Spider Matriarch

[doomshadow612]

Hi guys, I’m doing my second (evil) play through and have done most quests with my party at level 5.

I decided to head to underdark but remembered that I still needed to kill Spider Matriarch. I teleported to Blighted Village, went down the well and to my surprise I found all the phase spiders, including the Matriarch already dead. Is this a bug/glitch of some kind? I remember during my first playthrough I have done this area very early (lvl 3 party). Did this happen to anyone else? I didn’t find anything by googling.

Like mentioned went the evil route and raided Druid camp, recruited Minthara and sided with goblins.

[Jarsonne]

Originally posted by doomshadow612:

Hi guys, I’m doing my second (evil) play through and have done most quests with my party at level 5.

I decided to head to underdark but remembered that I still needed to kill Spider Matriarch. I teleported to Blighted Village, went down the well and to my surprise I found all the phase spiders, including the Matriarch already dead. Is this a bug/glitch of some kind? I remember during my first playthrough I have done this area very early (lvl 3 party). Did this happen to anyone else? I didn’t find anything by googling.

Like mentioned went the evil route and raided Druid camp, recruited Minthara and sided with goblins.

You can recruit Minthara since Act 1?

[doomshadow612]

No, but she came over to my camp for the party and then left. I am just curious as to why the entire spider cave was dead when I went there. For the record I’ve done the entirety of Mountain Pass before going there.

Edit: I went to whispering depth pretty much after doing everything in first map and after doing Githyanki quest. At that point all the goblins went away to Moonrise Towers and the temple was empty

[DeMasked]

Originally posted by doomshadow612:

No, but she came over to my camp for the party and then left. I am just curious as to why the entire spider cave was dead when I went there. For the record I’ve done the entirety of Mountain Pass before going there.

If you didn't kill the Spiders it could be that advancing to the Mountain Pass blocked some quests like a certain jewel that you find in that area which is connected to a quest.

By going to the Mountain Pass that is you saying that you are finished with previous areas which is why it warns you.

[doomshadow612]

Originally posted by DeMasked:

Originally posted by doomshadow612:

No, but she came over to my camp for the party and then left. I am just curious as to why the entire spider cave was dead when I went there. For the record I’ve done the entirety of Mountain Pass before going there.

If you didn't kill the Spiders it could be that advancing to the Mountain Pass blocked some quests like a certain jewel that you find in that area which is connected to a quest.

By going to the Mountain Pass that is you saying that you are finished with previous areas which is why it warns you.

Thanks I didn’t realise the game did that. I was going to stomp the spiders with overpowered party as in the previous playthrough I had to reload several times with level 3 party

[DeMasked]

Originally posted by doomshadow612:

Originally posted by DeMasked:

If you didn't kill the Spiders it could be that advancing to the Mountain Pass blocked some quests like a certain jewel that you find in that area which is connected to a quest.

By going to the Mountain Pass that is you saying that you are finished with previous areas which is why it warns you.

Thanks I didn’t realise the game did that. I was going to stomp the spiders with overpowered party as in the previous playthrough I had to reload several times with level 3 party

Yea it is why even before clicking the Mountain Pass exit the game might narratively tell you that you are too weak depending on your level - that and a big text box shows up with the warning about leaving.

The Spider cave has two fights:

First is just 4 enemies where you want to make use of fire against the infested guys. Level 3 is fine to do this.

Spider Queen fight I'd go level 4 and be sure to destroy 2 of the nests of eggs with a thrown alchemist fire or shooting a fire arrow. This will make the fight a lot easier + destroying the webs whenever the queen is on them for massive fall damage. Honour Mode it's a bit harder due to her Legendary ability.


The game isn't designed super well when it comes to the urgency Lae'zel talks about going to the Mountain Pass when that fight you want to do it at level 5 or maybe 6. Technically you can get to that spot at level 2 or 3 but I don't know if it would advance certain quests just by completing the patrol but not going to the Mountain Pass.

Doing the over world areas, Underdark and Grymforge is what I always do before going to the Creche.

[Apex Artist]

You can handle the Whispering Depths with a well balanced level 3 party and a good strategy. I did this earlier today with one of my early level 4 parties and didn't reload a single time or have to rez anyone. I've done it at level 3 several times.
Be sure to go in via the well. This puts you close to the boots find that allows you to walk on the webs. It also kicks the fight off with with the 4 lower-level foes right as you exit that room, putting them in a bottleneck disadvantage.
Give the boots to your stealth character and have them shoot hide/shoot, hide/shoot the two groups of spider eggs. Naturally remember to equip this character with a bow of some kind. Once the stealth member gets in position to start shooting the at the first group of eggs, go ahead and sneak the rest of the party to that location so they can be nearby when the fight kicks off.

[Mike Garrison]

This is hardly the only game that gives you a false sense of urgency about quests that actually have no time limit.

One classic case is Skyrim, where the game opens with a dragon attack and you having an urgent need to escape the town. Then your ally says you need to go to Whiterun to warn the Jarl about the dragon! And then ... you can just ignore that entirely if you want. The dragon plotline will never, ever advance after that until you finally decide to go to Whiterun and warn the Jarl about the dragon.

In this game you are told you are about to turn into a mindflayer. OMG! Must rush to cure this! Except, you can literally take all the time you want, forever, because guess what? Your transformation is being delayed magically.

[DeMasked]

Originally posted by Mike Garrison:

In this game you are told you are about to turn into a mindflayer. OMG! Must rush to cure this! Except, you can literally take all the time you want, forever, because guess what? Your transformation is being delayed magically.

I mean you come across many instances that suggest your character is different. The mind connections with other companions / npcs, being saved from the crashing ship via magic.

[Quillithe]

Originally posted by Mike Garrison:

This is hardly the only game that gives you a false sense of urgency about quests that actually have no time limit.

One classic case is Skyrim, where the game opens with a dragon attack and you having an urgent need to escape the town. Then your ally says you need to go to Whiterun to warn the Jarl about the dragon! And then ... you can just ignore that entirely if you want. The dragon plotline will never, ever advance after that until you finally decide to go to Whiterun and warn the Jarl about the dragon.

In this game you are told you are about to turn into a mindflayer. OMG! Must rush to cure this! Except, you can literally take all the time you want, forever, because guess what? Your transformation is being delayed magically.

Yeah it's a general problem with a lot of nonlinear games.

BG 2, you're supposed to be in a hurry to free Imoen, but instead you just kinda help every other random stranger first usually.

This at least does a decent job by having an open-ended problem. You don't really have a specific objective until you learn it's less urgent.

You could take Lae'zel completely at face value with her solution, but it seems more likely you'll run into something else first. Offered by a group less likely to kill you.

[Mike Garrison]

Originally posted by Quillithe:

BG 2, you're supposed to be in a hurry to free Imoen, but instead you just kinda help every other random stranger first usually.

That's one reason why I play with the mod that gives Imoen back to you and only sends Irenicus to Spellhold. Makes it much more thematic to take as long as you want in Act 2. You still have motivation to eventually go after "that guy who tortured you".

[DeMasked]

There are instances where the game will auto save and if you long rest it is possible for story elements to advance themselves.

Landing on the beach I wanted to change my characters appearance so I did that right away and Shadowheart ran off to sit on a rock in the Druid's Grove.

The True Soul and his brother and sister if you get near them and then long rest they will disappear.

I imagine running up to the burning inn and then long resting would also end up with those trapped dying or npcs disappearing.

Perhaps Auntie Ethel as well when you get close to the swamp and the two brothers. You could see them, leave, long rest and they might be gone.

[DeMasked]

Originally posted by Apex Artist:

You can handle the Whispering Depths with a well balanced level 3 party and a good strategy. I did this earlier today with one of my early level 4 parties and didn't reload a single time or have to rez anyone. I've done it at level 3 several times.
Be sure to go in via the well. This puts you close to the boots find that allows you to walk on the webs. It also kicks the fight off with with the 4 lower-level foes right as you exit that room, putting them in a bottleneck disadvantage.
Give the boots to your stealth character and have them shoot hide/shoot, hide/shoot the two groups of spider eggs. Naturally remember to equip this character with a bow of some kind. Once the stealth member gets in position to start shooting the at the first group of eggs, go ahead and sneak the rest of the party to that location so they can be nearby when the fight kicks off.

It's actually currently better to go through the cracked wall near the forge / bellows, trigger the web to aggro them with 1 character and then burn the web with or without the 2 enemies who can't teleport or jump far on the web. The two phase spiders kinda get confused and hang back unless you move back into the blacksmith room where they'll go through the other cracked wall and attack there.

Effectively you can make it a fight against 2 enemies and then 2 more enemies as opposed to all 4.

[Jarsonne]

Make it level 3 looks pointless because there's many other combats less dangerous that will make you level up to 4,

Otherwise there's many ways to lower the difficulty, just rush forward will always largely increase the difficulty.

A very stealthy approach did very well:
- It allows destroy many lights which should help even more stealthy approaches.
- There's 3 entrances, use them all open more stealth opportunities.
- All eggs but those very close to spider queen can be destroy in stealth.
- I could kill all but one phase spider (and eggs close to queen) before enter in combat against the spider queen.
- I used burn bridges only against the spider queen but could do it twice,

But for sure it's no way necessary.

[MightyTikiGod]

Same thing happened to me just now. I had to go back to multiple previous saves and enter the matriarch lair to see if she was still alive. I'm not sure what the catalyst is that kills her with no loot available, but I can say it is well before the hag fight and entering the goblin camp. Perhaps it has something to do with party level. The save I entered that still had her alive was the first time I went into the well at the blighted village. Looks like I'll have to do the hag fight all over again just to get the loot from the spider matriarch.