Death Shepherds are one of the most difficult enemies you face in Baldur’s Gate 3 Act 1. There are a few ways to beat or avoid them, but I’ll leave it up to you to choose how you want to engage.
Best combat strategies to beat Death Shepherds in Baldur’s Gate 3
After combing Reddit, the best strategy I found for defeating Death Shepherds is to pick up the bodies of dead Ghouls. Watch out for being encumbered, but by picking up the Ghouls, the Death Shepherds can’t resurrect them over and over again which makes them a lot easier to defeat. It won’t matter if you have the Enemy of Justice status effect or not since the Death Shepherds attack on sight.
I didn’t know about the body pickup strategy when I beat the Death Shepherds. Instead, I used AoE spells like Fireball to deal high damage to the groups of Ghouls. Get your high single-target damage dealers, like the best Shadowheart build, up close to the Death Shepherds. Use Radiant damage to deal more damage to the Death Shepherds.
Know that they take half damage for Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing damage, which is all the melee damage types, so utilize spells like Moonbeam, Guiding Bolt, and Spirit Guardians. Radiant damage is the way to go.
Best stealth strategies to avoid Death Shepherds in Baldur’s Gate 3
The Death Shepherds fight is fun, but it doesn’t give you amazing weapons or XP. There’s no shame in avoiding the fight entirely to get to Act 2. To do this, you can use the Misty Step and/or Dimensional Door spell or scroll to get your party past the Death Shepherds without them knowing. They cover a large area, so this technique is tricky. I recommend holding the Shift key to see where the enemies are looking before teleporting past them.
Another strategy is to turn your entire party invisible by throwing an invisibility potion on the ground while all your party members are in a circle. If you do this, make sure to enable turn-based mode so you can sneak past the Death Shepherds without the invisibility wearing off.
Whether you pick up the Ghouls, use Radiant damage, teleport, or sneak past with invisibility, there are a lot of ways to best the Death Shepherds. Your next challenge is learning how to negate the Shadow Curse in Act 2.
