Act 3: Steel Watch Foundry
Step-by-Step Walkthrough
- Time to deal with these robot assholes. There's a decent bow from the boss, but this boss is kind of rough and we're already pretty set with haste. So I'm going to suggest we circumvent the boss in the interest of living.
- Head into the first room, you'll probably quickly get into a fight. Spirit guardians is good, but haste might be overkill. If one of the slave bomb things comes up, feel free to disarm it. You only have to roll on the first one, then all the others are just disarmed when you interact. If you miss one and the gnomes die, don't worry, we don't need them. Using MC bard to shoot twice, then use the band of the mystic scoundrel to confuse most of them never hurt anyone either, except the bad guys! I would avoid talking to the gnomes after the fight for now. We don't want him following us and dying, although with our strategy, I don't think we want him following us at all.
- There should be a key on one of the corpses, or you can just use knock/lockpick. Go into the room to the west. If you want the hellfire engine crossbow, grab these 3 pieces.Watcher Crossbow Blueprints on the table, just south of the door to the lower floor in the far west room.Targeting module, just outside the door to the east.Steel watcher arm, further east on a table in the SE corner.Once you have those 3 pieces, go back into the west room. On the north side is a crafting table, combine all 3 pieces. It's a good bow for Astarion, because it has a move like a grappling hook, where you can pull an enemy to you. I think it resets every fight, but might be on rest. Before you go downstairs, might as well take the book "Property of Zanner Toobin" by stealing it from Toobin, or kill him if you have to. We need it to learn how to blow up the building without the boss fight.I would also cast twin haste before going through the door. You get thrown into a big fight almost immediately.
- Chain lightning from Lae'zel and MC bard confusion helps out here. Make sure to move away from the Sentinels when they are close to death and make a red circle. That means they're going to explode on their next turn. I would take the Sentinels out first, they're the hard hitters. The normal guys aren't too difficult. I got to level 12 in this fight. So let's take stock of what our buff rotation should look like:
- Astarion - Cloud giant strength
- Shadowheart - Wild Shape - Starry Form: Dragon, Aid - highest level
- Lae'zel - Kereska's Favor: Bolts of Doom, Mage Armor - level 1
- Go to the far east side of the room to find some book shelves. In the right side bookshelf is a book called The Many Faces of Gond. Read that to get the last bit of info we need to blow this place sky high.
- Go north into the control room. To avoid the boss fight, separate MC bard from the group. Cast greater invisibility on him, then run into the room and past the sentinels. You can use the machine that Toobin usually uses, but since we got the info, it will let us blow it up instead, skipping this last fight (and losing out on Gontr Mael).
- Now that you're done here, go to the boat to the east. It's not guarded anymore, so you can board it. If you go to the back and pass a perception check, you'll see cargo with 6 or 7 parasites in it. If you fail the check, just try to loot the wooden boxes and it will appear.I would suggest getting psychic backlash for everyone, then dumping the rest in MC and Astarion for their cull the weak.