Baldur's Gate 3: destroying Raphael's soul pillars makes him more dangerous — the House of Hope guide

The advice you'll find everywhere about Raphael — "destroy the four soul pillars first" — is incomplete, and the omission is costly. Every pillar you break lets Raphael transform, and grants him an extra soul charge in the process. In other words: smashing the pillars weakens his normal form, but feeds his ascended form, whose spells ignore fire resistance and immunity.

The fight in the House of Hope's hall remains the hardest in Baldur's Gate 3, three years after release. Here's what you need to have done before going in, the exact numbers behind the encounter, and why the pillar question doesn't have a single right answer.

Getting into Raphael's costs 10,000 gold, or nothing at all

It all starts at The Devil's Fee, the shop in the northern Lower City. You'll need to convince the shopkeeper to provide what's needed to open the portal: going through her cellar or checking certain documents unlocks the right dialogue options.

Three outcomes then present themselves: pay 20,000 gold, promise her one of Raphael's artifacts, or intimidate her to bring it down to 10,000. The third is the right choice — and there's nothing stopping you from later pickpocketing her to get the sum back. Never promise a relic: their value far exceeds the price asked.

A fourth, free option exists: search the entire shop, especially its upper floor, with a good Perception score. All the components can be found there.

The ritual components are then placed on the floor, in this order: the skull on the point facing the table, Mammon's coin on the next point to the right, the Black Diamond two points further, the Incense on the following point, and the infernal marble at the center of the star. A correctly placed item immediately glows with an orange light; if nothing happens, it's misplaced.

Three things to do before triggering the fight, in this order

The fight only starts the moment you select the portal back to The Devil's Fee. So you have all the time you need to prepare the room — and the rest of the estate.

1. Retrieve the Orphic Hammer. In Raphael's private quarters (accessible via a balcony, then by jumping onto the rocks), move the painting: the chest behind it holds the password needed to take the hammer from the archives. Once there, the Archivist can be convinced you're an inspecting inquisitor.
2. Free Hope. It isn't mandatory, yet it's the most rewarding action in the area. The prison can be reached via the same balcony, by taking the small passage leading down, or by forcing open the circular hatch near the portal room. Approach the Beholders using Stealth, then smash the two red crystals with the Orphic Hammer.
3. Use the bathtub. The two taps in Raphael's bathroom restore the party infinitely. This is essential: it's impossible to return to camp from the House of Hope. Be careful though, this isn't a real long rest — conditions that normally clear on a rest will remain.

Two exceptional items are also lying around in the archives: the Gauntlets of Hill Giant Strength (23 Strength) and the Amulet of Health (23 Constitution). The plate holding them is trapped: the alarm strips your disguise and triggers a fight in the corridors.

666 hit points, but more importantly an armor class of 27 at the start

The numbers explain why so many parties fail their attacks in the first round. Raphael is level 16 and has 666 hit points on balanced difficulty, with a base armor class of 21.

Except that the pillars raise this value. Each one grants him:

• +1d12 fire damage on his attacks;
• +3 to Dexterity, which increases his armor class;
• a soul charge, which he spends like a spell slot;
• 3d6 hit points recovered each time he absorbs souls.

With all four pillars active, he opens the fight with 28 Dexterity and 27 armor class. Against an AC of 27, most characters hit only one time in five.

Breaking the pillars or neutralizing them: the real trade-off

Two methods exist, and they don't lead to the same fight.

Neutralize without destroying. Radiant damage on a pillar blocks its special power for the round. This has to be repeated every round until Raphael dies. Decisive advantage: he doesn't transform.

Destroy. The pillars are vulnerable to bludgeoning and Force damage — and the Orphic Hammer you just recovered does exactly that. Each destroyed pillar removes its bonuses... but lets him trigger his ascension and restores a soul charge to him. Once ascended, his spells bypass resistance as well as fire immunity: any protections you had put in place are no longer of any use.

The calculation is therefore situational. A party that hits hard and fast benefits from razing the pillars to bring down his AC. A party lacking raw damage has every interest in neutralizing them with radiant damage and leaving Raphael in his normal form, slower to kill but noticeably less dangerous.

The resistances that determine spell choice

Raphael is completely immune to fire, and resists lightning, cold, and acid. Aim for Force, necrotic, and radiant damage; physical damage also gets through.

He is also immune to Banishment, Polymorph, the Poisoned condition, and burning effects. However, he can be stunned — by a monk or by illithid powers — and a character equipped with the Blood of Lathander, positioned in the center of the room, can blind him as soon as combat begins thanks to the weapon's passive ability.

One last trap: when Raphael knocks a character down, he tears out their soul. The revived character then suffers disadvantage on attack rolls and all ability checks until the soul is restored.

Two reinforcements to prepare for, and an NPC to knock out rather than kill

Raphael arrives accompanied by Korrilla, six cambions, and, under certain conditions, Yurgir.

If you helped Yurgir break his contract in the Gauntlet of Shar, he automatically fights on your side. Otherwise, you must succeed on a DC 30 Persuasion check to turn him — a check few parties pass without preparation.

Hope joins the fight if you freed her before the confrontation: this is where the detour through the prison pays off. Hope's sister is also present; knocking her out non-lethally rather than killing her opens up additional dialogue options — provided no area-of-effect attack kills her, and that Yurgir doesn't take care of her himself.

The loot, and the mistake that makes it disappear for good

The reward is the best in the game: two legendary items if Hope is freed and kept alive, and potentially a third by going through her Divine Intervention, which grants access to the Mace of the Faithful without needing a level 10 cleric.

But the Armor of Hellish Twilight can only be looted from Raphael's corpse. Yet his deal specifically involves handing you the Orphic Hammer in exchange for the Crown of Karsus worn by the brain. Accepting it means walking away with the hammer without ever fighting the devil — and losing the armor for good, both in this playthrough and on this save.

This is Act 3's final trade-off: the pact, or the armor. There is no third option.