Thisobald Thorm is an unsightly and bloated boss found in Act 2 of Baldur’s Gate 3, close to the Moonrise Towers. He is a member of the Thorm family and is the son of the big baddie of this act, Ketheric Thorm. He is a bartender who drinks too much and will look like he’s about to burst at any given moment.
He will invite you to drink and chat with him. The drink he serves is vile, so the experience will be less than pleasant. Refuse, and you will provoke him into a fight. Here is how you can defeat him.
Thisobald Thorm Location in Baldur’s Gate 3
You will find Thisobald Thorm at his Distillery in the Shadow Cursed Lands known as The Waning Moon. Thisobald Thorm sits in his bar, serving the patrons his newly prepared deadly brew.
You can find The Waning Moon distillery northwest of the Moonrise Towers just south of the House of Healing. Once you get there, approach the side where he is sitting. This will begin the cut scene where you can talk to this monster.
How to defeat Thisobald Thorm in Baldur’s Gate 3
Unlike finding Thisobald Thorm, defeating this boss is far tougher and tricky. There are two basic ways to defeat Thisobald. Both have their complications. However, one of the methods does help by defeating him without engaging in combat.
Before going any further, you should know that Thisobald Thorm has a very unique Numb condition he possesses. This condition helps him become immune to the Slashing, Piercing, Bludgeoning, and Thunder damage while not intoxicated. With all such immunities, it becomes almost impossible to defeat the boss using physical attacks.
The alternate way is to adopt the conversation method, where he ends up dying due to overconsumption of alcohol. Both ways to get rid of Thisobald Thorm are discussed in detail ahead.
Defeat Thisobald Thorm by drinking
You can defeat Thisobald Thorm without even starting the boss fight. However, this requires you to talk to him after the cutscene. He will ask you to share stories about his newly brewed drink, which is vile, to say the least.
Before starting the story, you must pass the Constitution and Charisma skill checks. At each stage, he will offer you more of his brew to drink, and the same goes for himself. Lastly, he will die because of excessive drinking. You can also pass a deception check and throw away the drink.
The first skill check involves Constitution save with DC 14. The Charisma follows this check with DC, depending upon the choice you picked from the options. After listening to your story, Thisobald will initiate the talk once again. However, this time, the Constitution save will be with DC 16.
Following this check, you have to pass the Charisma check once again. Once you tell two stories, pass the final Constitution save with DC 18. At this point, Thisobald Thorm will share details about his father and die due to overdrinking.
One important thing to mention here is the failure in the skill checks. If you fail any checks, you will get only one extra chance with DC 18. Failing twice in these skill checks immediately starts the boss fight with Thisobald Thorm. Therefore, you must have a Monk/Rogue in your party to pass the skills checks easily.
Defeat Thisobald Thorm in combat
Before starting the fight with Thisobald Thorm, you must learn a few things about him. He has 288HP and 16AC. The fight takes place in three phases. During the first phase, Thisobald will be wide awake and will be resistant to all weapon damage, including Slashing, Piercing, Bludgeoning, and Thunder damage. He has the Extra Attack feature, which allows him to hit you twice in one turn.
Thisobald carries his wine barrel throughout the fight. If you attack him with Fire, Ice, Electricity, Poison, or Necrotic damage, he will use his wine to return the attack tenfold. He will also start hallucinating through the fight and summon imps. Each imp will provide you with unique resistance against Thisobald Thorm’s attacks.
From the above-mentioned details, this fight seems all but impossible. However, this is not the case. The goal of this fight is to make Thisobald Thorm inebriated until he passes out. During this phase, he will become vulnerable to all the attacks he was previously immune to. His biggest strength will turn into his weakness.
To make Thisobald take a sip from his wine barrel, you must attack him with either Fire, Ice, Electricity, Poison, or Necrotic damage. His wine will catch the effect, and he will use it to deal a massive amount of damage to the party. Brace the attack by passing a Constitution Save. Once he starts drinking, attack him with neutral attacks like Psychic damage.
Once you survive three turns, Thisobald Thorm will pass out at the beginning of the fourth. At this point, he will become vulnerable to Slashing, Piercing, Bludgeoning, Thunder, Force, and Radiant damage. Exploit his weaknesses and hit him with your most powerful spells and attacks. He will take twice the normal damage from all attacks. Make sure that you kill him in this turn, or he will wake up fresh. You will need to do everything from scratch again, making all the effort worthless.
Another way is to start the fight after having a couple of drinks with Thisobald Thorm. Make sure you use Deception to throw away drinks while he gets intoxicated on his brew. Start the fight, and you will skip a few turns to make him black out.
Should you Drink with Thisobald Thorm or not?
While engaging with Thisobald Thorm in combat outright may seem attractive, going the passive route and drinking with him may prove very useful. When he offers you the drink, you can either drink it or mime it. Drinking will need you to pass a constitution saving throw, while you’ll need to pass a sleight of hand check with miming.
He will let go of his inhibition and reveal information about a secret relic that can prove useful during this act. He will also reveal information about General Ketheric Thorm, the main antagonist of Act 2.
Drinking also inspires Karlach and Lae’zel, so it has more advantages. It is important to note that you must roll your charisma and sleight of hand checks perfectly to make sure you trick him into thinking you’re drinking.
Rewards for defeating Thisobald Thorm
Once you’ve successfully defeated Thisobald Thorm, you can loot the Worn Key from his corpse. Use this key to open the door towards the end of the bar, which will lead you into a secret room. Inside, you’ll find the Punch-Drunk Bastard weapon, which deals 1D8+1 bludgeoning damage and an additional 1~4 thunder damage with each successful attack.
You will also find a recipe for Purple Worm Poison, a coating that can be applied to weapons. Doing so allows your melee weapons to inflict Purple Worm Toxin for ten turns. Looting his corpse will also give you other common items, including 41 gold, some spices, and many drinks.
Unlike the rest of his siblings (two more), you won’t get any achievement for killing Thisobald Thorm.
