Golems & Orbs & Spheres, Oh My (spoilers)

Archon of SFL · Post by **Archon of SFL** » Fri Oct 29, 2004 7:58 am

I’m currently exploring the Planer Sphere, and I was having no end of trouble with the Beholder on the 1st level. I began to think I had entered the sphere a bit too early and that I should have waited until I had leveled the party up a bit.

The first few times I went up against the Beholder (and died) I had activated the guardian golem (GG) and he went charging away to confront the Beholder. When I followed him into the Rune room, I would find the GG confronting the Beholder, but then the GG would run away and leave my party to face the Beholder, and ultimately die, disintegrate or meet some other ghastly doom.

Exasperated at finding no full frontal strategy against the Beholder, I decided to try and sneak up on him with an invisibility potion and try and snap off an attack that would disrupt his spells and allow the rest of the party to pile in. To my amazement, when I snuck into the Rune room, I found the GG pounding on the Beholder. I remained invisible and just watched, and sure enough, the GG eventually pounded him to a pulp.

So I guess I’ve got two questions:

1. Why does the GG run away from the Beholder? Does me being invisible have anything to do with him staying and fighting?

2. What level should you be to have a reasonable chance of defeating a Beholder without loosing party members? I’ve read the strategy section that suggests a Reflecting Cloak or using a Hold Monster spell, but I don’t have either of those at this time. I tried casting Miscast Magic and Insect Plague, but nothing would stop the bugger from firing spell after spell at me.

Yeltsu · Post by **Yeltsu** » Fri Oct 29, 2004 8:04 am

Beholders have spells as their innate ability, thus casting miscast magic and such spells will not work

Morril · Post by **Morril** » Fri Oct 29, 2004 8:11 am

Strange.
Every time when I play, the Golem fight the Beholder until it dies.
Must be a bug

Miser · Post by **Miser** » Fri Oct 29, 2004 8:35 am

Asriel is right. I'd say high saving throws are your best bet against beholders, since a lot of what they throw at ya are status-effect spells. High saving throws will negate a considerable portion of those spells, so needless to say, the higher level characters you got the better. In general, i think level 14+ is enough. If you dont mind having a one character or two die during the fight, i'd say level 11-12 will do okay too. Of course, having quality gear will also help especially if you want to take them on at lower levels.

If all else fails, skeletons with their magic resistance make pretty decent tankers, so i guess you can stall with them while your fighters bash their eyes out. The best way i think is to throw cloudkills at them. Wand of cloudkills cost 14k each, come with 50 charges, and they do the job pretty well.

Archon of SFL · Post by **Archon of SFL** » Fri Oct 29, 2004 9:15 am

If the Beholder's spell ability is inate, does that mean that you can't disrupt their spell casting by hitting them with a mellee weapon?

I always thought that wizards would go down pretty easy once you got them stripped of their defences and had someone who could lay some steel on them.

me0w · Post by **me0w** » Fri Oct 29, 2004 9:16 am

You can kill Beholders really easily, I killed 1 and 2 guaths in the sewers after doing Irenicus's dungeon (so very low levels, with around 3 team mates -4 in total)

Just pomel them with everyone, cast a few magic missiles, its not hard, just let one character take the brunt damge.

Personally, if I was you I'd load back, that damn gollem stole your kill, it stole your exp!

glenfar · Post by **glenfar** » Fri Oct 29, 2004 10:29 am

Actually, killing Beholders is very easy with a Berserker. I just solo'd the Unseeing eye quest with a level 8/9 Berserker/Thief. Just go Berserk, and pound away at them. While berserk, you're immune to most of they're spells, so they go down easily.

I actually found Gauth's to be much more of a problem - they just keep casting Cause Serious Wounds, which quickly add up to a lot of damage!

Archon of SFL · Post by **Archon of SFL** » Fri Oct 29, 2004 2:56 pm

I tried berzerking Minsc on the Beholder, and that was working fairly well. Then the thing pulled out it's Dissentigration and Death rays and took out Minsc and my PC. I can usually handle the Stun and Domination spells, but the instant kill (no Raise Dead) spells are the ones that are killing me.

Yeltsu · Post by **Yeltsu** » Fri Oct 29, 2004 2:59 pm

I'm not sure, but I've heard that the Glitterdust spell works quite well on Beholders and the like.

glenfar · Post by **glenfar** » Fri Oct 29, 2004 3:18 pm

[QUOTE=Archon of SFL]I tried berzerking Minsc on the Beholder ...[/QUOTE]

Unfortunately, Minsc is not a true berserker, and I don't know if his berserk provides the same protection. Although I don't think berserk is supposed to protect against Disintigration and Death Ray anyway (at least it doesn't list those explicitly in the description ...) - maybe I just got lucky, and they never cast those at me (or I made my save). But I did take out quite a few beholder's that way ...

Yeltsu · Post by **Yeltsu** » Fri Oct 29, 2004 3:21 pm

[QUOTE=glenfar]Unfortunately, Minsc is not a true berserker, and I don't know if his berserk provides the same protection. Although I don't think berserk is supposed to protect against Disintigration and Death Ray anyway (at least it doesn't list those explicitly in the description ...) - maybe I just got lucky, and they never cast those at me (or I made my save). But I did take out quite a few beholder's that way ...[/QUOTE]

I believe it is irrelevant whether minsc is a true berserker or not. enrage is the same always I think

glenfar · Post by **glenfar** » Fri Oct 29, 2004 4:11 pm

[QUOTE=Asriel]I believe it is irrelevant whether minsc is a true berserker or not. enrage is the same always I think[/QUOTE]

Not exactly - when minsc goes berserk you can't control him. When a true berserker goes berserk you can. So it's definitely a different ability - but whether the rest of it's the same I don't know for sure.

Vicsun · Post by **Vicsun** » Sat Oct 30, 2004 5:39 am

[QUOTE=Archon of SFL]
1. Why does the GG run away from the Beholder? Does me being invisible have anything to do with him staying and fighting?
[/QUOTE]

The GG isn't supposed to run away until it's killed the beholder... What happens if you don't follow the GG? Does it still run away?
This is rather weird - it's never happened to me. Are you all patched up, with both the official and baldurdash patches?

stramoski · Post by **stramoski** » Sat Oct 30, 2004 5:50 am

Hmm

Maybe he should let it go in and attack by itself. I never follow the Golem, I just let it go until I see the text say that the orb is dead.

Fighting Beholders? Minsc, Enraged, With the Shield of Balduran from Deirde kills them all almost as well as the Cloak of Reflection. You just need some cash. (And a way out of the Planar Sphere, across the planes, back into Athlakala, without passing the Elder Orb

)

Have fun!!!
P.S.
Minsc's enrage does work vs imprisonment and hold/charm, but not vs Disintigration or Death Ray. I'm not sure about Petrification (the final powerful Elder Orb Eye), but I'd suspect it would work vs that too... If not, one of your mages probably has Prot Petri in their book...

Archon of SFL · Post by **Archon of SFL** » Mon Nov 01, 2004 9:21 am

I think I'm all patched up. I downloaded the latest Bioware patch about 4 weeks ago and then the Baldurdash patches maybe 3 weeks ago.

Whenever I activated the GG, he would sound the alarm and run off to fight the Beholder. I tried hanging out by the golem tanks, but once the GG ran out of the room, nothing came up in the text box to lead me to believe that the Beholder had been killed. I eventually went into the Rune room to take a peak and the GG would run away from the Beholder and leave me to my doom.

It sound like a really strange bug, but at least I found a way around it; purely by accident, but I'll take it.

Archon of SFL · Post by **Archon of SFL** » Mon Nov 01, 2004 9:30 am

On a related note.

How do you find out what order to activate the runes to open the door?

I found and defeated the Sphere's builder (can't remember his name at the moment) and took a trip outside the Sphere to get a Demon heart which he said would do the job. Then he sends me on my way to put the heart into the engine golem, but doesn't bother to tell me the combination to open the door.

I used trial and error, but I keep thinking there shoud have been a clue that I missed.

Miser · Post by **Miser** » Mon Nov 01, 2004 12:12 pm

It's totally trial and error, so you usually either memorize it from previous games or expect to take hits.

Though, to be funny, if you have fire resistance over 100, every hit you take would give you life instead.

Numinor · Post by **Numinor** » Mon Nov 01, 2004 12:53 pm

[QUOTE=Archon of SFL]On a related note.

How do you find out what order to activate the runes to open the door?

I found and defeated the Sphere's builder (can't remember his name at the moment) and took a trip outside the Sphere to get a Demon heart which he said would do the job. Then he sends me on my way to put the heart into the engine golem, but doesn't bother to tell me the combination to open the door.

I used trial and error, but I keep thinking there shoud have been a clue that I missed.[/QUOTE]

It's not that hard...if you look closely, the symbols look similar to 1,2,3 and 4..

Miser · Post by **Miser** » Mon Nov 01, 2004 7:41 pm

You're kidding!

Now i feel ripped.

Vicsun · Post by **Vicsun** » Tue Nov 02, 2004 1:14 am

[QUOTE=Miser]You're kidding!

Now i feel ripped.

[/QUOTE]
Or you could've just stood behind the runes when you activated them. This way, even if you activate the wrong one the fireball blast won't reach you. It's actually pretty neat

Back to the original question: what was the way you found around the bug?