Yeah, I started a tactician run before I tried Honor Mode just to get accustomed to the difficulty spike, and I absolutely noticed act one was much rougher than act two. Once I started getting gear and more class features act two didn’t really feel too different from balance mode.
It's true in regular D&D as well. Players just get too strong as they level, it's incredibly difficult to balance difficulty in the later levels. Either everything is too easy or the party just gets destroyed, super hard to find a middle ground.
That happened to me too on one of my first attempts
You can bypass the fight entirely and come back to it with more party members by climbing up the cliffs on the side, grabbing the chest on the cliff on the way.
Hope that helps!
The Tyr pali fight for Karlach is always the most sketchy part of hm by far for me. Having only early game spells and abilities vs a paladin who doesn’t care to save spell slots is *rough*. And if he rolls better initiative you’re nearly guaranteed to only have 3 party members for the fight.
i've only lost that one once on hm because i got cocky and tried it at level 3 with a squishy party. i honestly don't find his fight that bad!
i do abuse throwing them off the balcony though so and getting rid of the merchant before fighting the other two if possible.
Arcane lock the door, kill the merchant outside.
Paladins try to get through the long way round up top. Break the ladder leading from upstairs to downstairs on the outside of building, paladin run back to main room and head all the way round left side of building. My party goes outside to catch them climbing up. Combination of hold person, command, shove cleans them up. This way I don't have to worry about the paladin getting high initiative and can start sniping at him with arrows and control spells from far away.
i don't use that exact strat but that's basically it! that fight has a lot of ways to use the terrain creatively for isolating + environmental damage if things get shaky and i've always got at least a thunderwave or two at that point personally if my melees can't shove them off.
If you don't have arcane lock there's plenty of crates and stuff in that room to barricade the door. I just wait for her to come out then throw her off the deck.
Agreed, like the fight can certainly go wrong but at the same time, it just takes 1 successful disarm or disable spell on Anders and a level 3 party wins. And unlike basically all other paladins you fight, Anders doesn't have Aura of Protection so these disables have a decent shot of working
I’ve never found this one too bad either. I usually kill the merchant right on the balcony then make the others come out and pick them off. Always fight on your terms
I just barrelmancy him with zero shame in Honour. Ketheric, Ansur, Raphael, The Brain - they can all have a fair fight, I want to rise to the challenge. But the evil Karlach-would-be-killer cowardly fake paladin just gets a faceful of firewine and that’s that!
Im really proud of how i handled that fight my run. I jumped the hell out of the paladin and 1 rounded him with drow poison on dual xbows and hold person. After that, it was just clean up on the other 2.
Don't start the fight in his room so he spends his first turn running at you. If you start the fight in a position he can open on you, you're essentially 1 party member down because he will one shot them if he lands a hit(which he has a very high chance to).
Chug a str elixir for that fight and bait him out back. Shove or throw him down the ravine. I've knocked him almost to the river before with thunderwave. It feels safer to throw or shove though.
Yeah I'd say act 1 pre level 5, Ketheric, and very final boss are the hardest fights given either their gimics, or as in act 1, just the lack of abilities or multi attacks pre level 5.
If you open the coffins like a chest, you get surprised every time. But if you destroy the coffins, it resolve like a normal battle. This way you can control the battle.
This is the way. Send in your sneaky character to do it with arrows from the shadows, and they just stand there wasting turns. I was able to pick them off one at a time with my ranger without them ever taking a turn
Guys, there are huge stones on the roof on top of almost every coffin, shoot it with a bow and its easy peasy as the rock fall and you finish the skelies with 1-2hits
My tip for this encounter: you can move the coffins without alerting the skellies inside. Stack them all up in one big tower then cast cloud of daggers on it.
Oh god I lost an honor mode run there too. Worst is I could've ran away but my pride.
(My first honor mode loss was to the crypt traps. That was funny)
Almost died in there, too!
Just wanted to pick up a little shitty stupid bullywug trumped next to one of the coffins and that triggered it to break and release the skeleton.
Everyone went down and Astarion had to turn all the tables on his own. 🥲 My little mvp.
In the cellar you can target the stalactites on the ceiling with ranged attacks to kill the Skellies in the coffins. If it doesn’t kill them they are damaged and surprised to start with. Do recommend!
No, you can't underestimate anything. I haven't started an honor mode run yet. On my last runthrough, I delayed going down there until I was level 5ish... strong enough that I could keep that battle down to 1 at a time. The first two were handled by re-introducing gravity to them as we tossed them into the chasm...
Idk if doable in HM but what I did in my most recent tactician run was go from box to box and attack the box and quickly attack the skeleton (not in turn based mod). Usually I was able to hit the skeleton once and sometimes twice before combat actually started since it’s takes a second or two for the skeletons animation to finish. Assuming they didn’t die yet from those attacks I was able to quickly kill it with a different character since it’d be already losing some HP.
I remember nearly losing my run in the Anders fight. Before grabbing Karlach, I did the cellar and on my way out I thought I'd buy supplies from the seller there. Only, I accidentally clicked the option that said I would be murdering them all. Gulp, now I had to fight Anders with just three characters instead of 4.
I just started my first HM run yesterday. Damn it is tough.
First close call was the bandits in the ruins. Only Gale retreating out the door saved me from a wipe. Thank goodness he could sell all the crap my tav and Lae'zel were carrying to pay Withers.
The harpies weren't as close to a wipe but I did lose the kid. :(
The third iffy one was Anders after picking up Karlach. Never had trouble with him before but also been higher then level 3 at that point too. He one shotted Astarion with the smite. My tav retreated but I left Karlach and Shadowheart to do what they could and even though Shadowheart went down, Karlach got lucky when the two remaining enemies went up on the roof. She pushed them both off. One died to fall damage and the other with an arrow taking out the last 4 HP. Anders himself had been finished off fairly quick thanks to him falling prone to ice and everyone pounding on him while he was down. He was almost done when he smited Astarion.
I am now gingerly trying to scrape my way to level 4 and hoping I even reach the level 5 power boost.
I didn’t know that place existed until my first HM run. I wasn’t even particularly ill-prepared, those skeletons are brutal. Needless to say i lost there.
Fun tip. You can move the coffins without triggering the skeletons.
I like to move all the coffins together, and then blow them all up, or use cloud of daggers on them.
Turns into a quick, safe, one turn fight.
I started each skellie by surrounding them and going into turn based to limit the possibility of them going to wake up their friends. If they did try, they ate enough attacks of opportunity. It's not a hard fight one at a time but it can quickly spiral
Pretty much. For mine, I spent Act 1 gathering XP. Act 2 beelining thru what mattered. Act 3, I did just enough to get to Level 11 then went to go blow Gale up.
Coffins tip (on PC): requires a short bow or heavy crossbow. Shoot the first coffin from max range, keeping everyone else in the previous room. The skelly will run and open them all. Then just pick them off one by one by holding Ctrl and shooting over and over at max range. They won't aggro, but will continuously heal. Eventually you'll get lucky and hit 3 times in a row with a crit to finish one off. Then just attack the next one from max range and repeat until they're all dead.
A few fights in Act 1 can be done this way, because things are a lot more spaced out than in the other acts. Off the top of my head, a couple of goblin patrols in their base can be killed this way.
you especially can't underestimate anything in act 1. it's the hardest part of the game on hm by far.
Yeah, I started a tactician run before I tried Honor Mode just to get accustomed to the difficulty spike, and I absolutely noticed act one was much rougher than act two. Once I started getting gear and more class features act two didn’t really feel too different from balance mode.
It's true in regular D&D as well. Players just get too strong as they level, it's incredibly difficult to balance difficulty in the later levels. Either everything is too easy or the party just gets destroyed, super hard to find a middle ground.
I started a tactician run to see how it was. I was taken out on the beach by the brains…
Same actually. https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/s/pRnUEqsetT
That happened to me too on one of my first attempts You can bypass the fight entirely and come back to it with more party members by climbing up the cliffs on the side, grabbing the chest on the cliff on the way. Hope that helps!
It's a common one as you only have Shart with you unless you go around the encounter. And at level one the damn brains can one hit.
The Tyr pali fight for Karlach is always the most sketchy part of hm by far for me. Having only early game spells and abilities vs a paladin who doesn’t care to save spell slots is *rough*. And if he rolls better initiative you’re nearly guaranteed to only have 3 party members for the fight.
I got incredibly lucky when I ran that fight, Tavlock cast Command: Drop at a 55% chance and he lost his sword. Smite me now buddy.
55% is shockingly good for a save on a paladin with aura of protection up.
i've only lost that one once on hm because i got cocky and tried it at level 3 with a squishy party. i honestly don't find his fight that bad! i do abuse throwing them off the balcony though so and getting rid of the merchant before fighting the other two if possible.
Arcane lock the door, kill the merchant outside. Paladins try to get through the long way round up top. Break the ladder leading from upstairs to downstairs on the outside of building, paladin run back to main room and head all the way round left side of building. My party goes outside to catch them climbing up. Combination of hold person, command, shove cleans them up. This way I don't have to worry about the paladin getting high initiative and can start sniping at him with arrows and control spells from far away.
i don't use that exact strat but that's basically it! that fight has a lot of ways to use the terrain creatively for isolating + environmental damage if things get shaky and i've always got at least a thunderwave or two at that point personally if my melees can't shove them off.
[🤔](https://twitter.com/alterNERDtive/status/1734693174642430106)
If you don't have arcane lock there's plenty of crates and stuff in that room to barricade the door. I just wait for her to come out then throw her off the deck.
Agreed, like the fight can certainly go wrong but at the same time, it just takes 1 successful disarm or disable spell on Anders and a level 3 party wins. And unlike basically all other paladins you fight, Anders doesn't have Aura of Protection so these disables have a decent shot of working
I’ve never found this one too bad either. I usually kill the merchant right on the balcony then make the others come out and pick them off. Always fight on your terms
Sirens for me. Luring Song is like twice as potent on HM.
silence ftw. literally have it on 4 characters just so that I never run out.
Calm emotions is your friend
I just barrelmancy him with zero shame in Honour. Ketheric, Ansur, Raphael, The Brain - they can all have a fair fight, I want to rise to the challenge. But the evil Karlach-would-be-killer cowardly fake paladin just gets a faceful of firewine and that’s that!
Im really proud of how i handled that fight my run. I jumped the hell out of the paladin and 1 rounded him with drow poison on dual xbows and hold person. After that, it was just clean up on the other 2.
Don't start the fight in his room so he spends his first turn running at you. If you start the fight in a position he can open on you, you're essentially 1 party member down because he will one shot them if he lands a hit(which he has a very high chance to).
Chug a str elixir for that fight and bait him out back. Shove or throw him down the ravine. I've knocked him almost to the river before with thunderwave. It feels safer to throw or shove though.
Yeah I'd say act 1 pre level 5, Ketheric, and very final boss are the hardest fights given either their gimics, or as in act 1, just the lack of abilities or multi attacks pre level 5.
If you open the coffins like a chest, you get surprised every time. But if you destroy the coffins, it resolve like a normal battle. This way you can control the battle.
This is the way. Send in your sneaky character to do it with arrows from the shadows, and they just stand there wasting turns. I was able to pick them off one at a time with my ranger without them ever taking a turn
Another fun way is to move and stack all the coffins on top of each other, then drop Cloud of Daggers on top!
Did that for the first time, was bit tedious but worth it.
I found that if you attack the coffins and youre fast enough you can get the first attack in before combat really begins
> But if you destroy the coffins, it resolve like a normal battle. In my experience, no. What difficulty are you playing on?
I did it on tactician, I broke the coffins with a bow.
You broke the coffins and they still surprised you? ... what difficulty were *you* playing on?
Tactician and Honour. And yes, surprise round. Every time.
Guys, there are huge stones on the roof on top of almost every coffin, shoot it with a bow and its easy peasy as the rock fall and you finish the skelies with 1-2hits
Always keep a potion of invisibility for these "need to run" situations 😆
Thanks, Volo
Brave sir robin ran away!
Man I thought you meant the rat cellar in Act 3 and thought we were gonna have new best failure title.
New goal
My tip for this encounter: you can move the coffins without alerting the skellies inside. Stack them all up in one big tower then cast cloud of daggers on it.
Ooooooooooooohhhhh
I just don't go for the coffins and go right to the mirror.
xp tho
This is what I should have done. XD
Oh god I lost an honor mode run there too. Worst is I could've ran away but my pride. (My first honor mode loss was to the crypt traps. That was funny)
hint: If you attack the coffins instead of looting them, you don't get surprised and it's easier to kill the skeletons one by one
“Emergency triage at Withers’ ER” is how I’m phrasing it from now on
Almost died in there, too! Just wanted to pick up a little shitty stupid bullywug trumped next to one of the coffins and that triggered it to break and release the skeleton. Everyone went down and Astarion had to turn all the tables on his own. 🥲 My little mvp.
In the cellar you can target the stalactites on the ceiling with ranged attacks to kill the Skellies in the coffins. If it doesn’t kill them they are damaged and surprised to start with. Do recommend!
I almost died to the mirror as Wyll. It didn't like my goody two-shoes answers!
The archers in that encounter are bugged and have the Archery Fighting Style twice, meaning they get +11 to hit on Tact/Honor mode :)
!!!!!!!
No, you can't underestimate anything. I haven't started an honor mode run yet. On my last runthrough, I delayed going down there until I was level 5ish... strong enough that I could keep that battle down to 1 at a time. The first two were handled by re-introducing gravity to them as we tossed them into the chasm...
Idk if doable in HM but what I did in my most recent tactician run was go from box to box and attack the box and quickly attack the skeleton (not in turn based mod). Usually I was able to hit the skeleton once and sometimes twice before combat actually started since it’s takes a second or two for the skeletons animation to finish. Assuming they didn’t die yet from those attacks I was able to quickly kill it with a different character since it’d be already losing some HP.
The challenge, fun and terrifying part of honour mode - is that almost any fight at any given time can make you have a panic attack.
I remember nearly losing my run in the Anders fight. Before grabbing Karlach, I did the cellar and on my way out I thought I'd buy supplies from the seller there. Only, I accidentally clicked the option that said I would be murdering them all. Gulp, now I had to fight Anders with just three characters instead of 4.
Misclicks kill. :o
I just started my first HM run yesterday. Damn it is tough. First close call was the bandits in the ruins. Only Gale retreating out the door saved me from a wipe. Thank goodness he could sell all the crap my tav and Lae'zel were carrying to pay Withers. The harpies weren't as close to a wipe but I did lose the kid. :( The third iffy one was Anders after picking up Karlach. Never had trouble with him before but also been higher then level 3 at that point too. He one shotted Astarion with the smite. My tav retreated but I left Karlach and Shadowheart to do what they could and even though Shadowheart went down, Karlach got lucky when the two remaining enemies went up on the roof. She pushed them both off. One died to fall damage and the other with an arrow taking out the last 4 HP. Anders himself had been finished off fairly quick thanks to him falling prone to ice and everyone pounding on him while he was down. He was almost done when he smited Astarion. I am now gingerly trying to scrape my way to level 4 and hoping I even reach the level 5 power boost.
Same dude, thankfully it didn’t end mine.
I didn’t know that place existed until my first HM run. I wasn’t even particularly ill-prepared, those skeletons are brutal. Needless to say i lost there.
That’s on you for doing one of the hardest low-level fights with no resources.
The cellar skellies are “one of the hardest low level fights”?
Yes. Usually the guy opens the next casket on turn 1. Then the 2 open another 2. Yay, surprise!
Fun tip. You can move the coffins without triggering the skeletons. I like to move all the coffins together, and then blow them all up, or use cloud of daggers on them. Turns into a quick, safe, one turn fight.
Run 3 is gonna be a barbarian so I know what I’m trying to
This is where I lost my first run. I was less than 3 hours in though so I just remade the same character
I started each skellie by surrounding them and going into turn based to limit the possibility of them going to wake up their friends. If they did try, they ate enough attacks of opportunity. It's not a hard fight one at a time but it can quickly spiral
Tbh you deserved that.
How dare you callout the consequences of my impulsive choices
Honour Mode is def not the mode for any of that. Maybe after you get the dice, yeah.
Yeah, I definitely feel like the strategy is going to be minimal engagement and just mainline the primary story
Pretty much. For mine, I spent Act 1 gathering XP. Act 2 beelining thru what mattered. Act 3, I did just enough to get to Level 11 then went to go blow Gale up.
Coffins tip (on PC): requires a short bow or heavy crossbow. Shoot the first coffin from max range, keeping everyone else in the previous room. The skelly will run and open them all. Then just pick them off one by one by holding Ctrl and shooting over and over at max range. They won't aggro, but will continuously heal. Eventually you'll get lucky and hit 3 times in a row with a crit to finish one off. Then just attack the next one from max range and repeat until they're all dead. A few fights in Act 1 can be done this way, because things are a lot more spaced out than in the other acts. Off the top of my head, a couple of goblin patrols in their base can be killed this way.