Hirelings in Baldur's Gate 3 explained

Baldur's Gate 3 hirelings — (Image credit: Larian)

Baldur’s Gate 3’s hirelings have got you covered if there's a gap in your party that you're looking to fill. These undead NPCs, recruited for 100 gold apiece from Withers, are effectively blank slate characters of various races and classes that you can summon and put into your party instead of an origin character.

It allows for some wild party comps and combinations – want four Barbarians? You’ve got it, for the low price of 300 gold (or 200 if you already have Karlach). Read on and find out more about hirelings and how they work!

How do you get Hirelings in BG3 and what do they do?

Hirelings are resurrected warriors that can fight alongside you. Once you unlock Withers at your camp, either by completing the BG3 Dank Crypt dungeon or just by waiting it out, you'll be able to pay the mysterious man to recruit an extra pair of hands to help out. Simply speak to Withers and hand over the coin to choose your Hireling.

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Being undead soldiers, if your Hirelings die in battle, they die for good. You'll have to recruit a new one if that happens, but luckily, Withers has quite a few on hand.

So, what are Hirelings actually useful for? We have no shortage of Baldur's Gate 3 companions, so why would we want to swap one of them out for a Hireling? Well, the Hirelings are useful just in case one of your cohort ends up dead for good and you need to make up the ranks. Sure, Withers can resurrect party members in Baldur's Gate 3, but only under certain conditions. If any of your party end up dying by your hand (a very real possibility if you're playing a BG3 Dark Urge) or if they are killed by one another, Withers could refuse to resurrect them at all. That makes his supply of Level 1 undead soldiers just that much more useful.

You can also use Hirelings to try out different playstyles before asking Withers to help you out with a class respec in Baldur's Gate 3. Monks, Paladins, and Sorcerors don't feature in your core group of companions, so if you're curious about the powers they might hold, taking a Hireling out for a test drive could prove very educational. You can even respec and multiclass them, like any other character, if you want to try out a wild build. At the end of the day, though, Hirelings are temporary foot soldiers that you can take or leave in Baldur's Gate 3.

Jasmine is a Senior Staff Writer at GamesRadar+. Raised in Hong Kong and having graduated with an English Literature degree from Queen Mary, University of London, she started her games journalism career as a freelancer with TheGamer and Tech Radar Gaming before joining GamesRadar+ full-time in 2023. As part of the Features team, her duties include attending game previews and key international conferences such as Gamescom and Digital Dragons in between regular interviews, opinion pieces, and the occasional news or guides stint. In her spare time, you'll likely find Jasmine thinking/talking about Resident Evil, purchasing another book she's unlikely to read, or complaining about the weather.