Baldur's Gate 3: How To Defeat The Spectator (2024)

The Spectator is a strange and dangerous enemy you can encounter while exploring the Underdark during the first act of Baldur's Gate 3. The only indicator you're about to walk into the fight is a collection of petrified drow leading to a flat alcove. This fight is meant to catch your party by surprise.

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The Spectator has three actions it takes on its turn: it fires its three eye rays, bites if it can reach someone, and it can unpetrify the drow to create allies during battle. It's a tough fight, but you can make it easier with a little preparation.

How To Prepare For The Fight

First, reach level five. Entering the Underdark underdeveloped can make everything a struggle. The Spectator is a boss enemy, so picking the right party members will make a huge difference. Its rays can immobilize you in two ways: fear, and paralysis. To counter this, bring party members with higher Wisdom and Constitution to resist those effects. Its third eye ray does necrotic damage.

If you have elixirs to resist that damage, apply it to your party members with the lowest hit points first. A bear-heart barbarian will also resist the damage while raging. Most enchanted weapons at this point will help, but the Vision of the Absolute spear deals 2d6 extra damage to creatures with multiple eyes like the Spectator. Last of all, don't forget to coat your weapons with any poisons you might have.

How To Avoid The Ambush

Giving the Spectator a full surprise round against your team weighs the odds against you before you can even act, but you can avoid it. The easiest, but most dangerous method is to split your party. Unlink your toughest member while the rest sneak to the edge of the arena. Have your single party member trigger the fight alone. They will be surprised, but the rest of your party can still act.

The second method requires a third level spell slot. The Spectator will always spawn at a specific point in the arena. Once you know where that point is, you can lay a Glyph of Warding near the site with the sleep effect imbued. The Spectator will spawn, and when it moves into the glyph it will fall asleep, ending its turn immediately. Don’t place the glyph on its spawn point because even if it fails the saving throw, the cutscene will still let it start awake. In that same vein, dropping some oil barrels at that location before it spawns and then detonating them when the Spectator arrives will burn off a good chunk of health early.

How To Slay The Spectator

In Battle, the Spectator doesn't have a large health pool against a level five party; that's why it tries to debilitate your squad. The Spectator doesn't want to be engaged in melee if it can avoid it, so keep your melee characters close, and they'll get free opportunity attacks as it flees. While it does revive drow, damaging them will actually restore their senses and make them allies; Magic Missile can help.

Don't get too distracted, though, because the Spectator is easily the biggest threat. It has low Strength with middling Charisma and Intelligence. If you have abilities that target those stats, use them. The Spectator lacks area of effect attacks, so you should keep your ranged attackers close to your melee fighters, so they can be protected in case one gets paralyzed.

The best way to deal with the Spectator is to hit it hard with your highest damaging attacks and kill it as fast as you can. The longer the fight goes on, the more statuses it will pile on via its eye rays. Keep your melee characters close, boost your saving throws with the Bless spell or Resistance cantrip, and keep your party together. You will win this fight.

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