I believe critical failures on saving throws aren't implemented in BG, if you have 0 vs Spells for example nothing that requires a failed save will ever hit you assuming no penalties.
Really?! I always just assumed that there were critical fails. If not that then that's a HUGE change for my No Reload strategy. That would make life much easier. (And make more sense with regard to the peculiar implementation of Luck Bonus for saves.)
The easiest way to take out a beholder or a mind flayer is to have a single hasted character hit them with a poison bolt, arrow, or dart. It usually only takes one. Then get the character behind a slammed door if possible and watch the feed report the incremental demise of the monster. In the case of a nestful of goths and beholders, a mage with two fireballs released simultaneously with a sequencer usually does the trick. If you have a second mage available, a clean-up fireball doesn't hurt. Stinking cloud or cloudkill would probably work well too, because neither creature likes poison, though I don't recall ever using either. In whatever dungeon it is in BG2 (I don't recall) where there's a monster-generating aparatus that your characters crank to produce and destroy them singly, if your party has already assembled the anti-troll flail of acid, fire and ice, a single hasted character can knock down everything that comes up before it has a chance to cast an initial spell/psionic blast. It's like shooting fish in a barrel.
You can tank beholders without any cheese even with SCS no-reload rules. It just requires a ton of healing and invisibility potions (as well as negative saving throws).
Individual beholders are easy, it's when they come as a group that's the big problem (7 x Cause Wounds is not fun).
I had a dwarf berserker do the Unseeing Eye lair at around level 15. All saving throws were negative so I didn't have to worry about anything except Cause Wounds and Lightning Bolt. I additionally had Stormlord's Heels (combined Boots of Speed and Grounding). I did not have the Belt of Inertial Barrier (which helps a lot).
It's basically a war of attrition. Approach invisible, select a victim, and hit it as many times as possible until your HPs are down to 90ish (I had 150 total). Then swig invisibility and run - there's a bit of a bug / targetting issue that means beholders continue to fire rays at you for several seconds even after you're invisible, which means your HPs could be down to 30-40 before they stop targetting you (that's why you need to run too, in case one of the rays is anti-magic). Then swig healing to recover fully, drink invisibility again if it's been removed and repeat.
I should add that the Unseeing Eye lair cost me 95 Potions of Extra Healing and 35 Potions of Invisibility (those are not exaggerations). So yes, it can be done but it might not be worth it from a cost: benefit perspective even if you can do it!
I should also add: you don't need invisibility against individual beholders / gauths (there are 3 or 4 individual ones in the Unseeing Eye lair). You can swig a Potion of Extra Healing each round to repair the damage they do in 1 round, which will effectively be 1 x Cause Wounds and 1 x Lightning Bolt, which amounts to c27 damage each round which the potion immediately repairs.
The big problem is the group in the southwest corner. I had 3 x Beholders and 4 x Gauths, plus the additional Beholder that joins from the south chamber. Facing a group of 8 requires every ounce of effort and ingenuity (as well as balls the size of watermelons). So I used every resource I had, which included the 10 Stinking Clouds from the Staff of Air combined with every Oil of Fiery Burning and Potion of Explosions I had bought (from the Docks and Roger the Fence). Even after all that I still consumed around 80 of the Extra Healing potions and 30 Invisibility potions in this fight. It was truly brutal and there were some close shaves where I dropped to below 20 HPs.
So in conclusion, taking on beholders without cheese or specific equipment is still verging on suicidal and not recommended!
Another trick I learned in that encounter (I'm on a beholder-slaying roll here) which works only with certain SCS installs: I had the option installed whereby antimagic ray blocks ALL magic for 1 round.
Normally pre-buffing against beholders is futile because anti-magic ray instantly dispels whatever protections you put up. However anti-magic ray in this instal also buys you a round of protection from damage. On the other hand, and this is the crux, SCS beholders will only use anti-magic ray against you if you have a buff that they can dispel - otherwise they will not bother as there is nothing for them to dispel.
Therefore every time before I engaged the group of beholders, I would use a minor buff that I did not mind losing, e.g Potion of Insulation, Potion of Heroism, heck in the worst case an Oil of Speed. Naturally you don't want to waste precious and rare potions like Magic Shielding or Magic Protection for this.
So as soon as I engaged, the Beholders would cast Anti-Magic Ray which dispelled my buff - but it also gave me a free round to get in a few more precious hits before I had to run away to heal.
In my current run, I handled the Unseeing Eye quest beholders by AWACSing:
i.e., Jan scouts ahead under Invisibility; my Dragon Disciple & Aerie unloads Fireballs & Ice Storms from beyond visual range and run away
As Keldorn once got petrified trying to rush a beholder that failed to die, I had not dared actually being near them, tanking yet.
I'm nearing the part in the Underdark, where I am about to do the Beholder Hive. It will be interesting to see if my now-level-17 DD can successfully handle beholders and their ilk...
Sorry for the necro, but I could find quite a few threads discussing this and didn't want to create a new one since it seemed redundant. Plus there is an Epic Picture on page 2 of a charming beholder.
I have planned to create two characters for a no-reload run and one of them will pretty much only be there to take out SCS beholders. A dwarven berserker seems to be the most viable choice since he can tank imprisonment from elder orbs and there is no other way (that I know of) to protect against that since it does not offer a save and ignores MR and beholders anti-magic rays seriously wrecks me.
Could someone wiser in the ways of SCS BG2 please offer some advice? No shield of cheese, and I already abuse summons but sometimes you can't prepare properly and elder orbs are really tough cookies.
If you really want to use the dwarf berserker to tank beholders you can do it (individual beholders are easy, it's groups that are the problem).
Make sure save vs death, petrify and spell are all 0 or below (through items, not spells or potions). Put on some equipment that absorbs magic damage (Boots of Grounding for the Lightning Bolts and Belt of Inertial Barrier for Cause Serious Wounds). And you need a stack of Invisibility potions (20+) to get you out when your HP < 50. You'll also need loads of healing to repair the damage.
With safe saving throws and as much damage mitigation / repair as possible you can eventually grind your way through. It's not pretty but it's reliable.
PS: your second character can help out by staying away from the battle (if his defences are not up to scratch) and using the Rod of Resurrection on the dwarf (avoids needing to run away under Invisibility as much). Or, if he has reasonable defences, chipping in occasionally with wand damage (but then he will get some rays fired at him). Beholders (other than Orbs and Hive Mothers) are all about offence, they have zero magical defence so using Wands of Fire, Frost, Lightning and Cloudkill works well against them (as well as damaging spells but using spells can be risky due to casting time exposure whereas wands fire quickly).
@Otherguy It depends on which component are you installing exactly.
According to the Readme, "Beholder eyestalk rays ought to be able to work their way through Spell Turning spells and the like: a few beholder rays ought to be enough to overwhelm a Spell Turning spell (and for that reason, beholders are scripted to use their rays even on protected characters). However, for whatever reason this doesn't seem to work very well in-game. So instead, beholder rays now have a random chance (thirty percent) of dispelling a spell protection on contact; this should work out, on average, to the same thing. This is optional: you can choose whether or not to let beholder rays "burn through" defences in this way."
Also, "you can choose at install time to have beholders use an alternative form of their antimagic ray. In pen-and-paper D&D, a beholder's eyestalk blocks all magical effects, beneficial or otherwise, on the target for as long as it's targetted. In BG2, the eye is more powerful: it removes all magical effects, blocks spellcasting for several rounds, but doesn't block enemy magic attacks (including the beholder's other eyestalks). Optionally, the beholder antimagic ray blocks all magical effects, including harmful ones, for one round, and also disables magical activity (spellcasting etc) by the target for one round; this is supposed to simulate the beholder bathing the target with its antimagic ray for one round. This subcomponent obviously requires different scripting, so beholders will use their antimagic ray a bit more cautiously if it's installed."
I prefer to use this option: "Don't give beholder rays any chance of burning through spell protections; beholder antimagic blocks all spells, including harmful ones, for a round (simulates D&D rules)"
I don't like random situations when I can't control what is going on. I think this way a fight is fair.
According to @Alesia_BH , "MSD, SD, MST, and ST can be taken down quickly. MGoI, GoI, Spell Immunities, Specific Protections, and save buffs won't however and you can form a number of effective brews out of those. There are a number of angles you can use for each ray even. For example, the main damage ray from the standard Gauths and Beholders is Cause Serious Wounds. That's a Level 4 Necromatic Spell that does Magic Damage. So, you could foil it using a level immunity approach (GoI), a spell school approach (Spell Immunity: Necromancy) or a resistance approach (Pro Magic Energy, Pro Energy + Belt of Inertial Barrier). So long as you've covered at least one angle for each of the rays, you are safe."
I plan to play my usual FMT and reduced party size. Added character for low maintenance damage and tanking since the buffing tends to get rather absurd after a while with magic heavy parties. FMT will do ranged damage in some fights and wreak havoc with buffs in the more difficult ones. FMT is kind of crap vs beholders and their ilk though.
I allow beholders to burn through protection since I find that to be the challenging part about them. Anti-magic plus save or die is something that I sort of love to hate. Only a problem for no-reload really, I particularly love the special beholder in the staff of the magi fight, unless extensive meta-gaming ofc. Nothing quite like pre-buffing and planning ahead just for the fight to end in the second round due to anti-magic and petrify combo on charname.
Stealth scout, then drop cloud effects on a big group of them. In SCS they will try to find you so have party buffed and waiting but waiting very far away from them. Fighting them in a weakened state is normally a good idea. Oh use traps too both mundane and magical, some people will call this cheese, I call it forethought.
I normally run 2 arcane casters so 2 clouds into run away and wait passed the traps, once they follow I normally throw some more damagy spells and run away some more. By the time my party actually engages them, most are dead or near death. They normally die to a volley of ranged fire at that point.
I never fight Beholders in a fair fight because there is far to much chance for something to go wrong. The more time you stand around punching Beholders the more time they have to strip your defenses and turn your love interest to stone.
Using wild mage level 1 (NRD) spell 3 times (depending on the number of beholders you are facing at one time) - summon 7th level sword or other summons and viola no more beholders if you are lucky and no wild surges.
Using Aerie: cast protection spells (spell turning and immunity - necromancy) - use wand/spells of monster summoning 2 charges/cast and in general you win. Make sure to cast haste and other protection buffs to help your summons.
(optional but helpful: potion of invisibility, improved invisibility or regular or just use the staff of the magi with its invisibility)
Fighter option:
This depends on your equipment: 1 protection from magic and shielding potion; 1 potion of defense or invulnerability; ring of mirror image (or the sword)
Spells: holy might; haste; protection from evil, barkskin, improved invisibility, protection from fear
Wand of monster summoning or summons (at least 3) - all with haste and various buffs (see above)
Summons are for distracting - then have your warrior (in my case a 10th level kensai) - have the summons distract and then jump into the fray. If the distraction do a good job you can eliminate a small group of beholders or gauths.
Have Aerie standing close by (invisible) for backup - with the wand of monster summoning and spells just in case.
Using wild mage level 1 (NRD) spell 3 times (depending on the number of beholders you are facing at one time) - summon 7th level sword or other summons and viola no more beholders if you are lucky and no wild surges.
Using Aerie: cast protection spells (spell turning and immunity - necromancy) - use wand/spells of monster summoning 2 charges/cast and in general you win. Make sure to cast haste and other protection buffs to help your summons.
(optional but helpful: potion of invisibility, improved invisibility or regular or just use the staff of the magi with its invisibility)
Fighter option:
This depends on your equipment: 1 protection from magic and shielding potion; 1 potion of defense or invulnerability; ring of mirror image (or the sword)
Spells: holy might; haste; protection from evil, barkskin, improved invisibility, protection from fear
Wand of monster summoning or summons (at least 3) - all with haste and various buffs (see above)
Summons are for distracting - then have your warrior (in my case a 10th level kensai) - have the summons distract and then jump into the fray. If the distraction do a good job you can eliminate a small group of beholders or gauths.
Have Aerie standing close by (invisible) for backup - with the wand of monster summoning and spells just in case.
This is some of the worst advice I've ever seen. It's like you've never faced SCS beholders. Summons last a millisecond against death ray and every one of those spells and potions is gone with a single anti-magic ray.
You contradicted yourself in the first three lines of your post.
True lol
I don't consider it that cheesy as there is a chance of failure in multiple ways it is not guaranteed cheese - but isn't the first level NRD meant to be used in this way to cast any spell from your spell book otherwise why bring a wild mage along with you.
Of course some will say that a wild mage is just cheese
Advice was for a normal group of beholders not scs. But the post was about fighting without cheese ( or metagaming) so the summons act as a distraction so you can get the first hit in. And for a party level of 10-11 no 7th level spells unless you have a wild mage with you.
With my party at level 10-11 and the normal spell selection and equipment (no cheese shield or cloak) what would you do? Of course I should have stated that in the advise I gave. But I will say I cleared the unseeing eye beholders with no damage or death so it works for a game on core.
Vanilla beholders get death ray and antimagic ray too, they're just not as sharp at using them in the best order, but they do use them and that still renders relying on potions and spells as futile.
Easiest way to deal with vanilla beholders is simply to launch cloudkills from out of sight (use a hidden character to target). They just stay there and die, it's a piece of cake but it's cheesy and stupid AI.
Comments
I always just assumed that there were critical fails.
If not that then that's a HUGE change for my No Reload strategy. That would make life much easier. (And make more sense with regard to the peculiar implementation of Luck Bonus for saves.)
Individual beholders are easy, it's when they come as a group that's the big problem (7 x Cause Wounds is not fun).
I had a dwarf berserker do the Unseeing Eye lair at around level 15. All saving throws were negative so I didn't have to worry about anything except Cause Wounds and Lightning Bolt. I additionally had Stormlord's Heels (combined Boots of Speed and Grounding). I did not have the Belt of Inertial Barrier (which helps a lot).
It's basically a war of attrition. Approach invisible, select a victim, and hit it as many times as possible until your HPs are down to 90ish (I had 150 total). Then swig invisibility and run - there's a bit of a bug / targetting issue that means beholders continue to fire rays at you for several seconds even after you're invisible, which means your HPs could be down to 30-40 before they stop targetting you (that's why you need to run too, in case one of the rays is anti-magic). Then swig healing to recover fully, drink invisibility again if it's been removed and repeat.
I should add that the Unseeing Eye lair cost me 95 Potions of Extra Healing and 35 Potions of Invisibility (those are not exaggerations). So yes, it can be done but it might not be worth it from a cost: benefit perspective even if you can do it!
The big problem is the group in the southwest corner. I had 3 x Beholders and 4 x Gauths, plus the additional Beholder that joins from the south chamber. Facing a group of 8 requires every ounce of effort and ingenuity (as well as balls the size of watermelons). So I used every resource I had, which included the 10 Stinking Clouds from the Staff of Air combined with every Oil of Fiery Burning and Potion of Explosions I had bought (from the Docks and Roger the Fence). Even after all that I still consumed around 80 of the Extra Healing potions and 30 Invisibility potions in this fight. It was truly brutal and there were some close shaves where I dropped to below 20 HPs.
So in conclusion, taking on beholders without cheese or specific equipment is still verging on suicidal and not recommended!
Normally pre-buffing against beholders is futile because anti-magic ray instantly dispels whatever protections you put up. However anti-magic ray in this instal also buys you a round of protection from damage. On the other hand, and this is the crux, SCS beholders will only use anti-magic ray against you if you have a buff that they can dispel - otherwise they will not bother as there is nothing for them to dispel.
Therefore every time before I engaged the group of beholders, I would use a minor buff that I did not mind losing, e.g Potion of Insulation, Potion of Heroism, heck in the worst case an Oil of Speed. Naturally you don't want to waste precious and rare potions like Magic Shielding or Magic Protection for this.
So as soon as I engaged, the Beholders would cast Anti-Magic Ray which dispelled my buff - but it also gave me a free round to get in a few more precious hits before I had to run away to heal.
Nifty little trick that one
i.e., Jan scouts ahead under Invisibility; my Dragon Disciple & Aerie unloads Fireballs & Ice Storms from beyond visual range and run away
As Keldorn once got petrified trying to rush a beholder that failed to die, I had not dared actually being near them, tanking yet.
I'm nearing the part in the Underdark, where I am about to do the Beholder Hive. It will be interesting to see if my now-level-17 DD can successfully handle beholders and their ilk...
A Beholder that can spam rays that can petrify, stun, kill etc you, is not a fair monster. It's a cheesy monster.
I do not apologize for using cheese to kill cheesy enemies.
I have planned to create two characters for a no-reload run and one of them will pretty much only be there to take out SCS beholders. A dwarven berserker seems to be the most viable choice since he can tank imprisonment from elder orbs and there is no other way (that I know of) to protect against that since it does not offer a save and ignores MR and beholders anti-magic rays seriously wrecks me.
Could someone wiser in the ways of SCS BG2 please offer some advice? No shield of cheese, and I already abuse summons but sometimes you can't prepare properly and elder orbs are really tough cookies.
Make sure save vs death, petrify and spell are all 0 or below (through items, not spells or potions). Put on some equipment that absorbs magic damage (Boots of Grounding for the Lightning Bolts and Belt of Inertial Barrier for Cause Serious Wounds). And you need a stack of Invisibility potions (20+) to get you out when your HP < 50. You'll also need loads of healing to repair the damage.
With safe saving throws and as much damage mitigation / repair as possible you can eventually grind your way through. It's not pretty but it's reliable.
PS: your second character can help out by staying away from the battle (if his defences are not up to scratch) and using the Rod of Resurrection on the dwarf (avoids needing to run away under Invisibility as much). Or, if he has reasonable defences, chipping in occasionally with wand damage (but then he will get some rays fired at him). Beholders (other than Orbs and Hive Mothers) are all about offence, they have zero magical defence so using Wands of Fire, Frost, Lightning and Cloudkill works well against them (as well as damaging spells but using spells can be risky due to casting time exposure whereas wands fire quickly).
According to the Readme, "Beholder eyestalk rays ought to be able to work their way through Spell Turning spells and the like: a few beholder rays ought to be enough to overwhelm a Spell Turning spell (and for that reason, beholders are scripted to use their rays even on protected characters). However, for whatever reason this doesn't seem to work very well in-game. So instead, beholder rays now have a random chance (thirty percent) of dispelling a spell protection on contact; this should work out, on average, to the same thing. This is optional: you can choose whether or not to let beholder rays "burn through" defences in this way."
Also, "you can choose at install time to have beholders use an alternative form of their antimagic ray. In pen-and-paper D&D, a beholder's eyestalk blocks all magical effects, beneficial or otherwise, on the target for as long as it's targetted. In BG2, the eye is more powerful: it removes all magical effects, blocks spellcasting for several rounds, but doesn't block enemy magic attacks (including the beholder's other eyestalks). Optionally, the beholder antimagic ray blocks all magical effects, including harmful ones, for one round, and also disables magical activity (spellcasting etc) by the target for one round; this is supposed to simulate the beholder bathing the target with its antimagic ray for one round. This subcomponent obviously requires different scripting, so beholders will use their antimagic ray a bit more cautiously if it's installed."
I prefer to use this option: "Don't give beholder rays any chance of burning through spell protections; beholder antimagic blocks all spells, including harmful ones, for a round (simulates D&D rules)"
I don't like random situations when I can't control what is going on. I think this way a fight is fair.
According to @Alesia_BH , "MSD, SD, MST, and ST can be taken down quickly. MGoI, GoI, Spell Immunities, Specific Protections, and save buffs won't however and you can form a number of effective brews out of those. There are a number of angles you can use for each ray even. For example, the main damage ray from the standard Gauths and Beholders is Cause Serious Wounds. That's a Level 4 Necromatic Spell that does Magic Damage. So, you could foil it using a level immunity approach (GoI), a spell school approach (Spell Immunity: Necromancy) or a resistance approach (Pro Magic Energy, Pro Energy + Belt of Inertial Barrier). So long as you've covered at least one angle for each of the rays, you are safe."
http://forum.bioware.com/topic/124277-baldurs-gate-2-no-reload-challenge/page-215#entry12757866
I allow beholders to burn through protection since I find that to be the challenging part about them. Anti-magic plus save or die is something that I sort of love to hate. Only a problem for no-reload really, I particularly love the special beholder in the staff of the magi fight, unless extensive meta-gaming ofc. Nothing quite like pre-buffing and planning ahead just for the fight to end in the second round due to anti-magic and petrify combo on charname.
I normally run 2 arcane casters so 2 clouds into run away and wait passed the traps, once they follow I normally throw some more damagy spells and run away some more. By the time my party actually engages them, most are dead or near death. They normally die to a volley of ranged fire at that point.
I never fight Beholders in a fair fight because there is far to much chance for something to go wrong. The more time you stand around punching Beholders the more time they have to strip your defenses and turn your love interest to stone.
Mages: Neera and Aerie
Using wild mage level 1 (NRD) spell 3 times (depending on the number of beholders you are facing at one time) - summon 7th level sword or other summons and viola no more beholders if you are lucky and no wild surges.
Using Aerie: cast protection spells (spell turning and immunity - necromancy) - use wand/spells of monster summoning 2 charges/cast and in general you win. Make sure to cast haste and other protection buffs to help your summons.
(optional but helpful: potion of invisibility, improved invisibility or regular or just use the staff of the magi with its invisibility)
Fighter option:
This depends on your equipment: 1 protection from magic and shielding potion; 1 potion of defense or invulnerability; ring of mirror image (or the sword)
Spells: holy might; haste; protection from evil, barkskin, improved invisibility, protection from fear
Wand of monster summoning or summons (at least 3) - all with haste and various buffs (see above)
Summons are for distracting - then have your warrior (in my case a 10th level kensai) - have the summons distract and then jump into the fray. If the distraction do a good job you can eliminate a small group of beholders or gauths.
Have Aerie standing close by (invisible) for backup - with the wand of monster summoning and spells just in case.
I don't consider it that cheesy as there is a chance of failure in multiple ways it is not guaranteed cheese - but isn't the first level NRD meant to be used in this way to cast any spell from your spell book otherwise why bring a wild mage along with you.
Of course some will say that a wild mage is just cheese
Advice was for a normal group of beholders not scs. But the post was about fighting without cheese ( or metagaming) so the summons act as a distraction so you can get the first hit in. And for a party level of 10-11 no 7th level spells unless you have a wild mage with you.
With my party at level 10-11 and the normal spell selection and equipment (no cheese shield or cloak) what would you do? Of course I should have stated that in the advise I gave. But I will say I cleared the unseeing eye beholders with no damage or death so it works for a game on core.
Easiest way to deal with vanilla beholders is simply to launch cloudkills from out of sight (use a hidden character to target). They just stay there and die, it's a piece of cake but it's cheesy and stupid AI.