What Difficulty to Pick in Baldur’s Gate 3
Baldur's Gate 3 offers a deeply engaging RPG experience, enhanced by difficulty levels tailored to different playstyles. Whether you are new to role-playing games or an experienced RPG player looking for a tactical challenge, selecting the right Baldur's Gate 3 difficulty mode can define how enjoyable or frustrating your experience will be. This guide is here to help. We'll break down the differences between the difficulty settings and guide you in choosing the most suitable Mode based on your expectations.
Overview of Difficulty Options
In Baldur's Gate 3, three main difficulty modes are available: Explorer, Balanced, and Tactician. They differ in enemy strength, AI tactics, dice rolls, and shop prices, making the game more challenging or relaxing.
1. Explorer Mode - Focus on Storytelling

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Explorer Mode is best for you if you're interested in the rich narrative of Baldur's Gate 3 and less in its combat mechanics. Here, enemies have significantly reduced health, and players get bonuses on the attack, meaning that going through combat will be a piece of cake, and most encounters will be like a breeze when you clear them. The main goal of this difficulty mode in Baldur's Gate 3 is to ensure that the story flows smoothly without the constant threat of failure in combat.
Combat Difficulty: Enemies are weak with reduced hit points, so they aren't as tough to kill.
Rolls for Dice: You will get a +2 bonus on attack rolls and saving throws, which increases the probability of performing specific actions successfully.
Shop Prices: Items cost less, so resource management can be slightly less stressful.
Best For: Players who wish to focus on the story dialogue and exploration but need to be slowed down by tactical combat.
2. Balanced Mode - A Harmonious Blend
Balanced Mode in Baldur's Gate 3 is the Mode everyone would typically enjoy, and the developers intended the game to be played like this. This difficulty level offers an adequate challenge where both combat and story are good enough. The enemies here are stronger than the ones in Explorer Mode but are not impossible to defeat. There's nothing biased; players can succeed in dice rolling and ability checking with no gears benefiting or punishing them.
Combat Difficulty: The difficulty of enemies is fair and reasonable, but players must deal with various systems.
Dice Rolls: No bonuses and drawbacks; every dice roll depends purely on your character's stats and the luck of the dice.
Shop Prices: This Mode offers standard prices, so you must manage resources.
Best For: Players looking for both stories and combat mechanics of Baldur's Gate 3 can enjoy the narrative without the tension of struggles, which is pretty much moderate.
3. Tactician Mode - For Hardcore Tacticians
If you like turn-based strategy games and are okay with having real battles, that means careful preparation and flawless execution. In that case, Baldur's Gate 3 also offers you a Tactician Mode. Enemies are stronger and more intelligent, employing tactics to gang up on weak party members and exploit their weaknesses. Moreover, your party will require more resources to rest, complicating long-term planning.
Combat Difficulty: Enemies have increased hit points and use higher-level tactics that you must carefully plan to come out on top. They may also utilize abilities and items from higher difficulty levels.
Dice Rolls: The rolls are much more challenging, and the enhanced skills of enemies make combat tougher.
Rest Mechanics: The amount of camp supplies needed to rest doubles from 40 to 80, adding a new layer of complexity to resource management.
Best For: Veterans of tactical RPGs or players who want to dip into combat mechanics totally and are prepared for a real challenge.
The Hidden Difficulty: Honour Mode
For the most adventurous players, Baldur's Gate 3 includes an additional hard mode that may not be generally known: Honour Mode. This mode not only carries the burdens of Tactician Mode but also imposes additional impingement on the player by having only one save file in the entire campaign. If you lose your party in battle, that's it. The game is over, and you cannot reload the last game.
Combat Difficulty: The same as Tactician mode, but only there are permadeath mechanisms this time.
Best For: Especially the bravest players who wish to challenge themselves in strategic and resource allocation sight.
Customizing Your Difficulty
A remarkable feature in Baldur's Gate 3, which has been a killer point among the players, is the possibility to change difficulty settings anytime during the game. This is handy as you can increase or decrease the difficulty level in Baldur's Gate 3 depending on your progress or enemies who are either too easy or too hard. For instance, some players might want to play in Balanced Mode and then change to Tactician mode for the fights, and when the story is highly developed, they go back to Explorer mode.
FAQs
Yes, difficulty settings can be changed from the pause menu at any time according to the player's preference.
The easiest for newcomers is Explorer, where they will have the best chance to get through the story, gradually learning the ins and outs of the game.
Balanced Mode is challenging but not crushing for a gamer with experience in RPGs, while Tactician, being the ultimate challenge, puts everything up for question.
No, it does not influence the Baldur's Gate 3 story or its ending since difficulty only influences conditions of play, such as combat, management of resources, and the role of dice.
Conclusion
How to select the difficulty levels in Baldur's Gate 3 shows that it is directly proportional to how familiar you are with the RPGs and what menu tab you are willing to click on. Explorer Mode is meant for players who are more focused on the story and the discovery and do not care much about combat.
The Balanced Mode is designed for storytelling enthusiasts who want some fighting in between the plot development. If you take it even further and consider yourself an expert in strategy games, Tactician Mode elicits those desires for extreme difficulty. Remember that you can change the difficulty step by step, making Baldur's Gate 3 flexible and entertaining for every gamer.
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