Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Help Tips & Tricks New player questions!

Hello everyone!

Sorry, I wasn't too sure where to ask these questions, but I'm stoked to start my good Halfling Bard playthrough!

1. Which difficulty should I choose? Honestly, 'Explorer' sounds quite inviting with no stress after work, but I don't want my gear and upgrades to mean nothing. Should I just stick out 'balanced'?

2. Should I invite everyone to camp and do their stories? This might be a stupid question, but I'll probably only play this game once anytime soon, but I've heard inviting everyone and swapping out your party constantly can get annoying. At the same time, I want to experience everyone's storyline (unless they're evil, as I'm playing a goody goody, haha).

3. Any extra tips and suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you all so much in advance!

Balanced should be fine. While not restricting you (Explorer prevents multiclassing).

If you find it too difficult, you can always change to Explorer mid-playthrough.


Yes. For the most part, you don't even need to swap party members in to progress their personal quests, you can simply talk to them at camp. As a new player you likely won't even know WHEN to swap them in anyway.

It's only for their Act 3 quests as well as some more obvious situations (Like going to the place where Lae'zel keeps telling you to go) where their presence makes a bigger deal.


- Talk to everyone. Learn Speak with Animals and talk to all the animals too.

- Explore. There are plenty of hidden trinkets and areas. Some of which will provide alternate routes to complete quests.

- Save frequently. You might run into unexpected situations you're not prepared for. So it's nice to have options to reload a recent save rather than lose a lot of time you spent exploring (While the game does have autosaves, they're not always the best)

- If you're using Shadowheart in your party, have her talk to Withers in camp to respec her as soon as possible. Change her starting stats so she either has good Strength or good Dexterity and give her a suitable weapon (I.e. Finesse weapon if you chose Dexterity) so she can actually hit things since her initial stats are pretty bad.

- Don't be afraid to utilize Withers to change your builds. If a choice you made is not panning out like you hoped, you can always respec and change it. This works for everything, from feats, spells, subclasses, classes, stats, you can respec any character almost completely (Only Background and Race cannot be respecced)

IMO Explorer is boring, Normal difficulty too. Honour Mode for a first run might be too much, hence I would suggest Tactician.
Don't bother to recruit all the Origins, as most are evil jerks anyway. You will not be able to digest all their backgrounds in a single playthough either, too much of sob! and edgy! tales flung at you.
Swapping them out - especially if you are learning the game - will blow your mind as there are too many classes and subclasses, too many skills, spells and items to juggle. Make a party (can be partly with Hirelings) at around 3rd level, no multiclassing, and stick to it until you learn the subtleties of the game.
Don't be afraid to "run away to live to fight another day" - once two are down/dead, have one sacrifice themselfves and have the fourth flee to camp, to revive the rest at Withers (or return to the battlefield with Resurrection Scrolls). I found that MUCH more rewarding than F8.
I agree with talking with animals - fun

Afaik, the only companion you have to have in the active party while doing their quest is Shadowheart. Other companions, you can solve their questlines while they chill at camp. So you can recruit everyone.

Balance sounds like the perfect difficulty for you.

As for the companions and their quests, I would go in blind, get to know them without any pre knowledge. Don't worry so much about a perfect playthrough, just make it your playthrough. You only get one first play. Take the companions you like the most with you. It is a lot more fun to play this way than to constantly check guides so you don't miss anything. You will miss stuff anyway, it's so much in the game.

Save often. You can save in dialogue also. Do a manual save after or before big events so you have backups if things don't go as you expected.

This is IMO the best advice there is

Agreed, go in blindly, recruit whatever companion, you can (and don't worry, if you don't get everyone, there is always a second playthrough) and don't get spoiled. I honestly was so surprised by some story developments, that I'm glad, I actually didn't look anything up.

There is honestly no right or wrong way to play the game. And as for difficulty: Start with Balanced and if you see, it is too hard or easy, just switch the difficulty level, you can do that mid game.

+1 on making it your playthrough. I went in without knowing what's behind the next corner or how any of the interactions or companion quests would play out and I love the story that grew out of it with all scars and pimples. F5/Quicksave makes you an awesome chronomancer who can see variantions of the immediate future. Sometimes, I would just explore all the silly/stupid/good/evil dialogue options, have a laugh and then proceed with the one I would have picked in the first place. Enjoy your journey!

Hopefully you’re already well on your journey, OP, but I agree with what folk have said about not sweating it and just seeing what happens. Including difficulty settings, most of which can be tweaked as you go if you find things too easy or too hard.

I personally find the game most fun when I try not to metagame and do what I think my current character would do in the situation, and don’t save scum for different/better options. And I prefer to work things out for myself and aim to play different characters in future, so even now I try to avoid too much info about paths I’ve not tried yet or about how others approach particular battles or challenges, and enjoy finding new and surprising content even on my fourth playthrough. I also find it more immersive if I don’t try to be *too* completionist: you can talk to every animal, read every note, speak to every corpse, fight every enemy, explore every nook and cranny and open every chest but when I do that I find it makes it too obvious where the limits of the game are, and prefer the feeling that there’s more that could be discovered even if it’s only often a different way of discovering the same thing. You can certainly have a very fulfilling game without doing everything, and if you start finding anything a chore I’d definitely recommend pushing ahead to something more fun instead. But there’s no wrong way to play the game, just a potentially bewildering array of possibilities that mean it may take a bit of time for you to work out what ways are the most fun for you!

Though I admit I find it very hard not to recruit every companion available, and agree that if you’re not planning multiple playthroughs that’s probably the best option to get a lot of their content, even if you tend to stick with the same party for exploring. I generally find myself settling into a core party of three (my PC plus two more) with the fourth party member being more fluid. Given the variety of ways to build successful parties and options for completing quests, even without respeccing companions’ starting classes there are multiple viable configurations depending on your own character class. And if you are willing to use and abuse Withers’ ability to change starting classes you have still more choices

when the time comes to recruit Minsc and Jaheria my advice is take them both

Wait - I read that Lae'zel will walk out if you do the Githyanki stuff without her. Is this wrong?

A tad late maybe, but still-

1. I’d go for balanced if you care about tactical combat, when to use spells and abilities, leveling and equipping your characters well to make them effective (without needing to min/max or create a fancy OP milticlass build). Explorer is really for people who want to just enjoy the story without really worrying about all that.

2. If you’re likely to only play once, I’d recommend recruiting all or most of the characters. Most of them tie into the main story somehow. Some of them very significantly. Swap them out as much as you feel like. I think it’s fun to experiment with different party compositions for combat, banter and bringing the people who you think might be most interested or useful to whatever you are doing.

It used to be more of a pain, but now you can access inventories of anyone at camp if you dismiss someone and realise they still have a weapon or item you want to give to someone else. Ignore their little whinges about being left behind.

3a. Save often but try not save scum. Fights are more fun if you have to adjust tactics for bad misses, spells not working, etc. Failing dialogue checks can lead to interesting and sometime amusing outcomes. Try to reload only if a fight is a disaster or you’re really not happy with the result. eg failing to rescue Gale right at the beginning.

3b Get your head around actions, bonus actins, spell slots, concentration spells, class specific resources (like bardic inspiration), etc. as quickly as you can. Read the tool tips for spells and actions- what they do, how long they last, what resources they use, whether they need concentration, etc.

3c. Use “examine” on enemies to see their stats, abilities and resistances/vulnerabilities to different damage types.

3d. Try to avoid looking specific things up unless you get stuck. Many fights can be cheesed with various spells, actions, using the environment. It’s much more satisfying to discover these things yourself. Avoid story spoilers, and don’t worry about trying to get the “optimal” outcome for everything.

3e. Maybe do look up general tips, like good picks for leveling up.

3f. Try to get even numbers on attributes. 17 strength is no better than 16. You don’t need to respec the characters, unless you want to, but when you get a feat on leveling up (level 4) adding two points to attributes is a decent option for everyone.