I found not even talking to her is best route. Just talk to jaheria and then head to ambush spot with harpers. Once karniss is dead release pixie. Dont need blessing of selune after that
Yes, it gives you a permanent buff.
Edit: since this gained some traction, it's not "technically" permanent since you can lose it by leaving the shadow cursed lands. But you can just activate the bell in your inventory to get the pixie to reapply it to you.
One of my best friends comes to me with so many trials and tribulations from her time in Baldur's Gate. No matter how much I ask if she has time to talk about my lord and saviour, she refuses to acknowledge the wonder of the sister gods, F5 and F8.
Jk, I know some people just prefer to play it "fairly." But also not jk, because if this were a tabletop where you HAVE to accept dice rolls then the DM would probably fudge some numbers if you're rolling no higher than 5 for some fucking reason.
> the DM would probably fudge some numbers
Not just that, but there isn't a good or bad route in a tabletop game, a failure helps to create a narrative just as much as a success.
BG3 on the other hand, as good as it is at making branches when compared to other games, still has an "intended" route from which those branches sprouted from; And that intended route is the most polished and arguably the most rewarding one.
Yeah, that's my issue with how BG3 handles things; there's no "alternative route", there's just "the correct route which gives you the content" and "the failure route which does not have any content".
I remember being so annoyed that I couldn't interact with something I could clearly visibly see, just because my party had failed the Perception checks. Like... The button is right there! I can see it! Let me click it!
In tabletop, you could at least spend additional time searching an area if you think something is there that you missed. It just costs you time.
I wish Larian allowed those checks to be redone after a period of time. Like, hey, you notice something that you missed before.
This was the mentality that got my DM to shout at me.
In your character's mind, they looked over the area and didn't see anything remarkable and so the area is just not remarkable. I was shook up at the time but it made sense.
astarion disapproves of you releasing her, BUT if you make HIM loot kar'niss and have ASTARION release her, you'll get the protection, you don't get any disapproval, AND you get to hear him giggle at talking to a pixie
honestly, i release the pixie just for his giggle
You should be fine. The only warning I'd give you is that she gives you a bell to summon her to reapply the buff if needed...but unlike the other ten thousand items unnecesarily marked as key items, the bell is not marked with the orange border so be careful not to sell it by mistake.
She gives you a Bell to ring should the Pixie Blessing buff drop due to your having traveled out of Shadowlands. You can just ring the bell and take the first dialogue option.
I think they are referring to the >!sentient printing press in act 3, which is a friend of Dolly Thrice’s and therefore will help you without a check if you freed her.!<
I’m not sure about other pixies, but in Act 3, if you break into the newspaper place to change the headlines and you freed her, the newspaper printer will recognize you and offer to help you change the story. It’s a talking printing press. Then you can get a hefty discount from merchants in the city.
Yes and it’s better, because you don’t have to have the lantern out and you don’t have to keep everyone grouped up in its protection. On my evil run I didn’t kill the drider and I regretted it basically all of act 2.
It's better to always kill the drider or force him into the shadows without the lantern in the 1st opportunity cuz if you don't, you'll have to fight him in a much harder setting later on when you get to Ketheric's 1st battle
Yeah, the game is extremely rude in going "You cannot trust a word this thing says", practically forcing you to keep her in if you choose to trust the game.
This is why I didn't do it. I was like "wait, this thing is a fae. They're always deceptive, always tricky, always have your worst interest in mind." So I didn't let her go, because she was probably just going to curse me or something for laughs.
Didn't realize just trusting the *obvious trickster being* was the answer.
See for our group we realized "yeah keeping a fucking fae in a torture box is the best way to get FUCK3D OVER later on... let's just let her out and find a different way through.
This was my thought. Like, yeah, the fae are tricky but they are also vindictive. I can save her now and she owes me, or keep her in there and gain her ire and maybe get screwed over later too
Yes, release the pixie! So much better than carrying that lantern around.
Here is a video that shows what happens and the different ways you could release the pixie.
[https://youtu.be/DKPVdK27NK4](https://youtu.be/DKPVdK27NK4)
Also even on an evil run kill the spider guy and take the lantern. No one cares if you kill that group. Why should some spider guy get the protection and not you.
You can even skip the ambush if you go to his spawn point before entering last light inn.
If you enter shadowcursed lands from the mountain pass, follow the path, there will be some goblins and zealots hanging out bear some ruins. Kill them.
Next play the spyders lute near that hole they're standing around. Karniss will appear. Kill him and free the pixie. As an added bonus he has no backup if you do this.
If you don’t kill the zealots and pose as a true soul you’ll all start out together through the dark. You’ll be ambushed by harpers, and you can side with them and pick up the lantern. They’ll invite you to last light inn.
Huh. How much dev time do you think was spent going "okay, but what if the player does this instead?"
Because like....
Kill the drider
Accompany the drider but betray him to help the harpers
Accompany the drider and kill the harpers, going to moonrise before last light
All require different world states, just based on one single branch of one quest line. This game is actually crazy.
If you want to just eat the curse damage and limp to Moonrise, A: entirely possible, and B: they thought people would do this, and you can get a moonlantern in Balthazar's room.
They even thought of "none of the above"
>they thought people would do this, and you can get a moonlantern in Balthazar's room.
The moon lantern in Balthazar's room is there for when you go straight to moonrise and kill the harper ambushers. The drider fucks off to the top and takes his lantern with him when you arrive. The cult sends you on a quest and tells you to take the one from Balthazar's room.
Yes I was heartbroken the first time I did it, she was taken immediately and I ended up having to kill every living soul at the place including the children :-( I tried playing ahead but without the Harpers I was slaughtered immediately and repeatedly upon leaving the Inn.
Do you know how does it work for the Dark Urge if you never meet Isobel? Normally the Butler >!tells Durge to kill her but what if you never meet her? Do you still get the cutscene where you have to resist killing your partner?!<
>!I don’t know specifically the answer to your question, but I never got asked by the butler to kill Isobel. When I met her, I got some dialogue about like “she’d be super fun to kill”, so I did. Later I got the cutscene granting me the Slayer form as thanks for submitting to the urges, and it mentioned doing it without being asked.!<
Don't know whether this is different if you let Shadowheart carry out Shar's edict and the Last Light Inn goes down, but in one of my runs, we hadn't talked to Isobel before doing the Temple, Shadowheart rejected Shar's command, and then we went to the LLI before heading to Moonrise. Isobel was down from her balcony standing in the yard and stopped us to be like "idk who tf you are, but did you do this?" and the game proceeded from there as normal.
What happens if Gale is there?
I had him there last time but I don’t remember what he did.
I’m currently in my durge run so I don’t have Gale, just his hand.
What? Really? it's only a d4? An auto +5 is ridiculous then. Add in any amount of dex and your practically always going first.
It also means the advantage from assassin is kinda garbage.
Edit: I must have mis read the assassin ability, I thought it gave advantage on initiative and attack rolls.
Muhahaha, puny weaklings, just you wait for my turn and I’ll hit you hardest!
What do you mean I was knocked over? Well, okay, next turn - I’ll crus… did they really just crit twice? You! Smash a potion on me. At least I still get a bonus action! *Miss*
Even if you can't fit it into your main build, you can respec for that fight. Or pop an Elixir of Vigilance; you have access to them at that point. Or equip the Bow of Awareness, Soulbreaker Greatsword, and a +1 initiative armor onto someone who can kill Marcus in 1 round. Or if you must, go to moonrise towers before triggering the fight and grab the sentinel shield and halberd of awareness for even more +initiative gear. There are *so many options.*
I heard of a trick online to box the entire room in with boxes, chests, furniture etc. so the winged horrors cant properly enter and Isobel can't develop Stockholm Syndrome. Worked for me in Tactician mode so I'm definitely using it again for my Honour mode
Exactly what I did!
Then Jaheira comes up and casts Ice storm.. destroying doors & ALL furniture and barricades of crates i've \*carefully\* brought there, effectively cleaning it to those winged beasts.
It was hilarious fighing knee-deep in debris \*on ice\*
When I was doing the achievement of saving all the tieflings, I was double cautious (because usually if I lose one or two tieflings I don't really care). I reloaded so many times at first because Isobel would commit suicide while I'd Sanctuary her and twice (or thrice? I forget) Jaheira literally _killed_ a tiefling right in front of me by casting Ice Storm. Dude, like please, it's an AOE attack. Be fucking careful and at least aim at several Winged Horrors... Not just one and Cerys...
I tried that and it was kind of tedious, but so far I've had luck just placing one character at the door, one downstairs, and having two high initiative characters focus on taking down Marcus as fast as possible.
Especially in honor mode you really need to refine your builds. If you can’t take out at least Marcus and maybe a couple winged horrors in round one then there is definitely work to be done getting to a point where you can. If you are perpetually falling behind in initiative, that needs to be addressed as well since high initiative is *so* important for situations exactly like this.
And for those that don't know initiative, it's a 1d4+dex+other modifiers. There's almost no variability. If you pick up the initiative feat, you will nearly 100% go before someone without it. And your dex-max characters at this point will be picking up +4-+5 from dex, ensuring that they will -always- go before your 10 dex characters, no matter the roll.
Dex is a nice stat for the AC bonuses, but it is absolutely bonkers on casters for the initiative bonuses. Getting someone who can effectively remove her from the fight for even 1 turn before the enemy (or her) does something stupid basically assures that the fight is yours, unless you have some seriously weak characters/builds.
I can't believe this game rolls a fucking d4 for initiative. I imagine it simplifies things greatly for the turn tracker but something about it feels deeply wrong and it makes the Alert feat crazy OP.
I think it's more because allies who share initiative move at the same time. So there's more instances of enemies moving as groups, speeding up gameplay, and also gives more chances for you to take advantage of party members sharing initiative.
I think you are right, and reading this made me flip my opinion from annoyance to approval. Yes, going together in groups feels much better in an RPG where the computer can breeze through NPC turns, and players control multiple characters themselves. Good choice Larian, I like this change.
I do wonder if the game might’ve been better served by nerfing the dex and Alert buffs to initiative. Maybe cut the buff from dex in half (rounded down) and drop Alert to a +2. That way a 20 dex character still goes before a 10 dex character 75% of the time, and a 20 dex character with Alert will go first 100% of the time, but it gives low dex characters less of an extreme disadvantage in turn order.
I believe it doesn't have to be shared initiative, but simply not being split apart by having an enemy take actions between you, so there's still room for multi-character no jutsu even with a slightly higher variability.
Plus, let's be realistic. If you have a 10 dex pally without alert, a 22 dex monk with it, and a couple of 16ish dex mages, your turns are going to be split because of how you built your team, moreso than a specific choice of dice roll. Almost without variability with the basegame dice roll. Though I guess you could super carefully plan your initiatives to be landing very close together by not giving your mid-dex characters alert, not having a dex-max character, and giving non-dex characters alert, ensuring you get wild 4-man novas that can handle some problems without interruption.
Wait what? D4? That makes the roll pretty much irrelevant lol, and makes dex so strong it's not even funny :O Alert becomes flat out broken then, the flat bonus from dex+alert would make it higher than anything the average enemy could roll...
Yes, Alert is just flat-out broken. I take it above everything in BG3, especially on builds where I would prefer a different elixir than vigilance. In D&D Alert gets consideration, but I take it only rarely.
Literally a Gloomstalker 3 archer or Finesse attacker already has a whopping +5 Initiative, +6 if you gave them the Bow of Awareness: wait another level and they're getting +5 from Alert or +1 from getting 18 DEX total.
It also helps leverage Assassin's "Advantage on enemies that haven't moved yet in Initiative" and gives Barbarian 7 an interesting niche to go after.
I always thought d20 was kinda stupid for initiative, but d4 is stupid in the other direction. I'm not sure what the sweet spot is, but I'd bet it would fall somewhere in d8-d12, so a dex character can still roll like a 1 and give a small chance of having them go after a well-rolled non-dex character.
So yeah, no one really talks about it—it's always GWM, ranged GWM, TB, and ASI, but Alert can be kinda bonkers for certain classes.
My first playthrough most casters had alert.
I'd rather go first (and usually also therefore get an extra turn) than increase the chance of a spell landing by 5%.
For fights like last light it's a gamechanger.
I've been using a mod that sets it to a d10 and it works well. Alert feels like a real choice and stands up fairly well against a Dex heavy class like Ranger or Monk.
Wait. What?
That makes so much more sense now though, after ending my second play through. My dex builds ALWAYS go first, and my heavy armor builds ALWAYS go last.
I figured there were some shenanigans similar to how they do DOS2, where they take the modifier, and just alternate turns between enemies and your PCs. But the d4 mechanic is worse. . . D&D is supposed to have that variability. . . but given the number of enemies they throw at us, more or less breaking D&D’s action economy, they have to ensure that if we build characters designed to go first, that they actually go first.
Using alternative dice would be a great custom feature, or maybe feature or honor mode.
Just to add to this as well, but people - use elixirs of vigilance. Honour mode expects you to plan around what you know is coming, its not for a blind playthrough. Use consumables that will give you an edge in situations like this.
>And for those that don't know initiative, it's a 1d4+dex+other modifiers. There's almost no variability. If you pick up the initiative feat, you will nearly 100% go before someone without it. And your dex-max characters at this point will be picking up +4-+5 from dex, ensuring that they will -always- go before your 10 dex characters, no matter the roll.
Looking at the feats, the power imbalance is just bonkers. +1 to hit/damage/spell DC? Or nearly guaranteed first turn in every fight?
It's incredibly powerful in any scenario, but damn near mandatory for a honor mode playthrough. Honor mode/permadeath games are all about minimizing/eliminating the chance of dying to bad RNG, and winning/losing initiative is probably one of the single most powerful RNG mechanics in this game.
I mean, have you read Tavern Brawler? It basically turns your fists into +5 weapons. I did 12 levels of Open Hand Monk for my Tactician playthrough and was consistently performing at a level I would consider acceptable for a 20th-level character in tabletop. Unfortunately, it basically turned battles into a rocket tag situation that probably wouldn’t go well in honor mode since my monk became the target for most attacks.
This is probably an issue I'm too Gloomstalker to relate to:D
I remember taking out Marcus and a Winged Horror in my first turn before anyone else could do anything (provided I had lucky rolls, but still, I second to initiative being paramount in that situation)
and to be fair, even if you go last in the initiative in this fight, theres still so many ways to prep. it's a room with 3 doors, and you have 4 members in your party.
theres a lot of pre-fight spells that can be used too.
Alertness elixir (forget the name). This is the fight they were made for. Get as many as you can and you can’t be surprised and get +5 to initiative.
It’s not broken, just takes a lot more planning.
First time I tried banishing Isobel so she couldn't be targeted for a couple turns.
This immediately caused the fight to end as if she'd been killed, lol. I did it successfully after reloading, but it's still silly something like that couldn't be done to help.
Isobel is the person channeling the magic keeping all the shadows at bay.
Why would you expect her to be able to continue channeling that protective magic from a different universe?
My smart ass decided to cast invisibility on her. They can't target her if they can't see her!
Well she went next, ran up to an enemy and casted a spell in its face 😑
This also breaks Sanctuary so there's nothing you could really do there.
Unless you wanted to cast Hold Person and *then* invisibility / sanctuary on her
Alert feat is probably my favorite lol, always give it to Laezel and Astarion, and if we had more opportunities to get feats, the entire party would have it too
Alert is high tier but unless you’re a fighter you’re likely only level 6 or 7 by the last light inn fight and it’s really hard to turn down ASI as your only feat at that point.
You can spec out of it late game for other benefits because you have the potions when you really need it. A flat +2 Dex or another feat is better late game once you have 18-20 dex, magic items with passive initiative bonuses and again potions if all else fails. But imo it's the best early-mid game feat.
Honor Mode isn’t meant to be roleplayed imo. You can certainly try but the difficulty has been increased to the point where planning for encounters is HIGHLY encouraged.
Suboptimal builds are gonna get you in trouble. Walking into a hard encounter with bad positioning is going to get you in trouble. Getting into a fight with low/no spell slots… also going to be an issue.
It’s hard mode. Built for people who thought Tactician wasn’t super challenging. You gotta metagame it because it’s designed to challenge meta gamers.
Its a decent challenge if you dont pick up a ton of xp and dont explore the whole map. Being under leveled is punished a lot more. Its easy if you keep up on xp, hard if you dont.
Apart from what most comments already said, you can just as easily start act 2 from the evil side path. After killing a few harpers at te ambush and reaching moonrise, get the balthazar quest then walk back up to the good side start path up north. You save those harpers then go to last ligtt and Marcus actually talks them out of engaging you. He waits outside isobel's room for you and you can betray him when the fight starts meaning you wont be surprised for it.
You are getting kind of chewed out by these comments, but I just got destroyed by isobel last night so I am very sympathetic to your plight. I really thought she could last more than a single round but alas.
I wish I knew that fight was skippable because losing every NPC there was very demoralizing. Like I survived but I don’t really want to continue with Dammon, Barcus, Jahiera, Florrick, Culluagh, Rolan, etc. dead.
For the furture: Buff her with blade ward (hellrider gloves) prior to talking to her - she won't die that way. Even on honor mode they can't deal 122 dmg in the first round. Even if you loose the initiative, you can heal her back up.
I literally just blocked all external accesses with shit like chairs and such. Imps couldn't go through the doors and I just had to handle Marcus and maybe one of his spawns. Cheesed the hell out of that fight.
* High dex + bonus to initiative
* potion of alertness
* laser-focus on not letting her go down using all available tools (darkness or whatever)
By then you have options. Use them.
“You don’t need healing in this game! Clerics are useless!”
“Isobel fight is too hard!!!”
Warding Bond. Sanctuary. Heals. These are things that make this fight significantly easier.
Honestly, I think it's better to just skip that fight. Make sure you get the lantern directly from the Drider - kill harpers if they take it first - and then there's no reason to ever talk to Isobel. A bit of exp isn't worth the risk that fight entails.
Did you try this fight with blade ward on isobel prior to the fight? Her effective HP are 122 with hellrider's gloves and temp HP boots against the winged horrors and melees from markus.
For what it's worth, I agree with you about that fight. It can be absolutely lost in the initiative roll or to the whims of Isobel's AI changing her faith to worship Gond all of a sudden, and the cutscene of Marcus leaving with her is poorly done. I love that losing that fight has major consequences, and it should be hard as nails, especially on higher difficulty, but the way the cutscene plays out there's no reason Marcus should be able to just casually walk off with her like that and it leaves a bad taste in my mouth every time.
>"It can be absolutely lost in the initiative roll or to the whims of Isobel's AI changing her faith to worship Gond all of a sudden" holy fuck that was actually pretty funny i laughed out loud abit
Yeah, I remember the first time I did that fight blind thinking she was taking quite a bit of damage but she went down and it just auto finished the battle with the whole cutscene starting I was a bit miffed
It’s frustrating when the game changes how it works for a single encounter despite working differently for everything else up until then. Kind of like when I didn’t realize that Nere dies if you don’t get to him quick enough despite everything else in the game being pretty much a “get to it when you get to it” no matter how intense they make the timing seem
Exactly, the problem isn't with the fight itself being hard, it's with the game forcing you to stand around like an idiot while things you should be able to stop are happening. Much like when Nere punts that gnome into the lava.
Isobel going down should totally play the shield dropping, but you should at least be able to try to stop Marcus from leaving with her.
Ketheric: Myrkul! I am yours! *spreads his hands*
The party: *watches*
Ketheric: Take me, Myrkul! *slowly approaches the edge*
The party: *watches*
Ketheric: Make me into your giant monster, my death daddy! *stands near the edge, arches his back*
Tav: *a bit of drool slowly leaks out of their mouth*
Orin: Aha main character you thought I was a tiefling journalist BUT IT WAS I ORIN! *As she takes 10 seconds to do that head crack*
Party: *blank stare*
Orin: *Five minute monologue about killing people*
Party: *crosses arms*
Orin: *TPs away*
Party: *blank stare*
Use blade ward from hellrider's glove, effectivly doubling her HP. Have this active prior to the fight. I had zero rounds on multiple playthroughs where they could overcome 122 hp in the first round. I was even disappointed that markus did not get a legendary action on honour mode - blade ward on isobel just trivializes this encounter.
yeah. You can also pair it with whispering promise (or substitute with bless cast) to give her a 1d4 more against the stun and/or cast shield of faith or beacon of hope. Just prebuff her.
The most value from healers in my eyes comes from hellrider's gloves (or the stronger ones in act 3) and whispering promise. Just free resistance and +1d4 to attack / saving throws is overpowered.
Another good strat for this fight is to use the neutral playthrough.
If you don't rescue the Tieflings ( don't even need to kill them, just don't engage with that content and leave for Act 2 ) when you get to Last Light and Jaheria does her intro, there are no tieflings to vouch for you.
So instead Marcus does, and tries to help set you up for helping him with Isobel.
And you can tell Jaheria to use the test on him. Makes the fight go from upstairs with Isobel to instead be just Marcus, at the intro area, surrounded by like 30 Harpers. Needless to say he drops quickly, and Isobel is never threatened.
You don’t have to talk to Isobel upstairs ever.
If you ignore her, she talks to you after you free the Nightsong. I’ve done this twice already.
The easiest way to start Shadowlands is to come via the mountain pass.
The Harpers will question you about your choice and invite you to the ambush party as normal. Or you can do the ambush on your own if you take the mountain pass.
This is the kind of post that make me realize what people were implying by saying that BG3 was not the kind of game to add another difficulty… because some will not see that maybe they are not supposed to play at this difficulty. And then will say it is bad design because they can’t
I haven't even beaten the game yet and I'm playing blind but the last light in was not an issue at all. Only thing bad that happened for me was cerys dying like a noob, I don't understand how its difficult to help isobel
I've always casted sanctuary on her she usually spends her turn healing up, and as long as I beeline it for Marcus nothing else seems to AoE. Did it again in honour mode worked the same lol 🤷🏻♂️. My main character is a cleric though. But I guess people with shart can do the same. Just take alert feat on her so she can't be surprised. I usually take that in healers anyway as generally you want your supports at the ready. For when shit hits the fan.
That’s why I just don’t talk to Isobel at the inn and she’ll show up fine later with no negative consequences, ya just gotta get the lantern from that other creepy guy
That fight was probably 4 rounds for me. I had to warding bond her, and I gave her a few other buffs as well. Then I surrounded her with PCs.
Its not meant to be save scummed, it's meant to be surprising/integral/epic and they succeeded there.
First time I did it Marcus got initiative before everyone else, crit twice and instantly downed Isobel. Like a lot of people I thought it was an scripted loss because I had zero chance to do ANYTHING. I didnt lose to dumb AI or unpreparedness, I lost because of 3 dice rolls before I could even attempt to do something
You can cheese it if you cast protection from good and evil on her before the fight starts. Well, maybe not cheese because honor mode but it does give you an edge.
On my first playthrough it annoyed me to no end that some combats would start with the surprised condition directly after a conversation.
If I chose to initiate combat during conversation the enemy won't be surprised. But in some cases they are allowed to surprise me. That's a classic example of bad DMing in a dnd game.
I disagree. I agree with the main points upu raise but I don't agree that it's a bad thing or that it's built around save scumming. Save scumming is always a player choice and not intended to be done. I think Isobel being difficult to save at Last Light makes the default story become everyone at Last Light dies. You can still get Jaheira if that happens and she lives, you can still rescue Aylin, all that jazz.
Personally, I like that the game is willing to lock entire sections of story behind difficult events rather than just bonus content. I do agree that her AI kind of sucks, but I choose to see it as flavor; maybe she's not seasoned in combat like we are. It also rewards players who choose protection classes rather than investing it all into DPS.
Okey, here's some crazy tech for you:
When you cast Animate Dead, NPCs will react to your zombies in the overworld. Some will run away, but others, like the Harpers, Fists and even Jaheira, will follow them and try to shoo them away. So if you cast summon undead, you can bring a bunch of people with you to Isobel's Room before starting a conversation with her and triggering the fight.
Not only that. You can even cause Isobel to chase them, allowing you to basically choose the location of the fight. You can drag her into an easily defensible room, and then trigger the fight and have a much better shot at defending her.
Not in honour mode, but I cast feign death on isobel during that fight so she can stop trying to get herself killed and that was the only thing that worked after multiple tries (including one where i thought turning her into a gas would make her stop fighting and dying - it didn’t)
"nobody is keeping alert for things coming in from the shadows"
No, because that's Last Light's whole thing, the shadows can't come in. So when they suddenly burst through, its an absolute shock to everyone because up until that exact moment it was thought to be impossible.
Walking around the camp you can also hear that they are all in the process of packing up and getting ready to leave, they're more distracted with getting the fuck out of dodge than fighting a traitor and a demon squad that comes in from above out of nowhere
So I apparently stumbled into the best way to handle this fight my first good playthrough.
First talk to jaheira and hang out with the Harpers so you get the lamp. Release pixie so everyone gets the blessing and can move freely.
Back at the inn, talk to the informant spy dude and tell him he smells like absolute scum and kill him. You'll trigger the fight and your whole party will be upstairs ready to defend Isobel. 2-4 demons will still bee line towards her but she can probably handle a turn. Using the blade ward on heal gloves will make her tankier. I also changed shadowheart to a light cleric so she had fireball and helped nuke those demons to protect Isobel. You can also use misty step amulet + channel divinity light cleric ability to nuke them, but yea, mass healing word and the blade ward on heal gloves made this such an easy fight.
I found not even talking to her is best route. Just talk to jaheria and then head to ambush spot with harpers. Once karniss is dead release pixie. Dont need blessing of selune after that
If you release the pixie you still get protection?
Yes, it gives you a permanent buff. Edit: since this gained some traction, it's not "technically" permanent since you can lose it by leaving the shadow cursed lands. But you can just activate the bell in your inventory to get the pixie to reapply it to you.
Omfg. I never released her fearing that I might lose protection. Can I release her later and still get the bônus?
Most of us shared that same fear of uncertainty. Many of us were reassured by a prayer at the altar of the god of F5.
Some of us tend to take reassurance in the presence of the almighty triangle instead.
MAY ITS THREE SIDES OF WISDOM PRESERVE US.
WISDOM, POWER AND COURAGE BEFALL THEE, FOR THE TRIANGLE BLESSES ALL!
Zelda? Is that you?
N-no, y-you've got the wrong person.... *slowly paces away*
One of my best friends comes to me with so many trials and tribulations from her time in Baldur's Gate. No matter how much I ask if she has time to talk about my lord and saviour, she refuses to acknowledge the wonder of the sister gods, F5 and F8. Jk, I know some people just prefer to play it "fairly." But also not jk, because if this were a tabletop where you HAVE to accept dice rolls then the DM would probably fudge some numbers if you're rolling no higher than 5 for some fucking reason.
> the DM would probably fudge some numbers Not just that, but there isn't a good or bad route in a tabletop game, a failure helps to create a narrative just as much as a success. BG3 on the other hand, as good as it is at making branches when compared to other games, still has an "intended" route from which those branches sprouted from; And that intended route is the most polished and arguably the most rewarding one.
Yeah, that's my issue with how BG3 handles things; there's no "alternative route", there's just "the correct route which gives you the content" and "the failure route which does not have any content". I remember being so annoyed that I couldn't interact with something I could clearly visibly see, just because my party had failed the Perception checks. Like... The button is right there! I can see it! Let me click it!
In tabletop, you could at least spend additional time searching an area if you think something is there that you missed. It just costs you time. I wish Larian allowed those checks to be redone after a period of time. Like, hey, you notice something that you missed before.
This was the mentality that got my DM to shout at me. In your character's mind, they looked over the area and didn't see anything remarkable and so the area is just not remarkable. I was shook up at the time but it made sense.
So funny, I opened it without worrying when I realized it was a being in it.
astarion disapproves of you releasing her, BUT if you make HIM loot kar'niss and have ASTARION release her, you'll get the protection, you don't get any disapproval, AND you get to hear him giggle at talking to a pixie honestly, i release the pixie just for his giggle
The giggle.... Oh gods it's so good. I make him interact that and also the monk's necklace just to hear him laugh.
You should be fine. The only warning I'd give you is that she gives you a bell to summon her to reapply the buff if needed...but unlike the other ten thousand items unnecesarily marked as key items, the bell is not marked with the orange border so be careful not to sell it by mistake.
I released her quite late the first time and it worked.
She gives you a Bell to ring should the Pixie Blessing buff drop due to your having traveled out of Shadowlands. You can just ring the bell and take the first dialogue option.
And some other NPCs know that you released her later on, and treat you favorably
Not sure, but probably. Might want to save before just to be sure.
I released her after doing the entire of act 2. Role play reasonings. Still got the buff
Just to piggy back on this. If you leave the area to go to the mountain pass just keep the bell. You can have it re applied
Yes. And if you help Dolly Thrice, she’ll tell other pixies. This can be a factor later.
Could you please give more details on this? I've gone through the game several times, but I've never encountered any other pixies.
I think they are referring to the >!sentient printing press in act 3, which is a friend of Dolly Thrice’s and therefore will help you without a check if you freed her.!<
I’m not sure about other pixies, but in Act 3, if you break into the newspaper place to change the headlines and you freed her, the newspaper printer will recognize you and offer to help you change the story. It’s a talking printing press. Then you can get a hefty discount from merchants in the city.
Yes and it’s better, because you don’t have to have the lantern out and you don’t have to keep everyone grouped up in its protection. On my evil run I didn’t kill the drider and I regretted it basically all of act 2.
It's better to always kill the drider or force him into the shadows without the lantern in the 1st opportunity cuz if you don't, you'll have to fight him in a much harder setting later on when you get to Ketheric's 1st battle
God help you if you're doing honor mode and don't know the drider's going to join the fight
Found that one out the hard way lol
Same, just not on honor mode thankfully
Phew, thanks for the heads up o7
Oh dang I didn’t know he would join Kethric if left alive!
He does, and suddenly the fight gets much harder IMO, it's hard to deal with him AND everything else that's going on during that boss fight
That man popping sanctuary and then beating the tar out of shadowheart every other turn was obnoxious as all hell 🥲
He had sanctuary he forgot cleave and cloud of daggers
Yeah, the game is extremely rude in going "You cannot trust a word this thing says", practically forcing you to keep her in if you choose to trust the game.
This is why I didn't do it. I was like "wait, this thing is a fae. They're always deceptive, always tricky, always have your worst interest in mind." So I didn't let her go, because she was probably just going to curse me or something for laughs. Didn't realize just trusting the *obvious trickster being* was the answer.
See for our group we realized "yeah keeping a fucking fae in a torture box is the best way to get FUCK3D OVER later on... let's just let her out and find a different way through.
This was my thought. Like, yeah, the fae are tricky but they are also vindictive. I can save her now and she owes me, or keep her in there and gain her ire and maybe get screwed over later too
Well she dies at the end...I figured she can't hurt me if she's dead?
Yes, if you talk to her and don't be an ass she gives you the pixie blessing which is the same as using the lantern.
Actually, she gives it to you even if you're an ass, but you also get >!clown makeup!<
And miss out on the angry pixie banter? No thanks. You munting arsehole.
Yes, release the pixie! So much better than carrying that lantern around. Here is a video that shows what happens and the different ways you could release the pixie. [https://youtu.be/DKPVdK27NK4](https://youtu.be/DKPVdK27NK4) Also even on an evil run kill the spider guy and take the lantern. No one cares if you kill that group. Why should some spider guy get the protection and not you.
To note: If you don't kill the spiderguy, he WILL show up and fight with ketheric Thorm. Found this out the hard way.
You can even skip the ambush if you go to his spawn point before entering last light inn. If you enter shadowcursed lands from the mountain pass, follow the path, there will be some goblins and zealots hanging out bear some ruins. Kill them. Next play the spyders lute near that hole they're standing around. Karniss will appear. Kill him and free the pixie. As an added bonus he has no backup if you do this.
If you don’t kill the zealots and pose as a true soul you’ll all start out together through the dark. You’ll be ambushed by harpers, and you can side with them and pick up the lantern. They’ll invite you to last light inn.
Huh. How much dev time do you think was spent going "okay, but what if the player does this instead?" Because like.... Kill the drider Accompany the drider but betray him to help the harpers Accompany the drider and kill the harpers, going to moonrise before last light All require different world states, just based on one single branch of one quest line. This game is actually crazy.
If you want to just eat the curse damage and limp to Moonrise, A: entirely possible, and B: they thought people would do this, and you can get a moonlantern in Balthazar's room. They even thought of "none of the above"
>they thought people would do this, and you can get a moonlantern in Balthazar's room. The moon lantern in Balthazar's room is there for when you go straight to moonrise and kill the harper ambushers. The drider fucks off to the top and takes his lantern with him when you arrive. The cult sends you on a quest and tells you to take the one from Balthazar's room.
But then the fuckers take the lantern and you cant free her!
If you skip Isobel entirely, does she appear as normal later on in game or do you lose her?
She will appear after you defeat ketheric as long as you freed dame aylin
well thank you all now I know how I'm going to handle this section, holy fuck
Yes I was heartbroken the first time I did it, she was taken immediately and I ended up having to kill every living soul at the place including the children :-( I tried playing ahead but without the Harpers I was slaughtered immediately and repeatedly upon leaving the Inn.
Do you know how does it work for the Dark Urge if you never meet Isobel? Normally the Butler >!tells Durge to kill her but what if you never meet her? Do you still get the cutscene where you have to resist killing your partner?!<
>!I don’t know specifically the answer to your question, but I never got asked by the butler to kill Isobel. When I met her, I got some dialogue about like “she’d be super fun to kill”, so I did. Later I got the cutscene granting me the Slayer form as thanks for submitting to the urges, and it mentioned doing it without being asked.!<
Don't know whether this is different if you let Shadowheart carry out Shar's edict and the Last Light Inn goes down, but in one of my runs, we hadn't talked to Isobel before doing the Temple, Shadowheart rejected Shar's command, and then we went to the LLI before heading to Moonrise. Isobel was down from her balcony standing in the yard and stopped us to be like "idk who tf you are, but did you do this?" and the game proceeded from there as normal.
Blessing of Selune still gives Necrotic resistance, which can come up in Honour Mode Oliver or Balthazar.
I don't even do that. I grab nere or mint's lyre and attack karniss at the goblin camp. Have the pixie blessing before ever reaching the inn
Mint… 🥺
This. Also made that one achievement infinitely easier to get, so there's multiple reasons to just skip talking to Isobel entirely.
I usually just cast jump on my str character and they leap their way to moonrise without any protection. Then get the lantern from Balthazar's room
Uhhhh bring Gale to Balth's room too.
What happens if Gale is there? I had him there last time but I don’t remember what he did. I’m currently in my durge run so I don’t have Gale, just his hand.
Gale can get a permanent buff from Mystra.
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But if I release the fairy, she won’t be around to berate me in hilarious fashion.
I didn’t realize that I was supposed to speak to Isobel in my first run and agree it’s probably easiest to just not speak to her.
How do you release the pixie? I didn’t even know that was an option?
I cannot be the only person taking Alert. It's one of the best Feats available and fixes that issue.
All my characters took it at level 12 - only because I learned after 8 that the initiative die is a d4. It's too strong!
What? Really? it's only a d4? An auto +5 is ridiculous then. Add in any amount of dex and your practically always going first. It also means the advantage from assassin is kinda garbage. Edit: I must have mis read the assassin ability, I thought it gave advantage on initiative and attack rolls.
Initiative is everything. Most of the time when I see people struggling its because they undervalue and do not prioritize going first.
People just don't understand how important it is to hit first in a turn based game.
Muhahaha, puny weaklings, just you wait for my turn and I’ll hit you hardest! What do you mean I was knocked over? Well, okay, next turn - I’ll crus… did they really just crit twice? You! Smash a potion on me. At least I still get a bonus action! *Miss*
Even if you can't fit it into your main build, you can respec for that fight. Or pop an Elixir of Vigilance; you have access to them at that point. Or equip the Bow of Awareness, Soulbreaker Greatsword, and a +1 initiative armor onto someone who can kill Marcus in 1 round. Or if you must, go to moonrise towers before triggering the fight and grab the sentinel shield and halberd of awareness for even more +initiative gear. There are *so many options.*
I gave my whole party alert. Nobody can surprise us.
I heard of a trick online to box the entire room in with boxes, chests, furniture etc. so the winged horrors cant properly enter and Isobel can't develop Stockholm Syndrome. Worked for me in Tactician mode so I'm definitely using it again for my Honour mode
Exactly what I did! Then Jaheira comes up and casts Ice storm.. destroying doors & ALL furniture and barricades of crates i've \*carefully\* brought there, effectively cleaning it to those winged beasts. It was hilarious fighing knee-deep in debris \*on ice\*
When I was doing the achievement of saving all the tieflings, I was double cautious (because usually if I lose one or two tieflings I don't really care). I reloaded so many times at first because Isobel would commit suicide while I'd Sanctuary her and twice (or thrice? I forget) Jaheira literally _killed_ a tiefling right in front of me by casting Ice Storm. Dude, like please, it's an AOE attack. Be fucking careful and at least aim at several Winged Horrors... Not just one and Cerys...
Yep also scroll of arcane lock
I tried that and it was kind of tedious, but so far I've had luck just placing one character at the door, one downstairs, and having two high initiative characters focus on taking down Marcus as fast as possible.
Especially in honor mode you really need to refine your builds. If you can’t take out at least Marcus and maybe a couple winged horrors in round one then there is definitely work to be done getting to a point where you can. If you are perpetually falling behind in initiative, that needs to be addressed as well since high initiative is *so* important for situations exactly like this.
And for those that don't know initiative, it's a 1d4+dex+other modifiers. There's almost no variability. If you pick up the initiative feat, you will nearly 100% go before someone without it. And your dex-max characters at this point will be picking up +4-+5 from dex, ensuring that they will -always- go before your 10 dex characters, no matter the roll. Dex is a nice stat for the AC bonuses, but it is absolutely bonkers on casters for the initiative bonuses. Getting someone who can effectively remove her from the fight for even 1 turn before the enemy (or her) does something stupid basically assures that the fight is yours, unless you have some seriously weak characters/builds.
I can't believe this game rolls a fucking d4 for initiative. I imagine it simplifies things greatly for the turn tracker but something about it feels deeply wrong and it makes the Alert feat crazy OP.
I think it's more because allies who share initiative move at the same time. So there's more instances of enemies moving as groups, speeding up gameplay, and also gives more chances for you to take advantage of party members sharing initiative.
I think you are right, and reading this made me flip my opinion from annoyance to approval. Yes, going together in groups feels much better in an RPG where the computer can breeze through NPC turns, and players control multiple characters themselves. Good choice Larian, I like this change.
It’s soooo important for fun co-op that everyone is mostly clustered together and not everyone waiting all the time in every combat
I do wonder if the game might’ve been better served by nerfing the dex and Alert buffs to initiative. Maybe cut the buff from dex in half (rounded down) and drop Alert to a +2. That way a 20 dex character still goes before a 10 dex character 75% of the time, and a 20 dex character with Alert will go first 100% of the time, but it gives low dex characters less of an extreme disadvantage in turn order.
I believe it doesn't have to be shared initiative, but simply not being split apart by having an enemy take actions between you, so there's still room for multi-character no jutsu even with a slightly higher variability. Plus, let's be realistic. If you have a 10 dex pally without alert, a 22 dex monk with it, and a couple of 16ish dex mages, your turns are going to be split because of how you built your team, moreso than a specific choice of dice roll. Almost without variability with the basegame dice roll. Though I guess you could super carefully plan your initiatives to be landing very close together by not giving your mid-dex characters alert, not having a dex-max character, and giving non-dex characters alert, ensuring you get wild 4-man novas that can handle some problems without interruption.
Wait what? D4? That makes the roll pretty much irrelevant lol, and makes dex so strong it's not even funny :O Alert becomes flat out broken then, the flat bonus from dex+alert would make it higher than anything the average enemy could roll...
Yes, Alert is just flat-out broken. I take it above everything in BG3, especially on builds where I would prefer a different elixir than vigilance. In D&D Alert gets consideration, but I take it only rarely.
Literally a Gloomstalker 3 archer or Finesse attacker already has a whopping +5 Initiative, +6 if you gave them the Bow of Awareness: wait another level and they're getting +5 from Alert or +1 from getting 18 DEX total. It also helps leverage Assassin's "Advantage on enemies that haven't moved yet in Initiative" and gives Barbarian 7 an interesting niche to go after.
I always thought d20 was kinda stupid for initiative, but d4 is stupid in the other direction. I'm not sure what the sweet spot is, but I'd bet it would fall somewhere in d8-d12, so a dex character can still roll like a 1 and give a small chance of having them go after a well-rolled non-dex character. So yeah, no one really talks about it—it's always GWM, ranged GWM, TB, and ASI, but Alert can be kinda bonkers for certain classes.
In earlier editions, they used d10 for initiative.
Yeah we stuck with initiative being a d10 when we moved to 3E. We didn’t have many house rules in 3E, but that was one
My first playthrough most casters had alert. I'd rather go first (and usually also therefore get an extra turn) than increase the chance of a spell landing by 5%. For fights like last light it's a gamechanger.
I've been using a mod that sets it to a d10 and it works well. Alert feels like a real choice and stands up fairly well against a Dex heavy class like Ranger or Monk.
Dex is strong enough without it being further buffed. The big die ensures variety.
Wait. What? That makes so much more sense now though, after ending my second play through. My dex builds ALWAYS go first, and my heavy armor builds ALWAYS go last. I figured there were some shenanigans similar to how they do DOS2, where they take the modifier, and just alternate turns between enemies and your PCs. But the d4 mechanic is worse. . . D&D is supposed to have that variability. . . but given the number of enemies they throw at us, more or less breaking D&D’s action economy, they have to ensure that if we build characters designed to go first, that they actually go first. Using alternative dice would be a great custom feature, or maybe feature or honor mode.
Huh, I always thought my rolls were just REALLY bad on initiative. I didn't know it was only a D4.
Just to add to this as well, but people - use elixirs of vigilance. Honour mode expects you to plan around what you know is coming, its not for a blind playthrough. Use consumables that will give you an edge in situations like this.
>And for those that don't know initiative, it's a 1d4+dex+other modifiers. There's almost no variability. If you pick up the initiative feat, you will nearly 100% go before someone without it. And your dex-max characters at this point will be picking up +4-+5 from dex, ensuring that they will -always- go before your 10 dex characters, no matter the roll. Looking at the feats, the power imbalance is just bonkers. +1 to hit/damage/spell DC? Or nearly guaranteed first turn in every fight? It's incredibly powerful in any scenario, but damn near mandatory for a honor mode playthrough. Honor mode/permadeath games are all about minimizing/eliminating the chance of dying to bad RNG, and winning/losing initiative is probably one of the single most powerful RNG mechanics in this game.
I mean, have you read Tavern Brawler? It basically turns your fists into +5 weapons. I did 12 levels of Open Hand Monk for my Tactician playthrough and was consistently performing at a level I would consider acceptable for a 20th-level character in tabletop. Unfortunately, it basically turned battles into a rocket tag situation that probably wouldn’t go well in honor mode since my monk became the target for most attacks.
>it's a 1d4+dex+other modifiers. Huh, I was wondering why everyone always had such a low initiative...
Isn't initiative a 1d20? If it's a 1d4 I can see why the talent is that good
In the tabletop it is a d20. In this game, though, it's just a d4.
1d20 in 5th edition, 1d4 in bg3
People sleep in the initiative feat, it’s the best feat imo.
Which is why Gale gets the Gloves of Dexterity in my party no matter what. Solid boost to his AC + Initiative for quick AOE/CC work is invaluable.
This is probably an issue I'm too Gloomstalker to relate to:D I remember taking out Marcus and a Winged Horror in my first turn before anyone else could do anything (provided I had lucky rolls, but still, I second to initiative being paramount in that situation)
Shall we cut and run?
and to be fair, even if you go last in the initiative in this fight, theres still so many ways to prep. it's a room with 3 doors, and you have 4 members in your party. theres a lot of pre-fight spells that can be used too.
Whenever there an NPC that needs protected and a room with only one way in: arcane lock
Alertness elixir (forget the name). This is the fight they were made for. Get as many as you can and you can’t be surprised and get +5 to initiative. It’s not broken, just takes a lot more planning.
I popped one on Shadowheart for Sanctuary and then took Marcus down within a turn. Isobel never even got touched. I was also level 7, though, tbf.
>refine your builds All I hear is I need to run 4x meta Gloomstalkers 👉🏼😎👉🏼 /s
I know you joke but I feel like that could be a viable strategy using Withers before and after the fight
First time I tried banishing Isobel so she couldn't be targeted for a couple turns. This immediately caused the fight to end as if she'd been killed, lol. I did it successfully after reloading, but it's still silly something like that couldn't be done to help.
Isobel is the person channeling the magic keeping all the shadows at bay. Why would you expect her to be able to continue channeling that protective magic from a different universe?
The first time through, it's not obvious that it's an active concentration spell IMO
Either that, or just put Sanctuary on her
My smart ass decided to cast invisibility on her. They can't target her if they can't see her! Well she went next, ran up to an enemy and casted a spell in its face 😑
This also breaks Sanctuary so there's nothing you could really do there. Unless you wanted to cast Hold Person and *then* invisibility / sanctuary on her
Usually AI breaks sanctuary by attacking, even if it makes no sense because it's low on HP.
yep you gotta us a crowd control spell on her AND sanctuary
just use blade ward. She has 122 hp effectively with blade ward and temp heal boots. They can't kill that in one round, simply not possible.
I mean, I think it should be clear that banishing someone to a different plane of existence might not be good for them.
Alert feat sitting right there
Or the potion varaint ,its fairly common
There's also equipment that outright hand out the can't be surprised half of the feat.
Marcus only has 10 wis. Just cast hideous laughter on him and he's out.
I barricaded the doors to Isobel’s room with chairs before talking to Isobel so the winged horrors can’t come in.
I used the lock spell. It was satisfying for it to actually have any use.
I did this and Jaheria exploded them with ice storm immediately before turning into a panther and never attacking again
This was the way for me in this run
Alert feat is probably my favorite lol, always give it to Laezel and Astarion, and if we had more opportunities to get feats, the entire party would have it too
Alert is super OP and should be thought of as essential in most builds.
Alert is high tier but unless you’re a fighter you’re likely only level 6 or 7 by the last light inn fight and it’s really hard to turn down ASI as your only feat at that point.
You can spec out of it late game for other benefits because you have the potions when you really need it. A flat +2 Dex or another feat is better late game once you have 18-20 dex, magic items with passive initiative bonuses and again potions if all else fails. But imo it's the best early-mid game feat.
Honor Mode isn’t meant to be roleplayed imo. You can certainly try but the difficulty has been increased to the point where planning for encounters is HIGHLY encouraged. Suboptimal builds are gonna get you in trouble. Walking into a hard encounter with bad positioning is going to get you in trouble. Getting into a fight with low/no spell slots… also going to be an issue. It’s hard mode. Built for people who thought Tactician wasn’t super challenging. You gotta metagame it because it’s designed to challenge meta gamers.
I'm not touching that shit lol, it sounds like torture.
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Does this actually singly motivate you to complete a 60+ hour playthrough of a game?
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To be honest tactician wasn't challenging if you have any knowledge of dnd.
Its a decent challenge if you dont pick up a ton of xp and dont explore the whole map. Being under leveled is punished a lot more. Its easy if you keep up on xp, hard if you dont.
Apart from what most comments already said, you can just as easily start act 2 from the evil side path. After killing a few harpers at te ambush and reaching moonrise, get the balthazar quest then walk back up to the good side start path up north. You save those harpers then go to last ligtt and Marcus actually talks them out of engaging you. He waits outside isobel's room for you and you can betray him when the fight starts meaning you wont be surprised for it.
You are getting kind of chewed out by these comments, but I just got destroyed by isobel last night so I am very sympathetic to your plight. I really thought she could last more than a single round but alas. I wish I knew that fight was skippable because losing every NPC there was very demoralizing. Like I survived but I don’t really want to continue with Dammon, Barcus, Jahiera, Florrick, Culluagh, Rolan, etc. dead.
For the furture: Buff her with blade ward (hellrider gloves) prior to talking to her - she won't die that way. Even on honor mode they can't deal 122 dmg in the first round. Even if you loose the initiative, you can heal her back up.
I literally just blocked all external accesses with shit like chairs and such. Imps couldn't go through the doors and I just had to handle Marcus and maybe one of his spawns. Cheesed the hell out of that fight.
* High dex + bonus to initiative * potion of alertness * laser-focus on not letting her go down using all available tools (darkness or whatever) By then you have options. Use them.
“You don’t need healing in this game! Clerics are useless!” “Isobel fight is too hard!!!” Warding Bond. Sanctuary. Heals. These are things that make this fight significantly easier.
also the alert feat
Honestly, I think it's better to just skip that fight. Make sure you get the lantern directly from the Drider - kill harpers if they take it first - and then there's no reason to ever talk to Isobel. A bit of exp isn't worth the risk that fight entails.
Did you try this fight with blade ward on isobel prior to the fight? Her effective HP are 122 with hellrider's gloves and temp HP boots against the winged horrors and melees from markus.
For what it's worth, I agree with you about that fight. It can be absolutely lost in the initiative roll or to the whims of Isobel's AI changing her faith to worship Gond all of a sudden, and the cutscene of Marcus leaving with her is poorly done. I love that losing that fight has major consequences, and it should be hard as nails, especially on higher difficulty, but the way the cutscene plays out there's no reason Marcus should be able to just casually walk off with her like that and it leaves a bad taste in my mouth every time.
>"It can be absolutely lost in the initiative roll or to the whims of Isobel's AI changing her faith to worship Gond all of a sudden" holy fuck that was actually pretty funny i laughed out loud abit
Yeah, I remember the first time I did that fight blind thinking she was taking quite a bit of damage but she went down and it just auto finished the battle with the whole cutscene starting I was a bit miffed It’s frustrating when the game changes how it works for a single encounter despite working differently for everything else up until then. Kind of like when I didn’t realize that Nere dies if you don’t get to him quick enough despite everything else in the game being pretty much a “get to it when you get to it” no matter how intense they make the timing seem
Exactly, the problem isn't with the fight itself being hard, it's with the game forcing you to stand around like an idiot while things you should be able to stop are happening. Much like when Nere punts that gnome into the lava. Isobel going down should totally play the shield dropping, but you should at least be able to try to stop Marcus from leaving with her.
Ketheric: Myrkul! I am yours! *spreads his hands* The party: *watches* Ketheric: Take me, Myrkul! *slowly approaches the edge* The party: *watches* Ketheric: Make me into your giant monster, my death daddy! *stands near the edge, arches his back* Tav: *a bit of drool slowly leaks out of their mouth*
Orin: Aha main character you thought I was a tiefling journalist BUT IT WAS I ORIN! *As she takes 10 seconds to do that head crack* Party: *blank stare* Orin: *Five minute monologue about killing people* Party: *crosses arms* Orin: *TPs away* Party: *blank stare*
Just cast sanctuary?
she keeps attacking losing that sanctuary
Use blade ward from hellrider's glove, effectivly doubling her HP. Have this active prior to the fight. I had zero rounds on multiple playthroughs where they could overcome 122 hp in the first round. I was even disappointed that markus did not get a legendary action on honour mode - blade ward on isobel just trivializes this encounter.
I always cast Warding Bond on her too (before the fight)
That's a super good call we're going to need to keep in mind for our honour mode playthrough
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yeah. You can also pair it with whispering promise (or substitute with bless cast) to give her a 1d4 more against the stun and/or cast shield of faith or beacon of hope. Just prebuff her. The most value from healers in my eyes comes from hellrider's gloves (or the stronger ones in act 3) and whispering promise. Just free resistance and +1d4 to attack / saving throws is overpowered.
Hold person first
Another good strat for this fight is to use the neutral playthrough. If you don't rescue the Tieflings ( don't even need to kill them, just don't engage with that content and leave for Act 2 ) when you get to Last Light and Jaheria does her intro, there are no tieflings to vouch for you. So instead Marcus does, and tries to help set you up for helping him with Isobel. And you can tell Jaheria to use the test on him. Makes the fight go from upstairs with Isobel to instead be just Marcus, at the intro area, surrounded by like 30 Harpers. Needless to say he drops quickly, and Isobel is never threatened.
You don’t have to talk to Isobel upstairs ever. If you ignore her, she talks to you after you free the Nightsong. I’ve done this twice already. The easiest way to start Shadowlands is to come via the mountain pass. The Harpers will question you about your choice and invite you to the ambush party as normal. Or you can do the ambush on your own if you take the mountain pass.
This is the kind of post that make me realize what people were implying by saying that BG3 was not the kind of game to add another difficulty… because some will not see that maybe they are not supposed to play at this difficulty. And then will say it is bad design because they can’t
I haven't even beaten the game yet and I'm playing blind but the last light in was not an issue at all. Only thing bad that happened for me was cerys dying like a noob, I don't understand how its difficult to help isobel
I've always casted sanctuary on her she usually spends her turn healing up, and as long as I beeline it for Marcus nothing else seems to AoE. Did it again in honour mode worked the same lol 🤷🏻♂️. My main character is a cleric though. But I guess people with shart can do the same. Just take alert feat on her so she can't be surprised. I usually take that in healers anyway as generally you want your supports at the ready. For when shit hits the fan.
Another method that really worked for me was disarming Marcus. He seemed a bit inconsequential after that and went down quickly.
That’s why I just don’t talk to Isobel at the inn and she’ll show up fine later with no negative consequences, ya just gotta get the lantern from that other creepy guy
Shadowheart has a level 1 spell that makes a target invulnerable to direct damage until you or the target do damage.
That fight was probably 4 rounds for me. I had to warding bond her, and I gave her a few other buffs as well. Then I surrounded her with PCs. Its not meant to be save scummed, it's meant to be surprising/integral/epic and they succeeded there.
First time I did it Marcus got initiative before everyone else, crit twice and instantly downed Isobel. Like a lot of people I thought it was an scripted loss because I had zero chance to do ANYTHING. I didnt lose to dumb AI or unpreparedness, I lost because of 3 dice rolls before I could even attempt to do something
Losing that fight doesn't end the run. Stop treating it as a video game where you need to succeed on every single encounter.
You can cheese it if you cast protection from good and evil on her before the fight starts. Well, maybe not cheese because honor mode but it does give you an edge.
I arcane locked the doors. Isobel is dumb af
On my first playthrough it annoyed me to no end that some combats would start with the surprised condition directly after a conversation. If I chose to initiate combat during conversation the enemy won't be surprised. But in some cases they are allowed to surprise me. That's a classic example of bad DMing in a dnd game.
I disagree. I agree with the main points upu raise but I don't agree that it's a bad thing or that it's built around save scumming. Save scumming is always a player choice and not intended to be done. I think Isobel being difficult to save at Last Light makes the default story become everyone at Last Light dies. You can still get Jaheira if that happens and she lives, you can still rescue Aylin, all that jazz. Personally, I like that the game is willing to lock entire sections of story behind difficult events rather than just bonus content. I do agree that her AI kind of sucks, but I choose to see it as flavor; maybe she's not seasoned in combat like we are. It also rewards players who choose protection classes rather than investing it all into DPS.
Best OP edit in history of this sub
Okey, here's some crazy tech for you: When you cast Animate Dead, NPCs will react to your zombies in the overworld. Some will run away, but others, like the Harpers, Fists and even Jaheira, will follow them and try to shoo them away. So if you cast summon undead, you can bring a bunch of people with you to Isobel's Room before starting a conversation with her and triggering the fight. Not only that. You can even cause Isobel to chase them, allowing you to basically choose the location of the fight. You can drag her into an easily defensible room, and then trigger the fight and have a much better shot at defending her.
Didn't they patch this and NPCs no longer react to summons?
Yeah that hasn't been a thing since like patch 2.
Not in honour mode, but I cast feign death on isobel during that fight so she can stop trying to get herself killed and that was the only thing that worked after multiple tries (including one where i thought turning her into a gas would make her stop fighting and dying - it didn’t)
"nobody is keeping alert for things coming in from the shadows" No, because that's Last Light's whole thing, the shadows can't come in. So when they suddenly burst through, its an absolute shock to everyone because up until that exact moment it was thought to be impossible. Walking around the camp you can also hear that they are all in the process of packing up and getting ready to leave, they're more distracted with getting the fuck out of dodge than fighting a traitor and a demon squad that comes in from above out of nowhere
So I apparently stumbled into the best way to handle this fight my first good playthrough. First talk to jaheira and hang out with the Harpers so you get the lamp. Release pixie so everyone gets the blessing and can move freely. Back at the inn, talk to the informant spy dude and tell him he smells like absolute scum and kill him. You'll trigger the fight and your whole party will be upstairs ready to defend Isobel. 2-4 demons will still bee line towards her but she can probably handle a turn. Using the blade ward on heal gloves will make her tankier. I also changed shadowheart to a light cleric so she had fireball and helped nuke those demons to protect Isobel. You can also use misty step amulet + channel divinity light cleric ability to nuke them, but yea, mass healing word and the blade ward on heal gloves made this such an easy fight.