In this Baldur’s Gate 3 guide, we’ll walk you through finding all 23 keys, alongside contents of safes and vaults. Lets dive in.
Key Types & Accessing Counting House
The Counting House in the Lower City has an ungodly amount of confusingly labelled keys, and finding them all naturally is a challenge. These keys can be used to unlock secure storage vaults and safes in the secure basement area of the Counting House.
There are three types of storage in the basement:
1. Safes (8 in total)
2. Vaults (6 in total)
3. High Security Vaults (9 in total)
Uktar, Nine-fingers’ guild bursar will offer a reward for finding and bringing all 9 High Security Vault keys to him in the Guildhall. Other than this, finding all of the keys is not necessary with a reasonable sleight of hand skill, but for those who want to try anyway, a complete list is below.
In order to access the Counting House secure area, you will need a temporary pass from Head Clerk Meadhoney, obtained by either dialogue options or pickpocketing.
There are a number of books around the Counting House area which list who owns the contents of each safe or vault to give a clue as to where the keys might be. These include the books in front of the clerks, and one on a table to the right as you walk into the main hall.
Safe Keys
The room with the safes is at the bottom of the stairs as you enter the vault area on the right hand side, with the wrought iron walls.
- Safe keys generally use the “filigree gold key” image and have “an elaborately gilded key” in their description (as of patch 3)
- There is no door to get into the safe areas, but gaseous form (using the”fly” ability to move), or any teleport will work
- Safes 1-3, safe 4, safe 5, and safes 6-8 are each in their own walled-off area, so you will need to use multiple movement abilities to get all of them
- Safe 4 really is empty as the accounting ledger in the main hall suggests, so it’s not necessary to waste resource to get into that area unless you want the full completion.
- There are two chests in the room in addition to the safes with some potions and valuables – one as you come in, and one in the corner of the restricted area to the left as you enter, next to Safe no. 1
Safe Key Locations, Owners and Safe Contents
Note 1: Safe Key no.1 is in the opulent chest behind the secret panel on the left of the ballroom opposite the path to the office. Button to open the panel is in the tower room to the right of the ballroom by the stage.
Regular Vault Keys
The room with the regular vaults is is at the bottom of the stairs as you enter the vault area on the left hand side, with the large arcane traps on the floor.
- Regular vault keys all use the “filigree gold key” image and have “an elaborately gilded key” in their description (as of patch 3)
- The traps will teleport you back out of the room if you run in, and can be disabled by hitting the buttons on each side of the room.
- They can be turned off by shooting or otherwise activating the buttons on either side of the room at the point where the two circles overlap (magic missile can help with lines of sight but it is very easily possible to position archers too)
Regular Vault Key Locations, Owners and Vault Contents
High Security Vault Keys
The room with high security vaults is beyond the lightning-powered code door. There is an unavoidable combat and some quest events which will need to be addressed before you can open the vaults.
- High Security Vault keys generally use the “filigree silver key” image.
- The key for High Security Vault no.1 is called “Heavy Iron Key” for some reason
- Using these keys to open vaults will not remove them from your inventory, so they can still be turned in to Utgar. Utgar will not react any differently to receiving keys even if you have already cleared out the relevant vault.
- Utgar will give you some gold for each High Security Vault Key you bring him, and a small bonus at the end for completing all 9, but this is not essential. Note that this seems to be bugged for a lot of people.
- High Security Vaults can also be openly lockpicked without the guards turning hostile, however, knock will not work on them.
- Previously, High Security Vault keys were labelled “Counting House Vault x Key” and regular vault keys were labelled “Counting House Vault No.x Key”, but this has been amended to be clearer following patch 3
- ETA: There are two enemies who may not join combat and will just sit there under InV which is not picked up by See Invisibility. They are also under the Sanctuary spell and can’t be targeted directly. They do, however, have an offensive aura, so if you run around and see a debuff appear in the back end of the areas with the desks, hit the area with an AoE or Cleave/Sweeping Attack to aggro and clear out the last two hostiles. This isn’t necessary and is nothing to do with the keys, it just annoyed me personally so I’m on a mission to make them die as many times as possible.
High Security Vault Key Locations, Owners and Contents
High Security Vault no.9 is positioned behind the very large safe door right at the back of the vault room, where the intruders will escape to with the bank funds before you can kill them. Rakath Glitterbeard has this key and will give it as a quest reward if you don’t want to pickpocket.
And that wraps up our share on Counting House Keys and Contents Guide. If you have any additional insights or tips to contribute, don’t hesitate to drop a comment below. For a more in-depth read, you can refer to the original article here by TrashQueen, who deserves all the credit. Happy gaming!