Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - General Bairdotr end fight absurdly unfair

Normally I never complain about a game being too hard, but the final fight against the defected Bairdotr is so unfair it's just ridiculous. First of all it's really annoying to loose a party member you have invested so much in over the course of the game without being able to do shit about it. Both of my main Characters have the "obedient" trait, so there's no way to keep Bairdotr in the party.

Then the fight itself: A Lvl 14 party of 3 going against 2 Lvl 14 enemies (Bairdotr and her refound mentor) should be manageable - in theory. Here, the guy summons those gore animals that do insane amounts of damage, easily 200-300 HP per round against characters that have about 700-800 HP. Their resistances are sky-high, most crowd control spells like Fear fail against them at least 50% of the time. And although these are clearly summoned creatures, the Destroy Summon spell does not work against them, just shows "invalid target"! The river, though being a water surface, for whatever reason can't be targeted with electricity or freezing spells, so that the "using the environment" tactic doesn't work either. And to top it all off, Bairdotr and her buddy have absurdly high defence ratings, both against elemental and normal attacks. My Lvl 14 Fighter has a 50& hit chance against Bairdotr, even after using a strength potion, while against other Lvl 14 mobs he's got 90%-100%. Oh, and did I mention that you can't flee from the fight since there's no rift portal around?

This is just insane. If anybody has any solution for this mess I'd be really curious what it might be, but in my view the fight is unwinnable. It's simply broken. The only solution is to go back to an earlier savegame and never finish Bairdotr's quest. And if I should play this game a second time, I'll just leave that treacherous bitch to rot in her cage.

That is not exactly true. It is possible to get her to turn on her former master and keep her in your party.

I don't think it matters if you have the Obedient trait on your main characters. What matters is what you said to her during the dialogs your have had with her up to this point.

Sorry- no really well thought out advice, but I had absolutely no problem wasting this encounter, using 2 14th level characters 1 tank and 1 mage in less than 3 rounds, Bairdotr is a creampuff and those gore-beast animals are all in a nice group perfect for a battering ram charge then a whirlwind followed by a dust devil, in truth its one of the easiest briefest encounters in the game. I dont think fleeing is ever really an option except with the death knights when they are invulnerable.

Change tactics and try again, something will work, dont rely on spells to kill as much as buffing the fighter ( is your fighter really defensive? because it sounds like your relying on spells to do the killing...weapons do more damage if you have planned and crafted and built your fighter effectively..I recomend 2handed fighter and crafted weapons and every ability buffing item you can get) and use spells for debuffing the enemy, sounds like your just not approaching it in the best possible manner. It is winnable, if I knew more about your party I could be more specififc.

Ivra is right though she only turns on you if you made bad dialog choices, another reason to like Wolgraff more.

Could just detach Bairdotr and leave her outside the cave as well, she does not have to be there to kill Jareth. May want to summon an Undead Armored Decapitator to soak and distract.

@ivra:



That's my point - you make some dialogue choices much, much earlier in the game without knowing what they will cause, and it's not like you have to be particularly nasty to her or anything to make her leave. It's really the obedient trait, at least I read that on another forum post here.

@felixg91: Your post made me wonder whether we are really playing the same game, so I hopped back into my save and tried your advice. Didnt' work at all. In each of 4 tries, my party was dead after 4 rounds. Contrary to what you said, Battering ram doesn't work on the gore beasts, they are immune to knockdown. They on the other hand have those crippling attacks that work on my characters 100% of the time.

So here's my party:

Lvl 14 knight str 14 dex 6 int 6 con 7 speed 10 perc 5; ini 14 ap 8; 626 HP; 136 armor 127 offence 61 defence; man-at-arms 3 pyro 1; tenebrium two-hander with ~ 150-250 dam/hit
Admittedly a bit of a glass cannon with his con of 7, so maybe I made a mistake there, but if I had propped up the con I would have had to forego the speed and I wanted the APs.

Lvl 14 witch str 6 dex 5 int 14 con 8 speed 10 perc 8; ini 15 ap 8; 721 HP; 48 armor 127 offence 56 defence; I went for a balanced skilling with aero 2 geo 3 hydro 2 pyro 3 witch 3.

Wolgraff lvl 14 str 7 dex 10 int 5 con 7 speed 9 perc 8; ini 14 ap 8; 641 HP; 62 armor 109 offence 77 defence; scoundrel 3; rapier with 50-80 dam/hit

Some details from the fightlog: Gory Taurus attacks Wolgraff for 251 piercing damage (armor absorbed 223). That's just one attack of one of those beasts, and Wolgraff has already lost 1/3 of his HP! Their spit attacks do 100-150 points of damage. On the other hand, even a critical hit by my knight does only around 350 points, and that's not even half of their HP.

And before anybody asks: Yes, I'm playing on normal difficulty.

Edit: Another thing I noticed is the highly random nature of the fights. The starting position of the gore beasts changed wildly in the 10 or so attempts I took at this fight. Same thing with Braccus Rex, sometimes he opened with a burning spell that killed one of my party in round 1, sometimes he didn't and everything went fine.

HMMM thats disconcerting, sort of proves that even if many builds will work some will only work under certain conditions. Okay try easy difficulty for this fight and switch back afterwards, yes I hate that answer but it will improve the players chances to hit and vitality and lower the vitality and chances to hit of the enemy. I play on hard but I started on easy and died plenty of times...man I hate Lava!

Your stats seem low for 14th level, but you have no lonewolves and 4 members so they will be weaker because you have to divide gear 4 ways instead of three ways or two ways.

Fighter- well I never waste any points on spells for a fighter ( give em scrolls instead ) and 150-250 damage seems to be less damage than my Knight at that level does with a hand crafted 2 handed sword- leadership bonus and max weapon skill, 8 AP is definatley low though, usually by 14th level I have like 15+AP,.... and its not that battering ram knocks them down, its that it hits so many and places you in proximity to Jareth who I think can be knocked down all for the points you would use to swing once roughly. He does have opportunist? He has Flurry? He has Whirlwind and Dust Devil right? You say you sacrificed con for speed...really seems like both con and speed are low, my build order for fighters is STR, SPD, CON, PER, no points into Intel or Dex at all ever and PER only after STR and SPD are good. Your building a fighter so anything that doesnt improve his combat performance is superflous and a waste, honestly lots of fighters have swords smarter than they are, LOL. I wasnt recomending battering ram because it knocks them down thats the least of its uses it combines a move to targets with a strike at targets.

Witch- with a little of everything seems OK to me thats how I build my mage, all schools. Again 8 AP seems low though. Are you casting Haste and Oath of Desecration on your tank ASAP?

Wolgraff...okay did you give him a bow and bow skills? cause Wolgraff comes stock as a scoundrel but unless he sneaks and backstabs everything being an archer is more useful, some players swear by backstabbing and sneaking I dont since I dont play scoundrels, yes I use some of their skills

You are buying the level up stat books in hall of secrets at the homestead?

Maybe you made Bairdotr too good?

So what is your first round of battle like? Who wins initiative? What are your members first actions? How close is the party? What is their Marching order?

Honestly in 8 playthroughs it has never been even remotely hard, I have spent more time on this post than on that encounter.

You can also keep Bairdotr with you, and attack Jareth before getting close enough to trigger the conversation.

Thats a decent suggestion as well, i have killed jareth before he can summon anything at least once.

@Raze: I know, but that's not the point. I'm not looking for a way to keep Bairdotr in the party, I'm criticising what I think is a bad design decision. Now don't get me wrong - in other RPG's NPCs would leave the party, too, like in BG2, but there it was clear why (differences in alignment) and the player got some advance warning, whereas Bairdotr's defection comes out of the blue.

@Felixg91: I think I'll just start over with a new party, just realized my fighter is built badly. If this fight is so much harder than it's supposed to be, others will be the same. I didn't even know there were stat books you could buy, so I only got the stat raises from regular level ups. Along with the sub-optimal skilling, this has resulted in me hitting a wall here.

Anyway thanks for the help guys, I really appreciate it!

Fight with Bairdoter has a flaw. The script removes her from the party and summon an NPC Bairdoter. This summoned one, has fixed skills and equipment and level. Once you come there at 16th level(for example) Bairdoter is down leveled. That's dull. The fight was not even close to challenge, actualy it was easy-peasy slaughtering.

Anyway I have fallowed a loading tip "Save your game often to prevent blood preasure." So I won, then load back to let her wait outside the cave then kill that Jared for xp.

I have tryed to Charm her, finish the fight without hit her, blind her. It didnt help. I wish there are more solutions. This quest looks simply under-developed.

Or get the editor to do a respec on your characters. Valraven my first time through was a trial run i found lots of thngs to do differently my second and subsequent times there is no matching experience.

Oh yes stat and skill books are a must the fifth stone opens the hall of secrets every level up she stocks a 1 point stat book and a 3 point skill book. They are expensive . But well worth it in my estimation. Take all loot to her and save some items with barter and charisma and put em on when trading for the books.


When building a character i learned to look to your imperative, fighters should fight, mages should use spells, rogues should sneak backstab and steal, and rangers should shoot the enemy. Its fun to have multi class can do a lot characters but they dont tend to excel in any thing.

Dont worry my second party was far better and lots more fun to play.

You will beat this game, and i hope that you enjoy it and replay it a few times. I am on my ninth playthrough i think its even more fun than baldurs gates or icewind dales or temple of elemental evil.

As for help, i hope we did help. And if i helped then your sincerely welcome.
If i can do anything else pm me. Or post a question here.
Good luck and have fun.

This quest is done rather poorly. I consider traits as minor perks and should not be used to determine game-changing events such as losing an entire character. The way Bairdotr's quest should have been handled is to have a RPS check between you and her with outcome as either +1 Independent and having her turn on her master or +1 Obedient and having her turn on you.

There are a series of dialogues with Bairdotr that determine how she will react when you get to that point.

I'm slightly ambivalent about it: I kinda see the overall point, but it came as a nasty surprise when it happened. So, yeah, add me to the list of people who "cheated" by leaving her just far enough away to not join in the conversation but close enough to join the fight!

At least that was one that could be fixed using the previous save: I also share another similar peeve with Dragon Age Inquisition that results in getting Nasty Leliana... if you don't interject in a conversation very early in the game at a time it felt it wasn't really your place to do so. Now that one I really didn't appreciate.

Yeah Bairdotr for a lot of reasons is not the NPC I bring along on my quest. I like that she is an archer and her voice-acting is good(probably the best of the 4 I think, I really hate Madora and Jahan's voices they sound like sy-fy channel actors)... but Wolgraff can be made an archer as well and seems to be a better choice in so many ways. The fact he doesnt talk bothers me not at all.

Too bad Valraven got blindsided, hope when he/she plays through again its better, probably will be better since his characters were kind of stunted ( my first party was poorly built a mostly inevitable result of lack of experience and system knowledge), which makes a frustrating unfulfilling game, but he was doing a lot of stuff right since he got that far with those characters and made it to 14th level.

But that encounter even with a defecting Bairdotr was brief, bloody and final for me first time and every time.

Using scrolls sometimes helps a lot. Have summon scrolls on each character and use that first turn to summon. Summons are good at absorbing hits so your party members do not have to. Also a few heal scrolls and pots can go a long way as well. If you can get your hand on a higher level scroll like death punch or lava, they also make fights easier as you cannot normally have those spells until later.

Bairdotr didn't leave me so fight was not very hard.

I find it funny however that so many fights feature enemies summoning tons of enemies out of nowhere.

Just had that shitty fight.
1st attempt: Party is at level 15. The gory bull gets to go right after being summoned and deals 59% of the max health of my fighter in two attacks in the first round. Armor was around 224.

2nd attempt: Against one of the mages that bull deals 493 damage in one attack. That's 81%!
The boars are immune to knockdown and have a fucking ranged attack. So first round the mage is dead. She was also the healer.

I am done with this game. I am not having fun at all because of the horrible "boss gets to go first and summons more creatures than you have members in your party, oh and he of course has ridiculous health and damage too and the rewards are shit too". EVERY SINGLE FUCKING TIME!!

Turn order is based on initiative, and there are things you can do before triggering combat, including party positioning.

But I am not "triggering combat". I am talking to some guy and the designer thought no matter what this will end in a fight of either 6 against 4 or 7 against 3.

This is a single guy in a cave, not a giant skeleton with a burning skull that everyone told you is a tyrant. Why would I assume there is combat soon?? Try to see it from a new players point of view. You talk to someone and suddenly completely out of the blue you're in a fight you can not win. Why did the designers think that's a great idea?

You get into a conversation with one character, and 3 characters are not in a conversation.

Why would you assume a cave with a river of blood and a big pile of bodies was safe? As a new player, why would I assume any new, hidden area I find is safe?

There are conversations earlier in the game that can result in combat, and combat situations that start with a conversation.