Beholders

[Raj]

My first time through the Improved Beholders component I played a party of 3 mages and didn't realize how much cheese these guys throw at you, mostly because I used some dirty tricks: spell shields, summons, off-screen casts of chaos and the SR incendiary cloud that causes blindness ( blindness going to be removed from next version I think ), so I understimated them and though it was all fine.

 

Next run, 4 player controlled characters with 1 mage/1 cleric/2 tanks trying to wipe their lair ''legitimately'': it was not fun at all. Everybody was under the soa xp cap ( no greater deathblow, no vorpals, no celestials ). I haven't issues with tactical enhancing mods but lately I'm playing for fun more than for the challenge and the sheer number of reloads and metagaming involved irked me a bit.

 

First of all, they really cast too fast, faster than what they are supposed to be in pnp and without any limitation: 3 rays/round in front of them should be their limit; to treat them as ranged touch attacks like in pnp and make them require a to hit roll would help too.

The antimagic attack should prevent their own rays to work on the affected target; it's already powerful enough against spellcasters, dispelling and causing spellfailure without a save, and as soon as a spellcaster enters in their line of sight ( I coudn't throw a chaos with casting time of 4 coming out of invisibility that the mage got dispelled ) they throw a antimagic ray, followed by some save-or-else effect that completely shut them: this calls for off-screen casting or (ab)using spell shield, it means it's avoidable but asks for cheating.

Elder Orbs are mages, they should remove their central eye in order to use magic, still they use antimagic along their spells and contingencies and that's a bit too much.

 

Map design: the underdark lair is too crowded.

The first half is fine, even the fight with 3 beholders+2 gaunts + hive mother, but the second half has to be fought all at the same time if you don't lure them acting with metagaming ( and they're not predictable in that ).

South-east corner provides a 3 beholders +2 gaunts pack and two Elder Orbs + 2 beholders each, and they all swarm on the party as soon as they hear the battle starting; if I charge at the first pack the others join a round later, if I move invisible to the last room with a Elder + 2 beholders, the others come and block the entrance. It's 2 Elders + 7 beholders + 2 gaunts, bit too many and it's a call for stacking aoe in the fog of war; some might call it a strategy, but it's something I'd like to avoid.

 

Matron Ardulace asks you a elder orb eyestalk, I wonder why one of them ( the one in the eastern room ) doesn't drop one. It makes that fight avoidable while that's a nice location for a boss. I'd remove the elder orb from the hallway leaving the one in the room with a droppable eyestalk, in order to preserve coherence and make that corner less crowded.

 

I didn't read any feedback about this component so I wonder how other players feel about it too; I played this game bit too much and came out with a ethos that makes me avoid cheap items like the shield of balduran or the cloak of reflection so I coudn't reply at anybody suggesting ''just put the shield on a berserker and let him clear the dungeon while the party sits at the entrance'', I'm looking for a enjoyable, while challenging and fair, game experience that doesn't require particular items/npcs.

I like the improved dungeon design and the eyestalk loss component so I'm going to un-install the scs component and try the questpack one alone.

[coaster]

I've tackled this twice solo (once with a fighter-mage - chain contingency + 3 * ADHW killed most, wiped the rest under Timestop - yes, very cheesy I know) and once with a barbarian (had a few HLAs by this time, and my HP/saving throws were so good that they proved to be not much of a problem).

 

I have played through with a party with an earlier iteration of SCSII - pretty sure I ended up with 1-2 dead (not chunked) party members after taking on the main group of beholders. So yes I agree they are tough work.

[Raj]

Beating them is not that hard in a number of cheesy ways, expecially if you play solo and can cast level 9 spells or hla in the soa part of the game; my first time against them my party of 3 was around 14-15 level with a couple of scrolls so I'm not complaining they are impossible, but more in line with a mod like Tactics because of all the metagaming involved.

A player who completed the game without mods a couple times and installs scs2 beholders is going to curse the game a bit too much

[Icendoan]

Heh, I have to play IR->SR->SCSII now, because it sounds like it will change the game completely.

 

Icen

[Demivrgvs]

First of all, they really cast too fast, faster than what they are supposed to be in pnp and without any limitation: 3 rays/round in front of them should be their limit; to treat them as ranged touch attacks like in pnp and make them require a to hit roll would help too.

I'm not sure if it's doable, and how much work it would require...but surely it would be great to have beholder's ray work like ranged attacks. It would also "fix" the Spell Shield exploit, though there may be issues with spells like PfMW.

 

If that's not doable I think they only need slightly changes imo:

 

- Antimagic Ray: either have them cast way less often, or allow a save against it. Furthermore I'm not particularly fond of the spell failure effect...mages are pratically useless after a single Antimagic Ray, which beholders tend to use as soon as they see a mage! I like the concept of this Ray, and I suppose the spell failure is there to simulate the permanent antimagic cone but being impossible to implement it as per PnP you should tone it town considerably. It now has all the advantages of its PnP version (no save, makes further casting almost impossible) without its quite huge drawback (the beholder cannot cast rays in the antimagic cone).

 

- Rays per Round: I think that slightly reducing the rate at which they use their rays would make them look more "realistic" instead of machine gun artillery.

 

 

I played this game bit too much and came out with a ethos that makes me avoid cheap items like the shield of balduran or the cloak of reflection so I coudn't reply at anybody suggesting ''just put the shield on a berserker and let him clear the dungeon while the party sits at the entrance'', I'm looking for a enjoyable, while challenging and fair, game experience that doesn't require particular items/npcs.

I'm glad to see there are players like you! Anyway, if you play with IR (and you are) the Cloak of Mirroring won't help you anymore as it did in vanilla, and SCS also allows beholders to effectively "counter" the Shield of Balduran.

 

Heh, I have to play IR->SR->SCSII now, because it sounds like it will change the game completely.

I'm quite a bit biased on the matter...but yes. You may want to wait for IR V2, as it shouldn't be too far away. I also do hope DavidW will come back to refine SCS a little more, especially because I've read about some issues with both current versions of SCS and his lates work Wheels of Prophecy (which sounds very promising though!).

[DavidW]

I'm kind of unsympathetic to this... basically because I think the SCS2 beholders pretty much keep to what the in-game behaviour of BG2 beholders does. They use their eyestalks once per round but can otherwise use them very quickly, and their antimagic ray and facing rules work differently from AD&D (let alone 3rd edition). They're takeable without cheese but I'll concede it's a pretty difficult fight, especially when there are elder orbs around. Some recommendations:

 

- use lots of antimagic (spells, potions, etc)

- get your casters to use scrolls

- draw their antimagic fire onto people who don't need to spellcast

- drink protective potions immediately after being hit by an antimagic ray

- use a lot of direct-damage magic - elder orbs will buff, of course, but ordinary beholders are pretty vulnerable to area-of-effect attacks.

 

The ranged touch attack is very difficult to simulate in BG2 - partly because of protection-from-weapons spells, partly because there's no equivalent of an armour-free AC. (And of course, BG2 is based on 2nd edition, which doesn't have the concept).

 

If you want an easier set of beholder AI scripts, Quest Pack isn't bad.

[DrAzTiK]

South-east corner provides a 3 beholders +2 gaunts pack and two Elder Orbs + 2 beholders each, and they all swarm on the party as soon as they hear the battle starting; if I charge at the first pack the others join a round later, if I move invisible to the last room with a Elder + 2 beholders, the others come and block the entrance. It's 2 Elders + 7 beholders + 2 gaunts, bit too many and it's a call for stacking aoe in the fog of war; some might call it a strategy, but it's something I'd like to avoid.

 

Is it a part of better call for help component ?? In tactics mod, i had the same situation.

 

But here, in my game, beholders pack don't move and don't go for help others. I can beat each group one by one. I don't complain coz even in this situation, it's very difficult lol

But i would like to know if it is normal.

 

Beholders pack don't move, and solo beholders/elder robs/gaunts seem to be in general pretty immobiles.