Baldur's Gate 3 Honour Mode explained

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Honour Mode is the Baldur's Gate 3 answer to hardcore mode with permadeath and one save slot

Baldur's Gate 3 Honour mode
(Image credit: Larian)

The Baldur’s Gate 3 Honour Mode difficulty option is the ultimate challenge for those seasoned veterans of Faerun. The mode, added as part of BG3's Patch 5, tasks players with completing the game with only one slot, as well as permadeath, among other nasty features sure to catch players out. However, there's special rewardd If you want to experience Baldur’s Gate 3 in its most brutal form, then you need to check out Honour Mode. Here’s how it works.

How Honour Mode works in Baldur's Gate 3

Baldur's Gate 3 Honour Mode difficulty overview

(Image credit: Larian Studios)

Honour Mode is a new difficulty option for Baldur's Gate 3 that adds tougher bosses, stricter rules, a single save slot, and permadeath if you suffer a Total Party Kill. It builds on the game's Tactician difficulty, which already makes things plenty harder, so it's an unrelenting experience for seasoned players. If you persevere and complete the whole game on Honour Mode, you'll be rewarded with an opulent Golden D20 to use in-game. Not a real D20, sadly.

Honour Mode is available to all players from the start of the game. You don't need to complete the whole of Baldur's Gate 3 to unlock it or anything like that, though I strongly advise against it for first-time players. To activate it on the Baldur's Gate 3 difficulty selection screen, scroll to the right, as Honour Mode is next to Tactician. Do note that you also can't activate Honour Mode on a game that you've already started – it's for new campaigns only.

Here's what to expect when you start a new campaign with Honour Mode active:

  • Single save: Your Honour Mode campaign has only one save slot that is always overwritten. That means you can't reload a previous save and must commit to every decision you make. You also can’t reload in-game – you have to go back to the main menu, which, you guessed it, overwrites your save.
  • Party permadeath: If your entire party falls in combat (individual characters can still be resurrected if they die), your Honour Mode campaign ends, presenting you with a stat summary of how far you made it. You have the option to continue your campaign in the new Baldur's Gate 3 Custom Mode instead, though if you go on to complete the game, this will not count as an Honour Mode completion.
  • Legendary Actions for bosses: The most powerful bosses in Baldur's Gate 3 now have Legendary Actions (just like in regular D&D) and new abilities to make them even more devastating in combat. Legendary Actions are extra actions that powerful foes can use at the end of a player character's turn – not during their regular turn in the initiative order. More actions mean they're a lot more deadly! For more info about how this works, check out this page on Baldur's Gate 3 Legendary Actions.
  • Tactician rules: As mentioned, Honour Mode builds off Tactician. This difficulty features increased enemy health, greater enemy spell and weapon variety, more efficient enemy combat tactics, and a +2 bonus to all enemy rolls and Difficulty Classes. Items are also more expensive to buy from vendors and less valuable when selling. Finally, Long Rests now require 80 supplies instead of 40.
  • Even stricter rules: On top of the Tactician rules, there are tougher restrictions on action economy and damage bonuses towards the end of the game. Larian Studios has said that certain "unintended exploits" have also been fixed for Honour Mode specifically.

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Will Sawyer
Will Sawyer
Guides Editor, GamesRadar+

Will Sawyer is a Guides Editor at GamesRadar+ with over five years of experience in writing online guides, news, and features, and has a BA (Hons) in Journalism. Starting as a freelancer, Will contributed to startmenu and Game Rant before joining the GamesRadar+ team in August 2021. Since then, he has written hundreds of guides about a huge range of games, with shooters and action games being his areas of expertise. Outside of writing about games, Will hops between multiplayer shooters with friends, such as Darktide and Helldivers 2, and delves into whatever has been on his backlog for far too long. He also tries to get through his never-ending Warhammer pile of shame of grey Tyranids, Aeldari, and Chaos Space Marines.

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