Act 1: Withers to Grove

Step-by-Step Walkthrough

Location: Druid Grove

    Heading to the Grove

  1. Head to the grove fight to the west of where you found Lae'zel
  2. I usually sneak up the hill to start the fight, that way you start behind the ranged guys and the guys below fight themselves and leave you alone until you approach
    FightGrove

    Strategy

    • Pretty simple fight, hard to die I think
    • Take out the 2 archers near where you snuck in
    • Try to stay as a group and just move forward towards the gate killing as you go
    • The npc's are pretty good at throwing potions at you to help heal
  3. Zak'rug has some magic gauntlets that are ok for awhile

    4. Grove Business

  4. Go in the grove, let Aradin knockout Zevlor
  5. While Zevlor is knocked out on the ground, you can pickpocket some cleric gloves easily
  6. Head up above the gate to find a single bugbear trying to assassinate some tiefling
  7. Use bard to sell everything you can to Arron and Damon
  8. I typically don't buy anything, there's some higher AC armor you can get for MC or Shadowheart, but it's kind of pricey and not amazing. Buy Hand Crossbow +1 from Dammon. MC can use that plus the basic hand crossbow he started with.
  9. Convince Rolan to stay (don't use Friends in town, it causes problems in HM)
  10. Recruit Wyll (last time we'll speak to him lmao)
  11. Talk to Volo, buy the Whispering Promise for Shadowheart. Now her heals should be pretty good with the gloves and ring
  12. Talk to Alfira to the south, help her write her song with the bard prompts (Sing with her)
  13. Lockpick and loot the chest behind her for a bard hat
  14. Head into the sanctuary, save Arabella
  15. Talk to Rath, Kagha and Nettie
  16. Loot the parasite from the table after talking to Nettie
  17. Talk to Arabella's parents on the stairs outside, Komira
  18. Talk to Zorru on the way to the jail
  19. Go to jail, save Sazza, but don't let her out yet
  20. Go into the tunnel behind her, turn off the turrets (interact with the panels) and kill the goblins. Sneak up and turn off the first panel before you start the fight so you don't get shot. After the fight there is a 2nd turret up the hill to turn off.
  21. Come back to get Sazza when the tunnel is clear to lead her outside (on HM she dies super easy, so clear it out before bringing her)
  22. Pretty much done with the grove for now. This was a good time for me to rest, so a good time to stock up on strength potions. Go talk to Auntie Ethel by the Cauldron that Rolan is near.
  23. Talk to her, press Triangle (or whatever) to trade. Buy her 3 Elixir of Hill Giant Strength. Do a long rest (the first one do full rest to restore all your stuff). Repeat until you either have ~18-21 potions or are out of money (subsequent long rests, don't use materials, just do the free rest to reset her inventory). This is also a good way to burn through all the long rest triggered events since I don't tend to long rest a ton. These potions are Astarions secret sauce to doing a ton of damage. I doubt you need this many, since you can buy more later from the dwarf merchant. So I wouldn't sweat it too much if you have like 10 or so at least. I just overbuy because money pretty quickly becomes pointless.
  24. Once Astarion is 4 and has Tavern brawler, make sure to always drink a strength potion at the start of every day. Without it, his damage drops dramatically. I don't think there's a point to drinking them until you have tavern brawler, so don't waste them til you're 4.
  25. For long rests, I would at least talk to Astarion. His events lead him to getting some buffs if you let him take your blood. The rest of them you can mostly ignore unless you want to talk to them or romance one.