More Beholder fun available

[Xyx]

Three different goodies this time.

All three can be found here.

We have...

Beholder Hive Upgrade

How to use:

Simply copy the .BCS file (area script) into your Override folder.

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Compatibility with Throne of Bhaal:

Throne of Bhaal MUST BE INSTALLED for this to work. The Hive Mother
creature file is not available in a Shadows of Amn installation.

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What's in the initial 1 October 2001 upload:

This upgrade will place a Hive Mother in the Beholder Hive (kinda makes
sense, doesn't it?) in the Underdark. The Elder Orb carrying the Eyestalk
quest item is moved to the back of the Hive, next to the Hive Mother, while
a regular Beholder takes his spot by the entrance.

WARNING:

Installing this will make this (optional!) sub-quest at least as difficult
as acquiring the Blood of the Elder Brain, if not much more. Fighting a
Hive Mother surrounded by a couple of Elder Orbs and several regular
Beholders is not for either the faint of heart or the poorly equipped!

Despair not. If the fight proves too hard for your party, Matron Ardulace
will settle for the blood of the easy-to-beat Kuo-Toa Prince as well.

Multicolored Beholders

How to use:

Simply copy the .CRE files (creature templates) into your Override folder.

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Compatibility with Throne of Bhaal:

Full. It does not matter whether you have Throne of Bhaal installed or not.

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What's in the initial 2 October 2001 upload:

Elder Orbs and Hive Mothers have been given an ever so slight color shift,
allowing for visual distinction from the regular Beholders. Elder Orbs are
a tint darker than the norm, while Hive Mothers are a tidbit lighter in hue.

NOTE:

Some Elder Orbs can cast various nasty spells like Imprisonment and Power
Word Kill. Not all Elder Orbs are spellcasters, though.

Smart Beholders update

Minor fixes and tweaks in the 1 October upload:

The Planetar and Deva support added in the previous upload didn't do much
due to a consistently copy/pasted typo. Beholders should now, over time,
recognize their innate immunities to Petrification, Charm and Slay.

The Spectator now *actually* runs away when attacked. He would either run
so short it could hardly be noticed, or he would decide upon shooting his
rays instead. Since he's such a talkative type, he now displays a little
string when he starts running.

Enjoy!

[THE JAKER]

Xyx, as usual thanks for giving us all access to your hard work.

On a side note, i want to bring up a problem/observation which I have been experiencing. I have the last smart beholders update installed, but not this current one (yet!). I had to backtrack in my game, and I was in Sahuagin trying to get the tooth from the spectator. I got near that area, and the spectator was red circle hostile, out on the side of the imp platform shooting at me. I loaded again, got the same problem - I could not talk to the spectator so I killed it (4000 measly exp not as much as a reg beholder.)

I tried it again, and this time the spectator was not hostile, he had a blue circle, but he was cruising all around the imp platform, which I had never seen him do before. He was hucking cause wounds, fear, and paralyze rays (at my PC only) in between conversations, without going hostile, and I was able to get his permission to look in the chest, when I got the tooth out the encounter resolved normally with him leaving. Anyway I wonder if this has anything to do with the scripts and i thought I better tell you about it.

[Musashi Miyamoto]

I noticed that same problem but i *shunged* and slaughtered that beholder in two second.

oh yeah imho the beholders still are pretty easey with shield of baluduran and the cloak of mirrior, i don't know wny even on insane mode i still find them easey i found dragons to be tougher than mind flayers and beholders, mainly cause of dragon's breathe damage i mean with 99% fire resist i thought that was good egough the dragon still damatged me for 305 pt of damaged and fryed the whole party in one breathe i mean OMG!

[Xyx]

Ah, yes, that damn Spectator... I noticed that myself.

Are you sure you saw this behavior with the 30 September upload installed? There were a number of uploads in the same week, and the 30 September and later version should be fine.

The "If Neutral then just hang around"-bit was missing (Copy/Paste oversight, as ever ), causing the Spectator to access the combat part of his script...

And yes, even Smart Beholders have trouble with the Shield of Balduran (don't leave home without it ). They should stop bouncing rays on it after about a round or so (depending on how Smart they are), but there's not much they can do about it, really.

I'm OK with the Shield, since it's simply made for Beholder slaying. I'm not about to add any powers to the Beholders they did not previously possess (that would make them "Improved" instead of merely "Smart"), but if you think of a more appropriate response to the Shield (or Cloak of Mirroring, or ultra-high magic resistance), let me know.

[Quitch]

If you use that shield, you deserve to have the most uninteresting Beholder fights ever!