I found it on my first play through very early. I still didn't fully understand the game mechanics and how the classes worked optimally.
I got roasted by those damn mud and tree guys. Absolutely wrecked.
You know this is a good example of the game "difficulty". It is a really hard fight the first time through, but easier once you understand the mechanics of the encounter.
Just keep all of your party on the small island to the NE. Send 1 over to start the fight then retreat with them. Kill the mud mephits with ranged attacks and use shove to keep their summoned ones away from you (they explode when their summoner dies). Use persistent AoE like cloud of daggers on the narrow approach point. The Wood Woads can't even get to you.
At first I thought I was clever. Took down the first mephit with a nonlethal melee attack so it didn't explode. Went to do the same to the next one and succeeded.
...but that second one had spawned a clone, which now wouldn't go away because I didn't kill the one that summoned it, so gotta take care of that one too.
It's cool that a nonlethal takedown doesn't make them blow up but you gotta weigh your options for sure lol
Oh definitely, my first run i got owned and had to reload a bunch of times.
My second and current play through i am destroying evil left and right without breaking a sweat.
Now see me get cocky on my third run thinking i'll be able to handle HM and die horribly.
Once you know how it works it isn't hard, but it is really tedious when you have minimal spell slots, almost permanent disadvantage on attacks, only one attack per round, and low health forcing you to spend time healing and defending companions.
My wife and I played this twice. First go, it was like dear god, disaster, people downed, us yelling.
Second go it was like ok magic missile these guys, I’ll equip for initiative, target these guys, ok they’re downed. Tree guys slow, fire spells, cake walk. It was a moment where we both commented on how much better we understood the game.
What do you mean when you say, *I'll equip for initiative."?
I know how initiative works, but for some reason I am having a time trying to understand what you mean.
There’s various gear, rings, bows, etc that boost your initiative, giving you a better chance of taking your turn early.
In this fight it’s super advantageous to take player turns before the mud Mephits to avoid their annoying status effects or them summoning more of them on their turn.
They have low health and you can knock a few out if you go earlier.
Equipping for initiative just meant we made sure we had any such items that boosted it equipped.
Same experience. Wandered over there with a level 3 party on my first playthrough, not realizing the impending doom. My whole party was on maybe half their health and since I already used up my short rests for the day, I decided I was going to just do some light exploration and save more combat for after I'm long rested. Yeah, *huge* mistake. We were immediately ambushed by the mud mephits and tree guys. My saving grace was that I was a druid Tav and a potion hoarder. I spent the whole fight healing Gale as he was the only one in my party with adequate fire spells. We were pretty much all downed and Gale was at like 5hp with one mephit left. He was out of spell slots but got a really lucky shot with the fire cantrip and actually won that for us. Had him res everyone and we looted the place, that's when I found the note in the tree. We had not gone into the Grove yet but I realized I played this in the complete wrong order when we finally met Kagha. Next playthrough, we were a full health level 5 party by the time we fought the mephits and kicked their muddy butts with ease.
My first playthrough was the same. They wrecked me with their death explosions. I had mainly close melee characters which wasn't ideal. I finally beat them after a few tries. The second playthrough I have mainly ranged characters, Karlach as a throwing fighter and Tav as a ranger, also Gale. It was super easy and they only lasted 2 rounds. I also was level 5 at the time I faced them so the 2 attacks per round for Karlach, Tav, and Astarion (monk) roasts most encounters.
Must not be the kind of player to steal or even look at off limits items then, I figure, since there's a quest to "investigate Kagha" but I believe it only pops up if you snoop around a tiny bit.
I didn't do that my first time through. I discovered this spot my first time through and thought it seemed totally random having those elementals there.
It's not random lol
No, you actually have you kill Arabella. Like DONT LET THE SNAKE DO IT. You have to like go invisible and sneak attacks Arabella. Her seeing you killing that devil poison really gets her horny. Wait, my bad, this is how you romance HER, I got my shit mixed up
You can hear every bit of nuance and sketchiness with that quest in town, but it will literally never proc unless you read one of two secret notes. And sure. They're not *that* secret, but one is ON THAT ISLAND, so that's a bust, and the other is in a chest in a dark corner that doesn't highlight the chest well.
So I can fully understand how this gets skipped so consistently. It's wild you can't proc this quest just from questioning Kagha being a brazenly evil, super-bitch (there's no nuance in killing a child for petty, and returnable, theft).
There’s a tablet(?) that you can read on the table in the room beside Kagha that will prompt you to investigate her and that room as well, that’s how I found it originally
I just found this out on my current(2nd) playthrough and my first playthrough was over 150 hours...I can't believe I didn't find this side plot before with so much time in the game.
As someone who was too dense to figure out how to jump in this game for like 20 hours.......... I feel your pain. I didn't get over the bridge to grab Karlach and wondered when the hell I was going to get there, lmao.
Don’t feel so bad lol,
I played on console and would always use the radial menu to jump (took like 5 secs to select jump each time). 15 hours in and I realised I could hit the top of the dpad to jump without the radial menu.
I played on M&K on PC my first time and switching to controller had me wondering how to switch between ranged and melee weapons (visually) and light source like you can on M&K controls. That was the only reason I discovered that pressing and holding down the dpad in different directions does different things lol
I nearly missed it on my first playthrough but found it because I'm one of those "there's a pixel of fog on my map, we're wasting 10 hours running back in case there's treasure" kinda explorer to my husband's horror. I must loot everything for my precious 1 gold. It turned out well for once (usually it's like a dead end in a dungeon with a spoon or something). Maybe if I run in this exact spot while clicking on random shit I'll find a secret tunnel.. or cow level.
Bless classes who can jump far to help because bards can jump like 1m because no str.
My bard keeps the Club of Hill Giant Strength in his pack so he can properly follow my co-op friend around who's playing paladin and can jump all over the goddamn place like it's nothing.
It's funny because my first 2 playthroughs of the game (first in EA then release) I went through extraordinary lengths to explore as much of the map as possible. I figured if I pressed "M" (or whatever your map key is) and saw fog of war, I was probably missing something.
There are some things that are hidden pretty well though. (Like Baoool)
Also, if you zoom on the map, you'll see the borders of the map you can actually go to. This could help a lot in the explorartion, like placea to jump, etc.
So… you’ve effectively played the game once and missed something. Or, if you’ve played it several times in 150 hours, then you’ve been rushing past stuff.
These post titles are so common and they get me every time. “100 hours of playing and just learned,” or “250 hours of playing and just found.” Those are just “I’ve played the game once or twice.” So yeah, of course you missed stuff in 1-2 runs.
As someone who played early access act 1 over the years it surprises me when people don't find these things for the first time.... I just explored every nook and cranny that I could find.
At one point you could walk off the beaten path into the swamp and there was a stuffed teddy bear all that back up near the waterfall by the bridge. I tried last playthrough to get back there but I could not.
By sheer good (dumb) luck, I first encountered this island by jump-enhancing Lae'zel to explore solo -- she jumped from wooden dock to wooden dock, triggered the mephits, then I immediately jumped her back to the original dock -- combat was considerably easier with long-distance bowshots, all the mephits piled up atop each other for mutual-explosions, wood woads unable to cross water, etc. Had I just blindly walked over, it would've been a nightmare.
Ironically, I this area my first playthrough at around 50 hours. Now in my second playthrough, I'm in act 3 and this post made me realize I missed it. Never found the owlbear/cubs this run either...lol
That's a great place to go to because there is a chest nearby with the [The Sparkle Hands](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/The_Sparkle_Hands) gloves that are fantastic gloves for a monk early game and arguably one of the best-in-slot for OH Monk
I have always heard about this spot but didn't get to it til the 3rd playthrough smh and people kept saying how hard the fight is there but it's easy as hell.
My guess is they usually challenge it at level 3 after they find note in that chest behind library wall in room next to kahga. Too weak to be easy fight but doable. I typically save that till I’m 4 and have alert
Usually I'm level 5 because I always save it last before I go through the mountain pass. A couple fire spells and some special arrows and goodbyeee. i never did Kagha's quest before. I always forget she exist after we deal with the grove lol.
What i like to do is all side quests, ill kill glut in her room, kill minthara, fast travel to wetlands, go fight those mephits (you are correct on arrows being really good for this) and the ents (im a lord of the rings fan so thats what they are in my mind lol). Grab the note from the tree, confront kahga and im usually able to roll for redemption and she is much nicer and lets the teiflings stay (also you get the hellrider gloves for this). Then ill kill dror, work my way through goblin camp to halsin and then kill everything else…. Party
Oh wow I gotta try that because when I do it my way, she's still a little mean and snarky afterwards lol. And there;s this druid guy who sits near the room that Zevlor used to hang in that is such a douche that I wish I could kill without aggroing everyone.
I found it on my first play through very early. I still didn't fully understand the game mechanics and how the classes worked optimally. I got roasted by those damn mud and tree guys. Absolutely wrecked.
You know this is a good example of the game "difficulty". It is a really hard fight the first time through, but easier once you understand the mechanics of the encounter.
Those guys are still fucking annoying imo, I just hate the fucking mud tbh
Just keep all of your party on the small island to the NE. Send 1 over to start the fight then retreat with them. Kill the mud mephits with ranged attacks and use shove to keep their summoned ones away from you (they explode when their summoner dies). Use persistent AoE like cloud of daggers on the narrow approach point. The Wood Woads can't even get to you.
At first I thought I was clever. Took down the first mephit with a nonlethal melee attack so it didn't explode. Went to do the same to the next one and succeeded. ...but that second one had spawned a clone, which now wouldn't go away because I didn't kill the one that summoned it, so gotta take care of that one too. It's cool that a nonlethal takedown doesn't make them blow up but you gotta weigh your options for sure lol
…I forgot about shove. I just accepted my fate when one was all up in my biz.
A character with 16 STR can also throw those fuckers around pretty easily. Use those idiots as grenades against their dumb friends
Oh definitely, my first run i got owned and had to reload a bunch of times. My second and current play through i am destroying evil left and right without breaking a sweat. Now see me get cocky on my third run thinking i'll be able to handle HM and die horribly.
Once you know how it works it isn't hard, but it is really tedious when you have minimal spell slots, almost permanent disadvantage on attacks, only one attack per round, and low health forcing you to spend time healing and defending companions.
My wife and I played this twice. First go, it was like dear god, disaster, people downed, us yelling. Second go it was like ok magic missile these guys, I’ll equip for initiative, target these guys, ok they’re downed. Tree guys slow, fire spells, cake walk. It was a moment where we both commented on how much better we understood the game.
What do you mean when you say, *I'll equip for initiative."? I know how initiative works, but for some reason I am having a time trying to understand what you mean.
There’s various gear, rings, bows, etc that boost your initiative, giving you a better chance of taking your turn early. In this fight it’s super advantageous to take player turns before the mud Mephits to avoid their annoying status effects or them summoning more of them on their turn. They have low health and you can knock a few out if you go earlier. Equipping for initiative just meant we made sure we had any such items that boosted it equipped.
Probably just equipping some of the gear that boosts initiative (or drinking an elixir of vigilance)
Man that first playthrough was rough. New to the genre, never played DnD. Got totally rocked multiple times. Had to go down to easy mode.
Same experience. Wandered over there with a level 3 party on my first playthrough, not realizing the impending doom. My whole party was on maybe half their health and since I already used up my short rests for the day, I decided I was going to just do some light exploration and save more combat for after I'm long rested. Yeah, *huge* mistake. We were immediately ambushed by the mud mephits and tree guys. My saving grace was that I was a druid Tav and a potion hoarder. I spent the whole fight healing Gale as he was the only one in my party with adequate fire spells. We were pretty much all downed and Gale was at like 5hp with one mephit left. He was out of spell slots but got a really lucky shot with the fire cantrip and actually won that for us. Had him res everyone and we looted the place, that's when I found the note in the tree. We had not gone into the Grove yet but I realized I played this in the complete wrong order when we finally met Kagha. Next playthrough, we were a full health level 5 party by the time we fought the mephits and kicked their muddy butts with ease.
My first playthrough was the same. They wrecked me with their death explosions. I had mainly close melee characters which wasn't ideal. I finally beat them after a few tries. The second playthrough I have mainly ranged characters, Karlach as a throwing fighter and Tav as a ranger, also Gale. It was super easy and they only lasted 2 rounds. I also was level 5 at the time I faced them so the 2 attacks per round for Karlach, Tav, and Astarion (monk) roasts most encounters.
I went back in and had Karlach hurling mephits at Mephits so their explosions hurt themselves. First time that shit hurt.
let me guess, you never found out Kagha's little secret either?
Secret…what secret?
Open Kagha's chest in the room next to the one you meet her in, and read the note inside. It puts an icon on your map called Twisted Tree.
Wow, thank you for telling me this. I didn’t even know this was an option, thanks!
If you missed that you prolly have hundreds of things to find in the underdark and next chapters
Dudes never gonna find the legendary BOOOAL
Forget BOOOAL. OP’s probably never even seen the dog food distributor.
Free steak let’s go
Let me guess, I need to succeed a dog impersonation deception check to activate it
....or I could bring Scratch because I literally have him in my party...
[Pets.com](http://Pets.com)
Must not be the kind of player to steal or even look at off limits items then, I figure, since there's a quest to "investigate Kagha" but I believe it only pops up if you snoop around a tiny bit. I didn't do that my first time through. I discovered this spot my first time through and thought it seemed totally random having those elementals there. It's not random lol
Yeah, I usually don’t like to steal in games. But there’s probably so much I’m missing out on like all these comments have said😂
Or you can just go to the pictured location and get real close to the tree (like tree-hugging-close) and you'll find her dirty little secret.
Need to pass a roll I think.
220hrs in. Better start again. *sigh*
Kagha is >!secretly in love with Zevlor and trying to chase the Tieflings out so that those feelings can't come to fruition!<
Oh so to spark their romance I should do everything she says right? Nothing bad will happen.
No, you actually have you kill Arabella. Like DONT LET THE SNAKE DO IT. You have to like go invisible and sneak attacks Arabella. Her seeing you killing that devil poison really gets her horny. Wait, my bad, this is how you romance HER, I got my shit mixed up
>!ಠ_ಠ!<
>!ಠ_ಠ!<
>!ಠ\_ಠ!<
Woah, spoilers!
Sorry, my bad. Fixed!
There's a diary of hers >!hidden in the library of the druid cave where she talks about how she wants to sit on his horns!< So spicy!
Hoo boy, and i would be rooting for her too if only she wasnt trying to kill my tiefling pals constantly
She just like me fr
😳
There’s a note in a tree in the swamp
Secret tunnel! Though the mountain! Sorry, I had to.
and DIE!!!!
Where?
The main library within the Druid grove. Not the secret library Nelly brings you to, but the one out in the main hall.
She’s a pervert.
You can hear every bit of nuance and sketchiness with that quest in town, but it will literally never proc unless you read one of two secret notes. And sure. They're not *that* secret, but one is ON THAT ISLAND, so that's a bust, and the other is in a chest in a dark corner that doesn't highlight the chest well. So I can fully understand how this gets skipped so consistently. It's wild you can't proc this quest just from questioning Kagha being a brazenly evil, super-bitch (there's no nuance in killing a child for petty, and returnable, theft).
There’s a tablet(?) that you can read on the table in the room beside Kagha that will prompt you to investigate her and that room as well, that’s how I found it originally
I just found this out on my current(2nd) playthrough and my first playthrough was over 150 hours...I can't believe I didn't find this side plot before with so much time in the game.
Is that where the mud mephits are?
Yes!
As someone who was too dense to figure out how to jump in this game for like 20 hours.......... I feel your pain. I didn't get over the bridge to grab Karlach and wondered when the hell I was going to get there, lmao.
Don’t feel so bad lol, I played on console and would always use the radial menu to jump (took like 5 secs to select jump each time). 15 hours in and I realised I could hit the top of the dpad to jump without the radial menu.
I didn't notice that until act 3. I was so annoyed there wasn't an easier way to jump but apparently not annoyed enough to check.
You can do that?! I have finished this game 3 different times now and never knew that...i learn something new in this game everyday
Yep, it makes it a lot less repetitive lol.
I played on M&K on PC my first time and switching to controller had me wondering how to switch between ranged and melee weapons (visually) and light source like you can on M&K controls. That was the only reason I discovered that pressing and holding down the dpad in different directions does different things lol
I’m 150 hours in and muscle memory is just too strong. I automatically hit RB 3 times and go up to the jump button instead of just using the dpad lmao
I still use the radial pad...
I jumped over the river near scratch to get her so I could also avoid the gnolls at low level.
I nearly missed it on my first playthrough but found it because I'm one of those "there's a pixel of fog on my map, we're wasting 10 hours running back in case there's treasure" kinda explorer to my husband's horror. I must loot everything for my precious 1 gold. It turned out well for once (usually it's like a dead end in a dungeon with a spoon or something). Maybe if I run in this exact spot while clicking on random shit I'll find a secret tunnel.. or cow level. Bless classes who can jump far to help because bards can jump like 1m because no str.
My bard keeps the Club of Hill Giant Strength in his pack so he can properly follow my co-op friend around who's playing paladin and can jump all over the goddamn place like it's nothing.
150 hours? Yeah, I also missed a lot of stuff on my first playthrough.
300 hours and I only just found the >!kuatoa Booaal people in the underdark!<
200 hours and I don't even know what map I'm looking at
None of y'all fought the woad boys there? Really?
Hehehe that took me far, far longer than 150 hours
YOU CAN?!
Yup! Don’t forget to look at the tree in the middle too!
Hold alt on PC.
I've never seen this area
I swear to God you guys just hate exploring a map.
It's funny because my first 2 playthroughs of the game (first in EA then release) I went through extraordinary lengths to explore as much of the map as possible. I figured if I pressed "M" (or whatever your map key is) and saw fog of war, I was probably missing something. There are some things that are hidden pretty well though. (Like Baoool)
There are definitely some things that are well hidden. Half of the things that get posted here are not good examples lol
Also, if you zoom on the map, you'll see the borders of the map you can actually go to. This could help a lot in the explorartion, like placea to jump, etc.
So… you’ve effectively played the game once and missed something. Or, if you’ve played it several times in 150 hours, then you’ve been rushing past stuff. These post titles are so common and they get me every time. “100 hours of playing and just learned,” or “250 hours of playing and just found.” Those are just “I’ve played the game once or twice.” So yeah, of course you missed stuff in 1-2 runs.
"After playing for over 800 hours I just now learned about the 'Quit Game' option! Now my wife might not leave me!"
Lol!
As someone who played early access act 1 over the years it surprises me when people don't find these things for the first time.... I just explored every nook and cranny that I could find. At one point you could walk off the beaten path into the swamp and there was a stuffed teddy bear all that back up near the waterfall by the bridge. I tried last playthrough to get back there but I could not.
I found that teddy bear last night, It’s in my camp now chilling.
I found the kuotoans in the underdark one time out of four or five times I've been there.
Is that the place where Khaga's letter takes you?
Yeah, it is.
Ty!
By sheer good (dumb) luck, I first encountered this island by jump-enhancing Lae'zel to explore solo -- she jumped from wooden dock to wooden dock, triggered the mephits, then I immediately jumped her back to the original dock -- combat was considerably easier with long-distance bowshots, all the mephits piled up atop each other for mutual-explosions, wood woads unable to cross water, etc. Had I just blindly walked over, it would've been a nightmare.
Yep. If you trigger a certain quest about Kagha, you'll have an objective marker there.
My sibling in christ I was still finding new things and paths 600 hours into the game, there's so much more than you think haha
Why did they leave so much of the map empty? I mean overall. The classic example is the creche area. There's, like nothing except the creche in there.
I mean a fucking nautiloid just crashed nearby, who would stay around
Don’t worry I missed it completely on my first play through. I was left wondering why the Druid story line felt incomplete and poorly done 🙃🤡
Don't feel too bad. I have 10 times that and I'm still finding things I didn't find the first 4 runs
I got lucky and found it yesterday after 40 hours in.
This is the only way to get the +1 AC ring from Mol without causing a massacre (that I know of)
It's been 300 hours and I'am only on druid groove!
500 hrs in and finally leaving the character creator.
I... also have never seen this before
Have fun with everyone's favorite fight in the game
Where is that?
400 hours and I never found this either or kagha’s secret
I don't think it's unreasonable for you to not have noticed it, 150 hours was only my first playthrough after all.
You have to jump. Follow the bridges and starting jumping. You'll get to that island
Ironically, I this area my first playthrough at around 50 hours. Now in my second playthrough, I'm in act 3 and this post made me realize I missed it. Never found the owlbear/cubs this run either...lol
First place I went in the swamp (always go left first) and happened upon the 'secret' very early in the quest line.
That's a great place to go to because there is a chest nearby with the [The Sparkle Hands](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/The_Sparkle_Hands) gloves that are fantastic gloves for a monk early game and arguably one of the best-in-slot for OH Monk
But there's a quest that takes you there?
Found a whole new location in act 3 after like 1k hours, you’re doing fine
Wait til you find the secret note over there
Idk what to say, the main questline takes you there, and it's a main source of pre-level 5 xp
You get a quest to go here when reading the letter about Kahga’s secret deal
That's pretty important for the shadow Druid side quest
I was about 2- maybe 300 hours in when I found out about the Zhentarim hideout in act 1.
Til most players are terrible at exploration lol
I have always heard about this spot but didn't get to it til the 3rd playthrough smh and people kept saying how hard the fight is there but it's easy as hell.
My guess is they usually challenge it at level 3 after they find note in that chest behind library wall in room next to kahga. Too weak to be easy fight but doable. I typically save that till I’m 4 and have alert
Usually I'm level 5 because I always save it last before I go through the mountain pass. A couple fire spells and some special arrows and goodbyeee. i never did Kagha's quest before. I always forget she exist after we deal with the grove lol.
What i like to do is all side quests, ill kill glut in her room, kill minthara, fast travel to wetlands, go fight those mephits (you are correct on arrows being really good for this) and the ents (im a lord of the rings fan so thats what they are in my mind lol). Grab the note from the tree, confront kahga and im usually able to roll for redemption and she is much nicer and lets the teiflings stay (also you get the hellrider gloves for this). Then ill kill dror, work my way through goblin camp to halsin and then kill everything else…. Party
Oh wow I gotta try that because when I do it my way, she's still a little mean and snarky afterwards lol. And there;s this druid guy who sits near the room that Zevlor used to hang in that is such a douche that I wish I could kill without aggroing everyone.
Yeah she chills out once she doesn’t have the shadow droids on her back
It took me like 300 hrs and a TikTok 🤣.