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

While the big bosses in Baldur's Gate 3 provide big, climactic battles to the game's storyline, the few random encounters live in annoying infamy. From fear-inducing meenlocks to teleporting meazels, it is often the unexpected fights that prove the most vexing for players time and time again.

Chief among these overworld encounters known for their aggravating mechanics are the death shepherds - undead that can make their fight last for what feels like forever by constantly reviving their allies. Although they may make their fight seem everlasting, there are a few tricks to defeating them once you know what you're up against.

Where To Find The Death Shepherds

The death shepherds are one of the first encounters in the Mountain Pass. They are patrolling near the teleport waypoint in the Rosymorn Monastery Trail (X: -95 Y: -118).

If you have the quest "Find the Githyanki Crèche," the death shepherds can be found on the trail on the way to the quest marker on your map.

How To Prepare For Death Shepards

Unfortunately, due to the nature of the fight, there are not many items or potions that can help you prepare. However, knowing what passive abilities the death shepherds and their allies have will help you take a few precautions before the fighting begins.

First of all, the death shepherds have a passive ability that grants nearby undead resistance to Piercing, Bludgeoning, and Slashing damage. Making sure you have a caster in the fight is critical to use elemental damage to overcome this resistance.

Having a caster is also important for using Counterspell on the death shepherds, so be sure to come with that prepared.

This next trick is a bit more niche but still helpful. The ghouls in the fight have the chance to Paralyze whenever they use their Claws, with one interesting exception: elves are immune to this effect. Consider using this to your advantage when deciding who is in melee with the ghouls.

Lastly, the ghast in the fight has a passive ability that grants nearby undead resistance to Turn Undead - the cleric feature that incapacitates undead. Be sure to save your Channel Divinities for later in the fight.

Fighting The Death Shepherds

With your preparations made and strategies planned, it is time to take down the death shepherds once and for all.

In addition to this, the death shepherd is resistant to Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing damage, as well as immune to Poison damage.

The key to defeating the death shepherds is knowing the order in which to attack. In total, there are seven foes to face: two death shepherds, four ghouls, and one ghast.

You'll first want to get rid of the death shepherd's Necrotic Veil, which makes them resistant to nearly all damage as long as they have at least one of their twenty temporary hit points. Clearing this effect will be critical for finishing them off later.

Once that is done, you will want to focus fire on one of the death shepherds. Taking out one is easy enough, especially since they lose their resistances once their temporary hit points are gone.

With only one death shepherd remaining, it will be easy to use one Counterspelleach turn to keep the living one from using No Rest For The Wicked.

Once one death shepherd is defeated, focus your attacks on the ghast; not only does it deal a lot of damage, but its bonus action feature Stench can cause you to lose your action, and its passive makes it harder for your cleric to Turn Undead.

Send in a high-Constitution character to deal with the ghast, or use powerful ranged attacks and do your best to avoid its Stinking Cloud to keep your actions safe.

With the ghast gone and only one death shepherd remaining, the ghouls become easy to take care of. Either use a big area of effect spell to wipe them or use Turn Undead now that they don't have resistance. Finally, eliminate the last death shepherd and emerge victorious!

Death Shepherd Rewards

Luckily, there are quite a few rewards for defeating the death shepherds, chief among them being the opportunity to freely explore the Mountain Pass.

But don't worry; there is loot as well. Next to the death shepherds is an opulent chest with some gold pieces and a few potions. The death shepherds also have decent armor and weapons you can loot.

Finally, there are several half-devoured bodies in the clearing that have armor, loot, and hints as to what is to come as you explore the Mountain Pass and all its mysteries.