Baldur's Gate 3 Combat Guide – Tips and Tricks, DnD Mechanics

In this Baldur’s Gate 3 Combat Guide, we will share some tips and tricks with you that will help you out with combat and fighting in the game. Combat plays a vital role in Baldur’s Gate 3 and if you are not familiar with 5e RPGS, you are in for a surprise. Baldur’s Gate 3 follows the DnD 5e rules for a lot of things and combat is sitting at the top of this list. If you want to survive in the game, it is vital that you are at the top of your combat game and this guide will help you get acquainted with all of the combat mechanics of Baldur’s Gate 3.

Combat Guide – Baldur’s Gate 3

Below, you find some important points, key aspects, and mechanics of combat in Baldur’s Gate 3 in simple terms.

Understand What DnD 5e Rules Are

As I mentioned above, Baldur’s Gate 3 follows the strict rules of 5es and while having a vast knowledge of it is not required, you should at least know about some of the basics of how things work out. When you start playing the game, you will notice that before everything is executed, the game will roll the dice and act based on the results. This is a classic DnD rule where the outcome of every outcome is determined based on the dice roll. At the front, it looks like a dice roll but in the backend, there are basically a whole lot of things going on that the game considered before giving a result.

Apart from the dice rolls, the other major elements include your Abilities and Skills. These two combine with the dice rolls to give a result that is all calculated by the game’s engine. There are six major abilities in Baldur’s Gate 3 and each one has further different ones as well. Depending on your character, you will have a number associated with each of these abilities that determine your proficiency in that particular skill with 1 being the lowest and 20 being the highest. Based on these ability scores, your skills will be directly impacted by them.

For example, a good score in Strength will result in the character being able to perform well in combat and lift any type of weapon and also be good at moving around like jumping and climbing. Some races or classes have a proficiency bonus attached to any particular skill and abilities and if your character has a proficiency bonus when the dice are rolled for that skill, chances are that it will always come out high since you will get a proficiency bonus for it. Upon execution, when the dice are rolled, the final number of both dice, your Ability and Skill modifiers, and any proficiency bonuses are added up and will decide whether you execute that action successfully or not.

Get Comfortable with Real-Time and Turn-Based Gameplay

Baldur’s Gate 3 allows you to move freely throughout its many diverse environments. However, when you are in combat scenarios, it will quickly change to a turn-based perspective. During the exploration part of gameplay, you will move around freely and simply point and click to tell your party to do different actions, move around and interact with different items on the screen. All of this happens in real-time and you do not have to wait for anything for these actions.

When you run into enemies, the gameplay will quickly change its pace and will become turn based. A simple reminder is a notification on the screen that states ‘Commence Battle!’. Every time this message pops up, the gameplay will be in turn-based combat mode and your freedom to move around will be temporarily paused. Once you have completed the combat scenario, you will be free to move around and explore the beautiful environments of Baldur’s Gate 3 on your own. The switch between the two modes is smooth as silk so be careful when it switches the pace and get ready for combat.

Check for Enemy Vision Cones

If you hold down the Shift key, you will be able to see the vision cones of your enemies. This only works during turn-based scenarios. Pressing the Shift key will allow you to see the radius of each enemy and what area they can view. This comes in handy if you are trying to hide in combat from enemies because if the enemy is already looking at you and you decide to hide, you will waste your action and turn. This can also be used before stealing from someone or trying to do something which is not acceptable.

Scout the Environment

Always scout the environment as soon you enter the turn-based combat mode because it will help you identify the locations of enemies, potential environmental opportunities that you can use to your benefit, and anything which can be interacted with. This mode will also show you loot and different useful materials that you can collect for your journey. If an action is marked in red during this, it is a hint that this action will be trouble for you. If you see an enemy standing near ledges or explosives, quickly use the opportunity to take them out quickly. You can shoot hanging things to let them fall on enemies and crush them instantly. Every time you enter a battle, you should always scout the environment and look for such opportunities.

Bonus Actions Are Useful During Combat

During every combat turn, you are given an Action and a chance of a Bonus Action as well. This is for all party members, and this allows you to have an additional chance of doing something before your turn ends. Always use both your Action and Bonus Action chances before giving away the turn to the next party member or your enemy.

Darkvision Can be a Life Saver in Dark Areas

Some of the characters that will join your party will have Darkvision which will allow them to look ahead clearly and easily in dark areas. If you arrive in an area where there is no light, quickly switch to a character who has Darkvision and you will be able to navigate such areas quickly and safely because you never know what is hiding in the dark.

Use Potions to Support Your Moves

Just like any other RPG, potions are a great item to have in your inventory for tight spots. Baldur’s Gate 3 makes it easier to use potions with the combat hotbar. While you can collect potions in your inventory, you can easily assign these potions to your combat hotbar and quickly use them for increasing your damage or healing yourself quickly during combat. You can drag and place them in the hotbar right from your inventory which makes it really easy to use them later.

Support Your Party Members

If one of your characters has a potion that might be of use to another party member, you can help them by throwing the potion at them. Always keep a lookout for your party members and try to help each other out because only then you will succeed in the game. If a character’s inventory is full, have another keep potions for them, and during combat, just throw the potions at them by using the Throw command. This is really easy.

Have a Good Positioning Strategy

Positioning plays a critical role in combat and sometimes, even if you have the weaker party, you can easily win the battle by having a good positioning strategy. This is where your keen eye for the environment also comes into play. Make sure that your ranged party members are always at a distance from the enemies and if they can, locate them to higher ground to give them an added advantage.

Similarly, position your tanks at the front so they can absorb the damage while support characters should remain at the back. You can use more agile characters for hit-and-run scenarios as well so it all boils down to your positioning skills and how effectively you place your team during a combat scenario.

Focus on Your Spellcasting Ability (Magic Attacks)

Every time you try to cast a spell on someone, the game will roll the dice and the result (successful hit, damage dealt) will be dependent on your spellcasting ability. If you are a mage and you prefer casting a lot of spells, you will need to first focus on your spellcasting ability so that the game will always give a favorable score when it is rolling the dice. Every spell comes with a Spell Save Difficulty Check which is the number that your enemies have to beat to avoid getting hit. If your Spell Save Difficulty Check is high, very few enemies will be able to avoid getting hit by your spell and it will deal a good amount of damage to them as well.

Always Manual Save

Combat in Baldur’s Gate 3 is a little complex and unpredictable. One second you may have complete command of the whole scenario but one move later, the battlefield can change dramatically, and you may end up dead. For this very reason, you should always save your game manually before combat encounters begin. You cannot save the game between the encounters, so you have to save the game beforehand. There is a long time before the game autosaves and for critical battles, I will recommend that you always save the game before any such encounter so that you can quickly try again if you fail.

Gain Inspiration When You Can

Inspiration is yet another important combat mechanic that you must understand. Certain actions in the game will grant you inspiration such as reading certain books, making strong decisions, and defeating tougher enemies in the game. You must try to gain inspiration because, in the end, it will allow you to reroll whenever you need to make things a lot easier for you.

That is all for this guide. If you want more help with the game, we have additional Baldur’s Gate 3 guides linked below for you: