Baldur’s Gate 3 introduces new difficulty mode that makes Tactician seem easy

No save scums allowed. Good luck.

Withers, a skeleton man with head gear wearing a robe in BG3
Image via Larian Studios

Baldur’s Gate 3’s latest patch might be its biggest one yet, and along with giving fans epilogues, Larian has added new difficulties, one of which will make the game even more difficult than its previous hardest difficulty.

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When Baldur’s Gate 3 released, players had three difficulty options, but in Patch Five, which dropped today, Nov. 30, players have an opportunity to up the difficulty to another level in what is called “Honour Mode.” Additionally, players can create their own difficulty by choosing a “Custom” difficulty that lets them scale various parts of the game up and down in difficulty as they choose.

A screenshot of the Custom Mode options for Baldur's Gate 3 that was added in Patch Five.
Custom Mode lets you adjust your difficulty for each facet of the game and avoid the temptation of save scumming as well. Image via Larian Studios

The game’s new Honour Mode will give players a chance to experience BG3 in the most hardcore way possible by upping the difficulty of encounters and giving bosses new mechanics that you didn’t see your first few playthroughs. This gives Honour Mode a similar feel to what you might expect from what many other games refer to as “New Game Plus.” Oh, and by the way, you only get one save file for Honour Mode, so there’s no turning back or save scumming allowed.

If you die at any point during your Honour Mode run, the game will share your stats with you and let you keep going on your journey, but Honour Mode will be disabled. If you somehow manage to make it all the way through the challenge, you will be rewarded with a “Golden D20” in-game that you can use any time you make rolls in your other playthroughs.

Meanwhile, the custom difficulty will let you choose if you want to use a single save, and it will also let you scale things like enemy aggression, character power, enemy loadouts, and additional combat mechanics. The scaling can range between the game’s three pre-existing difficulties.

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Max Miceli
Senior Staff Writer. Max graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a journalism and political science degree in 2015. He previously worked for The Esports Observer covering the streaming industry before joining Dot where he now helps with Overwatch 2 coverage.