Baldur’s Gate 3 is chock-full of missable content. The unique trait you can receive after a successful encounter with the Slack-Skinned Head is no different, as you’ll need to explore a room full of enemies, solve a puzzle, and interact with an NPC to get it.
Near the end of Act Two, you can meet the Slack-Skinned Head, who’ll extend an offer to you. Make the right decision, and one of your characters might just obtain a permanent trait that gives them an advantage on Intelligence saving throws, which is quite useful for NPC interactions and combat.
Where To Find The Slack Skinned-Head
You can find the Slack-Skinned Head inside the Mindflayer Colony during Act Two. To access this area, you must first defeat Ketheric Thorm on the roof of the Moonrise Towers and follow him after he runs away, leading you to a place below the Hollow Tower.
Right after making your way into the Mindflayer Colony by jumping through the Hollow Tower’s hole, go to the southwest corner of the map. This will lead you to the Necrotic Laboratory, where the Slack-Skinned Head is located (coordinates = X: 696 and Y: -117).
The Necrotic Laboratory is guarded by a group of Winged Horrors and Zombies that, unlike most other NPCs in the Mindflayer Colony, will attack you on sight. Make sure you’re prepared for a long, drawn-out battle before entering this area.
After defeating the enemies, you can now talk to the Slack-Skinned Head. You can do this by picking up a “mind” such as the True Mind and the Willing Mind (both of which are located near the Slack-Skinned Head) and putting them in the Mind-Archive Interface.
Upon interacting with the Slack-Skinned Head, you’ll find that the minds scattered all over the map are the previous consciousnesses of people who have been abducted by the Absolute’s cult.
None of the minds you can pick up near the Slack-Skinned Head are completely cognizant of their situation; however, you still have to find the correct mind that will fully converse with you and give you the offer, which is the Waking Mind.
To find the Waking Mind, you’ll have to open the Flesh-Wrought Door by solving the neural connection puzzle located further south of the Necrotic Laboratory.
After solving the puzzle, you’ll be able to loot the Waking Mind from the other side of the door, along with a few decent equipment pieces.
Accepting The Slack-Skinned Head’s Offer
Putting the Waking Mind in the Mind-Archive Interface will change the Slack-Skinned Head’s consciousness to that of a Zerai warrior who has been captured by the Illithid and kept as a trophy.
One of the dialogue options will allow you to catch the Waking Mind in a lie and press it to reveal the truth as to how it was really captured by the Illithid, but this won’t affect the outcome of the encounter whatsoever.
After going through the Waking Mind’s dialogue options, it will then offer its psionic knowledge in exchange for you purging its mind with your parasite, basically killing it and ending its torturous existence.
This psionic knowledge will manifest in your character as a permanent trait called the Githzerai Mind Barrier, which gives you an advantage on Intelligence saving throws.
Before talking to the Slack-Skinned Head via the Waking Mind, switch to the character that you want to receive the Githzerai Mind Barrier first, as this trait cannot be transferred later on.
Rejecting The Slack-Skinned Head’s Offer
You may also reject the Waking Mind’s offer by leaving it alone or consuming its mind instead of purging it.
Be warned, however, that you gain absolutely nothing by doing any of this—except, of course, the personal satisfaction of picking the “evil” option and either the approval or disapproval of some of your party members.
Unless you’re doing an evil playthrough and don’t care enough about the advantage on Intelligence saving throws that the Githzerai Mind Barrier provides, it is highly advisable that you purge the Waking Mind’s consciousness as opposed to doing anything else.
After all, you won’t be able to revisit this content after delving further into Act Two’s finale.
How To Fix The Slack-Skinned Head Bug
There’s the potential that you may encounter a bug while interacting with the Slack-Skinned Head, which soft-locks the game and leaves it unresponsive.
If you encounter this bug, you should rerun the game in DirectX 11 instead of Vulcan. Potentially, this will not only fix the bug but also increase Baldur Gate 3’s overall FPS moving forward.
Other players also recommend talking to party members, saving and reloading, or checking the game files’ integrity to fix this bug. Feel free to try all of these and see what works.