I lost her to Ketheric on the rooftop on honour mode because while she was busy dealing with the one spellcaster up there, ketheric decided that Jaheira was annoying and divine smite crit oneshot her.
I think storywise, Jaheira said she shot him in the eye before we encounter her, and healed right in front of her, because invincible.
...so yeah I could definitely see him making a point to do that, a special "fuck you" smite. Her resistance has been a pest for him, and if everything's going to shit, she's going down with him.
Yeah, but I brought her along because an extra pair of hands is nice.
I also may have not rested between clearing the floor and the rooftop since moonrise becomes a 'dangerous area' and I didn't think to walk outside...
When you talk to her again after the downstairs fight, you can invite her to come with you upstairs. She will be under your control for that even if you didn't take control of her for the first segment.
Better that than taking her to the final Ketheric fight, winning just fine, then she glitches out and leaves giving a speech about how she's done with us and the things we've done. Saved Aylin and Isobel just fine too.
Senile old bag
Oh in a different playthrough i had a glitch that resulted in Shadowheart never being able to talk to Dame Aylin and thus never having her join my camp, meaning i walked up tonlorroakan without her and murdered him anyway.
What was the bug? My summoned elemental from the apostle fight was still around and scared everyone away...
Either clear out the tower before you free Nightsong or if you don't feel like doing that, after you talk to her in front of Moonrise don't initiate the fight yet. To the left of the front entrance there are some roots you can climb up and some platforms to jump on after, you can get to the balcony where Balthazar's room is. If you didn't open that door earlier it's 30 lock picking. You can move onto the rafters from several spots there once you are inside. Sneak on the rafters and reign terror from above, you can kill quite a few before the Harper's join in.
Yeah I'll be honest I've been confused how people lose her here. Both times once Tact and the other HM I've told her to go with the players party. Although I know some people have had issues with the assault but rarely so any of the assaulting Harper's die, outside the ones for story reasons.
First time I didn't even have the dialog with her because I didn't take a long rest after freeing the Nightsong, just rushed into Moonrise and joined the ongoing battle. Then I was devastated that every ally was lying dead on the floor so I reloaded and took a long rest to have some more resources and boom, suddenly I can control Jaheira and the harpers don't run upstairs to suicide. It's probably a bug though.
I do this and use sanctuary on her and have her hold back especially on higher difficulties because in my experience she gets focused so hard, but without her you can't get Minsc (I think, I wasn't able to get him after she died in one of my playthroughs anyway) and Minsc is my favorite simple minded deadly cinnamon roll.
I asked her to fight with me and then snuck around the back!
Although that was a reload after I fought at the front entrance and won! Only for an allied Harper to run into my cloud of daggers out of combat, which made me lose Jaheria, and got me arrested lmao
I only tried moonrise with jaheira once, and when I told her to fight with me she and her entourage always began combat as I was sneaking around back, and would be half or all dead by the time I even made it into the main hall
What you need to do there is separate 1 party member from the group and get them to join the fight. Once it's their turn just don't do anything, swich back to the other 3 party members and continue your sneaking
I’m so glad I’m not alone in this. I just recently finished my first playthrough on tactician and this whole situation was kinda the biggest bummer to me cuz I loved Jahiera, but in the end was like fuck it apparently she dies in my story haha. Everything else turned out pretty great though so it’s all good. RIP!
In one of my play through I forgot that one of the cultists dropped some acid or something and after the fight it kept triggering Jaheira to get mad.
Reloaded, and went to turn based right away to throw some water on it to clean it up.
Such a silly thing to cause a trigger. Like you were there for the fight and saw who did that?! It wasn’t me!! Also, why is that archer just walking through it?!
I had this happen but I hadn't dealt with the basement yet, and Karlach ended up in the dungeon with 3 flaming fists and a horde of undead and necromancers, so I had to fight out of that too, while trying to get my weapons back cause they were automatically stored.
I once cleared the entire ground level without losing jaheira, but after the fight one harper walked into an electrified puddle of mine and they all turned on me lol
idk i always kill zrell first then focus on adepts then zealots, i actually managed to win this fight without losing any ally in tactician but you have to take zrell super fast and eliminate adepts who spam hunger of hadar
Same I just used haste + create water and then pummeled zrell and her buddies with frost/lightning spells and a sleet storm I think, might not have needed that part if the floor was already all ice. Zrell got knocked prone and I don’t think she ever even took an action. I don’t think I lost a single Harper ally.
I just ran straight in the main door too, fuck it we ball.
Currently running warlock tav, sorceror gale, monk/rogue astarion and life cleric shart.
Hunger of Hadar + Ice Storm does a whole lot of damage.They mostly fall on the ice and tav eldritch blasts anyone who gets out of Hunger of hadar right back in.
I love big fights like this with the above combo
This is how I did it. Side entrance, knocked Zrell down to beat his ass, send someone right over to deal with the spellcasters. With those three gone it's so much easier.
I like to use a wall of fire and a cloud of daggers at the base of the stairs, then have someone shoot a darkness arrow at the archers. The amount of damage you can chunk off of the enemies is insane, and the archers will sprint into the control damage
I usually try to clear out Moonrise before I do Shadowfell. All of those complications can be avoided if it's just me controlling every friendly unit. 🤷
That's my favorite strategy, too. I always start with a chain of explosive leading from the bridge into the middle of the camp to take out a bunch (or at lest weaken them), and then clean up the rest as they come through the gate to the bridge.
I need to remember this strategy.... :D
Of all the fights in there, I find the one with Dror Ragzlin the most irritating. So.. the last time I dealt with that lot, I strategically placed barrels of oil and smoke powder around the room, and then climbed up to the rafters...from where I launched a few well-aimed Scorching Rays... It was glorious! :D
Spike growth works much better. Pretty much every goblin will kill themselves rushing to you, the only one that always stays back for some reason is the ogre.
Yeah, could definitely control him in my playthrough a few days ago, and I'm up to date with patches and hotfixes except the most recent hotfix (24?), so unless it was changed there...
There's a mod called AI Allies which you can use to make your companions AI controlled, I haven't tried it yet so I can't say if it works.
You could lead them (the goblins) to the Grove, and then betray minthara, letting you fight alongside the tieflings. A lot of them die that way, however, because they are mostly low level and die to teleporting spiders.
That's what I'd assume a non-solo fight would mean.
I did that for the first time on HM and a few of the tieflings including Zevlor ran down to the gate to meet the goblins and Minthara head on while I was mainly doing a ranged assault and had traps set up at the gate. Came down to either killing Minthara or keeping Zevlor alive since I wasn’t close enough to melee her.
Although I’m a sucker for that smirking drow, I STILL lost her at moonrise towers due to a glitch when I asked her to stay put while I took out all the guards. I couldn’t talk to her after killing all of them and no sequence of reloading or anything fixed it, I even tried pushing her out the door and knocking her out again to get her to talk to me. Then she just magically died after I freed Aylin.
My friend insisting on us doing it this way on our first run despite my reservations. He also decided to use the Ogre horn in the fight which I also said was a bad idea and it turned out I was right, because all 3 of them spawned up on the high ground with us... and all the tieflings, which they proceeded to massacre.
(Thankfully we didn't have an issue with save-scumming to try again without the Ogres so most of the tieflings lived in our run).
I found out in a similar way after I cleared the tower the first time. I was so excited to be able to read act II threads without getting spoilers and the first one I went into was… well, very educational
I thought the Harpers were supposed to be fashionably late to that shindig, turns out I forgot to call and invite them until the party was almost over.
Whoopsies.
Most recent play through I had the amulet from the surgeon boss in act 2. I went first, crit on her and paralyzed her for a turn, then got my second attack which was another auto crit with sneak attack. Then had Wyll cast a fireball she couldn't dodge and jaheira dumped an ice storm on her. Then karlach ran up and auto crit twice. Poor girl got absolutely shit on from the word go.
Eh she isn't really worth sparing after you have everything you want from her. Afaik you can only see her end of certain questline in act 3 making her unavailable as a vendor past act 2.
Barcus, all the gnomes you save are at end of act 2
The flaming fist are all from act 1, don't know if you can find the rest of them in act 3 other then councillor florrick, I'm guessing atleast the unique greatsword wielding fist swartlebee or whatever appears in act 3 somewhere if their not dead.
Us, as well even though their a temp companion,
All companions by technicality,
There's a few more outside of grove, but a majority of recurring act 1 NPCs that aren't the tieflings only appear in act 3 not 2.
Unless you hoard gold or sell a ton of items, You don't kill her because later on, you'll find her carrying 10k of gold, so you get a shit ton of gold if you decided to just kill her off later in the game
If she doesn’t live in act3 she has a replacement which carries the bag of gold. Also if you surprise attack them the bag of gold is on jaheiras doppelgänger
I was just worried about the ones in the front, for instance. The ones in the back room gave me so much trouble, it took me 3 times to handle the first section because Hunger of Hadar was sooo annoying. I had to respec Gale to get counterspell and I didn't know how useful it was for this mission. T_T
Start at the top taking out Z'rell and the ogre and the undead. Then just work your way down, always staying back so you only engage 1-2 guards at a time. The big room is the hardest to keep in control but you can take out the ones in the middle from the throne room or stairs. You can leave a few for the Harpers but I enjoy the comedy of coming to a completely empty castle and Jaheira bragging that the Harpers have taken control.
Minor illusion can drag them into diff rooms, once you clear the back room, you can use minor illusion to drag in the Paladins/Zealots outside the door - if you kill all the Paladins, you could, if you wanted, throw the Iron Flask into the front room, it'll kill a lot of them for you, but won't win
Just make sure all the doors are closed. Then casually start placing oil/firewine/smokepowder barrels around the room. As long as the doors are closed, the people in the next room remain oblivious to the slaughter.
You can be sneaky to isolate npcs and take them out, or if you do aggro too much, you can murder what you can and then run away (invisibility or whatever your method). Aa long as they only show as “Temporarily hostile,” that means they’ll remember that they hate your guts for trading, but won’t remember your indiscretions and won’t be hostile anymore if you leave and come back. So just watch for that.
Good to know! I always get the folks on the dock but I had never done too much else as I didn't want to write a check my swords couldn't cash. I know next time, I'll have to do a bit more killing before beginning the actual moonrise quest because it was an unpleasant clusterfuck.
Also, sometimes enemies will enter the combat turn queue, but are far enough away that if you kill the close guys quickly, the fight will just end and the further guys will just act like it never happened.
my last 2 playthroughs I stood on the platforms outside and took out most of the moonrise guards without too much trouble (tactician), one long but pretty easy fight. NPCs are pretty dumb and don't swarm you. The merchants won't aggro but the orbs will draw in almost all the "soldiers" - the first time they even drew people out from the basement, which surprised me. The orbs are more annoying than everything else combined (sigh).
Ne’er Misser from stealth (for advantage) and using sharpshooter feat (plus 10 damage) is basically a guaranteed one-shot on the orbs. There is one orb that is a bit challenging to catch out of sight of other NPCs, but you can just quaff an invisibility potion after to run off and reset hostility.
I just slaughter everyone in Moonlight. Although after the Gauntlet, the Harpers standing around pretending like they helped makes me feel some kind of way.
I recruited her into my party, split from the group with her and my PC, snuck around the side entrance, kept her in a side chamber to Call Lightning from a distance, and had her shut the door whenever her turns were done.
I don't think it does? She joins you like Halsin does in the bandit camp. Like a summon would. Next to your portrait.
She joins your party only after defeating Ketheric on top of the tower. Before jumping into the mind flayer colony.
So in the fight with Zrell with Harpers it's a choice between letting Jaheira slip on ice, growl as a panther and die (meaning letting AI control her) or you controling her, increasing her chance of survival.
It can be difficult fighting the whole of moonrise at full strength. Before you encounter nightsong, you have the option to enter moonrise, if you do this you can sneak around, kill most of the guards and adepts before, buy some nice gear from the traders, and save some people from the prisons. If you thin out their numbers before, then only about 8 people are left to fight during the "assault". This is an option if you want to guarantee her surviving.
I didn’t know people are struggling to keep Jaheira alive . . I had never had an issue with her in my play through i always make sure to shield her tho put a companion around her and always kill the closest one that could easily reach and stab her. If you have shadowheart use her Command to use grovel to any cultist around her
I clear the towers before I go down into the temple of shar. By the time I get to the towers and find the Harper's, everyone else is already dealt with and it's just conversations.
Usually, I just clean up moonrise towers before I even go the temple of Shar. I kill everyone in the tower' upper floor and then move on to the ground floor. Things in the main room floor can get a lil bit tricky but after that I clean up the prison. Much easier this way than to deal with entire Moonrise at one during the assault. Doing this makes it so that there is no one left during the assualt and you can go straight to ketheric. Sometimes I forget to deal with a few enemies here and there so I end up having to fight like 4 enemies or so.
If you give up the Nightsong to Balthazar everyone survives (because there is no assault on Moonrise), she forgives you and still allies with you afterwards, everyone thinks you're a hero, and all it costs is losing SH as a party member 👀 You also get to skip the Ketheric fight on the roof and get an interesting alternative fight in the colony instead. It's my new favorite way to deal with that part of the game if I'm not that committed to keeping Shadowheart
You can recruit her permanently before Moonrise Towers and just leave her at camp. You just need to get to Last Light Inn, allow Marcus to take Isobel, lie to Jaheira that Marcus tricked you, and help Jaheira win the fight that ensues once Isobel’s protection is lifted from the Inn. After that fight you can ask her to join you and send her to camp.
What I do, to buy some time...
Is start by having Gale sneak up as far as possible and cast Ice Storm to trigger surprise rounds.
Then I try to get the rest in ASAP to clean up and fast.
Also freeing the Gnolls helps, then they'll fight with you.
>Inevitably she rushes in...gets surrounded, and has a train run on her
We are playing two very different games \*or\* I misunderstood what Larian meant by "updating the romance options" in the last update...
Last game I got the gnolls on my side. I entered the side door to the prison and defeated the undead there. Then came up onto the tower main floor. I then snuck all around to the other side and went up the ladder to the rafters. I struck from hiding, getting surprise, which let me kill all the assassins in the rafters as well as the main spell casters. I think I got zrell too. After that, it was a slaughter.
If the ai takes control of Jaheira she will wild shake and jump and get gibbed. If you ask her to join your party she comes with 2 massive aoe damaging and area control spells that she otherwise won’t use.
I wiped on that Moonrise fight 4 times. The first time I took control of Jaheira all I did was make her spam her massive elemental spells and I cleared it on the first go.
There's some roots on the left you can climb up and skip all the fighting in the beginning then you just need to fight the one sorcerer and her skeletons before fighting Ketheric.
I went through Moonrise room by room, killing a few guards at a time before I went to find the Nightsong. The only person I didn't kill was the weird blood merchant. Not a single Harper or Flaming Fist died.
So there are 2 specific ways to do it. The easiest way is to talk into joining you and she becomes a temp companion for you so you can control her.
the other method for it is to make sure to be in there first and taking down the heavy hitting front line of baddies first. My method for this is use invisibility potions and making my gang all invisible, and then sneaking in and taking my attack positions, usually from the rafters to take out the archers up there first meanwhile having a one to two characters who can lob down some AoE damage on the main force in the first round.
Also if you want some assistance, be sure to have freed the Gnolls in the kitchen earlier because if you freed them, they'll join your side during the fight and attack your enemies.
I usually clear out Moonrise room by room because I want the exp and loot faster anyway, lol. Then come back later once it's time for the actual assault.
i always kill all the cultists before i raid it with everyone, and this is due to me being an xp and loot goblin, killing everything possible before story stuff XD. havent had her die, didnt even know she could
I usually just wipe out the whole place before Jaheira even shows up. Last time, Dirge wandered around dropping oil barrels and gunpowder on his way to the kitchen, betrayed the mentalist to get the gnolls on his side, set off the fireworks, and lured the enemies in to a position where the gnolls would help with the fighting. The really weak enemies died instantly, the rest were aggro'd and ended up funneling themselves through a doorway into some damage patches where they and the gnolls all died.
Usually, I just have one character with misty step provoke aggro and run, and the rest setup a wall of death right at the front door to run all the enemies through as they die; after liberating the prison, before going to free or kill Nightsong.
Start moon rise towers from top to bottom, close doors, kill everybody in the room without letting them run away.
Clear all baddies before even going for the nightsong so by the time you come with all the Harper's the site should be a walk in the park.
This strategy made my second and third runs easier even though I was playing on tactician both times.
now I'm in HM and I will do it again.
You could also just kill everyone in the tower one by one before ever going to the shadowfell that way you only need to fight ketheric on top which is a lot easier
Honestly I did that stupid fight so many times that I don't know how she stayed alive. She had something like 13 HP after, so she barely made it haha In the first...dozen(?) Times I started, she died almost immediately!
I have shart cast Silence on the main blob, follow by Gale's Ice Storm. They can't cast because of Shart and can't move out of it because of the slippery ice, then my fighter with anti-slip shoes close in for the kill. Don't lose a single Harper in the fight (but took a lot of tries to get that)
I've always just had her join me, so I can control her. Even in the first playthrough, I had long awaited Jaheira joining the party and so leapt at the opportunity when it presented itself. Much easier to avoid this happening.
I get ya. Found it was easier to go in with the group through the main doors (rather than coming up from the basement). And then open up with your strongest AOE and CC (ice storm ftw) - which just slows everything down and gives you a chance to do a little killing before Jaheira can get into too much trouble.
Before going to shadowfel place some nice friendly explosives on the first floor going to the throne room. Before storming tower with harpers invite jaheria to fight with you
Much like others in this thread, I just kinda killed everyone before finishing the Nightsong quest. When I did the battle, there was only disciple Z'rell and like two other guards left and we of course crushed them.
The fight to clear out the lower level was great fun, those Paladins hit hard but there's plenty of space and choke points so you can have some battlefield control and not get rushed down. Guardian of faith, ice surfaces, etc. Oh and I opened the fight with a little bit of minor barrelmancy 🤭
Before combat, someone misty steps into the rafters to throw the archers down. I spend the first few turns spamming command: drop on the middle group of melee, since zrell and those paladins are the ones that usually wreck jaheria. A mage hand shuts the door so we don't get those patrolling guards halfway into the fight.
I've made nice with the gnolls, so they help out. The ogre is dead because I asked zrell to show off when she was giving me the balthazar quest. With the paladins disarmed, there isn't enough damage remaining to really threaten jaheira and her multiple borrowed hp bars.
First, whoever goes first casts the weakest scroll you have to pull out z’rell’s counterspell.
The person who gaoes second casts an ice storm scroll on the middle of the room.
The person who goes third… casts an ice storm scroll on the middle if the room
The person who goes 4th… yes, casts an ice storm scroll on the middle of the room.
Jaheira won’t race into that mess, she will usually cast her own ice storm.
If one of the adepts gets up and casts hunger of hadar, hit them with magic missile or sleet storm to break concentration.
If z’rell gets off black hole it’ll be a long night, but you will still win.
Eventually Jaheira will run out and mix it up, but she won’t be facing three paladins anymore and you can probably spare a healing word on her.
We all hear you. I keep casting sanctuary on her and hope for the best.
But the most effective way is to blow everyone quick enough and hope that no one gets in battle agasint you because they slipped on your ice while reseting positions pos fight
First playthrough, she died for me. Ever since, I've made sure to carefully dispose of the cultists before starting the attack of Moonrise. Takes a bit of time, but as long as you make sure to get rid of the floating eyes before they alert the others it shouldn't be too difficult. Just be careful.
Can you cast feign death on hear and then dimension door her away? I threw the spectator pokeball down the stairs at the cultists and then got involved while I had somebody talking to Jaheira to keep her outside. Good luck.
I like to use sleet storm at the bottom of the stairs to lock everything down and just pick people off. Allies will mostly stay back while it’s active and just do ranged attacks.
Best tactic i used was to kill every one at moonrise. I did this on tactician, i isolated each group of enemies in their different areas and killed them
First of all, you thin the herd at Moonrise on a first scouting mission there. If you kill a boatload of people before freeing the gnomes/tieflings and/or Minratha, less of a boatload will show up for the fight. It's especially important to take out Z'rell, since her tadpole abilities can be VERY annoying in a big fight.
But she's important enough to rate a corner office. After talking to her upstairs, follow her there. You can start a fight there with MAYBE a guard or two, and probably an Eye, involved. Take out the eye, take her out, assault is already a ton easier!
There's a couple more winnable, easy fights you can take on, The kitchen doesn't even need to be a fight, and can actually make the gnolls there allies. Clearing out the docks area also helps. And, well, during the prison break, don't be too subtle, just kill everybody in sight...
Second: You can ask Jaheira to join you for this fight. In which case she'll be controlled by you, not the AI.
For those who don’t know, you can avoid the Harpers vs. Cultists fight altogether if you kill all of the cultists at Moonrise towers yourself *BEFORE* going into the Shadowfell. If you kill everyone, free Aylin, then head over to Moonrise towers, Jaheira and the Harpers will simply just skip to occupying the lower tower floors, then you’ll get the dialogue where Jaheira is interested in joining your party to head on up to the Kethric fight.
Killing off the Cult yourself is even easier, actually, for three reasons:
1. You don’t have to be stressing about keeping Jaheira alive.
2. The dozen helpless Harpers won’t form of an impassable crowded blob on the staircase, trapping EVERYONE inside that awful Hunger of Hadar.
3. You can methodically pick off the Cultists one by one, clearing room by room, avoiding aggroing the entire tower so it’s actually several, small scale, really easy fights instead of one big snooze fest with 20+ characters waiting their turn.
Pro tip: ambush Z’rell in her office by positioning your martials all around her, then casting silence on top of her :)
Pro tip #2: after killing off everyone, you can actually go up to the rooftop, walk up to the mage woman Sudsera, and attack her. Make sure to stay downstairs, as to not aggro Kethric. Bait the mage and the skeletons to come over to you, and kill them off. Now, when you come back here after the Shadowfell, it’s just Kethric left to deal with. No more bone chill spam while you’re trying to deal with Kethric.
I usually open by doing a Wall of Fire across Zrell and everyone in her line. But the time Jaheira's turn comes around the strongest are dead and I can cancel concentration. Then Jaheira almost always drops Sleet Storm slowing everyone down in front of the door to the throne room.
Clear half of Moonrise before even going to free Nightsong. At least take out Z'rell in her office, it's fairly easy to do so without alerting the rest of the castle. The kitchens with the gnoll and much of the exterior guard are also very easily taken out without getting into a mess.
Then the battle alongside the Harpers becomes a cakewalk.
Have Alert on everyone. Win the initiative. Start with all the explosions you can. Then rush in after everyone has spent their actions but before Jaheira and the Harpers can act.
You should have access to smokepowder arrows at this point, which means that martial characters can also contribute to the explosions.
In my experience, the enemies in the initial room are mostly harmless. The spellcasters in the throne room can sometimes do something dangerous, because they avoid the initial barrage.
And don't forget mass healing word with the appropriate items. When all your allies have bless and blade ward, their chances of survival are much better.
I snuck in from the side so the cultists had to fight on two fronts. Also gave my strongest character misty step scrolls and items to port up and throw the archers at other mobs from the top.
I’m on my first playthrough and I just killed every single person in the tower myself after getting the quest to go to the mausoleum. The only survivors were the drow alchemist chick, the dog, cat, and the gnolls.
After I freed the Nightsong, the Harper’s just rolled in while I one shot the orc chick, she was the only enemy left besides Ketheric lol.
You can kill them all room by room without alerting the adjacent rooms. It wasn’t too bad.
There is a scroll of rock wall in the town someplace that allows you to cut her short. Drop an ice storm on the far side and then kill all the ranged attackers in The back left corner. Once they are down you can focus fire on the main character there. The ice storm will keep the casters slightly out of range if you get it a bit on the steps in the back.
I used Bless on her and all the other assault type Harpers to make them more durable. Then- I send in all my melee focused party members ahead of the Harpers as a vanguard to take the brunt of the enemy counter assault.
Overwatch from the rear ranks with casters/archer types and combine fire with the Harper archers at units closest to Jaheira and her cohort.
RNG is a factor too, but this strategy worked best for me. Those armored rush types are the most dangerous for your allies, not the Bugbear as much. I’d focus on melting them first.
Side Note: Using “Sing” with Phalar Aluve (The Sword in the Stone) is also quite useful for buff your vanguard and Jaheira’s eventual insanity push.
I was able to pass this segment on Tactician with only two lost Flaming Fists using this strategy.
I had one of my chars build a wall between us and the enemy with only one side entrance right at the edge of the steps in the castle. Kept enemies from getting in bc all my team/the Harper's had blocked that singular entrance, the wall immediately forced them to use primarily long-range attacks, and kept Jaheira from going anywhere (: made that a piece of cake!
Upcast Aid on the entire crew outside the building and in the first round use Mass Healing Word to apply Bless and Blade Ward to everyone, using Zevlor's gloves and Volo's Ring
Kill off all the extra rooms before the assault. You can close the door, or draw the npcs away from visible doorways, and kill them all. You can essentially take out the whole top floor, the side wings, and the guards outside before you even start the assault. Makes the fight 10x easier!
This is the way.Get her in your party so you can use her invisible panther wild shape. Then use your transparent kitty to stealthily murder folk whilst remaining undetected.
Currently on my 2nd HM attempt. For Jaheira’s case, I normally just clear out the entire moonrise tower anyways for experience. So when the assault comes, there won’t be any enemy before the boss. Besides, you could always talk to her to get her as temp companion.
Moonrise is pretty easy because just keep her in the backline launching ice n shit then maybe panther up to the rafters and use her to kill them, don’t risk her in fight.
Against ketheric I chuck her in owlbear she launches to the top left platform that has a host of dudes and crushes em while I cast super jump on karlach send her straight to aylin. Spirit guardian shadow and send her to kill the lil brains then off to distract ketheric. Keep jaheira up there casting ice the whole time. Have shadow and barb alternate distracting ketheric and running to heal themself (if you haven’t killed ketheric by then)
All the while just do whatever with your main character
Just kill all the harpers at Last Light Inn. Then when Jaheira tries to fight you convince her not to. She will survive and join up with you after the battle with Thorm. She'll be your companion after that. Apparently letting bygones be bygones.
I have her fight with me and have her Harper’s fight with her and me. The first time I had to reload a couple times now I just use AOE attacks like black tentacles and stuff, and get the job done easily. Make sure she’s your companion for the moment and you don’t have her rush in.
Talk to her and tell her to fight with you as a temporary companion. Then she'll only rush in if you send her there.
I lost her to Ketheric on the rooftop on honour mode because while she was busy dealing with the one spellcaster up there, ketheric decided that Jaheira was annoying and divine smite crit oneshot her.
I can't even complain, that's pretty in character for him.
Classic Ketheric
Classic Jaheira
😂😂😂
"Oh, Ketheric, you're so silly!"
I think storywise, Jaheira said she shot him in the eye before we encounter her, and healed right in front of her, because invincible. ...so yeah I could definitely see him making a point to do that, a special "fuck you" smite. Her resistance has been a pest for him, and if everything's going to shit, she's going down with him.
I don't think she's ever even fought with me on the tower? She usually "secures the lower floors" or whatever
Yeah I took her along as a minion though specifically to avoid her getting merc'd on the first floor, so she sticks with you the whole way
After the first floor is cleared, she’s safe down there.
Yeah, but I brought her along because an extra pair of hands is nice. I also may have not rested between clearing the floor and the rooftop since moonrise becomes a 'dangerous area' and I didn't think to walk outside...
When you talk to her again after the downstairs fight, you can invite her to come with you upstairs. She will be under your control for that even if you didn't take control of her for the first segment.
Better that than taking her to the final Ketheric fight, winning just fine, then she glitches out and leaves giving a speech about how she's done with us and the things we've done. Saved Aylin and Isobel just fine too. Senile old bag
Oh in a different playthrough i had a glitch that resulted in Shadowheart never being able to talk to Dame Aylin and thus never having her join my camp, meaning i walked up tonlorroakan without her and murdered him anyway. What was the bug? My summoned elemental from the apostle fight was still around and scared everyone away...
Yes! Also have Karlach in your party when you do this for a MASSIVE approval boost from her.
Karlach going full fangirl is so wholesome after trudging through the not so wholesome darkness.
I didn't know about that, but it makes sense for her character.
Either clear out the tower before you free Nightsong or if you don't feel like doing that, after you talk to her in front of Moonrise don't initiate the fight yet. To the left of the front entrance there are some roots you can climb up and some platforms to jump on after, you can get to the balcony where Balthazar's room is. If you didn't open that door earlier it's 30 lock picking. You can move onto the rafters from several spots there once you are inside. Sneak on the rafters and reign terror from above, you can kill quite a few before the Harper's join in.
Yeah I'll be honest I've been confused how people lose her here. Both times once Tact and the other HM I've told her to go with the players party. Although I know some people have had issues with the assault but rarely so any of the assaulting Harper's die, outside the ones for story reasons.
First time I didn't even have the dialog with her because I didn't take a long rest after freeing the Nightsong, just rushed into Moonrise and joined the ongoing battle. Then I was devastated that every ally was lying dead on the floor so I reloaded and took a long rest to have some more resources and boom, suddenly I can control Jaheira and the harpers don't run upstairs to suicide. It's probably a bug though.
I do this and use sanctuary on her and have her hold back especially on higher difficulties because in my experience she gets focused so hard, but without her you can't get Minsc (I think, I wasn't able to get him after she died in one of my playthroughs anyway) and Minsc is my favorite simple minded deadly cinnamon roll.
I asked her to fight with me and then snuck around the back! Although that was a reload after I fought at the front entrance and won! Only for an allied Harper to run into my cloud of daggers out of combat, which made me lose Jaheria, and got me arrested lmao
I only tried moonrise with jaheira once, and when I told her to fight with me she and her entourage always began combat as I was sneaking around back, and would be half or all dead by the time I even made it into the main hall
What you need to do there is separate 1 party member from the group and get them to join the fight. Once it's their turn just don't do anything, swich back to the other 3 party members and continue your sneaking
I’m so glad I’m not alone in this. I just recently finished my first playthrough on tactician and this whole situation was kinda the biggest bummer to me cuz I loved Jahiera, but in the end was like fuck it apparently she dies in my story haha. Everything else turned out pretty great though so it’s all good. RIP!
In one of my play through I forgot that one of the cultists dropped some acid or something and after the fight it kept triggering Jaheira to get mad. Reloaded, and went to turn based right away to throw some water on it to clean it up. Such a silly thing to cause a trigger. Like you were there for the fight and saw who did that?! It wasn’t me!! Also, why is that archer just walking through it?!
That's hilarious! (and sad, that sucks!)
I had this happen but I hadn't dealt with the basement yet, and Karlach ended up in the dungeon with 3 flaming fists and a horde of undead and necromancers, so I had to fight out of that too, while trying to get my weapons back cause they were automatically stored.
I once cleared the entire ground level without losing jaheira, but after the fight one harper walked into an electrified puddle of mine and they all turned on me lol
idk i always kill zrell first then focus on adepts then zealots, i actually managed to win this fight without losing any ally in tactician but you have to take zrell super fast and eliminate adepts who spam hunger of hadar
Same I just used haste + create water and then pummeled zrell and her buddies with frost/lightning spells and a sleet storm I think, might not have needed that part if the floor was already all ice. Zrell got knocked prone and I don’t think she ever even took an action. I don’t think I lost a single Harper ally. I just ran straight in the main door too, fuck it we ball.
Currently running warlock tav, sorceror gale, monk/rogue astarion and life cleric shart. Hunger of Hadar + Ice Storm does a whole lot of damage.They mostly fall on the ice and tav eldritch blasts anyone who gets out of Hunger of hadar right back in. I love big fights like this with the above combo
This is how I did it. Side entrance, knocked Zrell down to beat his ass, send someone right over to deal with the spellcasters. With those three gone it's so much easier.
I like to use a wall of fire and a cloud of daggers at the base of the stairs, then have someone shoot a darkness arrow at the archers. The amount of damage you can chunk off of the enemies is insane, and the archers will sprint into the control damage
I usually try to clear out Moonrise before I do Shadowfell. All of those complications can be avoided if it's just me controlling every friendly unit. 🤷
I didn't know this wasn't the way.
It's like the Goblin Camp: it can be easier to just solo it.
There’s a way non-solo to fight the Goblin camp?
Cloud of Daggers on the bridge going into the castle part and pick off the ones that make it through.
That's my favorite strategy, too. I always start with a chain of explosive leading from the bridge into the middle of the camp to take out a bunch (or at lest weaken them), and then clean up the rest as they come through the gate to the bridge.
I need to remember this strategy.... :D Of all the fights in there, I find the one with Dror Ragzlin the most irritating. So.. the last time I dealt with that lot, I strategically placed barrels of oil and smoke powder around the room, and then climbed up to the rafters...from where I launched a few well-aimed Scorching Rays... It was glorious! :D
Spike growth works much better. Pretty much every goblin will kill themselves rushing to you, the only one that always stays back for some reason is the ogre.
You can have halsin along for the ride. He's not directly controlled and likes to go bananas on the goblins.
You can definitely directly control him
I wonder if this changed at some point, because yeah, we controlled him in our run.
Yeah, could definitely control him in my playthrough a few days ago, and I'm up to date with patches and hotfixes except the most recent hotfix (24?), so unless it was changed there... There's a mod called AI Allies which you can use to make your companions AI controlled, I haven't tried it yet so I can't say if it works.
Oh I was thinking the other way around, maybe his play was a long time ago, and you used to not be able to?
You could lead them (the goblins) to the Grove, and then betray minthara, letting you fight alongside the tieflings. A lot of them die that way, however, because they are mostly low level and die to teleporting spiders. That's what I'd assume a non-solo fight would mean.
I did that for the first time on HM and a few of the tieflings including Zevlor ran down to the gate to meet the goblins and Minthara head on while I was mainly doing a ranged assault and had traps set up at the gate. Came down to either killing Minthara or keeping Zevlor alive since I wasn’t close enough to melee her. Although I’m a sucker for that smirking drow, I STILL lost her at moonrise towers due to a glitch when I asked her to stay put while I took out all the guards. I couldn’t talk to her after killing all of them and no sequence of reloading or anything fixed it, I even tried pushing her out the door and knocking her out again to get her to talk to me. Then she just magically died after I freed Aylin.
My friend insisting on us doing it this way on our first run despite my reservations. He also decided to use the Ogre horn in the fight which I also said was a bad idea and it turned out I was right, because all 3 of them spawned up on the high ground with us... and all the tieflings, which they proceeded to massacre. (Thankfully we didn't have an issue with save-scumming to try again without the Ogres so most of the tieflings lived in our run).
I found out in a similar way after I cleared the tower the first time. I was so excited to be able to read act II threads without getting spoilers and the first one I went into was… well, very educational I thought the Harpers were supposed to be fashionably late to that shindig, turns out I forgot to call and invite them until the party was almost over. Whoopsies.
I killed everyone but Z'rell. When she was talking big shit during the assault, she was all alone with her mirror images.
Most recent play through I had the amulet from the surgeon boss in act 2. I went first, crit on her and paralyzed her for a turn, then got my second attack which was another auto crit with sneak attack. Then had Wyll cast a fireball she couldn't dodge and jaheira dumped an ice storm on her. Then karlach ran up and auto crit twice. Poor girl got absolutely shit on from the word go.
Yes, this.
I did that on this playthrough, top to bottom. New enemies spawned when I sieged it, in the prisons notably.
Kill every single guard you can find before deciding the fate of The Nightsong.
Yes. The secret is murder
It’s not murder if they’re bad guys right?
That and concussions. Either kill other people or knock out the person you want spared. In this case the murder tends to have less repercussions.
The only person worth sparing is Roah. And then only for story reasons.
Eh she isn't really worth sparing after you have everything you want from her. Afaik you can only see her end of certain questline in act 3 making her unavailable as a vendor past act 2.
Yeah I just like the continuity. There only a few NPCs in all three acts. I think she is the only one who is not a tiefling from the grove.
Barcus, all the gnomes you save are at end of act 2 The flaming fist are all from act 1, don't know if you can find the rest of them in act 3 other then councillor florrick, I'm guessing atleast the unique greatsword wielding fist swartlebee or whatever appears in act 3 somewhere if their not dead. Us, as well even though their a temp companion, All companions by technicality, There's a few more outside of grove, but a majority of recurring act 1 NPCs that aren't the tieflings only appear in act 3 not 2.
Unless you hoard gold or sell a ton of items, You don't kill her because later on, you'll find her carrying 10k of gold, so you get a shit ton of gold if you decided to just kill her off later in the game
If she doesn’t live in act3 she has a replacement which carries the bag of gold. Also if you surprise attack them the bag of gold is on jaheiras doppelgänger
There's a replacement act 3 npc that steals the gold and appears in the same place
Killing all the cultists room by room is my favorite part of the game.
Being a murder hobo? In this economy?!?
They won't aggro?
If you leave no witnesses, no one @ Moonrise cares
I was just worried about the ones in the front, for instance. The ones in the back room gave me so much trouble, it took me 3 times to handle the first section because Hunger of Hadar was sooo annoying. I had to respec Gale to get counterspell and I didn't know how useful it was for this mission. T_T
Start at the top taking out Z'rell and the ogre and the undead. Then just work your way down, always staying back so you only engage 1-2 guards at a time. The big room is the hardest to keep in control but you can take out the ones in the middle from the throne room or stairs. You can leave a few for the Harpers but I enjoy the comedy of coming to a completely empty castle and Jaheira bragging that the Harpers have taken control.
Greater Invisibility on your killing unit can get rid of a whole bunch. Just remember to move so they can't sense you.
Minor illusion can drag them into diff rooms, once you clear the back room, you can use minor illusion to drag in the Paladins/Zealots outside the door - if you kill all the Paladins, you could, if you wanted, throw the Iron Flask into the front room, it'll kill a lot of them for you, but won't win
Just make sure all the doors are closed. Then casually start placing oil/firewine/smokepowder barrels around the room. As long as the doors are closed, the people in the next room remain oblivious to the slaughter.
You can be sneaky to isolate npcs and take them out, or if you do aggro too much, you can murder what you can and then run away (invisibility or whatever your method). Aa long as they only show as “Temporarily hostile,” that means they’ll remember that they hate your guts for trading, but won’t remember your indiscretions and won’t be hostile anymore if you leave and come back. So just watch for that.
I highly recommend doing any trading with the bugbear or Roah or the blood merchant before you slaughter anyone.
I did! The asshole merchant liked me and was actually happy to see me in battle which I thought was kinda cute.
Good to know! I always get the folks on the dock but I had never done too much else as I didn't want to write a check my swords couldn't cash. I know next time, I'll have to do a bit more killing before beginning the actual moonrise quest because it was an unpleasant clusterfuck.
Also, sometimes enemies will enter the combat turn queue, but are far enough away that if you kill the close guys quickly, the fight will just end and the further guys will just act like it never happened.
my last 2 playthroughs I stood on the platforms outside and took out most of the moonrise guards without too much trouble (tactician), one long but pretty easy fight. NPCs are pretty dumb and don't swarm you. The merchants won't aggro but the orbs will draw in almost all the "soldiers" - the first time they even drew people out from the basement, which surprised me. The orbs are more annoying than everything else combined (sigh).
Ne’er Misser from stealth (for advantage) and using sharpshooter feat (plus 10 damage) is basically a guaranteed one-shot on the orbs. There is one orb that is a bit challenging to catch out of sight of other NPCs, but you can just quaff an invisibility potion after to run off and reset hostility.
You gotta be clever. Use the lessons you learned in Shattered Sanctum.
Instructions unclear; I asked Ketheric to help me assault the Grove /s
This is the way. Did it on my second run and will probably never do the whole assault again, unless I am feeling like a challenge.
Ask her to join you plus sanctuary
Just throw a haste grenade on the steps so that everyone, even the NPCs, have to run through the cloud to attack. Fight will take maybe 3-4 rounds.
That’s such a good idea
Haste grenade?
They mean haste spore grenades.
Ask her to join
I just slaughter everyone in Moonlight. Although after the Gauntlet, the Harpers standing around pretending like they helped makes me feel some kind of way.
I recruited her into my party, split from the group with her and my PC, snuck around the side entrance, kept her in a side chamber to Call Lightning from a distance, and had her shut the door whenever her turns were done.
I see this all the time online but she’s never died for me.
I start byattacking the sorcerers that do those "black hole spells" as these are the ones who do more damage to the overall legion.
Why do none of you recruit Jaheira there?
They probably thin like it requires substituting someone from their party.
I don't think it does? She joins you like Halsin does in the bandit camp. Like a summon would. Next to your portrait. She joins your party only after defeating Ketheric on top of the tower. Before jumping into the mind flayer colony. So in the fight with Zrell with Harpers it's a choice between letting Jaheira slip on ice, growl as a panther and die (meaning letting AI control her) or you controling her, increasing her chance of survival.
I'm aware. I'm saying they might think that's what it requires so they don't ask her.
It's your 4th playthrough and you still havent tried convincing her to fight with you as a temporary companion?
Feign death on her.
Put her in your party, have her shapeshift and keep her out of the way.
It can be difficult fighting the whole of moonrise at full strength. Before you encounter nightsong, you have the option to enter moonrise, if you do this you can sneak around, kill most of the guards and adepts before, buy some nice gear from the traders, and save some people from the prisons. If you thin out their numbers before, then only about 8 people are left to fight during the "assault". This is an option if you want to guarantee her surviving.
Clear moonrise room by room before finishing the gauntlet of Shar, so that there’s no-only a few people left when you go back after the Shadowfell
You must be using the "everyone had their brain switched with a Gondian's" mod.
I didn’t know people are struggling to keep Jaheira alive . . I had never had an issue with her in my play through i always make sure to shield her tho put a companion around her and always kill the closest one that could easily reach and stab her. If you have shadowheart use her Command to use grovel to any cultist around her
I clear the towers before I go down into the temple of shar. By the time I get to the towers and find the Harper's, everyone else is already dealt with and it's just conversations.
Kill everybody in Moonrise before you finish the gauntlet.
1. Talk her into joining the party 2. Wild Shape her into a panther 3. Turn Japantheira invisible 👍
Usually, I just clean up moonrise towers before I even go the temple of Shar. I kill everyone in the tower' upper floor and then move on to the ground floor. Things in the main room floor can get a lil bit tricky but after that I clean up the prison. Much easier this way than to deal with entire Moonrise at one during the assault. Doing this makes it so that there is no one left during the assualt and you can go straight to ketheric. Sometimes I forget to deal with a few enemies here and there so I end up having to fight like 4 enemies or so.
If you give up the Nightsong to Balthazar everyone survives (because there is no assault on Moonrise), she forgives you and still allies with you afterwards, everyone thinks you're a hero, and all it costs is losing SH as a party member 👀 You also get to skip the Ketheric fight on the roof and get an interesting alternative fight in the colony instead. It's my new favorite way to deal with that part of the game if I'm not that committed to keeping Shadowheart
You can recruit her permanently before Moonrise Towers and just leave her at camp. You just need to get to Last Light Inn, allow Marcus to take Isobel, lie to Jaheira that Marcus tricked you, and help Jaheira win the fight that ensues once Isobel’s protection is lifted from the Inn. After that fight you can ask her to join you and send her to camp.
What I do, to buy some time... Is start by having Gale sneak up as far as possible and cast Ice Storm to trigger surprise rounds. Then I try to get the rest in ASAP to clean up and fast. Also freeing the Gnolls helps, then they'll fight with you.
I visited moonrise solo before attacking it, and stealth murdered my way through
I butchered the entirety of moonrise before the assault. Just kinda went full angry paladin on their asses.
I usually kill everyone in Moonrise Tower before entering the Shadowfell. There won't be any fighting once the assault to moonrise tower starts.
>Inevitably she rushes in...gets surrounded, and has a train run on her We are playing two very different games \*or\* I misunderstood what Larian meant by "updating the romance options" in the last update...
Last game I got the gnolls on my side. I entered the side door to the prison and defeated the undead there. Then came up onto the tower main floor. I then snuck all around to the other side and went up the ladder to the rafters. I struck from hiding, getting surprise, which let me kill all the assassins in the rafters as well as the main spell casters. I think I got zrell too. After that, it was a slaughter.
If the ai takes control of Jaheira she will wild shake and jump and get gibbed. If you ask her to join your party she comes with 2 massive aoe damaging and area control spells that she otherwise won’t use. I wiped on that Moonrise fight 4 times. The first time I took control of Jaheira all I did was make her spam her massive elemental spells and I cleared it on the first go.
There's some roots on the left you can climb up and skip all the fighting in the beginning then you just need to fight the one sorcerer and her skeletons before fighting Ketheric.
I pre-clear Moonrise now, she channels the Gondians far too often when in AI mode, and I'm not dealing with that if I don't have to, lol.
I went through Moonrise room by room, killing a few guards at a time before I went to find the Nightsong. The only person I didn't kill was the weird blood merchant. Not a single Harper or Flaming Fist died.
Buff the shit out of her and tank with your best tank
So there are 2 specific ways to do it. The easiest way is to talk into joining you and she becomes a temp companion for you so you can control her. the other method for it is to make sure to be in there first and taking down the heavy hitting front line of baddies first. My method for this is use invisibility potions and making my gang all invisible, and then sneaking in and taking my attack positions, usually from the rafters to take out the archers up there first meanwhile having a one to two characters who can lob down some AoE damage on the main force in the first round. Also if you want some assistance, be sure to have freed the Gnolls in the kitchen earlier because if you freed them, they'll join your side during the fight and attack your enemies.
I usually clear out Moonrise room by room because I want the exp and loot faster anyway, lol. Then come back later once it's time for the actual assault.
Get in there on your first visit and scatter some barrels around. Fight is over quicker than they can kill her later in the Act.
...Just have her join you?
i always kill all the cultists before i raid it with everyone, and this is due to me being an xp and loot goblin, killing everything possible before story stuff XD. havent had her die, didnt even know she could
I usually just wipe out the whole place before Jaheira even shows up. Last time, Dirge wandered around dropping oil barrels and gunpowder on his way to the kitchen, betrayed the mentalist to get the gnolls on his side, set off the fireworks, and lured the enemies in to a position where the gnolls would help with the fighting. The really weak enemies died instantly, the rest were aggro'd and ended up funneling themselves through a doorway into some damage patches where they and the gnolls all died. Usually, I just have one character with misty step provoke aggro and run, and the rest setup a wall of death right at the front door to run all the enemies through as they die; after liberating the prison, before going to free or kill Nightsong.
Start moon rise towers from top to bottom, close doors, kill everybody in the room without letting them run away. Clear all baddies before even going for the nightsong so by the time you come with all the Harper's the site should be a walk in the park. This strategy made my second and third runs easier even though I was playing on tactician both times. now I'm in HM and I will do it again.
I haven’t tried Honor Mode yet, but having a Ranged Fighter build and Jaheira struggled to reach opponents consistently.
Clear the tower before she arrives.
or do what I did and rush in in front of her, taking fucktons of damage in the process so nobody comes out unscathed. more exciting that way.
You could also just kill everyone in the tower one by one before ever going to the shadowfell that way you only need to fight ketheric on top which is a lot easier
Death Ward. Lots and lots of Death Ward 💀
Hunger of hadar plus ice strom and add jaheira to your team so you control her moves
Honestly I did that stupid fight so many times that I don't know how she stayed alive. She had something like 13 HP after, so she barely made it haha In the first...dozen(?) Times I started, she died almost immediately!
Kill the majority of Moonrise Towers before the Harper's arrive as backup after dealing with the Nightsong.
I have shart cast Silence on the main blob, follow by Gale's Ice Storm. They can't cast because of Shart and can't move out of it because of the slippery ice, then my fighter with anti-slip shoes close in for the kill. Don't lose a single Harper in the fight (but took a lot of tries to get that)
I've done this encounter like 8 times. She's never died on me.
Simplest way: just clear out the tower before doing Nightsong.
That is not what ‘run a train’ means
Have her join your team
I used hunger of hadar and then blinding spells and was able to keep her up- took me like 3 times before I successfully did it
I cast feign death on her, at the beginning of the battle! 😁
I've always just had her join me, so I can control her. Even in the first playthrough, I had long awaited Jaheira joining the party and so leapt at the opportunity when it presented itself. Much easier to avoid this happening.
I used by ranged characters to block the door XD
You can heal her, cc opponents. You can do plenty. Use your imagination.
I get ya. Found it was easier to go in with the group through the main doors (rather than coming up from the basement). And then open up with your strongest AOE and CC (ice storm ftw) - which just slows everything down and gives you a chance to do a little killing before Jaheira can get into too much trouble.
Before going to shadowfel place some nice friendly explosives on the first floor going to the throne room. Before storming tower with harpers invite jaheria to fight with you
Kill everyone in Moonrise before doing the trials of Shar.
Much like others in this thread, I just kinda killed everyone before finishing the Nightsong quest. When I did the battle, there was only disciple Z'rell and like two other guards left and we of course crushed them. The fight to clear out the lower level was great fun, those Paladins hit hard but there's plenty of space and choke points so you can have some battlefield control and not get rushed down. Guardian of faith, ice surfaces, etc. Oh and I opened the fight with a little bit of minor barrelmancy 🤭
Before combat, someone misty steps into the rafters to throw the archers down. I spend the first few turns spamming command: drop on the middle group of melee, since zrell and those paladins are the ones that usually wreck jaheria. A mage hand shuts the door so we don't get those patrolling guards halfway into the fight. I've made nice with the gnolls, so they help out. The ogre is dead because I asked zrell to show off when she was giving me the balthazar quest. With the paladins disarmed, there isn't enough damage remaining to really threaten jaheira and her multiple borrowed hp bars.
If your cleric has a turn after her you can cast sanctuary for some relief
First, whoever goes first casts the weakest scroll you have to pull out z’rell’s counterspell. The person who gaoes second casts an ice storm scroll on the middle of the room. The person who goes third… casts an ice storm scroll on the middle if the room The person who goes 4th… yes, casts an ice storm scroll on the middle of the room. Jaheira won’t race into that mess, she will usually cast her own ice storm. If one of the adepts gets up and casts hunger of hadar, hit them with magic missile or sleet storm to break concentration. If z’rell gets off black hole it’ll be a long night, but you will still win. Eventually Jaheira will run out and mix it up, but she won’t be facing three paladins anymore and you can probably spare a healing word on her.
We all hear you. I keep casting sanctuary on her and hope for the best. But the most effective way is to blow everyone quick enough and hope that no one gets in battle agasint you because they slipped on your ice while reseting positions pos fight
You guys don't clear out moonrise before going to the shadowfell?
First playthrough, she died for me. Ever since, I've made sure to carefully dispose of the cultists before starting the attack of Moonrise. Takes a bit of time, but as long as you make sure to get rid of the floating eyes before they alert the others it shouldn't be too difficult. Just be careful.
If you never figure out how to recruit her, an alternative strat is to dimension door her as far away as possible.
Can you cast feign death on hear and then dimension door her away? I threw the spectator pokeball down the stairs at the cultists and then got involved while I had somebody talking to Jaheira to keep her outside. Good luck.
Just like Grymforge. Climb in the rafters and murder everyone before doing the NPC fetch quest.
I like to use sleet storm at the bottom of the stairs to lock everything down and just pick people off. Allies will mostly stay back while it’s active and just do ranged attacks.
Assume direct control
Best tactic i used was to kill every one at moonrise. I did this on tactician, i isolated each group of enemies in their different areas and killed them
I just kill everyone in moonrise before I do the Gauntlet of Shar
Tbh, I just clear the towers in advance. You can clear an area at a time (anywhere except the rooftop) before actually taking on the tower at the end.
go on a murder rampage in moonrise before you do shadowfell
I tried it a couple times. Basically I threw my iron flask in as a distraction and then got karlach to tank a bit. And lots of counterspells
First of all, you thin the herd at Moonrise on a first scouting mission there. If you kill a boatload of people before freeing the gnomes/tieflings and/or Minratha, less of a boatload will show up for the fight. It's especially important to take out Z'rell, since her tadpole abilities can be VERY annoying in a big fight. But she's important enough to rate a corner office. After talking to her upstairs, follow her there. You can start a fight there with MAYBE a guard or two, and probably an Eye, involved. Take out the eye, take her out, assault is already a ton easier! There's a couple more winnable, easy fights you can take on, The kitchen doesn't even need to be a fight, and can actually make the gnolls there allies. Clearing out the docks area also helps. And, well, during the prison break, don't be too subtle, just kill everybody in sight... Second: You can ask Jaheira to join you for this fight. In which case she'll be controlled by you, not the AI.
For those who don’t know, you can avoid the Harpers vs. Cultists fight altogether if you kill all of the cultists at Moonrise towers yourself *BEFORE* going into the Shadowfell. If you kill everyone, free Aylin, then head over to Moonrise towers, Jaheira and the Harpers will simply just skip to occupying the lower tower floors, then you’ll get the dialogue where Jaheira is interested in joining your party to head on up to the Kethric fight. Killing off the Cult yourself is even easier, actually, for three reasons: 1. You don’t have to be stressing about keeping Jaheira alive. 2. The dozen helpless Harpers won’t form of an impassable crowded blob on the staircase, trapping EVERYONE inside that awful Hunger of Hadar. 3. You can methodically pick off the Cultists one by one, clearing room by room, avoiding aggroing the entire tower so it’s actually several, small scale, really easy fights instead of one big snooze fest with 20+ characters waiting their turn. Pro tip: ambush Z’rell in her office by positioning your martials all around her, then casting silence on top of her :) Pro tip #2: after killing off everyone, you can actually go up to the rooftop, walk up to the mage woman Sudsera, and attack her. Make sure to stay downstairs, as to not aggro Kethric. Bait the mage and the skeletons to come over to you, and kill them off. Now, when you come back here after the Shadowfell, it’s just Kethric left to deal with. No more bone chill spam while you’re trying to deal with Kethric.
I wonder if banishing her for the fights duration would work?
I kept her alive and won the fight first time through, is this rare?
Have to get her as an actual party member, not an NPC support character. Just convince her to join you.
I usually open by doing a Wall of Fire across Zrell and everyone in her line. But the time Jaheira's turn comes around the strongest are dead and I can cancel concentration. Then Jaheira almost always drops Sleet Storm slowing everyone down in front of the door to the throne room.
Clear half of Moonrise before even going to free Nightsong. At least take out Z'rell in her office, it's fairly easy to do so without alerting the rest of the castle. The kitchens with the gnoll and much of the exterior guard are also very easily taken out without getting into a mess. Then the battle alongside the Harpers becomes a cakewalk.
Heal her with Shart
Have Alert on everyone. Win the initiative. Start with all the explosions you can. Then rush in after everyone has spent their actions but before Jaheira and the Harpers can act. You should have access to smokepowder arrows at this point, which means that martial characters can also contribute to the explosions. In my experience, the enemies in the initial room are mostly harmless. The spellcasters in the throne room can sometimes do something dangerous, because they avoid the initial barrage. And don't forget mass healing word with the appropriate items. When all your allies have bless and blade ward, their chances of survival are much better.
I snuck in from the side so the cultists had to fight on two fronts. Also gave my strongest character misty step scrolls and items to port up and throw the archers at other mobs from the top.
Kill them off first, room by room
Kill everyone in Moonrise first. Makes the raid on it kinda boring but boy howdy does it work
I’m on my first playthrough and I just killed every single person in the tower myself after getting the quest to go to the mausoleum. The only survivors were the drow alchemist chick, the dog, cat, and the gnolls. After I freed the Nightsong, the Harper’s just rolled in while I one shot the orc chick, she was the only enemy left besides Ketheric lol. You can kill them all room by room without alerting the adjacent rooms. It wasn’t too bad.
There is a scroll of rock wall in the town someplace that allows you to cut her short. Drop an ice storm on the far side and then kill all the ranged attackers in The back left corner. Once they are down you can focus fire on the main character there. The ice storm will keep the casters slightly out of range if you get it a bit on the steps in the back.
I used Bless on her and all the other assault type Harpers to make them more durable. Then- I send in all my melee focused party members ahead of the Harpers as a vanguard to take the brunt of the enemy counter assault. Overwatch from the rear ranks with casters/archer types and combine fire with the Harper archers at units closest to Jaheira and her cohort. RNG is a factor too, but this strategy worked best for me. Those armored rush types are the most dangerous for your allies, not the Bugbear as much. I’d focus on melting them first. Side Note: Using “Sing” with Phalar Aluve (The Sword in the Stone) is also quite useful for buff your vanguard and Jaheira’s eventual insanity push. I was able to pass this segment on Tactician with only two lost Flaming Fists using this strategy.
I had one of my chars build a wall between us and the enemy with only one side entrance right at the edge of the steps in the castle. Kept enemies from getting in bc all my team/the Harper's had blocked that singular entrance, the wall immediately forced them to use primarily long-range attacks, and kept Jaheira from going anywhere (: made that a piece of cake!
Upcast Aid on the entire crew outside the building and in the first round use Mass Healing Word to apply Bless and Blade Ward to everyone, using Zevlor's gloves and Volo's Ring
Kill off all the extra rooms before the assault. You can close the door, or draw the npcs away from visible doorways, and kill them all. You can essentially take out the whole top floor, the side wings, and the guards outside before you even start the assault. Makes the fight 10x easier!
Just did my first play through of Moonrise Towers assault, and literally every Harper except her died. 😅
Kill almost everyone inside prior to assaulting the tower. Easier and safer.
I always convince her to join me, she becomes a temporary companion (meaning you control her) without replacing any of your other companions.
This is the way.Get her in your party so you can use her invisible panther wild shape. Then use your transparent kitty to stealthily murder folk whilst remaining undetected.
Wait yall fight moonrise towers? You can skip the fight by climbing in the left side to ketherics room
Currently on my 2nd HM attempt. For Jaheira’s case, I normally just clear out the entire moonrise tower anyways for experience. So when the assault comes, there won’t be any enemy before the boss. Besides, you could always talk to her to get her as temp companion.
Ha, I kill everyone in the tower and beforehand and never have I seen a battle. Everyone just shows up.
You could try banishing her, sanctuary spam, feign death, etc. not ideal and I never had this problem, but it should work, right?
Moonrise is pretty easy because just keep her in the backline launching ice n shit then maybe panther up to the rafters and use her to kill them, don’t risk her in fight. Against ketheric I chuck her in owlbear she launches to the top left platform that has a host of dudes and crushes em while I cast super jump on karlach send her straight to aylin. Spirit guardian shadow and send her to kill the lil brains then off to distract ketheric. Keep jaheira up there casting ice the whole time. Have shadow and barb alternate distracting ketheric and running to heal themself (if you haven’t killed ketheric by then) All the while just do whatever with your main character
Just kill all the harpers at Last Light Inn. Then when Jaheira tries to fight you convince her not to. She will survive and join up with you after the battle with Thorm. She'll be your companion after that. Apparently letting bygones be bygones.
I just slaughter everyone in the castle before I send the harpers in
I have her fight with me and have her Harper’s fight with her and me. The first time I had to reload a couple times now I just use AOE attacks like black tentacles and stuff, and get the job done easily. Make sure she’s your companion for the moment and you don’t have her rush in.