With Baldur’s Gate 3 being such a systems-heavy game, it can be difficult to master. Thankfully, we have superb Baldur’s Gate 3 tips and tricks to help you get ahead in combat, exploration and more. Whether you’re new to the game or returning to it after the subsequent patches, we’ve got what you need to turn your character from a nervous sellsword into a career adventurer brimming with confidence.
Due to the game’s huge depth, we’ve had to narrow down our tips to the most useful ones, as otherwise the list would be hundreds long. Our essential Baldur's Gate 3 advice will help you defeat goblins, hags, the undead, and more, as well as showing you how to best equip your rag-tag team of misfits.
1. Spread out in combat, and use cover and high ground
You may feel like you should stick together and do an epic, back-to-back hero fight with the rest of your companions against the forces of evil, but we advise you to do the opposite during Baldur's Gate 3 combat. Why? For two simple reasons…
The first is that the more bunched up you are, the easier it is for enemy spellcasters or rogues to use items or powerful Baldur's Gate 3 spells like Grease, Oil and more to inconvenience you all. You really don’t want everyone in your team to get caught up in a grease fire, trust us. If you’re spread out, there is less chance for all of your party to be hit. Which leads us to our second point - strategizing. The further apart you are - though, to be clear, your party should be nearby - the more room there is to strategize where you want your companions to go.
Having the high ground is crucial – be like Obi-Wan in your fights, as it keeps you out of melee range and line of sight. For example, Lae’zel with a bow? She has a superior jumping ability to get on the higher ground faster, and she should. This approach complements Astarion's sneaking abilities, which can take our enemies that Lae’zel misses down on the ground.
2. When in doubt, hide!
Believe it or not, enemies can jump out of nowhere at times and leave you feeling uncertain on what to do next. Sometimes it can mean certain death and having to quickly work out how to revive dead characters in Baldur's Gate 3, especially if you haven’t had a short or long rest in a long time. If you’re unsure what’s ahead of you, the best option is to go and stealth your way through.
If there are enemies about, then turn on combat time, wait for 6 seconds and then move when you feel that you aren’t going to be spotted. Sometimes you’re able to bypass whole swathes of combat like this, and while you may feel you aren’t getting as much fights in your game, finding some sweet loot more than makes up for it. Remember: you don’t need to fight every enemy that the game throws at you! Besides, you don’t have to leave the fights for good - you can always come back later and pick the stragglers up!
3. Examine your weapons and armor carefully
All your team will have strengths and weaknesses with different items so make sure you pay attention to things like what Baldur's Gate 3 weapons and armor they're using. Plus, some gear just has basic pros and cons for whoever's using it. For example, playing as a Fighter with chainmail? Sure, you’ve got a higher AC (Armour Class), but you also have a -1 in your Stealth. So maybe don’t try and hide next to your Rogue, because you’re going to end up screwing both of you over.
The same goes for weapons. Weapon proficiency lets you know what weapons you can and can’t wield without putting yourself at a disadvantage. While you can equip weapons that you’re not proficient with, it will give your characters some serious disadvantages that, in the vast majority of cases, just aren’t worth it. Seriously, don’t buy something that you end up not even being able to use effectively. It really sucks!
4. Try to complement your team with a good balance of abilities
Knowing which companions in Baldur's Gate 3 work best together is important. If you have a team of all tank-like classes with zero healing or ranged spells, it’s not going to go well against a more varied team of enemies.
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with having another companion similar to you, but keep in mind that having a good selection of melee and range abilities will make even the hardest fights that much simpler. For the best Baldur's Gate 3 party composition, check out our guide!
5. Keep an eye on your character sheet
You don't need to know Dungeons and Dragons well to play Baldur’s Gate 3, but it’s still helpful to check on your character sheet. It’ll have your stats that and will let you see what Baldur's Gate 3 skills you have proficiency in, and what you’re most likely to succeed in when you give that dice a roll. For example, a dexterity of 16 will give you +3 to all Dexterity based skills, and that's even before you get proficiency bonuses on them. It’s important to be aware of what your character is bad at, too, as you can get significant maluses on rolls with low stats. At the most extreme ending, a skill of 1 can give you a -5 to all rolls using that skill!
The character sheet also provided helpful information about how much damage you can do with your weapons, as well as your armor class/AC. This allows you to plan which character can go up front and handle the most damage, while seeing who's best at the back, where their lower AC isn’t so much of a problem.
Your character sheet provides other intel, too - like your spells, the actions you can take, and your spell DC (Difficulty Class). There’s a load of information there so play around with it and see what helps you!
6. Shove and throw everything if it helps
When it comes to combat you’ve got a whole party of different abilities to choose from - from simply hacking at enemies, shooting them with arrows, to setting them on fire with magic and more.
But combat doesn’t just stop here. If the enemy is off the ground you might find a perfect opportunity to shove them off a ledge to their death below. While you may also shove them into unreachable places and lose any loot, shoving an enemy off a high bridge, roof, or other such precipice is one of Baldur’s Gate 3’s greatest joys.
Don’t just let yourself be sucked in by the art of shoving, though. Throwing stuff at enemies, whether it be your boots, your companion’s corpse, or an apple, can also bring some hilarity to your combat. It helps that no matter what you throw, it will cause damage to the enemy in some way.
7. Visit camp regularly to rest, refuel and romance
Much like BioWare’s Dragon Age: Origins, the camp is a great place for you to get to know your companions after a long day of beating the crap out of goblins and bandits. The more you know and understand them, the more knowledge you get of them and what they like and don’t like. If you’re lucky, you may even get the chance to start one of the many Baldur's Gate 3 romances...
The camp also has a more practical use. While you are able to regain some spell slots and health with a short rest, you can take the opportunity to have take long rests in Baldur's Gate 3 and regain all your health and spell slots.
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