Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - General Rescuing the black cat

Most players that have participated in the early access version of the game have run into the black cat at the beginning of the game.
According to Swen there's an "awfully cool surprise waiting for you" if you manage to escort it out of Fort Joy, though I don't know if he meant the fort itself or the entire island. (reference)There's supposedly also a Steam achivement for saving the cat though I don't know much about that.
Swen says that the reward isn't in the early access version but that hasn't prevented me from at least trying to escort the cat for as long as I possibly could.

Once the game is released (in two days) I'll try to save the cat in my first game. I figured I'd need a solid strategy since the cat is quite fragile and only has one life instead of nine. This means that if it isn't shot down by one of the magisters it'll die as soon as it steps into a damaging surface (poison, fire etc) or gets hit by a random AOE attack directed at someone else.

To prevent this from happening my initial plan was to avoid having the cat follow me so I could come back and 'pick it up' once I'd cleared the island/fort of enemies and dangerous surface effects. I quickly found out that it's a lot more complicated than just running past it. I'm sharing my experiences here in hope that other people determined on saving our feline friend can come up with ideas and strategies on how to rescue the cat.

Now, I realise that a lot of the following things might be changed/removed once the full game comes out, but I figured I'd share all of my findings to provide as much information as possible.

• The cat seemingly doesn't have a set spawn point. Whether you take the southern or the eastern path towards the Fort's northern entrance the cat will come running towards you and start following you.
• If the cat can't see you when it spawns (For example if you're sneaking) it will run to your location and remain there
• If you sneak past the cat and don't come back near its vicinity it won't move unless you gain vision of it - This is how I tested most of the following things. In a normal playthrough it's imperative that you do not go near the cat; I recommend making a custom marker on your map so you know which area to avoid
• The cat appears to exclusively follows the first character it sees
• If a companion goes near the cat but its main 'target' isn't anywhere to be seen (in a dungeon or is sneaking/invisible) the cat will remain dormant
• If a companion goes near the cat and the person it's following can be seen (is somewhere on the island or is not sneaking/invisible) the cat will run to their location and start following him/her
• If the cat's target enters a dungeon or goes invisible while the cat is on their trail it will stop moving until the character returns to the overworld or becomes visible
• The cat cannot enter dungeons or caves
• If you enter a cave, for example the elf cave south of the Fort, while the cat is following you it'll wait outside and continue following you once you exit
• If the cat's target dies the cat despawns and can seemingly not be brought back (at least not in EA)

With all of this taken into consideration I began clearing my way through the fort, but I was stopped in my tracks because the cat apparently despawns if you
a) Enter the cave with the fire slug queen
b) Walk past the locked gate that separates the fort (the building) from the Fort Joy Ghetto

I assume this is because the rest of the cat's quest (?) hasn't been added to the game yet. If the cat somehow despawns here in the full release I don't know how else you are supposed to bring it out of the Fort.

Basically it appears that you can keep the cat safe from any potential dangers this way, but I'm curious to see if there are other people that had thought of ways to save the cat. Based on my own observations a different way would be to leave a character behind and clear the rest of the fort with your three other characters. I'm not too fond of that idea though since it means you'll end up with an underlevelled character and your party will be missing one member for all of the combat encounters.
I'm curious to see what you have to say to all of this. ☺

In the full release the cat will continue to follow you until the end of act 1... its not so bad as the cat runs away from combat.. if you start a fight the cat runs a good distance away from where the fight is taking place.. that doesnt mean it cant die of course but from what ive seen it does run a good distance away from where the fight started if possible.

this was shown during their undead gameplay thing.

and also the cat will no longer despawn in the full game.. only when killed.

Interesting investigation. For me the cat always disappears near Mona's tent but I imagine that's just its pre-release "quest".

I hope it isn't a pure escort quest though, as they're officially the least fun a person can have in a video game.

What annoys me is the extra touch of fake difficulty in this all...

Such as, I dunno... Asking the cat to sit still or wait for you in a location...

Fighting with the game's LACK of control isn't good design... So I hope they don't leave the Black Cat the way it is.

Also there IS a condition where the black cat will run away forever... and I've never seen it again after that. (The dog on the beech)

I spoke to a friend about this and he came up with the idea of teleporting the cat onto a pile of sand in the sea. Theoretically it should work since the cat will be unable to run off the miniature island (provided one exists in the game) but I'm not sure if the damage from using the teleportation spell would kill it. You could perhaps apply some physical armour to the cat before you teleport it to absorb most of the damage.

This had me thinking that it might be possible to simply make a cage consisting of barrels and crates around the cat so that it won't be able to escape and can be retrieved by simply moving one of the obstacles. Unless the cat is capable of teleporting/despawning if it doesn't move around enough or needs to be by your side when you enter certain areas I think this might be the best solution.


Yeah, I figured it just despawned because Larian hadn't implemented the next parts of the cat's story in the early access version. I've tried bringing it with me when I went into combat encounters and I think it's a bit too risky. Even though it runs a couple of metres behind you it can still get hit by a stray arrow from the Ricochet or Marksman's fang skill among many others. Not to mention that once the battle is over and it runs up to your party it might wander straight through a fire or poison field.

For all those you wanna know what the reward is just watch this at 16:55

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxWRY9N_xRE&t=345s

hah.. so you basically gain the ability to summon the cat as a useless scout summon.. hardly worth it.

It does seem likely that the cat familiar skill is the reward, but has it been officially confirmed by Larian? I'd rather not draw conclusions based on random video footage.

Either way I can't say that I'm overly impressed by that skill. It seems decent on its own considering it can be used outside of combat and act as a personal teleportation/exploration tool, but there are already multiple other ways to do that. Not to mention that it probably doesn't have much use in actual combat. I don't really know what I was expecting to come out of it but if that skill truly is all there is to it that's a bit of a letdown.

I think it's a nice thing, just compare it to other quest rewards, which is only xp which you surely will also gain with that quest.

What did you want? The ability to morph into a were-cat? I think it's a cool little touch and a bit of a pat on the back for completing the quest (if you're not an achievement hunter). Letdown is not the word I would ever think to use.

It's not like you were fighting some super secret mega boss or something.

And now I want to fight the super secret mega boss cat

Like I said, I'm not sure what else I actually could've asked for. Obviously it's too early to tell, but I'd hoped the cat was part of a larger quest line rather than a gimmick. It's a neat little addition but to me it hardly seems worth the effort, especially on potential subsequent playthroughs. Time might prove me wrong since we know very little about it in its current state but until then I will remain skeptical.

A pet is exactly what you want for something like this. If it's a massive quest chain, then you have to design around the fact that most of your players won't do it.

super secret mega boss cat confirmed

Confirmed and on camera! There was a stream were we see the full fight, it's impressive.

The secret mega cat boss was caught on SS a while ago, it's so intense it'll knock over shit just because.

Thats terrifying... well GG to me when i run into my new cat overlord.

Well, it seems like I managed to pull it off.