f13.net

that was fun.  Did a nice long "cleanse an archeological dig site" quest at lunch.  Took a full group about an hour and a half culminating with the the Beholder.  Also fought my first demon types along the way (flesh renders).  Fun, although several of the optional quests parts didn't work right, and there was a sewer stretch so chock full of oozes,slimes and ochers we all ditched are weapons and went at them bare handed to preserve our equipment (which just seems silly somehow).  There were several optional parts that required characters with certain high attirbutes, like Int, Chr, or Wis to complete, so have a nicely spread group was a plus.  1 Paladin, 2 Rogues, 2 Clerics and a Wizard.  Handful of deaths.  In an odd bit, I was too low to get the quest myself (required level 5), but could join in once someone else in my group made it active.  Makes me wonder if someone will attempt  to PL a level 1 toon by having him join a higher level crew...

BTW, in a nice flashback to my P&P days, if you see a nice shiny chest just waiting out in the open odds are you about to trigger a trap, mob spawn, locking gates/doors or all 3 if you get too close.  Proceed with caution...

Xilren

Level 5 quests have BEHOLDERS? Are they like mini-baby beholders? A full sized beholder is pretty much on par with a medium dragon, IIRC. That seems way too tough. Been a while since I looked at 3E though, so I could be way off.

I think the quest itself was CR8; the beholder was CR12, as were the various demons we fought.  It had a min level for 5 to accept the quest itself, but once in I did receive Exp and the quest reward for completion.  In terms of the battle, i tried to stay our of it's eyesight :) since I was mainly healing, but the demons were actually harder to kill.  Ended up choosing a nice shield as my reward I can't even use until level 6.

Xilren

Gratz Xil.

Beholders can actually be fairly easy to kill in 3E, depending on the situation. Smart beholders always stay at range because they pretty much have no defense up close. A lone beholder in an open space is not too powerful against a group. A beholder commanding a force of half a dozen creatures that can keep characters occupied while it hangs back and fires rays is much tougher.

Still, I would never send six 5th level characters up against a beholder in PnP unless they were well equipped. In DDO, characters not only have bonus hit points, but also have plenty of time to pile up considerable equipment from what I've seen in the beta (and assuming you can stay out of its anti-magic field).

Demons and the like have spell resistance and other powers that should make them pretty nasty.

Yeah, in this case it was a bunch of wraiths, but the base plan was "ignore the wraiths, take out the Eye!"  Since wraiths tend to fade in and out and move around they couldn't keep up bottled up, plus we buffed up with everything we had prior to launching the assualt (bless, prot from evil, bull str, etc).

One minor gripe in that last fight; killing the Beholder finished the quest, but we were still knee deep i n battle with the Wraith so all the Quest complete pop up and notifications was out of place and quite distracting....

Xilren

Xilren,  I agree with you here.  I like the quests that require the gathering of the party back at the entrance or exit for the completion to take place.  It is a very nice touch and should be uniform through all of the campaigns. Kill off or escape the evil, recover the incapciated or dead, collect the booty, and get out to get exp.