Baldur’s Gate 3 Guide: Act 2, Shadowlands and Moonrise

Baldur’s Gate: Act 2

All paths lead to Rome, or at least Moonrise

Note first:
There are two ways to enter the Shadowlands, via Grymforge or via the mountains, bringing you out in different points. The Grymforge is the best option.

In some ways, while meandering, Act 2 is pretty much linear. Clear, move forward, clear again. But along the way, there are a few “well, that changes everything” moments (such as everyone dying, or there’s no turning back points).

To help with savepoints, there’s a fight at the Last Light Inn as soon as you talk to Isobel. This is probably not a fight you want to lose (unless you want to see how the plot unfolds as a result). You can progress after losing the fight here, but it is a big gamecharger.

There’s another fight at the Last Inn with Halsin’s life in the balance. Might want to save before that one too. Or at least prepare well for it if playing on Honour difficulty.

Moving onwards, you can access almost all of Moonrise Tower without issues, but once you access the Verge of Shadows, that’s a “no going back” point. For a start it removes all act one waypoints.

Why does this matter, surely you’ve done everything there already, right?
Well, two points:

If you travel from act 2 to act 1 you heal up the party. Saves potions or rests or whatever. Not a big thing, but interesting to note.
Morever, as you level, the inventory of traders upgrades over time. So maybe there’s something you couldn’t afford at the time, or maybe something new you want. Or maybe you just want to offload a load of junk for gold and the Act 2 traders are broke from buying all your empty bottles, rags and broken bones.
Anyway, Verge of Shadows cuts all that off and sets other wheels in motion.

Recommendation:
You would be well adviced to head straight for The Last Inn as soon as you enter the Shadowlands, if only to shop and fix up Karlack (if you have her in the party).

Next, get the blessing buff from Isobell and head out with the Haprts to get the ‘access all areas lamp (or buff) and head straight to Moonrise to shop there.

Act 2.1, essentially

Now, there are some really good traders in Moonrise, the possibility of strength potion (+2, permanent) and a really powerful glaive that’s worth every penny. So, turning up with a bunch of harpers and the pitchforks and burning torches brigade burns those bridges and changes the nature of Moonrise Towers.

Act 2.2
Next is the inevitable show down with Ketheric. Not a lot to do after this point but jump down the rabbit hole.

Act 2.3
This is a “no going back, full stop” point.
Save!

No going back to camp to restock, heal up, change party members. You are all in.

The next area isn’t that big and there is an illithid restoration pod that you really should find early as you can’t camp from this point onwards. The gear you have, the spells you have, that’s it.

Act 2.4: the prelude to Act 3.

At first I thought was a bug (and it may be), but it just goes on and on, it seems.

When you try to use the waypoint to Baldur’s Gate you are sent back to your camp, in your PJ’s. And you can’t leave camp!

Assuming you defeated the final area of Act 2 (General Ketheric being dead), you are free to move on to Baldur’s Gate proper. But you can’t. Why the heck not!?

Well, if you run into this, the problem/solution is that you need to speak to people in the camp, for one. And you need to sleep. Perhaps more than once. I had to sleep three times in all to progress.

Excepting you don’t progress the story, the story then comes to you, proverbially kicking in doors and – if you are not prepared (or powerful enough) – can leave you a little worse for wear, thrall.
(Your journey ends here).

GLHF!

 

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Notable LOOT in Act two: Last Night Inn

As a quest reward, this is particularly nice:

Potent Robe (AC10)
Armour class +1
Cantrips deal additional damage equal to wearer’s Charisma modifier (so best for warlocks, sorcerers and bards and related multiclass)
Each turn the robe grants the wearer temporary hit points equal to their charisma modifier

Dammon

 

Quartermaster Talli

 

Mattis

 

Barcus Wroot

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Notable LOOT in Act two zones

Inn, Shadowlands and Gauntlet of Shar areas

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Notable LOOT in Act two: Moonrise

Besides chests and mobs drop etc, there are three traders, the most notable being Araj Oblodra. Besides the usual array of trade items, she’s interested in your blood, and willing to pay for it, and she really wants Astarian’s blood (twice actually).

Basically, you give her a sample of your blood and she gives you an elixir (based on your race) and 200g! The best elixirs are from elves and drow, as these improved movement by 10m (33′) until long rest. For some fights – especially the sunken temple one in act 3 – this makes a huge difference.

Next best is probably half-elven blood as it heals the party equal to the imbibers constitution. As it’s a one-shot deal +10 all around doesn’t sound that great, but you can raise you constitution to 23 in Act 3 and one of the fights can be rough, especially on tactical and +23 all around is good to have, so you should hold onto the half-elf elixirs for that!

What is particularly good to know is that it’s not just your main, it is every character in the party. One each. And if you swap out party members, it’s one for each member in your camp.
But there’s more!
You can also hire more camp members from Withers; it costs 100g but you get an elixirs, 200g and a few healing potions.

Net result is she can trade you about 20 of these and pays you some 2,000g for your trouble. You can also get a vial that increases your (or a party members) strength by +2 permanently.

Spoiler note
I olny found out about this via Googling for something else, but if you use the right dialogue options with Lann Tarv (and pass the roll checks) it sets his attitude to favourable (100), reducing his prices. Furthermore, again via dialogues, this time via Z’Rell, you can unlock extra stock option, one of which (Render of Mind and Body) offers +1d8 psychic damage – conditionally, but potentially 100% of the time.

Moonrise traders: Roah

Moonrise traders: Lann Tarv

Moonrise traders: Araj Oblonda

Moonrise drops include

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A little help here, please!

These are the parts of act two that either I struggled with, or that I think others will struggle with. If you have questions or need help before then, drop a comment below. There are others to be be found, like the Secret of the Rats in The Gauntlet of Shar, covered by Gamerpillar.

*(I don’t talk, sorry, so just gameplay)

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Shar’s Trials

Leap of Faith trial
This is actually really easy, once you know the path, but annoying all the same, and frustrating as heck if you are still attempting it. This isn’t the only path, but it’s the easiest and most reliable.

Firstly, importantly, interact with the head to begin the trial (or the orb you need doesn’t load)

Save!

Now, make your way across, and back the same way, thus:

Go left and forward, leaping up onto the first platform, staying to the right edge.

Next, leap right centred towards the middle of the central platform. Leap up onto that platform and – again – staying to the right edge, move up.

Finally, leap forward. From there, leap onto the edge of the final platform and grab the orb. (You can teleport back to the start from there).

 

Soft-step trial: shadowplay
Step softly, but carry a big hammer? Invisibility helps, but it probably faster and easier to stealth in on turn based and kill them. Priest cantrips are great here!

 

Self-Same Trial: Me, myself, I

Not a hard fight (well, on normal difficulty), just sneak in and get the jump on them. Also, importantly, only attack your clone (e.g. Wyll attacks Wyll). Doing otherwise results in a nasty debuff that stack (until long rest).
Maybe target yourself (Tav) first.
There is a way to kill the shadow clones as a party without the curse: opportunity attacks. Gang up on each target, used ranged attacks on ‘your’ clone, but otherwise crowd in the target to get free hits if they move position.

 

Library

Assuming you finish the three trials and unlock the library, there’s another gate to get past. And tempting buttons, three of which will attempt to fry you. There is – in the same area – a scroll telling you this and which one is safe to press. It’s the northwest one (so right and closest to the gate). Alternatively, which works in other areas and places too, just cast a mage hand inside the gated area and have the hand pull the lever and raise the gate.

Sometimes the simplest and easiest solutions are the best.

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Hidden room in Moonrise

In the case a hidden room in the Moonrise Tower, I had to look on /reddit, etc.

Really I’d missed the obvious and it ‘should’ have been a doddle for a loot hound like me, but I was so focused on getting in I missed it, right under my nose. I’d found (and pressed) all the outstanding books and my mind automatically assumed it could be a sequence, like 1,4,3,2. Silly as that would be nearly 10,000 possible combinations. But I missed the obvious ancient altar (clearly disguised as an ashtray!)
D’oh!
Even so, what to shove in it? You just have to get to the heart of the matter!

Incidentally, if you have Gale in the party it opens up new options. For instance, do you please Mystra and erase the fairy-trapping and killing glyph, or twist it further, into a necromantic weapon?

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Hero for a day

How to free the prisoners from Moonrise Prison – without losing any

This fairly short video (below) shows you an easy way to rescue the gnomes and tieflings from the Moonrise prison without losing anyone or involving the the guards *

*(The prison guards will still turn aggro even through they never saw you free the prisoners. You can kill them later at your leisure).

Basically, there are two ways to go around the back of the prisoners cells, where you will find a boat chained up (break the chains) and weakened walls.

So, split the party up, go tactical, bash down the cell walls and make a run for the boat.

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The Art of War: Necrotic laboratory

If you can line up a killing field, funnel an army or bottleneck a mighty foe, this can be devastating.

Choose your attacks and defences, tactics and stragety to best counter your foes attacks, resistances and vulnerabilties.

So, concentration based spells like:

The fight video below – hard/tactical mode – takes place in the necrotic laboratory, is 10 minutes long, but really it’s just 1 minute of setting up the funnel and 9 minutes of annihilating waves of undead.

In a bit I’ll show you how to easily destroy General Ketheric and his respawned avatar soon after (hard mode again).

Sorry, I don’t speak, but the video shows the way of it and this text gives the details that matter.

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Necrotic laboratory and the brain puzzle

This is not quite straightforward as, annoyingly, there are no undo options, but not actually that hard to solve, more tedious that anything.

Some neural pathways only have one sequential node, while others have two or more. Thus, rather than daunting, it’s a matter of progressing three or four synapse rather than (say) reason, then speech, then memory then… oh…

This guide slowly takes you through, step at a time, then continues on to see the reward and goes on to experiment with the nearly talking head.

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The Art of War: Using tactics to defeat General Ketheric

Show here in tactical/hard play, the video below is 22 minutes long, but really it’s just a minute or so of setting up the primary killing field and then beating down the forces, taking out the dangerous foes like the illithid first.

Preparation is key to this fight.
First, I suggest (if you have them) sending minions like elementals left and around the back to draw attention and to deal with the undead.

To the right, send a fast moving, grounding covering hero to release Nightsong. (Literally, just give her a hand up, that’s all it takes!)

Front and center, having your casters drop cloudkill and hunger of Hadar (or your best alternatives) onto the platform with Ketheric, then forget about him! If you have freed Dame Aylin, his invulnerability is gone and he’s busy wandering around cold and blind in a choking smog. Time to take out the trash!

Illithid first, then the rest, then the general. And the general again. You may note how, around the 15 minute mark, I changed tactics again. The Apostle of Myrkul doesn’t move, so I changed the spell to firefall for maximum damage.

Tip
DON’T use ‘heat metal’ on the general.
Not because it doesn’t work on him (it does) but because of a bug(?)
If he dies with the hammer on him, you get it; if he drops it and then dies, it disappears.

All done bar the looting.

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Stats after Act 2

Level 10, halfway to 11 (7,000/13,000)

Along with all alts BiS geared, I’ve so far hoarded:

So, over 125,000g at full value, *(but really a fraction of that, even if you pay to get attitude up to 100). Wierdly, charisma has no effect at all on price (at least not in tactical mode). It did in early access!

Larian doesn’t have a merchant class for players, so I made my own :D

If I wanted to embrace my Illithid nature, I’ve so far gathered 20 viable parasite specimums I could absorb.

 

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As I enter Act 3, my camp (active followers and hangers on) looks a bit like this:

Astarian called it:

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See also:

:Baldur’s Gate 3: Act 1

: Larian’s official BG3 site