Trolls. Mostly because I do Nalia's place pretty early on before I have any fire weapons and have to resort to fire arrows and Burning Hands all the time. They regen obnoxiously quickly from their knocked down state imo, it's not fun having to wander up and waste a level 1 spell slot on a -dead- enemy when you're fighting a dozen enemies at once.
As for dragons, I've found an incredibly sneaky way to kill them assuming you get to start the fight, which is the case with all of them I think?
Hmmm... Neera and Rasaad are both long quests, so is Hexxat but I didn't do Dorn so that probably makes up for Rasaad...
Did you do all the minor quests in Umar and Trademeet? Also did you do Kangaxx etc?
I did two strongholds (Mage and Fighter) but they aren't worth that much exp...
Also Lilacor is worth a decent amount of exp, same with the whole Harper questline with Jahiera (I got her Harper Pin with a neutral-evil party, it took some careful rep management to do, I had to time the silver pantaloons quest just right to have over 16 when Terminsel came but not over 18 and having half my party leave...
I guess the Circus is worth a lot of exp too.
Did you do everything in the underdark? I also did City of Caverns and killed everything as well as killing all of the dungeons and Ust Natha after the quests...
Beholders. Sorry, @KidCarnival, I just hate them. One shot and you need a scroll of Stone to Flesh. Or Resurrection. Or Power Word: Reload if they decide to pick on Charname. Grrr... !!
Fun fact: "beholder" (pronounced behalda.) is Danish for "container".
Beholders are really the only enemy in a vanilla install that I just haven't figured out. I guess I could employ line-of-sight trickery with stuff like Web and Cloudkill or aggro them off one-by-one but I really hate using those tactics.
Beholder are easy if you have a magic cloak (dont remember which one) which reflects damages.
But Illithids aaaaaaaaaargghhhhhhh. They can one shot my whole team
@Seldar How?! Are there late game uber Mindflayers in ToB I haven't met yet?
All the Mindlfayers I have come across have just thrown various cc spells, which are easily countered by Chaotic Commands, and then charged headlong to try to nibble on my brains. But of course (with one notable exception), I take care to protect my brain with Stone Skin, Mirror Image and other buffs/protections. Also in most Mindflayer encounters, u can quite easily blockade bottlenecks with one or two melee specialists or summons, and destroy them from range with missile weapons/spells. I discovered this accidentally when Aerie got Oteluke Sphere'd at a doorway due to my own Web (contingency), and found that the Illithids had no means to hurt my party from the other side.
Illithids don't have layers of protections u gotta punch through like with an Elder Orb, or the barrage of ranged pain from any Beholder.
The cloak u refer to is the Cloak of Mirroring. It doesn't reflect damage (in that it's not like Spell Turning), but it does indeed protect from most Beholder attacks. However I don't think it works against Petrification and Imprisonment.
Dragons or Liches. Each would be the worst except for the other. Fortunately other covers both. Illithids are worse if i'm too brain dead to buff properly first. But take away my shield of cheese, and beholders terrifyingly head and shoulders above the rest!
I don't like being turned to stone or being imprisoned. Enemies that do that to me are very mean. So, bah to both beholders and liches.
If we're including mods, though, I would have changed my vote to SCS/atweaks fiends. Those guys are monsters. Like P&P fiends, they can and will just keep gating until there's an army of them. And I refuse to resort to cheese like casting cloud spells off screen, so I fight them all and party ends up pulverized. Valygar's Planar Sphere can be quite evil once you're high enough to trigger pit fiends, but before your high enough to do stuff about them.
Beholder are easy if you have a magic cloak (dont remember which one) which reflects damages.
But Illithids aaaaaaaaaargghhhhhhh. They can one shot my whole team
@Seldar How?! Are there late game uber Mindflayers in ToB I haven't met yet?
All the Mindlfayers I have come across have just thrown various cc spells, which are easily countered by Chaotic Commands, and then charged headlong to try to nibble on my brains. But of course (with one notable exception), I take care to protect my brain with Stone Skin, Mirror Image and other buffs/protections. Also in most Mindflayer encounters, u can quite easily blockade bottlenecks with one or two melee specialists or summons, and destroy them from range with missile weapons/spells. I discovered this accidentally when Aerie got Oteluke Sphere'd at a doorway due to my own Web (contingency), and found that the Illithids had no means to hurt my party from the other side.
Illithids don't have layers of protections u gotta punch through like with an Elder Orb, or the barrage of ranged pain from any Beholder.
The cloak u refer to is the Cloak of Mirroring. It doesn't reflect damage (in that it's not like Spell Turning), but it does indeed protect from most Beholder attacks. However I don't think it works against Petrification and Imprisonment.
Hmmm... Which buffs are you refering to that stop brain eating? From my experiences, only PfMW protects against it and it just doesn't last long enough to kill them all in the mindflayer dungeon. Also, mindflayers can teleport so they will just pop up wherever you have other characters if they get stuck (is this an SCS thing?)...
Beholders though will steal your cloak of mirroring from your shoulders and you have to kill them to get it back which is a huge pain in the butt. Especially elder orbs (I tend to rely on traps for these)...
Fiends also suck with SCS, absolutely have no clue how to beat them without PfMW and massive melee damage...
@kryptix I didn't do Dorn's questline, somehow it didn't trigger or I missed the trigger. Got lilarcor, did all in trademeet, most in umar, basically if I went for the major quest, i got 95% done of what there was to do. No kangaxx no pantaloons, no harpers, I did some minor timewasters like Xzar etc. I did everything that can possibly be done in Spellhold, City of Caverns, Underdark, Ust Natha, killed Adalon as well. After getting back I killed Kangaxx and did some minor stuff and 10 minutes ago I went for Bodhi, and most of party just got through 3 milion cap and got their first HLAs.
Srsly mate, I thought I was powergaming too much, I have no idea how you managed to get HLAs so early
Isn't that the point of SCS, making everything suck? I've never really looked into it because the impression I'm getting from everyone is that SCS' only purpose is to make things hard, so correct me if wrong.
Methinks this misses "Magical Constructs", but anyway... I think the foe that gave more most trouble was undead, but categorized as a different bullshit just to prevent Turning Undead, in fact, it was a demon undead spellcaster, a totally strange thing. Then, SCS demons are difficult, but, well, demons have a percentage of 50 MR, so most of the time a Spell Trigger loaded with 3 Skull Traps kills them at very high levels, and much times you use lots of buffs and melee, and it ends up begin very easy.
But the type of creature I hate most are Mephits, yeah, those flying bullshits throwing stun/blind and no-save damage spells, they move fast, they have a freaking melee, they deal some elemental damage so they'll interrupt your mage even with Stoneskin, they deal low damage but with a not-SO-bad-THAC0, so they tend to hit just to bother you.
Hmmm... Which buffs are you refering to that stop brain eating? From my experiences, only PfMW protects against it and it just doesn't last long enough to kill them all in the mindflayer dungeon. Also, mindflayers can teleport so they will just pop up wherever you have other characters if they get stuck (is this an SCS thing?)... .
@kryptix Yeah... I think ur problems with Mindflayers are due to SCS. I have never seen a Mindflayer teleportation.
When I said protections, I just mean combat protections, cos Devour brain seems to result from successful melee attacks, so anything that reduces your chance of being hit helps. Stone Skin, Mirror Image, Chant, Defensive Harmony and Protection from Evil are my staple buffs, sometimes throw in Bless and Haste as well if it looks serious. No fancy tricks... not needed, at least at Core Rules.
Isn't that the point of SCS, making everything suck? I've never really looked into it because the impression I'm getting from everyone is that SCS' only purpose is to make things hard, so correct me if wrong.
It makes it hard but for the most part it doesn't "cheat" IE things only have the abilities they always had. The problem is that most of the mages in the game are well into their level 20s-30s in the vanilla game, so with someone to pick spells for them focused on keeping themselves alive with summons and ADHW to kill you, it makes them insanely hard. It also makes things like Fiends and Illithid teleport on top of you, not sure if this happened in Vanilla.
Actually it made the Windspear Hills kensai-mage on level one ridiculously hard since I play on insane, and it went all improved haste, PfMW, SI: Abjuration on me... Lets just say that with the double damage, Neera got chunked a bunch of tries since I didn't have Mantle or PfNW and I think it had the option of a normal weapon when I used PfMW...
Wizards with SCS and prebuffing. Gee, I sure wish my wizards could instantly start all battles with Shield, Spell Shield, Spell Trap, Spell Tuning, Stoneskin, Shadow Door, SI: Abjuration, SI:Diviniation, Improved Mantle, Fire Shield Red and Blue, Globe of Invunerability, a Chain Contingency with Horrid Wilting, at least 2 Contingencies with Stoneskin or Protection from Magical weapon as soon as the first wears off, as if their entire existance and daily spells were based on a single battle. Oh wait! My mages actually can I guess. As soon as Chapter 6+ that is, when enemies are doing it as soon as 2. At least high level mages are actually a force to behold now, but it's somewhat annoying that you can meet them as early as Chapter 2 because as always BG has this tendency of pitting your party against enemies of much higher level, except with nerfed abilities.
Wizards with SCS and prebuffing. Gee, I sure wish my wizards could instantly start all battles with Shield, Spell Shield, Spell Trap, Spell Tuning, Stoneskin, Shadow Door, SI: Abjuration, SI:Diviniation, Improved Mantle, Fire Shield Red and Blue, Globe of Invunerability, a Chain Contingency with Horrid Wilting, at least 2 Contingencies with Stoneskin or Protection from Magical weapon as soon as the first wears off, as if their entire existance and daily spells were based on a single battle. Oh wait! My mages actually can I guess. As soon as Chapter 6+ that is, when enemies are doing it as soon as 2. At least high level mages are actually a force to behold now, but it's somewhat annoying that you can meet them as early as Chapter 2 because as always BG has this tendency of pitting your party against enemies of much higher level, except with nerfed abilities.
Yeah, then SCS goes and unnerfs those abilities...
I find that I'm still too lazy to prebuff to that extent on my own wizards though, and I can't do it unless I spend my slots on buffs rather than on spells to take down their buffs They always seem to have more slots than me too, even my epic leveled NPC mages with tons of HLAs...
All buffs are void against the gaze of the eyes... seriously, nothing stops that antimagic ray except spell shield and it disappears after one hit. And then it's dispel after dispel after dispel. They can't be backstabbed either, bah.
All buffs are void against the gaze of the eyes... seriously, nothing stops that antimagic ray except spell shield and it disappears after one hit. And then it's dispel after dispel after dispel. They can't be backstabbed either, bah.
SCS makes it so you can't web them either to keep them nicely confined for AOEs...
Just so they get more votes than my kind! All the hatred has to stop!
To be fair, @KidCarnival, of the hundred or so Beholders I've met, you're one of only two that didn't try to kill me on sight, so you might understand my being a bit critical.
Just so they get more votes than my kind! All the hatred has to stop!
To be fair, @KidCarnival, of the hundred or so Beholders I've met, you're one of only two that didn't try to kill me on sight, so you might understand my being a bit critical.
Yeah it's not racism or paranoia if they really are out to get us!
Baldur's Gate for Humanoids! Beholders GO HOME to the Underdark!
Edit: ps: I love how @KidCarnival deflect Beholder hate by encouraging Mindflayer hate! I wonder why @Southpaw hasn't intervened in such public discrimination of his kind...
If I had to pick sides between the two terrors of the Underdark, I pick the Mindflayers, at least they got 2 legs and 2 eyes!
All buffs are void against the gaze of the eyes... seriously, nothing stops that antimagic ray except spell shield and it disappears after one hit. And then it's dispel after dispel after dispel. They can't be backstabbed either, bah.
SCS makes it so you can't web them either to keep them nicely confined for AOEs...
My new strategy is Chain contingency ADHW x3...
My strategy is usually to avoid them completely ...
For everyone here, some tactics I found useful against the other nasties:
Mind flayers - a good AC is sufficient defense, in my experience. Since they don't have dispels it can be boosted with buffs like Improved Invis, Protection from Evil, Potion of Absorption (they use crushing), etc. Their thac0 is 12, not great by any means, and as long as you're diligent about pulling characters that have been mind drained or countering with an int potion then they will have a hard time killing you. The key here is to always leave sufficient room to maneuver - even your tankiest -20 AC character will sustain a hit or two and you need to be able to pull him off the front and drink a potion before returning to the fight. This means only fighting them in open spaces, etc. As you may have noticed fighting SCS flayers in a hallway is a very bad idea because they will teleport behind you and box you in. Keep in mind that these are melee creatures at heart and kiting them around BG1 style is always an option.
Wizards - the prebuff suite looks scary, but I find that wizards are pretty bad at actually killing you and it's often safe to leave them for last by which time a couple of their buffs have expired. Most of them like to use save-or-else stuff like Chaos which has hard counters and does not scale with their level - much less scary than direct damage like a 20d6 Skull Trap, save for half (I installed the component that nerfs this to 12d6 mostly because I don't want it used on me, haha). This is not an invitation for David to include more Skull Traps, I actually like them this way.
You can also kill them by looking for "holes" in their defenses - if they lack protection from acid, Death Fog. Protection from Magical Energy, Horrid Wilting. Protection from Cold, Ice Storm. Pf Fire, you get the idea. No fireshield? Insect plague. They put up (improved) Mantle? Harm + Melf's Meteors. PfMW? Firetooth crossbow with normal bolts. Stoneskin only? Dispelling arrow or just hit them. Cloudkill is pretty devastating because few things resist it and Chaos bypasses most of their defenses but doesn't always work. They're also vulnerable to opening backstabs (bypassing the whole prebuff suite) and traps. Their low HP is their downfall because it doesn't take much to kill them, and it's often cheaper than spending a million Breaches and Secret Words trying to dispel their protections.
Dragons - the two ways they have of killing you are a devastating melee attack and a breath weapon. Counter both of these and they are mostly harmless (of course you will also need to layer in specific buffs for each dragon because some of them use Chaos, Insect Plague, etc. But their spellbook is fairly limited compared to a real caster.) One trick I've come up with for fighting them with a party is to take advantage of the fact that their breath weapon has a cast time and a range. If you can spot when they are trying to use it you can run unprotected members out of range. My strategy is to place a protected tank on one side and the rest of the party (with missile weapons) on the other. If they ever turn towards the ranged group you know it's going to be a breath because they can't melee from that distance, so run like hell.
I think I'll have to rethink my life after I finally manage to successfully install SCS. If I don't, I'll throw that blasted laptop of mine through my room's skylight. I swear it, Talos strike a lightning bolt upon my ass if I'm not serious, this will be the last you ever saw me here if I don't get that damn mod running.
If I had to pick sides between the two terrors of the Underdark, I pick the Mindflayers, at least they got 2 legs and 2 eyes!
...which only proves how puny and inferior they are. TWO eyes. Oh please.
Also, this lair people mention here, that's not my kind. They like to call themselves beholders, but have you looked at them? How deformed and unpleasantly shaped they are? Far, far from perfection! This poll not only lacks of dragon and lich options, but also fails to seperate between the various types of multiple eyed beings. To you two-eyed folks, we may all look the same (which in itself is racism!), but that doesn't mean there are no differences.
Mind flayers, but now that I think about it, I usually try to bait them with with an animal summoning while I arch or magic missile the crap out of them.
I hate the Master wraith/ devil shade encounters at the Forest of Mir
Illithids. Those guys are scary. Especially with SCS and pscyhokinetics. Demons are the worse/more dangerous opponents in SCS imo (demons are what make Liches so scary in SCS) -- but something about Illithids I just find fear inducing.
I think it's the combo of magic resistance, melee and stun attacks that are almost all or nothing, and psychokinetics which threaten my mage mains no matter what -- I always feel like I'm on a razor's edge when I'm fighting them.
I was very glad to be forced into slayer form last time I was in the Illithid compound (I'd killed all the illithids and couldn't circlet any of them*) -- I ran through with an Improved Haste slayer and still nearly died to the psychokinetic attacks. *(Yeah, apparently if you wait long enough one will spawn -- but I didn't know, and frankly would have no intention of waiting around in an Illithid city regardless!
Beholders aren't immune to magic -- so they're puppies as long as you scout and don't run into a gaggle. (...a "stalk" of beholders?) Liches with uber demon summons are more dangerous but... they're usually alone. I don't feel like I'm on their turf. Just not as "scary" to me.
I don't get it... I had HLAs for almost all of my party by spellhold, Imoen got her first one right out of the underdark, or maybe at the end of the underdark. Does SCS really add that much more exp?
...
By the time I fought Adalon, I had probably between 3.5 and 4.2 million exp on all of my main party members. If I didn't use Nalia, it probably would have been higher.
Hmm.. I have not played BG2EE through to the end, but in vanilla SOA+TOB, the SOA part has the XP-cap enabled, so you cannot actually get HLAs before you get to TOB. Did that change in BG2EE?
I do recall a few games where with the XP-cap removed that I would get HLAs around the underdark but that is with a huge amount of quest mods installed, so I am not counting those for general play.
Comments
As for dragons, I've found an incredibly sneaky way to kill them assuming you get to start the fight, which is the case with all of them I think? Us magic users aren't beasts either
Did you do all the minor quests in Umar and Trademeet? Also did you do Kangaxx etc?
I did two strongholds (Mage and Fighter) but they aren't worth that much exp...
Also Lilacor is worth a decent amount of exp, same with the whole Harper questline with Jahiera (I got her Harper Pin with a neutral-evil party, it took some careful rep management to do, I had to time the silver pantaloons quest just right to have over 16 when Terminsel came but not over 18 and having half my party leave...
I guess the Circus is worth a lot of exp too.
Did you do everything in the underdark? I also did City of Caverns and killed everything as well as killing all of the dungeons and Ust Natha after the quests...
Fun fact: "beholder" (pronounced behalda.) is Danish for "container".
But Illithids aaaaaaaaaargghhhhhhh. They can one shot my whole team
How?! Are there late game uber Mindflayers in ToB I haven't met yet?
All the Mindlfayers I have come across have just thrown various cc spells, which are easily countered by Chaotic Commands, and then charged headlong to try to nibble on my brains. But of course (with one notable exception), I take care to protect my brain with Stone Skin, Mirror Image and other buffs/protections. Also in most Mindflayer encounters, u can quite easily blockade bottlenecks with one or two melee specialists or summons, and destroy them from range with missile weapons/spells. I discovered this accidentally when Aerie got Oteluke Sphere'd at a doorway due to my own Web (contingency), and found that the Illithids had no means to hurt my party from the other side.
Illithids don't have layers of protections u gotta punch through like with an Elder Orb, or the barrage of ranged pain from any Beholder.
The cloak u refer to is the Cloak of Mirroring. It doesn't reflect damage (in that it's not like Spell Turning), but it does indeed protect from most Beholder attacks. However I don't think it works against Petrification and Imprisonment.
Illithids are worse if i'm too brain dead to buff properly first.
But take away my shield of cheese, and beholders terrifyingly head and shoulders above the rest!
If we're including mods, though, I would have changed my vote to SCS/atweaks fiends. Those guys are monsters. Like P&P fiends, they can and will just keep gating until there's an army of them. And I refuse to resort to cheese like casting cloud spells off screen, so I fight them all and party ends up pulverized. Valygar's Planar Sphere can be quite evil once you're high enough to trigger pit fiends, but before your high enough to do stuff about them.
Beholders though will steal your cloak of mirroring from your shoulders and you have to kill them to get it back which is a huge pain in the butt. Especially elder orbs (I tend to rely on traps for these)...
Fiends also suck with SCS, absolutely have no clue how to beat them without PfMW and massive melee damage...
Srsly mate, I thought I was powergaming too much, I have no idea how you managed to get HLAs so early
I think the foe that gave more most trouble was undead, but categorized as a different bullshit just to prevent Turning Undead, in fact, it was a demon undead spellcaster, a totally strange thing.
Then, SCS demons are difficult, but, well, demons have a percentage of 50 MR, so most of the time a Spell Trigger loaded with 3 Skull Traps kills them at very high levels, and much times you use lots of buffs and melee, and it ends up begin very easy.
But the type of creature I hate most are Mephits, yeah, those flying bullshits throwing stun/blind and no-save damage spells, they move fast, they have a freaking melee, they deal some elemental damage so they'll interrupt your mage even with Stoneskin, they deal low damage but with a not-SO-bad-THAC0, so they tend to hit just to bother you.
Yeah... I think ur problems with Mindflayers are due to SCS. I have never seen a Mindflayer teleportation.
When I said protections, I just mean combat protections, cos Devour brain seems to result from successful melee attacks, so anything that reduces your chance of being hit helps. Stone Skin, Mirror Image, Chant, Defensive Harmony and Protection from Evil are my staple buffs, sometimes throw in Bless and Haste as well if it looks serious. No fancy tricks... not needed, at least at Core Rules.
Actually it made the Windspear Hills kensai-mage on level one ridiculously hard since I play on insane, and it went all improved haste, PfMW, SI: Abjuration on me... Lets just say that with the double damage, Neera got chunked a bunch of tries since I didn't have Mantle or PfNW and I think it had the option of a normal weapon when I used PfMW...
Oh wait! My mages actually can I guess. As soon as Chapter 6+ that is, when enemies are doing it as soon as 2. At least high level mages are actually a force to behold now, but it's somewhat annoying that you can meet them as early as Chapter 2 because as always BG has this tendency of pitting your party against enemies of much higher level, except with nerfed abilities.
I find that I'm still too lazy to prebuff to that extent on my own wizards though, and I can't do it unless I spend my slots on buffs rather than on spells to take down their buffs
My new strategy is Chain contingency ADHW x3...
Baldur's Gate for Humanoids! Beholders GO HOME to the Underdark!
Edit:
ps: I love how @KidCarnival deflect Beholder hate by encouraging Mindflayer hate!
If I had to pick sides between the two terrors of the Underdark, I pick the Mindflayers, at least they got 2 legs and 2 eyes!
For everyone here, some tactics I found useful against the other nasties:
Mind flayers - a good AC is sufficient defense, in my experience. Since they don't have dispels it can be boosted with buffs like Improved Invis, Protection from Evil, Potion of Absorption (they use crushing), etc. Their thac0 is 12, not great by any means, and as long as you're diligent about pulling characters that have been mind drained or countering with an int potion then they will have a hard time killing you. The key here is to always leave sufficient room to maneuver - even your tankiest -20 AC character will sustain a hit or two and you need to be able to pull him off the front and drink a potion before returning to the fight. This means only fighting them in open spaces, etc. As you may have noticed fighting SCS flayers in a hallway is a very bad idea because they will teleport behind you and box you in. Keep in mind that these are melee creatures at heart and kiting them around BG1 style is always an option.
Wizards - the prebuff suite looks scary, but I find that wizards are pretty bad at actually killing you and it's often safe to leave them for last by which time a couple of their buffs have expired. Most of them like to use save-or-else stuff like Chaos which has hard counters and does not scale with their level - much less scary than direct damage like a 20d6 Skull Trap, save for half (I installed the component that nerfs this to 12d6 mostly because I don't want it used on me, haha). This is not an invitation for David to include more Skull Traps, I actually like them this way.
You can also kill them by looking for "holes" in their defenses - if they lack protection from acid, Death Fog. Protection from Magical Energy, Horrid Wilting. Protection from Cold, Ice Storm. Pf Fire, you get the idea. No fireshield? Insect plague. They put up (improved) Mantle? Harm + Melf's Meteors. PfMW? Firetooth crossbow with normal bolts. Stoneskin only? Dispelling arrow or just hit them. Cloudkill is pretty devastating because few things resist it and Chaos bypasses most of their defenses but doesn't always work. They're also vulnerable to opening backstabs (bypassing the whole prebuff suite) and traps. Their low HP is their downfall because it doesn't take much to kill them, and it's often cheaper than spending a million Breaches and Secret Words trying to dispel their protections.
Dragons - the two ways they have of killing you are a devastating melee attack and a breath weapon. Counter both of these and they are mostly harmless (of course you will also need to layer in specific buffs for each dragon because some of them use Chaos, Insect Plague, etc. But their spellbook is fairly limited compared to a real caster.) One trick I've come up with for fighting them with a party is to take advantage of the fact that their breath weapon has a cast time and a range. If you can spot when they are trying to use it you can run unprotected members out of range. My strategy is to place a protected tank on one side and the rest of the party (with missile weapons) on the other. If they ever turn towards the ranged group you know it's going to be a breath because they can't melee from that distance, so run like hell.
Also, this lair people mention here, that's not my kind. They like to call themselves beholders, but have you looked at them? How deformed and unpleasantly shaped they are? Far, far from perfection! This poll not only lacks of dragon and lich options, but also fails to seperate between the various types of multiple eyed beings. To you two-eyed folks, we may all look the same (which in itself is racism!), but that doesn't mean there are no differences.
When they shuffle towards you, they are after a big soft mummie hug! There not even armed... Sometimes they are missing an arm!
Those guys are scary. Especially with SCS and pscyhokinetics.
Demons are the worse/more dangerous opponents in SCS imo (demons are what make Liches so scary in SCS) -- but something about Illithids I just find fear inducing.
I think it's the combo of magic resistance, melee and stun attacks that are almost all or nothing, and psychokinetics which threaten my mage mains no matter what -- I always feel like I'm on a razor's edge when I'm fighting them.
I was very glad to be forced into slayer form last time I was in the Illithid compound (I'd killed all the illithids and couldn't circlet any of them*) -- I ran through with an Improved Haste slayer and still nearly died to the psychokinetic attacks. *(Yeah, apparently if you wait long enough one will spawn -- but I didn't know, and frankly would have no intention of waiting around in an Illithid city regardless!
Beholders aren't immune to magic -- so they're puppies as long as you scout and don't run into a gaggle.
(...a "stalk" of beholders?)
Liches with uber demon summons are more dangerous but... they're usually alone. I don't feel like I'm on their turf. Just not as "scary" to me.
I do recall a few games where with the XP-cap removed that I would get HLAs around the underdark but that is with a huge amount of quest mods installed, so I am not counting those for general play.