Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Help Tips & Tricks New Player here. What spells/abilities offer dialogue branches / options to watch out for?

the fight on my Melee Ranger
[video:youtube][/video]

Are you using your Barbarian's Rage ability? This gives them resistance to damage, meaning they only take half damage when they're hit and so will live much longer.

Yes, that fight was terribly long in old patches. You're actually supposed to trick the goblins to let you in withoutfighting or sneak in. Once you get inside the goblin building, the fights can be much smaller.

And yes, the Swarm AI Larian implemented recently should make these fights quicker. It's still probably better to try to avoid fighting all the outside goblins though...

Thanks for the video... seams this starting position is much better.

I never use Rage... Maybe I should try! Normaly in RPGs I use tanks only with their weappons.

In D:OS1 Madora use only the sword, my both bows and only Jahan some healing spells and telekinese.
Same in D:OS2 2 Bowman, 1 tank and one healer (I always use easyest mode)

Seams BG need more than only weapons.

Barbarians NEED their rage. Since they can't wear heavy armor and usually don't have extremely high dexterity, they're usually fairly easy to hit. If they aren't raging for effectively x2 HP, they can die very easily.

And yep, BG3 (and in general D&D) strongly encourages use of class abilities, consumable items, etc; not just weapons!

My advice is don't play BG3 as you play DOS1 and 2 because they are completely and vastly different in terms of combat.

You need to pay attention to:

• The positioning of your party and the enemy NPCs.
• The order in which NPCs are coming up in next turns.
• Dispatching enemies with smaller HP before focusing on those with bigger HP.
• Gaining advantage on enemies.
• Increasing your chance to hit enemies.
• Knowing when and when not to crowd control enemies.

Weapons and armors are helpful, but not in such a way that it would negate badly played turns. And even if you are geared with best gear in the game, bad decisions can still wipe you out.

@Alix, here are a couple of articles with some tips and tricks. Others might have better suggestions.

https://www.gameskinny.com/55zgc/baldurs-gate-3-combat-guide-the-basics-of-turn-based-dd-5e-combat
https://www.gameskinny.com/cw7gz/baldurs-gate-3-combat-guide-advanced-tips-tactics-to-dominate

But I will say that, though a lot of the fights can be avoided, or else made a lot simpler by positioning, you are still going to have to give some thought and attention to how you go about combat. If that’s something you absolutely hate and would prefer to be able to just wade in and dispose of enemies then you probably do need to wait for the full release and easier play modes that I’d guess would be added.

I’d try to persuade you that combat, and finding ways to use the abilities and spells of all your characters to defeat enemies, can be really fun and satisfying. But you know yourself and what you like

in general kill the mage or cleric first... any spell they manage to get off will hurt you
as a pure tank Shadowheart is nice, in giff armour and shield she starts at 19 and there is a better shield later to reach 20 [unbuffed]... watch some some youtube vids to see best ways to use her

imo the key point to this battle is hold off a bit until you are level 2 or 3... i always do it at level 3 but its very doable at 2

Barbarians are fine ... but if you dont wish to bother too much with any active stuff ...

High Dex + Darkvision (superior if possible) + Ranger > Hunter > Archery + High Ground = Easy game.

Thank you, I ll try this next time. And Thanks for the links to combat help.

To understand the BG system is very hard for me.
- Is it better to use an 2 handed weappon, or sword and shild... I read somthing about "neet to learn first"
- Shoult I gave my mage a bow?
- Shoult I buy a light armor or heavy if my partymember have not learn this. How can I learn this heavy armor? Automaticly by using?
- How far astarion can walk to have enough points to use his dagger?
- Why the enemies can use 2 attacks sometimes and I only one?

There are so many spells and paths. So many actions and bonusactions! Found some scrolls, should I use them or sell.
Whats the difference between trade and exchange in the shop? (I'm not sure if my translation of "tauschen und handeln" is correct)

I wait for the final release, but seams it will take a long time. So I try to play and learn to understand this BG System in the meantime.

So lets play as long as possible! I'll try to use your helpfull tricks!

Keeping things simple:
- 2hander deals more damage/shield helps to evade hits
- you can give your mage a bow and use it when he runs out of spells
- if your party member doesn't have proficiency with some armor and still tries to wear it, he then wouldn't be able to cast spells. You can learn it by picking a feat on lvl4 or by picking a race/class with appropriate armor proficiency
- your movement points are represented by a blue line around the end turn button and it is visible only in combat. The base speed/turn is 9m
- it is a multi-attacks feature that is unique to some monsters or lvl5+ humanoids

A longer response, as I hadn’t spotted neprostoman’s pithier version until just now and I’d already typed it But basically, what neprostoman said!

First, by far the most important factor in whether you win or lose fights will be your tactics. Weapons and armour do matter, but not nearly as much at this stage.


Either is fine, and it depends what you enjoy. You’ll have better defence with a shield but do more damage with a two handed weapon. So if you’re using a two handed weapon you might get damaged more, and therefore need to pay more attention to constitution, dexterity and armour (all of which can help you stay alive in different ways) but you’ll also potentially finish off your enemies more quickly so they have fewer turns to damage you. If you’re sticking with your barbarian, two handed is the classic choice as you have the HP and rage damage reduction to soak up hits and can concentrate on damage.

Some classes have abilities that give them some advantages when using a particular style of weapon, like Lae’zel with two handed weapons, so look out for that and you can choose weapons that make use of those abilities, though it’s not essential.

And you can only use weapons you are proficient in, which will depend on your race and class, but the game will look after that for you by preventing you equipping a weapon you can’t use.

When you level up to level 4 (the highest in early access) you can take one of a number of feats, one of which lets you learn a number of new weapon proficiencies, but that’s unlikely to be the best option for many, if any, characters. As a barbarian, you start out with lots of weapon proficiencies already, along with shields and medium and light armour.


Yes, give your mage a crossbow. Chances are they’ll be able to do more reliable single target damage with it than their cantrips after they run out of spell slots. But don’t ignore cantrips, as these can, eg, set barrels and surfaces on fire and because they don’t cost spell slots you can use them every turn.


You can only learn new armour proficiencies by using that feat I mentioned at level 4. I wouldn’t bother, as most of the time there will be a more useful feat. There’s not much heavy armour in early access anyway, and its armour class isn’t significantly better than the best medium armour, particularly if you have a dexterity bonus.


You get (1) an action, (2) a bonus action, and (3) movement you can use each turn. (And a reaction, but we’ll ignore that for now.) You can move the maximum distance possible and still use your main action to attack as well as your bonus action. There are some complexities with actions that use movement, but attack isn’t one of them.

All your party can also “Dash” as an action, which will let you move further, but you then won’t be able to use your main hand attack as you’ve already used your action for the turn.

Because Astarion is a rogue, you can instead use his special “cunning action” Dash which is a bonus action, and if you do that then he can move further and still attack with his main hand as an action.

If you give him another dagger (or, even better, short sword) for his other hand then he can attack with either his main action or bonus action, or both.

And if you choose the “Thief” subclass for him at level three, then he’ll get a second bonus action each turn, that he can use for another off hand attack or to dash or hide.

EDIT: By the way, if you stick with your barbarian, you’ll also get to choose a subclass for them at level three.


There can be various reasons for this. In early access, it’s generally because they have a weapon in each hand so are attacking with both their action and bonus action. A small number of enemies might be hasted (you’ll find potions of speed in your travels) which temporarily gives two actions a turn. And some creatures have a multi-attack main action that gives them more than one hit.


Money isn’t particularly scarce in this game, so I usually hang onto scrolls just in case I need them, and end up with them still in my inventory at the end! Be aware, though, that a wizard like Gale can copy scrolls to his spell book for a bit of gold if he doesn’t already know the spell. He can then memorise and use the spell.


I think they’re described as trade and barter in the English language version. Trade just buys or sells for the recommended amount when you move items between your inventory and the merchant’s. Whereas barter lets you give items to merchants for less than they are worth to raise attitude, or just see everything you’re selling before you finalise the deal, and I think maybe only barter lets you sell everything in a character’s inventory you’ve marked as “Wares” at once. But I could be wrong there. I always just use the barter screen.

Hope that helps!

Good luck with your game.

Thanks a lot! Great help!