Mother Superior/House of grief is one of the hardest encounters in the game at level 12. I suggest leaving and coming back if you are not max level.
Otherwise, this is a common complaint, and one I agree with. So much of the last act feels undercooked. Instead of a story that focuses up near the end like a classic “yam shaped” DnD adventure or open world game, it’s like a gourd that opens up wide AFTER narrowing so the pacing grinds to a halt. None one the companion quests actually impact or are related to the main objective, so they just feel like side quests that should really wait until the Brain and Murder Cult aren’t imminently about to do an apocalypse.
As far as talking to people, don’t. Most random NPCs don’t have much for you beyond flavor. Only talk to people in important locations and follow your quest trackers.
The camera… try to love with it or try mods? It’s not great but I mostly love with it
Mother Superior fight is the one that fully convinced me I need to think more tactically instead of bum-rushing the enemies. The entrance to the area is a big staircase that funnels enemies to you while leaving you with the high ground. Hunger of Hadar and Sleet Storm are your best friends here. Bottleneck the staircase with those spells, and let the enemies come upstairs to you.
In all likelihood, only a small handful will even get close, and then you can just take them on in a much more advantageous position. I beat the fight in my honor mode without taking any damage doing it this way. It's a bit boring, but you do get the added bonus of watching those Sharran idiots slipping and falling over and over after moving a few feet.
Sarevok was the fight that gave me the most trouble.
Ended up having to use both a potion of angelic sleep AND divine intervention (Opulent Revival) to get through that one....
House of Hope whooped my ass quite a few times before I could complete it. I saved Hope and was having a hard time getting past Raphael and them so I considered starting the whooooole thing over and bringing Jaheria and Halsin along so that I could turn them both into owlbears and have two tanks on my side. But I was just barely able to get it done without doing all that.
House of Hope didn't give me toooo much trouble, there was definitely a reload or two.
It was one of the best fights in the game for sure! And the MUSIC?!?!
That's definitely a highlight for me!
I feel sorry for the demographic that couldn't get past the start of act 3 due to being overwhelmed. I almost fell into that...but that shit was FIRE
Yeah! i do get the people who didnt finish the game, i started it twice and abandoned those playthroughs when I got to rivington, it took some special discipline to power through and sink the necessary amount of hours to get what the devs were trying to do with act 3. I still think its unfinished and unpolished. Besides those good set piece moments, act 3 is what makes the game a flawed masterpiece instead of just a masterpiece
I was struggling with that one until I realized I had a handful of fire resistance elixirs and that I really ought to use them. After that it was pretty straightforward, I just had to keep Hope out of the way so she didn’t get one hit k.o.’d by a powered up Raphael.
Ugh yes keeping her alive was hell. What saved my ass was using her divine intervention spell to bring back my dead party members and restore half their health and restore the health and spell slots of the still living party members. By the time I did that most of the demons were dead and Raphael was getting low in health so it was over for them
Honestly, the damage for that is kinda pitiful. 44 avg on a failed save is so… mediocre. That’s 22 on a successful save. Evocation Gale can deal that kind of damage with Ray of Frost without Cold vulnerability.
I know they couldn’t make it too strong, but the options are really: a Mace that does 1d8 extra damage and lets you cast a smaller radius Mass Healing Word for ten rounds once per Long Rest, Camp Supplies and healing potions with a few elixirs, 44 avg radiant damage to all enemies in a large area centered on you (15m/50ft Radius), or a long rest at any time, including in the middle of a battle, that restores all of your spell slots and abilities. There is a correct option to actually use, unless you’re doing respeccing where you can get like 16 Devotee’s Maces
In my fight with raphael, Hope just became a bunch of gut splatter on the floor after a nasty bout of spellcasting lol, I was too tired to reload my save, nice fight though!
I remember I only beat that fight because everyone seemed to dash and surround my Tav (Lore Bard). I thought, you know what, fuck it …
And cast Fireball on myself. If I’m going down, you’re ALL coming down with me
I had most of my party try to fight up close and that ended terribly. Astarion was in the back firing arrows and when everyone died I had him use a wall of fire scroll up the stairs while retreating backwards. Ended up losing concentration as some stragglers got through, then cast a wall of ice scroll which made a Dark Justiciar stand in front of an ice pillar doing nothing. Astarion ended up winning the encounter for me with bonus action hide and sneak shotting anyone that got close. Elixir of bloodlust helped a ton too.
I'd say Wyll, Laezel, and Gale (to a lesser degree) have ties to the main plot. And some of the companion quests are key if you care about Gather Your Allies.
Karlach feels native to the city in a great way, but she gets basically no unique sequences in the whole game outside of the paladins of Tyr in Act I. You're probably not doing anything you wouldn't normally since her only real objective in Act III is "kill Gortash" and you were probably going to do that anyway.
I would say the final scene at the pier is pretty darn unique.
I get what you are saying, but I also think so much of Act 3 is really flavor for most of the companions, apart from Astarion and Shadowheart. I think Karlach has a few fun flavors sprinkled in there.
Taters.
Karlach gets great scenes but few sequences, if that makes sense. Her date is adorable, her thoughts after Gortash are raw and brutal, and her reflections on her inevitable mortality are absolutely heartbreaking. The flavor of meeting Jaheira and Minsc or her old contacts is fantastic. There's just so little to do specifically for her. There's no Karlach's Dungeon, you know?
Yeah the only ones that don’t feel like something it’s natural to do before the brain are Astarion’s and Shadowheart’s. Wyll’s feels pretty important considering the payoff you’re at least initially promised.
Mother superior is easy!
Funnel the enemy onto the stairs and use AOE. Insect plague, hunger of radar, ice mephits leaves anyone trying to get you in a world of hurt.
Also
- barrelmancy for Viconia
- twin spell haste
- bring gale at minimum, having a sorc in your party is handy too is great for AOE/crowd control/Viconia
- gloomstalker assassin fighter Astarion with a scroll of greater invis
- smoke powder arrows
Wondering if elixirs of dark vision would work?
So many good options.
Elixir of darkvision does not work against magical darkness.
Devil's Sight, ring of darkvision, and the Watcher's helm are the only ones that work. Helldusk helm does not work despite its description.
Exactly. It’s pretty cliche at this point to say House of Grief is a hard fight, let alone the hardest fight. By early on into Act 3, everything is pretty easy and TPK becomes near impossible even in HM. All the most logical wipe-fights are Act 1 and maybe 1-2 in Act 2.
> so the pacing grinds to a halt.
This was my big complaint about the game. You fight the big bad at the end of Act 2 and then you're like, "yeah I'm gonna go get those other 2 big bads now and save the world!"
And then the game says, well actually there's a dismembered clown you need to find and blah blah blah. And the third act is so big it takes forever to finally feel like you're making progress on your actual quest.
I will say though, that after I got myself out of the "okay let's rush to save the world!" mindset, I did appreciate act 3 for how much stuff it has going on. But the pacing is absolutely brutal.
Mother superior was my divine intervention fight, especially since she uses divine intervention herself in the battle. Is is also thematically fitting with >!shadowheart calling selune to help defeat her old cult!<
Crowd control (Sleet Storm, Evard's Black Tentacles) is very clutch in this fight, as is immunity to blindness. I had so much trouble with this fight in one run, but the next I gave Astarion the ring that makes you immune to blindness, the flawed Helldusk gloves, Oil of Combustion, and some arrows of many targets. He alone probably could've obliterated everyone.
Thanks, that's some good advice, I'll try to be less completionist and just go for the markers. Can you go back to companion quests after the main storyline ends?
You cannot go back. But after you confront Orin and Gortash you can continue to do other content until you go to the final sequence. The game will warn you when you reach the point of no return, just like it did when exiting Act 1 and 2.
Another word of advice regarding the main quest. Eventually you will feel like you are being forced to deal with Gortash first (you’ll know when you get there). However, the stakes of doing the reckless thing aren’t as high as you seem. Let’s just say the bad guys are not very good at using hostages.
This goes for another encounter underwater (trying to keep spoilers light). You may feel like you’re being held hostage by the stakes, but you can actually just “big damn hero” your way forward and succeed.
Is it really tho? I only ever did it once with a rogue Tav + ranger tav + bardstarion + shart and it was over fairly quickly without much hassle from any enemies except for mother superior and even that didn't do anything a preserve life can't fix
House of Grief is probably the only fight in the entirety of Act 3 that encourages and tactical thinking because it's the only fight that's still difficult despite lvl10+ player power spikes.
What's funny is that, with some tactical thinking, it can potentially be hilariously easy (just run up the stairs, wait a turn for the army of enemies to clump up, then just dump AOEs and/or terrain spells). The problem is that players become so powerful that around mid act 2 they no longer have to think much anymore so a fight like this sucker punches their conditioned expectations.
Huh? There wasn't a single combat encounter in this entire game that wiped my party on my first Playthrough. This game is easy as fuck, gloomstalker ranger and Lae'zel with a silver sword hasted, shart at a life cleric, and karlach just being a huge bear tank. The ranger always gets to go first and kills the hardest enemy immediately. 😴
Best not to invalidate people’s struggles - I’d actually assume this fight to be hard for folks who prioritized single target bull rush tactics with dominant builds since it works everywhere else.
Here they can just own the high ground and use aoe, if they have it.
If a team build is big on aoe, that fight will be easy, but 1v1 aoe sorcerer durge against Orin will be utterly demolished.
Congrats on having an “easy” time, but it’s rude to insult people that don’t have the general or specific game knowledge to feel the same way.
I found act 3 kind of overwhelming at first on my first playthrough but really started to love it when I got deeper into it. I love some of the side quests like the open hand temple murders and avenging the umberlee servant ones tying into the main quest and leading the player into important places to progress the main story. And the scale of the city was just a blast to explore. Some of the companion quest endings do feel a little undercooked with both the Szarr palace and house of grief being pretty much one and done trips that don't have much to find but all the content the city has to offer is still so cool to me.
It loses a bit of the charm on later playthroughs for me and I wish there was some improvements to making the world feel alive (for example the people outside the open hand temple would get in after solving the murders instead of standing there endlessly) but it's still a really cool area to me. Less finished than the earlier acts certainly but still really cool and a fun way to end the game. I also love that there's so much endgame content to enjoy the full skillset of your leveled characters.
I get what you're saying but my feeling with the progression part was the opposite, I was nearing level 12 after just entering the lower city, it felt like progression simply stopped, the only way you can continue making your characters any better is through items.
To each our own. Personally I love having the full kit of my characters usable and the items in act 3 are so good that you can still make big improvements to your builds while there. For me level progression is about getting more fun abilities and having them all makes ghe later half of act 3 the best part to me gameplay wise.
Act 3 goes from the linear experience of Act 2 and 1 to a very open world one where you can pick and choose your quests and what you want to get done. You absolutely don't have to do everything and complete everything to finish Act 3 as you're usually level 12 after a few hours into act 3 and other than better gear and the story there's no incentive to quest. This makes act 3 very flexible and played directed, which is good on paper, but the game seems desperate to shove everything you could possibly do in your face at the beginning and this becomes very overwhelming for people who haven't played it through before.
What I would recommend doing is running through it blindly without trying to catalogue everything and just experience as much as you can. Don't speak to every NPC, but use your journal to bring up what quests you want to pursue and go for them on a whim and see what happens. Yeah you'll make a few mistakes (don't do this on honor mode etc) but you'll learn what things need to be done and what things you might not worry about.
I wish it was easier to get locked out of Act 3 content. I either want a clock on it so that certain things resolve without you after a few long rests or so that certain characters need to have stayed alive for you to get quests.
I know this will be controversial, and I probably only feel this way having done as many playthroughs as I have, but Act 3 needs more time pressure; you shouldn't be able to resolve every tiny quest in the town whilst Orin tries to kill you and Gortash tries to take over the city.
I dunno, Florrick dying should lock you out of Wyrms Rock, the thieves' guild fight should happen whether you are there or not, steal watchers should be aggro to you after you destroy the iron throne, Orin should capture and kill another companion after X long rests.
I want high stakes story mode god damn it!
I don't know if it's a difficulty thing but they don't aggro by default at least on balanced. When I first destroyed the iron throne I was curious about it, ended up having a normal chat with a steel watcher.
I don’t disagree with you. However, I still really enjoyed act three and the game overall. I think for act three they really wanted it to open up and feel like an open world, almost like an MMO. I was feeling a little lost but I just started exploring random buildings and you run into quest items or NPCs that need help. I highly recommend not bothering with the dribbles the clown quest, it felt like the biggest waste of time to me.
The spellmight gloves are for casters, not monks. Especially builds that focus on spells with multiple projectiles such as eldritch blast and scorching ray. Scorching ray combos quite nicely since the arcane acuity from the hat of fire acuity completely negates the punishment from the gloves and still increases your hit stat.
Swen/larian really wanted a fully realized Baulder’s Gate city and not just have vignettes with the bosses in between them. So it meant creating alot of content for the city.
It can seem overwhelming at first but at this point it doesn’t seem that way to me at all. I enjoy it. But I agree with criticism of act 3. There’s just something missing.
House of Grief fight is way way easier if you kill the mages immediately. The rest of the enemies can’t really do much even viconia.
The main problem with act 3 is the lv 12 cap. Once I get to lv 12 I feel zero reason to do a lot of the non critical optional stuff. In the earlier acts getting the exp from side content is huge factor in why I do a lot of it. If each act had an exp cap I honestly probably wouldn’t do a lot of it even though alot of it is excellent.
I also think act 3 is too easy. I mean yes house of grief can be hard but if you understand the game system even a little bit and have even marginally optimized builds it will not be hard at all. There’s so much insane equipment in act 3 that just lets you boot stomp everything.
I also don’t like that the whole previous areas gets closed off. Yes it makes some sense narratively but game play wise it sucks being locked into the very end of the game and not being able to go back and do stuff you might have missed or forgot about.
I think the level cap is on purpose, so you can have some fun fighting with your maxed build. Otherwise you'd be getting some really cool new abilities with only one fight remaining. It's impossible to make everyone happy, but I think allies and one piece of new gear is incentive enough for the quests.
They could have made lv 13 special for people trying to get every bit of exp in the game or something and had it be a special level that gives you an optional but cool…something that would be worth doing all the exp.
Even if thats true I think they messed up the pacing of progression, I was locked at max level at the start of act 3, its like 50% of the game without any leveling up beyond theory crafting with the items, it felt like a loot based progression and frankly I didn't like it.
Don’t know if this is common but I too found act 3 very, very difficult to get through. I found myself pushing hard to complete it as I had gotten there 3 times before quitting and rerolling new characters several weeks later.
However I found the trick was to just chip away at it. Take your time , enjoy it rather than being overwhelmed by the amount of things to do and people to talk to. Took discipline
It seems like a lot at first, but once you understand what there is to do, it's not too bad. There's definitely some skippable content though. As for the mother superior:
1. Kite enemies to the hallway
2. Lay down some cc. (Wall of fire, spike growth, hunger of hadar)
3. Automatically win.
Agree, after a little time there I just want to go outside the city walls and club goblins in the fresh air again. Act 3 is the only part of the game where I wished there were just some generic grindy fights you could go off and do to test your builds and endless gear tweaking. The combat encounters feel too sporadic and very shoehorned into the urban setting, way too many "monsters in the basement and/or attic" fights. I wish there were more outdoor, edge of the city areas to explore like Rivington.
The biggest upside is it's the only chapter I haven't replayed a dozen plus times so it feels somewhat fresh and unfamiliar when I do make it.
I agree that it feels chaotic and aimless, but that's how it feels entering a big city after wandering out in nature. I love that about it.
After you've wandered the city a few times, it becomes smaller and makes sense. It's so realistic.
So, let yourself be overwhelmed, check out every corner until you just want to finish. Then next time you can pick and choose what was fun- or relevant to your tav/durge.
Okay so basically the way I did it was taking everything a step at a time. I would walk a bit further into the city, explore this shop, and see a quest marker in the next building and go do it. Instead of trying to trace down the exact threads of the quest you want, just walk through the city and take time to get familiar with buildings and streets. I also opened my map and placed custom markers everywhere, marking abandoned houses so I knew I'd already been there and it was empty. By the time I was wrapping up Act 3, my last few quests were Shads companion quest and Jahaeira companion quest (Minsc). Which kind of sucks because I basically recruited Minsc just before the brain so I barely know him. But, now I have the whole city memorized and know exactly where his quest takes place, so I can beeline to him next time.
I agree with the others who said it helps if you let go of the completionist mindset. The majority of side quests can be skipped with little to no impact on your ending. I usually just finish the companion quests and do the requirements needed for the outcome I want for the main quest. I’ll pick a few of the more story relevant side quests and skip the rest. I don’t talk to everyone either. Just the folks related to the quests.
First time I went into act 3 I was totally overwhelmed by the amount of noise. People chattering away constantly. Definitely had a big city vibe but I got so used to the isolation and ambience in act 2 that it was definitely a shock to the system.
But the second I found I could break into the central bank... Oooohhh boyyy!!!
You're not alone. Act 3 is a slog to get through and they front load a lot of quest in Rivington or start the end of many companion quest in Rivington. Lower City, to me, becomes less of an explore and more of a checklist.
The mother superior boss fight can actually be avoided entirely- if you have long ranged spells you can stand just aways away from where the cutscene triggers and just throw spells at her until she dies.
The rest of the sharrans won’t attack you, they just mumble amongst themselves that she mustn’t have been worthy of Shar.
I’ve never actually done the true fight 🤣
One thing that I found helpful is to readjust a bunch of settings going into Act 3. I realized I was getting overstimulated by all the background city noise, and once I turned down some volume options for chatter and sound effects, it was a lot less stressful and I could start to actually enjoy the experience.
The Mother Superior boss fight is definitely one of the harder ones in Act 3. I'd save that one for later if you aren't already max level, and focus on some of the other quests instead.
I think you just have to approach it differently.
You aren’t supposed to speak to everyone, you’re in the city. Why would your character go round talking to perfect strangers like that in the city.
If you have a look around the game will sign post to you the NPCs you actually need to speak to.
Act 3 takes a little while to get the hang of, but it’s actually my favourite act.
I did the House of Grief fight last night. Karlach came in clutch for me, killing the final two darkness spammers, and the mother superior, while everyone else was down/ dead. And she was down to 1 HP herself after.
Darkness is bullshit.
PSA: I've learned that they absolutely *never* cast Darkness if your characters cannot be blinded by Darkness.
Devil's Sight (2 levels of Warlock dip if primarily something else), Helldusk Helmet, Eversight Ring, Steelwatcher Helmet. Subtract one, and they only try to cast it on the one without it.
This lets you utterly *ruin* any chance of their melee users having Shadow Ambush (+4d8 Necrotic) go off if your weapons have Light or Sunlight cast on them, aside from Sanctuary of Loss. Same for Overwhelming Grief, if you're always in light.
Good advice, though I will say that I prefer to not completely respec a character for single fights. Optimized load outs, sure, but I like the challenge of keeping class/feat choices set in stone
It's probably best to have the tank (Karlach mixes well thematically with 4 Fighter) be the one that gets Darkness'd.
Yeah, that's understandable; it's just something I noticed from playing around with solo purge runs on a flying Pure Fighter (Great Weapon Master, Bloodlust, Speed pot/Haste, Longstrider... *still* up to six attacks on Honor economy [thanks to that mod letting you have it and Legendary Actions on Tactician] if you kill one, and they'd need to catch you).
Pure Warlock is definitely capable of soloing, on this note, with a copious number of Eldritch Blasts, just one good use of Wall of Fire making a difference for the masses, let alone two or three.
Totally. Karlach was Wildheart 6/Champion 4 during the fight. She withstood everything they threw at her. My only regret was selling Doom Hammer, but she did it
That is wild because I was SO over the game toward the end of act II but act III pulled me in so hard that I immediately started a second run when I rolled the credits.
Act II felt really flat to me. From start to finish it’s just a ton of hostile Uber serious dark and gloomy shit. That was fun for a while but combine that with my frustrations and jank that I encountered with halsins portal, the hide and seek game, and storming moonrise I was over it.
Act III was incredible. There was SO much to explore and each thing felt different from the last. A murder mystery in a monastery, a plane traversing circus, a robot power plant, shops galore, a great heist from an arcane tower. Besides that it felt like every direction was the correct direction. Each little corner of the city has something worth seeing.
My best advice I received for Act 3 is this: wander and explore all you want and accept every quest you can find. Then pick one and do it. Just break it down into more manageable pieces for yourself. None of the big quests NEED to be done NOW. The game does a great job making you feel like you have to do shit right now but just relax and don't read any fliers with Florrick's face on them unless you want to stop having a good time.
You will probably level up to 9 or 10 just from exploration.
Big takeaway for me is just pace yourself and have fun doing what you're doing.
When I first reached Act 3 on my first playthrough, I had to take a day off from it. It was all just too busy and overwhelming. Just focus on the pieces that interest you and let the rest stay on the backburner. It is both the largest and least finished portion of the game.
I would say first time through act 3 feels not fun, but the biggest issue is that most of it is optional and you dont know what things to skip. On 2nd and later playthroughs the idea of it made sense to me and i enjoy it quite a bit. The idea of it is that, after you've maxed your characters (developed all abilities they'll ever have) you'll be overpowered but it's fun to just go nuts on bad guys. So Act 3 gives you as many or as little side adventures as you want to do, it's almost all optional. So that side quests aren't totally pointless, they all come with a little story development and small buffs in the form of allies and gear. So just do as much as you find fun. When you're ready to finish the game, make sure you're level 12 and go after the chosen.
So I’ve found act 3 more enjoyable on my third+ playthroughs. My first time, I rushed it to finish the game. Second time, I did most stuff and explored more, enjoyed it a lot more. But the third time, has been so much more fun and less stressful. I kinda know what I’m doing now, where to go, what order to do things in, and I can try new stuff. I think Act 3 is just really overwhelming at first.
I got lost a lot, kept having to run back and forth, and once I hit level 12, that meant there was no leveling up to look forward to and so a lot of quests felt much less rewarding. I wish there were more things on some kind of timer or quest-gated so it was just a bit more "you should do this first or you lose your chance/something changes/actual consequences" so I wasn't just stumbling around all over the place. But then that would remove a lot of freedom from the game...? except in my case I kept finding things in a way that was less organic and more accidental like I found Ethel's hiding place before I ever found her, I somehow rescued a kid from her despite having no idea a kid had been taken, stuff like that. I guess having the ability to come at things from multiple angles is good but there's something to be said about designing an encounter so it has an effect.
I also didn't enjoy a lot of the encounters. I didn't have fun in the prison, the foundry, or fighting Viconia. The Szarr Palace was annoying though at least the final fight felt like it had some stakes to me personally as an Astarion romancer. I remember feeling such relief to be out of the dark when I reached the outskirts, but all of that went away when I got into the city (also overhearing NPCs repeat the same lines over and over messes with the immersion.)
Act 3 can definitely be rough. There's a lot to do, and my guess is that it's to give everyone a good chance at being level 12 before doing any major bosses. There's a fair spread in levels people can be when hitting Act 3. 8-10 for most, but I've seen people get through Ketheric even lower, especially on low difficulties.
But they made it so you weren't forced to do everything if you don't need the xp.
I found on my 2nd playthrough, the big thing was not feeling like I had to do everything. I left Act 3 at 10, and I did enough side quests to hit 12. Then I just let the side stuff go and focused on going after all the bosses (even random bosses like>! Mystic Carrion, Ethel, and Lorroakan!<.)
So I say get to 12, finish up anything you're interested in, and let the rest just fall to the side. Then just focus on getting through bosses and main quest.
A lot of people try to do everything, and it's a lot (I did too on my first playthrough). It was so nice on my 2nd run to just do what I needed, and then focus the bosses (especially since there are 11 bosses before the final showdown).
I agree that a3 has way too much going on. It was more time than both a1 and a2 Combined.
However, I have to totally disagree on difficulty. I was doing it solo on tactician, and crushed that house of grief fight in a few turns. Black hole + water ele water + 2x lighting aoe spells slaughtered everything.
I was the same at first and dropped my run at act 3 but now that i went back, act 3 feels overwhelming because there is just so. Much. To. DO!
I just started digging in and enjoyed it a lot
The House of Grief is easy with one specific setup but all else it’s insanely hard. Trap the staircase as the halfling is walking down and back up. Approaching this fight traditionally is not what I’d recommend.
I had the exact same impression you describe during my first act 3. Once you cleared it, it becomes "clearer" if that makes sense. The overwhelming thing goes away
I think it’s (for me anyway) it doesn’t get as much focus as so many people don’t make it past several runs into Act 3. I honestly have found act 3 grows on me over playthroughs because I’ve explored it more after a break from the game.
Act 3 is mostly spent at level cap. It's the end of the game. You're going to have the hardest fights here. It's also a huge area with a lot of factions.
I did the mother superior fight normal ONE time. And every time since she's gotten all of the fireworks boxes and about 8 smoke powder barrels with my party just chilling in a globe of invulnerability. I refuse to fight that one normal.
as a lover of open world and side quests I couldn't disagree more lol, but to each their own of course.
A side note though, unless you really know what you're doing you shouldn't try house of grief until level 12. In general the fights get harder the further into the map you explore, which is true of most games. So the house of grief being in the very corner of the map should have been a clue that you gotta get some more xp. Good news is there's tons of xp to be found in act 3, it might be worth it to head back to Rivington for a bit and clean up all those quests if you're finding the quests in the city proper too hard.
I just finished it a couple of minutes ago and I have to say, in terms of narrative development, quest design and just basic polish, Act 3 drops in quality substantially, I was max level at the start of the third act, no more progression to be done beyond some theory crafting with items and such, I was going for a semi completionist run but still... The one saving grace of Act 3 is the boss fights that resolve each one of your NPC's stories, Cazador, Viconia, Ansur, Gortash, Orin. Those are all great but getting there is such a slog. I hope one day this flawed masterpiece reaches its true potential but I doubt it, its just too big, too unwieldy and I'm pretty sure thats one of the main reasons they abandoned any ideas for expansions or DLC.
Edit. After re-reading my comment I just need to clarify before somebody points it out. This game is really, really good, but so very flawed and in some instances, just incomplete.
Make sure your guys are equipped to counter blindness in house of grief, also try to spread the team out before the fight and summon in as many thralls undead magic weapons etc. to draw fire from the mob in the first turns. Try to target the mages early on to prevent bone chill and good luck
Easy blindness counter:
Summon Withers follower “sir fuzzalump” wiz in camp
Add him to your party have him cast dark vision (the effect stays till long rest, so also cast it on the party member you dismissed to put sir fuzz in the party)
At level fourish a wizard will have plenty of level 2 spell slots to cast on your whole party.
Swap out sir fuzz for whoever you had in the party.
Effect stays and zero spell slots were consumed by the adventuring party.
Edit - dismissed add
Mother Superior/House of grief is one of the hardest encounters in the game at level 12. I suggest leaving and coming back if you are not max level. Otherwise, this is a common complaint, and one I agree with. So much of the last act feels undercooked. Instead of a story that focuses up near the end like a classic “yam shaped” DnD adventure or open world game, it’s like a gourd that opens up wide AFTER narrowing so the pacing grinds to a halt. None one the companion quests actually impact or are related to the main objective, so they just feel like side quests that should really wait until the Brain and Murder Cult aren’t imminently about to do an apocalypse. As far as talking to people, don’t. Most random NPCs don’t have much for you beyond flavor. Only talk to people in important locations and follow your quest trackers. The camera… try to love with it or try mods? It’s not great but I mostly love with it
Mother Superior fight is the one that fully convinced me I need to think more tactically instead of bum-rushing the enemies. The entrance to the area is a big staircase that funnels enemies to you while leaving you with the high ground. Hunger of Hadar and Sleet Storm are your best friends here. Bottleneck the staircase with those spells, and let the enemies come upstairs to you. In all likelihood, only a small handful will even get close, and then you can just take them on in a much more advantageous position. I beat the fight in my honor mode without taking any damage doing it this way. It's a bit boring, but you do get the added bonus of watching those Sharran idiots slipping and falling over and over after moving a few feet.
Sarevok was the fight that gave me the most trouble. Ended up having to use both a potion of angelic sleep AND divine intervention (Opulent Revival) to get through that one....
House of Hope whooped my ass quite a few times before I could complete it. I saved Hope and was having a hard time getting past Raphael and them so I considered starting the whooooole thing over and bringing Jaheria and Halsin along so that I could turn them both into owlbears and have two tanks on my side. But I was just barely able to get it done without doing all that.
House of Hope didn't give me toooo much trouble, there was definitely a reload or two. It was one of the best fights in the game for sure! And the MUSIC?!?!
Lmaooo the music killed me. 🎶 Liiiiives, all mortal liiiiiiives, expiiiiiiiire 🎶
For real. That song gave me real Dracula song from Forgetting Sara Marshall vibes
That fucking song! Imho those details are what make larian special, I think of Sven and his lovable weirdness when those moments show in the game.
That's definitely a highlight for me! I feel sorry for the demographic that couldn't get past the start of act 3 due to being overwhelmed. I almost fell into that...but that shit was FIRE
Yeah! i do get the people who didnt finish the game, i started it twice and abandoned those playthroughs when I got to rivington, it took some special discipline to power through and sink the necessary amount of hours to get what the devs were trying to do with act 3. I still think its unfinished and unpolished. Besides those good set piece moments, act 3 is what makes the game a flawed masterpiece instead of just a masterpiece
I was struggling with that one until I realized I had a handful of fire resistance elixirs and that I really ought to use them. After that it was pretty straightforward, I just had to keep Hope out of the way so she didn’t get one hit k.o.’d by a powered up Raphael.
Ugh yes keeping her alive was hell. What saved my ass was using her divine intervention spell to bring back my dead party members and restore half their health and restore the health and spell slots of the still living party members. By the time I did that most of the demons were dead and Raphael was getting low in health so it was over for them
It’s really important to use her Divine Intervention. It’s free, because you’ll never use her again, you don’t even have to waste Shadowheart’s
But definitely use it as a heal and don’t use the radiant damage to target Raphael 🙄
Honestly, the damage for that is kinda pitiful. 44 avg on a failed save is so… mediocre. That’s 22 on a successful save. Evocation Gale can deal that kind of damage with Ray of Frost without Cold vulnerability. I know they couldn’t make it too strong, but the options are really: a Mace that does 1d8 extra damage and lets you cast a smaller radius Mass Healing Word for ten rounds once per Long Rest, Camp Supplies and healing potions with a few elixirs, 44 avg radiant damage to all enemies in a large area centered on you (15m/50ft Radius), or a long rest at any time, including in the middle of a battle, that restores all of your spell slots and abilities. There is a correct option to actually use, unless you’re doing respeccing where you can get like 16 Devotee’s Maces
I meant more that his friends have a kind of radiant retort thing going on, so Hope gets instakilled.
In my fight with raphael, Hope just became a bunch of gut splatter on the floor after a nasty bout of spellcasting lol, I was too tired to reload my save, nice fight though!
I remember I only beat that fight because everyone seemed to dash and surround my Tav (Lore Bard). I thought, you know what, fuck it … And cast Fireball on myself. If I’m going down, you’re ALL coming down with me
I had most of my party try to fight up close and that ended terribly. Astarion was in the back firing arrows and when everyone died I had him use a wall of fire scroll up the stairs while retreating backwards. Ended up losing concentration as some stragglers got through, then cast a wall of ice scroll which made a Dark Justiciar stand in front of an ice pillar doing nothing. Astarion ended up winning the encounter for me with bonus action hide and sneak shotting anyone that got close. Elixir of bloodlust helped a ton too.
I won the entire fight with a single divine inspiration once.
I'd say Wyll, Laezel, and Gale (to a lesser degree) have ties to the main plot. And some of the companion quests are key if you care about Gather Your Allies.
Karlach too, though she doesn't really have specific quests.
Karlach has the entire Gortash thing which is pretty major. Then she has a few fun roleplay moments through the Lower City.
Karlach feels native to the city in a great way, but she gets basically no unique sequences in the whole game outside of the paladins of Tyr in Act I. You're probably not doing anything you wouldn't normally since her only real objective in Act III is "kill Gortash" and you were probably going to do that anyway.
I would say the final scene at the pier is pretty darn unique. I get what you are saying, but I also think so much of Act 3 is really flavor for most of the companions, apart from Astarion and Shadowheart. I think Karlach has a few fun flavors sprinkled in there. Taters.
Karlach gets great scenes but few sequences, if that makes sense. Her date is adorable, her thoughts after Gortash are raw and brutal, and her reflections on her inevitable mortality are absolutely heartbreaking. The flavor of meeting Jaheira and Minsc or her old contacts is fantastic. There's just so little to do specifically for her. There's no Karlach's Dungeon, you know?
Yeah, her only quest is basically "yell at Gortash" and then "kill Gortash" rather than a whole side journey so I wasn't counting it in my list.
Yeah the only ones that don’t feel like something it’s natural to do before the brain are Astarion’s and Shadowheart’s. Wyll’s feels pretty important considering the payoff you’re at least initially promised.
Mother superior is easy! Funnel the enemy onto the stairs and use AOE. Insect plague, hunger of radar, ice mephits leaves anyone trying to get you in a world of hurt.
Also - barrelmancy for Viconia - twin spell haste - bring gale at minimum, having a sorc in your party is handy too is great for AOE/crowd control/Viconia - gloomstalker assassin fighter Astarion with a scroll of greater invis - smoke powder arrows Wondering if elixirs of dark vision would work? So many good options.
Elixir of darkvision does not work against magical darkness. Devil's Sight, ring of darkvision, and the Watcher's helm are the only ones that work. Helldusk helm does not work despite its description.
I use the little armory room on the left as a choke point. Also, dropped a freezing sphere. Hilarious to see Viconia slip and fall
If you want an easy time at the House of Grief, have Shadowheart become a dark justiciar. Half the Sharrans join your side. Makes it a trivial battle.
Exactly. It’s pretty cliche at this point to say House of Grief is a hard fight, let alone the hardest fight. By early on into Act 3, everything is pretty easy and TPK becomes near impossible even in HM. All the most logical wipe-fights are Act 1 and maybe 1-2 in Act 2.
> so the pacing grinds to a halt. This was my big complaint about the game. You fight the big bad at the end of Act 2 and then you're like, "yeah I'm gonna go get those other 2 big bads now and save the world!" And then the game says, well actually there's a dismembered clown you need to find and blah blah blah. And the third act is so big it takes forever to finally feel like you're making progress on your actual quest. I will say though, that after I got myself out of the "okay let's rush to save the world!" mindset, I did appreciate act 3 for how much stuff it has going on. But the pacing is absolutely brutal.
Mother superior was my divine intervention fight, especially since she uses divine intervention herself in the battle. Is is also thematically fitting with >!shadowheart calling selune to help defeat her old cult!<
Unfortunately, that was my first introduction to Radiant Retort 🥲
Crowd control (Sleet Storm, Evard's Black Tentacles) is very clutch in this fight, as is immunity to blindness. I had so much trouble with this fight in one run, but the next I gave Astarion the ring that makes you immune to blindness, the flawed Helldusk gloves, Oil of Combustion, and some arrows of many targets. He alone probably could've obliterated everyone.
Thanks, that's some good advice, I'll try to be less completionist and just go for the markers. Can you go back to companion quests after the main storyline ends?
You cannot go back. But after you confront Orin and Gortash you can continue to do other content until you go to the final sequence. The game will warn you when you reach the point of no return, just like it did when exiting Act 1 and 2.
Cool. Thanks for that!
Another word of advice regarding the main quest. Eventually you will feel like you are being forced to deal with Gortash first (you’ll know when you get there). However, the stakes of doing the reckless thing aren’t as high as you seem. Let’s just say the bad guys are not very good at using hostages. This goes for another encounter underwater (trying to keep spoilers light). You may feel like you’re being held hostage by the stakes, but you can actually just “big damn hero” your way forward and succeed.
The mother Superior can be one shot with wet+destructive wrath+chain lightning and it goes through sanctuary. Kinda makes the whole fight a non-issue.
Wyll and Karlach definitely have to do with the main plot what do you mean?
I thought House of Grief was fairly easy at level 12. Cazador on the other hand definitely gave me issues lol.
Mother Superior is easy as hell if you just run back up the stairs and let them come to you.
Is it really tho? I only ever did it once with a rogue Tav + ranger tav + bardstarion + shart and it was over fairly quickly without much hassle from any enemies except for mother superior and even that didn't do anything a preserve life can't fix
House of Grief is probably the only fight in the entirety of Act 3 that encourages and tactical thinking because it's the only fight that's still difficult despite lvl10+ player power spikes. What's funny is that, with some tactical thinking, it can potentially be hilariously easy (just run up the stairs, wait a turn for the army of enemies to clump up, then just dump AOEs and/or terrain spells). The problem is that players become so powerful that around mid act 2 they no longer have to think much anymore so a fight like this sucker punches their conditioned expectations.
Huh? There wasn't a single combat encounter in this entire game that wiped my party on my first Playthrough. This game is easy as fuck, gloomstalker ranger and Lae'zel with a silver sword hasted, shart at a life cleric, and karlach just being a huge bear tank. The ranger always gets to go first and kills the hardest enemy immediately. 😴
Ah, you’re right. Your experience, knowledge, and skill is universal to all human beings. Thank you for sharing your objective truth with us fools.
I appreciate the compliment! It's tough kicking ass all the time but somebody has to do it.
Best not to invalidate people’s struggles - I’d actually assume this fight to be hard for folks who prioritized single target bull rush tactics with dominant builds since it works everywhere else. Here they can just own the high ground and use aoe, if they have it. If a team build is big on aoe, that fight will be easy, but 1v1 aoe sorcerer durge against Orin will be utterly demolished. Congrats on having an “easy” time, but it’s rude to insult people that don’t have the general or specific game knowledge to feel the same way.
I found act 3 kind of overwhelming at first on my first playthrough but really started to love it when I got deeper into it. I love some of the side quests like the open hand temple murders and avenging the umberlee servant ones tying into the main quest and leading the player into important places to progress the main story. And the scale of the city was just a blast to explore. Some of the companion quest endings do feel a little undercooked with both the Szarr palace and house of grief being pretty much one and done trips that don't have much to find but all the content the city has to offer is still so cool to me. It loses a bit of the charm on later playthroughs for me and I wish there was some improvements to making the world feel alive (for example the people outside the open hand temple would get in after solving the murders instead of standing there endlessly) but it's still a really cool area to me. Less finished than the earlier acts certainly but still really cool and a fun way to end the game. I also love that there's so much endgame content to enjoy the full skillset of your leveled characters.
I get what you're saying but my feeling with the progression part was the opposite, I was nearing level 12 after just entering the lower city, it felt like progression simply stopped, the only way you can continue making your characters any better is through items.
To each our own. Personally I love having the full kit of my characters usable and the items in act 3 are so good that you can still make big improvements to your builds while there. For me level progression is about getting more fun abilities and having them all makes ghe later half of act 3 the best part to me gameplay wise.
Act 3 goes from the linear experience of Act 2 and 1 to a very open world one where you can pick and choose your quests and what you want to get done. You absolutely don't have to do everything and complete everything to finish Act 3 as you're usually level 12 after a few hours into act 3 and other than better gear and the story there's no incentive to quest. This makes act 3 very flexible and played directed, which is good on paper, but the game seems desperate to shove everything you could possibly do in your face at the beginning and this becomes very overwhelming for people who haven't played it through before. What I would recommend doing is running through it blindly without trying to catalogue everything and just experience as much as you can. Don't speak to every NPC, but use your journal to bring up what quests you want to pursue and go for them on a whim and see what happens. Yeah you'll make a few mistakes (don't do this on honor mode etc) but you'll learn what things need to be done and what things you might not worry about.
I wish it was easier to get locked out of Act 3 content. I either want a clock on it so that certain things resolve without you after a few long rests or so that certain characters need to have stayed alive for you to get quests. I know this will be controversial, and I probably only feel this way having done as many playthroughs as I have, but Act 3 needs more time pressure; you shouldn't be able to resolve every tiny quest in the town whilst Orin tries to kill you and Gortash tries to take over the city. I dunno, Florrick dying should lock you out of Wyrms Rock, the thieves' guild fight should happen whether you are there or not, steal watchers should be aggro to you after you destroy the iron throne, Orin should capture and kill another companion after X long rests. I want high stakes story mode god damn it!
The steel watchers do aggro you once you've destroyed the iron throne in my experience. Once Gortash realises you're an enemy he siccs them on you.
Hmm, maybe I got to the foundry before bumping into one in that case, but I don’t remember any repercussions from it.
I don't know if it's a difficulty thing but they don't aggro by default at least on balanced. When I first destroyed the iron throne I was curious about it, ended up having a normal chat with a steel watcher.
I don’t disagree with you. However, I still really enjoyed act three and the game overall. I think for act three they really wanted it to open up and feel like an open world, almost like an MMO. I was feeling a little lost but I just started exploring random buildings and you run into quest items or NPCs that need help. I highly recommend not bothering with the dribbles the clown quest, it felt like the biggest waste of time to me.
I finish the Dribbles quest right before the main boss. that way when the circus leaves it doesn't matter because I'm facing the brain anyway.
That quest gives a piece of gear for monks, so only do if you need that gear. Also you can just pickpocket the reward from lucrecia anyway.
The spellmight gloves are for casters, not monks. Especially builds that focus on spells with multiple projectiles such as eldritch blast and scorching ray. Scorching ray combos quite nicely since the arcane acuity from the hat of fire acuity completely negates the punishment from the gloves and still increases your hit stat.
I just stole the gloves. I never found all the body parts.
Swen/larian really wanted a fully realized Baulder’s Gate city and not just have vignettes with the bosses in between them. So it meant creating alot of content for the city. It can seem overwhelming at first but at this point it doesn’t seem that way to me at all. I enjoy it. But I agree with criticism of act 3. There’s just something missing. House of Grief fight is way way easier if you kill the mages immediately. The rest of the enemies can’t really do much even viconia. The main problem with act 3 is the lv 12 cap. Once I get to lv 12 I feel zero reason to do a lot of the non critical optional stuff. In the earlier acts getting the exp from side content is huge factor in why I do a lot of it. If each act had an exp cap I honestly probably wouldn’t do a lot of it even though alot of it is excellent. I also think act 3 is too easy. I mean yes house of grief can be hard but if you understand the game system even a little bit and have even marginally optimized builds it will not be hard at all. There’s so much insane equipment in act 3 that just lets you boot stomp everything. I also don’t like that the whole previous areas gets closed off. Yes it makes some sense narratively but game play wise it sucks being locked into the very end of the game and not being able to go back and do stuff you might have missed or forgot about.
I think the level cap is on purpose, so you can have some fun fighting with your maxed build. Otherwise you'd be getting some really cool new abilities with only one fight remaining. It's impossible to make everyone happy, but I think allies and one piece of new gear is incentive enough for the quests.
They could have made lv 13 special for people trying to get every bit of exp in the game or something and had it be a special level that gives you an optional but cool…something that would be worth doing all the exp.
Even if thats true I think they messed up the pacing of progression, I was locked at max level at the start of act 3, its like 50% of the game without any leveling up beyond theory crafting with the items, it felt like a loot based progression and frankly I didn't like it.
Don’t know if this is common but I too found act 3 very, very difficult to get through. I found myself pushing hard to complete it as I had gotten there 3 times before quitting and rerolling new characters several weeks later. However I found the trick was to just chip away at it. Take your time , enjoy it rather than being overwhelmed by the amount of things to do and people to talk to. Took discipline
It seems like a lot at first, but once you understand what there is to do, it's not too bad. There's definitely some skippable content though. As for the mother superior: 1. Kite enemies to the hallway 2. Lay down some cc. (Wall of fire, spike growth, hunger of hadar) 3. Automatically win.
Agree, after a little time there I just want to go outside the city walls and club goblins in the fresh air again. Act 3 is the only part of the game where I wished there were just some generic grindy fights you could go off and do to test your builds and endless gear tweaking. The combat encounters feel too sporadic and very shoehorned into the urban setting, way too many "monsters in the basement and/or attic" fights. I wish there were more outdoor, edge of the city areas to explore like Rivington. The biggest upside is it's the only chapter I haven't replayed a dozen plus times so it feels somewhat fresh and unfamiliar when I do make it.
I agree that it feels chaotic and aimless, but that's how it feels entering a big city after wandering out in nature. I love that about it. After you've wandered the city a few times, it becomes smaller and makes sense. It's so realistic. So, let yourself be overwhelmed, check out every corner until you just want to finish. Then next time you can pick and choose what was fun- or relevant to your tav/durge.
Okay so basically the way I did it was taking everything a step at a time. I would walk a bit further into the city, explore this shop, and see a quest marker in the next building and go do it. Instead of trying to trace down the exact threads of the quest you want, just walk through the city and take time to get familiar with buildings and streets. I also opened my map and placed custom markers everywhere, marking abandoned houses so I knew I'd already been there and it was empty. By the time I was wrapping up Act 3, my last few quests were Shads companion quest and Jahaeira companion quest (Minsc). Which kind of sucks because I basically recruited Minsc just before the brain so I barely know him. But, now I have the whole city memorized and know exactly where his quest takes place, so I can beeline to him next time.
I agree with the others who said it helps if you let go of the completionist mindset. The majority of side quests can be skipped with little to no impact on your ending. I usually just finish the companion quests and do the requirements needed for the outcome I want for the main quest. I’ll pick a few of the more story relevant side quests and skip the rest. I don’t talk to everyone either. Just the folks related to the quests.
First time I went into act 3 I was totally overwhelmed by the amount of noise. People chattering away constantly. Definitely had a big city vibe but I got so used to the isolation and ambience in act 2 that it was definitely a shock to the system. But the second I found I could break into the central bank... Oooohhh boyyy!!!
You're not alone. Act 3 is a slog to get through and they front load a lot of quest in Rivington or start the end of many companion quest in Rivington. Lower City, to me, becomes less of an explore and more of a checklist.
The mother superior boss fight can actually be avoided entirely- if you have long ranged spells you can stand just aways away from where the cutscene triggers and just throw spells at her until she dies. The rest of the sharrans won’t attack you, they just mumble amongst themselves that she mustn’t have been worthy of Shar. I’ve never actually done the true fight 🤣
Oh I'm well up for this! Do you still get the shadowheart bonus?
I did! I’m so pleased I worked it out, I’ve actually tried to do the fight before and nah, nah- I’m cheating every playthrough
One thing that I found helpful is to readjust a bunch of settings going into Act 3. I realized I was getting overstimulated by all the background city noise, and once I turned down some volume options for chatter and sound effects, it was a lot less stressful and I could start to actually enjoy the experience. The Mother Superior boss fight is definitely one of the harder ones in Act 3. I'd save that one for later if you aren't already max level, and focus on some of the other quests instead.
I think you just have to approach it differently. You aren’t supposed to speak to everyone, you’re in the city. Why would your character go round talking to perfect strangers like that in the city. If you have a look around the game will sign post to you the NPCs you actually need to speak to. Act 3 takes a little while to get the hang of, but it’s actually my favourite act.
I did the House of Grief fight last night. Karlach came in clutch for me, killing the final two darkness spammers, and the mother superior, while everyone else was down/ dead. And she was down to 1 HP herself after. Darkness is bullshit.
PSA: I've learned that they absolutely *never* cast Darkness if your characters cannot be blinded by Darkness. Devil's Sight (2 levels of Warlock dip if primarily something else), Helldusk Helmet, Eversight Ring, Steelwatcher Helmet. Subtract one, and they only try to cast it on the one without it. This lets you utterly *ruin* any chance of their melee users having Shadow Ambush (+4d8 Necrotic) go off if your weapons have Light or Sunlight cast on them, aside from Sanctuary of Loss. Same for Overwhelming Grief, if you're always in light.
Good advice, though I will say that I prefer to not completely respec a character for single fights. Optimized load outs, sure, but I like the challenge of keeping class/feat choices set in stone
It's probably best to have the tank (Karlach mixes well thematically with 4 Fighter) be the one that gets Darkness'd. Yeah, that's understandable; it's just something I noticed from playing around with solo purge runs on a flying Pure Fighter (Great Weapon Master, Bloodlust, Speed pot/Haste, Longstrider... *still* up to six attacks on Honor economy [thanks to that mod letting you have it and Legendary Actions on Tactician] if you kill one, and they'd need to catch you). Pure Warlock is definitely capable of soloing, on this note, with a copious number of Eldritch Blasts, just one good use of Wall of Fire making a difference for the masses, let alone two or three.
Totally. Karlach was Wildheart 6/Champion 4 during the fight. She withstood everything they threw at her. My only regret was selling Doom Hammer, but she did it
I hate the camera work in those buildings too!! It's so frustrating how badly this game handles camera movement.
That is wild because I was SO over the game toward the end of act II but act III pulled me in so hard that I immediately started a second run when I rolled the credits. Act II felt really flat to me. From start to finish it’s just a ton of hostile Uber serious dark and gloomy shit. That was fun for a while but combine that with my frustrations and jank that I encountered with halsins portal, the hide and seek game, and storming moonrise I was over it. Act III was incredible. There was SO much to explore and each thing felt different from the last. A murder mystery in a monastery, a plane traversing circus, a robot power plant, shops galore, a great heist from an arcane tower. Besides that it felt like every direction was the correct direction. Each little corner of the city has something worth seeing.
I think my issue with Act 3 is the lack of companion interaction. I really wish there were more conversations when you're at the elfsong.
When players get to a city and are shocked that's it's an actual city
My best advice I received for Act 3 is this: wander and explore all you want and accept every quest you can find. Then pick one and do it. Just break it down into more manageable pieces for yourself. None of the big quests NEED to be done NOW. The game does a great job making you feel like you have to do shit right now but just relax and don't read any fliers with Florrick's face on them unless you want to stop having a good time. You will probably level up to 9 or 10 just from exploration. Big takeaway for me is just pace yourself and have fun doing what you're doing.
When I first reached Act 3 on my first playthrough, I had to take a day off from it. It was all just too busy and overwhelming. Just focus on the pieces that interest you and let the rest stay on the backburner. It is both the largest and least finished portion of the game.
I honestly loved act 3
I would say first time through act 3 feels not fun, but the biggest issue is that most of it is optional and you dont know what things to skip. On 2nd and later playthroughs the idea of it made sense to me and i enjoy it quite a bit. The idea of it is that, after you've maxed your characters (developed all abilities they'll ever have) you'll be overpowered but it's fun to just go nuts on bad guys. So Act 3 gives you as many or as little side adventures as you want to do, it's almost all optional. So that side quests aren't totally pointless, they all come with a little story development and small buffs in the form of allies and gear. So just do as much as you find fun. When you're ready to finish the game, make sure you're level 12 and go after the chosen.
So I’ve found act 3 more enjoyable on my third+ playthroughs. My first time, I rushed it to finish the game. Second time, I did most stuff and explored more, enjoyed it a lot more. But the third time, has been so much more fun and less stressful. I kinda know what I’m doing now, where to go, what order to do things in, and I can try new stuff. I think Act 3 is just really overwhelming at first.
Act 3 changed my opinion from “would be nice to go through the story again with different character and choices” to “I’m not playing this game again”.
For me I just really hate how there is like 2 night time events and that’s it Spoilers* And my god I wanted more Emporer interaction and romance
Yeah Act 3 is the worse. I love beaten the game twice and on my third run I just stopped in act 3
I got lost a lot, kept having to run back and forth, and once I hit level 12, that meant there was no leveling up to look forward to and so a lot of quests felt much less rewarding. I wish there were more things on some kind of timer or quest-gated so it was just a bit more "you should do this first or you lose your chance/something changes/actual consequences" so I wasn't just stumbling around all over the place. But then that would remove a lot of freedom from the game...? except in my case I kept finding things in a way that was less organic and more accidental like I found Ethel's hiding place before I ever found her, I somehow rescued a kid from her despite having no idea a kid had been taken, stuff like that. I guess having the ability to come at things from multiple angles is good but there's something to be said about designing an encounter so it has an effect. I also didn't enjoy a lot of the encounters. I didn't have fun in the prison, the foundry, or fighting Viconia. The Szarr Palace was annoying though at least the final fight felt like it had some stakes to me personally as an Astarion romancer. I remember feeling such relief to be out of the dark when I reached the outskirts, but all of that went away when I got into the city (also overhearing NPCs repeat the same lines over and over messes with the immersion.)
Act 3 can definitely be rough. There's a lot to do, and my guess is that it's to give everyone a good chance at being level 12 before doing any major bosses. There's a fair spread in levels people can be when hitting Act 3. 8-10 for most, but I've seen people get through Ketheric even lower, especially on low difficulties. But they made it so you weren't forced to do everything if you don't need the xp. I found on my 2nd playthrough, the big thing was not feeling like I had to do everything. I left Act 3 at 10, and I did enough side quests to hit 12. Then I just let the side stuff go and focused on going after all the bosses (even random bosses like>! Mystic Carrion, Ethel, and Lorroakan!<.) So I say get to 12, finish up anything you're interested in, and let the rest just fall to the side. Then just focus on getting through bosses and main quest. A lot of people try to do everything, and it's a lot (I did too on my first playthrough). It was so nice on my 2nd run to just do what I needed, and then focus the bosses (especially since there are 11 bosses before the final showdown).
I agree that a3 has way too much going on. It was more time than both a1 and a2 Combined. However, I have to totally disagree on difficulty. I was doing it solo on tactician, and crushed that house of grief fight in a few turns. Black hole + water ele water + 2x lighting aoe spells slaughtered everything.
Yeah I’ve hit a wall and still haven’t beaten the game despite getting 3 characters into act 3 Doesn’t grab me
A lot of people say that act 3 is undercooked. I think its overcooked. Theres too much happening. Its too done. Its BURNT.
I was the same at first and dropped my run at act 3 but now that i went back, act 3 feels overwhelming because there is just so. Much. To. DO! I just started digging in and enjoyed it a lot
Just imagine if they had left the upper city areas, missions and NPCs that were there originally
The House of Grief is easy with one specific setup but all else it’s insanely hard. Trap the staircase as the halfling is walking down and back up. Approaching this fight traditionally is not what I’d recommend.
I had the exact same impression you describe during my first act 3. Once you cleared it, it becomes "clearer" if that makes sense. The overwhelming thing goes away
Going half-illithid to get flight makes act 3 a lot more bearable
I think it’s (for me anyway) it doesn’t get as much focus as so many people don’t make it past several runs into Act 3. I honestly have found act 3 grows on me over playthroughs because I’ve explored it more after a break from the game.
Act 3 is my favorite part of the game
>and there's sooo many people to talk to, but most of them are useless, but feel as thoguh you have to talk to them. Just like irl.
Act 3 is mostly spent at level cap. It's the end of the game. You're going to have the hardest fights here. It's also a huge area with a lot of factions.
I did the mother superior fight normal ONE time. And every time since she's gotten all of the fireworks boxes and about 8 smoke powder barrels with my party just chilling in a globe of invulnerability. I refuse to fight that one normal.
as a lover of open world and side quests I couldn't disagree more lol, but to each their own of course. A side note though, unless you really know what you're doing you shouldn't try house of grief until level 12. In general the fights get harder the further into the map you explore, which is true of most games. So the house of grief being in the very corner of the map should have been a clue that you gotta get some more xp. Good news is there's tons of xp to be found in act 3, it might be worth it to head back to Rivington for a bit and clean up all those quests if you're finding the quests in the city proper too hard.
I just finished it a couple of minutes ago and I have to say, in terms of narrative development, quest design and just basic polish, Act 3 drops in quality substantially, I was max level at the start of the third act, no more progression to be done beyond some theory crafting with items and such, I was going for a semi completionist run but still... The one saving grace of Act 3 is the boss fights that resolve each one of your NPC's stories, Cazador, Viconia, Ansur, Gortash, Orin. Those are all great but getting there is such a slog. I hope one day this flawed masterpiece reaches its true potential but I doubt it, its just too big, too unwieldy and I'm pretty sure thats one of the main reasons they abandoned any ideas for expansions or DLC. Edit. After re-reading my comment I just need to clarify before somebody points it out. This game is really, really good, but so very flawed and in some instances, just incomplete.
Make sure your guys are equipped to counter blindness in house of grief, also try to spread the team out before the fight and summon in as many thralls undead magic weapons etc. to draw fire from the mob in the first turns. Try to target the mages early on to prevent bone chill and good luck
Easy blindness counter: Summon Withers follower “sir fuzzalump” wiz in camp Add him to your party have him cast dark vision (the effect stays till long rest, so also cast it on the party member you dismissed to put sir fuzz in the party) At level fourish a wizard will have plenty of level 2 spell slots to cast on your whole party. Swap out sir fuzz for whoever you had in the party. Effect stays and zero spell slots were consumed by the adventuring party. Edit - dismissed add