Act 2: Gauntlet of Shar
Step-by-Step Walkthrough
- Warp to the gauntlet by House of Healing that we unlocked earlier and head in. Go north to a room with 3 paintings, use the buttons beneath them (SW, SE, N) (tower, guy kneeling, guy on throne). Head in and take the elevator down. Be VERY careful on the elevators. It used to be buggy where sometimes people would just fall off and die. Try to wait for everyone to be standing on the elevator to use it.
- Head north into the first puzzle. I use Shadowheart to solve puzzles just because it makes her happy. There's invisible walls, if you follow the outer circle to the right, then towards the middle, then clockwise back to the south, then use the console. It will open the next door.
- MAKE SURE TO STOP USING RADIANT DAMAGE. THESE GUYS HAVE RADIANT RETORT which will reflect and kill you. Turn Astarions punch to necrotic or psychic damage, be careful with Shadowheart. This goes for the entire gauntlet for the most part. Exit north, there's going to be a fight with some skeletons and portals. Always kill the portals first. Remember that the portals have 100% hit accuracy no matter what attack you use, so feel free to use whatever you have access to (range with Astarion, melee with Shadowheart, whatever).
- Go west a bit to unlock the waypoint, in case you need to leave and come back. Then keep going west. You're going to end up in another skeleton/portal fight. Same strategy, kill portals, then skeletons, no radiant damage. There will be 2 rounds. Once you kill everything, more portals will spawn, same strat.
- Afterwards, you can see the door open to Balthazar. This is gonna be a boss fight. I would make sure you can have spirit guardians, maybe haste before attacking. Just talk to Balthazar, be friendly and go along, then when the convo is over, you can go to turn based mode, cast your stuff and start the fight. Prioritize killing Balthazar, he uses hunger of hadar. Don't counterspell ray of sickness, but do counterspell hunger of hadar if you can. After that kill whatever you can, it shouldn't be too hard at level 8. Close the door behind you so those skeletons don't join in. There's stuff to loot, but nothing really for our builds, just for selling.
- Outside of his room, to the north there is something labeled the Treasure Room. Use lockpick or knock to get in. In one of the chests is Callous Glow Ring, best in slot ring for Shadowheart, so make sure to get it.
- Head back to the waypoint and go east. You'll see a phase cat or whatever, keep following it. When it goes into a room where you see the glowing purple orb, you should get a perception check. If you succeed the check, keep going forward, if you don't turn around right away. Feel free to use Friends. If you succeed get into a conversation with Yurgir.
- [BARD] Well, allow me to hop to it - I want to talk.
- Wait - you know Raphael?
- I've had dealings with the devil. Maybe we can help each other.
- Let's share our experiences about Raphael. Perhaps we can help each other.
- [BARD] Diabolic deals in legend always have loopholes - we just need to find it.
- [BARD] Quite bloodthirsty, as lyrics go. Have you considered some instrumental accompaniment?
- [BARD][PERSUASION] Raphael's a sly lyricist - he tricked you. Your followers heard your song and still live.
- [PERSUASION] You're not finished yet - thte displacer can hear you, can't she? Kill her.
- [BARD][PERSUASION] My dear hunter, isn't it obvious? You Must kill yourself - then you'll be free.
- Head back to the waypoint and you have a choice..
- TECHNICALLY you can use knock right now to move forward. If you don't feel like dealing with the trials, go ahead and do that, skip ahead a few steps. I want to get to 9 before Ketheric, so I think doing the trials gets us more xp so we can do that. So let's start doing some trials, head north from the waypoint.
- Soft step trial - first door on the left. Before you interact with the altar, take the MC bard and pick some locks and get to the end. When he's at the end, interact with the altar as Shadowheart to start the trial. Switch back to the bard, grab the gem and warp back to the front.
- Self-same trial - second door on the left. At the very least, unequip your weapons, ideally unequip your gear. Sneak forward to you find the bad guys, if you don't that's fine too, just equip your gear again after you see the failed perception check. Then fight yourselves and take the gem. If anyone is cursed, have Shadowheart fix it.
- I got to level 9 here. I respec'd Astarion here to get 2 bonus actions. Lets take stock of where we are. MC - 9 swords bard, Lae'zel - 9 Sorcerer, Astarion - 6 Monk, 3 Rogue, Shadowheart - 7 Cleric, 2 Druid Make sure to check the build guides and respec to match. Now that we're level 9, we can just rush to the end of the act. We're not going to get 10, and whatever little amount of xp we get isn't gonna matter, we'll get to 12 super fast in act 3 anyway. Buff strat: Astarion - strength potion Shadowheart - Highest spell aid (level 5), wild shape starry form dragon Lae'zel - mage armor We are getting quite strong! HM is our bitch now.
- Last trial, skip or do it. If you skip you can use knock to get past the door. If you don't skip, the path is on the tile at the start, you can use the dots from the movement (like go into turn based, and select movement, you can see where the path goes by the dots of the movement path).
- Go to the next room for the silent library. Kill the portal to end the silence effect. Kill the rest of them. Get the book to the right of the entrance (second shelf on the right, teachings of loss: nightsinger) to solve the puzzle. Grab the spear. Now we can head to the end. This is the last fight to remember to avoid radiant damage.
- This is your last chance to go back to act 1 and do anything (grym, whatever). Once you go forward, it's all locked off. Go back to the waypoint. Take the elevator down. Place the umbra gems or use knock. Deal with the nightsinger (persuade Shadowheart to not kill her)
- If you don't have full spell slots, take a long rest. It's time to kill Ketheric. Take the waypoint to Moonrise and start the fights.
- You can cast haste and spirit guardians before using the door to go upstairs. Ketheric round 1:
- Twin haste + spirit guardians
- Have Astarion focus on Ketheric
- MC Bard focus on the non-skeleton adds (should be just 1 since we killed the dog), then Ketheric
- Lae'zel and Shadowheart can kill the skeletons, Shadowheart run by them with guardians, Lae'zel whatever
- Head downstairs to fight Ketheric again.
- Twin haste + spirit guardians
- Shadowheart misty step up to the left to have the skeletons die to spirit guardians
- Astarion run right to free Nightsong
- MC kill the brains to help Astarion, and kill mindflayer to help Lae'zel
- Lae'zel misty step up to where mindflayer is
- Once Nightsong is free and everyone is dead, focus on Ketheric
- Myrkul spawns
- Astarion and Shadowheart stand in the middle and attack Myrkul
- Shadowheart uses Phalar Aluve shriek
- Lae'zel spams highest level magic missle
- MC stands back and shoots Myruk and the shells that it spawns.
- Act 2 complete! We're heading to Baldur's Gate and about to get some sweet new gear and level 12!