Sorcadin
Field Notes

Section 1Where you are

Level 6, and Paladin 6 is complete. Extra Attack, Aura of Protection, and Hold Person and Misty Step free from the oath — all of it is already on your sheet. You have spent no Sorcerer levels yet, so the next level you take is Sorcerer 1, Shadow Magic. Everything in Section 2 marked 7–8 is your next two level-ups; everything marked 9–12 is the plan, not the present. The 4–6 band is your today.

Your slots are four 1st-level and two 2nd-level, and no 3rd, plus four Lay on Hands charges and one Channel Oath charge that comes back on a short rest. That single charge is the tightest resource you own: Vow of Enmity and Inquisitor's Might both spend it, so they are alternatives, never a sequence.

You are in the Shadow-Cursed Lands, heading back west to finish Act 1 — Mountain Pass, Rosymorn Monastery, Crèche Y'llek. That trip is safe. The wall you cannot walk back through is not Moonrise and not the act transition; it is one doorway at the bottom of the Gauntlet of Shar.

Return access to the Crèche has one condition attached: it has to still exist and still be non-hostile, which was decided by what your party did there in Act 1. If nobody has been to the Crèche yet, nothing is lost. verify in-game — the wiki says return is possible "depending on the party's choices while visiting the Crèche in Act One" without listing which choices, so check the map before you plan a shopping run around it.

What you are carrying right now

Who is in the party

Backgrounds were not supplied, and neither were their gear, feats, ability scores, fighting styles or chosen manoeuvres. verify in-game — every hand-off and script below assumes the default class kit on Balanced difficulty.

What changed since the August guide

Dated 2026-09-11. Five research passes, then an adversarial fact-check against bg3.wiki. Only the load-bearing changes are listed.

• v32026-09-11: loadout + party plan added. Your gear went slot by slot through the wiki, and the three teammates turned the co-op section into a named plan. Two verdicts moved as a result: Darkness is no longer a flat no, and Phalar Aluve is yours to wield rather than hand away. Both are below.
• newGloves of Dexterity exist and they are on your route. Very rare, 300 gold from A'jak'nir Jeera at the Crèche Trade Post. They set your Dexterity to 18 and add +1 to all attack rolls including spell attacks. The August guide never named them. This is the best gold-for-power purchase available to you right now.
• closedThe adamantine question is settled — both ores are spent. Only two Mithral Ore exist in a playthrough and the party used both on Adamantine Splints: one is on your chest, one is on a heavy-armour teammate. That retires the August "claim the Shield" call: it cannot be made this playthrough, and you would not want it if it could — crit immunity is already on your chest and the Warboard already gives the same +2 AC. The second Splint is on the half-orc Battle Master confirmed 9/11.
• newThe Helmet of Arcane Acuity is an Act 2 item, not Act 3. Reithwin Mason's Guild secret basement, behind the Tower-Shaped Key from Mattis. Every weapon hit stacks your spell save DC, it triggers off ordinary attacks rather than cantrips, and it sits in the head slot — so it never fights your gloves. The midgame answer to "Hold Person keeps slipping."
• flipDammon's crafting closes at the Shadowfell, not at the Mind Flayer Colony. The August routing put the final crafting run after the Shadowfell. Following it would have cost you the entire Flawed Helldusk set. Clear the Gauntlet, walk back out, spend every Infernal Iron at Last Light, then descend.
• cutThe Act 2 Mirror of Loss does nothing. The one in the Gauntlet is cracked and nonfunctional. The working mirror is Act 3, in the Cloister of Sombre Embrace, and it raises a score to a maximum of 24 — so your route past Charisma 20 is real, but it is an Act 3 decision, not a reason to detour now.
• fixThree Vlaakith instant-loss triggers, not two. The missing one reads like a reasonable objection, which is exactly why it catches people: asking her to go kill the being inside the prism herself. Along with continuous disrespect and naming Shadowheart as the thief. Do not get clever in that dialogue.
• fixTwo new oath traps aimed at your subclass by name. In Punish the Wicked, Oath of Vengeance breaks if you forgive Madeline, stop her stabbing herself, or attack He Who Was. And at Moonrise, reinforcing the mind control on the gnoll Barnabus "counts as an Oathbreaking action for paladin characters following the Oath of Vengeance." Also: killing the Strange Ox breaks any paladin's oath.
• fixVarsh Ko'kuu's Boots are harder than the old note said. The DC 10 Insight does not lower the handover check — it lowers a separate backstory Persuasion. The boots need a DC 18 Persuasion plus a non-antagonistic answer about the egg's future. verify in-game the quest page cites DC 16 and the NPC page DC 18; plan for 18.
• flipThe Ring of Protection gate is the journal, not the Grove. Steal the Sacred Idol can no longer be started — killing the goblin leaders ended the Rite of Thorns, and that is what closes it. If the quest was already in your journal it is still completable and in fact easier now; if it was never picked up, the ring is gone. Check the journal, not the map. Mol herself is at the Last Light Inn either way.
• fixTitanstring Bow's Strength rider is not a penalty. "Titan Weapon adds a minimum of +1 to the damage roll, even if the attacker has a Strength of 11 or lower." Still wrong for you — it is a two-hander, so it costs your shield — but on opportunity cost, not a minus.
• cut"Moonlight Glaive" is not a real item. Sparing the Nightsong transforms the Spear of Night into Selûne's Spear of Night. The old name was fabricated somewhere upstream; do not go looking for it.
• holdsEverything structural survived. The 6/6 split, Shadow Blade without Concentration, the 3 m auto-crit rule, the aura's radius and manual activation, the metamagic gates, Savage Attacker on smite dice, the Risky Ring. Patch 8 is still the final major patch.

Section 2Your skills and how you fight

What a Sorcadin actually is

You are half holy warrior, half innate spellcaster, and the trick that makes the two halves worth more than either alone is that both run on the same stat. Charisma sets how hard your spells are to resist, how much protection you give the people next to you, and how well you talk — so every point pays four times.

The Paladin half gives you armour, a shield, two attacks a round, and Divine Smite: spend a spell slot after you already know a swing connected, for a burst of radiant damage. You never waste it on a miss. The Sorcerer half gives you spells and a private currency, sorcery points, that bends how those spells are cast.

Shadow Blade, in plain words

Shadow Blade is a level-2 spell that conjures a sword out of nothing for the rest of the day. Three properties make it the centre of this build:

• It is a finesse weapon, so it swings off your Dexterity, not Strength. This is why your STR 8 does not matter and why you never need Strength elixirs.
• It does not require Concentration and lasts until long rest. verify in-game the wiki's stat box simply omits Concentration — there is no sentence and no patch note saying so, so confirm it on the spell before you build a plan on running Hunter's Mark alongside it. So it costs you nothing to keep — your Concentration stays free for the spell that actually wins fights.
• It deals psychic damage, 2d8 base, scaling to 3d8 from a 3rd- or 4th-level slot and 4d8 from a 5th. Psychic is rarely resisted, and in Act 2 there is an item that makes enemies take double of it.

Cast it once in camp each morning — a bonus action — then carry it all day. One trap: never cast it from a 4th-level slot; 3rd and 4th both give 3d8, so the bigger slot buys nothing and throws away a maximum smite.

Divine Smite, in plain words

Hit something, then decide whether to burn a spell slot for extra radiant damage: 2d8 from a level-1 slot up to 5d8 from a level-4 slot, and no more above that. Fiends and undead take an extra 1d8 — which in the Shadow-Cursed Lands is most of what you will meet.

Two gifts sit on top. Savage Attacker rolls melee damage dice twice and keeps the higher, and the wiki confirms it reaches smite dice too. And a critical hit doubles all of it. Everything else here is machinery for manufacturing crits.

Sorcery points, in plain words

A small pool that refills on a long rest, equal to your Sorcerer level — so 6 at the end. You spend them on metamagic, which are modifiers to how a spell is cast. You get exactly three metamagic picks across the whole build:

• Quickened (3 points) — a spell that would take your Action takes a bonus action instead. This is the one that makes the big turn possible, because it lets you lock a target down and swing twice in the same round.
• Twinned (1 point per slot level) — a single-target spell hits two creatures. Twinned Haste is 3 points, not 6; the cost keys off the spell's level, not doubled.
• Extended (1 point) — doubles the duration of conditions from spells. Its real job here is Haste. corrected it does not extend the Hound of Ill Omen, which is permanent and is a class action rather than a spell.

Points and slots convert both ways, badly: a level-4 slot costs 6 points, when 3 points buys a Quickened lockdown instead. Dump spare level-1 slots into points between fights and leave it there. Create Spell Slot is a bonus action — you cannot convert and nova on the same turn.

The aura, in plain words

At Paladin 6 you gained Aura of Protection: you and every ally within 3 metres add your Charisma modifier — +4 now, +5 soon — to every saving throw. The most valuable thing you bring three friends, with two catches nobody mentions.

• It must be manually activated. It is granted automatically but needs to be cast once, and you may have to drag it from the spellbook onto your hotbar to do that. People run whole acts without it on. Check for the buff icon.
• Three metres is a huddle, not a blessing. One widely-circulated guide says nine; it is wrong by a factor of three. Your backline gets nothing unless they physically stand on you.

Known cosmetic bug: the level-up tooltip sometimes displays the bonus as +0 regardless of your Charisma. It works correctly in play.

Your other current abilities

• Vow of Enmity — bonus action, costs a Channel Oath charge, gives advantage on your attacks against one enemy for 10 turns, no Concentration. Range is 3 metres, so you have to be in melee to use it. Short rests refund the charge.
• Inquisitor's Might — the other use of that same charge. Only 2 turns, but it adds your Charisma modifier as radiant damage and applies a Daze with no saving throw. Its overlooked feature: 9 metre range, and it can be cast on an ally. That is the one case where it beats Vow.
• Misty Step — free and always prepared from your oath since Paladin 5. A bonus-action teleport, which is usually how you get inside Vow of Enmity's 3 metres on turn one. Because you have it free, the Amulet of Misty Step belongs to a teammate.
• Hold Person — also free from your oath. See below; it is the engine.
• Lay on Hands, Divine Sense, Abjure Enemy — situational. Lay on Hands is your emergency heal and also cures poison and disease.

Why Hold Person is the whole strategy

Hold Person paralyses one humanoid on a failed Wisdom save. In BG3, Paralysed is harsher than the tabletop version, and the exact wording is worth memorising:

So your attacks cannot miss, and from inside three metres they cannot fail to crit — doubling every weapon and smite die, each already rolled twice by Savage Attacker. That is the entire nova, and it applies to every melee ally in the radius, which is why you call it out the moment it lands.

Two hard limits: humanoids only — and the Shadow-Cursed Lands are full of undead, constructs and monstrosities — and it costs your Concentration, so it competes with Haste, Darkness and Bless. One Concentration, one plan, per fight.

The turn-by-turn

Opening round

1. Before initiative, if you can: Shadow Blade is already up from the morning. Aura is already active. Elixir is already drunk.
2. Misty Step into melee range of the target that scares you most — usually a caster or the enemy with the biggest single hit.
3. Lock it down. At level 9+ that is Quickened Hold Person as a bonus action. Below that it is a scroll of Hold Person, or Vow of Enmity if the target is not humanoid.
4. Attack twice and smite on both if the target is worth it.
5. Say it out loud: "He's held — everyone within ten feet auto-crits him."

When to smite and when to hold the slot

Slots are a day's budget, and the same pool pays for Shield, Hold Person and Counterspell. The discipline:

• Always smite on a critical hit. The dice double; this is the best rate you will ever get.
• Always smite to secure a kill that ends a turn of incoming damage, or that triggers a kill-based item.
• Smite on fiends and undead preferentially — they eat an extra 1d8 each time.
• Never smite from your 5th-level slot. Smites cap at 5d8 on a 4th-level slot. The 5th is your morning Shadow Blade and nothing else.
• Do not smite trash. That slot, held, is a Shield that stops 25 damage later.

Concentration discipline

• Shadow Blade costs no Concentration. Hold Person, Haste, Darkness and Bless each cost all of it. Pick one before the fight starts.
• Against humanoids: Hold Person, essentially always.
• Against undead, constructs, monstrosities: Twinned Haste on two melee allies, then Vow of Enmity and swing.
• If the first save lands, do not re-cast. Sunk cost empties slot pools. Vow and attack; try again next fight.
• Your own aura already boosts the Constitution saves that protect Concentration. Mirror Image before a boss adds real insurance for 10 turns. In Act 3 the Amulet of Greater Health ends the problem permanently.

Positioning

• Everything is three metres. The aura, Vow of Enmity's range and the auto-crit radius are the same distance. Learn what it looks like on screen and the build plays itself — melee friends inside the aura, held target inside the crit radius, usually the same spot.
• Boots matter more than they look: the Night Walkers stop you slipping on grease and ice, which is what usually drags you out of your own aura.
• Carry light. Unprotected creatures get one turn to reach a light source before necrotic damage starts, and near Moonrise only a Moonlantern or the Pixie Blessing counts.

The party plan — the four of you at level 6

Your three friends are a Life Domain Cleric, a Battle Master Fighter and a Sorcerer. That roster turns Hold Person from a good spell into the reason you win fights — but only if everyone knows their part before initiative is rolled. Read this section out loud at the table once.

Who concentrates on what

• You hold Hold Person. DC 15, free from your oath, and you are the right holder: nothing can crit you in the Adamantine Splint, the Helmet of Smiting adds +1 to Constitution saves, and your own aura adds +4 to the save that protects it. The rule, verbatim: taking damage forces a Constitution save "against a DC equal to half the damage taken, or 10, whichever is higher."
• The Sorcerer holds Haste, twinned onto you and the Fighter — 3 of their 6 sorcery points. verify in-game that Haste can be twinned at all; see the question in Section 1.
• The Cleric casts Spiritual Weapon every fight — bonus action, no Concentration, 10 turns, and it rolls its own initiative and acts on its own turn. Free damage on top of whatever else they hold. Their Concentration then goes to Spirit Guardians in a scrum (3 m, 3d8 radiant a turn, movement halved) or Bless against a boss you might miss. Bless is wasted on the nova turn for a blunt reason: you cannot miss a held target.
• Warding Bond does not compete for any of it — level 2, not Concentration, lasts until long rest. It goes on you before the fight starts.

Your own alternatives — Bane and Hunter's Mark, both free from the oath — are worth little while Hold Person is live. Hunter's Mark becomes genuinely good the day you pick up the Strange Conduit Ring, which pays only while you are Concentrating.

The nova turn, in order

The card above is the whole reason the ordering matters. A critical hit doubles every die — weapon dice, Divine Smite dice, the Fighter's superiority dice — and doubles no flat modifier: not Strength or Dexterity, not Duelling's +2, not the Caustic Band's 2 acid, not Inquisitor's Might's radiant.

1. Before combat — the Cleric casts Warding Bond on you. Melee range, so do it while you are standing together.
2. Cleric: bonus action Spiritual Weapon, Action Bless or Spirit Guardians, and stand within 3 m of where you are about to be.
3. Sorcerer: Twinned Haste on you and the Fighter, then stay at range.
4. You: move inside 3 m. Action = Hold Person on the biggest humanoid melee threat. Bonus action = Inquisitor's Might on the Fighter (9 m, castable on an ally, adds your Charisma modifier as radiant damage and Dazes with no saving throw). Hasted action = attack twice, both automatic crits, with a level-1 Divine Smite on the first — 2d8 becomes 4d8.
5. Fighter: close to within 3 m. Action, two automatic crits. Action Surge, two more. Hasted action, two more. Six automatic critical hits in one round, two superiority dice spent, every die doubled.

A held target is a flat-defence problem, not an accuracy problem, which is why this beats any amount of buffing. verify in-game one input to the damage total is unconfirmed: the Half-Orc page names Savage Attacks without publishing its mechanic, so the extra crit die people quote for the Fighter is not something I can source.

What the Battle Master spends dice on — and what he must never use

• Disarming Attack — +1d8, doubled by the crit, and a Strength save the held target automatically fails. Lead with this one.
• Trip Attack — +1d8, Strength save, auto-failed. The prone rider is redundant; treat it as a damage die.
• Menacing Attack — fine for the die, but corrected its Frighten is a Wisdom save, and a held creature auto-fails only Strength and Dexterity saves. Do not count on the rider landing.
• Never Pushing Attack. It is a Strength save the target auto-fails, so it will work — and it shoves them 4.5 m out of the 3 m bubble, cancelling the auto-crits for everyone who has not gone yet. This is the single most expensive mistake available in the plan.
• Skip Precision Attack (pure accuracy, worthless against auto-succeeding attack rolls) and Riposte (it reacts to an enemy missing you, and a held creature cannot act — and it spends its die whether or not it connects).

He has four superiority dice from Fighter 3 through 6, recharging on a short or long rest. Two in the nova, two held back.

The huddle — your aura and the Life Cleric

Aura of Protection is 3 m and Spirit Guardians is 3 m, so the two footprints are identical. You and the Cleric standing adjacent with Spirit Guardians up is the strongest formation this party has at level 6: everything in the radius takes 3d8 radiant a turn and everyone in it saves at +4.

• The Sorcerer is the exception. Huddle against save-or-lose effects; spread against enemy area damage. A Fireball into a four-person huddle is what the formation costs you.
• Check your passives bar. The wiki notes the aura "requires manual activation via the Spellbook, despite being granted automatically," and the level-up tooltip can show +0 regardless of your Charisma. People run whole acts without it switched on.
• Preserve Life is the Cleric's reset button: an Action plus one Channel Divinity charge, 9 m, restores 3 × character level in hit points — 18 at level 6 — and does nothing for undead or constructs. They have two charges, back on a short rest. verify in-game whether the tabletop "cannot raise a creature above half its maximum" cap applies; the BG3 page does not say.
• Their heals are discounted in both directions. Disciple of Life adds 2 + the spell's level to every healing spell; Blessed Healer gives the Cleric that same amount back whenever they heal somebody else. verify in-game whether either fires off Preserve Life — it is a Channel Divinity ability rather than a spell, and no page states the interaction.

Warding Bond, and the cost nobody mentions

Cast before the fight, it gives you resistance to all damage plus +1 AC and +1 to saves, and mirrors the damage you take onto the Cleric. Your picture becomes AC 18 + 2 shield + 1 bond = 21, immune to crits, every hit reduced by 2 and then halved. verify in-game whether the Splint's flat −2 applies before or after the halving, and what the actual casting distance is — the page says range "Melee" with no number.

The cost is real and it is on the Cleric: mirrored damage forces them to roll Concentration saves from the back line every time you get hit — the same "half the damage or 10, whichever is higher" rule. Bond in boss fights and ambushes; drop it in long attrition fights where the Cleric's Spirit Guardians is what is carrying the party. Three break conditions to know: it ends if the caster dies (it survives them merely going down), it ends if they un-prepare the spell, and it cannot be cast on someone who has cast Warding Bond themselves.

The loop, in one line: you tank behind crit immunity and −2 flat reduction, the Cleric absorbs through the bond, Disciple of Life and Blessed Healer heal both of you back at a discount, Preserve Life resets the party twice per short rest, and the aura makes the huddle very hard to disable.

Darkness — the verdict that flips

The August guide said do not cast it, and that was right for a party with nobody who can see through it. If your Sorcerer is Shadow Magic, it is wrong. At class level 3 they gain Eyes of the Dark: Darkness, which the wiki describes as seeing normally in darkness, magical and non-magical, out to 25 m — "an effect equivalent to Devil's Sight" while concentrating on the spell. They are then the one character who can fight inside their own cloud, and Darkness becomes an offensive tool.

Two objections survive either way. It costs the Sorcerer's Concentration, which is the slot Haste wants, and it blinds you in melee. So it is a Haste-or-Darkness decision per fight, never both, and never on a turn you are meant to nova. If the Sorcerer is any other subclass, the old verdict stands unchanged: do not cast it.

Three openings, written out

Rest economy — three of the four of you are short-rest characters

The party can take two short rests per long rest without going to camp, each restoring up to half of maximum hit points. Short rests give back the Fighter's superiority dice, Action Surge and Second Wind; the Cleric's two Channel Divinity charges; your single Channel Oath charge; and your boots' Misty Step. Only the Sorcerer's slots and sorcery points are long-rest only — Font of Magic converts, it never creates.

• Spend short-rest resources freely and rest twice. Hoarding Action Surge, Second Wind, superiority dice, Channel Oath and Preserve Life is this party's most likely mistake — they refill three times between long rests.
• Guard the Sorcerer's slots instead. They are the only resource the day actually runs out of.
• After every long rest, two casts before you walk anywhere: Aid from a level-2 slot (+5 maximum hit points party-wide, not Concentration, lasts until long rest, and it is the only healing spell that works on undead and constructs) and Warding Bond on you. Warning that applies to both: if the Cleric un-prepares Aid, everyone's maximum HP reverts on the spot.
• A long rest costs 40 camp supplies — 80 on Tactician or Honour. A partial rest on short supplies restores health and resources to half and refreshes cooldowns, but it does not give back your short rests.

Table talk — the five things to say out loud

• "Stand near me when big saves are coming." Your aura is the party's answer to save-or-suck spells and it reaches three metres, not nine.
• "He's held — everyone within ten feet auto-crits him." Say it the moment it lands. Ranged friends auto-hit from anywhere but do not auto-crit.
• "Nobody use Pushing Attack while something is held."
• "Walk me out of grim dialogues." Two oath traps in this act are aimed at Vengeance specifically. If a friend is about to forgive Madeline or reinforce the mind control on Barnabus, step your paladin out of the conversation radius first — and never kill the Oathbreaker Knight, or a broken oath can never be restored.
• "Loot we agree on before anyone touches it": Gloves of Dexterity, the Diadem, the Blood of Lathander, Killer's Sweetheart, the Helmet of Arcane Acuity, the Resonance Stone, and the Infernal Iron budget. done the two Mithral Ores are already spent. The named hand-offs from your current pack are in Section 4.

Short rests — your own kit, later on

Further up the level ladder, short rests refund more of your kit than anyone realises: your Channel Oath charge — so, another Vow of Enmity — the Hound of Ill Omen at 12, the Night Walkers' Misty Step, and Phalar Aluve's Shriek if a teammate carries it. Take both, every day. Push for a long rest under a third of your slots, and never enter a boss fight with fewer than 3 sorcery points; the big turn needs exactly that.

By level band

Levels 4–6 — pure paladin

No sorcery yet, so the game is Vow of Enmity, attacks, and disciplined smiting. At level 5 Hold Person arrives free from your oath — cast it as your Action, then attack once. Losing an attack is worth it, because the party gets the auto-crits too. At 6 the aura arrives; activate it and tell everyone to huddle. verify in-game scrolls of Hold Person do the same from level 5 without touching your slots; the wiki names no vendor, so buy on sight.

Levels 7–8 — the caster wakes up

Sorcerer 1 gives you Shield — a reaction for +5 AC against a hit that was about to land, and the biggest defensive jump this character ever gets. Because Divine Smite consumes no reaction, holding it for Shield costs you no smites. Sorcerer 2 gives points and two metamagics you cannot fully use yet; Quickened is gated to Sorcerer 3, so guides that put it at 8 are wrong. Play these two levels as a paladin who occasionally says no to a hit.

Levels 9–12 — the big turn

At 10, +2 Charisma to 20 lifts your spell DC, the party's aura, Arcane Synergy damage and every conversation at once. At 11, Haste and Counterspell give you a second plan for fights Hold Person cannot touch. At 12 the Hound is a free body every short rest, and your lone 5th-level slot upgrades the morning blade to 4d8.

Section 3Don't miss — the backtrack list

A · The western run, in order

One trip, west to east and then down. The order matters in three places and I have marked why.

Mountain Pass

• Talk your way past Kith'rak Voss Mountain Pass → the broken bridge → dialogue DC 10 Arcana to spot his hidden Detect Thoughts, then DC 10 Wisdom to resist; a Warlock skips the Arcana and needs only DC 5. Voss cannot be killed here — "if preemptively engaged, flies away with Qudenos at the first opportunity."
• The Silver Sword disarm gamble Mountain Pass → Voss → −139 / 561, before dialogue turns Command (Drop), Heat Metal, Fear, Disarming Attack (Ranged), Honeyed Paws or Flick o' the Wrist drops the best greatsword in the game ~30 hours early. Save first. It forfeits the Act 3 copy — one per playthrough — and that route needs the Orphic Hammer specifically.
• Sarth Baretha's squad, only if the talk fails Mountain Pass → the patrol → combat loot Elaborate Slate (Orpheus lore, not gear), Githyanki Greatsword, Githyanki Half Plate, unused potions. Not worth starting a fight for.
• Buried chest and bridge scatter Mountain Pass → buried chest −73 / 539, DC 20 Survival → Metal Shield under the bridge wreck −148 / 568 Amethyst and pearl under the roadway sign. corrected the shield is under the wreck, not on a Flaming Fist corpse.

Rosymorn Monastery Trail

• Unlock the Trielta Crags waypoint first Trail → north → −62 / −146
• Lady Esther — talk and shop before the Crèche Trail → north-east of Trielta Crags → −43 / −129 DC 21 Persuasion takes 466 gold up front, 272 as a githyanki verify in-game her own page says "at least 200". DC 10 Insight reveals her deadline. Stock: The Graceful Cloth (800g — monk or rogue; does not stack with Gloves of Dexterity), Periapt of Wound Closure, Arrow of Undead Slaying, Boots of Elemental Momentum, Gloves of Baneful Striking, Gloves of Cinder and Sizzle, Winter's Clutches, Cacophony, Hoppy.
• Decide the egg before you hand anything over Trail → Esther → the Society of Brilliance errand Give her a real githyanki egg and by Act 3 "Esther is dead at the docks of The Lodge, killed by Ptaris who hatched from the egg" — and that also kills the Act 3 Omeluum rescue. Swapping in an owlbear egg at DC 21 pays 485 gold, the best of the three, and she lives.
• Second pair of Gloves of the Growling Underdog Trail → treasure crate −118 / −134 → Survival check If Ragzlin's crates were already stripped, this is your second chance. Advantage on melee attacks when 2+ enemies stand near the target — not near you, which is better than it sounds.
• The Blue Jay stash — just dig Trail → jay at −57 / −19 → stash at −5 / −29 corrected revealed "by passing a DC 25 Survival Check or simply digging at that location" — far less missable than the old note implied. The reward is "a random assortment of low-value items" and 10 XP.
• Elminster, if Gale hasn't met him Trail → the "Weary Traveller" → −133 / −161
• Broken Lathander Effigy Trail → effigy → −17 / 23 Potion of Greater Healing, gold, and a Greater Elixir of Arcane Cultivation — a free extra spell slot. Bank it for a nova turn.
• Cable car down Trail → Cable Car Wheel −44 / −74 → DC 15 Strength, one attempt per party member Descends to −10 / 6 by the monastery. A failed roll is not a dead end.

Rosymorn Monastery — do this before the Crèche

The Dawnmaster's Crest has to be in your pocket before you go down the stairs. Four ceremonial weapons onto four matching altars, in the Dawnmasters' Memorial at 75 / 57.

• Bring your own battleaxe and skip the Guardian entirely The altars accept ordinary weapons of the right type. The Guardian "does not react to any party member exploring the room, unless they try to loot any skeleton at its feet or pick up a Ceremonial Battleaxe from the ground" — so loot the Gilded Chest, not the bones beside it.
• Speak with Animals at the eagle nest buys a conversation, not safety corrected "the Eagle can be placated, but attacks if the party choose to come closer afterwards." Guarded by an Ancient Giant Eagle and a Giant Eagle. verify in-game the old claim that combat spawns three extra eagles is not on the page.
• Solve the puzzle rather than bypassing it DC 10 Perception reveals the chamber and DC 30 Sleight of Hand skips the puzzle — but a bypass forfeits Morninglord's Radiance: "+1d4 Radiant damage on weapon attacks," party-wide, until long rest. A real damage line for the whole Crèche run.
• Holy Lance Helm Monastery → painted chest, top level → 121 / 37 +1 Constitution saves — direct Concentration insurance — plus 1d4 radiant on anyone who misses you, DC 14. Needs medium armour proficiency, which you have. Wear it until the Diadem drops.
• Scroll of Revivify Monastery → small room above the Memorial → locked iron gate, DC 14 Sleight of Hand
• Gremishkas' Den sweep Monastery → the former library → Opulent Chest 36 / 35, three nests, alcoves at DC 14 Sleight of Hand Uncommon scrolls and potions. Also a dirt mound on the Memorial balcony 80 / 86. verify in-game the August guide's mounds at 50 / 63 and 47 / 56 and a cliff-route chest at 106 / −4 were not found on the page — look, don't plan.

Crèche Y'llek — the order inside matters more than anywhere else

1. A'jak'nir Jeera at the Trade Post first, before anything volatile. South-east of the Crèche waypoint. verify in-game three wiki pages give three different coordinates for her — navigate by the Trade Post, not a number. Buy Gloves of Dexterity (300g) and the Knife of the Undermountain King (480g) for yourself; flag Unseen Menace, Defender Flail and Vital Conduit Boots for teammates. All of it dies with a destroyed or hostile Crèche.
2. The Hatchery, peacefully. Varsh Ko'kuu at 1288 / −759. The boots need DC 18 Persuasion ("Why risk its life at all? Give it to me") plus one of three non-antagonistic answers about the egg's future. The DC 10 Deception and DC 18 Intimidation routes get you the egg but are not stated to get the boots. Fighting him: Astarion +1, everyone else −1.
3. The Classroom, before the Inquisitor sequence. Sa'varsh Kethk "and his students become hostile if the party progress far enough in Discover the Artefact's Secrets." Take anything you want from that room now.
4. The Zaith'isk, before the Inquisitor. See the box below. Ghustil must be alive, and the Inquisitor sequence ends with the whole Crèche hostile.
5. Loot the Inquisitor's Chamber display cases before the fight. All free pickups, no combat: The Skinburster 1383 / −659, Hoarfrost Boots 1335 / −660, Necklace of Elemental Augmentation 1379 / −662, and the elegant chest with the Strange Conduit Ring 1360 / −657.
6. Kith'rak Therezzyn — three routes, not two. Show her the artefact and she opens the barrier willingly, but "locks the party in and demands they go to the Inquisitor immediately." Or conceal it with Deception and pickpocket the Gith Shard. Or kill her for the shard plus the Soulbreaker Greatsword. corrected sparing her costs only the greatsword — W'wargaz also drops a Githyanki Half Plate.
7. The Inquisitor, then Vlaakith. Ch'r'ai W'wargaz: level 6, AC 17, 112 HP on Balanced, 145 on Tactician and Honour with Legendary Resistance. He drops the Circlet of Psionic Revenge; Ardent Jhe'rezath drops the Diadem of Arcane Synergy.
8. The Blood of Lathander last, always. Doing it last makes the secret stairway your exit from a now-hostile Crèche.

The Blood of Lathander

• Rotate the two Lathander statues Crèche → western hallway → 1330 / −660 Southern faces WEST, northern faces EAST. new the southern one needs a passive DC 25 Athletics check to move — a low-Strength party can stall here. If it fails, use Grease or attack the statue. The northern needs no check.
• Put the Crest in the altar slot, THEN take the mace Crèche → Secret Chamber → 1068 / −779 Safe retrieval, trap deactivated, 145 XP. Taking it without the Crest arms a four-turn trap that risks destroying the whole Crèche — and destroying the Crèche destroys its contents, confirmed for the Zaith'isk. safety net "Placing the crest after taking the mace also deactivates the trap" — so a mis-click is recoverable if the Crest is in your pack. Do not reload.
• Hand the mace to somebody else Legendary +3 mace running on Strength — a downgrade in your hands at STR 8. Its value is party-wide: Lathander's Light blinds fiends and undead within 6 m on a failed DC 14 Constitution save, and you are about to spend an act among exactly those; Lathander's Blessing heals the wielder 2d6 at 0 HP and allies within 9 m for 1d6.

B · Act 1 leftovers still reachable

Most of Act 1 is still open, and stays open until the Shadowfell. Two items below are decided by your save state rather than by the map — I have flagged which.

Grymforge — the adamantine trip

• Both Mithral Ores — found, and both already spent Grymforge → −556 / 277 and −642 / 253 → forge mechanism −568 / 243 "Only two exist in any playthrough," and the forge crafts exactly two items total. Both are gone: the party forged two Adamantine Splints — one on you, one for a heavy-armour teammate. Nothing is left to do at the forge, and no adamantine decision is left to make.
• The second Splint is on the Battle Master Confirmed 9/11, and the right person: −2 off every hit compounds with volume, and the half-orc takes the most. confirmed 9/11
• Disintegrating Night Walkers Grymforge → True Soul Nere's corpse → −854 / 780 corrected not missable. The wiki says the opposite of the old warning: the boots can be looted from his corpse and he cannot use them himself.
• Grymforge remainder Grymforge → Lava Lake cave / Trapped Gallery / Merregon's Hideout Sentient Amulet (adamantine chest, DC 20), The Protecty Sparkswall, Firestoker (+1 hand crossbow), one Infernal Iron from Stonemason Kith. Trade with Kith after helping him evaluate the ruins, or the dialogue locks.

verify in-game Both Grymforge waypoints are listed as Act 1 waypoints and Act 1 waypoints stay live until the Shadowfell — but no page confirms the return trip explicitly. Check it is on your fast-travel map before committing.

Underdark

• Caustic Band — 40 gold, best value in Act 1 Ebonlake Grotto → Derryth Bonecloak → −55 / −93 "Your weapon attacks also deal 2 Acid damage." With two attacks that is +4 a turn, forever, for forty gold.
• Phalar Aluve — pull it, then give it away Underdark → embedded in stone near the Selûnite Outpost → 116 / −192 As a Paladin: DC 10 Religion with advantage, then DC 10 Charisma. Shriek is a 6 m aura for 5 turns giving enemies a 1d4 penalty to all saving throws and attack rolls — the best Hold Person enabler in Act 1. But it costs an Action, and yours is two attacks. Hand it over.
• Arcane Tower, powered Underdark → power generator → insert a Sussur Bloom Blooms: 4 at the Sussur Tree −14 / −138, 2 in the tower garden. They wilt outside the Underdark unless carried in the camp Traveller's Chest or any locked container. Floor loot: Uncovered Mysteries, Skybreaker, Timmask Spores + Tongue of Madness (Omeluum's quest items), Mystra's Grace, Mage's Friend, Club of Hill Giant Strength, Guiding Light, Light of Creation, Staff of Arcane Blessing, The Sparkswall.
• Selûnite Outpost Underdark → hidden wall, DC 15 Perception → the two best chests Helmet of Smiting 163 / −244, Luminous Armour 176 / −247, Staff of the Moonmaiden 161 / −200, Drow Studded Leather 84 / −207. Send someone other than the eye-deal teammate to roll that Perception.
• Omeluum's chain Ebonlake Grotto → Omeluum → bring Timmask Spores + Tongue of Madness Pays the Ring of Mind-Shielding and opens his shop. It also chains into the Act 3 "Retrieve Omeluum" rescue — which only happens if Lady Esther never received a real githyanki egg.
• Sussur masterwork weapon Blighted Village → forge −446 / −378 → bark until the flames turn blue, then place a plain weapon in +1 and silence-on-hit. A hard counter to enemy casters, and Act 2 is full of them. Not for you — give it to whoever front-lines against spellcasters.

Elsewhere in Act 1

• Ethel's lair remainder Overgrown Tunnel → Acrid Workshop → −419 / 585 Bitter Divorce wand on the stone slab — use it with Mayrina present and it becomes Second Marriage. Also Staff of Crones −412 / 606, The Ever-Seeing Eye, wicker chest −324 / 567, and four Whispering Masks by the Gnarled Door, now safe with Ethel dead — one is the key to the Mushroom Circle shortcut at −353 / 578.
• Blighted Village Village → forge basement / apothecary cellar Haste Helm (Moss-Covered Key from the Goblin Booyahg on the apothecary roof), Infernal Iron + Steelforged Sword (needs the Heavy Key at 58 / 429), corrected The Speedy Lightfeet is in the forge basement, not the windmill cellar, Necromancy of Thay via the hatch at 33 / 378, buried chest behind the schoolhouse −4 / 371 at DC 15 Survival.
• Zhentarim Hideout Village → basement → Brem's special stock Titanstring Bow for the party archer, Abyss Beckoners, Harold. Do not unlock the shipment chest — "even without taking anything out of it, Zarys considers this a violation of the agreement and orders her henchmen to attack."
• Infernal Iron ×4 in Act 1 Blighted Village forge −434 / −370 · Ragzlin's crates 298 / 66 · Zhentarim basement 285 / −165 · Stonemason Kith −662 / 375 Karlach's heart needs exactly two for all upgrades. corrected only two more exist in Act 2, not three — Reithwin Mason's Guild and the Gauntlet vault.
• Ring of Protection — probably gone Emerald Grove → Mol → reward for Steal the Sacred Idol "Once the rite ends, this quest can no longer be started," and killing the goblin leaders ended it. If it was already in the journal it is still finishable and easier than before. verify in-game check the journal. Mol is at Last Light either way.
• Boots of Speed — check the body before writing them off Ebonlake Grotto → Thulla → 82 / −97 "Once the quest is started, Thulla dies without treatment after three long rests," so she is very likely dead. But no page says the boots vanish with her, and the wiki lists stealing them as its own acquisition route. Go look.
• Volo's eye surgery — expires at the end of Act 2 Grants permanent See Invisibility. Not available to a PC who took Ethel's deal, not to Wyll, and Minthara has no dialogue for it. One act earlier a deadline than everything else on this page.
• Owlbear Cub — deadline is the Mind Flayer Colony Budget two long rests: he arrives hungry, then returns injured, and a DC 10 Nature/Medicine/Survival check is what permanently recruits him. Act 3 payoff needs only that Dammon survives, not that his quest is finished.

What is already lost, so you can stop looking

• Auntie Ethel's elixir shop. "Unavailable for the rest of the game once she first reveals her true hag form, retreats into her Overgrown Tunnel, or is killed." Moot on a Dexterity build; Derryth Bonecloak sells Hill Giant Strength elixirs for the teammates who want them.
• The Hag's Hair. Won 8/7 and spent on Charisma 17 → 18. One per playthrough, and yours went to the right place.
• Most tiefling-refugee and goblin/druid quests. Travelling to the Shadow-Cursed Lands or the Rosymorn Monastery Trail resolved the Rite of Thorns. verify in-game completing Defeat the Goblins should have aborted the rite rather than completing it, which means the Grove should be open but empty — check the map before planning a trip there.
• Waukeen's Rest, if anyone entered the inner yard and left. "The timer is set upon reaching the inner yard," and fast travel, camp or a long rest after that kills everyone inside. Binary: never entered = fully available; entered and left = gone, and Florrick cannot even be Speak-with-Dead'd.
• Nothing else. Mattis, Dammon and Mol all relocated to Last Light rather than disappearing. Do not burn a trip to the Grove for shopping.

C · Act 2, location by location

Route order. The Shadowfell is step 16 and everything before it is reversible.

Ruined Battlefield — arrival

• Light every party member before you move Unprotected creatures get turn-based mode and "1 turn to generate or relocate to a protective light source," then necrotic damage. Ordinary light works in the outer curse only; near Moonrise you need a Moonlantern or the Pixie Blessing.
• Rescue Rolan on your first trip out, before any long rest Battlefield → eastern shore south of the Tollhouse bridge → −54 / −111 The highest-priority missable in the act. He leaves after your first fast travel or long rest, and "if Rolan is not saved before long resting, he is overtaken by the Shadow Curse and dies." Friendly-fire AoE makes him vanish permanently.
• Take the Moonlantern, then free the pixie inside it Battlefield → Kar'niss's convoy → Inspect Moonlantern Deception or Intimidation takes the lantern with no fight. Freeing Dolly Dolly Dolly grants the party-wide Pixie Blessing and breaks the lantern so it "cannot be equipped anymore" — which is the point: your shield hand comes back.
• Punish the Wicked — and read the oath trap first Battlefield → He Who Was → 126 / 105; ledger under a loose plank behind the Waning Moon bar, −223 / −78, DC 10 Perception Oath of Vengeance breaks if you forgive Madeline, prevent her stabbing herself, or attack He Who Was. Calling her a coward is safe for your oath specifically — it breaks the other three. Raven Gloves pay out if she is stabbed once or called a coward. If the party wants mercy, walk out of the radius first.
• Potter's Workshop Battlefield → southern building → Idol of Selûne in the Potter's Chest −52 / 11 Starts Investigate the Selûnite Resistance. Also Luminous Gloves and the Ring of Twilight.
• Oliver's hide-and-seek, both rounds Battlefield → the house with wildflowers → 76 / 37 Ring of Shadows comes after both rounds. Later, his Nightdome "reflects any damage it is dealt back to the attacker" — but "killing each of Oliver's summoned allies deals damage to the Nightdome without reflecting." Kill the summons, never the dome.

Last Light Inn

• Isobel's blessing, then win the Marcus fight If she is lost, "the warding over Last Light's Inn falters" and everyone but Jaheira turns into Shadow-Cursed Undead — taking Dammon, Talli, Mattis, Art Cullagh, the whole curse chain and Jaheira with her. Counterspell shuts Marcus down; grappling stops the escape.
• Tower-Shaped Key from Mattis upgraded it "unlocks the basement of the Mason's Guild in Reithwin Town" — where the Helmet of Arcane Acuity lives. Backup key in a cobwebbed pouch behind the main bar.
• Cloak of Protection from Talli, 200 gold Last Light → courtyard → −30 / 128 +1 AC and +1 to all saving throws — the cleanest partial offset to the Risky Ring's drawback.
• Yonas's funeral, before Marcus assaults the inn "Yonas' funeral must be witnessed before Marcus assaults the inn." Also first-visit-only: Mol's lanceboard scene with Raphael, and looting Isobel's room during the rites window.
• Do NOT kill the Strange Ox Last Light → the Ox → −28 / 170 "Doing this is considered an oathbreaking action for Paladins of any Oath subclass." It carries the Hat of Fire Acuity, which the Helmet of Arcane Acuity makes redundant anyway. Deliberately skipped.
• The cellar Last Light → cellar → trapped heavy chest 44 / −734 DC 15 Perception to detect the trap, DC 10 to disarm, DC 14 to unlock. Coruscation Ring — a caster teammate's item. Seven Meenlocks "attack on sight."
• Shield of Scorching Reprisal Last Light → graveyard, east of the open graves → −3 / 215, DC 18 Perception then Strength 15+ to dig Your STR is 8. A teammate digs.

Reithwin Town

• Sharran Sanctuary FIRST — the +5 Charisma blessing Reithwin → Ketheric statue, central square −152 / −30 → plaques N, W, E Three statues, three DC 14 saves: Dark Lady's Grace (+5 CHA), Awareness (+5 WIS), Erudition (+5 INT). Everything that follows is a wall of DC 18–21 Charisma checks. A failed save costs the matching −5 until long rest and locks you in with three Sentinels; all three passed opens the altar chamber. Shadowheart bypasses them while loyal to Shar, and takes disadvantage once the Nightsong is freed.
• Mason's Guild basement — the Helmet of Arcane Acuity Reithwin NE → Keyholed Herald, DC 10 Perception → Tower-Shaped Key or DC 18 pick → second DC 10 Perception for the door button → gilded chest 107 / −758 new to this act Disarm before picking — DC 21 Sleight of Hand; lockpicking first fires a level-4 Guiding Bolt, DC 15 to negate. Also down there: Scroll of Knock (save it for the Gauntlet vault), the Moonrise Diagram 123 / −739, and Infernal Iron in the backyard −102 / 18.
• Tollhouse — park the gold outside Reithwin SE → Gerringothe Thorm Her attack scales with carried gold. Talk her down: identical XP to killing her and every Visage, she drops 600 gold, and any gold already paid is returned. Get a Clerk's Key from the roof skeleton for the second-floor doors (Gloves of Battlemage's Power) and the Seized Inventory room; the secret basement office is behind two DC 10 Perception checks and a button at 308 / −708.
• Waning Moon — ledger before the drinking contest Reithwin W → behind the bar, loose plank → −223 / −78, DC 10 Perception Thisobald's Constitution DCs are 14 / 16 / 18; Barbarian, Cleric and Monk roll with advantage — put one of them on the stool. corrected faking is DC 18 Sleight of Hand but round 3 raises it to DC 21, which makes the fake worse than the old note assumed. Dialogue gives identical XP to the fight.
• House of Healing — Arabella at the gate first Reithwin NW → graveyard gate → −153 / 15 Agree to help and let her stay at camp. Her parents are in the children's ward −185 / 12. Break the news at camp — telling her anywhere else forces a DC 14 Persuasion/Intimidation (or Detect Thoughts DC 10) and she flees on a failure. Reward: Arabella's Shadow Entangle and the Shadow Blade Ring.
• Talk Malus Thorm into operating on himself House of Healing → operating theatre → −201 / 49 DC 14 Investigation/Religion → DC 21 Persuasion → read "Surgery and Physiology: A Sharran's Primer" → DC 18 → a final DC 21 with a Sorcerer/Deception variant you qualify for. It removes him and all four undead sisters — the biggest difficulty swing in Reithwin. He drops the Surgeon's Subjugation Amulet and the Battered Lute either way.
• Morgue and crevice sweep House of Healing → morgue laboratory 9 / −981 · Ominous Crevice −29 / 930 Eversight Ring (blindness immunity — genuinely interesting, since you are the party's Darkness caster and this lets a teammate stand in it) behind two DC 14 checks. The Fleshmelter Cloak needs Misty Step or Feather Fall to reach; you have Misty Step free.
• Grand Mausoleum Reithwin → Raphael outside → DC 10 Persuasion + DC 10 Insight Hearing him out makes the peaceful Yurgir resolution findable, with no downside. Frescoes in order: Moonrise Towers, Grief, General. Buried treasure at −170 / 100 (DC 6), 273 / −818 (DC 18), 260 / −863 (DC 14).
• Wake Art Cullagh, then defend the portal for four turns "If the portal is destroyed, Halsin is lost to the Shadowfell forever, and the quest fails." Three large scripted waves — bring AoE and full slots.

Moonrise Towers — before the Shadowfell

• Go in as a True Soul "If Moonrise Towers is not visited first, a significant amount of content there is automatically completed." Entering peacefully opens Z'rell, Lann Tarv's stash, Araj, the prison and Balthazar's room.
• Risky Ring from Araj — and donate blood Moonrise → Araj Oblodra → −128 / −193, 190 gold Build-defining. "If blood is donated in Act Two, Araj moves to the Lower City in Act Three" — without it, "Araj is not at her store." One donation is 1d3 damage and a free elixir.
• Do not knock out Lann Tarv "If Lann Tarv is Knocked Out, he cannot be spoken to or traded with later." He carries Sentinel Shield, Slicing Shortsword, Fistbreaker Helm, Halberd of Vigilance, Titanstring Bow.
• Z'rell's secret stash Moonrise → Disciple Z'rell → DC 14 Insight, then DC 18 Persuasion Unlocks Gauntlets of Surging Accuracy, Dwarven Splintmail, Render of Mind and Body in Lann Tarv's hidden stock. Another use for the +5 Charisma blessing. She counterspells — open with cantrips to bait it.
• Ketheric's chambers — the letter, not the cloak Moonrise → Ketheric's room → Squire the undead warhound guards it The Letter to Ketheric from Melodia "helps strategically during both battles with Ketheric himself." Read it before the fight. Cloak of Elemental Absorption is in the opulent chest at the foot of the bed, DC 14.
• Isobel's room — that chest is a mimic Moonrise → foot of Isobel's bed → DC 20 Perception reveals it Spineshudder Amulet. Warn the party.
• Free Wulbren by boat, not by lever Moonrise → prison, fourth cell to the right 569 / −626 → Wulbren's Hammer from the Warden's office → boat at 575 / −576 DC 14 Deception ("I have permission from Balthazar") or Persuasion gets you past the guard; Misty Step bypasses it. The Warden's-office levers trigger an alarm and a running fight.
• Sever the mind control on Barnabus, never reinforce it Moonrise → kitchen → Linsella and the gnoll Reinforcing it "counts as an Oathbreaking action for paladin characters following the Oath of Vengeance." Named for your subclass.

Gauntlet of Shar — everything except the last door

• The entrance-hall darkness puzzle Extinguish "eight Mystic Thuribles hanging high around the room" — alcove levers, or hit them with Ray of Frost, Ice Knife, Arrows of Ice or thrown water. Ray of Frost is one of your cantrip options, so you can solve it alone. Then walk the gaps in the purple glyph circle.
• All four Umbral Gems Soft-Step, Self-Same, Faith-Leap, and Yurgir's — which sits beside his bed of corpses and is obtainable without killing him. One gem opens the Pedestal of Reckoning; the other three open the Verge of Shadows doors. All four are required.
• Killer's Sweetheart — the specific copy at the brazier Gauntlet → Self-Same Trial → the shadow copy next to the brazier, −833 / −729 "When you kill a creature, your next Attack Roll will be a Critical Hit... refreshes after a Long Rest." A guaranteed doubled smite. Strip the whole party before starting the trial — doing so "makes the trial spawn all copies in the same naked and disarmed state." In co-op, everyone strips, or one un-stripped copy fights you in full kit.
• Spear of Night — carry it, don't wield it Gauntlet → Silent Library, beyond the riddle door → −820 / −756 Strength-based, so not your weapon — but "Shadowheart turns hostile if the party attempt to enter the Shadowfell without it." Procedural, not optional.
• The vault near Balthazar Gauntlet → vault room → opulent chest −821 / −752 Callous Glow Ring and one Infernal Iron. Bring the Scroll of Knock. verify in-game the "DC 30 lock" in circulation is not on the wiki — no DC is published.
• Yurgir — the rat route leaves him alive and friendly "One Becomes Many" at a statue of Shar reveals Lyrthindor survives as rats; done preemptively, "Yurgir and all the Merregons turn friendly," and a freed Yurgir returns as a summonable Act 3 ally. The talk-down (DC 14 Insight → DC 16 → DC 21 → DC 21) kills him and drops the Hellfire Hand Crossbow plus a second Infernal Iron. Genuine trade-off — the gem is takeable either way.
• Balthazar — Knock his door during the ambush "Lockpicking or casting Knock on his door outside his room during the ambush... forces him into combat against the Sharrans, where he can be killed more easily." Kill him here; the vault loot is on his side of the door anyway.
• Skip the Mirror of Loss in this act entirely corrected the Act 2 mirror is cracked and nonfunctional. It grants nothing. The working one is Act 3, Cloister of Sombre Embrace −474 / −1650.

After the gate — Shadowfell and the Colony

• Spare the Nightsong Freed, Aylin "assists the party in the first phase of Ketheric Thorm's fight atop the roof." Killed, Isobel "becomes overwhelmed and unable to sustain her protection over the Inn, killing her and all others within." The spare reward is Selûne's Spear of Night — there is no "Moonlight Glaive."
• Resonance Stone — the highest-value item in the act for you Mind Flayer Colony → south-west of the Necrotic Laboratory, near the Mind-Archive Interface → 692 / −114 A 9 m aura: everyone inside takes double psychic damage and rolls mental saves at disadvantage — so it lands your Wisdom-save lockdown and doubles your psychic blade in one object. It does not discriminate, and does nothing to undead or constructs. One spot in a dungeon you can never re-enter. verify in-game known bug: "sometimes ceases to function upon leaving Act Two."
• Open the pods, don't purge them Purging is a mass killing of the refugees you spent Act 1 saving; opened, the freed prisoners fight alongside you. Kressa Bonedaughter: DC 21 Deception to stand her down, then a separate DC 18 Persuasion for Myrkul's Gift.
• Use the Restoration Pod before descending to Ketheric "The party can use the Restoration Pod to the right of the lift to receive the benefits of a Long Rest" — a fresh Shadow Blade, full slots, full sorcery points, and Killer's Sweetheart reset, immediately before the fight.

Inside the Colony "the party cannot fast-travel or go to camp," and Dammon "becomes unavailable when the party enter the Mind Flayer Colony." Sell, shop and rest first. verify in-game the claim that Ketheric is mechanically invulnerable while the Nightsong is caged is not stated on either of his wiki pages — free her anyway.

Section 4Recommended items — top three per slot

Ranked for this character: Dexterity, a summoned psychic sword, a shield, and a Charisma-driven lockdown. Prices are base; Honour mode runs higher and is noted where it differs sharply.

Your loadout today — keep, hand off, or replace

Every item you are carrying, checked against its own wiki page on 11 September. Three things leave your pack today and one slot is empty.

What you're missing, in priority order

Mapped onto the backtrack in Section 3, so none of this is a special trip. Total cash cost of the whole list: about 515 gold, or 995 if you also buy the Knife.

• 1 · Phalar Aluve — free, and it fixes your main hand today Underdark → embedded in stone near the Selûnite Outpost → 116 / −192 Rare +1 longsword with Finesse, so it swings off your Dexterity: +7 to hit for 1d8+6, against the flail's +4 for 1d6+3. That is +3 to hit, +3 flat damage and a bigger die, for nothing. The Paladin release path is the cleanest in the game — DC 10 Religion with advantage, then DC 10 Charisma using your oath. flipped Section 3 tells you to free it and hand it away; at level 6 with no better option, wield it yourself and hand it on the day you buy a +2 finesse weapon. verify in-game Shriek's numbers (6 m, 5 turns, 1d4 penalty) live on separate pages I did not read this pass.
• 2 · Shadow Blade Ring — free, Act 2 camp Reithwin → Arabella → complete Find Arabella's Parents, break the news at camp Casts Shadow Blade at level 2 as a bonus action, recharging on a short rest: a Finesse simple shortsword dealing 2d8 psychic + 3 DEX + 2 Duelling at +6 to hit, with advantage against obscured targets. corrected the Shadow Magic subclass does not grant Shadow Blade — its features are Eyes of the Dark and Strength of the Grave, Darkness at 3, Hound of Ill Omen at 6, Shadow Walk at 11 — so this ring may be the party's only route to the blade. verify in-game whether your Sorcerer level plan in Section 5 really learns the spell at Sorcerer 3, and whether the conjured blade survives unequipping the ring; the wiki says only that it must stay on the caster's person.
• 3 · Cloak of Protection — 200 gold Last Light Inn → courtyard → Quartermaster Talli, −30 / 128 +1 Armour Class and +1 to all saving throws, into an empty slot, and the save bonus stacks on top of your aura. The cheapest AC in the act.
• 4 · Amulet of the Harpers — 125 gold, same vendor, same stop Last Light Inn → Talli Advantage on Wisdom saving throws, plus Shield as a reaction once per long rest. Hand the Amulet of Misty Step to the Sorcerer at the same moment, and the Shattered Flail to the Cleric or the Fighter.
• 5 · Risky Ring — 190 gold Moonrise Towers → Araj Oblodra, main floor → −128 / −193 Advantage on every attack roll, disadvantage on saving throws — and your aura is already handing you +4 on exactly the number it damages. Note it is redundant on a held target, so its value is in every other fight.
• 6 · Strange Conduit Ring — free, and it is in the same room as the Diadem Crèche Y'llek → Inquisitor's Chamber → elegant chest, 1360 / −657 Extra psychic damage on your weapon attacks while you are Concentrating — which, with Hold Person up, is every nova turn. verify in-game the page I fetched did not spell out the 1d4 figure that circulates, so treat the size as unconfirmed.
• 7 · Diadem of Arcane Synergy — free, same room Crèche Y'llek → carried by Ardent Jhe'rezath, 1365 / −663 Inflict a condition, then add your spellcasting ability to weapon damage for 2 turns — and Inquisitor's Might's Dazed rider has no saving throw, so you can trigger it yourself on demand. narrower than reported the "any Frightened triggers it" note belongs to the Helmet of Smiting, not to this; the Diadem's own over-triggers are ranged misses, Sanctuary and See Invisibility. Still probably the better head slot, by less than you were told. verify in-game its page lists no armour proficiency requirement either way.
• 8 · A +2 finesse weapon, when you want the upgrade Knife of the Undermountain King — 480g from Jeera at the Crèche Trade Post → or Justiciar's Scimitar, free off Lyrthindor in the Gauntlet of Shar, −717 / −723 Both are +2, Finesse, Light, and both put you at +8 to hit for 1d6+7. The Knife's Organ Rearranger drops your crit threshold by 1 and rerolls damage rolls of 2 or less; the Scimitar's Shadow-Blinding is a DC 14 Constitution save for Blinded 2 turns when you attack with advantage — and it does not function in Honour Mode. They are worth the same 480 gold; the Scimitar is simply loot rather than a purchase. Phalar Aluve's bigger die keeps it competitive, so this is an upgrade, not an emergency.

The loot map — what leaves your pack, and to whom

Four items move. Everything else on your sheet stays where it is.

The long game, slot by slot

Everything from here is the ranked wish-list out to Act 3 — what each slot should eventually hold, not what to chase this week. The list above is this week.

Head

Also on the route: Holy Lance Helm (Rosymorn painted chest, 115g) — +1 Constitution saves, direct Concentration insurance; wear it until the Diadem drops. Birthright (Act 3, Sorcerous Sundries, 410g) gives +2 Charisma to a cap of 22, but shares the slot with the Diadem, so it is a per-fight swap. Circlet of Psionic Revenge is better on Lae'zel — githyanki wearers also get +1 to Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma saves.

Chest

Gloves

Demoted: Gloves of Battlemage's Power (Tollhouse second floor, behind Clerk's-Key doors). Patch 8 redesigned them to grant Arcane Acuity from weapon-using spells, but the duration "reduces by 2 each time the entity takes damage" — a heavy tax on a front-liner. With the Helmet doing that job from the head slot, these belong to a back-line caster.

Boots

Amulet

Rings (two slots)

Interim second ring: Strange Conduit Ring — free loot in the Crèche Inquisitor's Chamber elegant chest 1360 / −657. "When Concentrating on a spell, the wearer's weapon attacks deal an additional 1d4 Psychic damage" — live precisely when Hold Person is up, and psychic like your blade. Ring of Free Action (Araj) is worth a slot on any day the enemy casts Hold Person back at you; it also ignores difficult terrain.

Main hand

From character level 9 your main hand is Shadow Blade. Nothing below replaces it — this is what you hold until then, and what goes in the off-hand after.

Act 3 off-hand: Bloodthirst (off Orin) gives +1 AC and piercing vulnerability in the off-hand specifically. Rhapsody (off Cazador) adds up to +3 attack, damage and Spell Save DC as you kill — the sleeper. verify in-game whether that passive works from the off-hand is not stated.

Shield

The Adamantine Shield is off the table this playthrough — both Mithral Ores went into Splints. It used to head this list; with crit immunity already on your chest and the same +2 AC already in your off hand, you are losing nothing you would have actually used.

Duelling's +2 damage explicitly works with a shield in your free hand, and you have no Two-Weapon Fighting style, so an off-hand attack would also spend the bonus action that Quickened, Vow of Enmity and the Band of the Mystic Scoundrel all want. Shield, always.

Cloak and ranged — the quiet slots

The rule that decides the ranged slot: take a hand crossbow, not a bow. A two-handed bow means unequipping your shield to plink at something, which is never worth it.

Consumables

Give these to a teammate

Section 5Level-up cheat sheet

Paladin continuously to 6, then Sorcerer continuously to 12. The order is forced, not preferred: Paladin taken first grants heavy armour and shields; taken later as a multiclass it grants neither, which would cost you the Act 1 armour this build was designed around. You get exactly two feats — feats land at class levels 4, 8 and 12, and this split reaches Paladin 4 and Sorcerer 4 only.

Breakpoints worth memorising

• Divine Smite caps at a 4th-level slot — 2d8 / 3d8 / 4d8 / 5d8, and nothing above. First reached at character level 10.
• Shadow Blade caps per tier — 2d8 at 2nd, 3d8 at 3rd or 4th, 4d8 at 5th. That middle tier is the trap.
• Improved Divine Smite is Paladin 11, not Paladin 6. Several guides get this wrong, and chasing it would dismantle the sorcery engine.
• Sorcery points start at Sorcerer 2, so character level 7 has zero.
• Never spend a Sorcerer "spell known" on Hold Person, Misty Step, Bane, Hunter's Mark or Darkness — all free from your oath or your subclass.

The open choices — these are yours to make

• Ore #2 — closed, not open. settled 9/11 Both Mithral Ores are spent on two Adamantine Splints. The Adamantine Shield and the Scale Mail are gone for this playthrough; the spare Splint is on the half-orc Battle Master (confirmed 9/11).
• The level-12 flex spell. Fireball if the party lacks AoE; Blur if you keep dying; Hypnotic Pattern if you want a second control option (it competes with Hold Person for Concentration, so probably not); or Hold Person as a Sorcerer spell, which is the safe answer if Quickened turns out not to apply to the oath-granted copy.
• Feat at 10, if Hold Person keeps slipping. +2 Charisma is the pick and I would not move off it. But War Caster — advantage on Concentration saves — is the honest runner-up, and it is the right call only if you are losing Concentration repeatedly before Act 3. The Amulet of Greater Health solves the same problem without spending a feat, so the question is really "can I survive until Act 3 without it."
• Yurgir: alive or looted. The rat route needs no checks, leaves him friendly, and makes him a summonable Act 3 ally. Killing him pays the Hellfire Hand Crossbow and a second Infernal Iron. Your call, and it depends on whether your Infernal Iron budget is tight.
• Great Weapon Master is not entirely inapplicable — correcting the August guide. Its All In toggle needs a two-hander, which Shadow Blade is not; but its bonus-attack half fires on any melee crit or kill, and against a paralysed target every hit is a crit. It still loses to +2 Charisma, because it competes with Quickened for your bonus action. The reason changed; the answer did not.

Section 6Sources and verification

Everything above comes from bg3.wiki, fetched and read directly on 11 September 2026 — roughly 180 page fetches across five research passes, each followed by an adversarial fact-check that re-opened the same pages and quoted them back. No forum posts, no fan wikis, no video guides.

Version history

• v311 September 2026, evening. Your real loadout and the three named teammates written into Sections 1, 2 and 4. Added: the journal state on arriving in the Shadow-Cursed Lands and why no Isobel objective has appeared yet; where you are tonight (Trielta Crags → Rosymorn → the Crèche Trade Post); the playing without Sen box. Corrected: both Mithral Ores are spent on two Adamantine Splints, so Sections 3, 4 and 5 no longer send you to claim an Adamantine Shield you cannot get.
• v2 · v1Earlier today, and August 2026. The Act 2 refresh, sitting on Sorcadin Build Guide (2026-08).html — still the better source on the Ethel playbook and the respec walkthrough.

The patch this reflects

Patch 8 — released 15 April 2025, v4.1.1.6758295, announced by Larian as "The Final Patch." It added the twelve new subclasses including Shadow Magic. corrected the Shadow Magic page lists its features as Eyes of the Dark and Strength of the Grave at level 1, Darkness and Eyes of the Dark: Darkness at 3, Hound of Ill Omen at 6 and Shadow Walk at 11 — Shadow Blade is not among them, and the wiki does not attribute the spell to Patch 8 either. Everything since is bug-fix and stability work. settled 11 Sep The newest build on the wiki's own Patch notes index is 3 August 2026, v4.1.1.7398727 (PC and PS5; 4.1.1.7451994 on Steam Deck, 4.1.1.7445165 on Xbox), sitting above Hotfix #36 (v4.1.1.7209685, 26 March 2026) and v4.1.1.7151330 (16 February 2026). The wiki's own Main Page banner still names Hotfix #36 as the latest update and is stale. None of it is a balance change, so the rules above hold.

Pages leaned on hardest

Act Two · Act One · Travel through the Mountain Pass · Rosymorn Monastery · Rosymorn Monastery Trail · Crèche Y'llek · Find the Blood of Lathander · Zaith'isk · Discover the Artefact's Secrets · Steal a Githyanki Egg · Gauntlet of Shar · Mind Flayer Colony · Moonrise Towers · Last Light Inn · House of Healing · Reithwin Tollhouse · Sharran Sanctuary · Dammon · Lift the Shadow Curse · Punish the Wicked · Adamantine Forge · Mithral Ore · Armour · Armour proficiency · Multiclassing · Spell slot · Hit Points · Feats · Paladin · Sorcerer · Oath of Vengeance · Shadow Magic · Shadow Blade · Divine Smite · Smite · Hold Person · Aura of Protection · Extra Attack · Vow of Enmity · Metamagic · Sorcery Point · Savage Attacker · Patch Notes — plus the individual item page for every item named above.

What the fact-check corrected

• Mechanics that were wrong. Titanstring's Strength rider is a minimum +1, never a penalty. The Diadem adds your spellcasting modifier, not "CHA" as such. Gloves of the Growling Underdog check enemies near the target, not the wearer. Aid is a 9 m self-centred aura, not "three party members." Strength of the Grave is once per long rest. Mirror Image lasts 10 turns, not until long rest. Speak with Animals at the eagle nest buys a conversation, not safe looting. Thisobald's fake-drinking check rises to DC 21 in round three.
• Items in the wrong act. The Helmet of Arcane Acuity is Act 2, not Act 3 — confirmed three ways, including its absence from the Act 3 item list. Crèche Y'llek is explicitly "a Location within the Rosymorn Monastery Trail in Act One," so every Crèche item is an Act 1 pick.
• Routing that would have cost real items. Dammon's forge closes at the Shadowfell, not the Colony. The old step order put the final crafting run after that door.
• One fabricated item. "Moonlight Glaive" appears on no wiki page. The spare-the-Nightsong reward is Selûne's Spear of Night.
• One nonfunctional object. The Act 2 Mirror of Loss is cracked and grants nothing.
• Two quotes that were paraphrases. The Act Two point-of-no-return sentence and Ethel's shop-closure sentence were both quoted inexactly in the August guide. The substance survived; the quotation marks did not.
• One false negative, in the unsafe direction. The August guide said the wiki carries no missability warnings for the Crèche. It carries several, and three of your target items are in there.

What I did not check

Your save file. Every "still open" line above is a wiki-derived possibility, not a confirmed presence in your game, and the README's last save-state note is from 6 August — five weeks stale. Specifically unverified on your save, each one gating a different item: whether Steal the Sacred Idol was ever accepted, whether the Thulla clock has run, whether anyone entered the Waukeen's Rest inner yard, whether Crèche Y'llek is still non-hostile, whether Dammon is alive, whether the Emerald Grove is physically open, and which Underdark and Grymforge vendors survived.

Also not checked: Honour-mode stat variants beyond the prices quoted, full vendor stock rotation (inventories are partly randomised, so a listed item may simply not be on the shelf), Act 3 content beyond what bears on Act 1 and Act 2 deadlines, and anything mod- or console-related.