Beholders Without Shield of Balduran
VanDerBerg
Member Posts: 218
How do you normally deal with beholders if you do not use the cloak of mirroring or shield of balduran? I vividly remember that I was able to make my sorcerer totally immune to any of their attacks in my first playthrough, but I am not sure how...Chaotic commands + Death Ward + Remove Fear + SI: Abjuration + SI: Necromancy doesn't seem to work, as their anti magic ray still gets through (I assumed this is similar to dispel magic and would, therefore, be dealt with SI: Abjuration, but that doesn't seem to be the case). And since in the Underdark, I get attacked by around 20 of them at the same time, even if one thing gets through my defense, I am dead very quickly.
Just to mention that my party is
CHARNAME (priest of lathlander Lvl 15)
Mazzy
Imoen
Jan
Keldorn
Jaheira
Just to mention that my party is
CHARNAME (priest of lathlander Lvl 15)
Mazzy
Imoen
Jan
Keldorn
Jaheira
0
Comments
Summons are a good option against beholders in the unmodded gamee. Send them in one at a time to start with to soak up any death spells and the beholders will then switch to melee (which they're not very good at). Otherwise, area damage (like fireballs, incendiary cloud etc) works well - just make sure you don't hang around visible to be targeted.
A mage can polymorph into a mustard jelly for 100% magic resistance, but the beholders will spam antimagic rays and block you from using wands for any significant damage-dealing.
When the Aura mod for BG2 is completed, it's possible she will still have her goggles that protect you from gaze attacks. She took out all of the Basilisks in BG1 for the party. Not sure if they will work against Beholders, though, as the mod hasn't been released.
I could, I guess, load Jan's and Imoen's spell sequencers with 3xfireball and throw them into fog of war to destroy them, but that would be a bit anticlimactic for what is, until now, by far the toughest challenge I have encountered in the game. But this might be one of those encounters where you either kill the enemy immediately or you are dead, so I might try with jmerry's potions solution. Throwing improved haste to Mazzy with tugan bow will make sure she has 10 attacks per round, so she should be able to kill them easily.
Beholders have unlimited uses of their rays; they just use them at a certain frequency.
I think I remember the issue. They do only use their death spell equivalent once and only once in the unmodded game. After that, they use other psionic attacks, which the swords are immune to. Maybe send in something cheap at first to absorb that first attack, then follow up with more beefy summons.
- the target has levels in a spellcasting class (bard, cleric, druid, mage, sorcerer), or
- the target has dispellable buffs in certain categories (haste is definitely included).
The AI-manipulating trick here is that potions of magic protection aren't among the buffs that inspire an antimagic response, but 100% resistance does protect against all of the attack rays. If you start adding more buffs, like oils of speed or potions of giant strength, then you're looking at an antimagic ray - which will also strip your magic resistance. Oops.
SPIN992 (antimagic): level 1 abjuration. Dispels everything, blocks spellcasting and grants magic immunity for a round.
SPIN168 (telekinesis): level 1 no school. Buffets target away and deals 3d8 total crushing damage on a failed save vs. spell.
SPIN990 (paralysis): level 1 enchantment. Holds target for two turns on a failed save vs spell at -1.
SPIN991 (death): level 1 alteration. Kills target on a failed save vs death.
SPIN986 (wounds): level 1 necromancy. 17 damage, no save.
SPIN985 (domination): level 1 enchantment. Dominates target for 7.5 rounds on a failed save vs spell at -2.
SPIN984 (flesh to stone): level 1 alteration. Petrifies target on a failed save vs spell.
SPIN983 (slow): level 1 alteration. Slows target (with concurrent AC/to hit penalties) for 7.5 rounds on a failed save vs spell at -4.
SPIN982 (disintegrate): level 1 evocation. Disintegrates target on a failed save vs spell.
SPIN981 (fear): level 1 enchantment. Panics target for 3 rounds on a failed save vs spell.
SPIN980 (charm): level 1 enchantment. Charms target into passivity on a failed save vs spell at +3.
Gauth rays - SPIN990, SPIN986, SPIN983, SPIN980. Also one unique ray:
SPIN989 (lightning bolt): 9d6 electric damage, save vs spell for half.
Elder Orbs, Death Tyrants - same as regular beholders.
Hive Mothers - SPIN990, SPIN985, SPIN984, SPIN983, SPIN981, SPIN980. Also altered versions of the other beholder rays:
SPIN550 (HM antimagic): level 1 abjuration. Does everything the beholder version does, plus removes all spell protections and drains mage spells/item charges like a nishruu attack.
SPIN171 (HM death): level 1 alteration. Kills target on a failed save vs death at -2.
SPIN551 (wounds): level 1 necromancy. 5d8 damage, no save.
SPIN552 (disintegrate): level 1 evocation. Disintegrates target on a failed save vs spell at -4.
So, all of the rays are level 1. Still, there are so many that they would overwhelm anything in the spell deflection/turning family quickly. A Minor Globe might work, though. Unless you have to face a Hive Mother. Hive Mother antimagic takes down all of your defenses in one shot.
In the end, I put on all the buffs (including protection from fire), summoned 2x fire elementals and 2x aerial servants, hasted everyone and did invisibility 10' radius, killed one beholder immediately and somehow finished the other two and the elder orb. And only half of my group died. Joy.
- area spells (cloudkill,fireballs etc) + traps + potion of magic resistance of scroll of protection from magic for direct assault.
SCS can be a real bugger, especially if you're not used to it. If you're using v32 and up, you can adjust the difficulty mid-game at any time. Not only can you adjust the main difficulty slider (improved, tactical, etc.), you can adjust each component individually. So, if beholders are getting you down you could turn their difficulty down to 'improved' or even 'basic' if they're bringing you down.
Personally, I find SCS beholders to be brutal. At the 10th-12th level character range, I can manage them on improved difficulty by staying the f**k away from them and using crowd control and area of effect spells, while using hasted summons as an additional buffer. Basically, I scout ahead while invisible or in stealth, and then launch an attack from out of their range of sight. Web, chaotic commands, cloudkill, skull traps, etc.. are all effective. Having said that, it's still extremely risky as the buggers often make their saves and tear through your summons to chase you down. I do whatever I can to avoid being in their range of sight.
Edit: greater malison is a key spell to have here, too, though I often find they still make their saves.
As for liches, they are buggers, too. Best saved for higher levels, but again you can turn their difficulty down by adjusting the 'smarter mages' components.
The beholders and elder orb both used death spell once, which reliably nuked anything targeted. So, I started the battle with skeleton warriors. Once they burned off that death spell, I followed up with Mordenkainen's Swords, followed by elementals. That worked a treat, and my invisible guide (Isra) only got hit once when an Elder Orb detected her.
Unfortunately, it followed her back to the entry area, forcing an impromptu real battle that left a few party members stunned, but most of the place was cleared out with a variety of summons. On the upside, the party now has the medallion that protects against psionics.
So now, I always use the Cloak of Sewers to turn into a mustard jelly (or use the polymorph:self spell)... Which is just about the same, since it turns a tough encounter into a silly waiting game because of just one item/spell.
But I'm just too scared of those Beholders (especially since I play solo no-reload now) to face those monsters "fairly".
EDIT: actually, the only time I faced them fairly was with my solo Dwarven Defender, armed with Belt of Inertial Barrier (50% magic damage resistance) and negative saving throws (thanks to gear, defensive stance, shorty race, no dispellable buffs).
It is still quite dangerous facing several of them, their damaging rays still accumulate to a lot of damage.
Very sound tactics, but I have a few more self-imposed restrictions to make my life harder, one of them being - no casting spells in fog of war, to give enemies at least a fighting chance. And the other one being 'no using animate dead on good priests'. I am guessing level 15 skeleton warriors, with their high magic resistance would be very handy, but I think good priests should never use animate dead. In fact, I think this spell should be exclusive to evil priests to compensate for total uselessness of unholy blight and unholy word, compared to their good counterparts. Even though I never play evil priests. But that's another story
I am not brave enough for no reload run. But beholders are special because it is almost like - either you don't give them a fighting chance or they don't give you a fighting chance, especially with 4 of them in one place. So it has to be cheesed in some way, otherwise you are roasted because you simply don't have any breathing and thinking space once they start throwing a barrage fire at you. I did manage to beat non-SCS ones with a sorcerer, Aerie and Imoen by mounting enough defense and refreshing it, and still the fight lasted good 10 minutes or so...
As for alternative approaches to the Beholder lair, I suppose if you can get an innate and equipment based magic resist of 100% on somebody you'd be pretty safe from everything except the Elder Orbs' Imprison spells? Can't recall if that ignores MR in SCS.
Only problems for you would be that that approach probably requires Viconia plus the Human Flesh armor, and a few extra pieces of gear. Kind of puts the horse before the cart too, as you'd need to escape the Underdark in a specific less-than-good way, and then bother to go back just to fight the Beholders.
Try Mislead on Imoen
For me, at least with my limited experience in BG2, they are the hardest 'non-named' enemies in the game. It is so far the only one when running at them in plain sight is suicidal. Well, it is possible to rush to attack them when there is 1 or maybe 2 of them, but with a group of 3 or more, it is just suicide no matter what buffs you have.
Surprisingly, I didn't find the Unseeing Eye quest terribly hard. I think they scale in that part depending on the level, so in my current playthrough I did that quest first after the exit from the Irenicus' Dungeon and I mostly encountered gauths, with a few isolated beholders. I found invisibility, invisibility 10' radius and Minsc's berserker rage invaluable. Dropping invisibility on Minsc, having him gulp potion of speed and letting him berserk as soon as he attacks sorted out two or three of these isolated ones very quickly. But in the Underdark, there are 3 of them in one place, plus gauth or two, plus Elder Orb who starts casting True Sight immediately when you approach it when you are invisible, so there is no time to position properly to attack them all in melee...
I think it still bypasses MR, but that with SCS Spell Revision it allows a saving throw. Also, SCS beasts do not cast imprisonment on the protagonist, as that is a game over. Otherwise, I think Elder Orb does not shoot any rays as it is blind - it probably uses the same script as SCS mages, because it is essentially a high-level mage.