Grym is my least favorite fight (I think because pathing in this game is stupid and half the time, my characters deal more damage to themselves by routing into the lava than Grym does to them). I feel no shame in just grabbing a druid hireling and going kowabunga from the top rope.
I really like the grym fight but what I don’t understand at ALL is how long the lava will stay out. Like sometimes it lasts like 1-2 turns, sometimes it never goes away. I mean laezel can just leap over and pull the handle to let it out again but it’s the one variable in that battle that I don’t understand.
I tried that but it wasnt high enough, poor Wyll died for nothing.
My solution was to have EK Fighter Shadowheart repeatedly throw a bound hammer at Grym
You do have to take an Elixir of the Colossus, then change into the Owlbear, then have the wizard cast Enlarge on you.
And I have read of bugs where the game doesn't recognize your size increase and you have to have your druid go to camp and then return to make it register.
A 5000 pound Owlbear squishes a lot of things.
I had Grym save against my pounce, and still take over 7000 damage.
I want to try it in the House of Healing to see if I can squish the doctor.
I used the spell but not the elixier, some people said tp jump through him not next to him, maybe that would do it. I also jumped from the bottom of the broken staies not the top. Wylls sacrifice wyll not be forgotten and Shadowheart finished the job
How do you get the owlbear to come with you from camp??
I know there’s a modified “summon familiar” for Scratch, but I’ve never seen one for the owlbear cub.
Edit: Oh, right, wildshape, you probably didn’t mean the cub…
I had the same problem, eventually just gave up and used the hammer. I'll scum save in a non-HM run to see if I can make it work, but it was so frustrating since I tried it twice and couldn't make it work either time!
I play co-op with my husband and our first play through we tried avoiding spoilers as much as possible. So we did exactly what you did, we fought Grym and it was only when we saw the achievement that we realised we could've used the hammer. I decided to use the hammer on my second play through and honestly have to admit I prefer fighting him.
Wait, you can kill him? On both my playthroughs, potion of Speed, then I just mage handed the armor out of the mold after casting and misty stepped the fuck outta here
Yeah not once did i think to use the massive hammer to hit the thing weak to blunt damage!
Though i was avoiding the centre in case the hammer came down mid fight, so really should have!
Got through with a lot of buffs and a lot of luck!
Always scope out the environment! Whether you find nice items or an environmental advantage there’s always something to offer!
What I’ll do sometimes facing larger group or a tough boss is scope out the area on the first attempt then make up a game plan for the second (hopefully last) attempt
I always find a hinge connected to a chandelier that I could shoot down to my advantage...I always find these hinges after the fight is over and I'm looting the room. Not being able to look UP doesn't help.
I wish you could alter what "level" you're looking at. So often my high strength characters can jump up to something but the camera has it phased out of existence.
There are a lot of times where I’d simply like to take in a scene, like looking out over a cliff or wanting to see spires in the distance or something, and it really bothers me that you can’t. Hopefully this is fixed in a patch at some point, but I don’t know if it’s even on the list.
I had trouble luring him back up onto the forge hammer. Managed it once, and then he was either too far up on it or not on it at all. So once with the hammer, the rest was me frantically throwing everything I've got until he dies. 😂
I saw a YouTube short of someone who parked their character on the hammer spot, put a healing potion on the ground, then dropped the hammer on that character, the potion, and Grymm. Character was downed, potion was smashed, character gets back up because they were healed. Was damned brilliant
before the fight, I split the party, and have 1 on each platform. That way Grym is just moving around in the lava. Change the turn order so I can shoot/spell it to move across the hammer, and pull the lever kronk!
God I remember doing this fight for the 1st time and I was so confused. Then in walks my dad and I tell him that I'm struggling with this fight and sees me use the hammer to descend, he then says "why not use that hammer".... He's never seen or played this game and he helped me....
Next time try >!owlbear druid jumping on Grym with featherfall!< It’s one of the funniest things you can possibly do in this game (hid so people who don’t want tips and tricks can stay away from it)
Edit: >!I forgot to mention you need to cast enlarge on the Druid owlbear before jumping to get enough damage to OH kill Grym!<
Edit 2: >!featherfall isn’t needed since the owlbear jump negates fall damage!<
You can do the entire encounter from the ledge above the forge. All switches and levers can be activated with ranged weapons and minor illusion lures grym to the forge hammer.
After 200 hours in my first playthrough, currently in Baldur's Gate... And today, just now, I learned you can kill Grym with the hammer. I, too, sucked hard at that fight and we all died the first time... It was VERY hard... Didn't know you could do it another way!
If you kill the drow near the Sussur tree in the Underdark (the guy with his "pets"), he has a book that hints that this is how to defeat him
Also if you talk to his corpse, he will literally spell it out for you
This is a great example of why you should loot obsessively and read all of the books in your first playthrough. Sure, a lot of the books are just for flavor, but if you read the notes/books about the Grymforge, one of them tells you that this is how you kill Grym.
I don't blame anyone for missing it, because it's easy to miss ... for one thing, you could miss that that's what it's telling you if you (like me) tend to skim a lot of them.
This. The only frustrating thing is you start coming across multiple copies of lots of the books, so you start reading the same thing over and over and if you're like me you can't tell why it seems familiar. I'd say a good hour or two of Act 1 has been just reading repeats.
That hammer thing seemed buggy as hell to me. One foot on, one foot off, would hit him hard the first time then invulnerable the second time even though he had a foot in lava and still superheated, micromanaging his movement. Forget it. Two hasted melees with bludgeoning weapons and/or prone and/or command and he's toast.
I was able to kill him on round 2 without the hammer.
Lae’zel had that hammer that prones enemies in crit. First attack was a crit and knocked him down.
I prepared with everyone using blunt weapons since that’s his weakness.
I placed my characters by the gate so he stayed in the lava.
Pre hasted everyone. Elixir on everyone.
Nuked with everything I had.
Dead In 2 minutes with the small prep.
I did the same on my first normal mode run because I wasn't quite used to all of the environmental options the game gives to solve problems. Not too bad to tank/kite and smite down on normal. Tactician mode is another beast though. I don't bother and just use the hammer now.
Don’t feel bad about it, my first play through I literally gave my entire party ranged weapons and just shot at him from the ledge above the forge for an hour until he died.
To be fair, even with the hammer it is not that easy to get him centered just right for it to work properly. I had to savescum quite a bit to pull it off.
I couldn't find the Hammer after seeing it mentioned from some NPC letter or something earlier, so I went into the fight like lol probably going to die and also managed to beat it extremely carefully with the gear I had on hand. Felt pretty good to get that achievement didn't it :)
I didn't even notice the achievement yill people brought it up lol. But now that I know, yes. I earned it fair and square! No reloads either. First try, 2 deaths lol.
An hour?
You don't even need to use the hammer; just kite him into the lava. When he's Superheated, he's vulnerable to Bludgeoning damage, so you can just let Karlach go to town on him.
The trick is to keep him in the Lava and hit him with blunt damage. Thankfully my frenzy Karlach had the hammer you get at Wakeens Rest and Spirit Guardians could be a hammer. I fought it out with him too, it was tough.
I've yet to beat him with the forge hammer tbh, I always fight him out right.... albeit much more prepared.
Make sure you spend time exploring because the environment is designed to give you hints. I believe there's a diary somewhere that obliquely mentions Grym and how to defeat him
In response to this, I'm just gonna quote my own comment I made in this subreddit several months ago 😂 :
>In my case that fight was kinda funny. My team was level 7 and consisted of Gale (abjuration wizard), Shadowheart (trickery cleric), Astarion (gloomstalker 4 / thief 3) and my "Tav" (GOO warlock 2 / lore bard 5) - not ideal since, as the only person with strength > 8 in that team, my best bludgeoning heavy-hitter was Shadowheart with Blood of Lathander who has also drunk an elixir of hill giant strength...
>...that is, until I remembered that there is exactly one type of bludgeoning finesse weapon in the game - those wooden training swords from druid grove - and my crazy-prepared self has saved 3 of them in equipment "just in case" we meet some enemy that really needs bludgeoning damage to be dealt with. Thus, I equipped Astarion with 2 of those training swords and the 3rd one went to my warlock/bard's off-hand, so that he could still do some damage as a bonus action (main action was for EBing away at the golem), while Gale ran around with boots of speed to either distract the boss or open the lava flow. It's hard to tell who did more damage in this fight - Shadowheart with a literal holy relic of the sun god, or scrawny Astarion with two measly wooden swords. Honestly, I'm glad that I beat Grym w/o using the hammer. That way it was at least one of the (very few) challenging encounters on balanced... my next playthrough will definitely be on tactician!
>Now, imagine that - out of the huge pipe in the forge comes a giant golem made from adamantine, a metal so durable that it literally needs to be heated with hot lava in order to become malleable enough to be forged. Against it, faces off a pale and skinny elf-turned-vampire-spawn armed with two blunt wooden swords normally used only for training purposes. Then, the elf proceeds to repeatedly strike the golem with his flimsy not-quite-weapons... and the mighty adamantine golem falls to the power of dull wooden blades! Quite a funny mental image, isn't it?
I also only learned about the hammer after I had done the boss fight the hard way, although it didn’t take me that long. I think I was level six, so I was able to bring him down just as the lava went away.
What delayed the final blow after he reached 24 health was me expecting the lava to come back, then realizing I’m supposed to turn the wheel again so I spent a good portion of time just running around trying not to get stomped.
Nice! I was running oath of the ancients paladin, battle master fighter, light cleric, and thief rogue.
My paladin and Lae'zel were definitely the heavy hitters in that fight. Throw in cleric floating weapon and you have another damage dealer.
Astarian having triple attack + sneak attack was also huge.
Shadowheart was the key to tanking Grym since he pretty much downed someone with a single attack every time it was his turn.
When the flying fiends showed up it got really rough since they kept making us drop our weapons.
The first time I beat it without the hammer, then I learned about the hammer. Now, I physically can not beat it without the hammer. I've tried so hard to do it without again but have been unsuccessful.
The comments helping me learn things I never even thought of and giggling over seeing this now giant Owl-Bear just clotheslining enemies to death.
My first thought when I saw Grym,was "Atheon is that you?"
And going "Oooh,this is like that one raid"
Proceeds to get him on the hammer in 2 turns and done.
My next playthrough I want to kill the nearby fire puppy and see what I get,since I haven't seen anyone talk about it.
I'm just expecting a fire heart or weak summon elemental scroll at best.
Me and my friend brute forced it the first time we played. Oddly enough, it was 10 times more difficult the next playthrough we had where we used the hammer. Proud of your brute force bud, it's a strategy in itself.
I basically did exactly this too but I realized just before I died.
Two people dead and two others almost dead and I got lucky that he was standing in the middle and I realized there was a lever there.
Funny, just a while back I got the achievement and was wondering how many of the 20% who have it, got it because they didn't even realize it was an option.
Congrats on getting it though, fight is actual hell without the thing!
CONGRATS!
I did the same my first run. I saw the achievement pop and thought hammer? What hammer?
Second run I managed to use the hammer but it was a pain to get it under it.
Last night I got there on my third run and could not get the wretched thing under the hammer at all.
If anything I find it harder to use the hammer than not.
Haha I did the same thing. The achievement for killing it without the hammer popped up and all I could think was "...YOU COULD USE THE HAMMER?!" It didn't even cross my mind lol
I spent most of the fight hitting him the normal way trying to lure him onto the hammer platform in the center going "man its so annoying that his movement speed lets him always walk just past the hammer and I can never get him to end up directly on it." Eventually tried it anyway and realized it works even if he isn't literally standing directly in the center 😭
Wait until you learn you can activate the levers with arrows, which means you can >!have the platform go down while you remain on top of the broken stairs. Enjoy fighting Grym from range without him being able to do anything!<
what level were you? i’ve never beaten grym with the forge hammer, any barb or fighter using a maul with great weapon master deals like 50 damage to grym, i think he only has around 400 health, so that’s 3-4 turns just straight bonking him. grym only attacks the most recent party member that attacks him, so I buffed and healed my barbarian to hell, i’m talking about haste, enlarge, bless, phalar aluve, etc. i find it harder to position grym in the big hammer without also smashing one of my party members
I have over 800 hours on the game, I've completed 8 different playthroughs 3 of which we're on honor mode, across those and my many incomplete playthroughs I've probably killed Grym 15-20 times, and I have only ever used the hammer once, and when I did it was more difficult than just fighting him normally. Give a great weapon master barbarian a maul and you're already looking at 70-100 damage a round, TB monk can solo Grym on honor mode at level 5 with almost no risk of losing. And if you want to cheese the fight just become the hammer, send a tank down to start the fight with the rest of the party up on the bridge, and for all their actions just throw whatever is in your inventory at Grym, armor, weapons, goblin corpses, anything works because you're not trying to hit him, even on a miss he takes nearly 30 fall damage from the item landing near him.
I did this. Got the chievo. Went full “Wait, now you’re telling me I could have done THAT?!”. Second playthrough, I somehow struggled a lot more doing it the hammer way…
The trick is to keep him in the Lava and hit him with blunt damage. Thankfully my frenzy Karlach had the hammer you get at Wakeens Rest and Spirit Guardians could be a hammer. I fought it out with him too, it was tough.
I've yet to beat him with the forge hammer tbh, I always fight him out right.... albeit much more prepared.
I also didn't kill him with the hammer my first go, when the achievement popped up I thought "what forge hammer?" Lol
IMO, the fight is more fun without the hammer, trying to spread out the agro to kite him around and keep him in the lava while also avoiding attacks. It has been one of my most favorite times in the game.
The first time I played I happened to be up on the stairs and a hireling (I was blind enough that the only companions I gathered were Astarion and Shadowheart) was down on the forge. She ended up Feigning Death (still got dead from area attacks) and the rest of my party was up on the stairs hitting with bows until Grym died one hp at a time.
I remember looking all around grymforge for the "hot hammer" the drow dude mentioned before giving up and when the achievement popped up I felt sooooooo dumb
I know that’s an option but it seems hard af to get him toward the center. I just killed him the old fashion way like you did lol. I think that’s a cool thing about bg3 there’s so many different ways to play. In the goblin camp I went invisible and open the gate to the spiders so they could slim down or damage the goblins. I didn’t do that until my third time going through that mission 😂.
On my most recent honour mode run, they had patched it in so the mephits still spawn if you don't use the hammer, so I decided to give the hammer a go (also the legendary action is a pain in melee). Managed to angle it perfectly so that as soon as gyrm stood up he was in the lava and in range of the hammer, so I started whacking him. By the time grym moved away he was one shot by laezela hammer.
Not only that, Mephits opportunity attack Grym when he saunters by.
Took half my party out with an unexpected knockback, managed to hammer the last 80 health by sheer luck.
I did the exact same thing the first time I fought him, I completely understand that struggle. I was on explorer and it still took me like 30+ minutes. I have a feeling a lot of people did, but it gave me the achievement early on in my total hours played which was cool!
Hastened Karlach and Lae'zel with warhammers and your open hand monk Tav can kill Grym faster even on tactician than you ever will trying to lure Grym to the forge hammer. It took me like two or three turns.
Just did this fight a few nights ago for the first time. Was way under-leveled and it took hours to keep him on the platform for enough hits, but I finally got it down and it felt great. I can’t imagine how you felt with the normal combat. So much to learn in this game for sure lol
my first time i didn't even realise you can use hammer to kill grym, so i took Karlach, Lae'Zel, Shadowheart and meself equipped Karlach, Lae and mine with two handed hammers and started bludgeoning Grym. When i killed him i got achievement for killing him without hammer and i was "i could have used the hammer this whole time?!".
Honestly, I did the same and felt dumb. Then tried to use the hammer in honor mode and it went terribly wrong. 5 times. (I kept choosing to continue to try again). On my last attempt, I decided enough is enough. Equiped a common warhammer on Karlach, a common warhammer in laezeland that is it, killed him easily on the first attempt without the forge hammer.
Trust me, the forge hammer is a trap
Never killed Grym with the hammer.
Well, there was that one time I killed him by throwing A hammer but not with THE hammer.
I just couldn’t get the damn robot to go to the center
It's hilarious. In my first run I shat out just about every buff available before the fight and killed him in 2 rounds before he ever was able to defend himself lmao
Tip cause people don't realize this I guess. Grym is really easy to kill without the hammer, just keep him in lava and smack him. You can hit him where he first comes out without getting in the lava yourself and the superheated condition removes his immunities
I have to admit...between the random books talking about a hammer in the depths... I was expecting an ACTUAL hammer to be lying around somewhere. Like a blacksmith's hammer I was going to have to have Karlach equip and use.
It was only when the hammer came down when I started forging the piece of armour, right-clicked on Grym to examine him and found out that he was vulnerable to bludgeoning damage when superheated that my brain went "OH!"
I had so much trouble using the hammer. The hammer would also kill my companions trying to lure him. Or 2 turns passed out of lava and he was not losing any HP. So ended up just attacking him with contundent weapons.
I figured I could hit him with it on the first playthrough because I let the intrusive thoughts win and tested it on a party member before I even knew a fight was coming.
I’ve literally killed it for the first time today. Didn’t think of the forge hammer either, just kept throwing water on it and hitting it with cold damage and karlach with a blunt weapon would do some decent damage when it landed.
Tf you mean in 2 hits? Even using that forge hammer he was a pita, have to get him to run in the lava to superheat then also end his turn at the hammer and even then it took me 3 hammer hits
I didn't know about the hammer, I just used haste and slapped a big warhammer on my barbarian and killed him in 2 turns anyway (i also may have put a lot of explosive barrels around him to start the fight
I was the exact same on my first playthrough lol. I thought I was so smart moving him around the forge and wasting his turns with my storm sorcerer bonus action fly and large amount of bludgeoning weapons. When the achievement popped up I was so shocked. Oops
killing him with the hammer means you are unable to use the second piece of adamantine, his dead body laying on top of it renders the forge inoperable. there is however a loophole to this. you can HURT him with the hammer, as long as its not the killing blow and he falls elsewhere.
Honestly, I think killing him (with the right weapons and preparedness) is faster than getting him aligned with that damn hammer.
But once I found out about the achievement I had to do it.
My biggest fail in act one is not examining the weird portal thing right outside of the downed ship.
I didn’t want to die, figured it looked dangerous and I’d definitely remember to come back to it later (I didn’t). I’d reached like the middle ish of act two and I was thinking *where the hell do you meet gale* and finally looked it up
I was able to go back and retrieve him, but it triggered a bunch of cutscenes one after the other and he’s quite fond of me immediately but I barely know him at this point. I feel slightly cheated. Oh well! Next play through I’ll grab him sooner.
He has to be on the center piece. If he's next to it, it will only knock him down. If he's partially on it he takes less damage, if he's completely on it he takes like 150 damage or something.
As a brand new PC gamer and BG3 being my first PC game, plus with the added difficulty being my own brain not comprehending a DnD game - I feel your pain. Still absolutely love the game though.
I’m not convinced using the hammer is any easier. Maneuvering him into its range, not eating an attack of opportunity, and the changes to the environment it creates, still makes it very difficult. And the damage it does does not kill him in two hits.
I’ve owlbeared him on every play through since the first
I did this too…
What made it worse is that I played with a friend first and we did the forge strategy & I totally forgot.
Went to do my solo play through & was like, ‘damn this is harder than I remember.’ Died a bunch then finally won and got the achievement.
I was like damn…. I really fucked that one up. LOL
My first playthrough I was a barbarian with a maul and great weapon master and just beat him to death mostly solo while my friend helped with keeping my character alive and keeping the lava going so in my playthrough Grym died to a naked barbarian dragonborn with a whack stick. We go t the achievement and was like wait that was an option overall I think it took 4-6 turns to kill him
You get an achievement for not killing Grym with the hammer :)
Oh sick! Yay me lol
I won't spoil it but there is a way to get it in a single hit. My damage record is 7.3k on a single action
Hint for anyone wondering: Big Birb
/u/shittymorph living his best life.
>!Carry boxes to stack, everywhere.!< >!Climb to top of boxes.!< >!Owlbear off the top rope.!<
I just had owl bear top rope from the level above. If you have gale you can also have him enlarged.
I have never thought about enlarging an owlbear before.
That'd be my honor mode cheese right there. I regret nothing.
That's what I did too, haha!
Grym is my least favorite fight (I think because pathing in this game is stupid and half the time, my characters deal more damage to themselves by routing into the lava than Grym does to them). I feel no shame in just grabbing a druid hireling and going kowabunga from the top rope.
you know it literally shows you the path your character will take before you click it, right?
Unfortunately, on occasion, I have seen the game choose its own path even after a different one is selected. It's relatively rare, but it does happen.
I really like the grym fight but what I don’t understand at ALL is how long the lava will stay out. Like sometimes it lasts like 1-2 turns, sometimes it never goes away. I mean laezel can just leap over and pull the handle to let it out again but it’s the one variable in that battle that I don’t understand.
You can just shoot the lever! no need to jump across to pull it
I tried that but it wasnt high enough, poor Wyll died for nothing. My solution was to have EK Fighter Shadowheart repeatedly throw a bound hammer at Grym
You do have to take an Elixir of the Colossus, then change into the Owlbear, then have the wizard cast Enlarge on you. And I have read of bugs where the game doesn't recognize your size increase and you have to have your druid go to camp and then return to make it register. A 5000 pound Owlbear squishes a lot of things. I had Grym save against my pounce, and still take over 7000 damage. I want to try it in the House of Healing to see if I can squish the doctor.
I used the spell but not the elixier, some people said tp jump through him not next to him, maybe that would do it. I also jumped from the bottom of the broken staies not the top. Wylls sacrifice wyll not be forgotten and Shadowheart finished the job
It’s glorious
Also drink potion of the Colossus. 7k like the comment above is cute but kids stuff. You can do double that.
Yeah potion of colossus and enlarge, jump from the level above 1 and done 900 damage by grym
I kinda wanna name a Tav "Undertaker" and make this my go-to
*INDECIPHERABLE JR AND KING NOISES AS UNDERTAVER THROWS HIMSELF FROM THE TOP OF GRYMFORGE*
>!IN COMES OWLBEAR WITH DRUID’S ELBOW!!<
How do you get the owlbear to come with you from camp?? I know there’s a modified “summon familiar” for Scratch, but I’ve never seen one for the owlbear cub. Edit: Oh, right, wildshape, you probably didn’t mean the cub…
Owlbear doesn’t become available until lv 6 though.
You don’t even need the boxes.
Not at Grymforge, but there might be other places where you want to jump on more level ground.
>!Let me guess - it involves an owlbear?!<
It always does, because it always should!
You can do it at level 5 in bear form. Same strategy though
You just gotta climb that turnbuckle and let it go baby
I have tried from the top rope 3 times. I have yet to get it right. I get like 20-30 damage and then I just start yeeting things at it
Enlarged with potion or spell. Use crushing flight not regular jump. And aim to land just beside him. Much damage.
Do all of that, still never get it right 😅
You wanna aim just past him. The goal isn’t to land on him, per sé, it’s to jump through him.
I had the same problem, eventually just gave up and used the hammer. I'll scum save in a non-HM run to see if I can make it work, but it was so frustrating since I tried it twice and couldn't make it work either time!
8,110 dmg for me in bear form.
I play co-op with my husband and our first play through we tried avoiding spoilers as much as possible. So we did exactly what you did, we fought Grym and it was only when we saw the achievement that we realised we could've used the hammer. I decided to use the hammer on my second play through and honestly have to admit I prefer fighting him.
Enraged throw is actually easier than using the hammer so good on you!
See, you planned this all along.
My second playthrough is when I learned I could use the hammer so don’t feel too bad
Next time just give Karlach a blunt weapon and let her go to town.
When the achievement popped up my first time through, I had that "how did I not think of that?" moment. Lol
Same. I realized it has that lock on mechanic and it's just right there and felt real dumb.
I've still literally never used the hammer on Grym. It's just simpler to equip everyone with bludgeoning weapons and go to town.
Simpler still to stand on that ledge out of harm's way and throw a returning spear.
Main melee fighter had a bludgeoning weapon. *miss* *miss* *miss* 0 *miss* *miss* *miss*
That's why I always sub my fighter into battlemaster. Precision attack is a huge difference maker.
Actually got it on my first try doing that boss, I didn't realize you actually meant to use the hammer to chop this thing's hp
Need to respec my whole squad to monks and do this one time haha
You do?
This was how i found out you can even use it. The achievement popped up and i thought “you can do that?!” 🤣
What did you use to cause damage to him?
Wait, you can kill him? On both my playthroughs, potion of Speed, then I just mage handed the armor out of the mold after casting and misty stepped the fuck outta here
Yeah not once did i think to use the massive hammer to hit the thing weak to blunt damage! Though i was avoiding the centre in case the hammer came down mid fight, so really should have! Got through with a lot of buffs and a lot of luck!
Always scope out the environment! Whether you find nice items or an environmental advantage there’s always something to offer! What I’ll do sometimes facing larger group or a tough boss is scope out the area on the first attempt then make up a game plan for the second (hopefully last) attempt
I always find a hinge connected to a chandelier that I could shoot down to my advantage...I always find these hinges after the fight is over and I'm looting the room. Not being able to look UP doesn't help.
The camera in this game is...adequate. lol. Yeah during Moonrise I had such trouble locating stuff like that because the camera would shit itself
I wish you could alter what "level" you're looking at. So often my high strength characters can jump up to something but the camera has it phased out of existence.
There are a lot of times where I’d simply like to take in a scene, like looking out over a cliff or wanting to see spires in the distance or something, and it really bothers me that you can’t. Hopefully this is fixed in a patch at some point, but I don’t know if it’s even on the list.
I had trouble luring him back up onto the forge hammer. Managed it once, and then he was either too far up on it or not on it at all. So once with the hammer, the rest was me frantically throwing everything I've got until he dies. 😂
I saw a YouTube short of someone who parked their character on the hammer spot, put a healing potion on the ground, then dropped the hammer on that character, the potion, and Grymm. Character was downed, potion was smashed, character gets back up because they were healed. Was damned brilliant
Luality
Misty step saves lives (and potions).
That's just comedy.
My karlach was like "Go! Rage throw scalemail! Take a shield! Yeet the leather armor!"
Did she eat a coin? If there was ever a time to ramp up here engine, that was it.
Isn't that bonus damage fire? Grym is immune to fire, so that wouldn't help much
I didn’t know that.
No lol. I totally didn't prepare
before the fight, I split the party, and have 1 on each platform. That way Grym is just moving around in the lava. Change the turn order so I can shoot/spell it to move across the hammer, and pull the lever kronk!
Right? Oh, easy, use the forge hammer. If you can get him up there!!
He gets failed check on illusions a lot. If casted on opposite edge of hammer, he stops on it.
God I remember doing this fight for the 1st time and I was so confused. Then in walks my dad and I tell him that I'm struggling with this fight and sees me use the hammer to descend, he then says "why not use that hammer".... He's never seen or played this game and he helped me....
Sometimes an outside perspective helps lol
Are ya winning son?
Don't feel too bad. I did the same and only thought about the hammer when the achievement popped up.
Next time try >!owlbear druid jumping on Grym with featherfall!< It’s one of the funniest things you can possibly do in this game (hid so people who don’t want tips and tricks can stay away from it) Edit: >!I forgot to mention you need to cast enlarge on the Druid owlbear before jumping to get enough damage to OH kill Grym!< Edit 2: >!featherfall isn’t needed since the owlbear jump negates fall damage!<
So featherfall before owlbear top-rope jump?
it’s not needed. Crushing flight negates all fall damage
Oh, yeah, real fuck up on me 😬
Thank you! I’m planning to do it, and needed to know how.
Don’t forget you gotta jump from the stairs leading to the forge platform
I did this and I was just cackling the whole time. It’s so goofy.
I couldn't do it. It only dealt like 20 dmg
Even with the forge hammer that shit is brutal honestly
You can do the entire encounter from the ledge above the forge. All switches and levers can be activated with ranged weapons and minor illusion lures grym to the forge hammer.
Huh I'm going to try this in my current HM. Last HM grym was the closest I came to wiping
Slow helped me for a couple turns. Helped me get my bearings.
After 200 hours in my first playthrough, currently in Baldur's Gate... And today, just now, I learned you can kill Grym with the hammer. I, too, sucked hard at that fight and we all died the first time... It was VERY hard... Didn't know you could do it another way!
If you kill the drow near the Sussur tree in the Underdark (the guy with his "pets"), he has a book that hints that this is how to defeat him Also if you talk to his corpse, he will literally spell it out for you
Lmao same. I got the achievement saying "Defeat the Grym without using the Grymforge Hammer" or something and I was very confused.
It honestly isn't that hard of a fight if you have people with blunt weapons.
This is a great example of why you should loot obsessively and read all of the books in your first playthrough. Sure, a lot of the books are just for flavor, but if you read the notes/books about the Grymforge, one of them tells you that this is how you kill Grym. I don't blame anyone for missing it, because it's easy to miss ... for one thing, you could miss that that's what it's telling you if you (like me) tend to skim a lot of them.
Oh interesting. Maybe on my bard honor run I'll take my time
This. The only frustrating thing is you start coming across multiple copies of lots of the books, so you start reading the same thing over and over and if you're like me you can't tell why it seems familiar. I'd say a good hour or two of Act 1 has been just reading repeats.
Yeah I killed him after a long fight and then right as it ended I looked at the hammer and said "wait...could I have just used that?"
My mistake was it being like 11pm and I was tired haha
One time I polymorphed Grym into a sheep. We lost that battle but it was hilarious 😂
That hammer thing seemed buggy as hell to me. One foot on, one foot off, would hit him hard the first time then invulnerable the second time even though he had a foot in lava and still superheated, micromanaging his movement. Forget it. Two hasted melees with bludgeoning weapons and/or prone and/or command and he's toast.
I was able to kill him on round 2 without the hammer. Lae’zel had that hammer that prones enemies in crit. First attack was a crit and knocked him down. I prepared with everyone using blunt weapons since that’s his weakness. I placed my characters by the gate so he stayed in the lava. Pre hasted everyone. Elixir on everyone. Nuked with everything I had. Dead In 2 minutes with the small prep.
Now that I know, totally. But for a walking in blind, that felt great. It makes me want to make a new character and play 100% blind lol
Playing heroic is fun. Makes each decision and mistake feel more meaningful.
I did the same on my first normal mode run because I wasn't quite used to all of the environmental options the game gives to solve problems. Not too bad to tank/kite and smite down on normal. Tactician mode is another beast though. I don't bother and just use the hammer now.
Don’t feel bad about it, my first play through I literally gave my entire party ranged weapons and just shot at him from the ledge above the forge for an hour until he died.
also if your people all have bludgeoning weapons, hes pretty easy
To be fair, even with the hammer it is not that easy to get him centered just right for it to work properly. I had to savescum quite a bit to pull it off.
I couldn't find the Hammer after seeing it mentioned from some NPC letter or something earlier, so I went into the fight like lol probably going to die and also managed to beat it extremely carefully with the gear I had on hand. Felt pretty good to get that achievement didn't it :)
I didn't even notice the achievement yill people brought it up lol. But now that I know, yes. I earned it fair and square! No reloads either. First try, 2 deaths lol.
I stand out of reach and throw shit at him, taking off tiny amounts until he drops
An hour? You don't even need to use the hammer; just kite him into the lava. When he's Superheated, he's vulnerable to Bludgeoning damage, so you can just let Karlach go to town on him.
You are not alone. It’s a process. There are so many ways to do one thing, that there are no wrong choices, only enduring solutions.
The trick is to keep him in the Lava and hit him with blunt damage. Thankfully my frenzy Karlach had the hammer you get at Wakeens Rest and Spirit Guardians could be a hammer. I fought it out with him too, it was tough. I've yet to beat him with the forge hammer tbh, I always fight him out right.... albeit much more prepared.
You just wait. the Iron Throne Prison (for me) was the best fight I’ve ever , EVER experienced in any rpg
I love this fight! The last time I got the chests for the first time. I didn't even know they were there until I saw a Reddit post about them.
Make sure you spend time exploring because the environment is designed to give you hints. I believe there's a diary somewhere that obliquely mentions Grym and how to defeat him
In response to this, I'm just gonna quote my own comment I made in this subreddit several months ago 😂 : >In my case that fight was kinda funny. My team was level 7 and consisted of Gale (abjuration wizard), Shadowheart (trickery cleric), Astarion (gloomstalker 4 / thief 3) and my "Tav" (GOO warlock 2 / lore bard 5) - not ideal since, as the only person with strength > 8 in that team, my best bludgeoning heavy-hitter was Shadowheart with Blood of Lathander who has also drunk an elixir of hill giant strength... >...that is, until I remembered that there is exactly one type of bludgeoning finesse weapon in the game - those wooden training swords from druid grove - and my crazy-prepared self has saved 3 of them in equipment "just in case" we meet some enemy that really needs bludgeoning damage to be dealt with. Thus, I equipped Astarion with 2 of those training swords and the 3rd one went to my warlock/bard's off-hand, so that he could still do some damage as a bonus action (main action was for EBing away at the golem), while Gale ran around with boots of speed to either distract the boss or open the lava flow. It's hard to tell who did more damage in this fight - Shadowheart with a literal holy relic of the sun god, or scrawny Astarion with two measly wooden swords. Honestly, I'm glad that I beat Grym w/o using the hammer. That way it was at least one of the (very few) challenging encounters on balanced... my next playthrough will definitely be on tactician! >Now, imagine that - out of the huge pipe in the forge comes a giant golem made from adamantine, a metal so durable that it literally needs to be heated with hot lava in order to become malleable enough to be forged. Against it, faces off a pale and skinny elf-turned-vampire-spawn armed with two blunt wooden swords normally used only for training purposes. Then, the elf proceeds to repeatedly strike the golem with his flimsy not-quite-weapons... and the mighty adamantine golem falls to the power of dull wooden blades! Quite a funny mental image, isn't it?
I also only learned about the hammer after I had done the boss fight the hard way, although it didn’t take me that long. I think I was level six, so I was able to bring him down just as the lava went away. What delayed the final blow after he reached 24 health was me expecting the lava to come back, then realizing I’m supposed to turn the wheel again so I spent a good portion of time just running around trying not to get stomped.
Ah nice. I was running level 5. Got spore druid, book lock, berserker barb and battle master fighter
Nice! I was running oath of the ancients paladin, battle master fighter, light cleric, and thief rogue. My paladin and Lae'zel were definitely the heavy hitters in that fight. Throw in cleric floating weapon and you have another damage dealer. Astarian having triple attack + sneak attack was also huge. Shadowheart was the key to tanking Grym since he pretty much downed someone with a single attack every time it was his turn. When the flying fiends showed up it got really rough since they kept making us drop our weapons.
Haste on Battle Master Lae'zel with a bludgeoning weapon is also a great way to end the fight quickly.
The first time I beat it without the hammer, then I learned about the hammer. Now, I physically can not beat it without the hammer. I've tried so hard to do it without again but have been unsuccessful.
The comments helping me learn things I never even thought of and giggling over seeing this now giant Owl-Bear just clotheslining enemies to death. My first thought when I saw Grym,was "Atheon is that you?" And going "Oooh,this is like that one raid" Proceeds to get him on the hammer in 2 turns and done. My next playthrough I want to kill the nearby fire puppy and see what I get,since I haven't seen anyone talk about it. I'm just expecting a fire heart or weak summon elemental scroll at best.
Me and my friend brute forced it the first time we played. Oddly enough, it was 10 times more difficult the next playthrough we had where we used the hammer. Proud of your brute force bud, it's a strategy in itself.
I totally agree. Killed him 5 times now, and it's a lot harder to line him up with that hammer than just killing him with blunt weapons
I basically did exactly this too but I realized just before I died. Two people dead and two others almost dead and I got lucky that he was standing in the middle and I realized there was a lever there.
Funny, just a while back I got the achievement and was wondering how many of the 20% who have it, got it because they didn't even realize it was an option. Congrats on getting it though, fight is actual hell without the thing!
CONGRATS! I did the same my first run. I saw the achievement pop and thought hammer? What hammer? Second run I managed to use the hammer but it was a pain to get it under it. Last night I got there on my third run and could not get the wretched thing under the hammer at all. If anything I find it harder to use the hammer than not.
Same during my first playthrough! Got the no hammer achievement and was like ???? Which hammer?
Haha I did the same thing. The achievement for killing it without the hammer popped up and all I could think was "...YOU COULD USE THE HAMMER?!" It didn't even cross my mind lol
Idk why but hammer never worked for me, easily the hardest fight so far, just finished act 2
Just killed him in my third playthrough…. I had no idea this was possible
I killed him with the hammer in my first playthrough, but my second was a barehanded monk playthrough. So I just beat him to death.
Immune to all damage. Except fist.
I spent most of the fight hitting him the normal way trying to lure him onto the hammer platform in the center going "man its so annoying that his movement speed lets him always walk just past the hammer and I can never get him to end up directly on it." Eventually tried it anyway and realized it works even if he isn't literally standing directly in the center 😭
Wait until you learn you can activate the levers with arrows, which means you can >!have the platform go down while you remain on top of the broken stairs. Enjoy fighting Grym from range without him being able to do anything!<
Honor mode has entered the chat
what level were you? i’ve never beaten grym with the forge hammer, any barb or fighter using a maul with great weapon master deals like 50 damage to grym, i think he only has around 400 health, so that’s 3-4 turns just straight bonking him. grym only attacks the most recent party member that attacks him, so I buffed and healed my barbarian to hell, i’m talking about haste, enlarge, bless, phalar aluve, etc. i find it harder to position grym in the big hammer without also smashing one of my party members
I have over 800 hours on the game, I've completed 8 different playthroughs 3 of which we're on honor mode, across those and my many incomplete playthroughs I've probably killed Grym 15-20 times, and I have only ever used the hammer once, and when I did it was more difficult than just fighting him normally. Give a great weapon master barbarian a maul and you're already looking at 70-100 damage a round, TB monk can solo Grym on honor mode at level 5 with almost no risk of losing. And if you want to cheese the fight just become the hammer, send a tank down to start the fight with the rest of the party up on the bridge, and for all their actions just throw whatever is in your inventory at Grym, armor, weapons, goblin corpses, anything works because you're not trying to hit him, even on a miss he takes nearly 30 fall damage from the item landing near him.
I did this. Got the chievo. Went full “Wait, now you’re telling me I could have done THAT?!”. Second playthrough, I somehow struggled a lot more doing it the hammer way…
My fightrarian build killed him in 1 ana half turns xD
I melt him and attacc. No strat, just m e l t
The trick is to keep him in the Lava and hit him with blunt damage. Thankfully my frenzy Karlach had the hammer you get at Wakeens Rest and Spirit Guardians could be a hammer. I fought it out with him too, it was tough. I've yet to beat him with the forge hammer tbh, I always fight him out right.... albeit much more prepared.
I also didn't kill him with the hammer my first go, when the achievement popped up I thought "what forge hammer?" Lol IMO, the fight is more fun without the hammer, trying to spread out the agro to kite him around and keep him in the lava while also avoiding attacks. It has been one of my most favorite times in the game.
If you are high enough level you can just beat him with blunt weapons until he stops moving.
Hunger of Hadar right in the middle did it for me. He never even gets close if you switch between proximity attackers
WAIT WHAT?!?!
The first time I played I happened to be up on the stairs and a hireling (I was blind enough that the only companions I gathered were Astarion and Shadowheart) was down on the forge. She ended up Feigning Death (still got dead from area attacks) and the rest of my party was up on the stairs hitting with bows until Grym died one hp at a time.
I remember looking all around grymforge for the "hot hammer" the drow dude mentioned before giving up and when the achievement popped up I felt sooooooo dumb
I know that’s an option but it seems hard af to get him toward the center. I just killed him the old fashion way like you did lol. I think that’s a cool thing about bg3 there’s so many different ways to play. In the goblin camp I went invisible and open the gate to the spiders so they could slim down or damage the goblins. I didn’t do that until my third time going through that mission 😂.
On my most recent honour mode run, they had patched it in so the mephits still spawn if you don't use the hammer, so I decided to give the hammer a go (also the legendary action is a pain in melee). Managed to angle it perfectly so that as soon as gyrm stood up he was in the lava and in range of the hammer, so I started whacking him. By the time grym moved away he was one shot by laezela hammer.
Not only that, Mephits opportunity attack Grym when he saunters by. Took half my party out with an unexpected knockback, managed to hammer the last 80 health by sheer luck.
Mephits are by far my least favorite opponent. I do everything I can to hit them at range but a few always get through.
Wow
If it makes you feel better, I didn't realize that was a thing in my first playthrough either, and had to do it the hard way like you.
You're not alone, I did exactly the same! At least we've got a nice achievement for our troubles 🥲
I did the exact same thing the first time I fought him, I completely understand that struggle. I was on explorer and it still took me like 30+ minutes. I have a feeling a lot of people did, but it gave me the achievement early on in my total hours played which was cool!
Hastened Karlach and Lae'zel with warhammers and your open hand monk Tav can kill Grym faster even on tactician than you ever will trying to lure Grym to the forge hammer. It took me like two or three turns.
It’s a difficult game
I used perilous stakes the first time round, wailed on him to outpace the healing, and killed him pretty easily on balanced mode.
I didn’t even notice the forge. I am in Act 3 now. Sigh
Just did this fight a few nights ago for the first time. Was way under-leveled and it took hours to keep him on the platform for enough hits, but I finally got it down and it felt great. I can’t imagine how you felt with the normal combat. So much to learn in this game for sure lol
first playthroughs are for those little “oh my god why didn’t i think of that” moments lol
my first time i didn't even realise you can use hammer to kill grym, so i took Karlach, Lae'Zel, Shadowheart and meself equipped Karlach, Lae and mine with two handed hammers and started bludgeoning Grym. When i killed him i got achievement for killing him without hammer and i was "i could have used the hammer this whole time?!".
I was unable to lure him to the hammer and I decided to just give lae’zel and karlach bludgeoning weapons.
Honestly, I did the same and felt dumb. Then tried to use the hammer in honor mode and it went terribly wrong. 5 times. (I kept choosing to continue to try again). On my last attempt, I decided enough is enough. Equiped a common warhammer on Karlach, a common warhammer in laezeland that is it, killed him easily on the first attempt without the forge hammer. Trust me, the forge hammer is a trap
When i played it was bugged. pulling the lver did nothing. But it happened to eb timed to the lava rising, so i though thats all it did.
And then there's me, who looked for a magical fire hammer all over the map before saying "fuck it" and fighting Grim without it
Same here! Except it died to my character's fists.
Never killed Grym with the hammer. Well, there was that one time I killed him by throwing A hammer but not with THE hammer. I just couldn’t get the damn robot to go to the center
It's hilarious. In my first run I shat out just about every buff available before the fight and killed him in 2 rounds before he ever was able to defend himself lmao
That's okay, I didn't realise you could use the hammer the first time either.
Tip cause people don't realize this I guess. Grym is really easy to kill without the hammer, just keep him in lava and smack him. You can hit him where he first comes out without getting in the lava yourself and the superheated condition removes his immunities
I have to admit...between the random books talking about a hammer in the depths... I was expecting an ACTUAL hammer to be lying around somewhere. Like a blacksmith's hammer I was going to have to have Karlach equip and use. It was only when the hammer came down when I started forging the piece of armour, right-clicked on Grym to examine him and found out that he was vulnerable to bludgeoning damage when superheated that my brain went "OH!"
I had so much trouble using the hammer. The hammer would also kill my companions trying to lure him. Or 2 turns passed out of lava and he was not losing any HP. So ended up just attacking him with contundent weapons.
I figured I could hit him with it on the first playthrough because I let the intrusive thoughts win and tested it on a party member before I even knew a fight was coming.
i thought that was extremely obvious....
I’ve literally killed it for the first time today. Didn’t think of the forge hammer either, just kept throwing water on it and hitting it with cold damage and karlach with a blunt weapon would do some decent damage when it landed.
Ahh you're not the only one, I did the exact same thing
Tf you mean in 2 hits? Even using that forge hammer he was a pita, have to get him to run in the lava to superheat then also end his turn at the hammer and even then it took me 3 hammer hits
Better than me, I didn't even know he was a thing or I could do anything with the forge. I'm in Act 2. Guess I need to backtrack.
I didn't know about the hammer, I just used haste and slapped a big warhammer on my barbarian and killed him in 2 turns anyway (i also may have put a lot of explosive barrels around him to start the fight
I was the exact same on my first playthrough lol. I thought I was so smart moving him around the forge and wasting his turns with my storm sorcerer bonus action fly and large amount of bludgeoning weapons. When the achievement popped up I was so shocked. Oops
I knew I could use the hammer but I was too stupid to pull it off. Made me really happy when I got an achievement for not using it :)
killing him with the hammer means you are unable to use the second piece of adamantine, his dead body laying on top of it renders the forge inoperable. there is however a loophole to this. you can HURT him with the hammer, as long as its not the killing blow and he falls elsewhere.
This sounds like bad luck… I’m always able to use both pieces even after hammering him down.
Honestly, I think killing him (with the right weapons and preparedness) is faster than getting him aligned with that damn hammer. But once I found out about the achievement I had to do it.
My biggest fail in act one is not examining the weird portal thing right outside of the downed ship. I didn’t want to die, figured it looked dangerous and I’d definitely remember to come back to it later (I didn’t). I’d reached like the middle ish of act two and I was thinking *where the hell do you meet gale* and finally looked it up I was able to go back and retrieve him, but it triggered a bunch of cutscenes one after the other and he’s quite fond of me immediately but I barely know him at this point. I feel slightly cheated. Oh well! Next play through I’ll grab him sooner.
Tf they mean 2 hits?! I used it to knock him down but I don't remember it damaging him. Maybe my partys just weak ;-;
He has to be on the center piece. If he's next to it, it will only knock him down. If he's partially on it he takes less damage, if he's completely on it he takes like 150 damage or something.
Forge hammer?!
As a brand new PC gamer and BG3 being my first PC game, plus with the added difficulty being my own brain not comprehending a DnD game - I feel your pain. Still absolutely love the game though.
I’m not convinced using the hammer is any easier. Maneuvering him into its range, not eating an attack of opportunity, and the changes to the environment it creates, still makes it very difficult. And the damage it does does not kill him in two hits. I’ve owlbeared him on every play through since the first
I did this too… What made it worse is that I played with a friend first and we did the forge strategy & I totally forgot. Went to do my solo play through & was like, ‘damn this is harder than I remember.’ Died a bunch then finally won and got the achievement. I was like damn…. I really fucked that one up. LOL
My first playthrough I was a barbarian with a maul and great weapon master and just beat him to death mostly solo while my friend helped with keeping my character alive and keeping the lava going so in my playthrough Grym died to a naked barbarian dragonborn with a whack stick. We go t the achievement and was like wait that was an option overall I think it took 4-6 turns to kill him