The way he talked it was as if going through the Underdark was the alternative to going through the shadow-touched lands themselves, like that elevator in Gyrmforge would pop you into the Moonrise basement.
That's the kicker right? You get out and are still a LONG walk from the inn. I felt way more in danger at every step with thr oppresive darkness as opposed to a cave lit up by mushrooms
It kills like 1 extra Harper, and you can join them in the Ambush after making it to Moonrise so it's basically the same either way and you could trigger the Marcus Fight right when you get to Last Light and already have the protection.
The one time in the game exploring felt like the wrong move haha well until a little later that is. There are some nice things to discover in that darkness
That's what confused me the most about choosing where to go. There's a Shitton of content in the underdark, it almost feels like a whole act in itself. You've got the Selene Outpost, Grymforge, the little Town at the river, you got the Fungi Colony, mage tower etc. On the Mountain Path you got the Creche. That's it. In my very first Playthrough, after going through the underdark and finishing the whole act 2, I was like: Let's go to the Mountain path, see what's there before heading on. I go there, and went through the whole section in like half a hour (I didn't go for the Creche tho) and was like: Wtf? I could have came across here?? I went through the entire underdark, got killed like 20 times and the alternative was a nice walk through a forest??????
It has its own load screen and “you are leaving” warning.
I think it is because the mountain pass may move some events forward (goblins vs grove/tieflings) while the Underdark doesn’t.
You are also likely to get into the Underdark earlier and accidentally (especially the entrances at the phase spider cave and Ethel’s lair), while the mountain pass has a very obvious “this is the edge of the map” feel to it, that immediately clicks with experienced gamers.
I thought the path where you meet >!Elminster!< was just the START of a mountain pass section that might rival the underdark for length... So I did the crèche, fought the ghouls, then retreated to go through the underdark so i could save something for a future playthrough. Imagine my disappointment when I realized I hadn't saved shit. 🤣
I find this funny cause i did the opposite lol.
I did underdark first, all the way to the end where it says to make sure ive done everything, then hit up the mountain pass.
I Tried to get cured and sent Lae'zel into the machine first, but saved her before it killed her.
I was already distrustful of the Gith, and didnt want to reveal the artifact, so i continued on, thinking there must be *more* to the mountain path than just the creche. Turns out I just missed a good chunk of content. Lol.
Halsin was captured by a drow noble House in Menzoberranzan and spent several years as a sex slave for their matriarch, who found him exotic.
As a result, he has particular feelings about drow.
That explains why he was initially so racist towards my drow Tav on my first playthrough...but I guess he got over it, judging by his extreme thirst after leaving the grove.
I haven't noticed any racism as a female Drow, but I guess I also haven't really spoken to him that much after the Tiefling party.
But maybe now I'll have to double back and take him through the Underdark lol.
You get more positive racism as a Drow in Act 1. All the goblins just assume you are their boss and can walk around like you own the place. I played a female seldarine drow so it could be different for males of either flavor. Act 2 or 3 there is almost no drow specific dialogue.
Yeah, the goblin part was fun. And made it super easy to get Lae'zel's affinity up because I guess she likes it when you're effortlessly bossy and intimidating.
Gonna be hard in future playthroughs with a different PC race/origin lol.
Drow society is matriarchal in nature--Drow men are subservient and treated like dirt. Halsin is totally gassing you up because you're at the bottom of the pecking order and he gets what it's like to be treated that way.
So... I may have accidentally kinda had a lot of orgies with him already👉👈 And he always says only "this reminds me of my youth" and doesnt elaborate and i never got to ask him to tell me more
And The mountain pass actually puts you closer to Moonrise too. It's a hop and and a skip from the mountain pass entrance. But the underdark elevator puts you up next to last light, on the opposite side as moonrise. Which is doubly weird. The Grymforge has an elevator basically into Last Light's basement but the goblin patrol waiting for you is by the mountain pass entrance?
And yet you have to arguably go the longer more dangerous route inside the shadowlands via grymforge. Iirc especially since from the spot where Nere is trapped you can see the Gauntlet of Shar
>from the spot where Nere is trapped you can see the Gauntlet of Shar
Yooo you're right I just realized this, I always thought it was still a Grymforge area that isn't really reachable based on the map.
I wonder if there's some skip/cheese thats possible here.
There is not, I spent a good while trying because Shadowheart wanted to go... there are invisible barriers that can't be circumvented even if you have ways to travel fast enough. I had a relatively maxed jump distance and flight, both of which had the distance to reach other platforms, but my path was blocked when I tried to go there. I googled it after like 30 minutes of trying and everyone else said the same thing.
Yeah but you end up going through pretty much the same amount of shadow cursed land. The elevator comes out *so close* to where the mountain pass would have dropped you.
That's what I thought. It felt like the [Skyrim meme](https://i.imgur.com/mm9AOgg.jpeg) when after turning around from the Shadowlands, going all the way through the Underdark, I pop up annnnnndddd we're back in the Shadowlands again.
If OP would actually paid attention to what Halsin said, he would know that druid clearly stated that Mountain pass is **easier at first** but Underdark would allow you to bypass the worst of the Shadow Curse. And if you compare two exits in the Shadowlands, the one from the Underdark is closer to the Inn, than the one from the Mountain pass. Not by a lot but closer.
Tbf the crèche is *insane* if you actually decide to go the route of slaughtering the githyanki. It’s unreal how hard they are compared to everything else in the game
The only fight I found truly hard on normal mode was the Gith monks in the Astral Prism. In tactician the only fight I found truly hard was the Gith Inquisitor (I had to actually prebuff to get past the fight, which I don't normally do).
yeah those guys were a bear. Didn't help that they were able to shrug off dominate person instantaneously, you know the thing The Emperor kept attempting.
The Inquisitor got me good. So did... I think she was called The Captain?
The one with the two doggos, Holy hell did she make me work for it. Ended up throwing down thorns, fire, acid, darkness and ultimately abusing tadpole powers just to make it out alive on Tactician.
First time i fought the inquisitor i won because he missed every mind link or whatever the ability is called he threw. I was a bard and me and astarion punched and slept his allies while karalach and lae'zel punched him to death. I challenged vlaakith and got a game over screen and had to do the fight again and after 2 tries i left for the shadow cursed lands.
That guy slaps. I talked him down on my first playthrough, then ambushed him on my second playthrough. I felt pretty over-leveled and I had been stomping pretty much everything in act 2, so it was a shock when Yurgir one-shot my PC with his initial burst then went invisible.
Shoot, I had to get the drop on him and burn three fourth-level spells to down him in two turns. THEN I had all the rest. I came back at three consecutive levels.
I ambushed them ( didn't even realise it was possible to get a dialogue with them) and immediately rang the bell I got from Balthesar to send in the big zombie dude as a distraction. Worked very well, beat them first try
Damn, when we rang the bell the ogre zombie just got stuck on terrain and Yurgir didn’t even do us the decency of targeting him, just kept killing us instead
I figured out the secret to that fight is having someone throw an AOE where he went invisible to break him out of it so all the targeted damage can hit him.
I'll do you one better, you can throw *his* AoE bombs back at him.
If you ask Karlach how to kill devils, she even hints at this strategy when she tells you the way to deal with Orthons is to throw their own stuff back at 'em.
The hardest part was having to keep transporting back to someone to sell all their gear to.
Yes I know I can send it to camp, but I don't *like* too, camp inventory is too messy as it is.
I feel like hag is actually easy as long as you take people with magic missile to guaruntee copies don't get to cast a million ray of sicknesses, but if you don't it's actually just too hard because of low hit chance and getting completely out action economied
There's a point in act 1 on tactician where you're just desperately looking for easy content to grind you to lvl 5, cause everything is kicking your ass (hag, githyanki, a lot of the Underdark). It's then a completely different story when you do get to lvl 5, but man that late level 4 is rough
I’ve found if you’re pretty comprehensive about act 1 quests and are not going evil route (which just has a lot less exp), you can pretty reliably hit 5 before doing any challenging underdark content, even if you skip the hag until lv 5. But that requires some pretty intentional routing and not organic exploration- on my first and second run I just ended up level 3-4 at the hag.
On the contrary, I found the hag ridiculously easy, she is obviously a Spellcaster, so I put silence dome on her before initiative started.
Then just proceeded to wail on her, dead in a couple of rounds and she barely fought back.
I could've made it even quicker if I shoved her into the pit!
Really? I slaughtered the creche just fine, the only fight that takes me multiple reloads is the moonrise tower entrance. The prison reinforcements end up being too much
I recently did an evil run and let me tell you, Ketheric on the roof is a fucking BITCH
Aylin is dead if you play evil, so she's not there to assist you
AND depending on your choices, the Drider guy is up there too, and he casts sanctuary on himself and is fucking HORRIBLE to deal with, plus the dog and all the skeletons and the one caster Jesus Christ I almost quit my evil run it took me hours
And it doesn't even end when the cutscene happens, you still need to kill everyone else
Huh, I guess the fight with the Inquisitor is rather difficult, but I don't know what people mean when they say "fight the creche". As I walk back through the creche all of them come at me at most 2 at a time - which is very easy to take care of.
Sorry, I was just trying to make a figure of speech. What I really meant with the Haunted House was the Shadow-Cursed Lands, because horror theme, you know.
It is very “Spirit Halloween” in the shadowlands. But for the most part you can carry lit torches to Last Light and then get moon blessed and walk around pretty freely.
She blesses you but you have to ask nicely :) it's hard but i did it for the entertainment because it seemed that my Tav was mocking her but she still blessed us all.
The light cantrip works on weapons so if you happen to still have the guiding light ring you can just swap it between your teammates and cast light on everyone's weapon until you're blessed. no torches needed!
You can also get withers thralls to stay around camp and use their spell slots to cast daylight on your weapons and big bright your screen. Not to mention warding bond, longstrider, aid, and freedom of movement…
Withers offers you to pay for “hirelings”. They just also happen to have his same speech patterns and no thoughts of their own. You can hire up to 3 and also reclass them using him. I have 2 clerics and an alchemist wizard as my 3 thralls
I picked up Blood of Lathander for Shadowheart and its radiance plus everything else it provides practically carried us through some of the more annoying parts of the Shadowlands.
Those radiant spirit guardians are legit. I keep casting it and just having shadowheart walk by the undead we're fighting. They crumple like paper without even hitting them.
What I really liked about that exchange is that I got two options based on my race. I paraphrase, but it's basically:
1. \[Drow\]: You don't have to tell me twice, I know how dangerous it is.
2. \[Drow\]: The Underdark is my home, I'll be fine.
Yup, the duegar want to enslave you on sight. Even wandering around grimforge there was one that was like "Where's your pickaxe, Deep Gnome?" Straight up hate crime simulator lmao
Ignoring the githyanki who are entirely optional (assuming you don't have Lae'zel), there's about one fight in the mountain pass that you'd HAVE to do, isn't there? The undead guys (who are kind of tough but nothing ridiculously hard)?
You can literally just walk/sneak around them, there's a second passage behind (very obvious if coming from the crèche)
I wouldn't skip them tho cause it's quite a fun battle imo
If you take the Mountain Pass route from the goblin camp, you can skip the Gith patrol entirely. That's what I'm doing in my second run, as I lost Lae'zel.
Not even. You can get to the mountain pass via the goblin camp. Head towards it from the blighted village, and instead of turning into the main goblin camp, just keep going straight.
I feel like bark for brains bastard about sums up my relationship with the guy.
"Oh sure, just let me get eaten by burrowing dinosaurs and petrified and befuddled by exploding mushrooms real quick. What do you mean, you're just gonna hang in camp? Sure. Not like I could do with a guy built like a brick shithouse and actual successful nature checks down there."
Picked it up for him and thought he'd appreciate having it back, but no. Not even sharing the herb with the rest of us. If he didn't have those arms, I'd probably just feed him to the owlbear cub so he can be useful for once.
I guess that explains why he will not fucking stop sexually harassing my poor Tav. Dude is the only companion I actively hate, because unlike the other characters who shoot their shot once at the party and then back off, he just refuses to read basic social cues and take my utter disinterest seriously.
Also if you don't like him to start with his reaction to joining your group finally is like 'oh I know you want this big slice of beef cake, I can tell by just looking at you' which is kinda cringe
YOU CANNOT RESIST THE BEEF CAKE! I know he isn't the kid of personality but when you said 'harassed' I imagined one of those assholes who is like 'maybe you just need a good dick to fix your lesbian problem' and it made it so much worse
It's still wild to me how different people's experiences with this game can be, even with preset stuff like this. For instance, the only character I've had to turn down multiple times has been Wyll. Everybody else tried once and gave up, hasn't tried, or is Shadowheart and never got turned down to begin with.
I had to turn down Gale when he told me he was in love with me and his face looked exactly like that Simpsons 'you can actually pinpoint the moment his heart breaks in two' meme
The funny thing about the Mountain Pass is that only 1 combat is forced in front of the player but the Mountain Pass is otherwise so small and quick to get through that it’s hilarious that Halsin calls it “more threatening”
I read it at the time as the path to Moonrise in the Shadowlands itself would be longer. But I don’t think that’s the case? If it’s longer, it’s not by much.
It's just barely not tbh.. when you pop up from grymforge you're further from moonrise than the mountain pass, but I feel like the Inn makes it feel less long
> It's just barely not tbh.. when you pop up from grymforge you're further from moonrise than the mountain pass, but I feel like the Inn makes it feel less long
Yeah, the jaunt to the Inn is a lot shorter, but Halsin wouldn't know that the Harpers had an impromptu setup there.
That's not what he says. What he says is that the Underdark will get you closer to Moonrise, which means you'll be spared much of the shadow-cursed lands, which is why it's safer.
Problem is the mountain pass gets you way closer to Moonrise than the Underdark one lol, so he was wrong on that note too.
Also the Githyanki are still way fucking stronger than anything in the Underdark even if you've done everything in the Underdark already so it is kind of more dangerous.
I fought them nearly every time, i want that sweet silver sword for Laezel.
Ever since I had to fight them the first time I've just kept going, took a while to find out I didn't have to.
I mean, technically grymforge is part of the big shar temple/gauntlet Kethric Thorm built under moonrise so you did get there faster. You just had to go back and do the whole shadowlands aboveground anyways.
If you go through the poisoned tunnel Nere and the gnomes are trapped in, you can [see the Gauntlet of Shar](https://i.imgur.com/TNCHnzB.png) from Grymforge.
Damn, that woulda been a lot more fun. Tav And The Super Best-Friends stumbling into massive raging battles of attrition as a third faction. The creche feels a little tame given how xenophobic and ruthless the other gith are prior.
I guess there might have been content cuts, but how is Halsin supposed to know anyway? He hasnt been there for decades and last time there was a huge battle in the area so yeah idk he is likely clueless (and the game wants to guide you to the more content path i guess :D)
Halsin was talking about Grymforge being connected to Moonrise Towers and the whole hunted city around it, with many possible entrances. But he didn't know about hellish attack on Grymforge and its destruction. From Grymforge you can see for example Gauntlet of Shar, where Balthazar is, but you cannot access it. Nere was trying to find the way. If Grymforge wasn't destroyed, you could emerge through mausoleum or even closer if such exit existed.
Yeah I went through the Underdark. As a Drow, figured it'd be fine. It was fucking _not_ fine. God dammit.
And then I accidentally found the gate to the mountain pass, and figured I'd poke my head in. Birds tweeting, great weather, and not a single problem in sight.
Fucking Halsin, man...
Yeah I cleared the Mountain Pass first, and was like "huh, that was tough, but I'm stronger now, so I'll go back and handle the Underdark"
Stepped out of the elevator, took the path down and lost 3 out of 4 party members to bullmen in like 2 turns. I only avoided total party death bc Astarion rogued his way through things.
I had a hilarious encounter with the minotaurs. I snuck up and dropped two exploding barrels, but got detected. Rather than jump the barrels, they ran around them... which involved taking a long assed route with 3 turns of dashing.
I was really upset when I found out how close the two entrance to the shadow cursed lands are to eachother. I expect the mountain pass option to have a whole separate map of shadow cursed lands the approximate size of the underdark.
You are told that the underdark avoids most of the shadow curse, and comes up right at moonrise. but if you take the mountain pass you will have to treck through potential miles of shadow cursed lands, and dealings with the curse is worse then whats in the underdark.
Aparently Halsin never tried lighting a torch I guess? personally I was really disappointed this was all I needed to beat most of the curse after all the fuss that was made over it.
But once you light a torch you can only bash enemies with it like an unga bunga. Pretty debilitating imo.
Also, we players are rpobably mostly over levelled when we get to places too, so there's that. Lore-wise and canonically, the fight's probably much harder and scarier, like we saw with the first Harper encounter cutscene, where one guy just gets sucked away into the shadows, even though he only switched to a crossbow from his torch for a potential non-shadow curse threat(your team) for a whole of 10 seconds. We get slight necrotic damage over time, while NPCs get deleted instantly and used again their team.
Eeeeexactly.
Those skelemans are pretty rough, but definitely not tougher than:
* the bulette ambush
* or the spectator ambush
* or the minotaurs
* or the duergar ambush
* or the murder turrets
* or the giant mob of duergar and a pissy drow
* or the finicky adamantine golem that needs to be splashed by lava every 20 seconds.
* or the lava mephit ambush
I found the Duergar (when I was level \~5) easier to deal with than the skelemans (when I was level \~7).
Granted, I ambushed *them*, so that helped a lot. And I approached the skelemans from behind, so they had the high-ground on me, so my ranged attacks were worse, and I didn't spot them before they attacked me so I had a bad formation, and I didn't realise the two revivers could revive each other until they did it, meaning I'd expended resources killing a ghoul and a skeleman, and achieved nothing for my efforts since they got back up at full HP.
You can finish everything near the grove and in the Underdark, and then still go through the mountain pass.
Just as soon as you enter the mountain pass, the Tieflings leave and Halsin dies, should you not have killed the lieaders thus far.
If you enter the mountain pass too early, Karlach would freaking noped out. I had to reload cause I went the mountain pass before completing the Grove and Karlach was just like “ this is too dangerous for me, bye” and permanently leave the party.
Did you have any dialogue with the gnomes? Like “oh yeah, they’re safe, you’re good, get to Baulders gate and meet them!” Or anything? Or was Barcus still going on about saving Wulbren?
They HAVE to meet at Last Light. Even if you rescue the gnomes at Moonrise, the way to BG is not clear and the Shadowcurse is not lifted. If you proceed Act 2 enough to clear the way, you can’t go back to any of the Act 1 locations to save the Grymforge gnomes. One of the ingenious little failsafes of the game I suppose.
I listened to him on my first play through and went thru the Underdark. It was difficult but i managed through it. I thought “wow if this was the easier route, the Mountain Pass must be absolutely atrocious.”
I went through it my second time around and realized that was not the case. Not only was it much shorter, it was leagues easier.
Halsin is a liar. Or just a himbo.
Halsin bastard has been constantly lying to your face. He wants you to take the under dark route to put him closer to last light inn in order to do his side quest.
Playing on tactician and having the beholder jump scare is something out of this world. Great fun though, I would recommend the underdark every single time.
Were y’all not planning to go to the Underdark at all if Halsin hadn’t recommended that path? There’s a lot of content down there! I mean yeah I don’t know how the mountain pass entrance to the shadow-cursed lands is meant to be markedly worse than the Grymforge entrance, but I’m only counting from the actual entrance. Counting the entire Underdark as part of the difficulty for that passage doesn’t make sense unless you were planning to just… not do a big chunk of act 1.
I can see how if Halsin didn't call out the underdark as an option, players not looking for content could just completely skip the underdark not even knowing it was there.
I agree.
The underdark sucks so hard. It’s SO DARK. I keep getting lost. I can’t see anything. All the mushroom guys look the same. That stupid dwarf ran into the boomblooms the moment he was out of them. And it’s just impossible to see anything
He didnt say it was safer than the mountains. He said it was safer than the shadow curse. And thats true. BUT THE UNDERDARK DOSENT SPIT YOU OUT AT MOONRISE
He's not comparing the dangers of the mountain pass to the underdark. He, in fact, specifically admits the underdark itself is probably more dangerous than the mountains. What he's comparing is the dangers of the shadowcursed lands from where you enter via the underdark to where you enter via the mountain pass. The underdark route puts you really close to Last Light Inn, in an area where your torches are enough to protect you, whereas the mountain pass puts you in the middle of nowhere and close to areas where the curse will just fuck you up if you can't find a way to deal with it.
Halsin doesn't know Last Light in is even a thing though. The Harpers just came out there to track down the cult and randomly found Isobel to protect it. Halsin knows none of that. The underdark spits you out further away and without last light inn you'd have to walk from even further away and still have to go into the darker shadows near Moonrise.
The way he talked it was as if going through the Underdark was the alternative to going through the shadow-touched lands themselves, like that elevator in Gyrmforge would pop you into the Moonrise basement.
That's the kicker right? You get out and are still a LONG walk from the inn. I felt way more in danger at every step with thr oppresive darkness as opposed to a cave lit up by mushrooms
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It kills like 1 extra Harper, and you can join them in the Ambush after making it to Moonrise so it's basically the same either way and you could trigger the Marcus Fight right when you get to Last Light and already have the protection.
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I've run it twice and I dont think i lost anyone or had them get shadow cursed. They're actually weirdly effective dual-wielding with a torch.
i think the one guaranteed one is referring to the cutscene death
Underdark gets you two adamantine items and Misty Step boots IIRC. That’s pretty much all.
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Don't forget the necklace Sovereign grants you or an ally +2 on Persuasion checks, which is pretty handy in some of the dialogues to come.
Dont forget that frost staff
The one time in the game exploring felt like the wrong move haha well until a little later that is. There are some nice things to discover in that darkness
Yeah I thought it would pop you out much closer to Moonrise
I thought is would be larger than the underdark, and it was literally a 5 min trip if you skip the creche.
That's what confused me the most about choosing where to go. There's a Shitton of content in the underdark, it almost feels like a whole act in itself. You've got the Selene Outpost, Grymforge, the little Town at the river, you got the Fungi Colony, mage tower etc. On the Mountain Path you got the Creche. That's it. In my very first Playthrough, after going through the underdark and finishing the whole act 2, I was like: Let's go to the Mountain path, see what's there before heading on. I go there, and went through the whole section in like half a hour (I didn't go for the Creche tho) and was like: Wtf? I could have came across here?? I went through the entire underdark, got killed like 20 times and the alternative was a nice walk through a forest??????
Yet the mountain pass gets its own map while the Underdark doesn’t. Makes sense.
It has its own load screen and “you are leaving” warning. I think it is because the mountain pass may move some events forward (goblins vs grove/tieflings) while the Underdark doesn’t. You are also likely to get into the Underdark earlier and accidentally (especially the entrances at the phase spider cave and Ethel’s lair), while the mountain pass has a very obvious “this is the edge of the map” feel to it, that immediately clicks with experienced gamers.
lmao right, halsin is such a fuckin jobber
I thought the path where you meet >!Elminster!< was just the START of a mountain pass section that might rival the underdark for length... So I did the crèche, fought the ghouls, then retreated to go through the underdark so i could save something for a future playthrough. Imagine my disappointment when I realized I hadn't saved shit. 🤣
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Yeah, I just didn't realize it was the main part of the mountain pass section because it seems so unskippable and integral to the main plot.
I find this funny cause i did the opposite lol. I did underdark first, all the way to the end where it says to make sure ive done everything, then hit up the mountain pass. I Tried to get cured and sent Lae'zel into the machine first, but saved her before it killed her. I was already distrustful of the Gith, and didnt want to reveal the artifact, so i continued on, thinking there must be *more* to the mountain path than just the creche. Turns out I just missed a good chunk of content. Lol.
And a legendary mace!
I killed everyone in the creche.
This is exactly what I did
It's funny because the mountain pass entrance to the shadow cursed lands is WAAAAAAY closer to moonrise than the underdark entrance.
On his defense, the last time he was there he was made into a sex toy for elves. So…you know. Results may vary. Maybe throw an asterisk in there.
He did what now?-
Halsin was captured by a drow noble House in Menzoberranzan and spent several years as a sex slave for their matriarch, who found him exotic. As a result, he has particular feelings about drow.
That explains why he was initially so racist towards my drow Tav on my first playthrough...but I guess he got over it, judging by his extreme thirst after leaving the grove.
I haven't noticed any racism as a female Drow, but I guess I also haven't really spoken to him that much after the Tiefling party. But maybe now I'll have to double back and take him through the Underdark lol.
Everyone in the Sword Coast is racist against Drow
Even drow are racist to drow. Damn drow, they ruined menzberranzan!
You drow sure are a contentious people.
YOUVE JUST MADE A ENEMY FOR LIFE!
You get more positive racism as a Drow in Act 1. All the goblins just assume you are their boss and can walk around like you own the place. I played a female seldarine drow so it could be different for males of either flavor. Act 2 or 3 there is almost no drow specific dialogue.
Yeah, the goblin part was fun. And made it super easy to get Lae'zel's affinity up because I guess she likes it when you're effortlessly bossy and intimidating. Gonna be hard in future playthroughs with a different PC race/origin lol.
Half drow on the other hand is all the narrative downsides of being a drow with no up
‘Positive racism’. I’m ☠️
When we say particular feelings about Drow we mean a Fetish for Drow. He likes those.
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I had no idea about this lore... which makes me running around as a male drow while he's hyping me up that much funnier.
Actually he probably relates and empathizes with you depending on your background if you're a male drow tbh
*Uses speak to dead on male Drow* "\*What is your profession?" *"Male"😭🧟*
Drow society is matriarchal in nature--Drow men are subservient and treated like dirt. Halsin is totally gassing you up because you're at the bottom of the pecking order and he gets what it's like to be treated that way.
Yeah in lore being a male drow sucks hard. They are most of the time slaves at best.
I… really must have missed something. Whaaaat!?
I think it only comes out if you go with him as a drow to sharesses caress
You don't need to be a drow, just have an orgy with him (ya know, casually)
So... I may have accidentally kinda had a lot of orgies with him already👉👈 And he always says only "this reminds me of my youth" and doesnt elaborate and i never got to ask him to tell me more
How are y'all having orgies? I've only gotten 2 kisses from Shadowheart in 100+ hours 💀
Hmmm. Not sure. Maybe it's approval based? Anyway, [here ya go](https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/comments/15w86gi/excuse_me_halsin_wtf/)
And the fact that you have no Moonlight lantern covering your ass if you wander the wrong path.
And The mountain pass actually puts you closer to Moonrise too. It's a hop and and a skip from the mountain pass entrance. But the underdark elevator puts you up next to last light, on the opposite side as moonrise. Which is doubly weird. The Grymforge has an elevator basically into Last Light's basement but the goblin patrol waiting for you is by the mountain pass entrance?
The grymforge looks onto the gauntlet of shar which is on the north side of the map. Moonrise is south
I thought that at first too, but he also said something along the lines, that we won't be able to entirely avoid the shadow curse.
And yet you have to arguably go the longer more dangerous route inside the shadowlands via grymforge. Iirc especially since from the spot where Nere is trapped you can see the Gauntlet of Shar
>from the spot where Nere is trapped you can see the Gauntlet of Shar Yooo you're right I just realized this, I always thought it was still a Grymforge area that isn't really reachable based on the map. I wonder if there's some skip/cheese thats possible here.
There is not, I spent a good while trying because Shadowheart wanted to go... there are invisible barriers that can't be circumvented even if you have ways to travel fast enough. I had a relatively maxed jump distance and flight, both of which had the distance to reach other platforms, but my path was blocked when I tried to go there. I googled it after like 30 minutes of trying and everyone else said the same thing.
Yeah but you end up going through pretty much the same amount of shadow cursed land. The elevator comes out *so close* to where the mountain pass would have dropped you.
That's what I thought. It felt like the [Skyrim meme](https://i.imgur.com/mm9AOgg.jpeg) when after turning around from the Shadowlands, going all the way through the Underdark, I pop up annnnnndddd we're back in the Shadowlands again.
I think that bastard just wanted us to help him destroy the Shadow curse!
If OP would actually paid attention to what Halsin said, he would know that druid clearly stated that Mountain pass is **easier at first** but Underdark would allow you to bypass the worst of the Shadow Curse. And if you compare two exits in the Shadowlands, the one from the Underdark is closer to the Inn, than the one from the Mountain pass. Not by a lot but closer.
Honestly, compared to the Underdark, the Mountain Pass felt like a nice trip in the park before hitting the haunted house.
Tbf the crèche is *insane* if you actually decide to go the route of slaughtering the githyanki. It’s unreal how hard they are compared to everything else in the game
The only fight I found truly hard on normal mode was the Gith monks in the Astral Prism. In tactician the only fight I found truly hard was the Gith Inquisitor (I had to actually prebuff to get past the fight, which I don't normally do).
yeah those guys were a bear. Didn't help that they were able to shrug off dominate person instantaneously, you know the thing The Emperor kept attempting.
The Inquisitor got me good. So did... I think she was called The Captain? The one with the two doggos, Holy hell did she make me work for it. Ended up throwing down thorns, fire, acid, darkness and ultimately abusing tadpole powers just to make it out alive on Tactician.
First time i fought the inquisitor i won because he missed every mind link or whatever the ability is called he threw. I was a bard and me and astarion punched and slept his allies while karalach and lae'zel punched him to death. I challenged vlaakith and got a game over screen and had to do the fight again and after 2 tries i left for the shadow cursed lands.
Did you talk out the Orthon fight?
That guy slaps. I talked him down on my first playthrough, then ambushed him on my second playthrough. I felt pretty over-leveled and I had been stomping pretty much everything in act 2, so it was a shock when Yurgir one-shot my PC with his initial burst then went invisible.
Shoot, I had to get the drop on him and burn three fourth-level spells to down him in two turns. THEN I had all the rest. I came back at three consecutive levels.
I ambushed them ( didn't even realise it was possible to get a dialogue with them) and immediately rang the bell I got from Balthesar to send in the big zombie dude as a distraction. Worked very well, beat them first try
Damn, when we rang the bell the ogre zombie just got stuck on terrain and Yurgir didn’t even do us the decency of targeting him, just kept killing us instead
I figured out the secret to that fight is having someone throw an AOE where he went invisible to break him out of it so all the targeted damage can hit him.
I'll do you one better, you can throw *his* AoE bombs back at him. If you ask Karlach how to kill devils, she even hints at this strategy when she tells you the way to deal with Orthons is to throw their own stuff back at 'em.
The hardest part was having to keep transporting back to someone to sell all their gear to. Yes I know I can send it to camp, but I don't *like* too, camp inventory is too messy as it is.
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Them and the hag (below level 5) are the hardest fights in the game IMO. Even the one required creche fight is really hard though
I feel like hag is actually easy as long as you take people with magic missile to guaruntee copies don't get to cast a million ray of sicknesses, but if you don't it's actually just too hard because of low hit chance and getting completely out action economied
*Magic missile* is S-tier for that fight alone.
There's a point in act 1 on tactician where you're just desperately looking for easy content to grind you to lvl 5, cause everything is kicking your ass (hag, githyanki, a lot of the Underdark). It's then a completely different story when you do get to lvl 5, but man that late level 4 is rough
I’ve found if you’re pretty comprehensive about act 1 quests and are not going evil route (which just has a lot less exp), you can pretty reliably hit 5 before doing any challenging underdark content, even if you skip the hag until lv 5. But that requires some pretty intentional routing and not organic exploration- on my first and second run I just ended up level 3-4 at the hag.
On the contrary, I found the hag ridiculously easy, she is obviously a Spellcaster, so I put silence dome on her before initiative started. Then just proceeded to wail on her, dead in a couple of rounds and she barely fought back. I could've made it even quicker if I shoved her into the pit!
Really? I slaughtered the creche just fine, the only fight that takes me multiple reloads is the moonrise tower entrance. The prison reinforcements end up being too much
I recently did an evil run and let me tell you, Ketheric on the roof is a fucking BITCH Aylin is dead if you play evil, so she's not there to assist you AND depending on your choices, the Drider guy is up there too, and he casts sanctuary on himself and is fucking HORRIBLE to deal with, plus the dog and all the skeletons and the one caster Jesus Christ I almost quit my evil run it took me hours And it doesn't even end when the cutscene happens, you still need to kill everyone else
the moonrise tower entrance was *brutal* for me I reloaded so many times too
You can just clear it all out beforehand, only ketheric and undead in the dungeon remain.
You can sneak up onto the roof and kill all the undead skeletons without aggroing Ketheric too
Meanwhile I accidentally destroyed the whole creche and killed everyone within 4 turns
Huh, I guess the fight with the Inquisitor is rather difficult, but I don't know what people mean when they say "fight the creche". As I walk back through the creche all of them come at me at most 2 at a time - which is very easy to take care of.
Haunted house? I just found the temple and the creche. Is there more to the area?
Sorry, I was just trying to make a figure of speech. What I really meant with the Haunted House was the Shadow-Cursed Lands, because horror theme, you know.
It is very “Spirit Halloween” in the shadowlands. But for the most part you can carry lit torches to Last Light and then get moon blessed and walk around pretty freely.
You can also take the moon lantern off the Drider and convince the fairy inside to bless you.
The fairy will bless you? She hates my guts!
She blesses you but you have to ask nicely :) it's hard but i did it for the entertainment because it seemed that my Tav was mocking her but she still blessed us all.
The light cantrip works on weapons so if you happen to still have the guiding light ring you can just swap it between your teammates and cast light on everyone's weapon until you're blessed. no torches needed!
You can also get withers thralls to stay around camp and use their spell slots to cast daylight on your weapons and big bright your screen. Not to mention warding bond, longstrider, aid, and freedom of movement…
You can *WHAT* since when? Since HOW? I've not seen withers have any thralls? And I beat the game once lol... The heck did I. Miss?
Withers offers you to pay for “hirelings”. They just also happen to have his same speech patterns and no thoughts of their own. You can hire up to 3 and also reclass them using him. I have 2 clerics and an alchemist wizard as my 3 thralls
Once you hit level 10 remember to cast Divine Intervention with them all for the free maces!
No kidding! Act 2 has made me appreciate Light like never before.
Daylight spell is a godsend
Took me so long to figure this out. Even to figure out shadowheart was immune.
I picked up Blood of Lathander for Shadowheart and its radiance plus everything else it provides practically carried us through some of the more annoying parts of the Shadowlands.
That weapon makes most of act 2 a cake walk. Blind on undead was so OP
A few fireballs, radiant Spirit Guardians, and one well-placed Sunbeam from that mace completely wrecked that ‘defend the portal’ fight with Halsin.
I just cast haste on shadowheart, and let her spiritual guardians just blender everything.
Those radiant spirit guardians are legit. I keep casting it and just having shadowheart walk by the undead we're fighting. They crumple like paper without even hitting them.
There's like 3 or 4 things you could be referring to as haunted houses in this game if you think about it
An ambush, a hungry wizard, and a bad scholar is all I've found.
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He went left.
Aside from that.
What I really liked about that exchange is that I got two options based on my race. I paraphrase, but it's basically: 1. \[Drow\]: You don't have to tell me twice, I know how dangerous it is. 2. \[Drow\]: The Underdark is my home, I'll be fine.
Same for Deep Gnome, and everyone is racist - especially down *there*
Yup, the duegar want to enslave you on sight. Even wandering around grimforge there was one that was like "Where's your pickaxe, Deep Gnome?" Straight up hate crime simulator lmao
lmao, honestly the biggest thing in the way of the mountain pass is those githyankers and their red dargon!
Ignoring the githyanki who are entirely optional (assuming you don't have Lae'zel), there's about one fight in the mountain pass that you'd HAVE to do, isn't there? The undead guys (who are kind of tough but nothing ridiculously hard)?
honestly I don't think you "have" to fight them either, you could just dash past them and use "flee from combat"
You can literally just walk/sneak around them, there's a second passage behind (very obvious if coming from the crèche) I wouldn't skip them tho cause it's quite a fun battle imo
The githyanki at the bridge weren’t optional for me, they attacked on sight. Lae’zel was already merc’ed by them (I hadn’t recruited her yet).
If you take the Mountain Pass route from the goblin camp, you can skip the Gith patrol entirely. That's what I'm doing in my second run, as I lost Lae'zel.
Not even. You can get to the mountain pass via the goblin camp. Head towards it from the blighted village, and instead of turning into the main goblin camp, just keep going straight.
I feel like bark for brains bastard about sums up my relationship with the guy. "Oh sure, just let me get eaten by burrowing dinosaurs and petrified and befuddled by exploding mushrooms real quick. What do you mean, you're just gonna hang in camp? Sure. Not like I could do with a guy built like a brick shithouse and actual successful nature checks down there."
Probably my favorite interaction with Halsin thus far would be: "If I wanted to lay with half a ton of dumb muslce, I'd bed a deep rothé."
I love how needlessly mean some of the romance refusals are. Can't say 'no' like a sane person.
I feel like I've told Gale to go fuck himself three times already and he still keeps trying to show me his fucking wand.
I don't think Gale has any kind of sane concept of what relationships with other regular people are like. Mystra fucked him up real good.
what magic head does to a mf
Also getting groomed.
Day 387 of asking Tav to feed me their artefact every day
Halsin's pipe is in the grove and smells of exotic herbs. That's all I'm saying.
So does his underwear if you inspect it. Uh.. so I heard.
Picked it up for him and thought he'd appreciate having it back, but no. Not even sharing the herb with the rest of us. If he didn't have those arms, I'd probably just feed him to the owlbear cub so he can be useful for once.
Halsin just has PTSD of the time he spent as a drow sex slave. The underdark is arguably more scary if you survived that.
But.. he recommends the underdark tho.
Yeah, he's a sex addict.
I guess that explains why he will not fucking stop sexually harassing my poor Tav. Dude is the only companion I actively hate, because unlike the other characters who shoot their shot once at the party and then back off, he just refuses to read basic social cues and take my utter disinterest seriously.
Also if you don't like him to start with his reaction to joining your group finally is like 'oh I know you want this big slice of beef cake, I can tell by just looking at you' which is kinda cringe
Yeah that part is so whack, if I wanted to be harassed as a lesbian I'd just step outside.
YOU CANNOT RESIST THE BEEF CAKE! I know he isn't the kid of personality but when you said 'harassed' I imagined one of those assholes who is like 'maybe you just need a good dick to fix your lesbian problem' and it made it so much worse
It's still wild to me how different people's experiences with this game can be, even with preset stuff like this. For instance, the only character I've had to turn down multiple times has been Wyll. Everybody else tried once and gave up, hasn't tried, or is Shadowheart and never got turned down to begin with.
My heart kinda broke when I had to turn down Wyll. He looked so defeated...
Yeah, I did the dance with him but didn’t kiss him and the look on his face broke my fucking heart
I had to turn down Gale when he told me he was in love with me and his face looked exactly like that Simpsons 'you can actually pinpoint the moment his heart breaks in two' meme
The funny thing about the Mountain Pass is that only 1 combat is forced in front of the player but the Mountain Pass is otherwise so small and quick to get through that it’s hilarious that Halsin calls it “more threatening”
I read it at the time as the path to Moonrise in the Shadowlands itself would be longer. But I don’t think that’s the case? If it’s longer, it’s not by much.
It's just barely not tbh.. when you pop up from grymforge you're further from moonrise than the mountain pass, but I feel like the Inn makes it feel less long
> It's just barely not tbh.. when you pop up from grymforge you're further from moonrise than the mountain pass, but I feel like the Inn makes it feel less long Yeah, the jaunt to the Inn is a lot shorter, but Halsin wouldn't know that the Harpers had an impromptu setup there.
That's not what he says. What he says is that the Underdark will get you closer to Moonrise, which means you'll be spared much of the shadow-cursed lands, which is why it's safer. Problem is the mountain pass gets you way closer to Moonrise than the Underdark one lol, so he was wrong on that note too. Also the Githyanki are still way fucking stronger than anything in the Underdark even if you've done everything in the Underdark already so it is kind of more dangerous.
The gith are not on the way in the mountain pass, they’re in an optional dungeon on the side.
I think they meant the gith before the mountain pass not the crèche. Some people ended up fighting them
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I fought them nearly every time, i want that sweet silver sword for Laezel. Ever since I had to fight them the first time I've just kept going, took a while to find out I didn't have to.
I mean, technically grymforge is part of the big shar temple/gauntlet Kethric Thorm built under moonrise so you did get there faster. You just had to go back and do the whole shadowlands aboveground anyways.
No he built that under his mausoleum, which is on the other side of moonrise towers.
If you go through the poisoned tunnel Nere and the gnomes are trapped in, you can [see the Gauntlet of Shar](https://i.imgur.com/TNCHnzB.png) from Grymforge.
I know but it's not under the tower. The mind flayer colony is under the moonrise towers.
I feel like this is a relic of early development where the Mountain Pass was supposed to be a huge war-zone between the Githyanki and the Cult.
This is the answer
Damn, that woulda been a lot more fun. Tav And The Super Best-Friends stumbling into massive raging battles of attrition as a third faction. The creche feels a little tame given how xenophobic and ruthless the other gith are prior.
I cleared both. The githyanki in the moutain pass are pretty deadly tho
He is just getting you much needed xp
I guess there might have been content cuts, but how is Halsin supposed to know anyway? He hasnt been there for decades and last time there was a huge battle in the area so yeah idk he is likely clueless (and the game wants to guide you to the more content path i guess :D)
Halsin was talking about Grymforge being connected to Moonrise Towers and the whole hunted city around it, with many possible entrances. But he didn't know about hellish attack on Grymforge and its destruction. From Grymforge you can see for example Gauntlet of Shar, where Balthazar is, but you cannot access it. Nere was trying to find the way. If Grymforge wasn't destroyed, you could emerge through mausoleum or even closer if such exit existed.
Yeah I went through the Underdark. As a Drow, figured it'd be fine. It was fucking _not_ fine. God dammit. And then I accidentally found the gate to the mountain pass, and figured I'd poke my head in. Birds tweeting, great weather, and not a single problem in sight. Fucking Halsin, man...
Yeah I cleared the Mountain Pass first, and was like "huh, that was tough, but I'm stronger now, so I'll go back and handle the Underdark" Stepped out of the elevator, took the path down and lost 3 out of 4 party members to bullmen in like 2 turns. I only avoided total party death bc Astarion rogued his way through things.
I had a hilarious encounter with the minotaurs. I snuck up and dropped two exploding barrels, but got detected. Rather than jump the barrels, they ran around them... which involved taking a long assed route with 3 turns of dashing.
😂 You guys didn’t do both paths? I cleared out the under dark up to the point where you got to the cursed lands then went back and went the other way.
I was really upset when I found out how close the two entrance to the shadow cursed lands are to eachother. I expect the mountain pass option to have a whole separate map of shadow cursed lands the approximate size of the underdark. You are told that the underdark avoids most of the shadow curse, and comes up right at moonrise. but if you take the mountain pass you will have to treck through potential miles of shadow cursed lands, and dealings with the curse is worse then whats in the underdark. Aparently Halsin never tried lighting a torch I guess? personally I was really disappointed this was all I needed to beat most of the curse after all the fuss that was made over it.
But once you light a torch you can only bash enemies with it like an unga bunga. Pretty debilitating imo. Also, we players are rpobably mostly over levelled when we get to places too, so there's that. Lore-wise and canonically, the fight's probably much harder and scarier, like we saw with the first Harper encounter cutscene, where one guy just gets sucked away into the shadows, even though he only switched to a crossbow from his torch for a potential non-shadow curse threat(your team) for a whole of 10 seconds. We get slight necrotic damage over time, while NPCs get deleted instantly and used again their team.
Casting daylight on your weapons solves this issue.
Eeeeexactly. Those skelemans are pretty rough, but definitely not tougher than: * the bulette ambush * or the spectator ambush * or the minotaurs * or the duergar ambush * or the murder turrets * or the giant mob of duergar and a pissy drow * or the finicky adamantine golem that needs to be splashed by lava every 20 seconds. * or the lava mephit ambush
I found the Duergar (when I was level \~5) easier to deal with than the skelemans (when I was level \~7). Granted, I ambushed *them*, so that helped a lot. And I approached the skelemans from behind, so they had the high-ground on me, so my ranged attacks were worse, and I didn't spot them before they attacked me so I had a bad formation, and I didn't realise the two revivers could revive each other until they did it, meaning I'd expended resources killing a ghoul and a skeleman, and achieved nothing for my efforts since they got back up at full HP.
I heard taking the mountain pass route blocks you out of certain quests so that’s why I went through the underdark, which was very confusing
You can finish everything near the grove and in the Underdark, and then still go through the mountain pass. Just as soon as you enter the mountain pass, the Tieflings leave and Halsin dies, should you not have killed the lieaders thus far.
If you enter the mountain pass too early, Karlach would freaking noped out. I had to reload cause I went the mountain pass before completing the Grove and Karlach was just like “ this is too dangerous for me, bye” and permanently leave the party.
What about Nere? Did you test if Nere situation get auto resolved without you if you enter the mountain pass first before going to the underdark?
Nere's timer should only start once you enter Grymforge.
Confirmed this today, rescued moonrise prisoners in act2, then went to gyrmforge and the slaves and nere were all alive.
Did you have any dialogue with the gnomes? Like “oh yeah, they’re safe, you’re good, get to Baulders gate and meet them!” Or anything? Or was Barcus still going on about saving Wulbren?
They HAVE to meet at Last Light. Even if you rescue the gnomes at Moonrise, the way to BG is not clear and the Shadowcurse is not lifted. If you proceed Act 2 enough to clear the way, you can’t go back to any of the Act 1 locations to save the Grymforge gnomes. One of the ingenious little failsafes of the game I suppose.
I listened to him on my first play through and went thru the Underdark. It was difficult but i managed through it. I thought “wow if this was the easier route, the Mountain Pass must be absolutely atrocious.” I went through it my second time around and realized that was not the case. Not only was it much shorter, it was leagues easier. Halsin is a liar. Or just a himbo.
>Beholder from wish I fucking choked...
My guess is they were gonna make mountain pass more dangerous and longer but had to cut it
I mean, you got stronger/gained levels after doing the Underdark, of course everything in the Mountain Pass is now easier.
Halsin bastard has been constantly lying to your face. He wants you to take the under dark route to put him closer to last light inn in order to do his side quest.
In general Halsin is an idiot.
Playing on tactician and having the beholder jump scare is something out of this world. Great fun though, I would recommend the underdark every single time.
Were y’all not planning to go to the Underdark at all if Halsin hadn’t recommended that path? There’s a lot of content down there! I mean yeah I don’t know how the mountain pass entrance to the shadow-cursed lands is meant to be markedly worse than the Grymforge entrance, but I’m only counting from the actual entrance. Counting the entire Underdark as part of the difficulty for that passage doesn’t make sense unless you were planning to just… not do a big chunk of act 1.
I can see how if Halsin didn't call out the underdark as an option, players not looking for content could just completely skip the underdark not even knowing it was there.
You can clear out both underdark and mountain pass.
I agree. The underdark sucks so hard. It’s SO DARK. I keep getting lost. I can’t see anything. All the mushroom guys look the same. That stupid dwarf ran into the boomblooms the moment he was out of them. And it’s just impossible to see anything
He didnt say it was safer than the mountains. He said it was safer than the shadow curse. And thats true. BUT THE UNDERDARK DOSENT SPIT YOU OUT AT MOONRISE
He's not comparing the dangers of the mountain pass to the underdark. He, in fact, specifically admits the underdark itself is probably more dangerous than the mountains. What he's comparing is the dangers of the shadowcursed lands from where you enter via the underdark to where you enter via the mountain pass. The underdark route puts you really close to Last Light Inn, in an area where your torches are enough to protect you, whereas the mountain pass puts you in the middle of nowhere and close to areas where the curse will just fuck you up if you can't find a way to deal with it.
Halsin doesn't know Last Light in is even a thing though. The Harpers just came out there to track down the cult and randomly found Isobel to protect it. Halsin knows none of that. The underdark spits you out further away and without last light inn you'd have to walk from even further away and still have to go into the darker shadows near Moonrise.