Baldur’s Gate 3’s honour mode is a precarious proposition to navigate. The complexity of the game’s various systems means that one misstep could spell doom for the whole party, and a lot can go wrong on the Sword Coast.
One of the strangest honour mode stories I’ve read comes from LogensTenthFinger (I see you, Abercrombie), who described the unfortunate series of events that triggered the untimely death of their run.
He Said Step Back
Mister TenthFinger was attempting to perform the non-lethal Minthara exploit, which allows you to recruit Minthara without having to endure the horrific scenes of attacking the Emerald Grove and seeing innocent tieflings cut down. By their own admission, they had “botched the setup,” and everything went “very poorly” as a result.
And yet, Karlach managed to survive and return to camp with a single hit point, so the run was bruised but still alive. However, after returning to Withers to revive their comrades, Gale’s corpse appeared, and Karlach was dealt a single point of damage at the exact moment before Gale’s resurrection was completed, ending the run prematurely.
Baldur’s Gate 3 Player Loses Honour Mode Run By Sleeping With Someone
If you’re trying to beat Baldur’s Gate 3 on Honour Mode do not – I repeat, do not – entertain Haarlep’s proposal.
Why? Well, while the original poster believed this was due to collision from the body appearing underneath Karlach. The real reason is actually specific to Gale. I didn’t know this until reading the comments, but Gale’s corpse actually has an aura that deals 1d4 necrotic damage every turn to creatures surrounding it. This is because of the Netherese Orb, which is slowly deteriorating without the magic needed to sustain the artifact.
In fact, if you leave Gale’s corpse unattended for three long rests, then the Netherese Orb will explode and trigger a game-over screen.
Withers actually teleports the corpses back to Camp before reviving party members, so our hero’s last remaining companion Karlach actually took a single turn of necrotic damage before Gale stopped being a corpse. This run-ender caused many to tease that Withers’ simple warning of “Step back” when reviving party members isn’t superfluous. He really means it.
Of course, one should probably heal surviving party members immediately upon surviving a catastrophic attempt to incapacitate a sardonic drow. At the very least, they were only on Act One when the run ended, so there’s plenty of mental energy remaining to tackle another run.
Baldur’s Gate 3
5.0/5
- Released
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August 3, 2023
- ESRB
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M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Partial Nudity, Sexual Content, Strong Language, Violence
