diamond arm to cast greater restoration on your friends?

This video made me realize I am really not at all a fan of metagame effects.

Would also give some legendary actions. Like suddenly changing the area to high or low gravity (would affect the beholder too). Transmute a large area terrain to liquid or gas (effectively disintegrate on it but with fun hazards).

One of the things I might add to the change in hit points is that if your new maximum hp is lower than your current hp, you get to keep the difference as temporary hit points until they are lost.

Would love to watch a campaign of yours. I bet it would be fun.

Who looks at the Beholder and thinks "that doesn't seem OP"? How can you so glibly tinker with one of the most horrifying terrors (terrifying horrors?) in the history of the game? Altho actually i like where your head's at on this one. It's one of the classic monsters and everyone knows all about it, so mixing things up is a very good idea.

Beholders are very common in DnD inspired games and titles. I think just about every one of them that i've played has had a beholder as a boss or mini-boss somewhere.
They were generally always incredibly difficult to defeat in combat. Low HP but so deadly with their eye stalk attacks and effects that if you didn't have good DPS you'd just have to reload the game or save and try again cos you're likely down a party member if they just failed a save.
So i'm kind of surprised you haven't really thought about them much?

They're the classic glass cannon of monsters that DM's like to spring on unsuspecting parties who get a bit too full of themselves.

the fey are alien magic
the aberrations are alien science

Where is the damage? The beholder relies on it's rays to cause damage. Also, these abilities seem to largely benefit the players. How is the beholder supposed to defend itself?

My characters went to a plane where there were rosewood row houses owned by beholder families. Think snooty Englishmen wearing bowler hats who say things like “I say…” and “By George…”. They didn’t understand why these people kept coming out of their sheds or closets (that’s where the portals were).
One of them had a school project which turned the party into caterpillars which wasn’t bad until the chickens started pouring out of the henhouse. They still get twitchy when I mention chickens or caterpillars. 😂

Look up Cthulhu

I'm looking at the statblock on gmbinder but number's 8-10 on the eye beams table are missing. Is anyone else having this problem?

Damn Dael, that was amazing! I now want to go through the entire Monster Manual and Daelify every one! Maximum daelification!!!

I just ran a modified Mindwitness that was an amalgamation of it's original statblock and the eye beam effects in the video! Unfortunately I made the mistake of forgetting the party included a monk, but before it got stunlocked to death it managed to hit the cleric with the 5d4 beam, which was a super cool reveal when she went to make an attack and started gathering D4s.

Having run a spectator once I'd say one should try to use a damaging ray at least once a turn. Rolling for which ray to use is fun though so maybe do one damaging one and roll for the other.

a dead by daylight game where you destroy the crytles to open up the cave and escape the beholder, every time it catches you it hurts a lot but lets you escape while it recovers from its attack

I absolutely NEED to run this monster!!!🤩

Hit by Beholder.
You now realize you can target eye stalks.

Sounds like an Eldrazi.