House of Hope: Difference between revisions

[[File:edward-vanderghote-houseofhope-01.webp|thumb|400px|Central chamber]]'''House of Hope''' is a [[Location]] that can be accessed through a portal from [[Baldur's Gate]] in [[Chapter Three]]. This is [[Raphael]]'s home, and the location the player arrives at after performing the ritual in [[Devil's Fee]].

To access the House of Hope, you must travel to [[Devil's Fee]] in north-central [[Baldur's Gate]]. From the Lower City Centre Wall waypoint, head north up the path and go inside the gate towards the large house. Inside you will talk to [[Helsik]] behind the counter, who will open a portal to the House of Hope provided one of three conditions is met:

* Perform a persuasion check to lower the price to 10,000 gold

* Agree to bring back the [[Gauntlets of Hill Giant Strength]] from the House. Note that after successfully turning in the gauntlets to Helsik, she then adds them to the wares in her shop for 1620 gold when purchasing at a 0% discount, making this the cheapest choice while still keeping the [[Gauntlets of Hill Giant Strength]]

Whichever option you choose, Helsik will provide you with a bag of ritual items and a note on how to perform the ritual itself. Head upstairs and inside of the ritual circle, pull out all of the items from the bag. The [[Opening a Hell Gate]] note will explain all the steps involved (order does not matter):

* Place the Infernal Marble in the center of the star

You can pickpocket the Ritual Pouch and the [[Grimoire Bound in Imp Skin]] book from Helsik, the former are all the items needed for the ritual while the latter provide the solution to do the ritual in the form of hints, if the items were stolen she will comment on you knowing you were a thief upon completing the House of Hope (but won't be hostile and still happy enough to trade with you). You can also find duplicates of four of the ritual ingredients, but not the Grimoire or a skull, in various places around Helsik's room (incense on the small table next to the southern balcony door, infernal marble in the opulent chest beside the door to the bedroom, a diamond in the gilded chest near the desk by the window, and a Coin of Mammon in the gilded chest on the bedside cabinet).

Head upstairs there's a Ward trap placed that will cast a Fireball spell upon touching it every time you walk upon it, and on its right a Ward shaped as an Imp that tells you their "Gravelled tongue, sanded throat. Hard to swallow... hurts to ''breathe''...", placing any water or wine will disarm the trap, there's a bottle of [[Stagswift Tonic]] and [[Frostkiss Ale]] nearby on the stairway you've taken and is below a Stuffed Deep Rothe Head hanged on the wall, when disarm the ward will reply with "Too wet. Too cold. No fun. Begone!".

Place the items in the correct order and head to the House of Hope.

* "Place that which has no eyes but used to see at the western point of the circle" -> Place the skull west of the altar (use the map/compass).

* "Two spaces lie opposite that point. 'Pon the left - place what is cut but cannot bleed" -> At the opposite direction from which you placed the skull there's two points; on the left one as you face them (i.e. the northern of the two points to the east), place the diamond.

* "To the right - that which smells but cannot sniff." -> Place the Incense on the right of where you placed the diamond (i.e. the southern of the two points to the east).

* "Besides the dead remains - the aspect of the Avariced lord sits clockwise so." -> Place the Coin of Mammon next to the skull clockwise (i.e. on the point to the north-west).

* "Then the circle's centre shall recieve the internal marvel of infernal marble." -> Place the infernal marble in the center.

* "Finally - and I mean no disrespect - ''go to hell''" -> Self-explanatory: "Enter the House of Hope".

Like what was said above, the order of placing these items doesn't matter as long as they are placed in their correct places.

==== Be Careful with Mods here! ====

# As of Hotfix #4, this portal will be bugged and will not work if you have a mod that increases the level cap. A workaround is to reset your party to 1st level by talking to [[Withers]], and then perform the ritual. You can then level up again once you've entered the portal.

# If you have a mod that allows you to have more than 4 party members (summons don't count) then this will cause issues as Hope's Disguise will only work for the first four characters meaning you will alert some of the house residents. To remedy this, additional disguises can be found in the Wardrobes scattered throughout the hallways.

{{SpoilerBox|After first arriving in the House of Hope, you will be teleported into the Foyer. Make your way towards the exit where you will have your first interaction with [[Hope]], the house's namesake. Agree or disagree to help her (this walkthrough will assume that you are agreeing), and obtain the Debtor's clothing from her. These will allow your party to walk around the House without the monsters initiating combat. Note that you will have nothing to worry about while traipsing around the House for now, and can explore at will. You cannot long rest in the House of Hope, but you can freely leave through the portal up until you initiate the ending sequence.

Take a left from the Feast Hall towards the western side of the map and head into the archive. Here you can steal the [[Gauntlets of Hill Giant Strength]] and the [[Amulet of Greater Health]] from the pedestals on either side of the room after disarming the traps underneath them. Provided you are not caught or can talk your way out of it, the Archivist will not initiate combat; otherwise, the entire house will turn on you. Speak to the Archivist about the [[Orphic Hammer]] in the center of the room, and follow the dialogue options until he tells you to head into the boudoir. Interact with the shield on the Hammer in order to pass the Arcana check (not necessary if you kill [[Haarlep]]) where it tells you to obtain magic words to lower the shield.

Inside the boudoir there are two healing fountains that will provide your characters with unlimited long rests. There are two locked opulent chests, one of which contains a [[Potion of Angelic Slumber]]. Resting on [[Raphael]]'s bed is Haarlep, his incubus. Speak to him and follow the dialogue options to try and obtain the magic words necessary to remove the shield from the Hammer. Alternative, kill him in a relatively simple fight. He will summon 6 lesser demons that should not provide a problem for you, but he has an ability that will cause him to go Ethereal (functionally invulnerable) after an instance of damage, so hit him with your meatiest attacks and he will eventually fall. Loot the [[Helldusk Gloves]] and the key to Raphael's safe. The safe is located to the left (if your character is facing it) of Raphael's bed on the wall. Use the key or lockpick in order to obtain a note from Raphael about the words to the Hammer.

Across from the boudoir is a 'lock' that you can pick with a DC10 Wisdom check, followed by a DC20 Arcana check. Inside are the [[Helldusk Helmet]], [[Staff of Spellpower]], and Mol's contract. Loot these, explore anything else you want to see, and head back to the archive to retrieve the hammer. After you loot the hammer, the Debtors will drop the facade and all turn in to aggressive demons. Fight your way (stopping to long rest at the pools in the boudoir when necessary) to the eastern portion of the House. Right outside of the Portal Room on the southern terminal end of the hallway is a hatch leading to the Prison. Unlock, and head inside.

Inside the prison you will find [[Hope]] bound by chains on two sides where two Spectators and a handful of lesser demons wait. Kill 'em all, and equip the Orphic Hammer to the melee slot of any character. Use that character to smash the rocks holding Hope's chains, and she will join your party. She's a relatively strong level 10 Cleric, who has access to a Divine Intervention — don't use it until we get to the finale of the House.

Head back up and through the Feast Hall, make sure you are fully healed and rested, and head back to the Foyer. When you click on the portal back to Baldur's Gate, Daddy Raphael is back, and he is very upset. There is ''no way'' to avoid combat here. He will be accompanied by Hope's sister, as well as [[Yugir]], the demon from the [[Gauntlet of Shar]], depending on your choices back then. Yugir can be persuaded to join the fight on your side with a DC30 persuasion check, even if you convinced him to kill himself during Act Two. In either event, we will now, finally, be fighting Raphael.

Knock out the soul pillars in the four corners of the room, as Raphael draws power from them in the form of powerful spells as well as increasing his DEX by a significant amount. Alternatively, a party with very strong single target damage may choose to forgo the pillars and focus on Raphael from the start. His high AC can be negated via some crowd control spells such as [[Hold Monster]], although their duration is reduced to 1 turn on this particular enemy.

Try to keep Hope alive as she has access to very powerful spells, and powerful AoE healing. She can also use a Level 5 spell slot (though the spell is located under Cantrips) to 'banish' someone from her house — effectively being able to kill 2 (or more, if the slots are refreshed) adds for a single Action.

Kill the towers, keep Hope alive and healing, use Divine Intervention when you need to, and the fight is fairly straightforward for a Level 12 party. Afterwards, soak in your victory and loot the [[Helldusk Armour]] from Raphael — a very powerful armour that will provide AC21 Heavy Armour that negates the need for Proficiency.

}}

==Related Locations==

==Related Quests==

==Notable Loot==

*{{MdRarityItem|Gauntlets of Hill Giant Strength}} (stolen from the dais in the Archive, must disarm trap first, requires DC15 Perception check to unveil followed by a DC20 Sleight of Hands check to disarm)

*{{MdRarityItem|Amulet of Greater Health}} (stolen from the dais in the Archive, must disarm trap first, requires DC15 Perception check to unveil followed by a DC20 Sleight of Hands check to disarm)

*{{MdRarityItem|Orphic Hammer}} (stolen from the Archive, must have the necessary words in order to turn off the shield)

*{{MdRarityItem|Staff of Spellpower}} (inside a vault across from the boudoir, requires DC10 Wisdom followed by DC20 Arcana checks to unlock)

*{{MdRarityItem|Helldusk Helmet}} (inside a vault across from the boudoir, requires DC10 Wisdom followed by DC20 Arcana checks to unlock)

Hope's Prison

*{{MdRarityItem|Burnished Ring}} (acquired after defeating [[Spectator]] during the quest [[Save Hope]])

*{{MdRarityItem|Helldusk Armour}} (acquired after defeating final encounter of the area)

*{{MdRarityItem|Gloves of Soul Catching}} (reward from the quest [[Save Hope]])

==Other Information==

* In the Feast Hall, you can speak to one of the Debtors inside — he made a deal with Raphael to stop [[Ketheric Thorm]]'s army, but wasn't able to fully stop him. Turns out, he's also the architect of the [[Moonrise Towers]].

* The portal between Baldur's Gate and the House of Hope remains open for the rest of the game, except when confronting Raphael.

* Entering the House of Hope causes Raphael to disappear from [[Sharess' Caress]] and thus become inaccessible until the confrontation.