The Toll House in Baldur’s Gate 3 is where you help Karlach fight the Paladins of Tyr who are hunting her.
After killing them and letting Karlach run around the building, you likely want to go through and loot what you can when the flames die down. In that case, you’ll likely end up in the toll house basement, where a locked door blocks your way.
Getting the Toll Collector’s Key
This step isn’t necessary, but it takes almost no time to make a stop between where you pick up Karlach and the Toll House in order to grab the Toll Collector’s Key, which is just sitting on the ground out in the open.
Use your keybinding that shows items in the area, which for me is the Alt Key, as I play with keyboard and mouse. Without toggling that on, you’ll have a tough time grabbing the key because it’s so small.
You don’t have to stop to grab the key. It’s possible to lockpick the door open or have a spellcaster use Knock to open it. However, the key lets you in without the chance of a dice roll or using a spell, so it’s nice to have. Plus, you pass the key getting Karlach, so you might as well pick it up.
Entering and Exploring the Basement
Time to head to the Toll House. If this is your first visit, prepare to fight a group of paladins. I recommend climbing the ladder and being stealthy so that you can sneak attack and likely kill in one hit the paladin that leaves the house as part of their patrol route. This gives you one less enemy to worry about during the big battle.
If Karlach is in your party, she celebrates killing the paladins. Wait for her to finish and the fires to die down to avoid burn damage. Then, go back inside the Toll House for loot. Across from the desk in the main room, you’ll see a hatch. Use it to enter the basement.
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Here, you find the dead Toll Collector and a locked door. The key from earlier lets you open it without an issue. If you don’t have the key, then lockpick the door open or use Knock on it. Don’t rush inside. Instead, send your character with the highest Perception score into the room first.
From this point on, each room in the basement is filled with traps. You can—and should—disarm them, as the paths are so narrow that it’s difficult to walk around them without triggering them. I like to clear out the traps and then open the chests, because characters can choose unusual paths to get to targets and end up setting off traps if you haven’t disarmed them already.
You’ll reach a wall that clearly has a hidden door to another path, but without a clear way to open it. You need to separate two of your party members and have them sit on the chairs on either side of that doorway.
This opens the way to another trapped room with a lot of gold and some nice items you can pick up. Watch out for the long trap platform that stretches across the entrance, which can be difficult to spot and disarm depending on your camera angle.
Unlike other rooms, you want to watch where you stand even with the traps disarmed. A large portion of the room has a pool on the floor that gives you a Simple Toxin debuff, causing a small amount of periodic damage while you stand in that pool. Once you clear that room, there’s not much else to grab from the Toll House, so it’s time to leave.
