Disabling the Steel Watchers is essential if you plan to go up against Enver Gortash and claim his Netherstone towards the end of Act Three in Baldur’s Gate 3 (BG3).
This is a long and involved adventure that will take you through many other quests, so strap in for a wild ride.
Point of No Return: All quests affected by Disable the Steel Watch
You might want to err on the side of caution when it comes to completing the Disable the Steel Watch quest, as some other quests can be made unavailable to you after it’s completed.
Here are the quests you’ll be locked out of once Disable the Steel Watch is complete:
- Avenge the Drowned
- Blade of Frontiers: Find the Way to Ansur
- Avenge the Ironhands
- Attend Gortash’s Ordination
How to start the Disable the Steel Watch quest in Baldur’s Gate 3
When you complete Act Two and get to Baldur’s Gate in Act Three, the main quest titled “Get Gortash’s Netherstone” will eventually branch out towards the Steel Watchers. There are multiple ways to start, but perhaps the easiest is when you form a temporary alliance with Gortash during his coronation ceremony. This is when you notice the power of the Steel Watchers.
As you progress through the story and meet Orin several times, she will let you in on her plan to murder Gortash. Her motives align with yours since you want Gortash’s Netherstone as well, so we recommend going along with her plan (for now) since it wouldn’t be wise to make too many enemies before you’re well-prepared to take them on.
From this point on, “Disable the Steel Watch” begins, and you will have four objectives to complete.
How to disable the Steel Watch
1) Figure out how to disable the Steel Watch
The first objective is quite straightforward. Since the Steel Watch is in full effect all over Baldur’s Gate and they act as personal bodyguards to Gortash, disabling them is necessary to weaken him. In the beginning, you are left with no leads but talking to a few people in and around the city who will reveal some interesting tidbits about the Steel Watch.
The two key people to talk to are Orin and Wulberg, the former of whom we can encounter in multiple places in the city, including the sewers. If you saved Wulberg from the Goblins in Act One and the Moonrise Towers in Act Two, you will find him in his factory with the Ironhand Gnomes. He will give you the location of the Steel Watch Foundry and a Runepowder Bomb to destroy it with.
Next, we search for the Steel Watch Foundry.
2) Enter the Steel Watch Foundry
The second objective entails finding the Steel Watch Foundry since this is where the robots are being produced. You will find the factory in the southwestern part of the Lower City area of Baldur’s Gate, to the west of Grey Harbor. Getting in from the front gate in plain sight is difficult since nobody is allowed in, but if you have access to spells like Invisibility and Fly, you shouldn’t have too much trouble.
If you don’t have Invisibility or Fly in your repertoire, you can head directly to the south of Grey Harbour Docks to find the Water Queen’s House. Once you’re there, a small hop from the northwestern corner of the Water Queen’s House will allow you and your party to land on a beachy part of the Steel Watch Foundry. From there, you can find your way up.
Once you get in, head to the back of the foundry to meet Zanner Toobin, a blind Gondian who tells you how to stop the Steel Watchers. When you tell him about your decision to blow up the foundry with a Runepowder Bomb, he pleads with you not to do so because it will kill all the Gondians forced to work there. Instead, Zanner offers you an alternative choice.
He proposes that you help him save his brethren imprisoned in the underwater prison, the Iron Throne. Doing so will turn the Gondians to your side, and they will help you assault the foundry. Whether you choose to blow up the factory right away or take a short trip to the prison is your choice, but we recommend doing the latter to gain access to one more potential ally.
3) Find a way to destroy the Steel Watch Foundry
The third objective can be completed by either blowing up the foundry right away (which can be quite difficult right now) or saving the Gondians from prison first. If you choose not to save the Gondians, then skip to the fourth objective below, but if you are feeling kind-hearted, we head to the Iron Throne to save some innocent lives and gain more allies in the process.
Head to Flymm’s Cargo and go to the basement to meet Redhammer the Deviser. Convince him to take you down to the Iron Throne to save the Gondians there. Either coerce him or appeal to his kinder side to get to the prison. If you have talked to the Waveservants of Umberlee beforehand and agreed to avenge their dead, convincing him to take you becomes much easier.
Following this conversation, get your party into the submersible and make your way to the Iron Throne. But before you get there, Gortash will confront you and tell you that saving the prisoners is an act of treason, and he will call the alliance off if you go through with it. Since we plan on betraying Gortash eventually anyway, we can go ahead with the plan and defy him right now.
Once you commit to saving the prisoners and angering Gortash, you will have eight turns to save as many Gondians as possible, as well as one potential ally that you might recognize from a previous quest in acts one and two: Grand Duke Ravengard. A character that has eluded our grasp since Act One who can finally be saved here.
Along with the Grand Duke, we save as many Gondians as possible, then head back to the submersible within eight turns. Don’t worry too much if you don’t manage to save them all since a few of them might die in the process because of the immense number of enemies that spawn. Head back to shore with the prisoners and you will be confronted by more familiar faces.
The Waveservants of Umberlee will confront you and ask you to hand over Redhammer for his crimes against them. If you choose not to, you will have another fight on your hands. Following this, take your new potential allies and head to the Steel Watch Foundry, preferably after a long rest, because the final part of this quest is going to be a long battle.
4) Destroy the Steel Watch Foundry
Now that you’re all set up, hopefully, with the Gondians on your side, it’s time to disable the Steel Watch once and for all. Take out the two patrolling Steel Watchers first so they won’t join in the battle, and then make your way through the front door. When you get in here, Zanner Toobin declares that he and his fellow Gondians will not be treated as slaves anymore and will fight for their freedom.
What happens after this is a long battle with multiple stages. The first battle takes place at the ground level of the factory, where you fight the overseers of the foundry.
This is the easiest of the three fights since there won’t be any Steel Watchers to worry about. Beware of the collars on the Gondians, however, as they are rigged to explode: Disable them within two turns or the Gondians will die.
After the first battle is done, we move deeper into the foundry. Go to the back where you first met Zanner or take the elevator down to the lower level to get there. The second fight will involve more factory overseers but with two or three Steel Watchers, depending on how many you took down previously.
This battle is markedly more difficult than the first and still has the threat of exploding Gondian collars. At the end of the second battle, we recommend taking another long rest because the final fight will be the most difficult of them all.
Zanner will warn you of the Steel Watcher Titan that guards the Neurociter controlling the Steel Watch and how it is the most powerful unit in the robot army. This is where the final battle begins.
The third battle takes place in the heart of the Steel Watch Foundry, and you will have to fight three Steel Watchers along with the powerful Steel Watcher Titan. Two of the Watchers are regular melee units, while the third is a ranged attacker. Work on taking them out one at a time while your tank distracts the Titan.
Finally, we fight the Titan itself. This beast is twice as tanky as the normal Watchers and can pack a punch. Run away from its attack radius when it’s charging up and attack and deal damage from afar. When its health drops low enough, the Titan will self-destruct as well, ending the fight and granting you the Legendary bow Gontr Mael.
The only thing left to do is plant the Runepowder Bomb on the Neurocitor and watch the foundry go up in flames to complete the quest.
Following this, attacking Gortash becomes much easier without his Steel Watch guarding him, taking you one step closer to defeating the Elder Brain.
