what are the beholders casting?

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ok, if you remember my last post about beholders, you'll see that I was actually able to kill them thanks to the advice of many people.

I ran into some more and this time i decided to do it without the help of any summons. I casted protection from magic, increased my magic resistance and casted protection from magic energy? (I think that's what it was). When the beholder saw me he shot me with some kind of energy blast and killed me instantly. What is that they are casting? That's the problem with getting killed...you never get to see or learn about what you are getting killed with!! thanks
jim

 

Beholders have VERY NASTY attacks, such as DeathRay which will kill you if you fail a save vs death, or petrifying attack, or even disintegrate! All of these can kill you INSTANLY if you fail various saving throws. How do you die? Are you petrified? Reduced into dust? OR just die normally?

Anyway, lvl4 priest spell DEATHWARD will protect you from Disintegrate and instant death effects. Lvl1 mage spell Protection from Petrification will make you immune to petrfy during its duration. Increasing your saves via spells and items will work. What's your level? Are your saves THAT bad you fail often?

Hope this helps...

 

It also could have been Imprisonment; another instant-death spell that Beholders (well, Elder Orbs but they look like Beholders) can cast.

 

Is there any way to protect oneself from the cause serious wounds they always seem to be throwing? (Besides the almighty shield of balduran of course)

 

Mirror Image works nicely.

 

Protection from Magic Energy, Spell Deflections, Reflections, Spell Immunity:Necromancy, Spelltrap(from Staff of Magi) will work also.

 

silverstar wrote:
<<Beholders have VERY NASTY attacks, such as DeathRay which will kill you if you fail a save vs death, or petrifying attack, or even disintegrate! All of these can kill you INSTANLY if you fail various saving throws. How do you die? Are you petrified? Reduced into dust? OR just die normally?

Anyway, lvl4 priest spell DEATHWARD will protect you from Disintegrate and instant death effects.>

thanks didn't know that. hell, i never even seen a deathward spell before!

Lvl1 mage spell Protection from Petrification will make you immune to petrfy during its duration. Increasing your saves via spells and items will work. What's your level? Are your saves THAT bad you fail often?>

my level is around 14 and my saves are usually pretty good I'd say. I never know what i'm being hit with because as soon as it hits the screen goes blanks and then the infamous hand comes up and then the load screen... your info does help though, didn't know they were doing that as well...

jim

 

A safe tactic is always to equip a frontier with the shield of balduran, throw some protection spells on him, and then send him in as bait. Watch the beholders get hit by their own spells (The shield of Baulduran reflects beholder rays), and when weakened, send in the cavalry!

Oh yes, it can be bought from a merchant in the 'backrooms' (rather the first floor, right above of Reybald), in the Adventures Mart (Requires that you have bonus CD merchants installed! I believe the come with the ToB patch; otherwise you can find the files you need to place in your override folder various places on the net. - probably even here!).

 

O'course, if you have 'Smarter Beholders' companent from infamous Tactics mode, they will NOT shoot at a target with ShieldOfBalduran, they wll just use their Antimagic Ray from their central eye to nullify all spells and further castings, then attack to chew you! And they HURT a ton! Especially when you are stripped from all protection spells and can not cast anything!

TRICK: Even you are anti-magicked you can still use wands! Blast a Flamestrike from wand of heavens(if you are a priest, or any priest multiclass that is) then run, repeat until all of them are dead. If you are a pure mage, you can not use SoBalduran so you are BADLY toasted! NOT even a chance!!! A fighter with SoB MAY try to defeat them in melee BUT they bite for GOOD damage! NO only solution is my wand+run strategy!

Cheesy, no, they are horribly strong and smart!

 

I always just set traps and weaken them...then cast stuff like Fireball while invisible or something...Robe of Vecna lets me get off spells with lvl 4 or less instantly.

Very simple strategy...even though it takes me like 6 months in game time (with all the resting) to clear out an area of beholders...

 

Summoned fire elemental. Bada bing.

 

I don't know if it's a bug or whatever, but a single mage with access to level 7 spells can clear out entire beholder hives by simply casting project image and spamming sunfire. For some reason, beholders won't use their rays on the image, and will move in to do melee at which point they're no more dangerous than a one-armed goblin.

Elder orbs will cast true sight which dispels the image, but casting Spell Immunity: Divination will prevent that from happening.

 

^IMHO It is a bug that Beholder kind does not waste their rays on summoned critters. It is unfair too, since any good summon can quickly KO them. Use 'Smarter Beholders' AND try again! They INSTANTLY cast a Death Spell and NO our cannon fodders are gone! What will we do NOW? Well, at least we will have some FUN!