I've gotten so used to killing beholders with the shield of balduran that I cant do without it...can someone offer suggestions on how to kill beholders with a lvl 10-11 party without the shield? Funny how its unmodded but its giving me the greatest difficulty so far (unseeing eye quest)

Before shield of Balduran came to my life, I often used spell deflection to escape from a few beholder rays. I think that protection against magic should work too (don't know if those scrolls still exist in IA though).

Try to use Improved Invisibility or Globe of invulnerability. I think that Beholder rays (the ones that Gauths use) are spells similar to some cleric damage spells (like make critical wounds) so, if they are those spells, they are level 4 spells and maybe the Globe can protect you.

With the rest of your party you can try a cleric or druid spells which gives you a little MR. Don't know right now what more to say, I'm not a very tactician player, I'm trying to survive IA too!

Hope that it helped.

OK some tactics:


- Invisibility is very effective here. They can't be backstabbed, but a Mislead at the entrance of their lair should give you the time to kill most of them.


- The dispelling effect of their Antimagic rays ignores SI:Abjuration, but they get blocked by Spell Shield.
Moreover the Spell Shield doesn't get consumed from multiple rays.

Still though the other effects of their rays/spells pass through the Spell Shield.
Solutions for this:

a) 100% MR (2 potions of Magic Protection) + Spell Shield = Immunity to all their rays/spells (except from Imprisonment)

b ) Spell Shield + SI: Necromancy + good saving throws (potions of Invulnerability or Stone form - keep the potions of Magic Shielding for later)

c) Polymorph Self spell in Mustard Jelly (100% MR).


I used it on Jan who was my decoy, attacked with the rest of my characters with missile weapons and with a little micromanagment I killed them.
The Beholders still attack randomly even characters away from them, but it's still doable.

Traps

Skull traps

Chaos or Malison+Chaos (if both can be cast simulanteously)


I recall how I was playing with behs in the Underdark, ones from a chamber with hive mother (I had Tactics installed that time) - I trapped the whole lair with traps (usual, skulls, delayed fireballs, cleric's glyphs), then showed myself to them, ran away and watched via farsight how they got themselves blowed up.

In addition to the tactics above, here's some stuff that works in the unmodded game:

The easiest way is get the Shield of Balduran. Unmodded beholders will kill themselves on it by having their own rays reflected back on them. This item is nerfed or removed by some mods. Other ways that are helpful include: (i) Sancturary + Blade Barrier (this is cheesy to me but…; someone said that if character is hasted, the barrier strikes more often); (ii) Web + Cloudkill (cloudkill alone works sometimes, but I think that’s cheesy); (iii) air elementals and to a lesser extent fire elementals; (iv) chopping up 1 or 2 beholders quick with your entire team; (v) glitterdust or power word blind (unnerfed versions, particularly), (vi) spell turning; and (vii) bottle up the beholders with a tank with great saves and then use archery and area of effect spells against them, etc. Some of these techniques are better than others in a specific situation, and some of these techniques are cheesy. On the other hand, I don’t like facing flocks of beholders/gauths. I think that’s a bit much too. The anti-magic rays will drop all your magic even if you have up spell immunity abjuration (although spell shield can block). So, use spell shield if you use buffs. Remember that elder orbs will imprison you. Also, you will face mindflayers along with beholders in the underdark beholder caverns; so, be careful of them.

Simplest approach? Summon some skellies and send them forth from around the corner. Even the low green variety will do fine, even better if you have skeleton warriors. Once the skellies have engaged the beholders, send a melee character in to finish them off, protected by a death ward and chaotic commands. Works like a charm.

Lol never knew how reliant I've grown on items till I read these tips. Thanks guys

[edit] Mustard jelly decoy + Greater malison + chaos did the trick.

I like the skeleton approach, will try it next time. I just came through the beholder lair in the underdark. Even with this tactic it was tough, it sucks that they can shoot across the map at your PC but thats for another discussion.

What I do, use a thief as a spotter, cast web spell x2 and free action on my battle tank, send him in then cast spider spawn and greater mal., it took some time but finally got them. The elder orb did not imprison my fighters, just mazed them. I am not sure if sikret was taking it easy on us or what, ha ha. By the way, anymore than 2 web spells and things can get alittle slow.

Romulas