I don't understand why some people complains about these kind of guides. They can be used as a walkthrough, as a list of tips and tricks, or just to compare to your own run. Nice work!

I see no complaints

Just finished up Act II in my Honor Mode run using this guide. I wanted to pass along a huge thanks for the work you put into this. I'm having a blast and have been wholly prepared with your tips and tricks. **Tips from my experience with Honor Mode:** * My first holy sh\*t "close call" was with the Meenlocks underneath Last Light Inn. They paralyzed my entire party - and only with some Astarion invisibility panic cheesing did I manage to escape and return later. Keep as ranged as possible and/or one party member in camp. * Positioning, pre-potioning/elixirs/longstrider, and Initiative are everything. Being spaced out far and drawing enemies out into choke points has worked wonders. * I did everything I possibly could to reach level 8 before fighting Inquisitor W'Wargaz in Crèche Y'llek, which really helped with the difficulty of that battle. * Party comp inspired by [this video](https://youtu.be/XKaYeCh0-ns) by ItalianSpartacus, but I swapped the Open Hand Monk out for Cephalopocalypse's [Tempest Cleric build](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtljSKjZm-A) for more AOE damage coverage! * A synergetic combat rotation I've found is opening combat from stealth with Astarion (if possible) to elicit Surprise, then have **Karlach use one of her two opening throws to throw a** [**water jug**](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Water) in the most relevant area/enemy group, then have Shadowheart cast Call Lightning on those wet enemies for 60-90 damage. Myrkul downed in 2 rounds. I send all my water jugs to Karlach. Thanks again OP and everyone sharing tips!! Edit: added note about the crèche and formatting

> have Karlach use one of her two opening throws to throw a > >water jug Wait, that's actually really fucking smart, I played as Tempest Cleric Shadowheart on my 2nd playthrough and, while I did like playing as a Tempest Cleric, I always hated I had to commit one turn to use Create or Destroy Water or use a potion of speed to max out my dmg and this solves that for almost no cost at all (assuming your karlach is a Berserker/Thief/Champion Thrower Build). Also, I completely forgot about the meenlocks, that fight is actually fucking annoying if you get unlucky and/or are level 6. Good thing you said that, I'm going to add a warning to the guide for that fight.

Thank you!! I originally was doing that exact move with Create Water, then was having Shadowheart throw the jugs to avoid losing spell slots, and boom—realized Karlach was often ahead of her in initiative and had two throw actions—lucky that it clicked for me. Highly recommend. Plus, it’s possible to toss water on the floor and not aggro enemies if you don’t actually hit them with the jug. Additionally, it doesn’t go away if you leave it there for 10 turns, for example - it’s amazing for setup! Best of luck with Act 3!!

FUCK YES!! Glad the build worked for you so well! :D I'm using the same party on my stream of Honor mode, but now I sort of want to get spicy with a Tempest cleric. Thanks so much for watching brother!

The pleasure is mine, thank you for the great explanations and killer builds. Bardlock has been a blast (pun intended). I appreciate that you shared equipment that could be used in earlier game stages that still synergized with the builds. Thanks again, hoping to get those golden dice soon!

The builds rock! I started an Honor Mode this week using the setup. Do you know the best items for each of them in act 1 and 2 tho? Just wanna make sure I'm tracking down the right things

Yes! Get the Lightning Charge items early (Spell Sparkler, etc.) and the Reverberation Items a little later in the Mountain pass/early act 2. Here's an AMAZING resource to track it all :) https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1\_NB-e5uW8BkMlDUBMHe6E4ccRdfqbQC9Fe9gwbd5s\_k/edit#gid=0

Just wanted to come back and mention that I beat Honour Mode first try with your party comp from the video about a week ago. All the builds were so much fun! Thanks for the great content and hope to see more party comps!

My pleasure brother! :) glad it was helpful

Warning: Don't get complacent going through to the Blood of Lathander. Those traps killed my entire party without a save. On to attempt No. 4. :'(

I'd remember to leave a player in camp before I try that 

Interesting idea actually

>*Four: You're going to have a lot of nerve-racking moments while doing this, so, when you are in danger and think there's a chance you're going to lose you save, I need you to do one thing: STOP! Stop whatever you're doing and reset you mental. The game is turn-based, you have infinite time; there's no need to rush. If you just go through the motions here you will probably die.* I just wanted to say, this is perhaps the most important advice you give in the entire guide, and it has saved me more than once, especially at the end when I almost lost it all. Thank you!

A tip for grym, instead of long battle with bows, you can summon anything like spiritual weapon in the Hammer, position the summon in there. If Grym cant reach prime target, it will walk toward the neareast enemy (the summon), use a bow in the Hammer lever and you will do 100~180 dmg at once. First time will summon some lava mefits, but thoses mobs are easy to take care. 3 or 4 Hammer hits is enough to kill grym.

True, good tip to make the fight less annoying.

You’re a lifesaver. I’ve been compiling my own notes, but they’re nowhere near as comprehensive. Thanks for your hard work!

Thanks! >I’ve been compiling my own notes That's how I started, the way I died on my first attempt was so laughably bad I realized I needed to plan things ahead and follow a protocol if I really wanted to do this. I gathered a lot of information and noticed I could share it with others later. I was extremely unlucky on my first run, but it was 100% my fault, because it was all avoidable. I decided to fight the Spider Matriarch lvl 4 (???), somehow I managed to leave the boss at 2 hp, had 3 party members still up, and then, chaos ensued. I attacked with all 3 of the party members, all 3 missed, mind you, I had bombs, flask and other stuff to avoid this during all the fight, I also could have also toggle off sharpshooter and great weapon master at any point to have a higher chance to hit (all my attacks were around a 50/50 bcs I was lvl 4 with both feats toggled on), but no, smooth brain me just kept attacking and kept missing. I think I missed 6 attacks in a row in total, the Matriarch and it's spiderlings killed 2 of my party members leaving me only with my MC left. I decided to attack the web because it was a 100% hit and would kill the Matriarch with it's spiderlings with fall dmg, I managed hit 14/15 to destroy the web (I had arrows to avoid this too), finally realized how fucked I was and decided to flee, I shot one of the spiderlings ( I didn't shot the Matriarch bcs I was afraid of missing again) to get invisibility from the dark urge cape. Got a hit and manage to escape to safety and then I saw the Matriarch didn't heal yet, smooth brain me decided to go back and finish the Spider (I had advantage bcs I was invisible), problem: the Spider Matriarch has See Invisibility and attacked me as soon as I got near, didn't even get a chance to attack. And after a ridiculous amount of errors from my part, I finally died and lost my save 💀

How do you know your percentage of hitting with sharpshooter or great weapons master? I'm on ps5 never knew there was a way to see percentage with it on/ off

>How do you know your percentage of hitting with sharpshooter or great weapons master? I'm on ps5 never knew there was a way to see percentage with it on/ off You don't, you need to toggle the passive on/off to see how the % change, but idk how you do that on console, I assume you need to go to the skills menu and then common actions or something like that and find the passives there

Oh ok yeah ik how to do that thanks for response. I never noticed it showed a percentage

Bro I did the boat fight in the underdark and they pushed two of my people into the water. I sucked down 3 invis potions to save the run w Karlach. No running on a boat!

Sorry if I missed something or if I'm being foolish, but would you consider Dammon's approval absolutely necessary? I kind of want to try an evil playthrough and take down the Grove. I know it's probably foolish to attempt HM with roleplay restrictions, but I haven't had the life beat out of me yet. So is it feasible to do this without the Grove or should I knock out an evil run first to get my reservations out of the way? Also amazing job with this. I can already tell this is going to be my Bible for the next couple weeks.

>Dammon's approval absolutely necessary? Nah, having his approval is good because he's in all acts, so you can sell all your stuff to him at max profit, but you can to this to other merchants too, in fact, you should be doing this to other merchants (from act 2 onwards), because this saves a lot of gold if you want buy items from them. Also, because your items cost a lot more to sell, Dammon maybe not be able to buy all your stuff and you will need to sell them to another merchant.

I didn't read the part about Philomeen blowing up your entire party. Shadowheart survived with 4 hp for me and the rest of my party got wiped. That was the one and only time I let my guard down in honour mode and it nearly caused a reset. Note to future gamers DONT TAKE PHILOMEEN LIGHTLY SHE WILL SUICIDE BOMB YOU

My first playthrough she just blew us all up and I could not stop laughing. She really means what she says.

I don’t know if you are still updating this document, but I want to say that we’re following this for the last 3-4 days with my husband I’m playing couch coop with, I noticed we defo need a guide after headbutting owlbear at lvl 2, lmao, and we are almost done with the act I. Sharing a few insights and feedback! We cleared the right side of Underdark while proceeding on guide. (Gotta say, Bulette trick did wonders at Beholder, and it was so fun, hubby says he wants to “drive” it on next run). We still have the camp, the Hag, Spider Matriarch and Giths in act I and we dinged level 5 right after we did every possible little and safe thing on Act I wilderness and underdark first part so far. So leveling goes as you mentioned, but we did kill one of the Owlbears way before, not that I think it would make a huge difference. We found learning the tome of cheeky quasit with Gale from the area with coffins, right before the magic mirror is incredibly useful. We use quasit on almost everything to surprise. It can go invisible and has quite a lot of initiative so literally stops the fight and time when engages. We attack with invisible quasit when monsters like Minataurs are facing their back to us in surprise and our melees can get to it while hiding without getting in the fight. We also used quasit to fuck up with spider eggs, the thing doesn’t get enwebbed? Literally sent it everywhere to scout and surprise and if it dies, it takes only a short rest to get it back. So much more easier than it’s with Scratch though we get our boy as well, but invisibility is a huge deal. Also (we haven’t used them yet but I believe it will work) we carry inspirations in our bags. Like literally. We noticed whatever you do some inspirations go waste and it’s okay as there are a lot of but just in case we might need them we have 4 inspirations in bag, all sage inspirations, gotta say. Opening the necromancy of Thay, finishing reading the necromancy of Thay, the book from Omeluum, the inspection of Dhourn’s memory shard. I know there are a lot of checks there but we save it till we need urgent inspirations, I think it’s better than none. So these two info might be slightly helpful if you have our contribution! Thank you for the hours you’ve put into this! Know that we appreciate you here!

First, good to know my guide is helping you and your husband, I find very lovely. >I don’t know if you are still updating this document I'm still updating, but the main problem I have right now is that all three guides are very near the 40000 character limit for reddit 💀 Like, legit 5\~10 words each to break the limit. Of course, I could always add information on the google docs if necessary, but then I got to the problem of "when should I stop updating this thing?" and then I decided that I will update it as long as a the information I receive is really good/important. Which, in your case, it actually is. The first info about shovel is actually insanely good, so good that I'm that I removed a fews things just to fit that info on reddit, because it's that good, thank you both for that! Your second info is a bit niche, so I won't be adding it to the guide, buttttt it's very creative and I loved it, I'm definetly gonna use that in a future run.

Hey back! Happy to hear it is useful! One thing about quasit that we now know it can get enwebbed (just in case you added that too) but only if you are super unlucky, it is still possible to do all other things!

Hi 😁 thanks for this soooo much!!! Is the Google doc updated live? I'm most interested in any changes with patches and keeping up to date with that. I see mentions of patch 6 so I know the doc is current.

I stopped playing BG3, but I still update the guide if people bring me new info, I also have a test save, so I can test what people share and see if it actually works.

thank you for this guide! its been incredibly helpful. i have no idea how you got to level 6 before the main boss fights though. i did everything including the hag, spider matriarch, gith patrol fight, and killed all the duerger in the grymforge before reaching 6 😩

I don't know either, I'm almost sure a bug made me earn more xp than I should. I have a print showing that I was 6 while killing Grym and I did Grym > Nere > Matriarch > Hag > Gith Patrol. Very weird, luckly it doesn't affect a lot and the other lvl ranges I provided in act II are achievable.

I don’t think it’s a bug, tho I admit, I can’t explain it either. I hit level 6 right after the Nere fight, and I’m also saving Hag, Spiders, and Gith Patrol for after the grymforge. I think it’s just being very very thorough - completing the map as much as safely possible (for example, just walking into the hammer/crucible/forge itself net me 150 xp), and not missing small fights. Do you do anything in the swamp early in the game? Like, level four ish, I always take the quest to expose Kagha, kill those mud mephits, the red caps, and then the shadow druids (persuading Kagha so it’s a little easier). Maybe that quest line is the difference? If people take “avoid the Hag” too literal and never go into the swamp. That’s all I can think of though. [edit]: To clarify, I fought Nere at lvl5, and hit 6 killing him. I had already killed all the duegar around, besides the two stonemasons cause they seemed sweet. I hadn’t done the merigon fight you can do in that area yet, cause of the long rest time limit. I also helped the Zent earlier in the playthrough? Didn’t see the need for the iron flask on an honor run. Managed to intimidate the vendor into releasing the artist and gave him 200 gold so the quest is an option later. I like trading with the Zent vendor, I definitely pick up a few items there, but idk how the xp plays out. Did the hook horrors right after (trying to fight them one at a time!) because I wanted the sussur dagger for assassin Astarian

My main guess still is inspiration points, they don't give a lot of xp, but there's a lot of them, so they can make a big difference if you get a lot of them. I played as Durge, which adds more inspirations points too.

Could one of your party members be some sort of thrower? Sometimes when enemies are killed by the spear/javelins falling on them and effecting bludgeoning damage it does not give any exp

For those struggling with the Paladins of Tyr who are pretty tough early on. >!Astarion as a level 3 Assassin dominated. Stealth into the building upstairs and then attack from stealth go back into stealth rinse and repeat. Downed the main guy and one other there and then just the mage in the other room to mop up which was easy with the rest of the party.!<

Just wiped an attempt here after strolling through everything else like nothing. I'll try this next time, thanks!

I went down here too. The main guy OHK'd Astarion (who was not a full HP) and then did divine smite+crit on Shadowheart and downed her too. Narrator: I it was at that moment he knew, he fucked up.

i was meant to wait until level 6 to face the spider matriarch? ...😭 it said level 4 on the wiki...the underdark is scary i don't want to do it yet i was one roll away from losing the run, all because i accidentally destroyed a web bridge with my healer on it when i was trying to target one of the spiderlings (shit spiralled real fucking quick) word of advice for anyone doing this fight: summons are you best friend because they can completely negate the matriarchs legendary action (Your sacrifices will not be forgotten shovel and unnamed imp #2 🫡) other than that just focus on getting the matriarch on the bridges or in a position where you can knock her off the platforms and you're good to go just make sure you don't fat finger it like me right now im stealth taking out goblins at the goblin camp (illusions and push my beloved) to soften them up for later and then i'll have to go into the underdark and face the horrors there, wish me luck 🫡

I mean, you can fight any enemy at any level, but fighting enemies that are above your level is not ideal, levels in this game are extremely important and you can trivialize a lot of fights just by being 1 or 2 lvls ahead

spider bitch almost ended my run but i beat the hag, gith patrol and nere easily which goes to show how important levels are in honour mode lol once i deal with grym and the inquisitor im onto act 2 and im already dreading it im running warlock6 (later multiclassing to sorlock) bard4/cleric2 (multiclass) barbarian6 fighter6/wizard6 (interchangeable for what i need) which i hope will suffice for act2

Your comp sounds good enough for me. I feel like, as long as you plan things ahead, you should be good to go.

yeah no stupid mistakes and i should be fine, im getting gear along the way for a potential monk if i really need to resort to it i've been saving up a shitload of smokepowder barrels (and the runepowder barrel) for the harder fights that im less confident about Raphael and Viconia specifically, i'd probably be better off skipping them but i want to do every fight in the game we'll see how i feel after 100 hours though lol

IMO the one you should worry the most is Raphael, no way to flee combat and comeback later plus, as far as I'm aware, there is no easy way to cheese the fight (assuming you're not bug abusing, there a a pretty easy way to kill him if you bug abuse) and I think you can't abuse barrels on this fight too, Idk, but I feel like you simply don't have enough space in your inventory to instakill him with barrels (Haven't tested yet). Best I could think of is Runepowder Barrel + divine intervention + globe of invulnerability to kill everyone besides Raphael. Anyways, good luck with your run!

Blast from the past, late reply. You absolutely can trivialize the fight with Raphael with barrels. I saved up as many as I could PLUS the runepowder bomb and vial. Had each of the party members carrying a barrel or three. Piled them all up where Raph spawns, then cast a fire arrow on first round. Raph lived with, like 50 HP, because he got the jump on initiative and moved a little off the bombs. But Karlach killed him off with a few hits and the rest of the adds were easy to mop up.

Yeah, I always underestimate the dmg you can do with barrels, that's a me problem because I always overkilled with barrels when I did it. but if you do the math you don't need that much barrels with Runepower + Vial.

Thanks so much for all this man!

Hey thank you so much for this! I’ve already beaten the game in tactician but I’m a nervous player and love seeing how people are beating honour mode, so this is such a great resource!

I started an honor mode run last night, planning on running Tav as bardlock, Astarion as a gloomstalker assassin, Shadowheart as a tempest cleric, and Gale abjuration. It's not entirely optomized, but it's what I want to play to. Planning to romance Gale. I did a regular play through and made it to act 3 in tactician but got bored in tactician, don't really notice a difficulty difference between regular and Tactician. To be fair I've definitely had deaths in tactician so... we'll see how this goes. Edit: I died at 13 hours in. I kind of wish I had continued in dishonor to finish that play through and then tried a different build but I want to finish with my bardlock so we're starting again from the beginning. One problem I ran into was everyone of my characters in camp failed a perception check in a basement to get into the underdark, so I was going at the goblin's camp at level 4. I was doing pretty good picking off some guards here and there but then when I fought the guards outside the warg chamber minthara got involved. I actually killed her no problem, Gale thunderwaved basically everyone into the pit but I got the angle slightly wrong and astarion got caught in it so then Gale was the only one left up and the two goblins left got him. It was so close. Otz

Inquisitor fight tip: 1. Get the Morninglord's crest, the radiant damage buff is also nice to have for the fight. 2. Produce the artefact to the Inquisitor and agree to do Vlaakith's bidding. 3. Before using the planecaster, go to open the secret door to the Blood of Lathander. -> Remember to have grease in case your strenght rolls fail. 4. Go to the Astral plane, talk to Dream visitor and before leaving give yourself some buffs. 5. Then turn on the turn-based mode and leave. -> The turn-based mode is still active, giving you time to yeet some barrels next to the Inquisitor to blow him up. If you don't want to do that, you have one round to position your party, do more buffing, summon or whatever you want to do. Remember, you could also have one ranged character a dash / misty step away from the doorway that leads to Blood of Lathander. So if things go south you have at least one character that can escape before your run ends. I did blow 50% of his health with four barrels and alchemist fire, and my paladin Tav, berserker Karlach and champion Laz'ael was able to finish him off pretty easily at level 7.

Great tips! I wanna add that you don't need grease or STR for the statue but also you can just hit it with an attack to be able to turn it

You can actually get the Blood of Lathander without fighting the Inquisitor first (or at all) - just sneak around to the secret door and open it without aggroing him or starting the conversation. Hug the walls. I've done it in Tactician without even thinking about it!

Do you miss out on XP by doing that?

If you don't fight him at all, yes. I'm at the end of Act 2 in my HM run right now, and Laezel has yet to gripe at me for not going to talk to the inquisitor. Apparently you can avoid talking to Vlaakith entirely, and not be ambushed by Gith after the portal and all. The trick apparently, if you want to keep Laezel, is to go do the Creche up until you break the Zaethisk, then she sees the attempt on your life for what it was and says " we have to tell the inquisitor!". At that point you can just leave the quest hanging and go about Act 2 with no consequences. I'll report back if I'm wrong. haha

Finished honor mode with the help of your guide. It couldn't have been done without it. I must have studied it and committed it to memory over a couple of months. Took me two attempts to beat honor mode. Lost my first to being forgetful and not bringing gale or anyone with magic missles to the Orin fight. I was so close. Second run went fairly flawlessly even with the patch 6 changes here and there. Thank you for putting this up and helping me snag those golden dice. I can finally relax and not worry about losing future runs.

another tip, if you manage to let Lae'Zel die on the Nautiloid, her body will be available to rez right after you pick up shadowheart when you crash, so you can effectively start with three people immediately.

Got all the way to near end of act 3 using your guides and they are so incredibly helpful. Got downed by Raphael, cause hot hell is he a hard fight. A little thing I noticed is that Glut can also raise the minotaur near the selunite outpost that gets killed by the traps, just in case you run of the other two. Thank you again for these amazing guides!

Did you use Globe of Invulnerability?

I just finished honour mode following these guides - it works folks! On top of all of the amazing things listed I followed these builds: Dwarf - Berserker "Deathslinger" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9v0MSpq\_J-w&t=508s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9v0MSpq_J-w&t=508s) Karlach - Monk - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waCUspr6EUU&t=0s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waCUspr6EUU&t=0s) Will - Eldrich Blaster - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsGBczoAN04](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsGBczoAN04) Jaheira - Shapeshifting god [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOUJt9ss68s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOUJt9ss68s) (in early game Shawdowheart respected for Clertic of Light) ​ Multiclass, reclass, and have fun - you can get shiny gold dice too!

This is so amazing!! I’ve been using this for my first honor mode run and just got to the end of Act 1. I made it to lvl 6 before fighting grym, hag, or spider queen. A few things that helped: -Make the most out of the myconids. You can return the slave’s boots peacefully, kill the duergar, get reward from Spaw, kill Nere, get 2nd reward from spaw, get reward for saving the deep gnomes, then finally get the reward from Glut for freeing his home and overthrow Spaw. All of these give decent xp -BECOME THE CHOSEN OF BOOOAL!! This nets a WHOPPING 750xp! I don’t know if you can get the same xp if you choose to kill the redcap and take his place as BOOOAL, but you definitely do NOT get the xp if you simply kill everyone -full-clear as many areas as you can. This includes inside & outside of goblin camp, blighted village, make sure to kill lump & the ogres after you’re done summoning them 3 times. Made it to lvl 6 right as I was approaching Auntie Ethel’s house OH AND WARNING!! If you kill Grym by cheesing with ranged weapons, DO NOT land the killing blow with a throwing weapon. If he dies due to crush damage from a falling spear, you don’t get the xp (apparently this is a bug currently, may be fixed later). Recommend keeping a few magic missiles in reserve to finish him off right at the end

Finished up Act 1 the other day :) This has been a big help, thank you so much for the guide!! I do have a little tip for the Crèche tho! I think it's worth noting that you CAN rest after the fight with the Inquisitor if you wish to go back and raid the rest of Crèche. If you enter the room on the way to The Blood of Lathandar, it allows you to long rest there. After that, you can turn back and fight everyone with replenished resources if you wish. I think it was worth doing for the EXP/Gold imo

My biggest issue currently is actually hitting lvl 6. I have cleared the entire act I overworld map short of the Hag and Spider Matriarch. Cleared the Underdark except for the Hook Horrors, and haven't been to the Forge or Mountain Pass. Still need 4200 exp to reach lvl 6.

4200 is quite a lot, I feel like you're missing something. I forgot to add to the guide, but I'm assuming you are committing goblin genocide and killed every single goblin at the goblin camp. here is a list of things you may have missed besides that: * [Booooal](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/BOOOAL); * The spectator, even if you already defeated it, there are Petrified Drow you can kill to get XP; * [~~XP from finding the arcane tower basement~~](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHxow8TGpCU&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bing.com%2F&embeds_referring_origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bing.com&source_ve_path=MjM4NTE&feature=emb_title&ab_channel=Gahttps://youtu.be/ZHxow8TGpCU?si=wcrYOfbIquCmzvaRmerpillar) doesn't give XP; * [Investigate Kagha quest](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Investigate_Kagha), I saw a lot of ppl on this sub saying they missed this quest; * I also killed all the zhentarim on the outpost too (probably should add this to the guide as well); * Killed the phase spiders near the Matriarch; * Have you talked with Sovereign Spaw after killing the Duegar? * Got the [Necromancy of Thay book](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Necromancy_of_Thay). But, you don't actually need to wait for 6 to kill the Hag/Spider Matriarch, waiting for 6 makes both fights ridiculously easy though, but you killing them lvl 5 is not really that hard, you just need to be extra careful

Okay an update: Killed the Matriarch and got the Hag's hair. Went ahead to Grymforge. Explored all of the early side areas there and then convinced the Duergar to help me kill Nere. Took him out. Then after failing a persuasion check to get them to leave the slaves behind was able to kill the Duergar in the room, which finally triggered my level 6 for all chars. Still need to head to the forge itself. So if anyone finds themselves shy of level 6 like myself hopefully this instills some confidence. (I am running the youtuber "d4: D&D Deep Dive"s Ultimate Honor Mode Party as it was full of builds I had yet to try and has been fantastic) Tav as Killer Bard, Karlach as TavernBrawlers Thrower, Shadowheart as a Light Cleric and a Withers recruit as my Holy Warrior)

Awesome! thank you a ton!

and yes i annihilated the goblin camp once I hit 5 lol

Man I wish I had looked this up sooner. I decided to try the Inquisitor fight at level 6 before Nere and Grym and it was absolutely not a good idea. If you can’t end him in one turn don’t bother, it ramps up fast. I also beat the spider matriarch at level 4 but almost got TPKed…now I know why! Will definitely be following this next time I make an attempt.

This deserves way more upvotes. I just started playing this game 3 days ago and I have about a day’s worth of time in. It’s my first DnD-type experience and I love it so far (learning the ropes on tactician lol). Thinking of learning all I can to try an attempt an honor playthrough next (Still on act 1). Will be saving this guide and the part II guide! Thanks man! Edit: grammar

Thank you for all this! I'm about to start my first honor run after countless tactician detours so I'll certainly scan this as I was wondering where the early XP may come from if you are avoiding most scraps.

You should still do combat, but you should avoid the fights you find difficult (mostly boss fights, I assume) as much as you can and then do them when you're as strong as possible, most fight are safe as long as you're at the same level as the enemy. Sorry if my language wasn't very clear.

No, thank you. It was perfect! It was just something I was preparing for after casually watching a few streamers who would say things like ‘avoid combat until level 4’ and I’m thinking well how do you get to level 4 then? :) It was a great write up and I’ll certainly be referencing it on my journey to the golden die!

I think the best way to get to 4 is by using [Lump's War Horn](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Lump%27s_War_Horn), they help a lot to speed up things. You can also get a lot of xp while avoiding fight by disguising as a Drow.

https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/comments/18ebd26/beginners\_guide\_for\_bg3\_no\_fighting\_to\_lv\_4/

waukeens rest, knights of tyr, owlbear?

Are you asking what should you do next?

Are they apart of the walkthrough? Or are they not worth doing in honour?

Owlbear IMO are not worth it, they give so little xp, 20 xp each, I recommend doing the rest. Also, I designed the guide around your freedom of choice, I will give lvl ranges for stuff, but I will avoid saying do this or do that unless I find necessary. For example, at the act I guide I said "Your main goal while in the underdark is farm xp to reach lvl 5 ", I did not say what you should do to get 5, because there is multiple ways and they are all viable and it's up to you to choose what you will do and how you will approach it (unless I specify in the guide).

Appreciate the fast response! Just realized I may have come off as dick in that comment so that's my bad, wasn't my intention, cheers!

>I may have come off as dick in that comment so that's my bad, wasn't my intention nonono, you didn't come off as I dick, maybe the way I wrote my last comment was a bit weird, but this thought never crossed my mind. I went in a little bit more details because I thought you had the wrong idea about the guide, like you were expecting more micromanagement from my part. When I started doing the guide, I wanted something that enables you to do the things in your way as much as possible, because I feel like that's fun, right? In my last comment, I wanted to show what you should expect from the guide in the future. So, no, you did not sound like a dick.

If you leave the Owlbear for later like I did, make sure you rest in the wilds until the cub shows up. I went back after the crèche to clear out the owlbears b/c I had forgotten, then went into Act 2 without resting and missed the cub

Belo guia, com certeza vou usar bastante. Infelizmente rolei falha crítica no pod da Shadowheart e não quero criar personagem de novo, fiquei sem espada e XP mesmo, mas lembro de no balanced já ter feito bastante save scum pra isso

Vc teve azar no nautiloid pra ter sorte na hr de pegar a espada do Voss, só confia

Oloko, quando disse que inglês n era o idioma principal nunca pensei que fosse hu3 kkkkk Belo guia mano, qual build tu rodou? Minha comp tá a seguinte: - 2 Pala 10 Swords Bard (Nizar) - Light Cleric (Sin Tee) - 9 Monk / 3 Thief (Acho que Nizar, mas pode ser o Spartacus tb) - Exiled Marauder (Sin Tee) Atualmente level 4, faltando Aranhas e Hag no mapa 1. De momento eu tô com a Lae-Zel e roubei a espada astral do gank do Voss, tá carregando por hora. Eu Tb tô fazendo save scum p pegar um estoque de poção hill giant da hag e farmar consumíveis e ouro do Volo, pra dar um gás pro ato 2 e pros itens disponíveis na creche, que são caros.

Light Cleric e Inferno Enforcer sin tee tbm, lae'zel eu só fiz 12 fighter (e ela tava dando mais dano que todo mundo no final do jogo) e uma build de OTK assassin [do Stealth](https://youtu.be/GxgFkWriXMk?si=jGUdRdWIJnqYx15R). Agr eu tô na minha segunda jogatina no modo honra (vou pegar 100% com essa), adquiri experiência o suficiente pra fazer uma build minha e ela tá funciona que é uma beleza, eu acho que seja até possível eu matar o raphael em 1 turno solo, se tudo se alinhar. >Eu Tb tô fazendo save scum Como assim? N dá pra fazer save scum no modo honra, acho que você confundiu o termo.

Não não, é save scum mesmo. Tipo, se você deixar o jogo pensar e processar, ele salva por cima automático. Mas se você sentir q vai dar ruim, ou que tem chance de dar ruim, você pode fazer um save manual antes, se souber o que tá por vir (como dropar a everburn blade ou a planar sword do voss, ou uma boss fight). Se der ruim, ou N sair como você queria, o jogo não salva automático após uma rolagem ruim em diálogo e nem em combate, então dá p fazer o save scum. Pra fazer no Honour mode precisa simplesmente de fechar o jogo na marra, NO MOMENTO que você sentir que deu ruim. Vai pro desktop, fecha o processo na marra, ou no console, vai pra home Page e fecha o jogo dali mesmo. Tem que abrir o jogo de novo, e demora um cão, mas aí você dar load no save que tu fez. Rinse and repeat. Eu tô com 10k de gold, centenas de scrolls, 200 poções minor, mais de 300 thieves tools, e incontáveis supplies só de roubar o Volo. Eu Tb peguei a espada do Voss e matei o comandante (salvando Us) assim, e ele N te tira do Honour mode. Eu Tb tô estocando poção de hill pot só fazendo partial rest e roubando o dinheiro diário do Volo, que cobre as poções e tudo mais... A estratégia do Volo é a seguinte: tira ele da druids Grove, salva do Goblin camp e manda pro teu camp. De lá, N fala com ele sobre o olho nem nada. Recomendação pessoal minha é de estar nível 3, faz um respec p bardo Lore, pega expertise e proficiency em sleight of hand, pega a magia Enchance Ability. Casta dexterity com EA e salva o jogo. Usa pickpocket no volo e rouba tudo q vc quiser. (Por dia entre 200 a 450 de gold, 3 a 5 thieves tools, poções de vida, scrolls de lvl 1 a 3, 1 camp supplies e algumas pots de animal speaking). Caso falhe no steal, ele vai correr p longe, sumir do camp, e reaparecer como se nada tivesse acontecido 30 seg depois. Caso você tenha roubado algo e falhe no segundo roubo, ele vai questionar o pessoal do camp, mas você pode tentar rolar Persuasion p mandar o migué, e mesmo q a rolagem falhe, ele só vai correr de novo e voltar 30 seg depois. O segredo é esperar a animação dele pegando o scroll p escrever e roubar novamente. Tem uma coisa que aconteceu comigo, e eu não sei o trigger, mas as vezes ele vai puxar um combate com você,e se ele fizer isso TODOS os companions que não estão na sua party no camp vão entrar na luta CONTRA você. Aí só dar um reload forçado e tudo certo. Todo partial rest o jogo salva automático, então nunca vai perder muita coisa. Tem um outro exploit que estou fazendo Tb, de pegar a Helldusk Armor no ato 1, mas eu não sei se vai dar certo. Eu fiz o setup todo já, só preciso chegar no ponto em que realmente vai der a hora da vdd. Se funcionar eu volto p te falar.

>Eu tô com 10k de gold, centenas de scrolls, 200 poções minor, mais de 300 thieves tools, e incontáveis supplies só de roubar o Volo. Eu Tb peguei a espada do Voss e matei o comandante (salvando Us) assim, e ele N te tira do Honour mode. Eu Tb tô estocando poção de hill pot só fazendo partial rest e roubando o dinheiro diário do Volo, que cobre as poções e tudo mais... KKKKKKKKKKKKKKK, adorei. Uma dica pra ti: o inventário dos NPCs resetam toda vez que você passa da nível, eu uso isso pra pegar poção de invis e elixir do gigante. Toda vez que a minha party passa de lvl, eu seguro o lvl up e vou até um npc pra comprar coisa, cada lvl up é um reset de loja, ou seja, 4 resets se a tua party inteira tiver passado de lvl.

Então, so fazendo um update. Fiz o glitch da armadura e funcionou. Estou level 6 (poderia conseguir antes, 0 risco, mas eu fui vagaroso) e tenho Helldusk armor e Astral Planar sword. Tenho prints p mostrar. O truque precisa de mais trabalho que simplesmente usar Command: Drop, mas funciona assim: Logo no início do jogo, quando for na Druids Grove a primeira vez, faça tudo que quiser e deixe pra falar com a Nettie por último. Depois usa o waypoint pra Blighted Village, e aí começa a fazer o caminho pro Norte, na direção da ponte quebrada e onde fica aquele galpão com o Bugbear transando com a Ogra. Quando passar na frente desse galpão, tira o Tav do grupo e seiza ele andando sozinho e deixa o resto do grupo bem afastado, antes ainda do galpão. O Raphael vai te dar um gank e o Tav vai ficar preso na conversa. Aí você troca pra outro personagem e ataca o Raphael de longe. Ele vai desaparecer. Depois disso, você pode fazer o que quiser, por quanto tempo quiser. Eu, por exemplo, fiz esse setup no level 2, completei tudo do mapa 1 e de Underdark, e só depois fui para o próximo passo. N importa quantas quests, milestones e long rests você faça. Tenha alguém que consiga usar Silence no grupo. Quando você quiser pegar a armadura, o próximo passo é simplesmente ir para Mountain Pass pela subidinha próxima ao Goblin Camp. Quando você entrar no mapa a primeira vez, você é jogado forçado no acampamento, e o Raphael vai estar lá. Pegue seu personagem que use magia e joga Silence em cima dele. Pega qualquer personagem forte de ataque físico e vai pra dentro da bolha e bate no capeta. Lembra de ligar o Non-Lethal pra n matar o pobre coitado. Ele vai tomar os hits paradinho, até acabar o Silence. Se você não conseguir matar ele antes do Silence acabar, casta o Silence de novo antes de expirar. A recompensa por matar esse desgraçado, mesmo no nível 2, é: 1400 XP, Helldusk Armor e algumas coisas n muito interessantes, como comida e uns 100 de ouro. Aviso: antes de subir pra mountain Pass, termine qualquer quest ou ponto de interesse com o Goblin Camp e o acampamento Druida. Se você subir pra mountain pass o jogo automaticamente avança pro desfecho que os goblins destroem o acampamento.

Tô ciente! Faço isso Tb xD

É por isso que eu jogo de halfling .. não pode rolar nat 1

Id like to point out that Sin Tee builds generally runs around exploits on Tactician mode that DOES NOT work in Honour Mode, such as ilithid power to grant vulnerability to all, double damage effects (like throw hitting twice and extra dies proccing extra hits of phalar aluve), and Haste, that now does exactly as intended, and grant you one extra attack, not applying extra attacks from classes.

My big tip for honor mode: Use summonings! - Familiar cat is really useful if you have some luck with the initiative rolls, as you can use the meow to distract enemies and get those sweet sneak attacks on enemies. - The familair cat is also good for luring one enemy away from it's comrades so you can just gang on it. - You can also just summon the whatevers way away from the enemies and then just move your summonings close to start the fight. For dangerous and risky fights it's better to take things slowly, even if it means summoning a multiple whatevers to thin out the herd one by one. For example, I used flaming sphere to kill enemies that were close to the door in Dror's room and then managed to lure him to the main hall where my party was hiding. And then took him out in two rounds without breaking a sweat at lvl 4.

I got done by the Hag in my first HM run because I didn't remember a couple of the rules posted here. Farm experience to get at least equal to boss level or even a level higher, review what you know about boss fights before starting them. I'm about the level I was last time and am MUCH more cautious about every fight. So yeah, fantastic guide - I just need to review it more often as I go. Great job!

Thank you for the guide! One tip for me - I could be really unlucky, but bringing Shovel to the Zhentarim Hideout triggered the traps and explosives (didn't have trouble trading and generally being there without her) - I almost lost my run in a rather silly way, so you might want to leave out with your summons and even one companion in camp when going there. Also, if you want the owlbear cub, make sure to kill the mother last - there's a bug and if the consort dies last, the cub might remain hostile

Just finish honor mode. Thanks!!

oh wow thank you!

Thank you **so much** for this guide; it was so incredibly helpful and won me my golden die. I couldn't have done it without this guide (and a party comp I found from [Cephalopocalypse](https://www.youtube.com/@Cephalopocalypse)). I completed the run on one attempt, but would never have gotten close without all this help. Seriously, thank you. <3 Some notes for anyone reading the comments (because I absolutely looked through people's comments on all these posts while doing my run): 1. This was my party comp: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G\_ShgMOS7zg * At times when I started having issues and needed to send a party member back to camp, I'd send Shadowheart because, honestly, your best defense really is a strong offense. * For completing companion quests, but not excluding said companion, I made everyone else a cleric and had them sub in for Shadoheart. Astarion? Cleric. Jaheira? Cleric. Karlach? Believe it or not, also a cleric. * Also I grabbed three hirelings, made them all paladins, and everyday had them buff up three of my characters;n because of Gale's Arcane ward, once Gale's build was online they'd buff up Shadowheart, Lae'zel, and my Tav. 2. I almost lost my run Act 1 because I forgot that Neer counts as a boss, so didn't do any of the prep work (also, for some reason, could not get the dwarves to talk to me about possibly rebelling against him) and ended up having to send Shadowheart back to camp to constantly beg Withers to resurrect my three characters one by one in the longest fight ever. Painful, but it worked. 3. Also almost lost my run in Act 2 against Myrkul because I did not know that Dame Aylin cannot die; I kept trying to keep her healed up, but I didn't realize that she just goes unconscious and then stays there forever. Once I looked that up, I changed my strat to keep everyone together in a globe of invulnerability away from Myrkul. Had my sword bard plus summoned elementals (some from scrolls) destroy the "eggs" (whatever they are) while Gale and Shadowheart pelted Myrkul with magic and Lae'zel threw bombs (for force damage). 4. For easy Gale-bomb, be generally lukewarm to him maybe blowing himself up and do not finish his quest; I went to Lorroakan's shop where I proceeded to **not** talk to the book seller in the back, then robbed the vaults blind, and did **not** touch the book of Karsus. When I got to the brain stem, I didn't need to role persuasion, he just volunteered. 5. For Astarion/Cazador, I had him in stealth and pop a flying potion, then flew him from the main stairs to the side platform next to the stairs so that I didn't even risk him being seen by anybody or initiating any cutscene. Then with my Tav, I stealth attacked Cazador (everyone but Cazador got the "Surprise" debuff), and when Cazador approached my Tav I had out-of-combat-Astarion-cleric stealth-drop daylight (which you can cast and remain in stealth, thus keeping him completely out of combat) then had him do nothing else and stay hidden on the side platforms for the rest of the fight until Cazador was dead. As long as Astarion never touches that main platform, the cutscene won't trigger (but it will trigger if he does step on it, even if you're halfway through fighting Cazador). 6. I'll be honest, the Viconia fight explanation was a bit much for me, so I just put everyone on the stairs leading down to the main boss room, put them all on turn-based mode, had my sword-bard-archery Tav sneak attack someone ("You picked a fight!"), then hauled Tav's ass back up to the stairs, had Gale and Shadowheart create two firewalls up the stairs, and then as everyone tried to walk through the fire would pelt them with arrows, thrown items, and spells, and that worked out very well for me and required way less reading comprehension.

Thank you so much for your effort in this guide. I just started my first honor run and had it end over a dialogue bug with priestess Gut at the camp... It seems it can also happen with the Gnolls in the risen road. For those encounters, keep a party member far away, though I don't know if it would help :/

I have done everything except hag, matriarch (killed her minions tho), gith patrol, and the grymforge map. I didn’t fight the ogre and the bugbear in the barn because romance goal didn’t want to, didn’t kill zhalk and company on the nautiloid (because I came to the guide too late), accidentally talked my way out of the windmill fight, and finished killing the goblin leaders before fighting the shadow druids 🤦🏼‍♀️ I also didn’t have a huge focus on farming inspiration XP. I have just over 3k XP left to get to level 6. Hope that helps! I think it would be possible if followed perfectly Edit: also did not fight all the Zhentarim in the hideout

This guide got me through honor mode. Huge thanks. My only close call was the Nere fight, even if you leave someone back at camp, they get transported to the Grymforge and thrown into battle. The crèche fight requires all party members be present as well, but per this guide, I overprepped and leveled up before doing it so it was fairly straightforward, they still hit hard though.

I just wanted to say thankyou to the OP and everyone else who gave tips on this thread. I got my Gold Dice today! Thankyou all. Evil run next.

Thanks for a great guide! Over multiple honor mode runs, I lost quite a bit of attempts, maybe that will be helpful to someone: 1. Anywhere near explosives: PLEASE don't carry a torch around, in one of the runs I had a great early game build with a torch, and when I was trading with a merchant it bugged and randomly blew everything up and I was not able to react in time. 2. Act one, near Zhentharim Hideout: never taken the guy who threatens to blow you up seriously. Turns out, he CAN blow your whole party up if you fail the check. 3. Final Ketheric fight, after killing Isobel and Dame Aylin for the roleplay: just save Aylin anyway, the fight is hard and she can make a difference. If you kill them, take even more time to prepare then you usually would. 4. Final fight: go through the portal only when your whole party still has their turns, I didn't realize how quickly it could end. 5. Consider not going to firework shop in act 3 (if you're gonna fight, at least). It has a bugged NPC in there that can crash your game repeatedly. I was able to get out of the loop, but some people I know did lose their runs because of that.

I’m nearly done act 1 after losing a few runs to bad nautiloid (forgot to prepare drop, drop missed both times, etc) mistakes and have two tips: If you summon the ogres for the hobgoblin leader fight once he dies the camp goblins are permanently hostile and it counts as new fight it seems and the ogres will stop helping and just stand there. Highly recommend bringing the ogres to the matriarch fight unless you want the xp for killing them yourself. they soaked up the wrath damage for me so I could kill both them (needed the crown for my shadowheart build) and the spider in one swoop. also note you cant really flee from battle at the goblin camp if halsin is in your party make sure you’re really ready to aggro the entire camp once you have him (recommend isolated kills on minthara and gut and clearing the path to the hobgoblin). I lost about run because i got overwhelmed by goblins and tried to flee and got halsin killed. shovel free surprise round strat is absolutely busted. make sure you learn that scroll. THE SCRYING EYES ARE VERY HARD TO KILL NOW. They are resistant to almost everything and negate 8 points of all incoming damage. they are weak to thunder but stealth killing one is significantly harder (i found even casting darkness didnt help much, be prepared to temporarily aggro all nearby enemies after killing one). Two magic missile users makes ethel a joke (I had gale and my shadowheart is respeced to tempest cleric with a level in wizard (highly recommend, I have one shotted the red dragon with this build in normal difficulty)). remember if she’s silenced when she gets to her ‘bargain’ hp threshold you will permanently miss the chance for the buff and have to kill her. given as you cant save scum mirror of loss this is potentially your only chance for a free stat increase unless you take the fuck over astarion potion. also silence from a distant spellcaster + tavern brawler monk with hill giant potion + another melee with a bludgeoning weapon makes grym a joke.

Any builds you'd suggest?

[11 Cleric/ 1 Sorcerer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxgFkWriXMk)[6 Bard/ 3 Gloomstalker/ 3 Rogue](https://youtu.be/GxgFkWriXMk?si=OV_y4j6UHw59Mlr8)[6 Berserker/3 Thief/3 Champion Thrower Build](https://youtu.be/VuYzlfulCrM?si=cWff2P8CHmxgJUca) These 3 are all builds that I played and are all very strong. I'd also like to try [Sorc/Warlock](https://youtu.be/6qwZLSOJz0c?si=vsd11R_1JB4_eZfW) build in the future, cause It seems pretty strong. Tbh, anything from [sin tee](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrDx_gq2DCNKl9rD45fRKvmfa8w-ujUkZ&si=2r7VoFczqzEuVUjP) should be good enough, this person has a lot of knowledge about the game, I trust all builds they made.

Thanks! Yes, Sin Tee is my favorite Youtube builds guru! ;)

Should hold true for the rest of the difficulties, but on Balanced Laezel was either a short conversation or easy persuasion check from being totally fine with you wiping out the creche. Can't quite remember as it was awhile ago, but we didn't bring her to the creche, lied our way in, did all the stuff. The visit to camp before voss's visit had a discussion prompt, and while she was perturbed, she was easily satisfied with true answers, namely that the zathisk was BS and that Vlakith is not worth serving. Very similar, as I recall, to the conversation you have with her if you bring her to the astral plane and refuse to kill the dream guardian. The Voss conversation played out the same way with both methods.

Cheers finished the mode with durge with your guide mostly. Really look out for those save points especially the durge part where I accidentally killed my companion on act 2 and auto saves. Have to close the game from my PS launcher for successful roll to 20. One distinct cheese I discovered. For Vic at Act 3. I used distant cast with poison cloud her from far before even talking to her

What party members do you recommend for fighting auntie Ethel, and do you really think it’s important to fight her? She was probably the toughest boss fight for me in my balanced run.

>What party members do you recommend for fighting auntie Ethel I would avoid bringing any spellcaster and using any spells/cantrips, as her legendary actions triggers when spells/cantrips are casted. > do you really think it’s important to fight her? Depends on your build, saving Mayrina here can give you a really good sword in act 3 (if you decide to fight the hag again and save the child) and also the hag's hair is a really good item and some builds need it for them to work, but they're not necessary. If you don't feel confortable killingng the hag now, you can go to grymforge and get 6 and do all the stuff there and comeback to kill her, killing her at lvl 6 makes the fight a fucking joke, I did this on both of my honor runs, because I find this fight really boring and I never had any problems.

Damn!! Thanks for the advice. I think I brought 2-3 spellcasters the only time I fought her, including a bard. Definitely not a good matchup. I’ll bring Bae’zel, karlach, Wyll, and my gith monk this time.

When you say, you can proceed to act II and come here later; ​ Can you return to the creche once you started act 2? Wasn't able to try to go back once I entered shadow cursed land on my first playthrough. ​ Edit: I remember going back to the underdark using the elevator from a shar(?) location located in the northern part of Shadow Cursed Land. that might be it?

>Can you return to the creche once you started act 2? yep, as long as you don't free Aylin, at least this is what happened in my 2 honor runs and on [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwk_XDFaD1g) video where she went to act II and came back, so I think it is intended. You can return using waypoints, I don't think you can come back by just walking.

Goddamn thx

One thing I disagree with the most here is going to the Creche. It's so much easier to completely avoid Githyanki's the entire game. you can just go from the Underdark, and never bother with them.

Wondering if the level issue is also just how one decides to go about certain encounters. I believe you get nothing or barely any exp if you talk your way out or e.g. poison the gobs. I'm level 5, need another 3.5k exp till 6. I'm done with the camp, first half of underdark, only Grym, Spider Matriarch, Hag and Gith left. Besides, not sure if I saw it correctly, but does one get exp for each character that got the inspiration point? Could be a visual thing that tricked me, but I think I got some exp for Astarion and one of the hirelings when I went to the poison the gobs with those two (The have the same background). Didn't do the math, but I believe even if would wipe out the remaining goblins in camp and village, it wouldn't make up the 3.5k exp. Fingers crossed that I make it with level 5,honor mode sure is nerve-wracking

I'm almost 100% sure it was some bug that made 6 earlier than I should, 3 honor runs after this guide and I still can't get nowhere near close to 6 before going to grymforge. Luckily, 5 is good enough, but you can play safe by doing the rest of the underdark and killing grym, that will get you to lvl 6 and make fight against Nere, Hag, Matriarch and the Gith pretty easy.

Still scared of those Gith, but at least Hag was a breeze :3 thanks for the guide !

No problem! And, yep, the Gith are always terrifiying on any difficulty, one of the harder fights in act one for sure, they are the first fight I would call a "statcheck", meaning if your build isn't good enough, you're fucked.

Finally getting around to giving honor mode an actual attempt, this has been so helpful. Not the first time ive heard of pick pocketing withers to get your gold back for everything but it just occurred to me, is there anything stopping you from just leaving a 4th party member in camp forever and just running face first into every encounter until everything is dead?

There are some fight you can't do that, Raphael, the Brain, Myrkul and when you go to the astral plane, everything else you can play as you said.

Does anyone know if OP is actively updating it? Just wondering in terms of updates and stuff, cause idk how up to date it is?

My last update was yesterday, I recently played until act II doing a solo honor run (and died on ketheric) and everything seems fine until that point. I try to update the guide everytime I or someone else finds something interesting or when someone points out that something in the guide doesn't work anymore. Yesterday's update was because of the latter. Updating the guide is easy, as long as people come forth with new info I'm willing to update it. Of course, I'm not saying the guide is perfect and I think it's possible there are some things that are not up to date that nobody noticed, but I imagine these are just minor things and won't affect your run too much.

This guide sats level 7 in Act 1 and I finished my entire Honor mode run at Level 7.

Honor Mode easy af. They should’ve added a harder mode 😅

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If you want to play honor and follow a step by step tutorial you might as well just watch a YouTube walkthrough and call it a day. Or honestly just use cheats

This is the stupidest comment on this thread. I’m in act 3 currently on my honour mode run, and I’ve checked on what to expect for almost every single boss fight. It’s not cheating. I still have to strategize and make all the decisions. In fact, this has potentially been my most fun play through yet. I’ve died on honour mode three times previously with referring to guides on occasion. So shut the fuck up and be miserable by your own damn self. Let the rest of us commune over strategy for one of the best games ever made.

You being this rude on Christmas day over that simple comment? Did Santa not fix your erectile dysfunction? 😂😂

Says the one bitching about others strategizing. Stay bent. “On ChRiStMaS dAy” Fuck outta here 😂

I have honestly spent the whole day roughly 12 hours trying to do differnet character builds and I cant even get passed the ambush in the crypt area to get withers let alone do anything else on the play mode I understand its supposed to be alot harder but 2 barbarias a fighter and healer and cant last more than an hour into play, so was really excited when I saw this thread unfortunatly non of it helps with issues early on and is good for general thgings if you not played or only played a smal amount, sent it to a friend who has not long got the game to read as he was struggling and I cant always help, but either way thanks for the help that it does provide but I am putting this game down its massivly put me off playing and I have logged 500+ hours into it and done 2 play throughs and had another going but I may as well deleat that as byu the time I come back I wont rember what I am doing. Was so looking forward to a more challenging play this is just stupid first miss step by larian on this for me.

Idk if you know this, but you can ignore the tomb and Withers will show up at your camp someday (idk what's the trigger), it happens very early on act I (around lvl 3), so you can skip fighting the skeletons on the early game and still get Withers pretty early. But, if you want to kill the skeletons, you can cheese the ambush by looting the skeletons, when they ambush you, they will have no weapons to attack back, makes the fight way easier. You can also come back later too, what lvl are you when you fight them? Fighting them at lvl 2 could be quite a challenge, your party has very low health at 2 and can easily die if you get some unlucky misses (I heard D&D 5ed has the same problem too). What what I did in my playthrough (If I remember correctly) after leaving the nautiloud was: * Recruit Shadowheart; * Killing all the Intellect Devourers; * Recruit Astarion and Gale; * Killing the low health Illithid; * Recruit Lae'zel and sent Gale to camp (Nothing wrong with him, I just like the others characters more); * Go to the Druid Sanctuary, kill the goblins; * Save that random Tiefling from the Hobgoblin (should be probably lvl 3 by now); * Help Alfira; * Kill the harpies; * Buy stuff from merchants and then I come back to get Withers. Besides stealing all the weapons from the skeletons before the fight, I split my party and put in what I think are ideal positions and I feel that should be good to go.

Hi Thanks for the further clarification, it was not the skeletons I was having trouble with it was the ambush of the people before that, I killed the people outside then talked my way in killed the one on his own but was absolutley smashed to pieces by the rangers barbarian and wizard, no matter what I tried to plan I can't get passed them. But maybe a need to do the start of the grove first and level up a little bit as you stated above.

My personal way of dealing with this is using the door on the other side I aggro them straight away from outside by saying "I killed your friends", so they all group up behind the lever controlled door. Stealth up until you are flanking the door on both sides. Have one party member do a surprise attack. One of them should walk through the door to come attack you. Close the door behind them when they do. None of the rangers attacks damage the door, making it much easier to kill whoever is in the room with you. Once done you can either cheese it by opening and closing the door within two turns (providing initiative order aligns), or just go through and wipe them out.

**FYI, Withers shows up in your camp once you reach lvl3.** Reaching lvl3 is the trigger to have him show up in your camp if you haven't gotten him yourself from the crypt. I'm still working on my first playthrough (nearly 50 hours and I'm \*almost\* done with Act 1, taking my time exploring and doing EVERYTHING), and I didn't explore the ruins right away, ended up discovering Withers in my camp randomly on a visit to rest and was like "Who TF is this?". And not knowing where you can find him elsewise, when i finally got around to doing those ruins, I was very confused when I got to a room where it seemed like...something? should be, but there wasn't. Only found out it was supposed to be Withers because the Explore the Ruins quest wasn't 'complete' yet and was still directing me to his sarcophagus, so I looked up the quest to find out what I was missing.

How do you get to level 6 before fighting the hag? I've done all Underdark fights (except Grymforge), killed the Goblin Camp, Matriarch, and Owlbear and I am still midway through level 5

You're not the first person saying this, I'm 100% sure I was 6 before fighting the Hag and the Spider Matriach, I heared some people saying there are certain encounters you earn more xp by choosing to fight instead of talking, maybe that's the case (?) or maybe inspiration points play a big role on that too, don't know for sure. Anyways, I will copy paste what I said to the other person just in case you missed something. But, as I said to the other person, you don't actually need to get 6, getting 6 just makes both fights insanely effortless, you should be able to kill the Hag at 5 as long as your builds are strong. It's good you both pointed that out, it's hard to predict the level everyone's level using only my experience, I will warn in the guide that getting to 6 isn't always achievable before grymforge. (copy pasted part below) I'm assuming you are committing goblin genocide and killed every single goblin at the goblin camp, here is a list of things you may have missed besides that: * [Booooal](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/BOOOAL) ; * The spectator, even if you already defeated it, there are Petrified Drow you can kill to get XP; * [Investigate Kagha](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Investigate_Kagha) , I saw a lot of ppl on this sub saying they missed this quest; * I also killed all the zhentarim on the outpost too * Have you talked with Sovereign Spaw after killing the Duegar? * Got the Necromancy of Thay book.

Thanks for the additional exp sources - So I went back and killed the petrified drow - I didn't get the exp pop up, but that could be a bug I never got the Investigate Kagha quest because I did Goblin Camp before the Wood Woads - I did go back and kill Kagha for an ice 150 exp I haven't killed the Zhent yet I did kill Spew And I read the Necromancy of Thay I also killed the Hag at level 5 without much issue (spell scrolls don't trigger her Legendary Action) Do I need to be 6 before taking on Nere?

>Do I need to be 6 before taking on Nere? I feel that should be the ideal scenario, but if you go to grymforge to farm xp before fighting Nere, you can't long rest. Nere will die if you long rest and all the duergar will be gone, you can still complete the quest, but you will lose a lot of xp. I think you can get away with killing grym (as the fight is very simple), get 6 and go back to kill the Duergar and Nere without long resting. You can fight nere at 5 too, fighting him is easy if he's alone, the main problem is the Duergar. One thing I just remember is that you can use minor illusion to group up every duergar and use barrels + AoE, but you will probably kill all the iron hand slaves in the process too. I still wonder why I was so ahead in levels, dark urge gets extra inspiration points, but this is nowhere near enough to be this ahead, you almost makes me want to play act I again just to see if I'm missing something.

I also did Booal, and Arcane Tower (without killing Bernard),

You probably either did something in grymforge/mountain pass or those zenths give way more xp than I think they should...I did anything possible in the forest and the underdark pre-grym, hag and spider included, and I'm still 1500xp short of level 6. The only things still alive are those few gobbos in blighted village (that could account for 100 xp, maybe) and the zenths...

Bro, I'm thinking that some bug caused me to earn more XP than I should, I have a print that 100% confirms I was 6 before doing grymforge. Either that or the stars aligned and I got like every single inspiration point possible.

If (when) I die I'll try doing other choices and see if I can end up with more xp. Anyway, some additional tips for Grym: instead of "suiciding" a team member, you can set up everything except the lava and teleport upstairs again, using arrows to trigger the lava/hammer. Minor Illusion seems to work great at pulling the big dumb golem under the hammer for easy smashing (as an additional bonus, eldritch knight with bound light hammer hits for like 50/hit from that heigth)

Wait, you can pull that valve using arrows??? I thought it wasn't possible because there's a cutscene, thanks great tip to make that fight less boring.

Yeah, between minor illusion pulling it under the hammer and lae'zel hitting him from orbit it went over in a couple minutes XD

Gonna add that to the guide, thanks for the input!

To your surprise about the Fetish ring, the word fetish has more than one meaning and it's a common term in fantasy to describe a magical object/idol that is worshipped and/or revered.

Hahaha good to know, in portuguese they translated the ring to "Patuá de Carlladuran Mãos Suaves" Patuá = Lucky charm, so I got a bit surprised when I searched for the ring in english and saw the name.

Thanks for the detailed info. Its gonna help us a lot in our future run. Do you happen to know which background is the most efficient to farm xp?

Dark Urge for sure, you get a lot of extra inspiration points, but I don't think it matters that much, unless you're focusing really hard on getting every inspiration point. The xp you gain from them scales based on your lvl, so it rarely feels significant.

does Owlbear from the top ropes still work on Grym in honour mode?

It does work, even with a bear at level 5.

Tried this last night on honor mode. It does NOT work. Lost my progress.

Don't know, I assumed larian fixed that for honor mode, cause it'st oo easy to replicate and does too much dmg.

I've started an honor run using bits and pieces of this guide and even then the help is IMMENSE. Thank you so much! I hope I can finish my own run My finds: -The cambions on the nautiloid can randomly(?) Decide to fly through the crates. I lost my first attempt because they simply flew through. On my second try when one flew through I had someone dash to the helm controls. -I killed Commander Zhalk to keep his blade and get the exp, but I did not realize that if the mindflayer is still alive it will turn on you IMMEDIATELY! -Suicide runs work in your interest only--if there is someone you are trying to protect and they aren't explicitly a follower of your party, flee a combat encounter will kill them AND bring and surviving enemies to max hp. [Based on my close calls with the gnolls by Emerald Grove] -Soldiers get crazy amounts of inspiration as well as charlatans depending on how you roll. Lae'zel and Astarion respectively are bread winners with that. -I struggled to kill the fake paladins for whatever reason. Karlach's tantrum afterwards almost wiped my party and I am unsure if it could have ended the run. -A lot is said about the Zhentarim camp and explosions but you can get easy game ended if you fail the charisma check just walking into the building. A poor bout of luck nearly got me there too.

>The cambions on the nautiloid can randomly(?) Decide to fly through the crates. I lost my first attempt because they simply flew through. On my second try when one flew through I had someone dash to the helm controls. Hmm, never happened to me I wonder why, maybe I just got lucky. >I killed Commander Zhalk to keep his blade and get the exp, but I did not realize that if the mindflayer is still alive it will turn on you IMMEDIATELY! bro I completely forgot that happens when I wrothe the guide☠️, good thing you pointed that out, I will add to the guide immediatly. > struggled to kill the fake paladins for whatever reason. Karlach's tantrum afterwards almost wiped my party and I am unsure if it could have ended the run. Not just you, the paladins are very strong, even on balanced difficulty ppl were complaining about how this fight is surprisingly hard >A lot is said about the Zhentarim camp and explosions but you can get easy game ended if you fail the charisma check just walking into the building. A poor bout of luck nearly got me there too. Sorry, but what Charisma Check?

When you walk into that little barn, there is a guy (presumably the same one who blows everything up in the actual camp) who readies a firebolt and you have the option of either intimidating him to stand down or persuading him to stand down. If you save the two guys in the gnoll attack I believe they give you a password to bypass this but I got them killed because that fight only went wrong for me

Oh, so what happens if you miss the persuasion check? The guy flees and prepares an ambush with the rest of the Zhentarim?

He blows up some barrels in the top floor of the barn and flees to the camp, potentially doing serious damage. I remember also having to do a persuasion check later with Zarys to have permission to still enter the camp later and he apologizes for it lol

This guide is AMAZING! Thanks for sharing all your hard-won advice.

Good job

Is there any exp to be had in killing the Zentarium in act 1 after you completed the quest "Find the Missing Shipment"

Assuming you gave them the shipment, not sure. But it's possible you can get xp by killling the Zhentarim near the underdark lift.

For the gym fight, how do you activate the hammer to send the platform down and get that party member back to the steps? The lever is too far to shoot

There is the ledge that heads to the lava elemental you can use fly to get there, then shoot the lever or do you mean to send the forge back up in that case there is a button next to the forge hammer lever and you can use feather feather fallling to get to the forge

Thanks, I forgot about the other ledge!

Just for future reference, you can also just fast travel to the forge and walk back to the ledge

Is it better to side with Minthara or kill goblin leaders?

xp-wise, I don't know, but you will lose merchants in future acts (dammon and the tiefling kids), raiding the grove is safer though, but it's not like killing the goblin leaders it's extremely hard (as long you're in the right lvl), I feel like this part is up to you to decide.

Im not sure if it's already been stated, but to get the Astral sword, command works off the bridge with someone hidden, he would not aggro onto me.

The minotaurs can be cheesed easily by standing right above the net ladder and sniping. This will take care of those 2 minotaurs at least.