A player keeps failing against a tricky boss in Baldur’s Gate 3, but the community knows how to make the threat much easier. MyMMO editor Caro would have appreciated knowing this before the fight could ruin her third Honour mode.
Which boss is being referred to? It concerns the fight against Orin in the third act of the game, which is (unfortunately) unavoidable if you want to play through Baldur’s Gate 3 completely and stop the great threat.
How have I handled Orin so far? To the point? – Not well. Orin was a real challenge for my solo playthroughs and my coop group (all in Honour mode), leading to more than one defeat. I didn’t dare to use control spells, as many bosses get too many bonuses on their saving throws, but that would likely have been the right approach in this case, as I learned from a community discussion:
The player and Reddit user ironic_usernam3 turns to the community with a post, as he is desperate about this boss fight and wants to know how to even defeat Orin. An attached image shows that the entire team has already gone down and only Lae’zel is still able to continue fighting… and all before he could even take an action, as the player clarifies in the comments (via Reddit).
“So far, everything felt very balanced, but … how the hell is this possible?” he asks and seeks advice from the community. Especially the “Frightened” condition troubled his group, as Orin can strike twice at will in this manner, and the characters are too frightened to act themselves.
Reddit users explain to ironic_usernam3 how to best manage this – and some of these tips could have really helped me too. Because Orin was also a big pain in my neck when I was in Honour mode.
Here you can see the animated short film for Patch 8 of Baldur’s Gate 3:
With a powerful spell, you can be safe
How can Orin be best defeated? If you play as Dark Urge, you can confront Orin in a duel, meaning in a 1v1 where no one else can interfere. For this, she will turn into the powerful Slayer form if you don’t want to tread in Bhaal’s footsteps, for which the community still has a solution:
Especially one spell can turn Orin from a significant threat into a joke – “Otto’s Irresistible Dance,” as the top comment describes (via Reddit). This level 6 spell can be learned by wizards and bards, but can also be used through a scroll. This can be purchased, for example, in the business compartment of Lorroakan’s tower “Sorcerous Sundries” in Baldur’s Gate.
What makes the spell so powerful, aside from the attack advantages on the dancing creature and its incapacity to move (except for its dancing moves), is one crucial thing: In Baldur’s Gate 3, the spell does not require a failed saving throw from the target to take effect successfully. Only when the target’s turn comes up does it have a chance to free itself with a Wisdom saving throw. However, the Slayer is not particularly wise and receives no bonus for it. So the spell is an extremely reliable and powerful method to defeat Orin.
What other methods are there? If you don’t want to defeat Orin in a duel, the rest of the party can also interfere, but that gives Orin her own helpers and the “Unstoppable” condition. Orin receives a total of 12 charges of this condition, meaning only the thirteenth attack can inflict more damage than 1.
What really makes sense for this are spells like “Magic Missile,” “Scorching Ray,” or even a two- to three-times “Scary Ray” to grind down those charges through multiple projectiles. If you also cast a “Haste” on the spellcasting attacker, you can double those projectiles.
And if the frightened, paralyzing condition is a problem, the community also has a tip: “Heroes’ Feast [Level 6 spell that can be learned by clerics and druids at level 11] makes you immune to fear” (esmith22015 via Reddit).
That “Otto’s Irresistible Dance” is indeed irresistible due to the lack of a saving throw was something I simply never suspected and therefore ignored the spell. A little research would have really helped me there. Only my playthrough as a barbarian made the fight against Orin far too easy, because I used a certain build: A build in Baldur’s Gate 3 turned me into a fan of the barbarian – he defeats a main boss in seconds
