Difficulty Levels – Baldur’s Gate 3

One of the many decisions you’ll make in Baldur’s Gate 3 is what difficulty level to use during your campaign: Explorer, Balanced, Tactician, or Honour — or perhaps a Custom setting. Fortunately, unlike most decisions in the game, you can change this level at any time during your playthrough.

Difference Between Difficulties

At first glance, it seems Baldur’s Gate 3 follows the classic easy, medium, and hard difficulties, but a deeper look shows some pretty key differences between each of the difficulty levels.

Explorer Difficulty

• “A narrative experience placing story before combat.”

The easiest difficulty, designed for players more interested in the game’s intricate storytelling than its combat, is Explorer. The main downside to choosing the Explorer difficulty is that you cannot multiclass without switching to a harder difficulty. While playing on Explorer, you can expect the following changes from Balanced difficulty:

• +2 Proficiency Bonus to all Attack Rolls and Saving Throws
• Cheaper items in shops
• Enemies have decreased hit points
• Party members have increased hit points

Balanced Difficulty

• “A balanced adventure full of challenging choices.”

For most players, Balanced will be the perfect blend of storytelling and challenge. It isn’t a huge step-up in difficulty compared to Explorer, but players have full access to the game’s mechanics including multiclassing. Your party has a balanced hit chance compared to Explorer, and enemies have their default hit point level. Baldur’s Gate 3 was intended to be played on the Balanced difficulty.

Tactician Difficulty

• “A tough campaign emphasizing strategic combat.”

The hardest difficulty in Baldur’s Gate 3 is the Tactician difficulty. You’ll want to get some experience with the game mechanics before trying this mode, as it is a significant step up from Balanced. Tactician has the following changes compared to Balanced:

• The camp supplies required for a long rest increase from 40 to 80
• Enemies have increased hit points
• Enemies will adopt superior strategies against you in battle
• Larger number of enemies in battle
• More environmental hazards
• Items in shops cost more and sell for less

Honour Mode

• “A fraught and deadly campaign awaits, limited to a single save file.”

Honour Mode is an intense campaign recommended for experienced players. It includes:

• Stronger Bosses: The most dangerous foes in the Realms are more powerful in this mode, with new abilities and Legendary Actions.
• Stricter Rules: Alongside Tactician Mode’s regular difficulty increases, action economy and damage bonus rules are made stricter towards the end of the game.
• Single Save File: You cannot reload older saves in Honour Mode if events go awry — your choices and consequences always stick. If your entire party is defeated in combat, your Honour Mode run will end. (You will be able to continue your adventure in Custom Mode should you desire, but finishing it will not count as finishing Honour Mode.)

If you are victorious and beat the game in this mode, you will be rewarded with a “Shining Honor” (golden) dice set, which you can use in-game for future playthroughs. To switch your dice set, just click on the Dice Selection button in the lower left-hand corner of the interface, which appears whenever you roll dice.

Custom Mode

• “Customize your experience.”

This mode allows you to customize the difficulty of the campaign. You can adjust things like Enemy Aggression and Character Power, toggle things like whether you want multiclassing or only one save file, and more. We recommend that you play the game first using one of the standard difficulty levels, and then if you find that you like or don’t like certain things there, use Custom Mode to make the game more enjoyable for yourself.

How to Change Difficulties

You can change the difficulty at any point in time during your playthrough. Navigate to the pause menu and you’ll see the Difficulty button between Session / Multiplayer and Options.

Now that you know they key information about each difficulty level in Baldur’s Gate 3, which difficulty are you going to use? Let us know in the comments below!