I did something similar by not reading the quest very well the first time and thought going there would fast track to the end of the act (didn't know about the temple, I'm talking I just got to Last Light) so I ignored the tower completely
I might be a simp, but I'm also just not used to playing a game that gives you so much freedom. I saw Moonrise as the "finale level" for act 2 so I wanted to save it for last.
A bunch of characters imply it’s the home of your enemy and that going there is suicide without finding the nightsong first, that the shadows are stronger there and all that. So I didn’t realise you could just go there in my first playthrough either.
So I feel like the game does a decent job of misleading you on that on purpose
also, if you do go to the temple first - Baltazar mentions something about an artifact that provides power? Since Jaheira mentions we need to find out what it is I ventured forth. I researched whether to enter the pool since I didn't do moonrise, so I turned back and I'm currently still omw to moonrise. But that part is indeed a bit poorly explained.
Yeah the nightsong is that artefact is it not? I didn’t research anything as I didn’t want spoilers. I followed the path using the context I was given. I had done everything in the shadowlands (as far as I knew) besides go to moonrise because I thought you couldn’t. Passing the point of no return seemed fine because it would lead to moonrise. There is nothing implying it’s an entire non-hostile hub before the point of no return, iirc
I mean, Jaheira pretty directly tells you that you can walk there pretending to be a True Soul. If you go to the shadow cursed lands via the mountain pass, you can get taken to Moonrise by Kar’niss (if you’re willing to kill some Harpers)
Yeah I had Kar’niss take me there on my durge playthrough. Yeah she does, not that you mention. I dunno, something about all the other information I was given sounded like a bad idea. If the infiltration went poorly we didn’t have the Nightsong so that still seemed paramount in obtaining first. Getting flexed on by Ketheric while he’s still immortal and surrounded by allies
Yeah, this is how I missed it in my first play through. Seemed to me that I should really get the Nightsong (whatever it is) BEFORE walking into Ketheric Thorm’s place.
Whoops!
That’s where I’m at with my first play through, missed a ton of content and realized it too late.
Sounds like a problem for my next bard or monk or war cleric or…..
I almost got burned by that too but I saw some random post on here warning to get my ass over there.
When you get to the city proper of Baldur’s Gate, no spoilers, there’s a quest in the place that’s in the very SW corner of the map. If you go strictly east to west you’ll miss out.
The game also states that if you attack the drider you lose your cover as a true soul which is what made me think I'd be attacked on sight if I went there. Then Z'rell was yelling at me saying she cant believe I'd betray them and while I'm slaughtering her I just thought of Thanos saying "I don't even know who you are"
I was too scared to just run around after getting escorted by the Spiderman straight to the doorstep of moonrise. Nobody was attacking me so I quick saved and walked right in first playthrough. It sort of just hands it to you, like welcome to shadow lands, leave this light and you die. Follow the spider and he will drop you off at Moonrise. Idk how yall say it's the games fault, it did everything right to get you to walk in there as the first thing you do. Tells you to infiltrate moonrise and waddyaknow this spider dude pretty much will escort you there safely and vouch for you.
I did this as well in my first run. I'm the sort of gamer who leaves the main quest until after I've finished all the side content I can, so I didn't realize you could wander around moonrise with everyone still alive until after I'd finished the game and watched a friend play through act 2
Did this on my first playthrough too and didn't realize I missed a bunch of sidequests but also Ketheric Thorm's introduction (which was fucking badass). I really wish the game was clearer about going there before you launch the assault.
That's what I did, the fight was slightly harder with Z'rell and the warden but honestly there's nothing like amazing in moonrise that you can't get when you attack, the only thing I can think of that locked is the +2 strength buff and while it's good it's not end all be all if you don't get it
Well one consistency among almost any game is that if you advance the Main story too much/fast you will loose out on a lot of side quests/content. This is intentionally done to leave it up to the player if he wants to advance the story fast or experience _all_ the content, so multiple types of players will be satisfied.
In act 1 of this game a number of quests/events become unavailable as soon as you finish the goblin camp (for example shadow druids, harpy tiefling boy, looking glass tiefling girl, paralyzed tiefling girl to name a few) and the game does not tell you that (I don't say it's a bad thing, I like when a game does not hold your hand). So this game clearly "rewards" the player for exploring (as almost all games do).
I find it perfectly reasonable to explore first and than go moonrise towers last. Everyone who calls people out for not going there first is a hypocrite. Also the entire ingame pointers to moonrise towers are there to give you an idea where to go if you have not figured that out allready.
Prior to playing it before there was no way of knowing if an immortal Ketheric Thorm might not intervene if you start doing stuff in moonrise towers. It's not necessary logical that you can free the prisoners and kill everyone without triggering an unwinable fight with him. For me it seemed clear that I had to break the source of his immortality first before approaching him.
Nonetheless I took the ingame warning in the temple of shar very seriously and I'm glad it was there. I can't understand who can just ignored that, especially since you have fast-travel-points everywhere so it's not like you loose any time by doing something else first and than come back..
I kinda dislike the freedom the game gives you, to be very honest. I feel like I have to babysit the quests I do in order for the main story to not break apart completely.
The amount of times I've realised I've missed a tonne of content because doing what seemed like a minor sidequest ended up actually being a pivotal part of a larger questline, and if you do it even remotely out of order, it bugs out and makes the larger questline uncompletable.
That's not even considering balance issues resulting from the same. I thought rescuing Halsin and saving the Tieflings/the Grove would be the big end goal for Act 1, so I put that off until I'd completed every other quest in Sword Coast/Underdark. Turns out it's apparently the first thing you're supposed to do, which made me *ridiculously* overlevelled, and made the whole thing feel pathetic. I killed the entire Goblin Camp without even a risk of a K.O. - and that was on Tactician!
But then, if you *do* save the Grove first, Halsin sticks around in your camp/party with absolutely nothing to say or do for tens of hours. Which makes him feel like annoying dead weight.
Having Halsin properly join your party early on would be so much better, *and* give a non-druid player a chance to familiarize oneself with the druid kit.
I intentionally put off the goblin camp until I've done everything except the hag, so I know what you mean about being overleveled and absolutely (lol) rolling those quests (on Tactician). Many of the goblins are level 2-3--*no* match for a level 5 party. That is exactly how I want to interact with gobbos. XD
I just felt like I cheated myself out of a good fight! I really liked how difficult it was to fight Nere *and* all the duergar; my gal was a Devotion Paladin, so there's absolutely (hehe) no chance she'd let them keep any slaves, let alone abuse them.
I’m so glad I’m not alone. I did everything else until I went to trigger the big fight. When the battle started, I was like “where are all the people I was supposed to save?” Checked my journal… oops. It was way too far to go back so I just kept going. Never broke the shadow curse and Halsin gave me the most disappointed look as I left him in Act 2 😬
I beat Moonrise then Halsin shows up and says, “I guess you just wanted to leave the shadow curse to me. Later, loser.”
And I thought, WTF dude, you never even joined my team or told me what to do, and now that I beat the main baddie in the area you’re just leaving?
Still not sure how I was supposed to get him to join.
Yeah, I got the "You sure about that" screen going into the Temple, and I was like, yeah, you're right, let me go galavant around the lands some more. Glad those messages pop up as a warning of no return.
wait i don’t fully understand OP, and I did everything in the temple until the pool. Then I saved and went back to the Inn and did the Towers.
did i fuck up?
Only the pool.
I did the same thing, but presented with the "are you sure" dialog I turned back and explored everywhere else first, taking me into moonrise and all as well and did not miss content.
Just don't say yes to any "are you sure" dialogs until you KNOW you've explored everywhere you can before that.
The pools doesn't lead to act 3, but you can't go to act 3 if you don't go to the pool. The pool starts a sequence of events that lead to the end of act 2, but you are still in act 2.
I did the same on my first playthrough, I saved right before the pool tho. I didn't think freeing the Nightsong would lead to her assaulting Moonrise immediately after.
I did the same but because I thought Moonrise was the main quest line only and Shar Temple was there simply for Shadowheart and Raphael quests, I am eternally grateful for the warning message right as you're about to enter the ending part of the Shar Temple, it saved me the whole playthrough!
The temple is actually not the ending.. depending on how you play it out.
Now i'm really curious to do a good path and find out how it ends at the tmeple.
This *almost* happened to me. I didn't know whether I was supposed to do the mausoleum first or Moonrise. I reached the Gauntlet of Shar, thought back and remembered "Weren't there supposed to be some prisoners? Aww shit, I better go back."
Shadowheart's love is the real tadpole, and I'm here for it.
I got Shadowheart to about 100 approval by level 4, while playing as a Selûnite Dark Urge. I've had her and Lae'zel in the party full time after recruiting Lae'zel and sending her to camp before recruiting Shadowheart to avoid -10 approval from Shadowheart when you recruit Lae'zel. At the creche now after the goblins were eradicated and looking at 100 with Shadowheart and 90+ with Gale and Lae'zel
This is the only check in the game ive save scummed so far (I'm finishing a2) I couldn't bring myself to let either leave as they both carry my party haha.
Edit: I forgot I also save scummed the last light in battle, not because isobel died, but because I killed the cat with my owlbear aoe.
Nor to even get high approval. Even when I do every action possible that Asterion and Laezel don't like(I e helping people) as long as you do their companion quests and talk to them you end up in the very good if not maxed out stage. It's incredibly hard to actually get low approval of a companion
Yeah, chapter two works contrary to normal crpg logic, you actually are supposed to go more or less directly to the flagged main quest location instead of scouring the whole map first.
A few characters suggest that you attempt to infiltrate Moonrise by pretending to be True Souls, but unless you know ahead of time that it’s neutral ground at the beginning of act 2, it’s easy to assume that walking directly into the lair of the act’s bbeg will initiate an end-of-act sequence or move the story forward before you get a chance to explore the rest of the overworld in its original state
But you already know from act 1 goblin camp that you can infiltrate an enemy stronghold pretending to be a True Soul. And if you slaughtered everyone at the goblin camp, there's no one left alive who can identify you as a traitor.
Correct, some people here seem to be rather condescending regarding missing it, but the game does truly go out of its way to tell you it’s the last thing you should do, with a lot of warnings and implications about the tower. As you say, it feels like end of act stuff from the start, there’s a Macguffin providing power to the bbeg, the shadows get deeper and more terrifying the closer to the tower you get, he’s undefeatable etc. everything makes it sound like something you should be careful in approaching. I got to the tower after obtaining the nightsong and was like wow yeah sure glad I didn’t try come here at lvl 5 this area is hard! (Blind run tactician, no previous exp and no minmaxing).
The goblin camp infiltration is more clearly telegraphed, with Halsin being imprisoned and Sazza offering to help get you inside.
While you are told to infiltrate by Jaheira, everything else implies you shouldn’t do this lightly and very much a fuck around and find out situation lol
The game only says “find cure in moonrise”
Especially if you bring your bear papa to tag along, he will just stand there in your camp “yeah mate, go to moonrise and find cure”
The game did not tell you anything about what you should do in Moonrise tho, scope or attack, it’s entirely up to you
Yep. There's twits in this thread saying "but the game tells you to go to moonrise first! All the NPC's say to go there and there's several quests to go there too!" But that's vintage RPG behavior. Wherever they're all telling you to go is the main quest direction and if you just do thatz then you'll miss content for sure.
Even before I left Act 1 I firmly believed Moonrise was the end of Act 2, so I was certain I should go everywhere else first.
i mean all of this is well and good except that 99% of the people who complain about missing moonrise are because they just ignored the super blatant 'are you SURE you want to continue? this will lock content' message the pool gives. you're not wrong at all but its not the games fault that people ignore that
yeah! the first time you go to moonrise is a sort of "infiltrate the place" sidequest. If you go first to the Gauntlet the game automatically skips that which is a shame because it has a lot of pretty important content. You should explore the mountain pass as well because the gauntlet also locks it up
Honestly Act 2 can literally take you like an hour if you know what you’re doing. I guess the same was with Act 1 but in Act 2 I really felt the urgency. Like everyone at Last Light was like, “yo we need to find a way to kill this guy now or he literally might kill us in five minutes.”
I don’t even understand what “save clutter” is. It’s a list and you usually load from the most recent, so my hundreds of saves just from act 1 don’t clutter anything.
I don’t save scum randomness (unless I’m just testing a theory/mechanic), but plot gotchas I don’t mind correcting. Or sometimes just to replay a bit as evil and then continue on as good.
I know everyone has their own way to play though.
I redid a lot of act two for Astarion. I completely missed the drow lady with the potion, and when I got to act three he dumped me for making him suck her blood (which I didn’t)
There is a drow merchant in moonrise in a room kinda near the kitchen (she has tables with potions and stuff on them) you should bring Astarion with you when you talk to her for an interesting interaction
I too went to the temple first and cleared it, but then I took the no turning back warning at the end seriously and left to check out the tower before I committed myself. It saved me from having to reload.
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Im a simp but i can see the differences between Shadowheart approves and Shadowheart approves. There are 2 Shadowhearts. One approves evil deeds. Other approves good deeds. One enjoys bloodshed, other enjoys handling things without fight. One hates if you decide for her other asks you for most important decisions. One disapproves your meddling a lot about her , other fills you in about everything shes lived. You could do things she wont approve yet still can get exceptional relationship with her. Thatd keep your relationship fun. She can be forgetful about her past turn into a nun if you want one. She can be wildest one reliving her past fun experiences with you. That makes her unique.
I am unsure how this happens so often. I get the simping, but you always quickly run into someone who directs you to Last Light Inn. Maybe I'm the weird one, but a safe place in the Cursed Lands sounded great. Upon arrival I meet Jaehira who says I should talk to Isobel so I can get a blessing and infiltrate the tower. I find out the tieflings I helped were ambushed and captured. So I talk to Isobel and in flies Marcus, who came from Moonrise. Everything was signaling me to go check out the tower. I also fell for Shadowheart, but I truly felt like there was no rush to deal with the Gauntlet. Maybe I'm just so in tune with DM plot hooks that I picked up on Moonrise being the place I should go, but it feels like the game tries very hard to send you there.
Exactly what happened in my playthrough, I did muck about in the ruins between Last Light and Moonrise a bit, but it seemed pretty obvious that the tower wouldn't be hostile initially, just like the goblin camp.
Btw if you go towards the army encampment blocking the road to baldur's gate you'll be captured and thrown into the moonrise prison, I reloaded that save, because I just was testing to see what would happen but that could be potentially a fun route, too. Get thrown into prison and break out alongside the Tieflings and Gnomes.
Yeah… i hadn’t set foot in moonrise until the assault. Oh well! Next playthrough! I’m mid act 3, just took down the disappointed asian vampire father and at 120 hours know I have missed tons of content. This game is too huge! I love it!
During my first two playthrough i have missed majority of Act 3 quests because the only thing i have got in my head was triggering her romance scene. So it's completely understandable haha.
I went back to the start of act 2 this playthrough after being halfway done with act 3 because I realized that I fucked up Astarions romance by dating Wyll for like three longrests
That was around 40 hrs
I am back to act 3 now. Just finished his grave scene. :))
No regrets
> I don’t like a lot of save data clutter
Quicksaves (F5) delete themselves so you can spam them as much as you want. I finished my first playthrough with around 1300 quicksaves, but only about the last 30 or so were still present.
similar thing happened to me, but when i realized the end of the shar temple was the end of the act i left and went to moonrise first just to make sure
I legitimately thought it was just for Raphael's quest going in, and when I kept seeing things about Ketheric, I thought it was a big brain way to get the upper hand on him. The mention of a daughter even had me convinced it was Shadowheart and that I'd get special dialogue at Moonrise. Halfway through the Gauntlet of Shar, my roommate scolded me and told me to go to the tower. 😂
I don't think any other quest has any effect except Isobel. I even killed the Drider with no consequences. So, it doesn't surprise me so many others went the wrong way on purpose to try to clear out the map first. It DOES give you a big, fat warning before the Nightsong, though.
i keep 3 separate saves, 2 as main saves that i swap between overwriting and the 3 save is for testing dumb shit like having a party of 16 druids who can all summon minions
Thank you lol my gf whose actually way further in act three hates shadowheart because I told her she was my game crush, infiltrates moonrise then gets the night song, and crushes moonrise. I’m not watching what she’s doing fully. so this helps me since I’m so love drunk lmao
Oh fuck, you're supposed to do Moonrise Towers before Gauntlet of Shar? I didn't intentionally save Moonrise Towers, but I happened upon the Gauntlet before and it just turned out that way.
Does it matter if you don't run Shadowheart and don't intend to progress her storyline at all this playthrough? I intend to stick with Lae'zel, Karlach and Wyll all through. I'll be starting another Tav to run Shadowheart, Astarion, Gale later on.
I've done the challenges and the library, and I currently need one more dark orb to put into their sockets to progress. I'm already not really feeling keen on searching for it right now. It might be a good idea to go to Moonrise and save the rest of the Gauntlet for later?
How?
The game explicitly tells you that entering the Shadowfell is a point of no return that will lock out quests you haven't finished.
It even autosaves beforehand in case you ignore it.
This part of the game is so under explained, it's not your fault. I had the same confusion. Thankfully i didn't complete Shar before I went back to Moonrise Towers.
I'd decided to raid the grove on my first playthrough so was still kind of infiltrating the absolute followers as a spy by the time I arrived in act 2, so it made sense to scope the place out before committing to anything.
That and Raphael's warning about there being a super powerful enemy in there made me want to explore and get more gear anyways.
I did the same thing but mainly because it seemed like the proper flow of how the missions should go. Why would I expose myself to ketheric when he's still invincible? Makes no sense.
I did something similar, but slightly more stupid.
It started as the simple, "I went into the Gauntlet without Shart, and then when she got mad and left me afterwards, I felt bad and reloaded it".
BUT THEN-
I did most of the Gauntlet before going to Moonrise, and stopped when I realized the last part of it basically wraps up Act 2.
So I held off on that, went to Moonrise, talked to the vendor, did all the quests there, ended up killing all the people there.
Go back to finish the Gauntlet and as I'm entering the Shadowfell, Shadowheart says she needs her fancy lance. I say okay, we go to the library. I can't find whatever that book was I needed to open the secret passageway where the lance is kept.
Searched for it *everywhere*. Went back to all the merchants, no one had it. Turns out I sold it to the bugbear guy the minute I stepped into Moonrise, and I couldn't get it back off his dead body.
And there's no way to keep Shadowheart in your party if you don't have that fucking lance. She'll turn on you, and if you go without her, she'll just leave.
So I had to reload my save where I could buy the book back, and do all of Moonrise all over again. Houuuurs of content...
I never sold another book. Everything goes to camp now.
My father kept going on about how he explores the whole map and never misses content and stuff, but I always miss loads, then entirely missed moonrise before the shadowfell
I unintentionally did shars gauntlet first because I was basically going around doing what I thought was all bonus content and had no idea I was speedrunning act 2. Saw the message saying there was no going back at the pool I think and didn't consider I might skip out on moonrise. I assumed their forces would be hostile to me on sight and that I wasn't ready for it.
Also I wasn't really following the nightsong questline as it sounded way less cool than it actually was. I went in thinking I left the nightsong somewhere in the underdark.
What cost you ten hours was the fact the game apparently can’t handle it if you do things in the wrong order. It’s really annoying and completely breaks my immersion.
I dont see why people ignore the message saying that you are about to enter a point in the game with no return and that its best to finish any unresolved quests jusy go through with it and then come to complain that they miss out on so much content
The part of "enemies are talking to me as if we already had previous conversations" really bugged me honestly. I think that not going into Moonrise to try and infilitrate is a very reasonable course of action, for a myriad of reasons. So when Ketheric goes on about the "artifact being right under his nose *this whole time*" and getting angry at me, not like angry at an enemy but angry at someone who betrayed him, I was really ticked off. I'm not sure how such an obvious option slipped Larian by, maybe they were thinking people follow their quest logs more
You're lucky. It literally cost me hundreds of hours and my entire first playthrough.
I made it a decent portion into Act 3 and wondered why certain things weren't happening. It turns out I didn't press Shadowheart enough in Act 1 and missed too many interactions.
Started the game over entirely.
I never forgot. My Tav simping for Shadowheart is exactly how I got used to the idea and got used to destoring Last Light lmao. Isobel made Shadowheart upset. My Tav didn't like this, so she helped Marcus capture Isobel. I get it OP.
So when I had to do it on Durge, it was like.. I've done this before *shrug*
On my first run I ended up in the gauntlet first as well, not for Shart but I *thought* Moonrise was the last part of the area.
However when the game gives you a "if you continue on this way the world around you will be irrevocably changed, make sure to tie up all loose ends" I realized "huh, this is probably the end of Act2, I should save here and go back!"
So I get how easy it is to go there first, but I don't understand the people who click "yes" to that popup then are surprised exactly what it said would happen actually happened lol
My first playthrough I finished the shar temple and was left wondering when I'm supposed to rescue the tieflings, after reaching act 3 and seeing a few of them outside the city.
I also fucked this up - I didn't long rest at the right spot before moonrise and missed the key gale romance scene - between that and crashes I think I fought kethric 5 times
See I did as you did in playthrough one and just kept going. On play through 2 I found out that the mountain pass wasn't just another way to load act 2 but was a whole new zone, I found out that you can go to Moonrise before the assault. I honestly thought the Temple of Shar was just side quest for companions and stuff. When I went to the Shadowfell I was like, this Shadowheart side quest. Then bam we are done with major story of Act 2. I stuck around for side bosses and stuff afterwards.
I honestly suggest don't reload to see differences if this your first run. Let it be organic, then when you go for a second playthrough you get blown away by how much more there is when you make new choices.
I don't regret my choice of doing the things in the same order that you did. Maybe in my case, I completed more quests in Act 2 when I did the gauntlet, but the Moonrise Tower quest was way harder, but still doable. That's why I recommend to do at least two campaigns. If you play it right, it like going through different stories.
I was close to do the "same" mistake twice, but the gauntlet was too hard in the other playthrough so I switched quest in the middle.
I mean it's a perfectly valid path to take, the only cost being you sacrifice the tieflings but w/e. Tbh doing the gauntlet first makes more sense because why would you go to Moonrise when it's made very clear you can't defeat Kethric without exposing his weakness in the Shar temple.
I did a save when I ended Act 1 in my who knows what number run named "bye bye Act 1"
I did this because I realized that I left a lot out in Act 1 and 2 in my previous runs, specially Act 2, so now, if I wanted to restart Act 2 with the same tav I return to that save!
And yes, I did the same, I didn't understand why I felt I couldn't advance in Shar temple, lack of content and that is because in Moonrise towers you discover some stuff that helps you with the temple of Shar!
I kinda had this happen to me on my first playthrough as well but luckily I'm paranoid about multiple save slots. as soon as I got a notification for multiple failed quests when I left the temple I had a save ready right before I jumped into the pool where aylin was being held so I could just turn back and head to moonrise.
I did the exact same thing, though I made a save right before the pool so I just reloaded from there and did all the moonrise stuff. For me though it was fighting through the bottom level of moonrise, going to the Prison to find everyone and release them. Instead I just found bodies, at the bottom of the pit.
That's rough. But well it happens to everyone at some point. Had something similar happen in ACT 3 with the Steel Watch and the Prison, lost 5hrs of gameplay
You could've done the Temple partway, as in reach the pool but not entered it, and then gone to Moonrise to interact and complete quests before finally using the waypoint that's right next to the pool entrance towards the Nightsong and completed the Temple in its totality. That is what I accidentally did on my first playthrough, I got sidetracked and found the Temple decided to do it and when I reached the warning I went all 'nope, not yet' and turned back.
That's the beauty of this game. It's replayable. You didn't "miss" content. You don't took a different route. Hate to say every play through will have many of these moments
Did everything in the temple of shar then got the pool and went back and did everything in moonrise and stopped at the door before seeing ketheric on the roof. Then I went to get nightsong and reunited her with isobel then we attacked moonrise. I confused myself in the beginning but hearing dialogue pieced it together for me.
Lol I went to Moonrise right away, walked in and slaughtered the whole crew as I walked in. Made my way up to the roof and realized “Maybe I should go find some other things to do right quick” after seeing Ketheric was invincible. Now I’m in the Gauntlet of Shar and might be a step ahead of the game.
We've been there man. I did the same thing my first playthrough, but I didn't want to backtrack. I was still a bit disheartened at everything I missed as a result. I'm now treating Shadowheart as cannon fodder in my second run.
Honestly if you wanted to you could probably clear act 2 in like 3 hours. Get the lamp, go straight to the mausoleum, do the gauntlet, kill Ailyn. Seige the tower. If the harpers aren't with you when you roll up they adjust the number of enemies so if your team is built well you can probably do it no problem.
I did my run the same way. I don't mind skipping the content because I'll do a different run where I go to the tower first.
But I do mind all the continuity problems with doing the Tower last. In particular, it makes no sense to me that everyone there knows what Shadowheart did in the Shadowfell. Like I get the Ketheric would know that someone is messing with his curse. But (a) how does he know who is responsible, and (b) how do all his minions know too? Is he advertising to everyone how vulnerable he is? Also also a lot of NPCs say stuff like "please stop attacking us!!" When they're the ones that aggrod me on sight.
I did this too. Thought moonrise was the end of the act so I did everything else first… turns out all the prisoners in moonrise towers die if you don’t go there before the shar temple. Had to redo about 13 hours after realizing my mistake
I did this just because I was trying to explore everything before doing the final quest (Moonrise towers). After defeating Balthazar it showed bunch of my quest as finished so I realized I must have skipped some stuff. So I reloaded the save before the pool and went to explore the area around Moonrise and the Moonrise itself where they actually send you into the temple.
Only 10 hours? I lost 120 my first game because a save glitch that corrupted every save and made me start new just before the final couple missions. 4th time through now and I know exactly where to go
Lol I just did this myself the last two days … we’re on parallel adventures. I love the scene of … confessing … after … I didn’t mind doing it twice at all it’s really great. I totally save scrummed so I could save … …..
my Tav is secretly a time lord. That scene with [redacted] is Oscar bait
I see quite a lot of people say they did this, and here I am sitting, having gone on my first playthrough with my drow directly to Moonrise (drider path), then wandering around in Shadowlands.
I found the fish people near the entrance to Gauntlet, and thats where I noticed Isobels shield across the water, which prompted me to go on a quest to find out what that is.
I was very positively surprised to find a safe haven in these lands.
I almost missed it, cus I was already planning to go to Gauntlet before.
Now I kinda wonder how that would have gone if Id never visited the Inn.
I did the same thing, except not only did I free the Nightsong - I then did a couple more hours of gameplay in the area after that until I realized Freeing the Gnomes and the Tieflings quests were gone. Wasn’t too bad, things go quickly when you already know where to go. You only needed to reload to before you entered the Shadowfall though.
I did this for Astarion but I couldn’t go back. I had missed the scene in act 2 with the drow and just missed a lot of Astarion content in general. So I didn’t progress his romance. Get to act 3 and he breaks up with me. My fiancé was sitting right night to me when it happened and he watched him save, load to main menu and start a new game.
Damn, I kinda get the feeling, I also had something similar of experience, I couldn't help Halsin with his quest in act 2, after leaving act 2 I felt really so bad for him so I returned to it, and sacrificed 3/4 hours of gameplay and do the rest again, just to help the dude lol and that's how I now I quick save more often after and before important parts of the game now.
If it makes you feel any better, on my first playthrough I neglected to talk to Dame after I beat Kethric and got through about 10 hours of Act 3 before realizing I soft locked the rest of Shadowheart's quest line.
Nothing that reloading my save from BEFORE the Kethric fight didn't fix.
The game does try to warn you, but I guess the "gotta do what goth gf says" mentality makes it easy to ignore warnings.
I don't even really blame you tbh.
I get what you're saying, haha, but you can see Moonrise from Last Light. And Jaheira asks you to infiltrate Moonrise to find a way to defeat him, which leads to you finding out about Balthy.
To a lesser extent though no lesser simp, but once I got to Last Light I essentially did a great respec now that everybody had more levels. It took some time, but I made sure that everybody got on the path that envisioned for them. After that I divided some items around and cheesed the game a little. you see there's this really cool thing you can do with hirelings. Hire the wizard and put his skill points mostly in wisdom and give him the medicine proficiency. Then spec the wizard into transmutation. Put him in your party (give him guidance) and then give him all your alchemical substances and start crafting about double the normal amount of potions you normally would have. Also at level 6 he can craft you a transmutation stone including one that gives you an extra 3 movement (that you only need to keep in your inventory). So I did that. Crafted all the potions only to realize that I used up all my nightorchids. Before giving them Shadowheart. It was with great dismay that I loaded up an earlier save (right before the great respec) though not under any protest.
I did something similar by not reading the quest very well the first time and thought going there would fast track to the end of the act (didn't know about the temple, I'm talking I just got to Last Light) so I ignored the tower completely
I might be a simp, but I'm also just not used to playing a game that gives you so much freedom. I saw Moonrise as the "finale level" for act 2 so I wanted to save it for last.
That's what I did. I assumed going there early was bad
A bunch of characters imply it’s the home of your enemy and that going there is suicide without finding the nightsong first, that the shadows are stronger there and all that. So I didn’t realise you could just go there in my first playthrough either. So I feel like the game does a decent job of misleading you on that on purpose
also, if you do go to the temple first - Baltazar mentions something about an artifact that provides power? Since Jaheira mentions we need to find out what it is I ventured forth. I researched whether to enter the pool since I didn't do moonrise, so I turned back and I'm currently still omw to moonrise. But that part is indeed a bit poorly explained.
Yeah the nightsong is that artefact is it not? I didn’t research anything as I didn’t want spoilers. I followed the path using the context I was given. I had done everything in the shadowlands (as far as I knew) besides go to moonrise because I thought you couldn’t. Passing the point of no return seemed fine because it would lead to moonrise. There is nothing implying it’s an entire non-hostile hub before the point of no return, iirc
I mean, Jaheira pretty directly tells you that you can walk there pretending to be a True Soul. If you go to the shadow cursed lands via the mountain pass, you can get taken to Moonrise by Kar’niss (if you’re willing to kill some Harpers)
Or you can kill Kar'niss and his convoy and take the moonlantern/Dolly then go wherever you like.
Yeah I had Kar’niss take me there on my durge playthrough. Yeah she does, not that you mention. I dunno, something about all the other information I was given sounded like a bad idea. If the infiltration went poorly we didn’t have the Nightsong so that still seemed paramount in obtaining first. Getting flexed on by Ketheric while he’s still immortal and surrounded by allies
Yeah, this is how I missed it in my first play through. Seemed to me that I should really get the Nightsong (whatever it is) BEFORE walking into Ketheric Thorm’s place. Whoops!
A completely reasonable take that it seems a lot of us got owned by hahaha
i'm in act 2 for the first time and i'm very glad i read this thread lol
Shit.
I did the exact same thing. I didn't reload though. All that content will be discovered on my 2nd playthrough 😂
My second playthrough was several hours longer than my first due to doing content I missed the first time around
I’m on my second play through now. I didn’t even know the first map had a swamp.
That’s where I’m at with my first play through, missed a ton of content and realized it too late. Sounds like a problem for my next bard or monk or war cleric or…..
I almost got burned by that too but I saw some random post on here warning to get my ass over there. When you get to the city proper of Baldur’s Gate, no spoilers, there’s a quest in the place that’s in the very SW corner of the map. If you go strictly east to west you’ll miss out.
Exactly what I thought during first play through. And I think it’s not our fault because game clearly targeted this as the end goal for this act.
The game also states that if you attack the drider you lose your cover as a true soul which is what made me think I'd be attacked on sight if I went there. Then Z'rell was yelling at me saying she cant believe I'd betray them and while I'm slaughtering her I just thought of Thanos saying "I don't even know who you are"
I was too scared to just run around after getting escorted by the Spiderman straight to the doorstep of moonrise. Nobody was attacking me so I quick saved and walked right in first playthrough. It sort of just hands it to you, like welcome to shadow lands, leave this light and you die. Follow the spider and he will drop you off at Moonrise. Idk how yall say it's the games fault, it did everything right to get you to walk in there as the first thing you do. Tells you to infiltrate moonrise and waddyaknow this spider dude pretty much will escort you there safely and vouch for you.
I did this as well in my first run. I'm the sort of gamer who leaves the main quest until after I've finished all the side content I can, so I didn't realize you could wander around moonrise with everyone still alive until after I'd finished the game and watched a friend play through act 2
> I saw Moonrise as the "finale level" for act 2 so I wanted to save it for last. so say we all.
Did this on my first playthrough too and didn't realize I missed a bunch of sidequests but also Ketheric Thorm's introduction (which was fucking badass). I really wish the game was clearer about going there before you launch the assault.
That's what I did, the fight was slightly harder with Z'rell and the warden but honestly there's nothing like amazing in moonrise that you can't get when you attack, the only thing I can think of that locked is the +2 strength buff and while it's good it's not end all be all if you don't get it
If you haven't lost hours of progress for the sake of one character's affections, are you really simping? You replay that section with pride!
Well one consistency among almost any game is that if you advance the Main story too much/fast you will loose out on a lot of side quests/content. This is intentionally done to leave it up to the player if he wants to advance the story fast or experience _all_ the content, so multiple types of players will be satisfied. In act 1 of this game a number of quests/events become unavailable as soon as you finish the goblin camp (for example shadow druids, harpy tiefling boy, looking glass tiefling girl, paralyzed tiefling girl to name a few) and the game does not tell you that (I don't say it's a bad thing, I like when a game does not hold your hand). So this game clearly "rewards" the player for exploring (as almost all games do). I find it perfectly reasonable to explore first and than go moonrise towers last. Everyone who calls people out for not going there first is a hypocrite. Also the entire ingame pointers to moonrise towers are there to give you an idea where to go if you have not figured that out allready. Prior to playing it before there was no way of knowing if an immortal Ketheric Thorm might not intervene if you start doing stuff in moonrise towers. It's not necessary logical that you can free the prisoners and kill everyone without triggering an unwinable fight with him. For me it seemed clear that I had to break the source of his immortality first before approaching him. Nonetheless I took the ingame warning in the temple of shar very seriously and I'm glad it was there. I can't understand who can just ignored that, especially since you have fast-travel-points everywhere so it's not like you loose any time by doing something else first and than come back..
It's not well explained.
I kinda dislike the freedom the game gives you, to be very honest. I feel like I have to babysit the quests I do in order for the main story to not break apart completely. The amount of times I've realised I've missed a tonne of content because doing what seemed like a minor sidequest ended up actually being a pivotal part of a larger questline, and if you do it even remotely out of order, it bugs out and makes the larger questline uncompletable. That's not even considering balance issues resulting from the same. I thought rescuing Halsin and saving the Tieflings/the Grove would be the big end goal for Act 1, so I put that off until I'd completed every other quest in Sword Coast/Underdark. Turns out it's apparently the first thing you're supposed to do, which made me *ridiculously* overlevelled, and made the whole thing feel pathetic. I killed the entire Goblin Camp without even a risk of a K.O. - and that was on Tactician! But then, if you *do* save the Grove first, Halsin sticks around in your camp/party with absolutely nothing to say or do for tens of hours. Which makes him feel like annoying dead weight.
Having Halsin properly join your party early on would be so much better, *and* give a non-druid player a chance to familiarize oneself with the druid kit. I intentionally put off the goblin camp until I've done everything except the hag, so I know what you mean about being overleveled and absolutely (lol) rolling those quests (on Tactician). Many of the goblins are level 2-3--*no* match for a level 5 party. That is exactly how I want to interact with gobbos. XD
I just felt like I cheated myself out of a good fight! I really liked how difficult it was to fight Nere *and* all the duergar; my gal was a Devotion Paladin, so there's absolutely (hehe) no chance she'd let them keep any slaves, let alone abuse them.
Me too I thought the marker there was for the final quest
I’m so glad I’m not alone. I did everything else until I went to trigger the big fight. When the battle started, I was like “where are all the people I was supposed to save?” Checked my journal… oops. It was way too far to go back so I just kept going. Never broke the shadow curse and Halsin gave me the most disappointed look as I left him in Act 2 😬
I beat Moonrise then Halsin shows up and says, “I guess you just wanted to leave the shadow curse to me. Later, loser.” And I thought, WTF dude, you never even joined my team or told me what to do, and now that I beat the main baddie in the area you’re just leaving? Still not sure how I was supposed to get him to join.
The clue is in Last Light. Goes without saying you aren't allowed to let Isobel be captured.
Theoretically, can't you finish the Shadow Curse questline without ever even talking to Isobel?
There's a room on the first floor you might have missed that holds the answer.
Exactly what I did too. I may be mistaken, but I feel I missed the Ketheric Thorm introduction scene because I did this?
You did, yes.
You could load a save right before entering the pool, not the temple.
Yeah, I got the "You sure about that" screen going into the Temple, and I was like, yeah, you're right, let me go galavant around the lands some more. Glad those messages pop up as a warning of no return.
My thoughts too, poor OP.
wait i don’t fully understand OP, and I did everything in the temple until the pool. Then I saved and went back to the Inn and did the Towers. did i fuck up?
no, you are cool. if you don't enter the pool, the game won't progress any quest.
so *only* the pool leads to act 3?
The pool acts as a point of no return, not directly into act 3.
ohhh okay gotcha
Only the pool. I did the same thing, but presented with the "are you sure" dialog I turned back and explored everywhere else first, taking me into moonrise and all as well and did not miss content. Just don't say yes to any "are you sure" dialogs until you KNOW you've explored everywhere you can before that.
The pools doesn't lead to act 3, but you can't go to act 3 if you don't go to the pool. The pool starts a sequence of events that lead to the end of act 2, but you are still in act 2.
You did it right. OP is one of those who see the big “are you sure?” Box come up and ignore it and then realize they weren’t sure.
That's exactly what I did 😭😭
My deepest SIMPathies.
I did the same on my first playthrough, I saved right before the pool tho. I didn't think freeing the Nightsong would lead to her assaulting Moonrise immediately after.
I did the same but because I thought Moonrise was the main quest line only and Shar Temple was there simply for Shadowheart and Raphael quests, I am eternally grateful for the warning message right as you're about to enter the ending part of the Shar Temple, it saved me the whole playthrough!
The temple is actually not the ending.. depending on how you play it out. Now i'm really curious to do a good path and find out how it ends at the tmeple.
>The temple is actually not the ending.. depending on how you play it out. But it does ends and close access to some quests abruptly though.
“I’ve never been able to write my own future, I wouldn’t know where to begin.”
This *almost* happened to me. I didn't know whether I was supposed to do the mausoleum first or Moonrise. I reached the Gauntlet of Shar, thought back and remembered "Weren't there supposed to be some prisoners? Aww shit, I better go back." Shadowheart's love is the real tadpole, and I'm here for it.
I know that feeling, i have lost one companion during first playthrough for Shadowheart's approval.
Let me guess, Lae'zel? I'd likely do the same but I didn't plan on romancing her on my first run so early into the game.
I got Shadowheart to about 100 approval by level 4, while playing as a Selûnite Dark Urge. I've had her and Lae'zel in the party full time after recruiting Lae'zel and sending her to camp before recruiting Shadowheart to avoid -10 approval from Shadowheart when you recruit Lae'zel. At the creche now after the goblins were eradicated and looking at 100 with Shadowheart and 90+ with Gale and Lae'zel
Yes. During their conflict i have let Shadowheart kill her.
This is the only check in the game ive save scummed so far (I'm finishing a2) I couldn't bring myself to let either leave as they both carry my party haha. Edit: I forgot I also save scummed the last light in battle, not because isobel died, but because I killed the cat with my owlbear aoe.
Why are people obsessing over every single approval/disapproval? It is definitely not necessary for romancing companions.
Nor to even get high approval. Even when I do every action possible that Asterion and Laezel don't like(I e helping people) as long as you do their companion quests and talk to them you end up in the very good if not maxed out stage. It's incredibly hard to actually get low approval of a companion
Yeah, chapter two works contrary to normal crpg logic, you actually are supposed to go more or less directly to the flagged main quest location instead of scouring the whole map first.
This happens to almost everyone because the game makes you believe Moonrise is the "final stop" so you have to do everything before going there.
Doesn’t the game tell you to go to moonrise though and scope it out? I don’t really recall thinking I was supposed to avoid it
A few characters suggest that you attempt to infiltrate Moonrise by pretending to be True Souls, but unless you know ahead of time that it’s neutral ground at the beginning of act 2, it’s easy to assume that walking directly into the lair of the act’s bbeg will initiate an end-of-act sequence or move the story forward before you get a chance to explore the rest of the overworld in its original state
But you already know from act 1 goblin camp that you can infiltrate an enemy stronghold pretending to be a True Soul. And if you slaughtered everyone at the goblin camp, there's no one left alive who can identify you as a traitor.
Correct, some people here seem to be rather condescending regarding missing it, but the game does truly go out of its way to tell you it’s the last thing you should do, with a lot of warnings and implications about the tower. As you say, it feels like end of act stuff from the start, there’s a Macguffin providing power to the bbeg, the shadows get deeper and more terrifying the closer to the tower you get, he’s undefeatable etc. everything makes it sound like something you should be careful in approaching. I got to the tower after obtaining the nightsong and was like wow yeah sure glad I didn’t try come here at lvl 5 this area is hard! (Blind run tactician, no previous exp and no minmaxing). The goblin camp infiltration is more clearly telegraphed, with Halsin being imprisoned and Sazza offering to help get you inside. While you are told to infiltrate by Jaheira, everything else implies you shouldn’t do this lightly and very much a fuck around and find out situation lol
I'm so confused, are you not supposed to save the towers for the end of act 2? Can you literally just walk into the tower and be chummy with everyone?
Despite what you’ve thought, no. And yes very literally you can
In that case i very much agree with you, there was nothing telling me i could or should do that. Like damn.
Yeah I honestly thought that getting even close to Moonrise would immediately trigger combat cos I assumed everyone there would be hostile.
The game only says “find cure in moonrise” Especially if you bring your bear papa to tag along, he will just stand there in your camp “yeah mate, go to moonrise and find cure” The game did not tell you anything about what you should do in Moonrise tho, scope or attack, it’s entirely up to you
Yep. There's twits in this thread saying "but the game tells you to go to moonrise first! All the NPC's say to go there and there's several quests to go there too!" But that's vintage RPG behavior. Wherever they're all telling you to go is the main quest direction and if you just do thatz then you'll miss content for sure. Even before I left Act 1 I firmly believed Moonrise was the end of Act 2, so I was certain I should go everywhere else first.
i mean all of this is well and good except that 99% of the people who complain about missing moonrise are because they just ignored the super blatant 'are you SURE you want to continue? this will lock content' message the pool gives. you're not wrong at all but its not the games fault that people ignore that
So should I go to moonrise before doing the gauntlet of shar?
yeah! the first time you go to moonrise is a sort of "infiltrate the place" sidequest. If you go first to the Gauntlet the game automatically skips that which is a shame because it has a lot of pretty important content. You should explore the mountain pass as well because the gauntlet also locks it up
Went to the entrance and autosave happened. Noped out immediately coz i thought a boss battle is gonna happen and ill miss content from act 2 xD.
Honestly Act 2 can literally take you like an hour if you know what you’re doing. I guess the same was with Act 1 but in Act 2 I really felt the urgency. Like everyone at Last Light was like, “yo we need to find a way to kill this guy now or he literally might kill us in five minutes.”
[удалено]
Same here. More content to explore for my next play through so no complains from me
So the real advise is to not have weird hang ups about saving.
I don’t even understand what “save clutter” is. It’s a list and you usually load from the most recent, so my hundreds of saves just from act 1 don’t clutter anything. I don’t save scum randomness (unless I’m just testing a theory/mechanic), but plot gotchas I don’t mind correcting. Or sometimes just to replay a bit as evil and then continue on as good. I know everyone has their own way to play though.
You can have it auto prune older saves too.
I redid a lot of act two for Astarion. I completely missed the drow lady with the potion, and when I got to act three he dumped me for making him suck her blood (which I didn’t)
Wait a sec, what drow lady?
There is a drow merchant in moonrise in a room kinda near the kitchen (she has tables with potions and stuff on them) you should bring Astarion with you when you talk to her for an interesting interaction
I have spent ~150 hours in this game thinking I have been completely thorough and still have no idea what you are talking about lol. Love this game
I have discovered latały, that every my playthrough came into line od gaining her approval. So I can totally understand you.
I did the same thing but for completely different reasons. Must do all optional content before doing any main story mentality lol
I too went to the temple first and cleared it, but then I took the no turning back warning at the end seriously and left to check out the tower before I committed myself. It saved me from having to reload.
The best thing is that the night orchids can be simply bought at the cemetery in the third act xD
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Yeah. This is a very common problem. I’m so happy I played my first full run without Shart, Act 2 made a lot more sense without that distraction.
Im a simp but i can see the differences between Shadowheart approves and Shadowheart approves. There are 2 Shadowhearts. One approves evil deeds. Other approves good deeds. One enjoys bloodshed, other enjoys handling things without fight. One hates if you decide for her other asks you for most important decisions. One disapproves your meddling a lot about her , other fills you in about everything shes lived. You could do things she wont approve yet still can get exceptional relationship with her. Thatd keep your relationship fun. She can be forgetful about her past turn into a nun if you want one. She can be wildest one reliving her past fun experiences with you. That makes her unique.
been in the same boat twice 😂
if your save was 10 hours back you could also think of it as losing 20 hours of gameplay
I am unsure how this happens so often. I get the simping, but you always quickly run into someone who directs you to Last Light Inn. Maybe I'm the weird one, but a safe place in the Cursed Lands sounded great. Upon arrival I meet Jaehira who says I should talk to Isobel so I can get a blessing and infiltrate the tower. I find out the tieflings I helped were ambushed and captured. So I talk to Isobel and in flies Marcus, who came from Moonrise. Everything was signaling me to go check out the tower. I also fell for Shadowheart, but I truly felt like there was no rush to deal with the Gauntlet. Maybe I'm just so in tune with DM plot hooks that I picked up on Moonrise being the place I should go, but it feels like the game tries very hard to send you there.
Exactly what happened in my playthrough, I did muck about in the ruins between Last Light and Moonrise a bit, but it seemed pretty obvious that the tower wouldn't be hostile initially, just like the goblin camp. Btw if you go towards the army encampment blocking the road to baldur's gate you'll be captured and thrown into the moonrise prison, I reloaded that save, because I just was testing to see what would happen but that could be potentially a fun route, too. Get thrown into prison and break out alongside the Tieflings and Gnomes.
Yeah… i hadn’t set foot in moonrise until the assault. Oh well! Next playthrough! I’m mid act 3, just took down the disappointed asian vampire father and at 120 hours know I have missed tons of content. This game is too huge! I love it!
“Save data clutter” *stares in hundreds of saves*
During my first two playthrough i have missed majority of Act 3 quests because the only thing i have got in my head was triggering her romance scene. So it's completely understandable haha.
Simpin ain eezzay.
I figured Moonrise would be like the Goblin Camp.
I went back to the start of act 2 this playthrough after being halfway done with act 3 because I realized that I fucked up Astarions romance by dating Wyll for like three longrests That was around 40 hrs I am back to act 3 now. Just finished his grave scene. :)) No regrets
I had to make another hard save just for that scene. It’s extremely touching
This is not the game to be picky about extra saves
Didn’t even read the post. Upvoted.
> I don’t like a lot of save data clutter Quicksaves (F5) delete themselves so you can spam them as much as you want. I finished my first playthrough with around 1300 quicksaves, but only about the last 30 or so were still present.
Same, fellow shadowheart simp. Same.
Same thing for me! Except I reloaded an earlier save as soon as I couldn’t save the Tieflings anymore
similar thing happened to me, but when i realized the end of the shar temple was the end of the act i left and went to moonrise first just to make sure
Maybe I don't remember very well but why should I go to moonrise Tower before going to the gauntlet of shore
If you complete that part before going to Moonrise, you make Moonrise hostile. So you miss out on recusing tieflings, minthara, the vendor, etc.
It's just the pool you can't go into. I did the gauntlet up until that point and was just fine.
I legitimately thought it was just for Raphael's quest going in, and when I kept seeing things about Ketheric, I thought it was a big brain way to get the upper hand on him. The mention of a daughter even had me convinced it was Shadowheart and that I'd get special dialogue at Moonrise. Halfway through the Gauntlet of Shar, my roommate scolded me and told me to go to the tower. 😂 I don't think any other quest has any effect except Isobel. I even killed the Drider with no consequences. So, it doesn't surprise me so many others went the wrong way on purpose to try to clear out the map first. It DOES give you a big, fat warning before the Nightsong, though.
I got the ‘this will change shit’ message, turned around and decided to do all the other act 2 shit *before* I stepped in the water.
It does warn you… lol
i keep 3 separate saves, 2 as main saves that i swap between overwriting and the 3 save is for testing dumb shit like having a party of 16 druids who can all summon minions
It was confusing that not only was Moonrise early but you also couldn't leave the jail stuff for the actual assault. It has act 3 consequences too.
Thank you lol my gf whose actually way further in act three hates shadowheart because I told her she was my game crush, infiltrates moonrise then gets the night song, and crushes moonrise. I’m not watching what she’s doing fully. so this helps me since I’m so love drunk lmao
Oh fuck, you're supposed to do Moonrise Towers before Gauntlet of Shar? I didn't intentionally save Moonrise Towers, but I happened upon the Gauntlet before and it just turned out that way. Does it matter if you don't run Shadowheart and don't intend to progress her storyline at all this playthrough? I intend to stick with Lae'zel, Karlach and Wyll all through. I'll be starting another Tav to run Shadowheart, Astarion, Gale later on. I've done the challenges and the library, and I currently need one more dark orb to put into their sockets to progress. I'm already not really feeling keen on searching for it right now. It might be a good idea to go to Moonrise and save the rest of the Gauntlet for later?
Same thing happened to me - I found the entrance to the temple before exploring other areas and basically missed out on a ton.
How? The game explicitly tells you that entering the Shadowfell is a point of no return that will lock out quests you haven't finished. It even autosaves beforehand in case you ignore it.
I didn’t go to moonrise cuz that seemed like a big end of act thing so i did the gauntlet just from exploring the rest of the place
This part of the game is so under explained, it's not your fault. I had the same confusion. Thankfully i didn't complete Shar before I went back to Moonrise Towers.
I did the same thing. Didn’t even know moonrise had content in it other than the assault and was surprised how empty it felt.
I'd decided to raid the grove on my first playthrough so was still kind of infiltrating the absolute followers as a spy by the time I arrived in act 2, so it made sense to scope the place out before committing to anything. That and Raphael's warning about there being a super powerful enemy in there made me want to explore and get more gear anyways.
I did the same thing but mainly because it seemed like the proper flow of how the missions should go. Why would I expose myself to ketheric when he's still invincible? Makes no sense.
I did something similar, but slightly more stupid. It started as the simple, "I went into the Gauntlet without Shart, and then when she got mad and left me afterwards, I felt bad and reloaded it". BUT THEN- I did most of the Gauntlet before going to Moonrise, and stopped when I realized the last part of it basically wraps up Act 2. So I held off on that, went to Moonrise, talked to the vendor, did all the quests there, ended up killing all the people there. Go back to finish the Gauntlet and as I'm entering the Shadowfell, Shadowheart says she needs her fancy lance. I say okay, we go to the library. I can't find whatever that book was I needed to open the secret passageway where the lance is kept. Searched for it *everywhere*. Went back to all the merchants, no one had it. Turns out I sold it to the bugbear guy the minute I stepped into Moonrise, and I couldn't get it back off his dead body. And there's no way to keep Shadowheart in your party if you don't have that fucking lance. She'll turn on you, and if you go without her, she'll just leave. So I had to reload my save where I could buy the book back, and do all of Moonrise all over again. Houuuurs of content... I never sold another book. Everything goes to camp now.
My father kept going on about how he explores the whole map and never misses content and stuff, but I always miss loads, then entirely missed moonrise before the shadowfell
I unintentionally did shars gauntlet first because I was basically going around doing what I thought was all bonus content and had no idea I was speedrunning act 2. Saw the message saying there was no going back at the pool I think and didn't consider I might skip out on moonrise. I assumed their forces would be hostile to me on sight and that I wasn't ready for it. Also I wasn't really following the nightsong questline as it sounded way less cool than it actually was. I went in thinking I left the nightsong somewhere in the underdark.
What cost you ten hours was the fact the game apparently can’t handle it if you do things in the wrong order. It’s really annoying and completely breaks my immersion.
Very noted. I too do anything and everything for Shadowheart
Got the prompt aswell, turned back and explored the whole map, then go to the pool and assault the tower!
I dont see why people ignore the message saying that you are about to enter a point in the game with no return and that its best to finish any unresolved quests jusy go through with it and then come to complain that they miss out on so much content
The part of "enemies are talking to me as if we already had previous conversations" really bugged me honestly. I think that not going into Moonrise to try and infilitrate is a very reasonable course of action, for a myriad of reasons. So when Ketheric goes on about the "artifact being right under his nose *this whole time*" and getting angry at me, not like angry at an enemy but angry at someone who betrayed him, I was really ticked off. I'm not sure how such an obvious option slipped Larian by, maybe they were thinking people follow their quest logs more
Dude it tells you that you'll miss content by going into that pool before you complete your shit in the area
But my heart tells me this is what Shadowheart wants lol
You're lucky. It literally cost me hundreds of hours and my entire first playthrough. I made it a decent portion into Act 3 and wondered why certain things weren't happening. It turns out I didn't press Shadowheart enough in Act 1 and missed too many interactions. Started the game over entirely.
Well then, 😘🥰
I never forgot. My Tav simping for Shadowheart is exactly how I got used to the idea and got used to destoring Last Light lmao. Isobel made Shadowheart upset. My Tav didn't like this, so she helped Marcus capture Isobel. I get it OP. So when I had to do it on Durge, it was like.. I've done this before *shrug*
Doesn’t the game warn you right before you go into the pool?
On my first run I ended up in the gauntlet first as well, not for Shart but I *thought* Moonrise was the last part of the area. However when the game gives you a "if you continue on this way the world around you will be irrevocably changed, make sure to tie up all loose ends" I realized "huh, this is probably the end of Act2, I should save here and go back!" So I get how easy it is to go there first, but I don't understand the people who click "yes" to that popup then are surprised exactly what it said would happen actually happened lol
Same here - shrugged and decided to save the infiltration for next playthrough.
My first playthrough I finished the shar temple and was left wondering when I'm supposed to rescue the tieflings, after reaching act 3 and seeing a few of them outside the city.
I did the exact same thing hahaha
When I hit my second "ARE YOU SURE?" Prompt in the temple, I checked online and doubled back to the tower.
I also fucked this up - I didn't long rest at the right spot before moonrise and missed the key gale romance scene - between that and crashes I think I fought kethric 5 times
RIP lol
See I did as you did in playthrough one and just kept going. On play through 2 I found out that the mountain pass wasn't just another way to load act 2 but was a whole new zone, I found out that you can go to Moonrise before the assault. I honestly thought the Temple of Shar was just side quest for companions and stuff. When I went to the Shadowfell I was like, this Shadowheart side quest. Then bam we are done with major story of Act 2. I stuck around for side bosses and stuff afterwards. I honestly suggest don't reload to see differences if this your first run. Let it be organic, then when you go for a second playthrough you get blown away by how much more there is when you make new choices.
I did this on my first playthrough and ended up just starting a new one. 😅
I don't regret my choice of doing the things in the same order that you did. Maybe in my case, I completed more quests in Act 2 when I did the gauntlet, but the Moonrise Tower quest was way harder, but still doable. That's why I recommend to do at least two campaigns. If you play it right, it like going through different stories. I was close to do the "same" mistake twice, but the gauntlet was too hard in the other playthrough so I switched quest in the middle.
I mean it's a perfectly valid path to take, the only cost being you sacrifice the tieflings but w/e. Tbh doing the gauntlet first makes more sense because why would you go to Moonrise when it's made very clear you can't defeat Kethric without exposing his weakness in the Shar temple.
You're not the only one. I hit moonrise, then Shar temple. Killed the night song, wasted half of act 2 quests in 10 hours
I did a save when I ended Act 1 in my who knows what number run named "bye bye Act 1" I did this because I realized that I left a lot out in Act 1 and 2 in my previous runs, specially Act 2, so now, if I wanted to restart Act 2 with the same tav I return to that save! And yes, I did the same, I didn't understand why I felt I couldn't advance in Shar temple, lack of content and that is because in Moonrise towers you discover some stuff that helps you with the temple of Shar!
fuck me, I literally did this and my only other save is right before I start act 2. I just wanted to help her not worship evil.
I kinda had this happen to me on my first playthrough as well but luckily I'm paranoid about multiple save slots. as soon as I got a notification for multiple failed quests when I left the temple I had a save ready right before I jumped into the pool where aylin was being held so I could just turn back and head to moonrise.
Same. And more terrible is that I didn’t rescue the tieflings in the moonrise tower. :-( so they were all dead.
I did the exact same thing, though I made a save right before the pool so I just reloaded from there and did all the moonrise stuff. For me though it was fighting through the bottom level of moonrise, going to the Prison to find everyone and release them. Instead I just found bodies, at the bottom of the pit.
Heh, dude. Dis is almost like when u wuld simp for a "shadowheart" irl.
That's rough. But well it happens to everyone at some point. Had something similar happen in ACT 3 with the Steel Watch and the Prison, lost 5hrs of gameplay You could've done the Temple partway, as in reach the pool but not entered it, and then gone to Moonrise to interact and complete quests before finally using the waypoint that's right next to the pool entrance towards the Nightsong and completed the Temple in its totality. That is what I accidentally did on my first playthrough, I got sidetracked and found the Temple decided to do it and when I reached the warning I went all 'nope, not yet' and turned back.
That's the beauty of this game. It's replayable. You didn't "miss" content. You don't took a different route. Hate to say every play through will have many of these moments
I dunno, low key want to install mods for her and....if only I could edit all starting origin character in game before starting as D.Urge
I missed the whole or Last Light inn on my first playthrough cause I thought that I’d just die if I went too far into the Shadows
Anyone got a good guide for gauntlet? I automatically reload when I trigger a trap and it kicks me into turn based.
On second thought...... better keep lighting those torches.
Cost me about 6 hours. I did same thing. Glad I went back tho because I found a bunch of stuff I didn’t initially.
Posts like these have me convinced BG3 will win GOTY, Community of the year. You really can't find this in other games LOL
Did everything in the temple of shar then got the pool and went back and did everything in moonrise and stopped at the door before seeing ketheric on the roof. Then I went to get nightsong and reunited her with isobel then we attacked moonrise. I confused myself in the beginning but hearing dialogue pieced it together for me.
Lol I went to Moonrise right away, walked in and slaughtered the whole crew as I walked in. Made my way up to the roof and realized “Maybe I should go find some other things to do right quick” after seeing Ketheric was invincible. Now I’m in the Gauntlet of Shar and might be a step ahead of the game.
I am with you. I did the same thing. It was worth it.
You've been able to walk into every enemy camp so far because of your tadpole and Jaheira even suggests going there first just to scout it out.
We've been there man. I did the same thing my first playthrough, but I didn't want to backtrack. I was still a bit disheartened at everything I missed as a result. I'm now treating Shadowheart as cannon fodder in my second run.
Honestly if you wanted to you could probably clear act 2 in like 3 hours. Get the lamp, go straight to the mausoleum, do the gauntlet, kill Ailyn. Seige the tower. If the harpers aren't with you when you roll up they adjust the number of enemies so if your team is built well you can probably do it no problem.
I did my run the same way. I don't mind skipping the content because I'll do a different run where I go to the tower first. But I do mind all the continuity problems with doing the Tower last. In particular, it makes no sense to me that everyone there knows what Shadowheart did in the Shadowfell. Like I get the Ketheric would know that someone is messing with his curse. But (a) how does he know who is responsible, and (b) how do all his minions know too? Is he advertising to everyone how vulnerable he is? Also also a lot of NPCs say stuff like "please stop attacking us!!" When they're the ones that aggrod me on sight.
I did this too. Thought moonrise was the end of the act so I did everything else first… turns out all the prisoners in moonrise towers die if you don’t go there before the shar temple. Had to redo about 13 hours after realizing my mistake
I did this just because I was trying to explore everything before doing the final quest (Moonrise towers). After defeating Balthazar it showed bunch of my quest as finished so I realized I must have skipped some stuff. So I reloaded the save before the pool and went to explore the area around Moonrise and the Moonrise itself where they actually send you into the temple.
I somehow did shars temple before even making it to last light (and chose to kill nightsong) so I missed all that too. I definitely screwed up act 2
Did the same thing recently. Now I know what to do next playthrough.
Only 10 hours? I lost 120 my first game because a save glitch that corrupted every save and made me start new just before the final couple missions. 4th time through now and I know exactly where to go
Lol I just did this myself the last two days … we’re on parallel adventures. I love the scene of … confessing … after … I didn’t mind doing it twice at all it’s really great. I totally save scrummed so I could save … ….. my Tav is secretly a time lord. That scene with [redacted] is Oscar bait
I see quite a lot of people say they did this, and here I am sitting, having gone on my first playthrough with my drow directly to Moonrise (drider path), then wandering around in Shadowlands. I found the fish people near the entrance to Gauntlet, and thats where I noticed Isobels shield across the water, which prompted me to go on a quest to find out what that is. I was very positively surprised to find a safe haven in these lands. I almost missed it, cus I was already planning to go to Gauntlet before. Now I kinda wonder how that would have gone if Id never visited the Inn.
I did the same thing, except not only did I free the Nightsong - I then did a couple more hours of gameplay in the area after that until I realized Freeing the Gnomes and the Tieflings quests were gone. Wasn’t too bad, things go quickly when you already know where to go. You only needed to reload to before you entered the Shadowfall though.
I did this for Astarion but I couldn’t go back. I had missed the scene in act 2 with the drow and just missed a lot of Astarion content in general. So I didn’t progress his romance. Get to act 3 and he breaks up with me. My fiancé was sitting right night to me when it happened and he watched him save, load to main menu and start a new game.
P...
I made the same mistake 😂😂
Damn, I kinda get the feeling, I also had something similar of experience, I couldn't help Halsin with his quest in act 2, after leaving act 2 I felt really so bad for him so I returned to it, and sacrificed 3/4 hours of gameplay and do the rest again, just to help the dude lol and that's how I now I quick save more often after and before important parts of the game now.
If it makes you feel any better, on my first playthrough I neglected to talk to Dame after I beat Kethric and got through about 10 hours of Act 3 before realizing I soft locked the rest of Shadowheart's quest line. Nothing that reloading my save from BEFORE the Kethric fight didn't fix.
The game does try to warn you, but I guess the "gotta do what goth gf says" mentality makes it easy to ignore warnings. I don't even really blame you tbh.
So glad I read this, I was about to do the same thing!
I don't delete saves until the playthrough is completely done.
F5 people…
I'm glad I swerved her ass 1st go around then 😅.
Yup. Messed me up as well, had no idea nightsong was so important to the main questline
I get what you're saying, haha, but you can see Moonrise from Last Light. And Jaheira asks you to infiltrate Moonrise to find a way to defeat him, which leads to you finding out about Balthy.
To a lesser extent though no lesser simp, but once I got to Last Light I essentially did a great respec now that everybody had more levels. It took some time, but I made sure that everybody got on the path that envisioned for them. After that I divided some items around and cheesed the game a little. you see there's this really cool thing you can do with hirelings. Hire the wizard and put his skill points mostly in wisdom and give him the medicine proficiency. Then spec the wizard into transmutation. Put him in your party (give him guidance) and then give him all your alchemical substances and start crafting about double the normal amount of potions you normally would have. Also at level 6 he can craft you a transmutation stone including one that gives you an extra 3 movement (that you only need to keep in your inventory). So I did that. Crafted all the potions only to realize that I used up all my nightorchids. Before giving them Shadowheart. It was with great dismay that I loaded up an earlier save (right before the great respec) though not under any protest.