5,000 gold, 2,500 hours, and one priceless scroll: Baldur's Gate 3 player cooks up a "Midas run" by turning the RPG's bosses into solid gold trophies, because "why not"

Many players will overcome Baldur's Gate 3's greediest boss, Gerringothe Thorm, by charming, killing, or simply avoiding her. But if you're generous enough to bribe your way through the tollkeeper's encounter with at least 5,000 gold, you can bag one of the rarest spells in the whole RPG: Flesh to Gold. Gerringothe's scroll is the only way to use this spell, which can turn nearly anything into an immobile hunk of solid gold, and you only get one scroll per playthrough. This would make it difficult to, say, turn most of the bosses in Act 3 into gilded trophies – but not impossible, as one player proved in their recent "Midas run."

Our gilded hero, Reddit user NnmnsP, first developed a taste for all things glittering after successfully turning Myrkul into gold in Act 2. Sadly, "Myrkul seems to be coded to not be permanently gold," they reported. "Every time he failed spell DC at stage 3, his 'turned to gold' condition is removed."

Their interest piqued, NnmnsP set about turning every Act 3 boss into a trophy worthy of the drawing room cabinet. A few bosses are immune to this particular status, so not everyone could actually be gilded. Baldur's Gate 3 tragically doesn't let you pick up and transport golden bosses, either. (Get on it, Larian!) But that didn't stop NnmnsP from giving the Midas Touch to dragons, wizards, robots, demons, and plenty of other villains.

I reached out to NnmnsP primarily to ask the two questions that usually come up with player-created challenge runs like this: why and how? "At first, this [was a] Lae’zel origin run," they explain. "I didn’t intend to make it a Midas run but when clearing out scrolls, wares, and junks in inventory, this pink scroll I never ever used in my 2500ish hours playtime is still there, so I thought why not use it." Why not: the reasoning behind many of mankind's greatest advancements.

As promised, all bosses in act 3 got tuned into gold from r/BaldursGate3

As you may have guessed, NnmnsP had to carefully reload saves after gilding bosses in order to collect as many gold trophies as possible. Flesh to Gold can only be used once and can't be learned by spellcasters since the "Signed Trade Visa" isn't technically a spell scroll, and Flesh to Stone just doesn't have the same glam to it.

On top of that, it turns out solid gold is really hard – literally, as a material. Gold bosses have extremely high resistances and don't necessarily die from being gilded. Whittling them down the old-fashioned way takes some serious patience, assuming it's possible at all, so NnmnsP opted to get their golden screenshots and then reload a save, recycling the same scroll boss over boss while still forming a digital gallery of trophies

"The most interesting target I could find is Myrkul," they say. "As you could see from my previous post, I really enjoyed it and the gold texture looks cool. The idea of turning every worthy enemy into gold started at that point. My conditions are easy, as long as bosses aren’t coded to be impossible to [be turned] into stone or gold (Raphael has special passive and Ansur can lose condition even fail saving throws like Myrkul), I have to reload every time they succeed saving throws.

"I’m a bit sad that I can’t collect them as gold statues," they add. "They can’t be moved by force at all. Once you kill them in gold form, their remains are like corpses [hit with] Disintegrate. I mean, I could try turning Elder Brain into gold too but that’s too risky."

Of all the gildable bosses, Viconia was apparently the most difficult to pull off. "She starts the fight with Sanctuary and has tons of Sharran with her," NnmnsP explains. "Trying to bait her to get Sanctuary blocked while clearing Sharran is quite something. Normal bosses took around 5-6 turns of combat due to high spell DC and my attempt to reduce their saving throws (Phalar Aluve for example). This run is more like a speed run, about 35 hours. Golden challenge took maybe half of that. Act 3 is huge."

Niche runs like this are often fragmented, buried, or simply go unreported, so I'm generally hesitant to declare anyone the first to do something. But after some research, I certainly haven't found evidence of anyone else turning every feasible Act 3 boss in Baldur's Gate 3 into solid gold. Can't think why! To NnmnsP goes the crown. If anyone else wants to claim it, you'd best come equipped with a spell save bonus.

Stardew Valley player bringing a bit of Baldur's Gate 3 to ConcernedApe's farming sim, now with Larian's seal of approval, says they've played over 1,500 hours and will improve the mod.