The boss enemies in Baldur’s Gate 3 are quite tough, but they can be defeated on any difficulty level with the right strategy. One player has now executed a true Goku move in the super hard Honour mode and paid a high price.
Spoiler Warning: This is about a boss fight from Act 3 and the conclusion of Astarion’s personal quest.
What happened to the player? On reddit, WWECreativegenius reports that he faced the boss enemy Cazador Szarr in Honour mode. He is teased as early as Act 1 and is an important part of the story of Companion Astarion.
In his fight, Cazador tries repeatedly to complete a ritual. And WWECreativegenius allowed this to happen in his last run. Just like Dragonball hero Son Goku does contrary to all good advice, WWECreativegenius also allowed Cazador to power up and suddenly faced an unstoppable killing machine.
The reddit user does not mention whether he won the fight. However, since he explains what he would have needed for a victory, it is assumed that Cazador wiped the floor with him.
Let the enemy power up? Better not!
Why was that a bad idea? Even without ascending, Cazador is quite a formidable opponent. If you have Astarion in your group, he will first be knocked out, and you have to free him. So you are left with only three in the fight against the boss and his minions.
This may even be a reason to leave Astarion completely at home for this battle:
Cazador has a base Armor Class of 21 and is resistant to non-magical and necrotic attacks. Additionally, he regenerates 20 hit points every round, has a plus 5 initiative bonus, and has bonuses on his saving throws and attack rolls for spells.
If you let him ascend, he gets even more powerful feats: The 20 hit points regenerated per round rise to 100. His Armor Class increases to 25. As a normal vampire, Cazador is vulnerable to light before his ascension – and that also goes away after his ascension.
Especially annoying is his new necrotic aura: If you touch it, your character automatically receives up to 70 necrotic damage. That’s enough to knock characters out in one round.
In summary: Don’t let Cazador ascend. He will finish you off. And you will lose Astarion.
All for pizza with stuffed crust
How does the community react to this? In the comments, most celebrate the move but are also confused. The most upvoted comment is from reddit user khornish_game_hen: You… let him ascend… in Honour Mode?
From there, other commenters quickly draw parallels to Son Goku. Someone accuses WWECreativegenius of just wanting pizza with stuffed crust. This is a reference to Dragon Ball Z Abridged (DBZA) on YouTube, a humorous re-dubbing of the original Dragon Ball Z anime from the USA, similar to what YouTuber Coldmirror did with the Harry Potter films in the 2000s.
As in the original anime, Son Goku also lets the villain Freeza reach his full potential in DBZA, but only because Freeza offers him the aforementioned pizza with stuffed crust in return:
Others share their own experiences with the ascended Cazador Szarr. FeelPureLust (via reddit), for example, writes that he was surprised by the power-up during the tower construction. The foundation of the tower was destroyed in the fight, and Cazador was killed by the falling crates.
Differences between the ascended Cazador and Astarion are also debated: If you defeat Cazador, you can help Astarion complete the ritual instead of Cazador. Apart from the character changes in Astarion, the companion receives a much smaller power-up than Cazador. reddit user Skewwwagon suggests that this is likely because Astarion is a vampire spawn and still has to learn his new abilities.
In the end, WWECreativegenius probably lost his Honour mode run. And all because he broke one important anime rule: Never let your opponent power up intentionally. Unless your name is Son Goku – he has won almost every fight despite opponents in their final forms so far. He even has a form that you probably have never seen.
