Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Technical & Gameplay Problems Rescue of man during fire at Waukeen's Rest

This one particular quest has several problems with it. It needs to be tested thoroughly.
The response time of my characters to assist the man trapped is problematic. The man is overwhelmed with fire far too quickly, if I take down the second door completely.
If I damage the second door, I can talk to him, but the body of my character is right next to him - which is utterly stupid. To access him completely, I have to take the second door down, but then the fire overwhelms him far too quickly.
Another broken door behind the man is non functional, meaning I cannot break it down. Yet, when I come back later, the rear door is then active and I am able to break it down. I know what happens when I open the first door, which I never do.
After, eight or nine loads, I finally manage to rescue him, but my characters have to respond instantly to accomplish this. Sometimes the man runs to the corner of the room, and not out of it, and of course burns alive.

Yeah, this encounter is horribly designed right now. It needs to be re-worked by the developers.

Are you doing this in turn-based mode?

This annoying issue persists since at least Patch 7, maybe in earlier Patches. As far as I remember, TB doesn't help at all. Only at the very beginning, so you can quickly cast Destroy Water with a Cleric or Druid, right before the first fire explsion covers the space around the first door with fire in the room with the guy, and then very fast run out of the rooms downstairs into the open. But you really need several attempts and have to skip the dialogue with the guy trapped on the ground, as OP stated. So that's really very poorly implemented.

I’ve found it pretty straightforward in this last patch as long as you break into the room from the raised walkway from the building next door while in turn based mode and keep the character you want to go in far enough back not to be knocked down by the blast when the door breaks. The pathing isn’t perfect, but at least he’ll actually get up now and run through the door you broke down to get to him (though you might need to get out his way) rather than lying there which he did previously.

But I’m sure that the first time I did this quest I did manage to rescue him after breaking in from the inn itself, and that did seem to become (nearly?) impossible in a later patch. I confess I’ve not even tried to do this for ages as it was so frustrating.

And none of this takes away from the fact that the design of this encounter absolutely needs changing to be less annoying and require less meta gaming to complete successfully. At the very least, the game should automatically put you in turn based mode when the door opens, in the same way as it does for traps that require time-sensitive action to escape (eg the trapped tomb in the ruins).

This alternative route works yes, but you will miss some immersion giving dialogue.

+1
This quest is quite a mess, gameplay-wise.


Agree. This could help a bit (that and fixing NPCs not moving to their next spot).

Side note : especially when the "Turn based mode" is not the most inviting feature to be triggered manually. Personally, I find that feature a bit rough, mostly because it takes a long while to activate and deactivate.

Yes! Why does it take sooooooo long? That surely can be improved.

Having a specific action trigger the switch to turn based mode is still better than getting stuck in dialog while the fire engulfs the room IMHO. My only complaint about the encounter is how hard it is to navigate the room next to where the trapped man is after you break down any of the available entrances. I believe the patch 9 update included changes to how smoke blindness affects the player characters.

Wow, people are actually responding. Yes this was performed in turn based mode.

If it makes you feel better, most people have had trouble with this fellow for a few patches. It actually worked best when it was introduced if I remember correctly.
The last time I did it, one of the checks to lift the fallen beam didn't actually remove his scripted prone state. Attacking the beam directly, and using the help action is how I think I did it.
Talking to him directly does have the added benefit of giving you control of his actions, which is useful.

Also there's a couple of people seemingly desperate to move something when you first walk into Waukeen ..

https://i.imgur.com/wMiC7xv.png

.. I presume there is supposed to be some kind of rubble / broken door they need help moving, but there isn't anything there. You can just walk inside this building while laughing at the strange people kicking and pushing at the stairs.

Huh, I’ve never seen that door not display before. Could it have been destroyed somehow before the usual cutscene when you get close to it? Perhaps Larian haven’t handled that contingency.

I know there are various door issues this patch, but all the ones I’ve seen have doors appearing closed when they’re not, rather than vice versa.

I have never seen a cut scene in this location, when you first walk in to Waukeen there's a lady on the right always getting damaged by fire, so I used water on her to free her and have a bit of dialogue with, then moving on to this missing door (because you hear there are people in trouble but its a bit ambiguous as to who you should be helping, by helping that lady have I done all that is to do, or do I need to do something further for these poor mental people pushing steps for apparently no reason).
For me the door is not visible and you can just walk straight through into advancing fires/smoke. I have tried to get further into buildings, but it just seems a bit impossible for my party, only one has water spells, and not enough to advance very far before the fire starts fighting back .. Whatever needs to be done here remains a mystery for me.

If you have not experienced the same as me, I think I better make a report on this one.
Edit : Report submitted.

There should be a group of Flaming Fist soldiers trying to knock down the main door, and when you walk up to them you get a cutscene and the opportunity to help them break down the door. Then they should go into the building to try to find a trapped councillor, who you can free if you follow them upstairs and round to the left. Once she gets out of the building she’ll ask you to help rescue Duke Ravengard who has been taken in the raid. But there’s no way to further progress that new quest in Early Access.

And yes, if none of that is happening for you, sounds like it’s worth a bug report!