Being the newest CRPG hit, Baldur’s Gate 3 has exploded in popularity. Baldur’s Gate 3 is here, and it’s a grand old time. Things in the Sword Coast are a mess, and it’s up to your heroic band of weirdos to put things right.
As you explore the Sword Coast and fight various baddies, things are going to be tough. You’ll have to keep your party in fighting shape as they battle all manner of beasts and bad guys, and that means managing Rests, healing and magic resources. The process can be pretty difficult to get used to, especially for those with no D&D experience. For you newer people to the genre, these encounters might be a bit too challenging.
Larian, the developers, are keenly aware of this. As a result, Baldur’s Gate 3 has various difficulty options to both ease new players in, as well offer more challenge to veterans. Keep reading to learn about all the Baldur’s Gate 3 difficulty differences.
Baldur’s Gate 3 Difficulty Differences Explained
There are three core difficulty settings in BG3. What are the Baldur’s Gate 3 difficulty differences? There are currently three difficulty options in Baldur’s Gate 3: Explorer, Balanced, and Tactician. Each offers its own way to play the game, and no choice is the wrong one. The Balanced setting will be the default when you start the game. Most people will likely pick that one. But if you find it too hard or too hard to handle, you can swap them around at any time.
Here are the Baldur’s Gate 3 difficulties explained:
- Explorer – Enemies have a penalty to all manner of rolls. Their baseline stats have a penalty, as do all their saves, compared to the default. Items are cheaper in shops and players even get a +2 proficiency bonus to all attack rolls and saving throws. The one big downside is that the player cannot multiclass on this difficulty.
- Balanced – This option is the way the developers intended the game to be played. Enemies will have their baseline stats and bonuses, with no additional help for attacks and saves. Players will find that shop prices and resource costs for Rests are set to the default. In the case of Long Rests, that default cost is 40.
- Tactician – This is hard more. Players are easier to hit for enemies, thanks to their increased bonuses to attacks. Saving throws and other rolls also have higher DCs, making it harder for players to steamroll fights and traps. The AI is also a lot more ruthless, using flanking and other tactics to maximize the damage they do, and the overall threat they pose. Long Rest costs have also been doubled to 80.
And for those of you crazy enough to be unphased by Tactician, you might be wondering if there’s an even more challenging mode on the way. Are there more options coming sometime in the future? Right now, things have not been revealed for new difficulty modes. Larian has not announced plans for any kinds of updates, expansions or DLC. At this time, they’re entirely focused on fixing bugs and polishing the released version of the game.
You could also use mods that change Long Rest mechanics or change your stats to increase or decrease the difficulty a bit. There are also cheat mods like Fearun Utility that can seriously change the game.
