Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Help Tips & Tricks Tutorial Mission (Ship): I'm stuck

Completely new player here.

I'm still in the tutorial (ship of the nautiloids) where i need to reach the rudder of that ship: There is a fight with commander Zhalk and an nautiloid going on. I have a party of 4. Whatever i do, each party member misses any attack. It doesn't matter if these attacks are melee, ranged or magic and it doesn't matter if i stand besides that enemy or in a distance. Since commander Zhalk gets company with two of his species later on, my party gets killed during that 'TUTORIAL' sequence in an ongoing loop, no matter what i do. What's wrong here? Nearly any attack goes missing, no matter what character i use - i don't expect D&D rules to play like PoE, but it feels ridiculous the way combat feels.

Only kill the imps and the "dog" and then run to the end. I think technically you don't even have to kill those.

Sorry to hear that, IMO uninstall and wait for tomorrow. make sure you erase all saved games.

You are told you should leave the Devil alone and connect the nerves in front of the rudder. There are ways to "win" the fight, but you are told 2 times at least not to fight him and rush to the front.

"Thrall! Connect the nerves of the Transponder!"
"Leave him to me. Connect the Transponder!"

This. Paying attention helps.

On that note- stop playing the game. You are playing the Early Access build. Your save will be wiped out and you will need to restart when the full game launches tomorrow.

You can totally kill him, you just have to be smart about it. First, use a buff spell from Shadowheart on the team, then get her to the high ground and use her spells to plink away. With your Melee characters, use your special weapon powers, some of them daze or bleed him, both of which are helpful. Even when you hit, you aren't going to do much damage, your real goal is to just keep him off balance enough that the mindflayer can do the real damage.


For a sneaky way to win with a strong main character, you can carry an explosive goo barrel from earlier in the stage and set it down next to him, two if you are really strong. Then disengage, walk back to the fire at the beginning of the room. On the next turn dip your arrows into the fire and shoot the barrels. That does some hardcore damage, but I would only do that if he is down to 25% of his health or so, because you are going to kill the mindflayer doing it that as well, and you need time to grab the devil's sword before running to the panel.

I will point out that in the tutorial it is Lae'zel who shouts out instructions for what to do. It appears the OP was playing in multiplayer mode (they say they had a team of 4) and therefore they where not told what to do.

The mind flayer gives the command to go to the transponder.

But if you play with a custom party of 4, Lae’zel joins as a fifth. Or did last time I played. He might mean Tav, Lae’zel, Shadowheart, and Us.

You are supposed to run past them, like the npcs tell you multiple times.

Killing Zhalk is possible but you have to know what you are doing

You can just collect them at the enterance way and then after defeating the initial enemies move them up by dragging them rather than using inventory (I found inventory a bit buggy). I usually use / sacrifice Us to stand next to them and draw the 2 devils that spawn then impressive kaboom for the cheesy win.

For a less-cheesy win buffing the mindflayer and debuffing the devils (spamming vicious mockery is particularly effective) until they are all nearly dead is the easiest route.

Git gut. Or do what game tells you to, and go activate the transponder.

BTW. any progress you make one will be irrelevant tomorrow, once the 1.0 is out. Right now, the best thing you can do is erase your safe game, uninstal the game and come back tomorrow

U can also kill the mindflayer+ the incoming demons. Tricky, depending on class. Seems not rly worth it. May be fun to try, or for xp if u want it.

For most people : kill commander, loot sword, get out.

You started playing the game one day before official release. I hope you've successfully downloaded and started playing the full-release game now.

As for the demon commander, have your player character run (or dash if you just want to get it quickly over with) to the transponder (the fleshy blue thing you can interact with if you run past - or "up" on the screen).

He drops a neat flaming greatsword and loads of XP... if you can kill him, so here's how, in order of importance:

1. Either have a player character that can heal or have Shadowheart (cleric in pod that you can save) in your party and keep the MIND FLAYER healed and protected. Shadowheart has two 1st lvl spells she can cast in the fight. Use armor of faith on mind flayer, then...after demon commander has hit him two times, one heal spell.

2. Move a character past him and close to the transponder. More little demons spawn... don't kill them too quickly, because if you manage to kill commander AND imps BEFORE the two cambions arrive, the mind flayer insta kills your party.

3. Focus dps... don't use ANY spells except cantrips untill the commander fight. Use all dps...for mages and sorcerers, use magic missile, only on commander... when he is dead, grab his sword... and have all chats dash toward the transponder...then click it and fight ends.

It's tricky, and requires some luck... but the mind flayer can hit demon hard, plus stun if you keep mind flayer alive long enough.


Bonus: If you loot grease... throw in the two combions path when they arrive. Don't need to... just a little bonus thing you can do.