What are the Baldur’s Gate 3 difficulty differences? There are currently three difficulty options in Baldur’s Gate 3: explorer, balanced, and tactician. Each offers its own way to play the game, and no choice is the wrong one. Do you want a steep challenge every time you have to fight even the most docile enemies, or would you rather enjoy the story without having to reload when a pack of goblins kills Gale and knocks out Laezel? What about something in the middle? It’s completely up to how you want to enjoy your adventures through Faerun.
To make the most of the higher difficulties, our other Baldur’s Gate 3 guides will come in handy, including our overview of the best classes, as a balanced party is a necessity. Furthermore, as our review mentions, you’ll also want to get an idea of the right race to choose for your playthrough. With all that information under your belt, read on to find out which BG3 difficulty level is for you.
BG3 difficulty differences
Upon beginning a new game, you’ll have the choice to select your difficulty. These difficulty levels affect almost everything in the game, most notably enemy AI and ability scores, but also shop prices, the chance for you to succeed in attack rolls and ability checks, and the option to multiclass.
Here are the Baldur’s Gate 3 difficulties:
- Balanced – This option is the way the developers intended the game to be played. Enemies offer a fair challenge to both new players and veterans of the genre that don’t want too much trouble. Shop prices, enemy behavior and equipment, and dice rolls are ‘normal.’
- Explorer – Enemies have decreased health and your dice rolls are far more likely as you have a +2 proficiency bonus to all attack rolls and saving throws. Items are also cheaper. However, in this mode you cannot multiclass unless you increase the difficulty and then decrease it once again.
- Tactician – Enemies have increased health and ability scores, making them much harder to hit – and it’s much easier for them to hit you, too. Enemies also employ better strategies and equipment, such as ganging up on a party member with disadvantage or using fire arrows otherwise absent in other difficulties. This mode also doubles the amount of camp supplies needed for a long rest, from 40 to 80.
Furthermore, turning Karmic Dice off in the gameplay options will increase the difficulty even more. Karmic Dice make sure you don’t roll low numbers too many times in a row, making for a frustrating experience. If you turn it off, you leave your dice rolls completely up to chance.
Can you change the difficulty in Baldur’s Gate 3?
Yes. If you’re keen on trying Tactician and find reloading your save over and over too troublesome every encounter, you can change the difficulty at any time in the pause menu.
You can even do so to manipulate shop prices or clear a difficult encounter before changing it back. Truly, Baldur’s Gate 3 is meant to be played the way you want to.
For our gold, the balanced difficulty is by far the best in Baldur’s Gate 3. Larian Studios has done a wonderful job not only making a deep, satisfying role-playing game but also one full of player choice at almost every turn, including tons of choices to make in dozens of quests involving all of the BG3 companions. That said, the way you choose to explore Faerun is completely up to you.