A fan of Baldur's Gate 3 has uncovered a clever exploit that makes the game's new ultra-difficult Honor Mode far less challenging.
Like any of the best RPGs, Baldur's Gate 3's higher difficulties are tough and demanding. This is especially true of Honor Mode, a brand new difficulty level recently added to the game in Patch Five. In Honor Mode, you can only use a single save, have to reckon with beefed-up boss fights and an overall higher level of difficulty. Did I also mention that if your party dies the game is over permanently? Completing the game on this difficulty is sufficiently hard that, should you succeed, the game rewards you with a golden twenty-sided dice which you can use in future character skill checks.
However, Reddit user 121_Jiggawatts has come up with an impressively shrewd workaround that takes out a considerable amount of the difficulty's sting, making it easier for those who might be pursuing the coveted golden dice.
"You only fail when your entire party is killed," observed 121_Jiggawatts in a post on Reddit. "If you run a three person party[,] you never need to worry about your entire party dying because your fourth member is safe at camp. If your three person party wipes, they can just go talk to Withers and bring everyone back."
For those not in the know, Withers is a mysterious skeleton who hangs around your camp and resurrects your allies - for a fee.
"You can slowly whittle down most combat encounters by having your three person party rush a combat, focus fire to kill as many people as possible, die, be revived, and repeat until you win," continued 121_Jiggawatts. "The gold from reviving isn’t even an issue since you can just pickpocket Withers to get all your money back."
While undoubtedly a great way to circumvent the permadeath problem, 121_Jiggawatts did remark that this might not be in the spirit of Honor Mode. "I kinda hope this exploit gets patched," they said. "Something simple as not being able to pickpocket Withers will balance this strategy a ton."
However, those using glitches and exploits have seen staggering results. Speedrunner ChronosReturns has already finished Honor Mode in under 40 minutes.
For now, we shall have to see whether or not developer Larian Studios embraces this trend, or, as 121_Jiggawatts suggests, implements patches to curb these sorts of workarounds.
Looking for more narrative-driven titles? Our best story games and best single-player games lists are full of thrilling tales.
