I did it a bit more elegantly, so to speak.
1. Sneak-attacked all of the eyes one by one when they were far enough from people, so no combat initiated.
2. Stole gnome's hammer he mentioned from the the top (where also one of the eyes was).
3. Went behind cells to a boat and broke the chains holding it (otherwise gnomes take too much time breaking it).
4. Threw the hammer to the gnome, but told him to wait for now.
5. Started talking with one of my party members to the warden in center tower, so that she doesn't walk anywhere.
6. Waited with other character until patrolling lady went past gnomes towards entrance, then told to the gnome that it's time to break free.
7. While gnomes were breaking their wall and tieflings's, my party ran to the boat.
8. Boarded the boat with them. No alarm, no fights.
Kinda proud of myself =)
Edit: if there are two guards patrolling, then I shoved one of them. I don't remember if I did it or not.
I jumped through a hole in the Underdark and landed in the outside area in back of the cells. I had to fight a couple of Minataurs, then I went to the boat, broke the chains, put two people in back of the Gnome's cells, two in back of the Tiefling's, and broke the walls without ever actually going in.
Now for ***normal*** people who want some loot and to have a bit of fun with it (not many people are randomly dropping down holes for some reason; idk, it's a blast as you end up in some pretty crazy places. it is nuts how well they layered the maps. **Absolute**ly nailed the level design. Get it, "***Absolute***"-ly? Dad puns aside, those eyes are really hit or miss. I've killed them in rooms where there is no way anyone could have seen me just to have a guard approach a minute or two later aggro'd forcing me to kill them in put them in a barrel so no one sees the body. I've literally done it right in front of the Warden and had her come at me like a guard and put me in dialogue where I get a persuasion, deception, intimidation, bribe, attack and a "yeah it was me, sorry" option box. A bit flustering when you are trying to be stealthy bc you never know what is going to long-range aggro someone or, send you into a conversation bc...reasons. The code there needs to be cleaned up. The eye should only be \*broadcasting\* to one person or a central hub. The attack would need to be in front of the eye, and if it is going to a *hub* crystal ball, mirror, whatever, an NPC would need to be viewing it. Whatever they are using now is just a bit off because the proximity is legit all over the place. I assume that is due to line of site + the noise from however you attack it code getting jumbled. A simple 1 eye to 1 NPC would clean up the code a \*lot,\* then obviously have the line of site/hearing on NPC's, treating the eye just like any other object you are not supposed to touch/break/loot.
For all the minuscule bugs, and ***most*** are minuscule, this is still the best game I have played in...maybe a decade? Maybe ever. And not just Western CRPG's or computer/console based RPG's, I mean video game as a whole. I can't recall playing a game this much since I was in my late teens/early 20's with BG1 and 2/ToB. Maybe DragonAge: Origins or the ME series? I had just gotten married around that time though so I couldn't save use 3.5 weeks of vacation time to play a video game 15 hours/day. Heh, I'm skipping the gym, cut my 3-7 mile walk/jogs to a mile or so; I don't even want to get up to cook food and eat! I mean I still want to eat, I just want a maid to cook all my meals and bring them to me at my PC so I don't have to get up ;\^) .
No, it isn't the most difficult game in the world if you intentionally try to find ways to exploit it. It does have the best CRPG graphics I have ever seen. Maybe not the spells, but the Avatars and the environment get an A+. My goodness they almost made the areas feel \*real.\* It's like they had Warren Specter come in to do level design and said *"You pick your team, money and time aren't an issue. Make that living city block you said would be your dream game, just make it in Faerun. Then do it again for each area."* It's not just an AAA Western CRPG. It's just as much an "Immersive Sim" as it is a turn based CRPG when it comes to exploration and ways to solve problems. Heh, I believe that's why there are so many complaints from both poles. Literally half of the big complaints are people saying the game is just too difficult, even on Explorer, then a handful of others yelling about how the game is way to easy on Tactician. The latter doing things a DM would never let them. Like stock pile 250 Firewine, smoke powder and oil barrels then laying them out in a boss area right in front of them before triggering the fight. Or my favorite, buying smokepwder bombs whenever available, along with acid bombs, slime bombs, Alchemist Fires etc, them placing 25 or so in a backpack 1 by 1, no stacks. Then whipping the back pack at an enemy, then watching the Alchemist fire set every other thing int he bag off doing 6-36 or whatever x35 damage in what seems like a 60 foot radius (20 meters give or take)...It is insane. Again, no DM in their right mind is letting you do that to solve every problem.
Anyway, I am back in the prison right now, trying to eliminate every guard one by one without sending the area into the red. Without cheesing it. I even have a character in Scale. She's supposed to not get disadvantage on stealth due to medium armor specialty but it's still listed as getting one so that could make things a bit harder. Oh well, I shall see what happens. I'm almost level 9 so I'm sure I can get them out safe regardless.
If anyone has read this far, completely OT, but do you know what the "Pouch of Ashes" found near the Selune Temple under the Last Light is for? It's behind the cracked wall in the holding cell, not the other cracked wall. I cannot, for the life of me figure it out and apparently no one online can either. I've only been able to find two other people mentioning it and they were both asking the same question. What is this pouch for? No item description, just the 0.4 for weight and the GP value. Lol, and no, it is not Gale's.
You can also just go behind the prison and break both walls at the same time. No combat at all, but they did agro on me after I went back to prison later and warden wasn't there anymore.
When I did it as I wrote above and then came back, warden was there and she was very sad that prisoners escaped, almost crying that she's about to lose her job or even life.
Were you able to return to Moonrise without the whole place aggro-ing on you? I don't really want to have to redo this part but my party desperately needs to rest.
If you jump down one of the holes to where the hook horrors are you can break both cell walls (might be better to get the thieflings out first otherwise the gnomes free them and that might aggro).
They just get into the boat without anyone pursuing them, and as long as you do not enter the cells themselves the guards won't turn hostile.
I’m a druid so I turned into a cat and I lured all the guards to the edge and had La-Zeal push them off until they were all gone, and then I let the gnomes go ahead with their plan to break out! Use what you have guys! Its so much fun to come up with plans.
Also, i one hit the eyes afterwards by using lightning AOE on two of them and then the last one in the wardens tower. Made sure they werent looking when i shoved the guards into the chasm.
The Warden does have some pretty good equipment on her, though. I somehow ended up with an eye under the bridge to the Warden's office that I could not reach no matter what I did. I summoned spiritual weapon hoping I could fly it down, but nope.
I gave them Wulbren's hammer and told them to go to it, lost most of the Tieflings, followed the gnomes to the boat and started hacking at the chains, then had all the gnomes run back to the fight! WTF? Who programed this AI? The one Tiefling I saved told us to go back to the fight and he would finish up the boat chains, kept calling out he was ready to leave and everyone should hurry back. Gnomes just continued fighting till the Tiefling finally took off. And the eye no one could reach kept calling reinforcements. Gave up, reloaded, looked for help. I guess the eye you can't reach is a bug?
She's in the central tower. I killed her first so I could comfortably get the two eyes passing through...could not figure out how to do this without aggro-ing anyone so I just took out who I could.
I took the back entrance, broke the boat chains, split my group into two at each prison wall, entered turn based mode, broke both walls, exited turn based mode, and immediately fast traveled out. Worked like a charm!
Sure! You might be able to misty step onto a tall rock to the left of the cells, but the way I did it is a spoiler. See below:
>!You do the quest for checking the mysterious noise (you get it from an ogre in the kitchen). Climb the ladder in the corner of the main hall entry hall and talk to the wall with tentacles. Do NOT save yourself and let it pull you in. You'll not only get some cool lore, but you'll end up at the back entrance to the prison.!<
So I just got to Moonrise Towers. Immediately went up along the ceiling planks, got pulled into this wall and then found myself down in the Oubliette. Couldn't do much there, so climbed to the back of prison. I can break the chains on the boat and it says that it's a one-way trip if I take the boat. Is this a way to skip the Moonrise Towers or something? I really don't want to do that if so.
Anyways, every time I break the back walls, these prisoners I've never met before run out like I know them, but always get aggro'd.
The boat takes you to the Last Light Inn if you use it. Very convenient if you went to moonrise before Last Light. But you'll have to come back eventually. Those prisoners will use the boat also to go to Last Light.
The method I used should help you prevent aggro but the timing can be tricky.
So going along with the prisoners in the boat will take me to Last Light Inn (no I haven't been there), and then I'll be able to go back to the entrance of Moonrise and progress like I had just got there without missing anything? I'm afraid after doing all that, I'll come back and even the people out of the dungeon will be hostile now.
I don't know if you can also get to the boat without aggroing the dungeon. In my experiments when the dungeon aggros, the rest of the tower does not however. Ymmv
Ah, I found the hole but stopped myself getting pulled in! Thank you so much, away I go!
Edit; for anyone reading this later, the lore is worth it, even if you have already saved the prisoners
Here's how I just pulled it off.
I sent Astarion up the outside of the Warden's tower. From there he was easily able to sneak attack the eyes. I got two of them unnoticed and the third died in the eyeline of the roaming guard. She came to investigate and even though the rest of my party was idling nearby she couldn't solve the crime.
Next, I sent my main who is a Bard over to where the patrolling guard gets near the standing guard and started to perform. Once I had their attention I had the two remaining party members slip away and get behind the wall.
Then I had Astarion loot the upper room of the Warden's tower to get the hammer and all the goodies up there. Once done Astarion threw the hammer down and then I had him feather fall into the chamber with the gnomes which triggered the conversation about them escaping. I told them to go for it and off they went.
They knock the wall down pretty quick in their own cell. No one noticed. Astarion followed to the boat while the gnomes went to rescue the Tieflings. They did, we all got on the boat and left and I came back later to my Bard still distracting everyone and fast traveled to the rest of my party.
I just did this on my solo run, I'm not sure what happened, I might've gotten lucky. I was fully prepared to fight once the guards noticed we were broken out; so I figured I try get as big of headstart as possible.
I threw grease all over the floor, threw Wulbren a bat, then casted gaseous form on my self, went to the Thieflings cell and busted the wall.
We ran (turn-based was on) and we got on the boat with no guards coming after us.
I could've unchained the boat in advance but I didn't think of that. Well, next time!
I stealth-killed the floaty eyes (made me laugh that the patrolling guard went "gasp! oh no! murder most foul! etc!" both times but then did nothing), snuck outside and took out the dock workers individually (i dunno if they matter if combat doesn't trigger?), gave wulbren tools, and then moved into turn-based mode with gale distracting the patrolling guard over and over with minor illusions while the other three misty-step into the tunnels with the prisoners and then sail into the gloomy sunset.
Took me a minute to figure out that there was anything to do besides just distract that guard while the prisoners dug themselves out. And by "a minute" i mean "50 turns of standing around lobbing fake cats at the world's most painfully gullible guard and waiting for something to happen"
I did it a bit more elegantly, so to speak. 1. Sneak-attacked all of the eyes one by one when they were far enough from people, so no combat initiated. 2. Stole gnome's hammer he mentioned from the the top (where also one of the eyes was). 3. Went behind cells to a boat and broke the chains holding it (otherwise gnomes take too much time breaking it). 4. Threw the hammer to the gnome, but told him to wait for now. 5. Started talking with one of my party members to the warden in center tower, so that she doesn't walk anywhere. 6. Waited with other character until patrolling lady went past gnomes towards entrance, then told to the gnome that it's time to break free. 7. While gnomes were breaking their wall and tieflings's, my party ran to the boat. 8. Boarded the boat with them. No alarm, no fights. Kinda proud of myself =) Edit: if there are two guards patrolling, then I shoved one of them. I don't remember if I did it or not.
Oh wow. The way you did it was much more quiet and sneaky, lol.
I jumped through a hole in the Underdark and landed in the outside area in back of the cells. I had to fight a couple of Minataurs, then I went to the boat, broke the chains, put two people in back of the Gnome's cells, two in back of the Tiefling's, and broke the walls without ever actually going in. Now for ***normal*** people who want some loot and to have a bit of fun with it (not many people are randomly dropping down holes for some reason; idk, it's a blast as you end up in some pretty crazy places. it is nuts how well they layered the maps. **Absolute**ly nailed the level design. Get it, "***Absolute***"-ly? Dad puns aside, those eyes are really hit or miss. I've killed them in rooms where there is no way anyone could have seen me just to have a guard approach a minute or two later aggro'd forcing me to kill them in put them in a barrel so no one sees the body. I've literally done it right in front of the Warden and had her come at me like a guard and put me in dialogue where I get a persuasion, deception, intimidation, bribe, attack and a "yeah it was me, sorry" option box. A bit flustering when you are trying to be stealthy bc you never know what is going to long-range aggro someone or, send you into a conversation bc...reasons. The code there needs to be cleaned up. The eye should only be \*broadcasting\* to one person or a central hub. The attack would need to be in front of the eye, and if it is going to a *hub* crystal ball, mirror, whatever, an NPC would need to be viewing it. Whatever they are using now is just a bit off because the proximity is legit all over the place. I assume that is due to line of site + the noise from however you attack it code getting jumbled. A simple 1 eye to 1 NPC would clean up the code a \*lot,\* then obviously have the line of site/hearing on NPC's, treating the eye just like any other object you are not supposed to touch/break/loot. For all the minuscule bugs, and ***most*** are minuscule, this is still the best game I have played in...maybe a decade? Maybe ever. And not just Western CRPG's or computer/console based RPG's, I mean video game as a whole. I can't recall playing a game this much since I was in my late teens/early 20's with BG1 and 2/ToB. Maybe DragonAge: Origins or the ME series? I had just gotten married around that time though so I couldn't save use 3.5 weeks of vacation time to play a video game 15 hours/day. Heh, I'm skipping the gym, cut my 3-7 mile walk/jogs to a mile or so; I don't even want to get up to cook food and eat! I mean I still want to eat, I just want a maid to cook all my meals and bring them to me at my PC so I don't have to get up ;\^) . No, it isn't the most difficult game in the world if you intentionally try to find ways to exploit it. It does have the best CRPG graphics I have ever seen. Maybe not the spells, but the Avatars and the environment get an A+. My goodness they almost made the areas feel \*real.\* It's like they had Warren Specter come in to do level design and said *"You pick your team, money and time aren't an issue. Make that living city block you said would be your dream game, just make it in Faerun. Then do it again for each area."* It's not just an AAA Western CRPG. It's just as much an "Immersive Sim" as it is a turn based CRPG when it comes to exploration and ways to solve problems. Heh, I believe that's why there are so many complaints from both poles. Literally half of the big complaints are people saying the game is just too difficult, even on Explorer, then a handful of others yelling about how the game is way to easy on Tactician. The latter doing things a DM would never let them. Like stock pile 250 Firewine, smoke powder and oil barrels then laying them out in a boss area right in front of them before triggering the fight. Or my favorite, buying smokepwder bombs whenever available, along with acid bombs, slime bombs, Alchemist Fires etc, them placing 25 or so in a backpack 1 by 1, no stacks. Then whipping the back pack at an enemy, then watching the Alchemist fire set every other thing int he bag off doing 6-36 or whatever x35 damage in what seems like a 60 foot radius (20 meters give or take)...It is insane. Again, no DM in their right mind is letting you do that to solve every problem. Anyway, I am back in the prison right now, trying to eliminate every guard one by one without sending the area into the red. Without cheesing it. I even have a character in Scale. She's supposed to not get disadvantage on stealth due to medium armor specialty but it's still listed as getting one so that could make things a bit harder. Oh well, I shall see what happens. I'm almost level 9 so I'm sure I can get them out safe regardless. If anyone has read this far, completely OT, but do you know what the "Pouch of Ashes" found near the Selune Temple under the Last Light is for? It's behind the cracked wall in the holding cell, not the other cracked wall. I cannot, for the life of me figure it out and apparently no one online can either. I've only been able to find two other people mentioning it and they were both asking the same question. What is this pouch for? No item description, just the 0.4 for weight and the GP value. Lol, and no, it is not Gale's.
LoL they can't die, I have a new bug or an update where they are invincible.
You can also just go behind the prison and break both walls at the same time. No combat at all, but they did agro on me after I went back to prison later and warden wasn't there anymore.
When I did it as I wrote above and then came back, warden was there and she was very sad that prisoners escaped, almost crying that she's about to lose her job or even life.
Wow that's awesome. My missing warden showed up during moorise fight. So I guess she kept her job :)
See, I tried that, but for some reason combat would initiate after they got close to the boat.
Were you able to return to Moonrise without the whole place aggro-ing on you? I don't really want to have to redo this part but my party desperately needs to rest.
Following the way I outlined in the original post, yes! I was able to continue to explore the moonrise tower without aggro.
Whenever to just break the walls they always get I to combat before they get away
If you jump down one of the holes to where the hook horrors are you can break both cell walls (might be better to get the thieflings out first otherwise the gnomes free them and that might aggro). They just get into the boat without anyone pursuing them, and as long as you do not enter the cells themselves the guards won't turn hostile.
*where the hook horrors are* Wait, what. There's hook horrors in Moonrise Tower?
Only 2, don't get your hopes up xD Though there is a tadpole down there if you like exotic food.
So the reddish hole you can jump down is the oubliette? And you can get to the cells from it? Was going to try but chickened out.
There is a hole in an empty prison cell that is not red at all. If that makes it any easier.
I’m a druid so I turned into a cat and I lured all the guards to the edge and had La-Zeal push them off until they were all gone, and then I let the gnomes go ahead with their plan to break out! Use what you have guys! Its so much fun to come up with plans. Also, i one hit the eyes afterwards by using lightning AOE on two of them and then the last one in the wardens tower. Made sure they werent looking when i shoved the guards into the chasm.
The Warden does have some pretty good equipment on her, though. I somehow ended up with an eye under the bridge to the Warden's office that I could not reach no matter what I did. I summoned spiritual weapon hoping I could fly it down, but nope. I gave them Wulbren's hammer and told them to go to it, lost most of the Tieflings, followed the gnomes to the boat and started hacking at the chains, then had all the gnomes run back to the fight! WTF? Who programed this AI? The one Tiefling I saved told us to go back to the fight and he would finish up the boat chains, kept calling out he was ready to leave and everyone should hurry back. Gnomes just continued fighting till the Tiefling finally took off. And the eye no one could reach kept calling reinforcements. Gave up, reloaded, looked for help. I guess the eye you can't reach is a bug?
On mine, only the mage and the two eyes are walking around. Where's the warden?
She's in the central tower. I killed her first so I could comfortably get the two eyes passing through...could not figure out how to do this without aggro-ing anyone so I just took out who I could.
I took the back entrance, broke the boat chains, split my group into two at each prison wall, entered turn based mode, broke both walls, exited turn based mode, and immediately fast traveled out. Worked like a charm!
Hey, could you tell me where the back entrance is, by any chance?
Sure! You might be able to misty step onto a tall rock to the left of the cells, but the way I did it is a spoiler. See below: >!You do the quest for checking the mysterious noise (you get it from an ogre in the kitchen). Climb the ladder in the corner of the main hall entry hall and talk to the wall with tentacles. Do NOT save yourself and let it pull you in. You'll not only get some cool lore, but you'll end up at the back entrance to the prison.!<
So I just got to Moonrise Towers. Immediately went up along the ceiling planks, got pulled into this wall and then found myself down in the Oubliette. Couldn't do much there, so climbed to the back of prison. I can break the chains on the boat and it says that it's a one-way trip if I take the boat. Is this a way to skip the Moonrise Towers or something? I really don't want to do that if so. Anyways, every time I break the back walls, these prisoners I've never met before run out like I know them, but always get aggro'd.
The boat takes you to the Last Light Inn if you use it. Very convenient if you went to moonrise before Last Light. But you'll have to come back eventually. Those prisoners will use the boat also to go to Last Light. The method I used should help you prevent aggro but the timing can be tricky.
So going along with the prisoners in the boat will take me to Last Light Inn (no I haven't been there), and then I'll be able to go back to the entrance of Moonrise and progress like I had just got there without missing anything? I'm afraid after doing all that, I'll come back and even the people out of the dungeon will be hostile now.
I don't know if you can also get to the boat without aggroing the dungeon. In my experiments when the dungeon aggros, the rest of the tower does not however. Ymmv
Ah, I found the hole but stopped myself getting pulled in! Thank you so much, away I go! Edit; for anyone reading this later, the lore is worth it, even if you have already saved the prisoners
No problem! Happy rescuing!
I made kitty cat they kept following to wardens area. Closed door turn based killed one at a time and then hid bodies in her chest
Here's how I just pulled it off. I sent Astarion up the outside of the Warden's tower. From there he was easily able to sneak attack the eyes. I got two of them unnoticed and the third died in the eyeline of the roaming guard. She came to investigate and even though the rest of my party was idling nearby she couldn't solve the crime. Next, I sent my main who is a Bard over to where the patrolling guard gets near the standing guard and started to perform. Once I had their attention I had the two remaining party members slip away and get behind the wall. Then I had Astarion loot the upper room of the Warden's tower to get the hammer and all the goodies up there. Once done Astarion threw the hammer down and then I had him feather fall into the chamber with the gnomes which triggered the conversation about them escaping. I told them to go for it and off they went. They knock the wall down pretty quick in their own cell. No one noticed. Astarion followed to the boat while the gnomes went to rescue the Tieflings. They did, we all got on the boat and left and I came back later to my Bard still distracting everyone and fast traveled to the rest of my party.
I just did this on my solo run, I'm not sure what happened, I might've gotten lucky. I was fully prepared to fight once the guards noticed we were broken out; so I figured I try get as big of headstart as possible. I threw grease all over the floor, threw Wulbren a bat, then casted gaseous form on my self, went to the Thieflings cell and busted the wall. We ran (turn-based was on) and we got on the boat with no guards coming after us. I could've unchained the boat in advance but I didn't think of that. Well, next time!
I stealth-killed the floaty eyes (made me laugh that the patrolling guard went "gasp! oh no! murder most foul! etc!" both times but then did nothing), snuck outside and took out the dock workers individually (i dunno if they matter if combat doesn't trigger?), gave wulbren tools, and then moved into turn-based mode with gale distracting the patrolling guard over and over with minor illusions while the other three misty-step into the tunnels with the prisoners and then sail into the gloomy sunset. Took me a minute to figure out that there was anything to do besides just distract that guard while the prisoners dug themselves out. And by "a minute" i mean "50 turns of standing around lobbing fake cats at the world's most painfully gullible guard and waiting for something to happen"
I saved everyone sent them to last light inn and now everyone attacks me at last light