Skills allow players to interact with the world around them to accomplish many different things. They can be used to change the opinions and attitudes of NPCs, discover hidden locations, and decide if a choice the player makes is successful or a failure.
Baldur's Gate 3 will give players many different skills to make use of, each becoming relevant at different times. Not all of these skills will be as useful as others, with some instances being extremely circumstantial. Your best bet is to be ready for whatever the world will throw your way and be sure to cover as wide a range among your companions as possible. Here are the 10 best skills for you to make use of in your party.
Updated by Chad Thesen on August 22, 2023: This list has been updated for the purpose of adding additional entries — Performance, Religion, and Medicine — to give it a more expansive range of coverage so that readers are able to make more informed decisions for their choices in the game.
18 Performance
Performance is one of the social skills of the game. These tend to be very important and can unlock many unique outcomes, as well as get through situations that you would otherwise be locked out of. Performance however does not really have any amazing outcomes.
You can get through the entire game and see everything without it. It does however provide some amusement and can still be enjoyed if you already have all your other skills covered.
17 Religion
Religion is one of the skills for your intelligence character to cover. It will not be as vital as other intelligence skills such as History or Nature, which will come up as you journey through the game. Overall, this skill will just help you understand some more about the lore of the game and provide some interesting dialogue branches.
You can drop the skill entirely and still get every item and complete every quest ahead of you. Players that want to feel what it is like to be a Cleric exploring what their faith holds are better off using Shadowheart and playing through her quest line.
16 Medicine
Medicine is another skill that is unfortunately not really needed. There are some moments in the game that will offer you the option to for it, but it is ultimately unimportant in all those situations.
The game provides many choices and alternate decisions for you to make. So you can completely ignore this skill and progress with a much more optimized group of adventurers.
15 Acrobatics
There will be times your characters will need to make rolls to stay on their feet. It is a horrible feeling if you need to cover a lot of ground really fast, just to have your character suddenly fall prone because they missed a challenge of 5 by a single point.
This skill ranks so low because the game gives you many ways to approach problems, which can mitigate the need for this if you approach it differently.
14 History
Intelligence rolls are something you will be making throughout the game. Each time you succeed, you will gain new information that can be useful for uncovering elements of the game's lore and interesting facts. You will be able to use these facts to discover objects, gain new dialog trees, and much more.
It is a good call to make all of your Wizard's skills Intelligence-based skills to have them fill the role of the dedicated bookworm for the group.
13 Nature
This is an Intelligence skill, just like the previous entry. However, this one covers details about the natural world, rather than the History of the lands you are traveling through. Nature is important for a game that has a lot of areas out in the wild. This can help you know about certain plants that grow in specific areas, or if there are dangerous beasts that live in your surroundings.
This is a skill available for many classes to pick up at character creation, adding to how you might want to build your party.
12 Animal Handling
If you fumble that Nature check to know what beasts are in the area, you can pick up the slack with Animal Handling. This skill will help you empathize with beasts in the same way as Persuation, Intimidation, and Deception would work on humanoid targets. You are, in essence, "having a conversation without words."
This helps to form a connection with an animal so that the two of you are on the same page.
11 Survival
The wilds can be a very harsh and arduous place. Thankfully, there is the Survival skill to make things a lot easier. This skill will passively roll a lot of the time, allowing you to know what useful resources might be nearby. You may discover some tracks on the ground, find some fruit to gather, and much more.
If you have a recent save, and you see a failed Survival roll, you should reload and try again. It will almost always be worth your while.
10 Athletics
Athletics is a skill that will derive a chance of success using your Strength Ability Score. You will encounter plenty of situations where you will need this skill, and not having anyone that can use it might impede your path.
Your Athletics will determine your success when using your physical physique to overcome an obstacle, such as jumping to a high ledge or continuing to move through something while some other force pushes against you to make it much harder to move through.
9 Arcana
Arcana is a skill that will derive a chance of success using your Intelligence Ability Score. It will be used for tasks that involve an understanding of how something magical works. It could be used to deactivate a magical trap or barrier.
It could also reveal the nature of a strange artifact you find or answer questions pertaining to a magical nature. This will be very useful to have when you find yourself requiring the necessary knowledge to use or disable something magical.
8 Insight
Insight is a skill that will derive a chance of success using your Wisdom Ability Score. It will be used for knowing when an NPC is either hiding something from you or trying to deceive you.
Having a character with a high success in Persuasion will be great for manipulating NPCs, but what is even better is if they also have high insight to know if the person they are talking to has more information than they let on. Combining this skill with a social one will give you many more options to explore in the game.
7 Sleight Of Hand
Sleight of Hand is a skill that will derive a chance of success using your Dexterity Ability Score. Sleight of Hand is the act of manipulating something with expert nimbleness, such as spinning a coin through your fingers or having something in your hand seemingly disappear.
This will be the skill used to pick the pockets of targets, conceal something on your person if you are searched by an NPC, or if you wish to plant an object on a target then tell the guards about them.
6 Intimidation
Sometimes you will be face to face with an NPC that will decide the outcome of what happens next. These social situations will shape the very nature of the story and how you will deal with the next scene or even future scenes.
Being able to terrify someone smaller than you will be a great way to get them to tell you exactly what you want to know, but they might remember this behavior and be less likely to help you in the future. It can open some doors now but can come back to bite you in the future.
5 Deception
Another great social skill is Deception. When a guard is blocking your path, this will give you the ability to make them think there is trouble going on that cannot wait, despite there not being any actual trouble.
With them convinced the very security of why they are stationed in the first place is at risk, they can leave their post and allow you to swoop in. Deception can also be used to convince a merchant that some piece of junk is actually worth a lot more than it actually is.
4 Persuasion
Hands down the best social skill of the lot is Persuasion. There is no need to lie or make a threat that could come back to bite you later, but rather, try to use reasoning or facts to get your way. This can foster alliances, barter better prices, and convince others to see things your way.
Persuasion will open up numerous alternate outcomes for you to make use of throughout your journey and that is why one of the members of your party should make it their primary Ability Score for maximum success chance.
3 Stealth
Do you know what is better than convincing a guard to let you pass? Getting past them without them being aware you even exist. Stealth lets you approach situations from a different angle and go where you normally are not allowed to be. It has applications for both infiltration and striking from the shadows in combat.
The Rogue’s Sneak Attacks are a great way to pour on tons of extra damage, and not being seen at the start will give you the benefits of a Surprise Round.
2 Investigation
Investigation is a skill that will derive a chance of success using your Intelligence Ability Score. Investigation will be used to inspect an area to discover new information you were previously unaware of.
This could include looking for a small object in a room filled with objects or looking for a pattern/clue in a body of text that you can decipher to find a hidden message. Investigation will be a brilliant skill to have when solving puzzles or investigating a mystery at hand.
1 Perception
Perception is a skill that will derive a chance of success using your Wisdom Ability Score. Perception has often been said to be the most important skill in the tabletop version of Dungeons and Dragons, mostly because you roll it more than any other skill. It is used for detecting an enemy before they see you and for finding markings that hint that there is a trap up ahead.
This is another great skill to have if you are scouting out a location without being detected. It is a Wisdom check because it relies mostly on using your body’s senses rather than thinking about it. This skill will prove just as vital in this video game adaptation.