Help on beholder battle

[rbeverjr]

Here's the scenario: I'm up against 3 beholders, 2 gauths, and 6 shadows/shadow fiends. All enemies have maximum HP (as do my team; 11 enemy vs 5 good guys ). The beholders do not see through invisibility, but can target improved invisible characters (i.e. improved invisible characters get one action before being subject to the beholders' gatling gun). The beholders are smart. They often do not sit in clouds of death (cloudkill) even when an enemy is there with them. And, of course, the beholders seem to put their rays to good use (including anti-magic ray, which seems to be their first choice on a buffed character). Shadows drain strength, and shadow fiends paralyze. The other enemy is the terrain. Unless I put the entire party invisible, at least one member will die (or nearly die) before we close for battle. (I'll probably have to buy a scroll for that.)

My group consists of kensai, sorcerer, FMT, ranger 7-cleric, and inquisitor all at level 10 (more or less). The character that has spell shield also only has 53 HP; so, she can't tank it. I spent almost all my money obtaining the nerfed shield of Balduran (reflects rays 60% of the time).

This is the easy game that I described in the second modded scenario i nthe well balanced mods sticky. It doesn't seem so easy right now. I already had to lower the difficulty to Core one time in order to obtain the nerfed Celestial Fury. But I haven't even figured out how to win this one on Core. I'm unwilling to lower the difficulty further; however, this is one of the easier quests in the vanilla game and is the route to an item that Keldorn wants.

Any advice would be appreciated. Nevermind, I figured it out. Polymorph self is the answer. That will probably allow a win on insane, but I'm satisfied. I just thought I would post this to give you an idea of what you can face in this modded game. I may also post a similar story for Improved Anvil (IA) if anyone is interested. Those battles are generally MUCH harder. For instance, a level 9-10 party would almost certainly not be able to get IA's nerfed Celestial Fury. (I say almost certainly because there are some amazing players out there making me hesitate at saying impossible. )

[Saros]

Well, first of all, this battle may be as well avoided. Why do you need the xp anyway. And I hope you have Invisibility radius 10'(great party spell for a sorcerer)

Secondly, you might consider joining a 12-th level pure cleric. With Blade Barrier+invisibility those beholders and undead don't stand a chance.

Third, you may consider chasing away the undead with your R/C while Invisible(or sanctuaried), and then fighting the Beholders and Undead separately.

If your Sorcerer is at least lvl 12, and you wanna waste a sixth-level slot, you may as well buff him(her) with Spell Shield, Prot from Petrification, Chaotic Commands, Resist Fear, Death Ward and Protection from Electricity and Magic Energy, thus becoming immune to all of the Beholder/Gauth attacks and spells, and effectively killing the whole bunch with Skull Trap spells. BTW, a scroll of Prot from Magic Energy can be obtained in Rayic Getrhac's home(first floor), but I strongly reccomend against reading it.

[rbeverjr]

Saros, your ideas are good, but no one in my party is twelfth level. Which also means that if I found another NPC, they would probably not be twelfth level either.

My cleric (R7-C10) may have been able to turn some of those undead. That would have been helpful. I was so concerned about the beholders that I didn't even think of that. Still, in modern DnD, the undead must be able to see the cleric's holy symbol before they flee in terror (turn). So, I would prefer not to use that tactic even though it would be helpful.

I wasn't concerned about XP. As I said, I wanted an item found during the quest. However, if I had not been able to figure a way to kill them all using acceptable tactics on Core difficulty, then I would have came back later. I am hopeful that the tactic I used will also work on Insane, but am not interested enough to confirm that.

A hasted (more attacks of the blade barrier) cleric under sanctuary/invisibility can cut up beholders, but I try to avoid that tactic. Why would any monster hang around an area where they are being cut to ribbons round by round? Invisibility should work, but I don't know if sanctuary will work against these improved beholders.

I was actually considering stealing a scroll of invis 10'. I don't think my casters know it at the moment. That's how I planned to close with the beholders without being blown away. However, I decided that was probably a bad idea. I think the beholders would have just blown us away the moment we began attacking.