Dror Ragzlin is one of the first major boss fights players come across in Baldur’s Gate 3, and he can pose quite a challenge to your party if you go in without a plan.
Ragzlin is one of the three bosses at the Goblin Camp in the first act of BG3. He’s a member of the Cult of Absolute, and depending on the player’s choice, can either be an ally you work with against the Tiefling refugees or an enemy to be beaten lest a massacre occurs in the Emerald Grove.
Ragzlin is a ferocious Barbarian with a high health bar, yet the biggest problem when facing him isn’t the villain himself, but the near dozen or so goblins who assist him in the fight. What’s more, Dror is now officially an Honour Mode boss fight, which means that beating him will be even more difficult thanks to Legendary Actions like “Devoted Galvanism.”
Still, difficult doesn’t mean impossible, and when it comes to Baldur’s Gate 3, the only bar to your choices is the limit of your own imagination.
How to beat Dror Ragzlin in Honour Mode
As mentioned above, Dror is a melee fighter, so the conventional method of simply approaching him and initiating the fight won’t do here. Moreover, Dror’s new Legendary Action called Devoted Galvanism allows him to give his allies an Action Surge. Here’s the official in-game explanation for Galvanism:
“Once per round when an enemy targets their ally with an ability, Dror Ragzlin can use a Legendary Action to Galvanise Absolutists within 17ft (5 meters), granting them Action Surge.”
That is to say, if you use any healing or buff spells on your party members, Ragzlin’s passive ability will allow him to give his fellow Absolutists another action per turn. That, combined with his ferocious double or triple strikes, will make quick work of your party. The fight against Dror is already unfair given the odds stacked up against the player, so here are a few ways you could even those odds:
1. Position your spell-casters on the wooden platforms under the ceiling: If you have spell-casters like Gale in your party with a few AOE tricks up their sleeves, putting them up on the wooden platforms can give you several advantages. For one thing, this will put a distance between them and Dror Ragzlin and his goblins. For another, the high ground will give them an advantage when spell-casting. Given the sheer number of goblin mobs, spells like Cloud of Daggers will help you defeat several of them at once.
2. Don’t initiate the fight in the throne room and don’t cast spells on allies: Since Dror is a melee fighter, you need to initiate the fight outside the room and have him come to you. This will take the boss a few turns, especially if you use tools like Grease to slow him down. You will then use this opportunity to take out the goblins. Try to kill all the goblins before engaging Dror himself. If no goblins are left standing, you can easily take on Dror and your spell-casters can even heal party members, essentially rendering the Hobgoblin’s Legendary Action worthless.
3. Rescuing Halsin first can help you in the fight: The confrontation with Dror Ragzlin could play out in different ways depending on how you approach the Goblin Camp section of the game. Rescuing Halsin first, whose whereabouts we’ve already discussed in another article, can give you a much-needed advantage against this Honour Mode boss fight. Why go to battle as four when you could have another party member to help you out in the fight — and a shape-shifting bear, at that?
4. The party draft: Even when you manage to kill all the goblins protecting the boss, Dror is still a formidable foe, quite capable of taking on the entire party by himself and killing everyone. That’s why it’s important to have at least one healer with you — preferably Shadowheart. Astarion is also handy in this particular arena, and Lae’zel can tank it if you need someone to keep Dror occupied.
Note that initiating a conversation with Dror can lead to him fighting you on the spot, which is the one thing you don’t want to do. Still, it’s possible to have a chat and then be on your way if you can pass a few checks while influencing Dror’s interrogation of a dead Mind Flayer.
Dror Ragzlin can be a challenging boss fight early on in the game, and especially in Honour Mode, but give it a few tries and you’ll find yourself looting his corpse and the treasure heap that lies beyond it in no time.
