Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Strange reaction from Wyll after skirmish in the druid grove.

I've finished the first part of act 1. I saved the refugees and Halsin. Halsin is in my camp. Returned the shipment to Zhentarim, freed Mayrina. Derstroyed all the goblins in the camp. The things left to do are the underdark and the Githyanki patrol.

The relationship with Wyll at this point was "good" with the slider a little over halfway.

I decided to go back to the grove to sell some loot to Arron, if I could find him, as his normal spot had been empty after the refugees left. I returned all the way back to the Emerald grove, and upon entering I hit upon 4 goblins who attacked immediately. 4 goblins, not much trouble, they were slain and Karga was standing there, just behind them, so I had a chat with her.

She starts her complaint that the grove is menaced, and it is our fault, blabla. I tell her to stop the act as I know she's in league with the shadow druids. Then she responds she will complete the rite of thorns and advises me to get the hell out of the grove before sunset. This gives me 2 options : say sorry and promise to leave, or attack.

So I attack. All druids join in with Kargha. Even Arron, the girl that talked to the birds and opposed Kargha join the fight against us, as does Tuffet the bear. The only ones missing are Rath, Nettie and the sad bear.

That fight was a tough one, but I survived, and then Wyll immediately starts a cutscene, telling me that I have changed. I see his approval rate has dropped from good to 0. One more bad decision and he will leave the party permanently.

That's weird. We fought goblins in the grove and Kargha who wanted to restart the ritual for the Shadow Druids, and Wyll disapproves bigtime.

After that, we went inside the Druid's chambers. Found Rath and Nettie who repeated their thanks for saving the grove, though no mention of the latest Kargha uprising. We also went to the sad bear to see if he would become hostile, but he also was just happy that Halsin was saved.

So this is really very strange IMO. Maybe the sequence of events is not handled well by the game. Or is there a rationale for Wyll to act this way ? I want to imagine one to continue the plot immersion, but can't think of any that is plausible.

sends a noob on a vital strike force?

you start the game where other games usually finish, as a massive, tricked-out character with loads of high-power equipment and spells and whatnot.

(It's PvP only, sadly, and has no PvE mode, just a couple of AI demo maps. What a colossal waste it was, flopping miserably. I think they ran out of money to develop PvE, so shoveled it out the door.)

Some of the characters were a giant walking building with two rook turrets for shoulders, a giant man named Regulus with a monster crossbow, and The Fairy Queen, akin to literally the boss of an entire D&D module. "Guy who was peer to his buddy Elminster and made love to the goddess of magic and was no stranger to poking into forbidden stuff (besides that!)" would fit right in.

So if I am understanding it correctly, you defeated the raid on the Grove, right? Like, had the actual battle or did you assassinate Gut, Minthara (or KO'd her) and Ragzlin? Cause normally, like people have mentioned it before, Halsin, if you discovered Kagha's Shadow Druid plot and shared that knowledge with him, is giving her a very stern talking to and demotes her, sort of. So if that had happened in your run and then Kagha somehow reset to blaming you, then... that's definitely a bug.

As for Wyll's reaction, he generally hates killing 'innocents', fighting Kagha means a ton of innocents will die. Not to mention siding with goblins, as I am sure you well know. It's the only time in the game Wyll actually remembers that he's supposed to be a 'folk hero' and grows an actual back bone.

I handled the grove stuff in a way I 've done a few times already :
0. Get the "Save Halsin" and "Save the fugitives" quest in the grove.
1. Go to the goblin camp and kill the guards
2. Enter the camp, talk with the Zentharim, Abdirak, Volo, free the tortured adventurer, get myself branded by Gut.
3. Enter the worgpens, free Halsin and kill all the goblins there. Tell Halsin to stay put, and we will handle the goblin leaders by ourselves.
4. Talk to Minthara, tell her we know the grove location and agree to infiltrate and open the gate for her army.
5. Take long rest
6. Betray Minthara, defend the grove, knock Minthara out for later.
6. Halsin enters the grove, Zevlor makes his victory speech.
7. We go to talk to Halsin at the center of the grove, he's arguing with Kagha and demotes her to novice. We talk to Rath and Nettie and get the rewards.
8. We return to the camp to have the Tiefling party.
9. Party returns to the goblin camp to kill Gut and Razglin.
10. Continue to explore the rest of the surface (Zenth hideout, putrid bog, Githyanki patrol)

The difference with the previous PT's, is that after step 9, I normally never returned to the grove. Arron is not in his "shop" anymore, and the Zenth are easier to get to for trading. This time, I exceptionally went back, basically to see if there was some new conversatioin with the druids. As I've done most everyting in the game, I was trying some things I never did before, maybe find a surprise.

So when going back to the grove, Jeorna and the warthog are on the rampart to open the gate. Inside, there's no one, till we pass the archway to get into the inner paart of the grove. There we were immediately attacked by those 4 goblins. We fought them. NO druids participated in this fight.
After the goblins are dead, Karga is standing there. Tav talks to her, she repeats the old line that tHalsin stopped the rite, hordes will be overflowing the grove and it's our fault. She already used that line in step 7, when I talked to her after Halsin scolded her.
Now I get the option to repartee that she should stop pretending, because I know she's in league with shadow druids.
She is not impressed and that is when she suddenly tells me she will complete the rite of thorns, and that I must get out of the grove before sunset.

At that, the game gives me 2 options; Apologize and leave, or attack.
Even from Wyll's point of view, the only plausible option in this case would be "attack" imo.

All the druids that happen to be on the outside join Kargha against us. Tne only ones not fighting are Jeorna, the warthog (they're on the walls), the sad bear (who is far away) , Rath and Nettie. (They are inside)
Immediately after victory over the druids, Wyll threatens to leave the party and his appreciation has dropped to 0.

I can go inside and talk to Rath and Nettie, and they act as if nothing special happened. Same with Halsin when I speak to him in camp again.

I think it's gona be difficult to keep Wyll. The tooltip on his appreciation line tells me that he can leave by the next decision he diapproves.

It could have been avoided if I had not returned to the grove. Perhaps the game assumes you won't do this as there 's no real reason for it, and as a consequence this path may not have been tested very well.

I'll be honest I have done the Grove raid battle like 2 times only and it was an incredibly buggy experience, not as buggy as what had happened to you though, I generally prefer to just assassinate the trio (and KO Minthara after talking to her), but also I generally wipe the Zentharim at Waukeen's Rest (and delay getting Titan's String like a dummy) and Arron in my case is just chilling at his usual spot (cause yeah, I return there to him to buy/sell crap until I get to the traders at UD/Lady Esther). Also if I feel extra cheeky, once Kagha moves on to her new spot (she just stands there all alone) I may KO her to get her necklace.

go in the grove, chat to everyone talk my way down into the inner grove to help the kid
Get into the inner grove save the kid and talk to everyone
Sneak my way back to that chest with the note to get the investigate Kaugha quest. Chat to Kaugha but back out of finishing the conversation - literally as soon as she's said a few things I just back away and cut off the conversation.

then immediately go do the investigation part over in the sunlit wetlands - with a passing stop to deal with the goblins and their druid captive in the cave underneath the grove that you reach on the right after exiting the grove, the owl bear mamma and tell Scratch to follow my scent etc and do it without triggering anything else by swinging hard left off the path and wading through some trapped water towards the bloody campsite as soon as past the 2 lads arguing with the old woman - whatever you say to the lads make sure you have the save Mayrina bit in your log afterwards, even if they refused help - but ignore it totally for now.
The bloody campsite is handy for looting food and sellables early game and then follow down keeping to the left at all times to the jump over to the little rocks from the small jetty and then to the tree.
Go do that bit and grab the note from the tree.
Head straight back to the grove and confront Kaugha in the inner grove. Give the note you found to Rath when prompted by the Shadow Druid. Talk Kaugha into betraying the shadow druids -that bit is easy - several ways to do it, she will join the fight against the shadow druids on your side.
After that just wait and stay in earshot.
Kaugha and Rath will have a chat and she will be repentant and you can then talk to her and she will rescind the rite and everything.
Chat to Zevlor is his little hideaway to get a reward for stopping the rite.

At that point you have all the time in the world to do the rest of the area and all the druids and tieflings are friendly. I pop in and out at will and trade . Up till now I have done everything without recruiting Wyll as I don't need him for anything
Personally I do everything else now alongside a few long rests including the save Mayrina one that hasn't triggered past its initial quest mention because of how I got to the tree, the Zhent including going down the elevator in their cave and looting like crazy down there, save whatshisname from the fire in Waukeens rest and get councillor Florrick out and complete all their chat bits and pieces - deal with Wylls quest and recruit Karlach. Head to the abandoned village, Free Barcus and drop down the well to kill the spider matriach and also because the forge in the village there has infernal metal for Karlach, then we go do her first fix. Hard save, Long rest get the Mizora scene. Then head to the goblin camp and kill all the exterior ones to free up the cub and Volo. There is no communication between interior and exterior so at this point nothing is set in stone if you want to do anything else. I usually have a long rest again at this point. Next for me is to go in through the roof entry and stay on the rafters to kill all the goblin leaders first then jump down to smack Minthara (or kill depending on my mood ) . I sometimes kill all the goblins sometimes I don't but I don't go anywhere near Halsin, once the leaders are dealt with he deals with his own extraction. Then I go down the long ladder to get the waypoint in the Selunite Outpost.

When I go back to the grove after this I enter via the cave not the main entrance (where you found a couple of goblins with a druid prisoner initially), which leads me out into the actual inner grove and avoids speaking to anyone, I find Halsin back in the grove and berating Kaugha - outside the inner shrine door or near the bottom of the exterior steps - who is suitably repentant and then wanders off to do guard duty or whatever it is she's doing. Chat to Halsin who will 'see me tomorrow', chat to Rath to get the reward, go chat to the Zevlor and get his thanks and start the party. Even after this I can still pop back to trade with Aaron right up to going into the Shadowfell - even though I usually don't need to, Kaugha is usually standing on the rim overlooking the shrine as a guard but has nothing to say.