Some bosses in Baldur’s Gate 3 are too much of a pain to deal with compared to others, especially if those bosses teleport and frequently jostles your party member with the lowest AC. It becomes even more painful when they start summoning extra targets for you to shoot at.
That boss is the Phase Spider Matriarch, it keeps to itself until you decide to knock its doors down. But you’re reading this guide because you know that if there’s a boss, there’s something valuable nearby. Read the rest of the guide if you want to know how to gain the upper hand during the encounter!
How to Defeat the Spider Matriarch Easily
The Phase Spider Matriarch will be guarding the back end of the Whispering Depths. There’s two ways to enter this cavern, both of them can be accessed from the Blighted Village. You can either use the well or the shabby wooden doors.
Do note that the first strike you take on the beast will matter the most as that will drain a good portion of its health. You’ll be making good use of Karlach or Lae’zel here by sending either one of them to the lower levels of the lair. But Astarion and Gale will have their own uses as well.
The Setup
Before you start swinging for the fences, it is imperative that you give the matriarch a little bit of a disadvantage. There’s a total of seventeen Phase Spider Eggs scattered around her lair. She’ll be more than happy to use all of those to quickly turn the tide against you.
Get rid of those by throwing a bottle of Alchemist’s Fire without alerting the other spiders. You can also hit them individually with a ranged attack if you want to be really quiet.
There are two more nests near the matriarch, they’ll be too far away for your effective range. That means you’ll have to step on the webs to get closer, which means there’s a chance of you getting caught.
Luckily you can grab the Spiderstep Boots and use them to safely cross and get rid of the rest of the eggs. You could find these boots inside near the entrance if you descended from the well.
You’ve already won now that the eggs are gone, now win even more by sending Karlach to the lower levels. Make sure she goes to the back of the lair, bypassing one of the Phase Spiders.
You’d want the second spider to get close to where you positioned Karlach so that you won’t use too much movement to secure a hit. Before you start, have the spider matriarch stand on one of its webs.
The Battle
Now that you’re all ready to go, have Gale hurl a Fireball towards the matriarch, because the end result of your fight depends on the entrance that you make. This will surprise everyone, leaving you an extra turn to deal extra damage.
Have Astarion snipe one of the lesser spiders below, if you’re lucky you’ll get the job done in one hit. If not, have Karlach kill it instead and reposition her directly beneath the matriarch. If you’re level 5 that means that your barbarian will have an extra action.
Use that action to damage the remaining phase spider or attack the spiderweb where the matriarch is standing.
This will send her tumbling down, dealing a decent amount of fall damage. Yes it’s weird that a spider takes fall damage, you make do with what you get.
So that’s three members of your party who already sent a clear message to the matriarch. You still have one more, this can be an origin character or one of your own personal creations. In my case, I’m a Wild Magic Sorcerer, which gives me sorcery points and access to Metamagic.
You can make use of the Quickened Spell Metamagic and send in another fireball nuke as a bonus action. If that doesn’t get the job done then you’re bad with magic, but feel free to send in one more fireball again if overkill isn’t an issue.
We’re still on the same turn and the matriarch is almost dead, not only that but it still won’t be able to move. Just to make sure that you get through the spider’s AC, have Karlach use Reckless Attack.
At this point, you can just hurl any level two spell at it and let Karlach finish things off once a new turn starts.
If you have Wyll in your party, you can use his Repelling Blast. This sends her flying to the chasm below when you use it along with Eldritch Blast.
This skips out the fight entirely if you do it stealthily, here’s what you can get from the Phase Spider Matriarch if you decide to beat her to a pulp fairly.
And that’s how you defeat the Phase Spider Matriarch in Baldur’s Gate 3. Now you can get the real loot the spider was guarding, the Dark Amethyst! Keep that on you if you want to be able to Read the Necromancy of Thay.
ALSO READ: Baldur’s Gate 3: How to Get Viconia’s Walking Fortress Legendary Shield
