Baldur's Gate 3: All Permanent Act 1 Buffs & How to Get Them | Full Walkthrough Guide

In this video I walk you through how to get every permanent buff in Act 1 of Baldur's Gate 3. If this guide helped, consider liking and subscribing!

TIMESTAMPS
0:00 Intro
0:13 Instrument Proficiency
1:13 Scratch
2:34 Forbidden Knowledge & Summon Shovel Quasit(consume scroll as a wizard for permanent pet)
10:09 Paid the Price
11:27 Auntie Ethel's Hair & Second Marriage Zombie Summon
14:30 Absolute's Brand & Tadpole
15:53 Loviatar's Love
17:32 See Invisibility
19:13 Survival Instinct
22:36 BOOOAL's Benediction
24:18 Awakened Illithid Powers(Lae'zel specifically gets a -2 debuff from this)
26:23 Outro

[illiciousD]

Worth mentioning that you can make the rolls for Loviatar's Love easier by removing your body armor first

[KazumiKiguma]

Scratch can also be summoned by whomever has his fetch ball. He's not great for combat, but he does point out dig spots. Some people think this is kind of useless because you can still fail the survival checks to reveal them, but what the game doesn't tell you is that you can still select the shovel to use on an area to dig, so Scratch pointing where a dig spot is, even if you fail the survival check, allows you to more precisely find it to dig up.

[thTemplar]

You do not gain the permanent ability to summon the quasit just from using the scroll. If you just use the scroll the quasit will be gone forever after you take a long rest if not sooner.

First you need choose whichever character you want to gain the ability to summon him and make sure that character has at least one level in sorcerer, wizard, or warlock. Then you need to talk to the quasit as your chosen character before entering the room behind the mirror. Just choose answer 1 until he asks something like "what next, shall or other)" then choose whichever answer is something like "you will do no such thing". Then you have to talk to the quasit again once you are in the room behind the mirror and the quasit will note that you are a "spellshite" and you will spontaneously gain the ability to summon him. You can respec back into whatever class you normally are after this point. You can have two characters learn how to summon him if you take a wizard and learn the spell scroll and then use the wizard to summon the quasit and then have your second person with speak to the quasit as I described above.

[piggybox]

A single act in BG3 is like a full other game

[peterfabell]

Scratch is super useful, he isn't just a dog in your camp. Once he plays ball with you, you can use that ball to summon him and he'll find treasure spots for you in case you fail the perception checks. He also, even more useful, can Help fallen allies in battle, as well as attack or tank in battle. I used him in the fight against Kagha and he took down two of the shadow druids by himself. During the fight against the vampire hunter, he brought back a number of my characters who had fallen, so I didn't need to waste an action throwing a potion or using the Help action.

[KazumiKiguma]

Huge note about summoning Shovel the quasit: No, you do not get the ability to summon it whenever you want just from using the scroll, but there are 2 ways to unlock it permanently. The first and most obvious is if you're a Wizard, you can Learn the spell the same way you learn other spells from scrolls, however this limits you to only being able to summon it as a wizard. If you want to summon him without being a wizard, you'll need to fist change to a spellcaster class like wizard or sorcerer, then talk with it and go through its dialogue to learn about the book. Once you get through the mirror, talk to it again and if you're a spellcaster class like I mentioned, it'll call you something like "Spell Shitter" or whatever, but offer to be your familiar. Accept and instead of it being a spell for your class, it's a spell under your common list, so you can summon it no matter which class you are from now on.

[ptimuscrime]

A note on the ethel fight: silencing her makes the fight easier but prevents her from triggering the dialogue to make a deal when she’s at low health

[farhaxai]

You can also get the brand on all of your companions by talking to the goblin warlock near the branding site after priestess gut leaves for her chambers.

[sidecharacter]

Keeping Sussur Bloom in the Chest until act 3 is great. Add it back onto a barbarian or fighter and you have an antixmagic field for mage bosses like Cazador.

[ladooshka]

If you actually remove armor for Loviatar's test you will get an additional +4 check to pass. :) amazing buff❤

[EyesOfGehenna]

A few notes if I may:

Scratch actually becomes a summon after you trigger an achievement related to him. He sniffs out hidden stuff as well and he can join fights, though he only has something like 5 hp. I also believe that you can use the owlbear cub as a fully grown owlbear in act 3 via the "Gather your allies" quest for the final battle.

And Shovel the quasit can only be summoned once afaik if you use the scroll just like that. Please note that he will persist through long rests which might give you the idea that he's gained forever but once you unsummon him or he dies he's gone forever. You can get it as a ritual through conversation choices but you do need to do it right. You can find guides on that. I think that you can do this with wizards, sorcerers and warlocks as well. Arcane spell casters in other words. Also, a wizard character can learn the spell and then use it permanently as a spell but you shouldn't have used the scroll of course.

There's a trap underneath the book of Thay, so disarming that first before using the book makes sure you don't trigger the gargoyle heads. Also you can disarm traps on plates that you step on before moving off them. The traps are triggered not by stepping on them but by stepping off them. I tend to go to the spider lair before to get the stone needed to open the book. Also aside from the hidden knowledge buff you also get the ability to speak with the dead as a skill iirc.

At the githyanki creche there is a risk when getting inside the tadpole removal machine. The 3 checks you have to make you HAVE to pass or else you will lose stat points permanently so be prepared because you could potentially lose stat points from each of the three abilities that you have to make a save for. You will want to have re-rolls and buffs wherever possible.

[louislin]

I dont know if this has been mentioned here, but you can get the awakened buff on your main character even if you let laz zel get on the machine, you just have to not convince her to get off and to the very end you can pass a skill check and get the buff, and laz will be just fine dont worry

[laurensh]

You can lose Loviatar's Love (and maybe the other permanent buffs too) by dying and getting resurrected by revivify scroll or spell. Better be careful not to die if you want to keep 'em.

[mikestein]

I saved mayrina in a weird way. I entered from the mushroom jumps in the underdark, popped up near the grave of her husband, picked the lock to the teahouse, pickpocketed mayrina and she ran off to look for the culprit, attacked the hag who retreated below. Mayrina never got sent to the cage and didn't appear in the fight. She just hangs around at the teahouse and has different dialogue before the boss fight. She also had different dialogue options after the fight, unaware of the hags death also not angry at the death of the hag. The ending is much the same, you just have to find her in the teahouse after the fight.

[tylerfrazier]

Bro this is like 2 guides in one definitely worth it, I missed alot my first playthrough.

[estellelecardonnel]

Loviatar’s blessing was the one thing that help me so many time but I didn’t know it could disappear. Nice to know

[senexiratus]

Astarion makes the mirror conversation go in a fun and interesting way, because he has no reflection.
Also, first time I saw this was today, but I happened to have Mayrina silenced, and Ethel just asked to live. No check for Mayrina. I don't know if that is always the case. Ethel left without her and rewarded the hair.
Absolute's Bane gloves that you get in gobbo fight at the grove apply bane on hit when wearer is branded.

[runnergo]

This game has insane replay value. Though, if you're someone who just doesn't have the time to invest into it, just play on the easiest difficulty and don't worry about the bad dice rolls or the choices you make. Just go with the flow with what you might say or do. It is still 100% enjoyable for the entire experience.

[devzozo]

Crazy how not doing a major part of laezel's story arc results in one of the best buffs in the game.

[adameaton]

Thanks for all your hard work. Your location guides were great, very thorough, and easy to follow.