VikingLegion
Explorer
The game calls them gryphons in the "attack" screen, but the in-battle text refers to them as griffons.
D&D General Demetrios1453 Plays the Gold Box Games
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- Start date
Demetrios1453
Legend
Curse of the Azure Bonds (Part 39): The Cave of the Beholder (Part 4), The Cave of the Beholder completed!
We buff up before going into the room for the upcoming fight.
Soon we have all our buffs up and are ready to go.
We enter the room.
Not a real surprise there.
Everyone ages due to the haste spell. No one besides Baroness Bella cares.
The beholder is of course our big issue. Everyone else, even the medusa, can easily be taken out once we start throwing fireballs. But since the game can't adequately represent the anti-magic cone from the beholder's main eye, it's just given 99% magic resistance overall, so our spells will be useless against it. It will need to be taken down by brute force, and as quickly as possible.
Our friend the medusa is hiding out in the back. Hopefully she'll be ashes before she can get off her gaze attack.
Baroness Bella, with doubled attacks, quickly mows down the minotaur in front of her, and starts moves towards the beholder.
Then... she turns around and moves away, allowing the beholder to get a free melee attack as she does.
(The beholder doesn't look like it's attacking, more like it's stoned lol)
Why would she do this? Well, in these games, if a creature makes what would now be known as an opportunity attack, it forgoes any special attacks in the round. So, in order to shut down the eye attacks, Baroness Bella will take a bit of damage. It's an advantageous exchange, by far.
And she really doesn't take that much damage doing so.
Meanwhile, my magic users start their turns. Time to wipe out those minotaurs and the medusa, so we can concentrate on the beholder!
First Brin starts casting...
Then Bragir...
Brin damages them...
And Bragir's fireball starts taking the wounded ones down...
Including the medusa. No one is getting petrified today... well, unless the beholder causes something unfortunate to happen...
My melee, with all their extra attacks from haste, gang up on the beholder, and it drops surprisingly quickly. It doesn't even get off its normal attack, so Baroness Bella didn't even have to provoke the opportunity attack earlier!
So it's just mop-up time on the remaining, mostly badly hurt, minotaurs...
And soon enough, Brother Baltor takes the last one down.
Some very nice XP...
Some gems and jewelry...
And a lot of items that are inferior to what we have, and, for the most part, too heavy to pack away. We take a few light magical items here and there
And that's our third and final quest item. If we want to, once we are out of here, we could continue right to the end game area (but - spoiler - we won't).
We have to get out of the cave system first, though; and before we even move, we have the misfortune of having a patrol drop by.
Ugh, a good amount of magic-using types here.
The good news is that many of our buffs, including - thankfully - haste, are still active.
Worryingly, a couple of the magic users start to cast spells. Thankfully, my magic users start their spellcasting before anything too dangerous occurs.
Both get off their spells...
That's always a good thing to see! That likely was a hold person, which could have been disastrous!
(Also, one of the wizard did get a spell off, which was a fire shield of the warm variety. While very helpful against melee attacks, it also makes you vulnerable to fire spells, causing double damage. The poor guy took 78 points of damage and basically exploded. It's a pity I didn't get a screenshot of it).
At this point, most of the foes have been thoroughly roasted or been sliced up by my hasted melee.
The last magic using foe goes down...
And it's just clean-up work after that.
The XP and treasure are nothing exciting, similar to the other patrols we've encountered. A few small, light magical items are all we take.
So, we've defeated the beholder and its minions, grabbed the quest item that we needed, and had one of our bonds removed. Now we just need to get out of here!
We leave the beholder's room and head south along the hallway outside. A short distance away, we suddenly have company!
Happily, we still have a few remaining buffs (and, as you can see, Bant's taken considerable damage, although not enough to put him in danger yet)
We'll need to take out those priests in the back, since the minotaurs won't be too much of a problem.
Bragir uses his last fireball.
And they are all quickly in poor shape.
We concentrate on the priests, who go quickly, and then take the remainder of the minotaurs down.
Again, nothing terribly exciting with XP or treasure.
We continue along the corridor, and before too long, another group of monsters attack!
Wonderful. They have a dark elf lord with them. Well, we'll just have to grind him down after taking out the manticores. And of course the priest is not a welcome sight either, although there is only one of them, thankfully.
Brin uses her last fireball...
41 points! That's a nice one Brin!
Out of fireballs, Brandir goes a different route...
He shoots along the wall, and takes down a couple of manticores. Even though the priest makes his save, it doesn't help him in the end...
Brin follows up with an ice storm to take out the few remaining manticores...
So it's just us against the dark elf lord.
We just slowly grind him down...
Until the battle is over.
Weirdly, there's no treasure at all, even from the drow or priest!
This was the last of the set encounters, and it seems that we've reached the maximum number of random encounters as well. The rest of the journey to the exit is, thankfully, uneventful. Baroness Bella and Bant have taken a bit of a beating, and most of our useful combat spells have been exhausted.
We reach the exit.
And find a familiar face!
Thanks for the vote of confidence.
Oh, that's right, we've been dragging Dimswart around with us this whole time. Hopefully Elminster won't be too harsh on him.
These Nacacia/Gharri vignettes are just getting weird now.
Like several other locations, we won't be able to re-enter Zhentil Keep. It's weird how this game, and this game only, has this feature.
In any case, this section of the game is completed! We could just go straight to the Standing Stone and then Myth Drannor to complete the game, but we have a bit of exploring to do, mainly in order to gain more XP and equipment for the final battle. So, we'll be heading off to Dagger Falls in the northwestern portion of the map next time!
Map of the Cave of the Beholder:
We buff up before going into the room for the upcoming fight.
Soon we have all our buffs up and are ready to go.
We enter the room.
Not a real surprise there.
Everyone ages due to the haste spell. No one besides Baroness Bella cares.
The beholder is of course our big issue. Everyone else, even the medusa, can easily be taken out once we start throwing fireballs. But since the game can't adequately represent the anti-magic cone from the beholder's main eye, it's just given 99% magic resistance overall, so our spells will be useless against it. It will need to be taken down by brute force, and as quickly as possible.
Our friend the medusa is hiding out in the back. Hopefully she'll be ashes before she can get off her gaze attack.
Baroness Bella, with doubled attacks, quickly mows down the minotaur in front of her, and starts moves towards the beholder.
Then... she turns around and moves away, allowing the beholder to get a free melee attack as she does.
(The beholder doesn't look like it's attacking, more like it's stoned lol)
Why would she do this? Well, in these games, if a creature makes what would now be known as an opportunity attack, it forgoes any special attacks in the round. So, in order to shut down the eye attacks, Baroness Bella will take a bit of damage. It's an advantageous exchange, by far.
And she really doesn't take that much damage doing so.
Meanwhile, my magic users start their turns. Time to wipe out those minotaurs and the medusa, so we can concentrate on the beholder!
First Brin starts casting...
Then Bragir...
Brin damages them...
And Bragir's fireball starts taking the wounded ones down...
Including the medusa. No one is getting petrified today... well, unless the beholder causes something unfortunate to happen...
My melee, with all their extra attacks from haste, gang up on the beholder, and it drops surprisingly quickly. It doesn't even get off its normal attack, so Baroness Bella didn't even have to provoke the opportunity attack earlier!
So it's just mop-up time on the remaining, mostly badly hurt, minotaurs...
And soon enough, Brother Baltor takes the last one down.
Some very nice XP...
Some gems and jewelry...
And a lot of items that are inferior to what we have, and, for the most part, too heavy to pack away. We take a few light magical items here and there
And that's our third and final quest item. If we want to, once we are out of here, we could continue right to the end game area (but - spoiler - we won't).
We have to get out of the cave system first, though; and before we even move, we have the misfortune of having a patrol drop by.
Ugh, a good amount of magic-using types here.
The good news is that many of our buffs, including - thankfully - haste, are still active.
Worryingly, a couple of the magic users start to cast spells. Thankfully, my magic users start their spellcasting before anything too dangerous occurs.
Both get off their spells...
That's always a good thing to see! That likely was a hold person, which could have been disastrous!
(Also, one of the wizard did get a spell off, which was a fire shield of the warm variety. While very helpful against melee attacks, it also makes you vulnerable to fire spells, causing double damage. The poor guy took 78 points of damage and basically exploded. It's a pity I didn't get a screenshot of it).
At this point, most of the foes have been thoroughly roasted or been sliced up by my hasted melee.
The last magic using foe goes down...
And it's just clean-up work after that.
The XP and treasure are nothing exciting, similar to the other patrols we've encountered. A few small, light magical items are all we take.
So, we've defeated the beholder and its minions, grabbed the quest item that we needed, and had one of our bonds removed. Now we just need to get out of here!
We leave the beholder's room and head south along the hallway outside. A short distance away, we suddenly have company!
Happily, we still have a few remaining buffs (and, as you can see, Bant's taken considerable damage, although not enough to put him in danger yet)
We'll need to take out those priests in the back, since the minotaurs won't be too much of a problem.
Bragir uses his last fireball.
And they are all quickly in poor shape.
We concentrate on the priests, who go quickly, and then take the remainder of the minotaurs down.
Again, nothing terribly exciting with XP or treasure.
We continue along the corridor, and before too long, another group of monsters attack!
Wonderful. They have a dark elf lord with them. Well, we'll just have to grind him down after taking out the manticores. And of course the priest is not a welcome sight either, although there is only one of them, thankfully.
Brin uses her last fireball...
41 points! That's a nice one Brin!
Out of fireballs, Brandir goes a different route...
He shoots along the wall, and takes down a couple of manticores. Even though the priest makes his save, it doesn't help him in the end...
Brin follows up with an ice storm to take out the few remaining manticores...
So it's just us against the dark elf lord.
We just slowly grind him down...
Until the battle is over.
Weirdly, there's no treasure at all, even from the drow or priest!
This was the last of the set encounters, and it seems that we've reached the maximum number of random encounters as well. The rest of the journey to the exit is, thankfully, uneventful. Baroness Bella and Bant have taken a bit of a beating, and most of our useful combat spells have been exhausted.
We reach the exit.
And find a familiar face!
Thanks for the vote of confidence.
Oh, that's right, we've been dragging Dimswart around with us this whole time. Hopefully Elminster won't be too harsh on him.
These Nacacia/Gharri vignettes are just getting weird now.
Like several other locations, we won't be able to re-enter Zhentil Keep. It's weird how this game, and this game only, has this feature.
In any case, this section of the game is completed! We could just go straight to the Standing Stone and then Myth Drannor to complete the game, but we have a bit of exploring to do, mainly in order to gain more XP and equipment for the final battle. So, we'll be heading off to Dagger Falls in the northwestern portion of the map next time!
Map of the Cave of the Beholder:
Last edited:
VikingLegion
Explorer
Neat trick with Bella tricking an "Attack of Opportunity" out the Beholder. Even though it didn't pay off, it's still fun to learn little tidbits of mechanics trivia like this. Thanks!
Demetrios1453
Legend
No. But thats coming up soon!
