Gnoll caves baby-beholder, the insta-fugue'er.

[Snarfy]

I had mentioned this monster behaving oddly in this thread... and now I made some screenshots to back it up.

Just now, I was plowing through gnoll caves on my level 30(fighter/WM/Bodyguard) and arrived at the beholder. Upon running up to give baby-beholder a whack, I heard a spell fire(it made the same sound as when stat damage is repaired), then I suddenly transitioned....



As you can see, there is nothing in the combat log that even indicates my character was attacked, or died, and no saving throw roll was made. Just fugue'd. I have seen this beholder do this twice to another character as well. It's not a big deal for me, but I can imagine how pissed someone would be at losing XP on this.

Saving throws at time of incident: Fort 25, Reflex 21, Will 17, and had about 417 hp.

(I'm currently in fugue, waiting to see if if I can find anyone to see if there's even a body... there was a body)

[Raivana]

This actually isn't uncommon.. You die from a spell or effect and get fugued before you get to see the rolls. You most likely rolled a 1 on the fort save. Happens to the best of us.

I share in your hate for beholders.. as I am sure you are aware.

[Snarfy]

This actually isn't uncommon.. You die from a spell or effect and get fugued before you get to see the rolls. You most likely rolled a 1 on the fort save.

Hmm, I never thought of this. That's probably exactly what happened... but it begs the question: why does a monster in a CR 12'ish area have a save or die spell?

For the record, never in my 8 years of playing have I seen this particular monster insta-kill anyone before a few months ago(when I saw the other player that I mentioned, croak).

For poops and giggles, I went back ... and let it blast me for a while.



I made all my Fort saves this time, and failed a few Will saves, which supports your theory of a failed Fort save that didn't show up in combat log. I'm still perplexed as to why there was no "You have been killed X amount of times" message though.

[DM Spartacus]

I have seen a number of people turned to stone, and death with no report frequently. While I like risk, the risk and reward is off here. It is simply best avoided as it stands, though most choose to explore the room due to rarity of event. This leads to extra DM work and I am not sure there is much point.

Perhaps if the key drop led to another area to justify risk or better still such risks/rewards are set for higher levels.

For new players it is a steep learning curve as indicated above with little warning of these (1) options.

[chad878262]

The proper resolution is in my opinion to find away to address the issue of the combat log... Maybe if there were a way, on death to pull the details from the last spell cast or ability triggered or something before the transition? I don't know what is possible and what is not due to hard code, but feedback from the combat log is the ONLY way for newer players to learn and improve, if they so chose to do so. I SUCKED for my first year or two, and was never what I would consider 'elite' at playing the game, but I did figure out after the first 9 months or so (with a lot of help from many players including Snarfy!) how to analyze when my PC died or otherwise got in to bad situations and what actions I could take to mitigate the risks associated to a given build. When your PC dies and there is no feedback as to what exactly happened the player has no way to learn and improve.

As to risk/reward I was always fine with the mini-beholder in gnoll caves as it was at least one small reason to group up rather than solo. That said, some kind of additional bonus area for those players that defeat the little guy would, I am sure go over quite well with the entire population of players.

[rschool]

Has anyone with steadfast or epic resilience confirmed the beholder's petrify isn't bugged?

If no one is seeing a roll in log,
having someone with a fort save who shouldn't possibly be able to fail might be a good way to check it out.

Not seeing a failed save in a combat log is a red flag

[Theodore01]

Usually, all is good there.
Never noticed anything odd as i got killed or stoned there. And it happened a lot over the years