What are the best stratergies for fighting these, im in the beholder lair at the bottom of the underdark and am simply ovewellmed by the huge amount of them

Fire Elementals rules against beholders and shield of Balduran(reflects beholder rays,,bonus merchant at the Adventures Mart)...they are pretty hard though...good luck.
Oh easiest way have a guy/girl invisiable lead the elementals to the beholders and watch them cream them..Jaheria is good for this spell.

Ill give it a try, why are they so good then?

You know I don't really know why exactly fire ellys are so good..I just know they are the only elly to use against beholders. maybe they are resistant to beholder rays...I just found out accidently..I was doing the unseeing cult thing...and I was getting creamed and in desperation I had Jaheria summon two fire ellys...and I watched the battle stats scroll
Beholder attacks fire elly: 1 damage(or no damage)
Fire attacks beholder: 10 damage
etc etc...I used two fire ellys to kill all the gauths and beholders and they were only moderatly wounded at the end..
I am starting a new game(chronic restarted) and I will pay better attention to the battle...I am curious also as I said they are the only ones I found that can stand toe to toe to beholders...air and earth get creamed pretty easy.
Oh make sure you haste them they are beholder/gauth killing machines

[ 11-17-2001: Message edited by: Keida de'Bane ]</p>

SPOIELER

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if you went to the Sahugin city via Saemon, you could have got the best cloak. CLoak of mirroring, it reflects all magic. pretty good huh [img]graemlins/showoff.gif[/img]

A paladin armed with the Holy Avenger and wearing the Cloak of Mirroring can almost clear out a beholder dungoen all by him/herself.

I also seem a post where holy smite works good as well. You can cast this spell just off the sreen from the beholders and they will not advance to your spot.

magness, anyone with a cloak of mirroring/shield of balduran can clear out a beholder civilisation by themselves. beholders have no meelee/regular magic (those that do are shunned) and beholder rays are reflected, 100% of the time. if there are gauths around then you dont even have to hit them, since they do damage with their rays. most beholders do more domination and confusion. theres a post by memnoch on page 2 with precise details on the PnP version. the BG version is somewhat differrent.

while im re-reading the top of this topic, i see that no ones mentioned that:

SPOILER. well, kinda
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the elder eye stalk is on the elder orb in the very first chamber, along with a piece of the equaliser. these are the only major,essential items in the dungeon AFAIK.

Yeah, if you have the Cloak of Mirroring then they tend to either hurt themselves until they flee or petrify themselves. Either way it makes no difference. You can use the cloak or the Sheild of Balduran and barely have to break sweat in Beholder dungeons. Now I quite enjoy Beholder fights... almost calming...

Also I should point out that Polymorph Self is very useful as Mustard Jellys are 100% immune to magic. None of the rays will work so you can just go in and hit people. I used wands of lightning to speed up the process (it did get a bit boring after a while). They are sitting ducks Mwhahahahaha!!!

andrewas,

I once thought as you do, ie. that the cloak of mirroring all by itself was enough to wipeout a den of beholders. That was, until I sent in by sent in my PC Undead Hunter armed with the cloak and the holy avenger and was imprisoned by an elder orb. Spells that are area effect spells are not reflected by the cloak. I sent in Keldorn with the Cloak and the HA and he was being constantly slowed by the beholders. A real pain the the butt, let me tell you.

I ended up having the remainder of my party following Keldorn at a distance to offer support when needed, usually a dispel magic. Sometimes my archer would stealth up close enough to fire a few arrows to help out. As good as the cloak of mirroring is, it's not a complete panacea.