The points at which the game transition between acts seem a bit arbitrary (mainly for Act I to Act II), and I don’t see a narrative or mechanical reason to lock us out of previous maps and quests. As far as I remember, previous Baldur’s Gate games didn’t have this kind of points of no return. Why do you think they did it? Do you like it?
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There isn’t a point of no return between A1 and A2. Rather, you need to do certain A1 events prior to A2 or those events resolve without you (e.g. Goblin Attack, several others).
You can travel back to A1 while in A2. Only A3 prevents back-travel, and that’s for well-established story reasons.
I generally prefer having control of the timing rather than having it being tied to X amount of rests or something (notable exceptions for certain quests existing, of course).
BG2 and ToB both had notable points of no return. Paying the fee in Athkatla to recruit allies is one, any time you ever travel with Saemon is one, leaving the besieged city is one in TOB, etc. There were also a number of time-dependent quests, most notably those involving a certain dragon/drow situation.
You do get locked out of traveling back to Act 1 areas some time in Act 2. I think once you enter the Temple of Shar?
I wanted to go back for another crack at the forge and I couldn’t.
It’s when you go to Nightsong that it locks you out, and to be fair, the game does clearly warn you there are consequences for that - and depending on your actions, a 3rd party just straight up moves the story along, so it makes sense.
If you’re struggling at the forge, remember that you can just not hit the boss with anyone but a bait character, and that bait character doesn’t have to actually survive the encounter, meaning if you position well, you can just melt and smash the boss over and over without touching it (after the first hit or two) and it’s a free win.
Took me numerous tries before I learned that one.
I’m sorry, you can hit it with the forge hammer? Hot damn.
By far the easiest way to kill it. You’ll need to lure it to the hammer spot though.
The actual cheese of the forge is picking the pike of returning, placing one character in the stairs, waay above, and throwing the pike into him. If it’s a fighter that’s 4 throws the first turn, each doing their respective damage + 30ish damage per throw because of the weight+height. I killed it in 2 turns, he didn’t even move since he does nothing in the first turn.
You can still travel between act 2 and act 1, I think the quests are locked out because the NPCs involved have moved on to the new area. It’s a little annoying to be unable to finish some things up but I don’t really mind overall. It’s nice that the side characters make some progress in the story.
The only point of no return I encountered was once you head into Baldur’s Gate itself, you can’t go back to any previous area. All the other areas before that may give you a vague warning implying you can’t go back, but you most certainly can. Though at some points, the only way back is to fast travel, since you can’t just turn around and go back the way you came because you had to jump/fall into a pit or something.
I do find that one point of no return silly. The only logical reason I can think of is that they didn’t make an uncursed version of the woods, so it would be immersion breaking to go back there. But plot wise? Shit doesn’t make sense at all. There’s no reason I shouldn’t be able to go back to Emerald Grove once I reach Rivington.
Yes, I found it confusing that sometimes there is a warning which has no consequences, then in anothere you get locked from all previous maps. Also with time-sensitive missions, you can fail a few quests and it is not always specified that there will be consequences if you take too long in your exploration (in a game that is all about exploration)
I believe they mentioned that those time sensitive ones are directly related to taking long rests near the location of the quest.
You aren’t told this in game, tho. The quests in question don’t even apply the pressure to give the illusion time is crucial, the way they do with the worm in your head every 5 minutes. You have no way knowing that these two specific quests have a time limit. It’s not like every quest has them.
Odd, I tried to go back to Act 1 from Act 2 (looking for a vendor since spoiler stuff happened at the only settlement in cursed lands) and when I clicked the elevator it told me I “really shouldn’t” like twice and the third time it game over’d me in a unique and creative way… I felt that was a pretty hard lock out of act 1… Lol
I think there is a grace period after hitting act 2 where you still can go back but once you’ve done a bit of story related stuff you are pretty locked in.
You could try just opening the map and bringing up the list of fast travel spots. This will let you fast travel even to points on another map. Like if you’re in the under dark, you can warp straight to Emerald Grove without going back up topside. I had to do this when in the basement of Moonrise Towers because I wanted to go back and sell shit before moving forward, but there’s no transition back the way you entered.
Once you hit the lock out point, there aren’t any waypoints for act one when you open the map… I didn’t get all the way through acts one and two by literally walking everywhere and ignoring fast travel, lol.
No waypoints was why I had to walk back to the elevator to even try going back. I don’t want to drop spoilers, but I have a hunch what the “point of no return” is and depending on your methodology playing the game you might trigger it relatively early in act 2 or it could be very nearly the last thing you do… I’m assuming you happen to have done the later and didn’t even notice when you got locked out of act 1.
I was pretty annoyed when I couldn’t do the underdark after choosing the other path.
What do you mean? If you enter Act 2 from the mountain pass, that probably breaks some Grymforge quests, but the underdark is very much still accessible.
Not when you start the final quest in act 2, which isnt really all that clearly stated.
I mean, now I know what I’m doing for playthrough 2, so it’s fine
So long as you don’t progress past the Mountain Pass into the Shadowlands you can go back and do the Underdark no issue, and you can still go back and hit the underdark even after that (all the way until Act 3) though you will miss some quests that way.
I’m waiting for a mod to allow the back travel for my second play through, also hoping the level 20 mod gets updated to allow you to level your main class past 12
You’re not locked out until act 3. Just use a fast travel waypoint.
