Baldur's Gate 3 Kill Raphael's Old Enemy Beginner Guide

Guide: bg3 · Published · 1,977 words · 11 min read

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Quick Answer: To complete Baldur's Gate 3 Kill Raphael's Old Enemy, find the enemy tied to Raphael’s questline, prepare for a difficult fiend-heavy fight, and use positioning, control spells, and focused burst damage to finish the encounter safely.

What Baldur's Gate 3 Kill Raphael's Old Enemy means

“Baldur's Gate 3 Kill Raphael's Old Enemy” refers to a specific quest objective or combat outcome connected to Raphael’s storyline, and the safest approach is to identify the target, enter with strong party support, and win by controlling the battlefield. Because Baldur’s Gate 3 is a story-rich, party-based RPG where your choices shape the journey Source, this kind of objective is usually less about raw damage and more about preparation, dialogue awareness, and encounter control.

Raphael-adjacent encounters are often dangerous because they tend to punish unprepared players with hard-hitting enemies, mobility threats, and layered conditions. New players usually do best when they treat this as a mission planning problem first and a fight second.

First-hour checklist

Your first hour should establish a stable party, clean exploration habits, and enough resources to survive early mistakes. The best early-game actions are simple, repeatable, and designed to prevent avoidable losses.

Do these actions as soon as possible

  • Recruit every obvious companion you can access early, then check whether their class overlap leaves you weak in healing, ranged damage, or crowd control.
  • Set your party formation before entering dangerous areas so the squishy characters are not standing in front.
  • Loot every container, corpse, and obvious stash, but keep an eye on encumbrance so you do not slow the whole party down.
  • Long rest when your spell slots, class features, or healing supplies are running thin; this game is designed around resource cycling.
  • Examine enemies before committing to combat so you can see resistances, vulnerabilities, and dangerous abilities.
  • Save manually before dialogue choices, suspicious doors, and any sequence that looks like it could branch into combat.
  • Pick up camp supplies and basic consumables early, because rested power matters more than hoarding a perfect inventory.
  • Keep one character near traps and locked objects, since a dedicated scout saves time and avoids party-wide damage.

Early combat habits that pay off fast

  • Open fights from stealth when possible.
  • Focus one target at a time instead of spreading damage around.
  • Use high ground for archers and spellcasters whenever the map allows it.
  • Break concentration on enemy casters quickly.
  • Use shove, fear, hold, or similar control effects to reduce incoming actions.
  • Do not spend your strongest consumables on random trash fights.
bg3 gameplay screenshot
In-game screenshot

Resource priority order

Your best early resources are usually actions, positioning, healing, and situational consumables rather than gold, crafting materials, or fancy gear. Since Baldur’s Gate 3 can be played alone or in a group Source, your resource priorities should also account for whether you are covering every role yourself or sharing duties with teammates.

Priority Spend or hoard first Why it matters
1 Healing, spell slots, and short-rest recovery These decide whether you survive the next major fight.
2 Good weapons and armor for your main damage dealers Early power spikes come from reliable gear, not hoarding.
3 Scrolls, potions, and grenades Flexible tools solve problems your class build cannot.
4 Camp supplies Resting keeps your party effective over a long adventuring day.
5 Gold for essential upgrades Spend on meaningful improvements, not every shiny trinket.

What to hoard

  • Rare consumables you do not fully understand yet.
  • Scrolls that duplicate spells your party lacks.
  • Boss-specific arrows, coatings, and bombs until you know the encounter.
  • Special items tied to quest progression or companion stories.

What to spend early

  • Cheap healing items.
  • Basic ammunition and throwables.
  • Starter gear that clearly improves armor class, weapon damage, or saving throws.
  • Respec costs if your party composition is fundamentally weak.

What to craft or assemble first

  • Simple combat consumables that add damage or status effects.
  • Items that increase mobility, vision, or initiative.
  • Anything that helps you survive control-heavy encounters.

Common newbie mistakes and how to fix them

New players usually lose more to habits than to hard fights, and the good news is that each habit has a straightforward fix. The following mistakes show up often in Raphael-linked or boss-like encounters because those fights punish sloppy preparation.

Mistake 1: Using everything in the first fight

You should not dump all your best spells, potions, and scrolls into the first skirmish you see. Many beginners spend too much too early, then hit a dangerous quest fight with an empty toolbox.

Fix: Use basic attacks and low-cost control in routine fights, then save high-value items for named enemies, ambushes, or multi-wave battles.

Mistake 2: Ignoring positioning

You should not let fragile party members stand in melee range or cluster everyone into area damage. Baldur’s Gate 3 rewards tactical spacing, and poor positioning can turn a winnable fight into a wipe.

Fix: Put durable characters forward, ranged characters on high ground or behind cover, and keep the party spread enough that one spell does not hit everyone.

Mistake 3: Clicking through dialogue without saving

You should not assume every conversation is harmless, because a single dialogue choice can start combat, lock out a route, or change a quest state.

Fix: Make a manual save before any major conversation, especially if Raphael, his associates, or anything infernal-adjacent is involved.

Mistake 4: Treating every enemy as equal

You should not attack the nearest target by default if another enemy is concentrating on a dangerous spell or buff. Some opponents are far more threatening than others.

Fix: Remove enemy supports, casters, and controllers first unless a frontline target is actively blocking your plan.

Mistake 5: Carrying too much loot

You should not hoard every item you find, because encumbrance and inventory clutter slow you down and make it harder to find useful tools mid-fight.

Fix: Sell or send nonessential loot to camp, and keep only what supports your current build, your next upgrade, or a known quest need.

You should prepare for Raphael-related content as a high-pressure boss sequence where control, burst, and survivability matter more than flashy improvisation. Even if the objective is specifically to kill Raphael’s old enemy rather than Raphael himself, the encounter design usually rewards the same mindset: identify priority threats, deny enemy actions, and keep your party alive long enough to win.

Strong preparation checklist

  • Bring a balanced party with at least one frontline character and one source of control.
  • Equip items that improve saving throws, initiative, or resistance to fire and fear-like pressure.
  • Keep healing available for emergency recovery rather than routine topping-off.
  • Stock scrolls and consumables that create extra turns, extra movement, or crowd control.
  • Check your spell loadout before entering the area so you are not missing key tools like buffs, debuffs, or area denial.
  • Enter with a plan for summons, if your party can use them, because extra bodies help absorb pressure and trigger enemy attention.

In-combat priorities

  • Break concentration on dangerous enemies first.
  • Keep one character free to revive allies or rescue downed companions.
  • Use terrain to block lines of sight where possible.
  • Do not chase a low-health enemy across the entire arena if doing so exposes your backline.
  • Use your biggest damage on the target that will create the biggest swing, not necessarily the one with the lowest health.

When you are out of the beginner phase

You are out of the beginner phase once you can read encounters, conserve resources, and build a functional party without relying on trial and error for every fight. A useful benchmark is that you no longer panic when a battle goes slightly wrong; instead, you can recover through positioning, item use, and target priority.

Signs you have graduated

  • You inspect enemies before combat instead of learning their tools the hard way.
  • You know when to short rest, long rest, or push on.
  • You can identify which companions cover your missing roles.
  • You stop hoarding all consumables “for later” and start using them intentionally.
  • You can clear difficult encounters with only a small number of reloads.
  • You understand how your class, subclass, and equipment work together.

Baldur’s Gate 3 is a long RPG, with HowLongToBeat listing roughly 72.71 hours for the main story and 179.74 hours for completion Source. That length is part of the learning curve: if you are making informed decisions by the time the early story systems stop feeling overwhelming, you are moving beyond the beginner stage.

Next guides to read

Once you have the basics down, the best next step is to deepen your party planning and encounter knowledge with related guides.

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