Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Phase Spider Matriarch

This battle was interesting at least for me, here are the stats for each creature, which is based on medium difficulty.

https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/3776464-baldurs-gate-3-phase-spider

https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/3776156-bg3-phase-spider-matriarch

https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/3776494-bg3-phase-spiderling

Ignore the reaction's on the entries it was just me trying to figure out the code. Matriarch doesn't get two attacks till her rage, at least that's what happened for my two fights with her. There are 16 total spiderlings if she manages to get all three groups spawned (five, five, and six for groups), along with 2 phase spiders.

The interesting part is her rage boosts strength, gives additional attack, and gives -1 to her ac. Both attacks are dex based so the only thing her rage does is the additional attack. Also if you are going by 5e phase spider basic phase spider is a large creature which IS the matriarch, the two phase spiders in the encounter got reduced to medium and spiderlings are tiny.

edit* I did this really late so hoping I transferred all the info i could gather over correctly and it was my first attempt at using that tool, so cut me some slack pls if its not 100%.

Fight was easy ==> 2nd try. (First try, i had no chance because i didn`t know anything and just run into her :D)

I destroyed 1 web and because the spider queen couln`t move over the web she phases onto the big platform. Every Member was allready hiding, splitet (this was because i i guessed when the fight starts its better to be splitet). So i realised ,changed to turnbased and startet to hitting her to death in 3 rounds where she was not able todo anything ^^ 1 Turn she was surprised , 2nd i was holding her down with the ...one spell where you can tell monsters or enemies whattodo... 3rd round she was basicly dead anyway but burn damage did the thing. Meanwhile i just let all the other spieders fall to death. Not a single baby was born.

Note: I tried the same tactic with my multiplayer group and failed a few times with the dices and this tactic was a disaster But luck is also a thing ^^

One thing is you can kill all the baby eggs before starting the fight. even the ones near her with sneak and ranged hits.

Then you can sneak kill one of the regular phase spider before combat starts. Then its just 1 spider and the boss left.

Shes not large lol. Shes huge. The normal phase spiders are large.

What annoys me the most about phase spiders is the fact that they teleport in bg3. Phase spiders DO NOT teleport. They phase in and out of the astral plane. Which to a layman gives off the appearance that they teleport.

However they cant phase in and out in 1 turn. Its takes at minimum 2 turns to phase out and back in.

I already pointed this out in the EA but Larian doesent seem to care?

The fight itself isent bad per se. Hiding and then jumping her with a suprise round should make the fight easier. And theees no light sources nearby (if I renember right) so that shouldbt be to hard. Cheesing falldamage makes the fight exceptionally easy even.

If you dont want to do either then yeah the fight can be hard at low levels. But considering the creature you are fighting, it should be.

@Demoulius No she's just large I still have a save in act 1 and they don't de-spawn, so I did a quick jog back to re-inspected. It'll tell you if you: right click, examine, and click on second tab. Its possible this is changed for tactician mode as my current play is for balanced.

a big spider [or anything else] is possible in real life yes
the number of legs is irrelevant to fall damage... what matters is distance and gravity which is why a cat or mouse can walk away from a fall that would make an elephant explode

I didn't think it was that hard either. You just have to attack the web to make it take fall damage. You can also sneak up on it for advantage and kill some of it's eggs. If you think that's cheating, then we're in for a whole other discussion.

What annoys me even more than teleporting around is that "Phase spiders" are supposed to be melee ambushers (and in fact they are typically a textbook case to make the player use "ready action" attacks in a tabletop campaign), they do NOT spit ranged AOE poison damage and sure as crap they aren't supposed to leave poison surface areas all around a place.
But Larian seems to think that anything that doesn't make things explode in a wide range or doesn't create large harmful surfaces is BORING, so here we are, once again.

I also already pointed this in the past during EA, but even then I remember how there was a dedicate squad of "Lousy Crap Advocates" (the traditional fierce opposition of rule lawyers) explaining how wonderful it was that Larian took creative liberties over the unimaginative source material.

Because fuck us sideways if we can afford to have a D&D licensed game actually resembling D&D, especially when the ego of videogame designers who want to make a point about how much better they are is at stake.

The other big reward of course is (not news to anyone spoiler):


As for the OP, the first part of the game in particular is very open. It’s easy to stumble into fights you are probably not ready for. If they made them all easily doable at level 3, there would be no challenge left for level or 4 or 5 parties. One level makes a big difference at the beginning.

So save regularly and if you get absolutely destroyed maybe think about coming back to it a little later.

This is the fight where you learn this game employs tactics in a fight. Examine, prepare, divide et impera, exploit enemy weaknesses.
If you carelessly stumble upon her nest, you're just dead in 1-2 turns.

If you don't just run through the dungeon, you probably activate and aggro just one phase spider group. This one group is manageable, even you're unsuspecting. After that, you know there is something. So you approach carefully and see more. You can prepare for more fighting and activate/pull more phase spiders without having the matriarch entering the fight herself. You can rest in between. Finally, if you approach the matriarch's location properly, you see the whole location, the whole arena. Remaining eggs, Matriarch, chasms, bridges. Prepare, spread the group, then enter the fight. Observe what happens. You see the matriarch positions herself on a silk bridge. That's an invitation to burn it, and this is the first thing you do. The matriarch falls down and is gone from the fight. Kill the remaining phase spiders. While doing that, the matriarch returns and positions herself on the next bridge. Burn it immediately! Continue with the phase spiders. The next time the matriarch returns, she positions herself on the last bridge. Of course we burn it. When she finally returns, she is alone and we finish her, being weakened by the fall damage.

This is how it worked for me after being instantly killed once upon stumbling into her lair. Nice challenging and not straightforward fight, and 2 or 3 team members temporarily downed while doing it, but definitely manageable.

I just walked in and bitchslapped anything with more than two legs.

For the record, you can abuse the shit out of Rogue's bonus action sneak to break the Matriach's AI and just sneak attack it to death solo. For every difficult fight there is an equally effective cheese. You can also kill the two phase spiders and all of the hatchlings before engaging the Matriarch.

Additionally, if you're getting stomped, just come back later with better gear, better tactics, and elixirs of poison resistance. The spider queen is not a hard fight and it sounds like you're bashing your head against a wall by attempting the same thing over and over again. There are a lot of tools at your disposal to turn this fight from a grueling battle to a brisk tussle, you just seem to be ignoring them.

I agree, whole-fucking-heartedly, that her reward is counter in value to the difficulty of the fight. The robe has very little monetary value and has too niche an application to consider killing her for anything other than the exp. Melf's First Staff would be a much better reward and remains thematic.

My only complaint with this encounter is that there is no diplomatic option while even being a Cleric of Lolth, where the killing of spiders is rewarded with execution.

Weirdly enough the game defaulted to Astarion talking to the spiders in the goblin place even tho I was playing a Drow.
I don't think I ever got to interact with spiders which was weird, I even tried reloading multiple times and made 100% sure to go in with my character first.

It was a tough fight the first few attempts to fight it but I learned and eventually it wasn't that tough. Burn the eggs and webs with fire arrows or pots. That brings the complexity down somewhat. Then it's just Queen and two? large spider adds.
On my second run through I had 3 monks and a cleric (my homage to the Monkey Magic tv series) who obliterated her in two turns.

Strange, I didn't have that problem. My character talked to the spiders in the goblin camp and freed them and with the spiders in Grymforge and convincing them to leave.
I wish, we had the opportunity to talk to the matriarch, even if it always ends in a fight. Her backstory sounds so interesting.

It happens to me a lot. Especially in triggered cutscenes. Someone I'm not controlling will be my face.

If you read the journals in the cave you find out this isn't a normal phase spider.

The matriarch isn't a normal spider by any means.
As an unique creature, it's fine for her to have a custom stat block and unique powers.

The issue are all the other ones.

Where you are when the fight starts can be a factor in how easy or difficult the fight is. Higher is better than lower and spread out enough to minimise AoE damage but close enough to support each other.