How the heck do you battle beholders?

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single beholders and standard of group of three (beholder + two gauths) are easy to handle (with or without tactics mod) -- anticipate where they will show up, just fireball and skull trap them.

in beholder lair, especially the underdark one -- skull trap take care of everything. remember, you can rest as many times as you wish in beholder lair. just place skull traps in almost all the passages in the lair, and leave one safe path for your spellcaster. when traps are set, one remote fireball or summon to trigger those gasbags to look for your party. then, you can begin to read the feedback text --
this can be done with a fairly low lvl party...just need to plant more traps~~ a basic rest-and-3rd lvl spell tactic; both smarter and vanilla beholders can be dealt wtih in this way.

 

Chaos and fire elementals, or the sheild of balduran

 

I first completed BG2 in about 2006 or so. I vaguely remember them being tough, but when I replayed the game recently, wow I never realised they were that tough.

Spell reflecting items help a a lot. There is a cloak of reflecting in the underwater city. ( I never encountered the Shield of Balduran in BG2 but then maybe that's only in the enhanced verson?) equip a tank with that cloak and it can take on a Beholder and a couple of Gauths in about 30 seconds. It does seem a bit like cheating though

I found another fairly effective method in my last play, although to be honest it feels a bit like cheating too! You'll need a character able become invisible and some to cast Web, Greater Malison and crucially, some area affect damage spell, like Death Fog or Incendiary Cloud.

Get your invisible character to visually spot the Beholders just on the limit of his/ her visual range, but don't attack or be seen. Get your spellcasters close to your invisible character but don't get them seen! Get a mage to cast web just beyond the Beholders field of vision and then almost immediately after that cast Greater Malison and Death Fog/ Cloudkill/ Incendiary Cloud etc in the same area. The Web has a good chance of holding them, Greater Malison weakens their saving throws, and then the area effect spells should keep damaging them for a few rounds. There's a strong chance that most will survive your spell attack and advance towards you, but by that time they should be either "Injured" or "Badly Injured". Get your fighters into them and they should be able to finish them off before a party member gets killed.

 

Shield of Balderan requires the Collectors Edition or the patch available here on Sorcerer's Place.
Honestly, I've had a party with 12th level characters slaughtered by the beholders in the Unseeing Eye quest if I don't have that stupid shield. With the shield, I mow them down like grass. Without the shield they cut me down like grass.
Spell turning or deflection wear off almost instantly. I think my game must be bugged since they can spam magic faster than a mage with Improved Alacrity. If it was one spell per round per beholder that would be managable. Instead it looks like homing missile hell as the spells chase the victim around to kill him.

 

The beholders have 8 eye tentacles that each get 1 attack per round with different effects each. At least that's what they have in P&P. Then there is the central big eye that constantly shoots an anti-magic ray that is sure to piss off anyone.

They are a real pain in the buttocks. Lol

 

Hasted Skeleton Warriors all day.

 

Summons just get the death ray, dismissing them instantly.

I just use the shield or the cloak, much less hassle that way. Only the elder orbs are the bane of any solo run. It's always a rush against time to kill them before they start their imprison spell.

 

The problem is if you try to do the Unseeing Eye Quest before rescuing Imoen and don't have the patches from SP that provide the bonus CD merchant that sells the shield. Only certain editions have that merchant present on the bonus CD.

Trying to fight them without the shield or cloak is neigh impossible since they take down your spell protections like nothing with that magic negating central eye and can spam spells to overload spell turning and spell deflection or even spell trap like it is nothing. Globes of invulnerability are taken down instantly as well. Not to mention that spell trap is a 9th level spell and you might not be powerful enough to take on the Twisted Rune at this point and get the staff that casts it.

 

I see what you mean with respect to the bonus merchants, but they've been available for so long here on SP, or on Baldurdash, that I've come to consider them part of the normal game, even if you don't have the special edition. Kind of like the ease-of-use stacks for arrows, I suppose. I wouldn't want to play the game without these basic mods, at least.

 

I agree with that sentiment, in fact, I was irritated enough at the inventory management with having too many arrows (or not enough) on my first run through of Baldur's Gate I that I broke my own rule and sought out a mod to increase the stacking.
Normally I have a self-imposed rule of not installing any mods other than critical bug fixes until I've finished the game at least once. I also try to avoid spoilers, especially things found on GameFAQs until I've finished the game the first time unless I'm really stuck, at the point where in the past I might look for a hint book, and even then I'll only seek out the information I need to get past the puzzle that has me baffled.
Once I've finished the game, THEN I visit GameFAQs and download a guide to see what I've missed, and play the game again going for 100% completion.

In any case, I though the thread was talking about tactics for battling Beholders without those two key items, once of which in theory would not be available to an unmodded game and the other you get mid to late game while you encounter beholders much earlier.

 

Set traps and lead them to them. Cannot do it too far away but hopefully you are not getting attacked in mass by them until later in the game.