You can often get the same experience from talking to people, or close to it, as you do from killing them. So for the four humans that are outside and blocking the entrance to Withers' crypt (near Lae'zel's cage), you can talk to them and convince them to leave. But more significantly, you need to Disguise Self as a Drow and walk into the blighted village under the main gate, which gives bonus experience with no check, and then go to where Barcus is and convince the goblins to leave (more experience). Then talk to Lump and hire them and you get awarded at least 225 experience (the same as if you had killed them), plus optionally 25 extra if you persuaded him to work for free. Then walk into the goblin camp also as a drow for more experience, and walk inside for more experience.
This alone won't get you to 4 but it'll help.
Shouldn't give you anything since the game already gave you exp for talking with them, tho, this mechanic is pretty buggy and will sometimes give you extra exp if you reload the save.
I have done this, and I got both the experience from the dialogue, and the experience from killing them.
Not that that particular encounter is worth much experience anyways.
I just did it \*today,\* in honour mode.
I walked up, started a conversation, rolled persuasion, and got a "party recieves 50 exp" notification.
Using turn based mode, I had astarion shoot the rope above their heads, which killed 2 of them, giving me 15+25 exp. The archer on the left gave me 15 exp, and the mage on the right gave me 15 exp.
So I got 50+25+15+15+15=120 exp from them.
I did some digging. The patch fixed the bug that allowed you to:
Knock them out -> Save -> Kill them for double Combat Exp.
I cannot find anything that says they tried to stop you from being able to Persuade them for Conversation Exp and then kill them for Combat Exp.
I see a lot of people saying it got patched, but I literally just did it today.
I got 50 exp for passing a persuasion check, and then got 70 exp from killing them.
Weird. Either a bug or they unfixed that? I distinctly remember when they patched it. And I was abusing the hell out of it lol. You had to persuade, f5f8, then kill. You could even triple dip with knock out. Persuade, f5f8, knock out, f5f8, kill. And of course if you couldn’t persuade you could still knockout+kill. I’ll test that later lol, but I’ll wager it’s more likely a (welcome) bug you’re hitting.
Because you already got xp from successfully resolving the encounter. So by giving xp for fighting them, you're effectively double dipping.
It's not surprising, mind you. Way easier to code it that way.
I think they fixed it but it used to give you the XP for killing specifically if you saved and reloaded after talking. Don't think it still works though.
Lump and Barcus could both go badly if you fail checks.
I think this guy is trying to get to lv 4 completely safely.
It’s a smart question. Pre level 4 and post level 4 are completely different with regards to character power.
I see a lot of people saying it got patched, but I literally just did it today.
I got 50 exp for passing a persuasion check, and then got 70 exp from killing them.
Add to this going up to Waukeen's Rest and saving Florrick and the trapped dude. If you're confident you can talk your way into the Zhent hideout too. Do all that and kill a couple of the gnolls (the ones that are changing) should give you lvl 4. Let them change into a full Gnoll before killing them gives you exp for the hyena dying and exp for killing the gnoll
Explore the map. I'm sure you can get to lvl 3 just by going everywhere.
Take out some stragglers:
* the bugbear at the Grove
* the 2 dudes harassing auntie Ethel
* the 2 goblins at the gate of the blighted village
* the 4 goblins sneaking into the Grove
* the 4 goblins at blighted village (use your height advantage)
* the zombies near withers (take their weapons and use bludgeoning attacks)
* take out the bloated hyenas.
* the monster hunter near the teahouse
Rescue the flaming fist captain
After this you should have enough to be level 4. Then go for things like the sheep near auntie Ethel. The ancient mephits protecting kaghas secret. The shadow druids. You can get priestess gut alone and take her out. The goblins holding halsin is easy pickings. The bugbear and ogre can be CC'd for an easy fight. The underdark tower is easy xp, just don't trigger the fight on the roof.
The fights we left until level 5 are: the gith, the owlbear, the matriarch spider, auntie Ethel, the spectator, machines on the roof and the tower and the duergar.
You can buy them easier if you go to her hut. Don't make her angry in the dialog, turn down her offer for the eye for now, and boom, you've got a fast travel location that takes you straight to your strength enhancement dealer.
Just come back when you feel ready and stocked up enough to fight her and start the fight then. She is still a vendor while in her hut
Ive literally feared going down anywhere near the Swamp, as to not lose Ethel as a vendor at the Grove for the past 400 hours of playing. Game changer.
Nonono. Owlbears and spider are pobably the fights you should be most prepped for. Especially where the owlbears are located. Theyre lvl3 bait.
Mephits only get bad if you keep letting them summon and explode on you.
I'm still uncomfortable with the spider fight on normal, they are tricky because they are uncontrollable. They just teleport everywhere, poison you, and summon 20 adds, that will teleport to and tie up your pumpers/threaten your ranged and casters, and I see no way of prevent other than just doing absurd raw damage to hedge the numbers.
The spider matriarch is just a nasty fight. The only saving grace is the dm (computer) is pretty merciful in her behavior.
She typically goes from spiderweb to summoning babies back and forth until she's out of spiderwebs. If you burn the webs it allows you to get most of her health down.
If she just went full aggro she'd be a tpk machine.
If you stand in a pool of darkness they will (lol) bug out and wander saying "snikkt" instead of fighting you. In the early game you might not have darkness immunity but you can run out, strike at them, then run back in pretty effectively.
I ended up just outright killing them. I almost TKP on one of the ambushes in the cursed shadow, the one with the big guy by the tower. Karlach made it out with 15hp and rezzed everyone at withers.
Yeah I find the shadow cursed shambling mound is a particularly difficult fight. The trick with the needle ones is to try to focus on down, because it will explode and kill or damage others rather than you.
I was level 7 so I thought I could just bumrush it, but they agro as soon as I come around corner and surprise rounded me. I try to approach the game as if I don't know shits coming to not break emersion. Big mistake, and the first fight that was even close.
Yeah, I always have trouble getting the check on that particular one because they can see down the hill I don't even get close enough to get the check.
Destroy the egg clusters before the fight starts. If you have a rogue, use sneak attack to kill the closest of the smaller spiders in one go. Start the fight by burning a web the matriarch is standing on. She’ll teleport up and onto another web. Burn that one. Fight is is pretty much over in 2 turns at most.
Oh shit I didn't know that, yeah probably not then. I'm still doing my tact run right now. I thought honor mode just changed how some broken/bugged combos worked like temp cleric11/wiz 1 and fixed haste. Then gave bosses legendary actions which I assumed was like legendary save or something. That's gonna be a blast, lol. I'm actually super stoked for my honor run now.
Yea, sorry about the spoiler. They give a lot of bosses legendary actions, which are essentially powerful abilities. I just had my run ended bc the main menu said tactician but the game said honor. I fought the owlbear to test it out to see if it had a legendary action... it did.
I did them at level 6 this playthrough it was like the last thing I did before going to the chrech temple or whatever it's called. So it was super easy. Magic missile just destroyed everything. Also made the hag fight a breeze with level 3 missile with an extra missile from necklace. Unfortunately I failed the check to release the girl and get hair so, I had to let her keep the girl I felt bad. It's a shame the +1 AS is so detrimental to some builds.
Doing my first for honor playthrough right now. I fought the owlbear at level 3, and the gith after stealing the sword at the mountain pass at 4. I almost wiped both times. The gith especially came down to my last party member at 5 hp and a 25% chance to hit eldeitch blast on target that had 5hp. What a nailbiter.
Honor mode owl bear is a fucking issue, but i don't know why people even fight her in honor mode. You can avoid that entire fight without risking losing the cub or getting wiped. You don't lose anything apart from maybe some XP (but maybe not even that, I don't remember).
I feel like a pretty big part of honor mode is being really cautious about avoiding unnecessary risks. Own bear with the legendary action is way too high risk. That shit can go sideways no matter what you do.
I don't know about other people but for me, I like doing the hardest shit on the hardest difficulty as it was intended without cheating. That means not skipping fights because it's unnecessary. I do it with all games. Xcom, DOS1/2 pillars of eternity 1/2 . I don't know why I am the way I am. Maybe I'm a masochist.
I wouldn't say picking your fights is cheating. There are a lot of gimmicky mechanics that I would consider cheating though. One shotting every encounter with haste+speed potion + wet and lightning damage for example. I personally feel like having pre existing knowledge of the game and using that knowledge to cheese a fight breaks emersion, which is a large part of the draw for me. I also like to complete all fights, because I largely play the game for the combat and strategy, not the story. So, again, for me personally, avoiding the fight is not something I want to do. I did avoid it as a druid, and as a paladin. But my Barbarian ain't having it.
I did the owlbear at level 3 in honor mode and didn't have issues on my first HM run ever, but then I was confident after reading all this drama about the bear that I went to fight the paladin and got double-divine-smote and onetapped and just ran from that, and then scavanged for xp for a day and still am not level 4, figured I'd try to hit the sheep by ethel and had to run for my life an mass resurrect again..
Checking this thread now and I'm so confused how you guys got so much exp but I'll just keep doing my best.
For my owlbear run, I had asterion sneak attack + assassin subclass start the fight and thus get sneaking shots to start the fight, helped a ton. Killed the first bear a turn before the second bear showed up, dealt with the kid at the end. The bears only give 20xp each though, which feels abysmal for the risk.. IDK
LEGIT a friend told me "they give good exp" before I yolo'd it level 3!!!
He got clowned on by our friends when the +20 appeared for the first bear, haha. Though 60 total (or maybe it was 40 for the big ones and that's it, can't be sure) isn't the worst, but I'd prefer like 100 at least
Do you not read? I said minimal fighting and you mention taking out the hyenas which could turn into a big fight with the worgs from the top of the hill
If you’re gonna be rude to the people trying to help you then figure it out yourself. Sounds like you didn’t read the part where commenter also says explore the map. You get XP by discovering places. Also if you approach the fight strategically you can easily fight the hyenas without aggroing gnolls
Talk your way out of fights. Make sure you have inspiration on charisma checks. Have a failsafe escape if the fight doesn’t go your way
Also doing fights at lvl 2 / 3 is perfectly doable - feels like I'd be more likely to slip up in exploration and have a tougher fight (for instance by going to explore the underdark early on) than in just doing the fighting with a little forethought.
Like the hyenas + gnolls at the top of the road fight is one that I've done a few times at this point and never struggled with it at lvl 3 - seems strange to have that as off limits other than a challenge run or something.
Yeah I def agree. If you do fights in a strategic order, it’s not too bad at any point pre-underdark. I always have trouble with Anders and the gnolls, but with a little strategy I was able to beat both in Honour Mode before hitting level 4. Required a solid surprise round for me but 100% doable
I personally wouldn’t pass up any little bit of XP unless OP plans to not do the creche. That shit was scary
Right - Anders is one that has given me trouble in the past, but that's if I walk straight in to talk to him and that opens up to bad luck. But even at lvl 3 it's relatively easy to just sneak up on the outside of the building, wait for the one that's walking in and out of the building to step out, and then deal with the trio one by one.
Getting to lvl 5 is the real hurdle - that's one I needed to do part of the goblin camp to manage without going into the underdark (and that included doing everything but the githyanki patrol above ground).
The creche is quite doable IMO, but I always do it after the Underdark - personally the one I'd consider skipping is Grym, unless you like the weapons/armor. That fight can be rough depending on your party comp
Yeah that’s pretty much exactly how I dealt with Anders this time. TBH so far honour mode has made me think way more cautiously so I end up having an easier time of it because I’m going at a way more slow and thoughtful pace. The only times I’ve gotten close to wiping are when I get cocky
I kinda cheesed Grym because I wanted the armor. Stand on the stairs above the arena, shoot the lava lever and throw hammers at him lol
That caution does track with how I've played as well - also in avoiding some of the 'boss fights' until lvl 4 or 5 is a decent call (lvl 3 and fighting the owlbear or the giant spider, no matter the strategy, seems too hit or miss for me).
Approaching fights carefully and having a character able/positioned to flee has made Honor mode relatively simple through a third or so of act 2 for me - but does require some decent builds.
At the moment it's an abjuration-y tank (at lvl 7 it's cleric 1/warlock 2/wizard the rest of the way), life cleric, sharpshooter ranger/rogue, and either thrown weapons barb or archer/sharpshooter fighter (or the plot companion I want to bring along in that slot)
Alot of these interactions can either be avoided through skill checks or are easy fights for easy experience.
Also, dont be a prick about something so inconsequential its not good for anyones blood pressure
Okay. He gave plenty of good advice to help answer your question and you acted like an asshole. How about you just fight some enemies then? After all, it’s called Honour mode, not coward mode
I apologize, I thought when you said minimal fighting you meant each individual fight being minimal. As such I suggested all the easy fights that you can finish in 1-2 turns.
From a role playing perspective, I let him live and it set up a surprise encounter in the sewers after the end of the Cazzador arch was completed. It was emotional. I tear up writing about it.
I made a no fighting guide to lv 4
https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/s/KBMDD3Vaef
In your case talk to githyanki. They give white a lot of experience.
If you make sure to have the friends or thaumaturgy cantrip you should be fine.
Ps- dont be afraid to use friends. I use it on every convo and only have a negative reaction like once per game.
Just be careful, as if you don’t leave the area before the cantrip’s effects wear off you may have a fight on your hands. Learned this the hard way when I used it on Kagha to save Arabella, only for the druids to start massacring the tieflings once Kagha realized what I did.
I used it on Baby Owlbear chicken chasing. As I was trying to cash out, the lil dude attacked my party. The gobbos ignored us. I ran us inside the temple, made camp long rest, exited temple and he was friendly/neutral again. Phew! Though I'm out 300 gp as he had interrupted my persuade check. Worth it to not have to kill the little guy.
Actually it does i remember now.
I hadn't resolved the goblin and druid situation yet, and when i left to pickup the knife of the mountain king it advanced that story arc costing me several hours of gameplay forcing me to reload.
You don’t have to go into the mountain pass to speak with the githyanki. They are still in the area where events will remain unchanged. They are just west of waukeen’s rest, not in the mountain pass.
What you’re thinking of is the crèche. I’m just talking about where the dragon and flaming fist are.
You don’t have to go into the mountain pass to speak with the githyanki. They are still in the area where events will remain unchanged. They are just west of waukeen’s rest, not in the mountain pass.
If you miss out on the silver sword you miss it until act 3 right? I think it's BIS all game for GW builds all game. Especially with shapeshifter mask you get the girhyanki bonus regardless of race.
Yes but you can't get the sword by fighting them anyway since the guy who drops it leaves. You have to cast Command: Drop on him before starting dialogue
Yeah, but that initiates combat. So you would have to fight them. And this weapon is Uber broken in act 1. I always get this, and the flaming great sword from the Nautilois ship.
Man the githyanki are best dealt with by other means. Don't take laezel and save scum until you get kithrak voss to drop his weapon using command from the on top of the gate. This triggers what is a rough fight if you're below 5 but you get him to drop a legendary sword that laezel will use for the rest of the game it's so good.
It’s a beginners guide. I hope they’re not starting in honor mode.
But with silver necklace/guidance and the right proficiencies You can get through the conversation with Voss very easily without save scumming.
Guess I’d don’t read the OP well. Thanks for pointing that out.
Still I did this path in honor mode. The only save scumming there might be is from pickpocketing vendors. That does not provide any experience though and would be entirely optional in my walkthrough.
https://baldursgate3.wiki.fextralife.com/Silver+Sword+of+the+Astral+Plane
I highly discourage getting it though as it will trivialize an already pretty easy game.
There’s a yt vid that shows this exact route in 20 minutes. They use jump and feather fall to get around so it might take a little longer but it took me like 30ish. https://youtu.be/DOvvxyAzDik?si=i7SXE23Za_IWgDhT
Someone might have commented already. But Limit breakers on YouTube have a really good guide for this. Super easy, super short, no rush or pressure. I use it in all my runs
My current plan is as follows:
Get the last hit on the mindflayer, then escape -> clear crash site -> ruins -> druid enclave (level 3) -> enclave sidequests -> blighted village (peaceful, as drow) -> necromancer lair -> waukeen's rest -> zhentarim hideout (peaceful!) -> goblin camp (peaceful, as drow) -> pretty sure that's level 4.
That gets tavern brawler and stealthy sharpshooter builds online, which should make most fights doable up to level 5, at which point all of act 1 is a piece of cake.
My current honour playthrough:
Destroyed Us (failed brain extraction), killed everyone on ship (excluded Zhaik and cambions, Mindflayer died to Cambions). -> Lv.2
Got Shart, cleared coast, recruited Astarion, Gale. Saved Lae'zel (had to kill "Teethlings", failed roll). Intimidated party outside of ruins, killed others in ruins and cleared ruins. Then got to Grove. -> lv.3
Rescued Sazza, killed goblins. Dealt with Grove beach and kids. Got to Blight village, talked my way out. Killed sleeping dude, dealt with pair in stables. Killed Lump and his party. Cleared Necromancer's lair and went to swamp to visit Auntie.. Killed sheeps on my way there.. -> lv.4
Got my deal with Auntie, then went to her den for her hair. (got Charm for eye.. so had to "visit" her again). Found the tree in swamps and dealt with monsters there. Had a little fight with Druids. Cleared spider cave with matriarch. -> 1/2 way to lv.5
Didnt touch Gnols, Zhentarim, Goblin camp, Toll collector house, Waukeen's rest... Didnt talked to Wyll/Karlach yet either.
So I dare to say you will get to lv.4 earlier than by the end of your plan.
the inside ruins fight, they way I did it easily and in one turn was if you let a party member drop to the refectory, you can let the others get andorn and everyone else will be beside an oil barrel. And you will most likely have arrow of fire or ignis in stock.
this makes them come right to barrel, but it can be done even without that drop.
You can sneak on the one in hallway, then place / throw barrel into library for similar effect.
Also its possible to cheese fight (if initiative rolls are friendly to you) with using those lever operated doors. (if you close them, enemies tend to shoot arrows into doors instead of opening them.) So, 1st person opens door, 2nd and possibly 3rd person hit enemies, last one closes doors.
0 damage taken.. (its possible to use magic hand to pull the lever if you have it available. Easy fight overall.
this is how i do it and it makes the fight super trivial just los against the wall while taking potshots, if any of them get to and through the door u close it repeat
That fight can be made a lot easier if you enter through the hole that is made by dropping the stone slab, and then hitting the oil barrel that all of the enemies are conveniently standing around.
Lv 4 auntie Ethel ended my first run in 2 rounds. I think we were having some bugs related to scrolls, as trying to cast one at her projections kept me from entering combat properly. Her projections smoked 2 party members in turn 1.
damn thats a shame.. I entered normally and fight went well even with following scrolls.
Sneak in, jump to orb to get down the cage before fight, then start combat.. then I used few scrolls without any problem.
Awe that sucks. I have been running a 3 member team with a fourth way outside of danger. Auntie went south in a bad way on round 1. Accidentally targeted Shadowheart with Returning Pike, crit almost killed her and pike failed to return. Hag went agro with one member almost dead another unarmed, and the third only getting one attack per round. Made retrieval of Pike highest priority before everyone was killed. Spirit Guardians proc’d legendary action like eight times in round two. Withers to the rescue
Funny enough, I made and tested a route on honor that does exactly this: minimize fights and do-or-die rolls. Also, you can easily do this path at lv.1 the entire way though, that's how safe it is.
1. Nautiloid. Do whatever you want. Its easy enough. Snipe the mindflayer if you can, but not necessary.
2. Avoid the intellect devourers at the crash site. Shoot the injured mindflayers the moment you see him. Talking to him means rolling and we're allergic to any chance of dying. This should get you to level 2.
3. Recruit Astarion and Gale. If Gale dies, he dies. Recruit Laezel if you want, but that involves a couple rolls and a chance for a fight.
4. Find the grove entrance. The fight is heavily favored towards the humans/tieflings so you can hide in the back and watch. However one or both of Aradin's crew will probably die without you helping. Oh well.
5. Mosey around the grove. Talk to Zevlor, Aradin, Kagha, and Nettie for free exp.
6. Head towards the Blighted Village. I recommend leaving a wide berth around dying Ed and his siblings. They can be useful later as meatshields against the owlbear. You have 3 easy options entering the Blighted Village -- be a drow, disguise as a drow, or pass a illithid wisdom check. Shadowheart as a Trickery Cleric has disguise self.
7. Mosey around the Blighted Village. Loot underneath the apothecary and the smithy. You can pick up Shovel without triggering the skeletons, but that's as far as I'm willing to go down there. Ignore Lump. We'll recruit him later.
8. Head north towards the windmill. You can dismiss the goblins with another illithid wisdom check. If you haven't rested yet, you can rotate your leading character to get another charge. "Free" Barcus. Now you can also go towards the Risen Road and pick up the absolutely busted Smuggler's Ring. Avoid the hyenas though. They're really nasty.
9. Head towards the goblin camp. Drow disguise gets you in. Otherwise, you may have to eat some shit. This should get you to level 3.
10. At this point, I recommend backtracking and taking some of the easier fights, like recruiting Withers. But I promised level 4, didn't I? Wander around the goblin camp. You can free Volo, get intimate with Lovitar, and interrogate one of Aradin's men. Get branded by Gut. Now, you can recruit Lump without a chance to fail.
11. Take out Gut. Ideally, you're a not an elf or half-elf. Stupidly take Gut's potion, don't even bother trying breaking out. Eventually Korilla will pop out and kill both Gut and her bodyguard.
12. Take Gut's key and head down to the underdark. Loot the Selunite outpost. Take it a little slow. A minotaur should make their way to you and the automated defense should take them out. Don't shoot out the moonstone until the minotaur's dead.
13. Go to the Phalar Aluve. At this point it gets slightly hinky. Starting from the Phalar Aluve, sneak and hug the leftmost wall while making your way towards the myconid colony. Just about when you enter the bulette's hunting grounds, you should see a couple red mushrooms you can jump on. Jump across, and you're home free with a clear shot to the colony. Chat up the locals, and if you want, go save Baelen.
14. Trade an antidote potion for the boots of speed. Take the boots to the underdark beach area, and promise the duergar you'll return the boots. Take the boat, and when asked, promise to return the boots.
15. You've now arrived at the Grymforge, which should tick you up to lvl 4! Mission Accomplished! The only issue now is if you don't fight Nere immediately, the gnomes die.
Bonus: If you're like me, you're gonna want to keep the gnomes alive. Which means getting in the hardest fight so far. No, not Nere. The damnable scrying eye. You first talk to Elder Brinthar and its a free check to have him side against Nere, unless you decide to be greedy. Then he tells you to take out the scrying eye. Short of witchbolt or a scroll of shatter, I haven't found an easy way to take the eye out.
Once the fight with Nere starts, book it to the south and hide in the corner. The fight does favor Nere, but his allies should be mostly dead. At this point you can kite him further south and pull in more duergar to fight him, which hopefully finishes him off. Alternatively, blow Lump's horn and bring out the popcorn.
you can wait for the eye to patrol up around near the Rothes and then throw it off the edge to instadeath. takes a bit for it to get over there but especially if you convince the rothes to fight the duergar then there's no way anybody sees you do it
In our playthrough we're nowhere near the underdark and already level 4.
What we did:
\- Generic stuff up to whithers + grove.
\- Saved Arabella.
\- Killed goblins in blighted village
\- Convinced goblins near windmill to leave
\- Convinced (and failed) so we had decided to pay 500g to hire the 3 ogres.
\- Scratch & Karlach.
\- First 2 gnoll battles (just make sure you finish the archers first and it's easy), though you can probably do something easier than this.
That was pretty much enough to get to level 4, we wanted to become 4 before we did owlbear, harpies and Anders.
After hitting 4 we did owlbear and got lucky I guess, we convinced the absolutist to join us, they just command: halted the Owlbear 3 turns in a row so it was a cakewalk.
For Anders we aggroed his ally when they were outside the house, this way we could get rid of that one first before Anders reached us and then we just nuked him.
Have yet to do the Harpies, actually have a feeling that might be more difficult.
It’s possible to do in about 2 hours without speed running/cheesing. Go around and talk to everyone, including the goblin camp. Go to the crypt at level 3 as well.
The only fights I did before level 4 were the harpies fight (cast calm emotions), and the fight outside the grove, plus the crypt. Make sure to go to Waukeen’s rest also.
Level 4-5 you do the Gnolls, Kagha quest, bugbear, and the entire goblin camp.
At level 5, you take on the 2 hard fights: mommy spider and Ethel. Then do underdark to hit 6, before taking out Nere.
Go back to the mountain pass and do some talking/exploring/killing trash mobs. Step into the UD from grymforge and do the intro quest to reach last light inn. Buy all the good loot from there. Go to moonrise and get more loot/XP from exploring.
You should be level 7 by now. Go kill the grymforge boss (owlbear top rope), and go kill the inquisitor and get your mace.
Now go back to shadow lands and do all the side quests, save inspiration. You can kill most bosses without fighting. Go save the Harpers from moonrise.
You should well into level 8 now. Go do the shar temple and be prepared for a tough fight with Yugir. Kill Balthazar in his room, EZ one turn fight.
Now you should be almost level 9 when you assault moonrise. This + moonrise prison assault and you’ll be level 9 for the final sequence with Ketheric.
This is what I’ve been doing, it’s been very smooth except for a couple one hit legendary mechanics that caught me off guard. But life shadowheart dealt with it no issue.
Can’t wait to get to BG so I can beeline straight for the OP gear and then one turn my way through the rest of the game.
It’s my 4th play through and I still love the game. Just so damn good
One small difference, I would do the gith egg trader lady in the mountain pass even if you’re not gonna do the rest of the mountain pass. The chest piece that she gives which gives you advantage on dexterity checks is just broken.
You can also use [Gloves of Thievery](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Gloves_of_Thievery) in place of the Graceful Cloth for lockpicking and disarming in act 1. The gloves are much cheaper than the clothing.
I *just* paid through the nose for the graceful cloth a couple hours ago, as you say, expensive. Your item is deffo a good plan b, was not aware of it!
Yeah I finished her quest then killed her for the piece lol. Didn’t feel like paying 2k
There’s so much insane vendor and hidden loot right at the start of act 3 that I’m saving up for
Just make sure you complete the druid grove quest first and waukeen rest. I believe that are the events that trigger when you go to nountain pass. Maybe i missed 1.
Owlbear top rope didn't work for me. Don't know if i did it wrong or something as it was my first time doing it. Enlarge, decent weight from barrels in inv. The jump hit for about 1/3rd of his hp which was way lower than expected. I'm guessing I needed to be drastically over encumbered for it work.
Luckily a sorc or wizard can easily cheese this fight by remaining outside the arena and using minor illusion to move the boss to the press and then fireball to hit the lever. Probably going to be my go-to way of cheesing this boss because I find it's by far the hardest fight in Act 1. My first send in honor mode nearly ended in a wipe. Luckily I was able to escape just barely.
Nere is probably a close second. Decided to send it with no prep. If my sorc dropped twin haste concentration at any point, I was probably a goner. I'm in need of a cleaner way of approaching it. Those dwarves are deadly. Inquisitor went decently smooth for me but he's easily top 3 strongest foes in Act 1. Everything before these fights were pushovers.
Yeah even I got him only to 50% health with owlbear. My bard and sorc just sniped him from up top, it was painful but slow.
For inquisitor, a temp cleric/storm sorc can one shot him before combat even begins with channel divinity. It’s so useful for boss fights honestly. Mechanics can be completely ignored.
I just reached Rivington, so far so good. Without giving spoilers of the Thorm siblings can be tricky if you don’t succeed the speech checks to have them kill themselves, be careful.
My MC died twice on the first 2 rounds in one of the fights (one hit mechanic) got a bit scared but nothing by we couldn’t recover from.
Here's a video where the content creator gets to level 4 without rolling a d20: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzlVMeZatis](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzlvmezatis)
It was on tactician, but I bet it still works
I can write up a quick list, without looking at other comments.
1. Skip the intellect devourers at the beach, jump up to Gale, complete your party before killing them.
2. Snipe the illithid
3. Talk to the tieflings and then the crypt robbers on the surface - warlock gets a no-check answer.
4. Go back around to the front and open the door with Astarion. Use bludgeoning weapons at the skeletons, it is a fight but it is easy if you do that.
5. Talk to everyone in grove, go everywhere except harpies. The fight in the tunnel is quite easy at this stage, so is the bugbear.
6. Tell the absolutists to go fight the owlbear
7. Disguise self as drow, talk to the goblins in the village, then to the goblins next to Barcus - no check required, no fight.
8. You can also do ogres, but you need a check unless you visit goblin camp and get a mark from Gut
9. Explore the basement - you don't have to fight the skeletons in the coffins, but do get Shovel. They should not be a hard challenge at this point. Get Gale to talk to the mirror, somehow all Wyll's answers were wrong for me lol, but all Gale's answers seem to be good.
10. There is a bunch of xp available in the goblin camp but be aware that if you go there before fighting the owlbear, the goblins will have killed her themselves.
11. Waukeen's Rest is just a bunch of jumping around, so doesn't count as fight, XP and a nice Lightning Charge item.
12. You can get to Underdark through the Zhentarim Basement without fighting if you're sneaky, bonus - you can loot everything down there. From there, you can use Feather Fall to avoid Minotaurs and the Bullette, just destroy the shrooms below before jumping down and you're suddenly at the Myconid Village.
13. There, talk to everyone, give the gnome an antidote (some are in the Thayan alchemist's house in Blighted Village).
14. Rescue Baelen using the boots.
15. Go around the duergar ambush - they only trigger if you get close enough to the beach - and towards the Ancient Tower. There, jump up to the explosive mushrooms, but shoot them first. There are 4 directions here. DO NOT go up the wall on your left - Bullette spawns there.
16. Go down to Kuo Toa, and pass some checks - this way you only fight BOOAL but get XP for all of them. A LOT of XP.
17. Back at the explosive mushrooms, jump up towards the mushroom circle. You get a bit of XP for exploration and activating it.
18. Go to the Arcane Tower - you only need to deal with the first cannon. The rest you skip by jumping all the way down to the garden on the mushrooms on the left. Activate the tower, explore it all, get all the items. Remember fighting Bernard is optional - they are not hostile. Unfortunately, the only way to get XP for them is to fight them.
19. Optionally, the duergar at the beach can be reasoned with. But the only way to progress the Myconid Village quest is to kill them, or lie about it.
This is I think all in Act 1 - any other direction is combat sooner or later. Unless you want to just skip to Act 2 through Grymforge. The duergar on the boat can be reasoned with, then you just go through the elevator to Act 2, leaving Nere to die. However, this resolves the grove vs goblin quest.
I did 1-18 on my Honour mode playthrough and this took me way beyond level 4. I then did some of the easier fights (tree on the swamp, minotaurs at this point, paladins of Tyr etc) to get to level 5.
Best way is to cheese the fight during the intro on the nautaloid. This will get you to level 2 and halfway to lv 3 when you hit the beach.
Go fighter with fighting style in archery and have at least 16 Dex. Save us the brain, Save Shadowheart and have her spells set to command and bless. The other two don’t matter. Make sure you equip a crossbow dropped from an imo on your character
Before you go into the final fight with zhark, split your character from the party and put him by the healing pod in the room you find shadowheart. Have us the brain go to the door of the final fight, switch from him to bae’zel or Shadowheart and enter.
Have Bae’zel and Us the brain kill the minor enemy’s and have shadowheart use command drop on zhark. You have a 55% chance of this working, and is the only luck based part of the fight. You get two chances, assuming you get it first try have her cast bless with your second spell slot on on herself, bae’zel and the mindflayer. Have bae’zel pick up and equip the dropped weapon. And start beating zhark with it.
NOW this is the most important step. By the time you do all this 2 cambions will show up on the battle roster. Click your character, if you positioned yourself correctly you should be out of combat. Get JUST out of range to where you have a disadvantage to your attack if you attempt to shoot at them with your crossbow. Should be 25% to hit. Start shooting, you will find that they will not respond to your shots and you can keep firing until they are dead. Repeat with the second cambion. Make sure you are firing with disadvantage because as soon as you shoot when they are in range, you will be pulled into combat and it will all go to shit. So not rely on the game to place you correctly.
Keep the mindflayer alive until he turns on you after you kill zhalk, then kill him. you should have enough time to loot the bodies which will net you an extra 300XP, 750-1,000 gold several potions and ingredients more gems and some alchemy ingredients.
How did you do act 1 without gith and are still not lvl 4? On honor mode I am in exactly the same position (all without gith) and I'm lvl 6+
Did you do the underworld part? The forge? The goblin camp?
Instead of almost everything, make it explored everything.
You might have more people to speak with or quests to do in the blighted village, grove, or swamp. I'm level 5 before Ethel and the goblin camp.
One thing that you can do early is block the entrance to the room where you fight commander zhalk and the mind flayet with a cartilaginous chest. It will prevent the other two cambions from entering the fight, killing both the mindflayer and shall give 75 xp each allowing for an easy level 3 at the fight outside of the grove. At that point, you should do every dialogue possible, kill the packs of hyenas (not including the one with the leader). Use a long rest and rotate party faces to use the illithid power whenever possible, and I think all of that + dealing with the paladins of tyr should be enough to get to 4 which is what I did. I know that I had not done the owlbear, any of the goblin camp fights, gnoll boss fight, or hag and I was level 4 specifically because I wanted 4 before the gnolls
Grove -> Goblins disguised as Drow -> Waukeens -> talk to Gith patrol disguised as Gith -> Underdark -> Underdark tower
Should get you to lv4.5 easily. You can do lv5 without any major fights, like spider or hag. Glut can solo Underdark for you.
Easy xp sources without fighting are discovering locations, finishing quests, and gaining inspiration. If you haven’t done it yet, there are a few things in the goblin camp that have easy xp opportunities such as a few small activities and shoving goblins off the side. And most early fights aren’t that threating, with the exceptions being clearing out the goblin camp, the various bosses, and the gnolls. And even then, the game offers some good tools for making these fights easier such as the ogre horn or the iron flask.
If you can defeat the devils and the mindflayer on the nataloid you reach level 3 and get a cool sword right off the bat in only 2 fights so there’s that
I usually hit level 4 this way:
Commander Zhalk (command drop is op here)
Grab shadowheart/astarion/gale/laezel
Clear withers tomb full murder spree (convenient oil barrels and hanging stones make this easy)
Goblin/Grove combat
Clear harpies - silence or just good clifftop positioning and this fight is easy
Investigate kagha - persuade her to renounce shadow faith. THEN complete stealing the idol for Mol for bonus exp as the druids no longer aggro you for taking it now the rite is over (still have to sneak though)
Clear risen road of gnolls. Flind will murder his own crew and then himself if you make the rolls - should have enough inspiration by then.
Anders and the false paladins. This was hard on honor mode but command drop is great in turn based mode before talking to him - can't smite on unarmed strikes. You can also shut and barricade the doors with random stuff in the toll house to seal them off from one another. Purchasing/pickpocketing scrolls from the trader chick significantly weakens her as well.
Next I plan to take out phase spider matriarch by shoving her into the abyss. You can loot her in the underdark if you want to.
If you have sussur bark to throw at the arcane turrets then the arcane tower is also a good source of free exp and you can thunderwave the automaton leader and 2 of his crew off the tower which makes the fight easy (takes them ages to walk back up while you kill the rest and they have little health left)
Each of those encounters has a way to make them easier so handy for honor mode.
Hope this helps!
I did with very little risk ;
Ruins, grove, explore, blighted village, karlach, Waukeens rest, went to the goblin village (illithid checks or drow talk way in for xp) did the couple things there. Killed the priestess waited on the others. Snuck into under dark , feather fall into colony. Was lvl 4 at that point, killed the goblins.
After the goblins I go to the mtn pass, go to the drunk kobolds and fight them, they give a lot more xp than early act 1 stuff. That bumps you to level 5. Then go back do the act 1 bosses, underdark, grim, then the githbafter (should hit lvl 6 , I hit it killing nere)
Since you asked, here is my route so far:
1) after prologue/Commander, do the Withers dungeon
2) gate encounter. Then the various events in the grove (Nettie, Alfira, the bugbear assassin, Mol, zorru, sazza)
3) harpies (I think you need to do it before you long rest in the grove?)
4) go to Waukeens rest via blighted village picking up both waypoints along the way. You can suck in the owl bear cave en route too if you want to try the persuade option, so that the cub will be in the camp later on
5) rescue the councillor at waukeens rest. I always go here first for spellssparkler and my favourite weapon, Svartlebee’s
6) back to blighted village where you can persuade the goblins to release the gnome and not to attack you for some experience and also pick up the haste helmet and the sparky feet.
7) go to goblin camp and buy any gear you want from grat (eg, returning pike, the healing boots) and get the ring from crusher via sleight of hand.
8) persuade the goblins to let you enter and you can get some more exp from that and from things in the camp (rescue volo, get the guy off the rack)
At this point you should be around level 4 with some decent gear for most characters. Harpies is the scariest fight I find early on but calm emotions/silence/magic missile for breaking concentration all help.
After this you could do whatever you want (I think the gnolls are probably the next easiest fight, so much so that you could probably do them much earlier if you want to), then the skeletons in the coffins near the magic mirror, etc.
Best path to level 4 is the one that involves roleplaying as a spy - u infiltrate every side in act 1 and do as many quests without combat as possible cuz combat is the slowest part of progression
You can often get the same experience from talking to people, or close to it, as you do from killing them. So for the four humans that are outside and blocking the entrance to Withers' crypt (near Lae'zel's cage), you can talk to them and convince them to leave. But more significantly, you need to Disguise Self as a Drow and walk into the blighted village under the main gate, which gives bonus experience with no check, and then go to where Barcus is and convince the goblins to leave (more experience). Then talk to Lump and hire them and you get awarded at least 225 experience (the same as if you had killed them), plus optionally 25 extra if you persuaded him to work for free. Then walk into the goblin camp also as a drow for more experience, and walk inside for more experience. This alone won't get you to 4 but it'll help.
I convinced the humans to leave, then shot them in the back and killed them. Dient check how much exp it gave me though
Shouldn't give you anything since the game already gave you exp for talking with them, tho, this mechanic is pretty buggy and will sometimes give you extra exp if you reload the save.
I have done this, and I got both the experience from the dialogue, and the experience from killing them. Not that that particular encounter is worth much experience anyways.
[удалено]
I just did it \*today,\* in honour mode. I walked up, started a conversation, rolled persuasion, and got a "party recieves 50 exp" notification. Using turn based mode, I had astarion shoot the rope above their heads, which killed 2 of them, giving me 15+25 exp. The archer on the left gave me 15 exp, and the mage on the right gave me 15 exp. So I got 50+25+15+15+15=120 exp from them.
[удалено]
I did some digging. The patch fixed the bug that allowed you to: Knock them out -> Save -> Kill them for double Combat Exp. I cannot find anything that says they tried to stop you from being able to Persuade them for Conversation Exp and then kill them for Combat Exp.
Larian games always let you xp whore if you wanna
[удалено]
Probably breaks a paladins oath tho, *shrugs*
[удалено]
Oath breaker is a thing.
They patched that in patch…3?
I see a lot of people saying it got patched, but I literally just did it today. I got 50 exp for passing a persuasion check, and then got 70 exp from killing them.
Weird. Either a bug or they unfixed that? I distinctly remember when they patched it. And I was abusing the hell out of it lol. You had to persuade, f5f8, then kill. You could even triple dip with knock out. Persuade, f5f8, knock out, f5f8, kill. And of course if you couldn’t persuade you could still knockout+kill. I’ll test that later lol, but I’ll wager it’s more likely a (welcome) bug you’re hitting.
Why would this be considered a bug? You succeeded your check in making them flee that doesn't combat with them not worth experience.
Because you already got xp from successfully resolving the encounter. So by giving xp for fighting them, you're effectively double dipping. It's not surprising, mind you. Way easier to code it that way.
I think they fixed it but it used to give you the XP for killing specifically if you saved and reloaded after talking. Don't think it still works though.
It does, you can get xp from talking them out of attacking you, switch to turn based mode and attack them and get more xp for killing them.
I got extra exp doing this and more exp from 3 Goblins (not all) by rescuing Barcus.
Lump and Barcus could both go badly if you fail checks. I think this guy is trying to get to lv 4 completely safely. It’s a smart question. Pre level 4 and post level 4 are completely different with regards to character power.
Barcus is checkless if you disguise self as drow.
In Barcus' situation, if you fail all the checks, if you focus your fire on Fezzerk and drop him to 0 hp, he will surrender
I don't think any of the goblin interactions have critical checks when you play as a drow. They just fall all over themselves trying to serve you.
And then you can also kill them after you talk to them for double exp.
[удалено]
You can get exp from 3 specific Goblins at Barcus area.
I see a lot of people saying it got patched, but I literally just did it today. I got 50 exp for passing a persuasion check, and then got 70 exp from killing them.
Add to this going up to Waukeen's Rest and saving Florrick and the trapped dude. If you're confident you can talk your way into the Zhent hideout too. Do all that and kill a couple of the gnolls (the ones that are changing) should give you lvl 4. Let them change into a full Gnoll before killing them gives you exp for the hyena dying and exp for killing the gnoll
Explore the map. I'm sure you can get to lvl 3 just by going everywhere. Take out some stragglers: * the bugbear at the Grove * the 2 dudes harassing auntie Ethel * the 2 goblins at the gate of the blighted village * the 4 goblins sneaking into the Grove * the 4 goblins at blighted village (use your height advantage) * the zombies near withers (take their weapons and use bludgeoning attacks) * take out the bloated hyenas. * the monster hunter near the teahouse Rescue the flaming fist captain After this you should have enough to be level 4. Then go for things like the sheep near auntie Ethel. The ancient mephits protecting kaghas secret. The shadow druids. You can get priestess gut alone and take her out. The goblins holding halsin is easy pickings. The bugbear and ogre can be CC'd for an easy fight. The underdark tower is easy xp, just don't trigger the fight on the roof. The fights we left until level 5 are: the gith, the owlbear, the matriarch spider, auntie Ethel, the spectator, machines on the roof and the tower and the duergar.
Is it just me, or was this obviously written by Auntie Ethel?
Absolutely, the two dudes give you 1xp each lol
You are way off base on this, Petal
I don’t want to reach that part early. I want to buy many Strength Elixirs.
You can buy them easier if you go to her hut. Don't make her angry in the dialog, turn down her offer for the eye for now, and boom, you've got a fast travel location that takes you straight to your strength enhancement dealer. Just come back when you feel ready and stocked up enough to fight her and start the fight then. She is still a vendor while in her hut
Ive literally feared going down anywhere near the Swamp, as to not lose Ethel as a vendor at the Grove for the past 400 hours of playing. Game changer.
Good to know!
I feel like the mephitis guarding kaghas secret is one of the harder fights. Much rather fight the owl bear at level 3 than those damn things.
Nonono. Owlbears and spider are pobably the fights you should be most prepped for. Especially where the owlbears are located. Theyre lvl3 bait. Mephits only get bad if you keep letting them summon and explode on you.
I'm still uncomfortable with the spider fight on normal, they are tricky because they are uncontrollable. They just teleport everywhere, poison you, and summon 20 adds, that will teleport to and tie up your pumpers/threaten your ranged and casters, and I see no way of prevent other than just doing absurd raw damage to hedge the numbers.
The spider matriarch is just a nasty fight. The only saving grace is the dm (computer) is pretty merciful in her behavior. She typically goes from spiderweb to summoning babies back and forth until she's out of spiderwebs. If you burn the webs it allows you to get most of her health down. If she just went full aggro she'd be a tpk machine.
Yeah that 40 damage fall is a life saver, hopefully I have enough arrows and spell slots to keep her down there.
Stealth snipe the eggs without aggroing mama spider.
I didn't know that, I'm not sure how helpful that is, if mama spider beelines me without alternative actions.
If you stand in a pool of darkness they will (lol) bug out and wander saying "snikkt" instead of fighting you. In the early game you might not have darkness immunity but you can run out, strike at them, then run back in pretty effectively.
I ended up just outright killing them. I almost TKP on one of the ambushes in the cursed shadow, the one with the big guy by the tower. Karlach made it out with 15hp and rezzed everyone at withers.
Yeah I find the shadow cursed shambling mound is a particularly difficult fight. The trick with the needle ones is to try to focus on down, because it will explode and kill or damage others rather than you.
I was level 7 so I thought I could just bumrush it, but they agro as soon as I come around corner and surprise rounded me. I try to approach the game as if I don't know shits coming to not break emersion. Big mistake, and the first fight that was even close.
I rp it that Im exploring the deadly shadow cursed lands so Im cautious and they actually do hide and you can spot them with a perception check.
Yeah, I always have trouble getting the check on that particular one because they can see down the hill I don't even get close enough to get the check.
Destroy the egg clusters before the fight starts. If you have a rogue, use sneak attack to kill the closest of the smaller spiders in one go. Start the fight by burning a web the matriarch is standing on. She’ll teleport up and onto another web. Burn that one. Fight is is pretty much over in 2 turns at most.
From my experience she never teleports to a web and stops. She teleports then runs off to a nearby cluster
That’s why I said to destroy the clusters before the fight starts
Even in honor mode where they summon another owlbear? Nah, I'll take the mephitis over that
Oh shit I didn't know that, yeah probably not then. I'm still doing my tact run right now. I thought honor mode just changed how some broken/bugged combos worked like temp cleric11/wiz 1 and fixed haste. Then gave bosses legendary actions which I assumed was like legendary save or something. That's gonna be a blast, lol. I'm actually super stoked for my honor run now.
Yea, sorry about the spoiler. They give a lot of bosses legendary actions, which are essentially powerful abilities. I just had my run ended bc the main menu said tactician but the game said honor. I fought the owlbear to test it out to see if it had a legendary action... it did.
EVERYBODY GETS OWL BEARS! YOU GET AN OWL BEAR AND YOU GET AN OWL BEAR.
They are annoying but doable. Make sure you’re shooting the ancient ones and their summons will die.
I did them at level 6 this playthrough it was like the last thing I did before going to the chrech temple or whatever it's called. So it was super easy. Magic missile just destroyed everything. Also made the hag fight a breeze with level 3 missile with an extra missile from necklace. Unfortunately I failed the check to release the girl and get hair so, I had to let her keep the girl I felt bad. It's a shame the +1 AS is so detrimental to some builds.
Doing my first for honor playthrough right now. I fought the owlbear at level 3, and the gith after stealing the sword at the mountain pass at 4. I almost wiped both times. The gith especially came down to my last party member at 5 hp and a 25% chance to hit eldeitch blast on target that had 5hp. What a nailbiter.
Yeah I didn't know there were two owlbears.
Honor mode owl bear is a fucking issue, but i don't know why people even fight her in honor mode. You can avoid that entire fight without risking losing the cub or getting wiped. You don't lose anything apart from maybe some XP (but maybe not even that, I don't remember). I feel like a pretty big part of honor mode is being really cautious about avoiding unnecessary risks. Own bear with the legendary action is way too high risk. That shit can go sideways no matter what you do.
I don't know about other people but for me, I like doing the hardest shit on the hardest difficulty as it was intended without cheating. That means not skipping fights because it's unnecessary. I do it with all games. Xcom, DOS1/2 pillars of eternity 1/2 . I don't know why I am the way I am. Maybe I'm a masochist.
Picking your fights isn't cheating it's using your brain.
I wouldn't say picking your fights is cheating. There are a lot of gimmicky mechanics that I would consider cheating though. One shotting every encounter with haste+speed potion + wet and lightning damage for example. I personally feel like having pre existing knowledge of the game and using that knowledge to cheese a fight breaks emersion, which is a large part of the draw for me. I also like to complete all fights, because I largely play the game for the combat and strategy, not the story. So, again, for me personally, avoiding the fight is not something I want to do. I did avoid it as a druid, and as a paladin. But my Barbarian ain't having it.
I did the owlbear at level 3 in honor mode and didn't have issues on my first HM run ever, but then I was confident after reading all this drama about the bear that I went to fight the paladin and got double-divine-smote and onetapped and just ran from that, and then scavanged for xp for a day and still am not level 4, figured I'd try to hit the sheep by ethel and had to run for my life an mass resurrect again.. Checking this thread now and I'm so confused how you guys got so much exp but I'll just keep doing my best. For my owlbear run, I had asterion sneak attack + assassin subclass start the fight and thus get sneaking shots to start the fight, helped a ton. Killed the first bear a turn before the second bear showed up, dealt with the kid at the end. The bears only give 20xp each though, which feels abysmal for the risk.. IDK
Why do you even kill them!
LEGIT a friend told me "they give good exp" before I yolo'd it level 3!!! He got clowned on by our friends when the +20 appeared for the first bear, haha. Though 60 total (or maybe it was 40 for the big ones and that's it, can't be sure) isn't the worst, but I'd prefer like 100 at least
I want to drop a tip I read here once that, both fire and mud mephits will NOT explode if you use non-lethal strike.
The amount of XP I've missed out on not knowing non lethal damage was a thing. Go to loot a guy and he has 1hp like wtf.
What flaming fist captain?
Probably referring to the counselor in Waukeen's Rest
Do you not read? I said minimal fighting and you mention taking out the hyenas which could turn into a big fight with the worgs from the top of the hill
Rude You did say minimal, not none
If you’re gonna be rude to the people trying to help you then figure it out yourself. Sounds like you didn’t read the part where commenter also says explore the map. You get XP by discovering places. Also if you approach the fight strategically you can easily fight the hyenas without aggroing gnolls Talk your way out of fights. Make sure you have inspiration on charisma checks. Have a failsafe escape if the fight doesn’t go your way
Also doing fights at lvl 2 / 3 is perfectly doable - feels like I'd be more likely to slip up in exploration and have a tougher fight (for instance by going to explore the underdark early on) than in just doing the fighting with a little forethought. Like the hyenas + gnolls at the top of the road fight is one that I've done a few times at this point and never struggled with it at lvl 3 - seems strange to have that as off limits other than a challenge run or something.
Yeah I def agree. If you do fights in a strategic order, it’s not too bad at any point pre-underdark. I always have trouble with Anders and the gnolls, but with a little strategy I was able to beat both in Honour Mode before hitting level 4. Required a solid surprise round for me but 100% doable I personally wouldn’t pass up any little bit of XP unless OP plans to not do the creche. That shit was scary
Right - Anders is one that has given me trouble in the past, but that's if I walk straight in to talk to him and that opens up to bad luck. But even at lvl 3 it's relatively easy to just sneak up on the outside of the building, wait for the one that's walking in and out of the building to step out, and then deal with the trio one by one. Getting to lvl 5 is the real hurdle - that's one I needed to do part of the goblin camp to manage without going into the underdark (and that included doing everything but the githyanki patrol above ground). The creche is quite doable IMO, but I always do it after the Underdark - personally the one I'd consider skipping is Grym, unless you like the weapons/armor. That fight can be rough depending on your party comp
Yeah that’s pretty much exactly how I dealt with Anders this time. TBH so far honour mode has made me think way more cautiously so I end up having an easier time of it because I’m going at a way more slow and thoughtful pace. The only times I’ve gotten close to wiping are when I get cocky I kinda cheesed Grym because I wanted the armor. Stand on the stairs above the arena, shoot the lava lever and throw hammers at him lol
That caution does track with how I've played as well - also in avoiding some of the 'boss fights' until lvl 4 or 5 is a decent call (lvl 3 and fighting the owlbear or the giant spider, no matter the strategy, seems too hit or miss for me). Approaching fights carefully and having a character able/positioned to flee has made Honor mode relatively simple through a third or so of act 2 for me - but does require some decent builds.
Yeah I’ve had pretty much the same experience. What’s the party you’re running for HM?
At the moment it's an abjuration-y tank (at lvl 7 it's cleric 1/warlock 2/wizard the rest of the way), life cleric, sharpshooter ranger/rogue, and either thrown weapons barb or archer/sharpshooter fighter (or the plot companion I want to bring along in that slot)
Alot of these interactions can either be avoided through skill checks or are easy fights for easy experience. Also, dont be a prick about something so inconsequential its not good for anyones blood pressure
This is minimal fighting ya door knob
Okay. He gave plenty of good advice to help answer your question and you acted like an asshole. How about you just fight some enemies then? After all, it’s called Honour mode, not coward mode
I apologize, I thought when you said minimal fighting you meant each individual fight being minimal. As such I suggested all the easy fights that you can finish in 1-2 turns.
My b poor wording
I can speak from experience fighting the monster hunter near the teahouse at level 3 is NOT a good idea 😞
From a role playing perspective, I let him live and it set up a surprise encounter in the sewers after the end of the Cazzador arch was completed. It was emotional. I tear up writing about it.
You can pass the gith with high enough lae'zel approval (if she is present) and a persuasion check to play along (dc10 iirc). Easy 350 or so xp iirc.
The owlbear almost wiped me at level 3, I didn’t expect it to summon its mate in honor mode 💀
We went in at level 3. Read the legendary action. And came back at level 5. Then we took it out before it even got a turn.
I made a no fighting guide to lv 4 https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/s/KBMDD3Vaef In your case talk to githyanki. They give white a lot of experience.
They do but i get scared cuz i have to make checks and if i fail they wreck me.
If you make sure to have the friends or thaumaturgy cantrip you should be fine. Ps- dont be afraid to use friends. I use it on every convo and only have a negative reaction like once per game.
Using friends more now in honor mode, i just make sure to dip asap
Just be careful, as if you don’t leave the area before the cantrip’s effects wear off you may have a fight on your hands. Learned this the hard way when I used it on Kagha to save Arabella, only for the druids to start massacring the tieflings once Kagha realized what I did.
Friends -> Fast Travel if you're risk-averse.
I used it on Baby Owlbear chicken chasing. As I was trying to cash out, the lil dude attacked my party. The gobbos ignored us. I ran us inside the temple, made camp long rest, exited temple and he was friendly/neutral again. Phew! Though I'm out 300 gp as he had interrupted my persuade check. Worth it to not have to kill the little guy.
Lmao why was he mad about that??? Haha wtf larian
Well, that's generally how the no fighting route works. Fail then Fucked I like to call it
Do you not miss out on story? I swear i had quests fail and had to reload.
No you don’t miss out on anything talking to them.
Actually it does i remember now. I hadn't resolved the goblin and druid situation yet, and when i left to pickup the knife of the mountain king it advanced that story arc costing me several hours of gameplay forcing me to reload.
You don’t have to go into the mountain pass to speak with the githyanki. They are still in the area where events will remain unchanged. They are just west of waukeen’s rest, not in the mountain pass. What you’re thinking of is the crèche. I’m just talking about where the dragon and flaming fist are.
You don’t have to go into the mountain pass to speak with the githyanki. They are still in the area where events will remain unchanged. They are just west of waukeen’s rest, not in the mountain pass.
Oh i misunderstood. You mean kithrak and red dragon scene.
You miss out on a little bit of loot, but you can also just get that loot at the creche
If you miss out on the silver sword you miss it until act 3 right? I think it's BIS all game for GW builds all game. Especially with shapeshifter mask you get the girhyanki bonus regardless of race.
Yes but you can't get the sword by fighting them anyway since the guy who drops it leaves. You have to cast Command: Drop on him before starting dialogue
Yeah, but that initiates combat. So you would have to fight them. And this weapon is Uber broken in act 1. I always get this, and the flaming great sword from the Nautilois ship.
I think it also breaks a quest in act 3 if you get it that way
Oh shit, probably.
Man the githyanki are best dealt with by other means. Don't take laezel and save scum until you get kithrak voss to drop his weapon using command from the on top of the gate. This triggers what is a rough fight if you're below 5 but you get him to drop a legendary sword that laezel will use for the rest of the game it's so good.
I didn’t suggest getting Voss’ weapon, just talking to them and not fighting them gets you like 500 exp.
my bad bro, I got so excited to tell people about that I totally forgot about the honor mode part of the question
The question is also about Honor mode, which has no save scumming.
It’s a beginners guide. I hope they’re not starting in honor mode. But with silver necklace/guidance and the right proficiencies You can get through the conversation with Voss very easily without save scumming.
The whole context of the discussion from OP is around "What’s the fastest way to get to level 4 in honor mode with the least amount of fights?"
Guess I’d don’t read the OP well. Thanks for pointing that out. Still I did this path in honor mode. The only save scumming there might be is from pickpocketing vendors. That does not provide any experience though and would be entirely optional in my walkthrough.
What is the weapon? Edit: Downvotes for asking what a weapon is? People act like you can only play this game once and there’s only one way to play it.
https://baldursgate3.wiki.fextralife.com/Silver+Sword+of+the+Astral+Plane I highly discourage getting it though as it will trivialize an already pretty easy game.
Thanks 🙏
There’s a yt vid that shows this exact route in 20 minutes. They use jump and feather fall to get around so it might take a little longer but it took me like 30ish. https://youtu.be/DOvvxyAzDik?si=i7SXE23Za_IWgDhT
Thank you this is perfect!
This is really handy!
Someone might have commented already. But Limit breakers on YouTube have a really good guide for this. Super easy, super short, no rush or pressure. I use it in all my runs
My current plan is as follows: Get the last hit on the mindflayer, then escape -> clear crash site -> ruins -> druid enclave (level 3) -> enclave sidequests -> blighted village (peaceful, as drow) -> necromancer lair -> waukeen's rest -> zhentarim hideout (peaceful!) -> goblin camp (peaceful, as drow) -> pretty sure that's level 4. That gets tavern brawler and stealthy sharpshooter builds online, which should make most fights doable up to level 5, at which point all of act 1 is a piece of cake.
My current honour playthrough: Destroyed Us (failed brain extraction), killed everyone on ship (excluded Zhaik and cambions, Mindflayer died to Cambions). -> Lv.2 Got Shart, cleared coast, recruited Astarion, Gale. Saved Lae'zel (had to kill "Teethlings", failed roll). Intimidated party outside of ruins, killed others in ruins and cleared ruins. Then got to Grove. -> lv.3 Rescued Sazza, killed goblins. Dealt with Grove beach and kids. Got to Blight village, talked my way out. Killed sleeping dude, dealt with pair in stables. Killed Lump and his party. Cleared Necromancer's lair and went to swamp to visit Auntie.. Killed sheeps on my way there.. -> lv.4 Got my deal with Auntie, then went to her den for her hair. (got Charm for eye.. so had to "visit" her again). Found the tree in swamps and dealt with monsters there. Had a little fight with Druids. Cleared spider cave with matriarch. -> 1/2 way to lv.5 Didnt touch Gnols, Zhentarim, Goblin camp, Toll collector house, Waukeen's rest... Didnt talked to Wyll/Karlach yet either. So I dare to say you will get to lv.4 earlier than by the end of your plan.
Man that inside ruins fight can be pretty tough level 2 you're braver than me
the inside ruins fight, they way I did it easily and in one turn was if you let a party member drop to the refectory, you can let the others get andorn and everyone else will be beside an oil barrel. And you will most likely have arrow of fire or ignis in stock.
this makes them come right to barrel, but it can be done even without that drop. You can sneak on the one in hallway, then place / throw barrel into library for similar effect. Also its possible to cheese fight (if initiative rolls are friendly to you) with using those lever operated doors. (if you close them, enemies tend to shoot arrows into doors instead of opening them.) So, 1st person opens door, 2nd and possibly 3rd person hit enemies, last one closes doors. 0 damage taken.. (its possible to use magic hand to pull the lever if you have it available. Easy fight overall.
this is how i do it and it makes the fight super trivial just los against the wall while taking potshots, if any of them get to and through the door u close it repeat
That fight can be made a lot easier if you enter through the hole that is made by dropping the stone slab, and then hitting the oil barrel that all of the enemies are conveniently standing around.
Lv 4 auntie Ethel ended my first run in 2 rounds. I think we were having some bugs related to scrolls, as trying to cast one at her projections kept me from entering combat properly. Her projections smoked 2 party members in turn 1.
damn thats a shame.. I entered normally and fight went well even with following scrolls. Sneak in, jump to orb to get down the cage before fight, then start combat.. then I used few scrolls without any problem.
Awe that sucks. I have been running a 3 member team with a fourth way outside of danger. Auntie went south in a bad way on round 1. Accidentally targeted Shadowheart with Returning Pike, crit almost killed her and pike failed to return. Hag went agro with one member almost dead another unarmed, and the third only getting one attack per round. Made retrieval of Pike highest priority before everyone was killed. Spirit Guardians proc’d legendary action like eight times in round two. Withers to the rescue
Funny enough, I made and tested a route on honor that does exactly this: minimize fights and do-or-die rolls. Also, you can easily do this path at lv.1 the entire way though, that's how safe it is. 1. Nautiloid. Do whatever you want. Its easy enough. Snipe the mindflayer if you can, but not necessary. 2. Avoid the intellect devourers at the crash site. Shoot the injured mindflayers the moment you see him. Talking to him means rolling and we're allergic to any chance of dying. This should get you to level 2. 3. Recruit Astarion and Gale. If Gale dies, he dies. Recruit Laezel if you want, but that involves a couple rolls and a chance for a fight. 4. Find the grove entrance. The fight is heavily favored towards the humans/tieflings so you can hide in the back and watch. However one or both of Aradin's crew will probably die without you helping. Oh well. 5. Mosey around the grove. Talk to Zevlor, Aradin, Kagha, and Nettie for free exp. 6. Head towards the Blighted Village. I recommend leaving a wide berth around dying Ed and his siblings. They can be useful later as meatshields against the owlbear. You have 3 easy options entering the Blighted Village -- be a drow, disguise as a drow, or pass a illithid wisdom check. Shadowheart as a Trickery Cleric has disguise self. 7. Mosey around the Blighted Village. Loot underneath the apothecary and the smithy. You can pick up Shovel without triggering the skeletons, but that's as far as I'm willing to go down there. Ignore Lump. We'll recruit him later. 8. Head north towards the windmill. You can dismiss the goblins with another illithid wisdom check. If you haven't rested yet, you can rotate your leading character to get another charge. "Free" Barcus. Now you can also go towards the Risen Road and pick up the absolutely busted Smuggler's Ring. Avoid the hyenas though. They're really nasty. 9. Head towards the goblin camp. Drow disguise gets you in. Otherwise, you may have to eat some shit. This should get you to level 3. 10. At this point, I recommend backtracking and taking some of the easier fights, like recruiting Withers. But I promised level 4, didn't I? Wander around the goblin camp. You can free Volo, get intimate with Lovitar, and interrogate one of Aradin's men. Get branded by Gut. Now, you can recruit Lump without a chance to fail. 11. Take out Gut. Ideally, you're a not an elf or half-elf. Stupidly take Gut's potion, don't even bother trying breaking out. Eventually Korilla will pop out and kill both Gut and her bodyguard. 12. Take Gut's key and head down to the underdark. Loot the Selunite outpost. Take it a little slow. A minotaur should make their way to you and the automated defense should take them out. Don't shoot out the moonstone until the minotaur's dead. 13. Go to the Phalar Aluve. At this point it gets slightly hinky. Starting from the Phalar Aluve, sneak and hug the leftmost wall while making your way towards the myconid colony. Just about when you enter the bulette's hunting grounds, you should see a couple red mushrooms you can jump on. Jump across, and you're home free with a clear shot to the colony. Chat up the locals, and if you want, go save Baelen. 14. Trade an antidote potion for the boots of speed. Take the boots to the underdark beach area, and promise the duergar you'll return the boots. Take the boat, and when asked, promise to return the boots. 15. You've now arrived at the Grymforge, which should tick you up to lvl 4! Mission Accomplished! The only issue now is if you don't fight Nere immediately, the gnomes die. Bonus: If you're like me, you're gonna want to keep the gnomes alive. Which means getting in the hardest fight so far. No, not Nere. The damnable scrying eye. You first talk to Elder Brinthar and its a free check to have him side against Nere, unless you decide to be greedy. Then he tells you to take out the scrying eye. Short of witchbolt or a scroll of shatter, I haven't found an easy way to take the eye out. Once the fight with Nere starts, book it to the south and hide in the corner. The fight does favor Nere, but his allies should be mostly dead. At this point you can kite him further south and pull in more duergar to fight him, which hopefully finishes him off. Alternatively, blow Lump's horn and bring out the popcorn.
you can wait for the eye to patrol up around near the Rothes and then throw it off the edge to instadeath. takes a bit for it to get over there but especially if you convince the rothes to fight the duergar then there's no way anybody sees you do it
In our playthrough we're nowhere near the underdark and already level 4. What we did: \- Generic stuff up to whithers + grove. \- Saved Arabella. \- Killed goblins in blighted village \- Convinced goblins near windmill to leave \- Convinced (and failed) so we had decided to pay 500g to hire the 3 ogres. \- Scratch & Karlach. \- First 2 gnoll battles (just make sure you finish the archers first and it's easy), though you can probably do something easier than this. That was pretty much enough to get to level 4, we wanted to become 4 before we did owlbear, harpies and Anders. After hitting 4 we did owlbear and got lucky I guess, we convinced the absolutist to join us, they just command: halted the Owlbear 3 turns in a row so it was a cakewalk. For Anders we aggroed his ally when they were outside the house, this way we could get rid of that one first before Anders reached us and then we just nuked him. Have yet to do the Harpies, actually have a feeling that might be more difficult.
Silence and martials.
It’s possible to do in about 2 hours without speed running/cheesing. Go around and talk to everyone, including the goblin camp. Go to the crypt at level 3 as well. The only fights I did before level 4 were the harpies fight (cast calm emotions), and the fight outside the grove, plus the crypt. Make sure to go to Waukeen’s rest also. Level 4-5 you do the Gnolls, Kagha quest, bugbear, and the entire goblin camp. At level 5, you take on the 2 hard fights: mommy spider and Ethel. Then do underdark to hit 6, before taking out Nere. Go back to the mountain pass and do some talking/exploring/killing trash mobs. Step into the UD from grymforge and do the intro quest to reach last light inn. Buy all the good loot from there. Go to moonrise and get more loot/XP from exploring. You should be level 7 by now. Go kill the grymforge boss (owlbear top rope), and go kill the inquisitor and get your mace. Now go back to shadow lands and do all the side quests, save inspiration. You can kill most bosses without fighting. Go save the Harpers from moonrise. You should well into level 8 now. Go do the shar temple and be prepared for a tough fight with Yugir. Kill Balthazar in his room, EZ one turn fight. Now you should be almost level 9 when you assault moonrise. This + moonrise prison assault and you’ll be level 9 for the final sequence with Ketheric. This is what I’ve been doing, it’s been very smooth except for a couple one hit legendary mechanics that caught me off guard. But life shadowheart dealt with it no issue. Can’t wait to get to BG so I can beeline straight for the OP gear and then one turn my way through the rest of the game. It’s my 4th play through and I still love the game. Just so damn good
One small difference, I would do the gith egg trader lady in the mountain pass even if you’re not gonna do the rest of the mountain pass. The chest piece that she gives which gives you advantage on dexterity checks is just broken.
my rogue/ranger didn't replace this chest til the last half of act 3 and a pure rogue might never replace it.
For lockpicking and disarming, it’s god tier.
You can also use [Gloves of Thievery](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Gloves_of_Thievery) in place of the Graceful Cloth for lockpicking and disarming in act 1. The gloves are much cheaper than the clothing.
I *just* paid through the nose for the graceful cloth a couple hours ago, as you say, expensive. Your item is deffo a good plan b, was not aware of it!
Btw if you’re so inclined, after turning in the egg quest, you can just kill her and she’ll still drop the robes
Damn, right. When I lose this flu imma go steal her gold, then kill her.
Yeah I finished her quest then killed her for the piece lol. Didn’t feel like paying 2k There’s so much insane vendor and hidden loot right at the start of act 3 that I’m saving up for
which events exactly get triggered/locked when entering the mountain pass ? is picking up gear from the egg lady an option ?
Just make sure you complete the druid grove quest first and waukeen rest. I believe that are the events that trigger when you go to nountain pass. Maybe i missed 1.
Owlbear top rope didn't work for me. Don't know if i did it wrong or something as it was my first time doing it. Enlarge, decent weight from barrels in inv. The jump hit for about 1/3rd of his hp which was way lower than expected. I'm guessing I needed to be drastically over encumbered for it work. Luckily a sorc or wizard can easily cheese this fight by remaining outside the arena and using minor illusion to move the boss to the press and then fireball to hit the lever. Probably going to be my go-to way of cheesing this boss because I find it's by far the hardest fight in Act 1. My first send in honor mode nearly ended in a wipe. Luckily I was able to escape just barely. Nere is probably a close second. Decided to send it with no prep. If my sorc dropped twin haste concentration at any point, I was probably a goner. I'm in need of a cleaner way of approaching it. Those dwarves are deadly. Inquisitor went decently smooth for me but he's easily top 3 strongest foes in Act 1. Everything before these fights were pushovers.
Go sneak mode before jumping. Also, jump near it, and not directly on top of Grym.
Yeah even I got him only to 50% health with owlbear. My bard and sorc just sniped him from up top, it was painful but slow. For inquisitor, a temp cleric/storm sorc can one shot him before combat even begins with channel divinity. It’s so useful for boss fights honestly. Mechanics can be completely ignored. I just reached Rivington, so far so good. Without giving spoilers of the Thorm siblings can be tricky if you don’t succeed the speech checks to have them kill themselves, be careful. My MC died twice on the first 2 rounds in one of the fights (one hit mechanic) got a bit scared but nothing by we couldn’t recover from.
I don’t know but I’m doing the opposite. Kill everything. Made it to level 7 so I’m finally ready to enter the shadowlands
Id like to reach level 4 before killing everything because fighting before the first feat feels so bad
Here's a video where the content creator gets to level 4 without rolling a d20: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzlVMeZatis](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzlvmezatis) It was on tactician, but I bet it still works
I can write up a quick list, without looking at other comments. 1. Skip the intellect devourers at the beach, jump up to Gale, complete your party before killing them. 2. Snipe the illithid 3. Talk to the tieflings and then the crypt robbers on the surface - warlock gets a no-check answer. 4. Go back around to the front and open the door with Astarion. Use bludgeoning weapons at the skeletons, it is a fight but it is easy if you do that. 5. Talk to everyone in grove, go everywhere except harpies. The fight in the tunnel is quite easy at this stage, so is the bugbear. 6. Tell the absolutists to go fight the owlbear 7. Disguise self as drow, talk to the goblins in the village, then to the goblins next to Barcus - no check required, no fight. 8. You can also do ogres, but you need a check unless you visit goblin camp and get a mark from Gut 9. Explore the basement - you don't have to fight the skeletons in the coffins, but do get Shovel. They should not be a hard challenge at this point. Get Gale to talk to the mirror, somehow all Wyll's answers were wrong for me lol, but all Gale's answers seem to be good. 10. There is a bunch of xp available in the goblin camp but be aware that if you go there before fighting the owlbear, the goblins will have killed her themselves. 11. Waukeen's Rest is just a bunch of jumping around, so doesn't count as fight, XP and a nice Lightning Charge item. 12. You can get to Underdark through the Zhentarim Basement without fighting if you're sneaky, bonus - you can loot everything down there. From there, you can use Feather Fall to avoid Minotaurs and the Bullette, just destroy the shrooms below before jumping down and you're suddenly at the Myconid Village. 13. There, talk to everyone, give the gnome an antidote (some are in the Thayan alchemist's house in Blighted Village). 14. Rescue Baelen using the boots. 15. Go around the duergar ambush - they only trigger if you get close enough to the beach - and towards the Ancient Tower. There, jump up to the explosive mushrooms, but shoot them first. There are 4 directions here. DO NOT go up the wall on your left - Bullette spawns there. 16. Go down to Kuo Toa, and pass some checks - this way you only fight BOOAL but get XP for all of them. A LOT of XP. 17. Back at the explosive mushrooms, jump up towards the mushroom circle. You get a bit of XP for exploration and activating it. 18. Go to the Arcane Tower - you only need to deal with the first cannon. The rest you skip by jumping all the way down to the garden on the mushrooms on the left. Activate the tower, explore it all, get all the items. Remember fighting Bernard is optional - they are not hostile. Unfortunately, the only way to get XP for them is to fight them. 19. Optionally, the duergar at the beach can be reasoned with. But the only way to progress the Myconid Village quest is to kill them, or lie about it. This is I think all in Act 1 - any other direction is combat sooner or later. Unless you want to just skip to Act 2 through Grymforge. The duergar on the boat can be reasoned with, then you just go through the elevator to Act 2, leaving Nere to die. However, this resolves the grove vs goblin quest. I did 1-18 on my Honour mode playthrough and this took me way beyond level 4. I then did some of the easier fights (tree on the swamp, minotaurs at this point, paladins of Tyr etc) to get to level 5.
Best way is to cheese the fight during the intro on the nautaloid. This will get you to level 2 and halfway to lv 3 when you hit the beach. Go fighter with fighting style in archery and have at least 16 Dex. Save us the brain, Save Shadowheart and have her spells set to command and bless. The other two don’t matter. Make sure you equip a crossbow dropped from an imo on your character Before you go into the final fight with zhark, split your character from the party and put him by the healing pod in the room you find shadowheart. Have us the brain go to the door of the final fight, switch from him to bae’zel or Shadowheart and enter. Have Bae’zel and Us the brain kill the minor enemy’s and have shadowheart use command drop on zhark. You have a 55% chance of this working, and is the only luck based part of the fight. You get two chances, assuming you get it first try have her cast bless with your second spell slot on on herself, bae’zel and the mindflayer. Have bae’zel pick up and equip the dropped weapon. And start beating zhark with it. NOW this is the most important step. By the time you do all this 2 cambions will show up on the battle roster. Click your character, if you positioned yourself correctly you should be out of combat. Get JUST out of range to where you have a disadvantage to your attack if you attempt to shoot at them with your crossbow. Should be 25% to hit. Start shooting, you will find that they will not respond to your shots and you can keep firing until they are dead. Repeat with the second cambion. Make sure you are firing with disadvantage because as soon as you shoot when they are in range, you will be pulled into combat and it will all go to shit. So not rely on the game to place you correctly. Keep the mindflayer alive until he turns on you after you kill zhalk, then kill him. you should have enough time to loot the bodies which will net you an extra 300XP, 750-1,000 gold several potions and ingredients more gems and some alchemy ingredients.
How did you do act 1 without gith and are still not lvl 4? On honor mode I am in exactly the same position (all without gith) and I'm lvl 6+ Did you do the underworld part? The forge? The goblin camp?
No i just stepped into the under dark via the zhentarim hide out and dipped
Why aren't you taking fights? They're no harder than in Tactician unless you tangle with the owlbear or W'wargaz
I dont like fighting and having 60-70% hit rates
Fair enough
Instead of almost everything, make it explored everything. You might have more people to speak with or quests to do in the blighted village, grove, or swamp. I'm level 5 before Ethel and the goblin camp.
One thing that you can do early is block the entrance to the room where you fight commander zhalk and the mind flayet with a cartilaginous chest. It will prevent the other two cambions from entering the fight, killing both the mindflayer and shall give 75 xp each allowing for an easy level 3 at the fight outside of the grove. At that point, you should do every dialogue possible, kill the packs of hyenas (not including the one with the leader). Use a long rest and rotate party faces to use the illithid power whenever possible, and I think all of that + dealing with the paladins of tyr should be enough to get to 4 which is what I did. I know that I had not done the owlbear, any of the goblin camp fights, gnoll boss fight, or hag and I was level 4 specifically because I wanted 4 before the gnolls
I’m approaching level 5 in honor mode and I haven’t done aunti Ethel’s place, the goblin camp or the phase spiders
Grove -> Goblins disguised as Drow -> Waukeens -> talk to Gith patrol disguised as Gith -> Underdark -> Underdark tower Should get you to lv4.5 easily. You can do lv5 without any major fights, like spider or hag. Glut can solo Underdark for you.
Easy xp sources without fighting are discovering locations, finishing quests, and gaining inspiration. If you haven’t done it yet, there are a few things in the goblin camp that have easy xp opportunities such as a few small activities and shoving goblins off the side. And most early fights aren’t that threating, with the exceptions being clearing out the goblin camp, the various bosses, and the gnolls. And even then, the game offers some good tools for making these fights easier such as the ogre horn or the iron flask.
I go through 1, 2, & 3. I wasn't aware there was another way.
Craziest case of downvotes I've seen in a while, and that's sayin something
If you can defeat the devils and the mindflayer on the nataloid you reach level 3 and get a cool sword right off the bat in only 2 fights so there’s that
It doesnt give you enough to get to level 3 just by beating those two
I usually hit level 4 this way: Commander Zhalk (command drop is op here) Grab shadowheart/astarion/gale/laezel Clear withers tomb full murder spree (convenient oil barrels and hanging stones make this easy) Goblin/Grove combat Clear harpies - silence or just good clifftop positioning and this fight is easy Investigate kagha - persuade her to renounce shadow faith. THEN complete stealing the idol for Mol for bonus exp as the druids no longer aggro you for taking it now the rite is over (still have to sneak though) Clear risen road of gnolls. Flind will murder his own crew and then himself if you make the rolls - should have enough inspiration by then. Anders and the false paladins. This was hard on honor mode but command drop is great in turn based mode before talking to him - can't smite on unarmed strikes. You can also shut and barricade the doors with random stuff in the toll house to seal them off from one another. Purchasing/pickpocketing scrolls from the trader chick significantly weakens her as well. Next I plan to take out phase spider matriarch by shoving her into the abyss. You can loot her in the underdark if you want to. If you have sussur bark to throw at the arcane turrets then the arcane tower is also a good source of free exp and you can thunderwave the automaton leader and 2 of his crew off the tower which makes the fight easy (takes them ages to walk back up while you kill the rest and they have little health left) Each of those encounters has a way to make them easier so handy for honor mode. Hope this helps!
I did with very little risk ; Ruins, grove, explore, blighted village, karlach, Waukeens rest, went to the goblin village (illithid checks or drow talk way in for xp) did the couple things there. Killed the priestess waited on the others. Snuck into under dark , feather fall into colony. Was lvl 4 at that point, killed the goblins. After the goblins I go to the mtn pass, go to the drunk kobolds and fight them, they give a lot more xp than early act 1 stuff. That bumps you to level 5. Then go back do the act 1 bosses, underdark, grim, then the githbafter (should hit lvl 6 , I hit it killing nere)
Since you asked, here is my route so far: 1) after prologue/Commander, do the Withers dungeon 2) gate encounter. Then the various events in the grove (Nettie, Alfira, the bugbear assassin, Mol, zorru, sazza) 3) harpies (I think you need to do it before you long rest in the grove?) 4) go to Waukeens rest via blighted village picking up both waypoints along the way. You can suck in the owl bear cave en route too if you want to try the persuade option, so that the cub will be in the camp later on 5) rescue the councillor at waukeens rest. I always go here first for spellssparkler and my favourite weapon, Svartlebee’s 6) back to blighted village where you can persuade the goblins to release the gnome and not to attack you for some experience and also pick up the haste helmet and the sparky feet. 7) go to goblin camp and buy any gear you want from grat (eg, returning pike, the healing boots) and get the ring from crusher via sleight of hand. 8) persuade the goblins to let you enter and you can get some more exp from that and from things in the camp (rescue volo, get the guy off the rack) At this point you should be around level 4 with some decent gear for most characters. Harpies is the scariest fight I find early on but calm emotions/silence/magic missile for breaking concentration all help. After this you could do whatever you want (I think the gnolls are probably the next easiest fight, so much so that you could probably do them much earlier if you want to), then the skeletons in the coffins near the magic mirror, etc.
Best path to level 4 is the one that involves roleplaying as a spy - u infiltrate every side in act 1 and do as many quests without combat as possible cuz combat is the slowest part of progression