Baldur’s Gate 3is a big and intimidating game, one where you could be playing a certain way for hours only to find that that way was the most difficult way to do things. In this guide, I’ll go over a few quality-of-life improvements and pro tips (since I have logged over 45 hours inBG3) that you should use inBaldur’s Gate 3.
Note:While learning the best quality-of-life tips is important, if you want to findthe best legendary weapons, armor, and items inBaldur’s Gate 3, check out our guide.
BestBaldur’s Gate 3tips and tricks
The following list is seven key tips that have helped me learn the basics ofBaldur’s Gate 3. While combat and exploration are completely different beasts,the tips included here are mechanical and quality-of-life.
Lock the map’s position north
An early tip you might like to apply islocking the map north. The minimap on the top right corner moves left and right as your camera does which can be disorienting if you’re trying to get the lay of the land.
To lock in a north-facing minimap,press Esc, select Options, and go to Interface. Click the box that says North-Facing Minimap and you’re good to go.
Press F5 to quicksave (often!)
My biggest piece of advice to players new toBaldur’s Gate 3is touse F5 to save often! Before opening a door, F5. Before starting a conversation, F5. Before jumping into battle, F5. You should always be quicksaving just in case things don’t go your way. But quicksaving often, if things go south, you won’t much progress.
Change the character snap keybinding to R
A friend taught me this one — toeasily center the camera on your character, change the keybinding to R. R is used to toggle dual wielding, but you can change that to anything else. Since you use WASD and Q and E to move the character around, having R nearby to quickly center back on your character is extremely useful.
To do this,go to Options and then Keybindings. Find the Centre Camera on Character option and change it to R.
Use the Turn-Based Mode for sneaking and avoiding traps
A slept-on feature inBG3is the ability toturn on the Turn-Based Mode whenever you’re exploring out of combat. Though combat is always in Turn-Baded Mode, I recommend using Turn-Based Mode tosneak all of your characters individually to strategic spotsbefore you start a battle.
Another very clever way to use Turn-Based Mode iswhen you accidentally trigger a trap in a room. If you press Turn-Based Mode as soon as you can,you’ll freeze timeand be able to get all your characters out of harm’s way before the trap can take its turn.
Ungroup and group sneak
If you’re playing a solo campaign, you’ll want three other people in your party. However, three bots that follow you around can get you into trouble if you aren’t careful. If you ever want to sneak around and explore a section on your own or use a different character to talk through the event up ahead, you shouldungroup and group sneak.
To ungroup your party, justpress the Toggle Group Mode buttonon the left side of the screen directly underneath the character profiles, or press G.Press Toggle Hideto sneak everyone in your party, or press shift and C.
Once ungrouped, you can click and drag the character profiles together togroup individual people together. For instance, if you want to split your party in two, group two people together and the other two people as well. You can do this with three and one as well. Look for the chain when clicking and dragging and, once the profiles are placed, look for the spaces in-between the profiles to see who is grouped and who isn’t.
Press T to inspect descriptions
Though I know a lot aboutBaldur’s Gate 3, I don’t know everything. A tool I use often to learn more is T. Whenever you’re hovering over a spell, ability, item, or anything else that has a text box, you can and shouldpress T to freeze the description and hover over the highlighted words.
Highlighted words that mean something specific like Frighten, Off Balance, and Saving Throws can all beresearched by pressing T and reading more. Knowledge is power inBaldur’s Gate 3.
Use the search bar to find items in your inventory
A tip that I learned recently is the ability to search for specific things in your inventory. If you just picked up an item and your inventory is full and cluttered (like mine is), you can press Tab to open your entire party’s inventory, click the search bar on the top left, andsearch the name of whatever you’re looking for.
I do this all the time to find all my scrolls, since scrolls are really powerful in this game. Definitelytake advantage of the search bar.
Those arethe best tips to improve the quality-of-lifeforBaldur’s Gate 3. This game can be a hard game to enjoy because it is so big and complicated in more ways than one, but I think it’s objectively an amazing game once youunderstand the basics.
Noah Nelson
From his early days of blog-style music, movie, and game reviews to working as the Esports Writer at Coastline Community College, Noah Nelson now works fulltime as a Staff Writer for Attack of the Fanboy and PC Invasion. He has been helping gamers everywhere with Destiny 2 god rolls, Warzone 2 DMZ missions, and collectibles in any indie game for over a year and a half. His Bachelor’s Degree in English Rhetoric and Composition with a minor in Journalism from CSULB has shaped him to be a strong writer and editor. His fondest gaming memory is playing Sly Cooper 2 after begging his mom (for hours) to play it before his birthday and he still cries myself to sleep remembering the time he accidentally saved over his 99% completion save file in Kingdom Hearts 2.
