Beholder Eye Beams question

Beholders are really hard.... and getting turned to stone is a bit annoying. I've read different topics about the difficulty it is to program Beholder eye beams but they were at least a year old. I'm wondering how updated the the Beholders are.

Do you need gear that specifically gives immunity to the eye beams (or good SR) to avoid the effects? Or can you actually have immunity to the school of magic or spell that the eye beams seem to emulate and still avoid the effect?

If you want, feel free to suggest properties I should look for in gear when facing the Eye Tyrants as well.

For beholders, the eye beams do not work like spells. Spell mantles would not work on them (even if the antimagic did not auto-dispel such protection), nor would spell school immunities or spell level immunities.

Spell Resistance does work, you will want over 30 SR to have a good resist rate, and 40 SR (if it works properly, there is a bug we are cureently investigating) should protect you from pretty much all eyebeams except the Elder Beholder.

As for other good properties to have:

A Statuebreaker Cloak (this one is for sale, shop around)
Immunity to Death Magic (very tough to find)
Freedom of Movement
Immunity to Mind-Effects (can be tricky to find)
Immunity to Knockdown (very rare)

Having a high touch AC from Dex, Dodge bonuses, and Deflection Bonuses can also help a good deal. Somewhere around 33 touch AC will make it extremely hard for the regular beholders to hit you. The Elder is a different matter, of course.

Just to be sure I mentioned it specifically, dont bother using potions/scrolls/spells or anything else that is magical and dispellable. The Beholders open up with an anti-magic cone 90% of the time and it removes all temporary magic.

Invisibility is a good tool for getting close before you start the fight, just be aware that it wont work on the Elder.

Well, I nearly have all of that, minus the SR. I just hate the Statue Breaker cloak because you have to sit there for a while and it gimps your reflex. Someone said the Earthrooted boots stop petrification but it only looks like it stops knockdown to me, unless it has a hidden property on it or something.

Also what about custom items? I notice that in the list of "Immunity: specific spell" you can find immunity to gaze versions of certain spells (such as the flesh to stone). Do those work on beholder eye beams?

Contingency is your friend. Seriously, Velvet can waltz through the BEE-holders, but every few spawns she gets stoned, and not in a good way.

Scrolls are good, the beholders drop them and Master Crideas makes them. Or as a property on a custom item voucher if you don't have any UMD.

Hi Guthbrand, you have my sympathies when it comes to Beholders: they can be quite the (frustrating) challenge.

In fact, I gave up on trying to tackle them for almost a year as they seemed to simply grind my PC into the ground. The best tactic I found for my Barbarian was too lure one or two Beholders away from the main group and take them on individually. Also, lots of healing Potions :-)

The second year I found that SR was my best defense. My barbarian could finally start taking on Beholders when he became Reincarnated.

SR from reincanration is very very good, yes... but you need to get level 30 before it starts to shine... and by then... well, you have already gotten past a large chunk of the levelling hurdle.

The statuebreaker is the best protection against petrification because it removes the condition, rather than trying to stop it from happening. This means that it works against ANY source of petrification. If you poke around in the toolset you will see a myriad of ways to get petrified and nearly as many different defenses for those types. Specific level, spell school, specific spell, Gaze, Breath, touch/onhit, etc... and the beholder petrification eyebeam is not stopped by ANY of them. The statuebreaker cloak will cure ALL types of petrification.

The contingency spell works like the cloak, but it is a one shot deal. If you get stoned, then contingency unstones you... if you get stoned again before you can recast/re-use contingency... well, you're screwed. The cloak, however, works as many times as it needs to with no action on your part... making it solid gold for this type of defense.

Is the reflex penalty rough? Sure it can be.... but you can always request an upgrade from the dwarf to get +5 reflex bonus on the cloak (thereby cancelling the penalty).

The trick to the cloak, is accepting that with poor luck.... you may get stoned for a few second and get hurt badly while waiting for it to be cured. So you need to keep your health topped off for this eventuality. That means heal potions, lots of them.

As for taking on full spawns of 8 beholders... it can be tricky to figure out the right tactics. The main thing I will say is.... Don't Fight Fair.

The beholders cheat.... so you should feel fully justified 'cheating' as much as you can, right back at them.

Invisibility potions are cheap, and can be found in infinite supply at at least one merchant I know of. They can give you a big edge by allowing you to strike first.

UMD is helpful if you arent a spellcaster (if you have access to the skill) as it can allow you to use a scroll or wand of a heavy damage spell as an 'opener' to badly wound many of the enemies before they know you're there... and then hacking them down is a good bit easier. I recommend scrolls of Meteor Swarm if you can afford them.

Also remember that after they see you and pelt you with eyebeams galore, as long as you dont get disabled, nothing is stopping you from drinking an invisibility potion to 'pause' the fight, so you can heal up and get in another 'free' attack. Rogues have been using this trick in many situations for ages.... and for good reason.

Scrolls of darkness (or a custom item with the cast spell:darkness property) are also a good way to stop beholders in their tracks. As long as both you and the beholders are in the darkness cloud.... they can't target you with eyebeams... and you can swing away at them. Just be careful... Darkness cast from a scroll or item will only last a few rounds... and when wounded, the beholders have a tendency to run away out of the area. If they get out of the cloud, or it wears off... they can see and attack you again.

Combinin these two tricks.... you can do Invisibility to get close, then darkness to set up a flurry of attacks... then invis before the darkness wears off. Hold off on attacking, wait till darkness fades, then recast it... and begin attacking again.... wash, rinse, repeat.

It is a little complicated. It can take practice to get the timing down... and mishaps can still get you killed.... but this is a good base to start from in evening the odds.

Also - for those with UMD, invest in scrolls that do not break invisibility. I won't say more than that, but if you've invisibile and use offensive spell scrolls that don't break the invis, you're as good as gold anyhow.

As Dave said, since they effectively 'cheat' I'm not one to say that I'm against using this tactic here (one that I rarely use otherwise mind you)

Ice Storm scrolls cast from behind the best beholder shield you can get ~ their own doors ... invis up, open door, see where the bees are, close door, target scroll in general area of said bee's... repeat until the room is clear... this is effectively cheating too and can actually be done with any AoE scroll, the "cloud" type scrolls work best... ..

Other then that, try out sunbeam (to blind them), or the clerics Word of Faith (to blind/stun them), or Mass Blindness/Deafness (to er blind them)... (((I think there is a theme there but I can't see it .. ..))) ..... then follow up with a barrage of melee/other attacks....

RustyDios wrote:(((I think there is a theme there but I can't see it .. ..)))

RustyDios, that's just terrible.

Heh... just to clarify....

When I said don't fight fair, and encouraged folks to 'cheat'.... I more meant using advanced tactics that were intended by the developers.

I didn't mean to advocate using offensive spells that are bugged and do not properly remove invisibility, nor using scrolls to target locations that are not in line of sight (ie. through doors). If others want to do these things, I can't stop them... but I wanted to be clear, such was not the intent of my post.

Okay. Point taken. I don't mean to cheat either, but with the beholders... they just break, twist and warp the rules themselves so much that for them and only them I'll subvert to any and all tactics that I know of... ...

When something can kill you in an instant, even when you have 46SR, clerics granted immunities to four different schools of magic (Illusion, Necromancy, Conjuration and Enchantment), equipment with Immunity to Death Magic, Knockdown, Level/Abs Drain, Absorbtion Ioun Stones, High touch AC and DR.... and they still kill you "for no reason you can fathom in the log"... then that's when I started to play dirty too.... ...

.. But the message of a DM actually encouraging you to *purposely cheat with known unfixable bugs* is clear, it was not your intent, and you do not condone that type of behaviour or play style ...

I understand that entirely Dave. But just as Rusty said, these things are in a league of their own. They're pretty much the only creatures that even deserve such behavior.

I will let other things beat on my of all of eternity before I'd use the aforementioned tactics, but when you combine a death ray, a hyper damage ray, pure antimagic a petrification ray and afew others all at the SAME TIME (times 8 no less), it's a lot different. There's no creature as quickly debilitating as beholders, though in theory there are others that are more dangerous...

I had some problems with the beholders for a while with my wizard, Jinky, who is a bright gnome (and thus gets racial SR)... I found for a while that even with his SR up in the high 30s, he would still just get nailed from time to time. My tactc, for what it's worth, was (as Rusty already mentioned) blinding them. I would invis, Sunbeam, then Ice Storm, Meteor Strike, Hellball... whatever. A few people commented that this was practically cheating... but I didn't feel that way, because sometimes (admittedly, not too often) the beholders would make the save against blindness from Sunbeam, and still be able to hit me while I was trying to wipe them out, and a few times I still got killed. All in all, it made it a lot easier on me, while still not keeping me 100% safe, so I felt it was fair and effective. That's just my two cents, though.

There's cheating... such as using bugs and exploits to overcome challenges in unintended ways, more or less breaking the rules.... and then there's 'cheating'.... which is using tactics that are fully within the rules and the intent of the mechanics, but shape the battle and situation in such a way as to deny the enemy a fighting chance.

For what its worth, the tactic of using Invisibility then Sunburst to take the beholders by surprise and blind them is my tactic of choice for arcane casters. As this tactic does not make use of a single bug or exploit, I do not think anybody can make a reasonable argument that it could be considered cheating.

It may be considered 'cheating', as in, it is ruthless and mean and totally unfair to the beholders.... but it is a combination that works as intended by the rules.

Hmm, for Lyann, it is Haste, Imp Inv, Sunbeam,Sunbeam, Max Ice storm, Emp Ice storm, loot.

For Velvet it is Walk right in(insert old song Walk right in sit right down daddy let your hair hang down clip) , Jap slap the beholders, laugh and loot.

For Skywatcher, (has permahaste) it is Gr. Sanct, Word of Faith, chop chop, loot.

Occasionally Velvet gets stoned, occasionaly the beholders especially the elder nearly kill Lyann or Skywatcher, but there is a reason they are the best experience in the game, they are kinda tough.

Evards Black Tenticle<sp> is my favorite spell against beholders, yes it's a DoT but once the bee's get damaged by it they tend to run farther in and get even more damage done, with my sorcerer i can usually clear a full spawn(without an elder) in 3 casts

lots of good tips, thanks guys. I might just relevel my character so his 1 bard level can get me some good UMD

Another neat DOT is Tempest's Rolling Thunder.... if you haven't tried it yet, I highly reccomend doing so... as it's an awesome spell.

It works well against them.... toss down a few maybe with something to hold them in place and that will make quick work of them in a few rounds, especially since their anti-magic doesn't kill AoE, DoT spell, only latent effects on you (and them if they get caught in it, but of what use is that?)

Hmmm ... maybe I'll finally go beholder hunting...

Well, my level 13 bard Rosalee just recently found these beholders, and I must say, she was really scared at first. However with improved invisibility, and her lovely singing voice, she was able to wipe the smiles off their faces. Quaking Chorus is great lol. Rosalee walked out with a few new levels, a full purse, and a big grin.

Rosalee wrote:Well, my level 13 bard Rosalee just recently found these beholders, and I must say, she was really scared at first. However with improved invisibility, and her lovely singing voice, she was able to wipe the smiles off their faces. Quaking Chorus is great lol. Rosalee walked out with a few new levels, a full purse, and a big grin.

I am not sure when, but I do think eventually is going to alter a number of spells, feats, songs, etc to fix an issue where effects that deal damage are not ending invisibility and sanctuary effects. When you use invisibility or greater santuary, etc... any directly offensive action is suppose to make you visible again.

Not trying to rain on anybody's parade, I just wanted to make sure folks didn't rely on such things too heavily so that if/when there is a change made, it will not have a heavy negative impact. It could be a looooong ways off, if it happens at all

daveyeisley wrote:

Rosalee wrote:Well, my level 13 bard Rosalee just recently found these beholders, and I must say, she was really scared at first. However with improved invisibility, and her lovely singing voice, she was able to wipe the smiles off their faces. Quaking Chorus is great lol. Rosalee walked out with a few new levels, a full purse, and a big grin.

I am not sure when, but I do think eventually is going to alter a number of spells, feats, songs, etc to fix an issue where effects that deal damage are not ending invisibility and sanctuary effects. When you use invisibility or greater santuary, etc... any directly offensive action is suppose to make you visible again.

Not trying to rain on anybody's parade, I just wanted to make sure folks didn't rely on such things too heavily so that if/when there is a change made, it will not have a heavy negative impact. It could be a looooong ways off, if it happens at all

Well, it did sort of feel like cheating to me, so I asked a dm about it, and I was told it was fine to continue.

I won't do it for much longer though. I just want to get some levels, so I can do the quests that were too hard for me before, and I want to make some gold for a house.

I wouldn't worry too much about it, Rosalee, because those beholders won't hesitate to use every advantage they have to pulp you into the ground. I'd use every advantage you have for as long as you have it - all's fair in a battle with beholders!

Yeah, the silly beholders are always wanting to hurt me. Those meanies. lol

So a PnP question on the same topic. Do the beholder eye beams count as "spells" under a certain school in PnP or are they still the type of NWN touch attack with a spell effect.

In PnP the eyebeams are spell-like abilities. This means they work exactly like the spells they emulate except they have no verbal, somatic, or material components, and they are delivered via rays. Spell resistance, spell absorption, spell turning, globes of invulnerability, warding spells, spell immunities, school immunities, or petty much anything else that could protect against the spells would also protect against the relevant eyebeam.

Yes, but this isn't PnP ... stupid beholders.

I know I just was curious cause Derfel and I play pnp with some of our friends back at school a lot.

Best solution, someone with 20 levels of monk. Spell resistance + mind immunity. Just have them tank and engage after they have started the slaughter

buddha5442a wrote:Best solution, someone with 20 levels of monk. Spell resistance + mind immunity. Just have them tank and engage after they have started the slaughter

Thats one way to do it. Having a caster go in invisible and blind the gas-bags first is also very effective.

Necromancy focused caster + Wail of the Banshee = Nuked pinatas.

Fun for the whole family!

A_Vagabond wrote:Necromancy focused caster + Wail of the Banshee = Nuked pinatas.

Fun for the whole family!

Back before I played online, I used this tactic in the Infinite Dungeons premium module. It was so incredibly easy then, and remained so in Aenea.... although it works as intended and is perfectly legal.... it still felt to me like I wasn't doing enough to earn the kills.... dont get me wrong, when I need to clear a beholder spawn quick, this is how it is done.... but when not pressed for time, I usually get a little more fancy

Wail is almost like..... being too efficient... so I try to throw in a little extra flair. Sometimes I settle for a Sunburst followed by a Wail... but in truth, the sunburst is usually not needed.

I use sunburst when I'm hankering for melée, or when they're spread out too much for the wail to work...or if I've fired off all my wails and still want to continue with the fun and games