Well, I've repeated this bout a dozen times, you are playing a Skald character, and your song is the best it can be, you have immunity to illithid hold. My bard kicks @$$ with it.

Against Mind Flayers/Ithiliads,you need your summoned skeletons/Invisible Stalkers/Spirit Animals(Totemic Druid)to take the frontal while your Caotic Commanded tanks flank or missle attack and cleric and mages casting Holy Smite and Death Spell to take out the Umber Hulks that usually wipe the floors with your summoned buddies.

The first time through the Beholder Dungeon in the Underdark, I had the cloak from the Sahaguin city + Caotic Commands/Death Ward/Free Action/Resist Fear on my hasted tank, dead Beholders.
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You can get the eyestalk as soon as you come in. The battle in the bottom right of the dungeon is brutal. There must be at least ten Beholders there including four Elder Orbs. This time through I have TOB installed; so, my cloak no longer reflects the rays back to the Beholders, making this a much tougher battle. I thought ahead though, I took thoose priceless Protection From Magic scrolls that Ribald sells (there's only two in the whole game, TOB included) with me; so, I'll use one for that big fight and save the other one for one of the big fights in TOB. I have used the spike trap in TOB; but, it is so unsatisfying that I reload and fight it normaly anyway. At least with the scroll, you still have to kill the advasary, where as with traps, it does it all for you.

As long as you don't have TOB installed, the cloak from the Sahaguin city equiped on your best fighter should do the trick.

Actually, I find that Spell Deflection and Spell Turning are useless against Beholders, because of that G** D***** F******* Anti-Magic Ray they use! All spell effects, repeat ALL spell effects, even things like Spell Immunity and Spell Trap, are erased by it! One shot, Poof, GONE, and the Beholders can use it as often as they like, which is about once every six seconds. The only magic effects that are not canceled are those provided CONTINUOUSLY by items.

So I do the not-quite-as-cheesy-as-the-Shield-of-Balduran method of Cloak of Mirroring (Not Reflection--I know, nearly identical name, VERY different Cloak) on my Tank, although I spice it up a bit by using the Wand of Cloudkill on myself.

Yeah, that is a problem, but those protections usually buy me enough time to take them out. For some reason they always throw that at the party members it effects least.

Let's see, let's see... want my advice on those two groups of creatures? Even though if anyone knows me right, they know that I like crazingly challenging battles and lots of bright spectacles?Alrighty [img]smile.gif[/img]

Illithids and Ulitharids - Honestly? I just rush them with a couple summonded creatures. You know what the summoned creatures are for? Simple fodder. I use summoned creature fodder all the time. lol. To beat illithid and umber hulks, you need something to take the brunt of that first blast they give you, that psionic stun one, unless you want to cast Chaotic Commands (But bleagh, be a man, heh). Skeleton warriors are nice for not being affected I've found... but as I said, or was going to say, use a wand of monster summoning, but be sure they don't block you. They'll try and eat your monsters while you can hack them to bits. I normally then have a mage or two cast some stuff in there at the same time... disabler spells like slow, chaos, and emotion, to back up your fighters. The battle that ensues is magnificent... beautiful. [img]smile.gif[/img] The umber hulks normally get taken from some of the spells, but what you have to remember to do, like in any battle, is prioritize your enemies based on level of power... either take out the biggest and toughest first, or the smallest and easiest. I normally try and eliminate the harder ones... like Ulitharid over Illithid. Umber hulks I don't worry about... by that time in the game a good fighter should be able to take them with like -10 ac (even though you can do much better than that)

Beholders - Well, I'm playing my current game on insane... beholders are evil. If you aren't well equipped they will tear you apart, even moreso on insane. My berk with like 130 hp can be taken down in a matter of seconds from a couple of them. So, you can use items... or you can use other tactics... I lured a bunch of them into a good trap one time that involved some thief traps and a skull trap too... that was funny. Hmm... Oh! You know what I did one time? I sent a couple of sword spiders around the underdark lair one time... they managed to kill about every beholder in there believe it or not! I read somewhere it was some bug in the beholder code... if you do it right they don't cast Death Spell, or any spells at all... they simply *attack* them... with their weak normal biting thing. There are probably more summoned creatures you can do this with... I found they couldn't touch a Projected Image either.

You can't just throw monsters at illithids, since the latter love frying brains. No, you have to summon undead. Since undead don't think, the illithids, who are too arrogant to care about anything other than their supposedly superior mind, won't have an effective form of attack handy. Summon skeletons--and of course, if you have a mage with a high enough level, those greater skeletons are much, much more powerful.

For beholders, I typically buy the Shield of Balduran and give it to one party member. The rest stay far, far away, though that isn't possible in the first room of the beholder area in the Underdark.

for the mind flayers, I use skelotons to they are very good, in ToB I have an excelent sord to kill them, but this is not ToB right... another thing I use to do is when ther are a room whut lots of them, so let my party in the previouse room and go only whit one guy show and run back usualy 1 or 2 come after me, so it's easy, and keep doing this untill theyr all dead!!!

For the beholders, I use the cloak of miroring

Another point: if you have a pair of boots of speed (and you should, by now), remember that a targeted party character can outrun that illithid mind attack with those boots on. I typically keep one character with a group of undead and have them find and attack illithids; then, my character runs away when the illithid try their mind tricks, and runs back, later. Meanwhile, the rest of my party uses ranged attacks. The only problem with this strategy is that access to most illithid lair rooms occurs from narrow corridors, which makes ranged attacks difficult; but it can be done, if you retreat your exploration/attack party down a corridor, drawing the illithids after it. Just remember to keep the rest of your party far enough away that the illithids don't perceive 'em as a threat, and keep the illithids bunched up so they can't start moving around. It's best to prevent them from leaving the corridor--in short, use the corridor effect on them in the same way that it was used on you, when you first encountered them. ;)

Mind Flayers(illithids) as well as the nobles (ularithids) have a 90% resistance to magic, so cloudkill can work, but not well, it's more effective from a wand, as IIRC magic resistance isn't checked against wands in BG2. Death spell will take out the Umber Hulks, but not the Illithids, Skeleton Warriors are the most effective fodder against Illithids as has previously been stated, plus they have a high magic resistance, and lots of hit points, regular skellies don't have hp's, and other summons can be charmed. Prot from magic weapons makes you immune to their intelligence drain and drinking potions of genius can temporarily counter the effects of intelligence drain.

for Beholders the cloak of mirroring, if you don't have ToB installed won't stop their hold person abilities, or their non-damaging efects like charm, but it will still make short work of them when they use their cause serious wounds ray, the shield of balduran is a great weapon against them, using it and the hammer of thunderbolts (before i upgraded it) Anomen took out the unseeing eye alone without spells or potions, at about 9th or 10th level.