Well, this is a new section to keep track of what's new. So here's what's new.

Youtube Playlist with all the videos being inserted on the guide.

• The strategies are all updated as of Hotfix #16, where Legendary Resistance was reworked to only be used when the +10 bonus is relevant to the success of the Saving Throw. This makes it harder to CC foes that have this passive. Cazador got a small fix on Hotfix #17, not too impactful, nothing else relevant enough.
  
  
• As of 21/01/2024, the guide is considered fully complete, as I finished what I believe (and expect) to be my last run in a while. I may update it every once in a while after this when I hear about something relevant enough, or a new Patch/Hotfix brings some significant change that I can at least talk about. For now, unless we get some extraordinary content Patch, see you all in the DLC and the Definitive Edition. Ta.
  
  
• 16/02/2024, I guess the previously mentioned extraordinary content Patch is a thing. Please Larian, let me stop playing BG3 and allow me to play other stuff. Will be starting a new Honour Run on the next few days to update the guide with the new LA and updated fights.
  
  
• 16/03/2024, there we go, way later than I'd like, but still, gonna take the slow and steady approach. Fought Dror Ragzlin and wrote about his brand new LA. Also divided "Act 1: Surface" into 2 sections, renamed to "Act 1: Wilderness Part 1 and 2", due to a limit of characters on each section.
  
  
• 25/03/2024, shifted some stuff around, wrote a bit about the Drider and his LA. The main idea of the fight doesn't change, you just need a bit more caution.
  
  
• 27/03/2024, added information about the Shadow-Cursed Shambling Mound, removed some old irrelevant general tips.
  
  
• 30/03/2024, Myrkul is still as hard as ever, and bringing just a regular party is very risky. Added a few more notes about the fight.
  
  
• 05/04/2024, Lorroakan is slightly less easy now, but still a pushover if you know what to do.
  
  
• 11/04/2024, Steel Watcher Titan is way less nukeable, you gotta play around a bit more with status effects if you want to kill it as fast as in previous patches.
  
  
• 12/04/2024, I stay away for a few weeks and Cazador goes out of control. Updated his section, while moving Ansur to his own.
  
  
• 14/04/2024, added some small info about the uses of Callous Glow Ring, particularly against Raphael, as a safe way to use Hope's Divine Intervention without killing her in the process.
  
  
• 18/04/2024, started adding gameplay videos of some fights, including the Goblin Leaders and the Owlbear.
  
  
• 19/04/2024, added videos for Bernard, Nere and Grym.
  
  
• 21/04/2024, more videos added, including Crèche and Act 2 stuff.
  
  
• 23/04/2024, Act 2 is complete.
  
  
• 26/04/2024, added Sarevok's fight at the Murder Tribunal, as well as a few tweaks in the relevant sections. Also added some "filler" battles just because. Who knows, maybe one day I'll end up adding every single battle just out of boredoom? Who knows what battles are problematic to what players...
  
  
• 28/04/2024, Orin and Gortash fights are here, as well as Mystic Carrion, Ritual of Power Word Kill at the entrance of the Temple of Bhaal, Iron Throne and Steel Watch Titan. And proof that you can save the Gondians, all of them!
  
  
• 30/04/2024, we have Cazador, Viconia, Auntie Ethel, Raphael.... It's almost over now.
  
  
• 01/05/2024, added the fights on the finale, damn those are long fights. All major fights have videos now, gonna work on minor fights eventually.
  
  
• 06/05/2024, started adding some lesser important fights, and alternate scenarios and strategies as well.
  
  
• 07/05/2024, more videos, you know, the usual stuff.
  
  
• 16/05/2024, new updated strategy videos for Hellfire Watcher Titan and Ansur, Heart of the Gate.
  
  
• 03/06/2024, wasn't exactly just this day, but added a bit more here and there. Now includes a video on the Duel against Orin as The Dark Urge, both against The Slayer and Orin herself. At the same time too.

• Everything relevant is now covered on the Guide.

First of all, I recommend you to play either your own original Avatar, or better yet, The Dark Urge. But you can play with anyone else if you'd like, there are no problems, and your life will only be ever so slightly harder, 100 gold harder to be precise, since playing other Origins will leave you with 1 less character overall.

Second of all, most people like to respec their companions to other Classes, and multiclass to create combos. I didn't want to do that, I didn't need to do that, and you shouldn't feel like you NEED to do it if you don't want to. But I did change their Subclasses when needed. The idea behind it is to make the strategies as "default" as possible, to be flexible enough to fit your own playstyle. Sure, on some fights I'll describe strategies with some specific classes, but the core way you deal can be done with anything, as long as it is a balanced party with options regarding Crowd Control.

• The Avatar: Play whatever you want. There are no restrictions, just customize whatever you want to. Tav is the safe pick where you aren't forced to do anything you may not want to. You can choose any background you want.
  
  
• The Dark Urge: Another customization choice, but it comes with a few perks. During Act 1, you will acquire The Deathstalker Mantle, which is an incredible item to have through the whole game, and the grand reason for me to pick this origin. Has a little bit of risk, but the rewards are well worth it. You'll be locked to the Haunted One background.

This section talks about The Dark Urge, its perks and all that's relevant to Honour Mode. To put things simply, resisting your Urge leads to a far smoother gameplay, while giving in ends up cutting off a lot of potential allies and even Companions.


Some are rewards from bad outcomes, but some others are just there regardless of what happens.

• The Deathstalker Mantle. You'll always receive this.
  
  
• The Slayer, if you become Bhaal's Chosen.
  
  
• Power Word: Kill, if you embrace Bhaal after killing Orin.
  
  
• Access to the Temple of Bhaal without going through the Tribunal. This is a natural perk.
  
  
• A cool duel against Orin. You will always be prompted into the duel, but it can be interrupted at any time by your party, with limited consequences.
  
  
• Gortash is more willing to form an Alliance with you. Happens naturally.
  
  
• Helsik gives you Sceleritas' Hat when meeting her for the "first time".

There's a bunch of extra options when playing this origin, and a lot of them lead to negative outcomes, but they are usually written in Italic to denote more of interior conflicts. These are some notable ones that you might want to avoid.

• If you fantasize about Gale's hand when meeting him, you will ACTUALLY cut off his hand and kill him permanently. It is also the first dialogue option.
  
  
• Approaching Timber the Squirrel without Speak with Animals will make you automatically kick at her.
  
  
• Interacting with Nettie's bird gives you the option of brutalizing it.
  
  
• Trying to remember your past while talking to Steelclaw makes you kill her.
  
  
• Tilting your head to make Arabella flee results in her death.
  
  
• You can kill Minthara after sleeping with her by snapping her neck.

This is the first Urge-compelled murder that is relevant to the story. During a Long Rest, a Bard will appear at your camp, defaulting to Alfira, even if you never met her before, or Quil if Alfira is already dead or unavailable. If you let them on your camp, you'll kill them overnight by your bedroll, and there are no negative consequences regardless of telling the truth, hiding the corpse, or lying to your companions. If you shoo the Bard away, you'll follow them and kill them during the night.

If Alfira is killed, you'll miss out on her rewards upon saving Lakrissa later on Act 2, including the Potent Robe, which are very strong options for Sorcerers and Warlocks, and also miss out on some exclusive interactions down the road if you are a Bard. To prevent this, you'll need to "predict" the night Alfira will come to camp and KO her non-lethally before ending the day. Easy way to do this is have Astarion go alone and Sneak Attack her. To "forcefully" trigger this night consistently, visit Alfira on the first opportunity, then KO her and end the day. Camp without supplies until the scene triggers, KO'ing Alfira before every rest.

After this night, Sceleritas will appear during the night and give you The Deathstalker Mantle, a very powerful item to have, and the main reason to pick The Dark Urge, despite the risks involved.


On Act 2, Sceleritas asks to kill Isobel. You can kill her during Marcus' attack, or deal with Marcus, and then kill her at any point between this and The Gauntlet of Shar. Killing her grants you The Slayer form, which is very powerful, but the consequences include losing Dammon's stock on Act 3, losing her and Aylin as allies, as well as Lorroakan or Rolan, potentially losing Jaheira and Minsc as well.

The point is to keep her alive, you can simply not kill her or tell her that your blood wants you to kill her, but that you won't. No Saving Throws or Checks or anything in here.


If you refused to kill Isobel, then you'll get this cutscene after leaving the Shadowfell. There are a few options in here, but only one of them results in a clean night.

If you do nothing and or go back to sleep, you'll kill your companion during the night, and the whole camp will turn on you unless you manage to deceive them on a VERY hard Deception Check, I believe it's DC 30, but I never got this outcome.

In here you must choose to wake them up, and pass on a Wisdom Check with DC 14 to resist choking them to death. This is a Saving Throw, so having Beacon of Hope, Resistance, Ring of Protection, Cloak of Protection, Paladin's Aura of protection, all of these will give you buffs on this test, so be sure to use as many as you can. Also save as many Inspiration points as you can to avoid bad luck here. After you wake them up, you must tell them what's going on before you pass out, if you tell them it's nothing, you'll kill them. You'll be restrained and after this, you can pick whatever dialogue you want.


During Act 3, if you killed Isobel or your companion, you become Bhaal's Chosen and get The Slayer. If you didn't, you'll get a dream about Orin turning into the Slayer and stepping on you, revealing your origin. If Jaheira is with you, she wakes you up and confronts you about being a Bhaalspawn, as she can recognize you due to her travelling with Bhaalspawn before. Your dialogue choices affect what she does next, but telling her she can trust you has her keep watch over you, and then the next day she can explain you a lot about her past experiences with your kind.

If you are The Slayer, you get to step on Orin during your dream.

This also affects your duel against her, one of you will be The Slayer during the Fight. After killing her, regardless of how, you get to accept or reject Bhaal, and this affects your future. Still recommend you reject it, but if you embrace it, you won't have THAT much to deal with as if you accepted it during Act 2. Rejecting Bhaal here will remove any Bhaalspawn powers you may have acquired, except The Deathstalker Mantle.

• If you come here after rejecting Bhaal, Sarevok and the Echoes will judge you unworthy and try to kill you.
  
  
• If you come here after embracing Bhaal, Sarevok tries to usurp your place as Bhaal's Chosen.
  
  
• If you come here before Orin, there are some outcomes. If Jaheira and/or Minsc are with you, Sarevok calls you a traitor and becomes hostile unless you offer the heroes as a sacrifice OR make a Performance Check to have them bow to Sarevok, which opens up the possibility of them becoming Unholy Assassins.
  
  
• There is a scene where Jaheira and Minsc confront you in the tribunal if you embrace Bhaal, but I don't know the specific triggers for it, just that you need to have recruited Jaheira and Minsc before and embrace Bhaal somehow. The only outcome is to kill them both.

The earlier you embrace your Urges, the more negative consequences you'll have to deal with, so only embrace it if you are COMPLETELY sure you can handle the outcomes. There isn't really a reason not to choose The Dark Urge for Honour Mode, if you are prepared beforehand. And there isn't a reason to play Honour Mode if you are not prepared anyways.

• Barbarian: Karlach's default, so I didn't pick it. The 2 best options available are Wildheart and Berserker. I picked Wildheart for her, with the Tiger Heart. The reason behind this is because with Tiger's Bloodlust you can cleave at will and inflict Bleeding on demand. There are 2 Animal Aspects to pick later on, I picked Wolverine, that applies Maim to anything you attack that is either Bleeding or Poisoned, and then Tiger, that doubles your Strength modifier for damage against Bleeding targets. Mostly for the Maim, which stops enemies on their tracks, giving you a quick and reliable way to control enemies. I got Karlach to eat Ethel's Hair and Araj's Potion for extra numbers, as the next best option would already get extra Feats to make up for it.
  
  
• Bard: The class I picked for myself, more specifically the College of Swords. It has both strong physical fighting potential, as well as access to a bunch of powerful Support Spells. The Flourishes you get are extremely strong early on, and allow you to boost your defenses, push enemies away and cleave them, from Melee or Ranged. Spells will be covered separatedly.
  
  
• Cleric: Shadowheart's default. She starts as a Trickery Domain, which is notoriously terrible in battle, so I changed to Life, wanted to have a safe pick with a dedicated healer and area control. Other popular and strong Domains are Tempest, Light and War. Pick whichever one fits your playstyle better, all of them are perfectly capable of healing, dealing damage and controlling areas.
  
  
• Druid: Halsin's and Jaheira's default class. Honestly, Halsin exists mostly to be kidnapped by Orin, so Jaheira was my main Druid character. They also excel on area control, and Wild Shape makes them an instant threat. I picked Circle of the Moon for Wild Shape with Bonus Actions so I can cast a spell and transform, or just transform and start striking right away. Circle of the Land has extra spells, but none of them are capable of doing anything you can't do by default. I don't know much about the Circle of Spores.
  
  
• Fighter: Lae'zel's default. Personally, Battlemaster is the best Subclass by far. Disarming Strike makes the most fearsome enemies suddenly not that fearsome.
  
  
• Monk: If you want to play Monk, it is a powerful class from the very beginning of the game. I recommend Way of the Open Hand.
  
  
• Paladin: Minthara's default class. Both Oath of Devotion and Vengeance are powerful picks, and Divine Smites are terrifying. But now, you are the one doing the terrifying strikes.
  
  
• Ranger: Minsc's default. I only had good performance with Gloomstalker. Very good ranged fighter, and if you're using arrows and poisons, you can create a great variety of effects.
  
  
• Rogue: Astarion's default. I picked Assassin for him, as I wanted a specialized engager for world encounters. Taking enemies by surprise will often end the battle in your favor before they can do anything. Thief is a good combatant.
  
  
• Sorcerer: The Dark Urge's "default", this class is a nuke on any element you choose. Draconic Lineage gives you extra bonuses for specific elements. Wild Magic is NOT recommended for Honour Mode unless you want to add RnG to your battles.
  
  
• Warlock: Wyll's default, and honestly.... A terrible class. Main caster with extremely limited spellcasting on battle? Hard pass. But it still has its uses.
  
  
• Wizard: Gale's default, not exactly a walking nuke, but can learn spells from scrolls permanently, which gives it a huge toolkit to do pretty much anything you need. I never got out of Evocation, I like the reliability of Sculpt Spell.

My characters that I used on my first clear were as follow. I did not multiclass anyone except for The Dark Urge to grab Shovel the Quasit, and then changed back to full Bard at Withers.

• The Dark Urge: College of Swords Bard. I picked this because I wanted a versatile character with reliable Crowd Control.
  
  
• Shadowheart: Life Domain Cleric. I went for the safe pick here.
  
  
• Lae'zel: Battlemaster Fighter. Disarming Strike and other Maneuvres have lots of uses and can disable lots of enemies.
  
  
• Gale: Evocation Wizard. No particular reason except that I like the ease of use with Sculpt Spells.
  
  
• Wyll: The Fiend Warlock. I don't really like Warlocks, so I didn't change anything about Wyll. Picked Pact of the Blade for more versatility potential.
  
  
• Astarion: Assassin Rogue. The main reason was Assassin's Initiative. Astarion became my engager on most world fights, causing surprise attacks and getting actions back as the combat starts.
  
  
• Karlach: Wildheart Barbarian. Instead of the sheer damage of Berserker, I decided to go for the utility. Picking Tiger's Heart gives me Bleed on demand as a cleave, and there are 2 Animal Aspects that get bonuses against bleeding targets, Wolverine applying Maim on bleeding and poisoned targets, and Tiger doubling Strength modifier for damage rolls.
  
  
• Halsin: Circle of Moon Druid. He was there just to be kidnapped by Orin. Poor Halsin.
  
  
• Minthara: Oath of Vengeance Paladin. Minthara can now be recruited while helping the Grove, so she's coming with me. Devotion or Vengeance are the best Oaths, and don't really affect how you're smiting enemies.
  
  
• Jaheira: Circle of Moon Druid. I did use Jaheira a bit. Druids are notorious for their versatility, and Circle of Moon open up possibilites of either setting up spells before transforming, or transforming and start attacking from the start.
  
  
• Minsc: Gloomstalker Ranger. Minsc used the Sharpshooter feat to pick off enemies from a safe distance.
  
  
• Femme Dwarf Hireling: Blue Draconic Sorcerer. This was my personal spell nuke. Quickened Spell allows for high damage bursting as long as you can keep Spell Slots. I also got this Hireling thinking of a single fight, so I picked Blue Dragon for Lightning buffs.
  
  
• Femme Half-Elf Hireling: Any Domain Cleric. This one was here to cast buffs without spending my Party's Spell Slots.

Life Cleric is recommended to make your life easier, but it isn't mandatory, if you don't like the Domain, or just prefer to use another one. So far the only "mandatory" Class I've stumbled upon is Sorcerer, any subclass, Storm or Blue Draconic recommended, and only for the Steel Watch Titan. Again, as long as you have enough CC, enough survivability and can deal decent damage, any party comp will work.

There's lots of them, but here are some that are extraordinarily useful, even though they may not look like it. Some others are obviously useful, but have some non-obvious interactions.

• Friends: Safe to use on any charisma check if you don't play to stand around too much. A bunch of NPCs will accuse you of charming them, and Companions will disapprove being charmed.
  
  
• Light: Useful at the very beginning of Act 2. You don't want to keep carrying torches around like a caveman, do you? No you don't, so use Light instead.
  
  
• Produce Flame: Same reason as Light.
  
  
• Eldritch Blast: Warlock's main damage, easily the strongest cantrip, but tied to the weakest caster. Or is it?

• Longstrider: Any class that can learn it should be learning it at Lvl 1. It's a Ritual Spell, which means it's free to cast outside of combat, and adds 3m to your movement speed. Upcasting it allows to target multiple characters to buff faster. This spell literally changes the flow of battle, allowing you to effectively kite enemies around, or engage them faster.
  
  
• Find Familiar: Cats can meow and lure NPCs to investigate, helping position them before engaging battle for some AoE bombs. Spiders can poison. Ravens can blind. They can also enter small pipes and holes and move objects.
  
  
• Disguise Self: The corpse is willing to speak, but not to its killer. Disguise and try again. If you are not playing as Githyanki, disguising as one will give you a much smoother entry at the Crèche. Some other races and body types will trigger some reactions from some other NPCs that can be used to your favor.
  
  
• Sanctuary: It can save your life, literally. Keep it slotted if you have a slot to spare.
  
  
• Hex: Another Warlock specific spell. It procs extra damage per hit, which means multiple hits = multiple necrotic rolls.
  
  
• Sleep: Completely overpowered on the beginning of the game, but quickly loses its use once enemies get stronger.
  
  
• Command: Never leave this one out of your list. Forcing an enemy to do something will change your game. Steel Watchers are particularly vulnerable to this.

• Aid: Upcasting this adds +5 Max HP per level, includes allies and summons. Caster can leave the party after buffing.
  
  
• Crown of Madness: It turns an enemy hostile to EVERYTHING, this includes civillians and neutral mobs, those will join the fight if nearby and might ruin some situations, like freeing the gnome slaves in Grymforge.
  
  
• Darkness: This provides complete cover for all your thieving needs, as well as a safezone against spells and ranged attacks. Mandatory during Halsin's quest to protect the portal to the Shadowfel.
  
  
• Hold Person: It's overpowered. A LOT of bosses are vulnerable to this, including all 3 Goblin Leaders, Anders, Lorroakan, Gortash, Orin (Humanoid Form only, you fight her when The Dark Urge becomes the Slayer during Act 2), Viconia... And the list goes on.
  
  
• Spike Growth: Very early terrain control spell, forcing enemies to walk on those can kill them before they stop running. Very useful to defend the Grove from the Goblins, sappers will die on their own before reaching the gate. Worst case scenario they'll go around it if there's a safe route.
  
  
• Warding Bond: Somehow people haven't noticed how overpowered this spell is. It gives full resistance to everything, at the cost of the caster taking the same damage that you do. But here's the catch, the caster doesn't need to be in your party. So you can have someone cast it, leave the party, and they'll bleed safely at camp while you have a full party. This trivializes Orin's duel against The Dark Urge.

• Counterspell: If you have a Wizard, it HAS to have Counterspell. Some fights can be made significantly easier by Counterspelling the right casts.
  
  
• Daylight: Another buff that doesn't require the caster to stay in the party. While not useful always, there are 2 fights where this spell shine. Cazador takes 20 Radiant damage each turn and becomes weakened when illuminated by Daylight, and we have Viconia. Her case is a bit special, and way less obvious. Overwhelming Grief applies Call of the Dark Lady, and it won't damage creatures fully illuminated, so it won't damage a creature with a Daylight weapon. Shadow Step also can't be used to approach these characters, unless there is a pocket of Darkness nearby. It also counters Living Shadow, and many other Sharran buffs, debuffs and passives.
  
  
• Hunger of Hadar: The third and last of the Warlock exclusive spells that try to carry the Class. It is in fact an overpowered spell, way better on the hands of another caster that isn't crippled when breaking Concentration.

• Confusion: It can shut down entire groups of enemies for a few turns, including having them attack their allies.
  
  
• Death Ward: Yet another spell that the caster doesn't need to stay on your party.
  
  
• Freedom of Movement: Guess what? Caster can leave the party.

• Insect Plague: Huge area control spell, can be combined with gas cloud spells like Hunger of Hadar and ground terrains like Spike Growth.

• Blade Barrier: You can use this to effectively divide the arena. It blocks Line of Sight, and also blocks projectiles, like Draconic Wrath counters.
  
  
• Globe of Invulnerability: Everything inside becomes immune to damage, including self-inflicted, like when a Guardian of Faith smites an enemy, it won't lose HP.
  
  
• Heroes' Feast: You guessed it, caster can leave the party. It also makes you immune to being Poisoned, Diseased and Frightened. Notable cases include Stinky Cloud inflicting Nauseous.
  
  
• Otto's Irresistible Dance: It ALWAYS works. Creatures cannot make saves against it when first applied or on their first turn.

• Danse Macabre: Learned from Necromancy of Thay after reaching The Tarchiate Codex. The 4 Ghouls can paralyse with their Claw attacks. They can also be buffed by party buffs.
  
  
• Draconic Elemental Weapon: Usable from Drakethroat Glaive, purchased from Roah Moonglow at Moonrise Towers. It can enchant other weapons, lasts until Long Rest.
  
  
• Kereska's Favour: Used with Markoheshkir, a Quarterstaff that can be stolen from Ramazith's Tower on Act 3. Has 6 elements to choose from, and grants 2 Spells and an element-specific buff/debuff.
  
  
• Find Familiar: Cheeky Quasit: Can be learned permanently by Sorcerers, Wizards and Warlocks if you get Shovel to like you before taking the Necromancy of Thay. Shovel is EXTREMELY useful. It has permanent invisibility, can be used to threaten enemies, and is completely immune to poison, meaning she can walk through poison traps to block vents, and walk around enemies without entering combat. It means you can save Shovel to try to break a caster's concentration via a surprise attack in the middle of combat. Shovel can also trigger switches and buttons by attacking them, useful on the Iron Throne to help release prisoners and locking/unlocking doors, as well as move objects around, and stand on Cazador's runes to disrupt his ritual sources, while invisible and out of combat. Her limit is your creativity.
  
  
• Find Familiar: Scratch: The best boy of all the Realms can use the Help action in battle. Using Sanctuary on him makes him safe to anything except AoEs. Notably useful to release Astarion on Cazador's ritual, Volo from his execution, and Omeluum from the Iron Throne.

So, I didn't use Tadpoles this run. I don't like the concept of using them, but I kept the Astral Tadpole just in case I felt that I'd need a push. Some Illithid powers are pretty much useless, and some are worth taking even if you don't get the Awakened buff from the Crèche.

• Favourable Beginnings: Very useful on combat, but really shines on dialogue checks.
  
  
• Luck of the Far Realms: Critical Hit on demand. This has a natural synergy with Surgeon's Subjugation Amulet, and allows you to quickly kill Humanoid bosses.
  
  
• Cull the Weak: It's worth if you are taking all the powers, can cause chain reactions.
  
  
• Illithid Expertise: You gain Expertise in Persuasion, Deception and Intimidation. This means you also get Proficiency, so if you already have them, you can respec at Withers to get Proficiency in other skills as well.
  
  
• Psionic Dominance: Counterspell for any character, but limited to Level 4 Spells only, as this is based on your Proficiency Bonus.
  
  
• Black Hole: The crème de la crème of Illithid Powers. Keep pulling enemies at your danger zones and laugh as they get slowed and cannot escape or do anything.
  
  
• Psionic Overload: All your attacks deal an extra 1d4 Psychic Damage, but you take 1d4 Psychic Damage every turn. Multi-hit attacks will deal extra attacks per roll, which means a fully upgraded Eldritch Blast will deal a total of +3d4 extra Psychic Damage. Loses a ton of potential without the Awakened buff.
  
  
• Fly: It's fly, but permanent.
  
  
• Mind Blast: Mindflayers annoy you with this, now you can annoy them back.
  
  
• Freecast: This is Arcane Battery.
  
  
• Displacer Beast Shape: Become kitty on steroids. It doesn't count as a druid's Wild Shape, but functionally works the same way. Illusory Copies won't move, but will attack anything that moves in their range, so you can use them at choke points to have free attacks to anything that runs past it. It also gets the benefits of Improved Extra Attack even if you don't have it naturally.

Neat buff that suddenly makes Illithid powers ever so more tempting. Instead of a full Action, they now cost a Bonus Action. You get this by succeeding on all Saving Throws when sitting on the Zaith'isk at Crèche Y'llek. A lot of powers aren't worth using without this buff.

Yeah, everyone knows about the Legendary weapons, Everburn Blade, and all this crap that's featured on "Top 10 Items you don't know about in Baldur's Gate 3" YouTube videos, I won't be including these real obvious ones unless they are REALLY notable. But here, you'll read about some more hidden-ish items or interactions between them.

• Githyanki Greatsword: Not the average variant, but the one wielded by Sarth Baretha. This specific one deals +1d4 Psychic damage when wielded by Githyanki. If you don't want to risk fighting the whole patrol, you can enter Turn Based Mode as soon as Voss flies away and attack Baretha before she runs away.
  
  
• Returning Pike: By now everyone knows how powerful this weapon is. Just get it as soon as you reach the Goblin Camp.
  
  
• Ritual Dagger: Easily missed, this is one of the weapons that Abdirak can use on your penance. It grants a +1d4 bonus to attack rolls and saving throws on a hit, or can be activated with a bonus action. Pretty good early dagger.
  
  
• Bow of the Banshee: You can either buy or loot this from Corsair Greymon. Cannot be obtained if you push him into the water when crossing the lake. It frightens creatures on a hit, and has +1d4 on attack and damage rolls against frightened creatures.
  
  
• Darkfire Shortbow: Sold by Dammon at Last Light Inn, gives Fire and Cold resistance and lets you cast Haste.
  
  
• Drakethroat Glaive: Already mentioned earlier on Draconic Elemental Weapon.
  
  
• Ne'er Misser: Hand Crossbow that deals Force damage instead of Piercing. Sold by Roah in Moonrise Towers.
  
  
• Infernal Rapier: While this is technically meant for Wyll, it is PERFECT for a Swords Bard. Warlocks will mostly cast Eldritch Blast instead of just attacking. If you have a Bard, take Wyll to the Mindflayer Colony so you can get this weapon.
  
  
• Staff of Cherished Necromancy: Looted from Mystic Carrion, this Staff basically gives you free infinite Necromancy casts if you can snowball its effect.
  
  
• Bhaalist Armour: You can only access this if you become an Unholy Assassin at the Murder Tribunal. Grants you Aura of Murder, making nearby foes vulnerable to Piercing Damage. Also makes neutral mobs run away from you as an unintended side effect, as they want to avoid the debuff.
  
  
• Yuan-Ti Scale Mail: Medium armor that adds your full Dexterity to AC. Buy from the Quartermaster at Last Light Inn.
  
  
• Protective Plate: Looted from an Animated Armor at the bottom of the pit on the Morgue near House of Healing on the Shadow Cursed Lands. Gives Necrotic resistance.
  
  
• Icebite Robe: Grants Cold resistance and allows you to cast Armour of Agathys at Level 3. Acquired at the graveyard near House of Healing.
  
  
• Surgeon's Subjugation Amulet: Sure, everyone knows about this, but some people don't usually connect the dots between this item and Luck of the Far Realms from the Illithid Powers.
  
  
• Helldusk Boots: Another widely known item, but most people don't realize you can acquire it as soon as you get to Wyrm's Rock. During the coronation, have a character use any kind of Invisibility to climb the fortress walls and sneak in Gortash's Office. The easy way is to use Wild Shape Panther as Jaheira or Halsin. Steal the chest and bail.
  
  
• Fleshmelter Cloak: On a chest located on a ledge at the Pit on the Morgue. Barbarians are constantly taking hits, so you might as well deal some damage back.
  
  
• The Deathstalker Mantle: The main reason behind picking The Dark Urge.
  
  
• Hellrider's Pride: This item is essential for your healer, and will vastly improve your survivability on combat. Given by Zevlor after you stop the Ritual of Thorns.
  
  
• Gloves of the Balanced Hands: Grants you the Feat Two-Weapon Fighting. Sold by the Quartermaster at Last Light Inn.
  
  
• Wondrous Gloves: Dropped by a Mimic at Grymforge, near the Harper's Stash. Bards will be using this, probably for the whole game.
  
  
• Bonespike Gloves: Easy to miss, these gloves are dropped by Strangler Luke during the ritual trial at the entrance of the Temple of Bhaal. You have to kill and loot Luke before you finish the trial, or else the body vanishes. Ignores resistance to Slashing, Piercing and Bludgeoning damage.
  
  
• Gauntlets of the Warmaster: Imposes Disadvantage agains Manoeuvre attacks. Sold by Danthelon on Act 3.
  
  
• The Reviving Hands: Direct upgrade to Hellrider's Pride, it is sold by the Vicar at Stormshore Tabernacle on Lower City.
  
  
• Diadem of Arcane Synergy: Looted from an Ardent at the Inquisitor fight. Perfect for Swords Bards and Eldritch Knights.
  
  
• Strange Conduit Ring: Found at the Inquisitor's chamber. A lot of characters can make good use of this, especially Rangers with Hunter's Mark and Swords Bards using Slashing Flourishes.
  
  
• The Whispering Promise: Grants +1d4 to attack and saving rolls to creatures you heal by ANY means. Essential for healers. First opportunity to get it is by trading with Volo at the Grove.
  
  
• Band of the Mystic Scoundrel: Now this one is really hidden. After winning the Jackpot on Akabi's Wheel of Wonders, enter the cave, climb the roots on the back and you can find it on a Skeleton outside the cave. Illusion and Enchantment can be cast as Bonus Actions after hitting a weapon attack. Once your Bard gets this, it becomes a true Spellblade, spamming CC spells and attacking at the same time.
  
  
• Boots of Psionic Movement: Looted from Ch'r'ai Har'rak at the basement of Elfsong Tavern in Act 3. The special thing about this item is how the damage buff works. It only adds 1d4 Psychic damage to your NEXT attack, and ONLY for Githyanki. But the thing is, there's no limit on how many times you can buff yourself with Flying Strike on a turn, so you can fly, attack, fly, attack, fly attack for a total of 3d4 extra psychic damage. It works with ANY type of Flying, not just the one you get from the boots, and you can use Disguise Self to turn into a Gith if you aren't one.
  
  
• Callous Glow Ring: Looted from a Treasure Vault near Balthazar at the Gauntlet of Shar. At first it may not seem much, as it deals only 2 extra damage, and only to illuminated creatures, but then, nothing ever seems much at first. The extra damage applies to every type of damage you deal, including spells, there are TONS of ways to keep enemies illuminated, it buffs individual hits of multi-hit spells, and more importantly, it deals Radiant Damage. Now, enemies like the Vengeful Cambions on Raphael's fight will be protected by Fleeting Protection, which vanishes upon activation, which means this item can deactivate this pesky retort for the mere price of 4 Fire Damage, leaving them free to be Divine Smited to oblivion. Not quite sure if Sharran's Radiant Retort also expires after activation, but if it does, there's that too.
  
  
• Noblestalk: If you give Derryth the Noblestalk you find in the Underdark, she'll have more in a replenishable stock once you get to Act 3. It is really worth giving it to her, as it makes for a very cheap FULL heal, so be sure to keep some in your inventory just in case.

More in-depth explanations and interactions about certain Feats.

• Alert: The higher the difficulty, the earlier you want this. Initiative rolls on BG3 are made with a d4, so the +5 from this feat makes a huge difference. Battles are often decided by how the first turn plays out, and outspeeding enemies can let you deal with threats before they can act.
  
  
• Great Weapon Master: Specially good on Barbarians using Reckless Attack. Semi-Useless for Berserker. If you want to use this on Paladins and Fighters, be sure to have a few bonuses to attack roll.
  
  
• Polearm Master: Useful if your weapons of choice are Glaives and Halberds. Allows you to make Opportunity Attacks to enemies that ENTER your range. When combined with Sentinel, you can fully stop an enemy that tries to approach you.
  
  
• Savage Attacker: Rogues and Fighters get additional Feats, and this is a solid pick.
  
  
• Sharpshooter: Works like Great Weapon Master, but for ranged weapons. Rangers have an easier time using this than other Classes. Dual Wielding Hand Crossbows also apply the extra damage.
  
  
• Tavern Brawler: Core Feat for Throw and Strength Monk builds, but it also works for Druid Wild Shapes, but not entirely. I was getting the bonus to attack rolls, but not for damage. Maybe it's a bug, since it is supposed to work with Wild Shapes.
  
  
• Spell Sniper: If you're playing Sorcerer, this is your way to learn Eldritch Blast without picking useless Warlock Levels. You won't get the benefits of Agonizing and Repelling Blast, but you'll still fire 3 bolts, spells will hit critically at 19, and it will still benefit from Gregarious Caster from Potent Robe. Slightly less powerful, but you won't lose access to Lvl 6 Spell Slots, which is a real good deal.

This is a very general section covering a variety of not-so-obvious tricks and interactions.

• Throw: Everyone knows you can throw enemies around. But not everyone knows that you can do this with Guardian of Faith and Scrying Eyes to quickly get rid of them.
  
  
• Shove: Water and Earth Elementals, as well as Myrmidons can be shoved, as they aren't incorporeal. Useful to reduce incoming damage at the Trial of the Torch at the Wyrmway.
  
  
• Sanctuary and Rituals: Very useful against the Bhaalists. At the trial to enter the Temple of Bhaal, you can interrupt the Power Word Kill ritual by knocking Prone the caster. To get to him easily, use Fly or Enhanced Leaps to jump over the chasm. You can do the same to the Bhaalists chanting the Boon ritual during Orin's fight, if you interrupt all of them, Orin won't be buffed by Bhaal's Boon. Since they use sanctuary, it's a bit harder to do it, but Druids can WildShape into Owlbear and jump at them to Prone in area, and other AoE pushing effects can knock them over the chasm.
  
  
• Multi Hit Spells and Arcane Acuity: Each hit will grant stacks of Arcane Acuity, further increasing hit chance for the next hits.
  
  
• Line of Sight blockers: Spells that create solid obstacles like Blade Barrier and Stone Wall can be used to break Line of Sight and block incoming projectlies, like Draconic Wrath.
  
  
• Ethereal Escape and other reactions: Those cannot be used by enemies incapacitated in some way. Haarlep, for one, won't react with Ethereal Escape if you knock them prone, stun, paralyse... Legendary Actions behave in the same way.
  
  
• Non-Concentration Buffs and Hirelings: Buffs from some spells like Sanctuary don't require the caster to stay in the party, or even in the same instance. So you can get a Hireling exclusively for buffing purposes. Spells that behave like this include, but aren't limited to, Longstrider, Heroes' Feast, Death Ward, Freedom of Movement, Aid, Warding Bond and Mage Shield. Swap to your buffing character, apply all buffs you need, and then dismiss them and take back your buffed characters. Another use for Hirelings is to cover for classes and niche roles that you don't have access normally, like Bards and Sorcerers, or if you miss one of the companions.
  
  
• Disarming Enemies and stealing weapons: Not all enemies will pick up their weapons after being disarmed, most notoriously the Steel Watchers. For those who will, you can pick up their weapons right after disarming, and if you can't reach them, you can drag the weapon around until it's on your range.

Now, the section you are here for. In this section I'll briefly explain how I dealt with each notable fight and boss, including Party composition and other strategy possibilities. I'm listing those in the order I faced them, and may include some small trivia about my run.


Just an average tutorial section. Nothing changes here from Tactician. Command the Cambion to drop the Everburn Blade and leave, don't stress if you don't get it, it is a quickly replaced weapon, only gives you a bit of a boost on some of the first battles.



A lot of people seem to have trouble with these. You can skip them by jumping up some ledges or sneaking around them, and come back with a full party. If you have Minor Illusion, you can use it near the Nautiloid Tank to make them investigate it, and then explode it once they're stacked. You can also approach them from the rear and surprise attack them.


Battling the Looters at the Chapel is easily won by shooting the rope holding the block of stone above two enemies, killing them instantly.


The Skeletons before Withers' coffin can be looted before starting the battle. Pick up their weapons to limit their attacks, and break Line of Sight on the Scribes by hiding inside the secret room.


Basic fight to defend the gates. Just figured why not include it. All the basic stuff to do here. Get the treasures, start investigating on Kagha, talk to everyone, deal with Alfira if you're The Dark Urge.



Another notoriously hard fight, don't attempt it before at least Level 3, ideally at Level 4. I used Shadowheart, Karlach and Lae'zel. The objective here was to disable Anders as quickly as possible. Lae'zel used Action Surge on Disarming Attacks, while Shadowheart was Commanding him to Drop his weapon, and The Dark Urge using Hold Person. This is how important it is to disable Anders, or else he will kill 2 of your party members with Divine Smite.

• Be sure to run out of the house as soon as the battle ends to avoid accidental deaths by Karlach's rampage.

Your rewards are arguably better if you kill Kagha instead of redeeming her during her questline. Stopping the Ritual will also allow you to safely steal the Idol of Sylvanus for Mol without starting a civil war.



Bards can nullify the Harpies' Song during dialogue with Mirkon. If you're paranoid, you can cast Sanctuary on Mirkon. Breaking Concentration on the songs takes priority over killing Harpies, unless no one is charmed. Ranged Attacks are way more valuable than Melee, avoid wading on Water.



I wanted to recruit her later, so I turned Non Lethal Damage on. I dealt with her the same way I dealt with Anders. Had Karlach pick up Goblins and Scrying Eyes and throwing them off in the chasm to quickly get rid of them.

• If you loot Minthara's equipment, she will be naked when you reach Moonrise Towers. Nobody seemed to mind.

Or maybe you are fighting her at the Grove?



For this fight I used Shadowheart, Karlach and Gale. Patch #6 gave Dror his very own LA.

• Legendary Action: Devoted Galvanism: Once per turn, when you attack one of his minions, Dror can grant Action Surge to all allies within 5m.

Dealing with his LA isn't really an issue, if you Throw Goblins away to the Spiders then it won't count as an attack, an so he won't react to it, same with Shove. Just be careful when setting up your characters on the rafters above, you are very vulnerable to a Shove when up there.

A character throwing Returning Pike from the rafters above deal massive damage to anyone they hit, but it's a dangerous position to be as some Goblins carry Void Bulbs. A real solid strategy is to yeet Goblins into the spider pit while controlling Dror. He doesn't have a high Wisdom score, so Hold Person and Commands work well against him.



Before the fight started, I sent Shovel invisible to stand by the lever that opens the gate to the spider pit. I engaged Gut from behind, right after Dror, and threw away any Goblins from my higher ground. Then had Shovel attack the lever to open the cage and unleash chaos. I also summoned the Ogres.



This was the first boss I faced with a Legendary Action. For this fight I dismissed Gale and got Astarion for engagement power.

• Legendary Action: Gossamer Tomb: The Spider Matriarch reacts when her minions are attacked. It incapacitates a creature and Infests it, dealing massive Poison damage unless removed with Acid or Fire

Send your engager alone sneaking and watch her movement. Once she starts crossing the web bridge to the left, engage for a surprise round and destroy the web under her. She'll fall prone and take a lot of fall damage. If you need to kill spiderlings, break the Queen's Line of Sight or make sure she's incapacitated. This way she won't be able to react with her LA.

• She can be Commanded pretty consistently.
  
  
• Shovel can do another cheeky task here. After the Matriarch falls down, have Shovel run to the right side and break the eggs outside of combat to limit the number of minions in the event that you lose control of the fight.

Part 2, covering whatever's left. Smaller sections might be easier to manage too.


Another surprise attack. You can funnel down the Gnolls into a Cloud of Daggers while breaking LoS to force the Hunters to run to you by staying on the south end and hiding behind the rocks.



You don't want to face Ethel with her Masks, so engage them beforehand. If you KO them, they count as saved, and the Halfling will show up on Act 3. Do not Long Rest, or you'll have to KO them again. Use Shovel to block the poison vents as you navigate your way down. She also has a LA.

• Legendary Action: Weird Magic Surge: Ethel reacts to spells you cast by creating more duplicates and shuffling herself with them.

Have Shovel run around hitting the copies, and a ranged character shooting the ones further away. Keep Ethel debuffed the whole fight and you'll be able to tell them apart very easily. If you don't get rid of the copies, they'll cast Hold Person and Ray of Sickness until you die. When she swaps with Mayrina, examine them both and look for the one that doesn't have a pregnancy belly, that's the real Ethel.

• Have Shovel invisible so she can move freely and attack a copy with Advantage. Whenever she is out of range of a copy, have her go Invisible again.
  
  
• Controlling the copies takes priority over hitting Ethel. Do not let her copies alive.
  
  
• Bring a Water Bottle to throw at Mayrina's Cage to stop it from burning
  
  
• If you want to take Ethel's deal, have her on low HP and stop attacking, she'll offer it to the nearest character your Avatar once it's her turn.
  
  
• Once per battle, Ethel can use A Coven of Hags to go invisible, teleport to a random location, and summon 2 to 5 copies of herself. Keeping the copies in check is the way to victory.
  
  
• Cantrips also count as spells to trigger Weird Magic Surge, so if you're bringing a caster, you want to be sure you can handle the extra copy and all the shuffling around.

Bit of a rough fight, this one. Try being at least Lvl 3, ideally 4.

• Legendary Action: Call Consort: When attacked, the Owlbear reacts by summoning a second Owlbear. It only triggers once.

Andrick and Brynna can help, but they may kill the Cub. It's hard to settle for danger zone spells because they can use Crushing Flight. They can be poisoned, so use as many as you can, Drow Poison and such. Do not save Spell Slots, and do not try to down both at once, you don't want 2 enraged Owlbears at the same time. Bring a lot of healing potions, you'll be throwing them a lot. If you can CC them, anything goes, this fight is pretty fearsome, but manageable.

• If you get the glitch where the Cub doesn't play the cutscene where he eats his mother, just escape combat and do a Long Rest. He will be gone and then will be at the Goblin Camp as normal.

It's pretty doable at Lvl 4, but ideally you want to be Lvl 5 here. You don't NEED to fight it at all, but Sarth Baretha wields an unique version of Githyanki Greatsword that deals an additional 1d4 Psychic damage when wielded by Gith, thus making it a great weapon for Lae'zel for quite some time.

• If you resolve the conflict peacefully, the whole squad will leave, BUT you can quickly swap to Turn Based Mode to engage them on your terms, including a Surprise round, as soon as dialogue with Voss ends.
  
  
• One of the Gith uses Hold Person, so try to kill him quickly, or at least Disarm him (and every other Gith because why not).

Each section has a character limit that I can type, so I'm dividing them by a not-exactly arbitrary criteria.


Not a challenge at all, but might as well. Destroy the mushrooms near the broken wall, and engage from up there by shooting a statue. It is possible to take it by surprise.

• You can Ignore the Drow that get unpetrified, they'll stop the battle once the Spectator is dead.
  
  
• They will most likely attack you after the dialogue, unless you are a Femme Drow or disguised as one, in this case you can use the matriarchal structure of Drow society to make him give you all about his research and stop going after the forge.

This thing flees when low on HP, but is very territorialist, and will fight other monsters instead of you when available. On my run this was the second time I called the Ogres, I wanted to gangbang it quickly before it fled. Stay away from edges, and keep the party spread. Apparently, it has a LA, but I never saw it personally. Or didn't notice. As of Patch 5 Hotfix 15, this LA is on the game files, but currently unused, but it is still tied to the Bulette.

• Legendary Action: Shredding Scales: Reacts to being attacked, explodes dealing Slashing damage and inflicts Bleed.

Well, uh, just fight it, this text is a placeholder anyways



Barely worth mentioning, but they like getting Invisible. Good opportunity for Turn Undead.

• You don't need the Duergar Antidote to save Thulla, a regular Antidote works as well.
  
  
• Gekh attacks on sight if you have Glut with you.

Yeah, this isn't a fight, but is an important decision with consequences. There are 4 outcomes here.

• The Dark Urge eats the Noblestalk: You recover a memory about performing a vivisection on a victim.
  
  
• Convince Shadowheart to eat the Noblestalk: She remembers being friends with a Tiefling boy with short horns and purple hair named Rennald. Later on Act 3 you discover this was Nocturne before her transition, and they both talk about it a bit.
  
  
• Give the Noblestalk to Baelen and have him eat it: Baelen gets his mind healed and reverts to his abusive violent personality. Later on Act 3 Derryth manages to flee and leave him for good.
  
  
• Give the Noblestalk to Derryth: She doesn't have anything to thank you. But once you reach Act 3, she is grateful that you helped her hold on, and has a few Noblestalk for sale, that renew with Long Rests. Noblestalk is a full heal when eaten. This one can be eaten by The Dark Urge to trigger the memory as well, but has no effect in Shadowheart.

If Baelen dies in the Underdark, Derryth goes back to Baldur's Gate by herself. You can talk to Myshka outside and take him to Derryth, and she will adopt the cat.


He's another boss with a LA. Having Lightning resistance makes this fight a lot easier. I faced him with Shadowheart, Karlach and Lae'zel.

• Legendary Action: Leaping Static: Triggers when attacked, it is a weaker version of Chain Lightning.

There are 6 Animated Armors on this fight. The best course of action here is to knock enemies to the floors below, dealing fall damage and forcing them to run and use the elevator to get back. Lae'zel has Pushing Attack, Swords Bards have Mobile Flourish, Thunderwave is another easy option. Push whatever you can out of the tower, while threatening the crossbows. Bernard won't react if he's pushed away, or if he's too far below to have a Line of Sight on you. If you need to attack him without pushing him away, spread your characters 6m away from each other to minimize damage.

• If you have the right lines of the play, you can get him to hug you.
  
  
• His head can be found later in the Steel Watch Foundry if you defeated him.

I took Shadowheart, Karlach and Lae'zel. There are quite a few things that make the fight easier.

• The most common one is to make a deal with Elder Britvar, half of the Dwarves will join you against Nere. Unless you are a Paladin, you can betray him without negative consequences.
  
  
• You can also kill the slavers before you blow up the wall. This way you'll face Nere by himself.
  
  
• Just leave Nere to die and you don't have to fight him. This affects the Ironhand Gnomes.

He also got his very own LA.

• Legendary Action: Psionic Visage: It's an upgrade of Blur. While Nere has it active, he is immune to Slashing, Piercing and Bludgeoning damage, and explodes one of his duplicates when he gets hit. It is a reaction from being attacked.

Nere has a low Wisdom Score, making him vulnerable to Crowd Control spells, notably Hold Person and Command. Those spells won't trigger his LA because he isn't being attacked. Deal with him quickly while the dwarves kill each other, and stay away from lava to avoid being knocked into it. If you fail to CC Nere, shift your focus on the Mind Masters.

• If you use spells like Crown of Madness or Confusion, it makes the targets hostile to everyone, including the Gnomes, making them join combat and most likely die.
  
  
• If Nere dies on Lava, his corpse becomes too damaged and you cannot take his head off.

Personally, I waited a while to face him. His LA is a bit harsh and you can't incapacitate him unless you get a hammer hit. When facing him I had Shadowheart, Lae'zel and Karlach, all equipped with Bludgeoning weapons.

• Legendary Action: Adamantine Reverberation: After being hit, Grym reacts, and gets 10 temporary HP and double movespeed while those last. When you pop the shield, he'll release a shockwave that knocks everyone around him back and deals Thunder damage.

There are a number of tactics against him, including throwing Returning Pike from all the way up to the stairs, or diving him as an Owlbear. Here I'm covering the average tactic. If you intend to take risks, get Fire resistance on your characters so they can step on lava and survive.

Position one character at each platform, melees close to his spawn point and the lever, healer and ranged all the way across the forge. Turn off Attacks of Opportunity. Start the fight by opening the valve and meleeing him, you can break his shield as long as you have room behind you to be safely knocked back. After melee'ing him, shoot him across the forge to make him target your ranged. Do not perform Attacks of Opportunity here. Position yourself correctly and Grym will walk towards you and stop at the hammer. Hit the hammer and Mephits will spawn. Deal with them as quickly as you can, briefly ignoring Grym. Make sure to always have room behind your characters to avoid being knocked on lava.

Repeat the strategy until you bonk Grym to death, by luring him back to his spawn and across the forge again. Do not leave the Lava Valve unattended, and if you cannot hurt Grym, open it again to renew the lava timer. Only the first hammer hit is consistent enough, other hits require you to manipulate Grym's movespeed or risk jumping back and forth on the crucible, or just getting very precise with your positioning. You can also go all in for the kill if his HP is low enough, leaping on lava, but only if you have Fire resistance.


And a second video showcasing another trick.

The Crèche has a lot of dangerous spells, so I take Shadowheart, Gale and Lae'zel. Gale is there mainly to Slow enemies and Counterspell dangerous casts. In my run I waited until I reached Moonrise before backtracking to the Crèche, to better prepare for the Inquisitor.

• Try to avoid using fire too much against the Kobolds if you are inside the room. If you're staying out, Fireball to your heart's content. One of them holds the Ceremonial Mace, so take it.
  
  
• Avoid any kind of Magic against the Gremishka, you may trigger a chain reaction resulting in utter chaos.
  
  
• Be wary when trying to take the Ceremonial Warhammer from the Eagles. If you aggro them, kill the mother quickly before she can call for reinforcements.
  
  
• If you are feeling bold, you can pick up the Guardian of Faith and throw him to some corner and steal the Ceremonial Battleaxe. Or just kill it from range.
  
  
• Hold off performing the ceremony until you are about to fight the Inquisitor. When you get the Dawnmaster Crest, you get a buff that adds +1d4 Radiant damage to your weapons, and every buff counts.
  
  
• If you are a Githyanki or disguised as one, you'll have an easier time entering the Crèche without risking combat.

If you fail saving throws on the Zaith'isk, you'll get permanent stat debuffs that can only be healed by eating Tadpoles. But if you succeed, your Tadpole grows stronger and you get the Awakened Buff. After the machine explodes, you can convince the Ghustil that your Tadpole died, or just wait for her to lock you in and attack you. The crèche as a whole doesn't care if you attack and kill groups of Gith, unless they see you doing it.

Also make a stop at the Quartermaster to acquire anything you want before you face the Inquisitor.


She has a few dangerous moves, including Soulbreaker to stun you, Fear, and she calls reinforcements. But she is tragically vulnerable to Hold Person, Disarming Attacks and Coating Poisons. You can put her to sleep with Drow Poison, or paralyse her with Karabazan's Poison. You can also throw Sleep Potions at her. Be ready to Counterspell Fear if she tries to use it.



If anyone can remember how to properly write and pronounce this name, this person deserves a cookie. This guy is dangerous, his LA is dangerous, his minions are dangerous...

• Legendary Action: Mind-Claw of Tu'narath: Summons two spirit weapons when he or his allies are attacked. When a sword hits someone, the Ch'r'ai can react with Mindsteal Link.

This guy is problematic, but not impossible. You HAVE to keep the fight under control at all times, or else he'll just snowball you with endless swords. He has high Wisdom and Legendary Resistance, so it's harder to Command and Hold Person him, but not impossible. You can CC him like you did with the Kith'rak.

When I fought him, I had Lae'zel attack him relentlessly, she managed to remove Legendary Resistance and get a Critical in. Shadowheart used Spirit Guardians and ran to him, while I cast Crown of Madness on the Crossbowman at the back to keep the Fighter busy. Counterspell his Misty Step so he cannot escape, so I can keep pressuring my advantage on him. When he dies, all swords despawn, and then all that's left is to clean the trash.



Go become a Loot Goblin and pick up all the shiny stuff the Gith have. There are a few magic items around, lots of gold to be made by selling stuff, and good experience. Killing the Quartermaster allows you to take some items for free. Whatever else you wanted you could have stolen while she was neutral, or just buy it.


You're here, reading this, so you had problems with this fight at some point. Luckily for you, you won't anymore, as long as you understand how they do their thing and how to deal with it.

Starting with Act 2, I took the Underdark Route, so I met the Harpers first. I used Light and Produce Flame to light my surroudings instead of torches. My starting party for this was Shadowheart, Karlach and Astarion.

• When approaching Last Light, you'll see a Dead Crow that's been cursed. Interacting with it will spawn a bunch of birds with 1 HP. Cast Spirit Guardians right before doing it, stack everyone tightly and pass everyone's turns, the birds will kill themselves and you'll get a bunch of easy Exp.
  
  
• To save Rolan, after talking to him and leaving Last Light, follow the river Southwest until you come by some shadows killed with fire. Rolan will be just ahead, move in quickly to enter combat before the Shadows overwhelm him.

If you are siding with Isobel, have Shadowheart use Spirit Guardians and Healing Word to apply Blade Ward on her via Hellrider's Pride. Have Shadowheart protect Isobel at all times like this. I had Astarion be the one killing Marcus, Karlach damaging the Ghouls to let Spirit Guardians finish them, and since I wanted to make sure the Tieflings were safe, I sent The Dark Urge outside the room to pick off the enemies below with ranged attacks.

Other effective forms of protection are Warding Bond, and to a lesser extent, Sanctuary, but this is dependant on the Initiative. If Isobel rolls high and the Ghouls roll low, she'll break Sanctuary before they can attack, and then be vulnerable right after, which isn't ideal. Whatever method you choose, keeping her protected is your first priority, followed closely by CCing Marcus with whatever you have at your disposal.

• If you want to side with Marcus, just help him take out Isobel. If you want to become The Slayer as The Dark Urge, simply kill her.
  
  
• If Isobel is gone, Jaheira will ask you what happened before you fight the shadows. If you killed her or helped Marcus, you can lie and she'll still join you, but that'll have consequences, of course.

But what if the scenario is far from ideal and everything doesn't seem to work?


Or maybe you just wanted to kill Isobel? Because like, she's not exactly hard to protect.



Who doesn't hate them? Still, some Experience, and the Mason's Guild Quest



I chose to ambush the caravan with the Harpers.

• Legendary Action: Fanatic Retaliation: Once per turn, when a Spindleweb Fanatic is killed, Kar'niss will attack the killer dealing moderate Psychic damage and Silence for 2 turns.

If you want to fight them here, I recommend you use a Sussurbark Weapon to keep the Drider Silenced, this way he won't be able to cast Sanctuary. You have the advantage on this fight, so this shouldn't give you trouble. His LA isn't too troublesome, but you might want to avoid triggering it anyways, you never know when a sudden Critical Hit can happen and change the tide of the battle. Try killing the minions with your melees and steal the Harpers' kills if you want to keep them alive. As long as the Drider is silenced, he won't cast Sanctuary on himself, and so the battle should be a breeze.

• If the Drider reaches Moonrise without dying, he'll be present on Ketheric's fight up on the tower.

There are a few encounters here that can lead to a fight, none of them count as betraying the cult.

• If you broke Sazza out from the Grove and then spared her from Minthara's spiders, she'll be here. If you let her go, you'll get a Steam Achievement and a letter from her on the Epilogue.
  
  
• If you KO'ed Minthara properly while she was Temporarily Hostile, she will be here facing trial as well. She will be taken to the dungeon to be tortured. There is no time limit to save her, and you can save her via the boat along with the Gnomes and Tieflings.
  
  
• You can have Barnabus kill his "master", and then have him stand down so he won't fight you. If you are The Dark Urge, they won't attack.
  
  
• In the docks you can force an Adept to jump in the water, and then have a guard jump after him, leaving the Zhentarim Shipment free to be taken. It contains a few Tadpoles, and the patrolling guards may still see you stealing it and attack you.
  
  
• When rummaging on Balthazar's Chambers, you can leave from the door on the back and lockpick the other door into Ketheric's room. There you can talk to his dog, Squire, and have her remember the smell of Selunite Magic. This makes her nostalgic and tired of fighting, and she won't show up atop the tower.
  
  
• Instead of going inside Ketheric's room, you can climb the rafters to find some Flying Ghouls arguing about starving while food is being thrown down the big hole below the tower. You can start a fight among them where they'll turn on each other, and then leave once the target is killed.

I came here very early to progress on Halsin's quest. Malus has his own LA, of course. You can define how the fight goes via dialogue, if it even happens at all, by having the Sisters kill each other and then ask Malus to perform surgery on himself, have the Sisters practice on Malus, or even just have the Sisters kill each other and face Malus in combat.

• Legendary Action: Wail of Loss: Malus reacts when being attacked by making every Sister scream for moderate Psychic damage that pushes targets back and Confuses them.

With his LA like this, you absolutely do not want to hurt Malus while there are Sisters alive. Kill the Sisters ASAP, swapping to the ones that get requested to give Malus an instrument to avoid being hit by his Surgery. Malus will revive one of them every once in a while with low HP. When all 4 are dead, have Shadowheart cast Spirit Guardians. This way she'll instantly kill any Sister that is revived, and you can safely attack Malus.



It used to be just a regular miniboss catching first timers off guard. Now it's more of a threat.

• Legendary Action: Wretched Growth: A creature ending a turn inside its aura will take Necrotic damage and spawn a patch of Shadow-Cursed Vines.

Anyone that's both restrained and afflicted with Digestive Juices is vulnerable to Devour, which is an instakill. It's also immune to Piercing and Lightning, as well as resistent to Fire, Necrotic and Cold. Slashing damage is your best bet, with some Fire to burn off any vines. Thunder and Poison spells deal regular damage. Get rid of the small minions first, then the medium ones, using the small ones to explode in a chain reaction.



I used Shadowheart, Karlach and Gale on this fight. The goal here is to defend the portal until Halsin comes back. On your first turn, cast Darkness at the portal to force enemies to walk through you to be able to attack it. Then you just have to control the enemies. Have Shadowheart use Spirit Guardians and every enemy will have to go past her to get to the portal. Gale stands inside the Darkness pocket, leaving only to cast Ice Storm on the East side, where most enemies come from. This will make most enemies Prone every turn, and if it defrosts, just cast any Ice spell to freeze it again.

Karlach can hold off Shadows on the West side, assisted by Guiding Bolts and whatever else you can offer. Just keep picking off enemies and they won't be able to touch the portal.

This part is covering a few other fights that didn't fit Part 1 :v


I dismissed Gale to use Halsin just because. Oliver isn't complicated, by any means, but has a LA that may be familiar to veteran players of MMOs like WoW and FFXIV.

• Legendary Action: Vengeful Playmate: When one of Oliver's summons is killed, Oliver puts a damage zone centered on the creature that killed it that deals some Necrotic damage when entering or starting their turn inside, and applies Silence.

First, keep your party moderately spread apart to avoid spawning the pools on multiple characters. Once a pool spawns, move your characters to the edge of that pool, still keeping an even spread, so they'll spawn close and you have a lot of free space to move. This is a very common strategy used when Raiding on WoW and FFXIV, and goes for space efficiency. Do not attack the shield directly, just take your time killing the shadows until the battle is over.



To have an easy time, I want as many surprise rounds as I can have, so I take Astarion with me. Starting from the very back of the prison, I murder guards one by one to avoid getting Smited, while throwing any Scrying Eye on the pit do quickly dispose of them, as I work my way to the entrance, making a quick stop to kill the Warden. Then get Minthara out, and break the walls behind the cells, DO NOT OPEN THE CELLS, or else the prisoners will try to run through the front door and likely get killed. Just take the boat back to Last Light.

Or you can do a Prison Break with the guards alive, if you want to, once they notice the escape, they'll open the cells and engage from there, and if you take too long, they start to get into the tunnels.

• On the long corridor with the zombies, have Shovel Invisible before starting the fight. Every time a zombie walks out of a vent, have shovel step in and move a jar or crate to keep the vent blocked. This poison doesn't do damage, only gives disadvantage on attacks.
  
  
• You can use featherfall to safely jump down the pit and fight the enemies down there. Then climb up to get to the other side, that leads to a fishing shack outside.
  
  
• This area is swarmed by Kuo-Toa. They all start Wet, so you can wreck them with Lightning and Cold AoE damage.

Yeah yeah, you can drink with him until he explodes, but where's the fun in that? He's got a whole fight going for him. This fight was the first one that I got a Hireling, the Blue Draconic Sorcerer on my Party List at the beginning.

• Legendary Action: Overflowing Brew: Once per turn, when Thisobald's brew changes, he deals some damage around him of the corresponding element, and some bonuses to the zombies he hits.

The reason I got a Sorcerer instead of Gale is Metamagic: Quickenend Spell. This allows me to dualcast spells, quickly changing the brew and getting rid of his LA from a safe distance. Thisobald is real slow, and falls Prone very easily, so keep a frozen floor to control him while dealing with the zombies. Once he's alone, send Karlach in and let him vomit. Then change his brew to Fire first to minimize the damage Karlach takes, and change it again, doing that until he falls ill and vulnerable to damage. Then you can just finish him down.



First of all, send ALL of your gold to camp if you intend to fight her, to avoid being one-shot by her gold stuff.

• Legendary Action: Sublimation: When Gerringothe loses a piece of armor, she reacts by trying to turn anyone near her into gold for 4 turns.

She only reacts once per round, so be sure to kill as many skulls as you can in a single turn. You can avoid the LA by keeping your distance from her, but she has a lot of movement, so it may be hard. If you take one or two coin explosions, you'll be fine, as long as you don't get turned to gold.

• Don't be greedy or reckless, she can turn multiple characters in a single reaction.
  
  
• She can use Dash with a Bonus Action, so be wary of how near you are.
  
  
• You can climb on the roof and attack from there, she'll mostly stay down to attack targets nearby.

Most are pretty generic encounters, but some still have a few things to note.

• A lot of enemies here are Undead, so you can use Arabella's spell on them.
  
  
• If you want to save Rolan, run north from Last Light Inn following the river until you see some burnt shadow creatures, then quickly follow them. You want to enter combat before or at the same time as Rolan, or else the Shadows will attack him and likely kill him before you can do anything. Turn based Mode helps.
  
  
• There are tons of magic items and random loot across the whole map, be sure to not miss anything you might want to use.
  
  
• Where you fought Oliver, there is the Sharran Sanctuary with the +5 buffs. Save those for after you deal with the Gauntlet of Shar, so you can use them on the Siege of Moonrise and Mindflayer Colony. If you spare the Nightsong, Shadowheart will roll with Disadvantage, as well as you if you play Selune Cleric.
  
  
• If you get the 3 buffs succesfully, you open a secret door to an Altar of Shar. Do the ritual blood sacrifice and you'll get a few potions and items. If you take the dagger, you'll face a Crusader, a Mage and a Cleric, and they are stronger than the average enemies around.

When going to the Gauntlet of Shar, be sure to make a Save Backup to avoid any potential bugs. A lot of people reported that on Honour Mode the Discs will sometimes glitch and make your party fall to their deaths, and get stuck unable to be ressurected. You have been warned. Astarion is very useful in this section, so it's Shadowheart, who is mandatory if you want to keep her in the party, Karlach and Astarion. You only need Shadowheart to enter the Shadowfel, but she'll leave if you enter without letting her get the Spear of Night

• When entering, you can skip the lamps by just walking around the barrier surrounding the Statue of Shar.
  
  
• You can also skip the first fight against the Sharrans by entering via the mushroom cave, just be wary of the ambushing enemy, which has Alert and summons multiple copies of itself.
  
  
• At the second Sharran fight, you can lockpick the door to Balthazar to force him and his minions to join the fight and help you.
  
  
• When talking to Balthazar, trade with him and buy his Speed Potion, or he'll use it at the first turn of combat against him.
  
  
• Convince Balthazar to lend you Flesh, and use the Golem as a meat shield.
  
  
• On the Soft-Step Trial, you can open all doors and disarm all traps before starting the trial, then have Shadowheart start it and just take the Gem. At the entrance of the Trial, there's a skeleton holding a Scroll of Invisibility, and other skeletons hold a few tools in case you need them. Another skeleton in the trial itself holds a Scroll of Misty Step.
  
  
• On the Self-Same Trial, have your party crouch and sneak behind the clones, position each one at its corresponding clone, and have Astarion start the fight by surprise. You can use jump to avoid detection by the clone at the stairs. You can summon Flesh here. Once a clone is dead, the original character can attack other clones without being considered a cheater. Don't forget to pick up Killer's Sweetheart from the ground where you killed your own clone. Alternatively you can just strip your party fully naked, without weapons, or even start the trial with a single character for an easy fight.
  
  
  
  
• On the Library, you can shoot down the Librarian without entering combat to get rid of the Silence Aura. Then summon Flesh and kill the Sharrans.
  
  
  
  
• Lick the spider meat. Twice. With every character in your party. It is VERY important to do so.

If you've been travelling with Astarion, then Raphael asked you to kill him. If you have a high Charisma, but still want Yurgir as an ally while keeping Astarion happy, your best bet is to kill him in the Gauntlet, and then convince him to fight for you against Raphael later.

• Legendary Action: Blinding Ambush: Yurgir will mark a character with Watchful Hunter. Then once per turn he can react to any attack or spell by that character by interrupting the attack, dealing high Radiant damage and blinding that character.

If you don't want to talk Yurgir into killing his minions and himself, then DO NOT follow the Displacer Beast. Instead, when you jump down the first set of stairs, jump up the opposite one, and you'll be by the doorway on Yurgir's side. Take him by surprise via here. Yurgir himself has Alert, but none of his minions have, so you can get an entire round against Yurgir alone.

Use Plague of Insects and any other damage zone spell that you have available to slow down the Merregons and Yurgir. And summon Flesh if you still have him available, making sure that he dies before the combat ends. Yurgir only reacts against the character he marked, so keep that in mind before making your moves. When he throws explosives, pick up and throw as many as you can back to him and his minions, and abuse shoving to push them down. Control the Displacer Beast in any way you want. If you have Shovel, you can have her walk around invisible and move the grenades around.



If you want extra Loot, kill him. Use danger zone spells and Spirit Guardians to kill the Rats that come to you. Elves and Half-Elves don't need to mind the Soporific Rats. If any Necrotic Rat survives and gets close, thrown it away to the back to avoid taking Necrotic damage. Lyrthindor will spawn eventually, and he behaves like an average Sharran, nothing special.



Balthazar is the first boss you'll face with 2 LAs. And there are 2 (3 actually, if he takes the Nightsong, he'll move to the Mindflayer Colony) places you can fight him, his room at the Gauntlet, and in the Shadowfell near Nightsong. Attacking him on the room leads to a pretty easy bossfight, he won't be able to retreat too far. Fighting him on the Shadowfell has you deal with a lot of minions, including some giant Skeletons that WILL try to yeet you out to the chasms.

Of course I recommend to fight him in the room for an easier time, but if you want to fight in the Shadowfell, by all means. Just be wary that you can accidentally kill Nightsong with AoE damage, which will make Shadowheart mad.

• Legendary Action: Spectral Aspect: He reacts when hit, turning into a Specter for 1 turn. This grants him multiple damage resistances, immunity to Cold and Necrotic, applies Bone Chill to whoever attacks him, gets immunity to Frighten, Paralysys, Petrify, Restrain and Prone, as well as granting him Fly.
  
  
• Legendary Action: The Dead Wastes: Reacts when any creature dies. He puts a danger zone at the creature that heals Undead inside and deals Necrotic damage to living creatures.

You can control where The Dead Wastes spawn by shoving and throwing enemies around before killing them. Balthazar will often end his turn inside one of these zones. Unless you get to CC Balthazar before attacking him, you'll have to deal with Spectral Aspect.

Inside his room, he won't have a lot of room to fly around, but his Cloudkill becomes pretty dangerous as you won't have much space to run. The danger zones are also less frequent and easier to control.


On the Shadowfel, you'll want to use Bludgeoning damage to kill the skeletons quickly, and focus on taking the big ones first to avoid being yeeted away. You may want to Counterspell his Misty Step as well to block his escapes while he's not in Spectral Aspect. And you want to be VERY careful with how you position yourself and deal AoE damage to avoid accidentally killing the Nightsong.

• If you want to spare the Nightsong, there are a few dialogue choices that lead Shadowheart to it without any checks. If you have a strong bond with her, you can pick "Is this truly what you want?", then "Choose your own way, Shadowheart.", then "Please, Shadowheart. Don't do this." and finally "This is wrong... but I can't afford to lose you.". This makes the Nightsong mention her fear of wolves, so you pick "She knows something about you.", and she'll question herself enough to make her throw the spear away and help Nightsong instead.
  
  
• If you try to convince her via Persuasion, you'll have to pass a DC 30 Check, and she will kill Nightsong if you fail.
  
  
• Killing the Nightsong also kills everyone in Last Light, including Isobel. This counts for Sceleritas murder request for The Dark Urge, and you'll become the Slayer.

Finally, the time to attack is here. Hope you made your preparations.

• Wyll is pretty useful in this section, Hunger of Hadar will help you a lot, and only Warlocks and Bards can learn it, Warlock at Level 5 and Bards at 10, or 6 if you pick College of Lore.
  
  
• If Nightsong is alive, she'll fly to Moonrise and leave pools of Holy Fire everywhere, while the Harpers and the Fist clear the way to the tower, and join the fight against Z'rell. If Jaheira survived, you can ask her to follow you into battle, making it easier to keep her alive.
  
  
• If Nightsong is dead, you'll have to fight your way to the tower by yourself.
  
  
• If you let Balthazar take the Nightsong, you'll still be friendly with the cult, and will invited to the top of the tower to see Ketheric and the Absolute. You will then wake up inside the Colony.

Either way, Disciple Z'rell sends a bunch of cultists for you while casting Black Hole. This Illithid Power pulls you towards the center and slows you, which may quickly kill you if the Adepts are keeping Hunger of Hadar. Have a melee jump straight into the fray to hunt down the Adepts, Counterspell HoH, and cast your own danger zone spells, Hunger of Hadar is particularly good here. If you don't keep the middle zone in check, the cultists will easily gang up on whoever you sent to hunt Adepts and kill them.

Keeping Z'rell under control is imperative to the success of the fight, as she can cast Black Hole and cripple you and your allies. A character with high Strength can jump up the rafters above to take out the archers. Keep your high ground and press your advantage, slowly advancing as needed. Force the enemies walk through your danger zones, Frighten, Stun, Prone, Restrain, anything goes to leave them inside as much as possible. Counterspell Adepts trying to cast Hunger of Hadar. Throw explosives, anything that you can. Harpers and Fists can die, as long as you win, you're good.

• If you kept Jaheira alive, you can ask her for help to face Ketheric, and she will follow you again.
  
  
• There's only a small fight against some skeletons and a Soul Mistress before Ketheric.
  
  
• If you didn't do it before, you can enter Isobel's old room and fight a Mimic there.

Totally optional encounter below the Tower, at the Prison. Just do it, for the experience.



If you spared Nightsong, she will help you on the fight, and you'll be able to offer mercy to Ketheric by talking about his wife and passing the Skill Checks. Ketheric thinks about it, but Aylin comes down and he becomes hostile again, and the fight begins.

• Legendary Action: Hordestrike: When one of his minions attack a target under Deadly Orders, Ketheric reacts by throwing a spectral hammer at the target that deals Force damage and applies Bane.

Ketheric also got a new toy for Honour Mode, Legions of Bone. Every time any creature dies within 12m of him, it spawns a Skeletal Involucre. This includes other Necromites, and your characters. Ketheric is also a Paladin, and by now you know that Disarming is the way to fight a Paladin, so get to it. Avoid killing anything near Ketheric to prevent Involucres spawning, or you may find yourself fighting an endless horde. Kill Susdera quickly as she can spawn more Involucres. Destroying Involucres won't spawn another one, only creatures.

Dame Aylin can die, but she revives at the next turn, so don't worry about her, just let her do whatever she wants unbothered. If any character is targeted by Deadly Orders, have them retreat and break Line of Sight from the Necromites and Ketheric. Having Jaheira around helps, but keep her in Panther shape at all times. If she gets targeted, have her retreat and Prowl. You don't want Jaheira to die here after she survives everything else.

The fight gets much more complicated if the Drider is still alive, as he will be spawned behind you, and will be a nuisance. That's why making preparations is so important. Squire will also be present if you never interacted with her.

When Ketheric gets to 25% HP, he flees and abducts Aylin. If there are enemies still alive, the battle goes on and you have to clear them out.



There is a lot that can happen inside depending of your choices and who you bring inside. If Jaheira survived everything, she can be recruited now to your party to descend into the Colony with you. If you want to bring her, make sure to buy some equipment from the Quartermaster on the ground floor, as well as take anything useful from your camp chest (You have been stashing equipment on your camp, haven't you?).

If you are playing Bard, Warlock or Sorcerer, or just using Wyll overall, then you absolutely want to bring him to save Mizora. If he's in the party you can convince Mizora to give him a reward, and he receives the Infernal Rapier, which is the absolute best weapon possible for Bards, and a good weapon overall on Sorcerers and Warlocks. In fact I do recommend to always bring Wyll to the Colony unless someone else has Hunger of Hadar.

Pick your party carefully before you jump down, as you won't be able to come back, and you'll only be able to use the Recovery Pod once. You'll want at least one melee, one ranged and one support. On my run I picked Shadowheart, Lae'zel and Wyll. As a reminder, I was The Dark Urge as a College of Swords Bard.

There are 2 actual problematic fights down here, one of them being notoriously hard, against the Undead at the laboratory. Let's take it down one step at a time.


If you want to save Zevlor, you'll have to release him and some Mindflayers. This is probably your first encounter against a Mindflayer, and while on other game modes it doesn't matter much, in Honour you don't want to take any risks.

Do NOT keep your characters close to each other, or else you'll get multiple stuns. Mindflayers can use Extract Brain on stunned creatures to deal MASSIVE damage, most likely killing the target. So while you can deal with one lobotomized character, dealing with multiples is far from ideal. Try your best to CC the Mindflayers while Zevlor smites everything near him. The other NPCs will help as well, so if you need, you can focus exclusively on controlling the Mindflayers and giving support to the NPCs and your party.



Regardless of which way you enter, you'll always be able to funnel down the enemies. Cast Hunger of Hadar and Plague of Insects in a way that completely locks the way to you, so the enemies have to cross it to hit you. Ignore the big guy on the back raising skeletons. Position your characters just outside your danger zone to force enemies to stay there when they reach you, and keep picking them off, knocking back with Eldritch Blast, and CC'ing until they die. It might take a while, but it is very safe. Once there are no more skeletons to raise, the big guy will come for you. You can also explode the big liquid tanks with fire to deal damage.

• Right by Mizora there is a broken Pod that The Dark Urge can examine to unlock a memory.
  
  
• The Dark Urge can also obtain more information about their past from the Necromancer in the barracks. She will try to explode the Nautiloid Tanks with a Fireball, so you can just pick them up during the fight.
  
  
• Having Gale explode the Netherese Orb WILL NOT count for beating the game. Instead it will be treated as a Game Over and you'll lose your run.
  
  
• Don't forget to pick up the Githzerai Mind Barrier. Lae'zel will disapprove, but she can live with it.
  
  
• On my run, I wasn't able to extract Us back on the Nautiloid, so there was no kitty for me. But if Us survived for you, be sure to pick them up from the Butchery.

This fight might be a little too much for just 4 characters, so I recommend you summon what you can. Get the Cambion from the Infernal Rapier, summon Shovel, get your Elementals, Dryads, Skeletons, Ghouls, whatever you can. You can once again offer redemption to Ketheric, and this time if you succeed the checks, you'll skip straight to the Apostle of Myrkul. Whatever happens, you'll want to free Aylin ASAP. Ketheric himself has the same LA he had atop the tower, but Myrkul have new toys to play.

• Legendary Action: Gaze of the Dead: Myrkul counters attacks against him with Gaze of the Dead, dealing Necrotic damage and applying Frightened

If you fight Ketheric here, just deal with him the same way you fought atop the tower. If you disarmed him before, he will now be carrying a Myrkulite Flail.

The catch to this fight is how the Apostle behaves, as well as the minions during the fight. As soon as combat starts, your 2 priorities should be saving Aylin and killing the Mindflayer to the right. You also want to send summons to the left to deal with the Necromites there. You can ignore the Apostle for now, and he will mainly try to draw you in.

Now for the good news? The Apostle can be blinded, and he doesn't move. Which means you can and should use Blood of Lathander against him, or just cast Blindness or Hunger of Hadar on him and then you get to disable most of his moves, including his LA, which is a ranged spell, and Finger of Death. A safe strategy here is to set up his blindness, and then every other danger zone you can, like Cloud of Daggers and Plague of Insects, and let those slowly chip away at his HP while you control the adds.

Every turn a bunch of Involucres will spawn, and after some time, hatch into new Necromites. Even blinded, the Apostle can still use Call of the Damned and Consume the Faithful. If Aylin is free, she will smite down the Apostle until she dies, and won't be able to come back because of the Bone Chill inflicted by Myrkul's Presence. But no matter, she can't die anyways, so she just stands there downed.

Despite the recent changes to how magical Darkness affects Gaze of the Dead, setting up Hunger of Hadar and Wall of Fire is still a solid strategy. Myrkul resists the Cold from HoH, but not Acid, and doesn't resist Fire, Plague of Insects is still solid despite Piercing Resistance. While casting Blindness can lead to results, he can very easily succeed in a Saving Throw to remove the status. Note that his LA won't trigger via the indirect damage from HoH, Wall of Fire, or Spirit Guardians, and he doesn't pick up his weapon when Disarmed, which significantly reduces his melee capabilities. Again, bringing lots of summons is extremely recommended and will significantly ease the fight, even if you only use them as LA bait.

Bringing a mostly Melee party to Myrkul is pretty risky, so try to bring only a single Melee, a Support, and 2 Casters, all with offensive Concentration spells. A nice setup at Level 9 is Battlemaster Fighter (Disarming Attack is pretty much the only way to Disarm Myrkul), a Sorcerer/Wizard (with Wall of Fire readily available), a Warlock (Hunger of Hadar + Eldritch Blast to pick off Involucres) and a Cleric (Plague of Insects and/or Spirit Guardians, as well as the overall support). Use Animate Dead, Summon Lesser and regular Elemental, Infernal Rapier's Cambion, Us, Shovel, whatever you have to maximize your control over the involucres and as cannon fodder to tank his LA.

After several turns, Myrkul will be low enough on HP to be focused down, so bring your characters in for the kill. Keep them spread apart to avoid being cleaved by Reaper's Scythe. Since he is blinded, he cannot counterattack with his LA, but this doesn't make him less deadly, his attacks still hurt. But, as a side note, he can in fact be disarmed, but you cannot interact with his weapon. Eventually he will go down, Aylin will get up, and everyone is happy.

• Trying to brute force your way through Ketheric AND the Apostle will most likely end in a TPK, you NEED to approach this fight in a more strategic way.
  
  
• It is EXTREMELY recommended that you offer mercy to Ketheric so you can skip his phase, he still can and WILL Smite you, as well as Hordestrike, and he's extremely difficult to CC due to his 20 Charisma granting a +5 Aura of Protection.
  
  
• Bringing a Warlock or a Bard with Hunger of Hadar will make your battle against the Apostle significantly easier. I recommend to bring Wyll not only to get the Infernal Rapier, but to help against the Apostle like this. If Alfira survived and you got the Potent Robe from her, it greatly increases Eldritch Blast's power. Keep this Warlock far from Myrkul, only controlling the cocoons to reduce the chances of your concentration breaking.

The first fight here actually takes place still in Act 2, but it didn't fit there, so it is here. Not that it's particularly challenging, but people do tend to fear Gith for some reason.


Regular Gith fight. You've seen worse at the Crèche.

• If you sided with Voss, he gives you an item that warns you when they are nearby and grants some bonus to initiative.
  
  
• You can ambush them by going up the slopes to the right and striking from the side.
  
  
• They like to use Oil of Diminution with Arrow of Many Targets.

First, get to the Portal. Just Misty Step into it and ignore the Gith here. Once inside the Astral Plane, set up your buffs and make your way down to the actual fight. Besides the usual danger, this fight didn't change. Be aware of being shoved off into the chasms, and of the Monk Spells like Fireball and Hold Person. Keep your party loosely spread out as you take out High Gish'ra first, and use any opportunity you have to shove one of them off the chasm. High Gish'ra drops a pair of Boots for Monks, but other than that, nothing else of note.

If you're feeling bold, you can attack the Emperor and Disarm him for his Staff, once all Gith are dead he'll stop fighting you and forgive you, but he's a hard foe to face at the same time as the Gith, and there's always the risk of you accidentally killing him off and ending your run there.


At this time, the Emperor offers you the Astral-Touched Tadpole that "evolves" you into Half-Illithid. If you have taken Tadpoles before and unlocked new powers, you'll need to resist to commune with it. Refer to the Illithid Powers section if you need to.


This whole section has no notable fights, just a few scenarios to be aware of, and a bunch of quests.

• Don't enter with your whole party on Arfur's Basement to avoid potential deaths by explosives.
  
  
• Same with the donation barn when investigating the toys.
  
  
• Bring Astarion for some fluff on his questline at the Gur Camp, and later at Fraygo's when meeting his siblings.
  
  
• If you want access to Ferg's special stock, leave Shadowheart behind at Arfur's Mansion and talk to Ferg. Compliment how lucrative his business sound and pass a Persuasion check to access it.
  
  
• Bring Jaheira to Danthelon's to progress her questline and get a free surprise attack on the Doppelgangers
  
  
• Orin takes over 5 NPCs "at the same time", but only 2 will actually be her. The Fist at the backdoor of the barn, the Stone Lord Thug down at the beach, the Smith at Rivington Smith, the Reporter at the bridge to Wyrm's Crossing and Zethino, the dryad at the Circus. Doesn't matter which order you talk to them, the first 2 are always Orin, and she will always kill these two NPCs.
  
  
• The assassins below the Temple of the Open Hand will attack immediately, so just ambush them instead. The chest amidst the Cloudkill has nothing worth noting, but if you really want it, have Shovel drag it back to safety.
  
  
• Entering the Abandoned Windmill leads to a lone Mindflayer that you can either talk to and get him a corpse for it to eat the brain, or kill it for its brain, that awards with 1 parasyte when consumed.
  
  
• The Band of the Mystic Scoundrel is looted at the Jungle that Akabi teleports you when you win the Jackpot, if you want it. It is on a ledge by the cave, by a Skeleton and a Backpack.
  
  
• A Druid can VERY easily steal Gortash's items at his office while the ceremony is going. Have them go outside the fortress and climb it from the back until the top. There is a locked door at the middle of the climb. Once you finish climbing, Prowl to avoid being seen by the Steel Watch and sneak in the office, being wary of the stun traps. Steal the chests there and Prowl back to be safe and teleport out. If you are detected and get into a fight, Prowl and run as far as you can, eventually enemies will drop combat as they can't find you. Helldusk Boots this early on gives you a good advantage.
  
  
• If you want to rescue Florrick, you'll most likely end up fighting the Guards. Take them out beforehand by surprising them while they chat at the table.
  
  
• Right after the coronation, Mizora shows up on camp to talk about Wyll's Contract. Breaking the contract makes your life a bit harder, as Florrick will try to ambush you at Lower City, and Mizora will get in your way at the Iron Throne. Mending the pact makes Mizora help you at the Throne, making it a lot easier to rescue the Duke, Omeluum and the other hostages later on.
  
  
• When fighting Dribbles at the Circus, some minions will try to release the Displacer Beast and Dinosaur. You can kick the lock at the Beast's cage to lock it for good, and feed some meat to the Dinosaur to avoid them joining the battle.
  
  
• At the beach where you fight the Guild vs Stone Lord, there is a very small cave where you can loot Bonespike Boots.
  
  
• BEFORE you proceed to the Coronation and the Lower City, make sure to prepare who you want to be kidnapped by Orin. I picked Halsin because I don't want Yenna's Cat to die. It doesn't matter if you get the scene on camp or meet Orin at the Sewers.

All roads lead to Baldur's Gate. And so we go, bring your favorite characters because there's a lot to do.


Dolor is basically the first on the list, as he will progress on his targets if you ignore him too much and Long Rest after entering the city. The first fight against Dolor is on the Wine Festival, and he has nothing different from other difficulties, he always have high Initiative and will always try to escape on his first turn, but you can prevent it and kill him here with Counterspell. Just remember the Doppelgangers all have Mind Reader as a passive, imposing Disadvantage on ranged attacks against them.

If he flees, you have to follow him to Figaro's and face him there. You can use Lesser Restoration on Devella to have her help on the fight, and if Figaro survives, you get +100 reputation with him to buy pretty clothes with a good discount. Just be wary of danger zone spells like Plague of Insects, sometimes they bug out and kill the 2 hostages on the second floor, and this may aggro the Fist and Steel Watcher outside.




Since you're here, take Jaheira to her house to get her Scimitar and Khalid's Gift. To save Volo, Misty Step with Create Water to quickly douse the flames on his cart, and kill everyone. If you take Jaheira to the Guild, get intel on the Stone Lord, and then head to the Counting House, you'll have an easier time getting in. I recommend Astarion for this part, and bring a Lightning Arrow and Water, and some Misty Step, Gaseous Form or such to reach and picklock all the safes. Water and Lightning Arrow to skip the puzzle to enter the high security vaults.

This is the first actual fight against enemies that are Sanctuary-happy from the get go. Use and abuse of AoE effects, Cleave, and such. Jaheira can turn into an Owlbear and use Crushing Flight, or use Call Lightning. Meanwhile, the guards deal with other Bhaalists on the vaults below. Technically it is preferred that Rakath dies in the conflict, you'll still be able to loot the 10k Gold from the Zhentarim, and can loot the Key to Vault 9 earlier. You can pinpoint the invisible assassins by their Aura of Murder.

With the loot from the Vaults, it is the ideal time to go shopping before going after Minsc in the Sewers. Complete Stop the Presses with a positive headline and merchants will get a little boost of reputation for some discounts. An easy way to open the gate to the Cistern is to turn both levers and let them overheat and overflow, once they explode use the Emergency Release and wait a bit for the gate to open.

Roah (or another Zhent if she's dead) will be negotiating with "Jaheira" and Minsc, and has a high initiative that they use to try and flee. Kill them before they flee to loot the Gold, and KO Minsc with non-lethal damage. He's pretty dumb, so basic CC spells can easily get him, like Hold Person. The other enemies are just basic ones, so clean them up and recruit Boo. Minsc also tags along.


Upon returning to the Guild, use the back entrance to get on an advantage position against the Zhent, or right by Nine Fingers' side if you want to betray her (not recommended, her dagger throws hurt a lot and her bodyguards are pretty effective fighters.).


Gale's wet dream. Entering the vaults from Ramazith's Tower is way safer, and you get to loot Robe of the Weave and Markerwhateveritscalled, the legendary staff. If you are playing The Dark Urge and intend to actually duel Orin, have them read the Tarchiate Codex for the +20 Temporary HP. And you may have kept Necromancy of Thay around, since there's no downside to having it, so go on and learn Danse Macabre as well. Don't forget to loot the 2 secret rooms by the corridors, and the Hellfire Axe from behind the Illusion door. Have Gale learn the advanced scrolls you find here, some of those will be useful later on.

It's time to kill Orin's papa, who just so happens to be her grandpa as well. That makes Orin's mother also her sister. And not only by sharing Bhaal's blood, mind you.


Yes, you can just skip his battle and become an Unholy Assassin of Bhaal, but where's the fun in that? Since it's Honour Mode, you might want to clear the 3 Knights before fighting Sarevok, as they'll join the fight if you aren't judged worth to proceed into the next chamber. Still, there's no need for that, they can be easily controlled, and will die when Sarevok dies. There are quite a few different ways that this can go, so I'll list them later. For his fight I used Shadowheart, Minthara and Gale.

As of Hotfix 16, with the Legendary Resistance changes, Sarevok becomes way more menacing than he was previously. Keeping the Echoes and Sarevok under control is way harder now, so you have plenty of reasons to kill the Sentinels first to lessen pressure on you.

• Legendary Action: Murderous Retort: Same as Orin's humanoid form, he counterattacks by teleporting to the attacker and attacking them, using Deathbringer's Assault if Deathbringer's Legacy is active.

As you should know by now, Sarevok will absorb an Echo and gain their buffs PERMANENTLY if one of them dies, which is far from ideal, in fact it may mean a TPK. The Echoes will keep trying to buff Sarevok and debuff you, so bring multiple Arrows of Arcane Interference to break their concentration quickly. Using Sleet Storm is effective as well, but I'd rather have Gale concentrating in Slow instead. Keeping Sarevok and the Echoes slowed will greatly hinder them, and you'll be able to pick what to Counterspell, and I recommend you do it with Sanctuary. You don't want to stop attacking Sarevok ever, and Sanctuary can make him survive just enough to activate Deathbringer's Legacy and start killing you one by one. Let him get buffed with whatever else, he will get Warding Bond and Haste, which is what you should focus on breaking concentration. Another Echo will try to Slow you, so you also want to break their concentration as well, but remember to not kill any Echo unless you are killing Sarevok at the same round.

Since Gale is concentrating on Slow, get him to the higher ground so enemies won't be able to easily reach him, there are no ranged attacks in this fight. Shadowheart will also be concentrating on a spell, Barrier of Blades. Setting it at the entrance from door to bottom of the stairs will greatly hinder the Knights, who will take a few more turns to reach you. If you kept Minthara with her Oath of Vengeance, she'll have Hold Person, and Sarevok is vulnerable to it, so keep spamming it until he gets held down, using other types of CC to remove his Legendary Resistance. Try to avoid attacking him when he can react to avoid him gaining stacks of Deathbringer's Legacy, focus on disabling him first with CC and controlling the Echoes' concentration spells.

To further hinder the 3 Knights, you can cast Ice Storm to slow them further and make them Prone, and even Slow one of them when they get in range (Slow hits up to 6 targets, you want Sarevok and the 3 Echoes slowed, so you still have 2 to spare). Once Sarevok is held down, hit him with all your big damage and try to one round him. If you can't, no matter, but be wary that one of the Echoes will try to cast Heal on him, which as a Level 6 Spell is kinda harsh to Counterspell. Keep control of the fight at all times and be patient, and Sarevok will die, taking the 3 Knights with him. Then you can just kill the Echoes and finish the fight.

Now, for some different outcomes and scenarios that can be attained. I haven't done some of them, so there might be some incorrect information on them since I only watched these outcomes on other people's gameplays.

• If you killed your own targets and let Dolor kill his targets, he will be at the Tribunal trying to enter while the Knights deny him an audience. At this point you can leave him be, kill him to enter the Tribunal, or convince him to fight with you. I never even met Dolor here personally, so I cannot say how effective of a helper he is, but he is pretty strong when we fight him at Figaro's. This means you will fight your way in, killing the 3 Knights before you enter.
  
  
• Otherwise, if Sarevok has no previous quarrel with you or any party member, you can offer the hands to him and he asks how you killed the victims. If you refuse to share details, say it was in combat, or threaten him, he will attack you. If you stole Dolor's kills, you'll have to use Deception to lie about how you killed them slowly and painfully. If you got your own hands you don't need any checks. Getting the Tribunal's approval makes Sarevok take you to the back room where he asks you to kill Valeria. If you decide to face Sarevok here, the Knights won't join the fight, but you'll also have way less safespots to use, as well as the risk of accidentally killing Valeria.

Yaaaay Auntie Ethel is baaaack. You can face her before meeting the group, but then you'll miss on the Counterspell Staff that Mayrina gives you. Try to kill the Redcap at Old Garlow's before he can react to avoid dealing with the crabs. Now, there are two ways to save Vanra, if you care. The first one is to just throw Hag's Bane on Ethel, if you do it while she's still disguised at the Mermaid, she'll turn back and vomit Vanra on a "safer" spot, and if you do it on the Hag's Lair, Vanra will hide in a corner, and can be accidentally killed with collateral damage. The other way is to KO the Hag with Non Lethal Damage and cut Vanra out of her belly. This doesn't kill Ethel if the mushrooms are still standing.

As with the last time, you don't want to face Ethel with the Masks at the same time, so KO them before going in her lair. Her LA is the same, but she got a few new tricks to use when low on HP.

• Legendary Action: Weird Magic Surge: Ethel reacts to spells you cast by creating more duplicates and shuffling herself with them.

I used Shadowheart, Lae'zel and Karlach here, for the jumping and mobility. Her healing shrooms have way more HP this time, and will still get fully healed at the end of each round, but you can prevent it by using effects like Arrow of Ilmater or Bone Chill. Ethel is still vulnerable to Silence, so bringing a Sussurbark Weapon makes her basically a puppy. If you don't have one, the Silence Spell still works, but she can walk out of it.

Her new tricks are Ethel's Ray of Sickness, that work the same way as Chain Lightning and Ethel's Plague of Insects, except this version won't hurt Ethel or any of her allies. Having multiple copies around is lethal if she's on low enough HP to cast Ethel's Ray of Sickness, and she won't die permanently unless all 3 shrooms are destroyed, but if you down her, all of her copies disappear, which works in your favor. Another trick comes from the shrooms, as they explode when destroyed, dealing damage and creating a cloud of poison.

Sometimes we just gotta swap some stuff around.


The first actual fight on Act 3, I decided I wanted to duel Orin for the extra spice. She's not really that hard, even if she inherits the Slayer. But first you gotta go through Bhaal's trial. To enter the temple at the Undercity, you need to hit the hanging corpses near the stone door, or use the Amulet of Bhaal to gain entry.

Now, before getting in the actual fight, have a character that can Prone enemies get buffed with Fly or Enchanced Leap. Then have them jump into the 3 hidden assassins to the right, and run to the ritual chanter as soon as possible to knock him Prone. I used Owlbear Jaheira for this. Doing so interrupts Power Word Kill, removing the time limit on the fight so you can take it slow and safe. Also be sure to kill and loot Luke the Strangler before finishing the chanter, or else you won't be able to get the Bonespike Gloves.

To open the second door to the inner temple, you'll have to use the Amulet of Bhaal, or be The Dark Urge and order Sceleritas to open the door. Sarevok is a bit harder to manage than Orin, so skipping him for now is the safer choice.



If you are a Dark Urge who became the Slayer back in Act 2, you'll fight her humanoid form. If you rejected the Slayer, she transforms before the fight. To make sure she doesn't kill your hostage, go around and jump into her room from the back and use Speak with the Dead on Orin's Mother to learn about Sarevok ordering her to kill Orin, and then use this information to mock her. Doing so makes her mad and ignore the hostage, effectively breaking her, where Bhaal has to intervene and forcefully transform her in the Slayer.

Now, if you are dueling Orin like I did, she wont get buffed by Bhaal's Boon. It's relatively safe to duel her, as you can have your companions intervene at any time should things go wrong. Preparations against the duel for me included Death Ward, Warding Bond, Freedom of Movement, Elixir of Heroism, and as many summons as possible. Shovel, Cambion, Danse Macabre, Us, anything you have, as long as they are your summons they count as you for the sake of the duel.

As for party comp should an intervention be required, I had Shadowheart, Gale and Minthara. Gale can cast Slow, Hold Monster and Hold Person to cripple Orin and her cultists, and also yeet them off the chasm with Thunderwave. Minthara's Divine Smites remove multiple stacks from Bhaal's Boon.

• Legendary Action: Murderous Retort: This is humanoid Orin's LA. She'll react to attacks by counterattacking you, using Murderous Strikes when available. Not sure about her, but should work exactly like Sarevok's, who teleports to the attacker, so making a distance won't work.
  
  
• Legendary Action: Sanguine Lash: This is the Slayer's LA. She reacts to attacks as well, countering with an attack that inflicts Bleeding and knocks you back, potentially one shooting you if you get pushed into the chasm. As an added effect, if she is not on Duel and doesn't use this LA, a random creature on the fight will be marked with Bhaal's Edict by the Boon of Bhaal, which instantly kills the creature unless they kill something else before the end of their next turn.

If you ARE NOT dueling Orin, focus on knocking Prone the cultists to stop the Boon of Bhaal, which also stops Bhaal's Edict. Slow or Hold Monster Orin to keep her in check while you deal with the ritual.


If you ARE dueling Orin, use Hold Monster/Person on her depending on which form you are fighting against. She can do quick work of the Slayer due their low AC and her Dagger applying Aura of Murder, so going human is recommended regardless. If you aren't a spellcaster, try to bring Hold Scrolls, and always have your summons attack her first OPPOSITE to your position so you don't get cleaved. Keeping her under Slow, Hold, Paralysis, and other CC methods is key to surviving this fight. Also be ready to quickly swap to a party member and interrupt the duel at any given time.

Everyone hates Jannath's Mansion. Most people skip it. But not me.

• If you want to do Jannath's Mansion, enter from the front door where the Butler is standing, and fight the ghosts on your way up. Destroy any Candelabrum that's Haunted, it will spawn another Ghost, but will stop pestering you. To deal with the Skulls, just use a Bludgeoning weapon or Force Damage.
  
  
• You can pickpocket Lady Jannath for her wedding ring, but the Fist will show up and investigate the theft. Oskar's ring is only obtainable if they end their marriage, where he drops his ring on the floor, while Jannath gives you hers.
  
  
• When fighting the Undead Servants at Carrion's Lair in the Undercity, you'll be cursed, and take Necrotic damage equivalent to the level of any spell you cast. Cantrips don't count as they have no Spell Level. Astarion can do anything because he's a Vampire, technically Undead.
  
  
• 2 of the Jars are in the Lair, 1 at the basement of the Graveyard at Lower City, and the only mandatory one, with the Heart, is within Thrumbo. I recommend to destroy all 4 of them to remove every advantage Carrion may get. Destroying any Jar will make him hostile on sight.

I'm afraid my heart simply isn't in it. Carrion has some sense of humor. Kill the Ghouls upstairs first so you can access the whole mansion without any issues.

• Legendary Action: Torrential Undeath: He reacts when one of his servants dies. He curses a creature while healing his undead. The healed undead is immune to all damage for a turn, while the cursed creature is vulnerable to all damage for a turn, as well as Frightened.

This basically means "Ignore minions, focus down Carrion.". He dies pretty easily if you destroyed his liver, making him vulnerable to Fire. Pre-fight preparation is the difference between having Carrion kill you or just burning him to definitive death. After he's dead, kill the minions.


Now just go back to Jannath and resolve her wedding. Oskar is in fact the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, so try to make Jannath dump him, unless you want a picture of yourself (or a companion, Oskar painted Shadowheart instead of me). Its base value is 1500, but you shouldn't need money at this point.


These 2 are the last of the "easy clears" around here. They don't deserve their own sections.

• Yes, it is safe to blow up the shop. Have a character stay at the corner near the stairs to the third floor and throw Alchemist Fire on a barrel, and you just killed half of the battle. You may want to move in quickly inside to control the Wizard, as he can cast Cloudkill.
  
  
• The shop is still a bit bugged, and NPCs can see through walls and call the Fist on you if you go looting the place after the battle. Just return to camp for a few seconds, and come back alone to loot whatever you need while in stealth.

• If you told Aradin that you got the Nightsong or failed the Deception when telling him you got nothing, he'll attack your camp on a Long Rest. He brings a few friends. This dude is just a prick, hope you punched him back at the Grove.
  
  
• If you want to secure Ramazith's Cannon for the finale at any cost, give Aylin to Lorroakan. But actually, don't do it, he deserves to die, and Rolan also helps you on the finale, without having you lose Aylin and Isobel.
  
  
• Lorroakan is just a piece of ♥♥♥♥. He has no LA, and can't cast Elemental Retort if he's under CC, so just knock him Prone and beat him down. The Myrmidons are extremely vulnerable to Slow, so go for it. Having Rolan survive is the hardest part of the fight, and that isn't exactly hard to do.
  
  
• Now that Lorroakan has been buffed, he's a little bit of a threat.... to Rolan. Protect him quickly before he accidentally dies. The Myrmidons are in fact stronger, and you can't exactly Counterspell Lorroakan's Elemental Retort. Bringing a form of Slow is always a good idea.

Yes, we ARE saving every single Gondian. On the Iron Throne and the Foundry. They may have a death wish, but not everyone's wishes come true, so they'll just have to deal with it.

• If you absolutely must fight the Banites at the first floor, be sure to convince the Gondians to fight with you, or else they'll be coerced into fighting you. Infiltrating is the safest path and also gives you a Motivator. Those things are pretty heavy for some reason, and if dropped they start their activation sequence. Dropping the one you get rids yourself of the "trouble" of making an Intelligence check midbattle to deactivate them, as the check is only done once.
  
  
• Walk around the Foundry, picking up the Steel Watcher Arm, Targetting Module and the Crossbow blueprint to craft the Hellfire Engine Crossbow at Zanner's Office, as well as the Steel Watcher Helmet. Don't risk going downstairs to get intel about the Iron Throne, you already know where it is and what to do. Inside Zanner's desk there is a book about a VERY interesting interrogation by Gortash, if you want some lore.
  
  
• Once you deal with the Banites inside in any way, the Steel Watchers patrolling outside will be gone, so you can safely walk out.

Aaaaah yes, the infamous Iron Throne, where everyone struggles to save every single hostage inside despite having absolutely zero reason to. Inside the Throne there are 3 important hostages, everyone else can die. But we ain't about to just let everyone else drown, so get your feet to work. Have your Personal Camp Buffer Cleric give everyone Freedom of Movement, and someone else buff your party and your summons with Longstrider. Equip someone with Nylruna and someone else with Crusher's Ring, if you already didn't do so. Have Haste Scrolls and Speed Potions ready.

I took Shadowheart, Gale and Karlach with me. Shovel also did her part. First I sent Gale to go as further in as he can with Misty Step to the Sahuagin Spawn Room, casting Firebolt on the lever to open the cell and help the one stuck at the surgery chair. Shovel accompanies him to an extent. Have her positioned by one of the levers in the corridor, and hit the lever as soon as the hostages are past the door. Doing so will lock the spawn of Sahuagins out of the rest of the Throne. Gale keeps going further inside to save Omeluum and our friend squid teleports us both back to the submarine. After this, have Omeluum go down the ladders and teleport any hostage that's too far.

The Dark Urge stays roughly at the middle to provide support to Shadowheart and Karlach.

Shadowheart went straight for the Duke. There are 2 Sahuagins in the way, so I just had her Hold one while The Dark Urge dominated the other. Free the Duke first, and have him help with the other hostages. I hope you sold Wyll's soul for Mizora to help you here, or else she'll Command Ravengard to kneel for 1 round and summon a bunch of suicidal explosive spiders to try and kill him.

Karlach went for the remaining path. Powered by Bloodlust Elixir and Haste, have her decimate the Sahuagins inside and quickly open the cells, throwing Speed Potions at the hostages to make them go faster. Then just run back to the submarine. On your very last round, have 3 characters inside the submarine, and the last one finish their turn at the ladder that leads to the sub. This gives the last hostages enough time to get out, and you'll still save yourself since you climb the ladder on the Cutscene.

Now, if EVERYTHING goes wrong, as long as you have one of your party members at the submarine, you'll be okay, the corpses of the other ones wash off at the beach near Old Garlow's. As long as Obelia Toobin, Duke Ravengard and Omeluum survive, everyone else can drown without any consequences, only the crippling dread of your guilt and failure.



Now, remember that Blue Draconic Lineage Sorcerer I cited waaaaaaaay back at the party composition section? Time to fetch them. Have them use the staff that gives Kereska's Favor and pick Lightning for a free cast of Chain Lightning and Lightning Bolt, recovered on Short Rest, as well as a charge of Arcane Battery. On their spell list, of course Witch Bolt, Chromatic Orb, Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning. Be sure to have Metamagic: Quickened Spell as well.

The Gondians also have suicidal thoughts, poor Gondians are smarter now. Doesn't mean we're not taking care of them, so time to work. Your first priority here is to disarm the 2 Hellfire Watchers already engaged in combat with the Gondians. Have Shadowheart upcast Command to disarm them at the same time, so they stop Maiming everyone to death. In this fight, have your Sorcerer cast the free Chain Lightning and Lightning Bolt, but save your Arcane Battery and Lvl 6 Spell Slot, as well as your Sorcery Points. The Watchers take double damage from Lightning, so this is the reason they're here. Then focus on controlling and being a general threat to the Banites, and make sure Shadowheart is keeping up Blade Ward on everyone by using Mass Healing Word with The Reviving Hands. Do it correctly and everyone should survive.

These Watchers here can use Hellfire, and you'll have to deal with it the hard way, so be prepared. When one is about to explode, have your strong characters throw the Gondians out of the blast radius.



This thing doesn't have a LA, don't ask me why. But it is the only purpose of your Sorcerer. Keep your party spread to avoid massive Hellfire from the 3 Hellfire Watchers, and Disarm them and the Titan. Set up any danger zone on the Watcher to help chip away at him. Anyways, for me it was enough to wreck the Titan before it entered Defensive Protocol. Have Zanner sabotage the Foundry so you can keep Wulbren's bomb to use somewhere else.

So, due to Patch #6, Watchers aren't vulnerable to Lightning anymore, and for some reason for me, they didn't get the vulnerability even when Wet, but Cold still worked fine. This makes the fight a lot longer since it's harder to deal with Defensive Protocol, and the boss is less nukeable. Create Water + Cone of Cold should deal massive damage. If you want to take the slower fight, do your best to just control the Titan while you destroy the other Watchers. If you have gone Illithid, Black Hole works wonders here.

Using Flashblinder will interrupt Defensive Protocol and stun the Titan, as well as any Watcher that gets hit. You can purchase some at the Ironhands' Merchant back at Rivington.

• Unyielding Construct only takes a minimum of 40 Damage and grants 200 Temporary HP. You really don't want to fight this without heavy Damage. Don't be stubborn, get a Sorcerer Hireling if you don't have one, Wizards and Clerics don't have enough firepower to keep up with this fight smoothly. Having a way to Disarm the enemies will make the fight a lot easier, all the better if you can Disarm the Titan itself.
  
  
• All of the Watchers will try to use their Hellfire on their first turn, and they have relatively high initiative. Try to engage them already spread out if you can. You can approach in stealth and pre position, as long as you don't get on the LoS area of the Watchers.
  
  
• Self-Detonate from the Titan deals 12d12+78 HELLFIRE damage, which ignores Resistance and Immunity. Wild Shaped Druids, Barbarians with Relentless Rage and Blood of Lathander can all make you survive if you can't destroy the shield in time. The Saving Throw is Dexterity DC 14, and halves damage, which is still massive. It is survivable, but don't count on it, keep at least one party member far away to avoid cheeky TPKs.

Leaving Gortash for last, since I don't want to deal with random Mindflayers at the city.


Just remember to bring Astarion. I took Shadowheart and Karlach as well, and had Karlach's weapon enchanted with Daylight. She's gonna be Cazador's personal hugger. I also had everyone buffed with Heroes' Feast, it helps a lot in this fight. Patch 5 made a few changes to Cazador, so he can't be shoved into the chasm anymore. Just go through the Palace as normal, there's nothing new here, go down to the chapel and go for Cazador. Remember to bring out Shovel and keep her invisible for the whole fight. Remember Cazador deals a bunch of Necrotic damage, so bring some Necrotic resistance, but not if you won't have enough left for Viconia later.

• Legendary Action: Vampiric Swarm: Cazador reacts when a character tries to approach him by dealing Force damage, buffed by his own passive Necrotic, and knocking back, afflicting you with Swarmed, making you vulnerable to Piercing, dealing heavy Piercing damage each turn and healing Cazador.

The fight starts as normal with Cazador binding Astarion, so use Misty Step to get close and release him as fast as possible, blocking out one of the Ritual Sources in the process. Have Shovel step in another rune while invisible to block another source, enemies won't go after her because she's invisible and out of combat, and if you have any other summon with ranged attacks, place them on a rune as well. I did that with a Cambion. Hug Cazador with Daylight to weaken him and get free 20 damage each turn, but be wary of the direction you come from, to avoid being yeeted to death. In my fight, I got lucky and he fled to a rune, so I had Karlach reposition inside the rune and keep him Bleeding and Maimed in place for the whole fight. This way he's denied of 4 out of 7 Ritual Sources.

To first approach him, use something like Infernal Evasion to guarantee you won't be pushed away, and then don't ever let him go. A reliable way to keep him Maimed is to use the Tiger WildHeart Barbarian build with Hellbeard Halberd, he'll always be either Poisoned or Bleeding, and if Lacerate doesn't work and poison wears off, Tiger's Bloodlust is a guaranteed Bleed on hit. If you must approach Cazador with another character, be sure to do it facing away from your first melee to avoid blowing them away with you.

Chatterteeth will try to Eyebite you, so dealing with him is a priority. The Werewolves and Bats are just cannon fodded, and the Fallen Gur will use Stinky Cloud to deny you of Actions. That's why Heroes' Feast is good here, it gives you immunity to it. Drinking Peerless Focus is good if you are relying on Concentration spells to keep the fight under control, as you'll get hit a lot by small minions.

Regarding Patch 6 changes, Cazador became way more threatening than before. Shovel is ever more helpful than before, since you can position her on a Ritual Circle before battle starts. Each Source you deny Cazador reduces the size of Vampiric Swarm by 1m, so the fight favors a more Ranged style. Still, you may want a melee bruiser to keep him pinned down in position. Try to keep him on Slow, Maim, and every other status effect that hinders actions. He can be poisoned by his own Ghouls, so you can use things like Black Hole to exploit that.

Cazador also gets extra buffs from draining the 2 Ritual Sources near Astarion, so after freeing him, block those out as a priority over the other ones. Cambions, Devas, Elementals and Myrmidons can move quickly enough to the runes closer to the entrance, and even if they don't attack, they have more value just standing there than leaving.

After the fight, comes the decision of what to do about the ritual. Ascending him gives bonus Necrotic damage to his attacks, as well as his Undead Horde as an ally at the finale. Not ascending him makes him genuinely happy for not doing it later on. Choose whatever your conscience allows.

• If you push Cazador into a pit, not only he'll return, but he'll also trigger his LA reaction.
  
  
• Having Daylight and Necrotic Resistance are almost mandatory here. Cazador has a very high initiative, and will always try to open the fight with a very enpowered Call Lightning or Blight.

This used to be merged with Cazador, but no more. That piece of ♥♥♥♥ required his own section due to word limit on Steam.


Ansur himself can be set up before engaging, so you CAN use the Oppenheimer method if you want, but he's not THAT hard, you see. There are better uses to tactical nukes. For his fight I decided to bring Minsc, so he can deal high damage while keeping his distance from the rest of the party. This is important for his Draconic Wrath, so be sure Minsc has Lightning Resistance before the fight. But before the fight, there are the 4 trials, of course.

• On the Judge trial, just use Remove Curse on the painting behind the statue, "The Cell".
  
  
• On the Insight trial, shoot down Suelto, but be sure that there's no AoE to hurt the other spirits, or you'll fail the trial and have to fight.
  
  
• Strategy trial, bring Gale so he can tell you what moves to make, or just destroy the Black King with Lightning damage.
  
  
• The Torch trial, you can shove some of the elementals off the chasm as they spawn. Just keep knocking off whatever you can and you're done.

An now, comes Ansur. Before you start his fight, make whatever preparations you need, and loot the Helm of Balduran. Pre-position your melees spread around Ansur in even angles to avoid cleaves, and your Ranged as far as possible while still in Range, and then start the fight.

• Legendary Action: Draconic Wrath: You've seen this before, Dragons already had this on Tactician. Ansur's is Lightning elemental, hence the Lightning resistance required.

Every turn, make sure your ranged is the one that attacks Ansur first to take Draconic Wrath alone. Meanwhile keep them healed as needed with Healing Word, you DON'T want to trigger Attacks of Opportunity. Keep attacking normally, but make sure you have a crystal close enough or the gap closer to hide properly. When he starts channeling Gather Power, have everyone hide first and then hit with Ranged if they can. If you have Karlach under Barbarian Rage using Bonespike Gloves, you can keep attacking Ansur from melee, as she will (not always, if she takes damage from something else at the same time) survive due to Relentless Rage, and she ignores resistance to physical damage from the gloves, but will need healing right after.

After Stormheart Nova, it's the same fight as before, but you gotta move around to avoid Lightning Bolts. Just keep the same strategy as before and Ansur dies, you don't want to see a second Stormheart Nova, so go all in. BUT, should you see a second Nova, you'll have to be ready to face tank it. Stormheart Nova deals 18d10 Lightning damage. In order to survive this, you NEED to have Lightning Resistance on your whole party AND around 100 HP AT LEAST. To achieve this, Upcast Aid to Lvl 6 and buff with Heroes' Feast. Do NOT use Warding Bond with a party member, have as many Camp Clerics as you feel you need. Barbarian's Relentless Rage, Death Ward, Blood of Lathander, Wild Shape, Slayer Form, use everything you can that can cheat death. You should NOT be face tanking this attack, but at the same time, you'd better be safe by making preparations to face tank it than sorry for losing your run to this.

• Stormheart Nova, like pretty much everything else in the game, can be ignored by Globe of Invulnerability, which makes this fight significantly easier and pretty much risk free.

Once you kill Ansur, well, he's not ACTUALLY dead. He activates Stormheart Resolve, recovers 1 HP, gains 100 Temporary HP, and starts to Gather Power. This is an Enrage mechanic, and since he takes half of any damage you deal minus 4, You'll want to deal 201 damage total plus 4 per damage type on each hit you deal. If you attack with Halberd of Vigilance, Ansur will reduce damage by 4 Slashing AND 4 Force per hit. I really hope you didn't miss the Bonespike Gloves back at the Temple of Bhaal. If you manage to survive this Stormheart Nova, Ansur loses his Temporary HP, so you pretty much won. I survived 2 Novas in a row, requires a lot of previously used buffs, Healing Spells, and Healing Potions, and even so you may die, but it is doable.


An alternate tactic to deal with Stormheart Resolve, without tanking an extra Stormheart Nova, without Globe of Invulnerability, and without burning through 100 Temporary HP. Note that this tactic is pretty risky, and you absolutely need to bring a Plan B in case it backfires.



If you want to relax a bit with some mindless fighting, clear Wyrm's Rock. Just be wary of the Banites, they may give a bit of trouble with their spells. Just be wary of the Concussion Grenades, interacting with them in any way will make them explode.

The fight that terrorizes everyone over and over again. The moment when the child cries, but momma can't see. Scourge of late game Honour runs, and most skipped fight on this mode, I guess. But alas, Shadowheart deserves her happy ending. Karlach and Minsc tag along, there's more than lore fluff to bringing Minsc here.

First, let Shadowheart talk to Viconia instead of taking the Mapping of the Heart yourself. This is important as Viconia can target mapped creatures with some nasty stuff, but Shadowheart's fear is the easiest one to deal with. You can also not go through the mapping at all, or leave the mapped ally in camp and take another one in, your call. In this section you'll also see the only image on this guide, because it's too good to leave it out.

Before starting, have your whole party drink Necrotic resistance, it greatly helps here, get your buffs from your Camp Cleric, and have Daylight cast in all 4 of your characters. This is a cheeky little trick that helps a lot on this fight, you'll see why soon.


I hope you are prepared for this. If you aren't, then you shouldn't be here. And yes, she has 2 LAs for you to deal with. And another skill exclusive to Honour Mode.

• Legendary Action: Sanctuary of Loss: When Viconia or an ally is hit, she casts Sanctuary on them. She can still use Heartwrench along with this.
  
  
• Legendary Action: Heartwrench: Viconia deals MASSIVE Psychic damage to a creature that has gone through the Mapping of the Heart and gets attacked by their fear. That's why we let Shadowheart get mapped, as she punishes her with Wayward Heart, using wolves that can be easily dealt with.

And as her non LA new skill, whenever she ends her turn on Darkness, she receives Sanctuary of Loss for free.

Now here's why Daylight on everyone is so important. Almost every skill and passive from the Sharrans rely on being partially or totally obscured to work, and Daylight makes everything around you a Clear area, except for pockets of Darkness. This effectively cripples their mobility via Shadowstep, negates extra damage from Call of the Dark Lady and Umbral Form, as well as a series of other small advantages it gives you.

Starting the fight, always go for the Fidelians first, even if you have to go in the middle of the fray. The less Darkness pockets you have to deal with, the better. I always send Karlach to the right and immediately Bleed and Maim the Fidelian there. Shadowheart goes straight down the middle stairs and she has a few options here. Barrier of Blades diagonally on Viconia to cut off the Sharrans on the back of the room, Plague of Insects on the left group of enemies to chip off their health, or Hold Person on both Crusaders. Minsc goes with her to shoot down Fidelians from afar, using Arrow of Many Targets, Arrow of Arcane Interference and Smokepowder Arrows alongside poisons, Crawler Mucus or Karabazan's. With Tav/Dark Urge, you can either hunt down other Fidelians or CC them depending of your build. I used Confusion to aid Karlach's side.

Try to work around Sanctuary of Loss here to avoid having priority targets being protected. A good option is to use Shovel and Boo to attack low priority targets to force the LA to be wasted on them. Thanks to Daylight your main worry should be Bone Chill and Darkness. It goes without saying to avoid using Radiant damage here unless you are confident you can take the Retort. I can't stress enough on how the Fidelians should be your absolute priority, and you can mainly ignore Viconia, she isn't a threat by herself and will Channel Divinity often, as well as get Sanctuary from Darkness pockets, so it's a bit pointless anyways.

AoE attacks are also insane here, so if you can spare, use Ice Storm, NECROTIC Spirit Guardians, Fireball, Chain Lightning, and stuff like that. Keep pressing your advantage and forcing Fidelians into submission, while also managing at least 1 Crusader with CC. And DO NOT try to use Hunger of Hadar here, for obvious reasons.

If you are like me, you'll want to finish off Viconia with style. So just do it.

• Goes without saying that if you took Sharran path with Shadowheart, the fight is significantly easier as you convince Sharrans to follow you instead of Viconia. They also make for great allies at the finale, but, at what cost?

In here I'll be describing mainly the Oppenheimer Method, which consists of stacking explosives to nuke something. Do not, for any reason at all, underestimate Raphael. He might be easy on previous difficulties, but in Honour Mode he is able to suddenly kill your whole party if you slip.

For this little trip, I took Shadowheart, Karlach and Lae'zel. Picking Lae'zel instead of Gale was probably a mistake that made my life way harder than it should have been. Stash anything you aren't using on your Camp Chest and pick up as many explosives as you can, Smokepowder or Runepowder, Fire explosives are useless. Also bring Alchemist Fire to help with the explosions.


You start off at the boss room, so get to setting up. Place explosives in a way that they'll be able to explode the pillars (2-3 barrels per pillar), and at the same time will be able to trigger a chain reaction damaging the Cambions, Yurgir, Raphael and the 4 pillars in a single explosion. Sorry Hope, but your sister is collateral damage here. Once you are done setting up, proceed into the prison, clear it and cast any buffs you want on Hope, more importantly Longstrider so she can run faster.

Haarlep doesn't have a LA themselves, but they have a reaction that makes them completely immune to any kind of harm once they get hit. This can get annoying very quickly, so be sure to CC them before starting to hit to prevent this. Of course you can always just play their game and avoid conflict, and even get the information that Raphael is terrible in bed, which you can use to mock him later. Or you can play their game AND kill them for the fun. Your call, but if you don't kill them, you'll miss on Helldusk Gloves. Anyways, use the bathtub to heal again after getting the password to the Hammer.

Now we make a second round of preparations. Hope needs a bodyguard, so send a capable melee class to the prison and wait there. Be sure to open the doors to the dining room via the lever in front of the archive as well. Once everything is in order and your preparations are complete, take the Hammer, and send it to Hope's bodyguard. This is the time to loot the other treasures here as well. Swap to the bodyguard and break her chains, swap back to the main party and leave the Archive to start the fight. Then you leave the prison with Hope following you, and start combat at that side as well. Longstrider on Hope is essential if you want her to be able to outrun the Hellfire Boulders. If you can't quickly kill the debtor guarding the doors to the dining room, just JUMP past them, to avoid anything unnecessary. Keep running and reunite your party in the middle. Now you can either finish the debtors, or run straight to the portal at the Foyer, but you'll need your whole party there to trigger Raphael's fight.

You can also make this sequence easier by killing every debtor before saving Hope, but where's the fun in that? Release your inner Indiana Jones and escape those boulders rolling after you.



There are three things you need to know about Raphael. He's almost home now - closer than a kiss. His favourite colour is blood. And he probably knows a thousand ways to kill us. THIS IS GOING TO HURT. Actually four, because he sucks in bed.

• Legendary Action: Beguiling Rebuke: Raphael will attempt to Charm anyone that attacks him for 2 turns. He can use this once per pillar still standing. This overcomes Karlach's immunity to Charm.
  
  
• Legendary Action: Soul Ascension: Raphael uses this while in his Ascended Form. When he or an ally is attacked, he reacts by spawning a pool that deals heavy Necrotic damage, and Ascends any Cambion inside, giving them Hellfire damage that ignores resistance or vulnerabilities. And, like the first one, he can use it one time per pillar standing.

Ah yeah, Yurgir is also here. If you helped him at the Gauntlet of Shar, he'll join you against Raphael. If you killed him, it's a DC 30 Persuasion check to have him join you. He uses the same kit as he used back at the Gauntlet.

• Legendary Action: Blinding Ambush: Yurgir will mark a character with Watchful Hunter. Then once per turn he can react to any attack or spell by that character by interrupting the attack, dealing high Radiant damage and blinding that character.

Hope you prepared well for this fight. The pillars briefly overcharge Raphael when they take Radiant damage. Your priority here is to take down those pillars to deny Raphael's powers as quickly as you can.

During the whole fight you'll want to keep both Raphael and Yurgir under CC to keep your advantage over them. Raphael may ascend even without pillars, so you'll still have to deal with his second LA. He also throws Hellfire at you, dealing heavy damage, which can easily be lethal if you have low HP and/or are standing in one of his Necrotic damage pools. Also do NOT have Hope use an offensive Divine Intervention, or she will die, save it for a healing one instead.

To keep Hope safe, you can either Sanctuary her and never attack, just heal, or keep her near the doorway at the back of the room. You can use her Revoke Status Guest to remove some enemies from the battle permanently, so use it, and have her step up whenever you need Channel Divinity to heal you, and then retreat. If you have enough movement or are already fighting retreated, have her cross the door and close it, this way nothing can harm her unless the door is open.

Remember to always keep your party with high HP, and don't let the Cambions ascend, use whatever means necessary. Do not underestimate Raphael, and do not let his CC wear off, he can easily kill any character he targets if not properly controlled. He can take Bleeding, Frightened, Fear, Maimed, Otto's Irresistible Dance, Hold Monster, Slow, and many other status effects. Remember to never use anything that deals Radiant Damage on him to avoid Punish Divinity, which is a stun attempt followed by Soul Drain, dealing strong Necrotic damage and healing him for half the damage inflicted.

Once again, proper preparation is the key to winning against Raphael. Do NOT try to go out of your way to try and save Korrila, KO her with Non-Lethal if you can, but she will most likely die to some collateral damage. Keep to your strategy and you'll end up killing Raphael. Again, do NOT get greedy, renew his CC, heal your party, keep your buffs, even if he's at 20 HP left, or he might get a comeback and kill you.

• Curriculum of Strategy: Artistry of War shoots 6 skulls, and 3 are usually enough to kill a single pillar, so you can quickly get rid of 2. Disintegrate will instantly break a single pillar. Having Devas on the fight also help, as the pillars temporarily deactivate when taking Radiant damage.
  
  
• Ravaging Inferno is a Lvl 6 Spell that CAN be Counterspelled. If you want to be able to destroy pillars and Counterspell it, you'll have to use Arcane Battery on Disintegrate.
  
  
• If Yurgir is on Raphael's side, kill him as quickly as you can, unless you can Slow him along with the Cambions and Raphael. Raphael has Infernal Retribution, so it may instantly break your concentration if he Saves against it.
  
  
• The Vengeful Cambions have Fleeting Protection, which deals back double the Radiant Damage they take back as Fire Damage, and then expire forever. Using Callous Glow Ring and an AoE spell like Chain Lightning is a quick and cheap way to get rid of that to leave them open to Divine Smites and Hope's Divine Intervention.

Gortash is the only major fight left before facing the Netherbrain. And a very easy fight, if you blew up the Foundry.


If you have anything left to do, do it now. Deliver Dribbles' parts to Lucretious, buy anything you might need from the merchants, finish any quest, receive any reward left, and most importantly, head to the Guild Hall. There, talk to Mol and give her the Contract, but DO NOT tell her that Raphael is dead. Then persuade her to help you on the finale, her buff is quite handy, there's a LOT of fire damage in there, and Fetcher's Favour will help you immensely.


You know when you're taking a walk and suddenly step on some animal's poop and have to scrape it out of your shoes on a patch of grass nearby? Well, that's Gortash. You may not even see his LA, or his Avatar of Bane phase. I didn't. I even thought he just didn't have one. But he does have one, and so, here it is.

• Legendary Action: Tyrannical Branding: Gortash reacts to being attacked by cursing the attacker with it. If you don't remove the curse, it will explode dealing heavy Force damage and buffing nearby Banites with Tyrant's Edict.

How does this LA work? I don't know. How to remove it? Most likely Remove Curse. Does he need to be in Avatar of Tyranny phase to use it? Probably, yes. Where is the cool Watcher armor I saw him wearing on that one mod on the Nexus that makes him always wear it? No idea.

So yeah, once he changes into Avatar of Tyranny, he deals extra 4d8 Force damage with Unarmed Attacks, and has one Extra Attack, has a cool new armor, summons multiple Manifestations of Tyranny, and you can use Remove Curse to negate the effects of his LA safely. There really isn't much more to say, he just deals more damage, but nothing out of the ordinary. If he binds you with Tyrant's Bindings, just shoot him with an Arrow of Arcane Interference.

What matters here is how you deal with his grenade and flamethrower traps, you don't, really, and how early you destroy his barrier generators. Just use Chain Lightning on them and boom, Gortash's defenses are off. Also, he's just a piece of ♥♥♥♥ an Humanoid, from the Human race, and so he's vulnerable to pretty much any status effect you throw at him. Just CC him with anything, paralyse or Hold Person him and you won't even see his Avatar phase. In fact I only seen that phase twice over 10 playthroughs.

On his average form he poses no threat at all, unless you don't disable his barriers and want to throw stuff at him. On his Avatar form, he'll conjure a huge fist to slam an area centered at a character, but you can just walk out of it. He also summons a bunch of Banite Spirit things that buff the fantastic army of 3 Banites that fight with him. He probably gets his cool armor and LA here, but chances are he dies before he can do anything.

That's it, if you want for him to be challenging, attack during the coronation or don't explode the Foundry. Fight him in the "intended" way and he shouldn't be any trouble.

• The Concussion Grenades all have Unstable Ballistics, and will explode immediately when interacted with. You'll have to leave their explosion radius, and try to force enemies inside.
  
  
• I decided to not CC him to see what happens, and well, he got all his cool stuff after activating Avatar of Tyranny. Way to go, Gortash!
  
  
• Honestly, this section is mainly useless, his fight can very easily be brute forced and the threat he offers is very limited, just have Shadowheart prepare Remove Curse, attack with someone, Remove Curse, resume attacking. But, you won't know about this unless you fight him or read about the fight somewhere, and here's somewhere.
  
  
• You can still talk to Bane by using Speak with the Dead on Gortash's corpse. Sadly, as of Hotfix #17, this dialogue still doesn't have any audio.

The time is here, to make your way to glory. I'm sure you can already feel the taste of the Shining Honour Dice waiting for you. You can see it shine in all its Golden Glory. You are just like Vincent and Jules opening the suitcase and looking how it glows.

Choose your party well as you won't be able to swap it later. My Dark Urge was a College of Swords Bard, I got Life Domain Cleric Shadowheart, Tiger Wildheart Karlach and Circle of the Moon Druid Jaheira with me. Picking Jaheira was an actual good choice for me, I couldn't decide who would be my 4th party member, so I just went with Jaheira, since Druids are pretty versatile and can fit any role with few changes.


There is one fight in the Morphic Pool, and usually it can be avoided by stealthing your way through, but maybe they patched it. Either way, be wary of the yellow Intellect Devourers, they will suicide bomb you as they get close, or just explode when they die. This can trigger a chain reaction, and some more will spawn during the fight.

You can get a few cool stuff here actually, but only lore-wise. There are 2 corpses you can talk to with Speak With the Dead, and each of them hold a Teddy Bear. Reunite them and get a small cute commentary. Regarding the Netherbrain, it doesn't matter if you fail or succeed the checks, even the 99 DC one, the brain is just too strong, and The Emperor will pull you out. BUT, if you score a natural 20 against the 99 DC check, the brain gets surprised and has lowered HP when you face it later on. Now you have a few choices that will impact a bit of how your finale will play.

• You trust The Emperor and hand it the Netherstones: The Emperor won't betray you, and you get to control it and use its abilities to the fullest. It is a pretty handy ally in combat. Lae'zel gets pissed off by this if she turned on Vlaakith.
  
  
• You still side with the Emperor but distrust it, and handle the Netherstones yourself: You or Karlach become a Mindflayer. I do not recommend becoming Illithid, because you will literally lose everything that makes you you. Your stats change, you keep your Class and abilities, spells and whatever else, gain the ultimate Illithid Powers, but you lose your Soul. Karlach seems to be saved at first, but that thing will never be Karlach, it just thinks it is because it absorbed everything that she was. This also pisses off Anti-Vlaakith Lae'zel.
  
  
• You want to do the right thing and free Orpheus despite the risk: The Emperor drops its final mask and betrays you by siding with the Netherbrain. Orpheus is freed, Lae'zel is happy, and either you, Karlach or Orpheus can become Illithid. Having Orpheus do it is the best option in every sense, as his Monk abilities are very limited, but the Illithid powers he gets make him invaluable.
  
  
• You end up pissing off The Emperor and it leaves, but you never took Raphael's deal and never stole the Orphic Hammer: Raphael appears to save the day, and offers you the Hammer on his original deal. You have no choice but accept it, and on the ending you'll have no choice other than giving him the Crown of Karsus. He also appears to deliver the Hammer if you took his deal but accidentally misplaced it somewhere. I don't know what happens when The Emperor leaves and you forgot to take the Hammer.

Whatever you choose, proceed to High Hall, and buff your party here. If you need, use a Potion of Angelic Slumber, since there are no pods to heal yourself. As long as you have enough to use before actually facing the Brain. Also be sure to buy ANYTHING from your Kobold friend that you think you might want to use. This is no time to be saving money.

• It is possible to skip MOST of this fight by jumping to the ruins to the left before the gate, where you meet the City Watch, and sneak around. You'll face a few Flying Ghouls, a patrol that can be sneaked through, and 2 Goblins guarding a locked door. Then you can stealthly jump behind the Spectator, open the door and proceed into the Brain Stem section. This is a harder stealth route, but avoids not just the main fight, but also the Death Knight in the Sewers that's detailed below
  
  
• Using Speak with the Dead on a Cultist here reveals that they used an underground passage from a nearby tower. I haven't found it, but maybe I just didn't look hard enough. If you leave the ally room from the East door, you'll see a broken section with water running through that you can jump down to a Dead Watchman and a Rusted Grate that you can break to reveal the Enter Sewers path. You can also enter from a Metal Door in a broken house slightly north, with a Winged Horror patrolling the floor above it.
  
  
• If you decided to enter via the Sewers, You'll find yourself in a room with a Goblin Boss (with VERY high initiative that cannot be surprised, and a few Cranium Rats, guarding a door to a further section with a Death Knight and a few other enemies, including an Illithid. The Death Knight can cast Hellfire Orb, so be wary of it. He behaves pretty much the same as one of Sarevok's Knights, and other than that, it is a MUCH shorter fight, and delivers you right behind the main fight. You'll still have to avoid a patrol, but you get to jump on some rafters and then walk inside the main hall where the Brain Stem is, behind the big doors.

Just before you get to the fight, if you pass an Insight check you can try persuade 4 City Guard to fight with you. They make for good allies overall, and worst case scenario, bait for MindFlayer Domination. This battle has a lot of enemies, and some join mid battle. There are 2 Zealots to smite you, and a few Mindflayers, as well as an Ogre throwing explosives at you, deal with those first.

Call some allies here atop the walls to have them deal with the enemies there, and if you have Voss, use him to create a Fire Wall from the staircase all the way to the Ogre, across the Goblins, up on the left wall. This will deal with the pesky Goblins, and explode the Ogre's barrels. Have your Squid Ally use Nebulous Black Hole twice per turn. You don't need anything else, just this one. Deals a bunch of Force damage, pulls enemies to the center and slows them.

While this battle isn't exactly hard, it is a very long one. Advance at your own pace, and kill everything in your way. After the battle is done, you can loot some potions around, and then prepare for the last stretch.


Enter the hall in stealth, including your ally, and leave behind any summon that doesn't have stealth, don't dismiss them, just leave them waiting. Go through the left path and try to surprise the Intellect Devourer there. Then have anyone open the big door, throw a Speed Potion on your Squid Friend and have it fly all the way to the Brain Stem, and the fight ends, you didn't get bombarded by a Nautiloid, and didn't have to fight anything. Here, have your whole party buffed with everything you can and use Angelic Slumber potions, because again there's no recovery pod.

If you have Gale in your party, he might ask you if this is really the best idea, since he still has the Orb and all. If you accept his proposal, he climbs the stem alone and blows up the Netherbrain and everything in it. The game ends and it actually counts as a proper ending, so you get your achievement and your Shining Honour Dice. But where is the honor on skipping the last fight? You didn't come all this way to just not try it, right? Will you really feel like you deserved your shiny rewards if you didn't fight all the way for them? Whatever suits you. I pressed forward.

The moment is upon us. I came this far. You came this far. WE came this far. There's no way a big bad Dragon and a Squishy Squid Brain will stop us now.


You can technically just rush to the portal, risking everyhting to skip directly to the Brain. Don't do that, you WILL die. Instead, approach carefully and slowly win your ground. Kill the Dragon before trying to open the portal.

• NOT a Legendary Action: Karsite Grip: This isn't a LA, but rather a spell that the Crown of Karsus will cast every turn if there's a target in range. Deals moderate Force damage, jumps to additional targets just like Chain Lightning, and also inflicts Dazed and Weak Grip.
  
  
• Legendary Action: Draconic Wrath: You already saw it before, you know how it works, this one is Fire elemental.

If The Emperor betrays you, it rides the Dragon to this fight and summons 4 Dream Guardians. If it is still on your side, the Brain spawns 4, eh, copies or something of your companions. Deal with the Dragon in a similar way you dealt with Ansur, but now there's a twist. As soon as the battle starts, I had Shadowheart cast Barrier of Blades horizontally across The Emperor, as far as possible from the Dragon while still harming it. Position it correctly and you just got yourself shielded from Draconic Wrath, as it will hit the barrier and explode there. Summon as many allies as you can, Harpers, Ironhands, Gur, Hellriders, Sharrans, whatever you got. Summon some near the Mindflayers to keep them occupied while you deal with the Dragon.

The Emperor itself can be completely ignored, it just dies by collateral damage. The Blade Barrier might catch and allow you to kill some Dream Guardians as well. During the fight, keep yourself at the starting platform, providing the appropriate support to your allies as they advance through the tentacles. Have a high mobility character pursue the Guardians as they teleport around, and kill them before they can bother you too much. Have your Squid Friend cast Nebulous Black Hole on the Dragon every single turn to keep it under Slow and mostly in the same place, as your Blade Barrier chips at him and blocks off Draconic Wrath. Spread your party as you gain terrain by killing the tentacles, and slowly push forward, but not past the Barrier, until the Dragon is dead.

The Crown will be bombarding you with Karsite Grip every turn, don't let it take you with your guard down. Once the Dragon and the Dream Guardians are dead, move on whatever's left from the Mindflayers and kill them quickly to avoid taking too many Grips, have your whole party approach the Crown and have Squiddie open the portal. Open it too early and your life may become a bit more difficult than it should.


There you have it. You're almost there, closer than ever. Don't get greedy, and don't let your allies die to Orb of Negation. If you scored a Natural 20 against the 99 DC check to dominate the Brain, it will be debuffed with Against all Odds and have less HP. Just a slight push forward if you managed to do it, but not decisive.

• No, it's not an actual Legendary Action: Aegis of the Absolute: The Brain becomes IMMUNE to every type of damage that it took on the previous turn. It lasts for 1 turn.

Keep your characters stacked close to each other, this is the first thing you want to do, to avoid multiple useful platforms being destroyed by Orb of Negation. Alternate between your damage types. Jaheira was my good pick out of sheer luck, I didn't know what I was getting into, and having her able to dish out Lightning and Ice/Bludgeoning damage with Call Lightning and Ice Storm was all that I needed to keep hitting the brain constantly. Coordinate your elements carefully, move your party as one, and keep your damage steady and you will eventually kill it.

• Due to how Aegis of the Absolute works, and the new Haste rules, using it on Spellcasters is the best way to get value here.
  
  
• Have your Squidfriend be the first to attack each turn as they'll be dealing less damage overall. Alternate between Nebulous Black Hole and Tentacle Strike or Potent Concentrated Blast, Mindblast may not hit since the brain floats in a hole.
  
  
• If you have a Druid, only use WildShape to attack on the first round, cast spells on the other ones instead.

You thought it was over, didn't you? Well, you still have a bit more to do before you get your rewards.


There are plenty of resolutions that can happen, here are some of them.

• If you become the Absolute, there is no Epilogue for you, everything is Illithid.
  
  
• If you are The Dark Urge and became the Slayer, but ultimately denied Bhaal by killing the brain, you will still be a slave to your Urges, and should you choose to lock yourself on a prison, you end up having a VERY disturbing cutscene at Withers' Party where you are completely broken, without any memories or thoughts of anything except being a Bhaalspawn, and you can stab, eat, piss and slash yourself, waiting for everyone to go to sleep as you sneak in, and the screen fades.
  
  
• If Lae'zel is still loyal to Vlaakith, you get to watch her "ascension". She walks in Vlaakith's hall, and stands face to face with the Lich Queen, while looking at the other "ascended" Githyanki, clearly drained and mind broken. She smiles as she fulfills her destiny, incapable of seeing the truth. The Party happens but Lae'zel isn't there. Withers explains that she "ascended", and isn't to be found anywhere, as she is beyond the Planes, but that she got what she wanted.
  
  
• If Karlach went to Avernus, we discover that we can in fact fix her Hellion Heart. Don't fall for the illusion that Mindflayer Karlach is a happy ending for her.
  
  
• If you are a Dark Urge that rejected Bhaal completely, and did not have a relationship with Astarion, and he remained a Spawn, he will comically and slowly hid a dagger behind his back when you talk to him, while making sure that you are completely free of Bhaal. He also states how happy he actually is with his new life, free from Cazador, and says that while the Profane Ascension powers would be fun, he is satisfied for not taking them.
  
  
• If Minthara survived and joined you, she gets paranoid and complains that there were more parties that she wasn't invited to.
  
  
• Halsin settled up in the former Shadow Cursed Lands, and adopted plenty of children, who love to play with him in his Bear form, call him Daddy Halsin, and always want to hear stories of his adventures. Thaniel and Oliver show up from time to time to play with the kids, and the community is slowly growing to be a village.
  
  
• Scratch found a home in Baldur's Gate, adopted by a little girl who loves him very much.
  
  
• The Owlbear Cub is all grown up, and spent a lot of time on his own, made friends with a Cat and a Kraken, and later killed the Kraken because it ate the Cat. You have the option to take him in. I don't know about the others, but Shadowheart absolutely loved the idea of adopting him, and he loved the idea of living with the nice lady.
  
  
• Gale can become Professor Dekarios at the Academy of Wizards in Waterdeep, and asks for you to visit sometimes and give a lecture to his students. Or he can become the God of Ambition, and ascend you to godhood if you are together. In either of those, he doesn't need Mystra, and as a Professor, he is very fine about having to live with the Orb.

Talk to everyone, enjoy the party, listen to some music by none other than the God of Music himself, who owes Withers some favors, who is very happy to remind him. He is a bit depressed because no one recognizes him, and if you pass a check, you recognize him and he gets happy.

When you are done, speak to Withers and watch the credits. There you have it, you just unlocked Foehammer, and when you play again, you'll be able to switch to the Shining Honour dice once you get to roll a check. Enjoy it.

Ta-ta.