A Baldur's Gate 3 fan has lost an Honour Mode run they spent over 50 hours on not to a demanding boss or anything like that, but a wee bit of rain.
The critically acclaimed RPG Baldur's Gate 3 has had many updates – with its final one having been released this past April – that have brought many new features and challenges to the game. One of the early additions was the unforgiving game mode known as Honour Mode, released with Patch 5 back in November 2023.
Honour Mode offers players a simple, yet grueling challenge: beat the game without dying, or forfeit. Since its introduction to the game, it remains the subject of the second rarest achievement for Baldur's Gate 3 on Steam, with only 2.5% of players having achieved this feat globally.
Despite its elusive nature, that doesn't stop players from engaging in the somewhat masochistic endeavor. One particular player, however, shared how their Honour Mode run came to a devastating end in a way that would undoubtedly cause many players to throw their PC out a window.
Redditor MmmYesCheesyBoi shared in the Baldur's Gate 3 subreddit their tale of disaster: a 50-hour Honour Mode run ruined by a small oversight. During the battle against Ansur – an absolute tank of a dragon, mind you – the player made one critical error that they didn't even notice at first.
Explaining their fight strategy before the moment of demise, Karlach had managed to get Ansur down to 1 HP, but this triggered the dragon to gain another 100 HP and caused a Stormheart Nova. The Stormheart Nova causes the entire AOE to get hit with lightning. With everyone else's actions exhausted for the turn and Karlach being the heavy-hitter, the player gave her an Elixir of Lightning Resistance, and figured with 97 HP left, she would make it out of the attack okay.
Well, MmmYesCheesyBoi failed to take into account one thing: Karlach was wet. In Honour Mode, the rain during Ansur's fight isn't cosmetic like it is in other difficulties, and has tangible effects. This meant Karlach was covered in a conduit for electricity and while the elixir grants resistance to lightning and protects from being shocked, electrocuted, or jolted, the wet status makes the player vulnerable to lightning.
That wet status had unknowingly sealed the player's fate, the elixir not powerful enough to counteract the wet status effect, and the rest of the party's HP was low enough that the attack would kill them regardless of extra protections. When MmmYesCheesyBoi was met with the dreaded Game Over screen, they were initially confused. Once they realized their mistake, however, they took to Reddit to lament the tragedy, and stated, "Safe to say I'm going to cry myself to sleep tonight."
A devastating mistake that future Honour Mode hopefuls should take into account. Baldur's Gate 3's Honour Mode isn't for the faint of heart, and future players looking to try their hand should remember that water is far deadlier than it appears.
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