Divine Divinity

Divine Divinity

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Avoiding Quest Breakers
By Xendarii
Divine Divinity is an open world role-playing game and as such involves the danger of visiting locations and solving quests in a different order than it was intended by the developers. While this is mostly not a big problem, there are some quests that will break if you don't act as expected and thus can't be solved in the process, sometimes even cluttering up your quest log. This guide's aim is to give you an overview on what to regard while you're travelling around Rivellon with as few spoilers as possible.
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Introduction
Quest Breakers can be extremely annoying. This especially applies when the conditions under which the quests fail or, even worse, can't be solved anymore and therefore stay in the quest log forever, are unclear or easily fulfilled without reasonable misconduct by the player. The following list of possible Quest Breakers consists almost completely of hints from the official Larian forums, composed by other Divine Divinity players. What I did in this guide is arranging these Quest Breakers according to the game area in which they occur, which allows for a better and faster overview, adding one or two of my own and removing as many spoilers as possible.

I will distinguish between Quest Breakers that cause these quests to actually fail and those that cause them to break, which means they won't be solvable anymore but will stay in the quest log forever. However, I will try to avoid mentioning the quest's names but rather describe the circumstances under which the Quest Breakers happen.

I'd suggest to not read the particular chapters until you reach the respective area in the game - it's impossible to avoid spoilers completely and you probably want to delay them as long as possible.

Finally, if you know about or detect a Quest Breaker that I didn't include, please leave a comment with a short description to allow me to add it. I hope you'll find this guide helpful and can use it to enjoy Divine Divinity even a little bit more!
Aleroth
Quest Breakers that will cause quests to break
  • Don't refuse the quest George gives you. Otherwise, you won't be able to solve an important quest later in the game.
  • Do George's quest before completing the quest involving Mardaneus, otherwise the quest might end up unfinishable.
  • Talk to Mardaneus concerning another quest involving George before you send him to the Council or you won't be able to complete the quest.
  • Don't kill Smiruk's companions or let them die. If you do, you will not only break a quest, but the game will hang if you try to solve it.
  • Identify all axes you find before using one of them to solve a specific quest or you will get a hanging cutscene.

Quest Breakers that will cause quests to fail
  • Don't go through the gates and leave Aleroth before you solve the healing stone quest or it will fail.
Rivertown
Quest Breakers that will cause quests to break
  • Talk to Homer (and don't talk to Reginald first) before entering the troll cave or you might break the according quest.
  • Get the quest from Tom before you enter the Poor Quarter or an important character for this quest might disappear.
  • Only read this once you explored the Quarantined Area in the Poor Quarter: Duplicate one of the two potions for the plague victims you'll find. Although it's intended that you can only cure two of them, the third quest won't fail but remain in your quest log. If you want to prevent that, use the following exploit: Item Duplication[www.cheatsguru.com]
    If this does not work for you for any reason, you have to pickpocket one of the two plague victims you just gave a potion and give it to the third victim afterwards.
  • Talk to Hugh and accept his quest before you travel to the marketplace or you might break a quest.
  • Visit the Blue Boar Inn (and search it carefully) after you talked to Hugh and before you travel to the marketplace or you will break a quest.
  • Talk to General Alix before you travel to the marketplace or you will break a quest.
  • Don't enter Commander Ralph's room or he'll lock it and break at least one quest (or even more if he locks himself in).
  • Don't throw away or sell the items you get from Mitox or you will break his quests.
  • Open Nericon's Garden as soon as you got the key because it also unlocks the gate of the graveyard, which results in some broken quests.
  • To make sure that you solve a series of quests involving Marcus from the marketplace correctly and don't get broken quests, follow these steps:
    • Talk to Marcus before you find the cart in the south and then talk to both drivers. If you find the cart first, you'll break one of the quests (but be still able to solve the others).
    • Follow the instructions in the quest log without doing anything else in the meantime until you find the cart burning.
    • Talk to Marcus again.
    • Follow the blood trail, enter the cave and take the letter with you.
    • Talk to Marcus again and tell him about the letter.
    • Talk to Tingalf and Lt. Robin, but don't enter the Rivertown Sewers until you've spoken with Trevor in Verdistis.
  • Don't enter the cave in the north of the marketplace without getting the two quests which ask you to explore it and don't enter it with a high-level companion or your game might crash or you might break a quest.
  • Don't solve the black market problem before receiving the quest in Verdistis or you won't be able to complete it.
  • Don't kill the assassin in the farmlands before talking to a knight who asks you to do it or you won't be able to complete the associated quest.
  • Take the potions along with the note on the table before you leave the Doctor's cellar or a quest will break.

Quest Breakers that will cause quests to fail
  • Deliver the beer to Ben before going to the merchants' meeting or the quest will fail.
Verdistis
Quest Breakers that will cause quests to break
  • Don't take anything in Malcolm's house with you until you get the quest involving him from a woman in Rivertown or you might get game crashes or broken quests.
  • If you talk to Malcolm first before accepting the quest from the woman in Rivertown, but refuse the quest he gives you, you might break both quests.
  • Don't steal anything in the City Watch until you get the quests from Finnigan and Penumbra. If you do and if you sell the items you need for those quests, you might break them.
  • Don't kill Sir Patrick or you will break a quest.
  • Don't use the speech option to talk about something else while talking to Sir Patrick after you've got the quest that asks you to get a special item from him. You won't be able to address that topic again and the quest will break.
  • Don't refuse to touch the imp's ball the first time he offers it or you might break the main quest.
  • Don't use resurrect in Corinna's house during the first encounter or she will disappear.
  • Don't give Anthrabert away to the guard standing at the burning wagon or you will break a quest.
  • Don't complete the quest involving a murder before solving the first quest involving Mardaneus, or you will break it.
  • When you attain a special set of lockpicks, don't drop them from your inventory or they will be removed from the game and break a quest.

Quest Breakers that will cause quests to fail
  • If you accept the quest from Anthrabert, solve it within one day or it will fail.
Dark Forest
Quest Breakers that will cause quests to break
  • Don't kill the Talking Tree until you've solved the quests from Corinna in Verdistis and the alchemist or you might break them.
  • Immediately put the sword from the stone back to that stone after you've released it or solve all Dark Forest quests beforehand. Otherwise, you might break some of them.
  • Don't enter the Imp Castle before you get the second Warrior Guild quest or you might both miss an important item and break that quest.
  • Don't let Grischa forge a special armor for you until you've solved the second Warrior Guild quest or it will break.
  • Make sure to always give Moriendor's note alongside the Stone Axe to the Dwarven King or you will not get an important quest.
Council of Seven
Quest Breakers that will cause quests to break
  • Do not let a minion kill Ragon during the imp quest or you will be stuck in this world.
123 Comments
Chevostian 16 Sep, 2024 @ 9:44am 
I have a question about the trolls mission that Homer gives you. I entered the cave first before talking to him about the mission, but I was still able to complete it perfectly. It gave me experience, the log didn't bug me, and I also improved my relationship with the NPC.
I don't know if maybe I got lucky and something else was supposed to happen.
härjaren 23 Aug, 2024 @ 11:54am 
@Baraz Don't we all! But.. it's been 22 years.. and there still are questbreakers..
I doubt it. Unless Larian themselves or they hire someone like Deep Dive Studios to remaster it.
KronoKinesis 23 Aug, 2024 @ 9:03am 
I found a quest breaker not mentioned here.

During the Stone Axe quest, it is possible to find out a password for the Sentry. If you don't use the password despite learning it and kill the Sentry for XP (it's worth quite a lot) then you fail the subquest. If you use the password then you can't fight the Sentry anymore, but it solves the quest. You can use poison cloud to kill it after and get the XP anyway. Takes a long time though.
Baraz 19 Aug, 2024 @ 10:43am 
@härjaren I do hope Larian will have a few employees try to patch those quest issues.
KronoKinesis 19 Aug, 2024 @ 10:25am 
Another thing that is not necessarily a quest breaker but is worth mentioning - if you do not get the Lizard Teleportation scroll from Geomeo after the healers move to the Blue Boar Inn, and then activate the council quests and scry on Geomeo, he will be missing from the Blue Boar Inn.

You can then do a quest to find him again but he moves to the council chamber and no longer offers the scroll. He is supposed to still do this from an update but in my game this did not happen and I was forced to reload an earlier save. So if you don't get the scroll from Geomeo before you send him to the council, you might miss it.

If you are already at the council you can avoid this by simply not using the scrying orbs - he will still be at the Blue Boar Inn and still offer the scroll until you do so.
härjaren 18 Aug, 2024 @ 11:12am 
How about Deepdive remaster this gem of a game and fix all the quest breakers? :))
härjaren 18 Aug, 2024 @ 11:11am 
Someone knowledgble should totally do a video about this on Youtube. Putting different chapter timecodes in the video for easy access.
KronoKinesis 17 Aug, 2024 @ 11:01am 
To clarify about Ben - if you've entered the castle without doing his quest, it's already failed. There is no bottle of alcohol in the castle that will satisfy his quest, and you can only leave the castle once the merchant meeting starts, failing the quest.

You can talk to him before you go in though, just stand next to the wall he is on from the outside. There is a bottle that can be used for the quest under a tree very close to the east of him.
Baraz 13 Aug, 2024 @ 3:22pm 
@knoxy Excellent answers. Thank you.

@Xendarii : I suggest the wording of the guide for the healing stone quest could be improved, as I notice I am not the first one to ask that question.
Kroxy 13 Aug, 2024 @ 2:25pm 
@Baraz
Tom gives you another quest unrelated to the plague. You did not break either of them.

The healing stone quest ("find a cure for Simon/Verlat") will not immediately fail once you talk to the knight (Seth). Finishing his quest will render above mission unsolvable, which makes sense storywise.
Every healer except for Mardaneus and George will be escorted to rivertown. No one is left to take care of Verlat and Simon so both are removed from the game. Maybe they succumbed to their wounds and were buried while you were away.