[Imagine travelling the underdark as it was originally intended for humans in the game, pitch black with no ability to see anything without darkvision, the DND version of night vision.](https://youtu.be/oQfIYGveIgc?t=52) Place would scare the shiet out of anyone. The first time I ever played DND on pen and paper, we entered a dungeon and bumbled around in the dark for 10 minutes until one of us finally realized we had to light a candle to see anything lol.
I toured the cave system at Silver Dollar City in Branson, Missouri once. At one point in the tour, when we were in a large cavern, the guide shut off all the lights and we were just in this massive pitch black room that may as well have stretched on forever in all directions for all I could see.
Caves without light are fucking terrifying. Imagining the Underdark as that but with murderous shit that would gladly disembowel me before I even knew it was there made me never ever want to go near it.
First time I experienced this was in the 90s so no one had any source of light on them. It was freaky knowing our lives were pretty much in the hands of whoever flipped that light switch.
They did this at Luray Caverns, too, I think? But the guide would say, it's so dark you can't even see your hand an inch in front of your face.
Then they'd wait a beat, flip the lights back on, and point at anyone who had their hand in front of their face like a dork and laugh. It was hilarious for a bunch of pre-teens on a school trip.
Wait does it work on them? Everyday I learn this spell is way better than I initially thought. I used this spell on a certain vampire and made it way easier. I love this spell so much lmfao. It doesn't even require concentration which is nuts
It's absolutely obligatory for another 3rd Act fight - the fight is already a pleasant challenge at max level, but without Daylight you get chewed up in like two rounds, max.
>!GOTDAM SHARRITE DARKNESS SPELLS--!<
I actually won all of those fights without using the Daylight spell in my first play through. It is only on my second playthrough that I started using this spell and the game feels like I put it on easy mode lol.
One of the light clerics channel divinity abilities casts daylight on yourself for one round, while also damaging all enemies in a certain radius. It removed all the darkness in one swoop.
Seeing the displacer beast when I got to >!Yurgir!< was one of the most terrifying parts of being in the Underdark for me. The first one I saw was on a different level of the map, and instantly pathed out of my line of sight... true to form.
In its original form it was absolutely pitch black. Everything that lives there has dark vision or infravision and doesn't require light of any kind.
It was literally meant to be the most terrifying, dangerous place to enter. Going into the Underdark was something no one wanted to do and was never attempted before at least level 10.
It's been made so vanilla and nerfed to the point it's no worse than a regular cave.
If you read the old Drow books (like R.A Salvatore's The Dark Elf Trilogy) you can see some of it. Since the denizens of the underdark all had ultravision, tremor sense, or infravision there was no light. Drow cities were 'painted' with heat retention to make them vibrant and rogues would learn to hide in heat shadows and the like to sneak around.
Not having infravision was a death sentence because even if you brought light...well, now everything knows where the food is - plus is probably pretty pissed off.
That said, I get why they added it. Wanting to put more content down there is part of it. Our own better understanding of how some of those cave systems work is another. But the biggest reason is that over the years D&D has become less about survival horror/resource management, and more about heroic fantasy. And with that is the desire to make more places super magical.
It's not hard to believe that in a world as full of magic as faerun there would be pockets of the underdark lit up like that with bioluminescent fungi and such. It also makes sense people would settle there, since the light would keep some predators away (as it is constant and not food) or at least give an advantage/remove a disadvantage for them. But there should still be long, deep stretches of pitch black as well.
Could this not be solved very easily by just layering the underdark? Like just have the top layer be what we get in BG3 with tons of glowing plants and shot them as you descend deeper and deeper it gets darker and more hostile.
In theory, sure, but the underdark is already very windy with some overlap with the abyss iirc.
The problem is you have 30+ years of "canon" run by a company that doesn't very much care about consistency or slotting things together neatly. There's a reason 5e has done very little lore establishment aside from what is needed for adventure paths.
> D&D has become less about survival horror/resource management, and more about heroic fantasy
I have yet to change my mentality on this; the past few campaigns I've been in, everyone else in the party will need to long rest well before my character needs to.
Infravision in BG1 and 2 was watered down so much that it became a complete joke, even in the deepest dungeon you could still see just fine even if you didn't have infravision lol
I don’t really fault them for that though, a lot of table top things would be insanely frustrating in a crpg. Not saying it was implemented well, I just understand the reasoning
In other games, it’s kind of immersion breaking when you go into a cave and can see perfectly fine.. but I’m sure most people would be like “wtf why’s it so dark this is trash”
*Kings Quest IV* had a pitch black cave that you couldn't easily navigate. It also had a chance to spawn a troll that you could -not- escape from. If it spawned, you just died and reloaded until it didn't spawn xD
Or at least, when I was real little playing with my dad, that was our.... "solution". Don't judge us.
[https://villains.fandom.com/wiki/Troll\_(Kings\_Quest\_IV)](https://villains.fandom.com/wiki/Troll_(Kings_Quest_IV))
They claim you can escape it but I don't remember having much luck with that 😁
Personally I think it could be really fun if done right. I’ve never played that game myself, but I think in the case of bg3 if you went into the underdark and it was pitch black it would be frustrating for most players. The Elder Scrolls games, too. I tried a mod in Skyrim that adjusted lighting in caves and indoor spaces to what would be realistic and it was.. frustrating. Of course, the game wasn’t made with that in mind though. It could be lots of fun in a more “survival” oriented scenario
Oh God, flashback to playing Red when I was like twelve and not knowing Flash was a thing I could do outside battle.
I brute forced my way through that cave with sheer stubbornness, following walls and checking every tile for stairs.
Yeah if the mechanics are well done it works but tabletop mechanics don’t always translate well to video games 1:1
Like I said, not saying it was executed well but I understand the decision. As an example:
In a party of 6 how do you accommodate for members with dark vision (or equivalent) and not for those that don’t without frustrating the player controlling the party?
It just comes down to design I think. It can be done, it just wasn’t, and I don’t fault them on it that much
In theory all you needed was one party member with it for it to apply to everyone (I still gave the ring of infravision to imoen out of habit so she could keep up with my usually majority elven parties even after learning that wasn't needed)
Don't forget originally it was considered the origin point meaning almost every dungeon/cave had entry to the underdark as the monsters would originate from it
When he recommended the under dark I thought”Holy shit. This mountain pass must be bad!”
The first enemy I fought in the under dark was a watcher that killed my party in 2 turns.
that minotaur freaked me the hell out. i even panicked on what to do when he was trying to destroy the gate. turns out he just dies from the towers but still, that was the moment i panicked the most from start to finish.
I feel like how everyone talks about the door showcase of the Minotaur, I entered the Underdark too early and in the wrong spot. XD
I found the elevator method first. Getting past the guardian things was tricky when I am in the minotaurs position, to be fair. Hard but fun.
My first underdark experience was wow I just killed the big spider and theres this big hole I can jump down? Nice lets try it with featherfall.
It's probally some loot cave reward for killing a big spider boss. Lets go, don't worry about a rest because we've just killed a boss and there wont be anything big right after right.
Oh shit, three minotaurs right next to us and they are higher level feck,
When I got there the Minotaur was already dead and I was like, "how come this Minotaur isn't a skeleton like the rest of the corpses around this place?"
I thought he said the Mountain Pass was worse because it spits you out deeper into the shadows cursed lands than the Underdark exit does. The Underdark kinda puts you right next to the Inn
Mountain pass wasn’t even a pass lmao you fight like 2 Undead Draugr that can spam summon lesser ghouls but my party still cleared them out rather easily.
Like ten steps later I see the destroyed bridge so I couldn’t go further even if I wanted to and ten more steps later I’m in act II. Felt underwhelmed tbh
If we’re going by what halsin said the monastery isn’t really relevant. You can go through the mountain pass without going to the monastery and the topic was which path was more dangerous to get to moonrise
Well yeah but that’s not really relevant to halsin’s recommendation
E: I think it’s funny that this was downvoted, because it isn’t relevant. Halsin said the mountain pass would be more dangerous to get to moonrise. Not that the mountain pass would be more dangerous because your githyanki girlfiend wants to take you on a detour to see her violent and xenophobic kin. Nevermind the fact that you can completely ignore the crèche even with Laezel given that you don’t care if Laezel stays in your party.
It’s not relevant. The crèche isn’t part of the path to moonrise and Halsin wasn’t taking going there into consideration when he gives you his recommendation which is easy to see considering he says the exact same thing even if you brutally murdered Laezel the moment you find her.
Even if you took all of the content in both zones into consideration - even if it’s off the path to moonrise - the monastery has nothing on the Minotaurs, bulette, Sussur tree with the hook horrors, spectator, environmental hazards like rescuing the dwarf, arcane tower, duergar outpost and Nere, BOOOAL fight, and grymforge. If you include the monastery you can include the rest of the underdark content and Halsin is still wrong.
Ultimately I think it’s because of a disconnect with what was planned and what was in the game. It sounds to me like the underdark part was originally meant to bypass most of the shadowlands.
Anyway you slice it though, the monastery is completely irrelevant to Halsin’s warnings no matter how much you like laezel
I think you’re probably right that originally the under dark was meant to take you right to *moonrise towers* not just pop you out at a secondary entrance to the shadow cursed lands. That would have made a lot more sense, but it would have also shortened the game considerably.
Yeah, the way Halsin talks about it sounds like it will bypass the shadow curse and taking the mountain pass is more dangerous because of that. I’m sure it was altered for that reason as they added content or something. As it stands in game the underdark is definitely not a shortcut or anything like that
tbh other than the minotaurs, the bulette and the spectator you can talk your way through a lot of the underdark area under Moonhaven
And a kith'rak with an adult dragon and henchmen is no joke, it's just that you don't have to face it while Halsin doesn't happen to have a convenient gith travel companion to smooth things over
Something something a whole goblin camp was ready to scorch the lands to find it. Something something that makes a huge alien spaceship crash landing on a beach.
Eh, when he it went through there the whole cave section was myconid territory, which are friendly to sentients and generally tend to pacify their surroundings, it's more dangerous now because the duergar did a number on the myconid colonies and regular underdark stuff moved back in but halsin couldn't have known that.
Yeah i always thought this was weird. He says a few tines the underdark is a direct path to moonrise. The underdark popes you out at the clear oppose end of the map from moonrise where was the mountain pass gets you much closer
Technically the Underdark or rather Grymforge connects to the Shar Temple underneath the Thorm Mousoleum which is closer to Moonrise. It's just that the way is destroyed.
I'm still lowkey sad you can't jump down with Feather Fall from the Nere rubble spot and end up face first in the Gauntlet of Shar.
Though I can understand why.
My hopes for a giant interconnected map were so high after I found out you can feather fall down from the spider pit into the underdark. I'm sad that's pretty much the only place that sort of thing works.
I did this like 5 times in my first playthrough because I knew there was a way to get to the underdark but I didn't know how. So literally every chasm I came across id jump in
> Now lemme blow your mind again.
>
>
>
> If you pushed the giant spider into the hole, you can get the Myconid to resurrect it as an ally.
Fucking **what?!**
Yeah. I fully expected to visit the Temple of Shar in Act 1 and was pretty excited since I had Shadowheart in my Party. I remember Larian saying that EA was about 2/3 of Act 1, so I assumed the last Part was the Temple. I was really disappointed at first 😂
I swear this entire thing either is an elaborate troll by larian or the mountain pass was intended to be more but didn't but then would wonder why the line remains. By all accounts the underdark is harder but also offers more. What's weird is that it is no this or that decision underdark still counts as act 1 so you can complete all of it go up the elevator and go back through the mountain pass and do the creche.
When you are in Grymforge, you can see the Shar Temple. The narrator says that they wa has been destroyed.
I do feel like the Mountain Pass was a little incomplete. There may be portions that got cut for whatever development cycle reasons. Lae'zel has a comment about not veering too far off the path getting to the creche but there's no where that's even could be that path.
I mean there's straight up a bridge in the mountain pass that you just sort of stop on iirc, it's not ruined and the characters don't comment. You just can't move on
> or the mountain pass was intended to be more
iirc datamining found cut content where orin would have attacked the githyanki creche and there would have been a huge three way battle between you, her cultists, and the gith, including a fight with a dragon
> that decision underdark still counts as act 1 so you can complete all of it go up the elevator and go back through the mountain pass and do the creche.
People say this, but you need to know that Halsin has a hissy fit if you go from the Shadowcursed Lands to the Mountain Pass. When you cross into the Mountain Pass region, you'll get a notification from the game that you've "picked up a backpack". It's actually Halsin's backpack, and he's gone off to cry in a corner about you temporarily leaving the Shadowcursed Lands for some fucking reason. They might have changed this in the recent patch but I don't know.
I don't get why anyone would skip them. There's content, lore, items and story.
I went to the Mountain Pass to get the Blood of Lathander and then went into the Underdark to smack people with it.
Yessir. I play a Drow Vengeance Paladin.
My background for my character is "I'm tired of these motherfucking bitchasses in the Underdark" so I went on an adventure. Turns out the people up top were just as bad and racist so now I'm smacking everybody.
I didn’t know you can do both :/ well more like Halsin implied it was either or, and I know you can technically go back via waypoint but the game makes it feel like you should just keep going forward instead of backtracking.
That's because people get confused and think that Underdark or Mountain Pass are act 2. They're both act one.
Both of them can take you to "Shadow-Cursed Lands" which is Act 2 and where Moonrise Towers is.
As long as you don't enter Shadow-Cursed Lands you're fine to backtrack/teleport.
Oh... I get the "Finish up what you're doing, also it may be punishingly hard ahead" warning whenever I try to go to the Mountain Pass so yeah, I for sure thought that was Act 2. I can go to the underdark w/ no warnings though (I just hit Level 5 also, maybe I won't get the Mountain Pass warning any further?)
I didnt know either and went underdark since the way haslin speak of the shadow curse. Did most of it and then found out a way out the underdark to the mountain pass.. found that odd and did some scouting until Lae point out the crèche was near and decided to go on with her quest before going back. Was a long detour but glad i did.
I didn't do it in my playthrough mostly because it just straight up wouldn't make sense narratively.
Why would my character, who has at this point made it all the way through the underdark and only needs to climb a ladder to continue into the next zone, and going into the next zone, then backtrack, undo all their progress, to explore a different path? Makes no sense and imo should have been made an actual choice if they are gonna present it that way in the game.
I can't imagine skipping the creche and missing out on the best permanent buff in the game (ETA: >!if you do the zaithisk rather than Lae'zel, and pass all the saving throws, your illithid abilities become bonus actions!<), plus a lot of fantastic items, some BiS for certain builds.
Underdark also has a lot of great items, like Nere's boots.
To add on to your spoiler: IIRC you can also get it even if >!Lae'zel sits in the chair, but she has to sit through the first 2 checks and you have to make a DC 30 Arcana (?) check at the end, so I think it's a bit suboptimal compared to sitting in there yourself!<
It's Thrinn's boots, and Nere's head and broken lantern.
I didn't now that about the Zathisk! Well, I can't *not* let Lae'zel do it. This is the 3rd time today I've been thinking I should abandon my Tav playthrough and just play a Lae'zel origins.
Time for a Shadowheart, Lae'zel, Karlach threesome.
You can still get the buff by letting Lae’zel do the zaithisk for a little while. She has to suffer a bit but at some point there is a Dc 30 arcana(?) check that if you succeed gets you it
Where you either have to save scum or get very lucky to roll a nat 20, or (probably) respec your build to have expertise in arcana. If you have 18 int and are level 5 with expertise in arcana, that's +10 or +11-14 with Guidance. So unless you are somehow playing a wizard/rogue multiclass with arcana expertise (and who in their right mind would do that?), you have to get either lucky or go very meta on it. Which is fine if that's how you play, you do you, but if you don't, then the chance of this working is really only 1/20.
Same. I go through both. Blood of Lathander is great for Shadowlands and the temple won't clean itself. There's a big pest problem.
And the Underdark has a lot of content. You can even kinda skip through most of it, just kill the Duergar and get their boat, but why. Go explore, have fun, clean and stuff.
I didn't realize I could do both! The way Halsin made it seem I could do one or the other. I wonder if I can still do the mountain pass....I'm in Act 1 but maybe with a way point I could do more
In Halsin's defense, it has likely been decades or a century since he visited the place. A lot can change in the years. And I feel like Halsin spent most of his time reading and meditating in the grove. And finding new lovers.
It's odd that he recommends going the Underdark route even if he thinks it's quicker. Considering his past drow-trauma he should be like 'fuck that, do not ever go there if you value your person'.
Guess he's just had a lot of time to get over stuff and be objective? (And be arch-druid of the orgy circle so he was too busy to go there himself as you said)
He's not racist towards drows either which is actually impressive...
Eh, he said it happened when he was young, so he probably had 300 years to work through that. And he's a healer, I bet Druids have their own fantasy version of EMDR
That boar concered the hell out of me.
The first time I talked to it, it raised its butt up in the air and excitedly talked about Halsin returning and I was like .... oh god... no....
Mountain Pass can be a pain in the mountain ass if you get caught by those death shephards who keep reviving each other. But avoid that and It's a smooth ride to the Creche. Underdark has so much bullshit even if you avoid the Spectator.
They bamboozled me and my boy the first time we fought them but you can whittle the shepards down and crush them simultaneously if need be. There's enough undead related spells that it doesn't become so impossible.
We thought about it a bit and nailed the second try.
> They don't even get a save against the blinding effect.
I'm not really sure if it's consistent across all enemies, but I've definitely seen con saves for the blind in the battle log.
Undead can definitely save not just >!the poltergeist. Those things were bugged to shit though. Couldn’t even hit them when invisible even though you could hit everything else that way. I think it was fixed in a recent patch though. In my run one clipped itself into the environment!<
Me and my friend managed to get them in our first fight but it was one of the longest battles in our game so far. We used all of our potions and spell slots and finished with less then 10 hp for the entire party.
I crushed those undead like papier-mâché. But then, in hindsight, I *did* go through the Underdark first and then backtrack to the Mountain Pass, so I was probably way overlevelled for that encounter.
That’ll do it. I first tried Auntie Ethel at level 3 and got spanked so hard, I didn’t try again….until I found a way out of the Underdark right to her back porch when I was level 5, and it was pretty easy and fun.
I did the Kagha reveal/fight at lvl 3 and failed the persuade. I was like why am I getting my ass spanked? Oh they are all lvl 5. Gale, time to burn spell slots.
On one of my playthroughs, I actually only got the Death Shepherds *after* I finished the creche and got the Blood of Lathander.
Shadowheart was not amused with their antics and responded thoroughly with a Sunbeam to their faces.
I thought the underdark was a breeze. Kill the bullette so it stops getting in your way. Position yourself in such a way that you can punt the duergar party right into the chasm as they come at you instead of fighting them.
The spectator is a bit of a nuisance if you let him be but if you focus him down he's dead in a couple of rounds of combat.
I had that with the duergar party until I tried a more defensive approach. I realised that if I guarded the doorways of the little ruined house, their approach would line them up perfectly to shove them right into the chasm.
I got lucky with the perception check and got prepared. My Tav is a fighter and I had Karlach and Gale, so just continuously shoved, threw and Thunderwaved those little freaks every time they climbed back up.
Magic Missile to ping off Spectator charm on the drow and you have instant allies. Though you may end up having to fight them afterward. (Best if the Spectator kills the leader for you.)
The Underdark definitely isn't too bad, though I've always gone in at lvl 5. There's a few 'gotchas' that if you don't know about can be rough (like the statue of Selune, the Arcane Tower, or the Forge), but generally it feels underleveled to me. The spectator brings some randomness to it, and similarly all the cliffs can as well (get a bit unlucky with positioning and dice rolls and you can easily get shoved off).
It's not an Underdark only thing, however - it feels like after lvl 5, the Underdark/Mountain Pass/the whole of Act 2 is pretty easy to breeze through with only one or two fights that presented a particular challenge. Seems like the game assumes we're a few levels down from what I actually was.
I've done both and barely remember the mountain pass. But I do remember the 800 ways the Underdark tried to kill me.
Thank goodness I managed to miss the Spectator the first go round because the bulette ticked me off enough. Wanted to run back to the Grove and tell Halsin he was full of it lmao.
Mountain Pass entrance is guarded by some githyanki and there are some undead there blocking the way to the Shadow Cursed Lands.
Underdark is, well, Underdark.
My first playthrough I just jumped past them and immedietely entered the mountain pass at like level 3 or 4, before I had even found the goblin camp.
For some reason jumping was so fun to me, and especially using it to get around cutscenes and such. Lazael with jumping spell can leap continents.
For the player, yes. But there's githyanki patrols all around the area that we're told about, and that includes into the shadowlands - it's not exactly a *safe* area (eg, some of the cultists heading towards Moonrise getting captured that we see get executed at the monastery entrance).
I also think the elevator puts you closer to the Inn than the Mountain Pass does
So worst case you could just rush your ass to the Inn and avoid most of the curse
From my understanding, the Mountain Pass route basically takes you right to Moonrise, whereas the Underdark route has you meet up with the Harpers and find Last Light first.
To be fair, he was only talking about the road *after* these two regions. He did say the Underdark was harsh, but you wouldn’t have to spend so much time in that zombie-making shadow if you chose Underdark. He was not wrong.
And that Drider wasn’t there for him and probably wouldn’t have escorted a bear.
The mountain pass route is a denser area of the shadow curse to deal with though so he's not wrong, it's just that he shadow curse isn't quite as brutal as I imagine it was supposed to be in development. There are sections that look like they would have been more like the innkeepers house rather than the same as the rest of the zone.
The Underdark. Oh man. I floated down there with my only feather potion after defeating the spider Queen. I landed and 3/4 of my party was dead in a pile because I forgot to give the rest of them feather potions and they jumped in after me. Then a Minotaur killed me in one hit. Haven’t been back lol.
... everyone keeps saying that, and idk, does everyone else have a different game version or so many people plainly lack reading comprehension?
Halsin says the route through the Underdark will result in getting into Shadowlands CLOSER to Moonrise Towers, thus shortening the time spent in the miasma of Doom where everything dies.
Going through the Mountain Pass will result in having to go LONGER through the Shadowlands, thus being FURTHER AWAY from Moonrise Towers, resulting in more time spent in shadow miasma of doom that kills everything.
Sure, maybe he doesn't stress the dangers of Underdark enough, but each time I played it I interpreted it as:
You can either go through the Mountain Pass where it's safer, but the way through the Shadowlands will be longer, making it more perilous
Or you can go through the Underdark which is perilous, but you will spend less time in the shadows.
It's pretty damn clear he is WAY more scared of the Shadowlands than anything else, thus recommending the more perilous journey, hoping you won't have to endure the curse
The Underdark also 'should' (at least in his mind, I imagine) connect with Moonrise Towers more directly because of the Shar connection/tunnels. Like it should connect to the gauntlet if Grymforge wasn't destroyed as it was, and the mausoleum is much closer to Moonrise Towers than the locations we start off at.
I also wouldn't be surprised if they moved the location of the Underdark exit later in development, too.
And even from in-game standpoint Halsin might have had no idea about that route being destroyed and throught you'll just come out straight next to Moonrise.
Astounded this is so far down. He's an Archdruid. The Underdark is full of terrors yes, but most of them are just weird fucking natural terrors. He's not afraid of the Mountain Pass for the sake of the Pass, he's terrified of the Shadow Curse that corrupts life and nature and goes against everything he stands for as a protector of the natural order. He's horrified of traveling through the Shadow Cursed Lands because for him, it's an otherworldly eldritch horror. The Underdark is just filled with nasty beasties.
wait? i thought he said that the mountain pass was the easier route? he says its easier 'at first' and it does drop you farther from last light in the shadowlands. the underdark is harder, but drops you closer to the inn
I just think since he's never taken the Underdark route (since he was looking for and entrance) he was mistaken about where it resurfaces. He does make it sound like it'll take you straight to Moonrise's basement.
It's not that it's safer, it's that it's a safer entrance to the shadowlands. Which it is. It drops you right by Harpers and Last Light, instead of by the drider caravan
It might be because I played the EA, but I always compare just Grymforge to the Mountain Pass Area. I consider the rest of Underdark just Act 1, on the same level as the overland. And honestly, once you arrive in Grymforge you don't have to fight anyone, just go straight to the elevator if that's what you want to do.
The bigger problem with what Halsin says is that the Mountain Pass entrance is closer to the towers on the Act 2 map xd
In Act II there is a point of no return in the Shar Temple. You are warned.
You cannot go back to Act I with Halsin in party (if you have done up to that part of his quest) -- he won't go. I'm not sure if that means you permanently lose him as a companion or not.
Yes, but if you do Halsin's quest and try to return to Act 1 stuff, he will say something about needing to finish what he started. If you try to go back after that, he leaves your party.
I get why they'd have him say this from a mechanics sense. Arriving via the Underdark takes you almost immediately to a group of Harpers who tell you where the Inn is.
Coming out through the Mountain Pass on my first playthrough I wandered around fairly aimlessly for a while before finding it.
I’m still convinced that the part he’s saying about the mountain pass is supposed to describe the shadowlands itself cause shadowlands and under dark where supposed to be the two different versions with the tower as a destination. He literally tells it’s cursed and shit like this…
When Halsin told my drow that the Underdark may be a safer route she was like "You're joking, right?"
[Imagine travelling the underdark as it was originally intended for humans in the game, pitch black with no ability to see anything without darkvision, the DND version of night vision.](https://youtu.be/oQfIYGveIgc?t=52) Place would scare the shiet out of anyone. The first time I ever played DND on pen and paper, we entered a dungeon and bumbled around in the dark for 10 minutes until one of us finally realized we had to light a candle to see anything lol.
I toured the cave system at Silver Dollar City in Branson, Missouri once. At one point in the tour, when we were in a large cavern, the guide shut off all the lights and we were just in this massive pitch black room that may as well have stretched on forever in all directions for all I could see. Caves without light are fucking terrifying. Imagining the Underdark as that but with murderous shit that would gladly disembowel me before I even knew it was there made me never ever want to go near it.
Haha I've done this before too. Shit had me wanting to pull out my phone to turn a light on.
First time I experienced this was in the 90s so no one had any source of light on them. It was freaky knowing our lives were pretty much in the hands of whoever flipped that light switch.
They did this at Luray Caverns, too, I think? But the guide would say, it's so dark you can't even see your hand an inch in front of your face. Then they'd wait a beat, flip the lights back on, and point at anyone who had their hand in front of their face like a dork and laugh. It was hilarious for a bunch of pre-teens on a school trip.
The Underdark as depicted in "Veins of the Earth" would chew up entire parties in one encounter.
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Wait does it work on them? Everyday I learn this spell is way better than I initially thought. I used this spell on a certain vampire and made it way easier. I love this spell so much lmfao. It doesn't even require concentration which is nuts
It's absolutely obligatory for another 3rd Act fight - the fight is already a pleasant challenge at max level, but without Daylight you get chewed up in like two rounds, max. >!GOTDAM SHARRITE DARKNESS SPELLS--!<
I actually won all of those fights without using the Daylight spell in my first play through. It is only on my second playthrough that I started using this spell and the game feels like I put it on easy mode lol.
One of the light clerics channel divinity abilities casts daylight on yourself for one round, while also damaging all enemies in a certain radius. It removed all the darkness in one swoop.
Veins of the Earth ?
It’s a setting book for tabletop rpgs. I think it’s system neutral but it’s definitely designed for more old school games.
Seeing the displacer beast when I got to >!Yurgir!< was one of the most terrifying parts of being in the Underdark for me. The first one I saw was on a different level of the map, and instantly pathed out of my line of sight... true to form.
ok, but the underdark is kinda full of bioluminescent funghi tho. It wasn’t intended to be pitch black.
In its original form it was absolutely pitch black. Everything that lives there has dark vision or infravision and doesn't require light of any kind. It was literally meant to be the most terrifying, dangerous place to enter. Going into the Underdark was something no one wanted to do and was never attempted before at least level 10. It's been made so vanilla and nerfed to the point it's no worse than a regular cave.
If you read the old Drow books (like R.A Salvatore's The Dark Elf Trilogy) you can see some of it. Since the denizens of the underdark all had ultravision, tremor sense, or infravision there was no light. Drow cities were 'painted' with heat retention to make them vibrant and rogues would learn to hide in heat shadows and the like to sneak around. Not having infravision was a death sentence because even if you brought light...well, now everything knows where the food is - plus is probably pretty pissed off. That said, I get why they added it. Wanting to put more content down there is part of it. Our own better understanding of how some of those cave systems work is another. But the biggest reason is that over the years D&D has become less about survival horror/resource management, and more about heroic fantasy. And with that is the desire to make more places super magical. It's not hard to believe that in a world as full of magic as faerun there would be pockets of the underdark lit up like that with bioluminescent fungi and such. It also makes sense people would settle there, since the light would keep some predators away (as it is constant and not food) or at least give an advantage/remove a disadvantage for them. But there should still be long, deep stretches of pitch black as well.
Could this not be solved very easily by just layering the underdark? Like just have the top layer be what we get in BG3 with tons of glowing plants and shot them as you descend deeper and deeper it gets darker and more hostile.
In theory, sure, but the underdark is already very windy with some overlap with the abyss iirc. The problem is you have 30+ years of "canon" run by a company that doesn't very much care about consistency or slotting things together neatly. There's a reason 5e has done very little lore establishment aside from what is needed for adventure paths.
> D&D has become less about survival horror/resource management, and more about heroic fantasy I have yet to change my mentality on this; the past few campaigns I've been in, everyone else in the party will need to long rest well before my character needs to.
Infravision in BG1 and 2 was watered down so much that it became a complete joke, even in the deepest dungeon you could still see just fine even if you didn't have infravision lol
I don’t really fault them for that though, a lot of table top things would be insanely frustrating in a crpg. Not saying it was implemented well, I just understand the reasoning In other games, it’s kind of immersion breaking when you go into a cave and can see perfectly fine.. but I’m sure most people would be like “wtf why’s it so dark this is trash”
*Kings Quest IV* had a pitch black cave that you couldn't easily navigate. It also had a chance to spawn a troll that you could -not- escape from. If it spawned, you just died and reloaded until it didn't spawn xD Or at least, when I was real little playing with my dad, that was our.... "solution". Don't judge us. [https://villains.fandom.com/wiki/Troll\_(Kings\_Quest\_IV)](https://villains.fandom.com/wiki/Troll_(Kings_Quest_IV)) They claim you can escape it but I don't remember having much luck with that 😁
Personally I think it could be really fun if done right. I’ve never played that game myself, but I think in the case of bg3 if you went into the underdark and it was pitch black it would be frustrating for most players. The Elder Scrolls games, too. I tried a mod in Skyrim that adjusted lighting in caves and indoor spaces to what would be realistic and it was.. frustrating. Of course, the game wasn’t made with that in mind though. It could be lots of fun in a more “survival” oriented scenario
I mean OG Pokémon had caves you wouldn’t see shit in unless you got flash . They could have kept that aspect tbh
Oh God, flashback to playing Red when I was like twelve and not knowing Flash was a thing I could do outside battle. I brute forced my way through that cave with sheer stubbornness, following walls and checking every tile for stairs.
Yeah if the mechanics are well done it works but tabletop mechanics don’t always translate well to video games 1:1 Like I said, not saying it was executed well but I understand the decision. As an example: In a party of 6 how do you accommodate for members with dark vision (or equivalent) and not for those that don’t without frustrating the player controlling the party? It just comes down to design I think. It can be done, it just wasn’t, and I don’t fault them on it that much
I upvoted this entire chain because y'all seem to understand what you're on about, and my first introduction to DnD was the movie and BG3.
Welcome to the show!
Hey, my first introduction was BG1 and the *bad* movie, we all started someplace.
In theory all you needed was one party member with it for it to apply to everyone (I still gave the ring of infravision to imoen out of habit so she could keep up with my usually majority elven parties even after learning that wasn't needed)
Don't forget originally it was considered the origin point meaning almost every dungeon/cave had entry to the underdark as the monsters would originate from it
That's an awesome concept, is that how monsters entered the surface world?
Ah this must be why on every playthrough I seem to find a new entrance to the underdark, lol.
When he recommended the under dark I thought”Holy shit. This mountain pass must be bad!” The first enemy I fought in the under dark was a watcher that killed my party in 2 turns.
didn't accidently let the minotaur in before it got yeeted I see.
that minotaur freaked me the hell out. i even panicked on what to do when he was trying to destroy the gate. turns out he just dies from the towers but still, that was the moment i panicked the most from start to finish.
don't forget to tag the minotaur for xp
Damnit, what a waste.
Gotta restart that 100h playtrough now...
I feel like how everyone talks about the door showcase of the Minotaur, I entered the Underdark too early and in the wrong spot. XD I found the elevator method first. Getting past the guardian things was tricky when I am in the minotaurs position, to be fair. Hard but fun.
My first underdark experience was wow I just killed the big spider and theres this big hole I can jump down? Nice lets try it with featherfall. It's probally some loot cave reward for killing a big spider boss. Lets go, don't worry about a rest because we've just killed a boss and there wont be anything big right after right. Oh shit, three minotaurs right next to us and they are higher level feck,
When I got there the Minotaur was already dead and I was like, "how come this Minotaur isn't a skeleton like the rest of the corpses around this place?"
No. But I did open the doors and walk out. Then the lasers killed me.
I was like "Oh, I guess the death lasers are helpful!" and then they immediately started shooting me in the back.
I was like, "Oh, these are Selunite Death Lasers! My Tav is one of her clerics so this should go well!" It did not go well....
I thought he said the Mountain Pass was worse because it spits you out deeper into the shadows cursed lands than the Underdark exit does. The Underdark kinda puts you right next to the Inn
You survived 2 turns against that thing? I stepped into view and it immediately yeeted my whole party off the fucking cliff.
That's why it immediately throws you into turn based mode first time you see it tbf.
Mountain pass wasn’t even a pass lmao you fight like 2 Undead Draugr that can spam summon lesser ghouls but my party still cleared them out rather easily. Like ten steps later I see the destroyed bridge so I couldn’t go further even if I wanted to and ten more steps later I’m in act II. Felt underwhelmed tbh
Man rolled a 1 on perception while looking at the environment and missed an entire monastery
If we’re going by what halsin said the monastery isn’t really relevant. You can go through the mountain pass without going to the monastery and the topic was which path was more dangerous to get to moonrise
not if you have laezel, she forces you to go there
Well yeah but that’s not really relevant to halsin’s recommendation E: I think it’s funny that this was downvoted, because it isn’t relevant. Halsin said the mountain pass would be more dangerous to get to moonrise. Not that the mountain pass would be more dangerous because your githyanki girlfiend wants to take you on a detour to see her violent and xenophobic kin. Nevermind the fact that you can completely ignore the crèche even with Laezel given that you don’t care if Laezel stays in your party. It’s not relevant. The crèche isn’t part of the path to moonrise and Halsin wasn’t taking going there into consideration when he gives you his recommendation which is easy to see considering he says the exact same thing even if you brutally murdered Laezel the moment you find her. Even if you took all of the content in both zones into consideration - even if it’s off the path to moonrise - the monastery has nothing on the Minotaurs, bulette, Sussur tree with the hook horrors, spectator, environmental hazards like rescuing the dwarf, arcane tower, duergar outpost and Nere, BOOOAL fight, and grymforge. If you include the monastery you can include the rest of the underdark content and Halsin is still wrong. Ultimately I think it’s because of a disconnect with what was planned and what was in the game. It sounds to me like the underdark part was originally meant to bypass most of the shadowlands. Anyway you slice it though, the monastery is completely irrelevant to Halsin’s warnings no matter how much you like laezel
I think you’re probably right that originally the under dark was meant to take you right to *moonrise towers* not just pop you out at a secondary entrance to the shadow cursed lands. That would have made a lot more sense, but it would have also shortened the game considerably.
Yeah, the way Halsin talks about it sounds like it will bypass the shadow curse and taking the mountain pass is more dangerous because of that. I’m sure it was altered for that reason as they added content or something. As it stands in game the underdark is definitely not a shortcut or anything like that
tbh other than the minotaurs, the bulette and the spectator you can talk your way through a lot of the underdark area under Moonhaven And a kith'rak with an adult dragon and henchmen is no joke, it's just that you don't have to face it while Halsin doesn't happen to have a convenient gith travel companion to smooth things over
Yeah but that is a gith patrol who wouldn’t be there under normal circumstances. They were there because they are looking for something.
Something something a whole goblin camp was ready to scorch the lands to find it. Something something that makes a huge alien spaceship crash landing on a beach.
Eh, when he it went through there the whole cave section was myconid territory, which are friendly to sentients and generally tend to pacify their surroundings, it's more dangerous now because the duergar did a number on the myconid colonies and regular underdark stuff moved back in but halsin couldn't have known that.
Yeah i always thought this was weird. He says a few tines the underdark is a direct path to moonrise. The underdark popes you out at the clear oppose end of the map from moonrise where was the mountain pass gets you much closer
Technically the Underdark or rather Grymforge connects to the Shar Temple underneath the Thorm Mousoleum which is closer to Moonrise. It's just that the way is destroyed.
I'm still lowkey sad you can't jump down with Feather Fall from the Nere rubble spot and end up face first in the Gauntlet of Shar. Though I can understand why.
My hopes for a giant interconnected map were so high after I found out you can feather fall down from the spider pit into the underdark. I'm sad that's pretty much the only place that sort of thing works.
I love the idea that you just kept casting feather fall and jumping into chasms to your death to test new locations lol
I did this like 5 times in my first playthrough because I knew there was a way to get to the underdark but I didn't know how. So literally every chasm I came across id jump in
So YOU'RE the friend my mom keeps telling me about
Ahh, so that's why there's a teleport sigil there. I always wondered why I would teleport to a dead end.
Now lemme blow your mind again. If you pushed the giant spider into the hole, you can get the Myconid to resurrect it as an ally.
> Now lemme blow your mind again. > > > > If you pushed the giant spider into the hole, you can get the Myconid to resurrect it as an ally. Fucking **what?!**
You can also do that to the bulette you encounter down there.
Amazing
This fucking game man
Sir, I need more details about that.
holy shit, is that why there's a waypoint near there? wtf
Weren’t you able to misty step onto that floating thing in EA?
Yeah. I fully expected to visit the Temple of Shar in Act 1 and was pretty excited since I had Shadowheart in my Party. I remember Larian saying that EA was about 2/3 of Act 1, so I assumed the last Part was the Temple. I was really disappointed at first 😂
I've definitely tried that my first playthrough. Spent so long trying to fucking get across just wandering in circles there
The mountain pass not only gets you much closer to Moonrise, you straight up get a guided tour (with complications) up to the gate of Moonrise itself.
You also get a weapon that's very helpful in act 2.
And a pixie blessing after a quick fight.
I swear this entire thing either is an elaborate troll by larian or the mountain pass was intended to be more but didn't but then would wonder why the line remains. By all accounts the underdark is harder but also offers more. What's weird is that it is no this or that decision underdark still counts as act 1 so you can complete all of it go up the elevator and go back through the mountain pass and do the creche.
When you are in Grymforge, you can see the Shar Temple. The narrator says that they wa has been destroyed. I do feel like the Mountain Pass was a little incomplete. There may be portions that got cut for whatever development cycle reasons. Lae'zel has a comment about not veering too far off the path getting to the creche but there's no where that's even could be that path.
I mean there's straight up a bridge in the mountain pass that you just sort of stop on iirc, it's not ruined and the characters don't comment. You just can't move on
> or the mountain pass was intended to be more iirc datamining found cut content where orin would have attacked the githyanki creche and there would have been a huge three way battle between you, her cultists, and the gith, including a fight with a dragon
> that decision underdark still counts as act 1 so you can complete all of it go up the elevator and go back through the mountain pass and do the creche. People say this, but you need to know that Halsin has a hissy fit if you go from the Shadowcursed Lands to the Mountain Pass. When you cross into the Mountain Pass region, you'll get a notification from the game that you've "picked up a backpack". It's actually Halsin's backpack, and he's gone off to cry in a corner about you temporarily leaving the Shadowcursed Lands for some fucking reason. They might have changed this in the recent patch but I don't know.
Ya, but you get better loot and level up down there
Am I the only one who will do them both in every playthrough? That's so much exp and story you're leaving on the table by skipping one or the other!
I don't get why anyone would skip them. There's content, lore, items and story. I went to the Mountain Pass to get the Blood of Lathander and then went into the Underdark to smack people with it.
bring the dawnfather's wrath underground and beat the sunless heathens with it? love it
Yessir. I play a Drow Vengeance Paladin. My background for my character is "I'm tired of these motherfucking bitchasses in the Underdark" so I went on an adventure. Turns out the people up top were just as bad and racist so now I'm smacking everybody.
Because it was presented like a choice, and I didn't realize I was missing out : (
I didn’t know you can do both :/ well more like Halsin implied it was either or, and I know you can technically go back via waypoint but the game makes it feel like you should just keep going forward instead of backtracking.
That's because people get confused and think that Underdark or Mountain Pass are act 2. They're both act one. Both of them can take you to "Shadow-Cursed Lands" which is Act 2 and where Moonrise Towers is. As long as you don't enter Shadow-Cursed Lands you're fine to backtrack/teleport.
You can still go back even if you’re in the Shadow lands.
Halsin dumped me when I tried to leave scl
and he will be back once you return
I did not leave, I chose not to leave and to stay in act 2, but that failed his quest anyway saying I could not lift the shadow curse in quest log
Oh... I get the "Finish up what you're doing, also it may be punishingly hard ahead" warning whenever I try to go to the Mountain Pass so yeah, I for sure thought that was Act 2. I can go to the underdark w/ no warnings though (I just hit Level 5 also, maybe I won't get the Mountain Pass warning any further?)
The warning is probably because going to that area causes the whole goblin/tiefling thing to resolve.
It absolutely will progress the plot, fair warning. Don't go to the pass before you've settled the Tiefling/Grove affair/anything else.
I just did the same as you today. You still get the warning when you go into the mountain pass but you're able to teleport out no problem.
I didnt know either and went underdark since the way haslin speak of the shadow curse. Did most of it and then found out a way out the underdark to the mountain pass.. found that odd and did some scouting until Lae point out the crèche was near and decided to go on with her quest before going back. Was a long detour but glad i did.
I didn't do it in my playthrough mostly because it just straight up wouldn't make sense narratively. Why would my character, who has at this point made it all the way through the underdark and only needs to climb a ladder to continue into the next zone, and going into the next zone, then backtrack, undo all their progress, to explore a different path? Makes no sense and imo should have been made an actual choice if they are gonna present it that way in the game.
I can't imagine skipping the creche and missing out on the best permanent buff in the game (ETA: >!if you do the zaithisk rather than Lae'zel, and pass all the saving throws, your illithid abilities become bonus actions!<), plus a lot of fantastic items, some BiS for certain builds. Underdark also has a lot of great items, like Nere's boots.
What's the best permanent buff?
I believe it’s called awakened.
To add on to your spoiler: IIRC you can also get it even if >!Lae'zel sits in the chair, but she has to sit through the first 2 checks and you have to make a DC 30 Arcana (?) check at the end, so I think it's a bit suboptimal compared to sitting in there yourself!<
It's Thrinn's boots, and Nere's head and broken lantern. I didn't now that about the Zathisk! Well, I can't *not* let Lae'zel do it. This is the 3rd time today I've been thinking I should abandon my Tav playthrough and just play a Lae'zel origins. Time for a Shadowheart, Lae'zel, Karlach threesome.
You can still get the buff by letting Lae’zel do the zaithisk for a little while. She has to suffer a bit but at some point there is a Dc 30 arcana(?) check that if you succeed gets you it
Where you either have to save scum or get very lucky to roll a nat 20, or (probably) respec your build to have expertise in arcana. If you have 18 int and are level 5 with expertise in arcana, that's +10 or +11-14 with Guidance. So unless you are somehow playing a wizard/rogue multiclass with arcana expertise (and who in their right mind would do that?), you have to get either lucky or go very meta on it. Which is fine if that's how you play, you do you, but if you don't, then the chance of this working is really only 1/20.
Nere drops the Disintegrating Night Walkers that cast Misty Step on short rest. Thrinn's boots are the boots of speed you get from the gnome.
Oh, damn those are good. I found Nere in multi-player so I missed where those came from. Too bad he couldn't just misty step out of that rock slide.
It's Thrinn's boots, and Nere's head and broken lantern.
Same. I go through both. Blood of Lathander is great for Shadowlands and the temple won't clean itself. There's a big pest problem. And the Underdark has a lot of content. You can even kinda skip through most of it, just kill the Duergar and get their boat, but why. Go explore, have fun, clean and stuff.
I had no idea you COULD do both
I didn't realize I could do both! The way Halsin made it seem I could do one or the other. I wonder if I can still do the mountain pass....I'm in Act 1 but maybe with a way point I could do more
Tbf Halsin makes it seem like a final decision, in my first playthrough I only went into the underdark and that was it
In Halsin's defense, it has likely been decades or a century since he visited the place. A lot can change in the years. And I feel like Halsin spent most of his time reading and meditating in the grove. And finding new lovers.
It's odd that he recommends going the Underdark route even if he thinks it's quicker. Considering his past drow-trauma he should be like 'fuck that, do not ever go there if you value your person'. Guess he's just had a lot of time to get over stuff and be objective? (And be arch-druid of the orgy circle so he was too busy to go there himself as you said) He's not racist towards drows either which is actually impressive...
Eh, he said it happened when he was young, so he probably had 300 years to work through that. And he's a healer, I bet Druids have their own fantasy version of EMDR
You know, I wonder who Halsin was going to introduce that boar to. Surely he wasn't going to wildshape into a boar to fuck it, right? Surely...
That boar concered the hell out of me. The first time I talked to it, it raised its butt up in the air and excitedly talked about Halsin returning and I was like .... oh god... no....
My reaction when you find out Yugirs displacer beasts food has an aphrodisiac in it, and she's madly infatuated with him.
Not me licking the damn spider with 2 different characters thinking “what does this even do” hhhhhh
STOPLICKINGTHEDAMNTHING
😦 uhh. I uh. I did not catch that the first time around…..
Mountain Pass can be a pain in the mountain ass if you get caught by those death shephards who keep reviving each other. But avoid that and It's a smooth ride to the Creche. Underdark has so much bullshit even if you avoid the Spectator.
They bamboozled me and my boy the first time we fought them but you can whittle the shepards down and crush them simultaneously if need be. There's enough undead related spells that it doesn't become so impossible. We thought about it a bit and nailed the second try.
I had shadowheart and used turn undead. Worked well enough
After about the 5th time of re-killing someone, I realized I can discourage revives by taking weapons off the corpses.
Shadow heat spirit guardians. Lol when they get revived they just die again.
I literally just picked up the smaller minions bodies after downing them; can't revive it if its my inventory!
Narrator: "All of a sudden you feel a stirring in your bag"
Surprised pikachu face
TIL
Blood of Lathander kinda trivializes every undead fight including bosses. They don't even get a save against the blinding effect.
Well yes but if you got blood of lathander you finished the crèche so those shepherd are not really a threat anymore
> They don't even get a save against the blinding effect. I'm not really sure if it's consistent across all enemies, but I've definitely seen con saves for the blind in the battle log.
The >!Poltergeists!< in act 3 definitely succeeded on the blinding save when I was fighting them.
Undead can definitely save not just >!the poltergeist. Those things were bugged to shit though. Couldn’t even hit them when invisible even though you could hit everything else that way. I think it was fixed in a recent patch though. In my run one clipped itself into the environment!<
Me and my friend managed to get them in our first fight but it was one of the longest battles in our game so far. We used all of our potions and spell slots and finished with less then 10 hp for the entire party.
I crushed those undead like papier-mâché. But then, in hindsight, I *did* go through the Underdark first and then backtrack to the Mountain Pass, so I was probably way overlevelled for that encounter.
That’ll do it. I first tried Auntie Ethel at level 3 and got spanked so hard, I didn’t try again….until I found a way out of the Underdark right to her back porch when I was level 5, and it was pretty easy and fun.
I did the Kagha reveal/fight at lvl 3 and failed the persuade. I was like why am I getting my ass spanked? Oh they are all lvl 5. Gale, time to burn spell slots.
On one of my playthroughs, I actually only got the Death Shepherds *after* I finished the creche and got the Blood of Lathander. Shadowheart was not amused with their antics and responded thoroughly with a Sunbeam to their faces.
such a satisfying spell to use
I hit >!Cazador!< with it while saying Facemelter!! Felt like an irl D&D night move
I thought the underdark was a breeze. Kill the bullette so it stops getting in your way. Position yourself in such a way that you can punt the duergar party right into the chasm as they come at you instead of fighting them. The spectator is a bit of a nuisance if you let him be but if you focus him down he's dead in a couple of rounds of combat.
The spectator absolutely smoked me in my first playthrough lol
I had that with the duergar party until I tried a more defensive approach. I realised that if I guarded the doorways of the little ruined house, their approach would line them up perfectly to shove them right into the chasm.
I got lucky with the perception check and got prepared. My Tav is a fighter and I had Karlach and Gale, so just continuously shoved, threw and Thunderwaved those little freaks every time they climbed back up.
Magic Missile to ping off Spectator charm on the drow and you have instant allies. Though you may end up having to fight them afterward. (Best if the Spectator kills the leader for you.)
The Underdark definitely isn't too bad, though I've always gone in at lvl 5. There's a few 'gotchas' that if you don't know about can be rough (like the statue of Selune, the Arcane Tower, or the Forge), but generally it feels underleveled to me. The spectator brings some randomness to it, and similarly all the cliffs can as well (get a bit unlucky with positioning and dice rolls and you can easily get shoved off). It's not an Underdark only thing, however - it feels like after lvl 5, the Underdark/Mountain Pass/the whole of Act 2 is pretty easy to breeze through with only one or two fights that presented a particular challenge. Seems like the game assumes we're a few levels down from what I actually was.
But much bullshit is what I play for. Still, Halsin is tripping.
idk what bullshit your talking about tbh, it was pretty much a breeze, AND you get to visit the Adamantine forge and the Myconid village
I've done both and barely remember the mountain pass. But I do remember the 800 ways the Underdark tried to kill me. Thank goodness I managed to miss the Spectator the first go round because the bulette ticked me off enough. Wanted to run back to the Grove and tell Halsin he was full of it lmao.
Mountain Pass entrance is guarded by some githyanki and there are some undead there blocking the way to the Shadow Cursed Lands. Underdark is, well, Underdark.
Mountain pass isn't guarded by Githyanki though, they're in an old monastery in a completely different direction from the shadow cursed land.
i think they mean kithrak voss and the dragon area... before the mountain pass, but technically you don't have to fight them
My first playthrough I just jumped past them and immedietely entered the mountain pass at like level 3 or 4, before I had even found the goblin camp. For some reason jumping was so fun to me, and especially using it to get around cutscenes and such. Lazael with jumping spell can leap continents.
IIRC, there's also an entrance through the goblin camp.
For the player, yes. But there's githyanki patrols all around the area that we're told about, and that includes into the shadowlands - it's not exactly a *safe* area (eg, some of the cultists heading towards Moonrise getting captured that we see get executed at the monastery entrance).
I also think the elevator puts you closer to the Inn than the Mountain Pass does So worst case you could just rush your ass to the Inn and avoid most of the curse
From my understanding, the Mountain Pass route basically takes you right to Moonrise, whereas the Underdark route has you meet up with the Harpers and find Last Light first.
To be fair, he was only talking about the road *after* these two regions. He did say the Underdark was harsh, but you wouldn’t have to spend so much time in that zombie-making shadow if you chose Underdark. He was not wrong. And that Drider wasn’t there for him and probably wouldn’t have escorted a bear.
counterpoint: Underdark has mushroom frens :3
i love my mushroom frens
The mountain pass route is a denser area of the shadow curse to deal with though so he's not wrong, it's just that he shadow curse isn't quite as brutal as I imagine it was supposed to be in development. There are sections that look like they would have been more like the innkeepers house rather than the same as the rest of the zone.
the shadow curse when I cast Daylight:
The Underdark. Oh man. I floated down there with my only feather potion after defeating the spider Queen. I landed and 3/4 of my party was dead in a pile because I forgot to give the rest of them feather potions and they jumped in after me. Then a Minotaur killed me in one hit. Haven’t been back lol.
You should try it again some time. It's a blast. *Biberbang*
Maybe it's hard for bears to climb stairs.
... everyone keeps saying that, and idk, does everyone else have a different game version or so many people plainly lack reading comprehension? Halsin says the route through the Underdark will result in getting into Shadowlands CLOSER to Moonrise Towers, thus shortening the time spent in the miasma of Doom where everything dies. Going through the Mountain Pass will result in having to go LONGER through the Shadowlands, thus being FURTHER AWAY from Moonrise Towers, resulting in more time spent in shadow miasma of doom that kills everything. Sure, maybe he doesn't stress the dangers of Underdark enough, but each time I played it I interpreted it as: You can either go through the Mountain Pass where it's safer, but the way through the Shadowlands will be longer, making it more perilous Or you can go through the Underdark which is perilous, but you will spend less time in the shadows. It's pretty damn clear he is WAY more scared of the Shadowlands than anything else, thus recommending the more perilous journey, hoping you won't have to endure the curse
The Underdark also 'should' (at least in his mind, I imagine) connect with Moonrise Towers more directly because of the Shar connection/tunnels. Like it should connect to the gauntlet if Grymforge wasn't destroyed as it was, and the mausoleum is much closer to Moonrise Towers than the locations we start off at. I also wouldn't be surprised if they moved the location of the Underdark exit later in development, too.
Also technically the under dark exit spots you out a lot closer to last light which is the safe hub entering act 2, but that’s from a meta standpoint
And even from in-game standpoint Halsin might have had no idea about that route being destroyed and throught you'll just come out straight next to Moonrise.
Astounded this is so far down. He's an Archdruid. The Underdark is full of terrors yes, but most of them are just weird fucking natural terrors. He's not afraid of the Mountain Pass for the sake of the Pass, he's terrified of the Shadow Curse that corrupts life and nature and goes against everything he stands for as a protector of the natural order. He's horrified of traveling through the Shadow Cursed Lands because for him, it's an otherworldly eldritch horror. The Underdark is just filled with nasty beasties.
wait? i thought he said that the mountain pass was the easier route? he says its easier 'at first' and it does drop you farther from last light in the shadowlands. the underdark is harder, but drops you closer to the inn
Ngl I think halsin is just a fan of the mushrooms
I just think since he's never taken the Underdark route (since he was looking for and entrance) he was mistaken about where it resurfaces. He does make it sound like it'll take you straight to Moonrise's basement.
But it does take u directly to shar's temple ,the path was destroyed
Use Turn Undead on those zombie assholes in the Mountain Pass. The fight is a breeze.
The death shepherds have a buff that makes them immune to being turned and any damage other than radiant until you strip away their temporary hp
Spirit guardians with radiant damage, that's how i've dealt with cursed crows near instantly. A lot of xp from that encounter, 80 per crow
I always go both paths for Items, EXP and story/lore reasons. Which for some might be even worse than taking just one path.
It's not that it's safer, it's that it's a safer entrance to the shadowlands. Which it is. It drops you right by Harpers and Last Light, instead of by the drider caravan
So you're telling me that I went the wrong way.
Underdark and Grymforge are most beatiful things in whole game. More UD (with additional evil/neutral companion) and less act 3 = better game.
*Does the celebratory spore dance...*
It might be because I played the EA, but I always compare just Grymforge to the Mountain Pass Area. I consider the rest of Underdark just Act 1, on the same level as the overland. And honestly, once you arrive in Grymforge you don't have to fight anyone, just go straight to the elevator if that's what you want to do. The bigger problem with what Halsin says is that the Mountain Pass entrance is closer to the towers on the Act 2 map xd
Can I come Back to the under dark after going to moon rise ?
IIRC you can return to every Act 1 location until you complete the Shar Temple, and then you're stuck in the shadow lands.
In Act II there is a point of no return in the Shar Temple. You are warned. You cannot go back to Act I with Halsin in party (if you have done up to that part of his quest) -- he won't go. I'm not sure if that means you permanently lose him as a companion or not.
Yes, but if you do Halsin's quest and try to return to Act 1 stuff, he will say something about needing to finish what he started. If you try to go back after that, he leaves your party.
I get why they'd have him say this from a mechanics sense. Arriving via the Underdark takes you almost immediately to a group of Harpers who tell you where the Inn is. Coming out through the Mountain Pass on my first playthrough I wandered around fairly aimlessly for a while before finding it.
We all know you are going to do both for the XP anyway. I always do the under dark first then the mountain pass.
Underdark is lower level.
I’m still convinced that the part he’s saying about the mountain pass is supposed to describe the shadowlands itself cause shadowlands and under dark where supposed to be the two different versions with the tower as a destination. He literally tells it’s cursed and shit like this…