Baldur's Gate 3 player discovers way to cheese one of Act 2's most notorious bosses with a bit of RPG housekeeping
There's power in a little tidying up
Over in Nightsong Prison, where Baldur's Gate 3's Shadowheart will undergo major plot points in her character arc, one player has discovered a game-changing tactic for making the fight with Balthazar a heck of a lot easier. The advice? Tidy up the bones.
*Story spoilers for Baldur's Gate 3 ahead!*
"I just discovered something…" the headline notes on the Baldur's Gate 3 subreddit. GamerAnimeMum had spotted several piles of scattered bones dotted about the area where the infamous Balthazar fight is set to occur. Before charging in with her Spear of Night and Umbral Crystals in hand, the original poster pauses for a second, and decides to try out something innovative.
"After noticing the placement of bones in the Nightsong Prison, that the adds (the skeletons) spawn from the piles of bones... and I thought to myself: 'I wonder if I can move these...?'
"And guess what? You can!"
Simply shifting the bones into a neat pile somewhere within range meant that, once the Balthazar boss fight begins, she had more enemies concentrated into a small space, making them more susceptible to spells with a large area of effect.
Rather than splitting the party to deal with Balthazar's risen goons, this little trick means players can whip out their cloud of daggers or hunger of hadar spell, and knock 'em flying.
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That sure is one way to set up a strike in skittles.
For me this is what Baldur's Gate 3, or RPGing in general, is all about - finding clever, hidden ways to defeat enemies using simple, humble moves like cutting a rope to release a chandelier, or indeed simply brushing some bones out of the way.
Reddit user ImhotepsServant revives a long-dead Castlevania line in the comments to encapsulate the moment. "What is a man, but a miserable pile of secrets?" I couldn't help but chuckle. Having been using that line to test microphones for years while working on PC Gamer's hardware team, I never thought I would see the line used in such a perfectly appropriate context.
Here are some general Baldur's Gate 3 tips and tricks for getting the most out of the game.
Katie is a freelance writer covering everything from video games to tabletop RPGs. She is a designer of board games herself and a former Hardware Writer over at PC Gamer.