Baldur’s Gate 3 beginner’s guide: 12 things to know before starting BG3

Baldur’s Gate 3 is out of early access, and it’s time to head to Faerun. Whether this is your first experience with a Baldur’s Gate game or you’re a returning player, our beginner’s guide will help you get started.

This is what you should do. Baldur’s Gate 3 guide, we’ll give you a crash course in the rules of Dungeons & Dragons, talk a little about the quirks of combat, and give some guidance about how to approach conversations, how often to save (a lot), and when to reload your game if you screw up.

Don’t stress too much about choosing your class

The first thing you need to do is get started. Baldur’s Gate 3 asks you to make a bunch of decisions about your character — like your appearance, race, and class. It’s a bunch of big and lasting decisions all at once. We’ve got a guide to help you choose your class, but — more importantly — the class you choose isn’t permanent. There’s an NPC you’ll meet who can help you undo any mistakes you might’ve made while creating your character.

The underlying rules are Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition

Baldur’s Gate has always been based on D&D, and Baldur’s Gate 3This version is the latest edition of the hugely popular tabletop Role-Playing Game. It means that two things are true. If you’re familiar with 5th edition, you already understand almost everything that’s going on. If you’re not, though, it makes the game even more intimidating. However…

You don’t need to know D&D to play Baldur’s Gate

The mechanics of the car is a fascinating subject. Baldur’s Gate 3 does all the work for you — it’s a video game, after all. This game’s engine is a Dungeon Master, a dice roller and enables you to create characters. You only have to click the things.

It’s (obviously) not quite as simple as that, but don’t be intimidated. There are things you’ll need to know, but most of them are ubiquitous video game rules at this point. Let’s talk about the basics first.

A brief D&D crash course

In D&D — and by extension, Baldur’s Gate 3 — your character interacts with the world based on their stats — AbilitiesYou can also find out more about the following: The following are some of the most effective ways to learn how to speak English. — and dice rolls.

Capabilities and skills

What are your abilities? Strengthening Your Body (physical strength), Dexterity“Agility” and “deftness” Constitution Willpower and Heartiness Intelligence (book smarts), You can also read about Wisdom “Intuition and street-smarts” Charisma Personality strength is measured on a 20-point scale. 1 represents the lowest level, 10 means average and 20 indicates superhuman. On a scale of 20, 1 is the weakest, 10 average and 20 superhuman, abilities are rated.

Your Abilities influence your Skill. For example, if you have high strength, you’re automatically good at Athletics (like Jumping). If you have good Charisma, you’re good at Performance.

Proficiency

It is an additional bonus you can add to your character’s strengths. If your character is a Gold Dwarf, for example, they’re Proficient with Warhammers, and you get a bonus when you use them.

Skills Checks and Attacks and Save Throws

When you try to do something in the game (both D&D and Baldur’s Gate 3Then, you add up your proficiency bonus if possible, plus the Ability and Skill mods.

It happens all the time. Baldur’s Gate 3Both behind-the-scenes and outwardly. You just don’t need to do any of the math.

To learn how to calculate your stats, please read our Baldur’s Gate 3 character creation guide.

It is both real-time gameplay and turn-based

You’ll mostly interact with the world by clicking your mouse and having your character walk around. When you find something interesting — a chest or an enemy — you’ll click to interact with it.

For the walking around parts of the game, you’ll be in real(ish) time. Your party (once you’ve assembled it) will follow you around, and everything happens as you click.

Image: Larian Studios via Polygon

When you enter combat (in D&D terms, when you roll for initiative), you’ll switch to a turn-based mode, and the turn order will populate across the top of the screen.

You can also get a bonus action by moving, executing an Action.

The turn is roughly six seconds long. During your turn, you have three choices: Move, Bonus Action and Action.

• Moving to a new place is easy. is, like you’d expect, moving around the environment. You can move up to your movement speed — by default, this is 30 feet, but can change based on your character’s race.
• ActionIt is a similar thing to attacking with a gun.
• Bonus Actions These actions are usually smaller, like drinking an elixir.

While you’re controlling your characters in turn-based mode, you can pick things to do for each of these options. Spells may require you to take an Action and/or Bonus Action. Be sure to check before you make a decision.

Conversations involve a new kind of turn-based interactivity

Many of the decisions that you will make are going to be weightier than they seem. Baldur’s Gate 3Conversations are full of possibilities. When talking to someone, you’ll get options for how to respond. Many responses serve only to advance the conversation.

Image: Larian Studios via Polygon

Responses with a Skill in brackets at the beginning — something like “[INTIMIDATION]” — require a roll and a Skill Check. When you choose them, you’ll get an overlay of a 20-sided die and a target number. When you click the die, it’ll roll (well, “roll”) and that decides if you succeed or fail.

To select a conversation answer, click on the word that is in capitals. That’ll show you what your bonus is for that skill. Pick ones you’re good at so you’re more likely to succeed.

It is possible to kill key people while selling important items

A video game wouldn’t be very good if it let you talk your way into a fail state or lock you out of the rest of the game because you rolled too low on a lock-picking skill check.

This is what I’m saying Baldur’s Gate 3 won’t hesitate to let you kill off an important character or sell a key item you need to complete a quest.

That’s part of the charm of failing. Baldur’s Gate 3There are many different ways you can achieve your goal. Maybe there’s another character to talk to instead, or maybe there’s a different path to find that’ll lead you around that locked door. Don’t think of failures as stopping points. Think of failures as new obstacles to overcome.

Continue to play even if you lose a check. The game will change a bit with each of your choices, failures or successes. There’s no one right way to play.

That said…

It’s a video game, so treat it like one

As much like D&D as Baldur’s Gate 3 is, there’s still no Dungeon Master sitting in front of you. Specifically, there’s no DM there to warn you when you’re about to do something stupid and get yourself killed. Other times, you’ll just screw up and click the wrong thing.

Then, when that happens, enjoy the game-like aspect of it and load up a previous saved file. But …

Don’t trust the autosave

The autosave feature is a technical term. Baldur’s Gate 3, but it feels… unpredictable. Sometimes, it’ll trigger right before a conversation or battle, giving you a convenient save file to return to if things go sideways. More often, though, it won’t, and you’ll lose hours of game if (and when) things go wrong.

It is a good habit to regularly save money for no or little reason. Hitting F5 On your keyboard, you can create a quicksave. F8 Load the latest one.

Want to explore a different area? Save. Save. Save. You can also visit a local vendor to dispose of all your junk. Save. Save. Save.

Save often to avoid having to perform boring tasks to return to the important ones.

Try it in the first place

After you’ve gained control, check out the entire first area. Only then should you proceed through the highlighted doors and leave the room. There’s several gameplay elements worth experimenting with before you even leave this first area.

Learn more about the Learning Program The camera controlsIt’s a great first step. You can pan your camera using the W, S and D keys. Zooming in and out is done by using the scroll wheel. Rotating your view is as simple as holding the middle button and moving your mouse from left to right.

Image: Larian Studios via Polygon

You should then move your mouse in the area to see what you find. Discover objects that can be interacted withThis will highlight in white. When you move your mouse cursor over an item you can interact, a gear will appear. In this room you’ll find objects your character will comment on, dead bodies which you can loot for items, an alien device in the center of the room, and a hidden area around the perimeter.

You can find it by clicking here The hidden room in the first room, zoom out and you’ll find two ledges at the back and top left side of the room. Clicking on the chest in the corner will make your character run to the chest. To reach the hidden corpse on the other side, you will need to leap over the gap.

The learning process What are bonus actions? isn’t explained yet, if you mouse over the first icon in your bonus actions sections on the left of your actions bar, you’ll see the icon that lets you jump. You character can jump further by clicking on the button. To reach the corpse, jump across the gap between the two fires.

Another bonus action that you can take that’s not explained is the Dip. There are several fire pits scattered around the room. You can use the dip bonus to cover your weapon with flames and deal extra damage if you choose to walk up to it. It can come in handy in your first fight in the early game, as the pit of flames is right where you step in.

Background check

Some checks are done in the background, without you having to do anything. The most common one you’ll come across are perception checks.

Image: Larian Studios via Polygon

You’ll know one of these checks is occurring when a blue icon appears above your head. When this happens, the game is doing a roll for you to determine whether or not you’ll perceive something in your surroundings. The background roll will determine whether or not you’ll notice something in your surroundings. You can’t actively influence this roll and, when it comes to perception checks, you’ll notice your entire party will have rolls done for them. It only takes one person to be successful. If they do, they’ll call out what they notice.

Sometimes, you can have the game roll an investigation test for yourself. You may see this when you are looking at objects such as chests or large dresses. If you don’t succeed, switch characters and let them roll. If they succeed, they’ll call out what they’ve found.

Moving Objects

Clicking and dragging an object will allow you to move it. This isn’t obvious at first, but if you find a door that you cannot enter, try moving some boxes in its vicinity to see if there are any hidden levers around.

It is helpful to move objects if you are able to detect traps using a perception test. You can, for instance, put a vase, box, or other object on top of a trap to keep the gas out.