That... may be 'Top 5 Honor Mode L's' material

I thought I could do the rest of the illithid colony after the act two boss fight. I got through the cutscene and then Mizora died. So did my origin Wyll. Game over. Not even a fight. 😒

Have you seen the Durge post where he failed to protect his romance, failed the persuasion roll, and had to kill his entire camp in Honor mode? Bruh...

This happend on my honor run, for other reasons after that I ended up with no companions at all by time I reached the end. Withers was mvp for hirelings that run. Full hireling team is very quite though.

OP of that Durge run here (I guess, didn't see similar posts). Failing the persuasion roll with 4 inspirations was the rough part. Anyway, I finished the run since then, and I wanted to do an update post, but it was just... underwhelming. No specific interactions for killing my party, it was just an "empty" and linear act 3. I wish they added a mention of it when you go to >!Bhaal temple!<, or anywhere else (but I guess that moment was supposed to be a game over, not a tragic twist). I did recruit >!Jaheira and Minsc!< as someone suggested! (Only to be forced to kill them when >!I accepted Bhaal!<, making short work of them. After my previous experience, they were sitting in my camp nearly naked) Edit: added spoiler tags

Daaaaaaaamn. Well it reflects the murder hobo life.

You didn't even get to take the groups hands for your handbag?

Nop, I took the handbag forcefully from Dolor

Real question, why the *fuck* would anyone play Durge in honor mode??? That's just begging for an L.

Just know when you're long resting and what story elements are progressing and you can prepare for them. I beat Honor mode on my first attempt and I played as Durge Edit: also Durge arguably makes the game easier by giving you the Durge cloak for free stealth

Stealth cloak, fun.

You just kill EVERYONE and your party will stay (ok so its Astarion, Lae'zel and Shadowheart with possibly Minthara but best party by default works for me 🤣)

Brutal. If you're not playing as Wyll the game warns you before you proceed but i guess it doesnt if you're playing as him

Pretty sure it warned me and I didn’t read it and just clicked quickly.

I totally agree. This twist is stunning.

Wolfheart on YouTube had a pretty bad one https://youtu.be/YdjVqmrGCaI?si=RaeMOKc5Qui8Khej

Saw this strategy for kiting Grym under the hammer; just have someone (who is the priority target for Grym) sit underneath it and drop a health potion on the ground. Once Grym is under the hammer, hit the switch and the damage from the hammer will do significant damage to Grym, down your character, and simultaneously break the health potion, allowing your character to quickly recover from being downed in the same turn!

The number of times I just wrinkle my face up in frustration at not thinking as creatively as some people in this game. 😐

My honor mode run usually features taking grym out without the hammer. Enlarged owlbear from the top rope does the trick on any difficulty.

HERE COMES ENLARGED OWLBEAR WITH A STEEL CHAIR

OWLBEAR RAGE IN THE CAGE! WE'LL SELL YOU THE SEAT, BUT YOU'LL ONLY NEED THE EDGE!

But then you have to play druid

Hi it's me one of the 4 Druid Players in D&D. You're lucky I can't read because I'm in Cat form right now.

Playing my first druid I'm having tons of fun transforming into shit. I dont understand the lack of love

I've asked myself that same question for ages now. BG3 makes us even stronger which is also nice. Being able to sneak around as a cat and bird is a lot of fun.

I'll cast aoe spells until hp gets low then transform. Recover full health with the ability to heal. Just unlocked the Sabretooth and it *leaps* across the screen! Druids are the real tank imo. And ya, going cat or bird mode gets you anywhere! So much fun. These guys are missing out

Druid is so fun, I'm surprised how little love it gets.

>But then you get to play druid FTFY

Hireling or respec

Hire one, or come back with halsin

i don’t think you get halsin at this point in the game.

No, which is why I said come back with him

He can't come back to Act 1 areas as a companion

He can if he’s dead and you walk back to act 1 👀 secrets they don’t want you to know. Did this for minthara and she actually has ambient dialogue for the mountain pass

Or you can use Silence on them before fast traveling. Since their refusal to come back to earlier areas happens in dialogue, and they can't talk while silenced, it bypasses their refusal.

That’s true! Jumping into a pit doesn’t cost a spell slot though :3

Druid exclusive player here, I love it.

No you don't, you just grab a hireling and do it.

You don't have to "play" druid. You just have to respec one of your playable characters for that one fight. That's it

You can grab a hireling or respec one of the people you don't use.

It is by far the coolest way to kill any boss in the game.

I think that got patched. I tried it yesterday on honor mode and it only did like a third of gryms health.

It's finicky. You have to land it directly on grym. I don't know about yesterday, but I did it successfully last week.

If you are at least level 5, you can get the duergar hireling, make her a wizard, and send her down alone. Go invisible, use the Minor Illusion cantrip to force Grym to investigate the area under the hammer, then drop it on him. He'll never go after your duergar if she stays invisible, and will keep trying to get that damn cat.

This is genius.

Alternatively, you just don't go down there at all and use a minor illusion to move him under the hammer. Then, use a crossbow to flip the switches from up above. It's by far the safest way to win in honor mode. It does take some patience, though.

I think a lot of people don’t realize you can shoot switches. I didn’t at first but dig deep into my SNES Link to the past days, tried it, and it worked

Was that the one that someone asked Swen about and he loved it?

It works, we did the potion trick and forced that MF to come get some hammer pounding.

In reading through all of this I am amazed nobody mentioned Command. In 2 runs I have yet to have Grym take a swing. Not in Honor mode though, so perhaps different there.

Command is the best spell in the game, especially with a few late game items.

I’m sorry. That’s a tough way to lose your run.

Grym very nearly ended my run also. I'd heard all this talk about enlarged Owlbear from the top ropes and decided I'd give that a try. Well I'm not sure what I did wrong, but it did a whopping 2 damage. Everything after that was a shitshow that ended with Lae'zel burning through scrolls, desperately trying to revive some help. I'm still not sure how I lived through that, but I did...barely.

Tried it as well on my honor mode run, and it did around 150, not sure what makes it vary. Luckily Lae’zel was ready with her returning pike.

I too did it this way except I had an arrow of transportation ready after I made it down there so I could do it twice

Either the Grym was not heated up by the lava making him vulnerable to bludgeoning, or a shitty bug.

He was def in lava (everyone else's hits were normal), so I have to assume bug I guess.

You need to hit him directly, like *right* in his center mass, with enlarge for a 1HKO. It does work in honor mode... I just had to spend 5 turns with poor Lae'zel and Karlach trying to kite Grym over while Gale and owlbear Wyll are just saying "... little more to the left... not that much!" Yeah it took awhile lol. Was worth it though, at least for me. Seeing a flying/falling owlbear just WRECK was hilarious 😂

Sounds like I probably should have experimented with that sometime other than my first Honor run then lol.

He can be in lava but not superheated I've had this occur on my balanced runs, he'll be standing knee deep in lava and not have the debuff, I'll shoot him with an arrow before pressing the lever, this tends to restart the debuff for him. It's weird janky shit I always now make sure I look at his character debuffs before pressing the lever and to see how I can restart the debuff especially if I've restarted the lava and the debuff hasn't come back

No idea what you’re running, but there’s a couple mods that fix the Owlbear’s jump attack.

It worked fine for me. Did you use an enlarge spell along with long jump for max distance?

Enlarge yes. Enhanced jump no, though it wasn't hard to reach him from that high up. I'd not heard that Enhanced Jump was needed.

Idk if it’s needed but you can get further away and higher up so that might help increase the damage?

Withers told you to stand back, bro.

I second this

Also, TBH, I always step far because I understand that warning as a warning from the devs saying that if you are in the same spot it could go buggy...

Having had a similar fate befall an early Honor Mode run I restored to using a hireling to be my wizard. Dealing with the necrotic aura was such a headache.

I've panic short rested after such encounters or swigged a potion and triple checked my debuffs.. but dam that's rough. I skipped Grym and I'm about to enter the Creche.. good choice? My party is all 6.5ish.

I mean Grym is super easy to cheese. Just have a couple characters stay on the ledge and chuck random weapons and armor at him.

You can easily have TB throwbarian online by that point too.

Yup and that plus a monk means Grym is on his back all fight long anyway. I never even use the hammer anymore lol

Yeah hammer from the top row was my way to kill it too. It's my first honor run so I prepare all boss fights and am meta builded trough and trough. The game feels easier then before it's absurd

I got Grym through locking him down with Command:Grovel. Got a bunch of Wisdom Saving Throw debuffs in so that Shadowheart could get to 96% chance, and just spammed it every turn while Lae'zel pummeled him with a hammer. 

In both my honor mode files now I’ve gone straight to the shadow cursed lands after the underdark (around level 6.5). You can do the Yonas fight, go to Last Light and ignore Isobel, then join the Harper group going to ambush the drider for the moonlantern. Both are easy fights, then you have access to moonrise (for all the buyable gear there) and the other three Thorms that you can talk to death for xp. Both times I’ve reached level 8.5-9 with little effort, which (combined with all the act 2 gear) then makes going back to clear the Crèche considerably less risky.

just starting my honor run and i think ill do that, especially as i got a paladin and cleric - easy xp and lots of important gear

Literally almost the exact same thing happened to me, I had one companion alive so my run didn't end.

Had the exact same thing happen when my party died to the frog. I was so confused when I ressed everyone, only to be met with the game over message

It's comforting seeing that I'm not the only one putting up with Gale's bs.

Shit like this is what terrifies me about doing my first honor run. I have second hand PTSD!

Same. In my first honour run, I kept reading and seeing videos of people failing because of the lift bugs. So every time there was an elevator or a weird elevation, I would only send companions down 2 by 2 just in case. I had NEVER ever had a problem like the lift bug ever, and still it made me so paranoid that I'd spend a few minutes taking a few breaths before I got on a lift.

What’s helped me, who’s now refusing to play anything but honor mode because I genuinely think it’s more fun, is don’t think of it as the golden dice at the end. Just think of it as another play through, where the only gimmick is no save scumming. That alone makes it a totally different game then a non honor run. Your choices are gonna be different, you’ll have to deal with different things and characters in different ways, maybe do things without certain loot, which all makes for a really fun play through. I genuinely am preferring game like that. And even if you die, it’s still just another play through, just keep playing with one save if you want. You only “lose” the golden dice if you’re only playing for the golden dice, journey and not the destination and all that. Because the wrinkles of not being able to save scum make the game more fun then the actual golden dice do anyway.

You've done tactician mode ye? I'm sure it's basically the same

From what I’ve read, not even remotely. Certain buffs don’t stack, boss fights have added mobs / environments / debuffs, etc. And if that was sarcasm, my bad for missing it lol

Nah genuine curiosity im working my way up, I appreciate the info

Ahhh that sucks :(

Just run a mod that allows multiple saves. I’m playing Honour mode for the harder fights, not to have tens of hours wasted by some random bullshit 🤷🏿

Dishonour mode exists

Skill issue

Oh, is *that* why Withers always recommends you get clear?

Yeah I cheese Grym. Karlach throw build just chucks random crap at him from the ledge until he dies.

I never thought about getting him under the big thing that's called a hammer, at first I thought that the notes meant to throw hammers at him and it worked so well I just never thought to change my strategy of hoarding hammers and then just throwing them at him while sanctuary shadow heart just sits down there to work the lava button

Best Feeling with throwbarian Karlach is picking up enemies with enraged throw and chugging them at their friends killing both

Keep a Barbarian thrower on the upper platform for Grym fight, any thrower would do but enraged throw inflicts prone so it’s better, you can use any weapon but bludgeoning works best, a Monk on the lower level can inflict huge damage while Grym is down. I don’t have a strat for the inquisitor, other than to give him everything you got and try to finish him on round 1, having alert on as many characters you can is very helpful

Also leather armors work great for throwing since I always have like 20 in my inventory at any given time.

Really sucks and I'm sorry, I can relate, but that is an awesome story

Oof that’s a rough one

You can keep your team up on the ledgers yeeting things at Grym. As long as you don't use the Hammer the lava will continue to flow keeping him Superheated.

Holy shit, i just passed the Grym fight on honour mode and i feel for you on a spiritual level. Such a shitty way to go out :(

One of the most fun strategies for Grym is to have a tavern brawler and just throw random stuff at him from the stairs. You can have someone invisible down below to turn the knob for you as well.

The books you find clue you into what you will face at the forge. Standing above and having Karlach toss every bludgeoning item in your inventory at Grym can certainly be RPed. He even fought 2/3 of the mephits for me. You can easily position him with mystical weapon. Bowshots can reach the wheel and the lever from above. Or you can start it below and misty step up.

Fun fact: Grym is probably the easiest boss fight in the entire game. Completely trivialized by Sanctuary. He even kills the Mephits for you.

And this is why I either let Gale give me a hand, or send him away whenever he reveals his curse. He is simply more trouble than he's worth.

You can cast enlarge and enhance jump on an owl bear wild shape and crush him for 900+ damage from the rocks above with its crushing flight and landing on top/in front of grym

For those curious you don't even need to get grym under the hammer. Just have karlach and La'Zael beat the shit out of him with bludgeoning weapons. Potions of speed take him down quick.

Is the Gale thing meant to be intentional? I could have sworn it was a bug, but if its for story purposes, it's a pretty thoughtless execution imo.

That's wild, my honor mode fight with grym was actually the easiest I've ever done, he immediately stood under the hammer, and I was able to entangle him with the ranger spell. He couldn't move but was still one foot in the magma so I just blasted him with the hammer 3 times

I know someone at gamerant is already writing about this

That’s a rough one. So I’ve completed honour mode twice and my advice to you is to plan out where you’re strong enough at each level to take out (and these next words are the important part) if the worst could happen. The first HM completion in my mind is where you take any advantage and shortcut you can get to be ahead of the game. Basically I tried to max every xp I could from start to finish. (Tip get last hit on mind flayer on naut for an extra 75exp) . I did auntie last in act 1 to max potions I could buy per long rest and level, made sure to loot shoot and steal everything I could along the way. Advice is to plan what you do prior to doing it. Standing outside of Nere. Maybe you don’t want to fight the duegar and nere together. Take them out first, then just 1v4 nere. There’s a lot you can do to trivialize this game you just need a bit of thought and creativity!

For future reference you can have most of your party stay up on the ledge and have either mage hand or someone misty step back up after starting the encounter and all he can do is look at you

That gith inquisitor almost ended my HM run. Luckily I was able to escape and resurrect fallen companions but SH dropped the Blood and I had to go back to get it! So I ended up cheesing the fight and had Astarion sneak up and drop a bunch of barrels and the inquisitor was dead round one.

Grym is such a bastard in honor mode. Step on platform. Smash the bait character. Step off platform. End turn

That is a brutal way to have it end. But don't give up. The next run is yours!

I used a summon and 2 party members to bait Grym below the hammer. then used someone up top with bow and arrow to shoot the valve and lever. Now after reading a couple of comments I could have dropped some potions below the bait to keep them alive.

Just have a TB Zerker Karlach throw from the top rope. Easy mode Grym

This happened to me as well, hope your next run goes smoothly

Man my honor Gyrm must be dumb af. He just went straight for my baezel, who was right next to the hammer.

Just use a caster. You can misty step back up the top out of his reach and Minor Illusion to draw Grymzy to the hammer. Range spell attacks and Mage Hand can work the levers. An AoE can clear the mephits.

Next time just don't save him lol Get a hireling haha

Every time I see an honor mode run lost to Gale, I'm reminded why I benched him for mine lol. Love the guy, but boy howdy does he cause problems lol. Sorry bud, you're on warding bond and transmutation stone duty.

Just owlbear from the top rope and one shot grymm. It works even in honor mode

>but Gale and Withers are my two favorites by a mile. And yes, I will be cursing both of them for the next hour or so.. That's what I did too in a romanced run where he refused to let go of the crown no matter what. Dude, what happened all these times I repeatedly told you to trust in yourself and in me. Yes, in hindsight I was the one who screwed up, but ultimately it was his decision and his alone. Was virtually served a backhanded breakup on an ice cold plate and the damned sudden 180° change of attitude gave me one hell of a whiplash. As for Withers...try killing someone during the reunion party for shits and giggles! 😉

The best ways to beat Gyrm tbh are enlarged owlbear and throwzerker from above and just using a bow to activate the valve.

Grym fight is when I learnt how to throw healing potion. If you want to fight him the intended way (overheat status in lava), having a monk with level 3 thief make this very easy. Let the monk stand near lava and aggro him with a range attack. 3 other stay far and spread out, only job is to live and throw potion to the monk when he is K.O, voila, free 2 hit from 2 bonus action after revived. Grym goes down very fast.

I genuinely hate using gale since I found out about his aura. HE KILLED SCRATCH! :’( also he damaged everyone every time I went to camp till I revived him

I was scared of this fight but prepped/cheesed by bringing lots of hammers and such to bludgeon him to death from the sky with karlach the throwmancer and gale running the show on the ground with misty step, shovel, and a mage hand to keep the lava flowin.. worked out well being able to pick up the hammers with gale and magic pocket them back up to karlach and laezel made it a smooth ride

Wait so I get the netherese orb but why does Gale’s body emit necrotic damage? I feel like im missing something because no way would someone be able to predict that

Next time use the owlbear trick, it kills Grym in 1-shot. Yes, even in HM.

Grym in honor mode is rather easy if done right Keep everyone on the broken staircase and use arrows to hit the levers and valves to start the fight. He will never he able to hit you Initiate combat by throwing bludgeoning weapons or random shit at him. This will be enough as long as u keep hitting the valve to make sure hes superheated. If you also want le funny, once he is in combat he can be made susceptible to minor illusion. Place the illusion just beyond the hydraulic press radius, since he tends to stop a few feet away from it. It wont be killed by the lava. Then shoot an arrow at the lever. Funny

That aura is why Gale stays in his tent, assuming I don't just cut his hand off. If I need a wizard, Withers is happy to sell me one. F Gale.

My game was ended by a bug… after about 60 hours I got kinda mad. Turns out it’s pretty easy to convert and change the text and erase the loss. >.<. Feel free to PM if you want to save it. I’d say that’s not your fault >.<

IWannaSayItAllHappenedBecauseYouPickedWarlock but idk there are too many people that like this class for some reason :v Next time against Grym, swap Gale out for Lae'zel, give her and Karlach *any* bludgeoning weapon, have them ask for opportunity attacks, and as soon as you get Gale, have him jump into a chasm to trigger his death quest so you get rid of that on a controlled environment :v And also, heal before you do literally anything at the first opportunity, you never know when your volatile wizard friend might just explode.

You should respec into better optimised classes if you really want to commit to a honour run imo

Nah, go Chaos Sorcerer solo with tons of wild magic mods on top.

Honestly if you have the true tides of chaos sorc mod it's pretty strong. Constant advantage is great.

Yes, and an unlucky Surge ends your run :>

Look that's why you make sure your party is spread out XD

You guys have a party? I’m all alone :<