what's the difference between "beaten but not broken" and "one step from defeat"?

[Garessta]

i've heard that you got the former if you werent stripped from commander status, but i also heard that someone will die on the latter (you have to choose between protecting tavern or prison first)
but i went and protected both and everyone were just fine. was tv-tropes page lyiiinng?

[Lamon]

If you go to Jail first and do a certain response it will let you save both.

[Garessta]

Originally posted by Lamon:

If you go to Jail first and do a certain response it will let you save both.

huh, i did went to jail first. but i dont remember what i said to hilor there. i dont think it was very important. just some aligment stuff, basically, no?

[ExcaliburV]

This is a running theory I have, but if you never imprisoned anyone over the course of act 3, you might not need to sacrifice either place because there are no prisoners in the cells that you have to spend extra time freeing.

My CG trickster was stripped of his commander title, when I walked into the prison Hilor was just there and came with me, then I went into the tavern and helped them out, EZ. I couldn't figure out why that was when I remembered that I never really imprisoned anyone in act 3, so it wouldn't even make sense if I had to stop to save prisoners to begin with.

Just a guess, but maybe that's the case.

[connormacaulay]

The difference is you only get “one step from defeat” if you keep the knight commander position and you NEED to have the wardstone in Drezen. These add up to Drezen not being fully conquered. The prisoners will be already evacuated and so you can save both Hillor and the One-eyed devil.