Baldur's Gate 3: Is It Worth It To Save The Gondians In The Iron Throne?

Summary Saving the Gondians in BG3 is a complex quest with a timer, multiple enemies, and environmental hazards.

Choices made throughout the quest impact which Gondians survive, affecting story outcomes and alliances in the end.

Despite the difficulty, saving the Gondians is worth it for the additional story scenes, potential allies, and rewards players receive.

Saving the Gondians is a complicated task in Baldur's Gate 3, partially because of how it intersects with several other side quests. "Save the Gondians" begins in Act Three, and represents the culmination of two separate BG3 quest lines: disabling the Steel Watch and the ongoing love-hate relationship between Barcus Wroot and Wulbren Bongle. Gondians are gnomish worshipers of the inventor god Gond, enslaved by Banites. Once the player has traveled to the Steel Foundry or the Iron Throne, they'll meet either Zanner or Obelia Toobin. Either NPC will then ask them to help save the Gondians from oppression.

Most good-aligned characters will inevitably want to save the Gondians. Responsible though they are for the construction of the deadly Steel Watch, they only participated under duress, and certainly not of their own volition. But protecting them can be difficult - they're under siege by both determined cultists and bloodthirsty Sahuagin. Frustrated players on their third or thirtieth attempt may find themselves wondering whether saving the Gondians is worth the effort. But like many other quests in Baldur's Gate 3, this one has resounding consequences throughout the rest of the game.

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What Happens If Players Save The Gondians In BG3?

Is Saving The Gondians Worth It?

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In order to succeed in the quest “Save the Gondians,” players will have to open the gnomes' cells, then protect them from Sahuagin as they rush into a submersible. This fight is on a timer - the whole place is rigged to explode after a few turns. They'll then return to the Foundry, where the remaining Gondians will attack their Banite oppressors. If Obelia is still alive - or Zanner is successfully deceived into thinking she is - Zanner will join the next section of the battle.

However, the Gondians here are hooked up to Motivators - explosive collars that the Banites can detonate at will. If the party didn't deceive Tamia Holzt into giving them control over the Motivators earlier, they'll have to deactivate them manually during the fight. After this battle, Zanner will approach the party and offer to join them for the next section of the escape plan. Even if they already have a Runepowder Bomb from Wulbren, the extra help doesn't hurt.

The party should then proceed into the Control Centre Antechamber, where they'll face the Steel Watch Titan and three Hellfire Watchers. If Zanner is still with the party, he'll actually offer a helpful tip: hit the Titan as hard as possible whenever it raises its shield. Once downed, the Titan drops a legendary weapon: Gontr Mael. This +3 longbow glows, grants Celestial Haste to the wielder, and can sometimes inflict guiding bolt on its target. Beyond the Titan, there's a control console the party will have to shut down in order to disable the Steel Watch. This can be done either with a code provided by Zanner, or with a Runepowder Bomb.

It's actually possible (if not easy) to avoid this fight entirely by sneaking past the Titan instead of engaging it.

And with that, the Steel Watch is destroyed and the Gondians are saved. But not everyone is happy about that. Barcus, Wulbren, and the rest of the Ironhands will appear. Wulbren wants to cull the Gondians before they can pose a threat to the city, but Barcus swears they're harmless.

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Ultimately, players can choose either to side with Barcus or with Wulbren at this point. If they succeed in any of the Persuasion dialogue options, Barcus will take over the Ironhands, Wulbren will walk away in a huff, and both the Gondians and the Ironhand gnomes will become the player's allies. Failing or choosing any other option will result in a fight, and only one side will join the party in the final boss fight of Baldur's Gate 3.

What Happens If The Player Doesn't Save The Gondians In BG3?

Results Vary Depending On Which Gondians Survived

If all the Gondians die at one point or another, the party will miss out on most of the events above. They'll still be able to fight the Titan and destroy the Steel Watch, but they'll miss out on all the story surrounding the Gondians. They won't gain either group as an ally, and won't be able to decide who takes over the Ironhands in the end.

Plus, several story events change based on which Gondians die, and when. If he finds out Obelia didn’t survive the escape attempt from the Iron Throne, Zanner will lose all hope and refuse to help the party. If they lie and tell him she did survive, he'll later spot her body as they escape the Foundry, and become hostile towards the party. If all the Gondians but Zanner die in the Foundry, he'll begin to despair. He can be persuaded or intimidated into pressing on, but if that fails, he'll simply tell the party the terminal code before abandoning them.

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It's Worth Saving (At Least Some Of) The Gondians In BG3

Extra Story Scenes & Up To Two More Allied Factions

In the end, the rewards for saving the Gondians are well worth the effort of saving them. Players miss out on a lot of story by allowing them to die under any circumstances, not to mention the more material rewards. Though they'll walk away having weakened Gortash, they'll also have lost two valuable allies.

But not all the Gondians have to survive in order to succeed in this quest. As long as Obelia remains alive during the Iron Throne stage of the quest, and Zanner during the Foundry stage, the party will get credit for completing it. If the player focuses their efforts on keeping these two alive, they might have a much easier time saving the Gondians. The only things that differ are the flavor text and dialogue after the fact.

So, while saving the Gondians might not be easy, its rewards make it a worthy task for most players to complete. That goes both for those invested in the story and those primarily concerned with gameplay: "Save the Gondians" has a reward for everybody. Although neutral- and evil-aligned characters may choose to go another route, anyone with even a shred of sympathy will suffer through the Gondian fight as many times as it takes to get them out alive. And by focusing their efforts on Zanner and Obelia, saving the Gondians becomes a simpler task. Just don't expect it to be the easiest quest in Baldur's Gate 3.