Some shenanigans [end of Astarion’s quest line spoilers]

[ty_my_guy]

**tl;dr:** *you can use the daylight spell to kill Cazador without triggering the fight*

I doubt I was the first person to do this, but I was so entertained by it that I had to share.

When you go to the end of Cazador’s dungeon to fight him, a big fight is triggered where you need to stop him before he successfully completes the ritual to become a vampire ascendant. When you walk up, Astarion gets pulled into the ritual, requiring you to use an action to help him out of it. The fight is obviously doable, but I wanted to find an easier way.

Cazador has a major sunlight sensitivity, taking 20 damage for every turn he starts in daylight. The main strategy using this that I’ve seen (albeit only from my brief searching) involved casting daylight on one of your party members and following him around in combat. This is fine and good, but still requires actually fighting him.

Normally, casting a spell that damages an enemy causes them to fight you. However, I found that you can do the following:

1. Be well away from Cazador
2. Cast daylight on a party member
3. Walk up close enough to put Cazador in the daylight radius
4. But don’t walk close enough to trigger the cutscene

I did this by standing at the base of the stairs leading down to the ritual, having Shadowheart cast daylight on herself, and then standing on the few steps that lead up to the ritual platform. From there, we were able to just stand still for a minute or so until Cazador’s health was completely depleted and he disappeared.

This sequence breaking clearly wasn’t accounted for, because after doing this and walking up to the center of the platform, my full party (that included Astarion) triggered a conversation with Cazador (who was nowhere to be seen). He asked us to bring him Astarion (as if he weren’t there in front of him), and then the conversation ended. Immediately after it ended, it cut to shirtless Astarion (as if he had been in the ritual) in a cutscene where he finishes dealing with Cazador.

We still had to fight the rest of the ghouls, werewolves, and bats after that cutscene, but it was made *significantly* easier by not having to simultaneously play around Cazador and spawn stuck in the ritual.

I didn’t test to see if we could cast daylight directly by Cazador instead of indirectly on a weapon and then walk up, so it’s possible that a simpler setup could work. I feel like that would have a higher chance of aggro’ing him, though.

This is the end of my tail of exploits (or rather, singular exploit). I’d be happy to hear other ways that you have cheesed this fight, or possibly other fights up to this point (with the exception of the temple of Bhaal and Gortash, since those are the main things I haven’t gotten to yet 🙂).