Help ! Most humbling experience (Spoilers).

Spoilers about a certain Underdark quest.
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Hi there !

Here is my problem: second time through the game at the end of chapter six I decided to return to the Underdark to do the beholder dungeon. Since my party is rather high level (all above the cap) I arrogantly assumed that no special preparation (spells, etc.) was necessary. Dead wrong ! It has turned out to be by far the most difficult quest in the game: I am not even half way through and have already had to reload more than ten times !
(To clarify this: I am not using either the shield or the cloak of cheating.) Give me six pit fiends or even six liches and I will try my very best but six beholders plus a couple of gauths as sidekicks in one single battle I found just two much to handle. They managed to disspel all my magic protections (including two spelltraps), petrify one, kill via death ray another party member and deal out an average of 50plus damage to anybody left standing all in one round of combat while, in the process, disrupting the casting of four different spells. And mind you, that all while my high level party still made the vast majority of its saving throws. Even if I try to get a spell off by sneaking up to them invisible that will only work if the spell has not got a low casting time, because these bastards are too damn
fast. (Note: never try that in the case that an elder orb is in the group, they are scripted to cast "true sight" when an invisible opponent comes close.) To sum it up: spellcasting is next to impossible and even an high level fighter with improved haste on him just does not deal out enough damage quick enough: any battle with them has to be over in two or three rounds or the survivors have to attend too many funerals.

So, I am looking for smart new beholder-army-fighting-tactics. I, myself, can think of only one that should work, but I am still too proud and stubborn to resort to: retreat, rest, memorize a couple of "Animate Dead" spells and have the boneheads do the dirty work while everybody else does crossword puzzles. Should work, is legitimate, but really like hiring a band of mercenaries. Btw, everybody, please spare me with any of these most ridiculous "I have my party camp in there for a month or so while my thief sets a zillion traps all over the place"-tactics, will you ? But apart from that I am very curious of what the most ingenious minds on this board have to offer.

Btw, I am only playing at core difficulty and I do not even want to imagine trying this one at insane difficulty.

So long,

Ramon

[Gabriel]

Beholders have interesting behavior patterns. If any party member is visible (and hostile), a beholder will immediately start pelting them with gaze attacks, cause wounds, slow, paralyze, petrify, or whatever. If not too busy pelting party members with nasty magic, they will move towards the nearest foe and chew on them. Note the distinction between foe and party member. Beholders don't seem to want to waste their gaze attacks on summoned creatures. This means that one can have a stealthy or invisible party member observing (and thus allowing control of the battle), while one or more summoned creatures trash the beholders, who have really pathetic physical attacks. The moon dog figurine works quite well here. It moves fast, can heal itself, and stays around for long enough to kill quite a few beholders.
Or morakins(?) sword. The spell 'spell turnning/minor spell turnning' reflects the eye rays back at them.

[Accord]

For what I have seen in the game, area effective spells tends to soften them up (provided that you cast them through the fog of war), e.g. ice strom, web, casting fireballs into unexplored corridors, (the infamous) cloudkill ... etc. Sometimes they will "magic resistance" your spell, but eventually the damage will kick in. The key is to be able to release your spells quickly, hence having multiple mages casting the above spells really helps. Don't bother trying to lower resistance on them, there are just too many. When going melee with beholders, try using fire elementals (they are pretty tough against those eye tyrants). You can also send a couple into unexplored area to "test the water" before sending your actual troops. Gauths and normal beholders should not be too difficult, beware of elder orbs...they are annoying little pests. One of those bast*rds casted imprisonment on Minsc...Oops, time to reload.

[Accord]

Also, try to have your characters equiped with equipments that give bonuses like "mind shield" (to remedy against domination), the last thing you want is to have your party members chopping each other apart. Summon tougher creature with relatively higher hitpoints like elementals to distract the beholder, once the beholder only focus on your critter, everyone attack at once an it should go down quick. But if you face 3 or more beholders, try to soften them up with area effect spells like I mentioned above.

[Mage_lord1942]

Also another thing you can try is to send your most powerful mage stocked up with protection spells (spell deflection, globe of invulnerability, spell turning, spell trap[staff of magi], protection from magic energy, protection from petrification, magic immunity[w/ invocation or necromancy as immunity], and mirror image) then after they spend their time hitting your mage rush in with your double hasted fighters and all powerful mages(with abi dalzim's horrid wilting) to finish them.

Thanks guys !

(Btw, nice to see that you have decided to stay, Gabriel !)

Your observation, Gabriel, that beholders are "unwilling" to use gaze attacks against summoned creatures is very interesting. Never bothered to summon, because I thought it was pretty useless and dangerous, since they love to charm and dominate foes. Will give a try.
Minor spell turning is rather useless, though, as most beholder spells are above the fourth level. Spell turning helps a little, but against groups of them is used up almost immediately - one Gauth self-petrification so far.

Accord, the tactic you described is basically what I keep trying, but beholders seem to be among the few monsters with which the A.I. deserves its name - well, apart from what Gabriel wrote about them. Upon being attacked they go immediately after you , even if they cannot see the attacker, and all of them not just one - so there goes the old "lure-them-out-of-the-group-one-by-one" tactic. Heck, they even seem able to call upon support from another group nearby ! And even softened up by a first onslaught of fireballs and alike, they still have enough left to kill a couple of mine before I can take them out.
I have had minor success with "Hold monster" and even "Hold person". Still got a couple of emotion and chaos spells memorized, but I have been hesitant about using them, because they are highly unreliable: great if the saving throws go your way, but if not they suck. In any other battle well worth the gamble, but here where you are lucky to get off one spell per caster nothing to base your battle strategy on. Btw, was it just coincidence ? The only thing the buggers have had trouble with dispelling it was a globe of invulnerability.















Anyway, thanks again.

So long,

Ramon

[Memnoch]

Without the cloak of cheating that is without a doubt the toughest area in the game, even tougher than the mind flayer lair IMO. Not much I can add other than what's already been said. Hit and run tactics, fog of war and using summoned fodder might be your best bet.


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Memnoch - Custodian of the Holy Flame