How to disable the Steel Watch Foundry in Baldur's Gate 3

One of the most oppressive forces in Baldur’s Gate are the Steel Watchers. In Baldur’s Gate 3, Steel Watchers are large robotic guards that have taken over the city. They’re quite annoying, as they’ll stop you from heading into certain places around the city. At some point in Act Three, you get the chance to stop the Steel Watchers through the Steel Watch Foundry, which is where they’re created and powered. Let me explain how you can disable the Steel Watch Foundry in Baldur’s Gate 3.

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To defeat Gortash, you should definitely take on the ‘Disable the Steel Watch’ quest. I found this quest by stumbling upon the Ironhands, and they asked me to bomb the Gondians in the Foundry. How you disable the Steel Watch Foundry in Baldur’s Gate 3 takes quite a lot of steps, and many combat encounters, so let’s dive right in.

The first step to this quest is heading to the Steel Watch Foundry itself. You can find this building in the southwestern corner of the Lower City. It’s quite huge, you can’t miss it. The entire building it fenced in, but you can unlock the front gates by using Thieves’ Tools, or the ‘Knock’ spell. Just be wary of the Steel Watcher making its rounds guarding the entrance. Wait till it makes its way around the corner, and then run in. You’ll also need to unlock the front doors.

Screenshot by PC Invasion

In this entire Foundry, you’ll be attacked on sight by most guards. Walk to the center of the room, and a cutscene begins where you see the Gondians are forced to work by purple rings around their necks. Although the Ironhands wanted me to bomb the entire place, I decided to try and save the Gondians. They were slaves, after all, so I convinced them to fight back, and the fight ensued.

There’s one thing to note about these fights. Certain guards hold Motivators, which are devices that help control the Gondians. Upon killing a guard, they’ll drop a Motivator, and you’ll want to disable it before it activates.

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Once you take them out, head to the back of the room, and you’ll meet Zanner Toobin, a Gondian with cloth covering his eyes. He expresses his worries about their families now being in danger. Gortash had not only taken the Gondians, but took their families hostage underwater. You can now decide to help save the Gondians’ families.

Screenshot by PC Invasion

Unfortunately, you won’t find out where the prison is unless you discover clues. In the lab level, climb up the ladder in the northwestern corner of the room. There will be a wooden shelf with scattered parchments laying around. Read the one called ‘Vessel Identified’ sitting on the shelf. You’ll discover they’re holding the hostages at the Iron Throne, which is underwater. This will start an entirely new quest. You should now know exactly where to start by looking at your map, which points you towards Flymm’s Cargo.

Personally, I believe that you should go against the Ironhands and save the hostages. You’ll find out soon enough during the Iron Throne quest that people you may know are trapped underwater as well. Of course, it’s easier to just explode the building, but then you’d be killing innocent Gondians.

Before you go and save the families, it’s important that you find the source of the Steel Watchers to destroy them. You can decide to save the families first, then destroy the Foundry, but in this case, let’s take care of the Steel Watch first.

Further into the Steel Watch Foundry, you’ll find large groups of enemies. Not only are there plenty of Steel Watchers, but your typical fighters, and even spellcasters. Make sure you’re starting this quest after a nice Long Rest, because you’ll definitely need those two Short Rests.

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Taking down these Steel Watchers may be difficult if you don’t know the right ways to beat them. Once they get to a certain amount of HP, they’ll detonate on their next turn. Make sure all your characters are out of harms way before it happens.

These Steel Watchers may be tanky in health, but they have a huge vulnerability. I highly recommend bringing along a few spellcasters that have spells that deal lightning damage. Since they’re made of metal, when you hit them with your lightning spells, it’ll deal more damage than normal. I used spells like Lightning Bolt and Call Lightning.

In the final room—I recommend leaving and taking a long rest before this—after you leave the lab level, there will be one final difficult fight. This time, you’ll face off against a few Hellfire Watchers, and one large Steel Watch Titan. You should take out the smaller Watchers before focusing on the Titan. Keep those lightning spells on hand, as they’ll come in handy against these metal foes.

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Also, be wary of when they may self destruct, since they can initiate it on any turn, but then they’ll destruct on their own turn. Make sure you’re standing far from their blast radius before their turn begins. Use all of your most powerful spells and attacks on the Steel Watch Titan, there are no more battles after this one. After you beat the Steel Watch Titan and its allies, it’ll drop Gontr Mael, a Legendary Longbow.

Screenshot by PC Invasion

Finally, you can reach the Neurocitor at the end of this room and disable the Steel Watch Foundry! Except you don’t know how to use it. Luckily, Zanner knows, so head back to him for some answers. If you already rescued the hostages before doing this, he’ll ask that you take him right away. But if you, like me, didn’t save the families yet, he’ll ask that you do so first. After that’s complete, bring him to the Neurocitor, and the Steel Watch Foundry will explode. All the Steel Watchers across Baldur’s Gate will completely shut down.

Baldur’s Gate 3 is available on Steam.