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After the Mountain Pass arc inBaldur’s Gate 3, you’ll likely have inevitably become familiar with the Githyanki—a race with a tragic history of enslavement by mind flayers, ruthlessly committed to eradicating any illithid traces from the world.
Regardless of how you navigated their fiercely xenophobic and militaristic society, however, you’ll eventually find yourself fighting the Githyanki Inquisitor, Ch’r’ai W’wargaz. Even after dodging the fury of their patron goddess, this final battle can pose a significant hurdle for the unprepared party. This guide provides everything you need to know about the Githyanki Inquisitor encounter and strategies to ensure you emerge victorious.
Where To Find The Githyanki Inquisitor
TheGithyanki Inquisitor, or Ch’r’ai W’wargaz, can be found in theGithyanki Crèche Y’llek, and can be considered thefinal ‘boss fight’of the Mountain Pass storyline.
There are multiple routes you can take to approach the crèche—most of which will end with you in the Inquisitor’s Chambers, where Vlaakith—the patron goddess of the Githyanki—herself willmake a request of you.
If you aretraveling with Lae’zeland want toprogress her storyline, you’ll need to agree toshow Vlaakith the Astral Prism—the artefact you’ve been traveling with this whole time. After this, Vlaakith will ask that youenter the Prism and kill its inhabitant.
While it may seem counter-intuitive to progressing the storyline, you’llneed to go along with the Inquisitor and Vlaakithhere—refusing their orders will cause Lae’zel to turn hostile, and angering Vlaakith can even lead to an instant total party kill.
Once you’re in the Astral Plane, you willmeet your Dream Guardiananddecide whether to kill them.
Leave the prism without killing your Dream Guardian, and you’ll find the Inquisitor and his lackeys ready for a fight once you emerge. There isno way to avoid this fightat this point, but you’ll at least have the backing of Lae’zel by your side if you’ve done everything right.
Githyanki Inquisitor Fight Mechanics
If you’ve followed the story so far, you’ll have seen the fear that the githyanki have towards The Inquisitor—and for good reason: he’s a powerhouse.
Once he gets going in the fight, he becomesnearly impossible to hit,becoming a bastion ofheavy-hitting damagewhileamplifying his minions’ damage. You’ll need to target them to properly fight him, a mechanic that we’ll cover more in-depth in a later section.
Additional Combatants
The Inquisitor is accompanied by four other githyanki in total:two Ardents(ranged spellcasters),one Warrior(a tanky bruiser) andone Raider(ranged crossbowman).
How you should handle this fight can depend on your party composition, but we advisetaking out the Raider first. Hishigh single-target damage, augmented by his Archery features, can easily take out a squishy party member per turn.
You’ll want tokeep the Warrior busywith a tanky front-liner of your own andfocus down all of the ranged attackersbefore they can snipe your party.
Shared Githyanki Features
The Githyanki are built toresist mental effects and spells, which is apt given their history with Illithid enslavement—and abysmal for a party that relies on saving throw spells. They’re also martially adept, and most canattack several times per turnwhilenullifying damage of your own.
Here are some common features that some of them share, and which you should look out for during this tough fight.
Githyanki Parry
Reduces damagefrom unarmed or weapon attacks by10.
Since this featuretakes a reactionand can only be usedonce per turn,any classes with more than one attack per turn (Extra Attack) should focusall of their attackson the same Githyanki (who will have already used this feature during that turn).
Perfect Sentry
Makes itimpossiblefor this creature to besurprised. That said, given the circumstances of the fight, it’s unlikely that you’ll surprise them regardless.
Psionic Empowerment
Allows the creature toinflict an extra 1d6 psychic damageon a successfulspell or weaponattack.
Psionic Revenge
When the creaturesucceeds on a Saving Throw, it inflicts1d4 psychic damageback to the attacker. This also grants the creature a+1 to all mental(Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma)Saving Throws.
All these slivers of psychic damagemay seem small, but they caneasily add upto devastating measures, especially when the Inquisitor is usinghis Mindlink feature,which inflictsvulnerability to the psychic damage type. This is explained more in the next section.
Tips For Fighting The Githyanki Inquisitor
Mindsteal Link
The most formidable mechanic of this fight, the Githyanki Inquisitor will usehis Mindsteal Link abilityon the first turn, connecting himself to every surrounding creature in the room. This has the following effects:
Needless to say, this makes the Inquisitora veritable fortress of a tankwhilegreatly debilitating your party. The initial cast of Mindsteal Link will boost his AC up to 23 at least—more if you have any familiars, summons or constructs on the field. This makes him extremelydifficult to target with spell or weapon attacks.
This, combined with the Inquisitor’shefty Saving Throw bonusesandfour Saving Throw proficiencies, makes him nearly untouchable.
How To Deal With The Mindsteal Link
At all costs, you’ll want toavoid bringing in additional creatures or alliesthat he can siphon AC from—this includes:
Vulnerability to psychic damage is also especially dangerous to have in this fight becauseeach githyanki deals extra psychic damageper attack and succeeded Saving Throw, and the Inquisitor himself alsodeals extra psychic damageper creature in the room.
Mobility And Target Prioritization
The Githyanki will make frequent use ofMisty Stepto let thembypass frontline defendersto target squishier targets. Ensure that your castershave protective measures likeMage Armouror Shield.
Terrain And Positioning
Unfortunately, this battlefieldoffers very little by way of cover. Your ranged party members, however, cancapitalize on the elevated ledgesto take advantage of the height advantage.
Besides, though the area isn’t conducive to creative maneuvers, you can alwayschange the environment to your favor—through aptly placedSmokepowder Barrelsor awell-aimed Iron Flask.
General Combat Strategy
Though this fight has aunique mechanic, it’s still a pretty conventional combat by Baldur’s Gate 3 standards.
Anycombat strategies, especially ones thathelp youdeal with multiple enemies, will come in useful while fighting the Inquisitor—except, of course, the ones that are explicitly nullified by his features, such as bringing additional allies.
Baldur’s Gate 3
WHERE TO PLAY
Baldur’s Gate 3 is the long-awaited next chapter in the Dungeons & Dragons-based series of RPGs. Developed by Divinity creator Larian Studios, it puts you in the middle of a mind flayer invasion of Faerûn, over a century after the events of its predecessor.
