How do y’all handle beholders without the shield of Balduran?
Klorox
Member Posts: 927
I can honestly say I’ve *always* taken the easy way out when fighting beholders by leading the way with a character who has this shield equipped.
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For the underdark hive personally, I use the tactics above against the drow and the mind flayers as well as the last 3 or 4 beholders. About 85% of the map I use hit and run tactics.
I will cast mass invisibility on my party and let them stand around. My FMT will grab a stack of invisibility potions and two wands of cloud kill. I will basically run around the game pac man style, trying to gas them like spraying for a bug infestation while going invisible and waiting for the next opportunity to send another noxious cloud their way. After I clear out a good number of them I will lead my character back to the party and save just in case something happens. If your party is not invisible then flayers and elder orbs will teleport to them and start attacking so it's crucial that the whole party be invisible while your scout runs around terrorizing the hive.
It takes a long time to clear them out using this method but with the improved beholders from SCS boosted by LOB mode there isn't much else you can do that I am aware of. They can steal the cloak of reflection and the shield of baldran. I would equip them if you got them because it may delay the negative effects by a few seconds which might be enough to let you escape around a corner and go invisible. I use my FMT's invisibility as much as possible so I don't burn through all of my potions.
If you find a good narrow passage that won't allow enemies to come up behind you. Use the wand of monster summoning and lead them in first. Then cast lots of web spells. The web spells will stick the summons in place and the beholders will get stuck on your frozen summons. Then have 3 characters using wands of cloud kill to exterminate them. position your summons so they plug up the passage before webbing them.
In short, improved haste, mass improved invisibility on the party, summons that can't be effected by the beholders, wands of cloud kill, and hit and run tactics with invisibility and the cloak of reflection. That is if you are trying to clear the entire map and kill everything possible like I do. Otherwise you could sneak your party through the area and just collect treasure and gulp a potion of invisibility to get through the areas without too much fighting. There are a few elder's that can see through invisibility so the boots of speed can come in handy for high tailing it away. If you are using hit and run tactics it might be a good idea to use the cloak of non detection to keep the elders from seeing you. If you are in the underdark it's possible that you may have a few HLA abilities. Summon a planateer and have her cast blade barrier combined with invisibility and haste she should be able to tank them. Jahiera can cast elemental prince summons that are high enough level to stand up against them. Dragon breath ignores magic resistance so it will mass damage groups of them. A time stop trap combined with mislead can allow some nasty backstab damage with a FMT if beholders are not immune to it. I can't remember if they are or not.
Most effective technique i use for solo LoB as a FMT (or any mage) is to stand outside their sight and plop down Incendiary cloud and switch in Staff of the Magi as soon as it's cast, so they stay in the area and get napalmed whilst i warm my hands on the inferno.
I usually buff up with a Spell Shield in advance just in case something goes wrong and they sling a dispel my way, but it's not really needed. Technically you can do it with wand of cloudkill/Fireball and staff of the magi, meaning you don't even need to be a mage (thief or bard with UAI) or use any actual spells, but on LoB it takes up to 4 castings so Incendiary cloud is the speedier option.
Of course you have to beat a Hive mother (and other nasties) to get the staff, but with careful positioning you can win that fight 1 or 2 enemies at a time, plus have the advantage of being able to pre-trap/skull trap the area...Last run through i just blanketed the area via project images with skull traps and once i spawned the Lich the entire room exploded lol.
(If you give the Rod of Resurrection to a party member with Vhailor's Helm, you can always have the clone stand back and spam heals without using any real charges up, but at this point you're just trading one stupidly overpowered item for another. Although honestly, not like you aren't already doing that with the Rod of Resurrection, anyway.)
Assuming they have butts.
I never buy the shield of Balduran.
Just go get Viconia. A lv10 cleric can easily solo the unseeing cult quest without difficulty, SCS or not.
Note that they (including the hive mother from twisted rune) have terrible saving throws so try (GM+) confusion / greater command
Also: casting greater command on yourself won't break the sanctuary spell and won't knock yourself / any party member unconscious
The spell-casting hive mothers like the one in WK or the one in Sendai's Enclave are slightly tougher than that (higher resistance and all), but by then you should have lv25+ characters, just GWW your way out.
Wand of Cloudkill fully charged.
Is there another way?
Oh yes, Wand of Cloudkill fully charged and Staff of the Magi.
You meet 3 Elder Orbs and something else, face to face, as soon as you enter a tiny room... totally unexpectedly. And you immediately realize you have nowhere to hide, because the space is too tight. What are you going to do? Flee? If you cast (mass) invisibility they cast 3x true sight. If you summon a Planetar, well they are no warriors, so they cast imprisonment to banish it.
2) if you can't do so (maybe due to the mod that put those elder orbs in the room) then give the Staff of Magi to the mage who's wearing the Robe of Vecna, potion of invisibility & cloak of non-detection on your bhaalspawn, abandon everyone else, cast improved alacrity, pierce magic+LR on each orb, and then blow them up.
3) if you're using the scs version of staff of magi you will need SI:DIV
4) if the orbs casted SI:ABJU and globe of invulnerability then trigger your 3xAbi-Dazim chain contingency by having your mage larloch minor draining himself
4.5) you're in a tiny room; you don't have the time or space to use the wand of ruby reversal
4.6) don't remember multiple ruby reversals. 7th slots are much more important than that
4.7) if you are a sorcerer then you have more than one way to eliminate them without this thread
5) if your mage don't have said contingency and spells, reload and sleep and remember that you should use PIs (with SI:DIV *AND* SI:ABJU) to do the fights whenever possible and save the actual spells on your actual mage for emergencies like these, and sleep whenever they are used
6) use the wands from wk instead of memorizing more than 1 breach spell in your 5th slots. Pierce magic spell can also be casted from said wand but pierce magic are often used in IA or sequencers so you will need to find a balance between pm pfmw pfme and improved haste
6.5) there are items which allow warriors to IH themselves
If any have survived you'll have a bunch of wish choices, potentially gaining the Double Length IA + Timestop, which is by far my favourite, if not the image still has a huge repertoire of spells left.
This assumes you don't have chain contingency 3x ADHW triggered upon incapacitate, which project image will achieve, giving you an instantaneous 60d8 AoE magic damage start and possibly meaning you won't even need to go into the Time Stop shenanigans.
Of course you could cast the spells w/o using an image, but i'd rather use 1 7th level slot than most/all of my 8th and 9th level slots. It's main drawback is that the image doesn't have it's own visibility radius, so you have to fight close to your character unless you utilize Wizard Eye/Farsight to extend it's range. Not usually a problem as it only lasts for a relatively short duration, but at high level it can be useful. Of course if you are not solo then far less of an issue.
Also very handy for draining powerful spell casting enemies of their more potent anti-mage attacks without putting the spawn at direct risk of the dreaded game over screen. Even if the image gets taken down without being able to cast that many damaging spells then it's likely absorbed several of the enemies more potent attacks, meaning it's weaker for a 2nd image or the spawn him/her-self.
And don't even get me started on using it on Aerie, a Mage/Cleric or FMC spawn, hehe.
But yes if you have a cleric/mage (the ultimate caster) PI will surely be a favorite spell