Painfully Obvious Spoiler Warning
This is, as you have probably guess by the title, our Heroes Guide to Honor Mode for Baldur's Gate 3.
In this guide, we offer our advice, insight, and guidance to help you heroically navigate the major events and encounters you'll experience on your journey to... well, we don't want to spoil you on events about your adventure in the spoiler warning, so... our lips are sealed.
Basically, this guide is one gigantic spoiler of a guide. Like for real, if you continue to read, you'll end up spoiled.
If you've already saved a Faerun or two, you'll probably be okay. You might learn some new things, might get to do things you missed the first time, but you won't end up spoiling the quest as a whole because you've already been there before, at least in part!
But hero, if you're new to Faerun, or new to Baldur's Gate 3?
You should go save Faerun yourself1 first. We recommend Balanced mode if you're new to adventuring, Tactician if you've got a little experience. But for real, go save the world, go cry a little2 and then come see us about saving the world the right way.
If you insist on continuing despite our warnings?
Don't say we didn't warn you. Because we just did.
Safe Sections
Okay, okay... fine. Maybe you want to adventure the right way from the very beginning, but you would like the advice of a couple of seasoned adventurers to set you on the way. We understand that. Not everyone is an epic nerd a learned scholar like Elle or a hyperfocused weirdo a seasoned gamer like Vul. Some people need a little push to get out the door.3
If that seems like you, then the following sections of the Guide are mostly safe for you to read. We've tried to keep them spoiler free, but we can't guarantee we caught all of the spoilers. Proceed at your own risk and for fuck's sake, don't go delving into the other sections of the guide until you've completed at least one successful adventure unless you want to spoil the fun4
The "mostly safe, we're pretty sure" sections are:
Introduction - Covers how to use the Guide (but you're completing your first quest first, right hero?), our credentials, Honor Mode differences (somewhat valuable for those diving into Tactical), and what the Guide is and isn't.
Teaming Up Versus Solo Adventuring - Discusses the... well, you probably know what it discusses because it's in the title. Useful if you are not sure which path you'll take.
Discovering Your Heroic Self - How to determine your adventuring style, picking a race and class, advice on multi-classing, and our (occasionally controversial) takes on the correct classes / subclasses for the Origins characters. If you're entirely new to this quest, we recommend skipping the section on Origins respecs.
Recruiting Your Party - Thoughts on your party composition. How to build a balanced party, which classes best map to which play styles, and why a diverse party makes equipment provisioning easier.
Adventurer Academy - Tips on how to be a better adventurer. Do not read the examples if you're avoiding spollers. You have been warned. Again.
Adventurer Academy: Extra Credit - Additional tips and tricks specific to Baldur's Gate 3 that can make your life a little easier.
Thanks & Notes
Thank you first and foremost to Ed Greenwood, whose visions of Faerun so many years ago offered all of us a portal into its many iterarions across the multiverse. We're not really convinced that he isn't actually from Shadowdale, but we don't want to make a big deal of it. Thank you, you weird old wizard.
Another big thank you to Larian for offering us an unprecedented window into Faerun that has stuck with us long after our first adventure was complete. We're not sure if you know the scale of what you actually did, or the impact it has had on us and others, but we're grateful for your work.
To Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, we are thankful for your role in what was to come... and are especially thankful that the worlds to be evolved beyond the sexist, racist views of at least one of their creators.5 If not for you, Ed might have never discovered Faerun.
Lastly, thank you to everyone who encouraged us along the way. We know this guide is long overdue.... your patience and support were amazing. We love you all.
And now...
With all of that out of the way... let's get to adventuring!
- 1. Or with friends you trust.
- 2. Or a lot, we won't judge.
- 3. Or they need to be trolled a troupe of dwarves threatening to break their plates and stuffs.
- 4. We can't really stop you from reading the other sections, we just... want you to have the best experience you can. So pretty please, avoid the spoilers?
- 5. Gary Gygax was instrumental, and for that he deserves credit.. We cannot excuse his past... but we think we can forgive.