Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Isobel Fight?

Yesterday I entered the shadow-cursed lands first time. Is there somewhere a discussion about the abduction of Isobel and the according fights? I'm so deeply disappointed by the design of the events that I'm considering to stop playing the game at all, especially when thinking that similar examples of the Larian way of writing may happen in the further game. But I would like to read some thoughts about it and did not find anything by searching.

Can you elaborate on your thoughts about it? I have experienced the fight twice now; the first time I failed because I didn't reize the attempted abduction was a mechanical thing and the second time I actually failed on purpose because I didn't have time to save the first time and I wanted to recreate what happened. The second time I actually would have succeeded if I hadn't been trying to fail. I think so at least.

Hopefully, you have a save before talking to Isobel. If so, yes, keeping her HP up is difficult. Not impossible. You need tactics. Have Gale (or own mage/sorc char) cast magical armor on Isobel. Keep her healed after each hit she takes. Focus all dps on Marcus. Use haste potions. After Marcus is dead, rest of the house and your own crew can take out the demon thingys.

And I recognise the feeling that fights can seem impossibly hard, but really... it's mostly learning to play to your characters and companions strengths l.

I saved Isobel. I positioned my whole party around her as a hindrance for the demon thingies and gave her Invisibility and Magic Armor and Armor of Agathys. Shadowheart healed her when she took damage. I concentrated most of my damage on Marcus and wiped out the rest of the demons after him. An invisible Astarion with his sneak attack moves (and Haste if you have that) or a Sorc or Wiz with a speed potion would be handy to attack two times in a row to dish out high damage fast. The fight can be pretty quick and dirty if the positioning is done right, but it can be a challenge when it is difficult to interrupt the demons or Marcus.

What exactly is your issue with that fight? Did you get surprised by it on a day where you had already used all your spell slots and other limited ressouces?
To me it was one of the easier fights in this game. I did focus Marcus in the beginning and then killed the demons after he died. My battlemaster Lae'zel with action surge did a ton of damage to Marcus in turn 1 so he didn't live too long. Additionally I was using gear that applies temporary hp, bless and blade ward to targets of your heals. So a single healing word on Isobel increased her survivability a lot.

In my playthrough, I had my first TPK here ...


I see in the hotfix 3 patch notes that Isobel's AC has been adjusted, though, to apparently restore the intended balance. I wonder if the fight is now easier to get a favourable outcome from.

Edit: Maybe most of the following text should be in spoilers? Although I think people reading in this story subforum would expect everything being a spoiler. Anyway, BEWARE!


I didn't want to bore you with my game problems, but as you made the mistake to ask :

I don't like story driven games with the "do it again to succeed" principle in mind. For example I'm a sworn enemy of Souls games (if we allege there is a story). I always had suspicions against Larian in this field since I played D:OS 2. In the Isobel fight there are in my opinion some very unfair design decisions which go in the said direction.

Firstly, you don't get the slightest hint that an important fight is possible in the save haven of the inn area. First time of the fight I was more or less depleted of spells etc. because I spoke to the NPCs before long resting. Jaheira directly hints to Isobel, so I went and spoke to her, no chance to deal with the fight. Ok, you could say that you have to be ready every time.

Secondly, I really don't like the win/fail conditions of the fight. The next trial of course I was prepared (and I hated to do it again, knowing what would happen). I managed to kill Marcus first turn with just my main char (hasted ranged Fighter + a bit of luck) before he could do much harm to Isobel. But the next turn the winged mobs came in and the abduction sequence was started immediately, no way to do anything. The sequence btw is a lie, because the mob walks away with Isobel in it's arms unhindered as if there weren't a full party of experienced killers plus the inefficient friendly inn NPCs around. For me that is a very bad design.

Thirdly, can you accept the lost fight? I my opinion, not really. The inn is gone, you get a huge fight against the formerly friendly NPCs (why are they affected but not you? why Isobel didn't give them her blessing too but only you?) and as far as I know the Karlach quest line is over. That makes most people reload, I think. Also bad design for me personally, ususally I don't like to reload if I get negative results, but here ...?

I don't cry about difficult fights. Yesterday I met the fat golden Thorm. At the start of the battle 2 of my chars were down on the floor, the third had 20% hp, the last 30% hp. I thought, it's unfair that one mob can down two of my chars and take away most of the hp of the other two before I can even react. Then I thought that it was Tactitian and it's a boss mob and that I was careless not to explore before walking into the trap with the whole party. I took the challenge and won the fight after a long and desperate battle.

The Isobel fight is different, it's design is an unfair crap in my opinion because you cannot react and plan according to the events. You have to know it and get lucky or not. Third trial I put difficulty to "easy" and won the fight but a bad feeling remains. I'm sure I would have lost the first trial of the fight on "easy" too.

Interesting. I did not know this fight can go so wrong. Obviously Isobel's death is a fail condition so I kept her from becoming too damaged and concentrated everyone on Marcus. What is the hitpoint threshold? I may have been lucky that - if I recall things correctly - she was paralyzed at some point so I put a Sanctuary on her.

As for not being rested, I don't think the game needs to account for that unless there is a reasonable expectation that players won't rest after their first arrival at this location. And I don't see that there such an expectation.

In general, I'm also very opposed to having to do things again through no fault of my own on the standard difficulty mode. That's something for Tactictian mode. In balanced mode, a reasonably competent player should be able to play with almost no reloads. There has been the unpleasant surprise here and there, most notably the final fight of Act 2, but most of the time things went smoothly for me.

I was on Tactician and she went down so fast I thought it was a scripted event I couldn't influence. I beat the mayhem that followed and just went with it. It was dramatic and powerful for storytelling reasons.

But later I realized what I had lost when all of those people (Quest NPCs like Dammon) died. It wasn't cool to tell me much LATER that "by the way if this character had lived you would now have quest X and Y which are still here on the quest log just to tease you".

So perhaps not *everyone* had to die. Perhaps the game should have revealed their value before that and given you a chance to save them.

And it's really cool spells like Otiluke's Resilient Sphere get to shine. (If you would get a chance to actually cast them.)

I would have welcomed Isobel as a companion instead of Halsin, Jaheira or Minsc. She would have made more sense than any of them and also be of appropriate power level without any reality bending.

I... think I did this fight a little bit differently than all of you.
When I met Isobel I instigated a fight accidentally agro-ing her and siding with the bad guys. Then I killed all my "allies" and then was forced to down Isobel to end the fight. Weirdly, none of the harpers attacked me, and instead just helped me fight my "allies" and only Isobel was 'red'.

At the end of the fight Jaheria didn't survive act ii for me, but neither did Isobel

I just killed all demons and ignored Marcus until he was the last one standing , Voila.

It's honestly not that hard. I was completely out of spell slots because I also had no idea of the impending battle for the reasons you mentioned. That said, I only had to reload once with a single person next to Isobel and everyone else on the balcony outside with Marcus blocking the door.

It's not "poorly designed" and having multiple save slots can help alleviate some of the issues you're having. I always run with 1 AS, 1 QS, and two regular files for that reason. Maybe more AS slots would benefit you.

As far as practical advise, I'd also like to remind you that you can throw healing potions to heal someone. That helped me quite a bit in this fight.

So you won the second time because you were lucky, as blocking the doors is one way to win. The problem is not that the fight is hard. The problem is that it is not a normal, but a scripted fight.

The hardest mode is called "Tactician", not "Insanely Hard" or ""Crazy". You should use tactics. I don't see a way to decide the Isobel fight with tactics, except with hindsight. I have no problem with reloads if I made a mistake or there were overwhelming odds. So far I had to replay one fight, that against the captain of the Gith creche (not the inquisitor) because all enemies went first, Shadowheart was dead after that (not only downed), main char downed, Gale without most spell slots; I reloaded instead of trying to win, perhaps a mistake. So "Tactitian" is not in itself so difficult as I'm surely not the best player and mastered almost all fights. But the Isobel fight is different.

It is also different from a normal lost fight because your party did not lose. They all are ok and ready to fight, but the fight is over because of "script". It is comparable to a lost dialog check. Normally I don't reload after negative events. But here the negativity of the consequences is not bearable, for me at least.

I hope there are not many comparable situations in the further game.

Hearing that the battle is in fact that difficult, it makes me upset for another reason; the tieflings. The tieflings in the Inn all die too and no one mentions them again. (I accidentally missed out on rescuing the tieflings in Moonrise because I saved nightsong first). Losing the tieflings was a major moment for my character and the first time it happened I felt genuinely shaken. But after that no one mentions them, Jaheira just talks about her Harpers, who I never got the chance to know or bond with. If this lose really is the "intended" outcome then it feels terrible that the tieflings just get forgotten about. We don't even get to mention them ourselves later

Read again, I wasn't blocking the doors. Three of my characters were outside on the balcony and were blocked from being able to assist Isobel because of Marcus and a goon.

And tactics served me pretty well actually

Agreed ...
First time i got there, my resources were also gone, and i was in mood "lets talk to everyone before i rest" ... bad idea.
And yes, the fight was for me over so fast so i thought, Lariain just decided to use ingame shots as part of scripted event that was inevidable ...

Then i thought "what if...", so i reload and tryed again, after i explored whole rest of Shadowcursed Lands, and i was equipped, leveled, and rested ... and i ended Marcus + 2 ghouls in first round ...

No super special tactic, no extra effort ... just focus on leader and keep an eye on important NPC, wich now i knew have armor made of sugar.

But even then, it didnt really felt good.
I didnt felt like i just won some important and difficiult fight ... i felt like i just cheated, and ruined the story flow in the process. :-/

Also ...
//Edit:
Oh ... and for context, i completely missed whole Mountain Pass ...
Just so you can get idea about my level and equipment. :-/

This. The Isobel fight should not end when Isobel drops to zero HP. The enemy should have to pick her up and physically leave (escape the protection bubble maybe?) with her whilst still in combat. That's how I interpreted it the first time, and I was shocked & annoyed that the fight just ends once she's knocked out and Marcus walks out carrying her past all of my guys + people in the Inn. I reloaded, because no.

Now, in compensation, the fight could and should be made more difficult. E.g., the creature that picks her up gets resistance to all damage and Advantage on STs against CC spells. Maybe Isobel's protection spell immediately fails and you have X turns to save her/wake her up before people start being shadow-ified. But you should have a *chance* to rescue her once she's been knocked out.

Yeah, finally found a thread about this, Isobel got one shot by one of the creatures first round (crit twice) and had to kill everyone along with the new companion dying. I stopped playing and was debating about just uninstalling, its like wtf.

Same. I was severely underleveled for Act 2, as I rushed past the content from EA to get into the new stuff. I could eventually manage what happened, but the omnipresent authority figure there perished and I reloaded.

This fight annoyed me as well. She was doing okay for herself at the start but she just stands there getting wailed on, casts next to nothing of her own, and then drops like a sack of bricks.

Party was sorc, thief/ranger(astarion), barbarian(karlach) and cleric(shadowheart). SH has no healing spells prepared, I never needed them. I had all my spells as well, but Isobel still drops like a wet paper bag.