Legendary Actions in Baldur's Gate 3 explained

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Legendary Actions explained
What enemies have Legendary Actions?

Baldur’s Gate 3’s legendary actions add a delightful wrinkle to the already extremely tough Honour Mode. Not content with limiting you to one save slot and adding permadeath on a party wipe, you’ll also have to contend with new attacks and actions from the game’s toughest enemies. Oh, and they can take them on turns other than their own! Here’s everything you need to know about legendary actions and what they do.

Baldur's Gate 3 Legendary Actions in boss fights explained

Legendary Actions are a part of the Baldur's Gate 3 Honour Mode difficulty added as part of Patch 5, that have the following changes on gameplay:

All major bosses in Baldur's Gate 3 have "Legendary Actions".
Legendary Actions are unique moves that have a specific trigger that sets them off.
Because Legendary Actions are usually in some way triggered by the player or their allies, bosses can use Legendary Actions on other characters' turns, as it's a response to behaviour.
These moves use up a limited pool of "Legendary Actions" that reset on the boss's turn, similar to Reactions. However, they are different and distinct from Reactions and Standard Actions.
Every boss has their own specific Legendary Actions unique to them, that you can see by examining them.
Legendary Actions are only included in Honour Mode - in all other difficulties, they are not present.

Legendary Actions in BG3 are basically an attempt to make the game more difficult in an interesting way, mimicking a rule in D&D wherein powerful monsters can take certain actions on other players' turns too. It's supposed to balance out the whole "one supposedly tough monster getting whaled on by 3-6 people in a row" thing, though Baldur's Gate 3 making Legendary Actions conditional is an interesting change that gives more scope for tactical thinking.

What enemies have Legendary Actions?

BG3 Builds

Baldur's Gate 3 Wizard
Baldur's Gate 3 Barbarian
Baldur's Gate 3 Fighter
Baldur's Gate 3 Rogue
Baldur's Gate 3 Ranger

All the major boss fights in Baldur's Gate 3 have legendary actions, and as mentioned, you can check to see what those actions are by right-clicking them. However, regular enemies won't have them - these are specifically for powerful entities worthy of being called "Legendary." In the early game, such bosses will include the infamous Baldur's Gate 3 hag Auntie Ethel, the Phase Spider Matriarch, and the Baldur's Gate 3 owlbear - basically any enemy who feels meaningfully unique in some way.

Legendary Actions are also thematically appropriate to the boss in some clear way - for example, the Owlbear summons her mate to aid her in the fight, and the Phase Spider Matriarch wraps up people in webbing before spawning in more baby spiders.

Joel Franey is a writer, journalist, podcaster and Very Tired Man with a BA from Brunel University, a Masters from Sussex University and a decade working in games journalism, often focused on guides coverage but also in reviews, features and news. His love of games is strongest when it comes to groundbreaking narratives like Disco Elysium, UnderTale and Baldur's Gate 3, as well as innovative or refined gameplay experiences like XCOM, Sifu, Arkham Asylum or Slay the Spire. He is a firm believer that the vast majority of games would be improved by adding a grappling hook, and if they already have one, they should probably add another just to be safe. You can find old work of his at Eurogamer, Gfinity, USgamer, SFX Magazine, RPS, Dicebreaker, VG247, and more.

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