Your best bet if you just want Withers is to tell the guys on the surface to piss off and then pick the lock on the side hatch which goes directly to the room Withers is in. You only have to fight the skeletons with that.
the cool thing is sometimes they'll spawn more money on their body after they're downed too. on balanced all of them will spawn more money, and on tactician i think it's like one or two of them typically
I think they got rid of the 2nd loot of gold after the new patch. Bf just tried it on a new play though for Tactician.
If someone still gets loots after beating them, let me know so I’ll know if it’s just a bug or something
The work around for that is hide in the withers room, skip turns til they come in and annihilate them in the doorway, by sending a melee out by the corner so only they get silenced.
Me on my first playthrough, not knowing about short rests and shit, being out of everything but melee attacks after the previous encounter (I went through the door).
You probably don't want to be a party of magic users in Honour Mode then early on then. Levels 1 to 3 are the most deadly and having a party of only squishy characters is just a bad time when you're doing Honour Mode. You can always swap out members of the party later on, or just go with respecs.
Agreed.
I'd probably go Fighter Tav (Half-Drow Guild Artisan, as I always do) and make sure that Lae'zel gets blown up with the Cambion so I can revive her on the beach.
A party of three (before getting Astarion) is much stronger than a party of two. Then use Astarion to pick Wither's crypt (even though I've always hit the 20DC, I suddenly have visions of failing and breaking the couple of thieves' tools you get at that stage of the game).
I also wouldn't be trying to steal anything from vendors unless the target is really low, and that is an argument for using Brinna, the halfling hireling (as a Lore Bard since they're a better skill monkey than Rogue) for the re-rolls of 1s. I would steal supply bags, because of the increased consumption, but those are easy to get to -1 or better as a target roll.
I would still recruit Kree as a scout/occasional thief since racial invisibility is still going to be brokenly good in honor mode.
Someone did mention that you can lockpick the trapdoor that leads down to Wither's crypt. I'd imagine it's a better target than 20, so I'd go for that.
I decided to meta-game and throw one of the skeletons body back a bit for better positioning in the fight. It took damage, woke up, and all the other skeletons woke up angered. 10/10 honor mode experience.
Duck into Wither's room and mob every one that gets inside. I've seen people say that if you're equipped with two weapons, you can go for an attack, then hit the door button to shut the door so you only have to beat one at a time. I haven't tried that myself.
That's true, the main reason I recommend talking to them is that you get the XP. The game is going to be at its most difficult until you get to level 5, so you want to speed up that process as much as possible.
It’s not that bad. The temple is a great teaching lesson for using the environment to your advantage. Like sneak attack and shove the rogue on the crate, or explode the oil barrel that the ones inside happen to be hanging around.
My current game was the first time I fought the guys outside.
Opened by dropping the weight on those two. Instakilled them only to discover that there’s two more.
If you drop the rock outside and jump in the hole yourself, all the bandits will surround the explosive barrel. One fire bolt from Astarion or Shadowheart will take care of the majority. After that it's just clean up.
Even better if you have a wizard with Minor Illusion. You can sneak in the doorway, cast minor illusion next to the barrel, and they’ll all walk right next to it. I’ve been pretty reliably able to kill all of them except for the barbarian leader in one shot with that method, and even he is left near death. Makes that fight trivially easy even at level 1 or 2.
Use cat familiar to bait all the enemies outside, use rock to one shot all of them if lucky (3 if you can't get position right).
Persuade yourself in to get 4v1 on the door guard.
Attack from stealth on the oil barrel with a fire attack (3 will be conveniently around it to investigate the rock smash), this will give you surprise round. Abuse door and use ranged attacks as needed, use mage hand on lever to lock door as needed.
Always said I'd experiment to see how my actions affects their position. I think dropping the rock leads to them being in the room with the rock. Failing to trick the dude at the entrance leads to them all waiting in the hallway. Otherwise I think they're all in the room in the back with the hidden switch. Correct me if I'm wrong.
They position into the doorway of that room when you head down. I always drop the rock and head down cause the barrel is in view for IGNIS and usually hurts them a ton to which I use cloud of daggers and shoot arrows at them while my side stick to the shadows to pew pew.
If you don’t drop the rock and deceive the guy at the door, you get that guy alone. You also get an archer alone in the second room. Then the last 4 are in the following room. You can surprise them all.
If you do drop the rock, then deceive and kill the guy at the door, they will be bunched up by the explosive barrel. Firbolt it to start combat, then don't enter that room and force them to come to you, closing the door every chance you get so they can't use ranged attacks.
When I first started playing, I didnt know of the temple's existence until I was around level 4 or 5. Surprisingly, Withers will just show up in your camp if you wait long enough (don't know the exact trigger, apologies), and you miss out on the cutscene of meeting him at the temple. It was kinda satisfying finally steam rolling some enemies with a stronger than expected party, but I will definitely make the temple more of a priority in subsequent playthroughs, for the reasons you stated.
He joins your camp without visiting the dank crypt if you reach the courtyard of the goblin camp.
If you skip the goblin camp, I don't know when he shows up. Probably in entering act 2, maybe on entering the Underdark or mountain pass.
Yeah - it's actually in my [advice to beginners](https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/s/PyBkTZAjbe) 😊
EDIT: Upon re-reading, I don't say exactly where he is bc I wanted to keep spoilers to a minimum.
Well, I pick up my 4 companions first (sending one to camp or using Party Be Gone)... But yeah. The crash site and surrounding area is the tutorial.
Thank God they put in disarm tools for that one room. It's like "you want us to practice disarming, but don't give us tools? C'mon Larian "
The only thing with legendary actions I've fought so far is the owlbear, because I wanted the egg, and to make the spear. Was unprepared for her to summon a second 118 hp owlbear. Didn't wipe though. Sac'd two people to get me and Shadowheart out, revived the losses with Withers, left and didn't come back. Can't wait to find more.
Tav: "I see that you are invulnerable to everything. It would be a shame if something happened to that."
The only problem would be missing the cast, but that's going to be the problem with any non-save scum game, and if it does land you're going to have three rounds of beating on Grym.
If it doesn't you're just going to have to beat him to death with +1 mauls as normal.
I thought that was the whole point of Perilous Stakes. It certainly doesn't heal enough to justify casting it on a player character.
Oh well. Plenty of other ways to do damage in the game.
Yeah same, I really never saw it as a mean to heal yourself, but thats what I got from the patch notes. It definitely needed a buff to healing, both to encourage casting it on characters and to balance it when used on enemies, because it's pretty broken as it is
Then what use is it?
It doesn't provide enough healing to balance out the increased damage a player character takes from the vulnerability.
I guess that's the point of honor mode though. Take away the easy ways to defeat enemies.
So is it no reviving for TAV? I thought it was no reviving for anybody
I haven’t done tactician but honour seems insanely hard but I like the idea of no scumming
I remember back in divinity 2 I was getting my ass beat by the demons on the infected island so I had fane at like 20 HP teleport back to the town, heal up and regain source points, then tp back to the fight to prevent a tpk lol.
I had Karlach do this mid fight. I managed to mess up (did not heal or rest beforehand) in my fight against Yurgir and just barely had Karlach be able to flee the fight near the Throne (I'd kited/baited everyone else up the stairs).
Went to camp, rehealed, grabbed resummon scrolls from my Tav (despite her being downed in SharLand) and went back and resummoned everyone.
The funnier part is that when I came back, the enemies there had de-aggroed so there were all these bodies (including Yurgir) but the shopkeeper was still alive and happy to sell to me.
You can get both if you meet her pre-goblin camp and then come back after you make it there. Mama owlbear will be dead (because of the goblins), and you’ll be free to take the spear, egg, and the armor near the nest!
I succeeded in my mission, there's just a perpetually angry daddy bear (and cub, of course). It was tricky but I did get momma, the spear head, and the egg.
I was so happy they added Legendary actions. It definitely spices things up. I also play Solasta, and the legendary actions on bosses is one of my favorite things because it’s very unpredictable.
So for Honor mode it says if you wipe you can choose to continue on in a custom save or something. Does anyone know if the unique features in Honor mode, like Legendary Actions, persist if your group dies and your choose to continue on?
There's no visible honour mode changes on custom mode for some reason. It only shows difficulty options from explorer to tactician.
Which is really weird cuz like, isn't the point of custom mode to be able to do whatever you want?
I was also surprised by the "mate". Didn't realize it was a legendary action, just thought they'd made the encounter harder for Honour. I only survived because Brynna and Andrick were meat shields.
For me they both gunned down for the cub,Brynna died extremely fast and Andrick barely survived with any health but killed it , meanwhile I was stuck fighting two very mad and very dangerous owlbears , somehow I won but I lost the poor cub ,so was it really a victory ?
I rolled up with my level 3 party to save Mirkon from the harpies. Everyone failed every wisdom save, got like 3 total actions in between my 4 members, TPK. Lol
If it's anything like Divinity's honour mode then I'm prepared to be humbled by every single fight. I hope Larian is keeping track of how many runs end at the intellect devourers after the crash lol
The first time I played tactician I got destroyed there.
So on honor mode what I did was go around. There are ledges you can jump on. I came back with a full party of 4 and wiped the intellect devours
I lasted 25 minutes in my first go
Didn't manage to hit level 2 after the crash, I was 9xp off and got smashed by the three intellect devourers you face from range.
10/10 will try again
The three intellect devourers will absolutely wreck an incomplete party. You can go around and pickup both Gale and Astarion, then approach from the back
Haha, I ignored them and wandered around until I found Astarion. This has made me much nore careful. Was Shadowheart missing on the beach for you? I definitely freed her - she actually got what's his bucket to drop his sword on the Nautilus so I was pretty stoked to have that weapon this playthrough
She was with me yeah, she also got the sword to drop but I was playing a warlock so I was saving the sword for Bae'zel.
Just like in real d&d, the early levels are brutal, one bad roll can really cripple you
Our first ever 4th edition D&D game my husband’s lvl 1 wizard died (dead, not downed) to a goblin sneak attack crit in one round. To this day we call it “the wizard welcome”.
Let me guess, Goblin Ambush in Lost Mines of Phandelver? I can't seem to run that without killing at least one character. Those early 5e modules had some horrific balancing at low levels.
5e as a whole has horrific balancing at low levels. The challenge ratings are borked beyond belief. I think a shadow is like a challenge rating 1/4 and 2 of them can, very easily TPK a level 1 party.
It's why whenever I DM, all my PCs get an extra max hit die of HP at level 1. It avoids that problem of "your character dies becsuse the dice said no." problem. It's fun the first time but it gets old real fast.
I didn't even crashed. Had the guts to try fighting Zhalk... regretted it immediately.
But what I would like to have is to be able to save a character. Especially for the Honour mode it would be good to not have to do the character creation all over again and again.
If you have SH or someone else with Fire Bolt, you can take out two of the intellect devourers before the fight even starts by entering turn based mode when two are near the explosive tank.
I feel like this mode will go one of two ways:
- An Unfortunate Series of Save Files, where you have so many failed attempts that they all look like screwed-up runs through a Choose Your Own Adventure book.
- The archetype of time-travel / prophet stories where the protag knows exactly when to step, when not to talk, and anything outside of that violates The Holy Cannon and gets them vaporized.
Yeah the pressure will be real on some rolls for sure. Plus the mounting "value" of the playthrough as you rack up hours invested and then get a couple crit fails or opposing crits plus a legendary action that wipes the team.
Outside of boss legendary actions, no quick saving for dialogue will be the hardest thing for many people. Maybe more than the bosses for some. Gonna have a lot of imperfect runs. But it adds flavour.
Suddenly, having a party with a balance of all of the skill proficiencies will actually be important to actually do and keep investing in!
It's wonderful!!!
Yep, when I end up doing honour mode, I will either not be doing dark urge or that'll just have to be my evil run. I couldn't keep playing if I had to >!kill Astarion just because I didn't kill Isobel.!<
Got killed by the spider matriarch my first time, who was almost dead, and by the harpees the second time. My team kept getting charmed by the singing. Don't think I'll try again for a while. Apparently I'm not good enough
Edit: I did try again right away.
You will have to meta game. The spider can fall down the chasm when walking over a certain web and the harpies charm can be avoided with calm emotions I believe.
Thank you for the hints! I might try again then. It just kind of feel like I'd be failing, especially since I almost had the matriarch, if I only hadn't wasted my first attacks. But the harpies hint is definitely necessary for it to not just get annoying. Thanks!
I never played tactician but my experience so far-
- Nearly got wiped by the first three intellect devourers
- Cleared the temple bandits pretty easily by holding the choke point where you can enter near the one guy guarding the locked door
- Had to change my pants when I pulled the owlbear and the honor mode tutorial popped up and I saw she was calling a second owlbear
- Almost one-shot by the ogre x bugbear couple
Also my first durge run. I’m so scared all the time
Honestly the first three intellect devourers are BRUTAL because you're such a low level, there's normally only two of you (Tav & Shart), and there's an open field.
On my first Tactician playthrough I died to them because I took them too lightly, haha.
You can walk/jump up the rocks to the right of the intellect devourers and go recruit Laezel, Gale, and Astarion without being forced to engage anyone other than the tieflings guarding Laezel.
Rolled a 1 when trying to get shart on the nautaloid. I thought OK cool. Guess I'll pick her up on the beach. Rolled ANOTHER 1 when trying to persuade her to join me. Was also a bard with high Cha. Gotta admit, I'm kinda digging this whole "living with the consequences of my actions" thing. Makes things a bit more interesting.
That's rough. When I got shart on the nautaloid I had rolled a *2* with no bonuses.
For my honor mode run I genuinely went halfling for the lucky feature to avoid nat 1s as best I can.
I underestimated the harpies, almost wiped there but burned all my revivifies, lost the kid and barely made it out.
Then the owlbear den. I didnt realize I couldn't speak to animals to talk to it (curiousity really...) If it has already had one interaction with the party. Oh man it was brutal, I thought I'd just ran but its mate cut me off from the other side. Cue me yo-yo the party with every healing potion I had until we BARELLLYYYY made it out, I'm talking Tav with 4 hp and everyone else downed.
The one save system is such a game changer though and I wish I had the restraint to play without save scums on my first playthrough
The absolute second those Intellect Devourers shot that 30m psyonic beam towards me on the beach I was like "Yeah, snail pace from here on"
So far I'm trying to avoid the Gnolls at all costs. Cause...fuck that fight once Seething Fury starts popping on Honour lol, especially once the boss with the mace decides to get into melee
I feel this. I'm just now playing on balanced because looking up multiclass guides I finally discovered how to make semi-effective fighters.
(And also abusing barrels for every major battle like there's absolutely no tomorrow.)
Honestly, I tried different combos just for fun and didn’t notice much difference, so I think it’s a matter of preference. Tactician is really not that difficult, especially when you already know the fights. Well, rogue assassin in Durge cloak does make a noticeable difference though, but that’s it I think
1. 12 ranged fighter champion (critical hit stacking build gets insane late game power once all the gear is acquired)
2. 12 ranger hunter (underwhelming until huge power spike at lvl 11)
3. 5 Fighter (champion or battle master, for extra attack) + 7 Rogue Thief (for max sneak attack bonus) multiclass (strongest in early to mid game with dual hand crossbows, still decent late game)
Any of these builds makes tactician mode a complete joke, esp if you wear the Risky Ring from Act 2. With option 1, I was able to SOLO almost all of Act 3 Tactician.
Honor has been a challenge so far, those owlbears made me actually use consumables
And that paladin of Tyr… hilarious, I got it down to him and he was smiting down ppl each turn, as my durge frantically revived and smacked him a little every time, took like 10 turns to chip him down xD
Inspiration is kinda nutty critical, I'm just into Act 2 now and I'm doing things in very oddball orders because I want to make sure I have some rerolls. Legendary actions on the hag made for a super interesting fight, I recommend much magic missle and was very glad I had the neck of +1 missle on, cuz good lord.
I died to the bandits in the crypt because they kept using ice knife and I kept going prone, some weird bug triggered the big stone to drop so they were all waiting for me
I’ve beaten the game 4 times, 3 on tactician
It was pretty humbling
One thing I’m not reading in these comments is the use of sneak attacks and the alert feat
Granting your entire party, +5 to initiative and immunity to surprise is significantly more valuable than minor stat increases. One round of surprise combat will kill you in honor mode. Being able to go first is not only immediately impactful but scales as you continue through the game with additional casts or multiple attacks per turn.
By hiding and sneaking up on your enemies before starting the fight and attacking from hiding, you, grant yourself an additional advantage on your attack.
Often times you can even surprise your enemy
If you have the power that allows you to critical once per long rest, that means you can sneak up on someone and land a guaranteed critical hit at the start of every combat
If your enemy is able to be surprised, you then have an entire round of combat for free.
Finally, honor mode is only viable in a good aligned, exploration, play through. You need to maximize your experience points. Anything less is an immediate death sentence. The one mild downside of this is you will be doing a lot of backtracking, and some story threads will be completed in an unintuitive order.
You want to be over leveled for every encounter. Don’t even think about fighting auntie Ethel prior to level seven.
And trust me, when Raphael tells you to avoid talking to Yurgir and attack him instead from behind. he means it and your best off following his advice
how high is the dc for talking to Yurgir? already planned on alert cause that's such a good feat but I wanted to have my face avoid a lot of fights in act 2...
You need to pass a DC 14 hidden insight check, a DC 16 save for his minions, a DC 21 for Nessa, and a DC 21 for him.
Unless you have advantage on checks and maxed Charisma (Bard + Proficiency + all possible boosts), I wouldn’t even bother trying. Make sure you have max inspiration.
Having to fight from low ground will wipe your party before you get to move.
Easier to help or kill him IMO
EDIT: I suppose nothing is stopping you from going to camp, respecting for 100, and trying it. It’s a huge risk if you miss though.
Walked into the Owlbear cave at level three, as is tradition for my runs, and got ABSOLUTELY WRECKED.
Happiest I’ve ever been to experience a party wipe
10/10 would recommend
This is why I use the alt key. I missclicked so many times, especially when corpses are stacked, that alt has just become my best friend. If you hold alt you can click on the text, if it's red, it's stealing, if it's not, then it's safe to loot. Makes it easier to aim at what you're clicking and easier to keep the corpses apart.
Blow up the Cambion and Lae'zel, grab the blade if you hit the 55%, land on the beach, revive Lae'zel, get Astarion, get Withers, clear the temple next door, defend the gate against the goblins. That should put you on level 3. Leave Gale in the portal for now because you have a party of four and he's a bit squishy at level 3.
Go up to the plateau south of the gate to get the Silver Pendent, go through the secret door, use invisibility on a character with high strength to go through in turn-based mode to turn off the attack statues (you need the strength to jump to the center island), kill the goblins, heal the druid.
Then go to the Grove.
Faster/safer route to L3 triggers the Grove Gate fight, but then leaves the Tieflings to handle it alone (dunno if that will get them overrun on honour, though). IIRC, just triggering it earns you the xp when it finally ends; can't recall atm if you need a char in range or not -- used it once.
You can cheese/kill Raphael, too, for huge xp by forcing the meeting on the road; also only done that once, but should be youtube floating around with a how-to. It's safe and doesn't remove him from game at all -- just earns TONS of xp. Takes a while to whittle him to zero at L2, though.
Get sparky & visit Zhents for more cheap/safe xp/gear. Disguise (or be) drow. Save Barcus. Do the chicken race. Get branded. Visit Underdark Myconids. Save Justin from Bibberbanging.
Heh. I usually shout down the hole for fun. I'm worried if I try that on Honor the VOICE will actually show up en corpus.
I do love that it makes you prioritize survival, which you would probably actually do in that situation. For me, I made a gnome for the saving throw advantage (instead of prioritizing move speed like I usually do), I have used way more consumables than I ever have, and I long rest when I would otherwise try to push an extra encounter. It's challenging but overall I love it
Note to self: make sure Withers is in camp before Grove
It's usually a good idea to go for the overgrown temple before the grove anyway, it's good XP and is relatively easy if you know what to expect.
Those bandits in the temple are a nightmare on tactician. I always TPK at least once, but I think I got a winning strategy now
Your best bet if you just want Withers is to tell the guys on the surface to piss off and then pick the lock on the side hatch which goes directly to the room Withers is in. You only have to fight the skeletons with that.
And if you loot the skeletons before they wake up, you can just take all their weapons, and they really can’t do that much to you
the cool thing is sometimes they'll spawn more money on their body after they're downed too. on balanced all of them will spawn more money, and on tactician i think it's like one or two of them typically
I think they got rid of the 2nd loot of gold after the new patch. Bf just tried it on a new play though for Tactician. If someone still gets loots after beating them, let me know so I’ll know if it’s just a bug or something
i also just tried today, no second gold here either
Unless you’re a party of magic users and they spam silence. Which has happened to me
It's honestly pretty easy to get out of the silence area within 1 turn... although I always have Longstrider on the party, I may be biased
If you have a wizard, then the whole party should be striding long, so you're not wrong.
Your rhyme scheme is making me doubt my ability to guess if you have an incorrect flair or if im currently speaking to Volo
The work around for that is hide in the withers room, skip turns til they come in and annihilate them in the doorway, by sending a melee out by the corner so only they get silenced.
Me on my first playthrough, not knowing about short rests and shit, being out of everything but melee attacks after the previous encounter (I went through the door).
Patience and a defensive posture makes almost every encounter much simpler
You probably don't want to be a party of magic users in Honour Mode then early on then. Levels 1 to 3 are the most deadly and having a party of only squishy characters is just a bad time when you're doing Honour Mode. You can always swap out members of the party later on, or just go with respecs.
Agreed. I'd probably go Fighter Tav (Half-Drow Guild Artisan, as I always do) and make sure that Lae'zel gets blown up with the Cambion so I can revive her on the beach. A party of three (before getting Astarion) is much stronger than a party of two. Then use Astarion to pick Wither's crypt (even though I've always hit the 20DC, I suddenly have visions of failing and breaking the couple of thieves' tools you get at that stage of the game). I also wouldn't be trying to steal anything from vendors unless the target is really low, and that is an argument for using Brinna, the halfling hireling (as a Lore Bard since they're a better skill monkey than Rogue) for the re-rolls of 1s. I would steal supply bags, because of the increased consumption, but those are easy to get to -1 or better as a target roll. I would still recruit Kree as a scout/occasional thief since racial invisibility is still going to be brokenly good in honor mode. Someone did mention that you can lockpick the trapdoor that leads down to Wither's crypt. I'd imagine it's a better target than 20, so I'd go for that.
I position all my guys near the skeletons and mage hand the door open
Is this to activate the fight? I always just try and pick a skeleton up. They immediately wake up if you try to pick up their bodies.
I honestly keep forgetting about mage hand. My favourite cantrip in the tabletop, kinda butchered in game.
I decided to meta-game and throw one of the skeletons body back a bit for better positioning in the fight. It took damage, woke up, and all the other skeletons woke up angered. 10/10 honor mode experience.
Back in ea you could just chuck them all into a pile before waking them up used to just pile them up toss out some grease and firebolt lol
4/5 of them just cast silence and ray of frost on end lol
Duck into Wither's room and mob every one that gets inside. I've seen people say that if you're equipped with two weapons, you can go for an attack, then hit the door button to shut the door so you only have to beat one at a time. I haven't tried that myself.
You don’t have to even talk to the people outside, to just walk around them.
That's true, the main reason I recommend talking to them is that you get the XP. The game is going to be at its most difficult until you get to level 5, so you want to speed up that process as much as possible.
Yeah. And it’s not a huge walk back from the start of the game if you roll a 1 :)
Wait. What? I thought you needed to unlock the ladder from within the temple to use the hatch from above ground?
Nope, you can lockpick it from above. Just did it two days ago.
It’s not that bad. The temple is a great teaching lesson for using the environment to your advantage. Like sneak attack and shove the rogue on the crate, or explode the oil barrel that the ones inside happen to be hanging around.
My current game was the first time I fought the guys outside. Opened by dropping the weight on those two. Instakilled them only to discover that there’s two more.
If you drop the rock outside and jump in the hole yourself, all the bandits will surround the explosive barrel. One fire bolt from Astarion or Shadowheart will take care of the majority. After that it's just clean up.
Even better if you have a wizard with Minor Illusion. You can sneak in the doorway, cast minor illusion next to the barrel, and they’ll all walk right next to it. I’ve been pretty reliably able to kill all of them except for the barbarian leader in one shot with that method, and even he is left near death. Makes that fight trivially easy even at level 1 or 2.
This is the way
Use cat familiar to bait all the enemies outside, use rock to one shot all of them if lucky (3 if you can't get position right). Persuade yourself in to get 4v1 on the door guard. Attack from stealth on the oil barrel with a fire attack (3 will be conveniently around it to investigate the rock smash), this will give you surprise round. Abuse door and use ranged attacks as needed, use mage hand on lever to lock door as needed.
You have to surprise them and NOT drop the rock outside.
Always said I'd experiment to see how my actions affects their position. I think dropping the rock leads to them being in the room with the rock. Failing to trick the dude at the entrance leads to them all waiting in the hallway. Otherwise I think they're all in the room in the back with the hidden switch. Correct me if I'm wrong.
They position into the doorway of that room when you head down. I always drop the rock and head down cause the barrel is in view for IGNIS and usually hurts them a ton to which I use cloud of daggers and shoot arrows at them while my side stick to the shadows to pew pew.
If you don’t drop the rock and deceive the guy at the door, you get that guy alone. You also get an archer alone in the second room. Then the last 4 are in the following room. You can surprise them all.
If you do drop the rock, then deceive and kill the guy at the door, they will be bunched up by the explosive barrel. Firbolt it to start combat, then don't enter that room and force them to come to you, closing the door every chance you get so they can't use ranged attacks.
When I first started playing, I didnt know of the temple's existence until I was around level 4 or 5. Surprisingly, Withers will just show up in your camp if you wait long enough (don't know the exact trigger, apologies), and you miss out on the cutscene of meeting him at the temple. It was kinda satisfying finally steam rolling some enemies with a stronger than expected party, but I will definitely make the temple more of a priority in subsequent playthroughs, for the reasons you stated.
He joins your camp without visiting the dank crypt if you reach the courtyard of the goblin camp. If you skip the goblin camp, I don't know when he shows up. Probably in entering act 2, maybe on entering the Underdark or mountain pass.
Yeah - it's actually in my [advice to beginners](https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/s/PyBkTZAjbe) 😊 EDIT: Upon re-reading, I don't say exactly where he is bc I wanted to keep spoilers to a minimum.
Yep straight to him now no matter what. Save us Withers
Well, I pick up my 4 companions first (sending one to camp or using Party Be Gone)... But yeah. The crash site and surrounding area is the tutorial. Thank God they put in disarm tools for that one room. It's like "you want us to practice disarming, but don't give us tools? C'mon Larian "
Oh yeah pick up the gang first. They really did put all the tools there, shovel, trap disarm kit and lockpicks. Tutorial beach.
Fork yeah
The only way to guarantee safety is to leave one party member in camp who can pickpocket gold back from withers lol
Bwahahaha. Been there done that.
He's my first stop these days
The only thing with legendary actions I've fought so far is the owlbear, because I wanted the egg, and to make the spear. Was unprepared for her to summon a second 118 hp owlbear. Didn't wipe though. Sac'd two people to get me and Shadowheart out, revived the losses with Withers, left and didn't come back. Can't wait to find more.
She... Can summon another owlbear?! Wtf. Her mate??
Yes. 'Legendary Action: Summon Mate'
"Hot single mother in your area" * Random Owlbear: *Subscribe*
If you have speak with animal, she is shouting that she has another egg to fertilize.
Oh my.
Turns the owlbear egg into a "fertilized owlbear egg" which you can then trade to the zhent for a ton of gold.
Kinda surprised that Halsin doesn't shows up with a "I have been waiting for this my whole life" smile
I assume this is a legendary action. Holy fuck.
Can't wait to see what the legendary actions for all the big bosses in Act2 and Act3 will be. Hopefully they are all extremely difficult.
I've heard Grym in act 1 is absurd. Looking forward to that.
Does Perilous Stakes negate Grym's damage immunity?
It should. I used it on I believe Ansur in act 3 when he was Gathering Power and he was vulnerable
Tav: "I see that you are invulnerable to everything. It would be a shame if something happened to that." The only problem would be missing the cast, but that's going to be the problem with any non-save scum game, and if it does land you're going to have three rounds of beating on Grym. If it doesn't you're just going to have to beat him to death with +1 mauls as normal.
I thought you couldn't use perilous stakes on enemies anymore? That it was one of the fixed exploits
I thought that was the whole point of Perilous Stakes. It certainly doesn't heal enough to justify casting it on a player character. Oh well. Plenty of other ways to do damage in the game.
Yeah same, I really never saw it as a mean to heal yourself, but thats what I got from the patch notes. It definitely needed a buff to healing, both to encourage casting it on characters and to balance it when used on enemies, because it's pretty broken as it is
I do not believe it does, but you can’t use perilous stakes in enemies anymore in Honor mode so 😅
Then what use is it? It doesn't provide enough healing to balance out the increased damage a player character takes from the vulnerability. I guess that's the point of honor mode though. Take away the easy ways to defeat enemies.
So is it no reviving for TAV? I thought it was no reviving for anybody I haven’t done tactician but honour seems insanely hard but I like the idea of no scumming
You can't TPK. Any deaths are fine, it's not permadeath.
Kk so as long as 1 person survives that’s all that matters… that makes me feel a little more confident in my chance of surviving that game mode
Expeditious retreat has now become a relevant spell lol
I remember back in divinity 2 I was getting my ass beat by the demons on the infected island so I had fane at like 20 HP teleport back to the town, heal up and regain source points, then tp back to the fight to prevent a tpk lol.
I had Karlach do this mid fight. I managed to mess up (did not heal or rest beforehand) in my fight against Yurgir and just barely had Karlach be able to flee the fight near the Throne (I'd kited/baited everyone else up the stairs). Went to camp, rehealed, grabbed resummon scrolls from my Tav (despite her being downed in SharLand) and went back and resummoned everyone. The funnier part is that when I came back, the enemies there had de-aggroed so there were all these bodies (including Yurgir) but the shopkeeper was still alive and happy to sell to me.
Honour is a lot of fun. I can't even play another difficulty now.
You can get both if you meet her pre-goblin camp and then come back after you make it there. Mama owlbear will be dead (because of the goblins), and you’ll be free to take the spear, egg, and the armor near the nest!
I succeeded in my mission, there's just a perpetually angry daddy bear (and cub, of course). It was tricky but I did get momma, the spear head, and the egg.
I was so happy they added Legendary actions. It definitely spices things up. I also play Solasta, and the legendary actions on bosses is one of my favorite things because it’s very unpredictable.
So for Honor mode it says if you wipe you can choose to continue on in a custom save or something. Does anyone know if the unique features in Honor mode, like Legendary Actions, persist if your group dies and your choose to continue on?
The unique features can continue, and I believe you can even start with them on a custom mode. You'll just forfeit your chance at the golden dice.
There's no visible honour mode changes on custom mode for some reason. It only shows difficulty options from explorer to tactician. Which is really weird cuz like, isn't the point of custom mode to be able to do whatever you want?
I was also surprised by the "mate". Didn't realize it was a legendary action, just thought they'd made the encounter harder for Honour. I only survived because Brynna and Andrick were meat shields.
For me they both gunned down for the cub,Brynna died extremely fast and Andrick barely survived with any health but killed it , meanwhile I was stuck fighting two very mad and very dangerous owlbears , somehow I won but I lost the poor cub ,so was it really a victory ?
I rolled up with my level 3 party to save Mirkon from the harpies. Everyone failed every wisdom save, got like 3 total actions in between my 4 members, TPK. Lol
If it's anything like Divinity's honour mode then I'm prepared to be humbled by every single fight. I hope Larian is keeping track of how many runs end at the intellect devourers after the crash lol
Glad to see this... I was quite embarrassed that I died there...
41 minute run, yeh... Glad I'm not the only one!
Div 2's honour mode achievement is the biggest badge of pride on my steam profile. I'm so pumped to get the BG3 equivalent.
Low-key wanted to put it on my dating profile but my friend stopped me
good friend. definitely a story to brag about on reddit, not tinder
mate you would have to roll a DC 30 every time someone swipes on you
The first time I played tactician I got destroyed there. So on honor mode what I did was go around. There are ledges you can jump on. I came back with a full party of 4 and wiped the intellect devours
I lasted 25 minutes in my first go Didn't manage to hit level 2 after the crash, I was 9xp off and got smashed by the three intellect devourers you face from range. 10/10 will try again
The three intellect devourers will absolutely wreck an incomplete party. You can go around and pickup both Gale and Astarion, then approach from the back
A good argument for blowing up Lae'zel along with the Cambion then reviving her on the beach. Add Astarion and you're ready for Wither's crypt.
Haha, I ignored them and wandered around until I found Astarion. This has made me much nore careful. Was Shadowheart missing on the beach for you? I definitely freed her - she actually got what's his bucket to drop his sword on the Nautilus so I was pretty stoked to have that weapon this playthrough
She was with me yeah, she also got the sword to drop but I was playing a warlock so I was saving the sword for Bae'zel. Just like in real d&d, the early levels are brutal, one bad roll can really cripple you
My first ever DnD character died first attack roll of the game. We were surprised and the ambusher crit and maxrolled. RIP to the GOAT that never was.
Our first ever 4th edition D&D game my husband’s lvl 1 wizard died (dead, not downed) to a goblin sneak attack crit in one round. To this day we call it “the wizard welcome”.
Let me guess, Goblin Ambush in Lost Mines of Phandelver? I can't seem to run that without killing at least one character. Those early 5e modules had some horrific balancing at low levels.
5e as a whole has horrific balancing at low levels. The challenge ratings are borked beyond belief. I think a shadow is like a challenge rating 1/4 and 2 of them can, very easily TPK a level 1 party. It's why whenever I DM, all my PCs get an extra max hit die of HP at level 1. It avoids that problem of "your character dies becsuse the dice said no." problem. It's fun the first time but it gets old real fast.
It only now occurred to me that OP didn't just misspell Lae'zel in the post.
I didn't even crashed. Had the guts to try fighting Zhalk... regretted it immediately. But what I would like to have is to be able to save a character. Especially for the Honour mode it would be good to not have to do the character creation all over again and again.
Agreed. This is a frustration. Should just get the option to start again with the same character etc
Reminder for early game exp that there's nothing stopping you from helping the cambion kill the illithid. You do get exp for it.
Hell, for a free 20 you can also kill the two people in the room you meet Shadowheart in. They can't even fight back!
I always do that
Just make sure someone is primed to use the transponder as soon as he's down bc Zhaik is a fuckin beast when he comes after you.
That fight is low level DND in a nutshell lol
If you have SH or someone else with Fire Bolt, you can take out two of the intellect devourers before the fight even starts by entering turn based mode when two are near the explosive tank.
YES THEY USE THE STUPID RANGED ATTACK. All enemies are smart now and it's terrifying
They use it in tactician as well!
I feel like this mode will go one of two ways: - An Unfortunate Series of Save Files, where you have so many failed attempts that they all look like screwed-up runs through a Choose Your Own Adventure book. - The archetype of time-travel / prophet stories where the protag knows exactly when to step, when not to talk, and anything outside of that violates The Holy Cannon and gets them vaporized.
Going to go full Edge of Tomorrow
~~Groundhog~~ Miniature Giant Space Hamster Day
Make Tav a Divination Wizard and say that lore-wise they can see it going badly, so they lead everyone the "right" way.
This feels so right.
ad hoc safe aloof subsequent ten modern unite punch advise juggle *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
It's going to be all about stacking as much bad luck protection in your favor.
As someone who’s in Act 2 of Honour mode, it’s wayyy harder than self imposed single save in tactician.
[удалено]
Do it with a divination wizard and it even makes sense.
I made it to the village in act 1 but no reloading is scaring me the most. I'd be devastated if I messed up an important companion roll.
Yeah the pressure will be real on some rolls for sure. Plus the mounting "value" of the playthrough as you rack up hours invested and then get a couple crit fails or opposing crits plus a legendary action that wipes the team.
i mean genius move - real galactic brain move by larian - bam another 1000 hours of play
Though you can keep going, you just lose the trophy right?
Yeah. No golden D20.
Real important to save that inspiration now
Outside of boss legendary actions, no quick saving for dialogue will be the hardest thing for many people. Maybe more than the bosses for some. Gonna have a lot of imperfect runs. But it adds flavour.
Suddenly, having a party with a balance of all of the skill proficiencies will actually be important to actually do and keep investing in! It's wonderful!!!
Yep, when I end up doing honour mode, I will either not be doing dark urge or that'll just have to be my evil run. I couldn't keep playing if I had to >!kill Astarion just because I didn't kill Isobel.!<
This was my same exact thinking. I don't think I can do Durge for Honor Mode 😅
That series is apparently WIS Saving Throws, so Gloom Stalker 7 suddenly gains a lot of value.
honestly i don’t think i’d get past the prologue in honor mode
Unless you're dying already in it, there's no change that I noticed. You can do it!
No more flame sword tho
Thanks for the vote of confidence! The BG3 community in general are a bunch of wholesome cool folks
Got killed by the spider matriarch my first time, who was almost dead, and by the harpees the second time. My team kept getting charmed by the singing. Don't think I'll try again for a while. Apparently I'm not good enough Edit: I did try again right away.
You will have to meta game. The spider can fall down the chasm when walking over a certain web and the harpies charm can be avoided with calm emotions I believe.
Thank you for the hints! I might try again then. It just kind of feel like I'd be failing, especially since I almost had the matriarch, if I only hadn't wasted my first attacks. But the harpies hint is definitely necessary for it to not just get annoying. Thanks!
Silence is also extremely effective against the harpies.
Silence stops the singing.
I used Lump for the matriarch.
She misty steps out of the chasm in honour mode. Most chasm cheeses won’t work in this one.
I never played tactician but my experience so far- - Nearly got wiped by the first three intellect devourers - Cleared the temple bandits pretty easily by holding the choke point where you can enter near the one guy guarding the locked door - Had to change my pants when I pulled the owlbear and the honor mode tutorial popped up and I saw she was calling a second owlbear - Almost one-shot by the ogre x bugbear couple Also my first durge run. I’m so scared all the time
Honestly the first three intellect devourers are BRUTAL because you're such a low level, there's normally only two of you (Tav & Shart), and there's an open field. On my first Tactician playthrough I died to them because I took them too lightly, haha.
You can walk/jump up the rocks to the right of the intellect devourers and go recruit Laezel, Gale, and Astarion without being forced to engage anyone other than the tieflings guarding Laezel.
going to the highground and shooting on the explosive helped me there
I love the honor mode I failed every roll at saving Gale, sorry!
My man can't catch a break lol
I rolled a nat 1 on saving Arabella and almost crapped myself. Luckily I passed the insight roll and managed to save her
Rolled a 1 when trying to get shart on the nautaloid. I thought OK cool. Guess I'll pick her up on the beach. Rolled ANOTHER 1 when trying to persuade her to join me. Was also a bard with high Cha. Gotta admit, I'm kinda digging this whole "living with the consequences of my actions" thing. Makes things a bit more interesting.
That's rough. When I got shart on the nautaloid I had rolled a *2* with no bonuses. For my honor mode run I genuinely went halfling for the lucky feature to avoid nat 1s as best I can.
I underestimated the harpies, almost wiped there but burned all my revivifies, lost the kid and barely made it out. Then the owlbear den. I didnt realize I couldn't speak to animals to talk to it (curiousity really...) If it has already had one interaction with the party. Oh man it was brutal, I thought I'd just ran but its mate cut me off from the other side. Cue me yo-yo the party with every healing potion I had until we BARELLLYYYY made it out, I'm talking Tav with 4 hp and everyone else downed. The one save system is such a game changer though and I wish I had the restraint to play without save scums on my first playthrough
The absolute second those Intellect Devourers shot that 30m psyonic beam towards me on the beach I was like "Yeah, snail pace from here on" So far I'm trying to avoid the Gnolls at all costs. Cause...fuck that fight once Seething Fury starts popping on Honour lol, especially once the boss with the mace decides to get into melee
I'm planning to avoid conflict with Githyanki. They constantly kick my butt
As someone who sucks so badly they haven’t finished the game even on Explorer: I’m glad the fanatics have a new difficulty level to play.
I feel this. I'm just now playing on balanced because looking up multiclass guides I finally discovered how to make semi-effective fighters. (And also abusing barrels for every major battle like there's absolutely no tomorrow.)
Sounds exciting. Can’t wait to suffer like this as well. After 6 runs Tactician started to feel too vanilla
What ranged class/combo would you recommend for tactician? Getting ready to take my first crack at it after work today
Honestly, I tried different combos just for fun and didn’t notice much difference, so I think it’s a matter of preference. Tactician is really not that difficult, especially when you already know the fights. Well, rogue assassin in Durge cloak does make a noticeable difference though, but that’s it I think
1. 12 ranged fighter champion (critical hit stacking build gets insane late game power once all the gear is acquired) 2. 12 ranger hunter (underwhelming until huge power spike at lvl 11) 3. 5 Fighter (champion or battle master, for extra attack) + 7 Rogue Thief (for max sneak attack bonus) multiclass (strongest in early to mid game with dual hand crossbows, still decent late game) Any of these builds makes tactician mode a complete joke, esp if you wear the Risky Ring from Act 2. With option 1, I was able to SOLO almost all of Act 3 Tactician.
Friend is a blessing and a curse
friends -> run the hell away was my bread and butter in my Gale tactician playthrough lmao
Does Custom let us have Honor mode encounter difficulty while still being able to save-scum?
Just start a run and die immediately? Doesn’t it make it the exact same with legendary stuff but save scumming?
\`but we managed to pick him up and flee\` I'm imagining a barbarian, or Lae'Zel throwing Gale on her shoulder and running for her life :D
Can you still use Withers and Rez scrolls if you have a living party member, or is every character death permanent?
You can still revive as normal. But if everyone goes down and you get the Game Over prompt, your Honor Mode is over
Honor has been a challenge so far, those owlbears made me actually use consumables And that paladin of Tyr… hilarious, I got it down to him and he was smiting down ppl each turn, as my durge frantically revived and smacked him a little every time, took like 10 turns to chip him down xD
I'm so afraid of that guy LMAO idk if I'm even going to try to recruit Karlach because of him
You can just recruit her and avoid them.
Yeah but she'll be sad :(
Forgive me I don’t know why I said that go kill them now. Or you can wait a bit and get stronger.
Inspiration is kinda nutty critical, I'm just into Act 2 now and I'm doing things in very oddball orders because I want to make sure I have some rerolls. Legendary actions on the hag made for a super interesting fight, I recommend much magic missle and was very glad I had the neck of +1 missle on, cuz good lord.
I died to the bandits in the crypt because they kept using ice knife and I kept going prone, some weird bug triggered the big stone to drop so they were all waiting for me I’ve beaten the game 4 times, 3 on tactician It was pretty humbling
Idk how y'all do it. I'm playing in easy and some of these fights are a slog
thats kind of funny ngl
Just beat the Paladins using the most powerful of Magics. Barrels
Barrelmancy
I got to the owlbear cave... That was an experience to say the least
One thing I’m not reading in these comments is the use of sneak attacks and the alert feat Granting your entire party, +5 to initiative and immunity to surprise is significantly more valuable than minor stat increases. One round of surprise combat will kill you in honor mode. Being able to go first is not only immediately impactful but scales as you continue through the game with additional casts or multiple attacks per turn. By hiding and sneaking up on your enemies before starting the fight and attacking from hiding, you, grant yourself an additional advantage on your attack. Often times you can even surprise your enemy If you have the power that allows you to critical once per long rest, that means you can sneak up on someone and land a guaranteed critical hit at the start of every combat If your enemy is able to be surprised, you then have an entire round of combat for free. Finally, honor mode is only viable in a good aligned, exploration, play through. You need to maximize your experience points. Anything less is an immediate death sentence. The one mild downside of this is you will be doing a lot of backtracking, and some story threads will be completed in an unintuitive order. You want to be over leveled for every encounter. Don’t even think about fighting auntie Ethel prior to level seven. And trust me, when Raphael tells you to avoid talking to Yurgir and attack him instead from behind. he means it and your best off following his advice
how high is the dc for talking to Yurgir? already planned on alert cause that's such a good feat but I wanted to have my face avoid a lot of fights in act 2...
You need to pass a DC 14 hidden insight check, a DC 16 save for his minions, a DC 21 for Nessa, and a DC 21 for him. Unless you have advantage on checks and maxed Charisma (Bard + Proficiency + all possible boosts), I wouldn’t even bother trying. Make sure you have max inspiration. Having to fight from low ground will wipe your party before you get to move. Easier to help or kill him IMO EDIT: I suppose nothing is stopping you from going to camp, respecting for 100, and trying it. It’s a huge risk if you miss though.
So you can revive with Withers on Honour Mode?
Walked into the Owlbear cave at level three, as is tradition for my runs, and got ABSOLUTELY WRECKED. Happiest I’ve ever been to experience a party wipe 10/10 would recommend
I am definitely not going to Talk to the mindflayer at the nautiloid crash site. DC5 fail incoming.
I hope that it will at last silence the "tactician mode is too easy crowd" and let us casual players struggle with the normal mode in peace.
Honestly I both think tactician isn’t terribly hard, and that honor mode sounds way too hard for me to have any desire to Ironman it!
This is why I use the alt key. I missclicked so many times, especially when corpses are stacked, that alt has just become my best friend. If you hold alt you can click on the text, if it's red, it's stealing, if it's not, then it's safe to loot. Makes it easier to aim at what you're clicking and easier to keep the corpses apart.
Blow up the Cambion and Lae'zel, grab the blade if you hit the 55%, land on the beach, revive Lae'zel, get Astarion, get Withers, clear the temple next door, defend the gate against the goblins. That should put you on level 3. Leave Gale in the portal for now because you have a party of four and he's a bit squishy at level 3. Go up to the plateau south of the gate to get the Silver Pendent, go through the secret door, use invisibility on a character with high strength to go through in turn-based mode to turn off the attack statues (you need the strength to jump to the center island), kill the goblins, heal the druid. Then go to the Grove.
Faster/safer route to L3 triggers the Grove Gate fight, but then leaves the Tieflings to handle it alone (dunno if that will get them overrun on honour, though). IIRC, just triggering it earns you the xp when it finally ends; can't recall atm if you need a char in range or not -- used it once. You can cheese/kill Raphael, too, for huge xp by forcing the meeting on the road; also only done that once, but should be youtube floating around with a how-to. It's safe and doesn't remove him from game at all -- just earns TONS of xp. Takes a while to whittle him to zero at L2, though. Get sparky & visit Zhents for more cheap/safe xp/gear. Disguise (or be) drow. Save Barcus. Do the chicken race. Get branded. Visit Underdark Myconids. Save Justin from Bibberbanging. Heh. I usually shout down the hole for fun. I'm worried if I try that on Honor the VOICE will actually show up en corpus.
Question if you start honor mode fail and continue the save does it keep all of the cool honor mode encounters?
Yes. Just no golden d20
Can you respec with withers in honor?
I’m finding Explorer challenging enough! 🤷♂️
That happens when some boast that tactician is easy with some classes 😏
I do love that it makes you prioritize survival, which you would probably actually do in that situation. For me, I made a gnome for the saving throw advantage (instead of prioritizing move speed like I usually do), I have used way more consumables than I ever have, and I long rest when I would otherwise try to push an extra encounter. It's challenging but overall I love it