Getting owned by Beholders!
Heindrich
Member, Moderator Posts: 2,959
Or more specifically, an Elder Orb. I know the Shield of the Balduran is supposed to reflect Beholder attacks, but I didn't realise that until half-way into the Unseeing Eye quest, and thought it was too expensive to invest in a very specific item that dealt with a very specific enemy, who I did not expect to meet again after the Unseeing Eye quest.
How wrong I am... Now I am in the Underdark (which I never imagined I'd end up in) and keep running into Beholders of all varieties, and no way of getting the shield... The small ones fire energy attacks like a machine gun so painfully that I actually fear them more than standard Beholders, especially if they come in groups...
But the Elder Orb is just takin' the biscuit! It used repeated protections, seem almost impossible to hit in melee, have magical resistances and use fireballs and death spells like there's no tomorrow. I tried the encounter twice, the first time I was badly prepared and my party got slaughtered. The second time I was prepared, and was doin' well until the Elder Orb snuffed out Charname with a death spell of some sort. -.-
I'm gonna give up on this area, which I suspect is infested in Beholders, but I would appreciate some advice on how to handle them without the shield, encase I come across more of them elsewhere.
As always, no spoilers please.
How wrong I am... Now I am in the Underdark (which I never imagined I'd end up in) and keep running into Beholders of all varieties, and no way of getting the shield... The small ones fire energy attacks like a machine gun so painfully that I actually fear them more than standard Beholders, especially if they come in groups...
But the Elder Orb is just takin' the biscuit! It used repeated protections, seem almost impossible to hit in melee, have magical resistances and use fireballs and death spells like there's no tomorrow. I tried the encounter twice, the first time I was badly prepared and my party got slaughtered. The second time I was prepared, and was doin' well until the Elder Orb snuffed out Charname with a death spell of some sort. -.-
I'm gonna give up on this area, which I suspect is infested in Beholders, but I would appreciate some advice on how to handle them without the shield, encase I come across more of them elsewhere.
As always, no spoilers please.
0
Comments
Beholders are difficult and you can return later.
Once all that is done you can try hitting them with stuff to lower their saves/magic resistance if applicable while peppering them with fireballs and anything else.
Does anyone have Glitterdust? That might be an option for blinding these enemies and then picking them off from a distance.
If not then if Anomen happens to be level 15 (which I suppose is plausible) he can use animate dead (level 3 spell) to create skeletal warriors (improved skeletons with high magic resistance). Those could be useful. As I recall Holy Smite (Aerie and Anomen can cast this and its a level 3 spell) can also be effective against regular beholders/Gauths (not sure about Elder Orbs). For the Elder Orb I think its probably going to come down to you being pre-buffed before the fight (haste, protection from evil '15, defensive harmony, chant, bless, chaotic commands, etc) and hitting it with a couple of breach spells (to take down some of its defenses). Then just focussing your attack on it. You can also try having Jaheira cast insect plague on the Elder Orb to try to disrupt any spellcasting he may do (not sure if it will work).
@elminster
@Shandyr
I think I need to do some more magical studies
All three Mages are lv12 currently, and quite far away from lv 13 in fact, so for the short-medium term, they'd be limited to 1 lv 6 spell each. Anomen is lv 14 Cleric, not far from 15, and Aerie and Jaheira are well behind with their Druid/Cleric levels.
@CaptRory
Unfortuately this is one of those 'attacked upon entering new area' encounters, so such tactics are impossible.
Have any scrolls or potions of protection from magic?
You can cast spells from scrolls even if you're not high enough level I think, have any goodies in your scroll case?
1) Roleplay reason.
2) I have 3 Arcane users, thats 3 spellbooks to fill, I don't wanna use a useful scroll and then find I cannot find a replacement for later.
No monster summoning wands, but I might try summon air/fire elementals with the fire/air staffs, since that seems to be a very quick summon. Jaheira is lv 12 Druid right now, though not far from lv 13. I substituted her for a while so she's a bit behind everyone else for xp, along with Imoen, for obvious reasons.
I've given up on this area for now. At least until Anomen reaches lv 15 Cleric and Jaheira lv 13 Druid. Thanks for your suggestions though.
ps: Oh yea, short of preventing the petrification attack Beholders sometimes use, does 'Protection Against Petrification' do anything against Beholder attacks? I always imagined it was a 'Gaze' attack... but it did nothing against the Gauth attacks anyway.
Goodbye Beholders.
They are immune to Beholder gaze.
pound them beholders
And the rays are pretty high level so they burn through the charges in 1 volley (but you might get lucky and it kill itself).
Summons work, but it's pretty cheesy.
What's the difference between using the shield of Balduran , buffs and potions or summons ?
It's not like your cheating.
Summons are meatshields...Jaheria knows how to raise them...why not use them ?
I don't understand the reasoning.
Why not use the best tool for the job ?
.........
More to the point, I know which particular area the OP is talking about and it is a right pain in the nether regions!
And yes, the whole area is infested with Beholderkin and various other monsters throughout.
Good thing is,
In fact I regard micro-management tactics like drawing one enemy to you at a time (when there's a group) to be much more cheesy than summoning a few elementals before you storm a hostile location. (Which you know about because you scouted ahead).
And yes for the encounter I mentioned, summoning doesn't work cos I don't have time to do it as I am faced with a Beholder and an Elder Orb in a confined space as soon as I enter the area. I gave up on it for now even though I probably could pull it off if I just kept Charname outta harm's way, because he has no RP reason to crawl through tunnels filled with those vile and dangerous beasts. If he finds a reason to return, he will at a later date.
@zur312
lol are mustard jelly immune to all magic? And do the Beholders not have any other attacks that can hurt a Jelly? If so I can see an easy, but rather cheesy solution to the encounter. Walk in with the party all using Invisibility 10'. Then 2 of my mages transform into Mustard Jelly and munch away.
Talk about a light show.
Or Insect Swarm..dead mage
She is just so much better in BG2 then she was in BG.
And yeah the elementals are just too cute.
My bad.
It's been a long time since I played BG2...played alot of RPGs since...get's a little confusing sometimes.
Sorry for disinformation.
lol it must be frustrating for powergamers to see me asking for advice on tactics, and then dismiss some of them for RP reasons