Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Least favourite encounter!

The only suck encounter for me is the sub/ prison ... I'm ok with lossing a few to combat but then they run away from the hatch in order to circle around a guard... I mean we are all about to drown so clearly leaving isn't your best option right gnomes?

Shocked at no shout outs to the self-same trial.
I always crouch and sneak everyone into ambush positions directly behind their counterparts, but I must've done that trial two dozen times by now and I still don't know why sometimes hitting a non-you curses you and sometimes it doesn't.
Not to mention if you CAN'T kill the you in two turns (ambush turn and the turn before they get a go)... then you're in for about 100 Disarming Attacks which are by far my least favourite thing to go against!

The Self-same Trial has plenty of ways to cheese it.

Personally, I tend to just go in with one character (Normally whomever is best at bursting a target down). That way it's a 1v1 where the entire fight lasts like 1 round as someone like a Fighter who's pre-buffed with Haste and uses Action Surge just goes to town.

You can also make it much easier by unequipping your gear before heading in. Since the copies copy your gear, removing everything makes them weak (Outside of spell casters, though you might also be able to prepare bad spells. I'm not sure if they copy what you're prepared or not) - Which can also be useful with the aforementioned Fighter 1v1 if you unequip your armour so the copy has low AC for you to smack down. (If you sneak in you can re-equip your characters before engaging to boot)

As for the cursing, it's to do with your clone being active. If your clone is dead, you're free to hit other clones without issue. If your clone is alive you can only attack it or you get cursed.

Ooh, that last bit about the curse is something worth testing on my next trial! Would be neat if it was consistent (not that the curse itself is that big a deal, but I always consider it a "fail" when I get it for the trial lol).
I know about the unequipping, I did it on my first honour mode run when I was really nervous lol, but I like to go in without cheese. I'm too honourable (outside of that one time)!

On that note though... I hadn't considered the 1v1!
That's a cool idea, I'll try that with just Shart going in alone (has to be her for the roleplay obviously) next time.

As for spells, I believe their spells are based on their class, rather than what you have prepared.
That's why every multi-class that has a point or two in Fighter (which most of mine do because I love Action Surge lol) results in the enemy-you knowing Disarming Attack (even when you don't).

It's a bit mean that you usually enter the library, which has all the rule and guide books, last. But the tome about the self-same trial reads: "A dusty tome advising Sharran initiates on how to please the Nightsinger by succeeding the Self-Same trial. Initiates must ensure they defeat their mirror image. Any violence meted out to others will be penalised."

I usually just have my martial fighters take down their shadow selves in the first/ surprise round and then let them help the casters if needed.


In some of the notoriously unpleasant encounters - such as saving our suicidal Gondian friends - I wonder if the friendly PC AI is really the worst about them or if it's the set-up of the encounter that makes them awkward. When you enter the lower level of the Foundry after cleaning the Iron Throne, I can't find a good way to approach the encounter. If you come from the elevator, you are far away from everyone and are blocked by the group fighting on the ramp. If you enter via the door, you are well positioned to deal with the Steel Watchers but you still have to get around the big boiler to get to the ultimately more dangerous Banites on the ramp, who you can't just blast away either because it is a mixed group of friends and foes. Even though it is very narratively unpleasing, next time I want to try to free everyone before dealing with the Iron Throne and then return to finish of the central unite. I hope that does not set off any alarms.

Similarly the Meazels are fairly quickly dealt with, if you approach them from the lower entrance (the side with the kilns) because this way you can take two of them out before the fight even starts and the rest are conveniently close together. Lady Janath's staircase of cursed objects is worst, if you enter it from the door right next to the room in which you get the quest. Which means that most likely during your first time in the house you will have the worst experience of it because everyone in your group will be affected by Phantasmal Force AND get pushed around on top of it while you still try to figure out what's going on. I feel there would be much fewer complaints about this encounter, if that candelabra right next to the door would be moved to the other side of the room.

Well, that is a nasty one, but I think I skipped it when I first saw what was happening and came back with a plan. I had a savegame just outside the door.

I've found that the easiest of the trials of Shar, because I always sent Shadowheart in alone and won in a couple of rounds. I never even considered having anyone other than her take part in the trials.

Now, the hidden platform trial... that one is a pain, because as far as I could tell the way to solve that is to keep flipping back to the map at the start of the chamber. So it's very slow and boring

It feels like encounters like these could have been so much fun if they were designed to allow different approaches than straight up combat. My instinct on my first run was to do it covertly and I tried so many different combinations of spells and items thinking that there must be another way to do this than simply attacking the banites.

The fight with the harpies annoyed me. Most stressful fight ever. Everyone ends up getting lured into the water.

When you have to find out about those very very boring shadow druids who decided to hide their letter to Kagha in a swamp for some reason. You have to fight like an army of mud mephits and some walking trees just to get the letter.

Nere with the dwarves. Delivering Nere's head to the mushroom colony was very important since the mushroom folks celebrate with a fun little dance. But it was difficult to finish this quest because Nere kept falling into the lava during the battle. Had to start the fight over again so many times.

I stumbled upon the Death Shepard herd on a road bifurcation, and this became the perfect choke point to hold them at bay, with Wyll's Hunger of Hadar spell. I only had to take care of the few that managed to slip around, while firing missiles and long range spells to the ones inside. When one did manage to move out, my monks "push flurry" or Lae'zels push manoevre or Wyll's repelling blast pushed them right back in, after they got a radiant shock from Shart's guardian spirits.

After my first (frustrating) time fighting the Death Shepards, I used Sleet Storm at the choke point. They kept uselessly (and hilariously) falling, as I picked them off with ranged. Combo-ing Sleet Storm with Hunger of Hadar is even better.

because hitting a non you is different to doing damage i.e, doing damage to a non you causes you to be cursed (it should not matter what you did to cause that damage as long as the game records it was you)

Yes, that should be a fun combination. I just now did the same chokepoint tactics in a corridor of the creche Ylek. Hunger of Hadar to block the youths and their mentors, but now Tav had the sparkswall ring and the watersparkler boots. Shart cast create water to add the electrified surface in the hunger area. It doesn't really add much damage. 3 or 4 HP. But it's a joy to see those overpowered enemies struggle and get their just return.

Sleet Storm is one of the best spells in the game. I had so much trouble with Halsins portal in my first playthrough and now I just use Gale to Sleetstorm the enemies, Wyll with Hunger of Hadar and my Tav with either AoE spellscrolls or Hypnotic Pattern, depending on what class I play. And Shadowheart just spirit guardians the hell out of everyone coming too close.

I think it has to be FF Marcus and his jolly band of winged undead... just one blown save by Isobel, or one critical hit on her and POOF you lose, sucker! Not to mention why are you all "Surprised" when it's perfectly obvious what's going to happen?

I always like to brag with how little meta-knowledge I had to solve quests, but with the Last Light I could draw on the experience of maybe a dozen ways of how not to do it after just entering the Shadow-cursed Lands. My in-game explanation for waiting with visiting Isobel until almost the end of Act II, was that we were technically on team Shar and doing it could upset Shadie. Then, we returned fully buffed and knowing many secrets.

Ha, I was "surprised" in the encounter at the end of the sentient amulet quest line, despite the fact that I initiated combat by clicking the icon at the bottom left of the cutscene screen

To add to the "surprise", Darcus Marcus was visible throughout the dialogue with Isobel due to some bug when we finally went in, standing there along with the gang and listening to her speech with a completely unironic "totally, dude!"-expression. While we managed to save Isobel and the Last Light, Marcus did return to Moonrise Towers with the wings he really deserved as a flying ghoul.