Baldur’s Gate 3: How to defeat Raphael in the House of Hope in BG3

The House of Hope is one of the most intimidating locations in all of Baldur’s Gate 3. It’s the home of Raphael, and if you’re visiting there, then you will likely have to defeat him before you are able to leave.

In Act 3 of BG3, Raphael makes you an offer regarding the Crown of Karsus and Elder Brain. While you can fully take that deal in your playthrough, Raphael also holds the Orphic Hammer, which can free Prince Orpheus in the Astral Prism. If you want to side against Raphael, you need to travel to Avernus and his House of Hope to steal the hammer.

Naturally, this won’t make Raphael too happy, and he will travel down to hell to stop you dead in your tracks.

Related: Baldur’s Gate 3: How to get inside and disable the Steel Watch in BG3

Defeat Raphael in the House of Hope in Baldur’s Gate 3

For starters, Raphael has 666 HP no matter what difficulty you are playing on for the fight. He will also summon several other Cambion enemies that can do some massive damage to you and your party.

However, during the dialogue prior to the fight, you have the option to persuade Yurgir, the giant devil Raphael brings with him, to fight with you. This requires a persuasion roll of 30 and above, so I recommend saving right before the dice roll if you want to succeed. Also, if you chose to save the woman named Hope in the House of Hope, she will join you in the fight as well.

Now that we have the players in the fight out of the way, check out what I did to defeat Raphael.

• Your first step should be to destroy the four Soul Pillars in each corner of the room. Raphael draws power from each pillar and without them, he is weakened substantially.
• Don’t have Hope doing any attacking if you have her for the fight; strictly use her as a healing source, as your party will definitely need it.
• Once the Soul Pillars are down, I recommend killing all of the Cambions, and Yurgir if you didn’t recruit him, that Raphael brings to the fight before targeting Raphael. This allows your entire team to target Raphael at the same time without any interruption.
• If you don’t have Yurgir on your side, you can use a potion of See Invisibility or use a status effect on Yurgir to make him stop going invisible every turn.
• Raphael is resistant to fire, cold, lightning, and poison damage. I recommend hitting him with force, radiant, or necrotic damage if you’re using spells. For regular attacks, anything will work. Your main goal is to just whittle him down turn by turn.
• For reference, I used Gale’s Magic Missle, Astarion’s Eldritch Blast, my Paladin’s Divine Smite attacks, and Shadowheart’s Guiding Bolt to mainly damage Raphael. Then Yurgir, who I recruited to fight with me, also did moderate poison damage.
• When he gets to lower health, Raphael will transform into a stronger-looking devil, but you just need to keep attacking him after this happens.
• After around 5-10 minutes of only attacking Raphael, he finally fell with my entire party solely focused on him. He will try to fly away, but simply keep chasing him down.

This fight is one of the longest and toughest that Baldur’s Gate 3 has to offer. After Raphael is dead, loot his body to find the Helldusk Armor chest piece, and get the hell out of hell. You can find the rest of Helldusk Armor set before leaving, though, so make sure to read our guide on that.