How the heck do you battle beholders?

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Beholders and their like have been bothering me from the beginning.

How do you fight them? They will kill of my party members, who can handle everything else, in a matter of seconds.

The only way I can go through them is to use summons or weaken them with area effect spells and then take them down after they sustained damage(and it still is dangearus).

So, is there a way to fight them directly?

 

Well, if you're having enough trouble that it's affecting your fun level, I'd suggest purchasing the Shield of Balduran from one of the two bonus merchants. It reflects all Beholder rays back to their source, but it's considered cheesy in that it makes beholders a breeze; you can even just stand there and wait while their own rays kill them. The Cloak of Mirroring (from the Sahuagin City, IIRC) does pretty much the same, unmodded.

Past that, people use much the same strategy that you describe, using summons to soak up the rays while they beat on the beasts with everything they have. Beholders are supposed to be tough. (They're also supposed to be solitary, but that's a discussion for another time.)

 

I use the Shield of Balduran on a buffed character and send them in alone.

 

Summons are always a help. Some of the other tricks I use are send in a mage with Minor Spell Deflection/Spell Deflection, Minor Spell Turning/ Spell Turning and every other protective spell you can name, like, Minor Globe of Invulnerability/Globe of Invulnerability, Spell Immunity, Spell Shield, Protection From Magic Energy, and anything else I happen to think of. My best choices for a low level mage would be Spell Immunity(Abjuration), Minor Spell Deflection, Minor Spell Turning. You can also puchase the Shield of Balduran from one of the bonus merchants, she is located in the back of the Adventurers Mart and I think her name is Joia or something like that. The Shield of Balduran reflects beholder rays. I never use it, I think it is just to cheezy.(Possible Spoilers comming up)


If you have made it to the Saughin City you can find the Cloak of Mirroring which deflects magic and magic damage cast directly at the wearer. Wearing this along with things like the Shield of Harmony, Adjatha the Drinker, Ring of Free Action, Arbane's Sword, Cloak of Reflection, and anythin that prevents hold, charm, other beholder rays from affecting you. Good luck!

 

Another way might be to use Valygar equipped with the 50% magic damage resistance belt. Use his shield or armor(one of those also has magic damage resistance) and some nice weapons. Be sure to use as many special items which confer damage reduction or magic immunities on top of that as possible. Ring of free action is a great and helpful item. With that, you should be able to defeat a lone beholder. For groups, just use and combine various tactics.

 

Valygar loaded up on magic items like those and give him Celestial Fury and one of the swords that give extra attacks and it won't be long until those pesky beholders are toast.

 

Spell immunity: Necromancy will stop all of their Cause wounds spell, and it will give considerate advantage over them. I forgot which other spell they also use. Just to be sure, chack the manual, load spell trigger with appropriate spell immunities,a nd set it to trigger when you see the enemy. That should make you pretty safe.

I usually use cloak of mirroring, because I don't have the patience to f**k around with them. Give CoM to the character that is immune to hold(I believe all paladin kits are, if not, inquisitor surely is), and he can clean the whole beholder cave in the Underdark alone. If you don't want to have inquisitor for a PC, you can use Keldorn. Just watch for elder orbs, CoM doesn't protect you from their imprisonment.

 

^ Inquisitors and Undead Hunters are immune to hold, vanilla and Cavaliers are not.

 

Hogwash, all you need is a lot of chaos, confusion and that sort of thing. The beholders I've encountered use their rays even when they're asleep , webbed and stunned, just not that frequently.

No rays when they're confused.

And you can always scout ahead and cast your confusion from out of their line of sight.

Works better than summons. Works better with summons

 

Spell Immunities are best protections against their rays, and Spellshield will protect against Beholder's anti-magic ray. Though I am not sure if they use it in un-modded game. My smarter beholders are really smart, they bite with their poisonous teeth if someone uses the Shield of Cheese, and beholders always target spell-casters with Anti-magic ray, which dispels everything and causes miscast effect:they are deadly and smart yet I always find a way to kill them in the end. (and after some reloads. )

 

Yeah, Beholders use Anti-magic ray in the vanilla game.

Iku-Turso mentioned my favourite way to take 'em out- a Chaos or two (or even with a Greater Malison) will generally negate the danger of Beholders.

 

I remember those gauths when you're doing the Cult of the Eyeless ... O M G they were annoying

Summons work wonders in distracting the annoying fools, but I'm sure the chaos/confusion/malison combo would work I'm sure

 

Weird, in modded game, the beholders do not easily fail their saving throws. I even witnessed a save vs wands:1 once. Scary.

 

I like using the level 7 spell sequencer against beholders. You can sequence 3 flame arrows, 9 arrows total (at level 15), for a total of 45 to 270 damage. Then get invisible and snipe the beholder before it has the chance to retaliate. IIRC, I've never seen it fail to kill the targeted beholder. If you have a buffed, protected, invisible party surrounding the remaining beholder(s) then the battle is fairly easy.

I can't remember now if I've ever tried sequencing 3 fireball spells to snipe the beholders with. It may wipe them all out in one shot dealing 30 to 180 damage.

 

My party's only just entered the Underdark, so the only experience I have with Beholders is the Unseeing Eye quest, and Edwin pretty much killed all of those on his own...

Staff of the Magi, Cloak of Non-Detection, Wand of Cloudkill, Boots of Speed

Wander around invisbly with the Staff equipped. As soon as you see a Beholder, move until it's right at the edge of your vision, then use the Wand to fire off a Cloudkill. The moment you see the ball of smoke fire, re-equip the Staff and run away. Repeat as required.

 

Using AoE spells (like cloudkill) is one of my favorite or most effective tactics for taking these guys out. I can use this tactic to take out large numbers of them at a time, but just need to be careful to make sure my caster(s) stay out of range of those eyes!

 

Modded beholders are particualrly inteligent, if they take damage but can not see enemy, they immediately start wandering around at full speed:they run out of cloud/area effect spells and soon discover your PC! Nice!

 

"Modded beholders are particualrly inteligent, if they take damage but can not see enemy, they immediately start wandering around at full speed:they run out of cloud/area effect spells and soon discover your PC! Nice!"

Correct me if Im wrong but dont all the enemies do that without being modded?

A short while ago I fired AoE spells at the beholders in their lair in Underdark. I then casted Mass Invisibility. A few moments later I was scared to death to see that about 5 beholders were wandering and searching for me! Fortunetly they couldnt see me.

 

^ It depends. Some enemies will wander to the point of damage, some will stay still, some will come for your caster. I'm not sure what it depends on.

 

Just cleared out the entire beholder city in the Underdark with just a level 18 human kensai, didn't have to drink any healing potions...

Grandmastery in longswords, 3 stars in two-weapon style, drow longsword +3 in the main hand (switched to the Flail of Ages +3 for the Elder Orb), Adjatha the Drinker +2 in the off-hand (immunity to charm, etc), Boots of Speed, Belt of Inertial Barrier, Ring of Gaxx, Cloak of Mirroring - the beholders' spells just bounced off. Minor inconvenience vs the mind flayers, but the greenstone amulet saw them off, even with an AC of just -2 (18 base dex, Pale Green Ioun Stone, Ring of Gaxx, Ring of Elemental Control, a couple of potions of Mind Focusing to boost dex up to 24). The rest of the party just hung around the entrance, waiting for the screaming to stop!