Since the release of Baldur’s Gate 3, the game has been setting new online records almost every day. The new product is being tried by both seasoned RPG fans and those who are not familiar with this genre at all. With the release, Larian reworked a lot of mechanics and added new ones. The project turned out to be incredibly complex and deep, so it can take hundreds of hours to fully master it.
We have collected useful and non-obvious life hacks that will surely make your passage easier.
1. Send excess loot to camp
Loot is hidden everywhere in locations: in enemy corpses, boxes, chests, vases, and generally everything where you could theoretically place things. In order not to miss good equipment or some important key, you have to explore every corner.
If you take everything that is lying around, your inventory will quickly fill up with a bunch of unnecessary junk. To avoid this, just hold down Shift, select the necessary loot, right-click and select “send to camp”. After that, you can take things from the camp chest and sell them to traders.
2. Highlight objects with Alt
As already mentioned, useful things can be found in locations in the most unobvious places. To make the looting process easier, hold down the Alt key – then the objects available for interaction will be highlighted.
However, this is not a universal solution. Some things will be hidden until the character makes a perception check. If it fails, you will have to spot suspicious bumps or other places yourself to find valuable rewards.
3. Quick save by pressing F5
In Baldur’s Gate 3 you will have to save very often. Especially at the beginning of the game, when you are just trying to understand the mechanics and what is happening. We recommend making saves before combat, entering a location, starting a dialogue and other actions.
In order not to spend too much time opening the menu, selecting a save slot and confirming, use the hotkey F5. It will save you a lot of time.
4. Use inventory search
In the game you will have to loot a lot of things: scrolls with spells, potions, supplies, equipment, swords, daggers, staves, amulets, etc. The inventory is quite large, so it will take a long time before you realize that there is no more free space.
Sooner or later you will have to manage your gear. If you want to find something specific in the huge pile of all this, then you should use the search bar – the desired item will be displayed immediately.
5. Levers and switches are activated by ranged weapons
Is the lever too far away? Or are you too lazy to reach it? There is a solution! Just choose a convenient viewing angle, take a ranged weapon (bow, crossbow) and shoot straight at the target – after that, the lever will be activated.
6. Use the Silence spell wisely
The spell “Silence” is very versatile. Firstly, in the area of its application, enemy wizards and sorcerers will no longer be able to use magical abilities that require the use of a phrase out loud.
Secondly, “Silence” can be useful when sneaking around. If an enemy spots you and is about to raise the alarm, use the spell and quickly kill him – no one will even hear it. Maybe you need to open a closed door silently? Use “Silence” and destroy it with a fireball or a huge two-handed sword.
The range of application of the spell is not limited to these cases, so try and experiment.
7. Save healing potions by snacking after battles
If you need to restore your health during a fight, don’t rush to resort to eating cheese heads, meat, bread and other goodies. They use up valuable action points, and they won’t improve the hero’s health much.
It is best to have a feast only after the battle, and save healing potions for a more critical moment. Moreover, precious elixirs are not so common, unlike food. In the heat of battle, try to restore health with spells.
8. Necromancers, carry corpses with you
The Necromancer subclass is one of the most powerful in the game. Such characters are able to summon many creatures that will thin out the enemy’s camp themselves. However, to create an army of undead, you need dead bodies in the location.
If a battle is inevitable and there are no corpses on the battlefield, there is a very interesting solution for this case – take it with you. Yes, you heard right. Just put the dead man in your inventory and take out the body if necessary.
9. Choose backpacks and bags
If you want all your things to be beautifully and conveniently arranged, then this life hack will definitely come in handy. To do this, just pick up a few backpacks or bags, and then arrange all your belongings in them right in your inventory.
For example, you can store spell scrolls in one place, weapons and armor in a second, and potions and food in a third.
10. How to make a huge explosion
This point is related to the previous one. One of the backpacks can be filled with explosives and flammable substances, and then a huge explosion can be created.Are you facing a huge number of enemies? Is the enemy too strong and higher level than you? No problem: select your “emergency suitcase” in the inventory, throw it under the enemies’ feet (after throwing, all items will fall out of the backpack) and set it on fire with magic or an arrow.
Try to move as far away as possible, as the explosion will be so powerful that it will not only kill all enemies, but can also cause severe lags.
11. Orientation of the mini-map to the north
If you don’t like the minimap rotating with the camera, you can turn this feature off. Open the menu, go to “Options”, open “Interface” and turn on the “Orient minimap to north” option.
12. Karmic cubes
Games constantly cheat gamers in their favor without telling you. Baldur’s Gate 3 is exactly the same, but here you can turn off this feature yourself.
By default, there’s an option called “Karmic Dice” enabled in the settings. It makes the dice rolls less than completely random, trying to adjust to your successes and failures. For example, if you roll numbers 1-10 many times in a row, the game will take pity on you and give you a better chance of success after a string of failures.
If you want to get the closest experience to Dungeons & Dragons, you can turn off “Karmic Dice”. After that, the result of the dice roll will become completely random.
13. Adjust the frequency of the hero’s lines
If you find your character too talkative, this can also be fixed. There is an option in the settings that controls the frequency of speech when exploring the world.
To find it, you need to go to the “Sound” tab and go down to the very bottom. Then adjust the “Mouse click response rate” slider to your liking.
14. Use Shift
If you are going to sneak around a crowd of enemies, be sure to use the Shift key. When you press it, you will be able to see the enemy’s field of view – it will be highlighted with a characteristic red light.
By assessing the situation, you will be able to determine whether you are safe or not. This technique will help you avoid an unwanted fight.
15. Teleport using the mini-map
The more locations you explore, the more opportunities for fast travel you have. The developers have placed many portals throughout the game world, thanks to which you can get from one point to another in the blink of an eye – they are marked on the map with a special icon.
To save time, you can use the mini-map instead of opening the full map. Just find the portal icon on it and click on it.
16. Potions can be thrown at fallen allies
If your ally has taken serious damage in a fight and fallen to the ground, you can help him from a distance even without spells. Just open your inventory, right-click on a healing potion and throw the item at your comrade.
In this context, we are talking specifically about a wounded companion. Also, you should not use this technique in relation to other NPCs, since the damage from the bottle strike can provoke them into conflict.
17. The effect of potions works within a radius of several meters.
Instead of spending several potions to improve the characteristics of several characters, you can spend only one. To do this, you need to select the necessary jar in the inventory, put it on the ground and gather all the heroes around it.
Next, break the vial, and the effect of its action is applied to all characters within a radius of several meters. To ensure that everything works out, try to place the companions as close to each other as possible.
18. How to get into closed rooms and hidden locations
If you need to get into a locked room and you don’t have a key or lock picks, there are a few tricks for this case. First, check the location for secret passages.
Then look for cracks in the walls or something similar that can be used to overcome the obstacle by turning into a certain animal with a spell. For example, some creatures can crawl through small passages, while others can fly.
19. How to find out the characteristics of bots
Each NPC, like your hero, has a list of stats indicating their strengths and weaknesses. However, unlike real Dungeons & Dragons, you can easily get an idea of the strength, dexterity, endurance, intelligence, and similar stats of another character.
To do this, you need to hover over the hero you are interested in, right-click and select “Inspect”. Now you see a character sheet indicating his distinctive abilities, resistance, race, level, armor class and other important things.
Always study the NPC’s stats before making an important decision to better assess your chances of success.
20. Goblins are afraid of spiders
If you encounter goblins or trolls, don’t rush into battle. These creatures won’t be scared by sharp swords, huge maces, or spells, but spiders are a different matter.
For some reason, the appearance of these eight-legged creatures causes them to feel a real animal fear. You can take advantage of this enemy weakness and use magic to turn yourself into a spider to literally make goblins and trolls run further than they can see.
We hope that with the help of our tips your trip around Faerun will become, if not easier, then at least more convenient. If you know other useful life hacks, be sure to share them in the comments!