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tanking a beholder without cheese

YgramulYgramul Member Posts: 1,060
in General Discussion (Spoiler Warning!)
Assume you are playing no-reload, so you cannot afford to just 'wing it' for a bad saving throw.

How can you reliably tank a beholder/elder orb WITHOUT using the Shield of Cheese or the Cloak of Cheese?

[theoretical]
Figther/Mage -> Spell Immunity: Nec/Evo/Abj + Spell Shield + Prot. f Petrif.
(does Spell Shield stay up?)

Any other reliable methods?
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Comments

  • EudaemoniumEudaemonium Member Posts: 3,199
    Can I just ask generally, how *do* people fight Beholders? What spells are useful? They always kick my ass 60,000 times until I get lucky.
  • TaevikTaevik Member Posts: 38
    Eudaemonium said:

    Can I just ask generally, how *do* people fight Beholders? What spells are useful? They always kick my ass 60,000 times until I get lucky.

    It always involves some form of cheese. Before the cloak and the shield were being used, everyone was basically summoning every known creature under the sun to distract these things. I wish I had a better answer than that to give you, but when it comes to beholders I don't. :\
  • nanonano Member Posts: 1,632
    Go Slayer and KILL THEM ALL!
  • EudaemoniumEudaemonium Member Posts: 3,199
    So the Cloak of Mirroring blocks them? I just picked that up, so it might make my life a bit easier.

    The Slayer Form sounds like loadsa fun, though. And Edwin is using the Cloak, because why the hell not, and I'm certainly not tanking with him.
  • MessiMessi Member Posts: 738
    I like the idea of beholders, but really they just don't work well in practice. It's basically summoning distractions/buffing up, and hoping you get lucky with dice rolls for me too. Or you can use items that are basically cheese themselfs like Shield of Balduran. Beholders in my opinion show the weakenesses of the 2.5ed DnDcombat system most blatently.
  • ItstucktwiceItstucktwice Member Posts: 182
    Cheese is subjective. Some people would consider throwing every buff and immunity on your fighter/mage cheese.

    Hell, some people consider the act of playing a fighter/mage cheese.

    I know this isn't really an answer to your question, but there isn't really an answer to your question. Like @Taevik said, there isn't really a way of dealing with beholders that somebody somewhere isn't going to consider cheesy.
  • mforwwmforww Member Posts: 78
    I really don't think that the suggestion I offered is cheesy. Cheese comes from metagaming (ok, I need to buy one of these two mirroring items so that I can roflstomp the Unseeing Eye quest - that's cheese). Polymorphy self is a spell that most mages are going to have already. So when you encounter the beholders, it's only natural to think "Oh gee, wouldn't it be nice if I had some way to have 100% magic immunity?"
  • MessiMessi Member Posts: 738
    Does it matter what is, and isn't, cheesy though? I know I do some stuff other people think is cheesy like pre-buffing, and installing mod to make spell scribing be 100% success. And other people do stuff I consider is cheesy, but the main thing is that you play the way you enjoy playing. I don't really see what the opinion of other people really matters there.
  • nanonano Member Posts: 1,632
    The Cloak of Mirroring blocks the direct damage effects but you still need to make all your saves or make yourself immune to the other stuff. With SCS beholders can grab the cloak too. I've found magic resistance to be much more effective than the cloak.

    But Slayer is the best because it's immune to all that as well as imprisonment. It's practically made for ripping through the Beholder lair. It's probably by design that you get it right before the Underdark, now that I think about it.
  • CaradocCaradoc Member Posts: 92
    edited November 2013
    Why is cheese to put best protections on your tank when facing such a dangerous monsters? Or how come it is cheese to summon bunch of monsters and let them deal beholders? Isn't the alternative simply taking the stupid risk and probably die in few seconds? The odds are on their favour and it would be silly not to outsmart them. Fighting a fair fight against beholders is like jumping into a lion den butt naked armed with a knife instead of aiming far away with a sniper rifle :)

  • ItstucktwiceItstucktwice Member Posts: 182
    edited November 2013
    mforww said:

    I really don't think that the suggestion I offered is cheesy. Cheese comes from metagaming (ok, I need to buy one of these two mirroring items so that I can roflstomp the Unseeing Eye quest - that's cheese).

    I see what you are saying, but again, that is entirely subjective. There is no strict definition of "cheese" but to you cheese=meta gaming. To another, cheese could be something as simple as playing a Kensai>Mage. Therefore, the only way to determine what strategies as considered cheese when fighting a beholder, is to consider what strategies that OP personally consider cheese when fighting beholders.

    I personally don't think that the cloak or shield are cheese, because they are items put in the game specifically to combat beholders, and even if they make the fights a cakewalk, they exist to make the fights a cakewalk.

    On the other hand I consider casting cloudkill a screen away cheese, because I do not believe it is realistic for a group of enemies to be overtaken by a cloud of death gas, and rather than act, stand in it as if nothing is happening until they die.
  • nsrnsr Member Posts: 174
    mforww said:

    I really don't think that the suggestion I offered is cheesy. Cheese comes from metagaming (ok, I need to buy one of these two mirroring items so that I can roflstomp the Unseeing Eye quest - that's cheese). Polymorphy self is a spell that most mages are going to have already. So when you encounter the beholders, it's only natural to think "Oh gee, wouldn't it be nice if I had some way to have 100% magic immunity?"

    Actually in the case of this specific quest, I remember getting to the sewers and then finding out from someone there that this was beholder related. So it's natural to think "hey, let's go see if there's any useful items in the store that can help against this type of monster.
  • bbearbbear Member Posts: 1,180
    While the Mustard Jelly does have 100% MR, I dont think it protects against the Beholders' Anti-Magic Rays, cuz the polymorph form may get dispelled. Heck even spell turning and spell trap gets dispelled by Anti-Magic Rays. The most reliable way to kill beholders is to summon and send in your planetars while the caster just watch from distance via farsight.
  • YgramulYgramul Member Posts: 1,060
    So, does Spell Shield work or not? I heard contradictory things about it protecting against anti-magic rays.

    I intend to use SCS --- AND play a no-reload game. So, I need a reliable strategy.
  • shrekdjshrekdj Member Posts: 50
    edited November 2013
    You can use Summons ( this reminds me of Cernd's usefulness ;) )as much as you can while the Mages are busy casting spells that makes Beholders ineffective (Glitterdust to make them blind or Hold Monster, but first try to lower magic resistance) and send your strongest fighter to kill the beholder.
  • BaldursCatBaldursCat Member Posts: 432
    Does the Shield of Balduran count as cheese?
  • ryuken87ryuken87 Member Posts: 563
    edited November 2013
    I think that's the trouble with cheesey enemies is that they breed cheesey tactics.

    @Tgramul It should work vs the first Anti-Magic Ray. Just load up something that isn't your no-reload game, console in a beholder and find out.

    Edit: Just did this myself since it had been a while and I was curious. I made a C/M and buffed with Death Ward, Chaotic Commands and Spell Shield. I spawned "behold01" who used 3/4 anti-magic rays which did not bring down my Spell Shield (or my other buffs). My other buffs remained so the only thing he had left was Cause Serious Wounds (which I could've blocked but it wasn't worth it) so he went down rather easy.
  • KidCarnivalKidCarnival Member Posts: 3,747
    Magnus_Grelich said:

    Beholders and Gauths in general are made of cheese

    Y̕͟͜o҉͠u a̧͞rę҉ mis̸t̵͟a͞kęn͡.̕ ̨͝W̶é ̴̧a̧͜͞r҉e̷͘ ͝á̷̡c̀͜t̨͘ư͏aĺ̵͘l̷͏̴y̢͘ ͢m̶̨̀a͡dę ̡͞o̢͢͢f s̡̕͜͟͠t̶̢͢á̛͘r͢͠ ̧͏̕s̴̀͢҉͘t҉̸͢͝ư̸̷͘҉f̴̡f̛͘͢.͏͠͝҉
  • CalmarCalmar Member Posts: 688
    IIRC I did some kind of Underdark 1916 run and bombarded every beholder emplacement with fireball artillery and cloud kill gas before storming in and butchering them in close combat. Between battles, there were long, eerie phases of waiting... Didn't work out well every time, though, and I don't know if that's already cheese.
  • GemHoundGemHound Member Posts: 801
    edited November 2013
    I sort of uh... Wing it.

    I've used the cloak.
    I've used the shield.
    I've used Polymorph Self: Mustard Jelly
    I've used Spell Immunity: Nec/Evo/Abj + Spell Shield + Prot. f Petrif.
    I've used Tank and Power Word, Reload.
    The last one is obviously not usable.
  • YgramulYgramul Member Posts: 1,060
    ryuken87 said:

    Just did this myself since it had been a while and I was curious. I made a C/M and buffed with Death Ward, Chaotic Commands and Spell Shield. I spawned "behold01" who used 3/4 anti-magic rays which did not bring down my Spell Shield (or my other buffs). My other buffs remained so the only thing he had left was Cause Serious Wounds (which I could've blocked but it wasn't worth it) so he went down rather easy.

    Awesome. Thank you.
    I wonder if it is a bug or intentional that Spell Shield does not go down after an anti-magic ray from a beholder.

    Because, what you say essentially implies that a mage (+cleric buff, if needed) can beholder-proof himself consistently.

    (And, no, this isn't cheese. Not more than using "Chaotic Commands" against Sirines: you use a heavy amount of exactly configured spell protections & you likely cannot afford that for more than 1 party member.)

  • GemHoundGemHound Member Posts: 801
    edited November 2013
    Ooh! Polymorph Other Works too! That was awesome. I just turned the Elder Orb into a Squirrel and one shotted it. :D It still had it's evil rays though, and it had half of it's health when I cast it and Viconia has Balduran's Shield equipped.
    Edit: Proof of the impossiblities: I have no clue of if this works every time or not. Check out the text boxes.
    image
    image
    MMMMMM Cheeeesee.

  • SchneidendSchneidend Member Posts: 3,190
    Slayer form, Berserker rage, Potion of Magic Blocking (the saving throw one), Shapeshift spell into a pudding...Am I missing anything?
  • AranthysAranthys Member Posts: 722
    Biggest problem is how much damage they deal.
    With SCS, the other biggest problem is how fast ANY magic protection is removed by their anti-magic ray.
  • YgramulYgramul Member Posts: 1,060
    Aranthys said:

    Biggest problem is how much damage they deal.
    With SCS, the other biggest problem is how fast ANY magic protection is removed by their anti-magic ray.

    Err... again, if Spell Shield stays up as stated than this is not an issue, no?
  • ElendarElendar Member Posts: 831
    My CHARNAME is friends with Chuck Norris, so beholders aren't a problem at all.
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