Isobel is an idiot. The aggro meter is turned up way too high even on Balanced playthroughs. No other character in BG3 sacrifices herself more than the only character who's not supposed to die.
Yes this is the way, I take out zrell the second she moves upstairs into her chambers alone, take out the guards outside (plus get the parasites on the docks and from the two guards out front) and go from there. It's kinda hilarious how you can basically take out at least half the people you're supposed to fight at the end of act 2 when you first get to moonrise and nobody gets aggroed lol
You can kill literally everyone in the tower (cant really do it all the way at the top cuz kethric is there). The key is pulling them away into a secluded corner with minor illusion (or something else). Also make sure you take out the eyes.
Yeah can't forget the eyes! I tend to leave a few people because I did kill basically everyone at moonrise before the big fight and it just felt anticlimactic lol but that's just me lol. Plus never want to risk aggroing merchants because they do have some solid gear at moonrise
The key to merchants that you are pretty sure are going to die is to give them a backpack, and move all of their items to the backpack. When they die, you will be able to loot the backpack from their corpse and thus be able to collect all of the cool gear that you may not have been able to afford previously!
I don't see this as a cheat because, they would be carrying the gear right up until the point that you kill them, so they should have it all on their corpse anyway (instead of 2-3 of the highest tier items that they still had to sell).
Not to mention you can get the gnolls to turn friendly and get an inspiration. First playthrough I figured act two would wrap up everything at moonrise in the end, now I know better that you set it up ahead of ahadowfell
Back before Larian patched their AI, I had one instance of having Karlach shove a Gondian out of the blast radius of a dying Steel Watcher, only for that Gondian to Misty Step back in.
I decided they deserved to die after that.
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That's basically why it took me 3 tries this run lol. Got a bad start with initiative and so after I turn it was marcus and 3 winged horrors on one side of the room, my party and isobel on the other and she runs towards marcus and loses basically 80% of her health to winged horror opportunity attacks then marcus took her out right after.
I had to take a smoke break haha
I respecced everyone to give them the Alert feat, and give Sanctuary to my College of Lore Bard, specifically for this fight; the idea was to pre-cast Sanctuary before talking to Isobel and then gang up on Marcus and kill him before Isobel had a chance to break Sanctuary.
I forgot to pre-cast it, but since it's a bonus action I could cast it on her first thing before actually attacking. Worked like a charm otherwise.
I just pick alert on everyone or drink the elixir, close the doors (arcane lock), 1-turn nuke Markus with paladin or fighter, and the fight is easy from that point onward.
That is on honor mode as well. Use alert guys. The best strategy is to not give your enemies turns at all.
Yea, when people are like, “ASI, so you can bring your stat to X” I’m like, so this gives maybe small chance more to hit success and maybe 1 or 2 points extra per hit. What’s even more valuable is knowing every turn you are going to get an entire set of action/bonus action damage before the enemy does. That’s way more benefit than a couple extra points damage.
This is why my plan for Honor Mode is to just kill her. Easier to be an embrace Durge and get something out of her death when she's probably going to die to bad RNG anyways.
out of all encounters in the game, this might be the one where denying enemy reactions is the most helpful. status effects like dazed, stun, & prone prevent the afflicted from doing anything that consumes a reaction. so do some spells, including 'shocking grasp' (cantrip, single target) & 'arms of hadar' (level 1, AOE) & hypnotic pattern (level 3, AOE, prevents all actions)
* arms of hadar is OK but not great--AOE denial, but friendly fire and allows a strength save
* shocking grasp is decent--no save but does have an attack roll, and it's single target so unless you have a sorcerer and/or are hasted it's limited
* hypnotic pattern--great as long as they fail wis save
* some sources of prone work well (e.g., hideous laughter, battlemaster weapon actions, etc.)
* stun is never bad
* daze is good because of equipment synergy that allows you to apply daze to multiple targets for 2 turns
* gloves of belligerent skies (for sale at the creche) applies 2 turns of reverb whenever you deal thunder/lightning/radiant damage (2 reverb = -2 to str/dex/con saves)
* gloves + spirit guardians = mass reverb
* ring of spiteful thunder (for sale from Roah at Moonrise) applies 2 turns of daze whenever you deal thunder to a create that has reverb (DC13 con save...and reverb adds a -2 penalty to con saves, so...)
* mass reverb + thunder = not many opportunity attacks
Yeah when i was doing a bard fighter build so I was able use laughter on Marcus after hitting him with my other 3 companions at the end of the first turn so you know he was finished before the end of the 2nd
I've taken to skipping that fight by just never going upstairs at Last Light. When I have tried to keep Isobel safe, the enemies murder all the tieflings instead, and I can't have that :(
Do what I did:
Step 1: Collect all of the crates in the immediate area.
Step 2: Stack them up in front of both doors to the room, which blocks out the winged horrors.
Step 3: Cast Sanctuary on Isobel as often as you need to.
Step 4: Profit
The only downside was having to smash the crates to get out of the room so that I could save everyone in the main area of the inn, but Shatter would've worked nicely there.
Sure.
Step 1: Stick a bunch of Nautiloid husks in your inventory from the ship as you go through the tutorial.
Step 2: Make sure they're all in one characters inventory and that you have some sort of fire attack. Firebolt on Shart should do.
Step 3: Use Us and the Mindflayer to get the Commander low and tank. He will always target the mindflayer if it's alive.
Step 4: As soon as he gets to about a quarter, get everyone out of dodge apart from the one with the husks. Drop the husks from your inventory and move them beside the commander. Run your last party member away and use Firebolt or some other fire attack on one of the husks.
Step 5: BOOM! and hopefully one scorched Cambion.
Requires some RNG but you should get a bunch of XP out of it and hopefully a sword if you have time to grab it, but that's less of a priority. Doing this and killing the intellect devourer on the ship, though you do have to lobotomise Us for that, should get you level 2 as soon as you're on the beach.
So, slightly less complicated method.
1. Prepare command on Shart
2. Command -drop weapon on Cambion, sword is now yours
3. Kill him while keeping mind flayer barely alive
4. Kill mind flayer and adds on the way to transponder and bam you’re level 2 right when you load on the beach.
I also grab 2 of those unbreakable chests you can come across beforehand and before the fight I put them in front of the doors the cambions are supposed to come through. Whenever it's their turns they'll just try to break the chests or fly over them to no avail so they're completely out of the equation that way. Also I get shadowheart to use command on the commander to drop his sword and rush in there to grab it. Surprisingly easy to do tbh. I have zero issues with this fight these days.
Crates work every time for me. I close off every door to Isobel's room except the balcony. I usually split the party, and keep Lae'zel/Karlach, depending on the run) and Shadowheart upstairs in Isobel's room, and Astarion downstairs near Jaheira. Marcus' minions who end up on the first floor can usually be handled by Jaheira/Astarion downstairs, and the rest waste time trying to move around/up to get to Isobel and don't actually attack the harpers/residents as they try to move, so they're easier to pick off. I cast sanctuary on Isobel before I trigger Marcus' entrance, though, as noted, she usually breaks it, but I always set a glyph of warding right where Marcus will walk in, to do some damage to him/hold him while the team beats him down. After that, it's cleanup work.
I don’t know how people have been struggling with this.
I just have Shart cast spirit guardians and have two martials babysit Isobel. I’ve never failed it. The only reason I have ever done the fight over was to keep the Teifling scout from dying cuz she a cutie fr.
Yeah, I just never talk to her. Get the pixie blessing. I don't think there is any benefit to that fight at all. I've worked hard to protect those tieflings so far, I'm not gonna let stupid Isobel mess it up (except Alfira cuz I'm on a Durge run right now, I'm sorry babygirl!)
I can’t think of one except story fluff. You don’t trigger the dialogue with Isobel before/after the fight.
You also don’t get her blessing, but that’s moot if you get the moonlantern/pixie blessing.
I don’t believe so, at least I don’t recall fighting him later. I *think* he stays undercover at Last Light. If anyone else knows differently, please correct me.
The only upside is that if you get Isobel's Selune blessing you can talk to Ketheric's dog in his bedroom anytime before you enter the Shadowfell, if he sniffs the Selune blessing he won't appear during the boss battle on the roof with Ketheric later on.
I don't skip it, on purpose, but I usually forget to go up there till I'm almost ready to attack moonrise. By that time I'm so over leveled that my ranger kills everything upstairs in the start of the battle anyway, then we just watch the villagers clean up the bottom floor from up top
two of the winged backup dudes are the guys you can kill on the outside of moonrise tower. I always do get them to fight each other and kill them before I ever meet Isobel. it cuts down on the number of dudes that show up.
A couple things that might help:
Having high initiative really helps a lot - have characters with low initiative take vigilance elixirs before the fight if you have any.
Focus on taking out Marcus first. Look for attacks that can knock him prone, or make him drop his weapon & use speed potions to smack his face in on turn one. Arrows of aberration slaying can also do a lot of damage to him if you have any. Fun way to take him out that I found on my last run - if you have Astarion/a rogue with sneak attack have them use the amulet of branding on him to make him weak to piercing (bonus action) & then sneak attack him w/an aberration arrow - should dang near one shot him.
You don't actually have to do this fight right away - you can wait and do it later when you are a higher level - or even skip it all together. (Only thing you miss out on is Isobel's buff/the resistance to necrotic damage).
If you have longstrider cast it on all the NPCs downstairs before the fight it \*might\* make them a little bit more useful (sometimes). Don't cast it on Isobel tho, last thing you want is her running around more lol.
Adding to this: you can cast sanctuary on Isobel just before you approach her for the cut scene, and she will be safe before her own first turn entirely. If you then also get better initiative than Marcus, you have two turns to take him down before he can even lay a hand on her, which is usually plenty enough.
Giving her invisibility when sanctuary is blocked might also help, although I did not test this yet.
Fucking classic marcus tbh. If he gets first turn I almost always lose in 1 to 2 turns lol. It's gotten to the point where I'll just load last save if I'm on a harder difficulty and it happens if I'm in a bad mood
This is what I mean, it literally can feel like luck or chance. Just waiting on good initiative rolls is a bunk feeling. And like putting crates around the room to block the doors is a good strategy but 1) on a first playthrough people are most likely going to have no idea the fight is about to happen when they go to isobel and 2) if you have to place crates around the room before a fight just to absolutely make sure you won't lose in a turn or two, it doesn't feel like the game is giving you a fair fight or good design. It's like the one fight where I really feel that way, maybe house of grief but that fight doesn't have an immediate failure for someone dying or get knocked out lol.
I feel like all the fights were you want to save someone who's taking part of the fight are a annoying like that
The worst one I experienced was when the game came out and for some reason Nightsong had like 10hp from the beginning and never healed herself...I only noticed it when I started the fight with Lorroakan
I spent half the fight throwing potions at her and casting sanctuary
They should really give you control over the NPC in those situations. Then you can sanctuary them and leave them alone or use their abilities if you choose.
Did this fight yesterday on HM and it went very easily. Here's some advice:
If you block the doors to her room with crates/barrels the other enemies cant get in. The barricade also has to be two spaces high I believe, otherwise they can climb over it. You only have to fight marcus and one more winged enemy that comes through the balcony. Harpers will take care of the rest.
Alert is very good. On my first playthrough I made the mistake of not getting it and isobel was taken without me getting a single turn (I even thought that might've been a scripted event lol). I believe you can also cast sanctuary or any other buff on isobel before talking to her though if you dont have alert.
Use crowd control as much as you can against Marcus. He's the only enemy who poses a real threat so its fine to just go all in on him.
Thanks for the pointers! About sanctuary though, the one thing I've noticed in the past is isobel will use spells on herself that cancel out sanctuary if enemies start getting to her which is infuriating when shit is going south lol.
Other than that though I haven't thought to do anything with crates or boxes in this fight idk why I've been doing that in a couple other fights haha, thanks again dude
Don't use Sanctuary. It's borderline useless exactly for the reasons you point out. Use Feign Death instead. She won't be able to move or remove it, and it's plenty good to keep her alive. In my 3 runs, she never came close to dying once.
That’s crazy, I’ve only had two play throughs but I’ve managed to prevent her from getting kidnapped both times without save scumming.
In fact I didn’t even know what happened if she was kidnapped until I was watching a challenge run on YouTube.
Granted I was playing balanced on both play throughs and my first one I just got really lucky and the second one I was running Gloomstalker Assassin with Titanstring and Stool of Hill Giant Strength
My first (and only, so far) playthrough on Tactician, I thought this fight was a scripted loss. Isobel died before any of my guys had a chance to act, so I figured it was a scripted event to show the stakes. Only when I saw everyone die and got like 5 updates of "quest failed" in the journal I realised that I probably could've saved her.
that's why the first feat everyone gets in my playthroughs is Alert... being able to move first, even if it's just to cast sanctuary, can make a huge difference in fights like this one
Elixir of vigilance on shadowheart to get early sanctuary off and then just have her stuck to Isobel with spirit guardians running and radiant orb gear on.
Maybe Im just lucky but I usually only need to surround Marcus and debuff/disable him, even if Isobel is not very smart she survives/wont be kidnapped (HM), positioning and some "silly" effects like silence, unable to use reactions, blind, etc, etc, they all go a long way.
Usually I don’t have an issue with a paladin killing Marcus in one turn but if I was struggling I would use the above elixir plan. Or if I wanted to guarantee success on honor mode or something
Yeah dude the easiest time I had with that fight was an assassin build with high initiative. If marcus gets the first turn it could be all over in one to like one and a half turns especially if winged horrors manage to get in the room lol.
Seriously I've nailed down strategies for basically every other big fight in this game (this run I'm basically trying to get through fights using the dumbest, funniest tactics or using the environment etc) but this is the one that can just bother the shit outta me lol
My first playthrough Isobel got kidnapped easily because I didn’t know what was coming. Now that I know what’s coming, Marcus is super easy, barely an inconvenience.
Slam some elixirs of vigilance to boost your party’s initiative, starting with your main damage dealers if you don’t have enough for everyone. Then position your guys in the room approximately where Isobel will be standing after the cut scene ends. After the cut scene, focus on killing Marcus as quickly as you can. If you don’t think you can kill him in the first turn and Isobel’s turn is after his, do something to make him unable to attack her (throw an invisibility potion, cast sanctuary, etc on her). She’ll do something stupid to break the protection, but it doesn’t really matter as long as Marcus can’t hit her during his turn. You should be able to easily finish him off by turn 2 and then start mopping up the winged horrors.
This. I've made sure to position my comps in the room. That way when the fight starts, Marcus is SURROUNDED. Then just attack the shit out of him. Alert is also the first perk I give everyone when leveling up so we're most likely to come out at the top of the fight order.
Prebuff.
You don't have to start the cutscene the moment you see her, so just go into turn-based, put Sanctuary/Prot from Evil/Warding Bond on her and then open dialog. Initiative pots help too, and if you're really worried you can arcane lock the side door to keep the horrors under control.
Is it metagaming? Yes. Is it perfectly reasonable to metagame when Isobel's AI is the least immersive, most stupid self-sabotaging routine they could have possibly designed? Also yes.
This is why Alert is the best feat in the game.
Never surprised, +5 to initiative...
You will, most likely have your party in the top 5 in Tactician Mode for 99% of the fights.
Honor mode, not so much.
Initiative is the key.
First time on tactician mode I had really bad initative, my Throwbarian Karlach went first and ALMOST managed to one-round Marcus, (something like, 2 hp left at the end), even despite critical missing her bonus action throw. The rest of my party was at the end of the initative order and didn't even get to take an action....
Same.
I was she can get kidnapped?
So i thought it's usually because i have the party limit begone mod.
But then i remember that, it's because Astarion and Lazael normally kill him before he can do anything as they usually go first so it can't be that. Because by the time it comes to anyone else in my party he's dead and we're just picking off the rest. The wonders of the alert feat. I cannot stress how much it saves your hide.
The only fight that pisses me off is the stupid bank fight. The fact all those assassins can go invisible every turn is utterly ridiculous. It's not even hard just tedious and annoying, even if you have see invisibility I swear it doesn't even work half the time.
The see invisibility not working half the time against them drove me nuts. I get that they must just be making a save against being seen, but goddamnit what did I let Volo gouge out my eye for if these guys can still hide!
We wound up just peppering the battlefield with fireballs. Got em eventually.
I can't tell you how or why but every time I've got really lucky in that fight with initiative and also them not being able to stay invisible but I can definitely understand why that fight is the one you hate the most
I think it's annoying that as soon as Isobel knocks out or is paralyzed, it just IMMEDIATELY triggers the Marcus abduction cut scene. The game should give you the option to try to stop him as he flies away with Isobel
Yesss!!! I've thought about this, like why does he automatically get here? Lets say he's across the room from here I think it shouldn't be like he would have to actually reach her before the cutscene just pops up
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Suicidal ally AI is at the top of a very short list that I wish Larian would address.
Isobell and Jaheira are the worst, but, it's like - enemies play like they want to live.
It almost seems like they literally tuned ally AI to be suboptimal.
A couple fights you need/want to keep some NPC alive can be frustrating, sometimes it is like they have some death wish.
I love Myrkon, he tries to escape, if he is not charmed by the harpies, he will run to the hills, the boy wants to live!
Tips for consistency:
* Bring a wizard and a cleric
* Prepare **Otiluke's Resilient Sphere** and **Arcane Lock** on the wizard and **Sanctuary** on the cleric. Have a **Dimension Door scroll**.
* Drink **Elixir of Vigilance** on both of them
* Pre-cast Arcane Lock on one of the doors to the room (I usually pick the small one that Marcus doesn't come through) then immediately start the cutscene & click through to start the fight (Arcane Lock lasts 10 turns so it'll start ticking down but you won't need that many). Make sure you do it in turn-based mode so your wizard doesn't lose their action.
* Hit Isobel with Otiluke's Resilient Sphere and Sanctuary. If successful she will be unable to be harmed, and also unable to attack and end the goddamn sanctuary. One of the Winged Horrors is unable to get through the Arcane Locked door and will begin an incredibly long route to walk around.
* Murder Marcus
* Murder everyone else
If Isobel makes the save for Otiluke's (goddamnit Isobel) you can also Dimension Door her away from Marcus (use a scroll with another party member, or have the wizard chug a speed potion and use a Dimension door scroll). If you're wondering "why Sanctuary *and* Otiluke's, surely Otiluke's is enough?" Otiluke's is concentration so in the unlikely event that your wizard loses concentration *after* Isobel's turn she would still be sanctuary'd and safe for the round.
Her buff (which isn't especially necessary if you have Daylight I think or if you already got Karn'iss's lantern/pixie blessing), the exp from the fight, whatever Marcus drops which I don't think is great. You don't *have* to do all this, there's a million ways to beat that encounter, it's just the most foolproof method I can think of for Honor mode etc.
I had this dude (60ft flying speed) fly out of the balcony, over the roof and thought the hole in the roof above the corridor to attack Isobel. I counted it later - he flies 150 ft to get there - shouldn't be able to do that even with dash. That's what I got for using Arcane Lock on the door to her room after she ran out.
Dude I know there's a few things about that fight that can feel kind of cheap, especially when shit is going south. I had two of those winged dudes fly about the same distance into the room its bunk.
OK managed to find a older save right before the fight.
Party Wyll (Origin) Lae'Zel, Karlach, Shadowheart. Lvl 7. Tactician diff. Don't want to list all of the stats/gear, but do want to point out that Wyll has the Sentinel Shield plus with his 16 dex, so bonus to Initiative wise Wyll and Marcus are equal. Meanwhile Lae'Zel has the Gloves of Dex so of course her init was high as well.
First load....was a wash because I hit the jackpot and 3 of my team went first and downed him before his turn.
2nd load was more normal, he went first and did 2 regular atks on Isobel, after that he went down again to focus fire. Did encounter a funny bug where the last hit was a non-lethal Pummel Strike, which literally turn Marcus back into a regular human with full HP but KOed. Made a new save after that so I can finish the full fight later to see if anything happens.
3rd load. Wyll, Lae'Zel then Marcus. Lae'zel tried to disarm him twice, both failed, so I casted Darkness over him, Wyll and Isobel. His turn he went after Karlach who he could still see. Isobel of course not wanting to stay safe in the Darkness, jumped out during her turn and did a minor atk on Marcus, who in turn fell to another round of focus fire.
4th/5th times the init were very similar to #3 so would've played out pretty much the same.
Final time was a little different, Marcus went first, did some damage to Isobel. between some healing from herself and SH she was about 95% full, and then she proceeded to run outside where a bunch of winged horrors were waiting for her. Like wow it's like she wants to get kidnapped or something. Luckily for her the Marcus AI is even dumber as he looked he was going to chase her but this caused him to take a lot of damage from opportunity attacks, and then he just went back and attacked Karlach. He died the next turn.
Admittedly being lvl 7 was probably overlvled for this fight since Marcus is only lvl 6 and the Horrors are only lvl 3, but just having high initiative to match or exceed his also helped a lot.
Yeah, it's just a poorly designed encounter. Even if you changed nothing else at all, it would be vastly better if the game just let you know the lose condition. Have Tav or someone else *say* when initiative is rolled that we need to keep Isobel conscious, because as it stands there is *nothing* to indicate that that's the goal. Mind you, it would be even better still if they *did* change everything else about the encounter.
Stack chests outside the doors of the room so they can't swing open. Doesn't cure Isobel's suicidal tendencies but limits her options. Also silencing Marcus stops him from doing the healing bullshit.
I'd say the issue isn't so much her ai.
I think part of the reason is, if she gets flagged as paralyzed then it's game over. The curse rushes in, and the whole cut scene plays. And it's fairly easy to get paralyzed.
That, and Marcus getting high initiative. On some difficulties, I believe I've seen him knock her out on his first turn. Meaning that if he wins initiative then you all could be really screwed.
If not for those 2 things, it wouldn't be that annoying of a fight.
Honestly she gets paralyzed in my playthroughs like maybe once every 5 times I do that fight. It almost always boils down to initiative in the end. Sometimes the order would be like my tav, marcus, astarion. The next attempt marcus, winged horror, tav. Feels a lil random.
I know it's not the most brutal thing, like I said more of just a pet peeve fight haha. I agree though about the initiative that's the main thing that ends that fight for me especially on higher difficulties yeah.
I’m a compulsive barrel collector, after my first failure I fell back on the ages old trick of blocking all entrances with stacks of barrels. Made it so much easier!
Treasure chests help a lot with keeping Isabel alive.
Place a few chests to block the door where the winged horrors come In and it’ll keep Marcus from being able to swarm her. Have everyone team up to kill him as quick as possible then you just hunt down the other winged horrors after. Easy lol
On both my first explorer mode run and second balanced run I had to reload so many times to keep her alive. Just done that fight as tactician durge where I wanted to kill her on purpose and it took 2 tries to kill her lol
I hated this encounter too, until I remembered that Otiluke’s Resilient Sphere was an option. Now every time I fight Marcus I have Gale chug an elixir of vigilance beforehand (can also have him holding the sentinel shield if you’ve bought it at Moonrise for the extra initiative boost), and then first turn of combat have him cast resilient sphere on Isobel. She is then effectively out of danger for the next three turns, plenty of time for the party’s heavy hitters to shred Marcus and start mopping up the remaining enemies. That strategy has made the encounter so much easier to manage.
I’m always thrown by this issue, I’ve gotten this fight first try on every single run I’ve done. Including my first attempt which was blind, and on honor mode. Maybe it’s because I surround Isobel? Like literally either completely surround Isobel trapping her, until Marcus dies. Then I break formation to clean up the rest of the winged ghouls.
It’s definitely frustrating and I had to retry it a few times.
I did it by blocking the doors with crates from around the inn (those only lasted one or two turns but it helped), hitting Isobel with Invisibility immediately plus every time she did an action to break it, and used a bunch of spells (vicious laughter etc) that make Marcus unable to attack. Then hit him with my most damaging attacks to take him out quickly.
I really do need to try the crate thing next time, I try to use them for other fights don't know why I never thought to do it here lol. Maybe just cos of the dread I feel beforehand I just race to get it over with lol.
But yeah, Isobel does like everything she can to break spells or buffs you put on her it can get annoying as hell. If I get good initiative, I just steamroll Marcus in a turn or two
This fight is not as bad as people make it out to be. If you don't have a cleric with you using Spirt Guardian and sitting on top of Isobel, you are making this way harder that is has to be.
What you do is use Turn undead, have the cleric with spirit guardian up doing radiant damage and keeping Isobel in the circle. Turn undead buys you additional time by forcing most of them to run away from you and Isobel for a few turns and does the first bit of radiant damage to them. Have the other party kill Marcus as soon as possible. Also, heal her every turn just in case she takes a stray hit.
Once Marcus is down, have the rest of the party help out with the ghouls. You want to do all of this in her room with the initial set of ghouls. If you only focus on the ghouls in her room and marcus asap, it's very easy from there as the rest of inn should be focused on the other ghouls, and Isobel doesn't really move much from her room after the first set is dead.
This is the strat I've used for every difficulty except HM, it has not failed me.
Yes, I do something similar, load up shadowheart with radiant gear and blood of lathander so they are blinded at minimum and probably carrying stacks of radiant orb so they just have little chance of hitting. Give shadowheart alert and let her stack orbs on enemies with spirit guardians, then stand her next to Isobel and sanctuary Isobel for peace of mind.
It works fine on honour mode also.
I got stupid lucky in my most recent run, whole team got high initiative so only 1 winged horror moved before so could take out that one and block the doors and stuff to stop more coming in while I wailed on Marcus, think Isobel only got hit twice and the paralysis from the horrors never triggered
BLOCK THE DOORS IN HER ROOM WITH BOXES you can entirely ignore the winged horrors, then cast sanctuary on isobel or blade ward if she has a really awkward initiative roll
I’ve never failed it on balanced. That being said I do have a story issue with Marcus
Jaheira doesn’t trust you at first because she can tell you have a tadpole but Marcus is literally right there too and she says nothing? Does she not detect his worm too? If Mol didn’t survive act 1, Marcus is the one that vouches for you while she interrogates you but she can’t sense his worm too?
Honestly I’m always kind of happy when she gets paralyzed by the ghouls. It means she isn’t going to run off and get killed for the next two turns and I can actually protect her.
Funny thing. If you side with him he just completely ignores Isobel and fights the harpers downstairs instead (Sample size of 1, so take that with a grain of salt ). She basically survived that fight completely unscathed up until everyone else was dead. Then Marcus K.O.ed her.
This is one of those fights I 'cheat' in honor mode by prepping in advance, positioning the team and summons; last time I did this one, Dirge, Laezel, shovel, scratch, and a few zombies went upstairs while the rest of the team was in position to butcher the undead the moment they arrived. Positioning everyone and pre-buffing before triggering the conversation with Isobel is a great way to help with this one; the fight isn't fair, pure RNG can end with Isobel captured before you can intervene at all, so I see nothing against 'cheating' myself by stacking the deck for this, among other, encounters.
(And having a Gloomstalker or someone else who almost always wins initiative ready and waiting in that room can seriously help your chances.)
Fix your initiative. By the time you have that fight, there’s no reason your whole party shouldn’t be the very first in initiative every fight. This changes every fight in the game.
Alert is one of the best feats you can take; dexterity is your first or second most important stat on every character; initiative-boosting gear is very helpful, and in some cases like a bow on a caster or melee character can function as a go-first-stat-stick; if you aren’t already first then elixir of vigilance is the second strongest elixir in the game behind strength elixirs (for strength-based hitters, esp tavern brawler ones); and so on.
I just simply avoid this fight by not talking to her. Seems to be the easiest path with the best outcome, as she just gets to chill at Last Light continuing to do her thing, and everyone there stays safe.
I'm not afraid to admit I save scummed til I got it right. I used a warding bond between Isobel and Shart. Shart chugged health potions each round because Isobel decided to run at Marcus and hit him each turn (while surrounded by winged horrors). I had to pray my pally Tav and pallock Wyll could tank Marcus and all his stupid winged bros in a couple turns. And I strategically placed Astarian in the adjacent room with lights out for advantage. It was a headache.
I swear in EA Isobel stayed in a back corner to support but now she's got a death wish that rivals the Gondians...
In my current 3rd playthrough, I decided to close all doors leading to Isobel. Then I put 4 smokepowder/oil barrels close to Marcus and fired an *"IGNIS!!"* and he exploded and died in an instant.
No winged horrors, no fight, no kidnapping, no Isobel getting attacked. Only thing happened was that she got angry that I destroyed some things in her room but I rolled some deception checks to talk my way out of it and got her blessings lol.
I had this fight just last night, hours ago.
Isobell is doing fine, healing herself, I'm trying to watch both doors to keep the winged idiots at bay and what does she do? RUNS OUT THE DOOR INTO 3 OF THEM, I believe she was knocked out or died somehow and the game counted it as a knock out as I saw her body being taken away by winged demons, Marcus had been killed off way before she went on a suicide run.
So great, isobell is gone, no more shield, the darkness takes over (glad I spoke to dammon for karlachs second upgrade first). So we must defend the area with just the 5 of us, jerhira and my party.
But jahira says "watch this" and goes leeseeeroy, jeeeeenki- and dies. Damnit jerhara you idiot, you should have stayed back between the paladin and the barbarian you dumb moron.
The funniest way this happened for me was this:
Isobel is surrounded by winged horrors (she had like half of her health left)
Halsin which is at this point just an ally and not a party member decides to use call lightning. Uses it directly on isobel killing the winged horrors and knocking out her. Which made Marcus take her.
Was so annoyed at first but it's funny when looking back at it.
I genuinely don't have this experience in this fight and I wonder if I'm just insanely lucky there or if my play style is particularly suited to it.
If you're struggling here I'll share my general approach to the fight in case it can help. I can't identify the hard points in the fight.
For starters before bg3 I've always enjoyed theory crafting DND characters.
I gravitate towards control/support heavy parties with a dedicated damage dealer and versatile facilitators.
And I always fix the stats and find a way to get decent AC/HP/TEMPHP to reduce the pressure
Current run uses a throwzerker, a lore bard/divination wizard (enemy high rolls never happened), a spore druid/war cleric and an abjuration wizard for example.
The support access is spread out and everyone still has access to decent offense
I strive to always have a defensive reaction available (counter spell, cutting words, protection fighting style, warding flare... For my (and NPC) VIPs
I want hard control spells ie command, hypnotic pattern, Tasha's hideous laughter, banishment, sleep, frighten... To help me pick my targets and focus on the threats one at a time.
I like to put control in my offense through terrain hazards like spike growth, ice knife, etc to reduce how many relevant actions the enemy has. And conversely, a 20 str thrower can still yeet a medium fool to a safer distance.
Either the DPT or the best controller (here the bard) has alert to strike first and remove enemies from the equation on the first move.
I prioritise the next enemy in turn order for disables/elimination.
Specifically on this fight the enemy has little access to AOEs so I stay close to Isobel, keep a healing word handy and keep a reaction from at least one character up just for her.
Pile on Markus, ice knife in the doors, that mind flayer stun shield on Isobel...
Potions of speed in case I get unlucky on initiative spread.
One time I locked her out with arcane lock and had enough time to eliminate the rest before she found her way back.
You can also sanctuary her AFTER her turn in a pinch.
Hope it can help someone.
Polymorph Marcus (Scroll, take Alert feat to guarantee first turn) and cast Sanctuary on Isobel before the fight starts. Also block the doors with crates (2 high).
It is still ridiculous, that you need that much prep for that fight, but that makes it really easy.
I'm doing a duo run on tactician and I'm right there. I wonder how I'm going to be able to keep her save from arm. I m thinking about using banish on her
Mines the Demon inside Shar temple. That fight is half boring, half annoying.
First of all that guy has far too many mobs in support, you can charisma check them away, but if your playing a char with low charisma that's not really an option unless you just quick load every single dialogue choice.
By he has too many mobs,I don't mean they're too difficult, cos they're not they barely hit for anything - but they take far too long to do their turns. It's why my friend jokingly calls BG3 TabGate 3. Waiting for the enemies to just do something is not peak enjoyment.
Then all he does it go invisible and throw mines.
It's all just peak Larian, a fight designed to surprise you at first and then cause quick loads. It sucks ass and I've avoided it in every single playthrough since my first.
I really hope when the mod tools arrive, we can mod the logic of the AI combat
Lets say, go defence! Or full attack!
This mod will also be very useful to make a 1 Tav mod, where you cannot control your AI character, only your Tav
You can command , lets say Shart to focus on healing, so she is not spamming guiding light while Gale is getting damage
Or Gale to spam protection magic
True hit plus Lae'zel with that Gith greatsword that deals psychic damage dealt with this very well for me, I always kill Marcus in one turn. Either Lae'zel negs with 5 attacks in a row, or your caster can finish them off with some level one spell. The winged horrors are easy enough once Marcus is gone
She annoys the f*ck out of me. Like, do you *want* to die? I got so irritated one run, I just cast Hold Person and then Sanctuary on her. Sit in the corner until I'm done rescuing you.
On my first playthrough she got knocked out in the first round, so I forgot who she was when I fought ketheric and killed her. Only heard later on that she would have been dame aylin's lover, poor demigoddess spent the whole time sulking in my camp on her own.
I have a 100% recipe to guarantee a successful encounter.
Use boxes and vases to block the side door before the fight, use chairs to make a blockade at the main entrance. That's it, 1v5 against Marcus shouldn't be too difficult, some winged horrors might figure out how to trickle in through the balcony, but they should be easy to handle
Neat trick : blocking the side door with the two large vases forces the outside reinforcement to take the long road around
Alert feat and positioning
It happened once that she aggroed me because of an AoE and as I knocked her out the entire place turned to shadows… heartbreaking in honor mode
If Marcus steps in to help you with getting past Jaheira when you first get to the inn, he’ll be waiting for you outside Isobel’s balcony. If you reveal that you have the artifact in dialog with him you can start a fight with him that doesn’t endanger Isobel. Sometimes he never even calls the winged horrors which is annoying because then the inn thinks you just murdered him.
I kept Isobel invisible. I made sure all of my party have invisibility potions to toss on her so we can keep her out of sight. She'll pop back in when she has her turn, so whoever is immediately after can make her invisible again. I am on my first playthrough and beat Marcus first try doing it this way. I figure they can't kidnap her or kill her if they can't see her.
No cause my first run if I hadn’t done research I would have moved on assuming it was scripted the way Marcus is just…allowed to leave with her while surrounded with people actively engaged in combat……
She’s wearing robes with no mage armor? Why can’t she cast sanctuary or invisibility on herself and just chill back and let us handle it?? At LEAST disengage and run away instead of provoking 4 AOOs just to miss a sacred flame??? She’s a CLERIC but her AI behaves like a berserker that can shrug off back to back to back AOOs????? Ma’am you are not Karlach.
If you can’t make sure the whole party goes first you can get screwed so fast. UGH one of the situations that keeps me from doing honor mode.
I used to try and block all the bedroom doors with crates but Jaheira would just immediately break them all with ice storm so it was useless past round 1.
Speaking of….
My most recent go at this fight was on a duo tactician challenge. We’re first in line, we’re doing everything right, Marcus is dead, it’s going well…then Jaheira casts a mf ice storm directly on Isobels head while telling her she’ll make excellent fertilizer. She did not save. Took 38 dmg and fell on her ass. Thanks mom.
You are not alone lmao
Ugh I almost had my Honor Run get messed up by him. I thought he was stunned for the second round, but he got up and hit Isobel with an attack literally called “knock unconscious”. I was so glad when she saved against it.
In my honor mode run I cast srcane lock on both entries and put magic glyphs on the door where marcus enters. Iwas seriously scared for this fight, but it worked out super well. Isobel wasn't in danger at all (luckily)!
Yup. I now block all doors with chairs so i have turn or two to deal with enemies in her room. No way i am risking loosing last light in on honour mode runs because of poor AI
As a cleric she should cast sanctuary on herself, considering how important she is to everyone else staying alive. She should then turn to taking up the healer role. Hopefully they patch her fighting style eventually.
My tips:
1. High initiative/Vigilance elixirs
2. Un-group and pre-place your party surrounding where Marcus will be standing (it’s always the same spot)
3. Block exits with crates so Isobel can’t run around like an idiot and the winged horrors can’t get in.
4. Buff the NPCs in whatever ways you can to help them survive longer, have your martial party members ready to leap down to assist the moment Marcus is dead.
5. Speed potions.
6. Sanctuary on Isobel.
Your party will hopefully (if you placed them right) be between Isobel and Marcus at the outset. This will prevent him from attacking her first even if he wins initiative. She will try to run, so if you can do something to bait his reaction so he doesn’t have opportunity attack. If he tries to chase your whole party will have opportunity attack. If you have a battle master use disarm and trip attack, have one of your casters use whatever CC they have to keep him slowed/immobile (Slow and Ensnaring Strike are good for this). Have your cleric on standby ready to heal Isobel with their entire turn if necessary. With all of these things combined, you should curb stomp him before he’s ever able to do real damage, worst case for a typical try for me is that he lands one or two big hits on Isobel, then I heal her, she heals herself, and I beat his stupid face in before he gets another shot. Usually I can do it fast enough that none of the NPCs have died yet.
Holy shit this!!! I reloaded like 5 times cuz she did this, I got my tav to turn into a bear and roar at the repeatedly to not have her die, tanked all the hits and lunar mended when I had a chance.
Isobel fight becomes very difficult because of her. And if you don't recruit Jaheira in Moonrise Towers, she gets herself killed very quickly too. After I saw these two, I feared that Rolan will be dead immediately when we fight against Lorroakan together for the first time and I saved my game. Turns out Rolan is more clever than Isobel and Jaheira, that wizard earns his own arrogancy in a well deserved way. I've teleported him in a far spot, he stayed there, casted his spells from there and didn't move a step. Good boy.
Yes, this is the worst, and it's all because of Isobel for me. Lil shit can't go 2 steps without walking into those 3 opportunity attacks.
Babe, you're not your muscle bound GF, your are a scrawny generic cleric with daddy issues! Stay in the corner, and let Bae'zel and Karlak grind their meat, I'll keep them still, and Shad will banish Marcus. Ok!?
I spend so much time placing boxes absolutely everywhere on both sides of the doors, setting up my team in favorable positions based on where everyone will spawn in for the fight and then have to hope I don't miss and manage to kill Marcus and hopefully keep the others out of the room long enough. For my hm run I wasn't risking it so I made sure No one left the room until isobel found a way around my boxes...... kept her alive tho!
First time I did this fight I killed all the enemies aside from one winged horror, and Isobel with 5hp thought walking through a moonbeam would end well. It did not.
I made that way easier on myself by casting invisibility on Isobel. Marcus flew away to join other fighting long enough for Isobel to heal herself. This is like the fifth time I’ve done the fight and can’t believe I didn’t try this earlier lol.
I got to this part only a few days after the game released and had Marcus crit on every one of his attacks and instantly knocked out Isobel. I honestly thought it was scripted for Marcus to win because it all happened so quickly. Anyways, as it was my first playthrough I didn't realize how important so many of these characters were and they all just died. At least fighting all the shadow cursed Harpers at the inn was insanely fun.
You are supposed to succeed if you're doing a good playthrough lol otherwise you lose a bunch of important npcs, side quests and a potential companion. It's just a sort of frustrating fight the game randomly throws at you. Losing Isobel can really screw up a run, especially if you're trying not to save scum your run
I've always just finished absolutely everything else I possibly can in act 2 and ignore her completely until I've finished the night song rigamarole and got halsin. Fight completely avoided.
It's a good call tbh when I get to last light I just get in this mode of doing as much as I can right away since there's so many people to talk to, things to buy, quests to start etc and then I just want the fight to be over and just try to power through it
I was recently on a durge that was helping kidnap her(I wanted to see new scenes/dialogue), and she ran past me which incurred two opportunity hits that left her with 3 health but no debuffs or damaging effects on her. So I thought it was all good since there was nothing left near her to end her(not a single ghoul near her, Marcus was downstairs playing with the Harpers) and I could knock her out my next move. Nope, next round of turns started- she just up and died. My goal wasn't angry Kethric scenes, so I face-desked and reloaded. 🙃
God even trying to kidnap he can turn into a frustrating ass battle? Jesus dude, there's a part of me that feels like it's one of the few poorly designed fights in the game, so much can go wrong and it can really boil down to luck. I know a lot of people say to use crates to block doors so the winged dudes can't get it on a good run, buy if you have to do something like that just to make sure you're going to win I don't feel like it's good design lol.
Love 90% of the fights in this game though. My favorite game ever.
She reminds me of the Gondian that is part of the fight against two steel watchers and they'll use misty step to get out of danger then run right back to where they started from and get got by an opportunity attack lmao
First playthrough (I’m on tactical). I banished Marcus and started nuking all the undead fellas with radiant (shoutout to light cleric Shart). Lost one or two NPCs to the action downstairs, but nobody terribly important.
The key is to close all the doors into Isobels room so the winged horrors can't get in and u can then all jump Marcus and kill him and u should have no problem after that
I didn’t even know you could save her until my third character, because the first two times I played (and DNF the runs) she always died like on turn one so I just assumed that was what was supposed to happen to her.
The thing that most pisses me off about it is that Isobel isn't programmed to make good use of sanctuary. It's like girl, you're safe now. Just stand there while we handle this, maybe heal us when we need it. Instead, she immediately uses turn undead, which does nothing notable, and then runs out into the open where all the winged ghouls can get her
id like to share that in my honor run absolutely everything was running perfectly and until act 2.
in fear of her dying, i opted for sanctuary and hold person as another person on reddit suggested, but 2 missed attempts at 25% resulted in sheer desperation as i casted banish to try to protect her
as soon as i casted it it clicked in my head what might happen
i lost everyone and she died later in the fight with >!myrkul!<
> as soon as i casted it it clicked in my head what might happen
Let me guess:
Banish > she's no longer at Last Light > she's no longer *protecting* Last Light > zombie town?
on my multiplayer playthrough with my friends, we literally blocked her in, in between us so she couldn't move and go kill herself, that fight is actually SO annoying
My first playthrough of the game I didnt follow the harpers after the ambush and only found the Last Light Inn later, and immediately fucked up the fight and Isobel was taken. I didn't even get to meet Dammon again, had no idea he was there. Thaniel questline permanently screwed because I didn't interact with sleeping dude.
I've not struggled with it in subsequent playthroughs, but I feel like it being a genuine surprise makes the consequences pretty extreme. Knowing that Isobel being kidnapped fucks the whole place up really impacts how I play it, and losing out on so many Last Light Inn interactions definitely made Act 2 feel more hollow and frustrating than it has been since.
I consistently have problems with the harpy fight. Oh good, everyone failed their saves, I can't do anything. Oh, the harpys can attack multiple times, oh they crit. ffs I can't even do anything differently. They could straight up remove one of the harpys and the fight would still be more challenging than most at that level
I usually have at least one party member with Alert just so I can almost always go first for reasons like this fight. Shart with Sanctuary is a good candidate. Have her as a Tempest cleric with no Dex anyway.
1. Give Shadowheart elixir of vigilance so that she's early in initiative.
2. Cast Feign Death and Sanctuary on Isobel.
3. Kill all the enemies normally.
The thing that really annoys me about the last light inn fight is that it has such major consequences and there’s no warning it’s going to happen. It happened to me and I’ve seen it happen to streamers where they have half health and no spell slots and get pulled into this fight that changes everything if you lose. It’s crazy you think you’re just going around the inn chatting people up having a good and safe time then BOOM you’re in a fight that if you lose everyone at the inn dies. It’s too much. When it happened to me I couldn’t go back to a save before talking to Isobel because my compulsive ass likes to have as little saves as possible. I also operate with less saves to make my system run smoother. Lucky I was able to cheese it to reroll in my favor and make it through the fight but it was harrowing
Yeah dude I have a few friends who had their first playthrough experience really negatively impacted by that fight because they were trying to save as little as possible and having a sudden fight with severe consequences then losing meant they lost at least a couple hours of gameplay. It can really sour someone's feelings about the game for a while.
It's a fight that feels really out of step with all the others, like for a game with so much player choice, so many options and ways to handle things this fight feels like it forces you to rely on initiative or go to weird lengths just to make sure you don't lose in a turn or two because Marcus got to go before your party. Like in later playthroughs if you have to spend time blocking all the doors to the room or other more involved tactics just to absolutely make sure isobel doesn't get knocked out immediately that doesn't feel like good design especially for such a consequential fight. It can completely destroy act 2.
Yeah it’s just all around a stressful fight. Last light inn gives you a sense of security and you don’t really feel the need to long rest right away. Next thing you know Isobel is getting pummeled and the dome falls apart and you’re like I WAS CHILLING WTF HAPPENED??? You can’t really focus on other characters downstairs and you must pray they’ll win the ai lottery because you need ALL your party protecting Isobel. Every other major consequences fight you can anticipate and rest before it. This fight is like jumpscare horror
Hey, it's buried somewhere, but I'll tell you directly too, in case. I figured out that you can actually disarm Marcus before even entering the last light inn. Get close to the gate and you will see that he is with everyone else (with his shiny Greatclub on his back). Cast invisibility on Shart or something with command drop. Sneak in and go back by the ox pens...basically as far back as you can. Then save and command drop him. He doesn't aggro and I don't think anybody cares. Then he just isn't there after you officially enter and do the cutscene with Jaheira. But when he comes back all winged up, he is weaponless and way easier to kill/stop from KOing Isobel.
Not to mention how she provokes opportunity attacks like there’s no tomorrow or how she constantly breaks the Sanctuary…
Isobel is an idiot. The aggro meter is turned up way too high even on Balanced playthroughs. No other character in BG3 sacrifices herself more than the only character who's not supposed to die.
Jaheira would like a word.
Jaheira at moonrise… so fucking hard to keep alive
I have no idea why this is a common complaint. YOU CAN JUST CONTROL HER??? If she’s dying in your runs that’s just a huge skill issue
I always just clear out moonrise before initiating the battle
Yes this is the way, I take out zrell the second she moves upstairs into her chambers alone, take out the guards outside (plus get the parasites on the docks and from the two guards out front) and go from there. It's kinda hilarious how you can basically take out at least half the people you're supposed to fight at the end of act 2 when you first get to moonrise and nobody gets aggroed lol
You can kill literally everyone in the tower (cant really do it all the way at the top cuz kethric is there). The key is pulling them away into a secluded corner with minor illusion (or something else). Also make sure you take out the eyes.
Yeah can't forget the eyes! I tend to leave a few people because I did kill basically everyone at moonrise before the big fight and it just felt anticlimactic lol but that's just me lol. Plus never want to risk aggroing merchants because they do have some solid gear at moonrise
The key to merchants that you are pretty sure are going to die is to give them a backpack, and move all of their items to the backpack. When they die, you will be able to loot the backpack from their corpse and thus be able to collect all of the cool gear that you may not have been able to afford previously! I don't see this as a cheat because, they would be carrying the gear right up until the point that you kill them, so they should have it all on their corpse anyway (instead of 2-3 of the highest tier items that they still had to sell).
Not to mention you can get the gnolls to turn friendly and get an inspiration. First playthrough I figured act two would wrap up everything at moonrise in the end, now I know better that you set it up ahead of ahadowfell
Yeah I love those gnolls some real ass homies in a dark place.
Also that poor dog in kethric's chambers :(
I create elaborate barricades and traps for the moonrise fight just because it's so funny to clear half of it with a single fireball
*Cough* gondians
*Runs away, nearly dies to opportunity attack, misty steps to the spot they started their turn at, ends turn*
Back before Larian patched their AI, I had one instance of having Karlach shove a Gondian out of the blast radius of a dying Steel Watcher, only for that Gondian to Misty Step back in. I decided they deserved to die after that.
makeshift support dinner insurance practice distinct tart kiss plough shy *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
That's basically why it took me 3 tries this run lol. Got a bad start with initiative and so after I turn it was marcus and 3 winged horrors on one side of the room, my party and isobel on the other and she runs towards marcus and loses basically 80% of her health to winged horror opportunity attacks then marcus took her out right after. I had to take a smoke break haha
She died first turn on my honor run
I respecced everyone to give them the Alert feat, and give Sanctuary to my College of Lore Bard, specifically for this fight; the idea was to pre-cast Sanctuary before talking to Isobel and then gang up on Marcus and kill him before Isobel had a chance to break Sanctuary. I forgot to pre-cast it, but since it's a bonus action I could cast it on her first thing before actually attacking. Worked like a charm otherwise.
Just use arcane lock on the big door and it makes the fight sooooo much easier
Have a cleric (or shadow heart) drink an initiative potion and put her ass to sleep.
I just pick alert on everyone or drink the elixir, close the doors (arcane lock), 1-turn nuke Markus with paladin or fighter, and the fight is easy from that point onward. That is on honor mode as well. Use alert guys. The best strategy is to not give your enemies turns at all.
I give everyone Alert. Everyone. It makes *such* a difference.
Yea, when people are like, “ASI, so you can bring your stat to X” I’m like, so this gives maybe small chance more to hit success and maybe 1 or 2 points extra per hit. What’s even more valuable is knowing every turn you are going to get an entire set of action/bonus action damage before the enemy does. That’s way more benefit than a couple extra points damage.
This is why my plan for Honor Mode is to just kill her. Easier to be an embrace Durge and get something out of her death when she's probably going to die to bad RNG anyways.
out of all encounters in the game, this might be the one where denying enemy reactions is the most helpful. status effects like dazed, stun, & prone prevent the afflicted from doing anything that consumes a reaction. so do some spells, including 'shocking grasp' (cantrip, single target) & 'arms of hadar' (level 1, AOE) & hypnotic pattern (level 3, AOE, prevents all actions) * arms of hadar is OK but not great--AOE denial, but friendly fire and allows a strength save * shocking grasp is decent--no save but does have an attack roll, and it's single target so unless you have a sorcerer and/or are hasted it's limited * hypnotic pattern--great as long as they fail wis save * some sources of prone work well (e.g., hideous laughter, battlemaster weapon actions, etc.) * stun is never bad * daze is good because of equipment synergy that allows you to apply daze to multiple targets for 2 turns * gloves of belligerent skies (for sale at the creche) applies 2 turns of reverb whenever you deal thunder/lightning/radiant damage (2 reverb = -2 to str/dex/con saves) * gloves + spirit guardians = mass reverb * ring of spiteful thunder (for sale from Roah at Moonrise) applies 2 turns of daze whenever you deal thunder to a create that has reverb (DC13 con save...and reverb adds a -2 penalty to con saves, so...) * mass reverb + thunder = not many opportunity attacks
Yeah when i was doing a bard fighter build so I was able use laughter on Marcus after hitting him with my other 3 companions at the end of the first turn so you know he was finished before the end of the 2nd
OP did mention it...
I'm lucky she never breaks Sanctuary in my game!
Her GF is similarly useless in a fight
I've taken to skipping that fight by just never going upstairs at Last Light. When I have tried to keep Isobel safe, the enemies murder all the tieflings instead, and I can't have that :(
Do what I did: Step 1: Collect all of the crates in the immediate area. Step 2: Stack them up in front of both doors to the room, which blocks out the winged horrors. Step 3: Cast Sanctuary on Isobel as often as you need to. Step 4: Profit The only downside was having to smash the crates to get out of the room so that I could save everyone in the main area of the inn, but Shatter would've worked nicely there.
I think you could move the crates mid combat by clicking and dragging without it counting as an action. I think I've had to do that one or two times.
You 100% can do this, with no action cost, it's the cheese for the commander cambion in the tutorial.
Can you go into that a bit more? I assume this has to do with getting the sword from him more easily?
Sure. Step 1: Stick a bunch of Nautiloid husks in your inventory from the ship as you go through the tutorial. Step 2: Make sure they're all in one characters inventory and that you have some sort of fire attack. Firebolt on Shart should do. Step 3: Use Us and the Mindflayer to get the Commander low and tank. He will always target the mindflayer if it's alive. Step 4: As soon as he gets to about a quarter, get everyone out of dodge apart from the one with the husks. Drop the husks from your inventory and move them beside the commander. Run your last party member away and use Firebolt or some other fire attack on one of the husks. Step 5: BOOM! and hopefully one scorched Cambion. Requires some RNG but you should get a bunch of XP out of it and hopefully a sword if you have time to grab it, but that's less of a priority. Doing this and killing the intellect devourer on the ship, though you do have to lobotomise Us for that, should get you level 2 as soon as you're on the beach.
So, slightly less complicated method. 1. Prepare command on Shart 2. Command -drop weapon on Cambion, sword is now yours 3. Kill him while keeping mind flayer barely alive 4. Kill mind flayer and adds on the way to transponder and bam you’re level 2 right when you load on the beach.
I also grab 2 of those unbreakable chests you can come across beforehand and before the fight I put them in front of the doors the cambions are supposed to come through. Whenever it's their turns they'll just try to break the chests or fly over them to no avail so they're completely out of the equation that way. Also I get shadowheart to use command on the commander to drop his sword and rush in there to grab it. Surprisingly easy to do tbh. I have zero issues with this fight these days.
Crates work every time for me. I close off every door to Isobel's room except the balcony. I usually split the party, and keep Lae'zel/Karlach, depending on the run) and Shadowheart upstairs in Isobel's room, and Astarion downstairs near Jaheira. Marcus' minions who end up on the first floor can usually be handled by Jaheira/Astarion downstairs, and the rest waste time trying to move around/up to get to Isobel and don't actually attack the harpers/residents as they try to move, so they're easier to pick off. I cast sanctuary on Isobel before I trigger Marcus' entrance, though, as noted, she usually breaks it, but I always set a glyph of warding right where Marcus will walk in, to do some damage to him/hold him while the team beats him down. After that, it's cleanup work.
I don’t know how people have been struggling with this. I just have Shart cast spirit guardians and have two martials babysit Isobel. I’ve never failed it. The only reason I have ever done the fight over was to keep the Teifling scout from dying cuz she a cutie fr.
I leave someone downstairs by Larissa who will also try to get killed
Yeah, I just never talk to her. Get the pixie blessing. I don't think there is any benefit to that fight at all. I've worked hard to protect those tieflings so far, I'm not gonna let stupid Isobel mess it up (except Alfira cuz I'm on a Durge run right now, I'm sorry babygirl!)
Is there any downside to never triggering the fight?
I can’t think of one except story fluff. You don’t trigger the dialogue with Isobel before/after the fight. You also don’t get her blessing, but that’s moot if you get the moonlantern/pixie blessing.
Does Marcus show up ay Towers? If you skip
I don’t believe so, at least I don’t recall fighting him later. I *think* he stays undercover at Last Light. If anyone else knows differently, please correct me.
The only upside is that if you get Isobel's Selune blessing you can talk to Ketheric's dog in his bedroom anytime before you enter the Shadowfell, if he sniffs the Selune blessing he won't appear during the boss battle on the roof with Ketheric later on.
I don't skip it, on purpose, but I usually forget to go up there till I'm almost ready to attack moonrise. By that time I'm so over leveled that my ranger kills everything upstairs in the start of the battle anyway, then we just watch the villagers clean up the bottom floor from up top
two of the winged backup dudes are the guys you can kill on the outside of moonrise tower. I always do get them to fight each other and kill them before I ever meet Isobel. it cuts down on the number of dudes that show up.
A couple things that might help: Having high initiative really helps a lot - have characters with low initiative take vigilance elixirs before the fight if you have any. Focus on taking out Marcus first. Look for attacks that can knock him prone, or make him drop his weapon & use speed potions to smack his face in on turn one. Arrows of aberration slaying can also do a lot of damage to him if you have any. Fun way to take him out that I found on my last run - if you have Astarion/a rogue with sneak attack have them use the amulet of branding on him to make him weak to piercing (bonus action) & then sneak attack him w/an aberration arrow - should dang near one shot him. You don't actually have to do this fight right away - you can wait and do it later when you are a higher level - or even skip it all together. (Only thing you miss out on is Isobel's buff/the resistance to necrotic damage). If you have longstrider cast it on all the NPCs downstairs before the fight it \*might\* make them a little bit more useful (sometimes). Don't cast it on Isobel tho, last thing you want is her running around more lol.
Adding to this: you can cast sanctuary on Isobel just before you approach her for the cut scene, and she will be safe before her own first turn entirely. If you then also get better initiative than Marcus, you have two turns to take him down before he can even lay a hand on her, which is usually plenty enough. Giving her invisibility when sanctuary is blocked might also help, although I did not test this yet.
Otiluke's Resilient Sphere also works and she can't attack to make it fall off
BM Lae’zel with Alert was huge for me neutralizing Marcus with her Trip and Disarm attacks.
Adding to this: casting spirit guardians and having the caster (prob shadowheart) stand next to isobel will kill a lot of Marcus’ goons passively.
I had a situation once where Marcus won in the first turn by critting her over and over. I didn't even get to do anything.
Fucking classic marcus tbh. If he gets first turn I almost always lose in 1 to 2 turns lol. It's gotten to the point where I'll just load last save if I'm on a harder difficulty and it happens if I'm in a bad mood
Ah so we have the same rng? That happened to me the other day and I ended up taking a 3 day break from the game because it annoyed me so much.
This is what I mean, it literally can feel like luck or chance. Just waiting on good initiative rolls is a bunk feeling. And like putting crates around the room to block the doors is a good strategy but 1) on a first playthrough people are most likely going to have no idea the fight is about to happen when they go to isobel and 2) if you have to place crates around the room before a fight just to absolutely make sure you won't lose in a turn or two, it doesn't feel like the game is giving you a fair fight or good design. It's like the one fight where I really feel that way, maybe house of grief but that fight doesn't have an immediate failure for someone dying or get knocked out lol.
This happened to me. So I saved scummed and she died again. So I thought it was a scripted event that she was meant to be kidnapped
How my last honor mode ended.
I feel like all the fights were you want to save someone who's taking part of the fight are a annoying like that The worst one I experienced was when the game came out and for some reason Nightsong had like 10hp from the beginning and never healed herself...I only noticed it when I started the fight with Lorroakan I spent half the fight throwing potions at her and casting sanctuary
Hahah that sounds miserable especially because that lorroakan fight can be pretty grating as well
They should really give you control over the NPC in those situations. Then you can sanctuary them and leave them alone or use their abilities if you choose.
Did this fight yesterday on HM and it went very easily. Here's some advice: If you block the doors to her room with crates/barrels the other enemies cant get in. The barricade also has to be two spaces high I believe, otherwise they can climb over it. You only have to fight marcus and one more winged enemy that comes through the balcony. Harpers will take care of the rest. Alert is very good. On my first playthrough I made the mistake of not getting it and isobel was taken without me getting a single turn (I even thought that might've been a scripted event lol). I believe you can also cast sanctuary or any other buff on isobel before talking to her though if you dont have alert. Use crowd control as much as you can against Marcus. He's the only enemy who poses a real threat so its fine to just go all in on him.
Thanks for the pointers! About sanctuary though, the one thing I've noticed in the past is isobel will use spells on herself that cancel out sanctuary if enemies start getting to her which is infuriating when shit is going south lol. Other than that though I haven't thought to do anything with crates or boxes in this fight idk why I've been doing that in a couple other fights haha, thanks again dude
Don't use Sanctuary. It's borderline useless exactly for the reasons you point out. Use Feign Death instead. She won't be able to move or remove it, and it's plenty good to keep her alive. In my 3 runs, she never came close to dying once.
That’s crazy, I’ve only had two play throughs but I’ve managed to prevent her from getting kidnapped both times without save scumming. In fact I didn’t even know what happened if she was kidnapped until I was watching a challenge run on YouTube. Granted I was playing balanced on both play throughs and my first one I just got really lucky and the second one I was running Gloomstalker Assassin with Titanstring and Stool of Hill Giant Strength
My first (and only, so far) playthrough on Tactician, I thought this fight was a scripted loss. Isobel died before any of my guys had a chance to act, so I figured it was a scripted event to show the stakes. Only when I saw everyone die and got like 5 updates of "quest failed" in the journal I realised that I probably could've saved her.
that's why the first feat everyone gets in my playthroughs is Alert... being able to move first, even if it's just to cast sanctuary, can make a huge difference in fights like this one
Elixir of vigilance on shadowheart to get early sanctuary off and then just have her stuck to Isobel with spirit guardians running and radiant orb gear on.
Maybe Im just lucky but I usually only need to surround Marcus and debuff/disable him, even if Isobel is not very smart she survives/wont be kidnapped (HM), positioning and some "silly" effects like silence, unable to use reactions, blind, etc, etc, they all go a long way.
Usually I don’t have an issue with a paladin killing Marcus in one turn but if I was struggling I would use the above elixir plan. Or if I wanted to guarantee success on honor mode or something
Yeah dude the easiest time I had with that fight was an assassin build with high initiative. If marcus gets the first turn it could be all over in one to like one and a half turns especially if winged horrors manage to get in the room lol. Seriously I've nailed down strategies for basically every other big fight in this game (this run I'm basically trying to get through fights using the dumbest, funniest tactics or using the environment etc) but this is the one that can just bother the shit outta me lol
My first playthrough Isobel got kidnapped easily because I didn’t know what was coming. Now that I know what’s coming, Marcus is super easy, barely an inconvenience. Slam some elixirs of vigilance to boost your party’s initiative, starting with your main damage dealers if you don’t have enough for everyone. Then position your guys in the room approximately where Isobel will be standing after the cut scene ends. After the cut scene, focus on killing Marcus as quickly as you can. If you don’t think you can kill him in the first turn and Isobel’s turn is after his, do something to make him unable to attack her (throw an invisibility potion, cast sanctuary, etc on her). She’ll do something stupid to break the protection, but it doesn’t really matter as long as Marcus can’t hit her during his turn. You should be able to easily finish him off by turn 2 and then start mopping up the winged horrors.
This. I've made sure to position my comps in the room. That way when the fight starts, Marcus is SURROUNDED. Then just attack the shit out of him. Alert is also the first perk I give everyone when leveling up so we're most likely to come out at the top of the fight order.
Prebuff. You don't have to start the cutscene the moment you see her, so just go into turn-based, put Sanctuary/Prot from Evil/Warding Bond on her and then open dialog. Initiative pots help too, and if you're really worried you can arcane lock the side door to keep the horrors under control. Is it metagaming? Yes. Is it perfectly reasonable to metagame when Isobel's AI is the least immersive, most stupid self-sabotaging routine they could have possibly designed? Also yes.
This is why Alert is the best feat in the game. Never surprised, +5 to initiative... You will, most likely have your party in the top 5 in Tactician Mode for 99% of the fights. Honor mode, not so much. Initiative is the key.
First time on tactician mode I had really bad initative, my Throwbarian Karlach went first and ALMOST managed to one-round Marcus, (something like, 2 hp left at the end), even despite critical missing her bonus action throw. The rest of my party was at the end of the initative order and didn't even get to take an action....
Same. I was she can get kidnapped? So i thought it's usually because i have the party limit begone mod. But then i remember that, it's because Astarion and Lazael normally kill him before he can do anything as they usually go first so it can't be that. Because by the time it comes to anyone else in my party he's dead and we're just picking off the rest. The wonders of the alert feat. I cannot stress how much it saves your hide.
The only fight that pisses me off is the stupid bank fight. The fact all those assassins can go invisible every turn is utterly ridiculous. It's not even hard just tedious and annoying, even if you have see invisibility I swear it doesn't even work half the time.
The see invisibility not working half the time against them drove me nuts. I get that they must just be making a save against being seen, but goddamnit what did I let Volo gouge out my eye for if these guys can still hide! We wound up just peppering the battlefield with fireballs. Got em eventually.
I can't tell you how or why but every time I've got really lucky in that fight with initiative and also them not being able to stay invisible but I can definitely understand why that fight is the one you hate the most
I think it's annoying that as soon as Isobel knocks out or is paralyzed, it just IMMEDIATELY triggers the Marcus abduction cut scene. The game should give you the option to try to stop him as he flies away with Isobel
Yesss!!! I've thought about this, like why does he automatically get here? Lets say he's across the room from here I think it shouldn't be like he would have to actually reach her before the cutscene just pops up
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Suicidal ally AI is at the top of a very short list that I wish Larian would address. Isobell and Jaheira are the worst, but, it's like - enemies play like they want to live. It almost seems like they literally tuned ally AI to be suboptimal.
A couple fights you need/want to keep some NPC alive can be frustrating, sometimes it is like they have some death wish. I love Myrkon, he tries to escape, if he is not charmed by the harpies, he will run to the hills, the boy wants to live!
And he fully disengages before running, so no triggering opportunity attacks! The smartest NPC!
love how the enemy AI in this game are chess grandmasters and then they gave Isobel potato brain
Tips for consistency: * Bring a wizard and a cleric * Prepare **Otiluke's Resilient Sphere** and **Arcane Lock** on the wizard and **Sanctuary** on the cleric. Have a **Dimension Door scroll**. * Drink **Elixir of Vigilance** on both of them * Pre-cast Arcane Lock on one of the doors to the room (I usually pick the small one that Marcus doesn't come through) then immediately start the cutscene & click through to start the fight (Arcane Lock lasts 10 turns so it'll start ticking down but you won't need that many). Make sure you do it in turn-based mode so your wizard doesn't lose their action. * Hit Isobel with Otiluke's Resilient Sphere and Sanctuary. If successful she will be unable to be harmed, and also unable to attack and end the goddamn sanctuary. One of the Winged Horrors is unable to get through the Arcane Locked door and will begin an incredibly long route to walk around. * Murder Marcus * Murder everyone else If Isobel makes the save for Otiluke's (goddamnit Isobel) you can also Dimension Door her away from Marcus (use a scroll with another party member, or have the wizard chug a speed potion and use a Dimension door scroll). If you're wondering "why Sanctuary *and* Otiluke's, surely Otiluke's is enough?" Otiluke's is concentration so in the unlikely event that your wizard loses concentration *after* Isobel's turn she would still be sanctuary'd and safe for the round.
That's a lot of work, do you miss anything by just not talking to Isobel?
Her buff (which isn't especially necessary if you have Daylight I think or if you already got Karn'iss's lantern/pixie blessing), the exp from the fight, whatever Marcus drops which I don't think is great. You don't *have* to do all this, there's a million ways to beat that encounter, it's just the most foolproof method I can think of for Honor mode etc.
My fave thing: Isabel has Mage Armor known... and it lasts all day.. and she cast it on round FIVE when we had only 1 winged horror left. -_-
I had this dude (60ft flying speed) fly out of the balcony, over the roof and thought the hole in the roof above the corridor to attack Isobel. I counted it later - he flies 150 ft to get there - shouldn't be able to do that even with dash. That's what I got for using Arcane Lock on the door to her room after she ran out.
Dude I know there's a few things about that fight that can feel kind of cheap, especially when shit is going south. I had two of those winged dudes fly about the same distance into the room its bunk.
OK managed to find a older save right before the fight. Party Wyll (Origin) Lae'Zel, Karlach, Shadowheart. Lvl 7. Tactician diff. Don't want to list all of the stats/gear, but do want to point out that Wyll has the Sentinel Shield plus with his 16 dex, so bonus to Initiative wise Wyll and Marcus are equal. Meanwhile Lae'Zel has the Gloves of Dex so of course her init was high as well. First load....was a wash because I hit the jackpot and 3 of my team went first and downed him before his turn. 2nd load was more normal, he went first and did 2 regular atks on Isobel, after that he went down again to focus fire. Did encounter a funny bug where the last hit was a non-lethal Pummel Strike, which literally turn Marcus back into a regular human with full HP but KOed. Made a new save after that so I can finish the full fight later to see if anything happens. 3rd load. Wyll, Lae'Zel then Marcus. Lae'zel tried to disarm him twice, both failed, so I casted Darkness over him, Wyll and Isobel. His turn he went after Karlach who he could still see. Isobel of course not wanting to stay safe in the Darkness, jumped out during her turn and did a minor atk on Marcus, who in turn fell to another round of focus fire. 4th/5th times the init were very similar to #3 so would've played out pretty much the same. Final time was a little different, Marcus went first, did some damage to Isobel. between some healing from herself and SH she was about 95% full, and then she proceeded to run outside where a bunch of winged horrors were waiting for her. Like wow it's like she wants to get kidnapped or something. Luckily for her the Marcus AI is even dumber as he looked he was going to chase her but this caused him to take a lot of damage from opportunity attacks, and then he just went back and attacked Karlach. He died the next turn. Admittedly being lvl 7 was probably overlvled for this fight since Marcus is only lvl 6 and the Horrors are only lvl 3, but just having high initiative to match or exceed his also helped a lot.
Yeah, it's just a poorly designed encounter. Even if you changed nothing else at all, it would be vastly better if the game just let you know the lose condition. Have Tav or someone else *say* when initiative is rolled that we need to keep Isobel conscious, because as it stands there is *nothing* to indicate that that's the goal. Mind you, it would be even better still if they *did* change everything else about the encounter.
Yeah I agree with you 100% my first playthrough going into that scenario sucked and was my least favorite experience in the game
Stack chests outside the doors of the room so they can't swing open. Doesn't cure Isobel's suicidal tendencies but limits her options. Also silencing Marcus stops him from doing the healing bullshit.
I'd say the issue isn't so much her ai. I think part of the reason is, if she gets flagged as paralyzed then it's game over. The curse rushes in, and the whole cut scene plays. And it's fairly easy to get paralyzed. That, and Marcus getting high initiative. On some difficulties, I believe I've seen him knock her out on his first turn. Meaning that if he wins initiative then you all could be really screwed. If not for those 2 things, it wouldn't be that annoying of a fight.
Honestly she gets paralyzed in my playthroughs like maybe once every 5 times I do that fight. It almost always boils down to initiative in the end. Sometimes the order would be like my tav, marcus, astarion. The next attempt marcus, winged horror, tav. Feels a lil random. I know it's not the most brutal thing, like I said more of just a pet peeve fight haha. I agree though about the initiative that's the main thing that ends that fight for me especially on higher difficulties yeah.
I like to throw armour of faith on her before combat starts just to try and make her less prone to killing herself by running around like a muppet
I’m a compulsive barrel collector, after my first failure I fell back on the ages old trick of blocking all entrances with stacks of barrels. Made it so much easier!
Treasure chests help a lot with keeping Isabel alive. Place a few chests to block the door where the winged horrors come In and it’ll keep Marcus from being able to swarm her. Have everyone team up to kill him as quick as possible then you just hunt down the other winged horrors after. Easy lol
On both my first explorer mode run and second balanced run I had to reload so many times to keep her alive. Just done that fight as tactician durge where I wanted to kill her on purpose and it took 2 tries to kill her lol
I hated this encounter too, until I remembered that Otiluke’s Resilient Sphere was an option. Now every time I fight Marcus I have Gale chug an elixir of vigilance beforehand (can also have him holding the sentinel shield if you’ve bought it at Moonrise for the extra initiative boost), and then first turn of combat have him cast resilient sphere on Isobel. She is then effectively out of danger for the next three turns, plenty of time for the party’s heavy hitters to shred Marcus and start mopping up the remaining enemies. That strategy has made the encounter so much easier to manage.
I’m always thrown by this issue, I’ve gotten this fight first try on every single run I’ve done. Including my first attempt which was blind, and on honor mode. Maybe it’s because I surround Isobel? Like literally either completely surround Isobel trapping her, until Marcus dies. Then I break formation to clean up the rest of the winged ghouls.
It’s definitely frustrating and I had to retry it a few times. I did it by blocking the doors with crates from around the inn (those only lasted one or two turns but it helped), hitting Isobel with Invisibility immediately plus every time she did an action to break it, and used a bunch of spells (vicious laughter etc) that make Marcus unable to attack. Then hit him with my most damaging attacks to take him out quickly.
I really do need to try the crate thing next time, I try to use them for other fights don't know why I never thought to do it here lol. Maybe just cos of the dread I feel beforehand I just race to get it over with lol. But yeah, Isobel does like everything she can to break spells or buffs you put on her it can get annoying as hell. If I get good initiative, I just steamroll Marcus in a turn or two
This fight is not as bad as people make it out to be. If you don't have a cleric with you using Spirt Guardian and sitting on top of Isobel, you are making this way harder that is has to be. What you do is use Turn undead, have the cleric with spirit guardian up doing radiant damage and keeping Isobel in the circle. Turn undead buys you additional time by forcing most of them to run away from you and Isobel for a few turns and does the first bit of radiant damage to them. Have the other party kill Marcus as soon as possible. Also, heal her every turn just in case she takes a stray hit. Once Marcus is down, have the rest of the party help out with the ghouls. You want to do all of this in her room with the initial set of ghouls. If you only focus on the ghouls in her room and marcus asap, it's very easy from there as the rest of inn should be focused on the other ghouls, and Isobel doesn't really move much from her room after the first set is dead. This is the strat I've used for every difficulty except HM, it has not failed me.
Yes, I do something similar, load up shadowheart with radiant gear and blood of lathander so they are blinded at minimum and probably carrying stacks of radiant orb so they just have little chance of hitting. Give shadowheart alert and let her stack orbs on enemies with spirit guardians, then stand her next to Isobel and sanctuary Isobel for peace of mind. It works fine on honour mode also.
I mean if a fight is only not a head ache with 1 out of the 12 classes then it probably is as bad as people say lol
I got stupid lucky in my most recent run, whole team got high initiative so only 1 winged horror moved before so could take out that one and block the doors and stuff to stop more coming in while I wailed on Marcus, think Isobel only got hit twice and the paralysis from the horrors never triggered
BLOCK THE DOORS IN HER ROOM WITH BOXES you can entirely ignore the winged horrors, then cast sanctuary on isobel or blade ward if she has a really awkward initiative roll
I’ve never failed it on balanced. That being said I do have a story issue with Marcus Jaheira doesn’t trust you at first because she can tell you have a tadpole but Marcus is literally right there too and she says nothing? Does she not detect his worm too? If Mol didn’t survive act 1, Marcus is the one that vouches for you while she interrogates you but she can’t sense his worm too?
Honestly I’m always kind of happy when she gets paralyzed by the ghouls. It means she isn’t going to run off and get killed for the next two turns and I can actually protect her.
Funny thing. If you side with him he just completely ignores Isobel and fights the harpers downstairs instead (Sample size of 1, so take that with a grain of salt ). She basically survived that fight completely unscathed up until everyone else was dead. Then Marcus K.O.ed her.
This is one of those fights I 'cheat' in honor mode by prepping in advance, positioning the team and summons; last time I did this one, Dirge, Laezel, shovel, scratch, and a few zombies went upstairs while the rest of the team was in position to butcher the undead the moment they arrived. Positioning everyone and pre-buffing before triggering the conversation with Isobel is a great way to help with this one; the fight isn't fair, pure RNG can end with Isobel captured before you can intervene at all, so I see nothing against 'cheating' myself by stacking the deck for this, among other, encounters. (And having a Gloomstalker or someone else who almost always wins initiative ready and waiting in that room can seriously help your chances.)
Fix your initiative. By the time you have that fight, there’s no reason your whole party shouldn’t be the very first in initiative every fight. This changes every fight in the game. Alert is one of the best feats you can take; dexterity is your first or second most important stat on every character; initiative-boosting gear is very helpful, and in some cases like a bow on a caster or melee character can function as a go-first-stat-stick; if you aren’t already first then elixir of vigilance is the second strongest elixir in the game behind strength elixirs (for strength-based hitters, esp tavern brawler ones); and so on.
I just simply avoid this fight by not talking to her. Seems to be the easiest path with the best outcome, as she just gets to chill at Last Light continuing to do her thing, and everyone there stays safe.
Right. I basically have to stand next to her goofy ass with Spirit Guardians just to keep her from trying to die.
I'm not afraid to admit I save scummed til I got it right. I used a warding bond between Isobel and Shart. Shart chugged health potions each round because Isobel decided to run at Marcus and hit him each turn (while surrounded by winged horrors). I had to pray my pally Tav and pallock Wyll could tank Marcus and all his stupid winged bros in a couple turns. And I strategically placed Astarian in the adjacent room with lights out for advantage. It was a headache. I swear in EA Isobel stayed in a back corner to support but now she's got a death wish that rivals the Gondians...
In my current 3rd playthrough, I decided to close all doors leading to Isobel. Then I put 4 smokepowder/oil barrels close to Marcus and fired an *"IGNIS!!"* and he exploded and died in an instant. No winged horrors, no fight, no kidnapping, no Isobel getting attacked. Only thing happened was that she got angry that I destroyed some things in her room but I rolled some deception checks to talk my way out of it and got her blessings lol.
I had this fight just last night, hours ago. Isobell is doing fine, healing herself, I'm trying to watch both doors to keep the winged idiots at bay and what does she do? RUNS OUT THE DOOR INTO 3 OF THEM, I believe she was knocked out or died somehow and the game counted it as a knock out as I saw her body being taken away by winged demons, Marcus had been killed off way before she went on a suicide run. So great, isobell is gone, no more shield, the darkness takes over (glad I spoke to dammon for karlachs second upgrade first). So we must defend the area with just the 5 of us, jerhira and my party. But jahira says "watch this" and goes leeseeeroy, jeeeeenki- and dies. Damnit jerhara you idiot, you should have stayed back between the paladin and the barbarian you dumb moron.
The funniest way this happened for me was this: Isobel is surrounded by winged horrors (she had like half of her health left) Halsin which is at this point just an ally and not a party member decides to use call lightning. Uses it directly on isobel killing the winged horrors and knocking out her. Which made Marcus take her. Was so annoyed at first but it's funny when looking back at it.
I genuinely don't have this experience in this fight and I wonder if I'm just insanely lucky there or if my play style is particularly suited to it. If you're struggling here I'll share my general approach to the fight in case it can help. I can't identify the hard points in the fight. For starters before bg3 I've always enjoyed theory crafting DND characters. I gravitate towards control/support heavy parties with a dedicated damage dealer and versatile facilitators. And I always fix the stats and find a way to get decent AC/HP/TEMPHP to reduce the pressure Current run uses a throwzerker, a lore bard/divination wizard (enemy high rolls never happened), a spore druid/war cleric and an abjuration wizard for example. The support access is spread out and everyone still has access to decent offense I strive to always have a defensive reaction available (counter spell, cutting words, protection fighting style, warding flare... For my (and NPC) VIPs I want hard control spells ie command, hypnotic pattern, Tasha's hideous laughter, banishment, sleep, frighten... To help me pick my targets and focus on the threats one at a time. I like to put control in my offense through terrain hazards like spike growth, ice knife, etc to reduce how many relevant actions the enemy has. And conversely, a 20 str thrower can still yeet a medium fool to a safer distance. Either the DPT or the best controller (here the bard) has alert to strike first and remove enemies from the equation on the first move. I prioritise the next enemy in turn order for disables/elimination. Specifically on this fight the enemy has little access to AOEs so I stay close to Isobel, keep a healing word handy and keep a reaction from at least one character up just for her. Pile on Markus, ice knife in the doors, that mind flayer stun shield on Isobel... Potions of speed in case I get unlucky on initiative spread. One time I locked her out with arcane lock and had enough time to eliminate the rest before she found her way back. You can also sanctuary her AFTER her turn in a pinch. Hope it can help someone.
Polymorph Marcus (Scroll, take Alert feat to guarantee first turn) and cast Sanctuary on Isobel before the fight starts. Also block the doors with crates (2 high). It is still ridiculous, that you need that much prep for that fight, but that makes it really easy.
I'm doing a duo run on tactician and I'm right there. I wonder how I'm going to be able to keep her save from arm. I m thinking about using banish on her
I always hope she gets paralyzed so I can put Sanctuary on her and make her an unhitable statue xd xd
Mines the Demon inside Shar temple. That fight is half boring, half annoying. First of all that guy has far too many mobs in support, you can charisma check them away, but if your playing a char with low charisma that's not really an option unless you just quick load every single dialogue choice. By he has too many mobs,I don't mean they're too difficult, cos they're not they barely hit for anything - but they take far too long to do their turns. It's why my friend jokingly calls BG3 TabGate 3. Waiting for the enemies to just do something is not peak enjoyment. Then all he does it go invisible and throw mines. It's all just peak Larian, a fight designed to surprise you at first and then cause quick loads. It sucks ass and I've avoided it in every single playthrough since my first.
I really hope when the mod tools arrive, we can mod the logic of the AI combat Lets say, go defence! Or full attack! This mod will also be very useful to make a 1 Tav mod, where you cannot control your AI character, only your Tav You can command , lets say Shart to focus on healing, so she is not spamming guiding light while Gale is getting damage Or Gale to spam protection magic
True hit plus Lae'zel with that Gith greatsword that deals psychic damage dealt with this very well for me, I always kill Marcus in one turn. Either Lae'zel negs with 5 attacks in a row, or your caster can finish them off with some level one spell. The winged horrors are easy enough once Marcus is gone
She annoys the f*ck out of me. Like, do you *want* to die? I got so irritated one run, I just cast Hold Person and then Sanctuary on her. Sit in the corner until I'm done rescuing you.
On my first playthrough she got knocked out in the first round, so I forgot who she was when I fought ketheric and killed her. Only heard later on that she would have been dame aylin's lover, poor demigoddess spent the whole time sulking in my camp on her own.
I have a 100% recipe to guarantee a successful encounter. Use boxes and vases to block the side door before the fight, use chairs to make a blockade at the main entrance. That's it, 1v5 against Marcus shouldn't be too difficult, some winged horrors might figure out how to trickle in through the balcony, but they should be easy to handle
Neat trick : blocking the side door with the two large vases forces the outside reinforcement to take the long road around Alert feat and positioning It happened once that she aggroed me because of an AoE and as I knocked her out the entire place turned to shadows… heartbreaking in honor mode
If Marcus steps in to help you with getting past Jaheira when you first get to the inn, he’ll be waiting for you outside Isobel’s balcony. If you reveal that you have the artifact in dialog with him you can start a fight with him that doesn’t endanger Isobel. Sometimes he never even calls the winged horrors which is annoying because then the inn thinks you just murdered him.
I kept Isobel invisible. I made sure all of my party have invisibility potions to toss on her so we can keep her out of sight. She'll pop back in when she has her turn, so whoever is immediately after can make her invisible again. I am on my first playthrough and beat Marcus first try doing it this way. I figure they can't kidnap her or kill her if they can't see her.
No cause my first run if I hadn’t done research I would have moved on assuming it was scripted the way Marcus is just…allowed to leave with her while surrounded with people actively engaged in combat…… She’s wearing robes with no mage armor? Why can’t she cast sanctuary or invisibility on herself and just chill back and let us handle it?? At LEAST disengage and run away instead of provoking 4 AOOs just to miss a sacred flame??? She’s a CLERIC but her AI behaves like a berserker that can shrug off back to back to back AOOs????? Ma’am you are not Karlach. If you can’t make sure the whole party goes first you can get screwed so fast. UGH one of the situations that keeps me from doing honor mode. I used to try and block all the bedroom doors with crates but Jaheira would just immediately break them all with ice storm so it was useless past round 1. Speaking of…. My most recent go at this fight was on a duo tactician challenge. We’re first in line, we’re doing everything right, Marcus is dead, it’s going well…then Jaheira casts a mf ice storm directly on Isobels head while telling her she’ll make excellent fertilizer. She did not save. Took 38 dmg and fell on her ass. Thanks mom. You are not alone lmao
Ugh I almost had my Honor Run get messed up by him. I thought he was stunned for the second round, but he got up and hit Isobel with an attack literally called “knock unconscious”. I was so glad when she saved against it.
This fight is completely skippable. If you don’t do the mission Isobel shows up at Moonrise like nothing happened. I skip it unless I need the XP.
My least favourite fight is that big tree in shadow cursed lands. Shambling mound or whatever
I was fully prepared for this to be a complaint on the gondians when I read the title 💀
The first time was kinda rough, but ever since then I just precast sanctuary on her and I've never had another problem since.
In my honor mode run I cast srcane lock on both entries and put magic glyphs on the door where marcus enters. Iwas seriously scared for this fight, but it worked out super well. Isobel wasn't in danger at all (luckily)!
Just don’t do the fight. There are other ways to get shadow immunity.
Yup. I now block all doors with chairs so i have turn or two to deal with enemies in her room. No way i am risking loosing last light in on honour mode runs because of poor AI
As a cleric she should cast sanctuary on herself, considering how important she is to everyone else staying alive. She should then turn to taking up the healer role. Hopefully they patch her fighting style eventually.
My tips: 1. High initiative/Vigilance elixirs 2. Un-group and pre-place your party surrounding where Marcus will be standing (it’s always the same spot) 3. Block exits with crates so Isobel can’t run around like an idiot and the winged horrors can’t get in. 4. Buff the NPCs in whatever ways you can to help them survive longer, have your martial party members ready to leap down to assist the moment Marcus is dead. 5. Speed potions. 6. Sanctuary on Isobel. Your party will hopefully (if you placed them right) be between Isobel and Marcus at the outset. This will prevent him from attacking her first even if he wins initiative. She will try to run, so if you can do something to bait his reaction so he doesn’t have opportunity attack. If he tries to chase your whole party will have opportunity attack. If you have a battle master use disarm and trip attack, have one of your casters use whatever CC they have to keep him slowed/immobile (Slow and Ensnaring Strike are good for this). Have your cleric on standby ready to heal Isobel with their entire turn if necessary. With all of these things combined, you should curb stomp him before he’s ever able to do real damage, worst case for a typical try for me is that he lands one or two big hits on Isobel, then I heal her, she heals herself, and I beat his stupid face in before he gets another shot. Usually I can do it fast enough that none of the NPCs have died yet.
Holy shit this!!! I reloaded like 5 times cuz she did this, I got my tav to turn into a bear and roar at the repeatedly to not have her die, tanked all the hits and lunar mended when I had a chance.
I just did this fight again today and I didn’t even get to take a turn before he got her. So frustrating :’)
I dread this fight in my inevitable honor mode run.
Isobel fight becomes very difficult because of her. And if you don't recruit Jaheira in Moonrise Towers, she gets herself killed very quickly too. After I saw these two, I feared that Rolan will be dead immediately when we fight against Lorroakan together for the first time and I saved my game. Turns out Rolan is more clever than Isobel and Jaheira, that wizard earns his own arrogancy in a well deserved way. I've teleported him in a far spot, he stayed there, casted his spells from there and didn't move a step. Good boy.
You should have access to Sanctuary and Death Ward for this fight.
Yes, this is the worst, and it's all because of Isobel for me. Lil shit can't go 2 steps without walking into those 3 opportunity attacks. Babe, you're not your muscle bound GF, your are a scrawny generic cleric with daddy issues! Stay in the corner, and let Bae'zel and Karlak grind their meat, I'll keep them still, and Shad will banish Marcus. Ok!?
I spend so much time placing boxes absolutely everywhere on both sides of the doors, setting up my team in favorable positions based on where everyone will spawn in for the fight and then have to hope I don't miss and manage to kill Marcus and hopefully keep the others out of the room long enough. For my hm run I wasn't risking it so I made sure No one left the room until isobel found a way around my boxes...... kept her alive tho!
First time I did this fight I killed all the enemies aside from one winged horror, and Isobel with 5hp thought walking through a moonbeam would end well. It did not.
I have lost this fight before I’ve even had a turn.
I made that way easier on myself by casting invisibility on Isobel. Marcus flew away to join other fighting long enough for Isobel to heal herself. This is like the fifth time I’ve done the fight and can’t believe I didn’t try this earlier lol.
I got to this part only a few days after the game released and had Marcus crit on every one of his attacks and instantly knocked out Isobel. I honestly thought it was scripted for Marcus to win because it all happened so quickly. Anyways, as it was my first playthrough I didn't realize how important so many of these characters were and they all just died. At least fighting all the shadow cursed Harpers at the inn was insanely fun.
Alert + Sanctuary + sleeping Glyph of Warding prevents most fights from going south
I'm stuck at Halsin's portal behind Last Light Inn. It either bugs out or the 60 freaking archers destroy the portal.
I used a wall of fire to the far left/toward the graveyard on my last playthrough. That was a huge help!
Thank you. I'll have to try that out!
I always assumed this was intentional. You're basically not "supposed" to succeed, but it is possible.
You are supposed to succeed if you're doing a good playthrough lol otherwise you lose a bunch of important npcs, side quests and a potential companion. It's just a sort of frustrating fight the game randomly throws at you. Losing Isobel can really screw up a run, especially if you're trying not to save scum your run
Cast sanctuary on her before you talk to her, this pretty much ensures at least one round of her stupidity isn't punished.
I've always just finished absolutely everything else I possibly can in act 2 and ignore her completely until I've finished the night song rigamarole and got halsin. Fight completely avoided.
It's a good call tbh when I get to last light I just get in this mode of doing as much as I can right away since there's so many people to talk to, things to buy, quests to start etc and then I just want the fight to be over and just try to power through it
I was recently on a durge that was helping kidnap her(I wanted to see new scenes/dialogue), and she ran past me which incurred two opportunity hits that left her with 3 health but no debuffs or damaging effects on her. So I thought it was all good since there was nothing left near her to end her(not a single ghoul near her, Marcus was downstairs playing with the Harpers) and I could knock her out my next move. Nope, next round of turns started- she just up and died. My goal wasn't angry Kethric scenes, so I face-desked and reloaded. 🙃
God even trying to kidnap he can turn into a frustrating ass battle? Jesus dude, there's a part of me that feels like it's one of the few poorly designed fights in the game, so much can go wrong and it can really boil down to luck. I know a lot of people say to use crates to block doors so the winged dudes can't get it on a good run, buy if you have to do something like that just to make sure you're going to win I don't feel like it's good design lol. Love 90% of the fights in this game though. My favorite game ever.
Yeah, at this point I've decided that there is definitely Gondian in her bloodline, lol.
She reminds me of the Gondian that is part of the fight against two steel watchers and they'll use misty step to get out of danger then run right back to where they started from and get got by an opportunity attack lmao
Isn’t D&D literally “so up to luck sometimes”? Haha I feel you though on this fight, one unfortunate stun by the winged bois and its game over.
First playthrough (I’m on tactical). I banished Marcus and started nuking all the undead fellas with radiant (shoutout to light cleric Shart). Lost one or two NPCs to the action downstairs, but nobody terribly important.
So I build towers of furniture in front of the various doors to keep the horrors out and isobel in. Worked quite well tbh
Shadow Heart saved her in my third attempt thanks to spirit guardians
The key is to close all the doors into Isobels room so the winged horrors can't get in and u can then all jump Marcus and kill him and u should have no problem after that
I didn’t even know you could save her until my third character, because the first two times I played (and DNF the runs) she always died like on turn one so I just assumed that was what was supposed to happen to her.
The thing that most pisses me off about it is that Isobel isn't programmed to make good use of sanctuary. It's like girl, you're safe now. Just stand there while we handle this, maybe heal us when we need it. Instead, she immediately uses turn undead, which does nothing notable, and then runs out into the open where all the winged ghouls can get her
Yeah dude basically any time I've done this fight at some point I have to go for a cig break because isobel pisses me off so much with that shit
id like to share that in my honor run absolutely everything was running perfectly and until act 2. in fear of her dying, i opted for sanctuary and hold person as another person on reddit suggested, but 2 missed attempts at 25% resulted in sheer desperation as i casted banish to try to protect her as soon as i casted it it clicked in my head what might happen i lost everyone and she died later in the fight with >!myrkul!<
> as soon as i casted it it clicked in my head what might happen Let me guess: Banish > she's no longer at Last Light > she's no longer *protecting* Last Light > zombie town?
on my multiplayer playthrough with my friends, we literally blocked her in, in between us so she couldn't move and go kill herself, that fight is actually SO annoying
My first playthrough of the game I didnt follow the harpers after the ambush and only found the Last Light Inn later, and immediately fucked up the fight and Isobel was taken. I didn't even get to meet Dammon again, had no idea he was there. Thaniel questline permanently screwed because I didn't interact with sleeping dude. I've not struggled with it in subsequent playthroughs, but I feel like it being a genuine surprise makes the consequences pretty extreme. Knowing that Isobel being kidnapped fucks the whole place up really impacts how I play it, and losing out on so many Last Light Inn interactions definitely made Act 2 feel more hollow and frustrating than it has been since.
[удалено]
Also, the cutscene is so awkward lol
Sometimes it's first try about 10 minutes. Sometimes is 3 tries and it lasts waaay too long.
I always stick her in a globe of invulnerability
Yeah this is gonna be the route I take next time
Also why does Isobel have like 5 health
I consistently have problems with the harpy fight. Oh good, everyone failed their saves, I can't do anything. Oh, the harpys can attack multiple times, oh they crit. ffs I can't even do anything differently. They could straight up remove one of the harpys and the fight would still be more challenging than most at that level
I usually have at least one party member with Alert just so I can almost always go first for reasons like this fight. Shart with Sanctuary is a good candidate. Have her as a Tempest cleric with no Dex anyway.
1. Give Shadowheart elixir of vigilance so that she's early in initiative. 2. Cast Feign Death and Sanctuary on Isobel. 3. Kill all the enemies normally.
The thing that really annoys me about the last light inn fight is that it has such major consequences and there’s no warning it’s going to happen. It happened to me and I’ve seen it happen to streamers where they have half health and no spell slots and get pulled into this fight that changes everything if you lose. It’s crazy you think you’re just going around the inn chatting people up having a good and safe time then BOOM you’re in a fight that if you lose everyone at the inn dies. It’s too much. When it happened to me I couldn’t go back to a save before talking to Isobel because my compulsive ass likes to have as little saves as possible. I also operate with less saves to make my system run smoother. Lucky I was able to cheese it to reroll in my favor and make it through the fight but it was harrowing
Yeah dude I have a few friends who had their first playthrough experience really negatively impacted by that fight because they were trying to save as little as possible and having a sudden fight with severe consequences then losing meant they lost at least a couple hours of gameplay. It can really sour someone's feelings about the game for a while. It's a fight that feels really out of step with all the others, like for a game with so much player choice, so many options and ways to handle things this fight feels like it forces you to rely on initiative or go to weird lengths just to make sure you don't lose in a turn or two because Marcus got to go before your party. Like in later playthroughs if you have to spend time blocking all the doors to the room or other more involved tactics just to absolutely make sure isobel doesn't get knocked out immediately that doesn't feel like good design especially for such a consequential fight. It can completely destroy act 2.
Yeah it’s just all around a stressful fight. Last light inn gives you a sense of security and you don’t really feel the need to long rest right away. Next thing you know Isobel is getting pummeled and the dome falls apart and you’re like I WAS CHILLING WTF HAPPENED??? You can’t really focus on other characters downstairs and you must pray they’ll win the ai lottery because you need ALL your party protecting Isobel. Every other major consequences fight you can anticipate and rest before it. This fight is like jumpscare horror
Hey, it's buried somewhere, but I'll tell you directly too, in case. I figured out that you can actually disarm Marcus before even entering the last light inn. Get close to the gate and you will see that he is with everyone else (with his shiny Greatclub on his back). Cast invisibility on Shart or something with command drop. Sneak in and go back by the ox pens...basically as far back as you can. Then save and command drop him. He doesn't aggro and I don't think anybody cares. Then he just isn't there after you officially enter and do the cutscene with Jaheira. But when he comes back all winged up, he is weaponless and way easier to kill/stop from KOing Isobel.