Baldur's Gate 3 - 10 Things You NEED To Do First

Baldur’s Gate 3 can be a bit overwhelming for those unfamiliar with Dungeons and Dragons. If you just picked it up and don’t know where to start, this is the video for you.

Baldur’s Gate 3 throws a lot at you in the first couple hours. So much that you might miss out on some key items, moments, and characters in the opening area. Here are 10 things you need to do when you boot it up for the first time. This will include some very light spoilers for act one. Baldur's Gate 3 is out on PC and comes to PlayStation 5 early next month.

#baldursgate3 #baldursgate #guide

[SlashingMike]

Good tip if you want the sword at the beginning. Change Shadowhearts spells before to have the command spell. And you can force him to drop the sword with I think a 50 or 55% chance of succeeding. After that, feel free to pick it up and keep fighting, or just leave. But saved a bunch of time when I found that out.

[TheMNWolf]

It's worth noting that if you loots all of the corpses in the tomb before you press the button, they will actually have gold on them after defeating them so it's worth looting them a second time for a couple extra dragons.

[Zormac]

Side note: the Everburn Blade (not Sword) does not deal "6 to 19 damage with extra fire damage" - that is very misleading. It deals 2-12 damage (2d6) plus 1-4 (1d4) fire damage. The reason your tooltip showed 6-19 is because your character has a +3 strength modifier, and the tooltip is taking everything into account for your character (2d6 + 3 + 1d4 = 6-19).

[dieseljester]

A note on Scratch: You can get him to your camp without Talk With Animals if you happen to have the Animal Handling skill. Just follow the prompts for the skill and be nice to him.

[staticdust]

A good tip is, if you are aware that some skeletons, or corpses will revive to fight you. You can use the 'move' command to effortlessly and non-violently move them around the map. Group them up before combat, so when they activate they're all in a big pocket for easy control.

Additionally, you can 'drop' items out of your bag for free. Such as grenades, or potions. You can easily stack a few grenades in a pile next to a pocket of enemies, hit the grenades with any ranged spell and do tons of damage.

[JustDdude]

TIP:
ALWAYS run and hold ALT when exploring.

[zero]

7:57 yo! Take that mask! Changing your shape will let you turn into a halfling or gnome. There are a handful of places in the game that only small characters can access. The mask let’s a character do that regardless of their true race.

It also lets you get the benefit of any equipment that requires a specific race to function. First change your race with disguise self from the mask (or whatever), then equip the item. Weapons, armor, shields.

[moehassan]

Extra tip on Shadowheart (besides her being crucial to the story and as a beginning healer if you decide not to get a Paladin on Druid in your group): She gives you roll advantage on dialogue skill checks/lock picking checks, her divination is an extra bonus u can add on dice rolls that rolls a 1d4 that can help your chances on rolls!

[xIronwafflexx]

Getting Withers does not matter. He will just show up at your camp either after a couple of sleeps, or talking to the druids. So do not worry about missing him.

[zero]

2:25 the “right” way to read stats on a weapon is to read the damage dice and modifiers innate to the weapon. You do not read the range of damage you do because that is specific to your character.

So maybe a weapon is 1D8 with a plus one modifier. Or maybe a weapon is 2D6 plus 1D8 lightning with a plus two modifier.

[spacekobra]

Shadowheart can command the Devil to drop his sword with 55% chance which is way easier than fishing for a save where the Illythid kills him. Usually works at first/second try. Just change her spells with K button.

[bungalowfeuhler]

Shadowhearts little box is vital to my story.

[kathrynck]

There's 2 tricks to getting Everburn (the sword of the demon commander on the Nautiloid.
1) the Command spell (can get it in Shadowheart by swapping her prepared spells before battle. (a lot of people know this one)
2) if you pick up the big chest (chitinous chest? I think? something like that), and carry it to the door where this cutscene starts... and if you crowd your characters right up against the door without clicking on it... you can make enough space behind your characters to lay that chest sideways in the narrow part of the hall before the doorway. This blocks the big adds which come later in the fight. It's a very durable chest. (also there are exploding barrels (purple alien ones) which you can gather and place...)

[zero]

The single thing that has helped me the most is setting up the toolbar!!

You can increase the number of rows visible. You can lock it to not accidentally move things around. You can also change the order of things.

I like to group melee attacks, then group ranged attacks, then other things. I group spells by single target, AOE, buff, and debuff spells. I do a similar thing with consumables.

This helps me to actually find the thing I want when a situation happens. I know right where to look for a debuff. I know right where to look for for a potion and it’s the same location on every action bar.

Such a huge quality of life improvement!

[vladyvhv]

A note on getting Karlach. If you explore the Emerald Grove, there's a door on the lower level, where a bunch of the teiflings are, near where the guy is yelling at the kid to give back whatever they stole. Open the stone door and look around, when you find a series of stone ledges you can get up, go up those and sneak-use the ladder. This will transition you to an area that overlooks the area by the log where she's healing herself. You can jump down there, but it'll cost you 30 or more HP to do so. So, make sure you've got the HP to do this. That will let you bypass some of the tougher fights in the area leading to her, allowing you to recuit her earlier. Feather's Fall can negate the HP cost. So, if you've got the DLC/early access stuff, then you've got a use for that potion of feather's fall that the DLC gives you.

[kpny]

Something to note, if you're having trouble getting/finding/buying camp supplies, make sure someone knows the spell "good berry", and spend the rest of your spell slots on it before you start your long rest, whether you need it or not.

[jameshill]

Shadowheart can cast Command: Drop on Commander Zhalk and make him drop his sword. Just make sure someone is close enough to pick it up before he can.

[YanickGirouard]

One very useful thing to do before you start your character is to play the introduction of each origin character from the character creation screen. There's a play button below each, and it introduces you to their backstory before you begin. For example, you learn that Shadowheart is a worshiper of Sha even before you start the game (it's therefore not a spoiler).

[zero]

3:15 make Shadowheart more powerful by making her a life cleric by using her to visit Withers in your camp and changing her subclass.

You won’t really use her trickery domain stuff much, life clerics get buffs to their healing and also can wear heavy armor. Give her heavy armor and a shield and she’s a very effective tank for your party and after level 6 one of the life cleric benefits is that when she heals someone else she gets free extra healing herself … which pairs well with heal buff gear you can slap on her to do things like give temp hit points to anyone she heals or a once per day AOE heal for all party members ….. or you can really try to enjoy that invoke duplicity. 🤣

Also, embrace healing word as a bonus action. It’s 1D4 per spell slot level instead of 1D8. But it’s a ranged heal and it’s a bonus action. Mathematically it’s not really much worse as you get more heal mods, and it’s a thing you can do at range while still attacking or casting other spells.

And don’t forget the value of her guidance spell for +1D4 on nearly every skill check you’ll do in the game.

[ShadowxxPanda]

For Commander Zalk Just have Shadowheart cast protection from Good & Evil on the illithid. The fight become easy.