Question about Philomeen and her barrel of smoke powder

[tkvan1901]

I met her while exploring the Grymforge in my previous gaming session. I managed to talk my way out and made a deal to take a vial of rune powder from her. She said something about took the barrel to BG so I just let her go without trying to steal that barrel. Is that barrel have any use later? Should steal the whole barrel instead of taking a vial of powder?

[Яeplicant]

I don't know what the consequences are for letting her go with the barrel but you can steal both the barrel and get the vial. Unless it was a bug when it launched.

[General Malaise]

I'm not sure.

I have seen people use the small barrel for other things. Don't think I've ever seen one with the full barrel, which I think would mean killing her.

[Keirb]

Well, you can steal TWO barrels in her hidden lair in Baldur's Gate without starting a fight (which I did). Those babies goes with quite a blast !

[Quacksalber]

Originally posted by Keirb:

Well, you can steal TWO barrels in her hidden lair in Baldur's Gate without starting a fight (which I did). Those babies goes with quite a blast !

Where is her hidden lair?

[Spiral_Architect]

Because the barrel has the same statistics as a quest item you can obtain in Act 3 that is connected, I tested this. After stealing the runepowder barrel, Wulbren still had the Bomb to hand me in Act 3. So, in this case, no. Just note though that it has a large blast radius and does not have a timer like the bomb.

[Spiral_Architect]

The "hidden stash" in Grymforge contains 2 smokepowder satchels.

[brendan_in_china]

I stole her barrel in my original play through, she looked right deranged. Anyway, finished the game never using it. So no, you don't _need_ to steal it.

I've seen play throughs on Youtube where people bungled using it repeatedly. I reckon it's a liability much the time. Don't feel you need to reload to get it.

[tkvan1901]

Thks everyone for replying! I messed up the order a little bit, I met her before speaking with the NPCs at the digging site. I supposed to meet them first, get the quest to find explosive and receive the vial from her (only that is enough to blow the entrance and free Nere). After exploring further in this area, I can arrange everything now.

[Mike Garrison]

Originally posted by tkvan1901:

only that is enough to blow the entrance and free Nere

Actually, most any explosives are enough to get through the rubble to Nere. The runepowder can do it in a single charge, but I've done it with just a regular satchel charge followed by a second regular satchel charge.

Once you free Nere, Philomeen disappears from the game. So if you do want to interact with her, you have to do it first.

[Quacksalber]

Originally posted by Mike Garrison:

Originally posted by tkvan1901:

only that is enough to blow the entrance and free Nere

Actually, most any explosives are enough to get through the rubble to Nere. The runepowder can do it in a single charge, but I've done it with just a regular satchel charge followed by a second regular satchel charge.

Once you free Nere, Philomeen disappears from the game. So if you do want to interact with her, you have to do it first.

I use the satchels too. One and a Gale IGNIS usually does the trick, though I needed two in my current game for some reason.

I stash the vial and always forget to ever use it xD

[Humpenstilzchen]

The whole barrel would be way too much to blast the rubble away and you can barely avoid killing your team and others but the barrel can be put to great use later on against yurgir and his minions.

[Gust]

If you pick up the barrel, you can use it to destroy the foundry in act 3 quicker. But it is by no means necessary for that quest, it is just a shortcut with probably bad consequences, depending on your other decisions.

[Recjawjind]

Any source of Nukepowder can come in handy at basically any point in the game. It's a gigantic, very high damage explosive afterall.
I usually steal the barrel, then pickpocket the vial to get both.

[Keirb]

Originally posted by Recjawjind:

Any source of Nukepowder can come in handy at basically any point in the game. It's a gigantic, very high damage explosive afterall.
I usually steal the barrel, then pickpocket the vial to get both.

Yup, I almost killed Gortasch on our first meeting when he was made Archduke by tossing him too barrels !! But... too many damn robots around, and he went super-sayan with barely 20ish HP left because the bots slowed me down... oh well.

[brendan_in_china]

Originally posted by Recjawjind:

Any source of Nukepowder can come in handy at basically any point in the game. It's a gigantic, very high damage explosive afterall.
I usually steal the barrel, then pickpocket the vial to get both.

I stole the barrel after she threatened to blow it up, so I could then convince her to hand over the vial as well. She left with nothing.