A change to a Baldur's Gate 3 weapon that's a popular choice for cheesing bosses throughout the entire game appears to have gone undocumented by Larian, robbing one player of thousands of gold.
Twist of Fortune is a rare Baldur's Gate 3 weapon that's gained notoriety thanks to its unique ability, Blood Money, which does extra damage for every 300 gold the recipient of the attack is holding. The cheese was simple - sneak up to a boss, 'reverse pickpocket' them for as much money as you can stuff into their pockets, hit them with Blood Money, and watch a simple 1d8+3 Morningstar deal theoretically infinite damage in a single hit.
Blood Money was a widely-known cheese for pretty much any boss that you can reach before the fight, but I've heard of it being applied on everyone from Dror Ragzlin to Ketheric Thorm. As you get further through the game and find increasing quantities of cash, the sheer amount of damage you can put down only increases. Fill their pockets, remove all the gold, rinse and repeat.
At least, you used to be able to repeat, but it appears Larian has quietly done away with this particular exploit. In a recent post on Reddit, one player notes that they gave Shadowheart their Twist of Fortune as they descended into the Gauntlet of Shar. In there, during the Self-Same trial, the player says their Tav got one-shot by Shadowheart's clone. Tav had been holding 13,000 gold, so the damage came as little surprise, but their empty wallet a few hours later was a much bigger shock.
[Act III] I lost 13k gold in the dumbest way possible...from r/BaldursGate3
Finding their cash reserves nearly drained, the player double-checked Twist of Fortune, as well as Blood Money's passive ability, which now reads that any gold involved in the damage calculation "will be consumed." Clearly that's devastating, but doesn't seem to be a simple case of one player's carelessness - commenters under the post were also surprised by the change, and it also doesn't appear to have been directly documented by Larian.
I checked the Baldur's Gate 3 patch 5 notes, as well as the notes for Patch 4, and those of the game's three most-recent hotfixes. While Hotfix 13 does remove a trading exploit, there's no mention of Twist of Fortune or Blood Money in that update, nor in any of the others I searched through. The only relevant line I could find reads "information about damage dealt using gold is now displayed in a condensed form in the combat log," but that's not evidence that the function of this weapon has changed.
This wouldn't be the only undocumented change in the game - eagle-eyed players noticed that Patch 5 offered plenty of extra combat changes, including one that hit Pact of the Blade Warlocks pretty hard. Nevertheless, a subclass tweak might quietly affect an entire playthrough, but it doesn't rob you of your savings right around the midpoint of the entire campaign. It's 50/50 as to which one is worse, but personally I'd rather keep the cash, thanks.
Baldur's Gate 3 tops the list of our best games 2023.
