High Harper Quest's Vault Encounter Bug, and how I fixed it.

[Tigeri102]

So, I ran into a bug while doing the High Harper quest in Act 3. Not sure how exactly I did it, as this was a few days ago now and I forget exactly how I opened the fight on my winning attempt. May have been because I opened it by stealth-attacking a bhaalist instead of running up into a trigger (I also never saw a cutscene of Minsc struggling with the Mimic, only the already-dead one on the ground), may have been because I initially left the area with only Minsc alive hoping he'd de-aggro without me fighting him. But the encounter seemed to go different for me compared to guides I looked up after - Minsc stayed and fought us in the vault, and I was able to KO him after killing the bhaalist doppelgaangers and get the cutscene of having the Emperor protect him. From there, he stayed where he was and became non-interactable, and my quest log updated to say he'd run off and I needed to follow him. I went looking for him in the sewers like the grimy footprints in the vault implied I should, and eventually found the Cistern full of doppelgaangers where he's, I later learned, *supposed* to be. He wasn't there, though, I couldn't find him anywhere, so I looked it up and realized something had gone buggy. So I went back to the vault, and lo and behold, he was there. After several longrests between the fight with him and now, he was still there, still non-interactable, still at 1 HP, and still rocking a Bloodless debuff from Astarion

Now, on to how I I fixed it, for anyone struggling with the same glitch: I did some experimenting, and found out I could in fact kill him with AOE spells, and it would update the journal like normal. So instead, I KO'd him a second time with an AOE non-lethal melee attack (in my case, sword bard's slashing flourish, but a regular cleave will work just as well). I then long-rested on the spot to see what would happen with him, and when I left camp, he was still there, but I could talk to him this time! When I did, I got the cutscene of him reuniting with Boo, and he was able to join the party like normal. The High Harper quest was marked completed, Jaheira thanked me for it properly when I spoke with her, the whole shebang. Problem very strangely solved!

So, TLDR: If you run into a bug where you fight and save Minsc in the Counting House vault instead of the sewers, and it seems to freeze him in place: KO him a second time with non-lethal AOE damage from something like Cleave or Slashing Flourish, long rest, and speak to him in the vault again. This will play the Boo cutscene and have him join you and finish the quest.

[zinfan73]

Thanks! Worked for me.