Baldur's Gate 3

Baldur's Gate 3

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An Unethical Guide of Tips For Honour Mode
By Cthyllas
Honour Mode for dummies who aren't min/max pros or crpg masters but want the achievement
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Unethical Guide
Welcome

If you, like me, are a suffering completionist but not an rpg tactical mastermind and want the honour mode achivement because the 53/54 achievements sign pisses you off, i've made this little list of dirty and unethical tips to help make honour mode easier for you



Suffice to say, if you're more of a rpg puritan and are against meta exploits this guide is not for you, no honest tips here, you deserve better

You might also be wondering "hey, how come you are writing this but you don't even have the achievement yourself" I just figured that would be the most unethical thing to do and since it's in spirit with the guide, here i am
The Unethical Mindset
First and foremost, a tip

If you are playing honour mode, odds are you already went through a few normal runs were you acted like a decent person, you should drop that here, not saying you should do an evil run, but dont get attached to anyone, if killing someone makes a questline or getting an item easier, you should murk them without second tought, this will become important on the moneymaking part of the guide, stealing and just being generally mean will also become fair game, sometimes being evil does pay off better than doing the right thing and we are just here for the achievement, leave being a good person for a normal goodguy run
Unethical Character Builds
First of all is your character creation and characters builds in general, if you are here im assuming you are no min/maxer tactical mastermind so what you want to do is just take a broken build from the net

People who are actually good at the game have already figured this part out and put their beautiful builds on internet, just copy one for each of your characters


You can just play the classes your companions come with comfortably up to level 6, before having to respec into one of these broken builds (so basically about the entirety of act 1) but you should have a clear idea of what you want from the very begining to make sure you dont miss any important items by not seeing them or killing off the wrong person
Unethical Moneymaking Schemes
Money is also an important part of the game, it will allow you to buy much needed potions,elixirs, equipment and other stuff

There currently is an exploit that will net you some money and a lot of equipment to use or sell for more money
When a merchant dies, he will drop two or three of his catalogue most expensive items, so, sell one a bag and still in the shop interface, move anything from their inventory into said bag, you will be allowed to do so with no consequences


The bag will then become their most expensive item, so, i'm sure you already know where this is going, you will then lure them into a private spot (or not) and kill them, they will drop the bag, and inside the bag, everything you put

Do be careful when choosing on wich merchants to do this, since if left alive some will show up in later acts with different inventories with items you might need for your build, make sure to check where the items for your build come from before killing them, everyone else is fair game
Unethical Workforce Management
Another tip that makes the game significally easier are the known "camp clerics"



By using around 600 gold you can have wither call 3 hirelings for you, then, you can respec all 3 + a teammate you don't plan on using into clerics, at the start of the day, have the clerics cast permanent day long buffs that dont require concentration on your main party and then switch to your main characters again

Namely, you want to cast Aid and Warding bond

Aid will give you extra health, the more you upcast it, the more HP


and most importantly, Warding bond will give your character resistance to all types of damage and share the damage they take with the caster, but since the caster is in camp it doesn't really matter, you get half damage from all sources for free



on later levels you will also unlock heroes' feast and other spells but i'd say these are the main two you want, having to cast each time you long rest might be annoying but it's definetely worth it
Unethical Approach to fighting
Since this is probably not your first run, you already know where and when most fights happen, and how to evade them
A main character with high charisma can be crucial since it will help you evade a lot of fights and you should try to evade as many as possible since you get the xp anyways most of the time, unless you need an specific item drop, there's no reason to put your run in danger

If you can't evade a fight, research it, as said before, people who are good at this game probably already figured it out, and if there's a way to cheese the fight you should take it, it's better to enter the fight with as much information about it as possible

For enemies that aren't inmediately aggressive, abuse the minor illusion cantrip to single them out and kill them before the fight even triggers, the least enemies, the easier



Unethical Emergency Bailout
This is where things get real dirty, this is one of the most unethical tips im going to give you only followed by the next one but, when things are going south and you know you are about to lose, you can boot up the task manager and close the game that way, next time you open it, you will continue from the last save, this is not 100% failsafe since your last save might not be in a good spot and you might have locked yourself in an unwinnable situation, but the option is always there, remember, game is game
Even Worse Unethical Bailout
So, if you've made it this far and still can't tackle honour mode, there's one last option to get that achievement, one I highly discourage but is still there anyways, you could download a savefile that's already in the end of the game and use it to get the achievement, again, i discourage this since it beats the entire purpose of the achievement but hey, you do you

i'm not entirely sure of how getting achievements from these savefiles works but i've seen some posted here before so i'm guessing they work

and remember, game is game

14 Comments
Bazel 23 Jan @ 5:39pm 
To shroom's comment about leaving someone behind and being able to ressurect. You can also actually flee mid fight, resurrect dead companions at Withers with the combat paused on another characters turn and then walk back to the fight with your now alive people. I really enjoyed only having one save file and not being able to change the outcome. Made me play a very different play through. I wish it forced saves more often in honour mode.
Shepherdess 23 Jan @ 3:37pm 
You don't have to be this overkill, lol. While I defo recommend preparing using potions and such before fights, I never avoided optional dialogue for them (namely act 2 bosses), and I only respecced 2 of my party members. I didn't make anyone use buff spells and leave them in camp. Like I said, that's ESPECIALLY overkill. Didn't use any bugs/exploits either, mainly cause I don't know any other than things like Warlock extra attack stacking (removed in honour), DRS related stuff (also removed in honour), and Vow of Enmity bug (didn't use pally). I think doing all this would make the game too easy, and while I agree that game is game, and do what you like, I can imagine some people getting bored doing some of these tactics. I understand the want for getting the achievement but is it really worth being bored for the duration of the run? Idk. That's just some ppl tho. I'm sure it doesn't apply on everyone.
l h 23 Jan @ 12:31am 
I have still yet to get to act 2 on any of my runs, but I'll be fine.
Bishop 23 Jan @ 12:07am 
Will add one thing changing location will heal you. So if you go from mountain pass to druids gove you will get fully heald.
Infinium_23 22 Jan @ 8:24pm 
Game is Game.

Gonna try HM at least twice legit but i'll be returning here when that goes wrong.
Squidbo 22 Jan @ 3:23pm 
Camp clerics is such an obvious thing in retrospect, great tip.:steamthumbsup:
Cyeri 22 Jan @ 5:23am 
Tip for Act 3, just get a Hand, kill Orin, partner with Gortash, skip the endfight before the brain with invisability and tell Gale to blow himself up
Each time you level up (even from respeccing at withers) a merchant's inventory resets their non-unique items, so you can put even more items into the backpack before killing the merchant. the items in the backpack do not respawn.
Shroom 18 Jan @ 7:25pm 
Also you can have a camp bard/potionmaster who can give up to 4 or more bardic inspirations per long rest, and have a 99.75% chance to create double potions:

https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Guide:Thrileon%27s_Guide_to_Double_alchemy_crafts
Shroom 18 Jan @ 7:23pm 
Another semi-dirty tip for Honor Mode players - you can never lose as long as you leave one party member behind to resurrect any others who die.

Sure, some fights will be harder with only 3 people, but you can wipe out multiple times until you get the hang of it, never losing Honor Mode. There are some fights/areas that will automatically bring your entire party in, but they are manageable.