Masochism and hardcore CRPG fans go hand in hand, and it surprises no one when first-time players jump into Baldur's Gate 3's Tactician Mode without a clue of what to do and how to do it. The developers promise these players that the game will chew them up and spit them back out if they go into Tactician without a decent knowledge of D&D systems.
But, players are stubborn, if nothing else, and will choose the hardest challenge in the game nine times out of ten. We're here to help you brute force your way to victory. Here are the tips we found most useful when trying to slog through Tactician mode without having much knowledge of the game.
Updated by Hamza Haq on August 23, 2023: Tactician mode lets players experience what its like being at the mercy of the whims of a harsh Dungeon Master. Intricate knowledge of the systems and an ability to identify creative solutions to impossible problems is what's going to help here. We have added five new tips to guide players better as well as new links to bring the article up to date with the latest in BG3.
20 Recruit Companions First
You can recruit almost all Baldur's Gate 3 companions before you get into some of the truly hard encounters in the game. Shadowheart, Lae'zel, Astarion, Gale, and Wyll are usually the first ones you're going to meet, but Karlach and Halsin can also be found without getting into a fight if you plan out your route correctly.
Having more companions to call upon in your camp means you have more options to tackle an encounter. Some fights are made trivial with a rogue in your party. But if you don't have Astarion to call upon, you might end up having to resort to less optimal solutions.
19 Optimize Your Party
Players familiar with the Dungeons & Dragons rule set will know the importance of synergy and taking advantage of broken abilities to clear combat encounters. Don't be ashamed to min-max your party to your heart's content.
Playing 'for RP' is for balanced mode. Tactician is for being as optimal as possible. Plan out your build, think about party synergy, powerful feats, leveling up before bosses, and everything in-between. It's a cruel world out there, and you'll need every advantage you can get.
18 Potions have AoE
Not many players realize but some potions have an area of effect. This is most useful with healing potions or buffing potions, as it allows you to consume way fewer resources and apply a beneficial effect to multiple allies in one action.
If you’re mid-combat and three of your allies are low, group them together, chuck a Potion of Greater Healing at them, and suddenly you have a healed party. Sometimes, using potions is going to be more effective than using any spell.
17 Use Explosives
There are more than enough explosives to go around in Baldur’s Gate 3, and you don’t need to discover the alchemical formula for gunpowder to blow something to high heaven; there are explosive barrels to do that for you.
While using explosives on their own is quite straightforward, there is another way to use them that few players discover. Multiple explosive barrels, rigged to explode, can be stored indefinitely inside any bag, and these bags can be thrown. On impact, the bag explodes, dealing equal to however many barrels were stored inside. Truly diabolical.
16 Upcast Spells
Some spells in Baldur’s Gate 3 can be upcast or cast with a spell slot higher than their original tier. Call Lightning, for example, is a level 3 spell and originally comes with a level 3 spell slot. But, when you unlock level 4 spells, you can consume a level 4 spell slot to cast Call Lightning with as a level 4 spell.
Upcasting comes with a boost in damage relative to how much higher the spell slot being used is. Magic Missile at level 1 is barely a tickle, but it can decimate an entire group of low-health enemies in one go when upcast at level 5. Know which spells can be upcast, and you’ll never be out of options in combat.
15 Dip Weapons In Candles
One of the cool features of Baldur’s Gate 3 is that it allows players to perform the Dip action on every character. Dipping allows a character to dip their weapon in an element that is within range of their weapon, giving the weapon a coating of the element as bonus damage.
It’s a nifty little feature that doesn’t see much use most of the time as there is not always a surface to dip into, making this action somewhat situational. But, if you have a candle in your inventory, you can drop it on the ground and dip your weapon into it to gain fire damage. Candles don’t weigh much and are unextinguishable in BG3, making this an easy way to increase your damage for free. Just remember to pick up the candle afterward.
14 Follow The Map Order
As you progress through the game, you’ll start to notice that the game pushes you to do certain encounters first. The battle at the crash-landed nautiloid comes before the battle at the blighted village, but there is nothing stopping you from sidestepping the first fight entirely and bull-rushing your way to the goblin camp at level 1.
But this will pit you at level 2 against enemies that are at least level 5. Not a smart idea. Follow the route the game has laid out for you, and you’ll have much less trouble progressing and leveling up. Don’t try to enter the Mountain Pass at level 3; exhaust your leveling options in the first part of Act 1 before venturing forth. It’s easier that way.
13 Understand Multiclassing
Multiclassing in Baldur's Gate 3 allows you to flex your knowledge of the D&D system and break the game wide open. Most classes in BG3 are frontloaded, meaning the classes have some of their best abilities given to players during levels 1-3 in many cases.
This means that you can dip into a class you want to get an extremely powerful feature that's available to that class at level 1 or 2. A good example of this is the Fighter Class's Action Surge, an extremely broken skill you can obtain at Fighter level 2. Combine it with something like a Rogue or a Ranger, and you have an absurdly powerful DPS in your party.
12 Shift Party Members Around
Some party members are better suited to different roles. Astarion is great at lockpicking, Stealth checks, and bypassing hordes of enemies unseen to take out their squishy Wizard before the fight begins. Lae'zel is a reliable front-liner, and Gale is well-suited to taking down groups of smaller enemies in a single go with an AoE spell.
Hard save before a tough encounter, find out what the enemy is bringing to the fight, and plan accordingly. It's hard to ask Karlach to sit one out, but sometimes a rampaging tiefling is just not the right person for the job, and there is no shame in recruiting a fresh face to a fight if you're feeling stuck.
11 Examine Enemies
A common mistake players make is to forget to investigate enemy weaknesses and powers before a fight begins. As soon as you see an enemy, move your mouse over to them, right-click, and click on Examine. This brings up their character sheet, which not only shows their abilities but also any weaknesses or buffs they have.
If you find out that skeletons are susceptible to bludgeoning damage, bring a mace. If you see an aberration of the Underdark that doesn't appreciate sunlight, send Shadowheart in to bring light to the darkness. And so on.
10 Begin Fights In Stealth
If you've been save-scumming as you should, you know which encounters are fights and which ones are dialogue checks. If you know an encounter is going to be a fight, and you have no interest in resolving it via dialogue, don't just walk in; ambush!
Buff your party with Bless, Haste, or anything similar, sneak just outside the enemies' cone of vision, and throw your strongest spell at them. There is no reason to play it fair. If you're feeling particularly vindictive, you can even split your party and keep them in Stealth. Then, sneak attack with each one separately. You'll get four free attacks before the enemy can even move.
9 Respec For Hard Encounters
Baldur's Gate 3 gives you the option to respec your characters into whatever classes you want them to have. All you need is money. This option allows players to optimize their build to fight a very specific boss in a very specific way.
Forcing a one-size-fits-all party in Tactician Mode can work, but it's going to be difficult and require you to min-max from the very start of the game and pre-plan everything. But with respec as an option, this doesn't have to be the case. Of course, you don't want to respec before every single encounter as that would get really boring,k really fast.
8 Talk Your Way Out
Charming your way out of a sticky situation is a D&D staple, and you'll need that silver tongue if you survive in Tactician Mode. Employing this strategy does not work for every encounter as there are some enemies you simply have to fight, but when it does, it's an easy win.
While Charisma-based classes like Bards and Sorcerers are the best at this, Baldur's Gate 3 does an excellent job of giving even the dumbest Barbarian options to seek a peaceful exit in dialogue options.
7 Get A Healer
In Tactician Mode, your party members will die and die often. Having a healer on your team will allow you multiple chances to get up and continue to fight, giving your downed characters a second wind. Long-distance healers like Clerics and Bards are incredible for this role, as they can heal downed allies from across the battlefield.
Without healers in your party, you'll struggle to eke out a win in most cases. And even when you do, healing back lost HP without an easy heal is a chore and a half. Do yourself a favor and keep Shadowheart in your party as a Cleric if you're not going to opt for one of the healing classes yourself.
6 Understand Terrain
During combat encounters, positioning your characters can have an incredible impact on the results of a battle. A Ranger shooting an arrow from the high ground will have a +2 added to their attack rolls, and any ranged attacks directed towards them from the low ground will have their rolls reduced by -2.
A player who understands the terrain and knows how to take advantage of these little quirks will know to have their Shadow Monk use Shadow Step to take out an enemy guard on a tall outpost rather than having their bow-wielder try to shoot that enemy from a lower elevation. Or, you can simply destroy the tower they are standing on if it has an HP bar.
5 Control The Battlefield
Classes like the Land Druid and Wizard are excellent options for manipulating the battlefield to your advantage. Most enemies in the game are grounded and need to walk. Use spells like Grease or Web to make their trek toward you harder. Done right, this can give you 2 to 3 turns to just sit back and do damage.
For enemies that can fly or maneuver around land-based obstacles, spells like Silence and Darkness can give you some breathing room. Move the enemy, do not be moved by them.
4 AoE Damage Is King
With decent planning and an understanding of choke points, you will be able to funnel your enemies into groups as they try to reach you. Having an Area of Effect spellcaster alongside a strong Tank can allow you to rain down hell upon your enemies in one fell swoop.
Wizards, Druids, and Sorcerers are both excellent classes for this, but Clerics will also do in a pinch. Fireball, Shatter, and Thunderwave are some incredible AoE damaging spells the game allows you to learn. Don't be afraid to use scrolls as well, as they can allow you to hit above your weight class to clear some incredibly difficult combat scenarios.
3 Rest Often
Short and Long rests in Baldur's Gate 3 are essentially resets for your and your companions' abilities and spells, allowing your party to recover expended spells. In Tactician Mode, where every combat encounter is going to be an impossibly hard puzzle to solve, having all your tools at the ready can go a long way.
Typically, you can take two short rests in a day, but having a Bard in your party can allow you to do it more often. Certain builds can take extra advantage of this by prioritizing having spells and abilities that regenerate over the course of a short rest.
2 Utility Matters
An often overlooked aspect of a build is what utility it provides the party beyond sheer damage numbers. A bard might not be as proficient a swordsman as a dedicated Fighter, but having access to Bardic Inspiration and Jack of All Trades allows Bards to do things a Fighter simply can't fathom.
Invisibility, Silence, Speak with Animals, Bless, and several other spells and abilities provide an out-of-combat utility that can alter the way you play the game entirely, negating the difficulty checks from entire encounters using ingenious solutions. Stealth characters taking up the scouting role shine in Tactician by giving you enough information to position yourself favorably before starting an encounter.
1 Save Scum Everything
Get familiar with the F5 key. It's going to be your best friend in Baldur's Gate 3 as you venture into the unforgiving Forgotten Realms. Save before every spell; every grenade throw, and every combat roll you can possibly anticipate. You'll find yourself reloading often and with relish.
Keep in mind, however, that BG3 is designed with you losing Charisma checks and failing in dialogue often. There is little reason to Save scum in order to get favorable dice rolls in dialogues, as that doesn't hurt your run per se, even though it might look like it at first glance.