BG3 How to disable the Steel Watch and save the Gondians
Lord Gortash's mechanical Steel Watch are a fearsome threat in Baldur's Gate 3. Here's how to disable them!
At the climax of Baldur's Gate 3, the devious Lord Gortash has overtaken the city of Baldur’s Gate, installing himself as Archduke in the chaos surrounding the impending invasion of the Absolute.
While much of the city’s business ticks along as it always did, Gortash rules the streets with an iron fist, literally. His mechanical automaton police force, the Steel Watch, keep a constant and oppressive eye on regular citizens, ready to arrest dissenters.
If you’re going to defeat Gortash and bring an end to his tyranny, then you’re going to need to destroy his Steel Watch first.
How to disable the Steel Watch
To get the journal entry on disabling the Steel Watch, interact with the broken Steel Watch robot near the Heapside Strand. There you find a note pointing you towards a foundry on the western docks.
You can either explore the foundry and discover that Gondian gnomes are being forced against their will to work with their families held hostage, or you can pursue the Wavemother’s quest to find the Prison a different way.
However you find it, you need to first rescue the Gondians’ families from Gortash’s prison, then return to the Steel Watch foundry to help them in their fight against their captors.
We have a full page on how to complete the Iron Throne Prison, in what is one of the game’s most difficult and memorable encounters.
How to liberate the Gondian Gnomes
With the Gondian families saved, make your way to the Steel Watch foundry on the docks and bash the gate in.
Then go through the big door in front of you. Crash through the second door and you interrupt the Gondian gnomes rising up against their captors. As you defeat the enemies, they will drop Motivators that you have to waste an action on disarming before they kill the Gondians.
They’re tricky to see, but only require an easy intelligence check to turn off. However, this will waste an action during your turn, so plan accordingly.
With the slavers defeated, speak to Zanner Toobin and tell him that you saved his daughter. He will ask you to lead him to the control center of the Steel Watch on a lower level. There, he will be able to disable the army and really turn the tables in your favour against Gortash.
Go up to the northwest corner of the foundry and open the security office using the key you found on one of the guards. Then go down the two sets of stairs and through the door into the lower level.
Downstairs you find another intense battle underway between the slavers and the Gondians, who reveal themselves to be powerful mages.
You need to be careful when fighting Watchers, because after they’ve taken a large amount of damage they will self-destruct in a massive, devastating explosion. The helper AI is quite stupid, and will unfortunately wander into the blast, but you can keep your party clear at least.
The Hellfire Watchers are vulnerable to Lightning damage if you have any, but the Gondian helpers you have fighting alongside you kind of rule, smashing out powerful spells instead of waiting idly by. Also, be aware that the blast radius is bigger than the indicated red marker, so stand well clear.
You will also have to disarm Motivators dropped by some of the enemies here too, but your main goal is to keep Toobin alive so he can perform the processes you need. It’s a good thing that he has good healing spells at his disposal.
Once the battle is over, you need to loot the key to the exit door from the Black Gauntlet called Hahns Rives. Then, on the other side, interact with the Brain Jars to get tidbits of information on the brains controlling the Steel Watch. You can also destroy the Jars to take the Watchers they control offline.
As you walk into the next room, Toobin says he has to sit this one out and that you’re about to face the ultimate Watcher: the Titan. Steel yourself, then make your way inside.
How to defeat the Titan Steel Watcher
Inside the arena you find three Hellfire Watchers and, rising from the middle, the Titan looms.
Like the rest of the Watchers, it’s weak to Lightning damage, but remains a tough foe, particularly with three friends in tow.
Basically, the trick to this fight is to spam the Titan down with your most powerful attacks. After dealing some damage to it, the Titan will hunker down into defence mode like a Yu-Gi-Oh card and set up a bulwark. You need to chew through this extra health as fast as possible, otherwise it will start spamming heals and incredibly powerful missile attacks.
Whether it’s a Lightning Bolt or Chain Lightning spell, lightning melee attacks spammed from a fighter class character, or a combination of the two, if you focus on the Titan with all of your party it can’t help but go down.
When it’s borked, you can pick up the legendary bow, Gontr Mael, a unique weapon that has a chance to additionally cast Guiding Bolt.
Then, when you’ve defeated all of the Watchers, Toobin will come in to join you. So speak to him or, alternatively, you can search the room to find a little tidbit of backstory.
On one side is a note from Ketheric attached to the head of one of the automatons from the Arcane Tower, solving the mystery of how they developed the Steel Watch in the first place. Make sure you’re good and finished and have no further business, because when you talk to Toobin he’ll destroy the factory and the Steel Watch will be no more.
Outside another old friend appears. Wulbren Bongle from Act 1 appears and is not a fan of the Gondians. This gives you a choice to make, stick up for the Gondians or throw your lot in with the Ironhand Gnomes you saved from Grymforge.
Really, the “good” path is to stick up for the Gondians, they weren’t doing anything of their own free will, of course, and the Ironhand Gnomes seem to have conveniently forgotten that they were forced into helping Nere not too long ago.
Wulbren is out for blood though, so you will need to pass a persuasion or intimidation check to resolve things peacefully. Depending on who you lump in with, you forge a new ally with either the Gondians or the Ironhands and they will come to your aid when it’s time to take the fight to the Absolute in the final battle.